CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM Cornell University Library B721 .P82 of the ijistoVi^LKS' olin The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029007635 ILLUSTRATIONS HISTOEY OF MEDIEVAL THOUGHT Si vis uranias sursum volitare per auras, OmMATE GLAUCIVIDO LUSTRABIS TEMPLA SOPHY ae. Joannes Scotus. ILLUSTRATIONS HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL THOUGHT IN THE DEPAETMENTS OF THEOLOGY AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITICS REGINALD LANE POOLE, M.A. BALUOL COLLEGE, OXFORD DOCTOR IN PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG PUBLISHED FOR THE HIBBERT TRUSTEES WILLIAMS AND NOEGATE 14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON AND 20 SOUTH FEBDEBIOK STREET, EDINBURGH MDCCCLXXXIV [^// rights reserved} A-2/:l/2^ /cci 'RNELL UNfViIRSlTY UBRARV ©ifotli PRINTED BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY ADVEETISEMENT. The following series of essays was mainly written during two years of residence in Germany and Switzer- land, in accordance with the rules of the Hibbert trustees, at whose gift the author held a travelling scholarship, and by whose direction the present volume is now published. OxroBD, September II, 1884. CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction ... . . ... i CHAPTER I. Claudius of Turin and Agobaed of Lyons ... 27 CHAPTER II. ' John the Soot -53 CHAPTER III. The Daek Age . 79 CHAPTER IV. The School of Chartres . . . 109 CHAPTER V. Petek Abailard . .136 CHAPTER VI. The Trial op Gilbert de la Poee^e . 167 CHAPTER VII. John of Salisbury 201 CHAPTER VIII, The Hierarchical Doctrine of the State . .226 CHAPTER IX. The Opposition to the Temporal Claims of the Papacy . 256 CHAPTER X. Wyclifpe's Doctrine of Lordship 282 VUl CONTENTS. APPENDIX. PAGE I. Note on John the Scot's sdpposed tkavels in Greece 311 II. Excursus on the iatek history op John the Soot . 313 III. Note on a supposed theological exposition bt Gee- beet . . 329 IV. Note on the precuesoes of Nominalism 336 V. ExouEsns ON a. supposed anticipation of saint Ansblm 338 VI. Excursus on the writings of William of Conches 346 VII. Excursus on the interpretation op a place in John OF Salisbury's Metalogicus . . 359 VIII. Note on Abailaed's masters . 363 IX. Note on the second preface to Gilbert de la Porr^b's Commentary on Boethius . 367 X. Note on Clarenbald of Aijras 370 Index of Names ... . 373 Quotations from the Mecueil des Sistoriens des Oaules et de la France are given simply as Bouquet: references to Pertz are to the series of Scriptores in the Mounmenta Germaniae historiea, and those to Jaff^ are to the Bibliotheca Serum Germanic arum, unless otherwise stated. For the Folicraticus and Metalogicus of John of Salisbury the author has used indifferently the small edition of Jo. Maire as issued at Leyden in 1639 and at Amsterdam in 1664. With respect to the details of punctuation and the employment of capital and italic letters, he has not kept strictly to the practice of the various works quoted. In references to manuscripts b appended to a numeral indicates the verso of the leaf ; when however a manuscript is written in double columns A B and 0, D, denote respectively the two columns of recto and verso. INTRODUCTION. The history of medieval thought falls naturally into intboduc- two broad divisions, each of which is brought to a close not by the creation of a new method or system from native resources, but by the introduction of fresh materials for study from without. The first period ended when the works of Aristotle, hitherto known only from partial and scanty versions, were translated into Latin; the second, when a knowledge of Greek letters in their own language made it impossible for men to remain satis- fied with the views of ancient philosophy to which they had previously been confined and upon which their own philosophy had entirely depended. An age of eclecticism, too eager in its enjoyment of the new-found treasure to care to bind itself, as its predecessors had done, to any single authority, was then followed by an age in which the interests of theological controversy drove out every other interest, until at length in the comparative calm after the tempest of the reformation, philosophy entered a new phase, and the medieval or traditional method was finally rejected in favour of one common in this respect to both modern and ancient speculation, that it rested upon independent thought, and regarded no authority as beyond appeal. In the two periods of the middle ages we find nothing absolutely original ; advance is measured less by the power with which men used their intellects than by the B TION. 3 THEOLOGICAL CHARACTER iNTEODuc- skill with which they used their materials. Still there is a difference between the periods which makes the earlier the more interesting to the student of human thought considered as apart from any specific production of it : for while the works of Aristotle were almost totally unknown to the Latin world there was a wider sphere for the exercise of ingenuity, for something approaching originality, than there could be when an authoritative text-book lay ready to hand. In the following essay our attention will be mainly directed to these traces of independence, not so much in the domain of formal philosophy as in those regions where philosophy touches religion, where reason meets superstition, and where theology links itself with political theory. In the later period we shall limit ourselves exclusively to this last subject, to the attempts made to frame a political philo- sophy, and in particular to reconcile the notion of the state with the existence and the claims of an universal church, or to modify those claims by reference to the necessary exigencies of civil government. The field therefore of our investigation is that of theology, but it does not follow on this account that its produce must also be theological. Theology is no doubt the mode of medieval thought : the history of the middle ages is the history of the Latin church. The over- mastering strength of theology, of a clergy which as a rule absorbed all the functions of a literary class, gave its shape to every thing with which it came into contact. Society was treated as though it were actually a theocracy : politics, philosophy, education, were brought under its control and adjusted to a technical theological termiQology. But when this characteristic is recognised, it is found to supply not only the explanation of the OF MEDIEVAL THOUGHT. 3 distance which seems to separate the middle ages from introduc- modern times, but also a means of bridging over the - — interval. Men thought theologically and expressed themselves theologically, but when we penetrate this formal expression we discover their speculations, their aims, their hopes, to be at bottom not very different from our own ; we discover a variety beneath the monotonous surface of their thoughts, and at the same time an unity, ill-deJSned perhaps, but still an unity, pervading the history of European society. There was indeed never a time when the life of Christendom was so confined within the hard shell of its dogmatic system that there was no room left for individual liberty of opinion. A ferment of thought is continually betrayed beneath those forms ; there are even frequent indications of a state of opinion antagonistic to the church itself. The necessity of a central power ruUng the consciences of men of course passed unquestioned, but when this immense authority appeared not a protection but a menace to religion, it was seldom that it was submitted to in complete silence. When the church seemed to be departing from its spiritual dignity and defiling its ceremonial by the super- stitions and the prodigies of heathenism, or when its pontiffs seemed to have adopted all the vices of secular princes and to have exchanged totally the church for the world, there were rarely wanting advocates of a purer Christian order, advocates whose denunciations might rival in vehemence those of a modern protestant. Even the doctrinal fabric of the church was not always safe from attack ; for although no one impugned the truth of Christianity, the attempt was still repeatedly made to clear away the dust of centuries and reveal the simpler system of primitive belief. Such efforts, until we ap- B 2 TION. 4 THEOLOGICAL CHAKACTEE TmN™"*^' P^o^ch the border-line of modern iistory were invariably disappointed. They rarely exerted even a momentary influence over ^ wide circle. In truth, however generously conceived, however heroically sustained, the aims of the premature reformers were often too audaciously, too wantonly, directed against the beliefs of the mass of their fellow-Christians to deserve success. We may admire their nobility or their constancy, but an impartial judge- ment can hardly regret that they failed. They troubled the world, it might be for a few years, and left their single memorial in their writings. Yet, though they may occupy but a small place in the history of civilisation, the light they cast upon the unusual tendencies of thought, the eccentricities, of the middle ages, makes them a not unfruitful subject for study. A still more suggestive line of enquiry is opened in the general history of thought and learning. The masculine spirit and the confidence with which the philosophers of the period carried on their speculations is hardly suspected by those who are not familiar with the original literature. Men who were least of all in- clined to oppose anything that bore the stamp of traditional authority, displayed a freedom of judgement which could not but tend to consequences in one way or another divergent from the established system. The methods by which they accommodated the two are indeed evidence of the imperfect grasp they possessed of the inexorable demands of the reasoning faculties : their theological consciences were equally inexorable in requiring the adjustment ; or perhaps more truly, the necessary conformity of reason and authority was so regularly assumed that they were unaware of the act of accommodation ; the theological correctness of the OF MEDIEVAL THOUGHT. 5 conclusion, however arrived at, was the inevitable conse- introduc- quence of this implicit identification of contradictory - — terms in the premises. We are often at. liberty to leave the ultimate reconciliation out of account, as a mode characteristic of the time rather than an argument due to the individual writer. It is the road on which their thoughts travel that retains its interest for the student of philosophical history. The continuous activity of the human reason in Latin Christendom has its witness partly in the opposition, conscious or unconscious, to the tradition of the church, partly in the spirit of its philosophy. Through these currents we may learn the deeper springs which existed in men's minds and which, however often dormant, frozen by the rigid strength of theology, were yet capable of welling forth to nourish the world. The position held by intellectual studies and by learned men is uniformly the measure of the prevalence of these liberal forces in society ; yet since the greatest writers have usually exercised a more powerful influence over posterity than over their own generation, it is chiefly from their works that we can estimate the power which the stimulus once given to learning and thought could gain in a few minds outstripping their fellows. The history of learning therefore not only supplies the links that connect the several divisions of the flrst part of our enquiry, but also the groundwork on which its argument must be constructed. It is well known that the rise of the western church was accompanied by a rapid decline in the study of classical letters ^. Learning, such as it was, became ' In preparing the following sec- much help from the first chapters tion for the press I have derived of M. Haurfeu's Histoire de la Phi- 6 THE ASCENDENCY OF THE CHURCH iNTEODuc- restricted to one class, the clerery or the monks, and these became more and more inclined to elevate their professional study at the expense, or to the condemnation, of every other. The rhetorical schools which had kept alive, however poorly, the tradition of classical learning were suffered themselves to die out, and their place was only in a small part taken by the seminaries which gradually grew up about different cathedral or monastic establishments. The grammarian was expelled by the scholastic, and the scholastic had little interest or little power to imbue his disciples with more knowledge than was required for a perfunctory execution of the offices of the church. Those who aspired to lead others would seek to advance to an acquaintance, seldom profound or extensive, with the writings of the fathers ; and might thus obtain an indirect and distant view of that country from which Augustin and even Jerom had not been able, however desirous, to shake themselves free. But since the day when the expiring paganism of Eome had entered its last conflict with Christianity, the church had granted no terms to the system she had displaced. It was not alone that the philosophical spirit had proved inimical to orthodoxy : Tertullian's famous saying, "^''^^"^-X^Haereticorum patriarchae ■philoso'pM, expresses but a por- c'ob^e '^''ition of the truth. The entire classical tradition, all learn- ing in its large sense, was treated not merely as irrelevant to the studies of the Christian, but as a snare from which he was taught to flee as from a temptation of the evil one. Such an antagonism inevitably tended to limit logophie soolastique, 1872, and of 1861 (teing the fourth volume of Mr. John Baas Mullinger's essay his Oeuvres). There are some in- on The Schools of Charles the Great ; teresting remarks on the attitude of 1877. I am also indebted to A. P. the church towards secular learning Ozanam'a Civilisation chr^tienne in S. E. Maitland's Dark Ages, xi chez lea Francs, oh. ix, 3rd ed., pp. 171-187 (of. p. 403 n. 2) ; 1844. HOSTILE TO CLASSICAL STUDIES. 7 the aims and to narrow the character of the Christian introduc- church. It is not necessary here to trace its immediate - — result upon her doctrine and ceremonial ; the fact by itself suffices to shew that as Christianity extended its sway among the nations that had overwhelmed the em- pire, it could not bring with it those refining influences by which it would have been attended, had it absorbed and purified the culture of Kome. As it was, the church was built upon the ruins of a subjugated society ; its fabric was but a step less barbarous than that of the Teutonic civilisation by which it was confronted. Confining our view to the literary aspect of the question, the marks of retrogression are clear and un- mistakeable. Among the few who still cultivated learning oratory degenerated into panegyric, poetry occupied itself almost exclusively with mean or trivial subjects. With the rest the Latin language itself lost its nerve ; idiom and even syntax were forgotten : it was enough if a writer could make himself understood at all. If up to the fifth century we find rare examples of an opposite tendency, the hostility of the church towards letters is thenceforth nearly universal. In the sixth century indeed Cassiodorus labours to prove that secular learning is good and profitable, ntilis et non refugienda cognitio, and anxiously supports his argument by a catalogue of learned men from Moses to the fathers downwards ^ : but the apology itself implies the dis- credit into which learning had fallen. A little later that discredit was completed when Gregory the Great! teoi. ' De institutipne divinarum lit- talium multiplex praeoedit exem- terarum, xxvii, xxviii ; 0pp. 2. plum ? scientes plane . . . rectam ve- 523 eq., ed. J. Garet. "76111061729 ramque scientiam domiuum posse folio. Quis enim, he concludes, au- concedere. deat habere dubium, ubi virorum GREGORY THE GREAT. Introduc- tion. b Policrat. viii 19 p- 646 : df. lib. ii. 26 p. 123. = Ep. ix. 54 ; opp. 2. 1139 1 ed Bened., Paris 1705 folio. employed his unrivalled authority to denounce all secular learning. The common story that the pope burned the Palatine library, because, as "John of Salisbury hints, he had a greater interest in the holy Scriptures, is no doubt false ; but it not inaccurately represents the attitude Gregory took up in regard to classical studies. The •= letter which he wrote on the subject to Desiderius, ' bishop of Vienne, has been often quoted, but it is too characteristic to be omitted here. The bishop, it seems, had ventured to teach grammar and read the poets. Gregory's remonstrance is as follows : A report has reached us which we cannot mention without a Hush, that thou ex~ Roundest grammar to certain friends ; whereat we are so offended and filled with scorn that our former opinion of thee is turned to mourning and sorrow. The same mouth singeth not the praises of Jove and the praises of Christ^. Thinh how grievous and unspeakable a thing it is for a bishop to utter that which becometh not even a religious layman . . .If hereafter it be clearly established that the rumour which ire have heard is false and that thou art not applying thyself to the idle vanities of secular learning — nugis et secularibus litteris, a significant hendiadys, — we shall render thanJcs to our God who hath not delivered over thy heart to be defiled by the blasphemous praises of unspeakable men^. " The words, ' In uno se ore lovia laudibus Christi laudes non capiunt,' have been misunderstood : see Mill- linger, p. 77. I have no doubt that the phraae is borrowed from saint Jerom, 'Absit ut de ora Christiana Sonet lupiter omnipotens,' &o. : Ep. ad Damas., Opp. 4 (i) 153, ed. Bened., Paris 1 706 folio. * M Haur&u, 1. 5, wittily compares the language of Jack Cade to lord Say : ' Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar-school : and whereas before our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used; and contrary to the king, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun, and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear ; ' 2 King Henry vi. iv. 7. 'On le voit, I'imagination du poete n'a pu rien ajouter au texte de la lettre ponti- lEELAND. ■ 9 This then was the policy, if we may so call it, of the introduc- church with regard to education, declared by him who has an undisputed title to be called ^ the father of the a Miiman, medieval papacy, and whose example was law to his Christ. 2. 102, successors, as indeed it was to the whole of Latin Christendom for many ages. From this authority there was however one corner of Europe practically exempted®. Ireland had as yet remained free from the invasion of foreign barbarians, and had held its own tradition not only of Christian but also of classical culture. Although it did not receive Christianity until the middle of the fifth century ^, the newly-planted religion had grown up with astonishing rapidity and strength ''. The Irish, or, to give them their proper name, the Scots, had no sooner been enlightened by the preaching of the Gaul, saint Patrick, than they pressed forward to make all nations participators in the knowledge of their new faith. Al- ready there was a steady emigration across the north channel into that country which was soon to borrow the civilisation, the very name, of the settlers *. Now, that ficale.' Unspeakable, 'nefanduB,' of England, 277-289; 18S1 : the we may notice was a favourite word materials for the last-named subject with Gregory, to whom the Lombard are to be found to a great extent in for instance was regularly nefamdis- the introduction to J. H. Todd's simus. Saint Patrick the Apostle of Ire- * M Haur^au's chapter on the land, Dublin 1864. ficoles d'Irlaude, in his Singularitds ' That there might have been and historiques et litt&aires, 1861, is probably were a few Christians in full of the sort of interest which Ireland before saint Patrick's day that author is peculiarly skilful in is not of course denied : for the facts giving to whatever he writes. The see Todd 197. most complete, though brief, survey ' ' It is recorded by chroniclers, of the Insh missions with which as one might chronicle a good har- I am acquainted, is contained in an vest, that a.d. 674 Ireland was full extremely learned essay by Arthur of saints:' Haddan 264. West Haddan on Scots on the Con- " For a long time the name of tinent, printed in his Kemains, Scotland continued to be common 258-294, Oxford 1876. Finally, to the two countries. Thus saint the character of the ancient Irish Notker Balbnlus speaks of an event and their church is well sketched as occurring in Scotia, insula Sy- in John Richard Green's Making hernia : Martyrolog. ad v. Id. lun., TION 10 THE lEISH MISSIONS. iNTEODuc- emigration took a distinctively religious character. The little island of Hy off the coast of Mull became the head- spring from which Christianity was to penetrate among the rude inhabitants of the Pictish highlands, or the English of Northumbria or Mercia. But the zeal of the Irish missionaries could not be confined within the compass of Britain. The Celt yielded not to the North- man in his passion for traveP ; then as now the poverty of the land was the peremptory cause of emigration : but the ambition of the missionary supplied a far stronger incentive to distant enterprises than the mere love of adventure or the mere hope of gain ; and those who had once been known but as the pirates whose terrible fleets ravaged the coasts of Britain or Gaul, became the peaceful colonists of Christianity in nearly every land where the Teuton in his advance westward had established himself. From Iceland to the Danube or the Apennines, among Frank or Burgundian or Lombard, the Irish energy seemed omnipotent and in- exhaustible. To account in any sort for this astonishing activity we have to go back to the form in which the Celtic church had grown up, and observe how its loose and irregular organisation left its ministers free to choose their own work where they would. In other countries the diocese had been the basis of Christian organisation: in Ireland it was the monastery. This was the centre of the religious community ; the abbat, not the bishop, was its representative chief. When gifts were made to the in J. Baenage, Thesaur. Monum. 384, ed. 2. London 1687 folio, eoclea. et hist. 2 (3) 140, Antwerp ' Sootorum, quibus consuetudo 1725 folio. Compare the evidence peregrinaudi iam paene in naturam collected by archbishop "Usher, converaa est : Vit. b. Gall. ii. 47 in Britann. EcclesiarumAntiquit. 380- Pertz2. 30; 1829. IRISH CHEISTIANITY. 11 church the monastery was the recipient ; the abbat was inteoduc- their steward. Bound the monastery then the provincial clergy grouped , themselves as a tribe or clan. The absence of any fixed endowment was an insuperable obstacle to the formation of an ecclesiastical constitution after the common pattern. Almost everywhere the ® bishops were untrammelled by the cares of a definite ° See xodd ■*■ *" 1-7, 27, &c. diocese ; often a band of many bishops is found settled at one place. The lesser clergy were driven to earn a living as they might, in the secular business of the farm or the plough. They had no hopes of ecclesiastical preferment to tempt them to stay at home : poverty was their natural lot, and it might be met with as little inconvenience abroad. Thus they poured forth upon the continent, the most devoted, the least self-seeking of missionaries : how poor they were we may learn from the fact that special hostelries were founded for their reception in many places of the Frankish realm by the charity of their wealthier fellow-countrymen ^''. It is not however with the religious work of the Scots that we are immediately concerned : their literary tra- dition is still more remarkable and characteristic. Isolated in a remote island, the stream of classical learning had remained pure while the rest of Roman Europe had sufiered it to be corrupted or dried up in the weary decay of the empire that followed the German influx. In Ire- land it was still fresh and buoyant ; and from the Irish it passed back to the continent in greater and greater waves. '° At least these ' hospitalia Sco- attention of the council of Meaux torum quae sancti homines gentis in 845, can. xl. ; Mansi, Coneilio- illius in hoc regno construxerunt et rum amplissima CoUeotio 14. 827 rebus pro sanctitate sua aoquisitis sq., Venice 1769 folio. The ordi- ampliavenint ' were sufficiently nu- nance for their reform was sano- merous for the abuses by which the tioned by a capitulary of Charles foundations had been diverted from the Bald a year later : Pertz, Leg. their proper purpose, to call for the i. 390 sq. ; 1835. 12 IRISH CULTUEE. Introduc- Of the means by which their education was acquired at TION. "^ ^ home we are but scantily informed. In the seventh 'Hist.ecci. century, 'Bede tells us, the Northumbrian nobles, and 111. 27 p. 203, *' ^ ' MoSriy.'ox- others too of middle rank, flocked to the schools of ord 1869. irgianjj . and ' while some faithfully dedicated them- selves to the monastic life, others chose rather to pass in turn through the cells of the masters and give their labour to study: and the Scots most readily received them, and provided them daily their food without charge, and books also to read, and free instruction.' But we have to guess from a variety of scattered notices and suggestions the precise way in which the Irish tradition of learning differed from that current upon the continent. At one moment we read of saint Camin, a teacher on an island of Loughderg, who made a critical edition of the Psahns with a collation of the Hebrew text"; and there BCf.Haddan is at all cvents s evidence to shew that the Scots pos- 271 sqq. ■ tr sessed, in common with the Britons, a Latin version of the Bible distinct from the vulgate. It is certain too 48*^A°r^" *'^3,t the 1= Greek language which had practically ceased to be known elsewhere in the west, was widely cultivated in the schools of Ireland. But what is of greater signifi- cance is the fact that there reigned^ not only among her professed scholars but also among the plain missionaries whom she sent forth to preach the gospel to the heathen, a classical spirit, a love of literature for its own sake, a keen delight in poetry. The very field of study of i James iii. IS. which the Latin was taught to say, ^TMs wisdom descendeth not from above, hut is eartUy, sensual, devilish, was that to " On this abbat Camin of Inis- said to be autograph. It was ela- keltra who died in 653 see J. Lani- borately noted with the usual criti- gan, Eocleaiastical History of Ire- cal signs, and contained on the land 3. II, 2nd ed., Dublin 1829. upper part of the page a collation Usher says, Antiq. 503, that he with the Hebrew, and brief echoUa saw a portion of the saint's work, in the outer margin. IRISH CULTURE. 13 ■\^hich the Scot turned with the purest enthusiasm. The gaiety of the Celtic nature made him shew his devotion to the classical poets by imitating them. Saint Columban, the apostle of Burgundy, whom men knew as the stern preacher of an austere creed ^^, as the haughty rebuker of kings, was wont to seek refreshment from his religious labours in sending his friends '^letters in verse, now in the rimed couplets of his own day, now in hexameters. Sometimes Hhe initials of the lines spell an acrostich: once the saint writes a long letter composed of a string of adonics^^. Meagre as his performances may appear, if judged by ancient models, Columban's more serious poems are neither awkward nor ungraceful. All of them are full of conceits and mythological allusions ; they read as the work of an entire pagan i*. Equally they prove the Introduc- tion. k Usher, vet. epist. Hibern. syl- loge, ci-iS. Dublin 1632 quarto. ' pp. 10 sq. '^ The severity of the Eule put forth by Columban, in comparison with that of saint Benedict, is ad- mitted, though Milman, 2. 294, seems to imply an opposite judge- ment. Haddan, indeed, p. 267, goes so far as to claim an Irish origin for the substance of the entire peni- tential system. Compare William Bright, Chapters of early English Church History 96, Oxford 1878. '' Accipe, quaeso, nunc bipedali condita versu carminulorum munera parva. Afterwards he excuses the eccen- tricity of his metre : sufficit autem ista loquaci nunc cecinisse carmina versu. Nam nova forsan esse videtur ista legenti formula versus. Sed tamen ilia Troiugenarum inclita vates nomine Sappho versibus istis dnloe solebat edere carmen. Then he explain^ the construction of the verse and concludes with a second apology, this time in hexa- meters, urging the weariness of old age and feeble health as a justifi- cation of his license : Usher 13-18. " M Haur^au, Singularit^s 12 sqq., rightly dwells on this charac- teristic. I have not noticed the poem ascribed to saint Livinus, whom tradition makes the apostle of Brabant in the seventh century ; because the likelihood is that these elegiacs (printed in TTsher 19 sqq.) are as spurious as the biography, called saint Boniface's, with which they appear to stand plainly con- nected. The poetry of the Scots ia however far from being limited to these two examples: Usher prints another piece, pp. 36 sq. ; and in later times instances, as that of John Scot, are not uncommon. 14 IKISH SCHOOLS iNTEODuc breadth and freedom of the training which he had ■ — received at Banchor and which was the peculiar posses- »cf. Green gio^ of the Scots. There is a "^vein of poetry running mak.of Engl. 286 sq. through the whole lives of these Irish eontessors, a poetry of which the stories of their acts are indeed better witnesses than their practical essays in verse- making. They brought imagination, as they brought spiritual force, into a world well-nigh sunk in mate- rialism. Their lighter productions shew one side of the Scottish nature : their earnest, single-hearted pursuit of learning in the widest sense attainable, their solid hard work as scholars, is not less characteristic. Ireland was once the -cf.Camden, university, the "literary market not only, as we have Britann. 730, <» i x-i i • i =d^Lond. gggjj^ of northern England, but also "of the Prankish » Aidheim. realm ; and if its progress at home was arrested after ep. iii, Migne x o ?86f1cf°' tlie fatal inroad of the Norsemen in 795 ^^ the seed Ozanam487. ^j^j^j^ ^j^g g^ots had sown in other lands grew to a nobler maturity than it had ever reached on its own soil. pCf.Haddan pWhcrever they went they founded schools. Malmes- 267. ./ ./ bury, the house of which saint Ealdhelm was a scholar and ultimately abbat, took its origin from the company of disciples that gathered about a poor Scottish teacher, q w. Mai- 9 MaUduf, as he sat in his hut beside the walls of the old pontif. V. pp. castle of Ingelborne. The foundations of saint Colum- 333 sq-. ed. ° N. E. S.A. i8^o"ro1i's " ■^"'^ *^® ^^^^ ^®® Todd, intr. to describing how Snlgen, afterwards series. Cf. The War of the Gaedhil with the bishop of Saint David's ivit ad Bright 259; Gain, pp. xxxii-xxxiv; 1867, Eolls Sihernos sophia mirabile claros, H.Tlahn, series. The earlier invasion by the written by the bishop's son John, Lul 8 sq. ; Northambrian Ecgfrith (Bed. iv. 26 Usher, in his preface to the Syl- 1883. p. 275) was little more than a mo- lege, infers that there was a revival mentary raid : the wikings on the of the Irish schools after the Danish contrary settled in Ireland, plun- invasion ; since the verse relates to dered the churches, and destroyed about the middle of the eleventh all the spjcial tokens of Irish civili- century : but of this further proof sation ; see Green, Conquest of Eng- is wanting. land, 65 sq. ; 1883. From a poem ON THE CONTINENT. 15 ban, Luxeuil, and Bobbio^'^, Ions; remained centres of intkoduc- ^ TION. learned activity amid Burgundian or Lombard bar- barism ; the settlement of his comrade, saint Gall, rose into the proud abbey which yet retains his name, and which was for centuries the beacon-tower of learning in western Europe; the sister-abbey of Eeichenau, its rival both in power and in cultivation, also owed pro- bably its establishment on its island in the lake of Constance to the teaching of a Scot. Under the shelter of these great houses, and of such as these, learning was planted in a multitude of lesser societies scattered over the tracts of German colonisation ; and almost uniformly the impulse which led to their formation as schools as well as monasteries, if not their actual foundation, is directly due to the energetic devotion of the Scottish travellers. A new epoch in their labours abroad is opened in the empire of Charles the Great, whose hearty goodwill towards scholars and whose zeal for the promotion of learning are as characteristic and well-known as his skill as a soldier or as a king. If his reign marks the dividing line between ancient and medieval history, it is not only by virtue of its political facts but also because it begins the age of the education of the northern races, fitting them in time to rule the world as the Romans had done before them. In this great work the Scots, instead of toiling humbly by themselves, were now welcomed and recognised as indispensable cooperators. Their entry into the Frankish realm is related in the Acts of Charles the Great, written by a monk of Saint Gall towards the end of the ninth century, whose account, however much '" On their foundation see Bede'B 3. 283, 304 sq., ed. Basle 1563 life of Columban, x and xxix, 0pp. ■■ Cf. Haddan 16 STOEY OP CHARLES THE GKEAT Introduc coloured by legendary ornamenta, may still ''not un- reasonably be held to contain a certain groundwork of fact ; at the least it points rightly to the main source from which the impulse of learning was communicated afresh to the continent. ■ Gest. Kar. s When, savs the monk, the illustrious Charles had begun to magn. i. i 'J 7 7 /■ Pertz 2. 731. fgigti alone in the western parts of the world and the study of letters was everywhere well-nigh forgotten, in such sort that the worship of the true God declined, it chanced that two Scots from Ireland lighted with the British merchants on the coast of Gaul, men learned without compare as well in secular as in sacred writings ; who, since they shewed nothing for sale, kept crying to the crowd that gathered to buy. If any man is desirous of wisdom, let him come to us and receive it ; for wA have it to sell. This therefore they declared they had for sale, since they saw the people to traffic not in gifts hut in saleable things, so that they thus might either urge them to purchase wisdom like other goods or, as the events following shew, turn them by such declaration to wonder and astonishment. At length their cry being long continued was brought by certain that wondered at them or deemed them mad, to the ears of Charles the king, always a lover and most desirous of wisdom : who, when he had called them with all haste into his presence, enquired if, as he understood by report, they had wisdom verily with them. Yea, said they, we have it and are ready to impart to any that rightly seek it in the name of the Lord. Wlien therefore he had enquired what they would have in return for it, they answered, Only proper places and noble souls, and such things as we cannot travel without, food and wherewith to clothe ourselves. Hearing this he was filled with great joy, and first for a short space entertained them both in his house- hold ; afterwards when he was constrained to warlike enterprises, he enjoined the one, by name Clement, to abide in AND THE IRISH SCHOLAES. 17 Gaul ; to whom he entrusted hoys of the most nolle, middle, inteoduc- and lowest ranks, in goodly number, and ordained that victual should he provided them according as they had need, with fitting houses to dtvell in. The other^"^ he despatched into Italy and appointed him the monastery of Saint Austin heside the Ticinian city, that there such as were willing to learn might gather together unto him. Now, adds the biographer, a certain Alii an s, the name is an accepted classical adaptation of Alcuin, hy race an Englishman, when he heard that the most religious emperor Charles was glad to loeleome learned men, he too entered into a ship and came to him. Here we are no doubt still wider of historical accuracy : it was not in this manner that Alcuin made acquaintance with the Frankish king, nor is it probable that the arrival of the Irish scholars was attended by the picturesque circumstances which the monk relates. Yet however little there be of truth in the fable, it is still valuable as evidence of the clearness with which a subsequent generation seized the main fact of Charles's indebtedness to the British islands, and also with which it expressed, as an accepted and natural relation, the notion of affinity between learning and godliness which it 'was the work of Alcuin and still J.^f- **"'- ^ linger og. " ' Alteram vero nomine : ' two pear in the quotation of the passage manuscripts add the name 'Albi- given by Vincent of Beauvais, Spe- num ' ; the rest of those collated by cnlum historiale, xxiv. 173, Nurem- Pertz leave a blank space after berg 1483 folio. I notice this 'nomine,' while the copies from because M Haureau, De la Philo- which JaflF^ prints, Biblioth. Rer. sophie scholastique, i. 14, 1850 Germ. 4. 632, 1867, omit 'nomine' (the passage seems to have been as well. I incline to think that ' Al- omitted in the new edition of the binum' stood in' the original text, book, — the Histoire), states the and was excluded because the se- contrary. The legend therefore quel showed that the person in- says nothing of the Engliah Alcuin, tended could not be the same with certainly nothing of John the Scot, the well-known Alcuin, while no ornaments added by later writers, contemporary scholar of the name which even M Haur&u, in his was known. It may be observed earlier work, confounded with the that the 'Albinum ' does not ap- original story. 18 LEA.ENED STUDIES iNTEODuc- more of the Scots to inculcate upon their age. Through their influence it was that the king sent forth the j'.Encyci.jie "famous capitularics of 787 and the following years, f ^S^s '°?ff which enforced the establishment of schools in connexion J^"qqTio2. with every abbey in his realm, and laid the foundation of medieval learning ^*. Amabat peregrinos is said almost x)d''wJ' *° Charles's reproach by his biographer ^ Einhard ; yet ^'^' the strangers whom he welcomed are in truth the first authors of the restoration of letters in Francia. The name of Alcuin introduces us to another element in this work. For if Ireland stood alone in its freedom from the intellectually depressing tradition of the Roman church, England had also been for some time the scene of' a literary life, less independent indeed and more correct in its ecclesiastical spirit, but hardly less broad A. D. 668-9. than that of the Scots. A singular fortune had brought 'Bed.iv^i together as the second fathers of the English church, ^a Bright, chap- Greek of Tarsus and an African, Theodore archbishop ters 219 sqq. ' ^ of Canterbury, and Hadrian, abbat of Saint Peter's in that city, the one from Rome, the other from the neigh- bourhood of Naples. While Theodore worked to reduce the church of England into a nearer conformity with catholic discipline, the two friends had their school at ' Bed. iv. 2 Canterbury, where one might ^ learn not only the know- ^37^sq'. ledge which made a good churchman, but also astronomy and the art of writing verses, and apparently even medicine. But the previous experience of the teachers enabled them to extend their lessons into a field still less '* A variety of notices respecting It was to Tours that Alcuin with- the schools of the time is coUeoted drew, as abbat of Saint Martin's, in by the Benedictines in the Histoire 796. A. F. Gfroerer comments on litt^raire de la France, 4. 1 2 sqq. ; the importance of the schools of 1738 quarto. They concern chiefly Aquitaine, Concha, Galuna, and Lyons, Orleans, Fulda, Corbie, Fon- Aniane : Allgemeine Kirchenge- tenelle, Saint Denys, and Tours. sohichte, 3. 702 sqq., Stuttgart 1844. IN ENGLAND. 19 in conformity with the accustomed routine of monastic introduc- TION. schools : they made their pupils learn Greek so thoroughly that more than half-a-century later Bede says that some of them still remained who knew Greek as well as their mother-tongue. -An Englishman too, ' Bed. Wst. ° => ' abbat. Benedict Biscop, the friend of Wilfrid, who had attended '^y'"'"- '"• r' > pp. 373 sq., Theodore on his road from Rome to Canterbury and had "^' ^°^^'^^ held for a while the abbacy to which Hadrian succeeded, helped forward the advancement of his countrymen in another way. He was a sedulous collector of books and took advantage of repeated journeys to Rome to return '' laden with purchases or the gifts of friends, gathered " iwd. thence or from places on the road. With these he endowed the abbey which he erected at Wearmouth ; and among his last charges to the brethren of his house we read that " ' he enjoined them to keep jealously the ° Cap. ix. precious and very rich library, indispensable for the learning of the church, which he had brought from Rome, — libliotheeam quam de Roma nohilissimam copiosissi- raamque advexerat, ad instructionem ecclesiae necessariam, — and not to suffer it through carelessness to decay or to be dispersed abroad.' The example of these three men was not lost upon the English. '^Ealdhelm who, pedant as he was, ranked ^Bed^Ust. among the most learned men of his time, passed from p- 33°- his Scottish master at Malmesbury to the school of Hadrian at Canterbury; and "a goodly band of other • See Bright scholars (Greek is their peculiar quahfication) went forth from this latter place to spread their knowledge over England. But it was in the north that the new learning took deepest root. At Jarrow, the offshoot of Benedict Biscop's monastery of Wearmouth, * lived ^''^d'^cf Gr^n,^ died Bede, the writer who sprang at once into the 398-404. c % 20 BEDE AND iNTRODuc- position of a father of the church, and whose influence ''!!!_ was by far the greatest and most unquestioned of any between saint Gregory and saint Bernard. He is a witness to the excellence of Benedict's collection of BHist. ecci. books: for though, he says, 'I spent my ^ whole life in the dwelling of my monastery,' he shows an extent of knowledge in classical literature and natural science entirely unrivalled in his own day and probably not surpassed for many generations to come. Yet, be it remembered, it was first and foremost as a theologian and interpreter of the Scriptures that the middle ages revered him ; and it is as an historian and the father of English historians that we now see his greatest distinc- tion. Nor can the student of his works fail to recognise that Bede, like Ealdhelm, combined the current which flowed eastward from Ireland with that which came with Benedict from Canterbury. His genial and versa- tile learning is no less characteristic than the loyalty in which he held fast to the strict tradition of the Catholic church. A child of Bede's in spirit, though he was A.D. 735. probably not born until about the year of the master's death, was destined to take back his tradition to the continent at the opportunity when it was first ripe to receive the stimulating influence. 1 804 Alcuin faithfully carries on the current of learning in the north of England of which Bede is the headspring. iT'jafflT ■'■^ ^^^ poem ^On the Pontiffs and Saints of the Church of 684sqq.,T4= ^'^'^^ ^® dcscribes his master's work in language which ^°'- shows us the distinctive qualities for which his disciples valued him : 1 Ver. 1302- 1 Discere namque sagax iuvenis seu soribere semper Fervidus instabat, non segni mente laborana : Et sic profioiens est factus iure magister. ALCUIN. 31 Plnrima quapropter praeclarus opuscula doctor Inteoduc- Edidit, explanans obsoura volumina sanotae '^'°''' Scripturae, nee non metrorum condidit artem ; De quoque temporibua mira ratione volumen, Quod tenet astrorum cursus, loca, tempera, leges, Scripsit, et historioos claro sermone libelloa ; Plurima versifioo cecinit quoque carmina pleotro. Alcuin, like Bede, was a teacher and an organizer of learning, a man of wide reading rather than of original thought. His position in the church at York had afforded him access to a library of unusual compass. ''In the poem just quoted he gives a list of these volumes ; ' ver. 1535- 1561 pp. Iz8 it can only be a selection of what he thought the most ^i- important. Among them appear the Greek fathers, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Basil, — likely enough in their original tongue i"; — with a good number of the Latins. Of classical poets are named Vergil, Statius, and Lucan ; of their degenerate successors, Sedulius, Juvencus, Ara- tor, and Fortunatus. History is represented by Pompeius Trogus, that is, in the abridgement which we know as Justin, and Bede ; natural history by Pliny. Cicero is named only as an orator. For logic Alcuin mentions Aristotle, — certainly in a Latin guise ^*', — and the trans- lators and commentators, Victorinus and Boethius ; for grammar Donatus, Priscian, and Servius. These are the better known of the authors recited in this interesting poem. Alcuin studied them with the simple purpose of fitting himself to be a teacher. He adopts and adapts, as he thinks most appropriate to his scope ; but he " Bishop Stubbs thinks that the than the source from which the York library actually contained literature he mentions was derived; manuscripts both in Greek and Se- he says nothing unequiyocally of hrew: Smith and Wace's Dictionary the language. of Christian Biography, art. Alcwin, " Most probably the reference is 1.73a; 1877. But Alcuin's words, to the abridgement of the Cate- de Pontif. 1535-1539, Jaff^ p. 128, gories then ascribed to saint Au- need not be pressed to mean more gustin: of. Haur&u I. 93-97- 22 ALCUIN AND introduc creates nothino-. On the problems which were so soon to TION. C ^ agitate the schools, the nature of being, and the relation of objects to thought, he has little to say of his own ; ifT"^^"'' ^^^ ^psychology is directly derived from saint Augustin, ° cf. stubbs, his logic from the abbreviators of Aristotle. "Learning diet. Chr. s biogr. 1. 74b. in England had indeed begun to decline, but before the process had gone too far, Alcuin transplanted it ; and, whatever his intellectual limitations, just such a man was needed to set on foot a sound system of education in the Frankish realm. "Muiiinger Jt ^as been "maintained that Alcuin, at least in his 110-123. later years, and the Scots with whom he worked held opposed positions in this movement; that Alcuin re- mained true to the tradition of saint Gregory, while the Scots allowed too great a latitude in their learned ambition ; that Alcuin treated them as rivals, almost as enemies to the truth. Nor is this view altogether groundless. There was without doubt a certain national jealousy subsisting between the English and the Scots ; and Alcuin clearly resented the predominance which the latter threatened to assume when, as an imaginative "V. infra, p. Writer under Charles's grandson relates, "'almost all 74 "■ 23- Ireland, regardless of the barrier of the sea, comes flocking to our shores with a troop of philosophers.' There were also differences of ecclesiastical detail. Even in matters of doctrine more than once the Scots had p cf.Haddan givcn causc of offence : » they had, it should seem, with 274, 284. ■= ./ ; J their Greek learning, drawn more deeply from the wells of oriental theology than was approved by the cautious A.D.741. judgement of their age. A certain Clement, as saint iBonif. ep. Boniface reports, had "» denied the authority of the 1. Jaffd 3. *' '4o. fathers and canons of the church, and besides holding some views dangerous to morality, had gone so far as to THE IRISH TEACHERS. 23 teach that Christ by his descent into hell delivered all introduc- tion. its prisoners, the unbelieving with the righteous ^^ ; and Virgil, bishop of Salzburg, hkd maintained the existence a.d.748. of antipodes "^ ' in defiance of God and of his own soul,' ' ^p. ixvi. p. igi. because thus apparently he limited the sphere of the Saviour's work of redemption just as Clement had enlarged it. Besides these facts there was an un- questionable repugnance between the plain, solid English temperament and the more adventurous, speculative genius of their neighbours. If it be said with truth now that the two peoples are incapable of understanding one another, it is manifest that they are not likely to have made that acquaintance at a comparatively early date from their first introduction. That however Alcuin and the Irish stood apart in the matter of learning, that Alcuin despised secular literature and forbade his scholars to cultivate it, we hold to be an entirely un- founded presumption: its sole positive basis lies in a ^ story told by a monkish biographer who was not even • vit.Aichuin. ~. . . T . X. Jaff6 6, a contemporary and who relates the ailair simply in 24 sq. order to show the master's miraculous gift of clair- voyance. It was fitting enough that Alcuin should have ' remonstrated with those who studied their Vergil to the ' ^pp- ccvi. ° pp. 7i3Sq. exclusion or depreciation of the Bible ; but the fact ^f. epp.''cxfx.' proves nothing as to his general regard for letters, and p. ^l[ "'"' the testimony of his writings and acts is more eloquent than such private admonitions. Alcuin and the Scots, we take it, laboured, with whatever transient "^ jealousies, « cf. aic. ep. xcviii. pp. 408 sqq. "^ 'Quod Christus, filius dei, de- Clement also, though a priest, ap- Eceudens ad inferos omnes quos patently a bishop, was a married inferni career detinuit inde liber- man with a family, and advocated asset, credulos et incredulos, lauda- marriage with a deceased brother's tores dei simul et cultores idolum.' wife in conformity with the Jewish See saint Boniface's letter to the law ; ep. xlviii, p. 133. pope, Zacharias, ep. 1., Jafl'^ 3. 140. 34 DECLINE OF LETTERS iNTEODuc- in a common love of learninsc. The old temper which TION. ° regarded religion and letters as irreconcilable opposites, was clean forgotten ; the spirit is caught up by the A.D. 826. rulers of the church themselves; and soon ^a Eoman * Mansi, ubi • i ci j infra, p. 494. couucll held uudcr the pope, Eugenms the becond, can make a canon enjoiniag all diligence in the search for teachers to be appointed in all places to meet the neces- sities of the age, masters and doctors to teach the study of letters and liberal arts, and the holy doctrines which they possess, since in them chiefly are the divine commands mani- fested and declared ^^. That such an ordinance as this should have been required proves how much the learning of the new empire had lost its vigour and its wide diffusion in the troubled years that followed the emperor's death. In- deed barely fifteen years had passed since that event, AD. 829. when the prelates of Gaul appealed to Lewis the Pious to carry out the mandate issued by the Roman council, and to save the ruin into which the educational institu- T Conc.Paris. tlous of the couutrv had already fallen. ^ We earnestly sext. 111. 12 . Mansip. ^f^g humhly petition your highness, they said, that you, ''^ See the dissertation of Wilhelm festantur atque declarantur man- von Giesebrecht, De Litterarum data : ' in archbisliop Mansi's edition Studiis apud Italos primis medii of tlie Concilia, 14. 1008, Venice Aevi Saeculis, 11, Berlin 1845 1769 folio. Por 'ac sancta ha- quarto. The 34th canon of the beutes dogmata ' there is a variant Eoman council, as re-enacted in an ' habentium dogmata ' ; but though assembly presided over by Leo the the 'eancta' seems required to jus- Fourth in 853, is as follows : ' De tify the word • dogmata,' I am not quibusdam locis ad nos refertur non sure but the genitive ' habentium ' magistroB neque ouram iuvenire pro is more suitable to the context than studiis litterarum. Idoiroo jn uni- ' habentes.' The authoritative ad- versis episcopiis subieotisque popu- monition was appealed to three lis, et aliis locis in quibus neoessitas centuries later by Abailard, as occurrerit, omnino eura et diligeiitia against the detractors of secular habeatur ut magistri et doctores learning in his day: Introd. ad constituantur, qui studia litterarum theol. ii., 0pp. 2. 69 ; Theol. Christ, liberaliumque artium ac sancta ha- ii., ib. p. 442, ed. V. Cousin Paris bentes dogmata, assidue doceant; 1859 quarto, quia in his maxime divina mani- AFTER CHARLES THE GREAt's DEATH. 25 following the ensample of your father, will cause public schools Inteoduc to be established in at least three fitting places of your realm, that the labour of your father and yourself may not tJirough neglect (which God forbid) utterly decay and perish: so, they added, shall great benefit and honour abound to God's holy church, and to you a great reward and everlasting remem- brance. Still the impulse given to civilisation by the work of Charles, however intermittent its effects may appear, — dying out, as it seemed, by degrees until the second revival of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, — was never wholly lost. Nor was the decline of literature so rapid as is frequently supposed ^3; the change is rather from a creative to an appropriating age. In the eager life of Charles's day men had leisure for indepen- dent study and production : under his successors they were, as a rule, content with a reputation for learning. To be well-read and to reproduce old material, was all that was asked of scholars ; and the few who overpassed the conventional boundary of the republic of letters found that they did it at their peril. Nevertheless, even with these limitations, the age succeeding that of Charles the Great, partly from the very imperfection of its intellectual vision, was able to ^ For example, Dr Hermann (ib. i. 15 and n. 7) to the same Eeuter, Geschichte der religiosen ■writer (praef. exposit. in ep. ad Aufklarung im Mittelalter, i. 16, Eph., Mabillon 91) for evidence of Berlin 1875, ^^^ ^° justification the general decay of letters. Clau- in inferring from the words of dius is speaking of sacred learning ; Claudius of Turin, ' Nee saecularis he has no interest in any other, litteraturae didici studium neo ali- On the state of literature under the quando exinde magistrum habui' later Carolings compare Carl von (praef. in Levit., Jo. Mabillon, Vet. Noorden's Hinkmar Erzbischof von Analeot. go, ed. Paris 1723 folio) Eheims, 56, Bonn 1863; a disser- that instruction was again becoming tation written by an historical scho- limited to the sphere of theology; lar who has but recently and pre- since Claudius was brought up in maturely passed from us, and for Spain, when Christian letters were whose work and memory I would at their lowest ebb. Dr Eeuter is here express my gratitude and my equally unfortunate in referring personal respect. 26 THOUGHT IN THE NINTH CENTURY. lloN°°'"^' venture upon enterprises which had perhaps been suppressed in their birth under more regular and better organized conditions. In the first century of Christ- » Gibbon, ch. ianity it has been said ^that 'the disciples of the XV. vol. S. ^ ■*■ 74,=d. Oxford jyfgggjg^]^ were indulged in a freer latitude both of faith and practice than has ever been allowed in succeeding ages.' A like criticism would be true with respect to the progress of thought after Charles's day. Not for many generations did philosophy assume that definite medieval guise in which it remained fixed until the dawn of modern history. The gates of theological orthodoxy were even less closely guarded. Hardly a century will elapse before we see, preparing or already matured, some of the characteristic problems of church- controversy, even then held of paramount importance, though none could foresee the sway they would hold over the minds of men hereafter. The sacerdotal basis of the church is attacked, the nature of the divine Trinity is subjected to cold analysis ; the doctrine of predestination is revived, the doctrine of transubstantia- tion is invented. Such were the unexpected fruit of Charles' and Alcuin's husbandry. In the two following chapters we shall examine a few specimens of the litera- ture and the speculations of the ninth century. The first examples will be taken from a class of writings but indirectly coimected with learned studies, and will illustrate the free movement of thought with respect to religious, or, it may be, superstitious, usages and beliefs : the second chapter will attempt to delineate the character of the theology of the greatest philosopher whom Ire- land sent forth to glorify the schools of continental Europe. CHAPTEE I. . Claudius of Tuein and AaoBAKD of Lyons. In the empire of Charles the Great the Latin church Chap. i. advanced to a clearer consciousness of her individuality, as apart from her oriental sister, than was possible before the state as well as the church had a western head. The old points of controversy which had once been common to all Christendom now vanish away. From the time of the British Pelagius, the heresies of the west had oc- cupied themselves with a different class of speculations from those which convulsed the eastern church. Hence- forward we shall find the former to prevail almost exclusively. The last of the eastern heresies, eastern in spirit if not directly in origin, is stamped out with the condemnation of the Spanish adoptians by the council of Frankfurt, a * proceeding in which Alcuin a.d. 7m. rr., n , , 1 , ' Cf. Stubbs, took a conspicuous part. The last controversy between diet. chr. ... biogr. I. 73 b. the churches is signalised by the repudiation of image- worship at the same council. The immediate antecedents of this decision in the matter of image-worship are worthy of notice. The second council of Nicea, seven years earlier, had"-°-'87. unanimously approved the practice. ^ It had decreed, " Miiman 2. •'-*-■*■ ■*■ 3gi sqq. ; cf. under penalty of excommunication, that images of the ^^ J,;,^^'''^^' Saviour and of his mother, of angels, and of all saints Jj^'^^ql^' and holy men, should be everywhere set up, should be isTs.""^ 28 IMAGE-WOESHIP IN THE WEST. Chap. I. treated as holy memorials and worshipped ; only with- out that peculiar adoration which is reserved for God alone. In this ordinance the pope, Hadrian the First, concurred. The value of the pope's opinion was how- ever now, and remained for several centuries, an ex- tremely variable quantity. The famous Caroline Books, which (whatever be their actual authorship) indubitably proceed from the court of Charles the Great and from ° M^'^n^^s '' ^^^ closing years of the eighth century, •= speak with lois D. quiet assurance of certain usages as allowed rather hy the ambition of Home than by any apostolical tradition. Nor was this feeling confined to the atmosphere of the court. In the matter of image- worship the council of Frankfurt thought nothing of placing itself in direct opposition to the policy favoured by the pope. The council too was ■iMiimans. no mere Frankish diet; it was •* attended by bishops from all the west, Spain and England, as well as by papal legates. But the authority of the latter was powerless against that of Charles, and the canons of Nicea were formally rejected. That the Greek con- tention in the end won acceptance is well known ^- But the process was silent and without express enactment, •See H. F. just as in the "east the trium:ph over the iconoclasts was iozerin ■*■ S^iirSf imperceptibly forgotten and images (in the strict sense) fesTsfed. c^™e to be unconsciously proscribed. At present, if the Oxford 1877. g^]3ject was discussed, as indeed it was with considerable vehemence, the question was how little, not how much, reverence could rightly be paid to images. The extreme party on this side is represented by Claudius, bishop of Turin 2. A Spaniard, bred — if we ' Gfroerer has collected the early Carl Schmidt's essay in Illgen's traces of this rapid change, Kirohen- Zeitschrift fiir die historiache Theo- geschichte 3. 938 sqq. logic, 1843 pt. 2. ' The best account of him is. still CLAUDIUS OF TURIN. 29 may credit the testimony of his opponents — under one chap. i. of the leading heretics whom the council of Frankfurt condemned, he seems rather to have recoiled into a more decided, at least a more primitive, orthodoxy than to have been affected by his dangerous surroundings. He became a master in one of the royal schools of Aquitaine^ and was so much trusted by the king, Louis the Pious, that when the latter succeeded to the empire of his father Charles, he raised Claudius, about the year 8i8*, to the see of Turin. His reputation was that of an interpreter of the Bible ^- He wrote com- mentaries on most of the historical books of the Old Testament, on the Gospel according to saint Matthew, and apparently on all the Pauhne Epistles. Of these however but one, on the Galatians, has been printed entire. The others are known only by prefaces and extracts; and some are not edited at all"- It is not ' 'In Alvenni cespitis arvo, in in libroB de cultu imaginum, 167 palatio pii principis domini Ludo- c, D ; cf. 168 G. vici, tunc regis, modo imperatoris/ ® Few writers have their works are his own words, Epist. dedic. in scattered through such a variety of enarrat. in epist. ad Gal., in the collections. The Enarratio in epist. Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum 14. ad Gal. is printed in the Max. 141 A, Lyons 1677 folio; by the biblioth. patrum, nbi supra ; for the pages of which I regularly cite also rest we have only specimens pub- Jonas of Orleans, Dungal, and lished in the Vetera Analeota of Agobard. The school is conjectured Mabillon, the Bibliotheoa mediae to have been at Ebreuil, Histoire et iniimae latinitatis of J. A. Fabri- litt&aire de la France 4. 223. cius, and in two collections of car- * Possibly a little earlier : Nean- dinal Mai. Some additional extracts der gives the date as 814, General are mentioned by Schmidt, who History of the Christian Religion gives a detailed list of Claudius's and Church 6. 216, transl. by J. known works and attempts a ohro- Torrey, Edinburgh 1850. nological arrangement, p. 44 n. 8, ° ' Claudium . . . cui in explanan- and in his article in Herzog's Eeal- dis sanctorum evangeliorum lectio- Encyklopadie : see too Mabillon nibus quantulacuuque notitia inesse p. 92, ed. 1723. All these pieces, videbatur, ut Italicae plebis (quae I think, are collected in the hundred- magna ex parte a sanctorum evan- and-fourth volume of Migne. How gelistarum senaibus procul aberat) much besides lies hidden in the sanctae doctrinae consultum ferret, Vatican we cannot tell. Cardinal Taurinensi subrogari fecit ecolesiae,' Mai's edition of the preface to says his enemy, bishop Jonas, praef. ■ Claudius's commentary on the 30 CLAUDIUS AS A WEITEE : chap^i. likely that we lose very much by our defective infonna- tion about them. He had not the faculty of lucid or graceful, or always even of grammatical, expression; and he repeatedly laments a defect which gave an ir- resistible opening to the ridicule of his literary enemies ''. Far less did he bring the light of speculation or of original genius to bear upop the books he expounded. He compiled from the fathers — Augustin was his chosen master — for the benefit of those whose leisure or ac- quirements did not suffice for extensive reading. He commented with the view of edifying ; and seeking an ethical or a spiritual lesson everywhere, he fell wilhngly into the pitfall of allegory*. His fearless pursuit how- ever of the principles he had learned in the course of a wide, if irregular, study of the fathers, makes Claudius a signal apparition at a time when the material accessories of religion were forcing themselves more and more into the relations between man and God. The worship of images, of pictures, of the cross itself^, the belief in the mediation of sairits, the efficacy of pilgrimages, the authority of the holy see, seemed to him but the means of deadening the responsibility of individual men. Pauline Epistles is avowedly a rising tendency has been exagge- speoimeu which he intended to rated. He himself lays down the follow by the whole work, Nova limit, ' scilicet ut manente verltate collect, vet. scriptor. 7- 274 u. 1, historiae figuras intelligamus,' in Rome 3833. He mentions also two Gal. cap. iv. p. 158 B. codices at Eome of the Catena upon " Dr Eeuter, Geschichte der re- saint Matthew, Spicil. Roman. 4. ligiosen Aufklarung 1. 17, is surely 301, Eome 1840. guilty ofan anachronism in speaking ' See for instance his preface to of the 'crucifix,' of the existence or the Lib. informationum litterae et possibility ofwhich neither Claudius spiritus super Levitlcum, Mabil- nor any ofhis opponents seem aware. Ion, p. 90, and that to his com- See for example Jonas 168 H. Pio- mentary on the Ephesians, ib. p. 92, tures of the crucifixion there doubt- where he speaks of his 'rustic less were, and perhaps crosses speech.' bearing a painted figure ; but these " I thinlc that Claudius's allego- are not what we call ' crucifixes.' HIS PEINGIPLBS. 31 Claudius sought to quicken this sense. He is suj e Chap. i. th at if a man has a direct personal interest in his own w elfare, if he doe s not rely on spiritua l processes con- duc ted by others on his behalf, nor tie his faith t o mateii al representations of the unseen, he can be the b etter tru sted to walk aright. The freedom of the gospel he is never tired of contrasting with the bond- age of the law, a bondage which he saw revived in the religious system of his day. Faith is incomplete without its corollary action, or, as he prefers to call it, love. With the worhs of the sacerdotal law he will have nothing to do ■"'. ^ Let no man trust in the intercession ' Apologetic. or merit of the saints, because except he hold the same faith, A"'^='- p- '94 justice, and truth, which they held, he cannot be saved. Men choose the easy way before the hard one which consists in self-sacrifice"- s (Jod commanded men to be ar the cross, sihu.f.iis noLio-^ore it : they desire to adore that which they will not spiritually or bodily to carry with them. So to worship God is to depart from hitn. The only acceptable service is that, born of faith and supported by the divine grace, which issues in an all-embracing love. The following short passage contains the sum of the ethical principles which he desired to take the place of a blind dependence on mere mechanical acts. ^ Charity, he says, or love, is com- b Enarr. in prehended in four modes. By the first we must love God, by i6i c, d. " De admonitione et exhorta- reddat : praef. in epp. Pauli, Mai, tione unde rogaati quod scriberem, Nov. Coll. 7. 2 75 sq. ut votum quod voverunt domino " Quia videlicet nisi quia a reddant ; . . . niillani admonitionem semetipso deficiat, ad cum qui su- meliorem potui invenire quam epis- per ipsum est non appropinquat, tulae primae Pauli apostoli, quam neo valet apprehendere quod ultra misi, quia tota inde agitur ut me- ipsam est si nescierit mactare quod rita hominum tollat, unde maxime est : Apol. ap. Jon. p. 184 0. The nunc monachi gloriantur, et gra- sentence, according to Jonas, is tiam deo commendat, per quam adopted from saint Gregory, omnis qui vovit, quod vovit domino 32 CLAUDIUS'S ACTION Chap. I. the next ourselves, by the third our neighbours, ly the fourth our enemies. Unless we have first loved God, we shall not be able to love ourselves; that is to say, to abstain from sin: and if we love not ourselves, what standard have we to love our neighbours ? and if we love not our neighbours, much less shall we love our enemies. Whereof this is the proof, that for the saJce of God we despise even our salvation, yea, and our very souls. Faith therefore alone sufiiceth not for life, except a man love his neighbour even as himself, and not only not do unto him the evil which he would not unto himself, but also do unto him the good which he would have another do unto him, ; and so fulfil the universal law, namely, to abstain from evil and to do good. With these thoughts in his heart, and longing to impress them upon his generation, Claudius passed to his diocese of Turin. His fiery and uncompromising temper met opposition and peril as inducements rather than obstacles to action. We are told that he often took up the sword with his lay comrades to drive back the Saracens when they pressed forward from their strong places on the coast of Spain or Gaul to overrun his country^^. But the paganism, as he held it, which reigned everywhere around him, — the offer- ings and images that defiled all the churches ^^, — formed the more present evil against which he set himself 'Jon. i68g. to do continual battle. 'He called for the utter de- struction of_al]_Jmagesand pictures throughout his JDungai. diflcesfi. J He forbadethe~obiervance of sainti^ da vs. responsa con- J ' cfaSdir"'^" and the very mention of saints in the liturgy. Foremost JeXmias?"' in executing the work, he raised a storm about him : p. 223 F. '^ Compare his reference to such ordinem veritatis, sordibus anathe- expeditions, Mai, Nov. Coll. 7. 275. matum et imaginibus plenas : Apol. " Inveni omnes basilicas, contra ap. Jon. 1 70 D. AS BISHOP OF TURIN. 33 his life was not safe ^*. The people were passionately chap. i. excited, but the "^ protection or favour of higher powers ' iwd. p. was probably with him, and his name is not to be added ^™» pp- 35 to the roll of martyrs who have perished for lack of sympathy with the grosser needs of their contemporaries. Yet the truth is that, with all his fanaticism, Claudius alone of his age grasped the inevitable consequences of its spiritual condition. It was an age of materialism, and there was no possibility that the images could re- main in churches without the people worshipping them, or that if they worshipped them they would understand the nice distinction between this worship and that of God laid down by the second Nicene council ^^. Claudius denounces this inevitable polytheism. 7f, he aays, thfiv wg rship the jmagps nf sn.rnf.s nft.i>.r flip. fa^M,Qn nf flfmnms ^ — t hat is. of fiourse, in t.hpi ma.nTipr o f t.bp nirl gnrls of the country, — they_ have not left idols but changed their names ^'^. He was accused of inventing a new heresy. ^Nothing, he j^p°'j' ^f- replies, can ie falser. I preach no sect, but hold the unity ''° '^■ and expound the verity of the church. Sects and schisms, heresies and superstitions', I have ever, so far as in me lay, stamped upon and crushed ; T have fought with them and taken them by assault, nor will I ever, so far as in me lies, cease to combat them with the help of God. He turns to " See his complaints in the thetical derivatives like 'Mario- Apologetic, ap. Jon. p. 171 0, and latry.' in a preface addressed to Theo- '° Saint Agobard expresses him- demir as late as 823, ap. Mabillon, self in almost the same words, De Vet. anal. 90; cf. p. 91. imag. xix. p. 291 0. Claudius pro- ^^npoffKiivi/ffuwas decreed, not Aa- ceeds: Si scribas in pariete vel Tpei'a; cf. supra, pp. 27sq.: adistinc- pingas imagines Petri et Pauli, tion which modem protestants find lovis et Satumi, sive Mercurii, nee difficult to appreciate. The English isti sunt dii nee illi apostoli ; neo language indeed allows great lati- isti nee illi homines : ao per hoc tude to the signification both of nomen mutatur, error tamen et 'worship' and 'adoration'; and tunc et nunc idem ipse permanet the unique relation is only implied semper : Apol., ap. Dungal. 201 a in ' idolatry ' and certain hypo- and Jon. 1 74 E, c. D 34 CLAUDIUS' VIEW OF THE USE OF CBOSSES Chap, l his accuser : ™ Why dost thou, humble thyself and how to " ApoL, ap. false images ? why lend thy body a slave before vain likenesses •^^^^ and things cf earthly fashion ? God made thee erect. Other Ion gosq. anivuils ate prone and look earthward, tat thy face is raised towards God. Thither look, raise thine eyes thither; seek God above, so shaU thou have no need of things below. This is the basis of his teaching. FollowiDg closely in the ■See Renter track, ofteii " quotuig the very words, of Augustin, he " Praef. in pepoats that ° a spiritual religion is independent of the Levit,MabiI- — ' ^— = Ion 91. sensuou s, is dragged down by any a t tempt to make it intelligible to the outward eyes : it looks directly towards God. For this reason he refuses to dwell even upon the humanity of Christ. The man Jesus did his work once for all : Claudius would turn men's thoughts p Apoi, ap. to their glorified Lord, p When, these worshippers of a false 177 c religion and superstition say, For the memory of our Saviour we worship, reverence, adore a cross painted and carved in his honour, they take no pleasure in our Saviour except that which pleasured the ungodly, the shame of his passion and the scorn cf his death. They believe cf him what the ungodly, Jews or heathen, believed, who believed not in Ms resurrection ; and they know not to think aught of him save as in anguish and dead; they believe and hold him in their hearts to abide continually in passion, nor consider nor under- 1 2 Cor. V. 16. stand that which the apostle saith, » Though we Jiave known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more^''. Claudius attacks every visible symbol and memorial ' Apoi., ap. of the life of Jesus. ' You worship all wood fashioned after JoiL 177 H sq. ^ .i ./ the manner of a cross, because for six hours Christ hung vpon " This verse, it is interesting to was in many respects the tmcon- note, was also a favonrite with scions disciple of Claudius : De sa- Berengar of Tonrs, who, in his re- era coena 45, 94, 200, ed. A. F. and sistancetomaterialisticChristianity, F. T. Vischer, Berlin 1834. AND PILGEIMAQES: THE APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION. 35 a cross. Worship then all virgins, became a virgin bare Mm. Chap. i. Worship stables, for he was born in, one ; old rags, for he was swaddled in them; ships, for he ofttimes sailed in them; asses, for he rode thereon. There is no end to hia mockery. He excuses himself for it by the bitterness of the facts he has to withstand. ^Bidiculous these things 'ihid. p. 178 all are, and to be mourned rather than written. We are compelled to allege foolishness against the foolish ; against hearts of stone we must cast not the arrows of the word, not sage reasons, but volleys of stones. Thus he traverses and assails the whole circle of the popular religion of the Latin world. About pilgrimages alone he is more reserved. The fashionable pilgrimage to Eome he cannot indeed approve, but he admits that *it does not hurt every ' itid. p. iSg 07ie, nor benefit every one ^^. But for the peculiar claims of the see of saint Peter he has nothing but derision. " The - iwd. p. 193 authority of the apostle ceased with his death ^^ : his s^ =" ^■ successors possess it just so far as their lives are apo- stolic. ^ He is not to be called apostolic who sits in, the ' Apoi., ap. Jon. 195 H sq. seat of the apostle, but he who fills the office of the apostle. Of them that hold that place and fulfil not its office the Lord hath said, ^ The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat : ' ¥?"•»■ xxiu. 2 sq. all therefore whatsoever they say unto you, that observe and do ; but do not ye after their works: for they say and do not. With equal clearness Claudius ^ expresses the distinction " Enarr. in * ■*- Gal. cap. i. between the ideal church and the imperfect copy which ?• '-'=' ^• represents it on earth. It was probably opinions like these last which saved Claudius from any rebuke from the emperor for the " The reprint, p. 198 E, presents and Mibnan) to mean the whole a variant still more guarded in Ian- episcopal order : I have therefore guage. omitted the clause, and interpreted " It seems doubtful whether the whole sentence in the light of ' aliis ' or ' aliis euccedentibus,' just what follows, after, can be pressed (with Gfroerer 36 CLAUDIUS AND THE WESTERN CHUEGH. Chap. I. greater part of his career 2°. They pass almost without question even in the controversy raised by the publi- cation of his Apologeti c. His other views, too, if they went further than those accepted at the court, were at all events errors on the right side ; iconoclasm was less reprehensible than the 'idolatry' of the Greeks. Those who were hottest in their repudiation of Claudius, used very similar language with regard to the other extreme. "Deecci. ^Walafrid Strabo, who became abbat of Keichenau in rer. exord. 114! ^sf™ 842, holds a scrupulous balance in the controversy ; and Walafrid had been a pupil of Eabanus Maurus, and was in some sort a representative theologian of his age. How little, too, the style of argument adopted by his antagonist Jonas commends itself to modern catholics "pp. 166, 167 may be gathered from the ^cautions and expostulations H, 193 mg. ./ o ^ IT. with which his Benedictine editors have thought it necessary to accompany him^^- Claudius was in fact carrying to their logical issues principles which were virtually recognised by the council of Paris in 825, and which even fifty years later were mentioned by the papal librarian Anastasius, in a dedication to John the Eighth, as still holding their ground among certain persons in Gaul'^'^ at a time when the Greek practice had won nearly universal acceptance in the west. We can therefore hardly take bishop Jonas at his word «p. 169C when he speaks of Claudius as an enemy of "all the sincerest cliurclimen, the most devoted soldiers of Christ, " I find this inference anticipated otherwise of the suggestion in the and extended by Gfroerer, Kirchen- text. geschiohte 3. 733. Schmidt, nbi ^' See the pregnant note, Caute supra, p. 62, thinks it implied by a lege, p. 195 h, marg. passage in Jonas, p. 1 75 F, o, that ^^ Quibusdam dumtaxat Gallorum Claudius had at one time come exceptis, quibus utique nondum est under the censure of the pope, a harum [imaginum] utilitas reve- supposition not improbable in it- lata: Mausi 12. 983 D. self and rather confirmatory than CONTROVERSIES. 37 in, Gaul and Germany: we know indeed from a ''friend chap. i. who was also Claudius' opponent in this respect, that ■> xheodemir. in spite of his action in the matter of images, his com- ciaud. ap. . , -r. 1 , F.A.Zachari. mentaries on the Bible were received with eager enthu- wuioth. ° Pistor. 60, siasm by not a few of the highest prelates of Gaul. Jj^'^'" '"^ Claudius therefore took no pains to defend himself until he had carried on his warfare during a number of years. His Apologetic — a defiant proclamation of his views — he at last addressed to his former friend, the abbat Theo- demir, who had warned him of the perilous course he was taking. The answer was a " council of bishops held ° Dungai , 223 H, Jonas at Lewis's court, and a condemnation ; but Claudius can '^7 °- hardly have been much awed by what he is reported to have termed ^an assembly of asses. Nor was his refusal 'Dungai, i.c. to attend followed by any measure to reduce him to obedience. The emperor, more, it should seem, to con- ciliate these prelates than from any serious intention of controlling Claudius, sent s extracts of the offending s Jonas 167 i D, E, book to Jonas, bishop of Orleans, with the desire that he would refute it. These extracts are all that remain to us of what to the historian is Claudius' most valuable work^^: the refutation did not appear until after its object's death. Meantime, Dungai, a Scottish teacher of Pavia, issued a vehement Beply, ^ earnestly invoking the " cungai 199 F. imperial aid in suppressing the new heresy. Theodemir also returned to the controversy. Perhaps we may 'infer ' cf. Schmidt •^ _ ubi supra, from Jonas' unwillingness to publish his polemic, that p- ^i- Claudius as he aged had tempered his fire : more probably Jonas himself found that the act would not increase his ^' The fragments are collected in Moreover the text is so inaccurate two pages of the Maxima Biblio- and the punctuation so bewildering tbeca Pattum 14. 197 sqq., which that I have preferred to seek ths give an appearance of continuity to originals in the pages of Dungai what is really a string of extracts and Jonas themselves, by no means regularly consecutive. 38 AGOBAKD OF LYONS: chap^i. favour with the emperor. Be this as it may, the bishop lived more than ten years after he had sent forth his defence, to all appearance without let or molestation kp. Ugheii. from any one. "^His strenuous career was closed not Xtal. sacr. 4. ^ Rlme'1652 earlier than 839, but he 'left behind him disciples 'Jon 16 E F enough to stimulate controversy. His writings too, with the exception of the Apologetic, were rapidly mul- tiplied and diffiised. His fame as a commentator secured the survival of a good deal of his peculiar teaching ; but it is hazardous, if not impossible, to con- nect him in any direct way with the appearance of similar opinions, whether in the congregations of the Waldenses centuries later, or in those isolated puritan outbreaks which repeatedly confront us in the course of medieval history. In his protest against the invocation of sa ints Claudius perhaps st ogd alnnpj but in tlie_Qther points in whic h he separated himself from the current doctrine he ha d a su pporter (there is^Jnde ed, no evidence to place jhem in act ual association^ nf fa.r gre ater ability and far- jgider in fluence in the persono f saint A gobard. Like him, A.D. no. born in Spain, Agobard was more fortunate in his edu- cation. He was brought up from an early age in the south of Gaul, at a time when the impulse given to learning by Charles the Great was in its first vigour : of that civilisation Agobard remained the representative when its founders were dead, and its spirit was falling into decay. Leidrad, archbishop of Lyons, bred him for his successor, made him co- bishop, and after some years secured his appointment to the see when he re- tired to a cloister in 8162*. Agobard's life as archbishop =' I date the events in Agobard's quoted, and beyond doubt rightly life according to a manuscript notice assigned to this prelate, by Mabil- INDEPENDENCE OF HIS POSITION. 39 corresponds closely with the reign of Lewis the Pious ; chap. i. he died on the 8th June, 840, in the same month as the emperor. Success was prepared for him by others : he deserved it by his contribution to the defence of the orthodox belief against the heresy of the adoptians. But he con- tinued always entirely unaffected by the circumstances of a high position. Independent and regardless of con- sequences, he held to the principles which he enounced, with unconquerable audacity. He_saHLthe mass e s ar ound hi m sunk in a state of slug ^ gish credu lity, and instead of le aving them there, as oth erH did, in the opinion that a debased people is the easiest to govern, he laboured hard for~their liberation and attacked u nsparingly every form of g uperstition wherever be found it. His thoughts were wider than Claudius's, b ut in the matter of images the Gallic and Italian prelates were_of one mind! If the former was the less active in carrying his views into practice, it was not for want of firm conviction. Cer- tainly he was not withheld by the risk of any opposition he might encounter in the Frankish church. He wrote in the same strong spirit, now of persuasion, now of rebuke, as Claudius ; but no controversy ever arose over his utterances. The heads of the church were with him; but at the same time the masses were fast bound by superstition. Agobard may have calculated the injury which the character of an iconoclast would inflict upon his personal influence over them. He may have felt the hopelessness of the undertaking, and held it wiser, and in Ion, Iter Italioum 68, Paris 1687 that Agobard's elevation took place quarto. Bouquet, 6. 190 B marg. a year earlier. P. Piolin, the latest and note (1749), infers from the editor of Gallia Christiana, 4. 55 D, chronicle of Ado of Vienue, a. 815 Paris 1876 folio, dates it as early (so also in Pertz'a edition, 2. 320), as 814. 40 agobaed's treatment of image-woeship Chap. I. the end more effectual, to elevate the people gradually by the voice of reason. The difference, therefore, between him and Claudius regards chiefly the means to carry out their common views. But Agobard is always guided by a calmer and «■ Lib. contra dearer perception than his vehement ally. ™ He desires, eorum super- sr sr »/ ' ^cturu'^t'"' indeed, the removal of all pictures from the churches, .™nttomm but he admits that they are essentially innocent and obsequium ouly rendered pernicious by abuse. '^T/ie ancients, he deferendum , P"'?!!'- says, Aad figures of the saints, painted or carved, but for the "Cap. xxxii. sake of history, for record not for worship; as, for example, the acts of synods, wherein were portrayed the catholics up- held and victorious, and the heretics iy the discovery of the falsehood of their vile doctrine convicted and expelled, in memorial of the strength of the catholic faith, even as pictures stand in record of foreign or domestic wars. Such we have seen in divers places : yet none of the ancient catholics held Cap. xxxiii. iidf ffi^gy sJiould be worshipped or adored. ° The pictures in p. 294 F. t' * -^ ^ churches should be looked at just as any other pictures. Only the faithlessness of the age, which will find some special virtue in them, forces him to condemn them p Cap. xxiv. utterly. » God must be worshipped without any sensuous p. 292 D. « JTi .f 1 Cap. xxxi. representations. * Whosoever adoreth a picture or a statue, p. 294 D ; cf. ep. ad Bar- carvcd OT moltcn, payeth not worship to God nor honoureth the thol. vii. p. . . 282c. angels or holy men, but is an idolater: he is beguiled to '2C0r.xi.14. evil under the fairest disguises of devotion; "Satan trans- formeth himself into an angel of light. The opposition of spirit and matter is as real to him as to Claudius. He, • Capp. XV., too, saw that = visible objects were a hindrance not a help XVI. p. 2go i^ »' °- to the perception of the invisible. * When faith is taken ' Cap. xxxiii. . •' p. 294 F. from the heart, then is all trust set on visible things. The rule thus stated Agobard proceeds to apply to the ' vulgar errours' of his day. Want of faith is the root of AND POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS. 41 superstition : it is nurtured by unreason. " The wretched Chap. i. ; world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness : things are » Lib. contra . _ J y J J J insulsam heheved by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could ™'e' °pi- \ ■ nionem de aforetime induce the heathen, who hnew not the Creator of all, fJnJJrSs^ xvi. to believe. Of the various works which he wrote upon ''■ °'^ "' this subject, not the least interesting, and certainly the most curious, is the treatise Against the absurd Opinion of the Vulgar touching Hail and Thunder. It appears that ^ there was a class of impostors who assumed to themselves 'i;^^''; J;'e)'' the ofSce of ' clerk of the weather.' These tempestarii, ^''* °" or weather-wizards, claimed the power not only of con- trolling the weather, and securing the fields from harm, but also of bringing about hail and thunder-storms, ^ and ''Cap- "'■ p- especially of directing them against their private enemies. '^ Plainly they derived a goodly revenue from a black ' Cap. xv. p. V *^ O »/ 274 G. mail forced by the double motives of fear and hope. " IFe have seen and heard, says Agobard, many who are over- " Cap- ". p. whelmed by such madness^ carried away by su/ih folly, that they believe and assert that there is a certain region called Magonia — no doubt the Magic Land — whence ships come in the clouds: the which bear away the fruits of the earth, felled by hail and destroyed by storms, to that same country ; and these sailors of the air forsooth give rewards to the weather- wizards, and receive in return the crops or other fruits. Certain ones have we seen, blinded by so dark a folly, who brought into an assembly of men four persons, three men and a woman, as having fallen from the said ships; whom, they held in bonds for certain days and then presented before an assembled body of men, in our presence, as aforesaid, that they should be stoned. Howbeit the truth prevailed, after much reasoning, and they who brought them forward were corvfounded. He con- descended to seek evidence of the power of the weather- wizards, but could obtain no account at first hand. 42 AGOBARD AND Chap. I. I •> People were confident that such or such a_thiBg had " De grand! been done, but they were not present at its performance. vii. p. 272 H "^ = =1- It was this credulous habit of mind that irritated Ago- bar3; H6 disdained to allege scientific reasons to over- throw what was in its nature so unreasonable. He could only fall back on the same broad religious principles which had guided him in his repudiation of images. There, he says, our relation to God must be direct and ■^Capp. ix., without the intervention of sensible objects: "here, con- XIV. pp. 273 D, 274 F. versely, that God's relation to nature is immediate and least of all conditioned by the artifices of men. He acknowledges that * almost every one, in these regions, nolle and simple, citizen and countryman, old and young, believes that storms are under human control, and attributes the «Cap. xi. p. work of God to man. ^He spares no words in con- 271 H. ^ ** Capp. i,,xiv pp. 271 D, E, 274 F. =73 H. 'Cap. XV. p. demning this infidelity which 'believes partly in God, partly that God's words are of men ; hopes partly in God, partly in men. With_£tfuai- vigoui he -oppose d superstitions wh ich te nded to the profit of the chur tdi. To his straight- forward vision they were the more dangerous, si nce they . degraded the church with the people^ instead of maintain- ?,Ep.ad ing it pureraS"arii^t shimng in darkness. ^ There was an Barth. episc. o x ^ o o fu?™n"dam epidemic at a place, so he writes to bishop Bartholomew nomm^rpf" ^^ Narboune, the causes of which were traced to the activity of evil spirits. The terrified people crowded to the church and lavished ofierings of silver and gold and cattle, whatever they possessed, at the feet of saint Firmin. The bishop in perplexity wrote to Agobard for advice : his answer was a warning against the faithless- ness implied in trusting to the power of the saint to ward ofiP visitations which proceed from the hand of God. The devil no doubt is at work, but not in the way these norum, 1. p, 281 D, E. POPULAK SUPERSTITIONS. 43 people supposed ; his action is far less physical than chap. i. mental: he is seen to prevail over some men, not so much for the 'purpose of striking them down as of deluding them. It is difficult to overestimate the change which the acceptance of Agobard's view would have caused in the popular beliefs of the middle ages. The continual visitations of evil spirits of which the history is full would then have resolved themselves into the creatures of a disordered imagination; the latter, not the former, being the work of the devil : those who believed in his direct visitation, not its supposed victims, were really under his influence. ^For his success, Agobard explains, requires a receptivity ' cap. vH. p. on men's part, lack of faith or delight in vanity ; and with these favourable conditions he can indeed lead them helplessly to destruction and death. Agobard gives else- where a remarkable illustration. ^A few years since, he 'pe grand. ^ ^ XIV. pp. 274 H says, a certain foolish story went abroad when there was a =i- murrain of oxen : it was said that Grimoald, duke of Bene- vento, sent out men with powder to scatter over the fields and mountains, meadows and springs, forasmuch as he was enemy to the most Christian emperor Charles ; ly reason of which powder the oxen died. For this cause we have heard and seen many persons to he apprehended and certain slain. Agobard comments on the absurdity of the tale. He asks why only the oxen and no other animals suffered, and further how the murrain could extend over so large a tract of land, when if all the inhabitants of Benevento, men, women, and children, each with three wagons full of powder, had been employed, they could not possibly have sprinkled powder enough. But, what, he adds, was most strange, the^ prisonerijhemselvesjiare testimony against themselves, affirming that they had that powder, and had scattered it. Thus did the devil receive power against them 44 agobabd's condemnation of chap^i. ly fj^g secret hut righteous judgement of God, and so greatly did he prevail that they themselves were made false witnesses unto their own death. But the influence of the devil, in Agobard's thought, is actually little more than the conventional expression — for Agobard was before all things orthodox — for men's proclivity to unreason and faithlessness ^^- Superstition might take the form, as we have seen hitherto, of their claiming powers which really belong to God. It was none the less superstition to postulate the intervention of God in cases where human judgement alone was necessary. For men to disregard the evidence of ascer- jLib. de tained facts ^^, and to call for perpetual J miracles at their divinis sen- -^ ■*■ tentiis digest, fcehest was impiety of the worst kind, making God in contra dam- s: J ' o nfoMm pu-'" fs-ct the servant of man. It is this argument, supported vbi'Micu by copious citations from the Scriptures, that Agobard igni vei aquis allcges agaiust the popular customs of ordeal by fire or velconflictu O O ir jr J armorum watcr aud of wagcr of battle. Of the two usages the patenen, u. ^ ° p. 301E. ordeal was probably the less prevalent: ''it was dis- kCapiLWor- . . Pertz\^^'' couraged and prohibited by the emperor ^^; and Agobard I. 352 § 12. ^' Dr Keuter, i. 30, confesses et vera sensus deminutione,' shew himself unable to harmonise the how closely connected in his mind account in the place last quoted the two ideas were. It is uncritical and in the epistle to Bartholomew, to link a number of detached vii, of the appearance of the devil phrases or epithets, chosen from 'als wirklich handelnder,' with the different places, and to take credit other passages in which his activity for realising, when one is only con- seems concStioned by the self-de- fusing, an author's system, ception of men. But the professor ^' TJtilitas iudiciorum constat in has certainly drawn too definite discussione causarum et subtilitate an inference from Agobard's words investigationum : Lib. adv. legem when he represents him as saying, Gundobadi et impia certamina quae ' people are deceived because they per earn geruntur, x. p. 265 H. deceive themselves.' Agobard in " It is significant that so repre- fact nowhere expresses himself with- sentative a churchman as archbishop out qualification, either on this head Hincmar of Eheims opposed this or on that of the devil's actual in- ordinance, C. von Noorden, Hink- terference in human aflFairs. The mar 173. Gottschalk also chal- words with which he closes the lenged the ordSal as a test of the story given in the text, offering it truth of his opinions : ibid. p. 67. as an example ' de inani seduotione THE OEDEAL AND WAGEE OF BATTLE. 45 may have deemed it unworthy of serious argument. He chap. i. applies his forces mainly to the exposure of the wrong — ^ nex, not lex, — involved in the test of combat. The ' Lib. adv. ordeal indeed was destitute of any feature except the p- ^ss c. superstitions, while combat, as " Hallam observes, might ■» Middle be held to be partly redeemed by ' the natural dictates of ^^- ^^i^- resentment in a brave man unjustly accused^ and the sympathy of a warlike people with the display of skill and intrepidity.' At Lyons, the old Burgundian capital, the latter institution, resting as it did on a law of the Burgundian king Gundobald, is "thought to have been -Gfroerera. resorted to with peculiar frequency. ° Agobard addressed = Lib. adv. /. 7 . . ... , 1^?' Gund. one of his two treatises on the subject to the emperor ™- p- =65 c. and implored him to suppress the evil. ^ He urged not p De div. only the religious objections, that God's judgements are 302 =• unsearchable and not lightly to be presumed, but also the arguments of common sense. The combat declares not the judgement of God but the right of the strongest, and gives a criminal encouragement to strife. iThe van- ' Lib. adv. ° . ... leg- Gund. quished is cast into despair and loss of faith, while in'"^ many cases the conqueror proves his innocence by adding 1 the guilt of murder. ^ If the test is worthy of confidence, \ Cap. ix. p. how came Jerusalem into the hands of the Saracens, i Rome to be pillaged by the Goths, Italy by the Lom- bards ? The martyrs of the church, ihe witnesses of truth, \ waxed strong ly dying : the upholders of iniquity ly hilling •perished. With these various weapons, drawn from the armoury of reason, of experience, of religion, Agobard made war upon the superstitions of his age. He took his stand upon the unassailable ground of Christian verity, but he had his own opinions even in matters like the inspiration of the Bible. Thoughtful men over whose minds the 46 AGOBAKD'S YIEW OF INSPIRATION: Chap. I. authority of the Bible is supreme have always endea- voured to temper its severity by one of two modes of viewing it. Some enlarge its field by erecting an ample superstructure of allegory upon the literal text, — imagining that they are laying bare its deep, underlying truths, — -a method which allows the utmost freedom or license of interpretation upon a servile and uncritical basis. In this way Claudius, and far more John the Scot, were able to bring the words of Scripture into harmony with their own teaching. Others, with a greater fidelity to the scope of the Bible, insist that the letter is subordinate to the spirit, to the general bearing of the book. Among these is Agobard. He rebukes Frede- gisus, abbat of Tours, for the absurdity of holding that the words of Scripture are inspired ^^: its sense is no doubt divine but its form is human ^'. The same rule must be our guide in its interpretation. We must make it intelHgible, even against the grammatical sense, so long as we preserve its spirit; — ut sacramento rei concordaret. T o^this. adde-cPftiPihing libera lity therg is one_e xcept ion in the hostili ty which Agobaj d bore towards -tbe-Jews. But the archbishop's action was not simply that of a bigot, and the motive of the controversy in which he engaged was entirely honourable to him. He set his face^^ainst ■ H. Graetz, a flagitious custom of which the Jews, t he g i'eat ^slave- gesch. der — ~ '^' Idt^dihaf' ^^^^^^^ o^ t^^ empire, had the m ^opoly. *H e forbade the i860. Christians ot ins diocese from selling slaves to the Jews *■ De insolen- ^ tia ludae- orara, p. 255 ^ Quod ita Bentiatis de prophetis theories of inspiration. et apostolis ut non solum aensum '' TJsus sanctae soriptuiae eat praedicationis et modos Tel argu- verbis condeaoendere humania, qua- menta dictionum spiritua aanctus tinus vim ineffabilia rei, humano eis inapiraverit, sed ipsa corporalia more loquens, ad notitiam boniinum verba extrinsecus in era illorum deduceret et mysteria inaolita soli- ipae formaverit : Lib, contra obiec- tis oatenderet rebua ; ibid. vii. tionea Fredeg. abbat. xii. p. 277 E : p. 276 E. an argument against all organic c. HIS HOSTILITY TO THE JEWS. 47 for exportation to the Arabs of Spain, and sought also chap. i. to place a' variety of restrictions upon the intercourse of the two races. The emperor however supported the Jews, and Agobard could only resort to passionate appeals a.d. 826. to the statesmen of the palace and to the bishops, in the hope of reestablishing a state of things more consonant with the principles of the church. We are not concerned to defend the curious slanders he repeats in his letter On the Superstitions of the Jews : it is sufHcient that he believed them. But the truth was that under Lewis the Pious, particularly after his marriage with his second empress, Judith, the position of the Jews might fairly be held to menace Christianity. Charles the Great had shewn them tolerance ; Lewis added his personal favour ; and under him they enjoyed a prosperity without ex- ample in the long course of the middle ages^". They formed a peculiar people under his own protection, equally against the nobles and the church ; and their privileges were guarded by an imperial officer, the Master — he even claimed the title of King^^ — of the Jews._Ei:ee from military service, the Jews were indispensable to the commerce of the empire; on account of their fin ancial skill it was com mon fn fmaf fVipm wif.h fTa-n-JarTn of the taxes. Nothing was left undone which might gratify their national or religious prepossessions. They had ■ rights from which Christians were excluded, entire *' For the following outline I am begged to be baptised, De baptismo chiefly indebted to Graetz, 5. 245- ludaicorum manoipiorum, p. 2G2 263. His remark as to the dis- E, F. honesty of Agobard in baptising " The chief rabbi of the syna- the slaves of Jews and thus eman- gogue of Narbonne asserted that cipating them may be just: but Charles had granted him this dig- Christians have at all times been nity; certainly a street in this place liable to stretch their loyalty to was named Key Juif : G. B. Dep- honour at the call of religion, and ping. Die Juden im Mittelalter 99, Agobard asserts that the slaves Germ, transl., Stuttgart 1834. 48 agobaed's political action. chap^i. freedom of speech was allowed, and the very weekly J °= '"'°'' " markets were postponed to the Sunday in order that the °" alien race might observe its sabbaths. The Jews built their synagogues, and held their lands and pastures ; they planted vineyards and set up mills, in perfect security. At the court of the emperor they were welcomed with marked distinction. They went there with their wives, and were only known in the throng by the more sump- tuous display of their apparel. The empress Judith was singularly attached to them, and the courtiers, taking up the fashion, attended the synagogue and admired the preaching of the darshanim above that of their own clergy. It is evident that some motive nobler than jealousy or intolerance might actuate a churchman in resisting what he was bound to consider inimical to the interests of religion. Agobard's view of it was confirmed by the distrust he felt in the emperor's advisers, and in the empress. But we have not here to do with his position as a leader in the revolt which attempted to place Lothar • cf. Reuter on his father's throne, ^ instructive as it may be as illus- trating Agobard's application to the field of politics of that clear perception of right and wrong, that fearless and unswerving adherence to his beliefs, that we have y Vol. 3.753- found elsewhere ^^. For his courage, as ^Gfroerer notes, is even more astonishing than the freedom of his vision. In the light of ten centuries we may think his arguments truisms and wonder at the pains he took to demonstrate '' I am not sure that we can have decided him, but his modera- affirm, with von Noorden, pp. 38 sq., tion has not the tone of a convert : that Agobard's preference for the see for instance his letter to the power of the ecclesiastical over the emperor, De comparatione utrius- eecular estate was caused by his que regiminis, ecclesiaatioi et poli- conviction of the feebleness of tici, especially p. 315 E, Lewis's government. This may INFLUENCE OP AUGUSTIN. 49 what seems to us to need no demonstration, to expose chap. i. what is unworthy of exposure. But the fact remains that he stood absolutely alone in his generation, with the single exception of Claudius of Turin; and Claudius's interest was limited to a single branch of superstition, while Agobard undertook the destruction of the whole. In both alike the influence of saint Augustin is para- mount. It is, indeed, the continual interruption of long extracts from the fathers, and above all from Augustin, that too often defaces to our modern eyes the impression of lucidity and vigour which are the just attributes of Agobard's style. Whether or not in direct quotation the presence of the father's treatise On true Religion and of the City of God is seldom wanting. Doubtless Claudius and Agobard were here simply following the universal habit of the scholars of their day, with whom Augustin ranked second alone to the Bible ; to contradict him, as Paschasius Eadbert said, was impiety ^^- But there were few who accepted his spiritual force and left out of account his extravagance of fancy ; there were few who chose only his good part and wrought it with such wisdom, as these two did. ^ While others in the generation ' Cf. Renter ' *^ I. 41 sq. immediately following heard only the appeal of his less worthy utterances, the incongruous children of his genius, and were led into the opposite extreme of superstition^*, they used precisely those elements of his teaching which had a practical tendency. They found in him a beacon " Augustinum quem contradicere lating to the manner of Christ's fas non est: De partu virginiB ii, birth will be found in d'Aohery, in Luc d'Achery's SpicUegium sive ubi supra, pp. 44 sqq., 52 sqq. It 'CoUectio veterum aliquot Soripto- may be observed that Paschasius rum, I. 51 a, ed. F. J. L. de la addressed his exceedingly physiolo- Barre, Paris 1723 folio. gical disquisition to the matron and ^ The curious treatises of Pascha- virgins of the convent of Vesona in sius Kadbert and Ratramnus re- the diocese of P^rigord. 50 INFLUENCE OP AUGUSTIN : TBANSUBSTANTIATION •Chap. I. to shed light upon the deepening obscurity of the age, a weapon to assail and overthrow its resistance to vital religion ; and with this they were content. To enquire deeper into their master's thoughts, to speculate upon the mysteries of being and of God, was foreign to their purpose. Agobard does, indeed, once venture upon the field of controversy in theological metaphysics ; he wrote a book against Felix of Urgel, the adoptian : but here, too, he is still the theologian, not a philosopher. He recites the testimonies of the fathers, but he cares not to add to them his independent criticism. His reticence was jus- tified by the experience of the years after him, when the 'Cf. Reuter attempt was made to * accommodate the spiritual system of Augustin to the concrete doctrines of the church, and the amalgam proved the strangest and most materialistic product of that materialistic age, the theory of transub- stantiation. No innovation could have been better cal- culated to promote the decay of the moral individualism of Christianity, and the growth of a servile dependence upon the priestly order. It succeeded, not because it professed a conformity with saint Augustin, but because the age was tending towards intellectual degradation. When, however, some years later, Gottschalk, the me- dieval Jansen, revived from the same father an uncon- ditional doctrine of predestination, the result was quite different. For this doctrine was as subversive as Clau- dius's piiritanism of the newer theory of the church. A stimulus was given to controversy, but the issue was foregone. Latin Christianity had come to acquiesce in a belief which admitted God's predestination of the good, his foreknowledge only of the wicked ; in the technical phrase of Calvinism, predestination but not reprobation. AND PREDESTINATION. 51 When Gottschalk affirmed both, the language of saint Chap. i. Augustin had to be explained away. It was impossible that his authority could support tenets which, it was seen, struck at the root of the power of the clergy, not only by the implied denial of the efficacy of the sacra- ments, but also of the value of human absolution. Nor can we be surprised that the men of Charles the Bald's age failed to realise a time when these essentials of ecclesiastical salvation were so differently conceived that Augustiu's view could be attacked, not for its heretical character, but for its inhumanity. His unseasonable restorer appeared to them guilty of the most hopeless, unpardonable heresy. It was discovered that his opinions included the most opposite errors, the denial of the freedom of man's will, and of the necessity of divine grace. Few disputes ever had a more accidental origin. Gott- schalk, the son of a Saxon noble, was forced as a child into the monastery of Fulda. When he grew up he rebelled, and denied the obligation of his father's vow. A council at Mentz, to which he appealed against the a.d. 829. authority of his superior, reversed the sentence. The powerful abbat, it was none less than Eabanus Maurus, brought the case before the emperor and won his cause. The youth was condemned for life to the rule of saint Benedict. But the high-spirited ambition of his birth was quickened, not quenched, by his bondage. The fame he would have made in the active life of a noble, he now sought in the adventurous paths of speculation. He removed to the monastery of Orbais near Soissons, and buried himself in saint Augustin. The theory he developed in this seclusion had a natural affinity with the morbid cravings, the vindictive passions, of a dis- E % 52 CONTEOVEESy ABOUT PEEDESTINATION. Chap. I. appointed man. It assuaged his regrets for lost earthly prosperity by the confidence of eternal happiness here- after. It gave him a weapon with which to assail his opponents : their reward was already decided for them. He pressed the certainty of their doom with fanatical violence. The controversy which followed is too purely theological, too unrelieved by any warmth of human sympathy, by any real sense of human needs, to detain Tis in its dark and weary progress ^^- It is of importance as introducing us to that astonishing thinker whose aid was rashly invoked against the monk of Orbais. The theological dispute was for a moment merged in the deep sea of philosophy: when it rose again the monk Gottschalk was forgotten ; the voice of orthodoxy on all sides was directed against Johannes Scotus, the belated disciple of Plato, and the last representative of the Greek spirit in the west. '^ The history here only glanced nous chapter of von Noorden'aHink- at 13 related in an admirably lumi- mar 51-100. CHAPTER II. JOHN THE SCOT. The dispute about predestination had long perplexed chap. ii. the Frankish world when Hincmar, the great archbishop of Rheims, applied to John the Scot for help. Gottschalk had received his sentence from the council of Chiersey, a.d. 819. and died after a long captivity in the monastery of HautvilUers. But the controversy had failed, as con- troversies usually fail, to secure conviction to either side, and John gladly assumed that the fault lay in the in- competence of theology by itself to decide the profound questions involved. He began his book on the subject ^ by the announcement that true philosophy and true religion are identical; a solution of religious problems can only be effected by the aid of philosophy ; and true philosophy rests on the basis of the unity of God. The oneness of his essence implies also a oneness of will, a will that can tend only towards good. To conceive a predestination to evil is to conceive a duality, a contra- diction, in the divine nature. But predestination of any sort can only be improperly asserted of God, since he is independent of time. If we connect it with any notion ' Of the tract De praedestina- Munich 1861. A masterly sum- tione, to which I had not access mary appears in F. C. Baur's post- when I wrote the present chapter, humous Christliche Kirche des Mit- Johannes Huber has given an ela- telalters 50-55, Tuebingen 1861. borate analysis in his biography, See also Gfroerer, Kirchenge- Johannes Scotus Erigena 60-92, sohichte 3. 867 sqq. 54 JOHN scot's view op predestination : Chap. II. of necessitj it cannot be asserted of him at all ; since his will is absolute freedom ; and man, as the highest image of God, possesses this same entire freedom of will, which he can use as he pleases for good or evil. There remains but one sense in which we can speak of God's pre- destination ; that is, his permission of what happens in the creature by reason of his free will. He suffers this freedom of will, but when it moves to evil he knows it not; for God is ignorant of evil. If he knew it he would be the cause of it : we cannot separate his know- ledge from his will, which is cause. For God, therefore, evil exists not ; it has no cause, it is simply the negation of good. Sin, therefore, and its punishment come not from God. Every misdeed bears its punishment in itself, in the consciousness of lacking good. The eternal fire is a necessary part of God's universe. The righteous will rejoice in it; the wicked suffer, because they are wicked, just as (he quotes the simile from the Confessions of Augustin) the sunlight hurts the weak while it is harm- less to sound eyes. The order of the world sets a limit within which each creature moves and which it cannot overpass. It sets a' bound to the possibility of wicked- ness, but for which the wicked would fall into that nothingness which is the nature of evil. In this sense alone is punishment fore-ordained. Mat wickedness be not able to extend itself, as it would, into the infinite. These are some of the arguments which the Scot brings against the contention of Gottschalk. We see at once their startling character. They were no doubt entirely unadapted to their purpose ; it was no doubt vain to argue on philosophical grounds with men who relied exclusively on theology and on a one-sided selection of ' scriptural proofs.' But it is on this very account that HTS NEO-PLATONISM. 55 the reasoning is memorable. There is nothing in it of Chap. ii. the commonplaces of controversy or of theology. It has a terminology of its own. Outwardly, indeed, John Scot appeals, like his opponents, to the Bible, to Augustin, to the common church tradition. But these strains are actually those which give colour to a web of thought quite different in texture. Its material, indeed, is only partly Christian, — and this, as we find it in his matured system, is drawn from the Greek fathers, Origen, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa, more than from the Latins, — but most of all it comes from the heterogeneous manufacture of the latest Neo-Platonists, the men who sought to combine a religion which failed to satisfy the speculative instinct with the noblest philo- sophy of which they had information. The result was in any case a medley — ' the spurious birth,' it has been * called, ' of a marriage between philosophy and tradition, « jowett, dial, of Plato between Hellas and the East — but the attempt was so 3- 5=4, ei. 2, '^ Oxford 1875. plausible, so enticing, that it has never wanted defenders from the beginnings of Christianity, from Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, to our own time. Among these Johannes Scotus,called lerugenaor Erigena^, ^ The biography of John Soot, for his spirited action in connexion which resolves itself mainly into a with the oecumenical council of criticism of scanty and conflicting 1869-1870. As for the name of materials, was first attempted by the Irish philosopher the following F. A. Staudenmaier, a catholic pro- facts may be accepted as ascer- fessor at Giessen, whose Johannes tained : (i) he was known to con- Scotus Erigena und die Wissen- temporaries as loannes Scotus, schaft seiner Zeit, Frankfurt-am- Scottus, or Scotigena; (2) in his Main 1834, was left unfinished. translation of Dionysius, and there Its biographical conclusions are for only, he designates himself loannes the most part reproduced in the lerugeua; (3) lerugena is the oldest Leben und Lehre des Joh. Scotus form that appears in the manu- Erigena, Gotha i860, of Dr Theo- scripts, but it soon alternates with dor Christlieb, now professor at Erugena (in a copy of the beginning Bonn. A more sceptical criticism of the eleventh century, Saint John's is applied, in the life already re- college, Oxford, cod. cxxviii) and ferred to, by Dr Huber, late pro- Eriugena ; (4) Erigena does not fessor at Munich, and well known make its appearance until later, 56 JOHN THE SCOT Chap. II. " supra, pp. i6 sq. ■^ Will. Malmesb. gest. pontif. V. 240 pp. 39239., ed. Hamilton. *• V. infra, p. 39 : cf. append, i. is an unique figure, not so much by the originality of his views, as by the confidence with which he discovered them latent in Christianity. He is unrestrained by the habits of thought of his own age, in which he appears as a meteor, none knew whence. The mystery which sur- rounds him is appropriate for his solitary person. From the schools of Ireland he drifted, some time before the year 847, to the court of Charles the Bald, ''like those former 'merchants of msdom' with whom tradition afterwards associated him. The "welcome he won from that liberal-minded prince and their intimate comrade- ship, the gaiety and sprightly humour of the Irish sage, his removal to England after Charles's death, and his new career as a teacher under the auspices of king Alfred, finally his murder at Malmesbury ; '^all these things are recounted by later annalists. His own time knows only that he was 'a holy man' who came from Ireland and (but this record is open to question) presided over the school of Paris ^. It does not even inform us whether he was clerk or layman. while (5) the combination of the three names cannot be traced be- yond the sixteenth century. See Christlieb 15 sq. It is an unwel- come consequence that the time- honoured title of Erigena must be finally withdrawn from currency. On its meaning it is difficult to form a decided opinion. Probably it is derived from Erin or leme and modulated so as to suggest Up6s. In any case Gale's notion (Testi- monia, prefixed to his edition of the De divisione naturae, p. 8) that its bearer came from Eriuven or Er- gene in the Welsh marches is to be re' His birth is ironically touched on by an opponent, Prudentiua of Troyes, 'Te solum omnium acutis- simum Galliae transmisit Hibernia,' De Praedest. contra lo. Scot, xiv Max. Biblioth. Patr. 15. 534 e; 1677 : his character appears from a letter of the librarian Anastasius, ' loannem .... Scotigenam, virum quern auditu comperi per omnia sanctum,' Usher, Epist. SyUog. 65. Finally his mastership of the Paris school can only have been of short duration, since pope Nicholas the First writes in 860 or 862 calling for John's removal from Paris 'in studio cuius capital iam olim fuisse perhibetur,' ap. C. E. du Boulay, Hist. Univ. Paris, i. 184, Paris 1665 folio. I notice that this pas- sage in the papal letter is not found in the recognised copies, e. g. Mansi, Concil. 15. 401 c, and that du Bou- lay, p. 183, admits that he took it from the collectanea of Naud^ ; 30 AT THE COUBT OF CHARLES THE BALD. 57 The king's regard for the sage, which we know also from chap. ii. his own poems and dedications, might be inferred from the appointment which he is presumed to have held at Paris. For although the little town upon the Seine was hardly yet recognised as the key of northern Gaul, and was by no means the ordinary seat of government, it was a favourite and not infrequent residence of the king — he was not yet emperor — whose capital lay at Compifegne or Laon. It owed its popularity at first no doubt to its neighbourhood to Saint Denys, whose fame had attracted thither the dying Pippin and made his great-grandson Charles choose the abbey for the burial-place of his house*; and it was this same con- nexion which gave the Irish scholar the first oppor- tunity for making his value felt. The story that the foundation dated from the Areopagite Dionysius, the earliest Athenian convert of saint Paul, was at this time universally accepted ; there was as yet no Abailard to contest it. The renown of the abbey added dignity to its supposed author ; and when writings ascribed to him with an equal credulity, were brought into the west ^, their purport aroused a natural curiosity, if only a translator could be found to reveal their treasures. Now Greek letters had never wholly died out in the Irish schools*, and John had skill enough to furnish that a suspicion arises that it may Historical Essays, 1st series, viii. be merely one of those fictions in- ' It seems that before the present Tented for the glorification of the of the Byzantine Michael the Stam- antiquity of the university of Paris, merer to Lewis the Pious in 827, just as a later incident in John Staudenmaier 1. 162 andn. 2, works Scot's life has been applied to that of the false Dionysius had already of the university of Oxford. Cf. made their way westward. Such Ldon Maitre, ifecoles episoopales et were sent by pope Paul the First monastiques 45, Le Mans 1866. to Pippin in 757 and by Hadrian * Mr E. A. Freeman has well the First to abbat Fuldrad of Saint told the history of the revival of Denys some years later : Gfroerer Paris in the ninth century : see his 3.865. essay on The early Sieges of Paris, ° Compare a letter of abbat Bene- 58 JOHN'S GEEEK LEAENING : Chap. II. the required version. How far the expectations of the votaries of saiat Denis were satisfied by the work, we do not know. Perhaps the obscurity of the translation limited the number of its readers ; at any rate it does not appear to have excited much attention. When «v. supra, «Pope Nicholas the First obiected to it in 860 or 863 p. 56, n. 3. J^ •' and wrote to Charles the Bald demanding that the phi- losopher's work should be sent to him for con-ection, it was really not so much from suspicion of its contents '' as a premature attempt to exercise a right of censor- ' V. Ritier, ship, ^prompted by hostility, in presence of an angry phiios.'3!'2o8 dispute between the churches, against anything Greek. ^u^g'i'aS^"' ^^^ ttie influence of the books upon the mind of the translator was momentous. The Timaeus of Plato he probably knew through the version of Chalcidius already; but now the bold forgery claiming the name of the Ai-eopagite, which seems to have won currency 'v^FjC.Baur, in the sixth century, s though the actual date of its vonVefdrei- 'Writing may be a little earlier, placed him in possession Schwe"-'^ of a metaphysical system ostensibly founded upon works ^""Is, n. T, of Plato which were unknown to western Christendom, 1842. and elaborated with a speculative fearlessness equally foreign to its spirit. Another Greek writer, the mono- thelete monk Maximus, supplemented the Scot's know- ledge of the ultimate forms of Neo-Platonism, and fi-om him too he translated a commentary which, like the works of the Areopagite, was destined for the royal study. It should be remarked in passing that John, un- like the men to whom our attention has hitherto been given, addressed himself to a very select company ; it diet of Aniaue, the councillor of ' What suspicion there was, was Lewis the Pious, in Baluze, Mis- probably inferred from the Scot's cellanea 2. 97 b^ ed. Mansi, Lucca notoriety in the interval in the con- 176 1 folio. troversy about predestination. HIS CAREER. 59 might be to the king, whose intellectual sympathies Chap. ii. were inherited from his father and grandfather, or it might be to his own hearers in the palace school. Twice only did he emerge into public view, and the estrangement, the public condemnation, which his utter- ances then on the subject of predestination and of the nature of the eucharist provoked* may have naturally confirmed his previous reserve. Of his further life little certain is recorded. He appears to have been in France in the year of the emperor's death'. The following a.d. 877. year saw peace reestablished in England, and ''it is dif- ' v. infra, ficult to resist a tradition which held currency through- out the middle ages that he sought retreat here when his old protector was taken away from him, and that his fervour of teaching was only closed when his scholars fell upon him and slew him. The monument that commemorated the holy sophist was soon destroyed, but repeated orders from pope or council have not suc- ' His predestination tract was upon him. This obvious argument twice condemned by churcli councils, seems to have escaped nearly all at Valence in 855 and at Langi-es the modern writers who decide the some years later. See Huber 97 sq. point in the negative. The pene- and the notes. To the former was tration of von Noorden has further due the contemptuous description discerned certain peculiarities in the of John's arguments as ' ineptas views ascribed by contemporaries to quaestiunculas et aniles pene fabu- John Scot which are inapplicable to las, Scotorumque pultes ' (Scots' por- Eatramnus : see his Hinkmar Erz- ridge): cap. vi. Mansi, Cone. 15. 6d. bischof von Bheims 103, n. 2. That John took part in the contro- ° This is inferred -from a poem versy raised by Faschasius Kadbert in which John commemorates the is certainly to be inferred from the foundation of a church dedicated to title of the work of Adrevald, De the virgin, which from several points corpora et sanguine Christi contra of correspondence is believed to be ineptias loannis Scoti, printed in that at Compifegne which Charles d'Achery, Spicilegium 1. 150 sqq. ; began in 877 on the model of his ed. 1723. The conclusion is not grandfather's church at Aix-la- invalidated but confirmed by the Chapelle. As however the actual fact that in after years the book of building was delayed by the empe- Katramnus on the subject was attri- ror's death John seems to describe buted to the Scot. It was known not what was really existing but that he had written a treatise, and the plan on which it was to be therefore the only appropriate trea- built. See the quotation in Huber tise that came to hand was fathered 120 n. 60 THE DIVISION OF NATUEE. Chap. II. ceeded in obliterating his truest memorial which remains to us in his writings; above all in the great work On the Division of Nature ^''. From this last we may, without attempting even in outline to portray his whole system, collect enough of its features to shew what a revelation he made of the dignity of the order of the universe; however much it might be mixed with crude or fantastic ideas, however often clouded in obscurity, yet full of suggestion, full of interest everywhere ^^. His reflexions upon the subject of predestination led John Scot, as we have already seen, to trace his theory of the nature of sin. Augustin^^ and even Athanasius had been led to a similar explanation of the appearance of evil in the world, but how differently had they ap- plied it. With them it is found compatible with a belief in the eternity of punishment ; to John it means that since all things proceed from good, so in good they must all be one day absorbed. To this consummation " Its proper title is Greek, Utpl the Testimonia preiixed to Gale's Lib. iv. 20 understandings. It expresses truth by figures. ° The order of time for instance, he says, is so often violated in the Bible itself that there can be no objection to our p Cap. 15 ignoring it in our exposition. ^ Adam must have sinned before he was tempted by the devil ; else he would not have been accessible to temptation. The events that are related to have taken place in Eden, that is in the ideal state, really happened on earth and were consequen- < Ibid. ; cf. tial to Adam's sin. i-For if paradise is human nature formed V. I p. 224. ■' -* •' after the image of God and made equal to the blessedness of the angels, then immediately he vAshed to leave his Creator, he fell from the dignity/ of his nature. His pride legan before he consented to his wfe. By this act man came into the ' Lib. ii. 6, 7 domain of time and space ; ' hence arose the physical distinctions of sex ^' and the rest of his bodily conditions, willing to force too many novel " Baur, 2. 302, considers that thoughts upon the reader. The the Soot held this separation of sex theory of evil waits for its complete aa ' the most important cousequenee development until the fourth book. of the fall.' I am however inclined As yet he is content to speak of to think that hfe chose it as the evil in a general way as though it most speaking, example, the sim- actually existed. The contradictions plest way of denoting the material of the work have certainly, as Dr man. Who after Augustin could von Prantl, Geschichte der Logik avoid regarding sex as the distinc- im Abendlande, 2. 24, n. 102, 1861, tive corporeal fact in man's nature? warns us, been exaggerated by critics Compare on this salient principle and seldom fail to resolve them- of Augustin, Milman, Latin Christi- selves on a closer scrutiny, anity 1. 151. AND RESTORATION OF MAN. 63 no less than the diversities of manners and thought that chap. ii. divide the human race. That which was single became manifold. We thus reach the ultimate result of the philosopher's conception of evil. = Sin is contempora- . Lib. a. g, neous with the existence of the human body. *It marks isi.'"^^' ''' the transition from the ideal to the actual, from the world 's^'gif^'"^'^" of thought to the world of matter. John's skill in fitting this theory within the framework of accepted doctrine cannot disguise its essential contra- riety. He supplants the dark dogma of the natural corruption of man, his original destiny to perdition, by the conception of the negative character of evil. "It is "Dediv.nat. he would say with Plato, as little natural as the diseases "f. pfat*¥im. p. 86. of the body : it is the inevitable result of the union of flesh and spirit. But the primal dignity of man's nature must in the end reassert its sway. ^T/ie soul may forget » Dediv.nat. V. 26 p. 256. her natural goods, may fail in her striving towards the goal of the inborn virtues of her nature ; the natural powers may move, by fault of judgement, towards something which is not their end: but not for ever. For the universal tendency of things is upward ; ^ and thus from evil is wont to turn good, but in ' Cap. 25 , . PP' 254 sqq. nowise from good evil. . . The first evil could not be perpetual, hut by the necessity of things must reach a certain bound and one day vanish. For if the divine goodness which ever worketh not only in the good but also in the wicked, is eternal and infinite, it follows that its contrary will not be eternal and infinite . . . Evil therefore will have its consummation and remain not in any nature, since in all the divine nature will work and be manifest. Our nature then is not fixed in evil; . . . it is ever moving, and seeks nought else hut the highest good, from which as from a beginning its motion takes its source, and to which it is hastened as to an end. As all things proceed from God, so in God they find their final completion. He 64 THE FOUR FOEMS OP NATURE. Chap. II. IS the end of things, the last of the four forms of nature which make the foundation of the Scot's system. This fourfold division is absolutely John's own pro- ' H. T. Cole- perty and discoverable "' elsewhere only in the Indian essays on the doctriue of the Sankhya : ' ^ in the simplicity of his rehg. and ** j. ,/ ?Kndus°is4'!' general plan,' it has been truly said, 'he surpasses all the ts'st'^^'^ philosophers of the middle ages.' The scheme breaks into 2if ;"c r ^' two by the distinction of creator and created. The first and bDediv.nat. fourth forms are the *" two aspects of the uncreated unity, "■ ^^'*' according as we consider it as the beginning or as the end of things. The one creates : the other creates not, it <^ cf. lib. iii. is the " rest for which nature strives and which consists lOp. III. in the restoration of things to their original imity. Between these terms lie the two forms of created things. They have the same division as the other two. The second creates : the third creates not. The one is the world of ideas, the pattern upon which the other, the sensible universe, is made. It contains the abstractions : a Lib. ii. 36 * goodness — the first of things, — essence, life, wisdom, truth, intellect, reason, virtue, justice, health, greatness, omnipotence, eternity, peace, and all the virtues and reasons which the Father created once for all in his Son, and according to which the order of all things is framed, each considered by itself and apart from sensible objects. ' Lib. i. I, These are the primordial causes of things, the "eflTects of ' which are manifested in time and place in the third form of nature. But it is impossible to keep the effects apart 'Lib. iii. 5, from the causes; ^ they are involved in them, and with B Lib.'°.i6 them eternal, though not eternal as God; for s eternity, *"' ^°' like every other attribute, can only be predicated of him '' Cap. 23 in an improper sense, he is more than eternal. ''Place and time exist not with him : he has nothing accidental, cause and effect with him are one. Therefore the p. 15. THEOEY OF THE UNIVEESB. 65 * universe, as his creation, is eternal : there was no time chap. ii. when it was not. It is evident that in the view of this i Lib. iii. s clear-sighted idealist there is no room for the accepted ^' '°'' Christian belief, according to which creation is bringing into being in the sense of bringing into the sensible world : but his opinion was perhaps an inevitable deduction from the premises of formal Platonism, and something very like it was ^maintained by so correct ' Monoiog. a theologian as saint Anselm. To John Scot thought is ed- =g. GeV- ° _ ° beron., Paris the only real being, and, philosophically speaking, 'body 17=1 foUo. 1 De div. nat. has no existence except as dependent on thought^*. But '• «• 3s PP- 3i 20. he loves to express truth by alternate affirmation and negation, confirmatory when they appear most contra- dictory to one another; and so he couples with the assertion that there was no time when the universe was not, the contrary assertion that there was a time when it was not. In a sense that transcends intelligence it exists eternally ; in another sense ™ it began to be when it » uh. m. 15 passed into the sphere of time and place. The meaning is in strict correspondence with that which we. have found in John's theory of evil. Evil arises by the passage from the spiritual to the material : objective creation by the passage from the eternal to the temporal. Good in the one argument, eternity in the other, is the positive element in the universal system ; " matter is the - Lib. i. 62 . . P- 34* mere concourse of the accidents of being. " It has often been remarked Btro. Num [? Nonne] vides verbo uno that John has in plain terms the et meam aiaiav, meamque virtutem, argument of Descartes : ' When et actionem significari ? De divis. I say I nnderstanA that I am, nat. i. 50 p. 37. Saint Augustin's I prove that I am, that I can un- statement of the syllogism, though derstand that I am, and that I do less clearly expressed, appears to understand that I am ; ' Dum ergo me to be virtually identical with dico, Intelligo me esse, nonne in hoc John's ; so that the latter will uno verbo, quod est intelligo, tria hardly deserve the distinction significo a se inseparabilia ? nam et claimed for it by M Haur^au, me esse, et posse intelligere me Histoire de la Philosophie soolaa- esse, et intelligere me esse, demon- tique i. 183 sq. 66 REASON AND AUTHORITY Chap. II. Such is John Scot's world. To him as to "Plato its » Timaeus goodiiess is its essential significance : it begins and ends with thought, with pure being, with God. He fills in the outline with, a confidence, a certainty, of the truth of his speculations. Yet, as though half conscious of their strangeness to the understanding of his age, he is ever anxious to prove that he is continuing, not breaking oflF from, the line of thought sanctioned by the greatest of the fathers and by the Bible itself. Authority is still a power with him, but limited, expanded, refined. The pDediv.nat. Pname of the fathers, of Augustin himself, cannot deter IV. 14, V. 37 ' o J pp^i92sq., j^-^ from forming his own conclusions on any subject. 1 Lib.;. 66 4 Even the Bible, though necessarily containing nothing but truth, presents that truth with so much accommoda- 'Lib.iii. 30 tion to the bodily senses that it is the ''duty of the p. 140. •' -' philosopher to endeavour to penetrate beneath its meta- phors and bring forth the substance that underlies them. For its sense is infinite, because it is the reflection of the divine reason ; but reason stands above it, is man's sure guide in interpreting the written message of revelation. > Lib. i. 68 5 If the authority be true, neither can contradict the other, p. 38. since both proceed from the same source, namely from the divine wisdom. To appreciate this rationalistic position we must remember that its object was in no wise to lower the dignity of the Bible, but solely to elevate the con- ception of the human understanding. Nor was it a new or unheard-of thing. Fredegisus, Alcuin's scholar at York and his successor in the abbacy of Saint Martin at Tours, had made a very similar statement of the relation of the two forces, and he had felt it compatible with the most literal view of inspiration^^- Neither he nor the " See above p. 46. The oorre- valuable emendation of tbe place in spondence is plain if we accept the Fredegiens proposed by Dr Beuter, BOTH REVELATIONS OP GOD. 67 Scot had any doubt of the irrefragable truth of the chap. ii. Bible. But while Fredegisus found it in the literal sense, John sought for the larger meaning concealed within its depths. ^For the sense of the divine utterances is ' La. iv. s manifold and infinite, even as in one and the same feather qf^' ^ *' the peacock we behold a marvellous and ieautiful variety of countless colours. Like principles, as one applied them, might lead to a submissive dependence on the letter, or to amplest freedom of rational enquiry. " For in the one, " v. Reuter reason without the support of authority is weak, in the '"*°''" other it stands firm ^fortified ly its own virtues, and needs '■.'Oediv.mLt. not to he strengthened hy any prop of authority. '' '' ^' ^'' If we examine more closely the Scot's view of reason it appears that authority is actually related to it as a species to its genus. In both God reveals not himself but the forms in which we can conceive him. The y human reason is the dwelhng-place of the word of^Lib.iv.ie God. This manifestation, this theophany (John's technical ^' '°^' name for God's revelation to man), is coextensive with the reign of reason and therefore, since reason is every- thing, it is universally diffused. "= It is the cause and « Lib. i. 9 substance of all virtues, *it is a stream that runs through f Lib. iii. ts,, all nature. '' Intellect . . . and the rest of things that are said \J^' "'' to he, are theophanies, and in theophany really subsist ; there- pp.iostq. fore God is everything that truly is, since he makes all things and is made in all things. The pantheism of the last sentence must be interpreted by John's view of God as apart from nature, a view as important in his system as that of revelation. It is " impossible for any one who ° cf. Ritt=r fairly weighs his opinions on this subject not to feel that the judgement of his pantheism has been premature and GeBoMohte der religiosen Aufkla- nis ratio patitur, deinde auotoritate, Tung im Mittelalter i. 274 n. 21 : non qualibet sed rational! {edit. 'primumratione, in quantum homi- ratione) duntaxat.' F 3 68 THE UNITY OF GOD Chap. ii. warranted only by one set of statements, contradicted and at the same time justified by another set no less necessary to his complete understanding. If the re- conciliation appear paradoxical we have but to remember that paradox in the philosopher's view is inevitable when we attempt to conceive the eternal. The statement that God is everything stands in jux- taposition to the statement that God is the supreme unity. The one bears relation to the world, the other to God himself. The latter is therefore the only strict mode of expression. The central thought of John Scot's system is that God's being is absolute, it cannot be de- scribed by any of the categories to which creation is f Dediv.nat. subject ; for he transcends them all. '^ We cannot with- out a misuse of language affirm of him essence, quantity or quality, relation, position or habit, place or time, action or passion. For to affirm these or any of these of God is to limit the ilfimitable : they are only applicable by way of accommodation to our earthly understanding, • Capp. 69, they have a literal meaning to the simple, *to the philo- 4=;qf!Reuter sopher they are figures of speech. The rule is stated ^ De div. nat. universally, and can admit no exception 'even in the i. 18 p. 13. _^ theological relation of Father and Son. His honesty forbade our philosopher to ignore a difficult consequence of his position, even when it seemed to oppose a cardinal e Capp. 14, 18 point of piety. ^He is indeed reluctant to dwell upon pp. sq-. 13- ^^ subject, but not from any mistrust of his own con- clusions. The truth lay, he felt, in a double form : we can only express our thoughts about God by contradic- ** Capp, 14, _, 16, 78 pp. 9, tions : ^ we affirm and deny the same things of him, and ir, 44; cf. o -' TOndel^Drei ^^ ^^™ ^^ ^ higher harmony in which the contradictions 2!™741m. of our human understanding are reconciled. For the i^'p!''s"^'' mystery of the divine Trinity 'passes the endeavours of MANIFESTED IN VARIETY; THE TRINITY. 69 human reason and even the purest understandings of celestial Chap. ii. essences. We infer from the essence of the things that are, that it exists ; from the wonderful order of things, that it is wise; from their motion, that it is life. Yet, saith saint Diony- sius the Areopagite, The highest and causal essence of all things cannot be signified ly any signification of words or names, or of any articulate voice. For it is neither unity nor trinity, such as can be contemplated by the purest human, by the clearest angelical, understanding ^''. . . Chiefly for the sake of those who demand a reason for the Christian faith . . . have these symbolical words been religiously discovered and handed down by the holy theologians . . . Beholding, in so far as they were enlightened by the divine spirit, the one unspeakable cause of all things, and the one beginning, simple and undivided and universal, they called it Unity ; but seeing this unity not in singleness or barrenness, but in a marvellous and fertile multiplicity, they have understood three substances of unity. John Scot traces this trinity in unity in the nature of the universe, — "^in the Creator, the idea, and the fact of' Lib. «. 23 p. 70. things ; in another aspect, in oio-ta, bvvai/,is, and ivfpyfia, — and in its final resolution into unity. He traces also its reflection in man, ' in reason, understanding, and sense. ' Lib. ia. 20 p. 128. For ™ man is the summing up of nature : " he has both a » Lib. ii. 9 p. 51. heavenly being and a sensible being, ° combines the - Lib. iv. 7 highest and the lowest elements. He is the meeting- o Lib. ii.s point between creation and Creator, and this meeting is summed up in the two-fold nature of Christ. As all nature is contained in man, so all humanity is contained in the Word of God ^^. When we speak of its incarnation, * He repeats this almost in the vestigia quaedam sunt atque theo- same words in lib. ii. 35 p. 93, phaniae veritatis.' adding 'quaecunque de simpliois- '•"■ Christ therefore united all the simae bonitatis trinitate dicuntur elements of humanity, of creation : seu cogitantur seu . intelliguntur, he was not ' vir ' but 'homo.' It is 70 THE INCARNATION. Chap. II. WB do not mean an individual, historical fact, but ^ the p V. Baur eternal connexion of the ideal and real. Cause and effect, as has already appeared, cannot be separated in God ; they are implied in his single creative will. This iDediv.nat. union is revealed in the incarnation, by which ithe Word V. 25 p. 252. "^ of God passed from the region of cause to that of effects, from the world of thought to the world of being. It was not a temporal act, but the expression of the necessary reciprocity of temporal and eternal, the immanent re- lation of God and the world. It is the supreme theo- ' Ibid. p. =S3- phany. "^By it tAe light to which no man can approach opened access to every intellectual and reasonable creature . . . In it the visible things and the invisible, that is to say, the world of sense and of thought, were restored and recalled to unspeakable unity, now in hope, hereafter in fact ; now in faith, hereafter in sight; now in theory, hereafter in practice; now in the individual man who receives the truth, hereafter in all men without distinction. This restoration of the world is the great subject of the Scot's fifth book. The fourth division of nature is its return to primal unity. The body of man is restored to its elements ; these elements coalesce in the resurrec- tion into a new body ; and this turns to spirit, the spirit • Cap. 8 to its original causes, the causes to God. ^For God shall p. 232. *-■ ' be all things in all things, when there shall be nothing but God alone. Is this restoration asserted of man alone or also of his brother animals 1 of the good or also of the evil ? finally, of the individual or only of the race ? To these three questions John has his answer. The first gives him no difficulty. Immortality holds good not only of man, but of the whole animated creation. He interesting to notice tiiis early ap- for a great preacher of the present pearanoe of a thought the full century; F. W. Robertson, Sermons, recognition of which was reserved and ser., nrxix. THE RESTORATION OF THE WORLD. 71 will conclude this on a priori grounds : the lower animals chap. ii. have their 'natural virtues ^^,' they have souls, albeit irra- tional. But the decisive argument is that man is simply a species of the animal kingdom, and that if the genus perish, the species must perish with it. The immortality of man is the warrant for the immortality of the whole creation. All nature will return to its first causes. The question about the survival of evil is more em- barrassing, and it cannot be concealed that the Scot does in some places seem to affirm something like a relique of the doctrine of eternal damnation. But in the first place this doctrine is much less plainly declared in the books of The Division of Nature than in the treatise On Predestination; and the latter is an occasional work, written for a special purpose and hampered by its con- ditions; the former is the representative book of the philosopher's life. In the second place, when a man makes use of conventional language and also of expres- sions entirely opposed to it and strikingly original, we cannot hesitate as to which is the genuine utterance of his own opinion: and *the declaration that eternal tor- 'Cap. 27 pp. 257 & 260. ment is totally incompatible with the truth that the whole world is set free by the incarnation of the divine Word, is made in distinct terms and closely interwoven with the fabric of John Scot's reasoning. An eternity of suffering and evil is irreconcilable with an eternity of goodness and life and blessedness. There is no room for it in his system. He files away its edges and rounds off its corners until its orthodox shape has dis- anneared. "First he denounces the 'irrational' folly of-Capp.as, •t -t " _ 29, 31 pp. trying to combine a material hell with a spiritual exist- =«4 sq-, 272. ^' See the curious instances of the and of the piety of storks, lib. iii. 41 memory and the chastity of animals, p. 158. p. 310. p- 72 THE BETDRN OF CREATION Chap. II. ence : the punishment of the wicked must stand solely in their memory of past wrong. New evil cannot arise then ; they will be pained by the phantasies of their old misdeeds. But, proceeds John, though they be deprived ' Cap. 38 of blessedness, something will yet remain to them : ^the ' natural goods ' in which they were created cannot be taken away. Doubtless all gifts are made in proportion to man's capacity of receiving ; but the philosopher is sure that this capacity can and will grow and develop 7 Cap. 23 until evil is all swallowed up in good. ^ There may be degrees and stages in happiness, in the progress toward perfection ; but there is a certainty of the final victory of good. If it be otherwise, if there be a material world " Cap. 28 of torments, ^ then have we laboured in vain, and the sentences p. 265. of the holy writers which we have alleged will he turned into derision: which God forbid. The third question involved in John Scot's view of the return of creation into the Creator concerns the immortality of the individual. He answers it by Cap. B analogies. *The air is still air though it appear to be absorbed into the light of the sun and to be all light. The voice of man, or of pipe or lyre, loses not its quality when several by just proportion make one harmony in unity among themselves. Nor is it reasonable to suppose that man >■ Cap. 13 -vvrill subsist in a spiritual state without a body- ''The pp. 236 sq. ■*- ^ body of our present humanity will disappear, but it will be exchanged for the spiritual body inseparable from the idea of man, the body which he had before he ^ Cap. 20 entered into the world of matter. "The whole man is eternal. This therefore is the end of all things visible and invisible, when all visible things pass into the intellectual, and the intellectual into God, by a marvellous and unspeakable union; but not, as we have often said, by any confusion or p. 234 p. 242. TO ORIGINAL UNITY. 73 destruction of essences or substances. It is here, in the Chap. ii. profoundest, and the most original part of his scheme, that the Scot shows most evidently how impossible it would be for him to rest in a purely pantheistic belief. His nature forced him to hold that those virtues, that will, which make man the image of God upon earth, those qualities which exalt one man above his fellows, will not become perfect by 'remerging in the general soul.' Perfection implies their survival ' unconfounded and undestroyed.' His entire conception of the recovery of all things, of a unity into which the trinity of nature is resolved, is certainly the most original feature in the system of the Irish thinker. In classifying theology on a philoso- phical basis he achieved a greater discovery than he was perhaps conscious of. He discovered that the doctrine of the church was not stationary but progres- sive; it was susceptible of developmentj of indefinite expansion. He discovered in Christianity the germs of all truth. Not only the idea of Christ but all those understood in dogmatic Christianity he applied and enlarged in such a manner that the result was rather a philosophy of religion, than a philosophy of Christi- anity : and thus to theology he contributed little that it could accept ; to philosophy he added not a few of the salient ideas which we connect with the modern schools of metaphysics. His own views were doubtless buried with his writings: they were found out afresh by other men before their pubhcation proved how they had been anticipated. Essentially his system would suffer little if we deducted from it all those Christian elements upon which he supposed it rested ; we should find a philosophy in which the idea of God, the idea of 74 JOHN scot's position Chap. II. evil, and many of its central features, resemble in a remarkable way the thoughts of Spinoza. Yet it would be as dishonest to regard these Christian elements as adventitious, as it would be to ignore the Hebrew ante- cedents of the great Dutch philosopher. They were necessary to the Scot because he lived in a tradition of Christian theologyj because this was the framework in which his thoughts were trained to move and from which he could not wholly free himself. Nevertheless he advanced so far in the direction of giving new mean- ings to old phrases that he was, speaking generally, un- intelKgible to his age. At the same time the fact of his appearance in the ninth century, the fact of his apparently unbroken favour at the imperial court, is a remarkable evidence of the liberal spirit which remained with the successors of Charles the Great. It is not as though John was kept at the royal school, just as a miracle of learning, in ignorance of what he actually taught. On the con- trary, Charles the Bald had received from his mother the empress Judith, the friend of the Jews, the double elements of a complete education, wide learning and the scholar's instinct of openness to conviction. He was not a mere patron of scholars, he was their friend to whom they deferred on difficult points ^^; he loved to enter into disputation with them, laid down theses and ^ Heric of Auxerre's epistle dedi- quarum prineipalem operam philo- catoryto the emperor, prefixed to his sophia polUcetur, hoc ad publicam Life of saint Germanus of Auxerre, eruditionem undecumque vestra shows DS, in however exaggerated celsitudo conduceret, comitas attra- terms, what contemporaries thought heret, dapsilitas provocaret. Luget of Charles as a patron of learning. hoc Graecia, novis invidiae aculeis Part of it is well-known (cf. supra lacessita, quam sui quondam incolae p. 22), but a larger extract will not iam dudum cum Asianis opibua as- come amiss here : Id vobis singu- pemantur, vestra potius magnani- lare studium efifecistis, ut sioubi mitate delectati, studiis aUecti, terrarum magistri florerent artium, liberalitate confisi : dolet, inqaam, AMONG CONTEMPORABIES. 75 invited them to discuss them without reserve. *As Chap. ii. emperor he wished to appear a loyal son of the catholic " CfTReuter church, but he refused to condemn opinions unless they '' '' "''*' were plainly shown to be hostile to it, and he was generally discreet enough to hesitate about the proof and to hold his judgement free. The keenness of his intelligence conspired with a natural elasticity of temper to produce in his political action what certainly degene- rated into an habitual irresolution and infirmity of purpose. But the vices of a statesman are often virtues in private life, and in this view Charles's indecision bears the character of a judicial tolerance, a tolerance to which his continued intercourse with John the Scot is a speak- ing witness ; although it would be unsafe to infer from the scanty notices we have of their relation, that he shared with the philosopher more than a general sympathy with his spirit of free enquiry. John certainly had ° disciples, but they cannot have= cfrosrers. been numerous. Among near contemporaries ^Heric f see Hau- of Auxerre, and his pupil, saint Remigius, both teachers i- isi-ips, 201-204 ! & of great repute, may be proved to have been indebted '" <^^^ n°t- for more than they cared to acknowledge, to the ^^m^^L^^. materials provided them in the works of the Scot. But '^^' ''""'°- in the dark age that followed, those writings seem to have been almost unknown. Early in the tenth cen- tur}'^, indeed, we meet with an s extract from a poem f invectiva 1 ^ T 1 3 ■ • 1 '"^ Romam, apparently of John s composition, and a passage from the p- Duemm- Division of Nature is cited in a theological treatise written ur'^sn^'fsls' se olim singulariter mirabilem ac tra migrantem? Quorum quisquis mirabiliter singularem a, Buis de- peritior est ultro sibi indicit exilium ; stitui ; dolet oerte sua ilia privilegia ut Salomoni sapientissimo famuletur (quod numquam hactenus verita est) ad votum : Actt. SS. mens. lul. 7. ad climata nostra transferri. Quid 221 r sq., Antwerp 173 1 folio. An Hiberniam memorem, contempto admirable characterisation of the pelagi disorimine, pene totam cum emperor is given by von Noorden, grege philosophorum ad littora nos- Hinkmar 1 1 6 sqq. 76 VESTIGES OF JOH\ S Chap.il a little later-*; but in neither case is the source of the quotation iadicated. Then, again, when the S:ot"s book On the Body and Blood of Christ obtained a sudden notoriety in the dispute raised by Berengar of Tours on the nature of the sacrament, the importaace attached to his authority by the opponent of transubstantiation is valuable as evidence of the power that his name still ' cf. snpra, possessed ; but it is nearly certain that the ^ work to which Berengar appealed, and which was burnt by the A.D. losa council of Yercelli, was the production not of John but of his contemporary the monk Eatramnus. A solitary trace of John's influence may be found in the iCf. Han- fact that, probably through some * glosses of his, the rcan, not. et extr.,ubi Satyricon of iTartianus Capella soon came to take once supra. ^ ■*■ more that recognised place in the schools which it had ' h'"i"'°f "' ^®^*^ centuries earlier in the dark days of ^ Gregory of G^'IsfeV Tours; but the acceptance of this meagre compendium only shows how incapable his heirs were of appreciating the treasure he had left them in his own works ^^ On the other hand, John has been rightly claimed as in some sense the author of the scholastic debate of the earlier part of the middle ages. The precise nature of this influence will be noticed in a future page : here it ^ In the tract De corpore et san- Hemains 2-3 sq., 280. In Alcuin guine domini commonly ascribed to the very name does not occur, and Gerbert. See Carl von Prantl, Ge- MrMuUinger, pp. 64sqq., iii, 118, schichte der Logik uu Abendlande has elaborated a theory of thi^ 2. 57 n. 227 ; 1861 : cf. Huber 434. writer's studied hostility to CapeUa. Neither of these writers adverts to Had however such a motive existed the suspicion, to say the least, I feel confident that it would have which hangs over the authorship of appeared somewhere in Alcuin's the book. We shall hereafter (p. 89 writings. His silence has much n. 11) see reason for ascribing it to rather the look of ignorance. Xor Heriger of Lobbes. can it be said that the work was ^ Previously the book — a gro- only read ' wherever pious scruples tesque and tasteless allegory de- did not prevent ' (p. 65I, in face of scr'ptive of the seven Tberal arts — abundant instances of its use from had been apparently the exclusive sa:nt Kemigius to John of Salis- pofisession of the Irish : cf. Haddan, bury. INFLUENCE ON LATER THOUGHT. 11 needs only be said that John was the first writer in the chap. ii. west who had systematically adopted a regular syllogistic form of argumentation, and that he was continually re- proached with this peculiarity by antagonists such as Prudentius of Troyes. Forgotten for a while, the tradi- tion should seem to have somehow revived, possibly through the studies of EosceUn, and by such an one to have been applied to trains of reasoning widely diverse from anything suspected by John the Scot. On one side he is reputed the father of nominalism, on the other he is thought to have exerted no slight influence on the theo- logical speculations of Gilbert de laPorr^e. When, further, we observe that Hhe Division of Nature was associated in' Huber435. the condemnation of the heresy of Amalric of Bene ^^, and a.d. 1209. that it was this work which called forth a ""bull of Hono- ° Aiberic. . . . n 1 cbr., ap. rius the Third in 1235, enjoming a strict search for aUMansi22. copies of the book or of any parts of it, and ordering J?Jt*ti;35j- them to be sent to Eome to be solemnly burnt, — any one Rfm'i.'ej'Jnr who knowingly kept back a copy being declared obnox- 'g?!' ious to the sentence of excommunication and the brand of heretical depravity, — we shall be able to form some estimate of the variety and the intensity of danger which was subsequently discovered in the teaching of the Scot. That such a judgement was warranted by the principles of correct cathohc opinion will hardly be denied ; but we must not omit to place beside it the fact that there was also hterary tradition respecting John, so soon as his memory had been recalled to notice, of a gentler and more appreciative character. His translation of Diony- sius was not only widely read, as we know from the numerous manuscripts of it that exist, but also com- mented on by a man of the saintly reputation of Hugh ™ For proof of this see especially in the M^moires de I'Acad^mie des Charles Jourdain's examination of Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 26(2) the evidence of Martinus Polonus, 470-477; 1870. 78 LITERARY TRADITION RESPECTING THE SCOT. Chap. II. of Saint Victor, not to mention many others ; and it is » HiiTIf possible, as "Milman supposes, that it contributed not a +^^4^'"'' little to the growth of Christian mythology. "William of Mahnesbury, who was singularly weU informed about John and his works, has a good word to say even of the o Gest. Division of Nature, which he describes as °very useful for pontif. V. 240 ^ ■ 77 • 7 7 z Pi 393, ed. solving the difficulty of certain questions, albeit he have to be pardoned for some matters wherein, holding his eyes fast upon the Greeks, he has deflected from the path of the Latins. The aeuteness of this criticism enhances the value of William's opinion; he was weU aware that John had been deemed a heretic, and he freely confessed that there are truly very many things in his booh, the which, unless we carefully examine them, appear abhorrent from the faith of the catholics. This temperate judgement is repeated by the most popular of the encyclopaedists of the middle ages, Viacent of Beauvais. There is also evidence that the name of John the Scot was known and honoured not only at Malmesbury but also in that Saxon monastery of Corvey which preserved its Carolingian culture longer perhaps than any other : so late as the middle of the A.D. 1149. twelfth century, its abbat, Wibald, writing to Manegold of Paderborn, commemorates the philosopher as closing the line of great masters of the age which began with Bede the Venerable, and went on with Haimon of Halberstadt and Rabanus Maurus,— ?»e« Mo*< learned, who by writing and reasoning left in the church of God illustrious monuments of their genius ^''. ^ Quid loquar de eaeteris viris mum Laudunensem, Wilhebnum doctissimis qui post predictos in Parisiensem, Albricum Eemensem, aecclesia del scribendo et diaserendo Hugonem Parisiensem, et alios plu- preclara ingenii sui monimenta reli- rimos, quorum dootrina et scriptis querunti Bedam, dico, et Ambro- mundus impletus est : Epist. clxvii, sium Aupertum, Heimonem, Eaba- in Jaff^, Biblioth. i. 278 ; 1864. See num, lohannem Soottum, et multos other instances in Haur^au, Hist, preterea, quorum opera legimus; 2(1)59; 1880. nee non illos quos vidimus, Ansel- CHAPTER III. THE DARK AGE. If the attempt of John the Scot to change Christianity Chap. hi. into a philosophy failed to make an impression upon the succeeding age, it is the less surprising when we consider that he failed in company with all the wise men of the ninth century. Their religious and their philosophical aims were alike forgotten, the practices and beliefs they combated won a gradual acceptance. In the interval between the decKne of the Carohngian house and the reformation of the eleventh century, Christendom sank into a grosser view of religion, into an abasement of morals that pervaded the church equally with the laity, into an ignorance all but universal. In this Dark Age, as it is well distinguished, it is a thankless task to seek for the elements of enlightenment of which the vestiges are so scanty. Their existence, however, is proved by the life they manifested as soon as the spirit of religion was reawakened. It was the divorce between religion and learning, between religion and morality, that sig- nalised the time ; a divorce that, just as in the seventh century, was conditioned by the helpless confusion of the external order, its effect in turn reacting upon itself. Yet to speak of the age as consciously reverting to paganism^, is to misread its character. When the church ^ This is a conclusion which viti- Anfklarung i. 67-78 : to his refer- ates much of Dr Reuter's view of ences however I am frequently in- the period, (Jeschichte der religiosen debted. 80 KELAPSE OF THE TENTH CENTUEY Chap. III. Surrendered her charge of intellectual things, she assimi- lated herself no doubt to the returning barbarism of the civil state ; and in this process she absorbed a variety of pagan elements which came to be identified with the essence of her religion, and from which her rebellious children in the sixteenth century were by no means able entirely to liberate themselves. The service of God was merged in ceremonial on the one hand, in superstition on the other. Even those men who had the wish to uphold the principles which the nobler minds of the ninth cen- tury had professed, had not the strength to carry them 1 974. out consistently. Ratherius, bishop of Verona, a good example of the cultivated churchman of his day and a sturdy enemy of the worldliness and profligacy of Jiis contemporaries, repeats the declamations of saint Agobard against magic. He denounces the credulous spirit of • A. vogei, those who assume its efficacy, and yet he himself * re- Rathenus J ' J von Verona commeuds for some ailment a remedy of an entirely 1. 09, Jena 'J >J ^^^'•- superstitious nature. He has a just contempt of the fashion in which fasts, penances, and pilgrimages were undertaken, and a very slight opinion of their value at all unless controlled by a high spiritual motive : yet his protests against materialistic views of religion are com- patible with so hearty an adhesion to the doctrine of >> Ibid. transubstantiation that ''the treatise of Paschasius Ead- I. 234 sqq., 2. 180 sqq. ijgpt^ which first formulated it, was often ascribed to him. Religion was fast subsiding into mere superstition or into its kindred opposite, materialism. The claims to mysterious powers was the means by which the clergy were enabled to maintain their hold upon the people. Insensibly they were enveloped in the same shadow, and A.D. 939. we have actually evidence of a body of Christian priests INTO SUPERSTITION AND MATERIALISM. 81 '= m the diocese of Vicenza who worshipped a God with chap. hi. eyes and ears and hands ; they were branded as a dis- ■^ R^. tinct order of heretics, anthropomorphites : such was qu™rag. ° ,1 -1 , « , xxix. sqq., tne result of the popular and authorised image-worship. s"idlt''^u^'^ Nor was it only in the ceremonial of the church or in the ej.^iyl."^'*' medley of Christian and heathen manners and thoughts that the collapse of religion made itself felt. Ambitious churchmen found their only opening, now that the am- bition of Christian learning was forgotten, in the service of the secular state, where they were the more indispen- sable, since in the north, at least, they formed the only class that received any sort of mental culture. But it is one of the contrasts between the northern and southern civihsations that while in the former what schools there were, existed solely for the clergy and did not travel beyond their meagre professional requirements, in Italy the utter degradation of the church and papacy (the more felt because near at hand) produced so general a contempt for their ordinances and prescriptions that educated men turned away from theology to the more tangible interest of classical learniug. The candidates for ecclesiastical orders here mixed with the sons of nobles at ^schools which were established d see von and conducted, more often than otherwise by lay philoso- de litt. stud.' ap. Ital. pliers, for the exclusive purpose of teaching grammar, and "-'9 ^ <=f- which to the stricter churchman appeared directly pagan ^i- in their bias. One of these teachers, Anselm of Bisate, " complains that he was shuimed as a demoniac, almost as = Epist. ad •*■ JDrogon. , a heretic ; and Anselm, the Peripatetic as he styles him- J^^^Jf^Jg; self, is a good, if late, specimen of his class. He was a Ha'Ile^'872! highly connected Milanese clergyman, a travelled man too, who had visited Mentz and Bamberg. The BJietori- mac/iia,wh.ich. he wrote between the years 1049 and 1056, G 82 EHETOEICAL SCHOOLS OF ITALY Chap. III. and dedicated to the emperor Henry the Third, is a masterpiece of laborious futility. How little the pedant's vein was in keeping with catholic notions may he learned from a vision which he relates that he once saw. ' Rhetorim. t The saints and the muses, he tells us, struggled for his li., ibid. , 1 • 1 pp. 39 sqq. possession, and he was in the greatest perplexity to which side he should ally himself, for so nolle, so siveet, were both companies that I could not choose either of them ; so that, were it possible, I had rather both than either. Under such training as Anselm's, the future clergy of Italy gave themselves up to their humanistic studies with an enthusiasm which the theology of the day was im- potent to excite in them. There are even a few symptoms of a declared hostility to Christianity. One Vilgard of Ravenna is said to have reverenced Virgil, Horace, and Juvenal as infallible authorities ^ ; but we cannot draw too broad an inference from this assertion in an age which, B De con- wc know from the example of ^ Ratherius, was apt to nonum i. considcr the canons of the church and the forged decretals d'Achery, spidi.i.35ia. Qf Isidore as equally with the Bible and the fathers, the discifline of God^. The patriotism of the Italian seduced him into a blunder possibly less mischievous than that which approved itself to the orthodoxy of the German. There was a mysterious sanction inherent in written documents which it did not occur to them to criticise or distinguish. In the same way, if any of these scholastics chanced to engage in the controversies of the church, he was in- evitably entangled in a motley confusion of sacred and ^ See the somewhat fabulous ao- et prophetis et psalmis, quod in count of Eodulph Glaber, Hist. ii. evangelio, actibus et praedicationi- 12 in Bouquet lo. 23, 1760. bus apostolorum, decretalibus pon- ^ Compare the Discordia inter tifioum et oonstitutionibus canonum, Hatherium et clericos : Quod vero non rursum a deo tibi elucet inspi- scriptum invenitur in lege Moysis ratum : d' Aohery i . 364 a. IN RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 83 profane. '^Eugenius Vulgarius exhausts his classical chap. iii. vocabulary, in language recalling the most servile rhetoric » Duemmier, of the brazen age of the empire, to express the ' divinity Vuiganus, of that pope whose pontificate is marked by the deepest ' See his ruin of order, the vilest abandonment of decency, that Sergius in, '^ Duemmier even Eome ever witnessed. Yet he dismisses the claims ^t3 =i- of the apostolic see with a confidence worthy of Claudius of Turin or of a modern protestant, and maintains that a man can only obtain the authority of saint Peter by deserving it *- The contradiction would be inconceivable but for the mixture of heterogeneous ideas which marks the barbarism of the age. The church refused to be taught, and suffered accordingly. The clergy who were educated in the Italian rhetorical schools formed the purely secular portion of their order, and led it into more grievous disrepute. If the training of the scholastic was associated with the function of the clerical politician, the union was but external : by the assumption of literary arms the church as a religious body lost more than it gained. It is moreover significant that the schools of Italy preserved a tradition of Eoman law possibly uninter- rupted from ancient times. ^ The special law-school of ^ see ciese- ^ 1 1 ■ 1 brecht,gesch. Pavia dates from the tenth century, and early m the d. .deu^'|?hen eleventh the study of law is spoken of in a way that 'gS^s^- J?;';^'' • gives the impression of its being a long-established '^'i- * Debuerat certe erubesoi homo cium consimilem, non quidem se- veDe deo toUere quod auum est. quaoium sine merito : alioquin non Pater enim omne iudicium dedisse est sequax Petri, si non habeat filio dicitur, non Eomae : neque fi- meritum illius Petri._ Quid igitur ? lius dixit, Tu as Eoma et super ostende mihi fidem sine operibus, et banc Eomam aediiioabo ecolesiam ego ostendam tibi sequacem Petri meam, sed Tu es Petrus et super sine merito illius Petri . . . Num di- hanc petram; non dixit Petrum sed cendum est profuisse summis saoer- petram, intelligi volens eius fidei et dotibus super oathedram Moysis se- confessionis soliditatem aedificare disse 1 &c. De causa Formosiana xi., et firmare immeritorum aubsequa- Duemmier, Aux. und Vulg. 130. G 3 84 EDUCATION IN ITALY Chap. III. institution ill the ordinary schools. Milo Crispin records that Lanfranc, the famous archbishop of Canterbury, t^sii Mi^'^'e ^'"'"■^ trained from boyhood in the schools of liberal arts and lisi-^' * ' ''^^^^ ^"■'"'' "■fl^^ ^^^ custom of his country; — in scholis liberalium Sali' n' ™" ('■'rtium et legum saecularium ad suae morem patriae. ™ Other Stefm^"' circumstances too make it highly probable that law mi eater £Qj,jj^g(j g^ regular subject of instruction in many schools 224 sqq., 2. 119, Heidelberg from a much earlier period. It would obviously engage 1816 ; Vogel Pranti'^esch ^'^^ attcutiou of those churchmen who promised them- d.iogik.2.69. ggi^.^gg a future of political activity. The principles of Eoman law would combine themselves with their theo- logical ideas, and it is difficult not to trace in this con- nexion one of the opportunities through which, in the » See sir H. judgement of competent lawyers, "the phraseology and ancient law argumentary methods of the old jurisprudence were 5th ed., 1874. enabled to penetrate the theology of western Christ- endom. In the north, as we have said, the state of the clergy was different^- They had their professional colleges in the schools attached to the greater monasteries and cathe- drals. But these, even if a few, especially in Lotha- ringia, retained something of their vital force, had long lost their popularity and become appropriated to a class. The slender tradition of learning and thought lay hidden in their libraries rather than shone forth in the mecha- nical instruction of their teachers. The rare pupils who sought for knowledge were left, as we may learn from - Vogel 1. 24. the experience of ° bishop Eatherius, to discover it by * There is a curious and ancient in nutriendis militibua. Nesciunt gloss in the margin of the codex Itali quid sapiunt GaUi. Itali de- containing Gerbert's treatise De ra- narios oumulant, Galli sapientiam tionali et ratione uti, itself nearly corradunt'; Pez, Thesaurus Aneo- contemporary with the author, dotorum novissimus i (3) 151 mg., which deserves quotation. 'Italia,' Augsburg 1721 folio. Is this the it runs, ' fertilia in ferendis est fru- criticism of a French scribe ? gibus, Gallia et Germania nobilis AND IN GEEMANY. 85 their own labour. The pursuit of the few was looked on Chap. hi. with suspicious jealousy by the many, and the most tentative steps towards enlarging the compass of educa- tion were mistrusted as though they had been directed against religion. An excellent illustration of this atti- tude of mind is afforded by the history of Brun the Saxon, t ses. better known by the time-honoured name of saint Bruno. His brother. Otto the Great, was never more consciously the successor of the great Charles and the second founder of the medieval empire, than when he set himself to organize a body of ministers specially educated for the duties of government. The chancellorship had by this time become a mere titular appendage to the arch- bishops of Mentz, Cologne, Treves, and Salzburg, whose work was done by the royal chancery or cliapel, the staff of clergymen of the household. It was of the first im- portance not only to train them into efficiency but also to bring up a new generation of administrators qualified to manage the afiairs of what was soon to be an empire. This task Otto entrusted to the young abbat Bruno", who wisely recognised the necessity of promoting the widest learning attainable. It is an interesting circum- stance that now, as in the first foundation of the Palace School by Charles, it was to the British islands that the German looked for help ; and Israel, a Scottish bishop'', was called from his cloister at Treves to teach Greek, a study to which Bruno had already been introduced by the Byzantine legates at the court. The cooperation of « The historical position of the 3. 394 (1839) and Richer, Hist. ii. saint is sketched in masterly outline 66, ib. 602, say simply Britto or by von Giesebrecht, i. 321-331: Brittigena: he was no doubt an see also Vogel I. 154-173. Irishman. Haddan calls him I ' Euotger calls him episcopus know not on what authority, bishop Scotigena, Vit. Brunon. vii, Pertz of Verden : Remains 286. 4. 257; 1841. Flodoard, a. 947, ib. 86 SAINT BRUNO Chap. III. the Celt is recognised by » modern historians as of p Giesebrecht singular and indispensable importance. Bruno's learned ardour and the pains he took to secure the fittest masters and to collect the choicest classical manuscripts that could be found in Italy, are celebrated 1 RuQtgerv, with wonderinff admiration by his biographers*. ^Se Vi. pp. 2s6sq. ° 7-7 7 J restored the long ruined fabric of the seven liberal arts; history, rhetoric, poetry, philosophy, especially the more mysterious problems of metaphysics, were the subjects he loved to discuss with the doctors whom he brought together. He joined in the disputations, ready to give counsel, readier to receive it ; he would always rather him- self be a learner than a teacher. A man of his receptive nature was sure to exercise a personal attraction over those around him, and the power which Bruno possessed he used with the single purpose of leading them through learning to a wisdom that should raise them into another world than that gross and corrupt society in which they lived. His own example, much like king Alfred's, was a model of the union of a scholar and a statesman. Himself continually occupied with every sort of ofiicial business he always reserved his early morning hours for study. He withdrew from the noisy mirth of the supper-table to find relief in his books, his energies apparently freshened by the labours of the day. Where- ' ibid.,_ ever he went he carried about his library with him '«« cap. viii. _ *' it had been the ark of the Lord. Yet the age which gloried in the character of arch- bishop Bruno, could only find in that love of learning which was his special virtue, a reason for doubting " Non suffeoit ei in gazopiilatium loBophicum terrenisque sensibus cordis sui oolligere quod in promp- remotiBsimum sensit, hoc undeeum- tu habebat; peregrina insuper con- que oontrajdt : Euotger v. p. 257. duxit aenigmata, et quicquid phy- AND GERMAN CIVILISATION. 87 whether he were really the saint men called him. The Chap, hi. difficulty was resolved in a legend that soon won cur- rency. A certain Poppo, says Thietmar, ^fell into a-chron.u.to trance and was led to an high mountain, whereon he leheld a great city with leautiful buildings : then approaching a lofty tower he climbed its steep ascent and upon its spacious top deserved to behold Christ seated with all his saints. There was Bruno archbishop of Cologne, being accused by the supreme Judge for his vain pursuit of philosopJiy : howheit saint Paul was his advocate and he was restored to his throne. To us looking back at Bruno's work, it is difficult to exaggerate its value whether to his nation or to the church at large. Under his guidance the royal palace became the centre also of intellectual life in Germany. Bruno's aim was to fit the clergy to spread this new civilisation over the country, and when they separated to higher offices after- wards, as when he himself was removed to the see of a. d. 953. Cologne, to form each one a fresh centre of learning. In this way he seconded the measures which the wisdom of his father and brother, Henry and Otto, had directed to the revival of the political state. The example was taken up by the religious houses, and their schools — those of Reiehenau and Saint Gall are particularly distinguished — entered upon a new course of learned activity. The clergy of Germany became marked out from the rest of Christendom no less by their education than by its fruit, their moral excellence ' To such seed the German popes owed their distinction, and through them the restoration of the papacy signalised by Leo the Ninth and Gregory the Seventh was made practicable. ' This is recognised by bishop ' In Belgica et Germania . . . sum- Amulf of Orleans in his famous mos sacerdotes dei religione admo- speech before the council of Saint dum praestantes inveniri,' Act. Basel near Rheims in the year ggi: cone. Kem. zxviii, Pertz 3. 673. 88 GERBERT. Chap. III. It WES long before the intellectual revival which began to show itself from the middle of the tenth century, was sensibly felt. Guitmund, archbishop of Aversa, speaking of the time when Fulbert, who died in 1039, came to govern the school of Chartres, which he made the chief ' De Corp. et home of learning in Gaul, confesses that * at that time the sang. Chr. . A • 1 verit. i. Max. liberal arts had all bid become extinct m the land. A single bibl. patr. i8. ° zechin "^scho"' '^^^^^ illuminatcs the literary record of the age, and vaichSf'M^ Gerbert of AuriHac, pope Sylvester the Second, owes his aiah 437-446, unique position far less to his writings than to his personal influence as a teacher ; as a teacher too not of moral but of natural philosophy, as a master not of theology but of statecraft. The stores of his knowledge, — were they borrowed, according to a now discredited tradition, from the Arabic learning of the Spanish march, or won by long practice and research in every library accessible to him, — were no doubt unequalled. Gerbert was a mathematician, a natural philosopher, and a pioneer of natural philosophers ; his learning was believed to be universal : but, except in the domain of positive science, he was but the ready accumulator and difiuser of what was actually within the range of any well-read student of his day. In theology and meta- physics he produced little or nothing. If we exclude the necessary oflicial productions of a dignitary of the church, sermons and speeches addressed to synods and similar gatherings, and these too concerned not with theology but with ecclesiastical polities'", we shall find that Gerbert " cf. infr-., composed "not one theological work, or, if he wrote them, append, iii. " It would be more accurate to before the council of Mouson in 995, say, one sermon (De inform, epiac, Mansi ig. 193D-196B; 1774) : see Migne 139. 169-178) and one speech the bibliography in ITabricius, Bib- of a substantive character and of un- lioth. Lat. med. et inf. Aet. 3.43 disputed authenticity (that delivered sq., ed. Florence 1858. GERBEllT. 89 they have been lost ; for the only treatise of this class ■which has been ascribed to him may be nearly certainly accepted as the production not of Gerbert but of his contemporary Heriger, abbat of Lobbes ^^- It was indeed in practical affairs that Gerbert's interest was engaged, and his thoughts no more than his actions were disquieted by any considerations of religion. From a teacher Gerbert became a politician. We discern his character in the arts by which he obtained the arch- bishoprick of Eheims ^^. Full of resource, unscrupulous in intrigue, he had the shrewdness, the practical sagacity, of a man of the world: moral difficulties were no diffi- culties to him. His record lies not in a fancied inaugura- tion of the crusades, (this was to all appearance but the "" hasty conclusion from a letter in which he laments the spoliation of the holy city, drawn by those who knew Chap. III. " The book De corpore et san- guine domini (Migne 139. 177 sqq.), at first printed as anonymous, was reedited by Bernhard Pez from a manuscript at Goettweib which bore Gerbert's name : see the editor's dissertatio isagogipa to his The- saurus Anecd. noviss. i pp. Ixviii, Ixix ; and the ascription has been generally admitted without sus- picion. See the Histoire litt^raire de la France 6. 587 sq., 1742 ; Ne- ander, History of the Christian Reli- gion and Church 6. 308 ; Gfroerer, Kirchengesohichte3. 1585 : cf. supra, p. 76, n. 24. Long ago, however, the laborious Mabillon found reason to attribute the work to Heriger ; see his preface to the Actt. SS. 0. S. B. 4 (2) pp. xxii-xxiv, Paris 1680 folio : and the testimony of Fez's single manuscript seems to be decisively in- validated in favour of this supposition by the arguments of Dr E. Koepke (praef. in Herigeri et Anselmi Gest. episc, Pertz 7. 146 sq.) and of Dr Vogel, Katherius 2 . 46 sqq. "^ The general duplicity and want of principle of his conduct in this affair are plain ; but it would take us too far afield if we were to ex- amine the Acts of the synod of Saint Basol by which his prede- cessor was deposed. They are printed in Bouquet 10. 513 sqq., and in Pertz 3. 658-686. The re- markable speech of Axnulf bishop of Orleans, which depicts the de- gradation of the papacy and fear- lessly proposes an entire secession from its authority (Pertz 672 sq., 676), has been substantially repro- duced by most of the historians : see Gfroerer 3. 1476 sqq., cf. vol.4. 508 ; Milman 3. 338 sqq. ; Giese- brecht I. 654 sq. It deserves men- tion in this place because the Acts, if we are to believe Eicher, Hist, iv. 51 Pertz 3. 648, and Gerbert's own preface, were edited by the latter ; and, the province of an editor being undefined, we may reasonably give him a considerable share not only of the diction but of the spirit of the speech : cf. Ne- ander 6. 132 n. I. ^ H. von Sybe], gesch. d. ersten kreuzzuges 458, 2nd ed. , 1881. 90 THE INTELLECTUAL REVIVAL Chariii. ifr^Q potencj'- of such an appeal a century later;) but in the imperial projects which he impressed on the boy Otto the Third and whereby he hoped to restore to Rome her ancient glory. Gerbert the magician is an imagination of later growth, but the currency of the fable bears witness to the uniqueness of his position^*. A scholar who did not meddle with the higher questions of faith and thought could only, it appeared, be suscep- tible to influences of an opposite and infernal origin. Yet the studies which Gerbert avoided were in fact the more dangerous, and it is more than a coincidence that the contemporary reawakening of interest in intellectual things was accompanied by a strange crop of heresies. y Cf. Miiman ? In a time of mental ferment, now as often in the history 4. 326sqq., ..... . 335- of Christianity, it was impossible to restrain the specula- tions of men with undisciplined faculties, and secluded, as most of the scholars of the middle ages were, in monasteries. The relief which some monks would find from the routine of devotion in works of husbandry or handicraft, the more cultivated would seek in meditation on the mysteries of religion or the secrets of philosophy. If they were teachers such enquiries might be initiated by the questions of pupils. The ambition of novelty, of originality, would be another stimulus to metaphysical exploits; and novelty of this sort would seldom lie within the bounds of the traditional dogma. Men of a less independent spirit whose minds were just opening to the apprehension of difiiculties in the doctrinal system of the church, would be content to accept any new solution " It is significant that Gerbert 1679. On the genesis of the story- was too much of a personality to be about Gerbert's magical powers and lost in his pontifical title. Thus in league with the devil, see J. J. I. von the Fleury chronicle, a. 1002, we Doellinger, Die Papst-Fabeln dea have his obituary as Ghirhertus Mittelalters, 155-159, Munich 1863. Fapa, Baluze, Miscell. 2. 307 ; CONNECTED WITH THE APPEARANCE OP HEKESY. 91 of their doubts that was offered to them. In the present chap. hi. instance it was probably contact with the dispersed heretics of the oriental church that kindled the flame'*, and henceforward in various lands and under various forms there is a constant current of opposition to the authorised belief of Christendom. Unlike the properly intellectual movement, it affected the easily excited people even more than the clergy. The character of the sectaries, their temperance, their earnestness, their devotion, which ap- peared in a noble contrast with the greed, the profligacy, the worldliness, of the orthodox, were readily accepted as credentials for the truth of their tenets. The history of these heretics has, however, less interest than some of their peculiarities might seem to promise. What, for instance, can be said of the story told by Rodulph Glaber of a countryman of Vertus near Chalons who had a vision, at a. d. looo. its warning put away his wife, went to the church, there destroyed a cross and a picture of the Saviour, and de- claimed to the people on the wickedness of paying tithes ^^ ? It is added that he sustained his assertions by passages from the Bible, while explaining that what the prophets said was in part not to he believed : whence we " The historical review prefixed " As ' omnimodis superfluum et to Mr Arthur J. Evans's travels inane,' Rod. Glab. hist. ii. ii, Bou- Through Bosnia and the Herzegd- quet lo. 23. The chronicler is sure vina, pp. xxiv-xliii, 1876, abun- that the man (his name was Leu- dantly shows that such an influence tard) was out of his mind; and it was possible as early as the tenth is remarkable that the bishop to century; it is admitted by Neander, whom the scene was reported felt 6. 429, 439; and the fact that it ex- satisfied with the explanation and isted later may justify the con- let him go free. The issue was elusion that similar results were favourable to this decision, for produced by similar means at the Leutard proceeded to drown him- time with which we are here con- self in a reaction, it was said, of cerned The firm hold too which despair. At the same time, as the name Bulgarian, as a term of Neander hints, p. 445, the suspicion the most infamous import, has suggests itself that the suicide was taken both in the French and a figment and that the enthusiast English languages, points in the fell a victim to the fanatic zeal of same direction. tlie populace. 92 MANICHAISM. Chap. III. may gather that he had imbibed some of the special doctrines of the eastern Paulicians, whose loyalty to the " See Evans Ncw Testament is supposed ('"though the evidence is con- PP. XXIX, XXX. J. i \ o . , „ flicting) to have been balanced by their repudiation of the Old. An extreme case like this betrays, with how- ever much exaggeration, the characteristics of medieval heresy, an incongruous mixture of heterogeneous ele- ments, a duahsm borrowed from the religion of Zoroaster, ill-compacted with a rationalism that claimed to repre- sent the teaching of saint Paul. From the first ages of Christianity there had always been a tendency more or less widely operative, to free the religion from its burthen of Jewish principles and traditions. The puritanism of the Hebrew scriptures was exchanged for another puritanism resting upon the idea of the essential evilness of matter. Marcion and Manes at different epochs framed systems of which the uniting principle was the double reign of good and evil. The authority of the prime God was confronted by a restless malignant power whose rule was coeval with the existence of the universe. The opposition of spirit and matter, of good and evil, was so fundamental that it was impossible to conceive the physical incarnation of the Deity in a human body or his liability to the sufferings of man : such facts, they held with the primitive docetists, were illusions to the senses ; they were true only in an ideal acceptation. The same principle forbade their allowing any spiritual, or at least any perfecting, virtue to the material act of baptism or to the sacramental elements of bread and wine. They rejected every emblem of religious worship, the image, the painted cross, the reliques of saints. The human soul was de- prived of all accessory aids to salvation, of all that THE PAULICIANS. 93 interposed between spirit and spirit : celibacy, the proof Chap. hi. of its conquest over matter, was the one indispensable condition to eternal happiness. The schemes of the Mani- cheans and the Marcionites diverged principally in the idea of the church. Manes inaugurated a priestly caste : Marcion had asserted equal rights for all Christians. The theory of the one was sacerdotal ; of the other, congregational. From Sjrria the Marcionites, or as they were afterwards known, the Paulicians, "spread over the eastern provinces "S^e Finiay, of Asia Minor. They seem to have absorbed the remnant G'''^=<:=„ •^ 3. 243, &c. of the Manicheans ; at least they inherited their ill-repute : original differences of doctrine may have been forgotten in community of oppressions^- They grew strong and resisted, for a while were victorious ; it was attempted to break their strength by a policy of transportation, and numbers were carried over at different times into Thrace, where they came to form a powerful and aggressive com- munity. Extending from Bulgaria among the strictly Slavonian populations of Servia and Bosnia, the ''Bogo- !> ibid., p. 67. miles, as they are now called, appear to have found the soil already ''partly prepared for the reception of their " cf. Evans teaching by the primitive beliefs and customs of the '""'"• people ; and from these lands, by channels of which we are imperfectly informed, ^they passed into Sicily, Italy, ° cf. Gibbon France, and even Germany; and from the end of the tenth century on-^fard there is hardly a generation in which the catholic church was not troubled by the '° In this way only, aa it appears The distinction is pointed out by to me, can we reconcile the title Mosheim, Institt. Hist, eccles. 312, usually applied to the heretics of ed. 2, Helmstaedt 1 764 quarto ; western Europe with their known and by Gtfroerer 3. 199 : it is con- lineage from the Paulicians whose founded by Milman 5. 400 sq._ See teaching in regard to the church on the whole subject of the history was plainly opposed to Manicha- of the sect, Gibbon's fifty-fourth ism : cf. Evans pp. xxxiii, xxxiv. chapter. 94 THE HERETICS AND THE CHUECH. Chap. III. appearance of their spiritual offspring which it confused under the familiar and infamous name of Mardcheans. The success of the heretics was assisted by several circumstances in the ecclesiastical condition of the west. Their views of Christian brotherhood were eagerly wel- comed by people who groaned under the pretensions of an unworthy priesthood ; their other heresy, the enforce- ment of celibacy, was already the kernel of faith among the stricter churchmen. That horror for the married state which the saint Augustin had retained from his youthful Manichaism, had already subverted the Christian idea of family Hfe. It was the instrument which the reformers of the tenth and eleventh centuries again bor- rowed from the heretics, and by which they strove to purify the priesthood ; for however the doctrine of celibacy was theoretically admitted, the authority of the church had hitherto interfered but little with the domestic rela- iv.D. 867. tions of the clergy. Pope Hadrian the Second in the ninth century was himself a married man. The clergy of Milan claimed their right as depending on the express rule of saint Ambrose. In Germany, England, and France the parish priests lived openly and without blame with their wives '^''. The reversal of this state of things, the work of Hildebrand, was undoubtedly designed with the artful sagacity of a statesman ; but if his success estab- lished the church as a political power, it was fatal to the morality of the clergy. The defenders of the old custom at Milan were quick to see the dangers that would arise if married persons were excluded from holy orders i'. The historian Landulf " See the Tigoroua description of fact and inference, and m^y be pru- Milraau 3. 440-447, 468-477 ; 4. 17- dently omitted) ; also pp. 61 sqq. 24 (the pages following about Dun- '' This was of course the only Stan contain a variety of errors of point at issue : it was admitted on THE QUESTION OP CELIBACY. 95 has preserved a remarkable record (if to some extent chap. hi. imaginary, hardly less valuable as expressing opinions current in Milan not long after the event took place) of a disputation they held with their opponents on the subject. ''One declared that to deprive a priest of his« Landuif • A . 1 "i- 25 p. 92. Wile meant simply to multiply his mistresses : vetanclo unam et propriam uxorem, centum fornicatrices ac acluUeria multa concedis. Another, the archdeacon Wibert, recited the praises of married virtue from the Bible and from saint Ambrose, and ^ boldly declared that whatever was 'Cap. 23 p. lawful to a layman was lawful also to a clergyman; for all are priests, whosoever be sons of the church, be they laymen or clerks. They invoked the freedom of the apostohc age, and charged the upholders of celibacy with the taint of those of Monfforte, a castle not far from Asti which afforded shelter to a sect whose heresy was a matter of common notoriety at the time^^. The Milanese had chosen a teUing argument. The reproach was so far a just one that the party of Peter Damiani and of Hilde- brand, and these despised sectaries were in this regard equally fallen from the primitive humanity of their re- ligion. The fortunes of the western Paulicians need not detain us long. There was no principle of development in their creed ; it reflected no genuine freedom of thought. It all hands that no one could marry gere et genus humanum sine semine after ordination : cf. Landuif, hist. Tirili, apum more, nasci dicentes, Mediolan. iii. 36 Pertz 8. 94 ; 1848. falsis sententiis afltanabant : Lan- Gerbert's profession at Kheims, dulf iii. 26 p. 93. Milman has Nuptias non prohibeOj secunda ma- related this singular debate at some trimonia non damno, Mansi 19. length; vol. 3. 470 n. 2. On the 108 A, was only the extravagant Milanese usage with respect to pledge of a political aspirant : cf. marriage, compare Anselm the Pe- Gfroerer 3. 1462. ripatetic's language: 'Nobis enim '* Forsitan adhuc ilia sententia clericis quibus licet liceat ; in uxo- implioitus es qua dim illi de Mon- ribus et filiis libera est potestas. teforti te imbuerant ; qui omnem Usus quidem prestat, ipsa defendit Christianitatem mulierem non tan- auotoritas ; ' Bhetorimaoh. ii. p. 45. 96 THE HERETICS IN THE WEST: Chap. III. took Toot among the obscurest and rudest orders of society, in the ignorant villages of Lombardy or in the low suburbs of the French or Flemish trading towns. An enthusiast, generally an Italian, might stir up the common people and expose them to the vengeance of the church: such were the victims of catholic zeal at Tou- s See louse ^"j at s Arras, Cambray, and LiSge, in the course of Neander -r-» i • n i 6- 435-439- the clevcnth century. But the imiuence rarely as yet !> Cf. ibid., extended deeper into society, as when, J' in the case just pp. 430-435. alluded to, the heretics (here they were clergy as well as A.D. 1031. laymen) enjoyed the alliance of the countess of Mont- forte^^- In one single instance, if its source be not wrongly derived, we find a whole monastic foundation in an important town, a widely-frequented clerical school, pervaded by the dangerous current. Perhaps the most singular fact in the history of these canons of Saint Cross at Orleans is the silent and un- ; Ademar suspected way in which their sect grew. * A member of 4- '43- it had been dead three years before his character was I'Gest.syn. discovercd. *^One of the two leaders, Stephen ^^, had Aurel., Bou- ■*- ^T\ D. been confessor to the queen of France ; ^ he and his col- '...Rod- .G'^i'- league Lisoius, or Lisieux, were familiars of the court xu. 8 ibid., o ' ' P- 35- and of the king. The very council which condemned " Gest. syn. them admits that they were ^distinguished among all for wisdom, surpassing in acts of holiness, iountiful in alm.sgivitig. At length their opinions were detected, and a synod con- ''" Ademar of Chabannais con- that they, unlike the eastern Panli- nects the execution of certain Mani- cians, were covetous of martyrdom, cheans at Toulouse in 1022 with the The Albigeois after their ovCTthrow appearance of these Aera'ZcZsq/'.4«^t- returned to the primitive custom clirist in many parts of the west : of the sect, and dissembled their Hist. iii. 59 Pertz 4. 143 (or Bou- opinions, quet 10. 159 d). ^' Eodulph Glaber calls him ^' Milman's treatment of them, Heribert by a mistake that has 3. 442 sq., 5. 402, is exceptionally been often corrected. Heribert was perfunctory. It may be noticed in fact the traitor of the heresy. p. 537 A- THE SECT AT ORLEANS. 97 vened to examine them. They were charged with name- chap. hi. less atrocities in their secret meetings, calumnies of the a.d. 1022. same class as those with which the early Christians were wont to insult the heretics of their day, and no doubt as false ^8. The judgement, we may be sure, was the more exemplary on account of their previous favour in high places. The persons whose intimacy with the arraigned canons might seem to commit them too deeply to their errors, attested their own innocence by the savage joy with which they heard the sentence, — ''the queen, ac- « Rod.oiab., cording to one account, plucked out the eye of her old '"' confessor as he passed from the hall ;— and thirteen of the number, two others recanting, perished at the stake. The Acts of the sjoiod of Orleans suggest no clue as to the origin of this sect. Among contemporaries " Ademar • Hist., i.c. ; of Chabannais alone describes it as Manichean. He Bouquet 10. T59 c & traces it to the teaching of a certain Eusticus — or was he ^^J^ ^y ' only a rustic ?~oi Perigord. sEodulph Glaber, on the ^'.'si;'^;;, contrary, says it was imported by a woman from Italy. \ Hist, tbi Both these writers, however, betray too plainly their ^''^''^' ignorance of the characteristics and motives of the heretics for us to be at liberty to accept their testimony without corroboration. If we examine the indictment against them, we find a variety of articles showing kinship with the PauUcian beliefs. They denied, it was alleged, aU the facts of the human life of Christ, the miracles of his birth, his passion, and his resurrection ; « all miracles, i ibid , p. 36 A, u. they said, were madness, deliramenta. They assailed doc- ^' Milman'a remark that they synod, p. 538 n., from whom I have ' were, if their accusers speak true, borrowed the parallel in the text, profligates rather than sectarians' Gibbon has given a lively picture (he enters into no detail in the of the corresponding passages in the matter) may be contrasted with the history of the ancient church, ch. judicial impartiality of the Bene- xvi, vol. 2. 155 sq. dictine editors of the acts of the H 98 SOURCE OF THE HERESY AT ORLEANS. Chap. HI. trines even more intimately bound up with the life of ' Gest. syn. the church, ' the regenerating virtue of baptism, and the "''^■"'''' presence of the body and blood of the Saviour in the eueharistal elements ; they denounced the vanity of in- voking saints, the superfluity of the Christian works of piety. Rodulph adds that they held the universe to be eternal and without author, and if the specification be true it would place the canons of Orleans in a position by themselves ; but the tenet is little in keeping with the spirit of their creed. Its general resemblance to the oriental heresy is plain, but it has long been acknow- ledged that, however probable the relationship may be, there is no necessity to explain its origin in this way ; " See Mos- « it might have sprung up by itself, as the result of a heim 380 sq., . , Neander rational speculation, tinctured with mysticism : and even Miiman ^ j£ ^]jg £j.g^ impetus was given from abroad, it remains likely that its dissemination at Orleans was assisted by the reviving spirit of enquiry which was already be- coming powerful ia France. On the other hand, it would undoubtedly be improper to class these beliefs with the other manifestations of opinion divergent from the general tenour of orthodoxy which we meet with in the eleventh century. They in- dicate at most a link between the profession of an heresy which seemed to the world repulsive, and the assertion of individual views which might be startling, perhaps on that very account attractive, but which excited the anger of rivals rather than of enemies. To the latter order belong the opinions of Berengar of Tours and of Roscelin, who less by the issues to which they pointed than by the intellectual activity which they roused, are counted among the heralds of the scholastic philosophy. Through their resistance the medieval realism grew into the ma- BEGINNING OF THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 99 tured form which it retained until the introduction of chap. hi. the complete works of Aristotle in the thirteenth century. The debate, it is well known, rests upon the problem of the nature of being, a question ho doubt insoluble because to all time each man will answer it, spite of ar- gument, according to the special constitution of his own understanding. Existence might be held to reside more truly in the highest and broadest conceptions of which the mind is capable, in truth, in goodness, in every abs- traction furthest removed from ocular observation ; according to the technical terminology, in the universals. To the realist the ideal was the only true existence ; * every conception of the mind had necessarily a corre- « cf. Hau. sponding reality ^*- The school of Eoscelin proceeded de \L phii! r a J r scol. 1.289 sq. from the opposite extreme, from experience. Our senses, it was felt, are the only certain warrant for existence, and they only reveal to us the individual. The uni- versals, therefore, the cardinal point of dispute, could only be our own generalisations from observed facts. Eoscelin, who brought the latter view prominently into the field of discussion, was not, however, as is com- monly presumed, nor was Berengar, the first nominalist of the middle ages. This position, "according to an "Cf. supra, . PP- 7^ sq. early chronicler, belongs to John the Sophist, whose identification with John the Scot, long suspected, has been raised to a high degree of probability by the acute arguments of ''Dr von Prantl. So uncompromising a ^cf. infra, o . append. IV. Platonist as the Scot could not but be a realist in his ontology : but equally little could a logician escape the influence of Aristotle, the philosopher to whom he owed his method ; and John's view of language and of the " I have purposely described the at all concerned here with its tech- theory by an illustration of its nical definition, practical issue, since we are hardly H 3 100 NOMINALISM AND EEALISM Chap. III. scope and functions of logic is far removed from the arid tradition of Isidore and Alcuin. Dialectic, he admitted, had kinship with grammar and rhetoric, in so far as it dealt with human speech pure and simple. But words and thoughts, and therefore words and things, were definitely if imperfectly correlative. John therefore claimed for dialectic a higher dignity than that of a mere mechanical instrument : it was the searcher out of the common conceptions of the mind"^^, the guide of reason. It was easy to carry this train of reasoning a stage further, and to argue that the general terms with which logic occupies itself are not its source but its product. The universals, the Scot had agreed, are words ; what if they be mere words ? Already in his lifetime the sugges- tion was taken up by Heric of Auxerre, whose pupil howevQT, saint Remigius of Auxerre, reverted to a y Cf. infra, declared realism. ^ The party division may therefore be append, iv. !../»/ safely dated from the close of the ninth century. Remi- gius was a far more important person than Heric. At Rheims, and afterwards at Paris, he was unrivalled as a teacher of grammar, dialectic, and music ; and the rapidly advancing greatness of the Paris school, assisted by the reputation not only of the teacher but of such 'SeeGfroerer of his pupils as "^ Odo, the sccond abbat of Clugny and 3- '335 sqq. . the creator of its fame, would naturally tend to fix the principles of Remigius in an age which had no mind for independent thought. Thus, with apparently the • Pranti, single exception of the learned centre of ^ Saint Gall, gesch. d. log. ^ ^ L'"62-r'^'' realism held everywhere an undisputed reign. Gerbert, whose dialectical activity is represented for us by a debate in which he took part before Otto the Third, and "° Communium animi conoeptio- gatrixque disciplina: De div. nat. num rationabilium diligens investi- i. 29 p. 19. IN RELATION TO OETHODOXY. 101 by a alight treatise in which he pursued a little further chap, hi. one of the points raised on that occasion, was hardly at all in sympathy with the subjective aims of metaphysics ; although ''probably his literary interest and his energy " Haure-au I. 212 sq. , as a teacher were the means of restorine to the use of the ^ '" *e not. o et extr. des schools some of the materials for logical study which "7^)'";,. had fallen into neglect in the century before him. ■= Other- ° cf. Prami wise his practical temper was satisfied to accept the tradition as he found it. It was not until thought was again turned to religious questions, and doctrine sub- jected to the test of reason, that the opposition was revived. The principles of the realist combined readily with a Christian idealism : he relied upon the safe foundation of authority — the various elements of the church tradition, the Bible, the fathers, the canons of councils, and the decretals of popes ; — and treated logic as its useful but docile handmaid^*. The nominalist on the contrary, though he might not wish to overthrow the ancient and respectable fabric of authority, reduced its importance by giving, * as John Scot gave, an equal if not a superior ^ supra . . pp. 66 sqq. place to reason. Keason was the basis on which he rested, and logic, as the method which controlled the exercise of its powers, became the science of sciences. It was therefore natural that the dialectical reaction should ally itself with the protest of reason against the dogma of transubstantiation. ° Berengar of Tours, who main- ■ cf. Hau- ° ^ r&u hist. tained what is called the Zwinglian view of the Lord s !• ^^^ sqq. supper, is therefore so far the beginner of the new move- ment that the rationalism of the opinions he put forth '^ ' Quae tamen artis humanae non debet ius magisterii sibimet peritia,' says saint Peter Damiani arroganter arripere, sed velut an- (ap. Prantl 2. 68n. 281), 'siquando cilia dominae quodam familiatus tractandis sa«ris eloquiis adhibetur, obsequio subservire.' 102 DIALECTICAL MOVEMENT. Chap. III. set the whole catholic world thinking, questioning, dis- puting. Himself ready enough to recant under pressure, the number of his direct disciples may not have been large : but the stream of speculation once let loose, could not be restrained at will. It was a time of religious re- form, and reform went hand in hand with the promotion of education. Monasteries and their schools were re- stored or founded in a continually expanding circle. They busied themselves with the rudimentary ' arts ' of the Trivium, grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic ; and the last, because of its universal apphcability, remained the most popular study even for those who proceeded to the higher branches of the Quadrivium, or to the faculties of theology or law. The disputations which in the English universities only died out at the beginning of the present century, and even now retain a formal existence in the superior faculties, are the shadowy survivors of a system which was in its fresh ardour in the eleventh century. To the enthusiastic dialectician everything would seem to depend upon the turn of a debate ; a challenge to a disputation was as serious as a challenge to the combat : logic became the centre round which all speculation revolved, and the question "about its metaphysical basis became the absorbing one for all who pretended to share in the commonwealth of scholars. Nevertheless the suspicion with which theologians regarded the new study was not soon averted. Apart from antecedent principles it was not likely that they should look with approval upon an art in which they tic89. were usually outmatched by their opponents. Arch- bishop Lanfranc, a learned man and a good lawyer, was greatest in the practical affairs of the state : in dialectical warfare he showed but poorly. He vanquished Berengar ROSCELIN. 103 by transparent sophisms. Logic in his hands was an im- chap. hi. perfect instrument which he had not fully learned to use. Indeed, judged by his writings, Lanfranc belongs entirely to the dark ages, whose trivialities he delights to repeat ^^ : it is Berengar who opens the new age of enlightenment ; nominalism, which is for the time the party of progress. The difference between this controversy and that which was provoked by Roscelin towards the close of the century is worth noticing. Whereas ^ Berengar seems to ' cf. Reuter have been led by moral doubts in reference to the miracle of the Lord's supper, to investigate minutely its claims to belief and thus to open the whole question of the meaning of authority^*, while the dialectical form in which his polemic was cast was the last stage in his intellectual process ; in Roscelin's case the order was reversed. The conclusion of the one was the starting- point of the other. By the sheer honesty and con- sistency of his logic Roscelin came to dispute the accepted dogma of the holy Trinity. He refused to exempt any fact from the jurisdiction of reason, and fearlessly applied his nominalistic principles to the supreme problem. Jf in God, he argued, the three persons are one thing and not three things, then the Father and the holy Ghost must have been incarnate with the Son: if on the contrary they be three things each by itself severally, as three angels or three '" On Laniranc'a controversy with of Nogent, and to Honorius of Au- Berengar see the extracts in jPrantl tun ; as well as to saint Anselm, 2. 75 n. 308, and compare R^musat, among whose works it has even Abelard 2. 162 sq. Perhaps how- appeared in print. See the Histoire ever we are hardly justified in laying litt&aire de la !Prance, 12. 167; so definite a stress as Dr von Prantl 1763. does, vol. 2. 73 notes 302, 303, on *' Dr Eeuter's ohservation, i. 93, Lanfrano's performances in the Elu- of the tendency of the transub- cidarium, a text-book of theology stantiation dogma, ' das mirakel of which the authorship is by no horte auf mittel zu sein, es wurde means certain. It has been various- zweck,' is penetrating and juat. ly ascribed to Augustin, to Guibert 104 SAINT ANSELM. Chap. III. 8 Haur^au I, 269. h Cf. infra, append, v. souls, yet so as in will and power they he altogether one, then, .did usage permit, we ought to speak of three Gods ^'. The terms of the dilemma are those -which in the early history of Christianity had been inspired only by the venom of enemies. Rejecting the error charged to the patri- passians, Roscelin frankly accepted the reproach of tri- theism'". But we may learn from the extreme rigour with which he stated the alternatives, that with him there was not a religious principle but simply a specu- lative position at stake ^^. If it was almost an accident of time that connected RosceHn with a theological debate, it was certainly nothing more that involved saint Anselm in one of dialectics. A thinker of immensely larger capacity than Lanfranc, Anselm, like his predecessor in the see of Can- terbury, belongs in spirit to the past. He is, it has been finely said, « the last of the fathers. Unlike Lanfranc, he belongs also to the far future : as a philosopher, he is in at least one notable train of reasoning the parent of Descartes. His serene vision overlooks the chasm of scholasticism ; he is not engulphed in it. Some of the questions on which he meditated are so alien from the temper of his time that one cannot but ask whence he derived the impulse. To this question, however, ''no ^' The argument as reported to Anselm (Baluze, Misoell. 2. 174, ed. Mansi) and stated by liim in the De fide trinitatis, i. p. 41 b, pre- sents but one horn of the dilemma. Both are given, but in a somewhat involved form, in Anselm's letter to Fulk of Beauvais, Epp. ii. 41 p. 357 b. I have extracted the state- ment in the text from a comparison of these three passages. '° In the third century however the name was ditheism, MUman I. 51. The variation indicates one of the wide-reaching changes which Latin Christianity made in the subject-matter of theology. " This was long ago seen by the candid Mosheim, p. 382, 2nd note. Still the charge of blasphemous heresy long clung to Eoscelin ; see Abailard's letter to the bishop of Paris, written about 11 20, 0pp. 2. 150, ed. Cousin : and Eoscelin's reply, ibid. pp. 796-801, still in- sists, in however modified language, upon the Three in preference to the One. SAINT ANSELM. 105 answer has yet been given, and for the present we may Chap. hi, still believe that the idea of constructing an argument for the existence of God originated in his solitary thought. At first indeed Plato, through the channel of saint Augustin, supplied him with the suggestion that the existence of relative good upon earth implies the existence of an absolute Good of which it is a reflexion. To this purpose he wrote the Monologion. But he was not content until he had perfected an argument the pro- foundness of which might, he felt, appeal to every reason- able man. Such he discovered in the famous ' ontological' argument of the Proslogion, that the existence of God is proved by our thought of him ^^. It is the very subtilty of the conception that makes the reasoning silent to mere logicians ; but among philosophers it has commanded a wide-spread sympathy. Anselm's confidence in its truth has been justified by the maimer in which his argument has been woven and re-woven into the systems of modem thought. Thus Anselm's interest lay in a field above the con- troversies of logic ; his thoughts did not readily move within that formal circle. He joined of necessity in debates to which one cannot be brought to believe that he devoted his best faculties ^^. The 'technical victory i Pramu. 86. ^ The argument has been spoken 1881. Mr Martin Rule's Life and of as derived from Augustin and Times of saint Anselm, in two Boethius, but it is clearly shown volumes, 1883, has hardly a title by F. E. Hasse, Anselm von Can- to be considered a serious literary terbury 2. 240 (1852), that this production. statement rests upon a confusion of '' Cousin justly remarks, ' il re- the motive of the Proslogion with tombe dans la barbarie de son temps that of the Monologion. Those dfes qu'il quitte le christianisme et who have not leisure for the ex- s'engage dans la dialeotique scho- tended analysis of Anselm's philo- lastique ... Ce n'est pas \\ qu'il . sophy contained in the work just faut chercher saint Anselme : ' Frag- cited, vol. 2. 34-286, will find a mentsphilosophiques 2. 102, 5thed., brief but luminous summary in dean 1865. Church's Saint Anselm 74-79, ed. 106 ODO OF CAMBKAY. Chap. III. in One notorious case certainly lay with his opponent, and although our scanty information of the literary pro- ceedings of the time tells us nothing relevant of the reception of his other writings, we may be fairly sure that the realists, or traditionary party, had not yet trained themselves to the same expertness in the manipulation of logic which the nominalists already possessed. A story told by a chronicler of the abbey of Saint Martin at Tournay, and relating to the last years of the century, k Herimann. throws a curious light upon this relation. ^ There was a narr. restaur. abbatiae master there, Odo, afterwards bishop of Cambray, whose d'Ache' "' fame was so eminent tAat not only from France, Manderg, ll'^i.'ed. o,ncl Normancli/, but even from far distant Italy, Saxony, and ''^^' Burgundy, divers clergymen flowed together in crowds to hear him daily ; so that if thou shouldst walk dbont the public •places of the city and behold the throngs of disputants — greges disputantium — thou wouldst say that the citizens had left off their other labours and given themselves over entirely to phi- losophy. But after a whilea check came. Odo, who was an old-fashioned realist, found his position menaced by the increasing popularity of a certain Raimbert and a whole p.^sso'b"' school of nominalists at Lisle ; since ' it was observed that the lectures of the latter had a much more practical result in training men to reasoning and to readiness of speech ; maxime quia eorum lectiones ad exercitium disputandi vel eloguentiae, imo loquacitatis et facundiae, plus valere dice- bant. Yet there could be no fault in Odo, /or he departed not from the doctrine of the ancients. Thus exercised in his mind, therefore, one of the canons of the church had recourse to a wizard, who unhesitatingly declared in favour of the realist. To him realism had indeed the support of authority ; and the fact expressed under this grotesque guise still holds good in a more reasonable form DIALECTICS IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY. 107 "when we approach the master to whose credit is usually Chap. hi. assigned the establishment of realism. The distinction of the parties is still the same ; the realism of William t^^i. of Champeaux, like that of saint Anselm, "proceeds from ° 128.^*^^"" a metaphysical rather than a logical starting-point. But the dialectical spirit was now too strong to endure a subordinate rank : it animated the realists, now that "William of Champeaux had given them a tangible ° s^^"^""'" J^ o 02. 123, Hau- formula, just as vigorously as the nominalists. But the '■'^'"' '• ^^°' formula was no sooner discovered than the appearance of Abailard, and his criticism first of one side and then of the other, drove each to its defences. The immediate effect of this disturbance was to break up the parties into manifold subdivisions. - John of Salisbury, the ?. Metaiog. acutest historian of the movement, reckons no less than ^^[j^^t!''''" ten distinct positions on the main dialectical problem, pp; ^5, s,. and this enumeration is not exhaustive^*. With this universal outburst of criticism the rational history of the middle ages enters into its second youth. The interval of darkness is now quite past. The age of the church schools is about to be succeeded by the age of the uni- versities. The nature of the discussion indeed takes it out of the sphere of any but a professed history of philo- sophy, not merely because of its extremely technical form, which it is difficult to render into modern language, but also because the apparent minuteness and triviality of its distinctions, unless subjected to a long and search- ing examination, tend rather to conceal than to disclose the intellectual ferment from which it sprang. But we shall learn perhaps more of the real character of the age ^ A very lueid summary of the tmd Studien, Sohriften und Philo- prinoipal points of difference will aophie 319 sqq.; 1862. See also the be found in Carl Schaarsohmidt's more detailed analysis given by Dr Johannes Saresberiensis nachLeben von Prantl, vol. 2. 118 sqq. 108 SUBJECT OF THE FOLLOWING CHAPTERS. Chap. III. and of the forces at -work in it by studying the manner in which men learned and taught, and had their contro- versies, and making acquaintance with some types of its culture, than by a direct analysis of its dialectical theories. CHAPTER IV. THE SCHOOL OP CHARTEES. At the beginning of the twelfth century three schools chap. iv. are distinguished in the contemporary literature above the multitude which had sprung into new life in France and were connected with so many of her cathedrals and religious houses. These three were at Laon, Paris, and Chartres. It would be more accurate to say, they were the schools of Anselm and Kalph, of William of Cham- peaux, and of Bernard Sylvester. For in those days the school followed the teacher, not the teacher the school. Wherever a master lived, there he taught ; and thither, in proportion to his renown, students assembled from whatever quarter. Thus it had been at Tournay, as we have seen, under Odo, at Bee under Lanfranc and An- selm, and still earlier under Fulbert at Chartres. The tie was a personal one, and was generally severed by the master's death. A succession of great teachers in one place was a rare exception; nor is such an exception aiforded by the history of any of the three schools to which we have referred. The eminence of William of Champeaux drew logical students to Paris, but not because he taught at Paris. The success of one of them, Abailard, *in forcing his » Abaei. hist. calam.ii.opp. master to modify the basis of his system added a peculiar ^^^s.^f^jg notoriety to a school whose fame was already established : 110 THE SCHOOL OF PAEIS. Chap. IV. for William's action heralded the downfall of the old- fashioned realism, and the orthodox system, heretofore so solid and substantial, came to acknowledge sects whose number and division might contrast unfavourably with the comparative unity of their rivals. Moreover the ex- citing presence of Abailard tended to give Paris a per- manent importance as a seat of learning. The natural pugnacity of youth gathered crowds of students to a scene where an endless encounter was going on, in their several lecture-rooms, between the heads of the opposing parties. Paris became the centre of the • dialectical struggle, and in another generation we see it filled with the noise of a new populace of schools set up in every part by ambitious teachers. But the schools of William of Champeaux flourished only with their master. We are not even certain who occupied his place at Notre Dame ; for it is only a hazardous guess that identifies » Schaar- his succcssor with ^ Robert of Melun : nor is the celeb- hannes Sa- rity of Saint Victor, where the later years of Cham- resberiensis 7=- peaux's life as a teacher were passed, any the more connected with him. He left the priory on his elevation A.D. ma. to the see of Chalons, a name for dialectic : but that « Duchesne, wMch made the enduring reputation of the abbey (° it Abaerlj""" obtained this dignity in the year of, or the year after, littfd'e'ia'' lii^ removal) was something quite different. It was an 3o8,°i756°; impulse of reaction to the dialectic movement, due to sat, Abflard, the prescucc among its canons of Hugh of Saint Victor. I. i6 sqq. ; .... . 1845- The spirit which he infused was more theological and tii«. religious, less instinctively literary, far less secular. This was the stamp of the mystics of Saint Victor which long remained their common tradition ; but it was not the legacy of William of Champeaux. The two other great schools of France have this like- THE SCHOOL OF LAON. Ill ness to William's, that they were rigorously realistic ; Chah. iv. but in neither were dialectics the main interest of the place in the way they were at Paris. Of the school of Laon we know little besides its renown. Its history is comprised within the lifetime of the brothers Anselm and Ralph, whose celebrity attracted scholars from all parts of western Europe. At one time we see a band of clergymen from Milan, the rival of Rome, prouder in her religious tradition than any other church in Christendom, journeying to Laon that they might sit at the feet of the acknowledged masters in theology ^. At another "* it is * Heimou. . chron. Slav. Wiceun, a mature teacher at Bremen, who gives up his i-^45 Psrtz school and spends some years in France, learning the '^^9- interpretation of holy Writ from the same masters. Anselm, the ' doctor of doctors ^,' the pupil perhaps of his more famous namesake at Bec^, was at different times the master both of William of Champeaux, who seems to have been in some sort regarded as his legitimate successor*, and of Abailard, "who characteristically " Abaei. hist. cal. lii. opp. I. 7 : cf. Hug. '■ Landulf de a, Paulo, Hist. Me- lay and the authors of the Histoire Metell., ubi did. XXV Pertz 20. 30 sq. One of litt^raire rather than upon any posi- '"^''^' these visitors is mentioned in a letter tive testimony. by an Italian student at Laon, per- ' ' Mortuo Anselmo Laudunensi haps a -little later, printed in the et Guillelmo Oatalaunensi,' wrote BibliothNjue de I'fioole des Chartes, Hugo Metellus in his bombastic 4th series, i. 465 sq. Another let- style to Innocent the Second, 'ignis ter, ibid., p. 466, shows how largely verbi dei in terra defecit : ' ep. iv, the school was frequented. Com- C. L. Hugo, Sacrae Antiquitatis pare the Histoire litt&aire 10. 173- Monumenta 2. 331, Saint Di^ 1731 176, where an extensive list of its folio. Compare Eeiner, a monk of disciples is given. Saint Laurence at Li^ge, writing ^ The title seems an accepted abduttheyearxigo, who couples the one : see one of the supplements to names together as ' opinatissimos Sigebert of Gembloux, Auotar. Af- tunc Franciae magistros : ' De inep- fligemense, a. iioo, Pertz 6. 400; tiis cuiusdam idiotae i, Pertz 20. John of Salisbury, Epist. coii. Max. 596. To carry on the testimony Bibl. Patr. 23. 490 B. with respect to Anselm's reputation ^ Histoire littlraire 10. 171. The later we may quote Vincent of statement that Anselm of Laon had Eeauvais, Speculum naturale xxxiii. previously taught at Paris appears, 93, who speaks of him as ' ma- so far as I can discover, to rest upon gister nominatissimus scientia mo- the patriotic sentiment of du Bou- rum, et honestate clarus.' 112 THE SCHOOL OF LAON. Chap. IV. despised him as an eloquent man -without much judge- ment; not to speak of Alberie of Rheims, Gilbert de la Porree, and many more of the theological students of the f[Sigebert] time. ^ He died as early as 1117, and the s school was Auct. Lau- •' ' dun^ ad ann., thcnceforward directed by his brother alone ; but it Pertz 6. 445. •' ' BHerimann. sccms to havc soon lost its peculiar eminence, and with de miracuhs ^ d^Aii^t"' -^^Ipli's death in ^"1138 it sank again into the obscurity k His "mt?^ from which their single efforts had raised it. 10. 191. Apart from the personal weight of the teachers, the school had acquired a peculiar and almost unique name for the stedfast fidelity with which it maintained an I handed on the pure theological tradition of the church. A generation after Anselm, many years after Ralph, had passed away, their authority is appealed to in the same unquestioned manner as an English clergyman might ijoh.Saiisb. appeal to Hooker or Barrow. 'It is relied on as irre- hist. pontif. ^ '■ 2o''2 "rf fr^g^'l^ls by Robert de Bosco, archdeacon of Chalons, cSa"vaii. i^ connexion with the trial for heresy of Gilbert de Lpp'.gS\I^ la Porree in 11 48; and later still in 1159 ''John of nardi opp. 2. Salisbury avers that no one would dare to detract 1338 c, ed. . 1 1 • /> Mabiiion, in public from the lustre of those most splendid lights folio. (^ Gaul, the glory of Laon, whose memory is in pleasant- i. 5 p. 746. fiess and blessing. It is supposed, but on what grounds we are ignorant, that while Aasehn devoted himself to the field of theology, Ralph instructed the school in the ' liberal arts ' generally ; but as to the sort of teaching he gave we have absolutely no information. The gap appears all the greater in comparison with the ampleness and vivid detail of our knowledge of the school of Char- tres, which has a remarkable individuality among the schools of the time. Its interest was not theoloaical nor principally dialectical, but literary : its character was that of a premature humanism. The golden age of the THE SCHOOL OF CHAKTEES : FULBERT. 113 school is nearly contemporary with that of Anselni of Chap.iv. Laon and William of Champeaux ; but it is carried on to a much later date through the long life of its master Bernard Sylvester, whom John of Salisbury signalises as ' in modern times the most abounding spring of letters in Gaul. ' Metal. ;. 24- p. 782. The cathedral school of Chartres had early in the preceding century been famous as a house of religious learning. Its president, the saintly Fulbert, a pupil of Gerbert, was one of those quick-souled teachers who, just as saint Anselm two generations later, gave so powerful an impulse to the reviving civilisation of the time. Even ™ after his elevation to the bishoprick » Bouquet 10. 466 note e. of his own city, Fulbert still continued to follow his chosen calling among the scholars of the cloister. The position he won as a teacher — Berengar of Tours was among his pupils,^ — and the name of 'Socrates' by which his scholars delighted to remember him, bear witness to the attractive force of his personality °. At his death, says the biographer of saint Odilo, ^tJie study of" lotsaid. philosophy in Trance decayed, and the glory of her priesthood '''<■■ o^'^-X'i'- well-nigh perished. But Fulbert's learning was that oi'J^^-'^-^^^' a divine not of a scholar, and his idea of teaching is typical of his age. He loved of an evening to take his disciples apart in the little garden beside the chapel, and discourse to them of the prime duty of life, to prepare for the eternal fatherland hereafter. Without ' Adelmann, scholastic of lA6ge invitat ad se votis et tacitis preci- and afterwards bishop of Brescia, bus, obtestans per secreta ilia et writing to Berengar of Tours, re- vespertina colloquia quae nobiscum calls prettily ' dulcissimum illud in hortulo iuxta capellam de oivi- contubernium quod . . in academia tate quam deo volente senator nunc Carnotensi sub nostro illo Tcnera- possidet, saepius habebat, et obse- bili Socrate iucundissime duxi . . crans per lachrymas . . ut illuc omni Sed absque dubio memor nostri, studio properemus, viam regiam di- diligens plenius quam cum in cor- rectim gradientes : ' Ep. ad Bereng., pore mortis huius peregrinaretur, Max. Biblioth. Patrum 18. 438D, E. 114 THE SCHOOL OF CHARTEES : IVO, Chap. IV. this presiding thought there was infinite danger in the study of letters : they were only worth cultivating in so far as they ministered to man's knowledge of divine things. We have no information concerning the fortunes of the school of Chartres after Fulbert's death in 1039 ^ ; but it is natural to presume that the literary tradition of the city, if not unbroken, was before long restored by the presence, whether his influence was actively exercised or nof, of its bishop, the great lawyer Ivo, "Rob.de °a religious man, as he is describedj and of great learning, a. 1117, Pertz -^yjio in lus youtli had, heard master Lanfranc, prior of Bee, treat of secular and divine letters in that famous school which he had at Bee. Certainly some time towards the close of Ivo's life (he died in 1115^) the school emerges again into notice under the rule, first, it should seem, of Theodoric, and then of his brother Bernard'; and thence forward, down to near the middle of the twelfth century, it enjoyed a peculiar distinction, continually growing until it became almost an unapproached pre- ° The date I give according to ' The Histoire litt^raire, 12. 261, the new reckoning : see Mabillon, rightly points out that all the facts Vet. Anal. 231 ed. 1723; Gall. related of Bernard of Chartres and Christ. 8. 1116B, Paris 1744 folio. his opinions agree with the writings The old account makes it 1028 : bearing the name of Bernard Syl- Max. Biblioth. Patrum 18. 3 A, B. vester. The accord indeed is too ' 'Scholas fecit' in the Martyro- exact to make anything but an logium Ecclesiae Carnotensis pre- identification possible. The further fixed to Juretus' edition of Ivo's identification, which I had long letters, Paris 1610, and in Gallia suspected, of this Bernard with the Christiana 8. 1133 A, is so far as I brother of Theodoric is fortified by am aware a solitary notice : nor new arguments in a, paper of M need it mean much. The Histoire Haur^au printed in the Comptes litt&alre 10. 112 says that Ivo rendus de 1' Academic des Inscrip- rebuilt the schools. tions et Belles-lettres, 3rd series, ' I again follow the Martyro- i. 75 sqq., 1873. Previously how- logium and Gallia Christiana 8. ever it has been usual to follow the 1132 A. Other dates, 1116 and Histoire litt^raire 13. 376, 1814, in 1 1 1 7, are probably to be explained considering them to be two diffe- by the slowness with which news rent persons, travelled in those days. THEODORIC, AND BERNAED. 115 eminence, among the schools of Gaul. The names of chap. iv. the two brothers are taken by * Otto of Freising, as a p De gest. typical instance to illustrate the dangerous nimbleness i?- Perti 20. 376- of Breton wits, a characteristic of which Abailard furnished a still more striking example : 1 Abailard » Theoi. himself adduces them (if it be really to them that he °Pr^,J„s|?' refers) in proof of the perverse theological views that ^j^^^^f/' could be maintained by persons holding the highest rank as teachers. Unlike Abailard, however, neither came into serious conflict with the ecclesiastical authorities, and 'Bernard was chosen in his old age to occupy the ad. 1159. bishoprick of Quimper in his native Britany, where Monti a. o 1 T 1 ■ ,- II59P-SIO. = he died in 1 1 6 7 . . Gaii. Christ. 'Theodoric and Bernard were both canons and sue- Jsse.' cessively chancellors of the church of Chartres ^''- The c^^^telTen- former is mentioned by John of Salisbury as " a most ^'^^' ' '^" ^' diligent investigator of the arts, and ^ expressly as a " ^^^f°^' '' logician ; of his skill as a teacher of rhetoric, John " !■''=■ '"• ^4 O '_ ' _ P-905- y speaks in less favourable terms. If we are to credit ^ Lib. u. 10 . . p- 804. a " curious story, to which we think there are grounds - v. infra, 1 • . 'm 1 . append, viii. for attaching some authority, it will appear that it was this same scholar who attempted to instruct Abailard in the rudiments of mathematics. Tirrie, as he is here called (the name is already softening into Thierry), is again doubtless one with the Terric, "« master of t^s\^^}'-^^^^' schools, who took part in Abailard's trial at Soissons, °^^' \^ and the '■ Theodoric of Chartres who was present many a. d. ii48. years later at that of Gilbert de la Porree at Rheims. ann. o. s. b. 6. 435, Paris 1° Dr Schaarschmidt, Johannes 1131 and 1141. But as the Ber- 1739. folio. Sareaberiensja 22 and 73, apeaka of nard with whom we are concerned Bernard as iean of Chartres ; and is described only as cancellarius a, dignitary of that name certainly ecclesie Carnotensis (Eobert de appears in Gallia Christiana 8. Monte, ubi supra ; Gallia Chris- 11990 as signing a deed about the tiana 14. 877 d) I suppose that year 11 30. His successor Zaoha- the one identification excludes the rias emerges between the years other. I 3 116 THEODOEIC OF CHARTEES. Chap. IV. Jt was also to the mod famous doctor Terric that Bernard dedicated his book On the Universe. A single treatise, one on the six days of creation, represents for us Theodoric's literary production ; and of this only a few 'V. Hau- extracts have been printed. "These suffice, however, rdau, hist, de laphii. scoi. to show us how boldly he pushed the principles__of 1. 393-40J. •' ^ — -■ * realism to their furthest issues, and argued fronx-the doctrine of the unity of all being, that aU .being;_is God, and that God is the form of being of all things. How far the author's influence was exercisedTn" tEe school of Chartres, we are left to surmise from that of his brother, whose philosophy was of a similar com- plexion. Possibly even while Theodoric was chancellor Bernard took the more active share in that work of teaching which seems to have belonged to the chan- cellor's official duties. At least it is to Bernard in all probability that the restoration of the school to its old repute was due. Yet there is little beyond the external relation to connect the teaching of Bernard with that of Fulbert or, for that matter, of Lanfranc. Perhaps the single link is to be discovered in its con- servative character, its aversion from modern inno- vations ; but even this attitude marks the great difference between Bernard and his predecessors. They looked back and relied upon Christian doctrine as it had filtered through the dark ages ; he sought his models beyond Christianity in the reliques of classical antiquity, and emulated neither the theological weight of Fulbert nor the dialectical prowess, such as it was, of Lanfranc. Bernard Sylvester ^^, to give him the title which " This form of the name occurs 12. 273; while Sylvestris, which in one of the manuscripts men- as a rule appears as a genitive case, tioned in the Histoire litt^raire has been generally accepted. Fa- BEBNABD SYLVESTER. 117 appears in his -writings, was a devoted Platonist, — ^per- chap. iv. /isctissimus inter Platonicos seculi nostri, says John of Sails- iMetaiog.iv. bury, — but instead of for that reason attacking nominal- ism, he rather sought to win his opponents over to his side by a demonstration of the essential harmony of Plato and Aristotle. We may believe ° John of Salisbury • Lib. ii. i? vrhen he says that the proof was unsuccessful ; but he gives no details, nox is it hkely, to judge from what remains of Bernard's writings, that he entered into a minute examination of the different theories current in his day. He stood by the ancients and took little heed of what appeared to him ephemeral controversies. It is indeed a relief in this tempestuous time to make ac- quaintance with a man holding a distinguished place as a teacher, who nevertheless pursued his quiet way in the study of the classics, and seemed unconscious of the surrounding tumult. As little was Bernard disturbed by any controversies of theology. When he portrayed the cosmogony according to a scheme compatible only with some form of pantheism, he did it with a frank vigour which we cannot explain unless by supposing that Christian theology (as indeed 'he seems in one place ' Ce mund. °"' ^ _ ^ univ. ii. 5 to imply) was understood to lie outside the field of the p- 40- philosopher's vision. In a word, he was a humanist, and had no interest in connecting his speculations with Christianity, no inclination to consecrate his gifts to the service of the church. There is, of course, not the least evidence that he was anything but exemplary in the functions of his order '^^ ; neither are we to suppose that briciu3 however, Biblioth. Lat. med. megacosmus et microcosmus, Inns- et inf. Aet. i. 217 a, ed. 1S58, has bruok 1876, prefers Silvester; Sylvester. Professor C. S. Baraoh, though his edition varies between to whom we are indebted for the the two forms : see the inhalt p. v publication of Bernard's treatise De compared with the dedication p. 5. mundi universitate libri ii, sive " On the contrary, if the ar- 118 BERNARD AS A PHILOSOPHER: Chap. IV. }xe had any doubts or scruples about the established verities of religion. Rather he belonged to that class of which the English church furnishes so copious and so respectable examples, of clergymen who, while irre- proachable in matters of faith, do not concern themselves unofficially with them, and are known to the world as men of letters, critics, or philosophers, but least of all things theologians. Bernard was a scholar of a curious, meditative type. His mind like his style was enigmatic : it expressed itself less readily in prose than in verse ; and his chief work, the two short books On the Universe, alternates between hexameters on the model of Lucretius, elegiacs, and prose. The verses have a vigour of their own and give evidence of an extensive knowledge of classical authors, but the prose is concise to obscurity. Ihe-form. of the work, that of a dialogue woven into a narrative^ is aba suggestive of the latest classical devices : its spirit is that of an expiring Platonisin, oppressed and overweighted by allegory. The whole has an entirely pagan complexion ; it proposes to treat of the cosmogony and loses itself in a philosophical mythology. Perhaps it was the very qualities that made the work uninviting s Hist. litt. to the modern reader, which gave it its singular s popu- larity in the twelfth and even in the thirteenth centuries. It did more than support its author's reputation as a philosopher ; it placed him on a level with the choicest models of the middle ages : in a couplet of a contem- t ap. Fabric, porary poet, '' Eberhard of Bethune, his book ranks next bibl. Lat. . i» -n i • med. etinf. after the Consolation oi Boethius and the Batvricon of aet. 2. 488 b. '^ rangement we have made of the at Quimper expressly describes him data for Bernard's biography be as 'bonum clericum tempore suo:' correct, it will appear that a tablet Gallia Christiana. 14. 878 A. HIS REVERENCE FOR ANTIQUITY. 119 Martianus Capella. Bernard wrote also a commentary Chap. iv. on the first half of the Aeneid, of which some 'specimens ' Cousin, • fragm. philos. have been printed. Virgil, he says, ^ in as much as he is a ^- 348-352- 7.7 7 . 7 "^ Ibid. p. 350: philosopher, describes the nature of htiman life under the ^^f- Joh- Sa. ' _ ■' _ '' •' lisb. policr. guise of the history of Aeneas, who is the symbol of the ^^"-^=4 pp. soul. Nothing can be more laboured than the way in which Bernard pursues this allegory ; and yet when we are inclined to credit the commentator with less than an ordinary measure of common sense, we are bound to remember that he was but applying to other literature principles of exegesis which until a recent time were considered valid in reference to the Bible. Bernard's Glossules may indeed be taken as a good argumentum ad absurdum for the entire method of allegorising ; but in regard to the author they only show the reverence he bore towards the poets before Christianity, and the anxiety with which he sought to discover in them glimpses into the mystery of nature and to draw forth their meaning, rich with lessons for his own and every age. For ^ we are, he would say, as dwarfs mounted on the ' Ap. joh. shoulders of giants, so that we can see more and further '^'o|- "'■ 4 than they ; yet not by virtue of the keenness of our eyesight, nor through the tallness of our stature, but because we are raised and borne aloft upon that giant mass. In this reverent dependence on the ancients lies there- fore the main peculiarity of the school of Chartres. Learning, Bernard took it, was the fruit of long and patient thought, careful study of worthy models, and a tranquil life free from distracting circumstances. In his own words, ■"Mens hnmilis, studium quaerendi, vita quieta, "Ap. policr. Scrutinium taciturn, paupertas, terra aliena, ■"'■ '3 P- 454- Haec reserare solent multis obacura legendo. 120 BERNARD AS A TEACHER Chap. IV. Grammar, the necessary staple of a school, was thus to be a discipline as well as a technical acquirement. Now we have to bear in mind that in the middle ages boys learned grammar, that is Latin, not commonly as an accomplishment or piece of training, but as an in- dispensable vehicle of communication. Fluency more than depth was required, and elegant scholarship was nearly unknown. To meet this demand therefore it was usual for the schoolmaster to drill his boys simply in books of rules and abstracts. Priscian, Donatus, and Alcuin supplied the common text-books, and the classi- cal authors, if heard of at all, were only heard of through delectuses. Bernard's method was a protest directed against this hurried, unintelligent system. He maintained that grammar was the basis of all culture and must be learned slowly, leisurely, thoroughly ; above all it must be gathered from the classics themselves, and not from all authors alike, but from the best' authors. -Metaiog. i. ''John of Salisbury has given a large and most in- l^i^' ' ° teresting picture of what he found in practice under ocf. Hau- Bernard's eye. "The master himself had then retired reau, comptes tti* t j_ij. rendus. ubi from the work of the school, probably in order to devote supra, pp. ■*■ 75 sqq. hlmself exclusively to study ; his book On the Universe 1146-1163. was not written until years later, p during the pontificate un^v.nfss, of Eugenius the Third. « Gilbert de la Porree was now TMetaiog. i. chancellor, but Bernard's real successors were his dis- ciples, William of Conches and Eichard I'Ev^que. But Bernard still took an interest, if not an actual share, in the school ; and the influence of his conversations at least, whether in refectory or cloister or garden, is impressed upon a number of passages in John of Salisbury's writings. In the account to which we have referred, it is the choice of reading .that stands out as the salient 5 P- 745- OP CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP. 121 characteristic of Bernard's method, and marks it as chap. iv. aiming at a totally diiFerent level of excellence from that which had hitherto been deemed sufficient. The primary rudiments of the art were certainly not neg- lected. The pupil went through all the routine of metaplasm, schematism, and figures of speech ; but this was only the groundwork. As soon as possible he was in- troduced to the classical texts themselves ; and in order to create a living interest in the study, Bernard used not merely to treat these grammatically, but also to comment freely upon them. He would point out for instance how the style of prose differs from that of verse, so that what are vices in, the one may he even counted virtues in the other. Nor did he confine himself to the form of what was being read ; he was still more anxious to impress upon his pupils its meaning. It was a principle with him that the wider and more copious the master s knowledge, the more fully will he perceive the elegancy of his authors and the more clearly will he teach them. For in them, explains John, the bare material is so refined and perfected by know- ledge drawn from every possible source that the finished work appears in some sort an image of all arts . . . Bansack Virgil or Lucan, and whatever philosophy thou profess, thou wilt find there its quintessence. This method of illustration, of bringing all forces to bear upon one's subject, is noted by the same writer as characterising Gilbert de la Porr^e, the most famous scion of the Chartres school. He used, says John, the help of all sciences, as the matter demanded ; for he knew that the general consists, hy mvjtual service, in the particular^'^. '^ TJtebatur, prout res exigebat, pontificalis xii p. 526. The author- ommum adminioulo disciplinarum, ship of this invaluable record, which in singulis quippe sciens auxiliis was published for the first time by mutuis universa oonstare : Historia Dr Wilhelm Arndt in Pertz' twen^ 122 CLASSICAL EDUCATION Chap. IV. Bernard carried out his system in a way that suggests the routine of a much later age. He set his boys, or young men (for if John of Salisbury's case be typical, the course was rather that of a university than of a school), to do daily exercises in prose and verse composition, and prepared them by explaining the qualities in the orators or poets which they should imitate ; his great rule being that they should be brought up on the best models and eschew the rest. Among the virtues of the grammarian, says John, the ancients justly reckoned this : to be ignorant of some things. The pupils passed round their copies of verses for one another to correct, and the healthy friction helped to keep up the stimulating influence of their master. Nor was composition the only practice which they were given. They had also to learn by rote and every day keep a record of as much as they could re- member of the previous day's lesson ; for with them the morrow was the disciple of yesterday . . . After this wise, adds John of Salisbury, did my preceptors, William of Conches and Richard, surnamed the Bishop, now by office archdeacon of Coutances, a man good both in life and conversation, in- struct their pupils awhile. Hut afterwards, when opinion did prejudice to truth, and men chose rather to seem than to be philosophers, and professors of arts undertook to instil the whole of philosophy into their auditors more quickly than in three or even two years, — they were overcome by the onset of the unskilled crowd and retired ^*. Since then less time and tieth volume in 1868, may be re- The ascription is now allowed by garded as settled by the considera- J. C. Robertson, Materials for the tions brought together by Dr von Life of Thomas Becket 4. 261 n. 2 ; Giesebrecht in the Sitzungsberichte 1879. derphilosophiach-philologischenund - '* I have commented on the in- historisohen Classe der koniglichen terpretation of this passage, which Bayerischen Akademie der Wissen- has been generally mislinderstood, Bchaften, 3. 125 sq. ; Munich 1873. infra, Appendix vii. IN THE SCHOOL OF CHARTKES. 123 less care have heen bestowed on grammar, and persons who pro- Chap. iv. fess all arts, lileral and mechanical, are ignorant of the pri- mary art, without which a man proceeds in vain to the rest. For "albeit the other studies assist literature, yet this ia« '^'•^'='^'°8- ' 1/ 1. 27 pp. 777 the sole privilege of maJcing one lettered. ^'' A competitive system such as that John refers to, was a natural result of the * intellectual restlessness of the ' "^f- f^'' ^ / p. 741. time. The aim of the school of Chartres was directly opposed to this. Grammar, acgsording to Bernard, was not to be treated as a mere technical study, as an instru- ment to be used in philosophy or theology : it was an end in itself. In a word he endeavoured according to his lights to substitute for grammar philology. The level to which he attained may appear to us very im- perfect ; but we have at least this testimony to his success, that John of Salisbury, his pupil, wrote indis- putably the purest, if not the most graceful, Latin of the middle ages. He has a taste in style and a breadth of reading for which no previous period has prepared us. The idea of learning which he reveals is some- thing quite different from what we meet with in the preceding centuries, whether in the eleventh, in the verbose inanities of * Anselm the Peripatetic, or even pp ; 1"^^^' at the close of the ninth, in the childish unconsciousness of saint Notker Balbulus, himself an inmate of the renowned monastery of Saint Gall, which was at that very time the beacon of learning for middle Europe. The latter, after discoursing at length "Of the famous '','Di'Myistr. CI o */ '^ Vlris qui s. Men who have expounded the holy Scriptures, thinks it ne- l^'Pfi'^^^^'^t cessary to say a word about secular literature. Tor the Thef anecdd. rest, he says (he is writing to Solomon, afterwards bishop "J."'^''' of Constance), if thou desirest to hiow also the authors of the gentiles, read Priscian. Moreover, the histories of 124 behnakd's disciples: Chap, IV. Josephug the Jew and of our Hegedppus should he read. And I set an end to my look. Amen. From what has been said of Bernard's conservative temper, and of the way in which he held aloof from the popular wrangle of dialectical controversies, it may fairly be surmised that his school did not attract so great a number of pupils as some other schools which had sprung up with the dialectical movement, and which devoted themselves to the novel vogue. Such, as we shall see, were those of Melun, and of Saint Genevieve, and the Petit Pont at Paris. At the same time we may reasonably infer that Chartres attracted a distinctly higher class of students than these, at least after the retirement of William of Champeaux, and the death of the brothers of Laon. John of Salisbury may again be called as witness. After two years under famous dialecticians at Paris, he was glad enough to spend three more under the masters of Chartres. The teachers he names in this connexion are William of Conches and Richard I'fiveque : a third distinguished disciple of Bernard, Gilbert de la Porree, who was then resident at Chartres, John did not attend as a master, so far as we know, until later. These successors of Bernard illustrate the tendencies of his teaching in several ways ; but it is remarkable that only one of them, William, and William only in a modified degree, can be regarded as Bernard's heir in what we take to be his special characteristic, namely his indifference to, if not his negation of, theology as a branch of scientific study. - Meiaiog. William of Conches is ranked after Bernard "" as the • s p- 745- jj^Qg^ accomplished, ojiulentissimus, grammarian of his time. As Bernard commented the Aeneid, so did he the Timaeus of Plato, and on the same principles. With WILLIAM OP CONCHES. 125 Mm, as witli Bernard and with ^ John of Salisbury, the chap. iv. rules of speech which comprise grammar, dialectic, and y v. Metaiog. rhetoric, and are together included under the name of rsssq. eloquence, are the first things which the philosopher must possess : with them equipped, as with arms, we ought to approach the study of philosophy, first as learned in the sciences of the Quadrivium, and finally in theology, since by the knowledge of the creature we attain to a know- ledge of the Creator ^^. But the basis of the whole is grammar: in, omtii doctrina grammatica praecedit. This is the mark of the school of Ghartres ; and it is unfor- tunate that William's comprehensive work, the Philo- sophia, remains a fragment at the end of the fourth book just at the point where he is about to introduce the characteristic subject. Hence we know the author principally as a natural philosopher, it would be more accurate to say, as a cosmologer ; and in this quality his writings are a good sample of the freedom of thought that issued from the classic calm of Ghartres. Bernard had found in his philosophy an adequate explanation of all the phaenomena of life, ethical and metaphysical as well as physical: and William was his true disciple ; but with this difference, that he expanded the definition of philosophy so as to include theology. His views on this subject, there can be no doubt, he derived almost exclusively from the writings of Abailard ; but if he was only a theologian at second hand, this was because his interest was still confined to ''■ PMloaopliia iv. 41 Hon. p. found among Bede's works, vol. 2, 1020 P. The work to which I refer in the edition of Basle 1563 folio ; under this title I quote either from which recensions I cite respectively the edition printed as the work of as Hon. and Bed. On the various Honorius of Autun, in the twentieth intricate questions relating to Wil- volume of the Lyons Max. Biblioth. liam's bibliography see below, Ap- Patr., 1667, or from that to be pendii v, vi. 126 WILLIAM OF CONCHES AS A PHILOSOPHER Chap. IV. the outward facts of nature. He borrowed from theology just so much as was necessary to elucidate the genesis and order of the universe, and beyond this he did not care to go. For the same reason he parted company with the realists before accepting that doctrine of ideas which others found the most attractive feature in « y. Jour- Platonism. Alike in his ^ commentary on Boethius' ■dam. not. et '' manuscr Consolatioti of PMlosopJiy, & work of a comparatively •°v infra" ^ early date, and in the * Dragmalicon which he wrote P- "'>• long afterwards with an avowedly apologetic purpose, we find the same reluctance to admit conclusions which, he plainly felt, did not belong to his proper field of enquiry. His business was with the external and tangible. The root of his system is disclosed in the sentence above quoted : By the knowledge of the creature we attain to a knowledge of the Creator. Nor was this any but a legitimate application of the habits of thought current in the schools of the time. Kealism no less than nominalism, as Theodoric and Bernard are witness, >■ cf. tr, de had its ^ inevitable issues running counter to the accepted gener. et ox IP^^'P^^^"' religion : yet the realists as a rule were disposed rather js^gf r/7' to compromise Christianity in favour of Plato than to ""gTsqq. loosc hold of the universal truth of their philosophical theories. William of Conches treats the two authorities as practically coordinate, and, with the one exception to which we have referred, confidently adapts his inter- pretation of the letter of Scripture to the principles which he had learned, through whatever indirect chan- ' Phiios i. 19 nels, from Plato. "^ The wisdom of the world, he repeats, Hon.p.999E. , . . ^ , is foolishness with God: not that God esteems the wisdom of this world to be foolishness, but because it is foolishness in comparison of his wisdom ; nor does it follow on that account that it is foolishness. AND THEOLOSIAN. 127 William therefore seeks God through nature : he chap. iv. proves his existence from the good design and govern- ment of the world, and scruples not to find an explana- tion of the mystery of the Trinity quite other than that which is sanctioned by the fathers of the church. There is, he says^^, in. the Godhead, power, and wisdom, and will, which the saints call three persons, applying these terms to them hy a sort of affinity of meaning, and saying that the divine power is Father, the wisdom Son, the will the holy Ghost. . . . The Father, he continues, legat the Son, that is the divine power begat wisdom, when he pro- vided how he would create things and dispose them when created: and since he provided this before the ages, before the ages he begat the Son, that is, wisdom; and this of himself not of another, because not by the teaching of another nor by experience, but of his own nature, he had this know- ledge. From the time he was (if it be lawful to say it of eternity), from that time he knew these things, nor was there any else to know them. If therefore he is eternal, his wisdom also is eternal. Thus the Father begat the Son, coeternal with him and consubstantial ■'''. In another place ■* William expressly rejects the notion that Eve was-'Pwios.i.as; infra, append. created out of Adam's rib, as a crabbed, literal inter- "• § ^• pretation. How, he asks, are we contrary to the divine ^'' Est igitur in divinitate poten- non ex alio, quia neque alicuius tia, sapientia, voluntas : quas sanoti dootrina neque usus experientia, trea personas vooant, vocabula illis aed ex propria natura hoc scire ha- a vulgari per quandam affinitatem buit. Ex quo autem fuit (si fas est transferentes ; dicentes potentiam dicere de aetemo), ex eo \_edd. quo] divinam^airem, sapientiam_^K«m, haec scivit, nee [oZ. non] fuit qui voluutatem spiritwm sanctmn : Phi- \_al. quin] ista sciret. Si [aZ. Sio] los. i. 6 (Bed. 2. 312 ; Hon., p. 998 ergo aeternus est, et [al. quia] sa- a). Cf. inli-a, Appendix yi. | 6. pientia eius aetema est. Hie [al. " Pater ergo genuit filium, id est, Sio] pater genuit iUium coaeternum divina potentia sapientiam, quando sibi et consubstantialem : Philos. providit qualiter res crearet et orea- i. 8 Bed. 2. 313. I add in the last tas disponeret ; et quia ante secula three sentences the variants from hoc providit, ante secula filium, id Hon. p. 998 c. In one case I have est, sapientiam, genuit ; et hoc ex se conjectured an emendation. 128 OPPOSITION TO William's teaching: Chap. IV. Scripture, if concerning that which it states to have been done, we explain the manner in which it was done ^* .'' Such independent utterances not unnaturally made William an object of violent dislike to his more cautious or more pious contemporaries. His works are full of complaints of his detractors. He accounts for the opposition he met with, as the venom of envious rivals : Because they know not the forces of nature, in order that they may have all men comrades in their ignorance, they suffer not that others should search out anything, and would have us believe like countrymen and ask no reason; so that now the word of the prophet should be fulfilled, The priest shall be as the people. But we say that in all things a reason must be sought, and if it fail we must confide the matter, as the divine page declares, to the holy Spirit and to faith'^^. These envious monks, however, if they perceive any man to be making search, at once cry out that he is a heretic, presuming more on their cowl than trusting in their wisdom ^''. William takes them to be altogether the same class of teachers who compounded for the slenderness of their knowledge by the pace at which they could carry their pupils through the whole of • V. infra, philosophy. * He is never tired of inveighing against these glib smatterers. At length, however, as he advanced in years, William ^ Nam in quo divinae scripturae sacerdos sicut populus. Nos an- contrarii sumus, si quod in ilia tern dicimua in omnibus rationem dictum est esse factum, nos qualiter esse quaerendam : si autem alicui factum eit explicemus : Hon. p. deficiat (quod divina pagina aifir- I002 B {Nos I supply from Bed. mat) spiritui sanoto et fidel est man- ^. 318). dandum: ibid. '' Sed quoniam ipai nesciunt vi- " Si inquirentem aliquem soiant, res naturae, ut ignorantiae suae ilium esse haereticum clamant, plus omnes socios habeant, nolunt eos de suo caputio praeaumentes quam aliquid inquirere, sed ut rusticos sapientiae suae coniidentes : ib., p. nos credere nee rationem quaerere; 1002 F. ut iam impleatur propheticum, Erit HIS RETRACTATION. 129 came to see that there was this justice in the objections Chap. iv. raised against him on the score of orthodoxy, that even though every doctrine he maintained was capable of defence, he had erred in the novelty of the terms in which he had stated them. Some time after John of Salisbury had quitted Chartres, William of Saint Thierry, the prime mover in the final attack on Abailard, ^detected the danger that lurked under the 'Ep.adBem. ° de error. innocent form of Conches' Philosophy. It was enough, B-xls^rer*"' he said, to have had a new theology to extirpate in aste?t'J'. the case of Abailard, without the addition of a new lefaVoUo. philosophy ^^- He wrote a strenuous letter on the subject to Bernard of Clairvaux ; and the influence of the autocratic saint conspired, it seems, with the hos- tility which William of Conches had excited among rival teachers, to determine the latter to withdraw from the wrangle of the schools. His Norman birth perhaps helped to find him protection in the household of Geoflrey the Fair, count of Anjou, who was now in occupation of Normandy, and who had himself endured the edge of saint Bernard's vigorous denunciation ^^- To this prince William addressed a new edition of his Philosophy, rewritten in a more docile spirit, and distinguished from the earlier book by its dialogue form. He confesses in it ^the errors and omissions « Oragmati- con, praef , which experience had discovered to him in the work p?-. 5/1 = ■t cf. infra ap- of his youth, imperfectum, utpote imperfecti, and is re- p^""*" "' "' solved to make ample amends by striking out not only things contrary to the catholic faith, but also every- " Etenim post Theologiam Petri ^ ' Comes Andegavensis, malleus Abaelardi Guillelmus de Conohis no- bonorum, oppressor pacia et llber- vam affert Philosophiam, confomans tatia ecclesiae,' says Bernard in a et multiplicans quaecunque ille dix- letter assigned to the year 1141 : it: Ep., ubi supra, p. 127. Ep. ocoxMii. 2, 0pp. i. 317. 130 WILLIAM OF conches' DEAGMATICON. Chap. IV. thing at all connected with it which, though capable of defence, might savour dangerously of novelty. It was better, he felt, to be silent than to risk the possi- bility of falsehood. His former work, therefore, he suppressed, and begged everyone who possessed the book to join him in condemning and destroying it. Not words, he protested, make a heretic, but their defence. It is a strange commentary on his judgement, and on the criticism of William of Saiut Thierry, that the work thus disowned should have lived to be printed in three several editions as the production of the venerable Bede, of saint Anselm's friend, William of Hirschau, and of Honori^ of Autun; the taint of heresy plainly cannot have been long perceptible to medieval librarians'^. Nor, indeed, was the change that transformed the Philosophy into the Dragmaticon a very extensive one: substantially the two books are for the most part the same. To the ideology of Plato he had never committed himself: now he takes the opportunity of emphasising his correct position with respect to a pitfall over which, in fact, he had never k Dragm. stumbled ^* ; in such matters, he says, ^ Christianus sum, vi. p. 306, non academicus. He remained a Platonist so far as the external and rational elements of the philosophy were concerned, but he went to orthodox theology for the rest. It is likely that the moderation with which he had learned to express his views restored his credit in the '" I do not know whether it has paper by professor Karl Werner, in been remarked that the author of the seventy-fifth volume of the the Dragmaticon was naturalised Sitzungsberiohte der philosophisoh- by English students as William historischen Classe der kaiserlichen Shelley : see below, Appendix vi. 5. Akademie der Wissenschaften, ^' The Dragmaticon, or Dialogus Vienna 1873. See especially pp. de Substantiis physicis, has been 400 sqq. carefully analysed in an interesting END OF HIS LIFE. 131 eyes of the stricter churchmen. Certainly his Brag- chap. iv. maticon enjoyed a remarkable popularity, and a wide diffusion attested by a multitude of manuscripts at Vienna, Munich, Paris, Oxford, and other places. The favour in which he was held by Geoffrey Plantagenet we know only from William's own scanty notices, and there is no reason for assuming it to have been lasting. Whenever he left his patron, it is natural to conjec- ture that he settled in Paris, where he is related to have died apparently in 1154^^. We thus arrive at the probable kernel of truth in the old tradition which has been constantly repeated from du Boulay, Oudin, and the other literary historians, and which makes William from first to last a distinguished figure in the 'university' of that city^^. The meagre facts thus elicited concerning the philosopher's external bio- graphy are abundant in comparison with those recorded of his colleague at Chartres, Richard I'fivSque, whose virtues as a man and a scholar are 'celebrated in no;.Metaiog. ii. 10 p. 804, ordinary terms by his pupil and friend, John of Salis- &=. bury. Eichard, so far as is known, left no memorial as a writer. Unlike William he advanced from teach- ing to the active service of the church ; he became ^ The year is perhaps conjectural. Francia, Parisius corpore, mente It occurs under the notices of 1154, polus, but with the prefix 'hoc tempore,' is stated to have been the compo- and only in the chronicle of Alberio, sition of Philip Harveng, abbot of called of Trois Fontaines, who died Bonne Esp&ance, who died perhaps nearly a century later : Bouquet 13. thirty years after William : Du Bou- 703 D; 1786. lay, Historia Universitatis Parisi- ™ Dr. Schaarschmidt who was ensis 2. 743. It appears indeed the first, I think, to combat this that M Charma disputes this evi- theory, is inclined, Johannes Sares- dence and discovers the philosopher's beriensis 22, to question William's grave in a village near ^fevreux: see connexion with Paris at any time. Haur^au, Singularit^s historiques The epitaph however, or rather the et litt^raires 266. This, if proved, panegyric, upon him, which says, would be a welcome solution of a Eius praeclaret natu Normannia, vexed question, viotu K 3 133 GILBERT DE LA POEEEE. Chap. IV. archdeacon of Coutances, and finally in ''i 171 bishop of ' Hist. litt. Avranches. The situation of his ministry brought him 14. 215 sq. ; ^ . T . 1817. also into connexion with the house of Anjou, and it was his city of Avranches that witnessed the readmis- A.D. 1172. sion of Henry the Second to the communion of the church after the murder of Thomas Becket. He died in 1 1 82, the last survivor of the masters of Chartres. Gilbert de la Porree has a more important place in the philosophical history of the age even than William of Conches, partly because his studies lay in depart- ments of learning to which a greater relative weight was attached than natural philosophy or grammar. A contemporary panegyrist proclaims him lacking in no one of the seven liberal arts, save only astronomy ^^ ; but in sober history he appears as a theologian and a dialectician. In dialectics he holds in one way a quite Unique position ; for his Book of the Six Principles, a supplement to the Categories of Aristotle, was accepted through the middle ages as second only in authority to the works of the founder of logic (among which, both in manuscript and print ^', it held its place until the Latin versions of Aristotle were exchanged in general use for editions of the Greek), and it was made the basis of extensive commentaries by Albert the Great and several other schoolmen. Gilbert is thus the first medieval writer who was at once taken as a recognised authority on logic, as the immediate successor of Boethius and Isidore ; for Alcuin's Dialectic, although a very popular text-book, had only been admitted as a convenient summary, and had by this " Temporibus nostria celebenimua Solaque de septem cui defait as- ille magister, tronomia: — DuBoulay2.736. Logious, ethious hie, theologus ^ I have used the Venice folio atque sophJBta, of 1489, GILBERT DE LA POEREE. 133 time been rendered practically obsolete by the higher chap. iv. proficiency which was now expected of logical students : and even if Gilbert's treatise is hardly worthy of its reputation, it undoubtedly indicates a remarkable ad- vance in the notions men had of scientific necessities, that anyone should venture to complete a section of a work of so unapproachable an eminence as Aristotle's Organon. If dialectics made Gilbert's lasting fame, theology was the rock upon which his fortunes were nearly ship- wrecked. He is the one man whom saint Bernard of Clairvaux unsuccessfully charged with heresy. This singular experience may be conveniently treated in another connexion; at present it will sufiice to notice the few facts which are known about his life. Born in Poictiers about the year 1075^^, he left his native city to become successively the scholar of ^ Bernard of ' otto fhs. de gestt. Chartres and of the illustrious Anselm of Laon ^^- It Frid. i. 50 P- 379- was doubtless the attraction of the former teacher that recalled him to Chartres, where he settled and was made chancellor of the cathedral. After perhaps twenty years of this life he removed to Paris, and gave lectures in dialectics and theology. He did not, however, stay long in the capital, being appointed " to an ofiice in » Hist. utt. the church of Saint Hilary at Poictiers. It is hard a.d. lui. to believe that he abandoned the ambitious sphere of Paris in favour of this provincial preferment without some serious reason, and one's suspicions are aroused ^ John of Salisbury writing of rightly exposes the error by which the year 1148, speaks of Gilbert as Otto of Freising describes Hilary of one who ' circiter annos 60 expen- Poictiers as Gilbert's first master, derat in legendo et tritura littera- Saint Hilary was in fact the father turae : ' Historia pontificalis viii. to whose writings Gilbert constantly Pertz 20. 522. professes himself peculiarly in- " M Haur^au, Histoire de la debted. Philosophie scolastique i. 448, 134 GILBEET DE LA POKEEE. " Gaufrid. vit. s. Ber- nardi v. 15, Bern. opp. : 1122 F. ** I epist. xviii. 84. Chap. IV. by the circumstance that " Abailard, when approaching condemnation at the council of Sens, is said to have turned to Gilbert with the line of Horace, ° Tunc tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet. Gilbert must therefore have already been pointed at as a fellow-heretic with the victim of Sens. The presage, as the sequel shows, proved true ; and prudence may therefore have determined his withdrawal from the focus of publicity to the quiet post of scholasticus at Poictiers^^. He retired into his native country just as Abailard had done under like circumstances, and for the time he was rewarded, for in but a year the bishop's see became vacant, and was filled up by his own ele- vation. It was four years after his preferment that the crisis of his life came. A charge of heresy which was brought against him occupied and perplexed the deliberations of two successive councils ; and to this day it is debated- whether he was condemned or acquitted. It will suffice A.D. 1148. for the present to observe that the visible result of the latter council was that the bishop returned untouched to his diocese, where for the few years remaining to p Rob. de his long life he ruled in peace, p He died in 1 1 Ka. Monte chron. or ot a. 1154 Pertz The fact that his alleged crime related to the detail 6. 504. o A.D. 1143. "'A pretty letter from Gilbert to his old master Bernard is printed in the Bibliothfeque de I'^dlcole des Chartes, 4th series, 1. 461. Al- though in the transcript from which it is edited the names appear only in initial, there can be absolutely no doubt about its attribution. Its date moreover seems to me fixed by the sentence, ' Quamvis etenim mihi in Aquitanie partibus scolas regenti, hilari vultu fortuna irrideat, eo ta- men dolore unice singulariter tor- queor quoniam a tarn praeclari doctoris preseucia abesse compellor.* There is more than » hint here of the difficulties that caused Gilbert to retire to Poictiers. As for his aff'ection for Bernard 'quicquid boni,' he says, 'quicquid prosperi- tatis, quicquid seientie dominus mihi vel concessit vel conoessurum opinor, denique quicquid sum, tibi post deum attribuo, tibi adscribo.' Another letter by Gilbert, but one of purely ritual interest, is printed after dom d'Achery by Mabillon, Annales O. S. B., 6. 343 nq. GILBERT DE LA POKKEE. 135 of theological metaphysics takes it out of the atmo- chap. iv. sphere of 'that school of which we have attempted to discern the peculiar elements. His theology is a legacy not from the teaching of Bernard of Chartres, but from Anselm of Laon, who, i we know, had suggested, though 'Jo- Saiisb. he did not countenance, at least one of the theses which ""■ p- ^'^■ brought Gilbert into trouble ^^. It is also necessary to bear in mind that the latter would in all probability never have attracted hostile notice, had not the extreme spiritual party first tasted blood in the person of Abailard. Ignorance, prejudice, an incapacity of criti- cism, coupled the two men together ; and Gilbert suffered from the tail of the storm which had over- whelmed Abailard. '^ A special point of connexion became a joint author of what was between Anselm and Gilbert lies in practically the authorised body of the fact that the latter wrote a notes on the Bible current in the series of glosses in continuation and middle ages. His 'glosatura' onthe extension of his master's Glossa Psalms (cod. coll. Ball. Oxon. xxxvi, interlinearis et marginalis, itself a Coxe, Catal. Codd. MSS. Coll, Oxon. supplement to the standard Glossa i . 1 1 a), ' quam ipse recitavit coram ordinaria of Walafrid Strabo. 'Con- suo magistro Anselmo,' appears to siderato quippe magistri Anselmi have been held in particular esteem : Laudunensis glossandi modo, quod cf.Alberic, a. 1149, Bouquet 13. 70a videlicet nimia brevitate non nisi B ; Robert de Monte, a. 1 1 54, ibid., ab exercitatis in expositionibus pa- p. 297 ; William of Nangy (who trum posset intelligi, glossam pro- also refers to Gilbert's comments on lixiorem eoque evidentiorem fecit ; ' the Pauline epistles), ibid., vol. 20. Appendix to Henry of Ghent, De 736 B. See too du Boulay 2. 734 scriptoribus ecclesiasticis, cap. viii., (who accidentally writes Petri for A. Miraeus, Biblioth. eccles. 174, Giliberti), and the Histoire litt^- Antwerp 1639 folio. Gilbert thus raire de la France 10. 181, 12. 474. CHAPTEK V. PETER ABAILARD. Chap.v. With Abailard we turn again to the schools of dialectic, but Abailard is much more than a dialectician. He is the commanding figure in the intellectual history of his age, ■■ Epitaph, ii, • Cui soli patuit soibile quidquid erat. sub tin., opp. cousm."*' It is his general attitude towards the study of philo- sophy and of theology that demands our examination, far^sfttber than those technical points in which he was suspected of departing from catholic Christianity. If he was, as he consistently maintained, the devoted son of the church, he was none the less a herald of free thought by virtue of his bold assertion of the duty of private judgement and his contempt of those who take b Sic et non, everything on trust. '' By doubting we are led, to enquire ; ed. E. L. t. ly enquiry we perceive the truth : this is the method which Henke et ^ 9-h Ml'^^"' Abailard professes. It is not that he doubts that the kohl ; Mar- ^ burgissi. ^,^0 roads, of reason and authority, must ultimately converge : only he will not start from any but the direct questionings of his own mind. Self-reliance is his special characteristic. It shows itself in his personal history even more than in his writings, so that his entire life is an exemplification of the force of a Titanic personality in revolt against the spirit of his time. ABAILARDS YOUTH. 137 Abailard^, like so many of the great men in the chap. v. earlier middle ages who have been given the highest place in the literary history of France, was not a Frenchman. He was born ^ in Britany, at " Palais, or *'Hist. ca- Pallet, in the neighbourhood of Nantes. Although the ■•oppi-ssq- eldest son of a good house, he early abandoned his birth- right to his brothers and resolved to make himself a name in learning. He became a pupil, ^ discipwlorum " Rose, ep 7 rr' J adAbael., minimus, of Koscelin, the daring nominalist whose doctrine Abaei. opp. was condemned in its theological issues by the council ' With reference to the name, it is hardly necessary to say that from the first its spelling fluctuates. In the editions it is commonly nornialised as Abaelardus ; the diphthong is altogether a modern inrention, dis- proved by every case in which it occurs in verse. On the whole it seems that A-haielardus is the earli- est form. This appears, e. g., in the facsimile of the Munich manuscript of the Sic et non given at the end of Henke's edition, as well as in Otto of Freising (ed. Pertz) and John of Salisbury (in his Historia pontifioalis), although the former alternates with Abaiolarckis. Of the Paris manuscripts of the thir- teenth century, edited by Cousin in the Ouvrages ine'dits d'Abflard, one gives Abailardus (intr. p. viii.), the other two Abdelardus (see the fac- simile facing p. 434). Other rare forms need not be quoted, some of them are uncouth enough ; but the fact that the initial a was frequently dropped (see an instance below. Ap- pendix viii.) may be taken as evi- dence of where the accent lay. It was natural that the word should be- come softened in common use ; and Abailardus and Abdelardus were no doubt practically undistinguish- able in pronunciation. I select the former, partly because it approaches nearest to the original (though it needs no apology even to the French, since it is accepted in Firmin- Didot's Nouvelle Biographic g^n^- rale), partly because it avoids those associations with eighteenth -cen- tury sentimentalism which surround the name of AMlard and obscure the philosopher's true significance. The popularity of this last spelling seems to date from its selection by Pierre Bayle in his Diotionaire his- torique et critique, s. v. ^ For the biography my principal guide has been Abailard's own correspondence, though this has necessarily to be taken with re- serve. Besides the contemporary literature, I have derived very great help from the biography of Charles de Eemusat, the first piece of genuine scholarly work ever de- voted to Abailard. Still it should be observed that Bayle, in the article above referred to, has the credit of first introducing order into the narrative of Abailard's life ; in which respect Mihuan, for instance. History of Latin Christianity 4. 342-365, is not seldom far less trustworthy. From all the author- ities — Cousin, Eitter, Haur^au, and Prantl should be added — I have ventured to differ seriously in my general estimate of Abailard's char- acter. While preparing this and the following chapters for the press I have had the advantage of read- ing professor S. M. Deutsch's Peter Abalard, ein kritischer Theolog des zwolften Jahrhunderts ; 1883. 138 ABAILAED THE PUPIL OF EOSCELIN chap.v. of Soissons in 1093, but who appears to have submitted to the sentence and to have been allowed to hold a • Pranti., scholastic post either in the monastery of ^ Loemeneeh, gesch. d. log. ' ■*- imabendi. 2. qq-^^ Locmind, near Vannes, and not far distant from 77 n- 314- ' Abailard's home, or else (for eccleda Loeensis is am- 'Haurfou, biguous) at the church of ^ Saint Mary of Loches in the singuL hist. et litt. =28. neighbourhood of Tours. Eoscelin, if we are to give B v. infra, credit to an old s legend, soon excited a spirit of resis- append. viii. ^ tance in his pupil, and in a year Abailard left the school. ^ Ibid., sub After spending perhaps a short time at ^ Chartres, where he attempted in vain to acquire the rudiments of mathe- matics, — though this experience possibly belongs to a later period in his career, — he made his way to Paris, to the cathedral school, where his master was the represen- tative realist, William of Champeaux. The abruptness of the transition from Eoscelin to William, the extreme views held by the two masters, may explain how it was that Abailard set himself in turn to combat the logical position of both; but his subsequent career sufficiently shows how little inclined he was under any circumstances to subject his intellect to the authority of a teacher. The nominalistic prin- ciples which he had learned from E-oscelin, he took with him to Paris and used with signal effect against the hierophant of realism. He at once aspired to the rank and influence of an acknowledged master, but the not unnatural hostility of William seems to have prevented his opening a school in Paris itself. The history of the relations of the two rivals is like John Scot's account of logic ; it was a flight and a chase, i Heric. Au- > ouaeclam fnga et insecutio. The same city was not lar^e tissiod. gloss., ^ '^ *J is fra S°"hnis 6^0"g^ *o ^o^<^ them both. Abailard therefore began by '■ •s^"- teaching at some distance from Paris, in the royal fortress AND OF WILLIAM OF CHAMPBAUX. 139 of'Melun ; lie soon ventured a little higher up the Seine, chap. v. • to Corbeil. But the severity of his studies had told upon i- Hist.caiam. ii. pp. 4 sq. ms health, and he was forced to take rest. For a few years he lived in seclusion, possibly with his family in Britany ; but so soon as his strength was recovered he hastened again to Paris. By this time William of Champeaux also had with- drawn from the active work of the cathedral school and buried himself in the priory of Saint Victor. But the pressure of his friends had not left him long in his religious leisure : he was now lecturing at Saint Victor on the old subjects, and Abailard was once more found among his auditory, less a pupil than a critic. Abailard pressed the master with objections : he boasts that he compelled him to seek a new formula for his logical theory^, and the success of this feat made the adven- turous disputant for the time the hero of the schools. He set up a school for himself; he was even invited by William's successor at Notre Dame to take his place. But William, thougji at Saint Victor, was not out of hearing of what went on in the city. He did not risk a personal encounter with Abailard, but attacked him through the master who had offered him a post of so dangerous an authority. The too compliant master was disgraced, and Abailard judged it prudent to transfer his school to his old quarters at Melun. Soon, however, William for other reasons also quitted Paris. Abailard was at once on the spot. He established himself upon ' The exact nature of this change oeived, e. g., by Bitter, Geschichte is doubtful on account of a various der christlichen PhiloBopbie 3. 3S8, reading in the manuscripts of the by M Haur&u, Histoire de la Philo- Historia calamitatum, in respect to sophie scolastique i. 337 sqq., and by which Cousin, Fragments philoso- Dr von Prantl, vol. 2. 129 sq. Dr phiques 2. 115 sqq., and E^musat, Deutsehhowever,p.io3n.2,adducea vol. I. 20, adopt a different judge- powerful arguments in support of the ment from that now generally re- opinion of Cousin and Ri^musat. 140 ABAILARD AT SAINT GENEVIEVE. Chap. V. the hill of Saint Genevifeve within a short distance of the city, and determined to brave the consequences. When William once more returned, it was too late. His old fame as a teacher was almost forgotten, while Abailard's position was secured by a crowd of pupils whom the novelty and brilliancy of his discourses had fascinated into the sturdiest of partisans. Such at least is Abailard's account, which, coloured as it undoubtedly is by prejudice and avowed animosity, we have no means of contradicting from other sources. William indeed seems to have given up the long contest : after a while he was glad to subside into the quiet of a bishoprick. The qualities by which Abailard won his unequalled popularity were not only a native gift for exposition, ' Cf. Jo. Sa- not only a singular ^ lucidity and plainness of statement lisb.Metalog. . J f iii. I p. 840. go different from the obscure formalism usually insepar- able from the handling of logic ; but also an originaHty of thought which enabled him to make a serious revo- » Cf. infra, lution in the philosophical theory of the ' art.' "^ Traces append, iv. -^ ■*■ ** of conceptualism there certainly are long before Abai- lard's time. We may find them in the ninth century in the glosses of Heric of Auxerre, if not in Rabanup " a. supra, Maurus : ° in the eleventh the doctrine reappears in pp. 98-103. ^r Berengar of Tours. But Abailard, though not the creator, was not the less the priacipal organiser and, for his own age, the founder of the school which lies intermediate between those of his two first masters. The system which he produced, if it was eclectic, was certainly nearer nominalism than realism : he conceded in fact the affirmations of both sides while denying the correctness of their negations. The main tenet of the nominalists, the absolute existence of the individual HIS DIALECTICAL POSITION. 141 he accepted ; but he did not rigidly Hmit existence to chap. v. that which is open to the senses. Genera and species, the categories and predicables, he refused indeed to endow with essence as things; they had no actual existence apart from the indi\ddual : nor was the uni- versal, as William of Champeaux held, contained in its entirety within the particular. The process was the other way ; it was from the particular that we arrived at the general by an effect of thought. On the other hand if the universals, if abstractions of all sorts, were the creations of the intellect, they were also its necessary creations ; they were therefore so far real that the human mind could not do without them. In the same way Abailard found no difficulty in the univermlia ante rem, the universals considered as anterior to the sensible world ; since they might equally be conceived in relation to the mind of God as to our own. The Platonic world of ideas was thus to be understood as existing in God's creative thought *- AbaUard's conceptualism was probably the most rea- sonable among the many proposals of his day which sought to frame a logical theory free from the revo- lutionary tendencies of Roscelin's nominalism, and yet better adapted than the elder realism to the more subtil and critical habits of thought to which men were now training themselves. It was virtually a return to the position of Aristotle, and in Abailard's case it is all the more remarkable because his direct acquaiutance with the master was limited to the earlier treatises of the ' See generally Kemusat 2. irg Cousin, vol. 3. 160-197, is partly sqq., Haur^au i. 380 sqq., Sohaar- vitiated by the stress they lay on Schmidt, Johannes Saresberiensis the treatise De generibus et specie- 319 sqq. The exposition of the two bus, the authorship of which is more former writers, as well as that of than doubtful. 142 ABAILAED AS A LOGICIAN. o Schaar- schmidt 70. P Ibid., pp. 320 sq. Chap. V. Organou ' ; he had therefore to ° discover, to divine, for himself the issues to which Aristotle tended. From his time, probably through his immediate influence, the authority of the Greek logician grew uninterruptedly until the decline of the middle ages, and there is a sti'ong presumption that 'it was to the active encou- ragement of his pupil John of Salisbury that western Europe was indebted for a translation of the rest of the Organon. Within a century it possessed almost the whole of Aristotle in a Latin shape. Accordiagly it is not surprising that Abailard's permanent reputation was =iCf.Pranti founded upon his dialectical eminence. The i title of 2. 162. Peripatetic, by which he is regularly styled in John of Salisbury's writings, indicates this distinction, for the name had by this time acquired the same special sophist had two or three centuries before, though it was already being superseded by the more accurate term dialectician'^. But Abailard was not contented with his reputation ; he would not have his faculties circumscribed in a single field. He had an immense energy of mind, a restless ambition to dominate other minds; and in his age supremacy was only attainable by adding a mastery of theology as a key-stone to unite and perfect the structure, in itself incomplete, of human knowledge. Nor would it be just to deny the natural significance ' cf. I. c, pp. meaning as 38 n. 147, 76 ° n. 312. ° How many is disputed. Schaar- sohmidt, pp. 70, 120 (cf. p. 305), says — I think, rightly — nothing be- yond the Categories and the De interpretatione, with the Isagoge of Porphyry : Dr von Prantl however, vol. 2. 100-104, maintains that Abailard's knowledge extended to the Prior Analytics ; and Cousin, in his later edition, Fragments philoaophiques 2. 53, is inclined to admit both the Analytics and the Topics, but with the qualification ' sinon une traduction de ces ouv- rages, du moins tout ce qu'avait &rit sur oe sujet Boece.' " Peripateticis, quos nunc dialec- ticos appellamus: Abael. Theol. Christ, iii. i, 0pp. 2. 448. HIS STUDY OF THEOLOGY. 143 of the connexion in which Abailard himself relates chap. v. this passage in his life. He left his school on Saint Genevieve in order to visit his home in Britany and to ^take leave of his mother who was about to with- 'Hist. cai. draw into a nunnery. / came hack to France, he says, principally that I might cultivate divine learning, — maxime lit de divinitate addiscerem. He found his way clear before him: William of Champeaux was now bishop of ChMons, and Abailard might look with hopefuLieBs to a career of influence in the future undisturbed by the evil eye, as he deemed it, of his enemy ; rivals he had long ceased to fear. Nevertheless the impression made upon him by that last interview with his mother — we cannot misread the words, although the inference ap- pears to have escaped the notice of his biographers — had taken so fast a hold of his mind that, even in the auspicious situation of affairs ready prepared, one would say, for him in Paris, he could not bring himself to break a solemn resolve. He passed through the capital and presented himself, this mature philosopher of four and thirty, as a disciple of the illustrious Anselm of Laon. Abailard has so much faith in himself that he de- scribes every incident in his life as the result of careful planning; he leaves no room for emotion or sudden inspiration "^ : and yet it is these very rapid transitions in his mind that determined the crucial events which give his history so marked an individuality. *His self- ' cf. Deutsch confidence, — if we will, his vanity, — was opposed by an irresolution, an infirmity of purpose, which was no less characteristic an element in him. He surrendered his ' Eemusat, vol. i. 49, has made another incident in Abailard's life, a similar remark in connexion with on which see below, pp. 146 sq. 144 ABAILAED UNDER ANSELM OF LAON. . Chap. V. prospects in obedience to a religious impulse : doubtless he may have foreseen a wider potentiality of sway in the new field to which he betook himself ; still for the moment he sank from the dignity of a famous teacher to the level of his own pupils, some of whom he perhaps might meet as fellow-scholars in the lecture-room at Laon. But it was one thing to form a resolution, another to have the courage or the humility to carry it out ; and as a matter of fact Abailard's impatience of authority soon reasserted itself. He sat at the feet of a master whom he felt to be his inferior, and he despised « Hist, caiam. him. Auselm's language, he says, ^was wonderful, hut its iii. p. 7. . . sense was contemptible and void of reason. He kindled a fire not to give light hut to fill the house with smoke. Truly the genius of the two men lay in exactly opposite directions. Anselm was an erudite theologian, great in the ' case- law' of the fathers, believing what 'was written' and daring not to add to it. Eeason, which to Abailard was the highest gift of man and therefore of the widest applicability, Anselm could treat as impotent in theology, just because it was a human faculty; as such, the things of God were beyond its competence. It is evident that the spirit in which Abailard ap- proached the study was precisely the spirit which would be likely to lead to suspicion and danger in the twelfth century. «ibid.,capp. His disgust with the ^barren fi^-tree whose delusive T^- attraction had enticed him into visitiag Laon, very soon became too strong for him to be able to continue his studies there. He ridiculed the notion that one could not learn theology without a master, and pro- voked a challenge to put forth a specimen of his own skill. His fellow-students warned him against the HIS RETURN TO PARIS. 145 temerity, but he would not be restrained. He gave an chap. v. exposition upon Ezekiel which, he tells us, so delighted " his hearers that those who first came only from curiosity were joined in the subsequent lectures by a press of diligent students. Anselm was very wroth: his head- pupils Alberic of Rheims and Lotulf the Lombard", urged upon him the duty of interdicting a course of procedure which from being unauthorised was viewed almost in the light of rebellion. To the indignation of the rest of the scholars who had been glad enough to exchange the formal, if weighty, instruction of their old master for lectures into which Abailard threw all the energy and fresh vigour of his intellect, the course was suppressed ; the interloper judged it wise to return to Paris. His stay at Laon had only proved to him in his OAvn mind, that no learning, no eminence, was beyond his power: envy, he said, expelled him: rivalry was now out of the question. ^Abailard's reception at Paris confirmed his self-con- y Hist, caiam. ceit. The former enmity there had vanished ; only his reputation was remembered. He was made, it seems at once, a canon of Notre Dame ^ : he resumed his lectures ' otto of Freising gives the name is as follows : ' Petrus Abaulart, as Leutald or, as it appears in the canonicns primo maioris ecolesie newest (Dr B. Wilmans') edition, Senonensis, obiit ; qui monasteria Letald, of Novara : De gestis Fri- sanotimonialium "fundavit, spetia- derici i. 47 Pertz 20. 377. No doubt liter abbatiam de Paraclito, in quo ' magister Luitolfus ' in Gerhoh of sepelitur cum uxore. Suum epita- Eeichersperg, ep. xxi Migne 193. phium tale est : 5 76 0, is the same person. Est satis in titulo : Petrus hie ' One can hardly be mistaken in iaoet Abaillardus. this surmise ; yet it is curious that Huic [cod. Hie] soli patuit sci- AbaUard is never actually spoken bile quidquid erat. of as a canon of Paris, while differ- Canonicus fuit et post uxoratus.* ent records seem to give him this K^musat who gives these facts, dignity at Tours, Ohartres, and vol. i. 39 n., is uncertain whether Sens. The last notice is explicit ; Abailard held one office after the it occurs in the manuscript chronicle other, or whether there was by possi- of Geoffrey de CoUone of Sens and bility a distinction of honorary canon. 146 ABAILAED AND HELOlSSA. Chap. V. and became again the most popular teacher of his day ^°. While he was thus in the zenith of his career fate suddenly- turned against him : he quitted the cathedral and entered the religious life in the abbey of Saint Denys ; for the future he would be dead to the world. The circum- stances of this crisis are familiar to all readers, whether of history or romance ; and incalculable mischief has been done equally by the solemn reproofs of the one, and the sentimentalities of the other, class of writers. Abai- lard himself, our sole informant of the particulars of his love for Heloissa, was a man whose self-reliance, as we have said, required that every act of his should seem to be a skilfully-devised link in a consistent chain of policy ; he almost writes as if to persuade us that from the outset he deliberately planned his mistress's ruin ^^. To those who read his words with a deeper perception of his character, and much more to those who go on to the long correspondence and the life-long interdependence of " It was at this time, I am Heloissa in obedience to a craving persuaded, with Cousin, vol. 2. for a more select form of gratiiica- 208 sqq., that Abailard wrote the tion ; ' he required some delicacy Sic et non. A collection such as of romance, some flavour of emotion, this, of contradictory opinions from to remove the crudity of his lust : ' the fathers on nearly all the prin- J. Cotter Morison, Life and Times cipal points of theology, is just of saint Bernard, 296; 1863. The what an ambitious lecturer on the single basis for the former part of subject would prepare for his own this hypothesis, which is contra- use. I am not so sure that Abai- dieted by Abailard's express state- lard intended that it should pass ment, Hist, oalam. v. p. 9, is a beyond the esoteric company of his letter by Fulk, prior of I>euil immediate friends and disciples. (Abael. 0pp. 1. 703-707), whose My view of the date ie ^perfectly rhetorical flattery, and whose pro- compatible with the presumption fessed aim of consoling Abailard, raised by Dr Deutsch, pp. 462 sq., cannot conceal the brutality of his that the prologue to it, naturally satire : he is in fact merely retail- the last part of the composition, ing and magnifying whatever idle was written about the year 1 1 2 1 . calumnies were current about Abai- " A recent biographer of saint lard among his enemies, besides add- Bernard has committed himself to ing not a few from his own o-ross the monstrous theory that Abailard imagination. The second part of Mr began this stage in his career by Morison's theory is of such a kind a course of indiscriminate debau- that one can hardly bring oneself chery, and afterwards paid court to seriously to consider it. HIS MARRIAGE. 147 Abailard and Heloissa, such an explanation will appear chap. v. not merely inadequate but incredible. Abailard's ac- count, written moreover under the oppression of enduring remorse, is too highly coloured by these mixed feelings to be taken as it stands : his interpretation of his error, or his guilt, is misleading. In the words of his wisest biographer, ="he deceives himself; a noble and secret ■ R^usat i. instinct bade him love her who had no equal : ' and the same instinct kept the two in spiritual union, however far apart their lives might run, until the end. "Abailard privately married Heloissa; but this step, '.Hist, caiam. a concession to the wishes of her family, was powerless to avert their vengeance. Here we must carefully ob- serve that the marriage was in no wise thought of as an act unbecoming or forbidden to a clergyman. From Abailard's oAvn writings we learn that he would be ready with arguments for such a case. The lower clergy, he held ^^, were free to take wives so long as they were not in charge of a parish. He appealed to the established usage of the Greek church, to the exceptional privileges granted the newly-converted English by Gregory the ^^ The passage is in the Senten- ciliengesohichte 5. 410 n., 419 tiae, cap. xxxi, published under the (1863); Deutsch 453-456. In the title of Epitome theologiae Chris- present instance, however, I am per- tianae by !F. H. Rheinwald, Berlin suaded that the manuscript, which ^^3&i P 91 i"^ i" Cousin's edition is all through a very bad one, is of the Opera 2. 582). The work is seriously corrupt or else that the in the main a summary of the In- student misunderstood the lecturer, troductio ad Theologiam, but un- The words are, *Utrum clerici fortunately the place in question matrimonium contrahere possint, comes from a portion of the Intro- quaeri solet. Sacerdotes qui non duotio which is now lost. There is feoerunt, possunt.' Eemusat, vol. 2. a general agreement among scholars 249 n. 2, is disposed to understand that the Sententiae, although al- vota-withfeeerunt; but the passage most certainly not the production goes on to forbid marriage to any of Abailard himself, are notes taken order above that of acolyte. Should by a disciple from his lectures, and we read jiunt instead of feeerunt ? that they may be used with bom- — 'Those who do not become priests, parative confidence : see Ehein- may marry.' But this only removes wald's preface, pp. xxvi-xxviii ; E^- half the difficulty, miisat 2. 188, 243 sq. ; Hefele, Con- L a vii 148 abailaed's mareiagb. Chap. V. Great, in proof that celibacy was a law of expediency (and thus less or more restricted at different times and places), not one of universal obligation. Accordingly we do not find that either he or any one else objected to his marriage on this ground : it is certain that he was in orders, because he was a canon ; but it does not appear 'Hist.caiam. that hc was even as yet a subdeacon. When ''Heloi'ssa argued against the proposal and urged the examples of gentile philosophers who remained unmarried in the interest of their labours, unbound as they were ly any pro- fesdon of religion, and concluded. What does it become thee to do who art cleric and canon ? — the reasoning is simply that if marriage be an impediment to a philosopher's labours, how much more must it affect one with a religious obligation ; but there is no hint of any further obstacle. No doubt Abailard injured his position by his action ; pos- "^ R^musat i. sibly " he might be conceived to be thereby disqualified from the functions of a theological teacher : but more it would be improper to assert. If there was any preju- dice raised against him on this account it was quickly silenced when Fulbert, his wife's uncle, revenged him- self with savage violence upon the invader of his home. ^Hist caiam. ^ Fulbcrt, the champion of virtue, had to flee : his victim J'fJw ' '''was supported not only by the sympathy of his dis- o?p.V.fo6Tq: ciples and the clergy at large, but even by that of the canons and of the bishop of Paris himself. It was not then Abailard's marriage that set a period to his career as a teacher in Paris ; it was the shock of the personal outrage to which he had been subjected and which it was a heavy task to survive. His honour in the city was in fact unimpaired, perhaps augmented: but the thread of his life was broken. He had no longer heart 'Histcaiam. to coutinue his lessons: 'he withdrew in bitterness to OPPOSITION RAISED BY HIS TEACHING. 149 Saint Denys ; his wife found shelter in the convent of chap. v. Argenteuil. --9. But Abailard found no rest in the abbey. The dis- order, the loose manners, of his feUow-monks turned the religious quiet of the place into an uproar more jarring than the noise of the outer world. Abailard raised his voice in vain against the desecration ; at length he was permitted to remove to a cell in the country of Cham- pagne. He had now rallied from his misery. The pressure of his former scholars roused in him again his old energy. He was once more a teacher, thronged by students of the arts whom it was his ambition to educate to the pursuit of true philosophi/, in other words, of theology. He would be another Origen. s Theology, e ibid., cap. however, as he had learned at Laon was a dangerous profession unless the teacher had well authenticated cre- dentials. To established masters, to ^ Alberic of Eheims ^ v. supra, and Lotulf of Novara, Abailard was an adventurer, all the more sternly to be suppressed because his popularity was draining their schools. They strained every nerve "to effect his overthrow. But, to do them justice, it was not mere envy that prompted their opposition. Abai- lard's was a perilously exciting personality. His nature (this is a principal charge which * Otto of Freising makes 'Dc gest. against him) was too restless to endure subjection to any pp- 376 sq. master. He committed himself to controversy with each successively, and such was the defiant and contemptuous tenour of his argument that he made enemies of them aU. The very qualities which delighted his pupils, his dogmatism, his brave assurance, were just those which irritated his elders and contemporaries. In earlier years William of Champeaux had done everything in his power to keep his rival away from Paris : now it was 150 ABAILAED ATTACKED BY KOSCELIN Chap. V. ^ 0pp. 2. sq. ' Epist. ad Abael., Abael. opp. 2. 792-803. Abailard's oldest master, the nominalist Roscelin, now closing his troubled career as a canon of Saint Martin's at Tours, who renewed the attack. Abailard had indeed taken no pains to conceal his opinions. He had but recently published a work On the divine Unity and Trinity '■^, which appeared to his critics to contain grave errors with respect to the car- dinal doctrine : for this he was to be called to account. Roscehn, eager no doubt to demonstrate his own inno- cence of a heresy for which he had suffered nearly a generation previously, and which he may have recog- nised as the object of certain pointed references in the new book ^*, came forward as the champion of the faith. He disseminated a rumour against Abailard's orthodoxy. '^ The latter reported the calumny to the bishop of Paris m a letter couched in language of indecent violence against his assailant. He reminded the bishop of Ros- cehn's past history and of the notorious contumely with which it had been attended. He also wrote, but the letter has not been preserved, in similar terms to Ros- celin 1^. * Roscelin had his answer ; in vituperation he Christiana and in the Introductio ad Theologiam, which are on all accounts enlargements of the earlier work and in all probability follow its lines pretty closely in the part where they deal with the same subject. " This I infer without hesitation from the fact that while Roscelin's rejoinder keeps pretty closely to the lines of Abailard's extant letter, it also animadverts in set terms upon some expressions not to be found in it. Everything moreover contra- dicts Cousin's notion, Abael. Opp. 2. 792, that Roscelin's letter drew forth that of Abailard to the bishop: for the latter, as appears from its beginning, is an answer not to a specific letter but to a report which Eoscelin had circulated; while '' That this Tractatus de unitate et trinitate dlvina is the work that remains to us under the title of Theologia Christiana, is made pro- bable by the minute examination of H. Goldhom, in the Zeitschrift fiir die historische Theologie 36 (30, of the new series) 161-229, Gothai866. Dr Deutsch, however pref., p. v. maintains, I think with good reason, that the Theologia is not identical with, but a new edition of, the Tractatus. Previously the work has been considered to be identical with the Introductio ad Theologiam: see E^musat, i. 75 (cf. pp. 81 n., 88 n.), Cousin, Abael. Opp. 2. i sq., and Hefele 5. 321 n. i. " At least such expressions are plainly given in the Theologia AND BY THE SCHOLARS OF RHEIMS. 151 was a match for his scholar : but possibly the taint at- Chap. v. taching to his name prevented the affair from being carried further. The actual blow came from Rheims, where those same masters, Alberic and Lotulf, who had long before procured the discontinuance of Abailard's informal lectures at Laon, now presided over the cathe- dral school. In the seven or eight years that had passed since then they had risen to an influential position". "" They aspired to be the successors of Anselm and Wil- " pist., "^ ^ caiam. ix. p. liam of Champeaux, and their authority stood high in '^• the counsels of Rodulph the archbishop of Rheims. The latter they prevailed upon to arrange with the papal legate, Conan, bishop of Palestrina, the assembly of a council to enquire into Abailard's errors : and so it came about. Abailard was tried before the council of Soissons in 1 1 3 1 , and he was condemned. Of the details of this transaction it is difiicult to judge. Our principal witness is Abailard himself, and it would be too much to expect impartiality from one who suf- fered as he felt unjustly. "The charge against him was ° ottoFris.i. Abailard's countercharges are all Gallia Christiana 14, instrum. presupposed in the letter of Eos- 80 D ; 1856. celin. The discovery of this letter, ^^ See the verses commemorating it may be added, has finally settled Alberic in the Life of Adelbert the an old controversy with reference Second, archbishop of Mentz, by to the authenticity and motive of Anselm, bishop (as it is supposed) Abailard's, and remarkably con- of Havelberg, ver. 599-606, Jaff^ firmed the prior arguments of Du- Bibliotheca Eerum Germanicarum, chesne, Abael. 0pp. i. 50 sq., and 3. 586; 1866. Part of it describes E^musat, vol. i. 81 n. 2. Hitherto the master as follows : it had naturally been questioned Qui nova pandendo, set non an- whether Eosoelin could be alive at tiqua silendo, so late a date. The new fact has Littera quae celal vetus aut nova been skilfully applied to fill in the scripta, revelat, detail of his biography by M Hau- Dogmatis immensi dux primus in r^au, Singularitds historiques et lit- urbe Eemensi, t&aires 222-230, who had already Testamentorum pandens secreta discovered Eoscelin's name (Eos- duorum, — ver. 603-606. celino de Compendio) among the For another sign of the regard in signatories to a deed at Saint Mar- which Alberic was held, see the tin's. Tours, about the year mi, extract given above, p. 78 n. 27. 152 ABAILAED CHAKGED WITH HERETICAL OPINIONS Chap. V. that he had imported his nominalism into the domain of «cf. supra, theology. Since the time "when Roscelin first opened the subject, the mystery of the Trinity had offered dan- gerous attractions to the students of logic. But how Abailard was supposed to touch the doctrine it is im- pHist.caiam. possiblc to sav. ' He himself tells us that the accusation ix. p. 19. -"^ •' was the same as a previous council at Soissons had brought home to Roscelin : namely that he taught the existence of three Gods. If such were the charge it were lEpist. ad easy enough for Abailard to answer it. * Roscelin had Abael., Abae^i.opp. but now reproached him with precisely the opposite view ; and no language can be clearer or more precise ' cf Deutsch than that of his extant works (and "■ there is nothing to 265. lead us to suppose that he changed his opinions in any • Theoi. material point), in which ^he declares the substantial Christ, iii. , . , J ft.T. opp. ".. 471 ; unity, the singleness, of the divine nature : * iv/iere, he !j?°'"' says, there is only a substance entirely one and individual, 85-88. there is no plurality of things. His real difficulty was to rfiib'i'^'ii- reconcile this absolute being with the tripersonal nature HL p!'47^!"^' of God : and ° Otto of Freising is probably right in assert- - Loc. cit. ing that the charge against him was that, nimis attenu- ans, Abailard effaced the discrimination of the three Persons, which the church held to be not mere names but dis- tinct things with separate properties ; in other words that 'Epist.ad he held, as ''Roscelin had already insinuated, the pro- fss^so'i^^'^' s'^i'ibed tenet of Sabellianism, that the three Persons are the three aspects by which God reveals himself to us, Power, Wisdom, and Love (or Goodness). There is no doubt but that the description is partially jTheoi. chr. just. ^ Abailard confesses that the attempt to prove the intr. ii. p. 87. diversity coexistent with the unity, is one that baffles human reasoning. Philosophical terms are not merely pp.88-93Ui'b. inadequate to the expression of the supreme truth ; ''thev lii. p. 115. ^ CONCEENING THE TRINITY. 153 are inapplicable to it. We are forced to use words in a chap. v. special sense, to resort to metaphors and similitudes in order to bring it home to our understanding. It is true that the * illustrations and analogies which Abailard • itw. a. pp 93-100, brought forward, to give, as it were, a glimpse of that 'o'sqq., los. which transcends thought, were liable to be perverted as though he intended them to be accurate representations of the truth itself: but setting aside this mistake, for which '' there is little justification in his book, if we read ' cf. R^mu- ^^' 2. 304- it as a whole and do not pick out single sentences, there 343 (espedai- ° lypp.330sq.), is no doubt that the main thesis may be, and has often 3^' == Brev.chron. eccl. s. no sooner reached Abailard than he resolved to place his Dion., sub ann., Bou- wife in possession of the deserted buildings of his oratory qu=ti2-=isc. of the Paraclete. The grant was approved by the bishop of Troyes and confirmed by pope Innocent the Second in 1 131. From that day Abailard had a new interest to assuage his gloom. He visited the Paraclete frequently ?* he helped to remove the" difficulties, even of the means of sustenance, that encompassed the infant nunnery ; became the counsellor, the father, of the house. Each return to Saint Gildas made the tyranny of his own ' SODS ' more unendurable : ™ he sought every means of " Hist. ' "- calam. xv. escape but was arrested by bandits hired by them. He pp- 34 sqq.^ engaged the aid of superior powers and had a number of , the brethren expelled ; but the act only exasperated the ^ rest, flight became a necessity. At length, with the protection of a neighbouring magnate he made good his tion Abailard's history from the to the council of Sens, remains a termination of his own narrative shadow. 160 ABAILARD IN RETIREMENT. Chap. V. escape ; but not yet to security : ° he long trembled lest » Epist. iii., his refuge should be discovered, and he fall a victim to v., opp. i. 79, 96 ^1- the vengeance of the monks he had deserted. It is in this pitiable situation that the History of hig Misfortunes, which has been our principal guide in the preceding narrative, was written : we do not know how long the crisis was protracted, but in the end he appears to have received permission to live free of the monastery while retaining his rank as abbat. The following years are filled only with his correspondence with Heloi'ssa. He is now the director of the fortunes of the Paraclete : he resolves the various problems that arose in respect of ritual and discipline ; his thoughts are absorbed in the details, in the routine of practical religious life, he seems to have forgotten that he had ever been a master of worldly lore and a teacher to whom all men listened. Yet in fact this period was probably one of great intel- lectual activity. It seems that he was now engaged in collecting and putting in order his former works, in ex- panding and digesting the notes and glosses that had once stood him in such good stead at Saint Genevieve or at the Paraclete. It was now, unless the indications deceive us, that he mainly wrote, or at least brought into the form in which we now have it, the treatise on Dialectic, which contains perhaps his most enduring con- tribution to the advance of learning, as well as that hSn ^i"^' ° T^^'^^ogi"'' distinguished by editors as the Introduction to T^-\'^?' Theology, which furnished his enemies with a weapon for his final overthrow. Abailard had indeed lost neither the desire nor the power of subduing an audience, and twice again he was found on Saint Genevieve ; twice again he became the centre of the dialectical world. How it was that he recovered his popularity we have no HIS KEAPPEAKANCE AT SAINT GENEVlilVE. 161 means of knowing, but it is a plausible conjecture ^that Chap. v. the History of Ms Misfortunes was written not only with a '■Deutsch View to publication, but also with the object of reminding the world of the position which he had once held among teachers, and which he was resolved to hold again. In 1 136, when iJohn of Salisbury began his logical studies, ' Metaiog. u. it was to Abailard that he addressed himself; and if we may argue from the description of a young enthusiast, the master had lost nothing of his hold upon his hearers. He appeared as a meteor; but soon vanished : his enemies had troubled themselves "little about him, so long as he remained in obscurity. For fifteen years they had made no sign ; but the mere dread of attack had driven him long ago into the exile of Saint Gildas. His return to public work, and that in the immediate neighbourhood of Paris, aroused all the slumbering forces of jealousy, of personal dislike, of orthodox alarm. His formal rivals indeed were either dead or had retired from the schools : of such opposition there was no longer any risk. But a new gener- ation had arisen, and was now in full strength, of which the chieftain was Bernard of Clairvaux, a force which maintained permanent , implacable hostility against Ab- ailard. The immense impulse which Bernard gave to the growth of a genuinely superstitious spirit among the Latin clergy was a force with which, one sees from the outset, it was hopeless for Abailard to contend. Its principle was a blind reliance upon the traditionary authority, upon the dictates of supernatural intuition ; its anathema was distinctly, irrevocably uttered against all human learning. We can however only surmise tlie_ reason which prompted Abailard, probably in 113 7, to give up his lectures on Saint Genevieve. Perhaps he M 162 ABAILAED AND ABNOLD OF BEESCIA. Chap.v. exaggerated the danger, it is even possible that some purely private consideration decided the step ; at all events he soon returned. In 1139 he was again there, no doubt actively engaged in his old employment, when Arnold of Brescia, formerly, it is said, his scholar, now a fugitive from Italy, attached himself to him as his staunch ally and companion ^^. After Abailard for the last time quitted the place under the circumstances to which we shall immediately turn, Arnold remained his successor on the hill until he too was forced to leave France and take refuge in the hospitable freedom of Zuerich. Arnold's adhesion, however loyal, did perhaps rather harm than good. Abailard had no doubt given of- fence by exposing the morals of the clergy and attacking certain abuses of ecclesiastical discipline which sub- served the interests of the order rather than of society at large: but his disciple went infinitely further in denouncing all holding of property by the church and proclaiming a visionary revival of ' evangelical poverty." The attachment of such an advocate was plainly not in Abailard' s favour. 'MabiUon. It seems that in 1139 ''William, once abbat of Saint not. in Bern. opp. I. pp. 24 Obquam oausam a donmo In- der philosophiscli-philologisohen und "" '"' nooentio papa depositus et extrusuB historischen Classen der konig- ab Italia, descendit in Franciam et lichen Bayerisolien Akademie der adhesit Petro Abaielardo, partesque Wissensohaften 3. £31 ; 1873. Cer- eius . . adversus abbatem Clare- tainly Otto of Preising seems to Tallensem studiosus fovit. Post- connect Abailsird's popularity as a quam vero magister Petrus Clu- teacher ('maximamque post se niacum profectus est, Parisius ma- sooiorum multitudinem traheret,' nens In monte sancte Genovefe, De gest. Frid. i. 48 p. 377) with divinas litteras scolaribus expone- the outbreak of hostility against bat apud sanctum Hylarium, uM him. Otto, it should be added, is iam dictus Petrus fuerat hospitatus : ignorant of this visit of Arnold's to Historia pontificalis xxxi. p. 537. Paris ; and it is not unlikely that John of Salisbury thus does not his mention of him, lib. ii. 20 p. state that Abailard was teaching at 403, as in his youth a scholar of this time ; it is however a natural Abailard, is really due to a con- inference, and accepted by Dr von fusion of dates. Giesebrecht in the Sitzungsberiohte xxxm, xxxiv. ABAILARD AND SAINT BEKNAED. 163 Thierry near Eheims, now a humble monk at Signy, Chap. v. proclaimed, in a letter of passionate excitement, the hor- rible doctrines which he had detected in the theological works, and particularly in the new Theologia, of Abailard : ^ Petrus enim Abaelardus iterum nova docet. nova scribit. • Epist. ad Gaufr. et The letter was addressed iointlv to his old friend Ber- ^=™' ^™- ^ *^ ep. cccxxv. nard and to Geoffrey of Chartres, whose influence had °^^- '• ^'^ °- nearly succeeded in rescuing Abailard from the con- spiracy against him at the council of Soissons, and who was now papal legate. Geoffrey perhaps had no wish to take the matter up, and Bernard delayed. After a while, however, the latter, ^desiring with his wonted goodness ' Gaufr. cia- and benignity that the error should be corrected and not its |^™- '''^'^ author confounded, resolved to seek an interview with gem.' epist. Abailard : [so says Bernard's devoted biographer, his litd^. io^L ultimate successor at Clairvaux, Geoffrey of Auxerre, who adds that Abailard was so much moved by the saint's temperate expostulations that he promised to amend his errors according as he should prescribe. The submission, however, was shortlived. Abailard appealed to the archbishop of Sens, under whose metropolitical jurisdiction the diocese of Paris fell, and demanded an opportunity of defending his position. Geoffrey's account indeed is plainly false, for had Abailard been guilty of this tergiversation it would, as ''R^musat observes, not "Voi-Ligsn. have escaped comment when the council was actually held: but there can be little doubt that the interview decided Abailard to a resolute assertion of his integrity. The opportunity he sought was conveniently chosen, for at ^Whitsuntide in 1140 the French king was about to 'Gaufr. v. 13 visit Sens, and his presence would bring together a ^lan. auus- congress of prelates to whose numbers and eminence ^^^ibid!,'' the appellant could look with a greater probability of '^°'''^^'^''^' M 3 164 THE COUNCIL OF SENS. chap.v. impartial judgement than it had been his lot to meet with at his trial at Soissons. Then too he had been the accused ; now he was the challenger. The difference, it seems to us, truly characterises the change that Abai- lard's mind had undergone through his long years of suffering and disappointment. His confidence in his absolute orthodoxy had never failed him ; but now for the first time was it a pressing need to him to bring it into clear publicity. Fifteen years earlier Abailard had seen in Northbert and Bernard the two principal troublers of his peace : a monk himself, he had enough reason to distrust and rebel against the narrow and professional tendencies of his order. Now, Northbert was dead ; but Bernard was still there, and all-powerful with a large section of the religious community. It was evident in Abailard's mind that the meeting at Sens was to be a duel, but Bernard jEp.cixxxix. was not equally eager to engage in it. ^Such contests, he 183 B. said, he disdained; it was not to their decision that the verities of faith were to be subjected : Abailard's writings were by themselves sufficient to convict him. ■ Ep.cixxxviiNone the less ""did he circulate an inflammatory letter col. i8o F, sq. -^ among the prelates who were about to take part in the council. At length he yielded to the representations of his followers and made his appearance at Sens. Abailard was also present ^^ ; but hardly had the council opened, hardly was the recital of his heresies begun ^^, ^° I am unable to substantiate cular I follow Bernard's letter just the dramatic account given by Ed- cited, § 4, col. 183 : according to musat, vol. i. 204, of the mien of another, however, ep. ccoxxxvii. 3, the two combatants, and suspect 4, col. 309 F sq., Abailard's opinions that the biographer has taken the had been already condemned the rhetoric of Bernard, ep. clxxxix. 3, day before he appealed. I should col. 182 r, 183 A, too literally. notice that all the letters printed '' The order of the proceedings is among Bernard's works which re- somewhat obscure. In this parti- late to this affair, I cite as his. THE COUNCIL OF SENS. 165 when, by a sudden revulsion of feeling, a failure of Chap.v. courage or a flash of certainty that the votes of the council were already secured, — perhaps that the ex- cited populace would rise against him^^, — he appealed from that tribunal to the sovereign judgement of the Roman pontiff, and quitted the assembly. Thus at the close of his life as at every juncture in its progress, Abailard's fortunes turned upon the alter- nations of his inner mood. He believed his actions to be under the mechanical control of his mind ; yet he was really the creature of impulse. At the critical moment, that lofty self-confidence of which he boasted would sud- denly desert him and change by a swift transition into the extreme of despondency, of incapacity for action. He fled from the council, which proceeded to condemn his doctrines with as little scruple and as little examina- tion as the council of Soissons^*, but he never reached ailthough a certain number bear the ^ Of neither council are the trans- names of the collective prelates actions preserved in anything ap- assembled at Sens, or of some of preaching an official shape. Those them. I make no doubt, with bishop of Sens we knbw from the letters of Hefele, vol. 5.405 sqq., that they are saint Bernard and from his bio- aU of Bernard's composition, though graphers (Alan repeats from Geof- authorised by the persons to whom frey) who make little pretence to they are ascribed. impartiality. On the other side we '" This last alternative is given have the Apologetic of Peter Beren- by Otto, i. 48 p. 377. ' lusticia gar, which is simply the invective veritus,' say two continuators of of a passionate follower of Abailard: Sigebert, the Continuatio Praemon- Abael. opp. i. 771-786, especially stratensia (Pertz 6. 452), one of the pp. 772-776. Otto of Preising's is earliest of all our witnesses, and the account of a disinterested re- the Appendix * alterius Poberti ' porter acquainted only with the (Bouquet 13. 331 a). GeoflErey tells issue of the affair. I have preferred us however that Abailard 'necvolens therefore to relate only the facts resipiscere, nee valens resistere sa- common to all our authorities. It pientiae et apiritui qui loquebatur ' is worth noticing that modern cath- (this too is the version which we olics are unanimous in condemning find in some of Bernard's letters), the proceedings at Soiss'ons and had nothing for it but to appeal. materially qualify their approval of He repeats a story that Abailard the acts at Sens : see Einiusat, i. confessed that for the moment he 96 n., 218 n. i. Dom Mabillon lost his head : Vit. Bern. v. 14 col. wrote, ' Nolumus Abaelardum hae- 1 1 22 D. reticum : sufficit pro Bemardi causa 166 DEATH OF ABAILAED. Chap. V. * Petr. ven. epist, ad Innoc. II, Abael. opp. I. 709. July 16. * Eiusd. ep. ad Heloiss., ib. p. 714. ■= Duchesne in hist, calam. n. liii. p. 71. ■i Cf. Hau- r^au, sing, hist, et litt. 261 sqq. e Petr. ep, ad Heloiss. p. 7I3- Kome. »He rested on the road at Clugny; old age had suddenly come upon him, and he had no more strength to continue the journey. In the famous abbey he stayed, resigned and softened, — anxiously making his peace with Bernard, wearily repeating his protestation of innocence to the pope, who had lost no time in ratifying the sen- tence of Sens 2", — until ''increasing weakness made it necessary to remove him to the more salubrious climate of ChMons on the Saone. There ''in the spring of 114a his troubles ended. The violence of Bernard had rid the church of a spirit too high-minded and too sensitive to outlive the injury. Whether the saint was satisfied with his success we hardly know : but this at least is certain that, except to a few zelots of the circle of Clair- vaux, the impression of the sentence of Sens was entirely eifaced by the renown of Abailard's transcendent learn- ing and of his pious merit as the founder of the Paraclete, now erected into an abbey and, under the rule of Heloissa, preeminent in honour among the convents of France. To one who watched by him in his decline, to Peter the Venerable, abbat of Clugny, himself a stren- uous ■* opponent of worldly learning, the memory of Abailard retained a sweet savour, pure from any stain of malice : he was ^ever to lie named with honour, the servant of Christ and verily Christ's philosopher. which he addressed to Eome, all written, I am persuaded, though E^musat differs about some of them, after the council of Sens : Epistt. clxxxviii, cxcii (pace MabiUon's title), cxciii, cccxxxi-cccxxxvi (the 'abbat' addressed in this last epis- tle is surely a Roman), ccoixxviii. I am glad to find my view sup- ported by bishop Hefele, vol. 5. 404 sq., 409 ; with whom also I omit Ep. cccrx3 (col. 304 E-305 e), accepting his hypothesis that it is a draught, of which Ep. clxxxix pre- sents the final revision. eum foJBse in quibusdam errantem, quod AbaelarduB ipse nou diffite- tur;' Praef. in Bern. Opp. 1. § 5. p. Iv : while Bemhard Fez, the pious librarian of Moelk, judged MabiUon too severe \ Thes. Anecd. novlss. 3. dissert, isag. p. xxi; 1721. 29 The confirmation is printed among Bernard's epistles, nr cxciv, vol. 1 . 1 86 sq. ; compare the post- script in Appendix, note 152 p. Ixvi. How hard Bernard worked for this result and what scurrilities he thought proper to the occasion, may be learned from a budget of letters CHAPTEE VI. THE TRIAL OF GILBERT DE LA PORREE. The manifold directions in which the intellectual chap. vi. movement of the twelfth century exerted itself may be judged from the issues to which it led in the case of the Platonists of Chartres and of the Peripatetic of Palais. The same free spirit of enquiry animated both alike, only by Abailard it was not repressed within the proper domain of philosophy; it was applied without fear of the results to the most mysterious, the most jealously guarded, problems of theology. His doctrine was accepted unreservedly by the realist William of Conches; and the fruits of nominalist thought were enjoyed by those whose strict principles should have taught them to reject the perilous gift. It is evident that the old distinction of the dialectical sects is fading away; and the present chapter will show us a realist whose mind was permeated by theological metaphysics, and yet whose opinions were not secure from the charge of heresy. Nominalism was indeed the immediate pro- duct of the intellectual awakening which signalised the eleventh century ; but it quickly reacted upon its rival, and both parties engaged with equal vigour in the advocacy of the claims of human reason. It would of course be absurd to imagine that any of these phi- losophical theorists had the least idea of supplanting 168 MEANING OF AUTHOEITY. Chap. VI. the authority of the Scriptures and fathers of the church ; it -was simply a matter of interpretation. Few critics will pretend that if, for example, Abailard's views threat- ened directly or indirectly the doctrine of the Trinity as understood by Latin Christendom, they neces- sarily involved a denial of the doctrine of the Bible: for men had already discovered that the Bible, like the fathers, like Augustin especially, contained the germs of all heresies, of course in various degrees, just as truly as it did of the beliefs accepted as orthodox. On this point no controversy arose in the schools; everyone agreed that the demands of reason and of authority, both rightly understood, could not but be in harmony. It was only in the heat of polemical detraction that one disputant charged another with contravening the authority of the Bible; and the charge was never in a single instance admitted : the answer was uniformly to explain how the opinions in question had been mistaken or wilfully . wrested, and that in this respect conflict was impossible. Authority, however, it must be remembered, was a very elastic term. It was generally understood as co- extensive with the church-tradition; but the uncritical habit of the medieval mind was also disposed to broaden it so as to include all documents bearing the stamp of antiquity, and we continually find the classical authors cited, even in theological treatises, with the same marks of reverence as the Bible or the fathers. Abailard him- self indeed, though he might occasionally fall into the "rd"^'?'"'' ^^^°^' ^^^ ^^^ fr°™ countenancing it. *The Bible, he llntokoii? s^isqq- influence and makes it perenmal. ^oarnt raul has no " Intr. ad -r» • j_ A x' j.1. theol. u. greater merit than saint Peter, saint Augustm than p. 72. ° saint Martin; yet one of each has Ue larger grace in teaching in proportion to his store of learned know- ledge. Abailard laid a particular stress upon the importance of the ancient philosophy, a department in which men specially felt the need of a supplement to the Bible ; and although his acquaintance with the former was, he 'Ibid., p. 66. confesses, ^for the most part limited to the extracts he found in the fathers, he was not afraid to draw forth the great truth that there is a divine element in all noble thoughts, and that society has never been left s Ibid., lib. i. destitute of divine enlightenment. ^He held that Plato received a revelation*. He accorded to him the peculiar attribute of inspired workmanship, speech by means of mysteries, needing interpretation by means of allegories : •■ Ibid,, p. 46. "^for this manner of speaJcing is most habitual with the philoso- phers, even as with the prophets, namely that when they approach' the secrets of philosophy, they express nothing in common words, hut hy comparisons or similitudes entice their readers the i Ibid., p. 48. more cunningly. 'But for this gift Flato the chief cf philo- sophers we should reckon the chief of fools. The principle "Supra, p. was an old one; "^Bernard of Chartres had applied it even to the exposition of the Aeneid: but Abailard was prepared to justify it on grounds of history and * Augustin had gone no further from the recipients of revelation or than to explain an agreement with else * acerrimo ingenio invisibilia Christian doctrine which he found dei per ea quae facta Sunt, intellecta in Plato, on the supposition that conspexerit ; ' De oivit. dei xi. 2 1 the latter had either borrowed it 0pp. 7. 288 B, ed. Bened., 1685. THE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHEES. 171 theology. ' To him revelation was a far-reaching influ- Chap. vi. ence, not to be confined to the sacred records of any one ' intr. ad *' theol. i. nation. ™The Bible was the revelation of the Jews ; pp- =^8-61. 1 .1 , p , rN I 1 IT "Theol.Chr. philosophy of the Greeks : the two ran on parallel lines i, sub fin., . PP> 399 sq. until they were embraced, and absorbed, and united in Christianity. Even the cardinal doctrine of the being of God "divine inspiration was pleased to unfold both to ^^e°iwd.,.i. 2 ' ^ •' p. 361 ; intr. Jews ly the prophets and to the gentiles ly the philosophers, in '^^^'^^f' order that ly it, the very perfection of the supreme good, each people might he invited to the worship of one God^. Abailard's view is more or less that of the Alexandrian Platonisers in the early ages of the church : to his own generation, however, there was something new, striking, even alarming, in the manner in which he stated it. °He seemed to eflFace the distinction between faith and ° cf. Ritter, gesch. der unfaith, and to treat Christian doctrine almost as a ^^^^^^^''-^^^^ species of philosophy. Yet, even had he done so, he would only have been formulating a proposition which after all was part of the tacit, unacknowledged creed of students of philosophy. Among them the dignity of Plato the Theologian ^ was certainly not allowed to sufier by comparison with the Bible. It was not merely that he furnished (by whatever crooked process of evolution) the materials for the accredited system of metaphysics : the accident that the middle ages as yet knew him ' 'Haec,' says he, Theologia deo peritiam ipsi sunt a deo phi- Christ, iii p. 450, ' adversuB illoB losophi consecuti.' dicta suffioiant, qui suae imperitiae ° According to the distinction of solatium quaerentes, cum nos ali- Caasiodorus : Through the work of qua de philosophicis dooumentis ex- Boethius ' Pythagoras muaicus, Pto- empla vel similitudines inducere lemaeua aatronomua leguntur Italia viderint, quibus planius quod volu- [ed. Itali] ; Nicomachus arithmeti- mns fiat, statim obstrepunt quasi cus, geometricus Euclides audiuntur sacrae fidei et divinis rationibus Auaoniia; Plato theologus, Aria- ipaae naturae rerum a deo condita- totelea logious, Quirinali voce dia- rum inimicae viderentur, quarum ceptant,'&c.: Variorum i. epist. 45, videlicet naturarum maximam a 0pp. i. 20 a, ed. Garet. 172 INFLUENCE OF PLATO Chap. VI. Only through the Timaeus '', made him also specially the authority ia cosmology and theosophy. The trinity that was discovered there took the place for speculative p Theoi. chr. purposes of the Trinity of the Christian church. » The i. 2 p. 361. r r J J -r> 1 Father and the Son became the ideal unities of Power and Wisdom, and there was d, strong temptation which few were able to resist, to identify the holy Ghost with the universal Soul. Abailard indeed never went this length, ■ Intr. ad undertook to prove, iust as ^ Abailard had done, that the theol. i . pp. _ . r ' J > 88 sq. highest truths of theology stand apart from and above the comprehension of our understanding, can only be hinted at by analogies and figures of speech. Yet in fact he started from a precisely opposite principle to Abailard's, since he held that in theology faith precedes respect to book i and therefore, I voted to Gilbert's theology, nnder incline to think, in respect to book his title, in Ersch and Gruber's ii, while the arguments in favour Allgemeine Enoyklopadie, sect, i of an early date for book iv seem vol. 67; 1858. Bishop Hefele's overpowering. summary, Conciliengeschiohte, 5. " He has even the Scot's four- 446 sqq., cf. pp. 460 sq., is interest- fold division of nature : ' Perfecta ing ; but I think he gives too much vero esset [Boethii] divisio si ita credit to the accounts of Gilbert's dixisset, vel quod facere et non opponents, and suspect that he pati, vel quod pati et non facere, would have been less adverse to vel quod pati et facere, vel quod the accused bishop in all respects, nee facere nee pati potest : ' in had the history of John of Salis- Boeth. iv. p. 1227, ed. 1570. bury been published at the time he " The whole subject of Gilbert's wrote. Previously it was of course views is of head-breaking intricacy. permissible to prefer the narrative Those who wish to examine it in of an eyewitness, Geoffrey of Aux- detail will find some light in Eitter erre, to that of Otto of Freising 3. 442-448, and still more in an who knew what he records only by article by Dr Lipsius entirely de- report. See below, pp. 185 sq. ON THE TRINITY. 181 reason, reason is impotent of itself to teach it us. Chap. vi. Nevertheless Gilbert's exposition of his views is con- tained in one of the subtlest and most elaborate contri- butions to theological metaphysics that the middle ages have as yet given forth ; and his opinions and Abailard's produced a similar eifect upon their less inquisitive, though perhaps not less orthodox, contemporaries. They appeared to render unmeaning that phraseology concern- ing divine things which had taken so deep a root in the pious consciousness of Christendom : this, it would be inferred, could be possessed of but a partial and tem- porary truth, which to ordinary minds might seem not far removed from falsehood. Gilbert's real difficulty, however^ concerned the Trinity. The being of God, he held, is absolute : we can predicate nothing of it ; ' not even substance, as we ordinarily • Comm. in ..... BoSth. i. p. understand the term, for substance is what it is by virtue "S4- of its properties and accidents, and God has no pro- perties and accidents : he is simple being. It is incorrect therefore to say that his substance, divinity, is God ; '^ we k cf. Upsius can only speak of the substance by virtue of which he 221. is God. It is evident that this thesis of an absolute Unity logically carried out, is of such a nature as to exclude the existence within it of a Trinity. ' The three ' Comm. \. pp. iisosqq., persons must be something external and non-essential : 'f 55sq.,.ii67; in the substance ly which they are God, in nature, they "'^• are one ^^ ; but as regards the substance or form which they are, they are three in number, three in genus, three distinct and individual beings ; the three persons, as such, could not be said to be one God. Gilbert thus " Quod dicitur illornm, . . . qui- id est, nou ad subsistentem aed ad lihet esse deus, refertur ad sub- subsistentiam : Comm. in Eocith. i. stantiam non quae est sed qua est, p. 1161. 182 GILBERT DE LA PORREE S THEOLOaY. Chap. VI. hardly escaped the paradox of tritheism : and yet it is impossible to doubt that the heresy was one of expres- sion, not of fact. The contradictions that make his study so confusing are due to the presence in the writer's mind of an idea of a supreme Unity surpassing human thought or speech, a Unity which forbade the coexistence of multiplicity. He could only apply the analogy of his own realistic philosophy and infer, or lead his readers to infer, that as humanity was a single essence by partici- pation in which individual men were said to exist, so did the three Persons subsist, as individuals, by participa- tion in the one absolute God. On whichever side of Gilbert's theology we dwell, however innocent the one, however obscure the other, we cannot wonder that it startled many of his more timid or pious hearers, accustomed as they were to the defini- tion and classification of the divine attributes authorised "Gaufr.cia- in the formularies of the church. ™The bishop appears ad Henr.,ii.' to havc bccn drawn into a discussion with Arnald, one of Bern. opp. 2. 1319 D. ijjg archdeacons, and then into a formal exposition of his A.D. 114i6. views before the assembled clergy of his diocese. It is -Hist, pon- admitted by "John of Salisbury, — and the former part of tif xii. p. 526. the statement will not be denied by anyone who has read the commentary on Boethius, — that Gilbert was obscure to beginners but all the more compendious and solid to advanced scholars. To the synod the doctrine • Otto dc was new, and therefore dangerous ; and ° the alarmed gest. Frid. i. 46,Pert2 2o. archdeacous hastened to report their fears, the bishop to ep.,i.c defend his orthodoxy, to the pope Eugenius the Third. The latter was at Siena, about to visit France, and gave them a promise that he would submit the points in dis- pute to an ample examination on his arrival in that p Otto, I. c. country p because hy reason of the learned men there resident. SAINT BEENAED. 183 he would he the better enabled to make the enquiry than in Chap. vi. Italy. In the meanwhile the complainants secured a more formidable champion in the person of Bernard of Clairvaux, to whom heretic-hunting was a monomania. An unprejudiced contemporary, himself certainly no heretic, has passed a remarkable judgement upon the saint in connexion with his action in this affair. The aforesaid abbat, says the biographer of Frederick Barba- rossa, bishop ' Otto of Freising, was from the fervour of his ' itid., cap. .... 47 P- 37^* Christian religion as jealous as, from Ms habitual meekness, he was in some measure credulous ; so that he held in abhorrence those who trusted in the wisdom of this loorld and were too much attached to human reasonings, and if anything alien from the Christian faith were said to him in reference to them, he readily gave ear to it. In other words Bernard's con- stitutional distrust of the unaided human intellect conspired with a jealousy of those who had the power of turning it to account, to incline him to believe any talk discreditable to their Christian reputation. Perhaps the verdict of history has hardly acquiesced in so injurious a view of his conduct : perhaps it was the very single-mindedness of his trust in spiritual things that made him recoil from any attempt to introduce into that sphere the reasons and questions of the world. They were tainted by their source, and to bring them into alliance with the spiritual was to pollute the faith and, as it were, to seek to unite Christ and Belial. But had Bernard's aim been realised, there could have been no more room for the rational development of the human mind, unless, were it possible, as an independent exist- ence having no contact with its spiritual functions. Happily there was no excuse for the forcing into being of a premature secularism, a tendency as destructive of 184 OTTO OF feeising's ceiticism of Chap. VI. the intellectual powers as Bernard's spiritual absolutism. For he had no metaphysical theory of the unknowable- ness of the highest truths : on the contrary, they were the most certain, the only certain, knowledge. He had no wish to draw distinctions between the province of the spiritual and the intellectual, and leave the latter free within its own domain: he simply demanded its sup- pression; and against this blind claim on behalf of authority the better feeling of the age rebelled. 'Capp 47-so =^ Bishop Otto illustrates Bernard's nervous suscepti- pp- 370-379- . . bility to the danger of human speculation by the instance of his treatment of Abailard : thus he explains the mo- tive that prompted the trial of Gilbert de la Porree. He sets the two cases in skilful and artistic juxtaposition. Yet he has certainly little sympathy with the philosopher whose personality has retained so unique an attraction for the modern world. To him Abailard appears, as he • Pranti 2. appears to a cynical ^ critic of our own day, as little more than a rhetorician. He distrusts his method and his self-confident temper: he cannot forgive him for his scorn of his teachers, and is persuaded that he engaged in dialectical disputes for the mere pastime of the thing. Yet even here Otto's judgement goes against his private aversion, and he is constrained to quote the story of Abailard's trial and condemnation as a proof of saint Bernard's credulity and morbid dislike of learned men. In fact the attitude of jealousy, of suspicion, produced in men's minds by Abailard's independent and arrogant bearing, was the chief justification of the usage to which he was subjected. But these circumstances were wanting ' Cap. sop. in the affair of Gilbert de la Porree : * the case, says Otto 379. ' J i was not the same, nor. the matter kindred. For Gilbert had from youth submitted himself to the teaching of great men,, and BERNARD AND GILBERT. 185 trusted in their weight rather than in his own poivers. He was Chap. vi. on all accounts a serious and humble enquirer, and a man whose personal character stood as high as his repu- tation for learning. So undisputed indeed was his in- tegrity that to attack him on points of faith might seem a hopeless undertaking. His archdeacons therefore were fain to resort to Clairvaux and rely on the authority and weight of abbat Bernard to accomplish Gilbert's overthrow as successfully as the same agency had been formerly employed against Abailard. The calm narrative of the subsequent proceedings which Otto attempts has not been "^universally accepted »v.Mabiiion, ■*■ */ X annales o. s. as history. It has been held to be invalidated not only ^o^ig'^.'^^'j by the fact that the writer was "^at the time absent on B«n.463n.i. the luckless enterprise of the second crusade, but also by Js""- cf-^cap. a circumstance mentioned by his continuator Ragewin, *'' ^' ^'^' namely that the bishop was haunted on his deathbed by a fear lest he should have said anything in favour of the opinion cf master Gilbert that might offend any one'^'' : and Otto's story certainly gives a very different presentment of the facts from that which we owe to the loyal industry of Bernard's secretary, Geoffrey of Auxerre, in after years himself abbat of Clairvaux. Geoffrey's account is con- tained in a set polemic against what he considered Gilbert's errors, and also in a letter which he addressed y forty years later to Henry l^ cardinal bishop of Albano, ^SpJ^^^v^'^^p- pra, col. 1324 " Inter caetera quae soUicitus de lis, ecolesiae regulam professus est : 1 salute sua praevidebat, etiam hunc Degest. Frid. iv. 11 p. 452. It does codicem manibus suis offerri prae- not however appear whether these cepit, eumque litteratis et religiosis corrections were actually carried viris tradidit, ut si quid pro senten- out. Can our present text be that of tia magiatri Gileberti, ut patet in a TOO&}?e(i recension ? The 'utpatet prioribus, dixisse visus esset quod in prioribus ' rather implies, not. quempiam posset oflfendere, ad ipso- " The arguments in the Histoire rum arbitrium oorrigeretur, seque litt^raire de la Prance 14. 339 n., catholioae fidei aasertorem iuxta seem decisive as to the name, which sanetae Eomanae, imo et universa- is given in the edition as Albmus. C, D. 186 COUNCIL OF PARIS, II47. Chap. VI. and whosG date by itself deprives it of a good deal of its value. The writer in both documents may be said to hold the brief for the prosecution : he does himself harm by the heat and passion of his language, and his candour has been a frequent subject of controversy as much among the allies of saint Bernard in modem times as among his detractors. At length the publication of John of Salisbury's narrative in his Eistoria Poniificalis, — the work, be it remembered, of a man of indisputable ortho- doxy, a friend of both parties in the suit, and an eye- witness of its final stage, — has conclusively established the general correctness of Otto's report and goes far to •Oudinde justify the criticism, made by ""an older scholar long scriptor. eccl. 2. 1284. before this confirmation could be appealed to, that Geof- frey tells so many falsehoods in so short a compass, that he must be judged entirely undeserving of credence. •Otto, cap. *A council was summoned to examine Gilbert's heresy at Auxerre; it met at Paris in 1147. In his previous audience with the pope, the accused prelate had confidently denied the charges laid against him, and contradicted, or perplexed by fine-drawn interpretations (this is the account of an enemy), the utterances to which he had pub- b Gaufr. licly committed himself at Poictiers ^'. ''At Paris however libell,, col. . 1 1 Ti -n 1325 c. denial was not sufficient. "Adam du Petit Pont, a prac- P- 379- tised logician who was specially noted ^for the petty 208 sq. ' "jealousy of his temper, and Hugh of Champfleury, "after- 8. 361; hist, wards chancellor to the king of France and bishop of Soissons, came forward to declare the accuracy of the ' f?=»'f'.- '•<:■; indictment against Gilbert. ^ The latter on his side called epist. II., col. ° 1319E.1320A. -witnesses, once his scholars, now his fellow-bishops. He was " Elegit autem negaxe onmia, fractuosis quibusdam, more sao, etiam quae Pictavis in synodo sua verborum cavillationibus utebatur : manifeste arguebatur fuisse confes- Gaufr. Libell. contra capitula Gille- 8U3. Inter negandum tamen an- berti, Bern. 0pp. a. 1325 A, B. COUNCIL OP EHEIMS, II48. 187 confident in his orthodoxy, and overpowered the council chap. vi. by the subtilty of his distinctions. The judges de- manded evidence which he could not traverse, his own book on Boethius ; but it was not to be found. Gilbert had it not with him, and his disciples thought it safer not to surrender it to the uncertain scrutiny of the coun- cil. Some extracts were however obtained, and Gilbert was confronted with them ; but to no purpose. « The ^ otto i. 54 pope declared himself baffled. Gilbert's explanations were so unsatisfactory, so violent, Geoffrey says, that it was deemed advisable to adjourn the council to a fresh meeting to be held at Eheims in the following year. Meanwhile Gottschalk, abbat of Saint ifiloy, was en- trusted with the extracts, which he was to furnish with annotations for future use; and Gilbert was enjoined to attend on the occasion named with his Commentary for examination. At Rheims Bernard's friends assembled in greater a. d.h^s. force. ''Robert of Melun, Peter the Lombard, and other >. Hist pom. leaders of the schools of the day^" were there as advo- "" '' ^°'' cates for the prosecution. But opinion was as much divided in respect of their motives as of the subject- matter of the charge. John of Salisbury, who was present through the whole proceedings, leaves it an open question whether the oflfence lay in a substantial dis- agreement with 'the rules' or in the mere appearance of such a disagreement, arising from the unusual form of the words Gilbert employed ^^: for, he remarks, ii is " John's list, some of the other Adam du Petit Pont, names in which I have added below, ^' Cf. Otto i. 46 p. 376: 'Con- p. 189, is supplemented by the suetus ex ingenii subtilis magnitu- ennmeration taken from a manu- dine ao rationum aoumine multa script of Ottoboni in Mabillon, An- praeter eommunem hominum mo- nales O.S. B. 6. 435. This includes rem dicere.' Compare too eh. 52 names like Walter of Mortagne, p. 379. Theodoric of Ohartres, and again 188 JOHN OF Salisbury's ckiticism. Chap. VI. certain that a good many things are now handled hy scholars in public which when he put them forward were reckoned as pro- fane novelties. John's criticism of the character of the prosecution betrays well enough the general estimate of it among- cultivated men outside the immediate circle of partisans. He doubts whether Gilbert's accusers were moved hy the zeal of faith, or hy emulation of a more illustrious and deserving name, or hy a desire to get favour with the abhat, whose authority was then supreme. As to abbat Bernard himself, he adds, there are several opinions, some thinking one way and some another, in reference to his having acted with such vigour against men of so great renown in letters as Feter Abailard and the aforesaid Gilbert, as to procure the condemnation cf the one, to wit, Feter, and to use all his power to condemn the other. How could a man of so singular a holiness have broken out into such intemper- ance as his conduct would seem to imply % We cannot think of jealousy as the moving principle here; Bernard must have been actuated by a righteous zeal. But as to the object of his assault, John could as little be per- suaded that GUbert had really committed himself to views from which Bernard was bound to dissent : for — the reason is curious and characteristic — Gilbert was a man of the clearest intellect, and of the widest reading ; he had spent some sixty years in study and the exercise of litera- ture, and was so ripe in liberal culture as to he surpassed by no one, rather it was believed that in all things he excelled all men. There was thus a presumption in Gilbert's favour pos- sibly not less powerful than the evidence against him. iLibeiL.coi Even 1 Geoffrey has to confess that though few were for the 1325 D, E. doctrine, very many loere for the man, and did all they could to excuse and extenuate even opinions which they did not hold. PEEPAKATIONS FOE THE COUNCIL. 189 Bernard's party accordingly judged it prudent to organise chap. vi. their attack and to prepare for possible contingencies by a rehearsal, as it were, of the trial. '"At this secret 'Hist.pontif. viii. pp. 522 meeting were present the archbishop Theobald of Can- =i- terbury, Geoffrey of Bourdeaux, and Henry of York, the influential abbat Suger of Saint Denys, and two future English primates, Thomas Becket and Eobert of York. The fact transpired when the council met, and with it another fact not less unfavourable to the confederates, namely that the issue had broadened from a case as between Gilbert and the catholic church, to one ^ as ' otto i. 57 p. 384. between the pope and the cardinals on the one side and the prelates of France and England on the other. There was a risk of a schism. In effect it was not Gilbert, but the influence of Bernard himself, that was at trial; and ™it was openly rumoured that the council was arranged " Hist. pom. IX. pp. 523 sq. with the object of forcing the apostolic see to follow Bernard under a threat of withdrawing from the Roman communion ^^. "All the cardinals but one united in resisting him: these,'' a. otto, " capp. 56, 57 they said, were the arts hy which he had assaulted Abailard, pp- 382. 383. and they would have nothing to do with them. Ber- nard sought to win over the pope, /or he was a man, says John, mighty in work and speech before God, as it is believed, and as is well-known, before men: but although usually successful, he was impeded in the present instance by the opposing unanimity of the cardinals. "Gilbert therefore approached the struggle with con- °^Hist.^pont. fidence. ^He brought not only the book on which he pOaufr.epist. claimed to be judged, but his clerks followed with great "^^/j^f '• tomes, presumably of the fathers, noted to support his arguments. He had evidently an advantage over his ''^ See John of Salisbury's words, ut apostolioa sedes metu sohismatis • Dioebant ad hoc esse convocatos, oogeretur abbatem sequi : ' cap. ix. 190 GILBEKT DE LA PORKfe Chap. VI. enemies who had only a sheet of manipalated extracts 1 Epist. V, v!. to go upon; and i Geoffrey was reduced to fetching as ' many books as he could from the church-library in order to persuade the council that his authorities were a match for the bishop's. The trick, he thought, was an effective 'Hist. pont. one; but ''John of Salisbury assures us that the feeling of the council was all on Gilbert's side, and that the im- pression made by the wide reading he showed was carried ■ Otto i. 50 home by the eloquence of his language; for ^he had a grave dignity both in voice and gesture. Every circum- stance lent force to the earnestness with which he re- pudiated opinions which had been wrung and wrested 'Hist.pont., out of his book. 'He declared that he was not to be called 1. c, upon to agree with other mens works hut with his own. . . He was not an heretic nor would he, but was and had ever heen ready to acquiesce in the truth and to follow apostolical doc- trine: for it is not ignoi-ance of the truth that makes the heretic, hut a puffing up of the mind that breeds contumacy and breaks out into the presumption of strife and schism. The fourfold indictment which had been drawn up he entirely dis- » cf. Otto i. claimed : a supplemental count which "^ charged him with 50 p. 379. ° limiting the applicability of baptism, roused him to in- dignation; that document, he exclaimed, I anathematise with him who wrote it, and all the heresies therein recited. e*ht"v'coi ''Gilbert's protest appeared to saint Bernard and his ^3" c. friends in the light of a mean piece of shuffling ; but [ HisL pont., y the cardinals were satisfied that he had made out his innocence, and demanded the destruction of the bill setting forth the minor charges. The pope gave the ■ Cf. Gaufr order, which was at once ^ carried out by the subdeacon epist. IX. col. •' .322 D, E. of the curia. Then followed a lively scene of disorder among the crowd of laity present, who were unable to follow the proceedings of the council and supposed that BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF EHEIMS. 191 Gilbert was already condemned; and the pope had to Chap.vi. explain to them in French that it was not done to the injury of Gilbert, for that it wag not his book, whereas he was found catholic in all respects and agreeable to the apostolical doctrine. ^The four principal accusations "Hist. pom. ^'- PP- 524 sq. however still remained, and Gilbert's energetic repu- diation of them could not exclude the possibility that the corpus delicti, his Commentary on Boethius, itself, really contained doctrines as objectionable as they ; and it was not intended to give him the benefit of a flaw in the indictment. His opponents accordingly addressed their skill to the Commentary ; but here they were still more obviously outmatched for, however creditably they might argue on detached points for which patristic proofs and disproofs had been previously prepared for them, no one present was sufficiently qualified by his learning to criticise the whole book in detail ^^- The pope proposed that it should be handed to him that he might erase any- thing that might require erasure; but Gilbert repeated that his orthodoxy was assured and that it was " his = Oaufr. epist. viii. own duty to alter whatever was amiss in the book, a de- "^o'- 13=2 d- claration received with loud applause by the cardinals, who thought that now at last their work was nearly over. But Bernard had one more shaft in his quiver. He, or his satellite Geoffrey of Auxerre, had constructed a ''* Helinand, Chron.xlviii.,a. 1148, Bernard could prevail nothing relates a conversation he had with against his Gilbert,' and detracted an adherent of Gilbert, master Ste- in other ways from Bernard's re- phen of Alinerra (Aliverra, or Al- putation in the affair. Wherefore, vierra, Alberio. Chron., a. 1149 conjectures the chronicler, master Bouquet 13. 702 B; of. Pertz 23. Stephen died in the very year of 840, 1874), ""^^ °^ ^^^ clerks of this interview: Tissier, Scriptt. Henry count of Champagne, and Cisterc. 0pp. hist, (appended to the canon of Beauvais, who boasted eighth volume of the Bibliotheca that at the council of Rheims 'our Cisterc.) p. 186 b; 1669. 192 CONCLUSION OF THE COUNCIL. CHAr.vL set of ''four formulas corresponding to and correcting 1 ottoi.s6 the four heresies enumerated in the original indictment. p. 383; Hist. n r-fii 5 1 T pont.xi. p. This symbol was to be a test of Gilberts obedience. 525 ; Bern. '' A??'- Gaufr. B'^* *li6 ^^^^ *^^* Gilbert had throughout unswervingly ijsi^p'is^i' A. declared his adhesion to the catholic faith combined with «ottoi. S7 the ''cardinals' long smouldering iealousy of Bernard's pp. 383 sq. o O J ./ influence to make its production the signal for an angry fHist. pont. outcry. ^The document was at length admitted, as- it xi. p. 525. •' °_ were, on sufferance, but not so as to bind the council to its terms : nor can we tell with certainty how far Gilbert ^ ib'd. accepted it. ^ John of Salisbury says, he was admonished that if there was anything in his book repugnant to the formulas, he should emend it in conformity with them, and that submitting to this injunction he was acquitted. ' Capp. 56, t Otto of Freising on the other hand relates that owing 57 pp. 383 sq. _ <= _ _ _ _ '=' to the confusion it was impossible to arrive at any decision on the last three points, it being doubtful whether there was any actual divergence of opinion among the parties. The pope however gave his ruling on the first head : he directed that no reasoning in theology should mahe a division between nature and person, and that the essence of God should not be predicated in the sense of the ablative case only, but also of the nominative. The humour ioudin2. which 'modern writers have discerned in the closing 1283 sq. ; '^ i'i^France'^12 P^^^^^i ^^n antjclimax seldom wanting in the events of *^^- ecclesiastical councils, did not disturb the gravity of the proceedings. The bishop reverently received the sentence ; he took bach his archdeacons into favour, and returned with his order untouched and honour unabated to his own diocese. It is right to add that Bernard and his followers did "Serm. in not own thcmselvcs beaten. '^The former says that cantic Ixxx. § 9, opp. I. Gilbert expressly recanted, and ^ Geoffrey solemnly re- Liteiu^cd. lates how, when judgement was given, the culprit in fear OPINIONS CONCEENING IT. 193 and trembling, in the hearing of all, renounced with his own Chap. vi. mouth those things which he had professed, refuted them ad Henr. i., 77 7 .7^7 ™'- col. 1319 severally, and promised for the future neither to write or^-^3^"^-°\ ^ vit. Bern. v. say or even think anything of the sort again. But a curious 'scoi. 11238. fact is, that instead of Gilbert's book having been sup- pressed, it was the formal indictment against him that suffered this fate. The minor charges had been destroyed in public session of the council, and it was doubtless deemed discreet to make away with the rest. At least ™ John of Salisbury states positively that although » Hist pom. he remembered hearing the indictment read, he could s^s sq. never find it either in the papal register or in the Acts of the council, and only lit upon it at last in that work of Geoffrey's, which he temperately describes as written in an elegant style but vitiated by the singular bitterness of its tone. He proceeds to comment, with the same surprise as he expressed at the beginning of his nar- rative, upon the manner in which Bernard continued to attack Gilbert even after the latter's absolution by tte council. Yet Bernard once made overtures to him, — and John, the friend of both, was the intermediary, — to hold a friendly discussion on certain questions raised by the writings of saint Hilary. The bishop declined with grave asperity : it was sufficient that they had con- tended thus far, and if the dbbat desired a full understanding of Hilary, he must first get better instructed in liberal learning and other matters pertaining to the discussion : for, explains Salisbury, Bernard, however great as a preacher, knew little of secular letters, wherein, as it is believed, the bishop was surpassed by no one of our time. Still the council had really decided nothing. Whether Bernard, says "Otto, was deceived by human infirmity or "Lig^^-i-s? Gilbert outwitted the council, it is not our place to 194 gilbeet's protest. Chap. VI. enquire or judge. The talk was, says °John of Salis- - Cap. xii. p. bury, that the bishop was more adroit than candid. But ^^ ' John is loyal to his old master: because, he says, he could not be understood by his opponents, they main- tained that he hid his perfidy in guile and obscure words. Nor did Gilbert profess himself satisfied with pcapp.xiii., the result. ''He wrote a new preface to his Commentary, xiv. pp. 527- 530 :cf. infra, ^q prove its Substantial harmony with the confession of append, ix. ^ ^ faith which Bernard had put before the council. It was impossible, he declared, to write anything that should not be open to misunderstanding. Is the Bible heretical because Arius and Sabellius read their heresies in it^*1 Was Gilbert to supply his readers with brains? There is no doubt that the apologist touches the spring of the whole antagonism. It was not really a controversy between faith and error, but between ignorance and learning ; and in this way do we understand how it was that the character and position of Gilbert, and nearly to the same extent of Abailard, remained unaffected by the obloquy to which they were exposed. The affair in fact interested only a very few outside the circle of Bernard's intimates. To these denunciation was a point of party honour, but to the rest of the world the proceedings or the results of the councils appear either unknown or else so questionable as to be practically put out of account. The latter alternative, however, hardly accords with the slender mental attainments of the monastic chroniclers who may be taken as reflecting the opinions of the average of churchmen : their notices persuade us that they were simply ignorant that the great names " Se Tero dioebat non maiori men aliis facti sunt odor vite in sapientia vel gratia praeditum quam vitam et aliis odor mortis in mor- apostolos et prophetas, qui licet in tem: Hist, pontifio. xiii. p. 527. eis loqueretur spiritua sanctus, ta- ABAILARD AND GILBERT'S EEPUTATION. 195 they commemorate had ever encountered, or been over- Chap.vi. whelmed by, the storm of religious hatred. A few specimens will justify this statement. Their selection makes no pretence to an elaborate or critical examination, for all we seek is the popular report that won currency with reference to Abailard and Gilbert. It was usual when the news arrived of a famous man's death to enter it in what we may call the day-book of the monastery, and the epithet attached to the name would be that given to it by common rumour. In pro- cess of time these jottings would be dressed by a more ambitious member of the fraternity who would add details and specifications derived from other chronicles which circulated in the religious world of his day : so that though the work itself might be a century or more later than some of the events it relates, its evidence would still be carried back, through its secondary sources and through the acceptance which these latter had ob- tained, to that popular version of the original facts which we wish to discover. The summary perhaps most often repeated of Abai- lard's career is that which appears in the i Chromlogia of ^ Bouquet ra. Robert, monk of Saint Marianus, Auxerre, who died in laia, in a '^ Chronicle of Saint Martin at Tours of slightly 'iwd., p. later date, and in other compilations. It occurs under the date of the council of Sens, assembled, says the record, against Peter Abailard; but instead of even sug- gesting what the acts of the council were, it at once turns to a panegyric of the man : he was of intellect most subtil, and a marvellous philosopher^^ ; who founded a religious ^ In an obituary in the Nantea paren/nec prima [%. priora?] se- chronicle he ia described as 'mirae cunduU seoula viderunt:' Chron. abstinentiae monachua, tantaeque BritanV.a. 1143, Bouquet 12. 558 B. aubtilitatis philosophua cui nostra The firkt words of the sentence are 2 196 CONTEMPORARY NOTICES. Chap. VI. hoiise iti the land of Troyes, afterwards famous as the • V. supra, p. abbey of the Paraclete. In the same way another =chro- 14s n. 9. nicle, actually a chronicle of Sens itself, commemorates Abailard's death as that not of a convicted heretic but as of one of the canons of the church of Sens, who established convents of nuns, •particularly the alley of the Paraclete, where he is buried with his wife. The multi- plication of Abailard's exploits shows how his local fame had grown with years : but that it was his religious work that survived, and the scandal of his opinions that was for- gotten, is a fair proof of the relative notoriety of the two. Abailard's heresy, however, is not always ignored. An early chronicler, the English monk, William Godell, who wrote about the year 1173, enters into some detail on the subject; and his evidence is the more instructive i^'^i^n"'' since he is ^particularly well informed about the affairs of the diocese of Sens, in which he is supposed to have MM., p. lived. " There flourished also, he says, in this same time (he has just commemorated saint Bernard) master Peter Alaelard, a man of very sultil intellect, and a great writer and teacher. Howleit he was made by some the object of llame, and especially ly the aforesaid abbat Bernard: for which cause a council was assembled, whereat he was present, and many things which were accused against him he steadily re- pelled, and very many he convincingly proved not to be his, which his opponents averred were his and said ly him; yea, and at length he repudiated all heresy, and confessed and declared that he would le the son of the catholic church, and thereafter in the peace of brotherhood finished his life. He proceeds to relate the foundation of the Paraclete in the same terms as those upon which we have commented in very remarkable when we bear in consequence of his relations with mind the assertions commonly made Heloissa. as to Abailard's loss of credit in THE CISTERCIAN TRADITION. 197 Robert of Auxerre^^. The testimony, it may doubtless Chap.vi. > be objected, is that of a partisan, although written a generation after the events to which it refers : but it is at least remarkable that, except among his own bio- graphers, Bernard has to wait a good half-century more before his case is admitted into history-books ^''. The Cis- tercian ^Hehnand, who died in laay, is apparently the " chr., a, 1142 first to do this, in respect both to Abailard and Gilbert Tissier'isssq. de la Porrde; and those who follow him, yAlberic of 'Bouquet Trois Fontaines (as he is commonly known), towards *■ ''• the middle of the century, = Vincent of Beauvais^', like 'Spec. histor. •^ xxvm. 17, 86. Helinand a Cistercian, and others, all expressly rely upon his statement as an authority, whether singly or in combination with the biography of Geoffrey of Clair- vaux and the Epistles of Bernard himself: they do not profess to record undisputed facts. To return, however, to the less conscious annalists, we find "a favourite combination, the very incongruity of'^non. chr. J o J adii6o, Bou- which makes no small part of its significance, which ^""-'Rich" Pictav. chron.,a.ii4i, ^ I conjecture that this conclud- siam.' The phrase is characteristic, ibid., p. 415 c ing portion in William, p. 675 B, 0, and recurs in some of the continu- is not original, but that he and the ators of Sigebert, Appendix alterius others have taken it from a common Eoberti, Bouquet 13. 330 E, 331 A, source. Else I know not how the and Contin. Praemonstrat., Pertz latter writers, supposing that they 6. 452, who also apply it in modi- drew from Godell, should have fied terms to Gilbert de la Porrfe. passed over the question of Abai- Gilbert's work, they say, a. 1148, lard's trial in silence. For the rest, Bouquet 333 D, Pertz 454, 'by rea- William Godell is, so far as I know, son of some new subtilty of words the &st writer who gives the be- caused scandal to the church.' Eo- ginning of the famous epitaph, bert however admits that it 'con- cited above, p. 145, n. 9. tained many useful things.' Among " This does not of course hold later writers WilKam of Nangy, a. true of the proper theological litera- 1141 and 1148, Bouquet 20. 73' D, ture. Compare below, appendix x. 733 D-734 A, is mainly dependent '^ Vincent has elsewhere, Specu- for his views upon Geoffrey, whose lum naturale xxxiii. 94, a notice of description of Abailard, ' celeberri- the council of Sens in which he mus in opinione scientiae sed de merely says that Abailard 'qua- fide perfide dogmatizans' (Vit. dam prophana verborum vel sen- Bern. v. 13 col. 1122B) he substan- Buum novitate scandalizabat eocle- tially adopts. 198 ■ RELIGIOUS FAME OF ABAILAED AND GILBEET. Chap. VI. grouped together the name of Abailard with that of Hugh of Saint Victor, — the master of sacred learning who held a place in the respect of the middle ages, with saint Anselm and saint Bernard, as an immediate suc- cessor of the fathers. The juxtaposition would be inex- plicable but on the assumption to which we have been already led, namely that piety was an essential ingredient IQ the popular idea of Abailard. Even more extra- ordinary is a notice in the Tours chronicle to which bchr.s. reference has been made above, which ''associates in the Mart.Turon., ' ibid.p. 472B. gg^jjjg sentence, as the representative churchmen of the age, Bernard of Clairvaux and Gilbert de la Porr^e^'. With reference indeed to Gilbert it is not necessary to collect testimony. On the one hand, he had not the European fame of Abailard ; on the other, it is agreed that, whatever the issue of the council of Rheims, he left cAiberic.chr., it acquitted or "= absolved, and lived the rest of his days a. 1149, Bou- ^ ■*■ ^ queti3.702B. jq honouT. But there is one circumstance which we can hardly be wrong in connecting with that council of 1 148, and which throws a curious light upon the feelings it ■1 Bouquet 12. should secm to have excited. The notice in the ^History 399 D, E. _ •' of the Pontiffs and Counts of Angouleme, a work which dates from a very few years later, may be quoted with- out comment. On the 15th of June, 1149, the clergy of the city chose for their bishop a certain Hugh de la Rochefoucauld, a man well-trained in the liberal arts, who had attended master Gilbert in Gaul and most of all followed him in theology. That, clearly, was his title to election. If the religious character of Abailard and Gilbert rei](iained untouched by the suspicion of heresy, as little '" Actually in WiUiam of Nangy between them: Chron., ». 1138, the names thus occur, with that of Bouquet 20. 730 E. the Irish saint Malachias inserted TPIEIR INFLUENCE AS TEACHERS. 199 did their influence as teachers suffer on that account. Chap. vi. *In the letters calling upon the pope to ratify the sen- • see sen- tence of the council of Sens, the argument which Bernard cited above, p. i66 n. 29; pressed as of prime urgency was that Abailard's teaching 0"° '^f^- was being diffused over the whole world by a large and fp. cS^v!*' enthusiastic body of disciples : and if he had no one foT"' °^^' "" legitimate successor, at least his opinions were thought worthy of a detailed refutation nearly forty years after his death by Walter of Saint Victor, a man who pre- sented in his day, though with less authority, the same attitude of defiant hostility to all secular learning as saint Bernard had done before him. Forty years too after the trial of Gilbert de la Porrde the number of Ms disciples was so considerable as to draw the vehement ^Geoffrey, now abbat of Clairvaux, once more into the'Epist. ad , Henric. ix. fray, to denounce and to vituperate. The decision of the ^oi. 1322 d; •" _ -"^ cf. libell., col. council of Rheims, he still found, was ^powerless to '3^5 a, 1326. . . e Of. hist. restrain the ardour of his disciples': in spite of it, ^Ber- pont.viii. p. ■*• ^ ' 522 ; Reuter nard himself had complained, the Commentary on ^- "' "?'7- Boethius continued to be read and transcribed. ' It was ''''"'''=■ ''"°'- 9. opp. I. repeatedly averred by writers of the Cistercian follow- i^Heihiand ing, that the disciples of Abailard and Gilbert had used f^"^-; Aibenc their trials as a handle for attacking Bernard and fhelcl^winl' order at large. But only fanatics could speak of either hist.°xiviii. ' as having founded sects. Neither sought to remove himself out of the comity of catholic Christendom, nor, as we have seen, did the learned or popular opinion of their day so remove them. By the world at large they were still honoured as philosophers and divines^". ^ Compare the significant way docuit . . . Sed quia super iis ali- in which John of Cornwall, a most quod eius scriptum non legi et correct writer, refers to an opinion auditores sui etiam a se invicem of Gilbert's : ' Magister Gilebertus dissentiunt, ad alios transeo : ' Ad PoiTetanus, ut multi perhibent, ea Alex. pap. III. ap. Martene et 200 JOHN OF Salisbury's judgement. Chap. VI. It is thus too that John of Salisbury, the pupil of both, regards them. In his historical work he has occa- sion to relate the proceedings against Gilbert; but in all his other writings he appears simply unconscious that that trial of which he had been ad eyewitness ever took place. In the same way he admires Abailard as the master from whom he received his first lessons in dialectic. He criticises his philosophical system, but of anything further he is silent. Nor is his reticence in any degree attributable to delicacy; it is simply that John will not go out of his way to take notice of old wives' fables. To this writer, who has supplied so large a part of the materials for the last three chapters, we now turn. John of Salisbury reflects something of all the characteristics of the school of Chartres of which Gilbert ' de la Porrde was the most famous product, but his train- ing is wider than the school itself. Before he went there he had caught the dialectical enthusiasm from Abailard : afterwards he brought his trained intellect under a new guidance, and his theology breathes the ethical spirit of Hugh of Saint Victor. He is thus a critic and a dialec- tician, a humanist and a divine ; and it is the balance of his tastes and acquirements that makes him in many respects the fairest type of the learned men of his time. Durand, Theaaur. nov. Aneod. 5. hardly suspects heresy here; yet 1665 a; Paris 171 7 folio. One John was a contemporary. CHAPTER VII. JOHN OF SALISBURY. Johannes Parvus, John Little or Shoit—'' little, ac- chap.vii. cording to his own paraphrase, in. name, less in skill, least « Epist. cxdi. in worth — was born at Salisbury, it seems of English patr.' 23. ^85 stock 1, about the middle of Henry the First's reign. The year of his birth is commonly given as 11 10 ; but this is evidently a mere calculation from the date of his death, 1180, on the presumption that he was then seventy years old, and it is contradicted by his own ^ statement that he ^ Metaiog. ii. 10 p. 802, was but a lad, adolescens admodum, when he went to Paris in 1 136. Studies in those days began early, and it is nearly inconceivable that a man of six-and-twenty should enter, as John did, upon a course of education lasting ten or twelve years. We shall certainly be safer then if we place his birth between 11 15 and 1120 ^- As a child, " he tells us, he was sent to a priest, as the " Poikrat. if. 28 pp. 144 sq. '■ This is a plausible inference from the edition by C. Petersen, from John's language in the En- Hamburg 1843, of the Entheticus theticus, ver. 137 sqq., in which he de dogmate philosophorum, and not ' ridicules the courtier who is anxious to the other poem bearing the same to pass as a Norman ; so that the title which is prefixed to the Poli- authors of the Histoire litt&aire de craticua. Petersen's commentaries la France 14. 89, should seem to are learned and valuable, but riti- be in error in writing his name ated by a constant endeavour to Petit. See the biography by pro- bring the author into connexion fessor C. Schaarschmidt, now libra- with Oxford, a connexion for which rian at Bonn, to which reference there is absolutely no evidence, has frequently been made in the Cf. Schaarschmidt 11-21. foregoing pages ; a model book to ^ Petersen, p. 73, thinks not he- which I cannot too heartily express fore the latter date ; Dr Schaar- my obligations. My citations from Schmidt, p. 10, between 1 110 and the Entheticus are regularly taken 11 20. 203 JOHN OF SALISBURY S STUDIES Chap. VII. manner was, t6 learn his Psalms. The teacher happened to have a turn for magic, and used his pupils as assist- ants in his mysterious performances. John, however, proved a disturbing influence: he could see no ghosts, and his services were not again called for. If this is all we know about his youth, we are very fully informed of his early manhood. The place in the Metalogicug in which he relates the progress of his learn- ing when he went to France is one of those rare auto- biographical passages in medieval literature which tell us even more of the life of the time than they do of their immediate subject. John was a witness of the disputes of the schools when they were in their first vigorous activity. "^The impulse in dialectical questions which Abailard had excited in the early years of the century had been continually gaining strength since his retire- ment from, Paris. ^ Now in the decline of his hard-beset life he was again teaching there, and it was from him that John received his first lessons in logic. But the student's thirst for all obtainable knowledge would not be satisfied with the expositions of a single master. John seems to have made it his object to learn from as many difierent sources as possible. He attended the masters of one and then the other side ; but his critical faculty was always foremost. Except in politics, where a strong religious sympathy attached him to the hierar- chical doctrine of his friend and patron, saint Thomas Becket, he never let himself become a partisan ; and his notices of the intellectual struggle of his time are in- valuable from their coolness and keen judgement. Hitherto we have used them as illustrating the careers and aims of several of his teachers : we have now to "* Cf. supra, p. zio. " Cf. supra, p. i6i. AT PARIS UNDER ABAILARD. 203 consider them as a part of the personal history of the chap. vii. scholar. _ ^ When as a lad, John says, I first went into Gaul for the ' ketai. h. io PR- 802 sq, cause of study (it mas the next year after that the glorious king of the English, Henry the Lion of Righteousness ^, departed from human things) I addressed myself to the Peripatetic of Palais, who then presided upon Mount Saint Genovefa, an illustrious teacher and admired of all men. There at his feet I acquired the first rudiments of the dialectical art, and snatched according to the scant measnre of my wits, — pro modulo inge- nioli mei, — whatever passed his lips with entire greediness of mind. Then, when he had departed, all too hastily, as it seemed to me, I joined myself to master Alheric *, who stood forth among the rest as a greatly esteemed dialectician, and verily was the bitterest opponent of the nominal sect. Thus Abailard was for a moment upon the scene of his early ' The title, familiar to students Second, as of Kheims, a specifica- of Mr Freeman, occurs also in the tion which also appears in docu- Policraticus vi. 18 p. 371. It in- meuts of 1128 and 1131. This is dicated the fulfilment of a prophecy also the Tiew taken by Duchesne, of Merlin : Stubbs, Constitutional In Hist. Calam. not. xxx, Abael. History of England i. § 111, ed. 0pp. i. 54, ed. Cousin. Alberic Oxford 1880. died in 1141. It is evident that * It has been supposed that this these dates will not harmonise with Alberic of Kheims, Metalog. i. 5 the account given by John of Salis- p. 746, was the same person who bury of his teacher, who left Paris took the lead in Abailard's prose- in 1137 or 1138 in order to oon- cutionatSoisson8inli2i ; Bruoker, tinue his studies at Bologna, and Historia critica Philosophiae 3. 765i that M Haur^au, Histoire de la Phi- Leipzig 1743 quarto ; Schaarschmidt losophie scolastique i. 430, is right p. 71 : and the identification has at in distinguishing the two persons, least the colour of support from the The confusion evidently arose from terms in which John speaks of him, the fact that John's master, whom as though he had notoriously signa- he entitles, in one of his letters, nr Used himself by his opposition to clxxii. Max. Bibl. Patr. 23. 467 E, nominalism. If the facts stated in Alberic de Porta Veneris, after- the Histoire litt^raire, 12. 74 sq., wards became archdeaconofRheims. are correct, there can be no doubt The Histoire litt&aire introduces a that Abailard's assaUant is the further complication by attempting same Alberic who was made arch- to distinguish John's master from bishop of Bourges in 11 36 and who Alberic de Porta Veneris ; but here is designated on the occasion of his at least there can be no doubt in preferment by pope Innocent the the matter. Cf. Petersen 80. 204 JOHN OF SAIilSBUEY UNDER Chap. VII. triumphs; but not now at Paris but near it (as Paris then was) on the hUl of Saint Genevifeve. When John of Salisbury heard him in 1 136, he was once more, at the age of seven-and-fiffcy, lecturing as he had begun on dialectics. But his return again to public work doubtless reawakened the hostility of teachers and churchmen to which he had previously been exposed. He left his school to Alberic, and John of Salisbury knew him no more as a teacher. His successor was a leading advocate of the logical system which he had spent his life in resisting. ^ 'to'^'' '' '"' ^ Bemg thus, John continues, for near two toJiole years occupied on the Mount I had to my instructors in the dialec- tical art Alberic and master Robert of Melun {that I may designate him by the .surname which he hath deserved in the governing of schools ; howbeit by nation he is of England) : whereof the one was in questions subtil and large, the other in responses lucid, short, and agreeable. They were in some sort counterparts of one another ; if the analytical faculty of Alberic had been combined in one person with Eobert's clear decision o%t,r age could not have shown an equal in debate. For they were both men of sharp intellect, and in study unconquerable . . . This much, John adds,/br the time that I was conversant with them : for afterwards the one went to Bologna and unlearned that which he had taught ; yea, and returned and untaught the same ; whether for the better or no, let them judge who heard him before and since. More- over the other went on to the study of divine letters, and aspired to the glory of a nobler philosophy and a more illus- trious name. Whatever may be the exact meaning of the reference to Alberic's defection there is no reason to suppose that there was any lasting estrangement between uM su'^ra""' ^^ ^^*^ John. In after-years we gather from ^ the latter's p. 467E. correspondence that the master and scholar were good ALBEKIC AND EOBEKT OF MELUN. 505 friends, when Alberic was archdeacon of Rheims and chap. vii. John a companion of Becket in exile. In his * Metalogiciis ' Lib. i. 5 p. 746. too our author includes his old master in a list of the most highly reputed teachers in France. Of Robert of Melun he could not now foretell the future, when as bishop tnev- of Hereford, twenty-five years later, he proved a prelate after Henry the Second's own heart and a sturdy comba- tant against the archbishop's party. At present John knows only his achievements as a theologian, in which quality he was greatly esteemed as a systematic and most orthodox writer ^. He appears to have set himself as a moderating influence against the reckless application of dialectical theories which was popular in his time. Like Gilbert de la Porree he ^ placed the idea of God ' Summ. ■*■ theoL, MS. ap. wholly outside the field of human reasoning, and by a JJ^^'le "a careful distinction as to the relation borne by the universe ?!'4g2'n.'^°'' to its Creator, ' sought to erect an impassable barrier ' ^^^< p- between the two. In thus guarding against the pan- theistic issues to which realism was liable, he was obliged to divorce the two spheres of logic and theology which the schools had always been inclined to confuse. "» With these, proceeds John, I applied mi/self for the full ° '^p'gj;^"- S])ace of two years, to practice in the commonplaces and rules and other rudimentary elements, which are instilled into the minds of hoys and wherein the aforesaid doctors were most able and ready ; so that methought I knew all these things as well as my nails and fingers. This at least I had learned, in the lightness of youth to account my knowledge of more worth than it was. I seemed to myself a young scholar, because I was quick in that which I heard. Then returning unto myself and measuring my powers, I advisedly resorted, by the good favour ' He is mentioned for instance nihil haereticum doouisse certia- byJohnofCornwaU,AdAlex.III., simum est;' Martene et Durand. as one of those 'quos in theologia Thes. nov. Anecd. 5. 1669 B. a06 JOHN OF SALISBURY'S Chap. vii. of my preceptoTS, to the Grammarian of Conches, and heard his teaching hy the space of three years ; the while reading much : nor shall I ever regret that time. John therefore turned to grammar after dialectic ; he had by this time become conscious of an intellectual appetite which would not be satisfied by the formal routine of logical teaching. Alberic and Robert, he says, might have done good work in physical science had they stood as fast upon the tracJcs of the t Iders as they rejoiced in their own discoveries. It was their new-fangled system which he wanted to exchange for the less fashionable but more soHd study of grammar. He was therefore glad when an opportunity presented itself ° ^' supra, for him to attend the master whose ° writings show him pp. 124 sq. ^ chiefly as a natural philosopher, but whom John distin- guishes for his peculiar eminence as a grammarian. John does not name the place where William of Conches taught, but the minute description which he elsewhere gives of the school of Chartres — a description to which particular attention has been directed in a preceding chapter, — not to speak of his many personal reminiscences of its former head Bernard Sylvester and » Metal, i. 3" of Gilbert de la Porr^e, ° being at that time chancellor of Chartres, who was afterwards the venerable bishop of Poictiers, leave us in no doubt as to the locality®. It was at ° This connexion, the importance gested, appears too obvious to need of wMch I have attempted to draw further confirmation, and I am glad out in chapter iv, is due to the to observe that M Haur&u, who has acute criticism of Dr Schaarschmidt, devoted special attention to the Hte- p. 22. Of one of his arguments, rary history of Chajtres, although that William as a Norman was un- he had passed the fact by in his two likely to have taught at Paris, I works on the scholastic philosophy have not availed myself for the and in his singularity historiques reason stated above, p. 131 n. 26. et litt&aires, now in the Comptes- I also doubt whether John's words, rendus of the academy of inserip- 'Eeperi magistrum Gilbertum,' Me- tions for 1873, 3rd series, vol. 1. 81, tal. ii. 10 p. 805, necessarily imply regards it as conclusively eata- a previous acquaintance. The ge- blished. neral hypothesis indeed, once sug- p- 745. STUDIES AT OHARTEES. 207 Chartres therefore that John laid the foundation of Chap. vn. his classical learning, and under Bernard's successors, William of Conches and Eichard I'fiveque ^ ; the latter, as he proceeds to explain, a man whose training was deficient almost in nothing, who had more heart even than speech, more knowledge than skill, more truth than vanity, more virtue than show : and the things I had learned from others I collected all again from him, and certain things too I learned which I had not before heard and which appertain to the Quadrivium, wherein formerly I had for some time followed the German Hardwin. I read also again rhetoric, which aforetime I had scarce understood when it was treated of meagrely by master Theodorie, the brother of Bernard, who had before him been chancellor of Chartres and who shared his philosophical, if not exactly his literary, interest. The same I afterwards received m^re plenteously at the hand of Peter Helias, a teacher who is known to us only as a grammarian, and as a grammarian of high repute*; his surviving * works being a Commentary onpHist.iitt.de ^ _ ' ° _ ° •'la France 12. Priscian and two metrical treatises, one a grammar, the ^ ^^ other a glossary of rare words. It will not escape notice, as evidence of the breadth of training then demanded from scholastics, that hardly one of John's masters was lecturing on the subject which he had chosen for special and mature study : their general acquirements were ' The words 'Postmodum vero there remains but & very narrow Eichardum . . . secutus sum' might margin for Gilbert's teaching, and I lead one to suppose that John at- suspect that John's calculations are tended this master after the three not intended to be understood too years of which he speaks in relation exactly. to WiUiam of Conches ; but since ' When Emo, afterward abbat of those years run from 11 38, and Werum (Wittewierum) in Gronin- sinee his later master Gilbert de la gen, went to study at Paris, Orleans, Porr^e l«ft Paris in 1 141, it is and Oxford, about 11 70, he learned his plain that there is no possible in- grammar principally from Priscian terval between the two periods and and Peter Helias : see the Chro- that Richard's lectures must be in- nicon Menconis, in Hugo's Sacrae eluded in the former. Even so Antiquita,tis Monumenta i. 505. 208 JOHN AS A PRIVATE STUDENT. Chap. VII. such as to enable them to give competent instruction in almost any branch of what we may call the custo- mary academical curriculum. In the later centuries of the middle ages such an experience would rarely indeed be attainable. By the time at which John had now arrived he had ceased to be a mere pupU ; he was also a private student, 1 Metal, ii. lo and a teacher as well. '^ Since, he says, I received the children of nolle persons to instruct, who furnished me with living^for I lacked the help of friends and kinsfolk, hut God assuaged my neediness, — the force of duty and the instance of my pupils moved me the oftener to recall what I had learned. Wherefore I made closer acquaintance with master Adam, a man of exceeding sharp wits and, whatever others may think, of much learning, who applied himself above the rest to Aristotle: in such wise that, albeit I had him not to my teacher, he gave me kindly of his, and delivered himself openly enough ; the which he was wont to do to none or to few others than his own scholars, for he was deemed to suffer from jealousy. Adam du Petit Pont was an Englishman A, D. 1176. who ultimately became bishop of Saint Asaph. He had his surname from the school which he afterwards set up on the little bridge connecting the City of Paris with ' Schaar- what was perhaps ' already known as the Latin Quarter. 2- John had a genuine respect for the logician, whose =name ■ Metal, iii. ° . . -^ & ' proi., p. 839. he once associates with those of Abailard and Gilbert de la Porree, as of the scholars to whom he owed most in this department of learning. But his opinion of Adam ' ^"ii" "' ^ ^^ ^^® public capacity was very different. * Adam's book, the Art of Reasoning^, he says, was generally considered ' Wtat John calls the Ara dis- extracts from this work, which have serendi is apparently the treatise no peculiar interestforua.areprinted entitled in an imperfect manuscript byCou3in,Fragmentsphilo3ophiquea at Paris, De arte dialectica. Some 2, 386-390. ADAM DU PETIT PONT. 209 to have been written with a wilful obscurity of language: chap. vii. although his friends and advocates ascribe this to suhtilty, most have eooflained it as proceeding from the folly or arrogance of a vain man. Adam's pupils of course exaggerated his faults. "They gloried in their own inventions and had°Enthet.ver. 49-54. a great contempt for their elders. Adam encouraged them, having, it should seem, a purely mercenary prin- ciple of teaching. ^He used to say that he would ^ffli7e ' Metai. Hi. 3 few hearers or none if he propounded dialectic with that simplicity of terms and easiness of sentences, with which it ought to he taught. John emphatically disclaims being the pupil of such a man. I was, he adds immediately, his familiar, ly constant intercourse and exchange of looks, and hy almost daily discussion upon such topics of discourse as sprang up. But 1 was his disciple not for one day. Thus before the end of five years of student life John was already entering on the career of a teacher : but to his earnest mind this resolve necessitated a further training at least equally extended. He returned to Paris and applied himself to the study of theology. The language in which he relates this movement leaves no doubt that the interval between his attendance on William of Conches and his masters in divinity was not spent at Paris. For the most of it presumably he remained at Chartres ; the spirit of that school has left an impress upon his mind so deep and uneffaceable that we cannot be persuaded but his residence there was continued as long as possible; although a reference in a letter which he wrote in later years to Peter de la Celle has suggested the ''conjecture that he lived someyschaar- time at Kheims. Paris however was already tending rapidly to become the intellectual metropolis of Europe and a poor man like John would be sure to turn his p 210 JOHN OF Salisbury's theological studies. Chap. VII. steps thither in the hope of getting emplo3rment, for it was poverty that arrested him in the middle of the Quadrivium course to which he had been introduced by Hardwin and Richard. From hence, he says, / was with- drawn ly the straitness of my private estate, the instance of my companions, and the counsel of my friends, that I should undertake the office of a teacher. I obeyed: and thus returning at the expiration of three years, I found nmster Gilbert and heard him in logic and divinity ; hut too quickly was he •Supra, p. removed. He had accepted, as ^we have seen, an office at Poictiers, from which he was soon advanced to the bishoprick of that city. His successor, proceeds John, was Robert Pullus, whom his life and knowledge alike recom- mended. Then I had Simon of Poissy, a trusty lecturer, but dull in disputation. But these two I had in theologies alone. Thus, engaged in diverse studies near twelve years passed by me'^". No doubt the reason why John adverts so perfunctorily to his theological studies is that the entire narrative upon which we have hitherto commented is inserted in the middle of a dialectical disquisition. Dialectics furnish its motive, and beyond them John does not think fit to pursue his story. Gilbert de la Porr^e he heard in dialectics as well as theology : then he attended Robert and Simon j but these, he explains, as though to excuse his not continuing a digression from his principal subject, I heard in theologies alone. Nor can we allow ourselves to be detained by an enquiry as to the influence which • Supra, pp. these masters had upon him. »The character, the trans- 179-182. cendental character, we should say, of Gilbert's theo- '" The editions have duodeeen- is considered by Dr Schaarsohmidt, nitim or duodennium ; the former of pp. 24 sq., to be a corruption from which I take to be a gloss upon the decennmm : yet compare above, p. latter. Duodennium however itself 207 n. 7. JOHN OF SALISBUBY'S THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 211 logical system has been already sufficiently discussed ; chap. vii. but John was his pupil but for a short time. Kobert PuUeyn also (if this is to be preferred of the many forms in which his name is written) did not remain long at Paris; and of Simon of Poissy we know next to nothing. Robert was undoubtedly held by his con- temporaries in singular honour as a theologian, although it has been suspected that his famous Sum of Theology borrowed something more than its method from Abai- lard^'-: but it is impossible to conjecture in what particular branch of his faculty John of Salisbury heard him. Probably enougtrthe lessons which John attended were merely concerned^ with the exposition of the Scrip- tures. At any rate the tone of the scholar's theology is manifestly derived from another source than that of the teachers mentioned. The spirit of humanism, in fact, which was the distinctive essence of the school of Chartres, he brought into aUiance with a totally different spirit derived unmistakably from the mysticism of Hugh of Saint Victor. The union was no doubt exceptional, for the ethical theology of the Victorines was rather calculated to recommend the life of a recluse than to countenance the wide interests and the wide reading of a man like John of Salisbury ; yet as his writings show, it is this ethical principle far more than any metaphy- sical or dogmatic system, that ruled his thoughts. To this characteristic of him we shall revert hereafter: at the present moment we notice it, as John notices his theological studies, just incidentally. Besides there is no evidence that Hugh, whom John only refers to twice in all his works, was ever actually his teacher ; the " See Haur(5au, Histoire de la tentiarum libri viii, Paris 1655 Philosophie scolastique, i. 484. The folio, I have not had an opportunity work in question, Eoberti PuUi sen- of consulting. P a 213 JOHN OF SALISBUEY Chap. VII. Current may have been communicated as effectively by private association with Hugh or with fellow-members of the abbey. John concludes the record of his school-studies in a curious epilogue, half-humorous, half-grave, which shows how far his sympathy had been withdrawn through his later training, from the absorbing religion of Saint Gene- vieve into which he had entered with such breathless >■ Metal, ii, lo ardour twelve years previously. ^ And so, he says, itjeemed, pleasant to me to revisit my old companions on the Mount, whom I had left and whom dialectic still detained, to confer with them touching old matters of delate; that we might hy mutual comparison measure together our several progress. I found them as before, and where they were before; nor did they appear to have reached the goal in unravelling the old questions, nor had they added one jot of a propiosition. The aims that once inspired tliem, inspired them still : they only had progressed in one point, they had unlearned vioderation, they knew not modesty; in such wise that one might .despair of their recovery. And thus experience taught me a manifest conclusion, that, whereas dialectic furthers other studies, so if it remain by itself it lies bloodless and barren, nor does it quichen the soul to yield fruit of philosophy, except the same conceive from elsewhere. Such was John's final judgement on the ruling passion of his time : he felt that he had outgrown logic when he advanced to the study of theology. Still throughout his life, though he esteemed theology as the noblest subject on which the mind could exercise itself, his sympathies ran even more strongly to yet another branch of learn- ing, the study of the classics. The external events of his career hardly concern us, and may be briefly summarised. Schmidt 27. On the completion of his theological course "he spent IN THE OOUET OF CANTEEBURY. 213 some time with his friend Peter, abbat of the Cistercian chap. vii. monastery of Moustier la CeUe near Eheims, and after- wards his own successor in the see of Chartres^^. Here in 1 148 he had the opportunity of witnessing that coun- cil at Rheims in which saint Bernard failed to silence Gilbert de la Porrde, and of which we have '^John's ^ Hist. pontif. , viii, ix, Pertz record, pointed with characteristic shrewd criticism. =o- S22 sqq., 525. Here too he must have been admitted to friendly inter- course with the redoubtable abbat of Clairvaux, who " soon afterwards recommended him to the notice and » Bern, epist. ccclxi, opp. 1. favour of archbishop Theobald of Canterbury ^^- Thes^sB.ei latter had also been present at the Rheims council and had there, it seems, made John's acquaintance. He ac- cordingly received him the more readily and at once attached him to his clerical estabhshment. For the next fifteen years or so John was constantly employed not only in the administrative routine of the primate's court, but also in delicate negotiations with the Roman curia. He was the firm and intimate friend of the Eng- lish ^ope Hadrian the Fourth, and was the 'agent by 'Metai.iv.42 means of whom the latter's sanction was obtained to king Henry the Second's conquest of Ireland. Writing in 1159 he says, ^ I have ten times passed the chain qf the Alps^u^m- on my road from England; I have twice'^^ traversed Apulia. ^ There is no reason to suppose spring of 1 148, it is needless to con- with Dr Schaarsoliniidt, p. 25, that jecture any other. Tte letter how- Peter was John's junior. He oer- ever cannot have been written long tainly survived the latter by seven after the council, since John in the years, but John died at the age of autumn of 1159 speaks of having only sixty or sixty-five, and Peter been nearly twelve years, 'annis as bishop of Chartres is described fere duodeoim,' employed in the as old and infirm. business of the court : Poller., prol., " Mabillon, in loc, dates the p. 3. letter 11 44; but Bernard says, " For secwndovre should natur- 'Praesens vobis commendaveram ally expect lis, which I imagine eum,' and now that we know of an must have been the original reading, occasion on which the three were At all events it is certain that John together, namely, at Eheims in the was in Apulia before 1154 'regnante 214 JOHN IN EXILE WITH THOMAS BECKET. Chap. vii. The btisiness of my lords and friends I have often transacted in the Moman church, and as sundry causes arose I have many times travelled not only round England but also Gaul. John's position as secretary to archbishop Theobald, and afterwards to his successors, Thomas Becket and Eichard, doubtless disposed him to form those hierarchical >> Poiicr. iv. 3 views which we find ^ expressed with such emphasis in p. 212; V. 2 , , pp. 251 sq. ; his Policralicus. Nowhere could he find the conflicting claims of secular and ecclesiastical jurisdiction more clamorous for solution ; nor had he any hesitation in deciding that the independence, the supremacy, of the church was essentially bound up with the existence of Christianity. Holding these principles, it does not sur- w. Schaar- prise us to learn that 'for some reason, the details have Schmidt 32 sqq. not survived, he fell into the king's displeasure. Whether for the time he had to give up his post we are not told; but it is certain that his income was withdrawn, and that he had to struggle with poverty and debt, as well as with danger menacing his personal safety. It is to this in- terval of enforced idleness that we owe the production of his two_niostjmgortantjWQrks, the Folicraticus and the "Poller., Metalogicus. ''Both were written during the time when prol., p. 6 ; , ^ metal' IV ^'l' ^^ ^^g ^^^ absent at the tedious siege of Toulouse in ■"poiL viii -^^59 • '*^® ^'^^ ^^^ completed before, the other just after, me?aL ^iVc. ^^^ death of Hadrian the Fourth on the last day of August in that year. The storm which had impended over John of Salisbury seemed soon to have passed by : but in 1161 his patron, archbishop Theobald, died, and the favour which was continued to him by Thomas Becket came to be a source of anxiety rather than of advantage. After an absence of five years king Henry was again in Eng- Eogero,' Polior. vii. 19 p. 4^9; and drian, i.e. between 1154 and 1159, again in company with pope Ha- ibid., lib. vi. 24 p. 3SC. JOHN, BISHOP OF CHAKTKES. 215 land in 1163. The fact possibly determined Salisbury's C hai-. v ii. withdrawaP^. He left the country only to return with Becket seven years later, and to witness his murder. During this time of exile he was the truest, because the wisest, champion of the archbishop. The intemperate and wanton means by which the latter sought to pro- Baote his cause, John was the first to reprove. He did not spare his warnings, and, when necessary, would denounce Becket's actions not as impolitic but simply as unchristian^^. Still his hearty adhesion to the hier- archical principle with which Becket was popularly identified, made him stand firmly by his chief. In the revulsion of general feeling that followed his murder, John was reestablished in the court at Canterbury, and finally in 11 76 his loyalty to the cause was rewarded by his elevation to the bishoprick of the city in which so large a part of his student-life had been passed, and to which he owed his introduction to classical learning. He was bishop of Chartres however only for four years ; '' He again found hoapitality at dam clericus noster,' as Peter wrote the hands of Peter de la Celle, who in 1176, Ep. vii. 6, Max. Biblioth. was now abbat of Saint E^my at Patr. 23. 886 0, it is perhaps im- Kheims, Schaarschmidt 40 ; and it possible to decide : Dr Sohaar- was undoubtedly at this time that sohmidt, p. 26, seems to think it he wrote the Historia pontifioalis was on the earlier occasion, which internal notices prove to have '^ See a pointed example in a been written in 1162 or 1163 (see letter addressed to Becket, to which Giesebrecht, Sitzungsberichte der Dr Schaarschmidt, p. 47 n. 3, draws philosophisch - philologischen und attention. Among other things John historiachen Classe der koniglichen says, 'Si enim litterarum vestrarum Bayerischen Akademie der Wissen- et ipsius (Becket's reply and his op- Bchaften 3. 124) and which is dedi- ponent's letter) articuli singuli con- cated to the abbat. As to the date, ferantur, ex amaritudine potius et I am strongly inclined to connect rancore animi quam ex caritatis John's departure with the king's sinceritate videbitur proceasiaae re- return in January 1163 (Stubbs sponsio.' He would not treat the §139) ; so that we may fix the com- pope's courier with the contumely position of the Historia pontifioalis which Becket had thought fit to use precisely to that year. Whether it towards a cardinal legate of the was at this time or during his former apostolic see : Epist, ccxii, ubi supra, stay with Peter de la Celle that John p. 494 E, F. acted as the latter's clerk, 'quou- Schmidt 295. 216 JOHN OF salisbuey's WEITINGS. Chap. VII. he died in II 80 and was succeeded by Ms life-long friend Peter de la Celle. cf. Schaar. ™ The quality that first strikes one in reading the works of John of Salisbury — and they stand nearly alone in medieval literature for the wide circle of readers to which they appeal — is what almost may be described as their modern spirit. It is this, we suspect, which has laid their author open to the charge of cynical indifference and insincerity. His judgement is generally so liberal that it is perhaps difiBcult for those who merely read him in snatches, as the older classical scholars used to do, to believe that it is genuine. Yet it is in this freedom of outlook that John's individual distinction as a writer lies. There are some things in respect to which nothing would induce him to relax his positive- ness. These are the affairs, the interests, of religion; and these, especially in the political atmosphere of John's time covered a large enough field: for all knowledge, all thought, all the facts of life were to be estimated by reference to the supreme arbitration of theology". Yet even this exemption leaves a considerable space for free and irresponsible questioning, and John is evidently seen at his best when, having made the necessary stipulations and reservations in favour of orthodoxy, he can range at pleasure among the memories of antiquity, and illustrate whatever comes to hand from the stores of his classical reading or from the shrewd observation of his own experience. The Policraticus, John's most extensive work, allows full play to his characteristic genius: indeed the mul- titude of digressions and episodes which enlivei;i its " Cum cunctas artes, cum dog- perium pagina sacra, tenet : Enthet. matd cimcta peritus Nuverit, im- 373 sq. THE POLICEATICUS. 217 course is apt to distract one from appreciating its real Chap. vii. purpose. It cannot be fairly called a satire upon the society of the time; while on the other hand it is far from being a methodical treatise on morals. The former description has this excuse, that the author touches with a light hand the follies he sees about him ; but the satire, like Juvenal's, is prompted by a deep underljing se- riousness : nor is it in any way the motive of the book, in which the positive ethical element greatly prepon- derates. The title, according to the only plausible inter- pretation that has been put upon it, designates it as The Statesman s Booh^'^: its alternative, s'lve de Nugis Curialium et Vesfigm PJiilosojiJioniin, marks its two-fold aim. But the first part of the work is by no means mainly critical : the vanities of courts are thus styled by comparison with the more solid realities of philosophy which form the subject of the second part. The former deals with poli- tics in the wide acceptation of the term, the latter with what one may term the internal polity of a man's self. John begins in the first three books by clearing away the obstacles to the healthy life of the state, the vices and follies that impede its motion : in the next three he. makes the first attempt since Augustin to frame an ideal system of government, on the basis of the necegsary sub- ordination of the secular to the religious state ; a view to > which we shall have occasion to return hereafter. In the second section of the work, the last two books, John passes to the individual : he proceeds from a review of the "diSerent schools of philosophy to lay down the principles of true knowledge, and seeks to determine the ^' Dr Schaafschmidt's suggestion, formed his title, with no doubt an • p. 145, is that John knew the Greek implied play on the meaning of the name Folycrates and supposed it word town. , to be derived from ttoAis. Hence he 218 CHARACTER OF THE POLICRATICUS : Chap. vii. aim of philosophy, the assertion of the supremacy of the spirit over the senses, of the ideal over the material. The latter part of the Policraticus covers substantially the same ground, although with far greater elaboration and relative completeness, as the elegiac poem, the En- theticus, which John appears to have originally written as an introduction to it. The latter is however by no means superseded by the prose work, and we can readily forgive the jejune rhythm of its imitation of Ovid for the pointed epigrammatic accuracy with which it depicts the learrdng and manners of the day. The framework of the Policraticus gives but a slight notion of the variety of its contents. It is to some extent an encyclopaedia of the cultivated thought of the middle of the twelfth century. As an authority for the political history of the time, for the history of learning and philosophy, it is invaluable for the simple reason that it is not a professed history. The facts are introduced naturally, for illustration ; and not on account of their intrinsic or obvious importance. The general liberality of sentiment to which the work bears witness is all the more significant because of its author's eminence in the religious world, which in turn gave bis work a wider influence than if he had been suspected of making a compromise between orthodoxy and profane learning. Such men by their sUent help towards raising the intelligence of their age have often done more than the ambitious protestant against esta- blished creeds or the wUful martyr of theological idio- syncrasy. From the abundant materials offered by John of Salisbury's works we can only select two points for observation : one relates to his use of the classics, the other to his position in regard to the philosophy of the ITS HUMANISM. 219 time. The distinctive mark of the PoUcraiicus is a Chap. vii. humanism which seems to remove it from medieval associations. Beyond dispute the best-read man of his time i*", no one is fonder than John of illustrating by quotation or anecdote every statement he makes ; and the illustrations are taken, as if by preference, from the classics more frequently than from the Bible. No doubt " he disclaims any idea of treating the two as coordinate : ° Poikr. vii. loP-443- yet m ethical and even in theological matters he re- peatedly confirms and, as it were, recommends the authority of Scripture by that of Plato or of Latin antiquity, just as though he had been the pupil of Abai- lard in other things besides dialectic. John's classical predilections assisted in his case a confusion of thought with which the happy ambiguity of the word scriptura had a good deal to do. ° Whatsoever tilings were written ° Rom. xv. 4. aforetime were written for our learning, h.& would ^like to p Poiicr. vii., ^ prol., p. 408. understand of literature at large; and he quotes the maxim of saint Jerom, 1 Love the knowledge of the Scrip- ' Cap. 10 p. tures and thou wilt not love the lusts of the flesh, in proof of the advantage that springs «from all reading. He is speaking now of the study of the classics, and ' warns us ' p- 444- so to read them tJuit authority do not prejudice to reason. Authority here is that of the masters of antiquity, and reason is the mental faculty considered as educated and enlightened by Christianity. The typical opposites have for the moment changed places ; and the change is highly indicative of the regard in which the classics could now be held even by men the correctness of whose religious character was no less assured than was that, let us say, " In relation to the extent of his have said above, p. 118, Bernard of classical reading it is curious that Chartres had a special devotion to John appears ignorant of the works them as models of verse composi- of Lucretius, especially since, as we tion. 220 JOHN OF Salisbury's relation Chap. VII. of the arch-efiemy of learning, the champion of a 'rustic' faith, saint Peter Damiani, a century earlier. John's classical tastes had no small share in deter- mining his attitude towards the philosophy and especially the dialectics of his time. . We have seen from the lan- guage in which he concludes the narrative of his youth- ful studies, how dissatisfied he was with the prevalent method of teaching logic The nominalists had brought it into vogue as a means of asserting the rights of human reason ; the realists had been driven to cultivate it in support of the religious tradition : but now both parties were subdued by the overmastering sway of argumenta- tion. Dialectics had become not a means but an end ; its professors were interested not to discover truth but to prove their superiority over rival disputants. The result was a competitive system of smatterers and sophists. The fii-st period in the medieval study of logic had in fact passed its zenith and was already nearing its fall. A new one arose in the following century, far more im- portant from a scientific point of view, but really less characteristic for the history of western culture because its materials were imported ready-made and in gross from Byzantine compilations and from the Arabic ver- sions of Aristotle. It was not like the older western logic, of native growth, painfully preserved through dim ages,- and in some remarkable cases depending for exist- ence upon the chance survival of a single seed, which sent the acutest observer back upon his own mental resources even to guess at the form and structure of the mature'orgarusin. At the time however with which we are concerned logic had for the most part been degraded ■■Metai.ii.7 into idle casuistry_ anci trifling; ^it had fallen into the pp. 797 sq. ' ' , hands of inferior - men. The name of Aristotle was TOWARDS THE DIALECTICAL MOVEMENT. 321 dragged down by people who, in * William of Conches' chap. vii. phrase, were not worthy to be his scullions ; and these ^ pragmat. , , Hi. pt 80. conceited pretenders — even " Adam du Petit Pont, who « v. supra, knew better — designedly made their lessons as obscure and intricate as possible^ in order to attract pupils who learned only for display^". The more capable teachers were gradually forsa.king the schools or else giving them- selves up to theology, to natural science, or to some other study which was not so much infested by the noisy crowd. John of Salisbury therefore, who had praise only for sound and honest work, and for the modesty and toler^ ance of the true philosopher, early parted company with the professional dialecticians. Afterwards at Canterbury, where though he did not perhaps actually occupy the post of a teacher, ^he seems to have been regarded in»Metai., ' prol., p. 732. some sort as the representative of learning in the court, he was constrained to take up the defence of those prin- ciples of knowledge which he had acquired at Chartres, against the vain substitutes for it which were everywhere forcing themselves into notice. His Metalogicus supposes a state of things somewhat different from, somewhat more degenerate than, that to which we have just now alluded. His opponents were not solely the logical 'fanatics whose acquaintance he had made at Paris, al- though '' they were as fond of splitting hairs. On the ' Life- i. 3 p- contrary they were animated by an impartial contempt for all the educational tradition of the schools : logic they scorned as heartily as they did grammar, and were con- '"' William of Coneliea liaa more pellibus vitulinis bene pumicatia et than one description of these cox- levigatis cum amplis interlineis combs ; see below Appendix vi and libros componi faciunt, eosque co- vii. Compare too the Dragmaticon opertoriis rubeis et impressis vesti- (De Bubstt. phys.) iii. p. 63 : ' In unt : sioque cum saplente sacoulo nugis sunt aubtiles, in neceasariia et insipiente animo ad parentes auos tardi et hebetes, sed ne nil feclsae recurrunt.' cum repatriaverint videantur, ex ^ 322 JOHN OF SALISBURY'S PHILOSOPHY. Chap. VII. fident of becoming philosophers by rule of thumb. John had no difficulty in combating this supercilious position, but the interest of his treatise is that it gives him occa- sion to discuss at large his favourite theme of the inter- dependence of the several ' arts ' that relate to the laws and functions of language, in other words, of the Trivium : for he maintains it is only by a thorough study of gram- mar, rhetoric, and dialectic, considered as mutually con- nected and auxiliary, that we can lay the foundations of • Lib. ii. 9p. genuine knowledge. ^Dialectic itself, valuable and ne- 8oi. cessary as it is, is like the sword of Hercules ifi a Pigmi/'s hand unless there be added to it the accoutrement of the other sciences. The Melalogicus has in one respect a peculiar value: « Pranti, " it is the first work in the middle ages in which the ETCsch. da logik 2. whole of Aristotle's Organon is turned to account. Having Schaar. ^hus s. surcr basis to build upon than any of his prede- schmidt 117- ^ J r 122, 215 sq. cessors, John relies entirely upon Aristotle for his logical theory. In reference to the crucial question of the uni- versal he is the loyal disciple of Abailard, whose prin- ciples he elaborates from the newly discovered source. But even on a point to which supreme importance was attached by his contemporaries John declines to be positive : he chooses the conclusion of Aristotle not be- !> Metal. ii. 20 cause of its absolute scientific truth but ^because it is the p. 837. best adapted to the study of logic. For the same reason, except in this one department of learning, he avows his allegiance to Plato, whose general view of things he accepts by reason of the free-range it concedes to en- « Poiicr., quiry and speculation. ° I am not ashamed, he once says, to number myself among the academics, since in those things about which a wise man may doubt, I depart not pp. 4ii sqq. from their footsteps. It is '^ not that he is in favour of 'QUAE SUNT DUBITABILIA SAPIENTI.' 223 a general scepticism, far less of a general indecision and Chap.vii. vacillation. ° Certain facts John conceives to be irre- » pp. 413 sq. fragably established by authority; others stand on a secure foundation of reason : but there is a large class of problems in reference to which he holds his judgement in suspense, because they are not definitely solved by either of the prime arbiters of truth, nor yet verified by observation. Accordingly he gives a long and most curious list of things about which a wise man may doubt . . . so however, he prudently adds, that the doubt extend not to the multitude. The items are strangely mixed ; they bring into vivid light on the one hand the immense interval between the certainties of modern knowledge and the vague gropings that had to serve for physical science in John's age, and on the other the eternal limitations of the human mind which forbid the elevation of meta- physics or theology to the dignity of an exact science. In reading this catalogue one cannot repress the thought, how many sects and divisions, how much hatred and cursing, would have been spared the church in other ages and in our own time, had men been willing to con- fess with John of Salisbury that there are many questions which every man has a right to answer or to leave un- answered for himself. Among these John reckons pro- vidence and fate, chance and-free will ; even those things which are reverently enquired about God himself, who sur- passes the examination of all rational nature and is exalted above all that the mind can conceive. Other questions which are included in the same liberal enumeration — the nature and origin of the soul ; matter and motion ; the causes and beginnings of things ; the use and end of virtues and vices, and their source ; whether a man who has one virtue has all virtues, and whether all sins are equal and equally to 224 John's ethical pkinciple. Chap. VII. he punished — may appear to have a less direct bearing upon theology ; but it will not escape observation that hardly one of them but has come to make part, if not of the formal creed, still of the accepted tradition of some one of the sects of Christendom. In the middle ages the connexion was the more closely felt because theology was almost universally the standard of knowledge, the test by which the goodness of a philosophical tenet was tried. We do not indeed presume to say that John of Salisbury calculated the issues to which he committed himself; certainly if any connexion of the sort just named could be proved he would have been the first to withdraw the problem in question out of the class of ' doubtfuls.' Still it is his signal virtue, a virtue which, if we mistake not, he derived immediately from Bernard of Chartres, that, although he held as strongly as any man to the principle just mentioned, he distinctly limited it to facts with regard to which authority was precise, and left the rest open questions. He did more than this : he enlarged the conception of authority ; for the divine influence, he maintained with Abailard, is not to be sought only in the written revela- tion but in its indwelling in man's reason. 'Enthet., . 'Eat hominis ratio aummae rationis imago ver. 29 3 . Quae capit interiua vera dooente Deo. Ut data lux oculis tain se quam cetera monatrat Quae sub luce patent et eipe luce latent, Claraque fit nubea concepto lumine solis, Cum dependentes flatus abegit aquas : Subdita aic ratio formam summae rationis /Sordibus expulais induit, inde mioat. B Poller. HI. I g The reasonable soul is God, by participation in whom pp. 150 sqq. all things exist : the good man therefore, for virtue is the antecedent of the right exercise'of reason, may be trusted to know. It is thus that John is able to declai'e that END OP THE FIEST SCHOLASTIC EEA. 225 ''freedom is the most glorious of all things, because it is chap. vii. inseparable from, if not identical with, virtue. >> Lib. vU. 25 John of Salisbury is the youngest exponent of a great and vigorous intellectual movement. The generation of its founders began in the last quarter of the eleventh cen- tury ; John carries on its current into the last quarter of the twelfth. But the tide has been already long ebbing,' and the thirteenth century hardly begins before ' the ' P" Bouiay, Physics of Aristotle, now first made known to the Latin ^^'^^- 3- 5'- world, are solemnly interdicted by a council at Paris ; a.d. 1209. a few years later ''the proscription is extended to the ''ii>id.,p.82. Metaphysics^^. That was in fact the meeting-time of two eras, and the opening of the new period of philosophical progress created by the importation of the works of Aristotle, was threatened, as the efforts of Roscelin and Abailard had been, by the anathema of the church. Now, however, a reconciliation was soon arranged ; and the church herself had the glory of claiming as her own the men who reared the stupendous fabric of the mature scholastic philosophy. Into this, the second and greater, period in the history of scholasticism^^ we do not propose to enter ; its magnitude and importance make it a sub- ject by itself. In the following chapters our attention will be confined to a small department of it, one to which we are naturally led, since of the theories formed in the middle ages respecting the nature and functions of the state John of Salisbury's is the first that aspires to a philosophical character. 2' The general fact of this con- tions 26(2) 486-489, Haur&u, Hia- demnation is clear, though it is also toire de la Philosophie scolastique certain that a confusion arose with a(i) 100-106. John Scot's work, on account, no ^ I have no hesitation in adopt- doubt, of its title Hepl (pvafoiv /api- ing M Haureau's division, vol. i . , afwD. See Jourdain in the M^- 40 sq., as obviously the most logical, moires de I'Acad^mie des Inscrip- Compare above, p. i. CHAPTEE VIIT. THE HIERAECHICAL DOCTRINE OF THE STATE. Chap. VIII, Among the facts which make the eleventh century a turning-point in the history of society, — whether we- look to the intellectual movement or to the consolida- tion of the feudal system, to the arousing of a national force in France and England under stress of northern invaders, or to the restoration of the imperial or the ecclesiastical dignity; — among the incidents in this general change, none was attended with such wide- reaching consequences as the new position claimed for the catholic church. It might seem as though, just at the moment when nations were beginning to realise their strength and to some extent acquiring even an individual consciousness, the church intervened and sought to merge them all in one confused mass, subject and submissive to her will. Yet evidently the church- men were only doing their duty when they felt and confessed that the work of repairing society belonged of right to them ; nor could they discover any secret for the efficiency of the church's action more natural than a lofty assertion of her right to control the secular state and make her counsels the guide of the world. The enun- ciation of this policy opened a new channel of thought and discussion quite independent of that stream of which we have observed the rise in the foregoing chapters: THE HILDEBRANDINE REFORMATION. 227 from it flowed a literature appropriated to the exposi- Chap. vin tion of the theory of politics, and ia special of the re- lations of church and state ^. It is not our purpose here to examine in any detail the hierarchical scheme which ia identified with the person and history of the arch- deacon Hildebrand, the pope Gregory the Seventh ; but there are some general considerations with regard to it which it is important to bear in mind, in order to under- stand the conditions under which men wrote. However little we may approve the methods by which Gregory laid the foundations of the papal power', how- ever much we may judge them to have been warped by private ambition, however much defiled by arrogance and cruelty, it would be idle to deny the essential nobility of the conception, which ultimately rested on the necessity of reforming the church as preliminary to the reformation of the world. It was plain that society could not be purified by an instrument as corrupt as itself ; and such had been the condition of the church, at least until the middle of the eleventh century. The crying evil was that it was becoming more and more a part of the state, the clergy entering more and more ' In this and the following chap- decessors had failed to find oppor- ter I am largely Indebted to the tunity. The cardinal's book is in references contained in two very fact difficult to treat except as a compendious tracts by professor Emil controversial and ephemeral pro- Friedberg of Leipzig entitled, Die duction, one of the crowd of big mittelalterlichen Lehren liber das pamphlets called forth by 'Janus.' Verhaltniss von Staat und Kirche ; This character is clearly indicated 1874. in the second edition, in which the * I do not know whether it is polemic comes first, and the histori- necessary to discuss the theory of cal part appears not as basis but as modem curialists, e.g. of cardinal a sort of justificatory appendix. Hergenroether, Katholische Kirche Besides, the text is so dogmatic and und christlicher Staat in ihrer ge- the literaturbelegen so vague and schichtlichen Entwickelung 234 &c., unsatisfactory, that it is almost 2nd ed., Freiburg 1876, that Gre- hopeless to meet the writer, as one gory did little more than carry into would wish, fairly on his own effect principles for which his pre- ground. 228 CLERGY AND LAITY. Chap. VIII. into the enjoyments, the luxury, the profligacy of civil life. Reform, it vras felt, must begin by severing this alliance and constituting the clergy as a class, a caste, by themselves, to oflfer a pattern of purity and seLf-devoted- ness to the laity. To us possibly, with the experience of eight centuries, it may appear that such a scheme was destined by its very nature to fail of its true objects, and that the character of the clergy and their spiritual and moral influence would have been better secured by placing them, with the intrinsic power of their office, not over but among the people. In fact there was perhaps^ no surer means towards the degradation of an order than to absolve it from social restraints and to enforce upon it a special code of morals which not all desired to keep and which many, if not most, found it easy to elude. At the same time the preponderant balance of church authority was precise against the toleration of married clergy, and this part of the reform was rightly defended as a recurrence to patristic, if not to primitive, usage. Moreover the sharper the distinc- tion, the separation, between clergy and laity, the more readily could the former be applied as an external and consolidated force against the disorders of civil society. On general grounds it is perfectly clear that if the church was to exercise that sway which all Christians ' John bishop of Luebeok at the tores a populo timeri . . . Res,' adds council of Basle 1434 made a propo- the narrator, Aeneas Sylvius, after- sition to the delegates 'ut sacer- wards pope Pius the Second, 'erat dotibus Christi nuptias restitue- complurimis accepta ; sed tempori rent : . . . inutiliter uxores esse prae- non convenire. . . . Quidam senes reptas sacerdotibus ; vix inter mille damnabant quod assequi non pote- unum reperiri continentem presby- rant. Eeligiosi, quia voto astricti terum, omnes aut concubinarios, aut erant continentiae, haud libenter adulteros, aut quod peius est, in- audiebant, presbyteris concedi sae- veniri : . . . amicitiae vinculum inter cularibus quod sibi uegaretur :' De laicoB clericosque hao disparitate rebus Basileae gestis commentarius servari non posse ; omnes sacerdotes in C. Fea's Pius Seoundus a Calum- quasi pudicitiae maritalis expugna- nils vindicatus 57 sq., Rome 1823. CHURCH AND STATE. 229 agreed it ought to exercise, over the consciences of men, chap. viii. it. must be as free as possible from those ties which bound it to the secular state; if, for instance, the churchman had to look to his king for preferment, he was not likely to be as vigilant or as courageous in the carrying out of his duty as if he depended solely upon his spiritual chief "'. The isolation and independence of the clergy being then postulated, it was but a step further to assert their superiority, their right of controlling the state. * Gregory had a search made in the papal archives •• Epist. vi 23 JafFe 2. (and found what he believed to be irrefras-able evidence 468 sq. ; cf. ° I.vonDoel- of the feudal dependence of the different kingdoms on the ''^^st'Vabein Roman see. Civil power, — so he wrote to bishop Hermann ffteS'sS^'" of Metz, — was the invention of worldly men, ignorant losi!^ ' ' of God and prompted by the devil ^ ; it needed not only the assistance but the authorisq^n of the church. Viewing the. new policy in its first rudiments, we can- not fail to detect an inevitable source of weakness, so far as its essential aims were concerned. It made demands on the clergy (and a fortiori on the pope, for whom was arrogated a virtual omnipotence on earth) which could hardly be satisfied in a far higher stage of civilisation. In a word it was theoretical, ideal, visionary. As soon as it was brought into the sphere of practice, so soon as the church entered into conflict with the state, it became ' It is curious that Manegold in to foreign preferments which re- his letter to Gebhard dwells upon suited from papal patronage, the disadvantage to the people of ' Quis nesciat rages et duces ab royal patronage because kingdoms iis habuisse principium qui, deum being extensive and including vari- ignorantes, superbia, rapinis, par- ous nationalities, it might and did fidia, homioidiis, postremo universis happen that persons were appointed pene sceleribue, mundi principe dia- to preferments in a district the bolo videlicet agitante, super pares, very language of which they did scilicet homines, dominari caeca not understand. See Hartwig Floto, cupidine et intolerabili praesump- Kaiser Heinrich der Viarte 2. 302, tione aflfactaverunt 1 — Epist. viii. Stuttgart 1856. It is unnecessary 21 JaflK, Biblioth. Ear. Germ. 2. to allude to the practices in regard 457. 230 THE HILDEBKANDINE THEOEY Chap. VIII. evident that the unworldliness assumed in the church only existed in so far that she had no material forces to rely upon; although the weapon of excommunication which she wielded was in fact by far more powerful than any forces that the secular state possessed. If the clergy were free from civil control, society on the other hand had little or no protection against their license. To make the high ecclesiastical officers proudly inde- pendent of the sovereign was to introduce the influence of the Roman see into every court, and to put canonical obedience in danger of becoming a matter of common politics. If ecclesiastical property was released from civil obligation, the church was as much as before sub- ject to the cares and the temptations of wealth. The spiritual basis of the hierarchical pretensions in fact at once broke down on trial. The pope by aspiring to universal dominion, fell to the position of a sovereign among sovereigns ; he became a disturbing influence in the political system of Europe, and the most religious of men were constantly troubled to reconcile their duty towards their country with what they believed to be their duty towards God. The Hildebrandine policy thus contained withiu it the seeds of danger alike to society and to the church itself. But, over and above these intrinsic defects, the idea of a catholic church was confronted and menaced by another idea that did not yield to it in the mag- nificence and universality of its pretensions. The cir- cumstances of the time brought the pope into peculiar relations with Italy and Germany, the inheritors of the >■ cf. Fioto a. title and traditions of the Eoman empire. "^ Hitherto the 386 sqq, ■'■ emperor had been understood to represent on earth the unity and order of the divine government, holding in IN EELATION TO POLITICS. 231 the secular estate a rank equal, and often very far supe- chap. viii. rior, to that occupied by the pope in the spiritual. He was the vicegerent of God j that title had not yet been arrogated to itself by the papacy. With such a doctrine Gregory would have nothing to do ; his attitude with respect to it was unequivocally, defiantly revolutionary. He treated civil government at large as a human institu- tion "so deeply polluted by its sinful origin, — Cain and ° cf. Aug Nimrod, it was commonly explained, were its first J°S^v^^p'°^■ founders, — as to be by itself helpless and criminal. Be- Rom4tt82 tween the two opposing principles no compromise, no lasting peace was possible. But the points on which we would dwell are not so much the broad issues raised in the interminable controversy, as the incidental conse- quences that were drawn from them. There are few facts more striking than the readiness with which the church admitted any form of civil government that would listen to her claims. Theoretically she had no preference for monarchical institutions ; rather, it should seem, she was inclined to promote a democratic senti- ment. Granted only the superiority of the ecclesiastical power, there was no concession she would not make in favour of popular rights: and her advocates speak, now with the voice of ' revolution-whigs,' of the official character of kingship ; now with the earnestness of Crom- well's independents, of the necessity, the duty, of tyran- nicide^. Those passages of the New Testament which " The agreement has been often the common people everywhere ten- remarked. Sir Robert Filmer says derly embrace it,' &c. Then with of the doctrine that mankind is reference to the ' perillous conclu- naturally at liberty to choose its sion ' drawn from this maxim, government, ' This tenet was first namely, that the people have power hatched in the schools, and hath to 'punish or deprive' their sove- been fostered by all succeeding reign, he adds, ' Cardinal Bellar- papists for good divinity. The mine and Calvine both look asquint divines also of the reformed this way : ' Patriarcha i. i pp 2 sqq. ; churches have entertained it, and 1680. 232 DOCTRINE OP MANEGOLD OF LUTTERBACH. Chap. VIII. havG been held to bespeak a divine right for kings are completely ignored, and the hierarchical pamphleteers, almost without exception, draw their lessons from the theocratic, or rather sacerdotal, teaching of the Hebrew scriptures or from the commonplaces of classical history. The most interesting example of this method is to be found in a letter written by Manegold, a priest of Lutter- l'^Fio?o2 ^^^^ ^^ Alsatia, in defence of Gregory''. ^King, he says, °'9 °- is not a name of nature hut a title of office : nor does the people exalt him so high above it in order to give him the free power of playing the tyrant in its midst, hut to defend him from tyranny. So soon as he begins to act the tyrant, is it not plain that he falls from the dignity granted to him? since it is evident that he has first broken that contract by virtue of which he was appointed. If one should engage a man for a fair wage to tend swine (the simile is not flattering), and he find means not to tend hut to steal them, would one not remove him from his charge? It is impossible to express the theory of 'Cap. xivii., ' social contract ' more clearly than Manegold does : "since, he says, no one can create himself emperor or king, the people elevates a certain one person over itself to this end that he govern and rule it according to the principle of righteous go- vernment; hut if in any wise he transgresses the contract by virtue of which he is chosen, he absolves the people from the obligation of submission, because he has first broken faith with it. But the writer was in fact going far beyond what his party required: for certainly nothing could have been more distasteful to Gregory the Seventh and his followers than to give subjects a general right of de- posing their sovereigns. All that the pope maintained ' It is preserved in a single are given by Floto : see his account manuscript, and has not, so far as of the work, vol. 2. 299-303. I am aware, been printed. Extracts THE POLITICAL THEOKY OF JOHN OF SALISBURY. 233 was that they should be ready to rise in arms against Chap.viii. them at the bidding of the head of the church. Indivi- dual or popular liberty was the last thing Gregory wished to establish; absolute obedience was as much a part of his theory as it was of the imperialists : the only question was to whom, as the supreme lord, it was due. It was not however until a considerably later date that the upholders of the independence of the civil state ventured to frame a counter-theory for their action. For the present 'they were content to rely on the established ' cf. Fioio 2. . . 294-298. usage of the Latin church and on the ^ formal recognition e pertz, legg. 2 app. p. 178 ; by Nicholas the Second of the emperor's right to ratify 1837. the election of the pope^. If they be held to have had the better of the argument, they limited themselves to the temporary demands of controversy. The first attempt to look apart from surrounding conditions and to produce a coherent system which should aspire to the character of a philosophy of politics came from the other side. When John of Salisbury applied himself to this subject in three books of his Polieraticus there is nothing to remind us that the contest between Frederick Bar- bar ossa and Hadrian the Fourth was just then ripening to a declaration of hostilities, or that the author himself was alienated from royal favour on account of his at- tachment to the policy of saint Thomas Becket. His treatment bears no reference to contemporary forms of government. His examples are those of the Old Testament or of the ancient Eoman empire ; there is not a trace even of the terminology of feudalism. John may now and then allude incidentally to modern ' It does not fall within my plan graphy will be found in Giesebrecht, to go through the controversial Geschichte der deutsohen Kaiserzeit literature of this time. A biblio- 3. 1049, 1104; 1865. 234 JOHN OF Salisbury's ideal of Chap. VIII. customs, ''but it is only by way of illustration'. The >■ Poiicrat.vi., terms he employs for the officers of government and for the military organization are all foreign to feudal ' Capp. 12 times and almost entirely classical. ' His authorities for 19 p- 377- ' military affairs are Frontinus, Vegetius, and the rest ; his general scheme of the state is drawn from the Institutio Traiani ascribed to Plutarch. There is no sign in it even of an order of nobility. AH temporary matters John passes by, in order to attaiu what appear to him to be the eternal principles of civil right. Like the hierarchical doctrine which he expounds, his theory is entirely ideal, and bears almost an ironical complexion if we think of applying it to any monarchy of his own or indeed of any time. k Lib. iv. 2 '^ John starts from the notion of equity as the perfect adjustment of things, — convenientia rerum, — of which there are on earth two interpreters, the law and the civil 1 Cap. 1 p. ruler. Having by a 'previous definition excluded all bad kings, under the common name of 'tyrants,' from the field of his discussion, he is the more free to elevate " Cap. 2 pp. the ideal grandeur of kingship. ™ When, he says, we speak pindect' fur '/' ^^^ priuce as released from the hands of the law, it is not tit^'iii.'fi,'' ^^^^^ ^^ ^^* license to do wrong, lut forasmuch as he ought to ed.Antwei^ be movcd not hy fear of punishment hut hy the love of justice 1575 folio. to ooserve equity, to further the advantage of the commonwealth, and in all things to choose the good of others hefore his private will. But who would speak of the prince's will in public matters ? whereas he has no leave to will aught therein, save that which is counselled hy law or equity, or determined hy the consideration of the general use. In such concerns his will " Compare his reference to the crat. v. 16 p. 315. Other notices corruption practised by sheriffs and of recent history are very inter- by ' iustitiis quae, ut vulgari noetro esting ; see book vi, 6 pp. 344 sqq. utar, recte dicuntur errantes,* Poli- 18 pp. 370 sqq., &c. MONABCHY IN SUBORDINATION TO THE CHURCH. 335 ought to possess the validity of judgement, and most rightly in Chap. viii. them, according to the maxim of jurists, "^his pleasure hath » uip., ibid., the force of law ; because his sentence differs not from the 84 c. mind of equity. ° Without this understood condition the " ^ °''<:''- '^• J -L p. 240. rence. iHis is the final court of appeal of the world. IquxIv. 3 p. 249. Such in brief outline is the matured statement of the relation of the pope to the temporal power, a statement which in no way exaggerated the pretensions avowed in the papal curia. Growing out of a confusion of ancient, and a disdain of the lessons of modern, history, it aptly reflects the spirit of a time when the church had in practice abdicated her office as the guardian of spi- ritual things and had become immersed in the cares and interests, which she affected to control, of common worldly politics. " Thus also Aegidius Colonna sunt subiecta, a quo iure et a quo (Aegidius Romanus) in an unpub- debito nuUatenus possuut absolvi !' liahed work De ecolesiastioa potes- Lib. ii. 4 (p. 131 n. i). It is tate, from whicb extracts are given curious that this Aegidius should by Charles Jourdain in the Journal have long been regarded as the general de I'lnstruotion publique et author of a certain Quaestio dis- des Cultes, 27. 122 sq., 130-133; putata in utramque partem pro 1858. ' Patet,' he says, ' quod om- et contra pontifioiam potestatem, nia temporalia sunt sub dominio printed by Goldast, vol. 2. 96-107, .ecclesiae collata, et si non de facto, and strongly hostile to the papal quoniam multi forte huic iuri re- claims. The error is corrected by bellantur, de iure tamen et ex Jourdain, ubi supra, and by Dr debito temporalia sunrnio pontifici Riezler, pp. 139 sqq. CHAPTEE IX. THE OPPOSITION TO THE TEMPORAL CLAIMS OF THE PAPACY. Chap. IX. The eclipse of the empire in the latter part of the thirteenth century furnished an opportunity, of which we cannot wonder that the popes availed themselves, for augmenting and extending their political preten- sions. Now however they were involved in a more difficult struggle, since an unsuspected obstacle had arisen in the growing national spirit of England and France. It is principally these changed conditions that make the pontificate of Boniface the Eighth a turning- point in the history of the medieval papacy; and it is an interesting study to watch the interworkings of the new motives in political speculation, now that the op- pressive weight of the imperial conception was for the time removed^. One of the most curious essays in this regard is a treatise written in the latter part of the year 1300 by a certain royal advocate in Normandy, a person whom we may confidently identify with Peter du Bois, who held that office in the bailliage of Coutances, and is ' In collecting materials for the that what I refer to as the second present chapter I have derived very volume of Goldast's Monarohia s. great assistance from the able work Eomani Imperii appears as the third of Dr Eiezler on Die literarischen volume in the reissue of that work in WidersaoherderPapstezurZeitLud- which only the title-page and table wig des Baiers. I may here notice of contents are new, dated 162 1. PETER DU BOIS. 257 elsewhere known as a hot partisan of Philip the Fair Chap. ix. in his contest with Boniface 2. The professed aim of this treatise is to give a short and easy method of avoiding wars so far as the king of France is concerned ; and for this purpose, the author holds, *the best thing «waiiiy 442. for society would be that the whole world should be subject to French rule. For, he explains, it is a peculiar merit of the French to have a surer judgement than other nations, not to act without consideration, nor to place them- selves in opposition to right reason. To reap the full ad- vantage of the arrangement it is necessary moreover * that the king should be born and bred in France, b cr. p. 486 because experience teaches that there the stars present themselves under a better aspect and exercise a happier influence than in other countries. These postulates being granted, du Bois proceeds to indicate the steps by which the desirable result might be attained. " He concedes the right of the papacy to ° pp. 443 sq. all the territories comprised in the grant of Constantiae, but adds that it is plainly beyond the power of the pope to carry his rights , into effect. Being commonly an old and infirm person, and since he is not and cannot be a soldier, his very position is an incitement to the ambi- tion of wicked men. Wars therefore are stirred up ; numbers of princes are condemned ly the church with their adherents, and thus there die more people than one can count, whose souls prolably go down into hell and whom nevertheless it is the pope's duty to guard and to preserve from all danger. 2 See Natalia de Wailly, M^- Inscriptions et dea Belles-lettres 1 8 moire sur un Opuscule anonyms (2) 435-494; 1849. ^ Wailly is intitule Summaria Irevis et com- able to fix the date minutely, pp. pendiosa Doctrina felicis Hxpedi- 471-476, and speculates with much tionis et Ablreviationis Gnerrarwrn, acuteness and ingenuity about the ac lAtiwm Regni Francorum, in author and his other works, pp. the M^moires de I'Acad^mie dea 481-493. 258 THEORY OF A FRENCH EMPIRE. Chap. IX. If however he should surrender his temporal domain, he would be all the freer to devote himself to the proper functions of his office, and a main cause of strife would be removed. But the means by which our speculator proposes to secure this end show with singular direct- ness how entirely the papacy had come to be regarded, not as a spiritual power standing apart from and above the temporal polity of Europe, but as a state to be treated with like any other state. The diplomatic agency, we read, of the king of Sicily might be em- ployed to obtain from the church the title of senator of Rome for the French king, who should receive the holy patrimony, the city of Rome, Tuscany, the coasts and the mountains, Sicily, England, Aragon, and all the other coun- tries, in exchange for an adequate pension to the pope, 'pp- 445-449- their present sovereign. '^Lombardy itself, it is ex- plained, although legally subject to the king of Germany, should oifer no insuperable difficulties ; since its nominal ruler is well aware of the hopelessness of undertaking its reduction to a state of real vassalage, and therefore everything might be easily arranged by a secret treaty either with himself or his electprs *. This being secured it would perhaps be necessary to conquer the Lombards ; any expedient would be lawful against them since nothing could authorise them, to refhise obedience to their prince; and it is clear that they would in time yield to the force of arms assisted by the ravaging of their lands and the ruin of their commerce. The conquest of Lombardy would create so powerful an impression among other nations that the king of France could not fail soon to ' The former, our author speci- right of transmitting his kingdom fies, on the supposition that it is to his heirs, p. 445. The notion true, as is reported, that the king does not seem to occur elsewhere, possesses, or ought to possess, the EXTREME VIEWS IN POLITICS. 259 receive the submission of the rest of Europe ; and thus Chap. ix. a lasting peace would be secured for society. A visionary scheme like this, the work of a layman and a lawyer, even with all its national vanity and exaggeration, is sufficiently indicative of the new horizon of political ideas that opened upon men in the end of the thirteenth century, to be deserving of comment. It shows us that the conception of the empire had already dwindled in the eyes of foreigners into that of a mere German kingdom, and that the temporal sway of the popes was seen to be the cause of endless mischief both to society and to the spiritual basis of the papacy itself. Nor can it escape notice that our theorist enunciates, as it were in a parenthesis, as a doctrine to which no one would think of objecting, that principle of necessary obedience to the temporal ruler which papal advocates had always been inclined to throw into the background or even formally deny. It is in cases like this that the limitations of the medieval miud reveal themselves. To it only the two extremes are possible, absolute obedience to the sovereign or absolute obedience in all things to the church. When the supporters of the latter speak of civil rights they appear as though their single wish was to carry out what we should call a constitutional system ; it is only when their correlative doctrine about the pre- rogative of the church is known, that we see how far they are removed from modern ideas : and in the same way it is regularly their opponents who are the defenders of pure, unrestrained absolutism, however much they may engage our approval when they ^ argue agaiust the tern- « cf. ibid., poral pretensions of the spiritualty with all the attendant 461 sq. inconveniences of ecclesiastical exemptions and privi- leges, and ^urge a far-reaching reform of the entire 'pp. 465-468. s 3 260 COMPARATIVE INDEPENDENCE OF Chap. IX. church-system, a return to primitive purity and primi- tive simplicity*. But it would be an error to suppose that the views of the French publicists, on the relations of church and state, of which du Bois is perhaps the earliest exponent, correspond in more than the object of their common attack with those of the imperial partisans. In the B Ibid., p. Enquiry touching the Tower of the Pojie^, also ^in all 492 ; cf. Riezier 143. probability the work of du Bois, we have a clear state- ment of the distinction between the relations of a king- dom like Prance * to the pope, and those of the empire. ' Quaes'- de ii The pope, he says, is evidently the temporal lord of the P- *'^- emperor ; for the latter needs to be confirmed and crowned by the pope, whereas no such authorisation is required in France. Undoubtedly this freedom from traditionary, even though disputable, restraints upon the title of their sovereign, helped to give a broader and bolder scope to the speculations of French writers ; and the head and front of the literary opposition to the papacy during the early part of the fourteenth century, was found in the university of Paris. Besides, as we ' Compare tte earlier instance of pothesis of the common authorship Eobert Grosseteste in G. Leohler, of this work and of the Summaria Johann von Wiclif und die Vorge- brevis just now described, was not Bchichte der Heformation 1, 192- so well grounded as we have af- 200; 1873. firmed. But the truth is that, in- ' This treatise is printed by stead of ranking England in the Pierre Dupuy in the collection of same class with France, du Bois ex- Acts et Preuves appended to the pressly distinguishes its position : Histoire du Diff^rend d'entre le * Aliquae causae sunt in imperatore Pape Boniface VIII et Philippes le quare subditus sit papae in tempo- bel, Roy de France, pp. 663-683, ralibus, quae non inveniuntur in 1655 folio. aliquibus regibus, siout in regibus ° Dr Eiezler speaks, within marks Franciae et Eispaniae, et fuit etiam of quotation, of 'Frankreich und aliquando in rege Angliae, vide- England,' as though the author had licet, usque ad tempus regis loan- abandoned his previous notion (see nis, qui dicebatur Sine terra' &c. ; above, p. 258) of the English vas- p. 681. The passage is therefore salage. The difference indeed might an argument for, not against, M de lead one to conjecture that the hy- Wailly's conclusion. THE FRENCH POLITICAL DISPUTANTS. 261 have said, the idea of nationality, an idea fatal to the chap. ix. empire, was becoming well understood ; and John Qui- dort, better known as John of Paris, a contemporary of du Bois, ^ dwells upon this as the proper basis of political ' ce potest. reg. et papal. organisation just as strongly as Thomas Aquinas from "'. Go'd^st 2. an opposite point of view had done before him. Thus while the imperialists were more or less obliged to answer any given pretension of the papacy by another theory, possibly no less distorted, of their own, the French writers were able to discuss matters in a more philoso- phical spirit. Nothing for instance can be more ad- mirable than the criticism of John of Paris with reference to the worldly possessions of the clergy. ^ The Wal- " Prooem., denses, he says, maintaia that these possessions, origin- ating in the Donation of Constantine, are the root of the demoralisation of the church ; while others hold that they are intrinsically involved in the prerogative of the pope as the vicar of Jesus Christ. The former alternative was no doubt tempting to the opponents of papal claims, but John's sound sense was not deceived by the con- venience of the argument. ^The truth, he decided, lay in 'ibid., p. 109. the middle between the two extremes : the church might unquestionably have worldly property ; but as a matter of fact she did not hold it by virtue of any vicarship or apostolical succession, but simply by way of grant from princes or other persons, or by similar titles of possession. With equally clear judgement du Bois disposed of the common use of Biblical phrases to prove anything that could be extracted from them by a violent adaptation of metaphor. It is no doubt usual, he says, ™ among pro- » Quaest.de ^ ' ^ ^ -^ potest, pap., fessors of theology to take a double sense in the words of J^^g^^y^?*; Scripture, the literal or historical, and the mystical or ?i"°,<§"„^^£ spiritual : but for purposes of argument none but the '' ^^*- 263 WEAKNESS OP THE IMPEEIAL DOCTEINE : Chap. IX. former can be valid ^. He at once applies this axiom to » cf. Bryce demoHsh the favourite theory, °at least as old as Gregory 267 n. 2. the Seventh, which found in the relation of the sun to the moon an apt and conclusive evidence of the subordina- "DuBois, p. tion of the secular to the spiritual power, and which "sug- gested a variety of arithmetical puzzles as to the exact amount of their proportional magnitudes *. It was in fact in the purely critical work of contro- versy that the assailants of the hierarchy had almost uniformly the advantage : when they passed from criti- cism to the building up of a system of their own, their proposals are, in the view of a political philosopher, hardly less weak than those of their opponents. The French, as we have said, write with greater freedom than their imperial brethren; but in the latter too we find no lack of skill, no lack even of historical percep- tion : and if their ablest recruits were drawn from the university of Paris, still the man who overtopped them all in the abstract splendour of his ideal was an indepen- dent Italian. Yet Dante's books De Monarckia ^, striking as they are, labour under the inevitable defect attaching to the attempt to exchange one impossible theory for another equally impossible. Supposing the human race to be entirely homogeneous, one might at once concede Dante's main proposition that the right and necessary pnimon- form of government ^is that of one universal state by irchl 1. 7-18. ° •' \ a sole universal ruler. But in truth he has no prac- tical arguments to adduce in favour of this, only the ' The same statement occurs in greater than the emperor ; another the Supplication du pueuble de made the ratio as low as 47:1. See !Prance au roy contre le pape Boni- Friedberg i. 6 n. 4. face le VIII, Dupuy 216, — also ' I have made use of the edition, nearly certainly the work of du Bois. with an Italian translation of A. ° According to one calculation Torri Leghorn 1844. the pope was thus 7744^ times dante's de monarchia. a63 general a priori principle of the virtue of unity, and the Chap. ix. examples or precedents of ancient Rome. The resound- ing lines of the Aeneid on which ihe relies, ' Lib. ii. 7. ' Tu regere imperio populos, Eomane, memento ; ' Verg. Aen. Hae tibi erunt artea; pacisque imponere morem, Paroere subiectis, et debellare superboB, might come genuinely enough from a witness of the age .of Augustus : in the fourteenth century, with the empire at its nadir and the Ghibellins of no small part of Italy, and Dante himself, suffering under a common proscrip- tion, they ring almost as an irony. Dante's scheme, as ^has been finely said, was proved not a prophecy but an ■ Brycep. epitaph. If an attempt thus to restore the glories of the empire failed of fruit because it looked backward instead of forward, those of some of Dante's contemporaries, the literary allies of the emperor Lewis the Fourth, were not less unsuccessful because they erred in the opposite direction, because they proceeded on the basis of a more advanced polity which it needed centuries for men to understand. Both-alJke-w:ere_digappointed by reason of their neg lect of the actual circumstances of th eiE_owiLday, ^ B eyond qu egtion^jthe most notable of the la tter _class of theories is that_ofjthe^-Dg^MerJ'- in its temporal relations, this must inevitably exclude the pope from all but spiritual functions. Ockham has travelled by a different road to the same point as Mar- siglio. Neither is really in love with the irnjierial i dggj.,- all that is of importance to them is to erect the state into an organic, consolidated force independent of, and in its own province superior to, that of the spiritualty ; and ofthe first afresh, and comparatively of it as belonging to the sixth trao- eeldoiu assumes conclusions which tatus of the third part of the former one might think had already been work. If this was intended to be proved many times over (from the thus incorporated, why not also parts author's point of view) in the first which we now find there ? The part. It is also, unlike its prede- question however, like most other cessors, subdivided into traotatus literary questions about Ockham, as well as into books and chapters. must be left unsolved until the time How lax the composition of the when his. complete works shall have Dialogus is, we may learn from the been subjected to an analysis such title of Ockham's Opus nonaginta as no one has yet ventured to under- dierum, Goldast 2. 993, which speaks take. 280 MARSIGLIO AND OCKHAM Chap. IX. this done, they circumscribe even the spiritual part of the papal authority by making it in all respects subject to the general voice of Christendom. The pope remains the exponent of the church, but appeal is always open to the church, to the whole society, itself The only dif- ference in the results of the two theorists is that Mar- siglio is confident, while Ockham hesitates, about the unerring sagacity of this final arbiter. But there is, as we have said, a fundamental distinc- tion between the way in which they approach their subject. Marsiglio proceeds from purely philosophical reasoning ; theology he proves that he knew well, but he is not primarily a theologian. He is a clergyman, but he is not in regular orders. Ockham on the other hand starts from the point of view of a theologian and of a Franciscan. Now it is well-known that the point which of late years had roused the great body of the Franciscans to opposition to John the Twenty-Second, was thedatter's condemnation of their newly proclaimed doctriiie of the 'Cf. Ockham. necessity of 'evangelical poverty.' 'From that 'day John rTcoM^f' t)ecame in their eyes a heretic; and although most of Rfcztrlg^^i! tliem had yielded to the papal threats in 1322-1324, yet the general of their order, Michael of Cesena, and a number of others, passed over to swell the ranks which supported Lewis the Bavarian. Among these was Ockham. It was thus a purely theological dispute, almost a mere matter of partisanship, from which he advanced to combat the general assumptions of the papacy. Once grant the doctrine that the clergy are bound to hold no property, and the whole territorial fabric of the Roman church falls to the ground. From this it is but a step, if it is not essentially involved in the same principle, to refuse to the clergy any IN RELATION TO THE FRANCISCAN CONTROVERSY. 281 temporal jurisdiction or in fact any temporal posi- Chap. ix. tion whatsoever. With Marsiglio on the contrary the doctrine of 'evangelical poverty' is the conse- quence, not the premise, of his argument; it flows inevitably from the larger doctrine of the spiritual character of the clergy. Still, now as often, it was the narrower view which retained the stronger attraction for political thinkers ; and thus, while Marsiglio's in- fluence upon posterity is hardly traceable, Ockham left an unbroken line of successors until the enduring elements in his aims found a partial realisation in the religious revolution of the sixteenth century. CHAPTER X. m'Ycliffe's doctkine of lokdship. Chap. X. Ijf examining the various theories held in the middle ages concerning the relations of the civil and spiritual powers, two points in particular attract our notice. One is the marked disproportion between these theories and the facts which they were intended to support or over- throw. A prince might brave excommunication or in- terdict, might persuade himself and his adherents that such acts were invalid and of no effect unless duly, that is, divinely, authorised ; he might ridicule the pretension of the spiritualty to exercise them. Yet when once the decree was pronounced, it was never long before the stoutest champion of national rights found himself isolated among a people to whom the interdict was a terrible reality, insensibly subsided into the same terror, and ended by meekly accepting the doctrine - cf.Miiraan, which he had but now repudiated. » The pope on his hist-ofLat. -^ ^ ^ Christ. 4. side might declare his indefeasible, absolute right to every sort of privilege in every land : over certain coun- tries he might claim immediate sovereignty. But no pope ever thought of carrying the complete doctrine into practice. If Gregory the Seventh be considered an ex- ception, the fact remains certain that he omitted to take bstabbs, any steps to enforce that ''feudal relation which he once const, hist. fio"^'' claimed over England, and which William the Conqueror pointedly rejected. The phrase of the plenary jurisdic- HETEROSENEOUS CHAEACTER OP MEDIEVAL POLITICS. 283 tion and plenary lordship of the vicar of Christ served chap. x. indeed well enough for manifestoes meant to animate men's loyalty ; but when any specific demand had to be made and met, the high-sounding words were virtually exchanged for the more practical language of barter and the common chicane of the market. Neither party could afford to negotiate on their theoretical footing. The other peculiarity to which we have referred, is the medley of systems and maxims which had to do duty in the middle ages as the factors of a political philosophy. One theorist extracted from the Old Testa- ment the model of an hierarchy ; another read in Aristotle principles nearly approaching those of a modern consti- tutional polity. The civil law added something, added much to the imperialists' systems ; the canon-law, with its wonderful adaptations of Biblical texts, was of no less value to the curialists. But the basis of all was either the Bible of the Christians or the Bible of the philosophers, the Scriptures or Aristotle. And what is perhaps the most curious fact of all is that none of the opponents of papal claims (the advocates were na- turally contented with their own canon-law) make any attempt to adjust their schemes to the political or legal framework of their own country. The publicists not only of France but even of England and Germany, write as though the state were constructed on an Aristotelian basis or at most as though its only law was that of the Roman jurisconsults. To this rule however there is one exception, an exception perhaps more illustrative of it than any direct confirmation. For the most ideal scheme of polity conceived in the middle ages, and the furthest removed from practical possibility^ was also one 284 JOHN wycliffe's oppositiox Chap. X. modelled closely on the organisation of feudalism. This is the Doctrine of Lordship, suggested indeed by a pre- vious English writer but so appropriated and matured by John of Wycliffe that he may be fairly considered its author^. In introducing the name of Wycliffe it is well to state at the outset that we have nothing here to do with his position as a precursor of protestant theology. The works in which he first treated the subject of lord- ship were the production of his years of teaching at Oxford; in these the doctrine is completely developed, and his later writings do but presuppose and resume their contents. At this time he was earnest indeed in exposing the political abuses of the hierarchy, but in dogmatic theology he was without blemish ^ His criti- cism was directed against the outer not the inner organisation of the church, and in such criticism he was the ally of many of the loyallest catholics. They saw as he did that the church was falling under the weight of an administration into which the vic.es of the ' The relation between Wycliffe's nificance ; that, namely, which as- doctrine and that of Bichard fitz- serts that every priest has the power Ralph, archbishop of Armagh, was, of dispensing the sacraments and of I think, first pointed out by Mr absolving the penitent: nr xvi, in F. D. Matthew in his introduction J. Lewis, History of the Life and to the volume of English Works of Sufferings of John Wiclif 317, Wyclif hitherto unpublished which 2nd ed., Oxford 1820 (nr xv, ac- he edited for the early English text- cording to the Easciouli zizaniorum society in 18S0, p. xxxiv. The fact 353, ed. W. W. Shirley, 1858, EoUs is confirmed in many details by so series). But this too when read in much as I have read of fitzEalph's the light of the context in Wycliffe's treatise De pauperie salvatoris in original, De civili dominio i. 38 cod. the Bodleian manuscript, auct. F. Vindob. 1341 f. 93 b, proves to be infra, I. 2. of political purport ; since the ex- " The nineteen conclusions con- planation runs, 'Nam quantum ad demned by Gregory the Eleventh potestatem ordinis omnes sacerdotes in his bulls of May 1377 relate ex- sunt pares, licet potestas inferioris clusively to ecclesiastical politics, racionabiliter sit ligata.' This has church-lands, the power of excom- been already noticed by Dr Lechler munication, and the like. Only one Johann von Wiclif und die Vorge- can be held to be of dogmatic sig- schichte der Reformation 1.573 n. 2. TO THE SECULAR TENDENCIES OF THE CHURCH. 285 world had entered almost too deep to be eradicated. Chap. x. The necessity of reform was becoming gradually felt throughout Christendom ; and except among those whose interests were identified with the existing state of affairs, the only question related to the means of carrying the reform into effect. It is important to bear this fact in mind, lest we should infer (as we are apt to infer, know- ing Wycliffe's later history) that in resisting Roman encroachments he was therefore also resisting the current of catholic feeling. He was acting in truth as many catholic Englishmen had done before him. His Chris- tianity did not efface his patriotism, and it was with honest reverence for the papacy that he sought to free it from those mundane temptations which had long proved an obstacle to its real work of guiding the spirits of men. Since almost every particular in Wycliffe's life has been made the subject of eager controversy, it is perhaps desirable that we should preface our account of his doc- trine of lordship by a short sketch of his history as far as the time when he framed and published that doctrine. For the place of his birth we are dependent upon two notices of John Leland; one of which states that he " drew his origin from the house of Wycliffe, settled in the « Coiiectan. ■£. 329. village of Wycliffe-upon-Tees, the other that he was born at Ipreswel, now known as Hipswell, in the immediate neighbourhood of Richmond in Yorkshire^. The date ' A long dispute about the place John Stow's (cod. Tanner. 464), arose from a misprint in Hearne's was made before the manuscript edition of the Itinerary of Leland. was mutilated. Stow therefore re- It so happens that the original mains our sole authority for the manuscript in the Bodleian library name ; but his handwriting is per- is defective exactly at the point fectly unambiguous, and the word where the name ought to occur, is Ipreswel. This, as I pointed out vol. V. fol. 114 b, and that of the in the Athenaeum newspaper, nr various existing transcripts only one, 2960, p. 82 (July 19 1884), Hearne 286 wycliffe's education. Chap. X. we Can Only conjecture; but as he died in 1384, it is f Shirley, natural to fix it somewhere about tho ysar 1320*- ^The intr., p. xi • i i 1 n- '■ well-ascertained connexion wliieh subsisted between the family of Wyclifle and Balliol College, no doubt deter- mined his enrolment at that foundation when he entered the university of Oxford; but considerable obscurity hangs over the details of his subsequent career. A confusion of dates has given rise to the common belief that he was at first a member of the Queen's college, and a confusion with a namesake has set him down as seneschal of Merton^- But it may be taken as proved that Wyclifie began and con- tinued at Balliol, where he must have been a fellow, until in or before the year 1360 he was elected master of the college. Very shortly however he withdrew for a time from the active work of the university to the seclusion of a college living. In the spring of 1361 he was insti- tuted to the rectory of Fillingham in Lincolnshire, and not long afterwards gave up his office at BallioP, since »ibid.,p.sis. he is found to have * occupied rooms at Queen's at various quite inexcusably read as Spreawel, by those adduced by Peter Lori- mistaking the capital I for a mer, in his notes to the English long s ; and from that day to this translation of Dr Lechler's Wiclif, every single biographer of Wycliffe ed. 1881. It seems indeed perfectly has perplexed himself (Dr Eobert clear that Balliol and Merton in Vaughan's exploits in the search WyclifFe's time formed the opposite are notorious) in endeavouring to poles of the academical world. I discover a place which owed its notice that a curious way of ex- existence purely to a scriptural plaining the difficulty has lately error. been suggested by the rev. A. E. * DrLechler vol. i. 268 sq., thinks Pennington, John Wiclif, his Life, i32othelate8tdatepossible. Shirley Times, and Teaching, pp. 40 sq. however was inclined to place it (1884), namely, that the lustre of some years later : Fasciculi zizani- Wycliffe's name induced the fellows orum, intr., p. xii. The traditional of Merton to elect a member from date, since Lewis's conjecture, p. i, a. rival college. At this rate one has been 1324. might prove anything. = The former supposition is re- ' He first appears as master in futed by Shirley, intr., pp. xii, xiii ; 1 360 ; see Lorimer, ubi supra, p. the latter is to my mind decisively 133. The later dates are April invalidated by the arguments of the and July 1361 : Shirley, intr. p. same writer, pp. 513-516, as well as xiv notes 4 and 5. HIS LIFE AT OXFORD. 287 times between 1363 and 1380. It is natural to connect Chap. x. his return to Oxford with his advancement to the degree of doctor in divinity, a step which he is believed to have taken between the years 1361 and 1366''; and the re- newed intercourse with the university, the attraction of schools and disputations, may have made it more diflScult for him to feel at home in his country parsonage. At all events 'in 1368 he obtained two years' leave of 'iwd., P.S27. absence, to the end, that he might devote himself to the study of letters in the university, sin November of that year he eibid., intr., . pp. xxxviii, quitted the rectory in exchange for the living of Lud- ''^^i"- garshall in Buckinghamshire, and nearly six years later (to pass on for a moment to the sequel of his preferments in the church) the crown presented him to the rectory of Lutterworth in Leicestershire. At Lutterworth he died on the 31st December 1384. From this bare summary of his official career one might think that there was little room for WycliiFe's remarkable influence as a teacher at Oxford. Yet al- though his principle of clerical duty did not apparently allow him to hold more than one living at a time, he seems not to have scrupled to spend a great part of the year in the university; and he has even been supposed on no contemptible authority to have filled the post of warden of Canterbury-hall, a foundation of which the site is now occupied by a portion of Christ Church, be- tween the years 1365 and 1367*- As to this matter it ' See Shirley, intr., p. xyii. Dr peared in the Church quarterly Lechler, Johann von Wiolif i. 313 Review 5. 119-141, October 1877. sqq., places the date later, between On the other hand Shirley's obser- 1365 and 1374; but only on account vations in the Fasciculi zizaniorum of his supposed connexion with Can- 5 1 3-5 28 remain of high critical terbury hall. value ; although he erred in under- ^ Almost everyone has now ac- estimating the authority of a con- accepted this identification. The temporary chronicle, which he knew best argument in its support ap- only from a, translation of the six- 288 -WYCLIFPE A.T OXFORD. Chap. X. is Only necessary to notice that a certain John Wycliffe was appointed to that office, and afterwards expelled in order to make room for a monk. The deprived warden appealed to Eome and lost his case. Now, this being known, when a religious agitator of the same name had made himself objectionable to the correct catholics of his day, and in particular to the religious orders, it was all but inevitable that the antecedent history of the one should attach itself to the other. There are indeed strong grounds for believing that the warden of Can- terbury-hall was the same person with the seneschal of Merton whose name, as we have already seen, has caused a certain amount of confusion in the reformer's biography. But if on the whole we are inclined to reject the connexion of the latter with Canter bury -hall, it is right that we should explain that this decision is in no degree owing to the scandal which Wycliffe's op- ponents have discovered in his ejection by the arch- bishop of Canterbury. So far as we can see, there was nothing discreditable to either party in the transaction, and nothing discreditable to the pope who dismissed Wycliffe's appeal, or to the English king who confirmed the papal sentence. It was simply a dispute, one of teenth century, but of which the much choice, at a time when only original has recently been discoTered six colleges existed and not all were by Mr E. Maunde Thompson. See open to all comers. As for the ex- the latter's edition of the Chronicon tract printed by Dr Lechler, toI. 2. Angliae 1328-1388 p. 115; 1874 574 sq., and in part by Shirley, EoUs series. To my mind one of p. 526, from Wycliffe's treatise De the strongest arguments in favour ecclesia, it seems to me to decide of our Wycliffe having been warden nothing ; Dr Lechler's inference of Canterbury-hall lies in the fact from the passage depends entirely that Middleworth who had been at on the force of a comparative, in Merton and who was made fellow familiariori exemplo, and those who of Canterbury-hall at the same time are best acquainted with Wycliffe's with Wycliffe, was also at a later grammar will be the least disposed date resident, as Wycliffe was, at to attach weight to a point of this Queen's ; but, as Shirley points out, kind, pp. 519 sq., there was really not WYCLIFFE AS A POLITICIAN. 289 a kind that constantly arose, between the secular and Chap. x. the regular clergy. At the same time if the reformer be actually the person who was thus deprived we shall no doubt be right in looking upon this event in his personal history as one of the elements which produced his subse- quent rancour against the monastic system ^- To whatever decision we arrive with respect to this affair, it remains certain that Wycliffe continued active in the Oxford schools ; and this is all that we are here concerned to know, since it was not until many years later that he became conspicuous as a leader of opposition to the established doctrine of the church. Yet even now he had made himself a name outside of Oxford. He was, it seems, a ^ chaplain to the king, and had already entered ^ Determ,, ap. Lewis 349. the lists of controversy as an advocate, though in guarded terms, of the rights of the English nation as against the papal claim to tribute from it. In the tract to which we refer 1" he puts in the mouth of seven lords in council the arguments which might be urged against this claim ; and to one of these speakers he gives the announcement of his own special doctrine of lordship. This was in ^ Thus far I am ready to go with the reverend father Joseph Steven- son, whose papers on the subject, published in the Month magazine of August and September 1884, are animated rather by the zeal of a convert than by the critical temper that might have been expected from the author's lifelong training in his- torical investigation. No doubt an equal prejudice affects by far the majority of writers on the protestant side. " The Determinatio quedam ma- gistri Johannis Wyclyff de dominio is printed by Lewis, pp. 349-356 ; not however, as Dr Lechler, vol. 2. 322 n. I, seems to suggest, as an excerpt : its fragmentary condition is due to the manuscript itself, which is in the Bodleian library, arch. Seld. B. 26 [olim 10] ff. 54 sqq. I agree with Mr F. D. Matthew, intr., p. vi, as against Shirley, iutr., p. xix, Lechler, vol. 1. 330, and ap- parently Milman, vol. 8. 163, that this does not contain a report in the strict sense of the word. Wycliffe was very likely present at the debate in parliament ; but even though he may give what he supposes that the lords said, or ought to have said, still the language, the arrangement and a, good deal of the argument, are unmistakably Wycliffe's own. Wycliffe refers to the Eesponsio sep' tem dominorum in his De oivili dO' minio iii. 7 cod. Vindob. 1 340 f. 41 B 290 wycliffe's de dominio divino. Chap. X. 1 366: perhaps at this very time, 'hardly in any case i Shirley, Very long after, he was engaged in his treatise Of the intr., p. xvii. 00 Lordship of God. About five years later he supplemented the work by a more extensive treatise Of civil Lordship ; so that by 1371 or 137a his views on this characteristic subject were fully formed and given to the world ^^. Lordship and service, in Wycliffe's scheme, are the two ends of the chain which links humanity to God. Lordship is not indeed a part of the eternal order of 'Dedominio thiugs, siuce ''it Only comes into existence by the act of divino, 1. f2 ° ' •' •' cod. vindob. creation : God in the first chapter of Genesis becomes 1339 '■ 3 c, D. r Lord in the second, because there are now creatures to iCap.if.2A.be his servants; just as Hhe lower animals are put in the relation of servants by the creation of man. Lord- ship and service are thus necessarily correspondent terms, including, but not identical with, other terms of ■» Cap. 2 f. 3 human relation. "Lordship for instance presupposes right and power, and the exercise of either ; but it is not the same with them: it cannot exist without the coexistence of an object to operate upon^^; whereas a man may have right without actual possession, and " These works I am now pre- still incomplete, the following ac- paring for publication by the Wyclif count of the doctrine they contain society. I have not at present found is only a tentative sketch, reason to modiiy the view put for- '^ lus ergo, cum sit fundamentum ward by Shirley, intr., pp. xvii. xxi dominii, licet sapiat relacionem re- n. 2, with respect to their date. spectu cuius dioitur «««, non tamen My citations are taken from tran- estformaliteripsumdominiumjsicut scripts in my possession of the origi- vis generativa patris non est form- nal codices which are preserved in aliter ipsa paternitas, sed ad ipsum the palace library at Vienna : the ut fundamentum pro aliquo tempore De dominio divino from nr 1339 requisita. Et per ipsum sequitur (which I sometimes correct from quod potestas non sit genus dominii : two other copies in the same library, nam dominium dependet a possesso numbered 1294 and 3935) ; and the serviente vel suo principaliter [cod. Decivill dominio from the only copy 1294: al. principiuml terminante; known to be in existence, books i, ii sed nulla potestas sic dependet, from nr 1341, and book iii from nr ergo nullum dominium est potestas: 1340. I should perhaps add that, De dominio divino i. 2 f. 3 b • of. as my work on these treatises is cap. i f. 2 B. ii, c. THE DOCTRINE OF LORDSHIP. 291 power without the means of exercising it. No catholic, chap. x. for instance, will deny that the -power of the keys is com- mitted to the priest, albeit he have none subjected to his power. Lordship then is neither a right nor a power ; it is a habit of the reasonable nature ^^, essentially involved in the existence of that nature, and irrespective of any condition except that of being set above something inferior to it. Thus, in the case of the Creator, ^it seems ° ibid., r 4 a. probable that his lordship is immediate and of itself, by virtue of the act of creation, and not by virtue of his government or conservation of the universe. ° It surpasses all other ° Cap. 3 fr. lordship because God stands in no need of service, because it is sure and irremovable, and because it meets with universal service. As yet we are in the midst of scholastic definitions and distinctions; but Wyclifie soon finds occasion to state what may be called the fundamental principle of his theory. ^ God, he says, rules not mediately through the p Cap. % f. rule of subject vassals, as other kings hold lordship, since immediately and of himself he makes, sustains, and governs all that which he possesses, and helps it to perform its works according to other ttses which he requires. There is a feu- dalism here, but a feudalism in which there are no mesne lords; all men hold directly of God, with «dif- 'Cap. 4ff. ferences no doubt in accidentals, but in the main fact of ^^ Dominium est habitudo nature . . Adam, as soon as he was created, racionalis secundum quam denomi- had a title only in habii and not in natur suo prefici servienti : cap. i f. act, which, in plain English, is, he I D ; also in the De civili dominie had actually no title at all.' See i. 9 f. 20 D. Locke was very merry the first Treatise on Government at sir Kobert Filmer's expense for iii. i8. Still Filmer's distinction his having used the phrase ' in habit is perfectly legitimate, and I only and not in act ' of Adam's position quote Locke's words in order to as governor before there was anyone show that we have to accept a to govern: 'A very pretty way,' he certain logical terminology before says, ' of being a governor, without we can pretend to criticise a scho- goven>ment, a father, without chil- lastic position such as Filmer's or dren, and a king, without subjects. Wycliffe's. U 2 292 wyclippe's de civili dominio. Chap.x. their tenure all alike. It is this principle of the de- penclence of the individual upon God and upon none else that distinguishes Wycliffe's views from any other system of the middle ages. He alone had the courage to strike at the root of priestly privilege and power by vindicating for each separate man an equal place in the eyes of God. By this formula all laymen became priests, and all priests laymen. They all ' held ' of God, and on the same terms of service. These are some of the elements of the doctrine of lordship which Wycliffe enunciates in the early chapters of his work Be Dominio Divino. The rest of the treatise is principally occupied with the discussion of various questions of a strictly theological or of a metaphysical character, following upon his view of the relation of the Creator to the world, but only indirectly illustrative of that special portion of it with which we are here con- cerned. The practical application of the latter is found at large in the three books Of civil LordsMp which fill more than a thousand pages of close and much-con- tracted handwriting in the only copy known to exist, a nearly contemporary manuscript now preserved in the palace library at Vienna. What is essential however for our present purpose will be found nearly complete in the first thirty-four chapters of the first book, which treat of lordship and government in themselves. This section, as the following sketch will show, indicates in its main outline Wycliffe's salient doctrine of the relation of the secular to the spiritual power ; and we need not pursue its delineation further, when the author, with the exhaustive prolixity of a schoolman, defines its bearing in minute detail upon all the problems arising from this relation which called for criticism in his day. ITS FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 293 Wycliffe begins his book by the proposition, of which chap. x. the ' latter part was already noted as dangerous by ' Lewis 316 , Gregory the Eleventh in 1377, that ^no one in mortal » Decmii sin has any right to any gift of God, while on the other i a. hand every man standing in grace has not only a right to, but has in fact, all the gifts of God. *He takes'iwd., tsb; literally the aphorism which an ancient tradition in- '^ *■ =« °- serted in the Book of Proverbs, T/ie faithful man hath the whole world of riches, hut the unfaithful hath not even a farthing'^^ ; and he supports it with much fulness and ingenuity of argumentation. The first part of his thesis is indeed a legitimate following out of the doctrine which saint Augustin had enforced, of the negative character of evil. ^ Sin, he said, is nothing, and men, when » v. supra, p. 60 n. 12. they sin, become nothing: ^if then, argued Wycliffe, sirmers, ^Deciv.dom. as such, are nothing, it is evident that they can possess nothing. Moreover ^ possession presupposes a right or'^iwd-, f. title to possess, and this right or title can only be held ultimately to depend upon the good pleasure of God, who, it is evident, cannot be thought to approve the lordship of the wicked or the manner in which they abuse their power. Again, by the common law it is not permitted to an inferior lord to alienate, in particular to mortmain, any real property without the license of his lord- in-chief, and any grant in contravention of his will is unrighteous ; accordingly, inasmuch as God is the lord- in-chief of all human beings, it should appear that any grant made tg a sinner must be contrary to his will, and '* It is found in the Septnagint the sentence possibly from the first version at the end of Prov. xvii. 6, formed part of the original book, in the Alexandrian manuscript after Wycliffe knew it from Augustin, ver. 4 ; ToC iricrrov o\os 6 Kdaj^os Epist. cliii. 26, Opp, 2. 534 B, and Tail/ xPVt^'^'^^t "^^^ ^^ a-niffjov ouSe Jerom, Epist. 1., Opp. 4 (2) 575> i^ o^oKos, Dr Bertheau, Die Spriiche the Benedictine editions. Salomo's, intr., p. xlvii (1847) thinks 294 wycliffb's dootbine op Chap. X. thus being unrighteous must be no possession in any strict or proper sense of the word. But even granting that the ' Cap. sf.i ID. sinner have such possession, "^ all lordship of man, natural or civil, is conferred upon him. hy God, as the prime author, in consideration of his returning continually to God the service due unto him ; but hy the fact that a man hy omission or com- mission becomes guilty of mortal sin, he d frauds his lord-in- chief of the said service, and hy consequence incurs forfeiture : wherefore . . . he is rightfully to he deprived of all lordship whatsoever. How then does the wicked man come to • Cap. 2 f. 3D. have property in earthly things? ^Wycliffe's expla- nation turns upon the double meaning of the word church, considered either as the holy spouse of Christ or as, in its transitory condition, the human society mixed of good and evil. To the church in its ideal signification God makes his grant ; the wicked have their share only by virtue of their outward membership of it^^. But since, as has been said, the sole sufficient title to any possession is the immediate grant of God, it results that such possession as the wicked have is not worthy the 1" ibid.,f. 4 A, name of possession at all : and '' Whosoever hath not, from Matth. XXV. iiiyi^ shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have. 29 Vuig, By means of this and similar texts of Scripture the way is prepared for Wycliffe's second main principle ; namely, that the righteous is lord of all things, or in o Cap. 7 f. 15 D, precise terms "every righteous man is lord over the whole world. If a man has anything he has every- one dom. thing : for, as Wycliffe says elsewhere, * the grant of God f- 71 D. J5 Wycliffe makes a curious dis- nature (aut esse primuiu) vel ad tinotion between 'giving 'and 'grant- bonum gracie (vel perfeccionem ing,' da/re and donate ; the former secundam) ; primo mode dat deus is a general term, the latter applies omni inanimate vel iniuato quid- only to the righteous, or to the quid habet ; sed secundo modo church. Donacio dicit gratuitam daciouis, que est donacio, non • dacionem, et dacio est equivocum dat aliquid nisi iustis : Cap. 2 ad tradicionem solum ad bonum f. 3 D. LORDSHIP POUNDED IN GBA.GE. 295 is mod appropriate, most ample, and most useful to the creature; Chap. x. so ample indeed that ^God gives not any lordship to /w °.ibid.; de civ. dom. i. 7 servants except lie first give himself to them. Thus, ^ even f"'- '* °- ^Ibid., f. 16 B. when the righteous is afflicted in this life, he still has true possession of the whole universe, inasmuch as ^ all » Rom. vUi. things work together for good to him, in assisting him to- wards eternal happiness. It would be impossible to indicate the spiritual nature of the lordship claimed by WyclifFe for the righteous, more distinctly than by this example : yet he proceeds to dwell upon its literal truth in a way that might almost persuade us that he is really developing a system of polity applicable to the existing conditions of life. He is not afraid to pursue his doctrine to the logical conclusion that, ''as they are 'Dec'v.dom. ° ' •' 1. 14 f. 31 c. many righteous and each is lord of the universe, all goods must necessarily be held in common ^^ He ex- pounds the rules of charity laid down by saint Paul [charity with Wycliffe is the correlative term to grace), and interprets the sentence, ^Charity seeketh not her own — 'iCor.xUi.s. '^seeketh not to be a proprietor but to have all things m'Deciv.dom: , , i- isf'35 A, B. common. Any objections to the doctrine he dismisses as 'sophistical. ""Those adduced by Aristotle hold, he 'Cap.14f.31c. says, only in regard to the community of wives proposed 32 B-33'A.' by Plato ; but this application may be proved to be logically fallacious. Such are in brief the fundamental principles of the treatise Of civil Lordship : the righteous has all things ; the wicked has nothing, ° only occupies for the time « cap. 5 flf. 10 D, II A. that which he has unrighteously usurped or stolen from the righteous. Lordship, in a word is founded in grace ; " Omnis homo debet esse in quod non staret cum multitudine graoia, et si est in graoia eat domi- horainum, nisi omnes illi deberent nus universitatis ; ergo omnis homo habere omnia in communi ; ergo debet esse dominus universitatis : omnia debent esse oommunia. 296 wycliffe's view of human institutions. Chap. X. and grace, or, from another point of view, the law of the ~ Gospel, being alone essential to it, it follows necessarily » Capp. 17, 34 that "human ordinances are accidental or indifferent. 80 Id/"''' The latter, Wycliffe maintains, are in fact ^the mere lzg%t' consequence of the fall of man: they originate in sin, in i/ie lust of lordship ; and for the most part they betray 1 Cap. 18 their origin evidently enough by «the opportunities they offer for wrong-doing and tyranny. When therefore we require, in addition to the natural lordship wrhich is that ' Ibid., of the Gospel, "'an inferior sort of lordship, civil lordship, the latter, it is clear, must not pretend to any absolute or essential character ; it is transitory and liable to modification according to the changing conditions of human society ; above all it is entirely subordinate to • Capp. 5, 19 that natural lordship ^from which it draws whatever ff. 12 B, 43 A, B. claim it may have to righteousness". Accordingly, saving this one grand principle, Wycliffe does not care to lay down any fixed rules as to the best form t'cf. supra, of government. Like *Ockham, he feels too deeply the necessary infirmity of all human institutions to be able ^Deciv.dom. to dogmatise about their relative excellence. "Suppose, he says, the whole people desire a certain man to be their civil ruler, it does not follow on that account that he is rightly their ruler; nor can any human laws touching hereditary succession or the conveyance of property make such succession or transfer righteous or true, unless they are conformable to the law of nature 1*. " W3'cliffe thus states the dis- autem civile est dominium ocoasione tiuction between naturaJ and civil pecoati humanitus institutum, in- lordship : Dominium qaidem natu- communicabile singulis et, ex equo, rale est dominium divinitus insti- multis dominie, sed abdioabile ser- tutum, in prime titulo iusticie fun- vata iusticia : Cap. 18 f. 40 D. datum, quotlibet divites ex equo " Nam non sequitur, ' Totus compaoiens, sed alienaoionem domi- populus vult Petrum domiuari civi- nantis [cod. dominanter], servata liter ; ergo iuste : * ymmo primus iusticia, non permittens ; dominium consensus populi ad aliquem civili- HIS SPECULATIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 297 The law of nature in Wycliffe's mouth is something far chai-. x. different from that of which other schoolmen found the exposition in the Politics of Aristotle. He adopts in fact the point of view of the strict hierarchical ad- vocates, only with the all-important difference that his lawgiver is not the church but the Bible itself. There is therefore a lack of decision about Wycliffe's treatment of the different methods according to which a society may be governed. In the abstract ^he thinks 'Cap. 27 that an aristocracy, by which he understands the rule of judges in the Old Testament sense, must surpass any other constitution, because it is the least connected with civil ordinances. He applies the example of the Israelite history, according to which, he says, judges were first set by God over his people and monarchy was a sign of their defection from the divine rule; finally, he adds, they came under the worst sort of rule, that of priests, which was most of all vitiated by human tradition and indeed altogether corrupt. Balancing the two former modes of government, ^Wycliffe ap-^ibid., pears to feel that, granted the sinful state of mankind, <^^p- =8 f. 67 c. government by a single ruler is on the whole the most beneficial, since it is the strongest to restrain theii" excesses. ^ He goes on to enquire whether lordship should "Cap. 25 be transmitted by hereditary succession or whether a fresh choice should take place at every vacancy. On the one hand it may be urged that the security of tenure possessed by an hereditary monarch, and the certainty he has of handing down his lordship to his son, is an ter dominandum, qui tamen fuit a principia iuris oivilis de sucoessione peccato purior, non fuit iustus nisi hereditaria vel commutacione mutua presupposita raoione, scilicet quod terrenorum est iusta vel vera, nisi persona douiinans sit a deo accepta de quanto est legis nature parti- ad illud officium ; et per idem, nulla cula ; ibid., f. 42 B. 298 WYCLIFFE ON MONARCHY. Chap. X. inducement to him to play the tyrant; on the other hand this very fact may increase his care for his dominion and cause him to make the best use of it. It is here assumed, as regularly in the middle ages, that a prince whom the community has elected, it may depose ; while an hereditary monarch, according to the common belief, could not be legally deprived of his power. Again, ■Cap. 29 in favour of the elective principle, *it may be said that an election in which all qualified persons take part must be right. But WyclifFe, as we have seen, has no opinion of the value of the popular vote : since the fall of man, he says, it generally happens that the electing com- munity is, altogether or in its greater part, infected hy crime ; and thus it happens that it is at fault in elections, even as in other acts alike concerning God and the commonwealth^^. WyclifFe argues at length on both sides ; incidently he I- Cap. 30 discloses a good deal of political acuteness, and ''he f. 70 B, C leans towards a preference for the hereditary principle : but no experience or historical observation will induce him to forego the application here also of his first ° Ibid, doctrine ; and thus ° he decides that neither heredity f . 69 n ; cf. ' _ _ •' cap. 29 nor election furnishes any title sufficient for the found- sab nn. "^ ation of human lordship, without the anterior condition J Cap. 30 of grace in the person so elected or so succeeding. ^ Where- fore it appears to me that the discreet theologian will determine nothing rashly as touching these laws, but will affirm according to law that it were better that all things should be had in common. But lordship, as was stated at the outset, has another " The only concession he makes sihi utilius, cum hoc quod populus is as follows; Non est possibile utrobiquedeo faciatquidquid debet; communitatem in eleccione deficere, f. 69 c. But it will be seen that nisi peccatum pertinens sit in causa; the qualification repeated in this deus enim non potest deficere ab sentence deprives it of most of its instinctu regitivo populi secundum value. LORDSHIP BY VIRTUE OF SERVICE. 299 aspect to it ; ^the theory of the community of lordship in chap. x. itself involves its counterpart, the community of service. ° Cap. n In this we find the only check recognised by WycliflPe, "^^p^ s^ '■ upon the action of kings : they have a responsibility, not, — we may infer from the tenour of his argument, — to the people over whom they rule, but to God from whom they derive their lordship. ^ They are his stew- j^^^p^'s ards, and lords only by virtue of service. God is the only lord whose dominion is unattended by this con- dition ; all other lords are servants not only of God but also of all their fellow-men. sThe superscription ^Capp-^^'- of papal letters, servus servorum, acknowledges this truth ^^ "■ in the most exalted of ecclesiastical potentates: '^it has'^ap. nf. the authority of the apostle who bade the Galatians, ^By 'Gai. v. 13. love serve one another. We have seen the corollary of this principle ; since all are lords and all servants one of another, then, all things, all that we call property, must belong in common to all. But if we are startled by the premature socialism of the thesis, we have to bear in mind that WyclifFe had yet to learn its effects in practical life, as displayed in the excesses of the rebels of 1 38 1. Such apphcation indeed was never in his mind; nor did he ever pass a word which could be interpreted into approval of a violent assertion of those rights which notwithstanding he fuUy conceded. AU thiags were all men's, but so long as the present state of polity subsisted it was unlawful to acquire them by force : for on the one hand the human constitution of society had the divine sanction, although it were im- perfect by comparison with its eternal or evangelical ordering ; and on the other hand force was incompatible with the primary dictates of the law of God. Wycliffe's communism is thus expressly limited to a 27 A-C 300 IDEAL NATURE OF WYCLIFFE'S CONCEPTION. Chap. X. Condition of the world not present, but to be looked for and worked for : nor only thus ; it is also limited to a field of possession other than that of human or temporal " Cap. 9, i6 acquirement. ^ Earthly loss is heavenly gain, and the ff. 19 D, 20 A, . 1 J? j.1_ 37 A, B, &c. care of earthly things is a barrier to our love 01 those Cap. 12 f. which are our proper objects. 'If we seek the shadow we shall fail of the substance, but if we press forward to the substance the shadow will follow and attend us too. The righteous therefore has all things, not neces- sarily, not principally, in this present life ; but as his right now, and as his sure and indefeasible enjoyment hereafter. His lordship, being founded in grace, has the warrant of God's decree : the fruition of it may be delayed, so far as earthly goods are concerned, but possession of all things remains his inalienable right. The sinner on the contrary by the very fact of sinning loses all right to anything. His lordship is no longer founded in grace, it has no substantial existence ; it may seem to stand for a time, but he reaps his good on this earth only to be one day terribly recompensed. This opposition between the righteous who have all things and the unrighteous who have nothing, runs through all WycUSe's argument on the question of lordship. In it he finds the secret of the differences of human lot ; by its means he is able to reconcile the prosperity of the wicked with the troubles and disap- pointments of the good. He translates the Bible into the language of feudalism, and then having satisfied himself that Christianity and lordship are convertible terms, he proceeds to explain his new-found polity on a strictly spiritual basis. But however ideal the principle on which Wycliffe goes, it has none the less a very plain meaning when applied to the circumstances of ITS APPLICATION IN THE PRESENT. 301 the religious organism in the writer's own time. For chap. x. the essence of the whole conception lies in the stress which he laid upon inner, as opposed to outer, elements as those which determine a man's proper merit. To WycliiFe it was the personal relation, the immediate dependence of the individual upon God, that made him worthy or unworthy ; it was his own character and not his office, however exalted in the eyes of men, that con- stituted him what he really was. The pope himself, if unworthy, if personally a bad man, lost yj*o facto his entire right to lordship. Here however, as so often in WyclifFe, an important distinction has to be settled. Every good man, we have seen before, is lord of all things, but he is not on that account at liberty to assert his possession of them in contravention of civil right : so also ™he cannot claim to ""^f- Shirley, ^ intr., pp. disobey the civil ruler because that ruler is personally i'''"-'^''. unworthy of his post; his rule is at least permitted by God. Thus WyclifFe expressly repudiates the in- ference which might naturally and logically be drawn from his premises. God,, ran his famous paradox, ov,ght to oley the devil^'^ ; that is, no one can escape from the duty of obedience to existing powers, be those powers never so depraved ^^- But there is logic also in Wy- clifFe's position. As things are, he felt, the spheres of ™ This appears first in the later endo, servata caritate, quod non list of Wycliffe's errors, 1382: poterit esse malum ; vel active mini- Lewis 358 nr vii, Sliirley 278, 494. straudo in bonis fortune aut mini- But it is perfectly in keeping with sterio corporali, quod indubie, ser- his earlier doctrine. vata de possibili caritate, foret bo- ^^ Wycliffe has a chapter in the num. Yet, he hints, a Christian, De oivili dominio, i. 28, in which 'si esset verisimile homini per sub- he discusses, and decides in the traocionem temporalis iuvaminis de- affirmative sense, the duty of obe- struere potentatus tyrannideni vel dience to tyrants. Hie dicetur quod abusum, debet ea intencione sub- dupliciter contingit iuste obedire trahere : ' f. 66 A, B, mundi potentibus: vel pure paci- 302 WYCLIFPE ON THE CHUECH Chap. X. Spiritual and temporal sovereignty are kept asunder; The spiritual authority has no competence to interfere with the temporal, nor the temporal with the spiritual. Each is paramount within its own area of jurisdiction, so far as the present state of affairs is concerned ; but in the eternal order of the universe right, power, lordship, and the practical exercise of authority, are dependent on the character, the righteousness, of the person to whom they belong. It is Wycliffe's veneration for the spiritual dignity of the church that led him to sever its sphere of action from that of the world. No pope or priest of the church, » Deciv.dom. he held, could claim any temporal authority: '°-lie is i. II f. 24 A. a lord, yea even a king, but only in things spiritual. So far as the pope, to take the salient instance, recedes from this position, so far as he holds any earthly power, » Cap. 17 so far is he unworthy of his office. °For to rule temporal possessions after a civil manner, to conquer kingdoms, and exact tributes, appertain to earthly lordship, not to the pope ; so that if he pass by and set aside the office of spiritual rule, and entangle himself in those other concerns, his work is not only superfluous but also contrary to holy Scripture. It would however be a signal mistake to regard Wycliffe's inten- tion here as directed in any sense to the overthrow of the papacy. He has not only a clear perception of, a firm belief in, the supremacy of the spiritual chief p Cap. 13 of the church; he goes so far as to assert that "no one can have even the goodwill of his fellow-men, amicitia, except by grant of the pope, ratifying the grant of God. This dignity, he feels, is in truth incompatible with the business of the external world : he would free it from those impediments. In such an endeavour Wycliffe had forerunners in f. 30 A. IN RELATION TO THE STATE. 303 several of the controversial writers with whom we have chap. x. been occupied in the preceding chapter. There was nothing new in his argument on this head^ save only the way in which he fitted it into his framework of lordship. The pope, he explained, is indeed lord ; . all men are ,^ lords : but just by virtue of mutual service. If any one should seek to raise himself above service, to make him- self lord absolute, he becomes by this very act all the more a servant, all the less a lord. This paradoxical position is protected by the altogether ideal character of the scheme. To resume for a moment his salient con- ception, Wycliffe tries to withdraw himself from the thought of any civil polity ; he insists that * the law of'i Cap. i? f. 39 B. the gospel ts sufficient hy itself, without the civil law or that called canonical (the qualification is noteworthy), /or the perfect rule of the church militant ; human laws and ordi- nances, he considers but the consequence of the fall of man. He looks forward to a state of things in which it will be possible to dispense with everything but the divine and eternal law: he has not, as 'Thomas Aquinas 'v. supra, p- 244. had, the philosopher's insight which could recognise a human law as something inextricably involved in the existence of an human society. It was therefore when the power of the spiritual and temporal lord crossed one another that WyclifFe's strict principle came into play. When the church exercised functions which justly belonged to the state, when it became involved in transactions about money and terri- torial possession, then, he held, it was time for the state to interfere and vindicate its right over its own affairs. The mis-used revenues of the church were to be won back and the spiritualty was to be limited to its proper spiritual ofiice. Such at the date of Wycliffe's history 304 WYCLIPFE ON THE CHUECH Chap. X. to which alone our attention is directed, was the maia result to which his theorising had led him 22. But it is evident that the principle on which he built could not fail to bring with it other no less practical conclusions. By means of his doctrine of lordship he not only un- dermined the fabric of the hierarchy, since each indi- vidual is answerable to God alone, but also was already moved to question, with Ockham, whether the pope be an indispensable element in the fabric ^^ ; he even specu- lates whether it be not possible that one day the ship of Peter, the church, may not consist exclusively of lay- men 2*. Another step, such a step as was suggested by the schism of 1378, would lead Wycliffe into fixed oppo- sition to the papacy. At present he is still animated by a loyal reverence towards the head of the church : he only disputes the pope's pretensions when they exceed the sphere of his true functions as such ; he only dis- cusses in a theoretical way the abstract necessity rather than the expediency of the existing order of things. The ultimate form which Wycliffe's teaching assumed is a commonplace of religious history. We have here restricted our consideration of it to a time when it might still be regarded as a genuine product of catholic thought. Like the ferment of questions which filled the ^ Cf. de civ. dom. ii. 1 2 f. 1 98 A, B : primitiva ecclesia quod Christianus Domini temporales possunt legit- sit in gracia, credendo in Christum, time ac meritorie auferre divicias a licet nullum aliud caput ecclesie quoounque clerico habitualiter abu- ipsum direxerit : Lib. i. 43 f. 123 c. tente; or in larger terms, f. 198 0; ^* Navicula quidem Petri est Domini temporales babent potes- ecclesia militans. . . Nee video quin tatem ad auferendas divicias legit- dicta navis Petri posait pure per time ac meritorie eciam a tota eccle- tempus stare in laycis. Ideo nimis sia possessionatorum in casu quo sophisticant qui triplicant templum eis habitualiter abutatur. domini, et referunt navem Petri ^ Caput ChristuB cum sua lege tamquasi ad per se causam origi- est per se sufficiens ad regulam nalem, id est, ad istam Romanam sponse sue ; ergo nullus alius homo ecclesiam vel quamcunque parti- requiritur tamquam sponsus. . . cularem citra Christum ; ibid., f. Sufificit enim modo, sicut suffecitin 127 c. TN RELATION TO TPIE INDIVIDUAL. 305 deliberations of the councils of Constance and Basle half Chap. x. a century later, they are still charged with the spirit of the middle ages. Like those debates they point forward also to an age that is yet to come. The full solution, of the political problems of the church was left for the more strenuous struggle of the sixteenth century ; but if Wycliffe's later career made him in spirit the pre- cursor of the protestant reformation, he had already found out for himself the great secret of modern belief, a principle far more important than any of the special doctrinal details which afterwards roused his anta- gonism. He has not indeed the credit of having dis- covered the peculiar formula of 'justification by faith,' which to superficial readers appears to constitute the kernel of reformation-teaching, but he has dared to codify the laws which govern the moral world on the basis of the direct dependence of the individual man on God^^. In using the word individual w& are indeed de- parting from the strict meaning of Wycliffe's words, and introducing an apparent contradiction to that doctrine of community which lies at the root of his exposition. Such is however the purport of his language, as we should now understand it : to Wycliffe himself the individual Christian was nothing save by virtue of his membership of the Christian body; but since he divorced the idea of the church from any necessary connexion with its ofiicial establishment and left it purely spiritual, to say that a man's relation to God is determined by his union '* Deus . . . dat sua cariamata cui- dum ecclesiam: ibid., f. 123 p, c. libet Christiano, constituens cum eo, Cf. f. 122 D: Quecunque ergo per- tamquam membro buo, unum corpus sona fidelis ecolesie, laycus vel cle- misticum ; ad uuUam talem influen- ricus, Latinus vel Grecus, masoulus ciam requiritur persona hoininis dig- vel femella, sufficit ad fidem instru- parata ; ergo nulla persona Komane mentaliter ac occasionaliter gignen- eccleaierequiriturtamquam medium dam. The entire argument of the absolute neceasarium ad regulan- chapter is highly instructive. 306 WYCLIFFE LESS A PHILOSOPHER Dk.p. X. -with the church, is the same as to say that he stands on his own private spiritual footing. Individualism is therefore only another aspect of Wycliffe's communism ; and thus, however visionary and unpractical the scheme may be in which he framed it, however bizarre in many of its details, the fundamental principle of his Doctrine of Lordship justifies its author's title to be considered in no partial sense as the father of modern Christianity. The uniqueness of Wycliffe's conception may justify the length at which we have dwelt upon it ; but we must not claim for it more than its proper due. Wy- cliffe, it should seem, started from the point of view of an ecclesiastical politician. Leaving out of account some dialectical treatises, which were merely what was expected of a master in the university schools, his earhest productions were professed political pamphlets ; and his maturer works on civil dominion have the appearance of giving the solution which he had discovered for the ecclesiastical problems which agitated his country, rather than the results of self-contained philosophical specu- lation. Wycliffe did not in fact possess the philoso- phical temper in its finer development. He was thoroughly grounded in what passed for philosophy in the scholastic world of his day ; but it is impossible to deny that philosophy was by this time far gone in its decadence. The richer the materials in men's possession, the less they were concerned to apply to them the higher gifts of the intellect, the more they wearied themselves in fruitless ingenuity, in infinite refinements of infinitesimal distinctions. Even homely fallacies in logic they did not disdain to cloak by their expertness in its technical manipulation. Fashion de- manded that a certain number of proofs should be THAN A THEOLOGIAN. 307 adduced for every proposition ; and the weight or even Chap. x. the relevance of the proof was, as often as not, immaterial. . In the most laborious, or the most laboured, arguments we frequently find the elements of serious enquiry to be altogether wanting. In his formal exposition WyclifFe is as great a sinner as the rest. More than this, if we pardon the vices of his method, it is not, we must acknow- ledge, in deference to a commanding intellectual vigour. He had not, Ockham had only in part, that keen political insight which gives Marsiglio of Padua his enduring renown : but Ockham and Wyeliffe were dominated by an overpowering religious principle ; and it is the latter's instinctive, his prophetic, sympathy with the aims and ideals of the modern reformed churches that constitutes his real historical significance. X 3 APPENDIX. APPENDIX. I. Note on the origin of the legend eespecting John the Scot's travels in Greece. It has been constantly repeated, as an old story to Append, i. which modern critics cannot be expected to give credence, that John the Scot made a journey into Greece, and derived thence a part of the materials of his extraordinary learning. The story, however, is itself of entirely recent origin, and rests, so far as I can discover, exclusively upon the authority of bishop Bale. His words are : ^loannes Erigena, Brytannus natione, in Menevia Deme- ' Script, ill. tarum urbe, seu ad fanum Davidis, ex patrioio genitore natus, catai. li. 24 a quibusdam scriptoribus philosopbus, ab aliis vero, sed extra Tss" foiio?^ lineam, Scotus cognominatur. Dum Anglos Daci crudeles bellis ac rapinis molestarent, et omnia illic essent tumultibus plena, longam ipse peregrinationem Athenas usque suscepit, annosque quam plures Uteris Graecis, Cbaldaicis, et Arabicis insudavit. Omnia ilHc invisit philosopborum loca ac studia, imo et ipsum oraculum soils quod Aesculapius sibi dim con- struxerat. In quo, abstemio cuidam humilimus servivit ut sub illo abdita sciret philosophiae secreta. Inveniens tandem quod longo quaesierat labore, in Italiam et Galliam est reversus. The source of this passage is manifestly the following chapter in the Secreium Secretorum, otherwise known as the Liber Moralmm de Regimine Principum, and vulgarly ascribed to Aristotle. I quote from the manuscript in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, cod. cxlix. f. 4, adding in the margin a collation of the small Paris edition of i5ao, fol. v. ^ Various , .... «,. Ti A • •• T Readings. Diohannes qui transtulit chbrum istum filius ratncu, lin- >> Joannes. ft 1 •,• ' • 'i XT "^ istum lib. guarum mterpretator peritissimus et ndelissimus, inquit, JN on rum. ° neque. p consueve- rint. 312 APPENDIX. Append. I. reliqui locum ^ nec templum, in quibus philosophi ^ consue- verunt componere et freponere sua opera Bsecreta bquod non i viaitavi ; nec aliquem peritissimum quem credidi ^ habere ali- l'PZ}?a. quam noticiam de scripturis 1 philosophiois quem non mexqui- i'wsftaveriih. sivi : quousque veni ad oraculum solis, quod' » construxerat haw!"" Esculapides "pro se. In quo inveni quemdam virum soli- n^^ur.' tarium abstinentem, Pstudentem in philosophia peritissimum, " coITstruxit ** ingenio excellentisaimum, cui me humiliavi in quantum potui, l^'^'^T' servivi 'diligenter, et supplicavi devote ut mihi ostenderet ling.exc.^^- secreta scripta illius oraouli : qui smihi libenter tradidit. 'Et ,' '^' ''■ inter ^ cetera ^ desideratum opus inveni, propter quod ad 'deest. y ilium loGum iveram, et tempore loneissimo ^ laboraveram. " quod. \ . . » opus desid. Quo habito ^ ad propria cum gaudio remeavi. Inde referens lum. b crracias multis modis creatori, et ad peticionem regis illus- ' laboravi. . . . . -, » cum gaudio trissimi laboravi: "gtudens \ inter lin., vel studiisl et transtuli ad propria. _ , 1" grates mul- primo ipsum de lingua Greca in Descr. xHing sanctum Grimbaldum, artis musicae peritissimum et in comp., Rer. ... . . ,. . . Anglic. divims scripturis eruditissimum, evocatum e Francia, suo novo script, post . Bed. 870, ed. monasterio quod Wmtoniae construxerat praefecit m abbatem. Frankfurt Similiter de veteri Saxonia lohannem, cognomine Scotum, acerrimi ingenii philosophum, ad se alliciens, Adelingiae mona- sterii sui constituit praelatum. Ambo isti doctores literatissimi, sacerdotes gradu et professione monachi sanctissimi erant. If anyone care to pursue the passage further, he will find that the forger has merely confused Asser by im- porting into his narrative the name of John Scot, which he knew, evidently, from the story made popular some gener- ations earlier by William of Malmesbury. 4. This story is told by William in three separate works, .V Lib^ ii^ 122 in the ^ Gesta Regum, the ^ Gesta Pontifimm, and in a letter Hirdy"' ' ^'^'^I'essed to a certain Peter. The second of these accounts ' Lib. V. 240 also reappears, nearly word for word, in what is known as ed'rfamii-' the Secotid Chronicle of Simeon of Durham ; but this has no claim to be regarded as an independent authority *. Of William's three narratives, that contained in the epistle to Peter, which is entirely occupied with the subject of John Scot, furnishes all that is essential to our present purpose. ' Consequently the passage is not 14S sq., 1652 folio. On the cha- reprinted in the edition of Simeon raoter of the Second Chronicle see in the Monumenta historica Britan- the preface to the Monumenta nioa : see vol. i. 684 note b. It p. 88, and Hardy's Descriptive will be found in Twysden's His- Catalogue 2 . 1 74 sqq. toriae Anglicanae Scriptores decern STORIES OF JOHN SCOT IN ENGLAND. 317 It was first printed by Gale, e cod. Thuaneo ms., among the Append, ii. Testimonia prefixed to his edition of the Be Divisione Na- turae ; from which I transcribe it, adding in the margin a collation with a "copy existing among the royal manuscripts ' ^°'^-."=fv in the British Museum. This manuscript, I should observe, =5 fa- is of the last quarter of the eleventh century ; but it cannot conceivably be autograph, as is strangely asserted in the index to the edition of the '' Gesta Fontificnm, published •■ p- 531 ^■ in the Rolls series. From the point in the course of this letter, at which the others of William's compositions intro- duce the narrative about John Scot and thenceforward run parallel with it, I give at the foot of the page a collation of them as well. Varioiis Readings. Petro suo Willelmus suus divinae philoscyphiae participium. Fraternae dilectioni morem, frater amantisime, geris, quod me tarn ardua consultatione dignaris. Est enim praesumtio caritatis, quod me tanto muneri non imparem arhitraris. Prae- cipis enim ut mittam in litteras, unde loannes Scottus oriundus, ubi defunctus fuerit, quem auctorem libri, qui •^TrepL va-emv /ifpio-^oC '', id est, de naturae divisione, titulavit, propter qua- rundam perplexarum quaestionum solutionem " bene utilem si tamen ignoscatur ei in quibusdam", quibus" a Latinorum tramite deviavit, dum in Graeeos nimium " s oeulos intendit ". Fuit multae leetionis et euriosae, acris sed inelegantis, ut dixi, id est, e deest. ' At this point the other narra- tives begin. The following is the text of the Gesta pontificum with which I collate that of the Gesta regum : Huius tempore venit An- gliam \_0 S, Hoc tempore creditur fuisse] lohannes Scottus, vir per- spicacis ingenii et multae facundiae, qui dudum relicta patria \OtTl du- dum inorepantibus undique bel- lorum fragoribus in] Frantiam ad Karolum Calvum transierat. The Gesta regum proceeds at once to the sentence beginning in the text, of the Epistle with the words Hegis ergo [GE cuius; 6P Garoli ergo] rogatu. ° G P omit ut alias dixi, "^ GV et mensae et, " What follows, as far as the word vellet, is wanting in the Gesta pontificum, which contain instead the famous stories about the Scot and the sot, and the little fishes and the fat clerks. ' GE and GP Dionysii Areo- pagitae in Latinum de Graeco, verbum verbo. "• GF add liitera. " G E omit quo Jit to noHra. " GEandGPeitom. ^^ G P Perifision merimnoi. '* GE propter perplexifatem necessariarum quaestionum sol- vendam; GP propter perplexHa- tem quarundam quaestionum sol- vendam. " G E aliquibus. " G E and G P prefix in. " G E and 6 P acnter. '" After intendit the Gesta re- gum go on directly with Succedenti- bus armis munificentia Elfredi al- lectus, venit Angliam, et apud monasterium nostrum a pueris quos docebat graphiis, ut fertur, perforatus, etiam martyr aesti- matus est : quod sub amhiguo ad iniuriam sanctae animae non dixe- rim,, cum, celebrem eius memoriam sepulchrum in sinistra latere al- taris et epitaphii prodant versus, scabri quidem et moderni temporis lima carentes, sed ab aniiquo non adeo deformes. The verses follow. The Gesta pontificum omit the pas- sage Fuit multae to occulebat, but from that point onwards agree closely with the text of the Epi- stola. WILLIAM OP MALMESBUEY's NAREATIVE. 319 ad interpretandum scientiae ; quod eum (ut verbis Anastasii Append, ii. Eomanae Ecclesiae bibliothecarii loquar) non egisse aliam ob causam existimo, nisi quia, cum esset humilis spiritu, non prae- sumsit verbi proprietatem deserere, ne aliquo modo a sensus veritate decideret. Doctus ad invidiam, ut Graecorum pedis- sequus, qui multa quae non reoipiant aures Latinae, libris suis asperserit : quae non ignorans quam invidiosa lectoribus essent, vel sub persona collooutoris sui, vel sub pallio Graecorum occu- lebat. Quapropter^' et haereticus putatus est, et scripsit'"' contra eum quidam Florus. Sunt enim "^ in libro ^ nepi (j>v- » perifision. aeav ^' perplurima quae multorum aestimatione *', a fide catho- lica ^* exorbitare "^ videantur. Huius opinionis ^^ i coenoscitur ' fuisse cog- noscitur. faisse '^ Nicolaus papa, qui ait in Epistola ad Carolum, Belatum est ajyostolatui nostra quod opus beati Dionysii Areo2Mgitae, quod de divinis nominihus vel coelestibus ordinihus, Graeco descri])- sit eloquio, quidam, ^' vester lohannes genere Scotlus nuper' in Latinvjtn transtulerit ; quod iuxta niorem nobis mitti, et nostro ^ debuit iudicio '^^ approhari, praesertim cum idem Joannes, licet ' iudjcio m/idtae scientiae esse 2>raedicetur, olim non sane sapere in qui- busdam frequenti rum,ore diceretur ™. Itaque ^* quod Tiaotenus omissum est, vestra industria suppleat, et nobis praefatwm opus sine uUa cunctatione mittat. Propter banc ergo infamiam, ut ^^ credo, taeduit eum Franoiae, venitque Angliam '' ad regem Aelfredum, cuius munificentia illectus, et magisterio eius, ut ex scriptis eius '* intellexi, sublimis, Malmesburiae ^^ resedit. Ubi post aliquot annos a pueris quos decebat, graphiis perfossus'^, animam exuit tormento gravi et acerbo ; ut dum iniquitas valida et manus infirma saepe frustraretur, et saepe impeteret, amaram mortem obiret. lacuit aliquandiu '' in ecclesia ilia '"j '' G- P quare. Hamilton's edition has quidem. ^^ For et serif sit, G P scripsit- ''^ G P iuditio dehuit. que.^ '^ GP dicatur. "^ After enim G P insert revera. ^' G P omit this sentence. ^ G P perifision. ^^ G P omit nt. ^^ For multorum aestimatione, ^^ GP omit Angliam.. G P misi diligenier discutiantur. ^ G P regis. ■* G P catholicorum. '° G P Melduni. ^= GP nbhorrentia. se Q-pforatus. ^° G P insert particeps. ^' G P here insert inlionora sepul- '" GtV fuisse cognoscitur. tura. "So G P as quoted by Gale : *' G P in beati Laurentii eccUsia. 320 APPENDIX. Append. II. quae fuerat infandae caedis conscia ; sed ubi divinus favor " nmltis noctibus super eum lucem indulsit igneam, admoniti monachi in maiorem eum '' transtulerunt ecclesiam, et ad sinis- tram altaris positum *°, his praedicaverunt versibus mar- tyrem *^ : Conditus hoc *^ tumulo, sanctus sophista loannes, Qui ditatus erat vivens iam *' dogmate miro, Martyrio tandem meruit conscendere coelum, Quo semper regnant cuncti per secula sancti **. Sed et Anastasius de insigni sanctitate adhuc viventem collaudat his verbis ad Carolum. \IIe7-e follows an extract from Anastasius tlie librarian, to which William adds :] Alternant ergo de laudibus eius et infamia diversa scripta, quamvis iampridem laudes praeponderaverint. Tantum artifici ' dedit. valuit eloquentia ut magisterio eius manus Idederit omnis Gallia. Verum si qui maiorem audaciam anhelant, ut synodus quae tempore Nicolai papae secundi Turonis congregata est, non in eum sed fn scripta eius duriorem sententiam praecipi- tant. Sunt ergo haec fere quae controversiam pariunt. 5. This is the account of John Scot's end which was received throughout the middle ages. The little that "Spec. ™ Vincent of Beauvais, to take but a single instance, says nistor. XXV. o J J 42- about him, is all derived, including the epitaph, through ° chron^xivi the channel of " Helinand, from William of Malmesbury. script Cls- ,. . "^ terc. 114. William has, in common with Asser, just three points, [a) that John was a learned man, {b) that he was invited from Gaul by king Alfred, and (c) that he taught in England ; ™ FortM maiorem enm, GP eum Martyrio tandem Christi conscen- in maiorem. dere regnum '" G P ponenies. Quo, meruit, regnant sancti per *' For kis praedicaverunt ver- secula cuncti. sibiis martyrem, G P his martirium In the Gesta pontificuiu : eius versibus praedicaverunt. Martyrio tandem Christi conscen- *■' G P Conditur hoc ; G E. Clau- dere regnum ditur in. Quo, meruit, regnant cuncti per *^ 6E and GP iam vivens. secula sancti. " The last two lines are in the Here the two narratives end, so far Gesta regum as follow : as the Scot is concerned. WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY's NAERATIVE. 321 in other words exactly what Asser relates about John the append, ii. companion of Grimbald, with the exception of the notice that he was priest and mouk: it has nothing corre- sponding to what he says of John the Saxon. Apart from the question of nationality, the latter was made abbat of Athelney, and his life was attempted by the servants of two Gaulish brethren of the monastery ; whereas John the Scot, according to William of Malmesbury, went not to Athelney but to Malmesbury ; he was not abbat, simply a teacher ; was murdered not at the instigation of monks, but by the boys whom he taught. There is not one point in common between the two, except the name John. Nor are the facts in which William agrees with Asser's descrip- tion of the other John necessarily derived from him. Wil- liam himself says he took them ex scriptis regis; and he adds so much of his own, about John's life in France and his writings, that we cannot lay much stress upon his dependence on Asser for three simple particulars. He had plainly more precise sources which may have yielded these three facts as well as the rest of what he relates. 6. With the epitaph quoted by William as commemorating this saiictus sopMsta loannes, we may connect a notice which is contained in a chronicle referred to by " du Boulay as " Hist. univ. the Historia a Roberto Rege ad Mortem PJdlippi 1 : — In dialectica hi potentes extiterunt sophistae, loannes qui eandem artem sophisticam vocalem esse disseruit, Eobertus Parisiacensis, Eocelinus Compendiensis, Arnulphus Laudunen- sis. Hi loannis fuerunt sectatores qui etiam quamplure habuerunt auditores. pM Haureau rejects the comparison with the Malmes- f De la phii. bury inscription, but he is in the meshes of the old snare sq.fhist. de about John the Saxon. His caution in refusing to apply i. 344-247. ' the inscription as a means for explaining the Paris chronicle will be respected ; but when he urges on other grounds that the Johannes ' sopbista ' of the latter is identical with John Y 322 APPENDIX. Append. II. Scot, we are entitled in using this conversely as evidence for the credibility of William of Malmesbury's account. M Haureau's identification has since received powerful 1 Gcsch. der support from the araruments of i professor von Prantl *^ : logik im ^"^^ " , . . . , , / abendi. 2. and if their conclusion be accepted, it is surely unreasonable to hesitate about admitting further that this John Scot ' the Sophist ' is the same person with his contemporary John Sophist, whose epitaph William records ; especially when the latter, no doubt repeating an old tradition of the monastery, expressly identifies this sophist with the Scot. The extract in du Boulay is therefore a piece of evidence that converges with those in the preceding paragraphs to one centre. We may or may not believe all that William says, but this we may affirm positively, that his narrative is self-consistent and intelligible, and that it is incom- patible with, and contradictory to, the whole concoction with which the false Ingulf has entrapped our modern critics. 7. My apology for dwelling so long upon what is really obvious, namely that John the Saxon has nothing what- ever to do with John the Scot, is the confusion that has run through all the criticism of the subject down to the ' Vol. 3. 938. present time. ' Gfroerer, for instance, while rightly ob- serving that if Asser's two Johns be the same person, that person cannot be John the Scot, proceeds to say that Ingulf, Simeon, and William, ' plainly resting on the witness of Asser, have held our Erigena and the priest- monk John, invited by Alfred, for one and the same per- son, since they relate that Erigena followed the call of Alfred about the year 880 to England.' Therefore, he concludes, John the Scot never came to England at all, but died in France about the year 875 ■*^. '5 I have since read the objec- atione as to the precise character tions of Dr Deutsch, Peter Aba- and contents of a chronicle which lard 100 n. 3, which, though un- we know in fact only through du doubtedly of weight, appear to me Boulay. to depend too much upon consider- *° Mabillon, Actt. SS. 0. s. B. 4 THEORIES ABOUT JOHN SCOT'S BIOGEAPHY. 323 ^Johannes Huber takes up the same line of argument, append, ii. and alleges the divergences between the (combined) ae- ■ Pp. us sq. counts of Asser and that of William as examples of how a legend may change in the course of two hundred years. But how, he asks, could William make a blunder about his own monastery ? It is plainly only another proof of the chronicler's extreme inaccuracy, an inaccuracy shown more- over by the circumstance that he actually records an epitaph which had confessedly been destroyed before his time. To this comment it is natural to answer that, if there is one thing more than another that was likely to pass down from mouth to mouth in a monastery, it was a set of verses commemorating a popular figure in its tradi- tions. The very variants that appear in William's recital of the lines might by themselves persuade us that he was not copying from an existing gravestone but recording an oral tradition. Huber's conclusion is that the whole story originated in the chronicle of Ingulf, the late fabrication of which he did not suspect. Assuming that William and the rest drew their information from Ingulf, and regarding his narrative as conjectural, Huber reverts to Asser. Is it possible to accept what Asser says about his first John (the companion of Grimbald) and abandon the Saxon abbat of Athelney ? He answers in the negative by a most curious train of argument, in which he constantly assumes the identity of the two persons who are now ex hypotliesi distinct. The only two questions raised that are really of moment relate {a) to John's age, and (5) to his clerical standing : but we must first notice for a moment the arguments of those (2)511, in identifying Asser's two served the difference between Wil- Johns, lays an improper stress upon liam of Malmesbury's John, and the accuracy and completeness of the abbat of Athelney, pp. 5 1 2 sq., the author's book, which recent and thinks that William blundered criticism absolutely contradicts. He in making the former come from therefore declares against the iden- Charles the Bald. According to tifioation with John Scot, pp. 508- this theory he would be siinply an 511. He has, however, rightly ob- obscure 'Johannes Sophista.' Y % 324 APPENDIX. Append, ii. critics who accept in the main the authority of William of Malmesbury. tj.scotus * Staudenmaier has an elaborate argument in favour of I20, 144. ■ there having been two Johns invited by Alfred from abroad, and lays special stress upon the notice of one John (in his opinion, our Scot) having taught at Oxford. In this fact, however, we have little interest, since the passage in Asser referring to Oxford is acknowledged to be an interpolation, and the supposed 'university' of Alfred's foundation does not admit of serious discussion. Stauden- maier explains the confusion in Ingulf between John the scholar and John the abbat of Athelney on the ground that in the interval of two centuries details would get per- plexed while the main fact would be still preserved "' : but he does not explain how it was that this confusion is absent from the (ostensibly later) narrative of William of Malmes- bury. The acceptance, in fact, of the historical character of Ingulf remained the great diiBculty in the way of a clear understanding of the facts. "Pp. i25sqq. 8. " Staudenmaier fairly answers the objections raised by Mabillon and repeated by Huber as to the impossibility of John Scot's visit to England so late as after the year 880. There is no reason, because he is known to have gone to France before 847, to conclude that he must have 'P. 42. been born before 815, 'between 800 and 815,' as ^ Huber yp. 127. decides; on the other hand ^ Staudenmaier takes the ex- treme limit when he suggests the possibility that John was born in 828. Probably, if any conclusion is to be drawn from the slenderest of premises, we should be war- " staudenmaier also suggests, p. therefore might easily have oon- 137, that Ingulf had not Asser'a founded places in England like work before him, although it is as Athelney and Malmesbury. He clear as noonday that he was try- takes from this fact of his foreign ing to combine and reconcile the residence an additional argument different accounts which he read for John's having come to England ; in Asser and "William. Professor had he died in France, Ingulf must Christlieb, who foUows closely in have known of it. The naiveti of Staudenmaier's track, thinks, p. 5 1 , criticism like this hardly needs com- that Ingulf wrote in France, and ment. DIFFICULTIES IN JOHN SCOT's BIOGRAPHY. 325 ranted in assuming that the young Scot came to the Append, n. Frankish court when he was between twenty and thirty : he can hardly have been born much later than 835, but he may have been born as early as 815. But even should we accept Huber's date for John's birth, it does not follow as a matter of course that ^ ' since, according to Asser's ac- ' Huber n?. count, he must have gone to England as late as 884, he must have been called by Alfred at an age when one can look forward to little or no future activity as a teacher,' and when he could hardly have had much inclination to change his country and enter upon new surroundings. Setting aside, what has already appeared, that Asser's notice does not belong to any particular date, and may indeed refer to any time from 878 onwards, it is obvious to reply that one cannot assert the impossibility of a man's working power lasting until or beyond his seventieth year. * Gilbert de la Porree had been a student for fifty-four ' v. supra, p. years when he was made bishop of Poictiers, and he lived an active life for twelve years more. At the same time there is no positive ground for excluding the alternative date for John Scot's birth, which would make him fifty- three in 878 or fifty-nine in 884. Either side is equally arguable : neither furnishes a basis for establishing or re- futing the credit of the story. 9. The other main difficulty which is alleged against John's retirement to England concerns his ecclesiastical position. The first point to be borne in mind is that William of Malmesbury makes no mention of him as any- thing but a plain teacher. It is true that Staudenmaier, whose conclusion on this head is repeated practically by the '' later biographers, insists that William's John was '< chnstiieb abbat; but the only reason he can give is that the chron- Huber m, icier relates the destruction of John's tomb in connexion with Warinus de Lire's sacrilegious treatment of past abbats of Malmesbury. The passage is as follows : 326 APPENDIX. Append. II. « Hnic [Turoldo] substitutus est Warinus de Lira monachus. c Ge^ontif. • • . Is, cum primum ad abbatiam venit, antecessorum facta V. 265 p. 421. parvipendens, tipo quodam et nausia sanctorum corporum ferebatur. Ossa denique sanctae memoriae Meildulfi et cete- rorum qui, olim ibi abbates posteaqne in pluribus locis antis- tites, ob reverentiam patroni sui Aldhelmi se in loco tumulatum iri iussiasent, quos antiqnitas veneranda in duobus lapideis crateris ex utraque pairte altaris, dispositis inter cuiusque ossa ligneis intervallia, reverenter statuerat; baec, inquam, omjiia pariter conglobata, velut acervnm ruderum, velut reliquiae vilium mancipiorum, ecclesiae foribus alienavit. Et ne quid impudentiae deesset, etiam sanctum lobannem Scottum, quern pene pari quo sanctum Aldhelmum veneratione monachi cole- bant, extulit. Hos igitur omnes in extreme angulo basilicae sancti Miohahelis, quam ipse dilatari et exaltari iusaerat, in- considerate occuli lapidibusque praecludi praecepit. Reading this extract carefully, it should appear that we have just as much right to infer that William is carefully- distinguishing between John and the abbats, as that he intends to identify them. In fact it is nearly certain that Staudenmaier would not have suspected the latter possi- bility unless he had been misled by the notion that William had before him the supposititious work of Ingulf. Returning then to the John, the companion of Grimbald, in the narrative of Asser, we find him described as ' priest and monk.' Now all we know about John Scot's clerical position from contemporary evidence is entirely negative. Prudentius of Troyes, indeed, ridicules him for setting him- »ap. Huber Self up as a disputant in a grave controversy, being ^har- larum et nullis ecclesiasticae dignitatis gradibus insignitum. But it is plain that his not holding any office in the church, which is all the words need mean, does not involve the «v. supra, consequence that John was not ordained. ^Abailard, for instance, had, in all probability, only inferior orders until he was in middle life ; yet he afterwards- was appointed abbat. It is no doubt the fact that John is never styled QUESTION OP JOHN SCOT'S CLERICAL STANDING. 327 'priest' or 'monk' by any of his opponents: nor does he append, ii. ever describe himself as such, after the prevailing fashion, in his writings. But the latter circumstance, at least, has a very natural explanation : he desired to rank as a philo- sopher, not as a priest. This is indeed, as 'Dr Renter ' Gesch. der observes^ a salient characteristic of his position in the runf fm m'ft- history of Christian thought ; and it would be readily '^ ^ '" '' ^"' accepted by his enemies as a confirmation of their judge- ment that he was a heretic. We are not to expect that they would signalise, if they were aware of, his priestly calling. We may therefore accept, or not accept, the record of Asser as relating to John Scot, as we please. I have already urged that William of Malmesbury may be safely considered irrespectively of it ; — but certainly there is nothing in this question of clerical or non-clerical standing to aifeet it. 10. On the other hand, it is a great mistake to extract from the title of martyr, which even William of Malmes- bury, Bin one of his accounts, was inclined to refuse John, e Supra, p. an identification with another John Scot, who held a place in the martyrologies, at least in England and France, until 1586, when I presume it occurred to the orthodox that the philosopher was unqualified for the dignity*^. It is strange that *" Staudenmaier and others who repeat the statement t Pp. 147 sqq. have not observed the conclusive refutation given by 'Mabillon. There can be absolutely no doubt that the ' um supra, martyr who was commemorated on the T4th of November '^' was ^ John Scot, bishop of Mecklenburg, who was killed on ^ Adam. that day in 1066. Hammaburg. 11. I may notice in conclusion*^ an attempt made by i". 20, 50, •' r J Peru 7. 343, ** Thus in A. p. 43 n. 164. Prantl did not observe), is an interpolation. M G. Saize, the arohivist and keeper of the palace library at Monaco, who kindly verified the point for me, states that the word is written in a hand of the fourteenth century, or even later, simulating the original character, upon an erasure the space of which it does not nearly cover. The word for which it is substituted, from the size of the erasure, may have been formed of seven or eight letters, and thus may perfectly have been Ileiricus. There is therefore no testi- mony for or against Dr von Prantl's view to be extracted from the verse. The logical summary found in a metrical version in another Paris manuscript, to which ^Drvon Prantl refers, ' Pp. sg sq. can hardly be admitted as material for the logical history of the time before Roscelin, until we are better informed about its date. Cousin, who prints these hexameters, 'describes them as of the tenth or eleventh century, 'Append., and hints the possibility that they were dedicated to a ^' '*'' man who died in 1107. It is impossible, then, to assert z 338 APPENDIX. Append. V. that they are anterior to Berengar of Tours, or even to Roscelin. In any case their bearing upon the question at issue is of the slenderest importance. V. Excursus on a supposed Anticipation oe Saint Anselm. I. Saint Anselm has been generally regarded as the first writer in the course of the middle ages who put forth a formal argument in favour of the existence of a God. Dr von Prantl, however, claims the priority for William abbat of Hirschau, and infers from the fact that William is known to have been in correspondence with Anselm, at a date anterior to the publication of his Monologium, that the latter derived from William the idea of framing the argument in question. Dr von Prantl's hypothesis is contained in a paper printed in the first part of the SitzungsbericMe der konigliahen Bayeruehen Akaclemie der Wissenschqften zii Miinchen for 1861; and his results on the particular point which I have stated are given in full 8 Vol. V!. 83 jjj j^is sQeschichte der Loqik im Ahendlande. son. "^ It should, however, be noticed that the two arguments to which attention is drawn are quite difierent, William's resting upon the design and orderly government of the universe, while Anselm's proceeds from the existence of relative good to that of an absolute Good ; a reasoning which he subsequently exchanged for the simple proof that the being of God is implied in our thought of him. Besides, it is clear that the link sought to be established is at best a plausible conjecture : we have no evidence that the two men corresponded on the subject. Still it would be a sufficiently interesting coincidence if we could show that the first attempt among Christians during the middle ages to prove the existence of a God suggested itself to these two contemporaries. sqq. PEANTL ON WILLIAM OF HIESCHAU. 339 3. Dr von Prantl goes a step further, and raises a Append, v. presumption as to the source of the argument. It was borrowed, he thinks, by Constantine the Carthaginian, afterwards a monk of Monte Cassino, who died before the year 1072, together with the physical learning for which he was famous, during a scholar's life of near forty years in the Mohammadan east ; and it is certain that the ' argument from design ' appears in Arabian philosophy a century earlier ^i- The entire reasoning here too is of course conjectural, for there is no hint that the argument in question occurs in Constantino's writings. William, it is added, was in Rome in 1075, a few years after Con- stantino's death, and may then have made the acquaintance with the latter's books, which his own productions show him to have turned to good account. We have, however, no information as to the date at which William himself wrote the treatise which has given rise to all these aery presumptions ; and an inquiry into the character of the treatise will soon persuade us that it is really later by a couple of generations than its supposed date, and only by an accident attributed to William of Hirschau. 3. The little volume oi PhilosopJiicarum et astronomicarum Institutionum Guilielmi Hirsaugiensis oUm Abiatis Libri tres, which was printed at Basle in 153 ij quarto, shows itself on the most cursory examination to be textually the same book with the ITept AiSafecoi' sive Elementorwm PhilosopJiiae Libri IV, printed among the works of ^Bede in the Basle ^ Opp.2.311- edition of 1563, folio. This Hepl AiM^emv, however, although it is actually quoted as Bede's, and as a possible source of an opinion of Abailard, by so accomplished a scholar as 'Charles de RImusat, has been generally recog- 'Aboard 2. nised as the work of William of Conches, certainly since the publication of '^ Oudin's Commentarius de Scripioridus '^Voi. 2. 1230. »' See the passage cited in the anschauung iind Naturphilosophie Sitzungsberichte, ubi supra, p. 20, der Araber im zehnten Jahrbun- "■ 56. from Dieterioi, Die Natur- dert, p. 162; Berlin 1861. Z 2 340 APPENDIX. Append. V. JEcclesiasUcis, and of the twelfth volume of the Histoire litte- ' Pp7^-462. raire de la France. As long ago too as 1838 Charles Jourdain pointed out that the work in question existed also in the twentieth volume of the Lyons' Maxima Bihlio- tlieca Patrtim under the title De Philosophia Mundi, and under the name of Hororius of Autun ^^ ; and neither Jourdain nor any other writer (previous to Dr von Prantl) who had mastered the facts, with reference either to the riept AiSafecov or to the De Philosophia Mundi, had any douht that their, or rather its, authorship belonged to William of Conches. Nor is manuscript authority wanting : it occurs, as Conches', to take a single example, in a manu- "Coxe.catai. script of "^ University college, Oxford, nr vi p. 389, under the title Philosophiae Compendium. The fact, however, that the contrary hypothesis is supported by a scholar so dis- tinguished for scrupulous accuracy as Dr von Prantl, and put forth by him with all the weight and dignity of Pro- ceedings of an Academy of Sciences, even though he has failed to observe the identity to which I draw attention, seems to justify a renewed examination of the whole question, with the view of ascertaining whether the book already thrice obscured under the names of William of HirschaUj Bede, and Honorius of Autun, could by any possibility be by the first of the three. To begin with, it will be desirable to give a short comparison of the three recensions, which for convenience I shall cite as ' Hirschau,' ' Bede,' and ' Honorius,' premising that when I speak of identity I do not exclude divergences, often wide divergences, extending not only to the interchange of unimportant words, inflexions, &e., but also to the order °^ Jourdain claims the discovery MHaur&a,Singularit^shistoriques in the Notices et Extraits des Manu- et litt&aires 243, supposes that the sorits, 20 (2) 43, n. I. The His- original ascription of the work to toire litteraire impartially de- Honorius by the editors of the Maxi- acribes the same work under the ma Bibliotheca Patrum was a mere head both of Honorius (vol. 12. guess: but they must surely have 178 sq.) and ofWilliam of Conches. had some manuscript to go upon. ON A VVOEK ATTKIBUTED TO WILLIAM OF HIBSCHAU. 341 of words in a sentence, and even further; such, in fact, as Append. v. one is prepared to find in works so carelessly reproduced as those of a medieval writer, not of the first rank, would naturally be. The proof that the work in question is actually by William of Conches I reserve for the following excursus. 4. As yet it has appeared that in each case the work bears a different title, and that in Hirschau it is divided into three books, while the others have four. I take as a point of comparison one which displays the greatest divergence between the three recensions, the manner, namely, in which quotations are introduced : I have chosen it because of the curious light it throws on the processes by which writings were adapted to different authors. The chapter-divisions, which are found only in Honorius, T have added for distinction in the margin. HiESCHAU 12. »ut ait Constanti- nus in Pantegm. voluit autem Con- stantinus. p. 14. Constantini nee al- terius phi. philoso- p. 15. lohannitii. P-73- oQuia vero hoc a lohannitio \mis- printed -tiu] sa- tis dicta sunt. HoNOEius : Max. Bihl. Pair. 20. 999 »> H. ut ait Constantinus in ZlavTe)(yri. voluit autem Con- stantinus. p. 1 000 B, C. Constantini scripta neo alterius phi- losophi. lohannicii. p. 1017 G. Sed quia hoc a lo- hannicio in Isa- gogis satis dic- tum est. Bbde 0pp. 2. 314. ut definiunt philo- n Lib. sophi. volunt autem plii- losophi. P- 315- philosophorum. philosophi. P- 340- Sed quia hoc a phy- » Lib. iv. jo. sico in Isagogis satis dictum est. From these five examples, which might easily be mul- 343 APPENDIX. Append. V. tiplied ^^, it is difficult to draw any other inference than that the writer of the manuscript from which Bede is printed, intentionally effaced what occurred to him as incompatible with the age of the presumed author "*. He has, however, gone carelessly enough to work. After, for instance, changing Constawtini into the plural philoso- phorwm, he has left secundum eum immediately after : and in the last example given above he suppresses the name Johannitius, which indicates Honain ben-Isaac, a Jewish physician of the ninth century, while he leaves untouched p V. Pranti, the reference to this writer's ^ medical treatise known as p. 14 n. 35. the Isagoge, no doubt through an ignorant confusion with the work of Porphyry which exercised so signal an influ- ence on the learning of the middle ages. It is in fact possible, though extremely unlikely, that the whole of these phaenomena is due in the first instance to an illiterate scribe who, in face of a difficult exemplar to copy from, preferred a vague expression to a guess that might prove wrong. Yet the citations of classical and sub-classical authors, some, one would say, less well known than Con- stantino, are as a rule correctly given. In a single one of the instances quoted by Dr von Prantl, a citation has been obscured in Hirschau, apparently in the interest of his authorship ; it is suggested in Bede and is given fully in Honorius : HiESCHAu 8. HoNOEiusp.999 A. Bede 313. 1 Lib. i. 15. q Cuius expositio Cuius expositionem Cuius exponere, alias est. si quis quaerat, si quis quaerat, in glossulis nos- in aliis nostris tris super Pla- scriptis inveniet. tonem inveniat. "' There are at least two more in has not noticed this peculiarity, lib. 1. 21. I have limited myself and charges the editors with in- to the examples quoted from Hir- advertence in admitting a work Bchau by Dr von Prantl, because as Bede's which contained refer- when I wrote this excursus I had not ences to later writers. As a matter access to a copy of the book itself. of fact M Haur^au takes his quo- '* M Haureau, Singularit^s 238, tations from Honorius. ON A WORK ATTRIBUTED TO WILLIAM OF HIRSCHAU. 343 The nature of this reference will appear in appendix vi. append, v. §7- — 5. In regard to the comparative value of the texts of the three recensions of the treatise, Bede is, as may be inferred from what has been already said, on all accounts the worst ^^ ; as a rule it is distinctly inferior to Hirschau, while the latter is perhaps slightly inferior to Honorius. None of the three editions, however, is complete. Hitschau breaks oflF first, just "^ after having introduced the subject of 'P.77(iib.iv. the soul, whereas Bede proceeds from that point for a loig c™' ^' page and a-half further and Honorius a few sentences further still, the additional matter consisting of nearly twelve chapters in Honorius. This continuation is partly occupied with ^ the soul, which, however, is only cursorily . Lib. iv. 29- treated. The author then passes on to 'the ages of man f^^ g and their characteristics, and thus arrives at the subject of "education. These last four chapters occur also in "Capp. 37-41. Hirschau, but at the beginning of the book, under the title of Aliquot philosojihicae Sententiae. In the closing sentence of Bede, which also concludes the section prefixed to Hirschau, we read the following scheme of the order in which learning should proceed : ^ Ordo vero discendi talis est ut quia per eloquentiam omnis » Bede 343; fit doctrina, prius instruamur *' in eloquentia cuius sunt tres 1020 e, f. partes. . . . Initiandi ergo sumus in grammatioa, deinde in dialectica, postea in rhetorica. Qtiibus instructi et ut armis muniti, ad studium philosophiae debemus aocedere, cuius hie est ordo, ut prius in quadrivio, . . deinde in divina pagina, quippe ut per cognitionem creaturae ad cognitionem creatoris perve- niamus. This in reality opens a new division of the author's whole subject; for, as Honorius continues, quoniam in omni "^ In a few cases it contains good sohau 18, thus rendering Dr von readings, as in p. 316, where com- Prantl's emendation, p. 15 u. 39, mixtio and coniuncfio stand in an superfluous. inverted order from that in Hir- "' I correct from Hirschau. 344 APPENDIX. Append. V. cLoctrhia granimatica jpraeoedit, it is liis design to treat of grammar and, we may presume, of the other studies in jp. I020G. their order ^''. ^ Sed quoniam, he concludes, de propositiis supra . . sectantes compendia diximus, ut anhnvs iectoris alacrior ad caetera accedat, hie qiiartae partis longitudinem terminemus. The four books therefore are only a portion • Gesch. der of the PMlosopMa, a fragment, — as ^ Dr von Prantl himself log. 2. 127 n. . . ^ \ ^ ' 94- rightly judged, with respect to Bede, from internal evi- dence, although his examination of the work was not sufficiently close to enable him to perceive that it was the same book which he had recently described at length before the Munich academy. A further indication of the uncertainty existing with regard to the limits of the book, appears in the fact already mentioned, that the concluding portion of Bede is actually contained in Hirschau in another place, namely, in the eight pages of Aliquot Philosophicae Sententiae, which are prefixed without pagi- nation to his p. I. 6. Hitherto I have assumed nothing with respect to the authorship of the work in question, although at the outset its absence from the list of William of Hirschau's .works >De script, givcn by * Trittenheim, who, whatever his shortcomings, will be admitted to have had peculiar qualifications for knowing about the monastery of Hirschau, may seem to raise a presumption against its accuracy; not to speak of the surprise with which we find that most orthodox abbat credited with a theology betraying only too evidently the influence of Abailard. Leaving the larger subject for the following excursus, I have limited myself to an inquiry into the relations of three works, the identity of which had previously, as I thought, escaped detection. In this point I have since learned that I was mistaken. The identity '^ M Haur^au, p. 342, takes it manuscript containing other writ- that ■William ia referring to a com- ings of William's (pp. 244 sqq.). I mentary of his on Priscian, and do not, however, think that s'ucli identifies it with some anonymous glosses will satisfy the language in glosses which he found in a Paris the text. ON A WORK ATTRIBUTED TO WILLIAM OF HIRSOHAU. 345 was pointed out by Dr Valentin Rose in the LiterariscJie Append, v. Centralhlatt so long ago as ''June i6, 1861. This verjbNrxxiv. fact, however, makes a renewed examination the more '^° ' ^' " necessaiy, since ■= Dr von Prantl in his reply professed ° iMd-. nr ,.„.,. . xxvii. col. with remarkable courage his familiarity with the phae- 444. July s- nomenon of which Dr Rose and I charitably supposed him to be ignorant **, ignorance in so intricate a subject as the bibliography of William of Conches being a venial matter enough. It seemed indeed morally impossible for a scholar to describe at length a treatise which he knew to be textually identical with another work printed under a different name, and purporting to belong to a different century, without a word of allusion to the latter. This, however, Dr von Prantl declares that he has done, and it is needless to say more about the character of his defence. In the same letter he promised to justify his silence here- after by a proof from two writings of William of Conches, the DragmMicon and a Munich manuscript (no doubt, the Secunda Thilosopliia) that William had iiseA the work of Hirschau. It is easy to prove, as the following excursus will show, that the Dragmaticon refers back to a previous book by the author ; but I am curious to know how the existence of two identical works (this previous book and Hirschau's), merely on account of their bearing different titles in manuscripts, can be explained on the hypothesis of one having used the other. Nor does it appear that Dr von Prantl in the twenty-three years that have passed ™ Dr von Prantl alleges that in that he had quoted the Policrati- that very paper of hia in the Mu- ous ; though the analogy is imper- nich Sitzungsberichte he did refer to feet on account of the absence of William of Conches, and so could not any literary confusion in the latter be ignorant of his writings. This case : it would be exact if the His- is true: he did refer (note 57) to toria pontificalis had been already him, but not to the work which is published under different false the subject of dispute, but to the names, and Dr von Prantl had Dragmaticon. This is as though a written an article upon one of scholar charged with not knowing them and ignored the others. In that the Historia pontificalis was the present instance his plea is by John of Salisbury, should reply worse than misleading. 346 APPENDIX. App. V, VI. since the date of his letter, has taken any steps to fulfil his promise. The blunder, however, has survived, and Dr von Prantl's theory, according to a review by professor Wagenmann in ■ip. 1371. the ^ Goetiingischen geleJirien Anzeigen for 1865, is accepted bodily in M. Kerker's Wilhelm der Selige, AM von Hirschati, published at Tuebingen in 1863. The reviewer repeats the whole story about William and Anselm and Constan- tine, which I have summarised in the foregoing pages, and 'Pp. 1373- « leaves the attribution of William's book in the category of facts not decisively established : the same position is ^Gesch.der taken up by 'Dr Eeuter. Dr Wagenmann, at the same teiakl" ""''" ^™^> argues very sensibly against the Hirschau theory on 285 n. 4. fouj. grounds: (i) the difference of character between the book and William of Hirschau's genuine writings ; (3) its resemblance to those of William of Conches ; (3) a quasi- Sabellianism exactly like Abailard's ; and (4) a doctrine of reconciliation and an argument for the existence of God most naturally presupposing Anselm's. He therefore infers a high probability for its being by William of Conches. But it is a pity that a mere blunder, because it happens to have been made by an eminent scholar, should be supposed on that account to affect a question of authorship which, as we shall see immediately, is as certain as any literary point can possibly be. VI. Excursus on the Writings of William of Conches. I. The number and attribution of the works of William of Conches have always been a standing puzzle in medieval bibliography. It has already been stated that the book which forms the subject of the preceding excursus, and which has been confused among the editions of the vener- able Bede, William of Hirschau, and Honorius of Autun, is now generally ascribed to William of Conches. But it WILLIAM OF conches' WRITINGS. 347 will be best to assume nothing about it until we have append, vi. gathered sufficient evidence to warrant a certain conclu- sion. All William's productions hang so closely together that the proof that one of them is hi§ involves all the rest : and if the following investigation goes over a good deal of ground which has already been covered by previous bibliographers, it does not in all points arrive at the same results as they have done. I have, in fact, the less hesita- tion in making it, since I hope by its means to throw new light upon several disputed facts in the literary history of the twelfth century, and to eliminate more than one error which could not have occurred if editors had been careful not to print fresh materials from manuscript before they had ascertained that they had been already published under a different title. 2. The book that may serve as a foundation for our inquiry is the Bialogus cle Substantiis pliysicis ante annos ducentos confectus a Wilhelmo aneponymo pJiUosopho, pub- lished in octavo at Strassburg in 1597^^. The editor, G. Grataroli, a Basle physician, who discovered the book in Italy, apparently at Padua, took it (as appears from the title-page) to be a composition of the fourteenth century : the internal evidence, however, is decisive on this head. (a) The dialogue is held between the author and a certain dux Normannorum et comes Andegavensmm, a style by which only two persons could possibly be designated. One is Geoffrey the Fair, the husband of the empress Matilda, from the year 1141 or earlier^ until his death in 1151 ; the other is his son, our Henry the Second, from the latter date until his accession to the English throne. Henry, however, is excluded ■"* by the 8 mention of the education s Praef., pp. ' ■> 3 sq. * This at least is the date that as 1566 ; see the Histoire litt&aire appears in the two copies of this de la France 12. 464, and Haur^au, very rare work that I have used, Singularites historiques et litt^- one in the stadtbibliothek at Zuerioh raires 246. and the other in the Bodleian li- '° This, I see, is observed by brary. It has been repeatedly given M Haur&u, pp. 232 sq., who also 348 APPENDIX. Append. VI. of the duke's sons, since he only married in 1152. It may be observed that the belief that Henry was intended, eom- >■ Metaiog. ii. bined with the old mistake which inferred from ^ John of 10 p. 804. Salisbury that William was about the year 11 38 a teacher at Paris, plainly originated the fable which we read in «S°7"ccr ' Oudin, that Henry the Second olim in curia regis Franciae 2. 1231- enutritus et liUeris in Parisiensi academia initiatus sub Guil- lelmo fuerat. [b) The same passage which shows that Henry was not the interlocutor in the dialogue helps to fix the composition of the work within narrower limits. In te tamen, says William, et in jiliis tuis aliquid spei consistit ; quos non, ut alii, ludo alearum sed studio literarum, tenera aetate imbuisti : cuius odorem diii servabunt. The dialogue was written therefore some time, probably some years, before Henry was of an age to be knighted, in 1 149 ; and we shall certainly not be far wrong if we place it about the year II45- 3. The author describes himself at the opening of the sixth book : ' Pp. 210 sq. k Ea autem quae a magistris, dux serenissime, multotiens audivi, atque omnia quae recordatione usque ad meditationem memoriae commendavi, et ut firmius verba retinerem (quae irrevocabilia volant) still officio designavi, et iam quae per viginti annos et eo amplius alios dooui, adhuc vix plane et perfecte intelligo, vixque intellecta propriis et apertis verbis explicare valeo : et unde mihi tam hebes ingenium, tarn modica memoria, tam imperfecta eloquentia % an quia in patria ver- vecum '^ crassoque sub aere Nordmanniae sum natus ? alios affirmare audio non solum minima, sed etiam maxima, quae notices the source of the idea that ever, to Juvenal, Sat. x, 49, 50, is Henry was Conches' pupil at Paris ; obvious, although I do not find that he dis- Summos posse viros et magna ex- putes the story that John of Sails- empta daturos bury heard the latter there. Com- Vervecum in patria crassoque sub pare, however, above, p. 206 n. 6. aere nasci. " The edition reads Vernecum M Haurdau had the right reading for vervecum, as though it were a in his manuscript, which he trans- proper name; the reference, how- lates 'la patrie des boilers,' p. 231. WILLIAM OF conches' DRA.GMATICON. 349 nunquam a magistris audierant, per se intellexisse, nihilque Aitend. vi. esse tarn inusitatum, tarn difficile, quod si sibi ostensum fuerit, statim non intelligant atque expedite alios doceant. The passage therefore tells us what William's native country was, — and we have only to add the concordant testimony of ^ all the known manuscripts of the work, ' Cf- Hau- ■^ ^ reau, sing. which bear any title, to identify the place as a matter of h'^t ^t i'"- certainty with Conches ; — -it tells us also the author's age, as having been a teacher since about ii 20-11 25) besides some other particulars about him to which we shall return hereafter. 4. A piece of external evidence may serve to dissipate any remaining doubt as to the ascription of the dialogue. Walter of Saint Victor in his polemic against the opinions of Abailard, Gilbert de la Porree, Peter Lombard j and Peter of Poictiers, written about the year 11 80, expressly mentions, in his fourth book, William of Conches as having adopted the Epicurean doctrine of atoms : (^uae forte Democritiis cum Epicuro suo atomos vocat. Inde WUlielmus de Conchis ex atomorum, id est, minutisnmorwm corporiim, concretione fieri omnia. The passage occurs among the copious extracts from Walter given by "du Boulay, and " h^s'. univ. the reference is to the dialogue i. pp. 25 sqq. : cfp- 743- Sunt igitur in unoquoque corpore minima, quae simul iuncta unum magnum constituunt. Haec a nobis dicuntur elementa. The interlocutor here objects, Ut mild videticr, in sen- tentiam Bpicureorum furtim relaberis, qui dixerunt mundum constare ex atomis : to which the author replies. Nulla est tam falsa secta quae non habeat aliquid veri ad- mixtum ; sed tamen illud admixtione cuiusdam falsi obfuscatur. In hoc vero quod dixerunt Epicurei, mundum constare ex atomis, vers dixerunt : sed in hoc quod dixerunt, illas atomos sine principio fuisse, et diversas, permagnum et magne volitasse, deinde in quatuor magna corpora coactas fuisse, fabula est '^ " Dr Keuter verifies "Walter's subject of the foregoing excursus, citation in that woric which is the and which, for reasons that will 350 APPENDIX. Append. VI. 5. It may then be accepted as fairly proved that the dialogue is by William of Conches ; and it may be by this time convenient to select a name by which to dis- tinguish it. Apparently in most manuscripts it is called the Bragmaticon Philosophiae, ' dragmaticon ' being a syno- nym of ' dialogus.' Ducange quotes, sub voce, a sentence describing it as 'a work conducted by means of question "joh.Saresb. and answcr,' and "Dr Schaarschmidt, who does not profess to have seen the dialogue with which we are con- cerned, rightly corrects the title into Dramaticon. William, as it happens, himself explains the source of the title : <• Praef., pp. " Ssd quia, similitude orationis mater est satietatis, satietas fastidii, nostram orationem dragmatice distinguemus. Tu igitur, dux serenissime, interroga : philosophus sine nomine ad inter- rogata respondeat. The published dialogue was edited from a comparison of two manuscripts, one of which bore yet another title. The preface is headed ' Authoris Wilhelmi in suam iSecun- dariam praefatio: nam hoe eius nomen fuit et haec libri inscriptio, ut ex antique exemplari constat.' Possibly therefore the printed title Be Substantiis physicis is an insertion of the editor. From the Secundaria we pass to a fourth title, namely, Secunda Philosophia, which appears in two manuscripts of the staats- und hof-bibliothek at Munich. A fifth designation is found in a manuscript, nr xcv, of Corpus Christi college, Oxford, dating, accord- ing to Coxe's Catalogue, from the thirteenth century : ' Gulielmi de Conchis, alias Shelley, Universalis Fhilo- sopliiae Libri III. per modum dialogi,' &c. Sixthly, in appear immediately, I shall cite are found in the dialogue. The aimply as the FMlosophia. He authors of the Histoire litt^raire de says, Geschichte der religiosen Auf- la France, it may be added, were klarung in Mittelalter 2. 309 n. 28, unable to find the reference in any that it occurs there in book i. oh. 21 of William's writings, vol. 12. 456. (Honoriua, pp. 999 e — looi 0); This is only one example of the but in that passage there appears reckless assertions which make that neither the reference to Epicurus valuable store-house so dangerous nor the word ' atoms,' while both to use without further inquiry. WILLIAM OF conches' DEAGMATICON. 351 one of the Digby manuscripts in the Bodleian library, Append. vi. nr cvii, the work is entitled Summa Magistri WiUelmi de Conchis super naturalihus Quaestionibus et Responsioniius, &c. In the following pages I shall cite the book as the Drag- maticon. 6. We have now to inquire in what way it bears upon the other works of its author. Here its testimony is precise and unambiguous. It is a new edition of a former work entitled Philosopkia, modified in concession, as would appear, to certain complaints on the score of heresy ; and the passages thus altered or expunged are to be found in that work which in the preceding excursus was recognised under the different names of Bede, William of Hirschau, and Honorius of Autun. It is also known that p objections p v. supra, were raised to a work of William of Conches, entitled the P/iilosophia, which objections are substantially the same with those enumerated in the following paragraph of the Bragmaticon. I have inserted in the margin the corre- sponding places in the Philosophia. After announcing the subject of his treatise William proceeds : ■ s''P''^. p- (within the limits of scriptural § 5, that the title Seounda Philo- aberration) in the greater, we need sophia is also borne by the complete not be long in deciding which is Bragmaticon itself. The manu- the original and which the extract. scripts thus entitled Dr Reuter de- With regard to the Tertia Philo- scribed as containing an entirely sophia M Haur^au says little (p. diiferent work from Cousin's Se- 248), and does not seem to suspect cunda Philosophia, Geschichte der its correspondence with the Drag- religiosen Aufklarung 3. 309 n. 30. maticon. There is therefore no- What he quotes however certainly thing in his addition to our infer- exists in the printed Dragmaticon, mation about the two books which and I make no doubt that had Dr can induce me to alter my previous Reuter read the manuscripts fur- opinion respecting them. ther he would have found all " I have already stated, above Cousin's extracts there, as I have A a 3 356 APPENDIX. Append. VI. therefore (excluding his glosses) are now reduced to two : ■ the early PhilosopMa and the corrected edition of the same the Bragmaiicon. Is there a third to be added ? 9. The literary historians speak of a Magna de Natmis PhilosopMa by William of Conches as having been printed in folio, without place or date, about the year 1474- It "Vol. 12.457. was first described as in three volumes ; but the ^Histoire litteraire de la Prance pointed out that this was a mistake (originated or repeated by Fabricius), and that the supposed third volume was really by Vincent of Beauvais. The ex- planation thus vaguely alluded to, is given in full by » joh. Saresb. " Dr Schaarschmidt, and its correctness will be obvious to anyone who opens the second volume of Vincent's Sjieculum, naturale in the edition, s. I. aut «., presumed to have been printed at Strassburg in 1468 or 1473 (^"^ ™ ^&\i of Nuremberg, assigned to the year 1483, and also in folio). There is, it is needless to say, no title-page ; but the volume opens, book xix. (after the table of contents) with an extract from William of Conches, headed con- spicuously : P)e opere sexte diei. Et prima de animalibus. Guil- lerinus de conchis. This is the very title which has been " cf. Denis, Constantly repeated as William's by the "bibliographers, and ann. typogr. i • i t. «- tt -' suppiem. 2. which cvcu M Haurcau ^ once sought to restore to the Vienna 1789 cataloguc of William's writings*". quarto; -nr • Hain, repert. lo. The Magna de Nahms PhilosopMa, omitting this 5605, vol.1 (2) supposititious thu-d volume, is briefly described by the authors gard'1837. of the Histoire litteraire, who are. I believe, the latest wit- ' De la phil. scol, I. 28Q. found them in the printed text. Philosophia. See preceding note. Moreover he misread Cousin, Ouv- ™ In correcting this mistake rages inedits d'Abdlard, 669, and (which is repeated by cardinal Pitra, applied what the latter said of the Spicileg. Solesm. 2. 188, Paris 1855 Tertia Philosophia to the Secunda. quarto), M HauriJau has fallen into Here he was no doubt misled by a new one, in speaking, Singularit^s M Haurcau, who speaks, p. 241, of 236 sq., of the original as the part of the Secunda Philosophia Speculum historiale, in which what being borrowed directly from the little is said about the sixth day of Philosophia, book iv. Tlie imme- creation occurs in bk. ii. (misnum- diate source is incontestably the bered i.) ch. 38, and bk. xix. (opeu- Dragmaticon, though the substance ing with the history of Arcadius) may often agree with that of the does not begin a volume. WORKS FALSELY ASSIGNED TO WILLIAM OF CONCHES. 357 Besses to its existence. They speak of it, as iQudin did, as Append, vi. an undated folio of about the year 1474; but they could , voT^23o. only find one volume, the second, renaaining, and this was in the library of the college of Navarre. They state further that it contained little original matter, being mainly com- piled by means of extracts from the fathers : and yet they regard it as the source from which (a) the TUlosopTiia, (h\ the Secunda FhilosopJiia, and (c) the Tertia Pliilosophia, were successively abridged ; a statement which has been repeated by 'Cousin and others. Even the accurate Haur^au, who ' Ouvr. mM. had the Dragmaticon before him, said in the first edition 669. of his ^ PMlosopJiie scolastique, that the Sectmda and Tertia ' i. c. PAilosopMa ' paraissent avoir et6 faits pour venir k la suite de celui que nous venons de nommer,' the Magna de Naturis Fhilosophia ; ' si, toutefois,' he adds, ' ils n'en formentpas une partie.' *It has further been asserted that the great work was ' Schaar- largely used by Vincent of Beauvais in his Specuhcm natu- rale. But although I do not pretend to a minute acquaint- ance with the Speculum, I can state with confidence that all the extracts from William which I have met with there, are taken either from the PJiilosopJda or the Dragmaticon^'^. II. The character of the Magna de Naturis Philosopkia, as given in the existing descriptions of it, is in itself such as to arouse suspicion. For if there is one peculiarity which distinguishes the known writings of William from most of those of his age, it is the comparative absence of patristic quotations. William's authorities are Plato and Aristotle, Cicero, Macrobius, Ptolemy, Galen, Constantine, etc. ; he draws illustrations from Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, Juvenal. But engaged as he was in the pursuit of natural philosophy and natural history, he had small occasion to quote the fathers, and his references to them seem limited, though I do not state this positively, to Augustin, *' For instance in book xxxii. 77, specification, and then adds a quo- Vincent cites the latter as ' Guil- tation from the Fhilosophia as ' Ex hermus de Conohis ' without further libro de natura rerutn.' 358 APPENDIX. Append. VI. Ambrose, and Bede. In fact he expressly declares his independence^ as a philosopher, of the fathers. In eis, he says, quae ad fidem catkolicam vel ad morum inditutionem pertinent, non est fas Bedae vel alieni alii sanctorum pairum (citra scripturae sacrae authoritatem) contradicere : in eis tamen quae ad pJiilosopJdam pertinent, si in aliquo errant, licet " Uh. iii. pp. diversum affirmare. This statement occurs in the ^Draff- maticon, a work which we have seen to be scrupulously modified in deference to orthodox objections. It is there- fore the less likely that^ even before his plain-spoken PJiilo- sophia, William should have written a great philosophical work chiefly constructed of select passages from the fathers. Besides, if such be the nature of this Magna Philosophia, how can it contain the material which he subsequently, ex hypotliesi, ' abridged/ so as to form the Philosophia as we know it ? The latter, as I believe on account of this as- sumed chronological arrangement, the authors of the Histoire litteraire designate the Philosophia minor, a title, however, which they do not assert to be found in any manuscript or edition of it*^. I believe further that the entire basis of their theory rests on a misunderstanding of a passage in John of Salisbury, on which I shall com- ment in the ensuing excursus. 12. I have spoken of the Magna de Naturis Philosophia on the authority of those who profess to have seen the book and who declare that it bears this title ' in most of the manuscripts.' As it has now entirely disappeared it might seem impossible to arrive at any certain conclusion about it ; but since writing this and the foregoing excursus I have had the advantage of reading M Haureau's ad- mirable criticism contained in the eighth chapter of his Singularites historiqices et litteraires*^ , which, I think it may 'j" It is worthy of notice that lib. iii. praef. (Bed. 2. 330 ; Hon., William excuses the imperfections p. loio b). This is scarcely the of this book by the plea that, way in which an author would ' studiis docendi occupati, parum speak of an abridgement, epacii ad soribendum habeamns,' *^ I have added in notes the ■WILLIAM OP conches' weitings. 359 be said, finally disposes of the whole matter. We cannot App.vi.vii. check the description of the printed book, but we can that of the manuscripts; and ^M Haureau is able to state " Pp- =34 sq- positively that no such manuscript exists in France^ nor to his knowledge elsewhere. Half the description therefore rests upon some confusion : is it not natural to draw the same inference about the remainder? M Haureau accord- ingly conjectures (he does not of course put it forward as more than a conjecture) that the bibliographers mistook some other book, published about the same time and also in two volumes folio, for William of Conches' ; and he plausibly suggests that the book in question is the Be Universo of William of Auvergne. The precise identifica- tion may be wrongs but it may be considered practically certain that some blunder of this kind originated the whole theory which, it has already appeared, is so difiicult to reconcile with the known facts about William of Conches. VII. EXCTJESUS ON THE INTEEPRETATION OF A PLACE IN John of Salisbuey's Metalogicus, i. 34 pp. 784 sq. I. William of Conches has been generally regarded as a teacher who abandoned the thorough and honest system of the school of Chartres in order to compete with the shallower and more pretentious masters of his day. The ^Histoire litteraire de la France illustrates this defection by " Voi. 12. 457. the instance of his work, the Fkilosopkia, which it supposes to be an abridgement of a previous book, the very existence of which the preceding excursus has shown to be more than doubtful. ' Ce qui I'engagea,' we are told, ' de composer cet abrege, ce fut vraisemblement I'envie de se conformer, ou plutot la necessite oii il se trouva de ceder au torrent des points in which M Hanr^au's con- in the main an enlargement of his elusions agree with mine, and a article on William in the twenty- single instance in which we differ. second volume of the Nouvelle Bio- His essay, I have lately found, is graphic gen^rale, pp. 667-673; 1858. 360 APPENDIX. Append. VII. philosophes de SOB temps, qui decrioient la prolixity de leurs predecesseurs, et se piquoient de donner toute la philo- sophie en deux ans. Car il est certain par la temoignage de Jean de Sarisberi, qu'apres avoir longtemps resiste a ces sophistes, il se laissa entrainer par leur exemple, pour ne pas voir deserter son ^eole.^ The same statement involves also the character of William's colleague, Richard I'lllveque, and "P. 216. is accordingly repeated under his article in the ^fourteenth volume of the Histoire. It has become the accepted view in regard to William, and is adopted, to give a single •Vol. 3.395 instance, in ^Ritter's GescMchte der ChristlicJien Pkilosophie. It is therefore the more necessary to subject the hypothesis to a close examination^*- The part of it, however, con- cerning the sequence of William's works needs no refuta- 1" Supra, tion, since it is directly contradicted by his own ''statement append, vi, § 6. that he wrote the Philosophia in his youth, some fifteen years perhaps before John of Salisbury came in contact with him. a. John of Salisbury's words are as follows : Ad huius magistri [Bernardi Camotensis] formam praecep- tores mei in grammatica, Gulielmus de Conohis et Eichardus cognomento episcopus, officio nunc archidiacouus Constantiensis, vita et conversatione vir bonus, sues discipulos aliquandiu in- formaverunt. Sed postmodum, ex quo opinio veritati praeiudi- cium fecit et homines videri quam esse philosophi maluerunt, professoresque artium se totam philosophiam brevius quam triennio aut biennio transfusuros auditoribus pollicebantur, impetu multitudinis imperitae victi, cesserunt. Exinde autem minus temporis et diligentiae in grammaticae studio impensum est, etc. The language is no doubt ambiguous, and everything hangs on the sense we give to cesserunt. We may under- " The only writer I have found tiques 209 ; but he does not seem who interprets the passage of John to be aware of the difference of of Salisluiry as I do, is M L^on opinion that has arisen on the Maitre, Booles ^pisoopales et monas- point. ON A PASSAGE IN JOHN OF SALISBURY. 361 stand the passage, ' Once they taught well, but after a while append. vii. i'hQj yielded to the rush of incompetent rivals and followed their example;' or equally legitimately, ' Once these worthy successors of Bernard handed on his tradition, but after a while, disgusted with the prevalent method of teaching, they withdrew from the field.' The words will bear either rendering ; but John of Salisbury's other evidence about his masters, as well as the incontrovertible language of William of Conches' own writings, can only be reconciled with the second alternative : the first is altogether excluded by the known facts about William and Richard. 3. Taking first the testimony to be drawn from John of Salisbury's writings, we find that Richard I'Eveque re- mained throusrh life a valued correspondent of his, and ° was ' Schaar- ^ _ ^ _ ' . Schmidt 77, consulted by him on exactly those points of scholarship on '^i. which, if Richard's career be as is commonly supposed, John would be the least likely to trust him. William of Conches died before John had become conspicuous in the learned world, but John's recollections of his master are uniformly honourable. "^He couples William's name with ^ Meiaiog. i. , . . S p. 74S. those of Gilbert de la Porree, Abailard, and others of his most respected teachers, just by virtue of William's steady hostility to the empty-headed ' crammers ' of his day. John also speaks of the jealousy which William and his friends excited in the latter ; but of secession in conse- quence of it there is not a word. 4. It is precisely to these envious detractors that William constantly alludes in the prefaces to ihatPhilosophia which, according to the Histoire littera'ire, he condensed in deference to their opinion. The evidence of the prefaces to books i., ii., and iii. bears directly on the point ; that of the two former, which I quote, is especially pertinent : e Multos tamen nomen magistri sibi usurpantes, non solum = Philos. i. T . , . . . 1 ■ J. • praef. (Hon. hoc agere sea etiam aliis sic esse agendum lurantes, cognosoi- p. 995 f, g). mus, nihil quippe de philosophia scientes, aliquid se nesoire 362 APPENDIX. Append. VII. confiteri erubescentes, sive imperitiae solatium quaerentes, ea quae nesoiunt nullius utilitatis minus cautis praedicant. ■"Lib. ii. fQuamvis multos ornatum verborum quaerere, paucos veri- praef. (Hon. . p . . -. .1 -1 j_ J 1 p. I002 H, tatem scire [al. scientiaej cognoscamus, nmil tamen de mul- titudine sed de paucorum probitate gloriantes, soli veritati insudamus. Another passage answers the allegation of the Ilistoire litteraire in a curiously exact manner. Speaking of the duties of a teacher, William says : B Lib. iv. 37 g ged si amore scientiae ad docendum accesserit, nee propter (Hon. p. I020 c, Bed. 342). invidiam doctrinam subtrahet ; nee ut aliquid extorqueat, veri- tatem cognitam fiigiet ; nee si deficiet multitude soeiorum, desinet ; sed ad instructionem sui et aliorum vigil et diligens erit. These quotations, I repeat, are taken from a work which, we are asked to believe, was shortened in concession to the rage for short and easy methods. 5. At a considerably later date William wrote the Bragmaticon, and in this the protests against the fashionable tendency are if possible stronger than in the ThilosopMa. One ironical reference to the author's constitutional dulness and incapacity to understand things after long thought, which his pretentious rivals professed to grasp in a ' Supra, mo,ment, has been ^ already quoted. ' In another he corn- append, vi. ', . , , § 3- plains of the way in which the teachers of his time have praS^™'p. lost credit among their scholars. Both he says are in fault ; for to establish confidence one needs two things, knowledge and uprightness : Quia igitur omnes fere eontemporanei nostri sine his duobus offioium doeendi aggrediuntur, causa sunt quare sibi minus credatur. Discipuli enim culpa non carent, qui relicta Pytha- goricae doctrinae forma (qua eonstitutum erat discipulum septem annis audire et credere, octavo demum anno interro- gare), ex quo scholas intrant, antequam sedeant, et interrogant, imo (quod deteriua est) iudicant ; unius vero anni spacio negli- isqq. ON A PASSAGE IN JOHN OP SAMSBUEY, ETC. 363 genter studentes, totam sapientiam sibi cessisse putantes, ar- Ap.vii.viii reptis ab ea panniculis, vento garrulitatis et superbiae pleni, pondere rei vacui abeunt : et cum a suis parentibus vel ab aliis audiuntur, in verbis eorum parum aut nihil utilitatis per- penditur; statimque quod hoc solum a magistris acceperint, creditur unde magistri authoritas minuitur. 6. It is perhaps not extravagant to assert that the words of John of Salisbury, as I construe them, read precisely as an echo of what we now find to have been the consistent attitude towards learning and teaching maintained by William alike in his earliest and in his latest works ; but it is right to add that I was led to my interpretation of the passage in dispute, from a comparison of John of Salisbury's different references to William of Conches and Richard I'Eveque, and before I had entered upon the examination of William's own writings. The convergence of the double testimony is too exact to need insisting upon further ; but I may venture to doubt whether the common view which I combat would ever have been suggested, far less accepted, had the historians of medieval literature taken the trouble to acquaint them- selves personally with the books they describe. VIII. Note on Abailaed's Masters. The manuscript of Saint Emmeram's, Ratisbon (now at Munich), from which Pez printed Abailard's Scifo te ipsum and Rheinwald more recently the same writer's Sententiae or epitome of theology, contains a notice of his biography to which, it seems to me^ sufficient attention has not been directed. We must observe first that the character of the works in the volume is such as to mark it as proceeding from the inner circle of Abailard's disciples : for the Scito teipgum had the reputation at least of being peculiarly esoteric, in fact, like the Sic et non, of shunning the 364. APPENDIX. app. vm. light ^5 ; and the Sententiae may be nearly certainly 'Cf.Deutsch, accepted as the '^ lecture-notes of a pupil. The presump- iard453-456. tion therefore is that the biographical record which accom- panies these pieces is based upon special sources of infor- mation. Unfortunately a part of it is so evidently apocryphal, that critics have not unnaturally regarded it as altogether unworthy of consideration. It runs as follows : >Thes.anecd. ' Petrus, qui Ahelarius, a plerisque Baiolardus, dicitur, sert. isagog. nations AnglicTis, primum grammaticae et dialecticae, hinc ' divinitati operam dedit. Sad cum asset inaestimandae sub- tilitatis, inauditae memoriae, capacitatis supra humanum modum, auditor aliquando magistri Eoscii, coepit eum cum exfestucatione quadam sensuum illius audire. Attamen im- paravit sibi ut per annum lectionibus ipsius interesset. Mox ergo socios habere, et Pai'isius palam dialecticae atque divini- tatis lectiones dare coepit ; et facile omnes Franciae magistros in brevi supervenit. Qui cum de Quadruvio nihil audisset, clam magistro Tirrico in quasdam mathematicas lectiones aures dabat, in quibus supra quam aestimaret obtentu difficultatis intellectus resiliebat audientis. Cui semel afilicto et indig- nanti per iocum magister Tirricus ait, Quid canis jtlenus nisi lardum baiare consuevit ? Baiare autem lingere est. Exinde Baiolardus appellari coepit. Quod nomen tanquam ex defectu quodam sibi impositum cum abdicaret, sub litteratura non dissimili Hahelardum, se nominari fecit, quasi qui haberet artium apud se summam et adipem. Taking these statements in order, we remark — I. That the natione Anglicus, Brilannus having been obviously changed into an apparent synonym^ gives the '^ Sunt autem, ut audio, adhuc etiam quaesita inveniuntur : Epist.- alia eiua opusoula quorum nomina Guill. de S. Theod. ad Gaufr. et Bunt, Sie et non, Scito te ipsum, Bern., (Bern. 0pp. I. 303 B, ep. et alia quaedam, de quibus timeo cccxxvi. 4, ed. Mabillon). The ne, siout monstruosi sunt nominis, Sententiae are coupled with the sic etiam sint monstruosi dogmatis : Scito te ipsum by Bernard, Ep. sed, siout dicunt, oderunt lucem neo clxxxviii. 2, p. 181 E. NOTE ON ABAILARD'S MASTERS. 365 impression of the writer being but remotely acquainted app. viii. with Abailard's history. 2. On the other hand, the order of his studies is cor- rectly given. We have, it is true, no information about the time when Abailard learned grammar and we have to admit the probability that the writer merely conjectured that Abailard followed what was after all the natural and ' customary curriculum. 3. But the mention of Roscius (though the corrupt form in which the name is given, may be considered to tell both ways) is of distinct importance. For a long time this passage was the only one, besides the notice of ™ Otto ° Gest. . . . , . . Frider. i. 47, of Freising, that spoke of Abailard's personal relations with P"'^ ^°- 376- E-oscelin; and Otto's testimony was ''commonly discredited, ■" Hist. litt. de la France especially because Abailard in his Historia Calamitatum 9- 359 (1750), altogether ignored the fact. So soon however as Abailard's Dialectic was printed, it was found that he was in all prob- ability the person referred to under the abbreviated style of °magistri nostri Ros. The discovery in a Munich manu- » Cousin, -. ii-n T ouvr. ini^d. script of a P letter unquestionably addressed by Roscelin to d'Aba. 471. his former pupil (though here the names are indicated only 2. 7,2-803,''''' by initials), has finally decided the matter, and to this extent confirmed the evidence of the record here under consideration. 4. The next point, namely, that Abailard was unversed in the arts of the quadrivium is, also of importance, since it is incidentally corroborated by Abailard's own statement that he was ignorant of mathematics : after quoting a geo- metrical argument from Boethius, he adds, 1 Cuius quidem solutionis, etsi multas ab arithmetiois solu- ^ Dialect, p. tiones audierim, nullam tamen a me praeierendam ludico, quia eius artis ignarum omnino me cognosce. 5. Then follows the story of his attendance upon the lectures of master Tirric. After what '' we have said about ' Supra, pp. Theodoric or Terric of Chartres, it is natural that we should 366 APPENDIX. App. VIII. be disposed to identify him with this teacher of mathe- ' matics, especially since Tirric is found among the audience at Abailard's trial at Soissons. But what raises this con- jecture to a hig'her degree of probability is the circum- ' Hist, de la stance that the extracts which = M Haur^au has recently phil. scol. 1. , . . * J97 n. 1, 402 printed from an unpublished treatise by Theodonc, show an evident partiality for mathematical illustrations. The account then of Abailard's connexion with Tirric suits exactly with what we know from other sources of these scholars' attitude towards mathematics. 6. The concluding story about the origin of the name Abailard is of course a figment. Apart from its grotesque- ness and intrinsic improbability (especially when we re- member that, on the narrator's showing, Abailard must have adopted a new name after he had acquired his remark- able reputation as a teacher), there is sufficient evidence that the name is not unique. A little before Peter Abai- lard's birth, a son of Humphrey the Norman and nephew ' Rob. de of Robcrt Wlscard received the name of ^Abaielarchs. 1129, Pertz 7. Dismissins' this legend then, we find that our docu- 6. 489. ' „ meut names two of Abailard's teachers, one of whom (though the name is corrupted) points to an established fact, and the other to one inherently probable. The chro- nology however presents serious difficulties. There is no interval after Abailard entered upon the study of theology in which we can plausibly insert the lessons he had from Tirric, who, so far as we know, taught only at Chartres ; so that I incline to believe that Abailard made a short stay at Chartres during his first years of student life, after he left Roscelin and before he reached — possibly on his road " Supra, p. to — Paris ; or at the latest " during the period for which, suffering from ill-health or the hostility of William of Champeaux he retired from the neighbourhood of Paris. However this may be, I see no reason for doubting the truth of the bare fact that Abailard did enter upon a course of learning under Tirric. ON ABAILARD AND GILBEET DE LA POKKEE. 367 IX. Note on the second preface to Gilbert de la Porrbe's Commentary on Boethius. I. ""John op Salisbury states that after the events of append, ix. the council at Rheims Gilbert continued to suffer from the x HilT^ntif. injury then done to him by those who sought to convict ji"'. ^"" ^°' him of heresy, and took means to vindicate his position. Scripsii ergo postea contra illos alterum prologum in exposi- tionem Boelhn sui, in quo quosdam, videlicet emulos sues, asserit sic hereticorum vitare nomina, ut tamen errores eorum. sequantur et doceant. The date of this new preface is certain not only from the words of John just quoted, but also from the fact that according to John's account it was addressed to the capitula or articles of faith which were only produced by saint Bernard at Rheims. It therefore forms a sort of summing-up of the case from Gilbert's side, but was writ- ten for his own satisfaction at some time after the con- troversy had come to an end. a. This preface seems to have disappeared, but an im- portant fragment of it has lately been brought to light by professor Usener of Bonn, in the fifth volume of the ^Jahrhiicher fiir protestantiscJie Tlieologie for 1879. The y Voi. 5. 183- editor's estimate of his discovery is however exaggerated by a singular and almost inexplicable oversight. A great part of what he prints has in fact been published for over three hundred years, and stands in the very edition of Boethius which Dr Usener had before him (that of Basle, 1570), at the beginning of the Books on the Trinity. ^ Dr ' p- 185. Usener says, ' Each of the four commentaries has its intro- duction, and although that to the first treatise Be Trinitate is more extensive than the following ones, it is not more general in its character but is concerned with discussions raised by Boethius' text : ' this is the preface beginning, * Omnium quae rebus percipiendis suppeditant rationum. But, • Bosthuas. says Dr Usener, in a Vatican manuscript (Lat. 560) of the thirteenth century we find further Item alius prologus, 368 APPENDIX. Append. IX. and tliis also appears in a manuscript of Saint Victor. It ^ jahi^p. was written, '' he thinks, for a second edition of Gilbert's '^^' Commentary, after the council of Paris and thus presum- ably in preparation for that of Rheims. The hypothesis is no doubt possible, but it is curious that Dr Usener should be unacquainted with John of Salisbury's account, with which it is certainly natural to combine or identify this ' new preface.' It is more curious that the editor should not have observed that this very preface, only in a briefer 'Bosth.iiig. form, is to be found iu the ''printed edition, prefixed not to the Commentary but to the treatise of Boethius itself. The preface is therefore not a new one, but only an enlarged edition of that identical 'general preface,' the supposed absence of which puzzled Dr Usener, as we have seen above. 3. The new part is however of sufficient interest to be transcribed here, especially because when printed in the midst of a mass of old matter its importance does not immediately attract attention. It is inserted, after the words scriptoribus recedamus, before the concluding sentence, exactly where we should expect such an addition to be made ; and it runs as follows : ' Jihrb. pp. dQuamvis nos ab sis dissentire garriant quidam femiii atque preconii, qui cum nichil didicerint, opinione sua nesciunt nihil, homines sine rations philosoplii, sine visione prophets, prscep- tores impossibilium, indices cccultortim, quorum morss plurimis notes describsrs nil nostra interest. Ipsi vero tanquam excussi jjropriis alisna nsgotia curant et obliti suorum satiras sati- rorum \_sic\ ds ceteris animi ingenio et vits houestats preclaris multarum psrsonarum fingunt comedias. Qui etiam in Dsum blasphemi illos de ipso profitentur errorss quorum iiomina diffitentur. Nam, ut ita dicatur, hersticorum catholici in Sabellii, Donati, Pelagii, et aliorum huiusmodi pestilencium verba iurati, horum nomina (eo quod edictis publicis dampnata nosountur) cum catholicis detestantur, ut cum blasphemiarum caussis sint iuste dampnabiles, blaspliemorum detestatione pu- NOTE ON GILBERT DE LA PORKEE. 369 tentur indempnes : sed quia non tarn res nominibus quam Append, ix. nomina rebus accommodat impositio, quibuscunqiie res con- veniunt, nomina non convenire non possunt. Quoniam vera sunt, recte vocantur, Sabelliani, Donatiste, Pelagiani, et huius- modi. Et bene quod novi lieretici nil afferunt novi, ut ad im- probandnm adinventiones novas novis sit laborandum inventis. Antiqua sunt dogmata, olim per preclari et exercitati ingenii viros evidentissimis atque neoessariis rationibus improbata, quibus eadem novissimis his rediviva temporibus possunt re- fellere, quicunque recte intelligentes virorum illorum scriptis lectitandis invigilant. Sed qui neque legunt neque lecturiunt, ideoque scientiarum elementa, si qua prioribus annis attendere consueverant, post longa desuetudine desciverunt aut etiam corruptis artibus a via veritatis exorbitaverunt, has omnino rationes ignoraverunt. Quorum si forte aliqui humano errore aut potestate aliqua presunt aut preminent dignitate, pre- cipiunt ut verum falsum et falsum varum, iterumque bonum malum et malum bonum esse credatur : et quod impudentissi- mum est, ad sui magnificenciam quoslibet infames magnifioant et magnifioos infamant. Sed quia non tarn oognitoras quam cogniti resident, sepe contingit ut rerum consaquentibus can- cellatis cuiuspiam boni fame aliquid illorum favor detrahat et vituperatio addat. Quod nimirum attendentes, illorum male- dicta de nostris moribus et precepta de rebus contempnimus. Nam neque mores nostros convictu neque rerum proprietates disciplina noverunt. Then follows the concluding sentence of the printed edition, whose text I retain, appending the two variants that occur in Dr Usener's copy : Ouae 6 autem a nobis scripta sunt bene exercitatis lectoribus • yero, T- ^ ..... Usener. non modo rationibus firma, verum etiam scripturis autenticis adeo consona esse videntur ut nostra non tam inventa quam ffurta esse credantur. f firma ? £/. 4. The personal reference of the added passage is ex- actly in the same spirit as that answer which sJohn of « v. supra Salisbury reports Gilbert to have given when Bernard Bb 370 APPENDIX. App. IX, X. suggested an interview. It is also a valuable specimen of the language which could be used about the saint by neither an insignificant nor an irreligious section of his contemporaries. But the addition to the preface, although partly agreeing closely with what John of Salisbury says about the ' new preface,' does not cover the whole ground which he describes. Either therefore the new preface itself has disappeared, or rather been curtailed to its present dimensions, or else John has mixed up with his account of it reminiscences of his conversations with Gilbert on the sub- ject, reminiscences perhaps of his master's former lectures, or even his own independent vindication of Gilbert derived from a study of the Commentary on Boethius. But between these alternatives it would be probably rash to decide. X. Note on Claeenbald op Areas. Claeebaldus, archdeacon of Arras, is named in the con- >> Henr. Can- tiuuatiou of ^ Henry of Ghent, just after Peter Lombard, dav.descript. . , iiipt»"i- ecci., app., as having' written a commentary on the books of Boethms cap. lo; ... . Mirae. Bibi. O71 the Trinity, in which he argued against certain opinions of Gilbert de la Porree, condemned Abailard, and favoured 1 V0I.3.35SA, saint Bernard. In the "^Gallia Christiana he appears as 1876. ' holding the office of provost of the church of Arras in 1 153 and 1 153 ; and since his successor emerges in the year 1 160, it is presumed that he died before that date. His com- mentary should therefore ofier valuable contemporary evi- dence in regard to the controversies spoken of in my sixth k Vol. 12.445. chapter ; but the ^Histoire Utteraire de la France says it is ' non imprim^ et peut-etre perdu.' It exists, however, among the manuscripts of Balliol college, Oxford, curiously enough in the very same volume, cod. ecxevi, which con- tains some of Abailard's most treasured writings *". I have °° Among them the Commentary a portion of this very volume tran- on the Epistle to the Eomans which scribed for him for another work of Cousin stated to be found in no Abailard, known manuscript, although he had NOTE ON CLARENBALD OF ARRAS. 371 not had leisure to give the work move than a cursory append, x. examination. But the following notes will not be without interest. The Commentary was written after August 1 153, since it speaks of ^iocunde recordacionis alias Bernardus. We 'f. 198. learn also from it that the author — his name is here spelled Clarenbaldus—^as a disciple of Hugh of Saint Victor, and of Theoderic the Breton, whom "> we have seen reason ° Supra, p. to believe was chancellor of Chartres : "^' "Has causas mihi aliquantulum pertinaoiter investiganti » f. 190 *. doctores mei venerabiles, Hugo videlicet de Sancto Viotore at Theodericus Brito reddidere. Magister vero Gillebertus Picta- vensis episcopus verbis perplexis banc causam reddit. Que tametsi dispendiosa videri possunt, tamen in medium proferam, ne tarn clarum doctorem cum famosis doctoribus ascribere videar invidere. He therefore writes his criticism on Gilbert with the object, in part, of showing that his judgement of him is not in- fluenced by any grudge against including the illustrious doctor in the same class with the famous doctors first named ; so I understand the concluding words of the quotation. He charges Gilbert, as °so many others did, with an ex- « cf. supfa, cessive obscurity of style : sq.' ' '' ' P Exemplum huius lucidissime planitiei magister Gillebertus p f. 204. Pictavensis episcopus multo verborum circuitu tenebrosam ob- scuritatem inducit, liberatque verbis rem frivolam involventi- bus, ut credatur, etc. Clarenbald even finds fault with Gilbert's logic, speaking of him as '^falsum sibi in logica fingens, aut certe male 1 ibid. intelligens principium, quod est hoc, etc. But the strongest passage I have found against Gilbert is one in which he describes some views of his as expressly heretical and as having been condemned at the council of Rheims : "■Ex hoc loco episcopi Pictavensis error ortus esse videtur, ut tres ' f. 208 i. personas numero differentes esse assereret. . . . Ergo nee numero B b 2 372 APPENDIX. Append. X. tres persone inter se diflferunt. Quum vero in concilio Eemensi sub Eugenio papa super aliis rebus liber eius reprehensus dampnatusque tam scolarium lectionibus quam claustralium ademptus est, et hie error, utpote heresibus eius aliis nullo modo preferendus, ibi commemoratus non est, commodum mihi visum est verba quibus hunc ipsum locum pertransire voluit, in medium revocare. With respect to Abailard Clarenbald's language is still more hostile ; he accuses hirn of virtually resuscitating the opinions of Arius : • f. 197 b. 8 Eandem pene heresim Petrus Abailardus nostris diebus, longo sopore antiquatam, renovavit ; cum spiritu iactancie et impietatis plenus, divinitati ignominiam inferre, sibi gloriam conatus est parare. INDEX OF NAMES. Abailard, Peter, 136-175, 363-366; Cf. 2411. 2, 57, IO9-II2, 115, 302 sq-i 326, 370, 373 : his influence on William of Conches 125, 167, 173 ; cf. 344, 346 ; comparison with Gil- bert de la Porr^e 180 sq., 184 sq. ; cf. 134 sq. : his posthumous repu- tation 194-200. Adam du Petit Pont bishop of Saint David's 208 sq. ; cf. 186, 187 n. 20. Adelman bishop of Brescia 113 n. 5. Agobard, saint, 38-50 ; cf. 33 n. 16. Alberio of Paris, archdeacon of Eheims, 203 sqq. Alberio of Blleims, pupil of Anselm of Laon, 145, 149, 151 ; cf. 203 n. 4- Albinus, apparently a Scot, 17 n. 17- Alouin 17 sq., 20-23. Alfred, king, and foreign scholars, 56, 313-338. Amalrio of Bfene 77. Ambrose, saint, his tradition at Milan, 94 sq. Auastasiua the librarian 36, 56 n. 3, 320. Anselm, saint, 104 sqq.; cf. 65, 338 sq. Anselm of Bisate, the Peripatetic, 81 sq. Anselm of Laon 11 1 sq. ; cf. 133, J 35, 143 sqq. Aristippus, Euericus [HenricuaJ.his translation of Plato, 172 n. 7. Aristotle, his influence on medieval writers, i, E42, 222, 239 sq., 266- 269, 283, 297 ; cf. 225, 295, 311 sq. Arnold of Brescia 162, 247. Arnulf bishop of Orleans 87 n. 9, 89 n. 12. Asser, bishop of Sherborne, criticism of, 313-316. 320-329. Athelney, abbey of, 314 sqq., 321, 323 sq'> 328 sq. Augustin, saint, his influence on medieval writers, 30, 34, 49 sqq., 174 sq., 293. Bacon, Boger, 312 sq. Bale, John, bishop of Ossory, his story about John the Scot, 311 sqq, Bartholomew bishop of Narbonne 42. Beoket, Thomas, saint, 214 sq. ; cf. 189, 202. Bede 12, 19-21, 155, 358: work at- tributed to, 130, 339-344, 346, 351- Benedict Biscop 19. Benevento, superstition at, 43. Berengar of Tours 98 sq., loi sqq.; cf. 34 n. 17, 76, 113, 140. Bernard, saint, of Clairvaux, 183 sq. ; cf. 196, 198 : his relations with Abailard 157, 161-166, 184 sq., 188; with William of Conches 1 29 ; and witlj Gilbert de la Porr^e I.'iS sqq., 184-194, 367-370. Bernard Sylvester of Chartres, bishop of Quimper, 113-126; cf. 133, 134 n- 31, '35, 170, 206, 360 sq. Bobbio, abbey of, 15. Boethius 118, 353 ; cf. 179, 367, 370. Bogomiles 93. Bois, Peter du, 256-262. Boniface VIII 256 sq. Bonizo bishop of Sutri 246 u. 19, 252. Bruno, saint, archbishop of Cologne, 85 sqq. Camin, saint, 1 2. Cassiodorus 7, 171 n. 6. Charles the Bald 56 sq., 74 sq., 318. Charles the Great, his promotion of learning, 15-18; fiction of the translation of the empire by, 250 sqq. Chartres, school of, 88, 112-135, 206-209 ; cf. 169, 360 sqq. 374 INDEX OF NAMES. Chiersey, council of (849), 53. Clareubald archdeacon of Arras 370 sqq. Claudius of Turin 28-38 ; cf. 25 n. 23 : compared with Agobard 38 sq., 49 : his allegorical treatment of Scripture 46 ; cf. 30 n. 8. Clement, a Scot (7i4), 22 sq. Clement the Scot {temp. Charles the G-reat) 16. Colonna, Aegidius, 255 u. 27. Coltunban, saint, 13-16- Constantine, donation of, 249 sq., 254. 257, 261- Constantine the Carthaginian 339, 341 sq. Dante de MonarcJiia, 262 sq. Dionysius the Areopagite, saint, writings attributed to, 57 sq., 77 sq., 318 sq., 337 n. 49; cf. 155. Dungal of Pavia, his reply to Clau- dius of Turin, 37. Saldhelm, saint, student at Mal- mesbury 14; and at Canterbury 19: cf. 326. Eberhard of Bethune 118. Smo abbat of Werum 207 n. 8. Urigena, origin of the name, 55 n. 2. Uugenius II 24. Eugenius III 182 sq., 187. Filmer, sir Bobert, 231 n. 6, 291 n. 13. Frankfurt, council of (794), 27 sq. Fredegisus, abbat of Tours, his view of inspiration, 46, 66 sq. Fulbert bishop of Chartres 88, 113 sq. Pulk prior of Deuil 146 n. 11. Gall, saint, in Switzerland, 15. Geoffrey the Fair count of Anjou 129. 131. 347 sq- Geoffrey of Auxerre abbat of Clair- vaux 163, 185 sq., 190-193, 199. Geoffrey bishop of Chartres 154, 163- Gerbert, pope Sylvester II, 88 sqq., 100 sq. ; theological work attributed to, 329-3.?5- Gilbert de la PorrSe bishop of Poictiers 132-135, 179-194, 197- 200, 367-372; cf.I20sq., 206 sq., 210 sq., 325. Gottschalk the predestinarian 50- 63; cf. 44n. 27, 53 sq. Gottschalk abbat of Saint Eloy 187. Greek learning among the Irish 1 2, 67 sq., 318 sq. ; introduced by Hadrian at Canterbury 18 sq. ; manuscripts at York 21. Gregory I the Great 7 sq. Gregory VII, see Hildebrand. Gregory IX 249 sq. Gregory XI 284 n. 2, 293. Gregory of Tours 76. Grimbald 313-316. Grimoald duke of Benevento 43. Guitmund archbishop of Aversa 88. Gundobald king of the Burgundiana 45- Hadrian II 94. Hadrian IV 213, 233. Hadrian of Canterbury 1 8 sq. Hebrew learning, presumed, among the Irish, 1 2 and n. i ; manuscripts said to have formed part of the library at York 21 n. 19. Heloissa 146-149, I69 sq., 166. Henry II king of England 213 sq., 347 eq. Heric of Auxerre 75, 100, 140; cf. 337- Heriger abbat of Lobbes 89 and n. II ; cf. 76 n. 24. Hilary, saint, his influence on Gil- bert de laPorrde I33n. 30 ; cf. 193. Hildebrand, pope Gregory VII, 226- 233 ; cf. 94 sq., 244, 262, 382. Hinomar archbishop of Bheims 53 ; cf. 44 n. 27. Honorius III 77. Honorius of Autun, work attributed to, 130, 340-344. 346, 361- Hugh of Champfleury bishop of Soissons 186. Hugh of Saint Victor no; cf. 77, 198, 200, 211 sq., 371. Ingulf abbat of Croyland, chronicle ascribed to, 316, 322 sqq., 326, 329. Innocent II I67 sqq., 166. Innocent III 248, 250, 252. Irish culture diffused by missionaries 9-18; cf. 74 n- 23, 76 n. 25, 85 sq. ; distinguished from the English tra- dition 18, 22 sq. Israel a Scottish bishop 85 sq. Italy, schools of, 81-84. Ivo bishop of Chartres 114. INDEX OP NAMES. 375 Jews, the, their condition under Lewis the Pious, 46 sqq, John XXII 253, 265 sq., 280 sq. John of CornwaU 1 99 n. 30. John of Jandun 265 ; of. 264 n. 11. John of Paris 245 n. 17, 26i,264n. 12. John of Salisbury 200-225 ; of. 161 : his account of the school of Chartres 120-124, 360 sq. ; and of the coun- cil of Rheims 187-189, 194; cf. 367-370 : his political doctrine 233-2.^8. John the Saxon abbat of Athelney 314 aqq., 321-325, 328 sq. John the Scot 53-78, 99 sqq., 313- 329; of. 13 n. 14, 180, 225 n. 21, 311 sqq., 335 sq. : hie allegorical treatment ot Scripture 46, 62 sq., 66 sq. John the Scot, saint, bishop of Mecklenburg 327. Jonas bishop of Orleans 36 sq., 236. Judith empress of Charles the Bald 47 sq., 74. Lanfranc archbishop of Canterbury 84, 102 sq., 114. Laon, school of, i ii sq ; Abailard at, 143 sqq. Leidrad archbishop of Lyons 38. Leo III 251 sq. Lewis I the Pious 47 sq. Lewis IV the Bavarian 263, 265 sq., 280 sq. Lisle, school at, 106. Livinus, saint, 13 n. 14. Locke, John, 291 n. 13. . Lotulf of Novara 149, 151. Lucretius, study of, 1 18, 2i9n.i9, 357. Luxeuil, abbey of, 15. Lyons, practice of the wager of battle at, 45. Mailduf founder of Malmesbury 14. Malmesbury, abbey of, 14, 19, 56, 319-326. Manegold of Lutterbach 232 ; cf. 229 n. 4. Manicheans 92-97. Mareionites 92 sq. Maraiglio of Padua 263-277; of. 279 sqq., 307- ■ Martianus Capella 76, 118 sq. Maximus the Neo-Platonist 58. Mentz, council of (829), 51. Michael of Cesena 280. Milan, church of, 94 sq. Montforte, heresy at, 95 sq. Uicea, second council of (787), 27 sq., 33 and n. 15. Nicholas I 58, 319 ; cf. 56 n. 3. iWicholas II 233. Uorthbert, saint, 157. Northumbrians in the Irish schools 12. Notker Balbulus, saint, 123 sq. Ockham, ^William, 264, 275-281 ; of. 304, 307. Odo bishop of Camhray 106. Orleans, heresy at, 96 sqq. Otto I the Great 85, 87. Otto III 90. Otto of Preislngj his criticism of saint Bernard, 183-186. Oxford, university of, legends about the, 314, 324, 328; cf. 201 n. I: Wycliflfe at, 286-289 ; manuscripts at, 65 n. 2, 131, 135 n. 32, 172, 285 n. 3, 289 n. 10, 312 sq., 329- 335. 340. 350 sq., 370 sqq. Paraclete, the, oratory, afterwards abbey, of, 155 sq., 159 sq., 166, 196. Paris, councils of (825), 36; (1147) 186; (1209) 225: schools of, their supposed early origin 56 ; under William of Champeaux 109 sq., 124, 138 sq. ; under Gilbert de la Porr^e 133 sq , 210, 207 n. 7; cf. 202-205, 208 sqq., 264. Pascasius Kadbert 49, 80. Patrick, saint, 9. Paulicians 93 sqq. Pavia, law-school of, 83. Pelayo, Alvaro, 250. Peter de la Celle 213, 215 n. 15. Peter Helias 207. Peter the Lombard 187. Peter the Venerable 166. Philip the Pair, king of France, 248, 257. Plato, translations of, 172 n. 7 ; com- mentary on, by William of Conches 124, 353 ; his influence on medieval thought 55, 58, 117 sq., 126, 130, 170-175, 295- Poppo, vision of, 87. Prisoian, commentaries on, 207, 353 n. 77. Ptolemy of Lucca 240 n. 5. PuUeyn, Kobert, cardinal, 210 sq. 376 INDEX OF NAMES. Quidort, Jolin, see John of Paris. Eabanus Maurus archbishop of Mentz 51, 336. ^ Raimbert, a nominalist, 106. Ealpli of Laon 1 1 1 sq. Katherius bishop of Verona 80, 82. Batramuus 59 n. 8, 76. Reichenau, abbey of, 15, 87. Bemigius, saint, of Auxerre, 75, 100. Kheims, council of (1148), 187-194, 367 sq. Bicbard I'Evgque bishop of Avran- ches 124, 131 sq., 207, 360 sq. Bichard fitzBalph archbishop of Armagh 284 n. i. Bobert of Melun bishop of Hereford 187, 204' sq.; of. no. Borne, council of (826), 24 : see and church of, claims of, 58, 77, 226-231, 246-253, 255 sq., 282 sq. ; views held concerning, at different times, 3 sq., 22 sq., 28, 35, 83, 89 n. 12, 189, 233, 235, 239, 241 sq., 246, 263 Bqq., 258-262, 272 sqq., 277- 280, 284 sq., 289, 302 sqq.: rela- tion of the church towards learning 5-9. 24. 79 sq., 175-179- Eosoelin 98 sq., 103 sq., 321 ; of. 141, 152, 337 sq. : his relations with Abailard 137 sq., 150 sqq., 364 sqq. Saint Denys, abbey of, 57 ; Abailard at, 148 sq., 155 sq. Saint Gall, abbey of, 15, 87, 100. Saint Genevieve, schools of, 139 sq., 160 sqq., 203 sqq., 212. Saint "Victor, abbey of, 100, 211 sq. ; cf. 139. Saracens, their inroads uponltaly, 32. Scotland, a name including Ireland, Soots, see Irisb. Sens, council of (1140), 163-166. Simon of Poissy 210 sq. Soissons, council of (1121), 151-155. Stephen of Alinerra 191 n. 23. Sulgen bishop of Saint David's, his studies in Ireland, 14 n. 15. Sylvester II, see Gerbert. Terric, see Theodoric. Tertullian 6. Theobald archbishop of Canterbury 189, 213 sq. Theodore of Tarsus archbishop of Canterbury 18. Theodoric of Chartres 114 sqq., 207, 364,eqq. ; cf. 187 u. 20, 371. - Thomas Aquinas, saint, 240-246 ; cf. 303. Toumay, school at, 106. Trionfo, Augustin, 250, 253 sqq. Vercelli, council of (1050), 76. Vioenza, heresy at, 80 sq. Vienna, manuscripts at, 265 n. 13, 290 n. II, 292. Vilgard of Eavenna 82. Vincent of Beauvais 356 sq. Virgil, commentary on, 118, 170. Virgil bishop of Salzburg, his doc- trine of antipodes, 2 3. Vulgarius, Eugenius, 83. Walafrid Strabo 36, 135 n. 32. ■Walter of Mortagne 187 n. 20. "Walter of Saint Victor 199, 349. "Wariuus de Liro abbat of Malmes- bury 325 sq. "Wearmouth, library of, 19. "Wicelin of Bremen in. "William of Champeaux 107, 109 sqq., 138 sqq. 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