+", mi sme others are not to be passed by in ath 17 they ared to the fabulous stories of their ML ML FOR DI free from partiality. Michael Psellus, & mal II i saunatoa vas a pattern of excellence in all the and sets. He also laboured to excite his my the suży of philosophy, and particularly of As a hat Tili sort, with he attempted to explain and PASCHADEN as gendutivos of his pen. Among the

as the one of stene s farished; as is manifest from among them wh, in this are excelled in the sciences of malcine & want and mathematics'.

&& in the West learning revived, in some measure, among the meas, or the monks and the priests. Te was rene, and especially the nobles and the great, VNY, KECLINE, and senet, with the exception of such as keratol thomsones 75 the church, or aspired to sacred offices. Ir a schis famished bere and there after the middle

Das contary, and a number of learned men acquired gracion, as authes and as instructors. Some of these SAPRATA Pwed to France, and especially to Normandy, and the sught the youth devoted to the service of the

momastery about A. D. 1077, and died not long after. He wrote a metrical paraphrase, and a prose commentary or the Canticies, a tract on the Trinity and the person of Christ, tracts on Virtue and Vice, on Tantalus and Circe, on the Sphinx, on the Chaldaic oracles, on the faculties of the soul, on diet, on the virtues of stones, on factitious gold, or food and regimen; notes on portions of Gregory Nazianzen, and on the eight books of Aristotle's physics; a paraphrase on Aristotle wapi ioμnveías; a panegyric on Simeon Metaphrastes; some law tracts; and on the ecclesiastical canons, on the four branches of mathematics, (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy,) several philosophical tracts, &c. &c. Many of his pieces were never printed, and most of those published were published separately. Tr.]

* Elmacin, Historia Saracen, p. 281. Jo. Henr. Hottinger, Historia Eccles. sæcul. xi. p. 449, &c.

church. The French, while they admit that they were indebted in a degree to learned men who came from Italy, produce also a respectable list of their own citizens, who cultivated and advanced learning in this age; and they name quite a number of schools, which were distinguished by the fame of their teachers and the multitude of their students'. And it is unquestionable, that the French paid great attention to letters and the arts, and that their country abounded in learned men, while the greatest part of Italy was still sunk in ignorance. For Robert king of France, the son of Hugh Capet, and a pupil of Gerbert or Sylvester II., was himself a learned man, and a great patron of learning and learned men. His reign terminated in the year 1031, and his great zeal for the advancement of the arts and learning of every kind was not unsuccessful 3. The Normans from France, after they obtained possession of the lower provinces of Italy, Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, diffused the light of science and literature over those countries. To the same people belongs the honour of restoring learning in England. For William the Conqueror, duke of Normandy, a man of discernment, and the great Mæcenas of his time, when he had conquered England, in the year 1066, made commendable efforts by inviting learned men from Normandy and elsewhere, to banish from the country barbarism and ignorance, the fruitful sources of so many evils'. For those heroic Nor

mans, who had been so ferocious and hostile to all learning, before they embraced christianity, imbibed, after their conversion, a very high regard both for religion and for learning. § 4. The thirst for knowledge, which gradually spread

See Muratori, Antiqq. Ital. Medii Eri, tom. iii. p. 871. Giannone, Histoire de Naples, tom. ii. p. 148.

7 See the Benedictine monks, Histoire Littéraire de la France, tom. vii. Introduction, passim. Cæs. Egasse de Boulay, Historia Acad. Paris. tom. i. p. 355, &c. Le Beuf, Diss. sur l'état des Sciences en France, depuis la mort du roy Robert, &c. which is published among his Dissertations sur l'Hist. Ecclés. et Cicile de Paris, tom. ii. p. 1, &c. [Among their monastic schools, that of Bee in Normandy, taught by Lanfranc and Anselm, was particularly cele

brated; and among their episcopal schools were those of Rheims, Liege, Orleans, Tours, Angers, and Chartres. Schl.]

8 See Daniel, Histoire de la France, tom. iii. p. 58. Boulay, Historia Acad. Paris. tom. i. p. 636, et passim.

9 See the listoire Littéraire de la France, tom. viii. p. 171. "The English," says Matthew Paris, Historia major, lib. i. p. 4. ed. Watts, "before the time of William, were so illiterate, that one who understood grammar, was looked upon with astonishment."

among the more civilized nations of Europe, was attended by this consequence, that more schools were opened, and in various places better teachers were placed over them. Until the commencement of this century, the only schools in Europe were those attached to the monasteries and the cathedral churches and the only teachers of secular as well as sacred learning were the Benedictine monks. But in the beginning of this century, other priests and men of learning undertook the instruction of youth, in various cities of France and Italy: and they taught more branches of science than the monks hai done; and they adopted a happier method of inculcating some of the branches before taught. Among these new teachers, those were the most distinguished, who either studied in the schools of the Saracens in Spain. (which was a very common thing in this age, with such as aspired after a superior education.) or at least read the books of the Arabians, many of which were translated into Latin. For such masters taught philosophy, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, and the kindred sciences, in a more learned and solid manner, than they were taught by the monks and by those educated under them. For the science of medicine, the school of Salerno, in the kingdom of Naples, was famous in this century; and to this school. medical students resorted from most of the countries of Europe. But all the medical knowledge possessed by the teachers at Salerno, was derived from the schools of the Saracens in Spain and Africa, and from the medical works of the Arabs. From the same schools and books, and at the same time, nearly all the nations of Europe derived those futile arts of predicting the fortunes of men by the stars, by the countenance, and by the appearance of the hands, which in the progress of time acquired such an extensive currency and influence.

§ 5. In most of the schools, what were called the se liberal arts were taught. The pupil commenced with gram

1 Muratori, Antiquitt. Ital. Medii Ari, tom. iii. p. 935, &e. Giannone, Histoire de Naples, tom. ii. p. 151. Jo. Friend, History of Phyne from the time of Galen, Lond. 1726, 8vo. And who

does not know, that the Schola Salernitano, or rules for preserving health, was written in this age, by the physicians of Salerno, at the request of the king of Engiand !

mar; then proceeded to rhetoric, and afterwards to logic or dialectics. Having thus mastered the Trivium, as it was called, those who aspired to greater attainments, proceeded with slow steps through the Quadrivium, to the honour of a perfectly learned man. But this course of study, adopted in all the schools of the West, was not a little changed after the middle of this century. For, logic (which included metaphysics, at least in part,) having been improved by the reflection and skill of certain close thinkers, and being taught more fully and acutely, acquired such an ascendency in the minds of the majority, that they neglected grammar, rhetoric, and the other sciences, both the elegant and the abstruse, and devoted their whole lives to dialectics, or to logical and metaphysical discussions. For whoever was well acquainted with dialectics, or what we call logic and metaphysics, was supposed to possess learning enough, and to lose nothing by being ignorant of all other branches of learning. And hence arose that contempt for the languages, for eloquence, and the other branches of polite learning, and that gross barbarism, which prevailed for several centuries in the occidental schools, and which had a corrupting influence on theology as well as philosophy.

2 [The Quadricium embraced arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. Tr.]

3 See the citations in Boulay's Historia Acad. Paris. tom. i. p. 408, 409. 511, 512. To show how true the vulgar maxim is, that there is nothing new under the sun, I here subjoin a passage from the Metalogicum of John of Salisbury, a writer of no contemptible abilities, lib. i. cap. iii. p. 741. ed. Lugd. Bat. 1639. 8vo. "The poets and historians were held in contempt; and if any one studied the works of the ancients, he was pointed at and ridiculed by every body, as being more stupid than the ass of Arcadia, and more senseless than lead or a stone. For every one devoted himself exclusively to his own discoveries, or those of his master."-" Thus men became, at once, consummate philosophers: for the illiterate novice did not usually continue longer at school, than the time it takes young birds to become fledged."-" But what were the things

VOL. II.

taught by these new doctors, who spent more sleeping hours than waking ones, in the study of philosophy? Lo, all things became new: grammar was quite another thing; dialectics assumed a new form; rhetoric was held in contempt; and a new course for the whole Quadrivium was got up, derived from the very sanctuary of philosophy, all former rules and principles being discarded. They talked only of suitableness, (convenientia,) and reason: proof! (resounded from every mouth)—and, cery inept! or crude and unphilosophical! -To say or do any thing suitably and rationally, was thought to be impossible, without the express statement of the suitableness and reason of it." The author says more on the same subject, for which see his work.-[The latter part of the extract above, is very obscure in the original Latin, at least when thus deprived of light from the context. The translation here given is not offered with great confidence. Tr.]

Y

§ 6. The philosophy of the Latins, in this age was a cid wholly to what they called dialectics; and the other imovie of philosophy were unknown even by name. Morever, thr dialectics was miserably dry and barren, so leg as it was taught either from the work on the tea Categories, falsely attri buted to Augustine, or from the Introductions to Aries by Porphyry and Acerroes. Yet the schools had, in the fron part of this century, no other guides in this science; and the teachers had neither the courage nor the skill to expand and improve the precepts contained in these works. But after the middle of the century, dialectics assumed a new aspect, first in France. For some of the works of Aristotle being introduced into France, from the schools of the Saracens in Spain, certain eminent geniuses, as Berengarius, Roscelin, Hildebert, and afterwards Gilbert of Porretta, Abelard, and others, following the guidance of Aristotle, laboured to extend and perfect the science.

§ 7. None, however, obtained greater fame by their attempts to improve the science of dialectics and render it practically useful, than Lanfranc, an Italian, who was promoted from the abbacy of St. Stephen in Caen, to the archbishoprie of Canterbury in England; Anselm, whose last office was likewise archbishop of Canterbury; and Odo, who became bishop of Cambray. The first of these men was so distinguished in this science, that he was commonly called the Dialectician: and he applied the principles of the science, with acuteness, to the decision of the controversy with his rival, Berengarius, respecting the Lord's supper. The second, Anselm, in his dialogue d Grammatico, among other efforts to dispel the darkness of the dialectics of the age, investigated particularly the ideas of sub

In the writings of this age, we find mention indeed of many philosophers: e.g. Manegold the philosopher, Adalard the philosopher, and many more. But it would mislead us, to attribute to the term the meaning it had anciently among the Greeks and Romans, and which it now has. In the style of the middle ages, a philosopher is a man of learning. And this title was given to the interpreters of scripture, though ignorant of every thing which is pro

perly called philosophy. The Chronicn Salernitanum (in Muratori's. Scripting Rerum Italicar. tom. ii. pt. ii. e, exxiv. p. 265.) states, that there were thirty-two philosophers at Benevento, in the tenth century; at which time the light of science scarcely glimmered in Italy. But what follows this statement, shows, that the writer intended to designate grammarians, and persons having some knowledge of the liberal arts.