СНАР.

I.

Alcuin's chief friends:

Arno,

tion. We find him accordingly maintaining his ground at the Palace School with apparently undiminished reputation, while throughout the realm he could number among his friends the foremost men in Church and State. Besides those already enumerated as among his audience at court, there were three of especial eminence. The first, the friend to whom he seems to have been of all others most closely attached, was his fellow-countryman Arno, bishop of Salzburg, to whom many of his letters are addressed, and who, in his remote diocese, was energetically carrying on the Benedict of noble work of St. Boniface. The second, Benedict of Aniane, Aniane, had formerly been a page in the court of Pepin-le-Bref, and his chivalrous nature and prowess in the fight especially endeared him to Charles; but on him, too, had fallen the sorrow of his age, and he was now, in his cell on the Aniane,1 withdrawn from life and famed for the austerity with which he there enforced the observance of the Benedictine rule. and Theo- Equally eminent, though in different fashion, was Theodulfus, bishop of Orleans, the founder of the great school of Fleury, a Spaniard of Gothic descent who reflected the culture of southern Gaul, and whose name is memorable as that of the initiator of free education and an active guardian of letters.

dulfus.

Monasteries placed under his

control.

On every side, indeed, Alcuin appears to have found active sympathy and co-operation; and if the task to which he had been summoned was arduous, the resources at his disposal were proportionably great. Two important monasteries one that of St. Loup near Troyes, the other that of Ferrières in the Gatinais-were placed under his control, and supplied him with a sufficient revenue; while in the work of educational reform he was supported by the whole of the royal influence. During the first five years that followed upon his arrival at Charles' court, it would appear, however, that the Saxon war effectually distracted the monarch's attention from efforts of a general and comprehensive character. But in the year 785 the hero Witikind laid down his arms and embraced Christianity. His example

1 A river in Septimania (the modern Languedoc) remarkable for its wild and rugged scenery.

I.

was followed by large numbers of his countrymen, the CHAP. thunder-clouds of war rolled off to more distant parts of the empire, and Neustria and Austrasia had rest.'

Suspension

Within two years from this time we accordingly find Saxon Charles developing a more extended scheme of reformation, war. and calling upon the monasteries and the Church to aid him in giving due effect to his designs. In the famous Capitulary Charles' Capitulary of 787 we recognise both the practical spirit of the monarch of 787. and the influence of his new adviser. The copy that has reached us is that addressed to the abbat of Fulda. Far away beyond the boundaries of modern France, a hundred miles eastward of the Rhine, amid the solitudes and wooded heights of Hesse Cassel, the monks of this now famous foundation maintained, in envied independence of episcopal control,2 the observance of the rule of St. Benedict. As the site hallowed by the mortal remains of St. Boniface, Fulda appealed with peculiar force to the characteristic superstition of the age, scarce yielding to St. Martin itself in its claims to especial reverence; its abbat was one of the four abbates imperii, while its material importance is sufficiently indicated by supplies of men and money to the state in times of war,3 and its frequent selection as the place of confinement for political prisoners. It was here that the abbat Baugulfus received a copy of the capitulary which Charles addressed to the bishops and abbats throughout the realm :—

Charles, by the grace of God, King of the Franks and of the Lombards and Patrician of the Romans, to Baugulfus, abbat, and to his whole congregation and the faithful committed to his charge:

'Be it known to your devotion, pleasing to God, that in conjunction with our faithful we have judged it to be of

1 'Quievitque illa Saxonicae perfidiae pervicacitas per annos aliquot, ob hoc maxime, quoniam occasiones deficiendi ad rem pertinentes invenire non potuerunt.' Einhard, Annales (ed. Teulet), i 196.

2 This was in accordance with the original plan of St. Boniface; see supra, p. 45, n. 2.

6

3 Baluze, i 589. See also a letter from Einhard to Rabanus Maurus begging on behalf of one of the monks, ut sibi liceat iter exercitale, quod praesenti tempore agendum est, omittere.' Carolina, 469.

H

I.

CHAP. utility that, in the bishoprics and monasteries committed by Christ's favour to our charge, care should be taken that there shall be not only a regular manner of life and one conformable to holy religion, but also the study of letters, each to teach and learn them according to his ability and the divine assistance. For even as due observance of the rule of the house tends to good morals, so zeal on the part of the teacher and the taught imparts order and grace to sentences; and those who seek to please God by living aright should also not neglect to please Him by right speaking. It is written, "by thine own words shalt thou be justified or condemned; and although right doing be preferable to right speaking, yet must the knowledge of what is right precede right action. Everyone, therefore, should strive to understand what it is that he would fain accomplish; and this right understanding will be the sooner gained according as the utterances of the tongue are free from error. And if false speaking is to be shunned by all men, especially should it be shunned by those who have elected to be the servants of the truth. During past years we have often received letters from different monasteries informing us that at their sacred services the brethren offered up prayers on our behalf; and we have observed that the thoughts contained in these letters, though in themselves most just, were expressed in uncouth language, and while pious devotion dictated the sentiments, the unlettered tongue was unable to express them aright. Hence there has arisen in our minds the fear lest, if the skill to write rightly were thus lacking, so too would the power of rightly comprehending the sacred Scriptures be far less than was fitting; and we all know that though verbal errors be dangerous, errors of the understanding are yet more so. We exhort you, therefore, not only not to neglect the study of letters, but to apply yourselves thereto with perseverance and with that humility which is well pleasing to God; so that you may be able to penetrate with greater ease and certainty the mysteries of the Holy Scriptures. For as these contain images, tropes, and similar figures, it is impossible to doubt that the reader will arrive far more readily at the

spiritual sense according as he is the better instructed in learning. Let there, therefore, be chosen for this work men who are both able and willing to learn, and also desirous of instructing others; and let them apply themselves to the work with a zeal equalling the earnestness with which we recommend it to them.

'It is our wish that you may be what it behoves the soldiers of the Church to be,-religious in heart, learned in discourse, pure in act, eloquent in speech; so that all who approach your house in order to invoke the Divine Master or to behold the excellence of the religious life, may be edified in beholding you and instructed in hearing you discourse orchant, and may return home rendering thanks to God most High.

Fail not, as thou regardest our favour, to send a copy of this letter to all thy suffragans and to all the monasteries; and let no monk go beyond his monastery to administer justice or to enter the assemblies and the voting-places. Adieu.'1

CHAP.

I.

hand dis

In this memorable capitulary, perhaps the most import- Alcuin's ant document of the Middle Ages-the charter of modern cernible. thought,' as one writer styles it 2-it is not difficult to discern the true authorship. Among all the scholars then living, few, we apprehend, could have thus discoursed of the intimate correspondence between correct language and just thought (a foreshadowing, it would almost seem, of the scholastic estimate of the functions of logic), and of the importance of the allegorical element in the Scriptures; while the stipulation with respect to what may be termed the volitional element, as essential to success in teaching-in the requirement that the instructor shall be desirous of imparting knowledge 3-points to one of the best features in the monastic theory of education.

This capitulary appears to have been issued on Charles' return from Augsburg, where he had just received the submission of the rebellious Tassilo. During his residence at

1 Constitutio de Scholis per singula Episcopia et Monasteria instituendis. Baluze, i 201-4; Pertz, Legg. i 52-3.

2

Ampère, iii 25.

3.Et desiderium habeant alios instruendi.'

I.

Charles obtains

the services of

teachers of singing, grammar, and arith

CHAP. Rome, in the preceding months, he had secured the services of teachers of singing, grammar, and arithmetic; and these were now sent to the principal different monasteries throughout the kingdom to render practical aid in carrying out the reforms indicated in the royal letter. Two years later, at the great council held at Aachen in 789, finding, it would seem, that his injunctions had not been sufficiently carried metic from out, he issued more precise instructions. Let the monks,' said the new capitulary, make themselves thoroughly masters of the Roman method of chanting, and observe this method in the services, according to the decree of our father Pepin, who abolished the Gallican method, in order that he might place himself in agreement with the Apostolic see and promote concord in God's Church.''

Rome.

Council of

Aachen,

789.

The

Roman

method of chanting enjoined.

Defective state of

MSS. at

this period.

Among the most glaring results of the state of things which the emperor sought to remedy was the number of incorrectly transcribed copies of portions of the Scriptures, of breviaries and homilaries, scattered throughout the realm. Along with the general decline of learning, the monastic libraries had suffered greatly from neglect; while the loss of the papyrus, owing to the occupation of Egypt by the Saracens, had largely increased the costliness of the necessary material.

The sacred or patristic page, turned by rude unlettered hands, became mutilated or defaced. Transcripts became rarer; and ignorance, in its efforts to restore the text, already obscured by numerous and arbitrary contractions, doubtless often committed strange blunders; blunders such as afterwards gave rise to scarcely less ludicrous misapprehensions, on the part of half-informed modern writers, as to the actual state of learning in these times-to stories like those of the Benedic mulis et mulabis tuis' of bishop

1 Quod beatae memoriae genitor noster Pippinus rex decertavit ut fieret, quando gallicanum cantum tulit ob unanimitatem Apostolicae Sedis et sanctae Dei Ecclesiae pacificam concordiam.' Baluze, i 715. In Ansegisus this is addressed to monastic bodies; Pertz (Legg. i 66) heads the article 'Omni Clero,' Baluze, 'Omnibus Clericis.' It was probably issued to both orders alike.