Christian Schools and Scholars / or, Sketches of Education from the Christian Era to the Council of Trent

by Augusta Theodosia Drane

The information conveyed in stories of this kind will be taken for what it is worth. It does not certainly represent the monks of the Iron Age as prodigies of erudition, but it shows that they did a little more than learn their Psalter. In some cases they certainly set themselves to overcome the difficulties which then beset the path of learning with a perseverance and success that merit all praise; and one example of this sort occurs among the monks of that very abbey of Fleury, the reformation of which was effected by St. Odo in the teeth of an armed rabble. Abbo of Fleury, as he is commonly called, a contemporary of St. Maieul, did not enter the monastery until some years after it had begun to flourish under the Cluniac rule, and the good discipline of Abbot Wulfhad. He was a native of Orleans, and a boy of such a sweet disposition and such a happy memory, that he forgot nothing of his master’s lessons, and studied much in private, not merely for the sake of knowledge, says his biographer, but also because he counted application to study to be a means of subjecting the flesh to the spirit. The Fleury teachers at this time were not first-rate; however, far from being disgusted with “the haggard and emaciated skeleton of barbarous elements,” the more Abbo learnt the more he desired to learn. He was appointed in time scholasticus to his convent, but he felt by no means satisfied as yet with his own attainments. He was tolerably well versed in grammar, logic, and arithmetic, but he had found no one at Fleury who could teach him the other liberal arts. With the permission of his abbot, therefore, he resigned his office, and went first to Paris, and then to Rheims. In these schools he acquired a knowledge of philosophy and astronomy, but not so much of the last science as he desired. So he next proceeded to Orleans, and there not only perfected himself in other branches of learning, but, by dint of expending a good sum of money, managed to get some excellent lessons in music. This, however, could only be done secretly, by reason of the opposition of envious minds. He had now studied five out of the seven liberal arts, and he could not rest till he had acquired the other two. But not being able to find any good master either in rhetoric or geometry, he endeavoured to supply the first by a careful study of Victorinus, the master of St. Jerome, and also by his own exertions gained some knowledge of mathematics. We have seen in the last chapter how he was summoned to England by St. Oswald of York, and established sacred and scientific studies in the monastery of Ramsay. So greatly was he esteemed by both St. Oswald and St. Dunstan, that an amicable quarrel arose between the two prelates as to which should keep possession of so great a treasure. The question was settled by the abbot of Fleury recalling Abbo to his own convent after a two years’ absence.

His English friends took leave of him with no small regret, and loaded him with parting presents. St. Dunstan gave him a number of exquisitely-wrought silver ornaments of his own workmanship, which he requested him to present as his offerings to St. Benedict, a portion of whose body was preserved at Fleury. St. Oswald ordained him priest, and gave him a chalice, some vestments, and everything else requisite for saying mass. In 988 he became abbot, in which office he continually recommended his monks to cultivate study as the most useful exercise next to fasting and prayer. For himself he ceased not all his life to read, write, or dictate. His favourite studies, next to the Holy Scriptures, were dialectics and astronomy, and among his works were some treatises on both those subjects. Renowned for his learning throughout Europe, he was killed at last in 1004 in an affray between his servants and some Gascon monks of the monastery of Reole, whither he had been sent to effect a reform.

In fact, if the age exhibited much decay and many scandals, it found men ready to spend their lives in the weary work of restoration and reformation. And it is remarkable that the greatest prelates of the time invariably regarded the revival of monachism as the only means of restoring good discipline and learning. Such were the views of St. Dunstan and his fellow-labourers, and such was also the conviction of the excellent Adalberon, who in 933 became Bishop of Metz. He was brother to the reigning duke of Lorraine, and his talents and zeal equalled the nobility of his birth. In order to provide his diocese with a seminary of devoted and learned men, he resolved on restoring the great monastery of Gorze, which had been founded by St. Chrodegang of Metz, but which had been ruined under the combined attacks of the Normans and the Hungarians. He completed the rebuilding of the abbey, but was still uncertain whence he should procure his colony of monks, when he was informed that a little society of ecclesiastics, which had been formed in the neighbouring diocese of Toul, was about to pass into Italy, seeking some spot where they might unmolested lead a more perfect life. The way in which this society had been organised was altogether remarkable. At their head was John of Vandières, the native of a village in the diocese of Nancy, who, having been born when his father was advanced in years, had suffered from some of the disadvantages of being a spoiled child. The fond parent, however, was at last persuaded to send the boy to school, first at Metz, and then at the monastery of St. Michael’s, where Master Hildebold, a pupil of Remigius, gave lessons in grammar. John, however, profited very little by his teaching, and on his father’s death, his mother, marrying a second time, recalled him home, and gave him the charge of all the temporal affairs of the house. John showed considerable ability in the management of lands and revenues, and absorbed in these cares, soon forgot the little he had learnt at school. However, as time went on, he became disgusted with his secular way of life, and embracing the ecclesiastical state, received two benefices in the diocese of Toul. There he became acquainted with the learned deacon Berners, who, by no means approving of illiterate clerks, persuaded John to begin his studies over again. Divine grace quickening his powers, he did his best to make up for lost time. But he was never much of a grammarian. He contented himself with what his biographer calls a sprinkling of Donatus, just so much as enabled him to read and understand the Scriptures, to the study of which he then exclusively devoted himself, and in which he obtained very extraordinary light. The church which he served was dependent on a convent of nuns at Metz, where his duties called him from time to time to say mass. He became acquainted with the community, and the example of their holy and mortified life inspired him with new ardour. He began a course of reading with these good religious, which speaks in favour of his diligence and their patience, and in which, says his biographer, he persevered “with all his might.”

First, then, having read through with them the whole of the Old and New Testaments, he committed both to memory, “and that so accurately that no man could do it better,” also “all the lessons appointed to be read in church,” which are contained in the book called Comes; then the rules for the computing of Easter and the canonical laws, that is, the decrees of councils, the judgments of penitents, the mode of ecclesiastical proceedings, and the secular laws, all of which he treasured up word for word. Of homilies, sermons, and treatises on the Epistles and Gospels, I will only say that he was able to repeat an alarming catalogue of them in the vernacular, “straightforward from beginning to end, as if he were reading from the book.” At the same time he laboured hard to acquire a knowledge of church music, not caring for the derision of some who considered it an unsuitable enterprise for one of his age to engage in. However, his perseverance was rewarded with very fair success, and it was thus that he employed his intervals of leisure time, together with the handmaids of God.

It must be confessed that John’s choice of reading, considering the gentler sex of his fellow-students, was somewhat of the driest. Nor do I at all cite him as a model of erudition, though, considering the deficiencies of his early education, his achievements in that line might have saved him from the contempt of Brucker, who notices him only to string him up among other barbarous dunces. His studies probably took their direction from the very few books which he had at his command, and it is at least clear that he made a tolerable use of those he possessed.

His intercourse with the nuns inspired him with a great desire to embrace a religious life, but, like St. Odo, he sought in vain for any religious house in his own part of the country where religious discipline still flourished. So first he joined the company of a recluse of Verdun, named Humbert, and then he passed some time with a hermit in the forest of Argonne, and at last, in company with Bernacer of Metz, who was a tolerable scholar, he set out on pilgrimage to Rome. However, even in Italy he found nothing that exactly suited him, and returning to Verdun, resumed his former exercises of prayer and study, under the direction of Humbert.

About the same time Einold, Archdeacon of Toul, had been touched with similar desires after a perfect life; and distributing all his goods to the poor, he shut himself up in a little cell adjoining the cloisters of his cathedral, together with his books and his priestly vestments, living only on what the Bishop Gauzelin sent him as an alms. The times were, indeed, dreary enough, when, one after another, these good men were to be found seeking, and seeking in vain, for some spot untouched by the spoiler’s hand. As Einold prayed for guidance, what seemed a little schoolboy’s voice in the street outside chanted the words, “I will give you the heritage of your father Jacob;” and half disposed to take the words as a sign of divine encouragement, he was still pondering over their meaning, when Humbert of Verdun came to ask his counsel. To be brief, the four friends, Einold, Humbert, John, and Bernacer, determined on migrating to Italy, and establishing themselves either among the solitaries of Mount Vesuvius, or in the neighbourhood of Monte Cassino. And it was this little knot of holy men, who had been drawn together by the ties of Christian sympathy, whom Adalberon proposed to detain in France for the purpose of entrusting them with the restoration of monastic life in the abbey of Gorze. They accepted his offer; a very few of the old monks who yet survived were brought back, and willingly accepted the strict reform which Adalberon desired to establish; Einold was chosen abbot, and the house soon became a model of good discipline. Sacred studies were at once instituted in the school, and after his religious profession, John of Gorze, as he was henceforth called, entered on rather a wider range of reading than he had hitherto been able to follow. We find him applying himself to St. Augustine, and working with characteristic energy at certain logical studies, which were, however, cut short by the prohibition of Einold, who desired him to leave logic for secular students, and to confine himself to more spiritual subjects, an injunction which he humbly and promptly obeyed. He became abbot of Gorze about the year 960.

Adalberon’s zeal was not satisfied with the restoration of Gorze; he invited a learned body of monks over from Ireland, under a superior named Cradoc, and established them in another deserted monastery, that of St. Clement’s at Metz. When Gerard, Bishop of Toul, the successor of Gauzelin, heard of the arrival of the Irishmen, he never rested till he had procured some of them for his own diocese. He had already procured a community of exiled Greek monks, among whom, in the following century, Cardinal Humbert acquired his Greek learning. A sort of holy emulation sprang up between the two prelates, which should outstrip the other in their labours at reform and revival; and Gerard was not content with setting others to work; he worked himself as hard as the humblest scholasticus. He took into his own hands the instruction of his clergy in all that appertained to ecclesiastical discipline and the ministry of preaching; and acting on the principle that he who instructs others should never cease to be a learner, he never considered that his time of study was ended; and his historian declares that even when he was in bed he appointed some of his clerks to read to him until he fell asleep.

From all that has been said, it may be seen that there was no want of solicitude on the part of the pastors of the Church to amend the disorders of the time. In fact, we might appeal to the acts of those very councils which show what the abuses of the times were, as affording proof of the strenuous exertions made to correct them.

In Spain we are told the incursions of the Saracens had left everything in ruins. The school of Palencia, established in the sixth century for the education of the clergy, had fallen into decay; the monastic institute had all but disappeared; and the sites of many monasteries, like the famous one founded near Vierzo by St. Fructuosus, had become wildernesses, overgrown with thorns and brushwood. But here, as in France and Germany, bishops were to be found stemming the strong tide of barbarism. Gennadius of Astorga restored a great number of abbeys destroyed by the Saracens, and placed them under the Benedictine Rule. And as the libraries that formerly enriched them could not be at once replaced, he introduced a custom by which the books belonging to one house were lent to a number of others in regular succession, always returning to their original owners. Among the books so lent appear the works of St. Gregory, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine.