*

we may boldly affirm, that they were highly || and most pernicious effects was the enornious prejudicial, both to the cause of religion, and augmentation of the influence and authority to the civil interests of mankind; and that, in of the Roman pontiffs: they also contributed, Europe more especially, they occasioned innu- in various ways, to enrich the churches and merable evils and calamities, the effects of monasteries with daily accessions of wealth, which are yet perceptible in our times. The and to open new sources of opulence to all the European nations were deprived of the great- sacerdotal orders. For they, who assumed the est part of their inhabitants by these ill-judged || cross, disposed of their possessions as if they expeditions; immense sums of money were ex- were at the point of death, on account of the ported into Asia for the support of the war; great and innumerable dangers to which they and numbers of the most powerful and opulent were to be exposed in their passage to the holy families either became extinct, or were in- land, and the opposition they were to encounvolved in the deepest miseries of poverty and ter there upon their arrival. They therefore, want. It could not easily be otherwise, since for the most part, made their wills before their the heads of the most illustrious houses either departure, and left a considerable part of their mortgaged or sold their lands and possessions possessions to the priests and monks, in order in order to pay the expenses of their voyage,* to obtain, by these pious legacies, the favor and while others imposed such intolerable burthens protection of the Deity. Many examples of upon their vassals and tenants, as obliged them these donations are to be found in ancient reto abandon their houses and all their domestic cords. Such of the holy soldiers, as had been concerns, and to enlist themselves, rather engaged in suits of law with the priests or through wild despair than religious zeal, under monks, renounced their pretensions, and subthe sacred banner of the cross. Hence the missively gave up whatever it was that had face of Europe was totally changed, and all been the subject of debate; and others, who things were thrown into the utmost confusion. had seized any of the possessions of the churchWe pass in silence the various enormities that es or convents, or had heard of any injury that were occasioned by these crusades, the mur- had been committed against the clergy by the ders, rapes, and robberies of the most infernal remotest of their ancestors, made the most linature, that were every where committed with beral restitution, both for their own usurpaimpunity by these holy soldiers of God and of tions and those of their forefathers, and made Christ, as they were impiously called; nor ample satisfaction, for the real or pretended inshall we enter into a detail of the new privi- juries committed against the church, by rich leges and rights, to which these wars gave rise, and costly donations.‡ and which were often attended with the greatest inconveniences.†

X. These holy wars were not less prejudicial to the cause of religion, and the true interests of the Christian church, than they were to the temporal concerns of men. One of their first ||

attempted the conquest of Palestine, they would have acted conformably with their apparent rights, because it was formerly their country; and consistently also with their religious principles, because they expected a Messiah who was to bind the kings of the Gentiles in chains, and to reduce the whole world under the Jewish yoke.

Nor were these the only unhappy effects of these holy expeditions, considered with respect to their influence upon the state of religion, and the affairs of the Christian church; for, while whole legions of bishops and abbots girded the sword to the thigh, and went as generals, volunteers, or chaplains into Palestine, the priests and monks, who had lived under their jurisdiction, and were more or less awed by their authority, threw off all restraint, led the most lawless and profligate lives, and abandoned themselves to all sorts of licentiousness, committing the most flagitious and extravagant excesses without reluctance or remorse. The monster superstition, which was already grown to an enormous size, received new accessions of strength and influence from this holy war, and exercised with greater vehemence than ever its despotic dominion over the minds of the Latins. To the crowd of saints and tutelar patrons, whose number was prodigious before this period, were now added many fic

* We find many memorable examples of this in the ancient records. Robert, duke of Normandy, mortgaged his duchy to his brother William king of Eng. land to defray the expenses of his voyage to Palestine. See the Histor. Major of Matthew Paris, lib. i. p. 24.-Odo, viscount of Bourges, sold his territory to the king of France. Gallia Christiana Benedictinorum, tom. ii. p. 45. See, for many examples of this kind, Car. du Fresne, Adnot. ad Joinvilli Vitam Ludovici S. p. 52.-Boulainvilliers sur l'Origine et les Droits de la Noblesse, in Molet's Memoires de Literature et de l'Histoire, tom. ix. part i. p. 68.-Jo. George Cramer, de Juribus et Prærogativis Nobilitatis, tom. i. p. 81, 409. From the commencement there-titious saints of Greek and Syrian origin,§

fore of these holy wars, a vast number of estates, belonging to the European nobility, were either mortgaged, or totally transferred, some to kings and princes, others to priests and monks, and not a few to persons of a private condition, who, by possessing considerable sums of ready money, were enabled to make advantageous purchases.

† Such persons as entered into these expeditions, and were distinguished by the badge of the military cross, acquired thereby certain remarkable rights, which were extremely prejudicial to the rest of their felow-citizens. Hence it happened, that when any of these holy soldiers contracted any civil obligations, or entered into conventions of sale, purchase, or any such transactions, they were previously required to renounce all privileges and immunities, which they had obtained, or might obtain in time to come, by assuming the cross. See Le Boeuf, Memoires sur l'Histoire d'Auxerre Append, tom. ii. p. 232.

VOL. I.-33

hitherto unknown in Europe; and an incredi- || that fierce nation, which was daily extending ble quantity of relics, the greatest part of which were ridiculous in the highest degree, were imported into the European churches. The armies, that returned from Asia after the taking of Jerusalem, brought with them a vast number of these saintly relics, which they had bought at a high price from the crafty Greeks and Syrians, and which they considered as the noblest spoils that could crown their return from the holy land. These they committed to the custody of the clergy in the churches and monasteries, or ordered them to be most carefully preserved in their families from one generation to another.*

tinued to harass the Christians, who lived in || them to death in the most inhuman manner.* their neighbourhood, by perpetual acts of hostility and violence, by frequent incursions into

* Helmoldi Chron. Slavorum, lib. 1. cap. xvi. p.

their territories, and by putting numbers of : 52.-Adami Bremens. Histor. lib. ii. cap. xxvii.

PART II.

THE INTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH

CHAPTER I.

losophy, and particularly the system of Aristo

Concerning the State of Letters and Philosophy tle, which he embellished and illustrated in

during this Century.

several learned and ingenious productions.* If we turn our eyes toward the Arabians, we shall find that they still retained a high degree of zeal for the culture of the sciences; as appears evidently from the number of physicians, mathematicians, and astronomers, who flourished among them in this century.†

I. THE declining condition of the Grecian empire was fatal to the progress of letters and philosophy. Its glory and power diminished || from day to day under the insults and usurpations of the Turks and Saracens; and, while the empire suffered by these attacks from with- III. The arts and sciences seemed, in some out, it was consumed gradually by the inter- measure, to revive in the west, among the nal pestilence of civil discord, by frequent se- clergy, at least, and the monastic orders; they ditions and conspiracies, and by those violent were not indeed cultivated by any other set revolutions which shook from time to time the of men; and the nobility, if we except such of imperial throne, and were attended with the them as were designed to fill certain ecclesiassudden fall and elevation of those who held tical dignities, or had voluntarily devoted the reins of government. So many foreign themselves to a religious solitude, treated all invasions, so many internal troubles, so many sorts of learning and erudition with indifferemperors dethroned, deprived the political ence and contempt. The schools of learning body of its strength and consistency, broke in flourished in several parts of Italy about the upon the public order, rendered all things pre- year 1050; and of the Italian doctors, who accarious, and, dejecting the spirits of the nation, quired a name by their writings or their acadamped the fire of genius, and discouraged the demical lectures, several removed afterwards efforts of literary ambition.* There were, how- into France, and particularly into Normandy, ever, some emperors, such as Alexius Comne- where they instructed the youth, who had connus, who seemed to cherish and encourage the secrated themselves to the service of the drooping sciences, and whose zeal was second-church. The French also, though they aced by several prelates, who were willing to lend a supporting hand to the cause of letters. The controversies also that subsisted between the Greeks and Latins, impelled the former, amidst all their disadvantages to a certain degree of application to study, and prevented them from abandoning entirely the culture of the sciences. And hence it is, that we find among the Greeks of this century some writers, at least, who have deserved well of the republic of letters.

knowledge their obligations to the learned Italians who settled in their provinces, exhibit, at the same time, a considerable list of their countrymen, who, without any foreign succours, cultivated the sciences, and contributed not a little to the advancement of letters in this century; they mention also several schools erected in different parts of that kingdom, which were in the highest reputation, both on account of the fame of their masters, and the multitude of disciples that resorted to them.§ And, indeed, it is certain beyond all contradiction, that the liberal arts and sciences were cultivated in France, which abounded with learned men, while the greatest part of Italy lay as yet covered with a thick cloud of ignerance and darkness. For Robert, king of France, son and successor of Hugh Capet, dis ciple of the famous Gerbert (afterwards Sylvester II.,) and the great protector of the sciences, and friend of the learned, reigned

II. We pass in silence the poets, rhetoricians, and philologists of this century, who were neither highly eminent nor absolutely contemptible. Among the writers of history, Leo the grammarian, John Scylizes, Cedrenus, and a few others, deserve to be mentioned with some share of praise, notwithstanding the palpable partiality with which they are chargeable, and the zeal they discover for many of the fabulous records of their nation. But the greatest ornament of the republic of letters, at this time, was Michael Pselius, a man illustrious in every respect, and deeply versed in all the various kinds of erudition that were known in his age. This great man recommended warmly to his countrymen the study of phi-iii.

* The sentence which begins with the words so many foreign, and ends with the words literary ambition, is added by the translator to render the Connexion with what follows more evident.

*Leo Allatius, Diatriba de Psellis, p. 14, edit. Fabricii.

Hottinger, Histor. Eccles. Sæc. xi. p. 449.
Elmacini Historia Saracen. p. 281.--Jo. Henr.

See Muratori, Antiquitates Ital. medii ævi, tom
p. 871.-Giannone, Historia di Napoli, vol. ii.
§ Histoire Literaire de la France, tom. vii. at the
Introduction.-Du Boulay, Hist. Academ. Paris.
tom. i. p. 355.-Le Bœuf, Diss. sur l'Etat des Sciences
en France depuis la Mort du Roi Robert, which is
published among his Dissertations sur l'Histoire Ec
clesiastique et Civile de Paris, tom. ii. part i

from the close of the preceding century to the precision, many of the same branches of sci year 1031,* and exerted upon all occasions the ence, which the others had taught before them. most ardent zeal for the restoration of letters; The most eminent of these new masters were nor were his noble efforts without success. such as had either travelled into Spain with a The provinces of Sicily, Apulia, Calabria, and view to study in the schools of the Saracens other southern parts of Italy, were indebted, (which was extremely customary in this age for the introduction of the sciences among among those who were ambitious of a distinthem, to the Normans, who became their mas-guished reputation for wisdom and knowledge,) ters, and who brought with them from France the knowledge of letters to a people benighted in the darkest ignorance. To the Normans also was due the restoration of learning in England. William the Conqueror, a prince of uncommon sagacity and genius, and the great Mæcenas of his time, upon his accession to the throne of England in the year 1066, engaged, by the most alluring solicitations, a considerable number of learned men, from Normandy and other countries, to settle in his new dominions, and exerted his most zealous endeavours to dispel that savage ignorance, which is always a source of innumerable evils.bers crowded thither from all the provinces of The reception of Christianity had polished and civilized, in an extraordinary manner, the rugged minds of the valiant Normans: for those fierce warriors, who, under the darkness of paganism, had manifested the utmost aversion to all branches of knowledge and every kind of instruction, distinguished themselves, after their conversion, by their ardent application to the study of religion and the pursuits of learning.

IV. This vehement desire of knowledge, that increased from day to day, and became at length, the predominant passion of the politest European nations, produced many happy effects. To it, more particularly, we must attribute the considerable number of public schools that were opened in various places, and the choice of more able and eminent masters than those who had formerly presided in the seminaries of learning. Toward the conclusion of the preceding age, there were no schools in Europe but those which belonged to monasteries, or episcopal residences: nor were there any other masters, except the Benedictine monks, to instruct the youth in the principles of sacred and profane erudition. But, not long after the commencement of this century, the face of things was totally changed, in a manner the most advantageous to the cause of letters. In many cities of France and Italy, learned men, both among the clergy and laity, undertook the weighty and important charge of instructing the youth, and succeeded much better in this worthy undertaking than the monks had done, not only by comprehending in their course of instruction more branches of knowledge than the monastic doctors were acquainted with, but also by teaching in a better method, and with more perspicuity and

Robert succeeded Hugh Capet, and reigned thirty-five years.

† Daniel, Histoire de la France. tom. iii. p. 58.Du Boulay, Hist. Academ. Paris. tom. i. p. 636 et passim.

I See Hist. Liter. de la France, tom. viii. p. 171."The English," says Matthew Paris, "were so il literate and ignorant before the time of William the Conqueror, that a man who understood the "principles of grammar, was universally looked upon as a prodigy of learning."

or had improved their stock of erudition and philosophy by a diligent and attentive perual of the writings of the Arabians, of which 2 great number were translated into Latin; for with these foreign succours they were enabled to teach philosophy, mathematics, physic, astronomy, and the other sciences that are connected with them, in a much more learned and solid manner than the monks or such as had received their education from them alone.The school of Salernum, in the kingdom of Naples, was renowned above all others for the study of physic in this century, and vast numEurope to receive instruction in the art of healing: but the medical precepts which rendered the doctors of Salernum so famous, were all derived from the writings of the Arabians, or from the schools of the Saracens in Spain and Africa. It was also from the schools and writings of the Arabian sages, that the absurd and puerile tricks of divination, and the custom of foretelling future events from the position of the stars, the features of the face, and the lines of the hand, derived their origin. These ridiculous practices, proceeding from so respectable a source, and moreover adapted to satisfy the idle curiosity of impatient mortals, were carried on in all the European nations and in process of time the pretended sciences of astrology and divination acquired the highest reputation and authority.

V. The seven liberal arts, as they were now styled, were taught in the greatest part of the schools that were erected in this century for the education of youth. The first stage was grammar, which was followed by rhetoric and logic. When the disciple, having learned these three branches, which were generally known by the name of trivium, extended his ambition, and was desirous of new improvement in the sciences, he was conducted slowly through the quadrivium to the very summit of literary fame. But this method of teaching, which had been received in all the western schools, was considerably changed toward the latter end of this century; for, as the science of logic, under which metaphysics were in part comprehended, received new degrees of perfection from the deep meditations and the assiduous industry of certain acute thinkers,

*Muratori, Antiq. Ital. tom. ii. p. 935.-Giannone, Hist. di Napoli, tom. ii. p. 151. Freind's History of Physic. It is well known, that the famous precepts of the school of Salernum, for the preservation of health, were composed in this century, at the request of the king of England.

The trivium was a term invented in the times of barbarism to express the three sciences at were first learned in the schools, viz. grammar, rhe toric, and logic; and the schools in which these sci ences alone were taught, were called triviales. The quadrivium comprehended the four mathematica sciences,-arithmetic, music, geometry, and astro

nomy.

and was taught with more detail and subtilty || barren, as long as it was drawn from no other than in former times, the greatest part of the source than the ten categories falsely attributstudious youth became so enamoured of this ed to St. Augustin, or from the explications of branch of philosophy, as to abandon grammar, the Aristotelian philosophy, composed by Porrhetoric, and all the other liberal arts, that they phyry and Averroes. These, however, were might consecrate their whole time to the dis- the only guides which the schools had to folcussion of logical questions, and the pursuit low in the beginning of this century; nor had of metaphysical speculations. Nor was this the public teachers either genius or courage surprising, when we consider, that, according enough to enlarge the system, or to improve to the opinion which now prevailed in the re- upon the principles of these dictators in philopublic of letters, a man who was well versed sophy, whose authority was treated as infalli in dialectics, i. e. in logical and metaphysical ble, and whose productions, for a long time, knowledge, was reputed sufficiently learned, were regarded as perfect, to the great detriand was supposed to stand in need of no other ment of true science. But, about the year branches of erudition.* Hence arose that con- 1050, the face of philosophy began to change, tempt of languages and eloquence, of the more and the science of logic assumed a new aspect. elegant sciences, and the fine arts, which spread This revolution began in France, where several its baneful influence through the Latin pro- of the books of Aristotle had been brought vinces; and hence that barbarism and pedantic from the schools of the Saracens in Spain; and sophistry which dishonoured, in succeeding it was effected by a set of men highly renownages, the republic of letters, and deplorably ed for their abilities and genius, such as Bercorrupted the noble simplicity of true thcolo- enger, Roscellinus, Hildebert, and after them gy, and the purest systems of philosophical by Gilbert de la Porree, the famous Abelard, wisdom. and others. These eminent logicians, though they followed the Stagirite as their guide, took the liberty to illustrate and model anew his philosophy, and to extend it far beyond its ancient limits.

VI. The philosophy of the Latins, in this century, was absolutely confined within the circle of dialectics, while the other philosophical sciences were scarcely known by name. This dialectic, indeed, was miserably dry and

* See Boulay, tom. i. p. 408, 511.—This is too likely become the prevailing taste even in our times: but it is an ancient taste, as we may easily perceive, by casting an eye upon the literary history of the eleventh century; and to confirm still farther the truth of the vulgar saying, that there is nothing new under the sun, we shall quote the following passage from the Metalogicum of John of Salisbury, a writer of no mean abilities, lib. i. cap. iii. "Poeta, historiographi, habebanter infames, et si quis incumbebat laboribus antiquorum, notabatur ut non modo asello Arcadiæ tardior, sed obtusior plumbo vel lapide, omnibus erat in risum. Suis enim, aut magis tri sui, quisque incumbebat inventis.-Fiebant ergo summi repente philosophi: nam qui illiteratus accesserat, fere non morabatur in scholis ulterius quam eo curriculo temporis, quo avium pulli plumescunt. Sed quid docebant novi doctores, et qui plus somniorum quam vigiliarum in scrutinio philosophiæ consumserant? Ecce nova fiebant omnia: innovabatur grammatica, immutabatur dialectica, contemnebatur rhetorica. et novas totius quadrivii vias, evacuatis priorum regulis, de ipsis philosophiæ adytis profere bant. Solam convenientiam sive rationem loquebantur, argumentum sonabat in ore omnium-ac ineptum nimis aut rude et a philosopho alienum, impossibile credebatur convenienter et ad rationis normam quicquam dicere aut facere, nisi convenientiæ et rationis mentio expressim esset inserta." Many more passages of this nature are to be found in this author.

VII. The philosophers of this age, who were most famous for their zealous and successful endeavours to improve the science of logic, and accommodate it to general use, were Lanfranc, an Italian by birth, (who was abbot of St. Stephen's at Caen, and was thence called by William the Conqueror to the see of Canterbury,) Anselm his successor, and Odo, whose last promotion was the bishopric of Cambray. Lanfranc was so deeply versed in this science, that he was commonly called the Dialectician; and he employed with great dexterity the subtilties of logic in the controversy which was carried on between him and the learned Berenger, against whom he maintained the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the holy sacrament. Anselm, in a very learned dialogue, throws much light upon the darkness and perplexity in which the science of logic had been so long involved; and, among other things, he investigates, with no small sagacity, the nature of substance, and mode or quality, in order to convey more just notions of these metaphysical entities than had been hitherto entertained. This great prelate, who shone with a distinguished lustre in several branches We shall, indeed, find many, in the records of of literature both sacred and profane, was the this century, honoured with the title of Philosophers. first of the Latin doctors who dispelled the Thus we hear of Manegoldus the Philosopher, Adalardus the Philosopher, &c. But we must not attri clouds of ignorance and obscurity that hung bute to that term, when applied to these grammarians, the sense which it bore among the ancient natural theology, as appears from two books over the important sciences of metaphysics and times. In the style of what we call the middle ages, of his composition, wherein the truths conevery man of learning, of whatever kind his erudi- cerning the Deity, which are deducible from tion might be, was called a philosopher; and this ti- the mere light of nature, are enumerated and tle was also given to the interpreters of Scripture, explained with a degree of sagacity which hough that set of men were, generally speaking, destitute of true philosophy. See the Chronicon Sa could not well be expected from a writer of lernitanum in Muratori's collection Scriptor. Re-this century. He was the inventor of that farum Italicar. tom. ii. part ii. cap. cxxiv. p. 265, where we are told, that in the tenth century, in which the Sciences were almost totally extinguished in Italy, there were thirty-two philosophers at Benevento. We learn, however, by what follows, that these phi losophers were partly grammarians, and partly per Bons who were more or less versed in certain liberal

Greeks and Latins, and which it still bears in our

arts.

mous argument, vulgarly and erroneously attributed to Des-Cartes, which demonstrates the existence of God from the idea of an infi

*This dialogue, de Grammatico, is to be found in the works of Anselm, published by father Gerberon. tora. i. p 143