That the labour of transcription was often exceedingly irksome, is evident from sundry notes scattered over these manuscripts. “As the sick man desireth health,” writes one, “even so doth the transcriber desire the end of his volume.” Another contents himself with the laconic observation, “written with great trouble;” but a third, who may be supposed to have been employed over a very tough copy, breaks out into verse, and exclaims at his last page:
“Libro completo
Saltat scriptor pede læto.”
The monks of St. Gall were no less famous for their music than for their painting. Their musical tastes were inherited probably from their Irish founders, and were further improved by the teaching of those Roman cantors, whom we have seen in a former page sent into France, at Charlemagne’s request, to civilise the barbarous singing of his Frankish cantors. On their way back into Italy, one of them, to whom the St. Gall historians give the name of Romanus, was attacked by fever, and stopping at the Swiss monastery, was there charitably entertained and nursed by the brethren, who had excellent doctors among them. In return, he taught them the Roman chant, and bestowed on them the identical antiphonarium he had brought from Rome, making a certain case or instrument to contain it. “And to this day,” writes Ekhehard, “if there is any dispute about the singing, the error may be detected by consulting this book.” Moreover, this Romanus was the first who thought of assigning the letters of the alphabet to the musical notes, a system which Notker Balbulus afterwards explained, and which, being further elucidated by a certain friend of his named Lambert, was adopted throughout Germany.[97]
Leaving a more particular notice of the studies and students of this great abbey for a future chapter, I must here add a few words on another religious house, the history of which is closely associated with that of St. Gall, and where the sciences flourished in equal perfection under the shelter of those lofty mountains which shut out the tumult of the world and the incursions of the barbarians. At the western extremity of the lake of Constance, just where it narrows towards the outlet of the Rhine, lies a green island sparkling like an emerald gem on the unruffled surface of the waters. There, half hidden amid the luxuriant foliage, you may still see the grey minster of that famous abbey called Augia by its Latin historians, but better known by its German name of Reichnau. Walafrid Strabo, the pupil of Rabanus and the chief chronicler of his time, was abbot of Reichnau in the ninth century, and in one of his poems has painted its situation in very exact terms. He gives the succession of abbots from St. Pirminius, who first established himself in the island in the reign of Pepin, and shows that the school was one of the very earliest which had at that time attained celebrity. I have already spoken of Walafrid’s fame as a master, but I cannot here omit mentioning his pupil and biographer, Ermenric, who has made himself known to us by a letter which he wrote after paying what seems to have been a very pleasant visit at St. Gall’s. Walafrid had sent him there for a holiday, and on his return he expressed the enjoyment it had given him, in an epistle addressed to abbot Grimoald. As soon as he crossed the lake, he says, he found himself welcomed by a group of illustrious men. “There,” he continues, “I found each one humbler and more patient than his fellow. I saw neither envy nor jealousy, but all were bound together with the triple chord of charity, simplicity, and concord. How shall I speak of the generosity of Engilbert, or the kindness of that most clever brother Hartmod? It would be impossible for me to do justice to the excellence which these servants of God had attained in so many of the arts, but you may judge of the birds by looking at the nests which they inhabit. Examine their cloister and you will agree with what I say. What else can I call Winhart but a second Dædalus? or Isenric but another Beseleel? for indeed the graving tool is never out of his hand, save when he stands at the altar to exercise his sacred ministry. And yet there is such humility among them that no one disdains the humblest employment, remembering those words of Scripture, ‘the prayer of the humble shall pierce the clouds.’”
Reichnau, however, had its own line of great masters, among whom Ermenric, who could do such generous justice to the excellence of others, was himself worthy to be reckoned. The most illustrious was, perhaps, the cripple Hermann Contractus, originally a pupil of St. Gall’s, who is said to have prayed that he might not regain the use of his limbs, but that he might receive instead a knowledge of the Scriptures. He was master of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic; he wrote treatises on history, poetry, ethics, astronomy, and mathematics; he calculated eclipses, and explained Aristotle, and, in spite of an impediment in his speech, his lectures were so learned that he had pupils from the most distant provinces of Italy. He set his own poems to music, made clocks and organs, and was as much revered for his sanctity as his universal genius. Many hymns and antiphons used by the Church are attributed to his pen, among others the Alma Redemptoris. But if Hermann was the most famous scholar of Reichnau, a yet greater celebrity, though of a different kind, attaches to the name of Meinrad. The story of his vocation to the eremitical life affords an apt illustration of the contemplative character already noticed as so frequently belonging to the early pedagogues: and as it presents us with an agreeable picture of a “whole play-day” in the Dark Ages, we will give it as it stands in the pages of the monk Berno. Meinrad was the son of a Swabian nobleman of the house of Hollenzollern, and had studied in the monastic school under abbot Hatto and his own uncle Erlebald. When the latter became abbot he appointed Meinrad to the care of the school which was attached to a smaller house dependent on Reichnau, and situated at a spot called Bollingen, on the lake of Zurich. He accordingly removed thither, and had singular success with his scholars, whom he inspired with great affection by reason of his gentle discipline. He used to take them out for walking parties and fishing parties, into what Berno, his biographer, calls “the wilderness,” a wilderness, however, which was adorned with a majestic beauty to which Meinrad was not insensible. One day he and his boys crossed the lake in a small boat, and landing on the opposite shore sought for some quiet spot where they might cast their fishing lines. Finding a little stream which flowed into the lake and gave good promise of trout, Meinrad left them to pursue their sport and strolled about, meditating on the joys of that solitary life after which he secretly pined. After a while, returning to his scholars, he found that their fishing had been unusually successful, and taking up their baskets, they retraced their steps to the village of Altendorf, where they entered the house of a certain matron to rest and refresh themselves with food. Whilst the boys ate and drank, and enjoyed themselves in their own way, Meinrad and their hostess engaged in conversation, and Meinrad, who was full of the thoughts to which his mountain walk had given rise, opened his whole heart to her. “Beyond all riches,” he said, “I desire to dwell alone in this solitude that so I might wholly give myself to prayer, could I but find some one who would minister to me in temporal things.” The good lady immediately offered to provide him with whatever he wanted, in order to carry out his design; and the result of that day’s fishing-party was the establishment of the former scholasticus of Bollingen in a little hermitage which he constructed for himself out of the wattled boughs of trees. But he found himself in one way disappointed; he had sought the desert to fly from the world, and the world followed him thither in greater throngs than he had ever encountered at Reichnau. The saints possess a strange power of attraction, and neither mountains nor forests are able to hide them. In his own day men compared St. Meinrad to the Baptist, because the multitudes went out into the wilderness to hear him preach penance and remission of sins. For seven years he continued to dispense the Word of Life to the pilgrims who gathered about him from all parts of Europe. But one day unable to resist his longing for retreat, he took his image of Our Lady, a missal, a copy of St. Benedict’s rule, and the works of Cassian, and laden with these, his only treasures, he plunged into the forest, and choosing a remote and secluded spot erected a rude chapel which he dedicated to Our Lady, and a yet ruder dwelling for himself. There he lived for thirty years, and at the end of that time he was assassinated in his hermitage by some ruffians who hoped to find some hidden treasure in his cell. His body was carried back to Reichnau, and in after years the great sanctuary of Einsidlen rose over the site of his hermitage, where is still venerated the image of Our Lady which he had formerly carried thither with his own hands.
We are now in a position to form some idea of the real character of these early monastic schools, and of the teaching which they conveyed. From the eighth to the twelfth century, the scholastic system underwent so little change, that we may select our illustrations indifferently from any part of that period, without risk of inaccuracy.
First, then, as to the schoolroom itself. In most cases the interior or claustral schools of monasteries and cathedrals were held in the cloisters. A strange contrast, indeed, to the luxurious requirements of modern times; but boarded floors, patent stoves, and easy-backed forms were luxuries undreamt of by the hardy Frankish or Gothic students who studied under Walafrid or Rabanus. It is not until the fifteenth century that we meet with a document hinting at the novelty of providing schoolrooms with boarded floors.[98] The cloisters of York and Worcester, now so desolate and deserted, were once peopled with a busy race of scholars, who probably suffered often enough, like the pupils of Bede, from stiffened fingers and bleeding cracks. Even so late as the twelfth century, the schools of Paris were held in the cloisters of Nôtre Dame, and only removed thence when the repose of the canons was disturbed by the unruly crowds who rushed to listen to the lectures of Abelard. The number of scholars received into a monastery varied according to its size. At St. Riquier, where there were 300 monks, abbot Angilbert wished never to have less than a hundred children, the sons of dukes, counts, and kings.[99] They were seldom or never left alone, and in the cloister or schoolroom the master’s seat was so arranged, that all were under his eye. It does not seem, however, that the surveillance in school-hours was carried out with any excessive rigidity, for we find frequent notice of the pranks and surreptitious consumption of good things perpetrated by the school boys in the temporary absence of their masters. In the dormitories, however, the discipline was more strict; there the lamp was kept constantly burning, and though there are no traces of an odious espionage, there is evidence of a constant, ever present vigilance. Awaked in the morning by the wooden signal board of the master, the children were conducted to the lavatory by the “pedagogues” or junior assistants of the school. These pedagogues were very numerous, and their duties were various. Among other things it belonged to them to see to the cleanliness and neatness of dress and person, a thing not at all despised in the Dark Ages. At Cluny, where in the twelfth century all the older monastic traditions of school discipline were resumed and perfected, it was not permitted for the children to sit together on benches, but each one had his own little box, in which he kept his writing materials, and which also served him for a seat. A midday siesta was allowed at Cluny, but no one was permitted to read or write on his bed.[100] In all these regulations may plainly be seen a solicitude for order and good morals, together with a certain tone of refinement, which is more than we should expect, and which satisfies us how profoundly the whole subject of education had been studied by the medieval masters. Their ideas on the subject of punishment were in more simple accordance with those of Solomon than our fastidious age would approve. The rod, in fact, was so very generally used, that under the form of the ferule it afterwards became the badge of the bachelor in arts, and was solemnly delivered to him when he took his degree. Medieval schoolboys were not more fond of a flogging than those of later growth, and to escape it the scholars of St. Gall once adopted the extraordinary expedient of setting fire to the monastery. Yet with all this austerity of discipline, nothing is more certain than that the monastic masters possessed the secret of making themselves beloved, and that the love which they inspired was not the less familiar because mingled with respect. I may add, that at Cluny, though flogging was permitted, boxing on the ears was strictly prohibited, apparently with the view of allowing no indulgence to the irritated feelings of the master. Punishment, like everything else at Cluny, was administered in an orderly and methodical manner; in fact, the peculiar excellence of the Cluniacs lay in their manner of systematising everything, whether homely or sublime.
The masters in most large schools were very numerous, but none were allowed to hold any office until of mature age. At Fulda there were twelve professors and a principal (Principalis), besides assistants.[101] In the cathedral schools, in like manner, there was the Archischolus and his assistants, and the Proscholus, or prefect of discipline.[102] The reader will perhaps smile when he hears that one of the duties of the Proscholus was to teach the children how to walk, bow, and behave in presence of superiors. This, however, was a speciality of the Canons Regular. Learning was not the only qualification required in a master. He was to be of tried virtue. The office of teacher was a cure of souls, and so great was the honour in which it was held, that bishops even, who had formerly filled the post of scholasticus, not unfrequently affixed their old to their new title, when signing their names.
The education of the scholars began at a very early age, sometimes at five or six. The first task consisted in learning by heart certain portions of Holy Scripture, and specially of the Psalter. Even those who very early abandoned their books for the more congenial exercises of the tilt-yard, seldom did so till they had run through their Psalter: “decurso psalterio,” is a common expression used in speaking of a youth who had left school with the least possible smattering of an education. As for those who stayed a more reasonable time at school, they acquired, besides their profane learning, a familiarity with the Church office and with the words of Holy Writ, not certainly possessed by all scholars of the present day. This is abundantly illustrated by the histories of the times. Thus Einold of Toul, sitting at the window of his cell, hears a voice chanting the words, “I will give you the heritage of your father Jacob,” and at once concludes that it must be a schoolboy conning his morning’s task. How beautiful is that story which we find in the chronicle of Monte Cassino, of the monk Levitius, who, returning from Jerusalem, came to Mount Albaneta, where he proposed to build a monastery. As he was inspecting the site of his new foundation, he saw approaching him a little school boy, carrying his bag of books on his shoulders, and the thought came into his head that he would ask him if he could sing. The boy replying that he could, Levitius told him to sing the first thing he could remember, secretly resolving that he would place the church under the dedication of any saint the boy might happen to name. The little scholar thought a moment, and then intoned the Antiphon, Veni electa mea, which he sang with much sweetness. Levitius listened with delight, and the monastery which afterwards rose on the spot was dedicated to the Ever Blessed Virgin. Scholars of all ages were very largely exercised in what one old monk calls “the holy memory.” Learning by rote was used more generally than among ourselves, partly because books were rare, and all could not enjoy the luxury of a Psalter or Breviary for private use; and partly, because the teachers of old time sought to sanctify this power of the soul, by thoroughly informing it with holy words. Besides the Psalter, the novices of a religious house were expected to know the New Testament at least by heart, half-an-hour a day being assigned for the purpose.