liminary stages of academic instruction. The fruits of their system may be seen in the circumstance mentioned by Roger Bacon, that in his day there were not four men of learning to be met with who exhibited an adequate acquaintance with grammar. The schoolmen of the twelfth century had entered upon the study of Latin literature with lively activity and interest. Grammar and Rhetoric had been zealously cultivated in conjunction with dialectics, and the productions of these authors give evidence of a by no means unsuccessful attempt at combining some degree of elegance and correctness of expression with accuracy and fullness of thought. In the century of which we are now treating the divorce between substance and the form of Philosophy was complete. The writers of the period in which the mendicant orders were supreme exhibit in its harshest form that barbarous and uninviting mode of exposition to which the scholastic philosophy has been mainly indebted for the neglect and oblivion into which it has subsequently fallen. Again, as representing the monastic principle in its utmost force and intensity, the mendicant monks were inevitably led to aim at asserting a complete independence of the jurisdiction of the University, and to regard the welfare of this institution as wholly subordinate to the interests of their own order. The establishment of such an imperium in imperio called forth the most determined opposition on the part of the academic body, which saw its own authority and the interests of learning equally imperiled by the aggressions of these restless and unscrupu lous precursors of the Jesuits. The long and violent controversies which ensued seem merely to have established by definite statutory enactments what had all along been the tendency, if not the actual usage of the University. The doctors of theology were in the first place allowed to form a distinct portion of the University. Their example was soon followed by those of Medicine and Canon law. Ultimately the Nations recognized the same principle, and organized themselves as the Faculty of Arts. The origin of this title is traced by Bulaeus to the circumstance that this department of the University included an endless variety of subjects, instead of being confined to professors of a single study (ars), as was the case with the other faculties.' 54. One of the earliest, and most frequently recurring forms of 1. Bulaeus Hist. Univ. Par. III, p. 357. Crevier Histoire de l'Université de Paris I, p. 466 ; II, p. 55. Savigny Gesch. des R. R. p. 326. Baehringer die Vorreformatoren des 14. und 15. Jahrh. p. 26. Ritter Gesch. der Christl. Phil. III. 2. Propterea quod non unam Artem, ut caeterae facultates, quae uni duntaxet professioni addictae sunt, sed omnes indiscriminatim docendi et profitendi ius retinuerunt. (De Patronis 4. Nat. Univ. Par. p. 2.) academic life in the middle ages no less than in the times of classical antiquity is that in which Universities were founded for the prosecution of some one particular department of professional knowledge. In the tenth century, or before the Norman conquest of England, Salerno was instituted solely with reference to the cultivation of medical science, and such was afterwards the case with Montpellier also. Paris became peculiarly distinguished as the European metropolis of theological study. Bologna and the majority of the Italian Universities enjoyed a corresponding celebrity for profound acquaintance with the civil law. The Artistae, or members of the faculty of Arts in Bologna, including in their number the Philosophi and Medici, or Physici, were long not permitted to form a corporate body (Universitas), and were always regarded as subordinate to the jurists. In Padua, on the other hand, the Medici predominated amongst the Artistae, and the rector of the latter was always a Medicus. Towards the end of the fourteenth century the original system of instruction in Bologna was augmented by the addition of a theological school. The extraneous and foreign nature of this adjunct was attested in the fact of its being in all its details an exact copy of the University of Paris, and forming an utter contrast to the administrative arrangements of the institution to which it was attached.2 55. So marked a predominance of the principle of professional study as we everywhere notice in the Universities of early Christendom is unquestionably in no small degree to be attributed to the influence and example of the learned institutions of that fragment of the Roman empire which continued to keep alive something of the traditions of antiquity until long after the mental life of modern times had safely passed the worst perils of infantine existence. Knowing, as we do, the extent to which the art of Western Europe received its forms and bias from that of Byzantium, it is difficult to believe that the Universities of the Eastern Empire did not equally serve as models for institutions which were felt to bear upon interests so vastly more important. Nor does this conclusion rest upon grounds of probability alone. In Hadrian and Theodore we have instances of native Greeks appointed to English archbishoprics," and assembling around them a body of disciples who doubtless perpetuated not merely the learning, but also the forms and the method of instruction preserved in the schools of the Byzantines. Theodore, we are told, 1. Savigny Gesch. des R. R. im Mittelalter III, p. 258. 2. Savigny Gesch. des R. R. III, p. 164. 3. Hallam Hist. of the Litt. of Europe during the middle ages, pp. 88, 91. was a native of Tarsus,' and in all likelihood a graduate of the academic schools for which that city was so famous. He is spoken of as one of the most learned men of the age, and it is not impossible that the eminence in this respect which England is subsequently described as maintaining was principally due to his exertions. England and Italy are mentioned as the only countries in the Western empire in which schools of higher learning (universitates, studia generalia, academiae) existed before the time of Charlemagne. The instruction communicated in the English schools appears to have consisted of a combination of philological studies with theology. In the institution established by Alfred at Oxford three buildings were erected, one for twenty grammarians, another for the like number of philosophers, and a third for as many theologians. So zealously was the study of Greek prosecuted that Bede speaks of having met with several of the disciples of Hadrian and Theodore who spoke that language no less fluently than English.3 56. That Roman law was taught in the schools afterwards met with in England is evident from testimony already adduced. Additional proofs of the influence exerted by the eastern empire upon the earlier mental culture of modern Europe are furnished in the history of many of the most eminent individuals of that period. John Scotus Erigena, whose speculations as expounded by Ritter and Neander sound like a forecast of scholastic depth and ingenuity, and whose personal influence with Charlemagne enabled him to give a decisive bent to the nascent educational institutions of the Transalpine continent, is represented by tradition as having studied in Greece.* Even so late as the thirteenth century the same circumstance is recorded of John of Basingstoke, the friend of Grosseteste." The frequent fluctuations and essays at intellectual progress which manifest themselves in the history of an era once regarded as an homogeneous 1. Heeren Geschichte der class. Litt. im Mittelalter. I, p. 88. 2. The term Universitas, according to Savigny, denoted not the school as such, but in the true Roman sense of the word, the corporation to which the existence of the school had given occasion. That this expression had no reference whatever to instruction in the collective body of scientific subjects is evident from the fact that in the schools of those times a universitas juristarum and a universitas àrtistarum are repeatedly found existing side by side. As little is any such meaning to be recognized in the term studium generale often employed as an honorable designation of the higher schools of learning. This expression is found directly applied to a single faculty (that of theology, for instance in the Bull of 1363), and merely had reference to the extensive aims and influence of the University, as an institution designed to receive not only native but foreign scholars, and possessed of the right of creating doctors, whose character and position would be every where recognized. (Gesch. des R. R. im M. III, p. 380 sq.) 3. Heeren Gesch. der class. Litt. im Mittelalt. I, p. 167. See also A. Wood Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford I, p. 34, where the number of each is stated at twenty-six. 4. A. Wood Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford I, p. 40. 5. A. Wood Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford I, p. 168. Heeren Gesch. der class. Litt. im M. I, p. 173. OF THE 3 period of unbroken spiritual night are at length beginning to be generally recognized. In the reigns of Alfred, Charlemagne, and the German Othos, the church gave tokens of a spirit not a little resembling that which afterwards showed itself in matured and irresistible vigor at the reformation. True intellectual activity is ever accompanied by the liveliest susceptibility to kindred influences from without, and the temper of periods such as those headed by the great princes above mentioned was peculiarly favorable to an intelligent reception and study of whatever remnants of ancient wisdom and educational method still survived in the keeping of the Byzantine Greeks. We read accordingly that at this epoch, as at the revival of letters in the fifteenth century, copies of the writings of ancient authors (genuine or spurious) were considered peculiarly acceptable presents from the rulers of Constantinople to the sovereigns of the German empire. The Platonic element, which, contrary to the notions prevalent on the subject, so decidedly predominates in the earlier philosophy of the schoolmen, is well known to have been derived through the channel of the Greek church. So ardent indeed was the thirst for learning in the periods above mentioned, that distance, national prejudice, and even the fiercest animosity of religious fanatism were made light of whenever a step in intellectual advancement was to be gained. Irish and Scottish monks were eagerly welcomed as the instructors and civilizers of Germany and France.3 The celebrated Gerbert, who after having acted as the friend and tutor of the emperor Otho the third, was elevated to the Papal chair (A. D. 999) under the name of Sylvester the Second, spent a considerable portion of his youth amongst the Moors in Spain, whither he had betaken 1. Heeren Gesch. der class. Litt. im Mittelalt. 1, p. 123. The same period, is remarkable as exhibiting a powerful tendency to political organization. It is sagaciously observed by a Ger man writer that, had the successors of Charlemagne been possessed of the ability requisite for carrying out the traditional policy of their dynasty, the world would in all probability have beheld the rise of a sort of Caliphate of the west. 2. The Timaeus of Plato in the translation of Chalcidius was especially studied, and long continued the main source from which the thinkers of the middle ages derived their knowledge of Platonic philosophy. Abelard seems to have been chiefly indebted to Macrobius for such acquaintance as he possessed with this subject. Traces of certain treatises of Plutarch are also met with at this period. The writings of many of the Greek fathers were diligently studied; those more especially of Origen, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, Basilius, and in the 12th century, the dogmatic system of Johannes Damascenus. Amongst the Latin fathers Augustin seems to have been the chief favorite. The only portion of Aristotle's works with which the schoolmen seem to have been acquainted before the middle of the twelfth century was that contained in the two first books of the Organon, both of which they possessed in translations. The knowledge of dialectics obtained from this source was supplemented from Boethius. In the beginning of the thirteenth century the remaining writings of Aristotle became known, chiefly by means of translations from the Arabic. Jews were employed in preparing this version. (Ritter Gesch. der Christlichen Philosophie III.) 3. Neander church Hist. V, pp. 38, 58, 151. 4. Bulaeus Hist. Univ. Par. III, p. 334. Heeren Gesch. der class. Litt. im Mittelalt. I, p. 115. himself for the purpose of obtaining an acquaintance with physical science, a branch of Aristotle's system to which the Arabians had devoted an attention as exclusive as that which the schoolmen bestowed upon his logical writings. Daniel Morley of Merlac,2 a Master of Oxford, is also recorded to have undertaken a pilgrimage amongst the infidels in the latter half of the twelfth century with the same object. The knowledge thus acquired was at once caught up throughout Christendom, and made the basis of the studies of the faculty of medicine in the University system. Not to dwell upon the results of individual zeal and activity, a constant interchange of opinion and feeling was maintained by the vast pilgrimages which formed so remarkable a feature in the religious life of those times, and, in so far as intellectual interests were concerned, a still more important channel of communication kept open by the secessions which all along took place from the Greek communion to that of the Latin church.3 In consequence of the lasting and furious controversies which raged through the Eastern section of the Christian world on the subject of image worship, monasteries of Greek monks were perpetually maintained at Rome, and similar associations of religious refugees are met with even as far north as Lothringia. Augustine, the apostle of England, was selected by Gregory the Great from a monastery of this description at Rome. 57. The theory of an organic unity of succession in the various forms of academic life, from its first appearance in the times of classical antiquity down to that period of the middle ages in which it had developed its peculiarities in their fullest integrity, is further borne out by the extreme and minute coincidence observable between the internal economy of the Universities of the eleventh and twelfth centuries with that which prevailed in the learned communities of Athens and Alexandria. We have already noticed how completely the features of collegiate life met with in the most perfect specimens of the modern University are to be recognized in the Museum of the Lagidae, itself doubtless an exact and careful copy of the Academic and Peripatetic societies in Athens. From the more minutely detailed accounts which we possess of the schools of Athens under the emperors we discover that the body of students, as in Paris, Oxford, 1. See Ritter Gesch. der christlichen Philosophie III, p. 95. A school of Medicine, Philosophy and Mathematics existed in Bagdad, and according to Leo Africanus was attended by upwards of 6,00 students. Similar institutions flourished in Alexandria, and other cities of the Saracen empire. Heeren I, p. 150, 154. 2. A. Wood Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford I, p. 151. 3. Heeren Gesch. der class. Litt. im Mittelalt. I, p. 349. 4. Heeren Gesch. der class. Litt. im Mittelalt. I, p. 203. |