Chapter XXIV (5)

In the collection of canons already mentioned Egbert provided for the religious instruction of the poor as well as the rich. The teaching of the common people is one of the duties specially enjoined on the clergy, every priest being required to “instil with great exactness into the people committed to his charge the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, as well as the whole doctrine and practice of Christianity.” In the absence of books this was done orally, much use being made of instructions cast into a metrical form, and so committed to memory. Thus the multitude, if ignorant of letters, were certainly not uninstructed, as we see in the case of St. Cædmon whom Bede calls _illiteratus_, that is, unable to read; but who was nevertheless perfectly familiar with sacred history, which he had learnt by oral instruction, and was thus able to sing of the creation, the Deluge, the journeys of the Israelites, and the last judgment.

Albert, the master of the school, and the successor of Egbert in the see of York, is described by Alcuin in one of his poems as “a pattern of goodness, justice, and piety, teaching the Catholic faith in the spirit of love, stern to the stubborn, but pitiful and gentle to the good.” If he marked any youths among his pupils who showed peculiar signs of promise, like a good master, he made them his friends. “He observed the natural dispositions of each with wonderful skill, and, drawing them to him, taught and lovingly cherished them. Some he dexterously imbued with the grammatical art, whilst into the minds of others he instilled the sweetness of rhetoric. These he endeavoured to polish with the juridical grindstone, those he taught to cultivate the songs of the muses, and to tread the hill of Parnassus with lyric steps. To others, again, he made known the harmony of the heavens, the motions of the sun and moon, the five zones, the seven wandering stars; the laws of the heavenly bodies, their rising and setting; the aerial movements of the sea, and the quaking of the earth; the nature of man, cattle, birds, and wild beasts; the diversities of numbers and varieties of figures.” He taught also how to calculate the return of the Paschal solemnity, and above all expounded the mysteries of the Sacred Scriptures. He often travelled into Gaul and Italy in quest of books and new methods of instruction. The noblest families of Northumbria placed their sons under his care, not only those who were training for the ecclesiastical state, but those intended for the world. Indeed it is certain that the pupils of the episcopal and monastic schools were by no means exclusively ecclesiastics. Eddi tells us that St. Wilfrid received many youths to educate, who on reaching man’s estate, if they chose to embrace a secular life, were presented _in armour_ to the king. Alfred, the son of king Egfrid of Northumbria, was himself a pupil of St. Wilfrid, and spent some years in Ireland that he might pursue his studies with greater advantage. He became a great patron of learning, and corresponded with St. Aldhelm on philosophical subjects and the difficulties of Latin prosody; and it was to his son Ceolwulf that St. Bede addressed the dedication of his Ecclesiastical History.

On the death of Egbert in 766 the unanimous voice of the people called Albert to the vacant see. He showed himself worthy of their choice, “feeding his flock with the food of the Divine Word, and guarding the lambs of Christ from the wolf.” He governed the Church of York for thirteen years, during which time he never abandoned his care of the school. The mastership, however, devolved on Alcuin, and such was the fame of his scholarship as to draw students not only from all parts of England and Ireland, but also from France and Germany. Among the latter was St. Luidger, a native of Friesland, afterwards known as the Apostle of Saxony, of whom we shall have more to say in the following chapter.

The extent and character of Alcuin’s learning will be more properly studied when we come to speak of his labours at the court of Charlemagne; it will be sufficient here to notice the fact that he was a scholar of exclusively English growth, and drew all the materials with which he worked in his after career from the library and the schools of York. In his writings he often alludes to the want he feels of “those invaluable books of scholastic erudition” which were there placed at his command, through the affectionate industry of his master, Albert, who continued, after his elevation to the episcopate, to add to the treasures already collected. Two years before his death Albert resolved on resigning his pastoral charge that he might spend his last days as a simple monk, and devote himself exclusively to the affairs of his salvation. Calling to him, therefore, his two favourite pupils, Eanbald and Alcuin, he committed to the first the care of his diocese, and to the other that of his books, “the dearest of all his treasures.”[61] Alcuin was despatched to Rome to obtain the sanction of the Holy See for the appointment of Eanbald and it was at Parma on his homeward journey that the solicitations of Charlemagne won his promise to settle at the court of that monarch, and transfer to a foreign soil the learning he had acquired on the shores of Saxon England.

With the death of Albert the prosperity of the Early English schools may be said to have closed. Five years later the Danish keels appeared for the first time off the Northumbrian coast: it seemed only a passing alarm, but in 793 another armament effected a landing at Lindisfarne, and after slaughtering the monks, gave to the flames the most venerable of the English sanctuaries. This was but the beginning of sorrows. The following year the twin monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow shared a similar fate, and all the treasures of art and literature collected by St. Biscop were ruthlessly destroyed. For seventy years these scenes of carnage and plunder went on without interruption in every part of England, and the riches laid up in the churches everywhere pointed them out as the first objects of attack. The finishing-blow came in 867, when “a great heathen army,” as they are called by the Saxon chronicler, having wintered in East Anglia, and there supplied themselves with horses, marched northwards and made themselves masters of the city of York. Thence they overran the kingdom of Northumbria, carrying fire and sword wherever they appeared, till the whole country between the Ouse and the Tyne presented only the smoking ruins of what had once been cities and abbeys. Beverley, Ripon, Whitby, and Lastingham, all seats of learning and civilisation, were swept away, and in 875 the sea-king Halden crossed the Tyne and destroyed the last remains of the monastic institute in Northumbria. After burning Jarrow for the second time, he directed his course to Lindisfarne, where the episcopal see was still fixed, and where a new monastery had sprung up on the ruins of that formerly destroyed by the Danes. Eardulf was then bishop, and on learning the approach of the pagans he determined to save the holy relics of St. Cuthbert by a timely flight. Calling his monks around him, therefore, he communicated to them his resolve, and having disinterred the body of the saint, together with those of St. Oswald and St. Aidan, they prepared to bid farewell to the holy island, whence the light of Christianity had shone forth over all the north of England for two hundred and forty years. This closing scene in the history of northern monasticism exhibits to us the monks of Lindisfarne in the hour of their sorest trial, surrounded by their school. There were in the monastery, says Simeon of Durham, a certain number of youths, brought up there from their infancy, who had been taught by the monks and trained in the singing of the Divine Office. These boys entreated Eardulf to suffer them to follow him. They set out, therefore, monks and children together, carrying the bier with the holy relics, their sacred vessels, the Holy Book of the Gospels, and their other books, and commenced that melancholy journey which, after seven years of wandering, was to bring them at last to the “grassy plain, on every side thickly wooded, but not easy to be made habitable,” where afterwards grew up, on the site of their wattled oratory, the princely city of Durham.

By these and similar calamities, extending not over one district, but over every part of the country, England was plunged back into the barbarism out of which she was but just emerging: her seats of learning were all swept away, and during the century that elapsed from the first landing of the Danes to the accession of Alfred, a night of gloomy darkness settled over the land.

_CHAPTER IV._

ST. BONIFACE AND HIS COMPANIONS.

A.D. 686 TO 755.

The prominent importance attaching to the schools of Kent and Northumbria must not lead us to regard them as the only learned foundations existing in England during the early period of which we have hitherto been speaking. The spread of the monastic institute among the Anglo-Saxons was so rapid and so universal, that we are sometimes led to wonder how a country so thinly populated as England must have been in the seventh century, could have furnished those crowds of religious men and women who hastened to people her newly-erected cloisters. And wherever those cloisters were reared a knowledge of letters and the civilised arts was soon introduced, and pursued with as much ardour at Selsey as at Lindisfarne, among the nuns of St. Mildred or St. Hildelitha as among the brethren of Jarrow.

If the bold and mountainous scenery of Northumbria has become indelibly associated in our mind with the lives of those saintly scholars who have been made known to us by the pen of Bede, far away at the other extremity of England there is a province which still claims as its patron saint one whose learning was as great as theirs, and whose action on the Church was even yet more important. St Boniface, or Winfrid, as he was called before he entered on his apostolic labours, was born in the same year that witnessed the entrance of Bede into the monastery of Jarrow. They were therefore contemporaries, though widely different in character, as in the career which awaited them. The simple-hearted scholar whose holy happy life flowed calmly on from childhood to old age within his convent walls, like some quiet stream that never overpasses its verdant banks, is a contrast indeed to the great apostle who, after having evangelised half Europe, and ruled the churches of France and Germany, as Vicar of the Vicar of Christ, with a spiritual sway larger than any ever exercised save by the successors of St. Peter, died, as was fitting, a martyr’s death, saluting with his parting words the joy and glory of that “long-expected day.”[62] Yet both in different ways exhibit to us the noblest features of the Anglo-Saxon race, whose simple piety and strong good sense are as apparent in Bede, as the ardour of its active charity is in Boniface.

He was a native then, not of the bleak and hardy north, but of the softer climate of that southern province,

Where the salt sea innocuously breaks,
And the sea-breeze as innocently plays
On Devon’s leafy shores.

It took its name from the deep hollows where the apple-blossoms clustered as thickly then as now, and the clematis wove its tangled wreaths in as wild profusion over bank and wood. Still covered with those grand primeval forests which made perpetual shadow in its pathless valleys, and, fearless of the billows that lost their fierceness as they broke upon that gentle shore, clothed even the purple rocks themselves with verdure, and bent their branches into the briny waves, it merited to receive from St. Aldhelm the title of _dire Dumnonia_. Perhaps he could not resist the tempting alliteration, or perhaps the wooded hollows of Devonshire oppressed with their leafy gloom the senses of the traveller who, as he tells us, had just passed over the barren hills of “Cornwall, void of flowery turf.” It formed the border-land of English Saxony, and touched on that unfriendly territory still inhabited by the Britons, who saw in the newly converted Saxons only a race of giants and savages, with whom they refused to hold any intercourse.

The Dumnonians, however, from the first era of their conversion, showed the same readiness to welcome the establishment among them of monks and schools as was elsewhere exhibited, and the city of Exeter is said to have received the name of Monkton from the number of religious which it contained. It was probably some of the Exeter monks who, in the course of a journey which they had undertaken for the purpose of preaching to the inhabitants of the wild Western districts, were hospitably received and entertained at Crediton by the father of Winfrid. The passing visit left an indelible impression on the boy’s heart, and he grew up with the fixed desire of becoming a monk and a scholar. His father did what he could to turn him from his purpose, but finding himself forced at last to yield to his son’s entreaties, he committed him to the care of Wulphard, abbot of Exeter. Winfrid was at that time thirteen years of age. His education had not been neglected in his father’s house, and he now threw himself into his studies with an ardour which made it evident that he deserved some higher kind of teaching than the monks of Exeter could supply. The school of Nutscell, in Hampshire, a monastery afterwards destroyed by the Danes, possessed as high a reputation as any in Wessex, so thither Winfrid was transferred, and placed under the direction of the learned abbot Winbert. In this monastery Winfrid was able to satisfy his thirst for grammar, poetry, and the sacred sciences, and at last, being appointed to the care of the school, he drew students to hear him from all the southern provinces. In short, the scholasticus of Nutscell became a famous man; he taught not only the monks but even the nuns of that part of the world to study grammar and write hexameter verse; he attended royal councils and episcopal synods, and he even appeared in the character of an author, and composed a treatise on the Eight Parts of Speech. “Yet, though indued with such excellent knowledge,” says his biographer, “he was nothing puffed up in mind, nor did he despise any who were of meaner abilities, but the more his learning increased so much also did he increase in virtue, only showing himself the more humble, devout, pitiful and obedient.” Both King Ina, of Wessex, and Archbishop Bretwald, of Canterbury, knew his worth, and desired nothing better than to raise him to the highest dignities; but neither the charms of a studious life in his own cloister, nor the certain prospect of court preferment, sufficed to satisfy his ambition. He had within him in its fullest measure the apostolic fervour which animated so many of his countrymen, and led them to carry back to the old Germanic soil from whence they sprang the new faith which they had learnt in Britain. Year after year there came the news of English missionaries who had passed over into that huge province which then extended between the Elbe and the Rhine, the greater part of which was swallowed up in the inundation of 1287, and now forms the bed of the Zuyder Zee. It was called Friesland, and was the chief seat of the English missions. The first man who gave a certain sort of shape and system to these missions was an English priest named Egbert, who had been educated at Lindisfarne by Bishop Colman, and afterwards passed over to Ireland to improve himself in her schools. The Anglo-Saxon scholars were accustomed at this time to resort in great numbers to the sister isle, going about from one master’s cell to another, to gather from each the science for which he was most renowned. The Irish received them hospitably, and furnished them with food, books, and teaching, gratis.

Egbert and his friend Edilhun were studying in the monastery of Rathmelsigi, in Connaught, when the great pestilence of 664 broke out, which caused such terrible ravages both in England and Ireland. It was on this occasion that St. Ultan, bishop of Ardbraccan, collected all the children who were left orphans, and had them brought up in a hospital or asylum at his own charge. The two English students were attacked by the plague, and Egbert, believing his last hour was at hand, went out in the morning, and sitting alone in a solitary place thought over his past life, and being full of compunction at the thought of his sins, watered his face with his tears, praying to God that he might yet have time granted him to do penance. He also made a vow that should it please God to spare his life, he would never return to his native land, but live abroad as a stranger; and that besides the Divine Office of the Church he would every day recite the entire Psalter, and every week pass one whole day and night fasting. Edilhun died the next night, gently reproaching his friend for having thus prevented their entering into everlasting life together; and Egbert kept his vow and remained in Ireland, doing good service as well to the Scots and Picts as to his countrymen, for it was through his influence that the former at last conformed to the Roman method of observing Easter, and his school was resorted to by every Anglo-Saxon student who crossed the sea in search of Divine wisdom. In his heart, however, Egbert nursed a great design, which he was never suffered to carry out in person. He desired to carry the Gospel among the races of Germany whence the English were originally descended, and Wicbert, one of his companions, being filled with the like desire, did actually proceed to Frisia, and there preached for two whole years among the heathen, but without much fruit. Egbert, understanding that it was not the will of God that he should himself embrace a missionary life, and being warned that his vocation lay rather among his own people, cherished the hope of at least inspiring some of his scholars with the apostolic spirit. Among these was Wilibrord, who, after receiving his early education among the monks of Ripon, had passed over into Ireland in his twentieth year, attracted by the excellent science which then flourished in her schools, and the fame of his learned countryman. It appears probable that the two Ewalds, martyred in Friesland in 695, were likewise pupils or friends of Egbert’s, for Bede tells us that they were living strangers in Ireland for the sake of the eternal kingdom; that both were pious, but that Black Ewald was the more learned of the two. Wilibrord departed for Friesland in 696, accompanied by twelve fellow-missionaries; and the protection of Pepin, who then ruled the Franks as mayor of the palace to the Merovingian monarch, enabled him to pursue his apostolic career in spite of the opposition of Radbod, the Pagan duke of the country. It would be pleasant, did space permit it, to say something of his labours;--to relate how he found his way into Denmark and brought away thirty young Danes, whom he sent to be instructed in the schools which he had founded at Treves and Utrecht; how on his voyage back to Friesland he landed at Heligoland, the holy island of the Saxons, but which then bore the name of Fosetesland, from the hideous idol to whose worship it was dedicated. It was a wild, mysterious spot. No animals that had once grazed on its sacred herbage were suffered to be molested, and near the altar of the god a clear stream bubbled up of which the natives never drank save in awful silence, for the utterance of a single word would, as they believed, bring down on them the vengeance of the dreaded Fosete. Wilibrord caused some of the cattle to be killed for food, and baptized three converts in the fountain, over the waters of which he broke the mystic silence by pronouncing the invocation of the Holy Trinity. This daring act excited the direful wrath of Radbod, and on the death of Pepin, in 714, Wilibrord found himself forced to leave the country. He was, however, reinstated in his bishopric of Utrecht by Charles Martel, and in 717 we find him engaged in destroying another Frisian idol in the isle of Walcheren.

Tales like these fired the heart of Winfrid with the desire of sharing in such glorious enterprises. After a journey to Rome, whither he went to obtain the authority and blessing of Pope Gregory II., he joined Wilibrord at Utrecht, and for some time laboured under his direction. But finding that the bishop intended to have him appointed his successor, he fled away in alarm, and took refuge in the heart of Germany, where he continued until 723, preaching among the Saxons and Hessians. According to the old writer, Adam of Bremen, “Winfrid, the philosopher of Christ,” as he calls him, is undoubtedly to be regarded as the first apostle of that part of the country. It was at this time that he gained a young disciple, whose story is sufficiently connected with the subject which we wish to illustrate to justify its insertion here. Adela, the daughter of King Dagobert II., had founded a monastery at Treves, where, on his journey from Friesland into Hesse, Winfrid was hospitably received and entertained. After he had said mass, he sat down to table with the abbess and her family; and her young grandson, Gregory, a boy of fifteen, who had just come from the court school, was summoned to read aloud the Latin Scriptures, according to custom, during the repast. Having knelt and received the holy missionary’s blessing, he took the book, and acquitted himself of his task with sufficient success. “You read very well, my son,” said Winfrid, “that is, if you understand what you are reading.” Gregory replied that he did, and was about to continue the lecture, when Winfrid interrupted him. “What I wish to know, my son, is whether you can explain what you are reading in your native tongue.” The youth confessed that he could not do this, but begged the missionary to do so himself. “Begin again then,” said Winfrid, “and read distinctly;” and this being done, he took occasion to deliver to the abbess and the rest of the community, a discourse so sublime and touching, that when they rose from table Gregory sought his grandmother, and announced his determination of following their guest, that he might learn the Scriptures from him, and become his disciple. “How foolish!” said the abbess; “he is a man of whom we know nothing: I cannot tell you whence he comes, or whither he goes.” “I care nothing for that,” replied Gregory; “and if you will not give me a horse, I will follow him on foot.” His importunity prevailed, and he was permitted to join the company of Winfrid, and journey with him into Thuringia.

The prodigious success that accompanied the labours of Winfrid, having reached the ears of Pope Gregory II. he was summoned to Rome, and there consecrated bishop of the German nation. At the same time he received his new name of Boniface, and solemnly signed an oath of fidelity to the Holy See, which he placed on the tomb of the Apostles. Then returning to Germany he pursued his apostolic career along the banks of the Rhine and the Danube; he penetrated into the wild fastnesses of Hesse, cut down in the ancient Hercynian forest the huge _Donner Eiche_, or thunder oak, sacred to Jupiter, and erected a wooden chapel out of its timbers, on the spot where now stands the town of Geismar. Within the space of twenty years one hundred thousand converts had abjured their idols and received baptism, but the work as it grew on his hands required additional labourers. The eloquence which in old time had earned for the monk Winfrid a scholar’s fame, was now employed to rouse the apostolic spirit in the hearts of his countrymen, and a circular letter addressed to the bishops and abbots of England, painted the wants of the German mission in such moving terms that his appeal was quickly responded to, and he soon found himself surrounded by a noble band of missioners, among whom were Burchard, Lullus, Wilibald, and Winibald, the two last named being nephews of the saint.

We find from the lives of these great men, written by their immediate followers, that the same form of community life was adopted among them which we have seen had been already established in the English dioceses. The bishop and his clergy formed a kind of college;[63] and, in this episcopal monastery, as it may be called, the younger clerics were trained in letters and ecclesiastical discipline. The college thus founded by St. Wilibald at Ordorp, became so famous as to draw learned men from all parts of Europe to take part in his labours among the populations of Hesse and Thuringia. Yet more renowned was the episcopal seminary, founded at Utrecht by St. Gregory, the young disciple of St. Boniface already named, who, after completing his studies at Ordorp, and following the saint through the long course of his missions, was sent by him a little before his death to administer the see of Utrecht, then vacant by the death of Wilibrord. Gregory formed his clergy into a community, which he governed in person, and was joined by many illustrious Englishmen, among whom was St. Lebwin, the apostle of Overyssel, and the patron saint of Deventer. The seminary of Utrecht produced some famous _alumni_, of whom I will name but one whose history cannot be altogether passed over in a narrative of schools and schoolboys. Luidger was the son of a Friesian noble, who confided him to St. Gregory’s care at a very early age. In fact, Luidger’s somewhat premature commencement of his school life was the result of his own entreaties. He was a precocious child, who cared nothing at all for play, and so soon as he could walk and talk gave signs of a passion for books and reading. Whilst his companions were engaged in the sports of the age he would gather together pieces of bark off the trees and busy himself in making little books out of these materials. Then he would imitate writing with whatever fluid he could find, and running to his nurse with these fine treasures, bid her take care of them, as though they had been the most precious codices. If any one asked him what he had been doing all day, he would reply that he had been making books; and if further questioned as to who had taught him to read and write, he would answer “God taught me.” It will not seem astonishing that a child of this temper should be possessed with a strong desire to learn how to read and write in good earnest. Yielding to his persevering request his parents accordingly sent him to Utrecht, where Gregory placed him in his school and gave him the tonsure. The Monk of Werden, who wrote his life, records his sweetness with his companions, and his devotion in church. He was always reading, singing, or praying; and always to be seen with a bright and smiling countenance, though seldom moved to laughter. And there was something about him so winning and amiable, that master and schoolfellows all loved him alike. In course of time he was sent to England to receive deacon’s orders, Gregory himself not having received episcopal consecration; and here, for the first time, he became acquainted with Alcuin, whose scholastic career was just then commencing. Luidger returned to Utrecht, but an unfortunate blunder which he made in the public reading of a lesson, and which drew down on him a severe reproof from his abbot, suggested to him the desirableness of a further course of study, under the great English master. Gregory reluctantly consented to his plan, and Luidger undertook a second voyage to England, and spent three years and a half in the school of York. Here he was as popular as he had formerly been at Utrecht, and his biographer seems half disposed to think that the extraordinary signs of affection lavished on him by his masters and fellow-students require some excuse, for he tells us they really could not help it, and that any one who had known him must have done the same. To none, however, was he so dear as to Alcuin, who always bestowed on him the title of “son.” During his residence in York, Luidger read through the whole of the Old and New Testaments besides a great many books of secular literature, and thoroughly studied the monastic rule as it was carried out in the English monasteries; and at the end of that time he returned to Utrecht, laden with books, and well fitted to instruct others. Alberic, the successor of Gregory, ordained him priest, and sent him to preach in his own country, till the Saxons drove him out, and then he became the apostle of that people also. Charlemagne heard of his merit from Alcuin, who by that time was fixed at the imperial court, and by his orders, sorely against the will of the missioner, Luidger was consecrated first bishop of Mimigardford in Saxony. He immediately founded a great monastery of regular canons to serve his cathedral, from which circumstance the name of the place was changed to Minster, or Münster, which it still bears. But his favourite foundation was at Werden, a spot which he had chosen in the midst of the huge virgin forests which clothed the banks of the river Rura. The old legend makes us understand what sort of work was involved in these foundations, when it tells us that the bishop and his companions, having pitched their tents, prepared to cut down the trees and clear a space large enough to contain a few rude huts; but they were dismayed when they beheld the massive trunks of the growth of centuries, with their branches so thickly interlaced that they could catch no glimpse of the sky, while the summits of the mighty oaks seemed to touch the clouds. They determined to wait till morning to commence their task; and meanwhile Luidger knelt down beneath one of the largest oaks, and was soon absorbed in his devotions. It was then a clear and beautiful night, the moon and stars shining unclouded in the heavens. Gradually, however, the clouds gathered, the wind arose, and a furious tempest burst over the forest. The monks heard the crash of falling trunks and trembled with fear; they guessed not that the stormy elements were being forced to do them service. When morning dawned there was an open space around them, the trees lay prostrate on all sides, and a sufficient space was cleared for the foundation of the monastery. One tree alone remained untouched, it was that beneath which St. Luidger had prayed, and which was long reverentially preserved. When at last it was cut down, a stone was placed on the site in memory of the event.

In these episcopal monasteries Luidger established a course of sacred studies, over which he personally presided. Such was, in fact, the universal discipline observed by the German missionaries, and hence the institution of cathedral schools spread over every province from Denmark to the mountains of the Tyrol. There we find the same class of foundations established by St. Virgil, Bishop of Saltzburg, concerning whom it will be necessary to speak a little more particularly. He was a native of Ireland, and held to be one of the most learned men of his time. It appears probable, though it is by no means certain, that he is the same Virgil who, when still a simple priest, was sent into Bavaria, together with Sidonius, and was there reported to have given expression to certain scientific theories of doubtful orthodoxy. It is not easy at the present day to determine precisely what the supposed errors were, as the only notice of them that remains occurs in a letter from St. Boniface to Pope Zachary, wherein Virgil is charged with teaching “that there is another world, and other men under the earth, another sun and another moon.” The reply of the Pope was to the effect that if on examination by a council Virgil should be convicted of teaching this “perverse doctrine,” he should be degraded; and the matter was finally settled by his being summoned to Rome, where inquiry was made into the facts of the case. It would seem that his explanation of his own doctrine must have proved satisfactory, if the priest Virgil here spoken of were the same who was shortly afterwards raised to the see of Saltzburg, and who in 1233 was solemnly canonised by Pope Gregory IX. These facts have, however, furnished the groundwork of a story which has been repeated by D’Alembert, and adopted with all its crowd of attendant blunders by a host of modern imitators. According to this version, Virgil, Bishop of Saltzburg, was excommunicated by St. Boniface for teaching the existence of the antipodes, and this sentence is represented to have been confirmed by Pope Zachary.[64] It will be seen, however, that the person of whose doctrines Boniface complained was not a bishop, but a priest; that the opinions attributed to him bore no reference to the antipodes; that he was not excommunicated; and that so far from either passing or confirming such a sentence, the Holy See examined, and it is to be presumed approved his doctrine, since it raised him to a bishopric, and at a subsequent period canonised him. St. Boniface reported the supposed errors of Virgil as they were reported to him, and whatever may be understood by the expressions which he quotes, they cannot be held to signify a belief in the antipodes. They rather seem to point to some theory of the existence of another race of men, distinct in origin from the sons of Adam, who therefore shared neither in original sin nor the benefits of redemption, errors which, as Baronius shows, might reasonably be styled ‘perverse.’ It is indeed true that Bede, and other early writers on natural philosophy, did not believe in the antipodes; not, as Mr. Turner remarks, from “any superstitious scruple,” but because they followed the geographical system of Pliny, who imagined the climate of the southern hemisphere to be incapable of supporting human life. Yet this history of Virgil and his condemned propositions has been made the occasion of impeaching St. Bede, St. Boniface, and the whole race of monastic scholars, not only of considering a belief in the antipodes as heretical, but of denying the spherical form of the earth, a point which was certainly never involved in the controversy.[65]

Next to the foundation of churches and monasteries, St. Boniface trusted to the establishment of public schools for the consolidation of the faith in the newly converted countries. In every place where he planted a monastic colony a school was opened, not merely for the instruction of the younger monks, but in order that the rude population by whom they were surrounded might be trained in holy discipline, and that their uncivilised manners might be softened by the influence of humane learning. At Fritislar and at Utrecht, as afterwards at Fulda, public schools were therefore opened, and how nearly the maintenance and prosperity of these schools lay at the heart of their founder, may be gathered from the epistle which he wrote shortly before his martyrdom to Fulrad, the councillor of King Pepin, in which he implores the protection of that monarch for such of his disciples as were engaged in the work of educating children. We also find incidental notices in his letters of certain monks appointed by him to the post of schoolmasters (_magistri infantium_).

St. Lullus, who has been named above among the companions of St. Boniface, and who was destined in after years to become his successor, had been educated at Malmsbury, whence he removed to Jarrow and finished his studies under Bede. Nine of his letters are preserved among those of St. Boniface, and in one of them, addressed to Cuthbert, abbot of Wearmouth, he entreats that copies of the works of his venerable master may be sent to him without delay. Cuthbert’s reply shows in what esteem Bede was already held as a writer, both at home and abroad, and how great was the demand for his works, which the copyists could not multiply fast enough. He begs for a little indulgence, seeing that the terrible cold of the past winter has disabled the hands of his best writers. “Since you have asked me for some works of the Blessed Bede,” he says, “I have prepared, with the help of my boys, what I now send you, namely, his books in prose and verse on the man of God, Cuthbert. I would have sent you more had I been able. But this winter the frost in our island has been so severe, with terrible winds, that the fingers of our transcribers have been unable to execute any more books.” Here is a glimpse into what one may call the real life of the scriptorium, which we are sometimes disposed to regard in a certain picturesque and sentimental light. Incessant labour and chapped hands formed part of the business, and the severities of climate made themselves felt in rooms entirely destitute of the appliances of modern comfort. Cuthbert goes on to entreat St. Lullus to send him if possible some foreign artificers skilled in the art of making glass vessels, and also a _harper_. “I have a harp,” he says, “but no one who knows how to play on it.” The whole correspondence of St. Boniface and St. Lullus bears witness to the deep interest felt by their countrymen in the work on which they were engaged. Their letters are addressed to bishops, abbots, monks, and nuns, and show how close an intercourse was kept up with England in spite of the difficulties of communication. Presents are exchanged between the absent missionaries and their friends at home. While the English kings and prelates send contributions of books and altar-plate, and the English nuns despatch a welcome supply of clothing, Boniface sends back a chasuble, “not all of silk, but mingled with goats’ hair,” and some linen cloths, which, before the linen manufactory had been introduced into England, were highly prized luxuries. To another friend he presents some fine German falcons. Some of the letters preserved are of peculiar interest, as showing us what kind of learning was then pursued in the religious houses of England, and specially in those of the English nuns, whom Mabillon calls, “the peculiar glory of the Order.” Boniface in former years had directed the studies of several convents of religious women, and kept up an active correspondence with his old pupils, who entered heartily into all his interests, and forwarded them to the best of their power. Naturally enough, their talk is often of books. In one of his earliest letters, addressed to the Kentish abbess Eadburga, he begs her to send him the “Acts of the Martyrs;” and in her reply, which is written in Latin, she informs him that, together with the literary offering, she has sent him fifty pieces of gold and an altar carpet. Her liberality encourages him to beg for new favours; and whilst he thanks her for her present, he petitions that she will get written out for him, either by herself or her scholars, the Epistles of St. Paul in _letters of gold_, in order to inspire his neophytes with greater reverence for the Holy Scriptures. In his next epistle he rewards her diligence with the appropriate present of a silver pen.

Eadburga removed to Rome, whence many of her letters to Boniface were afterwards addressed. But the correspondence continued to be carried on by some of the pupils whom she had left behind her in England, and specially by a relation of the saint’s named Lioba, then a religious in the convent of Wimbourne.

Of this convent and its learned inmates I must say a few words, as they deserve a place in our catalogue of English scholars. The present collegiate church of Wimbourne, ancient as it is--and the architecture of its tower bears out its claim to have been founded by the Confessor--does but mark the site of that far more ancient minster which owed its erection to the two sisters of good King Ina, Cuthburga and Guenburga by name. This was one of the very earliest convents of women founded in England, and is noticed by St. Aldhelm in a letter written in 705, wherein he declares that he has purposed, in the hidden recesses of his soul, to grant the privilege of free election to certain monasteries in his diocese; among others, that which lieth by the river Wimburnia, presided over by Cuthburga, sister to the king. Perhaps he was moved to this act of favour by the fact that Cuthburga and Guenburga were pupils of his old friend the abbess Hildelitha, the first of English virgins who had consecrated herself to Christ. Hildelitha received her education at Chelles, in France, and brought into the cloisters of Barking all the learning of that famous school. This she increased by her intercourse with St. Aldhelm; and her disciples, as we have seen, were rather profoundly versed in sacred letters. Neither did the Wimbourne scholars decline in learning under the good abbess Tetta, who was governing a community of five hundred nuns with admirable wisdom at the time when Lioba first introduced herself to the notice of St. Boniface in the following graceful letter:--

“To the most noble lord, decorated with the pontifical dignity, Boniface, most dear to me in Christ, and, what is more, united to me by the ties of blood, Leobgitha, the last of the handmaids of Christ, health and salvation.

“I beg your clemency to condescend to recollect the friendship which you had some time ago for my father. His name was Tinne; he lived in the western parts, and died about eight years ago. My mother also desires to be remembered by you; her name is Ebba, she is related to you, and suffers much from infirmity. I am their only daughter, and desire, though unworthy, to claim you as my brother, for there are none of my relations in whom I have so much confidence as in you. I send you a little present, not as being worthy of your greatness, but that you may preserve the memory of my littleness, and may not forget me on account of the distance which separates us. What I chiefly ask of you, dearest brother, is that you will defend me by the buckler of your prayers from the hidden snares of the enemy. I beg you to excuse the rustic style of this letter, and not to refuse me a few words from your affability which may serve me as a model, and which I shall be eager to receive. As to the little verses you will find written below, I have endeavoured to compose them according to the rules of poetry, not out of presumption, but as a first attempt of my weak little genius, desiring the help of your elegant mind. I learnt this art from Eadburga, who ceased not to meditate on the Divine law day and night. Farewell; live long and happy, and pray for me.”

Then follow four rhymed hexameters in Latin, wherein she not inelegantly commends him to the protection of Heaven. This was a common way of concluding a letter in the eighth century, and St. Boniface, in his epistles to his friends, frequently relieves the graver subjects of which he treats by a Latin distich or acrostic; sometimes also by a scrap of Saxon verse. He responded very heartily to Lioba’s appeal, and a familiar correspondence was at once opened between them. It is supposed, with every show of probability, that the _lady_ to whom St. Boniface afterwards dedicated his poem on the Virtues was no other than the Anglo-Saxon nun. In the dedication to this poem he says, “I send to my sister ten golden apples gathered on the tree of life, where they hung amid the flowers.” These golden apples are ten enigmas, each containing the definition of some virtue, the name of which, in true Saxon taste, is formed by the initial letters of the lines.

Another of the most constant correspondents and advisers of Boniface was his old diocesan, Daniel of Winchester, whom he frequently consulted in the difficulties with which he was beset. Ozanam observes that the former grammarian and scholasticus peeps out in one of the questions he sends for solution; namely, if the baptism were valid, administered by a certain priest who was in the habit of using the form, _In nomine Patria et Filia, et Spiritui Sancta_?[66] But we may, I think, acquit our great apostle of the charge of pedantry, founded on this passage. He was engaged in planting the Church on a new soil, and a scrupulous exactness, in preserving the sacramental forms of words from corruption, need not be taken as a sign of scholastic priggishness. There is no saying where the “Patria et Filia” might have ended, or what more extensive variations might not have been added by the _il_-literati of Thuringia. Bishop Daniel gave him a great deal of excellent advice, and was of considerable service to Boniface by supplying him with books. On one occasion we find the missionary writing to his good friend, begging him to send the book of the Prophets “which the abbot Wimbert, my master, left at his death. It is written in large and very distinct letters; I could not have a greater consolation in my old age, for there is no book like it in this country, and as my sight grows weak I cannot distinguish the small letters which run together in the volumes I now have.”

In 732, Boniface received the pallium from the hands of Pope Gregory III., together with the authority of Papal Legate and Vicar over the bishops of France and Germany. This office empowered him to take every step necessary for the firm establishment of the faith in the newly converted countries, and at the same time he was charged with the far more difficult task of restoring Church discipline in the Gallican provinces, where, owing to the barbarism of the times, a frightful state of anarchy prevailed. We shall chiefly follow him in his apostolic career in Germany, where his first care was to provide for the necessities of the infant Church by the erection of several new sees. Burchard was consecrated Bishop of Wurtzburg, and Wilibald was appointed to the see of Eichstadt, a woody district overspread with oaks, which as yet contained but one small church. Other prelates were named to fill the sees of Erfurt, Ratisbon, and Friesingen. The care of the Archbishop was next directed to providing a succession of clergy for the new dioceses, and with this view he founded several monasteries, one of which became in after-times the greatest monastic school in Germany. In the year 730, when Boniface travelled into Bavaria, to re-establish ecclesiastical discipline in that country, many Bavarian nobles committed their sons to his care, and among these was Sturm, who was offered by his parents to the service of God. Boniface placed him in the monastery he had recently founded at Fritzlar, under the care of Wigbert, one of his English disciples, and took great care of his education. The innocence and humility of the youth made him dear to all his masters, and he quickly learnt the Psalter by heart, and studied the hidden sense of the sacred Scriptures. Being ordained priest, he preached among the neighbouring population for three years, but at the end of that time he was seized with the desire to seek out some solitude where he might found a religious house; and Boniface, approving his design, sent him into the forest of Buchonia to choose a fitting site. Taking two companions with him, they travelled on for two days, seeing nothing but the earth and the sky, and the huge trees through which they made their way. At the end of the third day they reached Hirsfield, where they built themselves some rude huts with the bark of the trees which they felled, and began the practices of a religious life. Boniface, however, was not satisfied with their choice of a situation, and at his desire, Sturm, after exploring the upper course of the river Fulda without success, set out alone, mounted on an ass, on a journey into the wilderness, through which he travelled for days, seeing nothing but the huge trees, the birds, and the wild beasts that roamed at large in the forest glades. At night he cut down wood enough with his axe to make a little enclosure, within which he fastened his beast to save it from the wolves; but for himself he feared nothing, and after tranquilly making the sign of the cross on his forehead, he lay down and slept till morning. At last he reached a vast and woody solitude, which Prince Carloman, the owner, bestowed on him as a free gift, and here, in the year 744, nine years after their settlement at Hirsfield, Sturm, with seven companions, laid the foundation of the Abbey of Fulda. St. Boniface gave them the necessary instructions, and visited them every year; but being desirous to establish among them the rule of St. Benedict in its perfection, he sent Sturm into Italy to visit the monastery of Monte Cassino, and others most renowned for their strict observance, that he might be the better able to form his own community in regular discipline. After a year thus spent in studying the monastic rule, Sturm returned to Fulda, where, before he died, he had the consolation of seeing a zealous community of 400 monks serving God in what had before been a desolate wilderness, and the abbey, like all those founded by St. Boniface, became quickly renowned for the sanctity of its inmates, and the good scholars whom it nurtured within its walls.