Chapter XXIV (11)

His first work, of which unhappily nothing has been preserved but a few fragments, was the very collection alluded to above, and which Asser and William of Malmsbury speak of as his “Enchiridion” or manual. But there yet remain his more important translations from St. Gregory, Orosius, Boethius, and Bede, the first of which contains that admirable preface which explains so modestly and simply the intention of the writer, and the way in which he executed his work. In the mere verbal translation he was assisted by the learning of others, for he tells us with regard to his version of the “Regula Pastoris” of St. Gregory, that it was done by him into English, sometimes word for word, and sometimes sense for sense, “as I learnt it from Plegmund, my archbishop, and Asser, my bishop, and John and Grimbald, my mass-priests.” But both in this and his other works, he was far more than a translator, and continually expands the ideas of his authors, introducing new matter of his own; sometimes even he substitutes whole chapters for those which he omits, so as to make his translation almost an original work. In the passages which are from his own pen, we admire at once the philosophic lucidity of his thoughts and the noble simplicity with which he expresses them. A brief sentence of Boethius is thus expanded. “Then, said Reason, Dost thou like fair lands? and Mind answered to Reason, and said, Why should I not like fair lands? How? Is not that the fairest part of God’s creation? Full oft we rejoice at the mild sea, and admire also the beauty of sun, moon, and stars. Then answered Wisdom and Reason to the Mind, and said, How belongeth Heaven’s fairness to thee? Desirest thou to glory as though its beauty were thine? It is not, it is not. Knowest thou not that thou madest none of these things? If thou wilt glory, glory in God.... Wherefore now dost thou rejoice in the fair blossoms of Easter, as if thou hadst made them; canst thou make any of such things? Not so, not so. Or is it now in thy power that the harvest is so rich in fruits? I know that this also is not in thy power.” Boethius says, “Survey the space, the firmness, and the rapidity of the heavens, and cease to admire vile things.” This is enlarged by Alfred as follows: “Behold now the spaciousness, the firmness, and the swiftness of the heavens. Yet all this is not to be compared to its Creator and Governor. Why do ye not let yourselves be weary of admiring and praising, that which is unprofitable? That is, worldly riches. For as heaven is better, and fairer, and more precious than all within it, excepting only man, so is man’s body better and more precious than all his possessions. But much more bethink thee that his soul is better and more precious than his body. Every being is to be honoured in fit proportion, and always the highest, most. And therefore the Divine Power is to be honoured, adored, and worshipped above all other things.” The following remarkable passage on free-will is entirely his own. “I said, I am sometimes very much disturbed. Quoth he, at what? I answered, It is at this, that thou sayest, that God gives to every one freedom to do evil as well as good, whichsoever he will. Now I wonder much at this. Then, quoth he, I may very easily answer thee this remark. How now would it look to thee if there were any very powerful king, and he had no freemen in all his kingdom, but only slaves? Then, said I, it would not be thought by me right or reasonable if servile men only were to wait on him. Then said he, _It would be more unnatural if God, in all His kingdom, had no free creatures under His power_; therefore he made two kinds of rational creatures free, angels and men, and he gave them thus this great gift of freedom.” Mr. Turner, in quoting this passage, remarks that Alfred’s solution of the difficulty shows him to have been a true king of the English people. He felt from his own great heart that the Divine Sovereign must prefer to govern freemen rather than slaves, because this was his own sentiment as a king. If it were derogatory to the dignity of an earthly ruler to have none but slaves for his subjects, far more so would it be for the King of Heaven to have no creatures endowed with free-will.

But perhaps the most interesting of all these interpolated passages is that which occurs in his paraphrase of Boethius, where, treating of the duties of a king, he speaks thus in his own person: “I never well liked or strongly desired this earthly kingdom; yet when I was in possession of it I desired materials for the work I was commanded to do, that I might fitly steer the vessel, and rule the realm committed to my keeping. There are tools for every craft, without which a man cannot work at his craft; and a king also must have his materials and his tools. And what are these? First, he must have his land well peopled, and he must have prayer-men, and army-men, and work-men. Without these tools no king can show his skill. His materials are provision for these three brotherhoods; land to dwell in, gifts, and weapons, and meat, and ale, and clothes, and whatever else they need. Without these he cannot keep his tools, and without his tools he cannot work. Therefore I desired materials that my craft and power might not be given up and lost. But all craft and power will soon be worn out and put to silence if they be without wisdom. Therefore I desired wisdom. This is now what I can truly say. I have desired while I lived to live worthily, and after my death to leave to men that should be after me a remembrance in good deeds.”

In his version of the Chronicle of the World, by Orosius, he followed the same plan, and took occasion to insert a great many corrections and additions, specially in those parts relating to geography, a study for which, like most Anglo-Saxon scholars, Alfred evinced a special liking. His most important additions are a description of Germany, and an account of the voyages of Wulfstan and Othere, the latter of whom was a Norwegian whale-fisher, who sailed round the North Cape into the White Sea, and also entered the mouth of the river Dwina. The narrative was taken down from the lips of the adventurers by the king himself, and is given with the brief biblical simplicity which marks all the compositions of the writer. A considerable portion of the coasts of Prussia and the Baltic are here described for the first time; neither Wulfstan nor Othere removed the impression then prevalent that the Scandinavian peninsula was an island, nevertheless, their discoveries added considerably to the existing geographical knowledge, and the industry shown by the king in collecting and publishing these important facts is well deserving of praise.

The treatise of St. Gregory on the pastoral office was translated by Alfred with peculiar care, and his object in selecting such a work is sufficiently obvious. It contained the instructions of that great Pope whose name was venerated in England as that of her first apostle, on the duties of the pastoral office, and the good king doubtless trusted that its study would revive a better spirit among his clergy. It had in fact a very special degree of authority, and in all the Synods held under Charlemagne was commonly referred to as the standard of ecclesiastical discipline, and would naturally have a special claim on the interest of English readers, as being one of the books bestowed on St. Augustine by the author, and laid up in the Canterbury Library. So highly did Alfred value the translation of the “Hirde-boc,” as he calls it, that he caused a copy to be sent to every cathedral church in his dominions, with strict injunctions that they should never be removed thence except for the purpose of transcription, or for the bishop’s own reading. Three of these copies are still preserved, with the names of the bishops inserted in the prefatory letters; they are those belonging to Wulfsige of Sherborne, Werferth of Worcester, and Plegmund of Canterbury.

Many other writings and translations are attributed to Alfred by Malmsbury and other historians, and we are assured by the former that he was engaged on an Anglo-Saxon version of the Psalter when attacked with his last sickness. An Anglo-Saxon translation of the New Testament also exists bearing his name, and was printed at London in 1571. Indeed the literary reputation of their “darling,” as the Anglo-Saxons popularly termed him, induced them to ascribe to his pen any English writing of uncertain authorship. The real part to be assigned to him in the history of learning is, in fact, that of the founder of Anglo-Saxon literature. Up to this time few books had appeared in the native idiom, with the exception of the national ballads. But it was his wish to substitute that noble tongue, which none knew better how to write than himself, in place of the incorrect Latin which had been used by earlier scholars; his own translations and paraphrases were the first attempts at anything like extensive prose works in the vernacular, but from that time the number of Anglo-Saxon writers rapidly increased.

I have said that the good achieved by Alfred was accomplished rather by his writings than his schools. Mr. Craik, in his history of English literature, speaks of it indeed as “probable” that Alfred restored many of the old episcopal and monastic schools, though he admits there is no satisfactory evidence of his having done so. We may safely affirm, from the absence of all historic evidence, that no such restorations took place, and the reason is obvious; to effect them he must first have restored the monastic institute, and however ardently he desired to do so, it is quite clear that his efforts were crowned with very imperfect success. But his claim to be regarded as the founder of Oxford University rests on more respectable tradition, which, to use the words of Hallam, “if it cannot be maintained as a certain truth, at least bears no intrinsic marks of error.” It is assumed by most historians that the schools to the support of which Alfred devoted one-fourth part of the moiety of his revenues, were those which he founded or restored at Oxford, by the advice, as it is said, of St. Neot, and where it is further stated that Grimbald taught theology on first coming to England. Hardyng, the historian, tells us that these schools were founded in virtue of a brief from Pope Martin II.

In the yere Eight hundred four score and tweyne
The Pope Marteyne graunte to Kynge Alwerede
To founde and mak a studye then ageyne,
And an universitie for clerkes in to rede,
The whiche he mad in Oxenforde, in dede,
To that intent that clerkes by sapience
Agayn heretiks suld mak resistence.

The passage, indeed, which occurs in one manuscript of Asser’s history, giving an account of certain dissensions between Grimbald and the old scholastics whom he found already established at Oxford, is now very generally held to be an interpolation of later writers, who were anxious by this means to stretch back the antiquity of their university to a date of indefinite remoteness.

For the Cambridge professors having, in Queen Elizabeth’s time, unblushingly claimed for their founder, Eneas, the son of Brute, those of Oxford cast about for some way of lengthening their own pedigree to “pre-historic” times, and not content with the reputation of having Alfred for their founder, boldly asserted that Oxford had been a place of study for at least a thousand years before the Christian era; and appealed to the “old scholastics” whom Grimbald is said to have found in possession, in support of their statement. But though the disputed passage is not to be found in the more authentic manuscripts of Asser, yet in them he makes mention of certain schools founded by Alfred, the locality of which he does not name, and there seems no solid ground for rejecting the tradition that fixes them at Oxford, and represents Grimbald as exercising there the office of teacher. The same tradition assigns St. Peter’s Church as the scene of his labours, and the Saxon crypt of that church, which is beyond all doubt one of the highest antiquity, is commonly called St. Grimbald’s crypt, and is said to have been built by him and intended as his own place of sepulture. But even granting thus much to the Oxford antiquarians it is evident that the circumstantial account which represents the university as founded by Alfred in the same regular form which it assumed in the thirteenth century is altogether fabulous. And it must be allowed that national pride has considerably overstated the work achieved by Alfred as a reviver of learning, and a reformer of discipline. How small an improvement had taken place in the general tone of the Anglo-Saxon clergy may be gathered from the severe reproof addressed to them in the following reign by Pope Formosus, in which it is declared that the impieties of paganism had been suffered to revive in England, while the bishops “remained silent like dogs unable to bark.” Such a deplorable state of things can in no way be attributed to any negligence on the part of Alfred, but as he himself has told us, “without tools no man can do his work,” and in his day the right tools were wanting. Hence, though several of his successors inherited his learned tastes, they were able to accomplish but little for the promotion of letters. Edward the Elder is said to have founded or restored some schools at Cambridge, and Athelstan is not only styled a _doctarum artium amator_, but is even to be numbered in our list of royal authors, some of his books being discovered by Leland in the library of Bath abbey. But the renewed incursions of the Danes, and the continued wars in which these princes were engaged, prevented their devoting much attention to the encouragement of literature, and, as Wood expresses it, the drum of Mars forced Minerva into a corner. The dearth at this time of monastic houses, and consequently of schools, is proved by the fact that the very few Englishmen who were attracted to a religious life either chose the eremitical state, or emigrated to the foreign cloisters of Fleury or Montfaucon. But in England the old sanctuaries of learning and piety were suffered to lie desolate. The collegiate clergy formerly attached to the cathedrals were exchanged for secular canons, and in the reign of Edgar the Peaceable, that monarch was able to affirm, as a fact known to all men, that, under the rule of his predecessors, monastic institutes had entirely decayed.

The only surviving establishment that still kept up something like a monastic school was the little colony of Irish clergy who served the church of Glastonbury, and it was here that the rudiments of education were received by that extraordinary man who was destined to restore the monastic institute in England, and thus to become the author of a revival of learning more real and lasting than that which Alfred had attempted. This was a work demanding something more than royal power and human greatness for its accomplishment; it implied a struggle with the corrupt sensualism of the world, and a conquest of those powers of evil which are not to be cast forth save by prayer and fasting. A spirit had to be breathed into the dry bones, and the dead, in a certain sense, to be raised to life; and all this called for nothing less than the ministry of a _saint_. And in the hour of the darkest need, a saint was granted to the English Church, which had for more than a century borne the curse of sterility. Or rather not one, but a cluster of glorious stars suddenly illuminated her clouded heavens, whose labours, if they were primarily directed to the reform of ecclesiastical discipline, embraced at the same time, and as a necessary means for accomplishing that end, the establishment of monasteries and schools.

_CHAPTER VIII._

ST. DUNSTAN AND HIS COMPANIONS.

A.D. 924 TO 992.

If there be any spot in England consecrated alike by sacred and poetic traditions, it is surely the “thrice famous isle” of Glastonbury, where, according to common belief, the faith was first planted in Britain by St. Joseph of Arimathea, and which was regarded by the inhabitants of this island with a veneration which induced a vast number of the British saints who flourished before the Saxon conquest to retire before their death to the Glassy Isle, that their dust might mingle with its sacred soil. Still surrounded by the marshy waters which once formed a glassy lake around it; still made beautiful in spring by the apple blossoms to which it owes its poetic name of Avallon; still preserving that mysterious hawthorn-tree which, like the roses of Pœstum, “boasts its double bloom,” and marks the spot where our first apostle struck his staff into the ground; and still covered with the ruins of that noble abbey which kings vied with one another in beautifying and enriching as “the fountain and origin of all religion in the realm of Britain,”--Glastonbury might well claim, even in its present desolation, to draw pilgrims to its ruined shrines. The poet wanders there to weave new Idylls over the grave of Arthur, whilst the devout client of our native saints kneels to kiss the soil which was the cradle of St. Dunstan. And some may even recall the thought of days long since fled away into the haze of the past, when those two names, so rich in legendary lore, were first cast like golden grains into the storehouse of their memory, as they stood rapt in childish wonder amid those venerable walls, and there taking root, gave birth in their souls to a new idea, so that they passed out of the ruins of Glastonbury, believers, for the first happy moment of their lives, in the possibility of an heroic life.

Glastonbury was at once the birthplace of St. Dunstan and the nursery of his greatness in riper years. There as an infant he was offered by his parents at the altar of Our Lady, and so soon as he could prattle, was given over by them to the care of some Irish monks who had settled in the deserted abbey, and earned a scanty subsistence by educating the children of the neighbourhood. His extraordinary genius soon displayed itself, not merely by a rapid acquisition of grammar, but by the excellence he attained in music, poetry, and the arts. Having been introduced to the notice of the king by his uncle Athelm, Archbishop of Canterbury, his superior talents excited the jealousy of the courtiers, who accused him of magic, a charge which they chiefly grounded on his musical skill, by which they declared that he bewitched the king, and his familiarity with the old bardic poetry of the Anglo-Saxons. Obliged to withdraw from court, he returned to Glastonbury, and for some time led an eremitical life in a small cell adjoining the church. We need neither the testimony of the old legend, nor the suggestions of romance, to understand how it was that a mind like Dunstan’s had to pass through much tribulation ere it could utterly resign itself to the guidance of grace. The noblest natures have the hardest combats to undergo, and are not crowned till they have striven and overcome. So it was in the midst of many trials that Dunstan spent his solitary noviciate, chasing away the tempter now with prayer, and now with manual labour. He did not lay aside his artistic tastes, but toiled away at his smith’s forge, producing those exquisite works in gold and other metals long preserved with reverence in many English churches, or carving in wood, or painting, engraving, and moulding in wax and clay. He used his musical skill, too, to soothe his weary spirit, by reminding himself of the heavenly harmonies, and once, having hung his harp against the wall, the wind, it is said, swept over the strings, and brought out from them a plaintive strain in which he recognised one of the antiphons sung in the Common of Martyrs, _Gaudent in cælis animæ sanctorum qui Christi vestigia secuti sunt_. At last King Edmund, the brother and successor of Athelstan, recalled him to court, made him his chief councillor, and bestowed on him the territory of Glastonbury, that he might restore the abbey to its former splendour. Dunstan therefore collected a community, to whom he gave the rule of St. Benedict, and according to many writers he is to be regarded as the first real founder of the Benedictine order in this country. Even if this be an historical error, and the early Anglo-Saxon monks may likewise be claimed as Benedictines (a warmly controverted point on which it is needless here to enter), St. Dunstan’s work as the restorer of the order is of no less importance than if we consider him the first English founder, for the firm establishment of the monastic rule in England at this particular juncture was the means by which, under God, the Church itself was preserved in this land.

The corruption of the secular clergy had become so general that the total decay of religion must soon have been the inevitable result, had not sacred letters and ecclesiastical discipline been revived by the monks. Happily, St. Dunstan was not alone; he found a band of great souls, able and willing to second him in his efforts, and among these were the three saints, Odo, Oswald, and Ethelwold. Odo was the son of Danish and heathen parents, who, disgusted at their son’s interest in everything connected with the Christian worship, turned him adrift, while still a child, to shift for himself. Athelm, one of King Alfred’s thanes, took compassion on him, and sent him to be educated at the court school, where, we are told, he acquired so thorough a knowledge both of Greek and Latin as to be able to write in both languages with great facility. Being promoted to the priesthood, Athelm chose him for his confessor, and, according to the custom of the more pious laity of early times, recited the divine Office with him daily. After that he became chaplain to the good king Athelstan, in which capacity he was present at the great battle of Brunanburgh. Athelstan procured his election to the see of Sherburne, whence, in 942, he was translated to the archbishopric of Canterbury. He hesitated to accept the primacy, however, on the ground that he was not a monk, as all those had been who had preceded him in that see. But the king overruled the objection by sending to the abbot of Fleury, who himself brought over the monastic cowl with which he invested the archbishop elect. Odo at once addressed himself to the Augean task of reform, and appointed his nephew, Oswald, to the deanery of Winchester, hoping thereby to introduce more regular discipline among the canons of that cathedral. But Oswald found his efforts so utterly fruitless that he withdrew to Fleury, whence, however, he was compelled to return at the command of his uncle, who could ill spare labourers from the English vineyard. The archbishop’s canons, together with the pastoral letter which accompanied them, bear evidence alike of his zeal and his learning. But something more than a paper reform was required to heal the terrible wounds of the English Church. The only real hope of remedy lay in the formation of an entirely new body of clergy, who should from their youth have been trained in sacred letters, holy living, and ecclesiastical discipline. Church seminaries were needed; and where could these be established save in the newly-founded abbeys now springing up under the government of St. Dunstan?

The destruction of the monastic schools had been one chief cause of the existing evils, and in their restoration Odo saw the only hope of remedy. And, marvellous to say, they were being restored. At Glastonbury St. Dunstan had already founded the first regular monastic school which had been seen in England since the destruction of her old seminaries; and here some of the most famous ecclesiastics who flourished during the tenth century received their education. Dunstan allowed the reading of the Latin poets, because, as he said, it polished the mind and improved the style; he also encouraged the study of Anglo-Saxon poetry, as it would seem with a view of rendering his clergy eloquent in the vernacular tongue, and more powerful preachers. Neither was science forgotten; and the study of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music were carefully cultivated by his pupils, many of whom likewise excelled in those artistic pursuits in which their master was an adept. Nor was Glastonbury the only scene of this revived intellectual activity. The combined influence of great genius and great sanctity was effecting that reaction in favour of monasticism which Alfred had vainly attempted to bring about, and to which he also had looked as the only means of establishing a real reform. In his time monks had sunk so low in the estimation of the Anglo-Saxon people, that none but churls could be found willing to wear the cowl. But St. Dunstan’s example had turned the tide, and Glastonbury was soon able to send out colonies and found other houses, whose abbots were supplied from the ranks of the saint’s chosen disciples.

Among these, by far the most distinguished was St. Ethelwold, who, after for some years filling the office of dean in the monastery of Glastonbury, formed the design of passing over to Fleury in order to perfect himself more thoroughly in religious discipline and sacred science. King Edred, who was then reigning during the minority of his two nephews, heard of his purpose and forbade him to leave the kingdom, but, to sweeten his disappointment, offered him the old ruined abbey of Abingdon, that he might restore the monastic rule within its walls. He was right in thinking that such an offer was likely to reconcile Ethelwold to his detention on the English soil, and the saint at once applied himself to his labour of love. He began by sending over to Corby for some monks well-skilled in monastic discipline, whom he desired to have as foundation stones of his community; and, not content with this, he despatched one of his brethren from Glastonbury to study all the ways and fashions of that celebrated seminary of learning. Ethelwold had nothing more at heart than the restoration of sacred studies, and was resolved that his monastic school should be the best of its kind. Wolstan, his biographer, tells us that he had been the companion of St. Dunstan in his studies, and not only distinguished himself by his proficiency in grammar, poetry, and the mechanical arts, but had also spent several years in the work of teaching others. “He taught the art of grammar with great skill,” says his disciple, “and that of poetical metre with most mellifluous sweetness; and like the prudent bee which is used to seek for pleasant scents flying about among the trees and flowers, and agreeably loading itself with the odoriferous juices, even so did he pluck the blossoms of the sacred volumes, and studiously apply himself to the study of the Catholic Fathers.” He was, moreover, like his master Dunstan, an enthusiastic lover of science, and a great adept in architecture and bell-founding; and thus the restoration of the old abbey was one of those undertakings in which his piety and his taste were able to work in concert. The new abbey church was adorned with four large bells, two cast by the hand of its abbot, and two yet larger ones, the handiwork of St. Dunstan. Nor was Ethelwold less renowned as a musician and mathematician, and one of his mathematical treatises, addressed to the celebrated Gerbert, is still preserved in the Bodleian Library. He had, moreover, that yet more excellent gift, the power of engaging the affections of those whom he taught. The young were irresistibly attracted to him, and this was one cause of the influx of youths who soon filled the schools of Abingdon. The account has been preserved of the death of one of his scholars, an innocent boy named Ædmer, who was greatly loved both by the abbot and his schoolfellows, on account of his holy simplicity and angelic virtue. Whilst still in the happy state of baptismal grace he was attacked by mortal sickness. As his death drew on he was rapt in ecstasy, and beheld the Blessed Virgin seated on a glorious throne surrounded by many saints. With a kind and loving countenance, she asked him whether he would prefer remaining amid that heavenly company, or continuing in his mortal life. And he, seeing no sadness among those on whom he gazed, said he would far rather abide there with them; whereupon Our Lady promised that he should have his wish. And so, returning to himself, he made known to the abbot what he had seen and heard; and presently his happy soul departed to its rest.

In the reign of the dissolute Edwy, a storm arose which for a time threatened to overthrow the new foundations, and put a stop to the good work so happily begun. The courageous reproof administered to that prince by the abbot of Glastonbury having exposed him to the royal displeasure, he was obliged to withdraw to Flanders, and the two abbeys of Glastonbury and Abingdon were dissolved by the king’s command, and the monks dispersed through the country. The vices of Edwy, however, brought their own punishment with them: the provinces north of the Thames threw off his authority, and chose for their king his brother Edgar, who at once recalled St. Dunstan, and promoted him to the same post of confidence he had filled under Edmund and Edred. The see of Worcester falling vacant, Edgar, who by the death of Edwy was now king of all England, insisted on his accepting the episcopal charge, and he was accordingly consecrated by St. Odo, in 957. Two years later, on the death of the primate, Dunstan was chosen his successor, and going to Rome to receive the Pall, was sent back to England invested with the authority of Apostolic Legate.

He was now in a position effectually to carry out those great measures of reform for which he had so long been preparing the instruments. He found himself surrounded by a band of faithful and carefully-trained ecclesiastics, animated with his own devoted spirit; and his first step was to procure the election of Oswald, the nephew of Odo, to the see of Worcester. Ten years later, St. Oswald became Archbishop of York, being allowed, by extraordinary dispensation, to hold both sees together; Dunstan being unwilling that the good discipline he had established at Worcester should suffer by his removal. Ethelwold was placed over the see of Winchester, and, with the help of these two holy coadjutors, the archbishop entered on the task of enforcing the observance of the sacred canons. The royal sanction to his plan was formally granted at a great council, for Edgar entered heart and soul into all the plans of his primate. “I hold the sword of Constantine,” he said, “and you that of St. Peter; together we will purify the sanctuary.” The choice was everywhere offered to the secular clergy of promising obedience to the laws of the Church, or resigning their benefices. In some places the secular canons accepted the reform, but where they refused to do so they were summarily ejected. St. Oswald was fortunate enough to succeed in winning his Worcester canons, not merely to promise a regular life, but to embrace the monastic rule; and, under his wise and gentle government, they in time became excellent religious. St. Ethelwold was less happy; and finding it impossible to convert his canons from their life of lawless indulgence, he replaced them with a body of Benedictine monks.

At the same time that many cathedrals and collegiate churches were receiving these monastic colonies, new foundations were everywhere springing up. Ely, Peterborough, Malmsbury and Thorney abbeys rose once more out of their ruins; and such was the eagerness of the king and his nobles to promote the ecclesiastical reform, that more than forty abbeys were founded or restored during the primacy of St. Dunstan. With these events, however, so important in the Church history of England, we are only concerned in so far as they affected the restoration of learning; and, in fact, the revival of the monastic institute was one and the same thing with the revival of the English schools. From this time, in spite of many corruptions and abuses, which resisted even the efforts of Dunstan to remove them, the Dark Age, _par excellence_, of English history began to disappear. A new race of scholars sprang up in the restored cloisters, some of whom were not unworthy to be ranked with the disciples of Alcuin and Bede. St. Dunstan himself, during the remainder of his primacy, was occupied with measures rather of practical, than of educational reform; nevertheless, we find from his canons that his solicitude was directed in a very special way to providing for the religious instruction of the common people. He revived the old parochial schools, and obliged his parish priests to preach every Sunday to their flocks, requiring them also in their schools to teach the children of their parishioners grammar, the church-chant, and some useful handicraft trade.

It was St. Ethelwold, however, who exhibited the greatest zeal for the restoration of sacred studies. He loved the work of teaching for its own sake, and had no sooner got possession of his own cathedral, and banished the canons who had so long disgraced it, than he applied all his care to collect and educate a staff of young clergy, who, he trusted, would prove worthy to fill the vacant benefices. “It was ever sweet to him,” says his charming biographer Wolstan, “to teach youths and little ones, to explain their Latin books to them in English, to instruct them in the rules of grammar and prosody, and allure them by cheerful words to study and improvement. And so it came to pass that many of his disciples became priests and abbots, some also bishops and archbishops, in the realm of England.” Among these was St. Elphege, who afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury, and was martyred by the Danes, and Cynewulf, abbot of Peterborough, an apt and gentle teacher, whose monastic school was so celebrated that, as Hugo Candidus says, scholars flocked to it from all countries as to the court of a second Solomon. He wrote some Anglo-Saxon poems, still preserved; their authorship being detected by the curious insertion here and there of a Runic letter, which, when put together, spell the writer’s name.

It will be observed that the new race of scholars did not exclusively cultivate Latin literature. The labours of Alfred had given a powerful stimulus to the study of English, and this was yet further encouraged both by St. Dunstan and St. Ethelwold, who desired nothing more than to facilitate the instruction of the common people in their own tongue. Ethelwold translated the rule of St. Benedict into Anglo-Saxon for the use of his monks, and a copy of this work may still be seen in the Cottonian Library, the Latin text being accompanied with an interlinear Anglo-Saxon version. Elfric, one of Ethelwold’s scholars, devoted himself with particular energy to the cultivation of English literature. Besides translating a considerable number of the books of Scripture, at the request of his friend, the ealderman Ethelward, he composed a Latin and English grammar, and other school books, such as a Latin and English glossary, and his well-known “Colloquies,” written in both languages, for the use of beginners. The grammar has a Latin and English preface, in which he tells us that he undertook the work for the promotion of sacred studies, specially among the young, for, he observes, “it is the duty of ecclesiastics to guard against such a want of learning in our day as was to be found in England but a very few years ago, when not a priest could be found to translate a Latin epistle, till Archbishop Dunstan and Bishop Ethelwold encouraged learning in their monasteries.”

His most celebrated work was his collection of Homilies[118] for the use of parish priests. None are original compositions; they are selections and translations from the early Latin Fathers, as well as from Bede and a few other French and German homilists. The Anglo-Saxon into which they are rendered is considered the fairest specimen that can be cited of our ancient national tongue, and raises a regret that so noble a language should ever have been allowed to corrupt into our modern hybrid English. The compiler subscribes his name to the work as, “Ælfric, the scholar of Ethelwold,” a title he evidently regarded as no small honour. I may add, that many of his writings are addressed to his friend Ethelward and another English thane, Sigwerd of East Heolen, and seems to intimate that the laity as well as the clergy were now beginning to cultivate letters.

Ethelwold’s zeal for the restoration of the monastic institute moved him to petition King Edgar for a grant of all the minsters that had been laid waste in old time by the “heathen men.” It would be too long to notice all the restoration effected by “the father of monks” as he was called, or the many works of active benevolence which earned for him, from his grateful people, his other beautiful title of “the well-willing bishop.” He exercised his engineering talents in supplying his cathedral city with water, and in time of dearth broke up his altar plate to feed the multitudes. He rebuilt his cathedral church with great splendour, as we learn from the poem in which Wolstan has dwelt with loving minuteness on every detail from the crypt to the tower, which last was surmounted by a gilded weathercock, which says the poet, “stands proudly superior to the whole population of Winton, and brazen as he is, rules all the other cocks of the city.” There was likewise an organ of marvellous construction, and a certain wheel full of bells, called “the golden wheel,” only brought out on solemn occasions, both of these being the workmanship of the bishop.

Meanwhile, St. Oswald was pursuing much the same course in his northern dioceses. He restored the abbeys of Pershore, Winchecombe, and St. Alban’s, and founded several others, particularly that of Ramsey, which long maintained the reputation of being the most learned of the English monasteries. The history of its foundation is given at length by the monk of Ramsey. A certain ealderman, named Aylwin, having offered to devote his wealth to some work of piety, St. Oswald asked him if he had any lands suited for the building of a monastery. He replied that he had some land, surrounded with marshes, and free from resort of men, and there was a forest near it full of various kinds of trees, and having several spots of good turf and fine grass for pasturage. They went together to view the spot, which was so solitary and yet possessed of so many conveniences for subsistence and secluded devotion, that the bishop decided on accepting it. Artificers of all kinds were at once collected, and the neighbours willingly offered their services. Twelve monks from another cloister came to form the new foundation; their cells and a temporary chapel were first raised, and by the next winter they had provided iron and timber enough for a handsome church. In the spring a firm foundation was made in the fenny soil, the workmen labouring as much from devotion as for profit. Some brought the stones, others made the cement, and others worked the wheel-machinery that raised the stones to their places, and so in a short time the sacred edifice, with two fair towers, appeared in what had before been a desolate wilderness.

The monks mentioned in this account as having been brought from “another cloister,” were a colony from Fleury, and among them was the celebrated Abbo of Fleury, of whom there will be occasion to speak in another chapter. He remained two years at Ramsey, and thoroughly established its school. His most distinguished pupil was Bridferth, originally a monk of Thorney, who migrated to Ramsey soon after its foundation, and was probably one of the first scientific scholars of his time. He had received his early education from St. Dunstan, and imbibed all his tastes. In his Commentary on Bede he incidentally notices a scientific observation which he had made when a student at Thionville in France, whence it appears that he had enlarged his stock of knowledge by visits to foreign academies. His Commentaries on the treatises De Rerum Natura and De Tempore, consist of notes of lectures delivered in the Ramsey schools. Whilst explaining his author he frequently introduces original illustrations, sometimes supporting Bede’s statements by numerical calculations of his own, sometimes amplifying the text and clearing up doubtful expressions. He quotes St. Clement, St. Augustine, Eusebius, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and St. Isidore, also Pliny, Macrobius, Priscian, and Martian Capella, and continually refers to the Latin poets as familiar to his hearers. He was also the author of a treatise “De Principiis Mathematicis,” and a life of his old master. St. Dunstan, the last of which he dedicated to Ælfric, and extols him in his preface for the “enormity of his well-known learning.”

The later annals of Ramsey abbey are full of interest, and how that the school thus brilliantly founded was not suffered to fall into decay. Some of these will reappear in a later portion of our narrative; but, before bidding adieu to the old Saxon abbey, I must notice one little narrative which shows that all the scholars there educated were not destined for the ecclesiastical state. Four little boys named Oswald, Etheric, Ædnoth, and Athelstan had been placed in the school by St. Oswald, all being sons of powerful Saxon thanes. They were received before they were seven years old, and were of innocent manners and beautiful countenances. At certain times they were suffered by their master to go and play outside the cloister walls. One day, being thus sent out by themselves, they ran to the great west tower, and laying hold of the bell rope, rang with all their might, but so unskilfully that one of the bells was cracked by the unequal motion. The mischief becoming known, the culprits were threatened with a sound flogging; a threat which occasioned abundance of tears. At last remembering the sentence they had so often heard read from the rule of St. Benedict, “If any one shall lose or break anything, let him hasten without delay to accuse himself of it,” they ran to the abbot and, weeping bitterly, told him all that had happened. The good abbot pitied their distress, and calling the brethren together who were disposed to treat the matter rather severely, he said to them, “These innocents have committed a fault, but with no evil intention; they ought, therefore, to be spared, and when they grow up to be men it will be easy for them to make good the damage they have done.” Then, dismissing the monks, he secretly admonished the boys, how to disarm their anger, and they, following his directions, entered the church with bare feet, and there made their vow; and when they grew up to manhood and were raised to wealth and honour they remembered what they had promised, and bestowed great benefits on the church.[119]

Not the least benefit conferred by the monks on their countrymen by the foundation of these abbeys was the improvement of the lands which they drained and cultivated. This, indeed, does not properly enter into our present subject; but the graphic pictures which monkish historians have left of the spots which they thus tamed and beautified, must be referred to as showing that their minds and tastes were no less richly cultivated. It is thus that William of Malmsbury speaks of Thorney abbey after its restoration by St. Ethelwold, who took great pains in planting it with forest and fruit trees: “Thorney,” says the historian, “is indeed a picture of paradise, and for pleasantness may be compared to heaven itself, bearing trees even in the very fens, which tower with their lofty tops to the clouds; while below, the smooth surface of the water attracts the eye and reflects the verdant scene. Not the smallest spot is here unimproved--all is covered with fruit trees or vines, which creep along the ground, and in some places are supported on poles.”

But it remains for us to speak of the death of those great men, whose successful labours had effected so much for the real civilisation of their country. Ethelwold was the first to depart; and four years later, in 988, St. Dunstan terminated his grand career, rapt, as it would seem, in an ecstasy of love; for, after receiving the Holy Viaticum, he poured out a sublime prayer, and expired with its accents on his lips. St. Oswald survived his two friends until the February of 992; and among all the beautiful narrations of the deaths of the saints, “precious in the sight of the Lord,” few can be found more touching than that which describes his end. On the day previously, coming out of his oratory into the open air, he stood for a while gazing up into the sky, as though fixedly contemplating some glorious sight. Being asked what he saw, he only smiled, and said he was looking at the place whither he was going. He then returned to his oratory and desired them to give him the Holy Unction and the last Viaticum, although, indeed, he had no appearance of illness. That evening he assisted at the night office in his cathedral, and when morning came, according to his custom, he washed the feet of twelve poor men, reciting as he did so the Gradual Psalms. At their close, still kneeling, he pronounced the _Gloria Patri_, and then, bending gently forward, expired at the feet of the poor. When his holy body was carried to the grave, a milk-white dove, with wings extended, hovered over the bier all the way. He had been granted the satisfaction of witnessing the completion of his favourite abbey of Ramsey, which he consecrated just three months before his death.[120]

The English restoration of letters, inaugurated by St. Dunstan and his companions, took place at a critical period, when fresh tides of barbarism were overwhelming the continental territories, and reducing the monastic institute in France to its very lowest ebb. This tenth century was, in fact, the famous “Age of Iron,” which, in spite of its celebrity as the very midnight of the Dark Ages, fills, strange to say, a very important place in the history of monastic literature. It will, therefore, be necessary to consider its various bearings at some length; and we will begin with the ungracious task of painting it in its blackest aspect.

_CHAPTER IX._

THE IRON AGE.

A.D. 900 TO 1000.

Baronius, when about to enter on the history of the tenth century, thinks it necessary to prepare his readers for what is coming by a sentence which, in spite of the wildness of its metaphors, has obtained an odd kind of immortality. “We are now entering on a period,” he says, “which for its sterility of every excellence may be denominated _iron_; for its luxuriant growth of vice, _leaden_; and for its dearth of writers, _dark_.” Why iron should be chosen as most fit to typify the sterility of virtue, and lead to figure forth the luxuriance of vice, is not perhaps at first sight obvious; but these words, which are certainly not remarkable for the appropriateness of their imagery, have formed the text for many commentators; from one of whom, as being a professedly Catholic writer, I select a passage which claims to explain at least one of the phenomena of this period--the darkness, namely, that succeeded the establishment of the Carlovingian schools.

“The want of success in the excellent establishments of Charlemagne,” observes Mr. Berington, in his “Literary History of the Middle Ages,” “may be traced to various causes:--to the inaptitude of the teachers, who, though endowed with the natural powers of intellect, knew not how to excite attention or interest curiosity; to the subjects called sciences, or the seven liberal arts, which were so taught as to disgust by their barbarous elements, and of which the emaciated and haggard skeleton was alike unfit for ornament or use; to the absence of the first rudiments of education, as of reading and writing, in the higher orders of society, and their habitual devotion to martial exercises; to the oblivion in which the classical productions of former ages were held; to a want of capacity in the bishops and clergy and monks, upon whom the weighty charge of education had devolved; to a selfish reflection in the same order of men that, _in proportion to the decline of learning and the spread of ignorance, their churches and monasteries had prospered_, whilst the revival of letters was likely to direct the copious streams of benevolence into a channel less favourable to the interests of the clergy and monks; to a marked aversion in the Bishop of Rome to any scheme by which the minds of churchmen or others might be turned to the study of antiquity, and of those documents which would disclose on what futile reasons and sandy foundations the exclusive prerogatives of his see were established; and _to the genius of the Christian system_ itself, which, when it expelled the Pagan Deities from their seats, too successfully fixed a reproach on many things connected with them, and thus contributed to banish from the schools, and consign to oblivion those works on the study and prevalence of which will ever depend the progress of the arts, of the sciences, and of literary taste.”[121]

The above passage has been somewhat of the longest, and I shall therefore do no more than allude to the terms in which another historian of the Middle Ages, of yet greater repute, speaks of “the inconceivable ignorance which overspread the face of the Church, broken only by a few glimmering lights which owe almost all their distinction to the surrounding darkness;” to his unqualified and unsupported declaration, that “the cathedral and monastic schools were exclusively designed for religious purposes, and afforded no opportunities to the laity;” that “for centuries it was rare for a layman, of whatever rank, to know how to sign his name;” that “with the monks a knowledge of church-music passed for literature;” and that as to the religion which prevailed during the same period, “it is _an extremely complex question whether it were not more injurious to public morals and the welfare of society than the entire absence of all religious notions_.”[122]

“One of the later Greek schools,” says Bacon, “is at a standstill to think what should be in it that men should so love lies;” yet he presently adds, “the mixture thereof doth ever give pleasure.” Charity, then, obliges us to believe that the fictitious element which appears in these passages has only been added to stimulate the pleasure of the reader. In perusing them, and scores of others which might easily be accumulated from writers both great and petty, we are, of course, left with the impression on our minds, that not only was the ignorance most dense, gross, and universal, but that it found its cause in the low cunning of the clergy, and especially of the monks, who had just wit enough to keep the rest of the world in darkness. And as the first writer has expressly told us that their object in doing this was to maintain that flourishing state of monastic prosperity which, we are assured, existed in proportion to the spread of ignorance, we are logically bound to suppose that the countries and the times wherein darkness thus prevailed were the Elysium and the golden age of monkhood. No one certainly would be led to suppose that the iron, leaden, and pitch-dark state of society in the tenth century, could be accounted for by any particular circumstances in the history of the times, which, far from favouring the monastic institute, all but destroyed it, and did totally eradicate it in the districts most subject to their influence. No,--our historians do not so much as allude to such insignificant episodes in history as the irruptions of three new races of barbarians, but complacently refer us to the superstition and selfishness of the Bishop of Rome and his clergy, which they regard, as a certain astronomer regarded the spots in the sun, as being “large enough to account for anything.”