6 1 II. sures of reform. old questions of the Palace School, and to summon back to СНАР. the contending camps, and to the task of quieting the minds. of the mutinous soldiery, the veteran who had served his time;' especially,' he adds, as you have by you the tomes both of secular learning and of the Church's wisdom, wherein the true answers may be found to all your queries.' Something of the enthusiasm of his early days came back His meato the weary old man as he welcomed at St. Martin the youthful neophytes who, attracted by his fame, came seeking admission within the abbey walls. His first aim was to provide them with a good library, such a library as he had himself watched over at York; and we accordingly find him writing to Charles, soon after his installation, to beg that he may be allowed to send some of the young monks to England, who might bring back to France the flowers of Britain,' 'so that these may diffuse their fragrance and display their colours at Tours as well as at York.' 2 6 In the morning of His letter my life,' he says, in the same letter, 'I sowed in Britain ; and now, in the evening of that life, when my blood begins to chill, I cease not to sow in France, earnestly praying that, by God's grace, the seed may spring up in both lands. for my own frail frame, I solace myself with the thought to which St. Jerome, when writing to Nepotianus, gives expression; and reflect that all the powers might well decline with old age, but that, although the rest wane, wisdom augments in strength.' What books his deputies brought back from York we have no evidence to shew, but we may safely assume that the collection did not include a copy of Martianus Capella. As The reputation of the monastery of St. Martin in former times harmonised well with Alcuin's design of making it a model for the religious life and discipline throughout Frankland. It had once been famous for both its learning and its austere rule. Sulpicius Severus, in his life of the founder, tells us that even the greatest cities preferred that their superior clergy should be recruited from those who had been 1 Epist. 82; Migne, c 266. 2 Epist. 43; Migne, c 208. 3 Mane florentibus per aetatem studiis seminavi in Britannia. Nunc vero frigescente sanguine quasi vespere in Francia seminare non cesso. Utraque enim, Dei gratia donante, oriri optans.' Ibid. c 209. to Charles. II. 1 CHAP. educated at St. Martin; and its aristocratic associations are probably indicated by the fact that its members, in their leisure hours, confined themselves entirely to the scholarly labours of the scriptorium. Even this occupation, however, was discarded by the older monks, who devoted themselves solely to prayer.2 sentations to Charles at variance with his actual discipline. 6 There is good reason for concluding that, in the interpretation given by Alcuin to the Benedictine rule, the classic authors-whose names occupy so prominent a place in his description of the library at York—were almost entirely forHis repre- bidden, at least to the younger monks. It is true that, in the letter to Charles 3 above quoted, he says, that, in comsomewhat pliance with the royal instructions and good pleasure,' he shall give to some the honey of the sacred writings,' 'shall gladden others with the vintage of the ancient learning,' and mete out to others the apples of grammatical subtlety;" but it appears not improbable that he concealed, to some extent, from his royal patron those severer canons which closed to the junior students at St. Martin the page of pagan fancy and legend. It is certain, at any rate, that an incident recorded by Alcuin's unknown biographer clashes somewhat with the foregoing representations. Sigulfus, along with two others of the younger monks-Aldricus and Adalbert, afterwards abbat of Ferrières-endeavoured, notwithstanding the formal prohibition, to carry on the study of Vergil unknown to the abbat. They believed that they had effectually guarded against detection; but one day Sigulfus received a summons to Alcuin's presence. "How is this, Vergilian,' said the abbat, that unknown to me, and contrary to my express command, thou hast begun to study Vergil?' The astonished monk threw himself at his superior's feet, and promised from that day forth to study Vergil no more. He was dismissed with a severe reprimand; and Story told of Sigulfus. 1 'Quae enim esset civitas aut ecclesia, quae non sibi de Martini monasterio cuperet sacerdotem ?' Sulp. Sev. Vita S. Martini, Migne, xx 166. 2 Ars ibi, exceptis scriptoribus, nulla habebatur; cui tamen operi minor aetas deputabatur; majores orationi vacabant.' Ibid. 3 Epist. 43; Migne, c 208. 4 Alcuini Vita, Migne, c 101. it may be inferred that all three laid the lesson well to heart, for two of the number lived to merit and receive Alcuin's warmest approval and praise.' CHAP. Over the whole discipline of the monastery Alcuin watched Aleuin's with untiring vigilance. The points on which he especially general discipline. insisted were, a stricter observance of the Benedictine rule and the cultivation of sacred learning. He was unceasing in his exhortations to nightly vigils, to humility, obedience, and chastity. Verses full of wise precepts were suspended in the refectory and the dormitories. He gave careful supervision to the work of the transcribers, whose art would appear to have sadly degenerated. Writing to Charles, in the year 800, he complains that the use of full-points, and, in fact, punctuation generally, had become almost entirely neglected. He hoped, however, to effect a reform in this as in other matters: licet parum proficiens,' he says, 'cum Turonica quotidie pugno rusticitate.' 3 2 from Neus The fame of his teaching attracted disciples not only Numerous from all Frankland, but even from across the Channel. From students England they came in such numbers as to excite the England. jealousy of the Neustrians. One day an Anglo-Saxon Envy priest knocked at the gate of the monastery, and while he of the waited without, his appearance and dress were eyed by four trians. of the monks who were standing by. They imagined, says the narrator, that he would not understand their speech, and he overheard one of them say, 'Here is another Briton or Irishman come to see the Briton inside. The Lord deliver this monastery from these British, for they swarm hither like bees to their live!' 1 Of Sigulfus Alcuin says that he was 'sacrae lectionis studiosissimus;' of Adalbert, 'bonam habuit voluntatem et humilitatem, seu in servitio Dei, seu etiam in lectionis studio.' Alcuini Vita; Praef. in Genesin, Migne, c 516; see also letter to Arno, c 295. 6 2 Pour transcrire les manuscrits, l'abbé de Tours mit en usage le petit caractère romain, plus beau et plus lisible que la pesante écriture des Mérovingiens: c'est ce qu'on appelle l'écriture caroline.' Monnier, p. 243. 3 Migne, c 315. 4 Presbyter Engel-Saxo.' Ib. c 102. An apparent exception to the rule laid down by Mr. Freeman-that 'the name by which our forefathers really knew themselves and by which they were known to other nations was "English" and no other.' Norman Conquest, i 536 (2nd edit.). CHAP. II. Alcuin's for his It is not improbable that this jealousy was to some extent stimulated by the preference which, either from expediency or inclination, Alcuin evidently entertained for preference his own countrymen. It was Witzo, one of his companions own coun- from York to Aachen, who taught for a time as his approved trymen. successor in the Palace School. Fredegis, who had also been educated at York, afterwards succeeded to the same post and was abbat, after Alcuin, at Tours. Liudger, a native indeed of Friesland, but one of Alcuin's scholars in England, was raised by Charles, at his former instructor's suggestion, to preside over the newly created see of Münster. Sigulfus, the disciple most honoured by Alcuin's confidence, was his chosen successor at Ferrières. The impression that we thus derive, of a certain amount of national prejudice on Alcuin's part, serves to illustrate the difference between his Difference character and that of Charles. The latter in no way shared the feeling with which the young Neustrians at Tours regarded the new-comers from beyond the seas. To quote the expression of Einhard, ' he loved the foreigner,'—exhibiting, in a marked degree, a characteristic rarely absent from administrative genius of the highest order, the passion for studying the dissimilar. in this respect between him and Charles. But just as it was to this feature in Charles' character that Alcuin, in common with many of his countrymen, was indebted for his cordial reception at the Frankish court, so, not long after his retirement to Tours, the same tendency, on the part of his royal patron, began to manifest itself in a manner that occasioned him no small anxiety. The sympathy which welcomed the Anglo-Saxon could also extend itself to the Scot; the enquiring intellect which listened with so much eagerness to the teaching of the school at York, was not content to ignore, as mysteriously heterodox, the ancient doctrine of Lindisfarne; and thus there now ensued an episode in the history of the Palace School which requires that we should turn aside for a moment from our main narrative, to note some of the most remarkable features in the history of a memorable though almost forgotten movement. We have already adverted to the fact that a very different CHAP. II. teries in and school of theology from that of Boniface and Alcuin had been represented in Frankland in the person of Columban.1 So far as it is possible to discern the facts in a singularly The Irish obscure period, it would appear probable that the better in- monas fluences of Cassian's teaching, as preserved and transmitted the sixth by the Insulani, had found their way to the monasteries of seventh Ireland. In striking contrast to the fate that overtook the centuries. great foundations in Frankland, these monasteries were equally distinguished by their material prosperity and their devotion to letters; and the writers of the age often allude with enthusiasm to the one land where the Church achieved a durable conquest unaided by the civil arm and unstained by the effusion of blood. To their fancy it resembled the mythic region of the Hesperides, a land shrouded in a halo of blissful repose, whence the baneful influences of the seasons and all that could molest or harm were repelled by some guardian power.2 The Irish monks themselves cherished this conception, and the rude stanzas chanted by the monks of Banchor still exist, wherein they liken their monastery to a ship, rudely tossed at times by the waves without, but peaceful and secure within.3 cesses in To the Frank the traditions of this distant land could Columban's sucappeal for an impartial audience with far better prospects of success than to the leaders of religious policy in England, Frankland. and already in the person of Columban had gained a brilliant though evanescent triumph. Long before St. Boniface set foot in Thuringia, before even St. Augustine landed in Kent, Columban had set forth from Ulster, to found on the frontier of Austrasia, amid the mountains of the Vosges, the monastery of Luxeuil-famous in the seventh century for its learning when learning in Frankland was dead. From thence he had issued forth to rebuke the vices of the Burgundian court; and from thence, after a retirement of twelve years, had 2 Bede, Eccles. Hist. 1 i. 1 See supra, p. 41. 3 Benchuir bona regula Muratori Anecd. (quoted by Ozanam, p. 101). |