Chapter XXVII (4)

The fall of Rome was the annihilation of a great dominant power, a power which had been supreme; and when the barbarians marched into her streets and devastated her homes, the world sunk back into a tenebrous night of social, intellectual, and moral darkness. Her mighty empire, held together like one country by her genius, was broken up and divided amongst the different tribes who had poured down from the north and overrun Europe, divided just as the fortune of war or the caprice of choice indicated. It was the approach of a moral chaos; but the hand whose guidance is to be felt in the life of individuals, and may be traced in the history of nations, did not abandon the world to the utter confusion of its own impulses. As the imperial power of Rome fell away and died out like an effete thing, wasted by its own' corruption, a new power was springing up in vigorous youth by the side of that which was declining. Christianity was advancing toward the west with rapid strides, victorious through the persecution of tyranny and the jealousy of philosophy; it was then taking its stand in the world as an influence; but if at this moment amid the vast changes and subversion of things which took place after the fall of Rome, Christianity had been merely a reformed philosophy, and had been left to the mercy of pagan barbarians, it would have been extinguished in its infancy. That was avoided by a remarkable concatenation of circumstances. For centuries there had been an apprehension in the Roman empire of an advance of the barbarous nations in the north of Europe, symptoms of which had manifested themselves in the earliest period of the Christian era. Toward the latter end of the second century the most powerful of these tribes, the Goths, impelled by some influx of other barbarians, advanced from their position near the mouth of the Vistula, invaded the Roman frontier, and took Dacia, where they were found by the Emperor Caracalla at the opening of the third century, in the middle of which they were allowed by Aurelian to settle along the banks of the Euxine, when they were divided into two parts--the "Ostro" or Eastern, and the "Visi" or Western Goths. In the next century a terrible alarm was raised amongst them, which even penetrated into the Roman empire, and up to its capital, where it was related that an awful race of beings--savage, ugly, inhuman, begotten of the devil--were pouring in thousands out of the deserts and plains of Asia into Europe. Such were the Huns. Already they had reached the territory of the Ostrogoths, whom they compelled to supply them with guides to lead them on toward the Visigoths. These latter at their approach fled in the extremity of terror toward the Danube, and implored the protection of Valens the emperor, who allowed them to settle in Moesia, upon the condition that they should defend the imperial frontier. In less than forty years afterward from defending the Roman frontier they sacked Rome. But during this interval an incident took place which had a great influence upon the destinies of Christianity. After the settlement with Valens, an intercourse of a somewhat friendly character sprung up between the Romans and {805} these barbarian defenders of the frontier. The church was suffering from her great Arian apostasy--a form of scepticism exactly parallel to that new light of modern times called Rationalism. Valens was an Arian, and, wishing to convert these pagan barbarians, sent a missionary amongst them in the person of the renowned Ulphilas, whom he made bishop of the Moeso-Goths. This great bishop labored assiduously for the conversion of the barbarians, invented an alphabet, and translated the Scriptures with his own hand into their strange idiom. His labors were blessed with success; the Goths embraced Christianity, though in the Arian form; and fifty years afterward, when Alaric led them into Rome, amid the tumult of the unfettered license of the soldiers, an order was issued to respect the churches of the apostles and the sacred places. In the midst of the devastation of the city and through the very thick of the riot, a band of priests and devotees were seen marching under the protection of Gothic soldiery, carrying on their heads the sacred vessels of St. Peter, and mingling with the shoutings of the ravagers the chant of solemn psalms. Under Gothic protection, and by the express order of the Gothic king, the sacred vessels were deposited in safety at the Vatican; numbers of Christians joined the procession and received shelter, whilst many who were not Christians also availed themselves of the opportunity to join the band of believers and escape in the general confusion. [Footnote 213]

[Footnote 213: Oroslus Hist., lib. vii. c. 39.]

This was the first indication of the new life which was to dawn upon the world under the influence of Christianity. Gradually all the tribes of barbarians yielded to its influence--the Burgundians in Gaul, the Vandals in Africa, the Suevi in Spain, the Ostrogoths, the Franks, and then the Saxons in England; but the early conversions of these barbarians were to the Arian form of Christianity then in the ascendant. Its principal tenet was the denial of the equality of the Son to the Father; and the heresy spread until the error, after being vigorously combated, was suppressed, and the new nations won back to the orthodox faith. Thus was this compensation for the overturn of civilization effected; the world was not abandoned to utter destruction, it was indeed given up to the hands of rude barbarians, but they in turn were subjected to a new influence which accompanied them to the various kingdoms founded upon the ruins of' the extinct empire, and formed the basis in each of those kingdoms of a new and higher civilization. With the fall of Rome the gods of the pagans were overturned, their temples destroyed; and in the midst of the devastation, the ruin, and, the despair into which the world was sinking, the Church of Christ arose as the guiding spirit, the pioneer of the new life. Another incident in connection with the establishment of Christianity, which saved the lore of ancient times from destruction, was the adoption of the Latin language by the church; for although that language had made a settlement in many of the countries subject to the Roman arms, yet a tendency soon sprung up, from the mixture with barbarian invaders, to the degeneracy of the Latin tongue and the rise of new and separate idioms. But it was preserved in comparative purity in the church, which naturally led to the preservation of its most noble monuments; and it ultimately became, when the modern languages were in their infancy, the tongue especially devoted to the transmission of learning. History, poetry, science, and what little there was of literature, found a medium of communication and a means of preservation in the Latin language. Had it not been adopted by the church then for some centuries, whilst the new tongues were gradually developing and settling into a form, the world would have been dark indeed, not a book, not a page, not a {806} syllable would have reached us of the thought, the life, or the events of that period.

From the fourth to the seventh century there would have been an impenetrable gap in the annals of humanity--the voice of history would have been hushed into a dead silence, and the light of the past which beacons the future would have been extinguished in the darkness of a universal chaos. In England, however, the case was somewhat different. From the earliest period of the Saxon domination there was a struggle for a literature in the vulgar tongue. The Saxons had brought with them a vast store of traditional poetry out of which one specimen has been preserved, consisting of an epic poem in forty-three cantos, and about 6,000 lines--the oldest epic of modern times. It is called, "The Gleeman's Song," and was composed by Beowulf in their native wilds and brought over with them in the fifth century. It is a strange poem, impregnated with the vigorous air of the North; strength and simplicity being its chief characteristics. The principal personage is Hrothgar the king, and the poem is full of incidental descriptions of manners and customs which afterward became native to England, and linger about among us even now: there are great halls, ale-carousals, fighting with giants, the elements of a rude chivalry, and an invincible prowess which dares both dragons and ghosts. But the first native writer in Anglo-Saxon after the conversion to Christianity is Caedmon, who lived in the latter part of the seventh century (680); The story of his miraculous inspiration is recorded by Bede. [Footnote 214]

[Footnote 214: Eccl. llist., lib. iv., c. 24.]

He was born in Northumbiria and was a monk of Whitby. He paraphrased large portions or the Scripture, and has aptly been called the Anglo-Saxon Milton; indeed it is more than probable that the Puritan poet borrowed the ideas of his sublime soliloquy of Satan in Pandemonium from this Saxon monk; After Satan's overthrow, Caedmon says--[Footnote 215]

[Footnote 215: Thorpe's edition of Caedmon.]

"Then spake he worde:
This narrow place is most unlike
that other that we formerly knew
high in Heaven's kingdom,
which my master bestowed on me,
Though we it for the All·powerful
may not possess.
We must cede our realm."

So Milton--

"O how unlike the place from whence they fell!"

and in the words of Satan--

"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,
That we must change for heaven, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right."

Caedmon's notion of Pandemonium is the prototype of Milton:

"But around me lie
iron bonds;
presseth this cord of chain,
I am powerless!
me have so hard
the clasps of hell
so firmly grasped.
Here is a vast fire
above and underneath;
never did I see a loathlier landskip;
the flame abateth not
hot over hell.
Me hath the clasping of these rings,
this hard polished band,
impeded in my course,
debarred me from my way.
My feet are bound,
my hands are manacled
. . . . .
About me the
huge gratings
of hard iron,
forged with heat,
with which me God
hath fastened by the neck."

Nearly all these ideas are incorporated in Milton's sublime picture--

". . . . down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire."
. . . . . _Line 48_.
"Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild?"
. . . . . _Line 180_.
"A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
As one great furnace, flamed."
_Line 61_
". . . . torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed."
_Line 67_.

But after the death of Caedmon (680), there must have been a great deal of poetry written which is now lost, for we read that Bede, on his {807} death-bed, repeated several passages from national poets, one of which is preserved in that interesting description of the last moments of the great historian, written by S. Cuthbert, who was with him to the end. [Footnote 216] But the chivalrous poetry of tradition gave way to that of religion, which is the characteristic of Saxon song after the sixth century.

[Footnote 216: Asseri Annaies (Gale's Collec.) ann.; 731.]

We are also told that Aldhelm, bishop of Sherbourne, who died in the year 709, was one of the best poets of his day. But still at this period, although there was a struggle after a national literature, the great works were all written in Latin; and Bede, much as he admired the Saxon poets of his country, intrusted his Ecclesiastical History to the only idiom sacred to learning. Gildas and Nennius, who preceded Bede, also wrote in Latin. But the Saxons were the first out of all the barbarians to acquire a vernacular literature. Of that literature we are scarcely competent to judge; but from what has come down to us, from allusions in history, from the state of education among them, we may safely conclude that although little has survived, it was not a poor literature. We must remember the continual scenes of devastation which took place during the period of their domination; when monasteries were rifled, books burnt, and manuscripts wantonly destroyed. From the time of Alfred, only one Anglo-Saxon writer of any consequence has come down to us, Olfric; but from what we know of Saxon progress we may be assured there were many others. It is evident from the state of education among them. Before the middle of the seventh century schools had sprung up, and toward the latter end an impetus was given to learning by the labors of Theodore and Adrian, of whom Bede asserts that they gathered together a crowd of disciples, and taught them not only the books of Holy Writ, but the arts of ecclesiastical poetry, astronomy, and arithmetic, and adds in proof that some of their scholars were alive in his day who were as well versed in the Greek and Latin tongues as their own. [Footnote 217]

[Footnote 217: Eccl. Hist. lib., iv., c. 2.]

Even the ladies among the Saxons were well educated, for it was to them that Aldhelm addressed his work De Laude Virginitatis, and Boniface corresponded with ladies in Latin. In the ninth century also we find that schools were flourishing in various parts of the kingdom, especially the one at York, under Archbishop Egbert, who taught Greek, Latin, and Hebrew to the scholars, amongst whom was Alcuin the friend of Charlemagne. From the letters of Alcuin, but more especially from his History of the Church of York, we may learn that for the same there was a renowned library there, and as it is the earliest list of books--the first catalogue of an English library extant--we may as well subjoin it. Alcuin says that in his library were the works of Jerome, Hilarius, Ambrose, Augustine, Athanasius, Gregory, Pope Leo, Basil, Chrysostom, and others. Bede and Aldhelm, the native authors, of course were there. In history and philosophy there were Orosius, Boethius, Pompeius, Pliny, Aristotle, and Cicero. In poetry, Sedulius Juveneus, Prosper, Arator, Paulinus, Fortunatus, Lactantius; and of the classics, Virgil, Statius, and Lucan. Of grammarians there was a great number, such as Probus, Phocas, Donatus, Priscian, Servius, Eutyehius, and Commianus. Boniface was a great book collector, and used to send them home to England. So that we may fairly conclude that if the Danish depredations and the internal dissensions of the country had not been so fatal to the treasures hoarded up in monastic libraries we should have had much more of Saxon literature. The influence of Dunstan, too, gave an impulse to learning both in the country {808} generally and in the church. He himself was a scholar, a musician, an artist, an illuminator, and a man of science; [Footnote 218] but the most prominent figure is Bede, who, as we observed, wrote in Latin; he was well versed in Greek and Hebrew.

[Footnote 218: "Artem scribendi necne citharizaudi pariterque
pingendi peritiam diligenter excoluit."--Cotton MSS.---Cleop., B
xiii., fol., 69. ]

He wrote many works--thirty-seven according to his own list, including compilations; but the most important was his Ecclesiastical History, which traces the course of the national church from the earliest times down to 731, within four years of his own death. In his introduction he honestly gives us a list of his materials, from which we can gather that in all parts of the country the bishops and abbots had instinctively turned their attention to historical writing; for he says he was indebted to Albinus, abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, for the particulars of the Augustinian mission and the history of the Kentish Church generally, and to Northelm, a priest of London, who had discovered at Rome the epistles of Pope Gregory upon the subject; from Daniel, bishop of the West Saxons, he received much assistance as to the history of that province and the adjoining. Abbot Esius, of East Anglia, and Cunebert, of Lindsey, are also mentioned as contributing valuable materials. So that this history of Bede is compiled from the most authentic sources, and forms one of the most valuable collections of ecclesiastical annals extant in any nation. It is a fact worthy of note in the history of letters, that these early prelates of the Saxon Church, and in fact the monks in the various monasteries scattered over the country from the earliest period, and even down to their decadence, silently and patiently recorded the events of their times and of their church, and that their labors, such as have been rescued from the ravages of the past, form the only true "materia historica" of modern writers. But we pass on from the time of Bede to that of Alfred, under whose influence the Saxon language almost displaced the use of the Latin. The extraordinary vicissitudes of his life have been elsewhere recorded, but in literature he was an historian, a theologian, a commentator, and a transcriber. His principal works were translations of Gregory's Pastoral Care, the Universal History of Orosius, Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, and several parts of the Bible; but he not only translated, but interpolated whole pages of his own. In the Pastoral Care he has inserted original prayers; in the History of Orosius there is a sketch of the state of Germany by him, and the translation of Boethius is tesselated with profound and pointed thoughts, which fairly entitle him to the name of philosopher. The greatest achievement of King Alfred was perhaps the reviving and restarting the Saxon Chronicle. It is probable that from the earliest times of the Saxon rule a national record of events had been kept somewhere, either from the instinct of preservation or by concert. The evidence of Bede proves that it was done in the church as regards ecclesiastical matters, and we know that in the time of Alfred there was a short record of bare events, with now and then a genealogy treasured up and handed down from age to age. It was his thought and care to reform these records and restart the Chronicle as a great national archive. For this purpose, he enjoined Plegmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, to collect what could be found, write it out fairly, and commence his labors as the chronicler of the period. From that time the records are fuller and more in detail, and down to the year 1154 it was kept up by different men in different monasteries, who were eye-witnesses of the events they recorded, and out of whose labors there are only six original MSS. extant of this great national work. The first is called the Plegmund, or Benet MSS., because it was, as we have said, compiled by Plegmund at the instigation of Alfred, and is preserved in Benet {809} (Corpus Christi) College, Cambridge. From the year 891 it is written in different hands and by different people down to the year 1070. The second copy is in the Cottonian Collection at the British Museum (Tiberius, A vi.), written apparently by one hand, which has been attributed to Dunstan, and it terminates at the year 977, eleven years before his death. The third copy is in the same collection (Cotton Tiberius, B i.), and is thought to have been written in the monastery of Abingdon; it reaches down to 1066. The fourth copy is also in the Cottonian collection (Tiberius, B iv.), written by different men down to the year 1079. The fifth manuscript is in the Bodleian library at Oxford (Laud, E 80), from internal evidence, written in the year 1122, compiled from older materials, and carried down in different hands to the year 1154, showing the gradual degeneracy of the Saxon language under Norman influence, from 1132 to the end. The sixth and last manuscript is in the Cottonian library (Domitian, A viii.). It has been accredited to a Canterbury monk; it is written in Latin and Saxon, and terminates in 1058. Besides these six, one other MS. is mentioned as of great value, being a transcription of a Cottonian MS., which perished in a fire at Dean's yard in 1731. It is in the Dublin library (E, 5-15), and was written by Lombard in 1863-64. [Footnote 219]

[Footnote 219: For a more detailed account of these MSS. see Preface
to Bohn's edition of the Translation of Bede and Saxon Chronicle.]

Scarcely any country in Europe possesses such an historical treasure as this, so authentic and so characteristic. It is a very interesting study to note its many peculiarities; there are sad gaps in its records, as though the sorrow of the land was too great to be recorded, and the hand had failed; there are songs of triumph at the defeat of the enemy, and pathetic lamentations over desolated homes; there are noble panegyrics upon men of blessed memory, who had fought up bravely for their church and country, and words of bitter scorn for traitors, cowards, and profligates; it contains pious reflections, ejaculations, and aspirations; it is a most vivid picture of the manners, the thoughts, the joys, the sorrows of the most interesting and important period in the history of our country, as though the life itself, with its characters and incidents, were made to pass before our eyes in a rapid panorama.

Such was the result of one of Alfred's many plans for the good of his kingdom. His own diligence as a writer and translator told vitally upon the language, then rapidly improving. Latin manuscripts had for some time previously been interlined with Anglo-Saxon "glosses"--that is, interpretations of Latin words and passages in Anglo-Saxon--and this gradually led to the complete transcription of Latin MSS. into Anglo-Saxon, and the writing of original matter in the vernacular tongue. [Footnote 220]

[Footnote 220: A specimen of this interlinear translation may be
seen in the Cottonian collection--Vespasian, A i.--a Psalter
written in the year 1000, in Latin capitals, with an Anglo-Saxon
interpretation between the lines.]

Although only one writer of any consequence has been handed down to us from the time of Alfred, yet we may fairly infer that many others lived and wrote, whose works were destroyed in the ravages made by the Danes from that time to the Norman conquest, and afterward when Norman monks looked with contempt upon Saxon MSS., and used them for other purposes, such as binding or transcription after erasure. The Latin then once more became the language of literature in this country. Still the Saxon lived, and would not be trampled out by the Normans, though it degenerated sadly until, in the fourteenth century, an idiom sprung up by a mingling of the two, which has been called Semi-Saxon. Out of this came the early English, from which, after an additional Saxon infusion from Puritan times, came the idiom we now use, whose strong Saxon basis bids fair to make it live through all time, and, is spreading it in every quarter of the world.

{810}

It will be interesting to note at this point that two men managed to preserve a great deal of literary matter out of the gross Vandalism which was rife, Archbishop Parker and Sir Robert Cotton. Parker's collection is in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and those of Cotton in the British Museum, the present reference to which, under the titles of Roman emperor's, arose from the circumstance that in his own library they were arranged on shelves, over each of which was a bust of one of the Roman emperors. In this way, and by the diligence of these two men, many valuable MSS. were rescued which had passed into the hands of private individuals and booksellers.

All hopes of a national vernacular literature were, however, frustrated by the advent of the Normans. Centuries before, the French had ceased to sing their mournful litany, "A furore Normannorum libera nos Domine," and had found it advisable to give these troublesome strangers a settlement. Here they had multiplied and thriven until the middle of the eleventh century, when they were the most promising people in Europe. There are traits in the Norman character not unlike the Roman. The Gothic tribes generally adopted the language and, to a certain extent, the customs of the countries they conquered; but the Normans, like the Romans, always endeavored to graft their own language and customs upon their vanquished. As soon, therefore, as William had made his tenure sure in England, he began the work of Saxon extermination by ordering that the elements of grammar should be taught in the French language, that the Saxon caligraphy should be abandoned, and all deeds, pleadings in courts, and laws should be in French. Saxon then sunk into contempt, and those of the old race who were more politic than patriotic set to work vigorously to acquire the elements of the favorite tongue. Then also the custom of writing books in Latin was revived, and continued, as regards all important works, down to the sixteenth century; for although books were written in English before that time, the language was in a very crude state; for as in Germany and other countries, so in England, the event which first fixed the language was the translation of the Bible into the vernacular; the book, which everybody read, soon became an authority, and was appealed to on points of language. Still the influence of the Normans was beneficial, both upon the manners and the literature of the country. The Saxons, with all their greatness, were not a very refined people; they were given to carousals of which we can scarcely form any conception, their diet was coarse, and their manners unpolished; but the Normans, if not more simple in their habits, were more refined. Norman extravagance found vent, not in drunken orgies and riotous feasting, but in fine buildings, horses, trappings, and dress. [Footnote 221] The importation of provincial poetry in the shape of Trouvère poems, romances, and fabliaux, had a refining effect upon the literature, and laid the foundation of English chivalry. But the most beneficial effect was the introduction of two or three master spirits into the country, whose friendship William had formerly cultivated. Of the two most important we will give a rapid sketch.

[Footnote 221: There is a very good comparison of the manners of the
two races drawn by William of Malmesbury in his Gesta Regum; and,
being related to both, he is likely to have given a fair estimate.]

In the early morning of a day in the first quarter of the eleventh century, a poor young scholar walked through the gates of Pavia, staff in hand, into the open country, and made his weary way across the Alps. He was heavy in heart and light in purse; he had lost his parents, and had left his native city to seek the scanty livelihood of a vagrant scholar, and yet bound up in that ragged form, as it were in an undeveloped germ, were wealth, power, and influence; he was making his way, {811} as far as he knew, to some of those French schools of disputation which had sprung up, where a poor scholar whose wits had been sharpened by scanty fare, might, by a happy sophism or a crushing conclusion, earn a bed and refreshment for the night; but he was in reality making his way to fame, distinction, and wealth, to a conqueror's court, and to the episcopal throne of Canterbury. This ragged scholar, who thus left his native city, was Lanfranc, a name familiar to English ears and ever memorable in English history, For some years he led this vagrant life, travelling from place to place, disputing and studying, when he once more returned to Pavia and established himself as a pleader. His eloquence soon brought fame and competence; but urged by some hidden impulse, he threw up the prospects open to him; once more left the city, and once more took his way across the Alps and settled at Avranches in Normandy, where many schools were established. He soon found disciples; but the secret yearning of his heart developed itself--the monastery of Bea was not far distant, and to it he bent his steps, hoping to find that peace which the cloister alone could afford. But he was not allowed to remain in obscurity, his scholars and others, attracted by his fame, crowded around him, flocked to his lectures, and the school of Bea became so renowned that the attention of the young Duke of Normandy, who also had in him the germ of a glorious career, was attracted to this rising dialectician, and through the medium of intellectual intercourse a friendship was engendered which procured for the conqueror of England a wise and trusty adviser, and paved the way to fortune for, the poor student. The remainder of his career may be summed up in a few words. William had just founded a new monastery at Caen, and over it, he placed his friend as abbot. But during the twenty years which had elapsed between the time of his settlement at Bea and his elevation to the abbacy of Caen, the school he had founded had become most renowned, and some of the great men of after times boasted of having sat there at Lanfranc's feet. Among these were Bishops Guimond, Ives, and another Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm. On one occasion after the elevation of Lanfranc to the primacy of England, he was obliged to visit Rome and have an audience of Pope Alexander II., who paid him such marked respect that the courtiers asked the reason, and the Pope replied, "It is not because he is primate of England that I rose to meet him, but because I was his pupil at Bea, and there sat at his feet to listen to his instruction."

While at Caen, however, he entered into the renowned controversy with Berenger upon the doctrine of the real presence in the Eucharist, Berenger admitting the fact but denying the change of substance. The results of this controversy, however, were anticipated by neither party. It led to a thorough change in the mode of investigation of truth, more especially of divine truth. Berenger had adopted the course of arguing the point upon the grounds of pure reason, a course not unfamiliar to an expert dialectician like Lanfranc, but utterly novel in theological disputation, where authority was omnipotent. Lanfranc himself says of his opponent that he desired "relictis saeris auctoritatibus ad dialecticam confugium facere." But like a true athlete, he meets his adversary with his own weapons, and for the first time in Europe men beheld a vital theological dogma being discussed by champions who had agreed to throw aside all the weight of authority and rely upon the strength of their own logic. This was the first signal for the union of scholasticism with theology, which prevailed in Europe for centuries, tingeing even the writings of the early reformers. What Lanfranc had done in the pressure of controversy, Anselm took up with all the ardor of a convert; and the change which passed over the thought of Europe {812} amounted to a sort of intellectual revolution. But to return to the fortunes of Lanfranc;--soon after William had been consecrated he returned to Normandy, taking with him Stigand, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose deposition he ultimately procured, when he immediately installed his friend and adviser, Lanfranc, into the see of Canterbury. At first, however, Lanfranc declined the post, upon the grounds that he did not know the language; but his objection was overruled, and in the year 1070 he was consecrated and took up his residence in England.

To him at Bea succeeded as teacher, Anselm, who made great advances in the scholastic mode of teaching. He was also prior of the monastery, and during this period he wrote six treatises on the Fall of Satan, on Truth, on Original Sin, on the Reason why God created Man, the Liberty of the Will, and the Consistency of Freedom with the Divine Prescience. These great questions were then uppermost in men's minds, and they were treated by Anselm in the new and more attractive mode of appeal to pure reason. Whilst in the midst of these studies he was appointed abbot of his monastery, which he reluctantly accepted, and in the year 1093, fifteen years afterward, four years after the death of Lanfranc, he was appointed by William II. to the archbishopric of Canterbury. His relations with the king were not happy; he opposed that obstinate and rapacious monarch, and a series of misunderstandings ensued, which led him to retire to Rome to consult with the Pope. During his absence he wrote that book by which he is most known, Cur Deus Homo, Why God was made Man. He also took a prominent part in the Council of Bari, in 1098, where he procured the decision against the Greek delegates, upon the question of the Procession of the Holy Ghost. Upon the death of William he returned; but the rest of his life was occupied in continual disputes on points of privilege with the king, Henry, and he died in the year 1109.

But we will now advance to the consideration of that great change which came over the thought of Europe, and bears the name of scholasticism. The controversy of Lanfranc with Berenger on the doctrine of the real presence, may be accepted as the point where the new method was applied to theology; from that time it became the favorite mode. But although the scholastic philosophers professed to rely upon bare reason, they appear to have instinctively felt that great want of human nature, the want of an oracle, and they found their oracle in the works of Aristotle, then in use in the university and schools of Spain, sadly perverted by being filtered through an Arabic translation. Men flew to Arabic grammars, and to Spain, to Arabic versions of Aristotle, and the Stagyrite then became the oracle of the Scholastics just as the fathers were of their opponents. But still, as is and must be the case in all religious controversies, both parties lay under the same necessity, and, after all, drew their premises from the same quarter. The defender and the opposer were alike subject to the influence of revelation; without that, the opponent would have wanted the subject of opposition, and the defender the object of his defence, so that the premises of both appear to be involved in the same thing, and in fine the Scholastics fell back also upon the fathers, as may be seen in the Sentences of Peter Lombard, the handbook of scholasticism, which is nothing but a mass of extracts from the fathers and popes, worked up together into a system of theology. In its earliest form it cannot be denied that scholasticism did good. It was a healthy revival of intellectual life, it stimulated all classes of thinkers, and created a passion for inquiry; it brought out such great minds as Abelard, Duns Scotus, and Thomas Aquinas. The very subjects upon which men debated gave an elevation to thought, and the result was an intellectual activity which has rarely been equalled. It must be remembered also that the schoolmen did not discard {813} the facts laid down by the fathers; they were not infidels, but their investigations turned more upon the mode of operation--they accepted the divine presence in the Eucharist, but what they wanted to ascertain was the way in which it manifested itself. They believed in the Incarnation, but they desired to know the exact mode in which that sacrifice had worked out human redemption.

But we must return to the development of English literature. After the Norman Conquest, we have already observed, the Latin tongue became once more the medium of communication for the learned, and all great works were written in that idiom, so that there were three tongues used in England: the Latin by the clergy and scholars, the Norman-French by the court and nobles, and the Saxon, which fell to the common people. The literature of that period was rich in some departments, poor in others. In philosophy, whatever we may think of its merit, it was anything but scanty, and a perfect library of scholastic writings has come down even to our times, a desert of argumentation and reasoning, but containing veins of gold, could a mortal ever be found endowed with the patience to dig deep enough, and labor long enough to open them. The Book of Sentences, by Peter the Lombard, bishop of Paris, to which we have already alluded, was one of the wonders of the twelfth century. It was divided into four parts: the first treated of the Trinity and divine attributes, the second of the Creation, the origin of angels, of the fall of man, of grace, free will, of original and actual sin; the third of the Incarnation, faith, hope, charity, the gifts of the spirit, and the commandments of God; and the fourth treated of the Sacraments, the Resurrection, the Last Judgment, and the state of the righteous in heaven. Although a great deal is borrowed from the fathers, yet there is in this work a marked tendency toward the scholastic method; he wanders into abstruse speculations and subtle investigations as to the generation of the Word, the possibility of two persons being incarnate in one, sins of the will and of the action. It did much to mould the thought of succeeding writers, and it won for its author the title of Master of Sentences; it was appealed to as an authority; what the "Master" said was a sufficient answer to an opponent. Another great work was the Summa of Thomas Aquinas, a book which excites admiration even now. Duns Scotus and Occam, also contributed voluminously to the stores of scholastic theology. The literature, however, was richer in history. Whilst the theologians were debating about questions beyond the reach of the human intellect, a band of quiet pious men devoted their time to the recording the tale of human actions. Upward of forty men lived from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, who have written the history of the country from the earliest periods down to the dawning of the sixteenth century. Probably no country in the world is richer in historical material than ourselves; and as an admirable instance of monastic diligence, and evidence of intellectual activity in what has been usually termed an age of dense ignorance, we subjoin a table of the historical writers, upon whose labors the authentic history of the country must rest. [Footnote 222]

[Footnote 222: We omit in our list the supposititious history of
Croyland, by Ingulphus, which has been disposed of by Richard
Palgrave, as of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, and of little
historical value.]

MONASTIC WRITERS OF ENGLISH HISTORY.

_Twelfth Century._

William of Poictiers, History of Conquest--Chaplain to William I.

Ordericus Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History to
1141--Monk of St. Evroult.

Anonymous, Gesta Stephani.

William of Jumièges, History of
Normandy--Monk of Jumièges.

Florence of Worcester, Chronicon ex
Chronicis to 1119--Monk of Worcestcr.

Matthew of Westminstcr, Flores
Historiarum--Doubtful.

{814}

William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, Historia
Novella, Gesta Pontificum, Vita Anselmi,
De Antiquitate Glastoniae--Monk of Malmesbury.

Eadmer, Historia Novorum, and others--
Monk of Canterbury.

Turgot, Confessor of Margaret, Queen of
Malcolm Canmore; wrote her Life and
History of Durham (called Simeon of Durham),
History of St. Cuthbert, De Rebus
Anglorum, and other works--Monk of Durham.

Ailred, Account of Battle of Standards--Abbot
of Rivault, York.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, British History--Monk of Monmouth.

Alfred of Beverley, Gestis Regum--Canon of
St. John's, Beverley.

Giraldus Cambrensis, Itinerarium Cambriae,
Topographia Hiberniae, De Rebus a se Gestis,
etc--Politician.

Henry of Huntingdon, Eight Books History,
Julius Caesar to 1154--Archdeacon.

Roger of Hovenden, Chronicle, 732 to 1202,
in continuation of Bede.

William of Newburgh, Hist. from Conquest to
1197--Monk of Newburgh.

Benedictus Abbas, Chronicle, 1170 to 1192
--Abbot of Peterboro'.

Ralph de Diceto, Two Chron., one 589 to
1148, and the other to 1199, Hist. of
Controversy between Henry and à Becket,
Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury to
1200, in the Anglia Sacra--Archdeacon of London.

Gervase of Canterbury, Chronicle, from 1100
to end of century, three other pieces, Contests
between Monks and Archbishop Baldwin,
History of the Archbishops, from Augustine
to Walter, 1205--Monk of Canterbury.

_Thirteenth Century._

Richard of Devizes, Chron. of Reign of Richard I--Monk.

Jocelyn de Brakelond, Chron., 1173 to 1202
--Monk of St. Edmondsbury.

Roger of Wendover, Hist. to 1235--Monk of St. Albans.

Matthew Paris, Historia Major. Conq. to
1259--Monk of St. Albans.

_Fourteenth Century._

William Rishanger, Continuation of M. Paris
to 1322, Wars of the Barons--Monk of St. Albans.

John of Brompton, [Footnote 223]
Chron. to 1199, from Saxons--Monk of Jerevaux.

[Footnote 223: Authorship doubtful.]

Thomas Wickes, Chron., of Salisbury to 1304
--Canon of Osney.

Walter Hemingford, Hist. Conquest to 1273
--Monk of Gisbro'.

Robert of Avesbury, Hist. Reign of Edward
III to 1356--Register of Canterbury.

Nicholas Trivet, Hist. from 1135 to 1307--Dominican.

Adam Murimuth, Chron. 1303 to 1337--Monk.

Henry Knyghton, Hist. from Edgar to Richard II--Canon of Leicester.

Thomas Stubbs, Chron. of Archbishops of
York to 1373--Monk.

William Thorne, Chron. of Abbots of St.
Augustine, 1397--Monk.

Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon [Footnote 224] to 1357--Monk.

[Footnote 224: Caxton printed it, with a
continuation of his own, to 1460.]

_Fifteenth Century._

Thomas Walsingham, Hist. Brevis to Hy. of
Normandy--Monk of St. Albans.

Thomas Otterbourne, Hist. to 1420--Franciscan.

John Whethamstede, Chron. 1441 to 1461--
Abbot of St. Albans.

Thomas Elmham, Life of Henry V.--Prior of Linton.

William of Worcester, Chron. 1324 to 1491--Monk.

John Rouse, Hist. Kings of England to 1490--
Chaplain to Earl of Warwick.

_Monastic Registers._

Glastonbury, 63 to 1400
Melrose, 735 to 1270
Margan, 1066 to 1232
Waverly, 1066 to 1291
Ely, 156 to 1169
Abingdon, 870 to 1131
Bishops of Durham, 633 to 1214
Burton 1004 to 1263
Rochester, 1115 to 1124
Holyrood, 596 to 1163

Add to these many historical documents which have been preserved from destruction, such as the Doomsday Book, the Liber Niger, rolls and public registers, and we have a repertoire of historical materials such as scarcely any other nation in Europe can boast of. From the time when the Saxon Chronicle was commenced down to the age of printing, the pens of the monks were unwearied in recording the history of their country; and although they had their share of human weakness, and were influenced in matters of opinion frequently by the treatment shown to their order, still among such a mass of writers the truth may surely be ascertained. The severity of criticism applied to history in these {815} days is driving men rapidly to active research among these _origines histoicae_. Formerly when a man wrote a history, he framed his work upon other men's labors and his own fancy, as was instanced in the case of Robertson, who coolly tells us that he had made up his mind to write a history of something, but was undecided whether it should be a history of Greece, of Leo X., William III. and Anne, or Charles V. At last he decided upon the latter, and we may infer from a letter of his to Dr. Birch in what degree of preparation he was for the work. He says: "I never had access to any copious libraries, and do not pretend to any extensive knowledge of authors, but I have made a list of such as I thought most essential to the subject, and have put them down as _I have found them mentioned in any book I happened to read_." In another letter he admits: "My chief object is to adorn as far as I am capable of adorning the history of a period which deserves· to be better known." Hume was no better than Robertson, for it appears that the latter had consulted the great English historian about Mary, who sent him a version which Robertson at once used. But shortly after Hume received some MSS. from Dr. Birch, who went more deeply into these things, and in consequence he wrote to his friend Robertson to the following effect: "What I wrote to you with regard to Mary, etc., was from the printed histories and papers, but I am now sorry to tell you that by Murdin's State Papers the matter is put beyond all question. I got these papers during the holidays by Dr. Birch's means, and as soon as I read them _I ran to Millar_ and desired him very earnestly to stop the publication of your history till I should write to you and give you an opportunity of correcting a mistake so important, but he _absolutely refused compliance_. He said that your book was finished; that the whole narrative of Mary's trial must be wrote over again; that it was uncertain whether the new narrative could be brought within the same compass with the old; that this change would require the cancelling a great many sheets; and that there were scattered passages through the volumes _founded on your own theory_." [Footnote 225]

[Footnote 225: Disraeli's Literary Miscellanies.]

We quote these letters to show how history was written in bygone times by men who until the days of Maitland and Froude have been regarded as authorities. The blind led the blind, and the History of Scotland-- whole sheets of which ought to have been rewritten, and scattered passages founded upon theory erased--was given to the world, because the printer refused to disturb the press, and the author was disinclined to demolish such a fair creation. But the day for imaginative history is past, and a new light is dawning upon the world, the necessity of which is apparent from these revelations. For the future the historian must write from manuscripts or printed copies of manuscripts, or his theories and his fancies will be soon dissipated under a criticism which is becoming daily more powerful, and acquiring new compass as fast as the labors of the Record Office are being brought to light. The narrative of the most vital periods of our country's history will have to be rewritten. We are being gradually taught that the dark ages were not so dark as our conceptions of them; that some of our favorite historical villains may yet be saved; and that many of the gods we have worshipped had very few claims to divinity. The very fact of there being such a repertoire of historical materials created by the labors of those forty monks of different monasteries; the existence of a voluminous and important controversy involving the vital questions of religion, and argued with scholarship, logical acuteness, wit, and vigor; the works of piety, art, and architecture which have come down to us from that age--must convince us that, however rude the physical mode {816} of life may have been, the intellectual activity and mental calibre of the men of those days, when we remember their immense disadvantages, were little inferior to those of our day. We produce many things, but not many great things; but the labors of mediaeval monasticism were not _multa sed multum_, and they live now, and probably will live when much of this multiform literature of our times will be obliterated by the impartial, discriminating hand of time.

We cannot pass over this period of what we may call national Latin literature--that is, when the literatures of all nations were written in Latin--without noticing the history of one book which has ever stood out prominently from the mass of mediaeval productions, not only from its intrinsic excellence, but from the unfathomable mystery connected with its authorship. We allude to the treatise De lmitatione Christi, popularly attributed to Thomas à Kempis. His claim rests chiefly upon the fact that the first printed copy was made from a manuscript written by him and signed "Finitus et completus Anno Domino, 1441, per manus patris Thomae Kempis in monte S. Agnetis prope Swoll." But there is in this subscription no evidence of authorship; it was the usual formula appended to copies. Kempis was an inveterate copyist, and it will be a sufficient proof of the untenable nature of this argument if we mention that a copy of the Bible made by him is subscribed in a similar manner--"Finitus et completus Anno Domini, 1439, in Vigilia S. Jacobi Apostoli per manus Fratris Thomae à Kempis ad laudem Dei in Monasterio S. Agnetis." There is no evidence, therefore, of authorship in the subscription of the MS.

But doubts existed soon after the publication of the work about its authorship, and another MS. was discovered at Arône bearing the inscription, "Incipiunt capitula primi libri Abbatis Johannis _Gesen_ De Imitatione Christi et contemptu omnium vauitatum mundi," and at the end was written "explicit liber quartus et ultimus Abbatis Johannis _Gersen_ de Sacramento Altaris." The house in which this document was found belonged to the company of Jesus, but as it had formerly been held by Benedictines, some vigilant members of that active body at once declared it must have been written by one of their order. They managed to get possession of it, and immediately brought it out with the addition in the title after the name of Gersen of "Abbatis Ordinis Sti. Benedicti." Then commenced that celebrated controversy between the two monastic orders, the Augustines, who advocated the claims of Thomas à Kempis, and the Benedictines, who fought for Gersen. A volume might be written easily upon the bare history of that controversy, as some hundreds of volumes were during its progress. It began immediately after the publication of this Benedictine claim in the year 1616, and it raged in different countries in Europe for more than two centuries, the last controversy coming to a conclusion in 1832, which arose from the discovery of a MS. at Paris, copied in 1550, and a document purporting that it was bequeathed to one of the De' Avogadri family in the year 1347. This further confirmation of the antiquity of the work gave rise to the last controversy which ended like all the others in increasing the doubt as to Thomas à Kempis's authorship and the uncertainty of the whole question.