While, as we have seen, with the fall of the Western Empire of Rome, the drift of literature was toward the East, there remained in the West a dim light that was kept burning thru the six hundred years so fittingly called the Dark Ages. This light came from the monasteries of Europe, in which little bands of devoted men were transcribing and decorating the holy writings used by the Christian church.
THE FAMOUS “BOOK OF THE DEAD”
Part of the seventeenth chapter of the “Book of the Dead,” showing hieroglyphics and illustrations. This book was written upon papyrus, and copies were placed by ancient Egyptians in tombs with their dead
The Christian church as an organization became powerful after the Roman Empire declined, and the monopoly of learning which the church possessed during the Dark Ages gave it such a superior knowledge and power that the Church of Rome granted authority to kings, and took it away, at its pleasure. A memorable instance of this power took place in the eleventh century, when Hildebrand, who as head of the church was known as Pope Gregory VII., forced Henry IV. of Germany, who had offended him, to seek pardon in a most humiliating manner. Henry stood barefoot in the snow for three days, before Hildebrand would pardon him.
On one occasion previous to the event mentioned above, Charlemagne (Charles the Great), king of the Franks, who was crowned by Pope Leo III. and saluted as Emperor of the West, was so mistakenly zealous in extending along with his own kingdom that of the Lowly Nazarene, that he ordered the hanging of more than four thousand prisoners before the Saxons would consent to be baptized and conquered.
EVOLUTION OF THE ALPHABET
This table shows how the present-day Roman alphabet came to us from the ancient Phœnicians
Latin as a language is dead, so far as the secular world is concerned, but since the seventh century it has been the official language of the Church of Rome. All manuscripts produced by monks after that time, whether written in Britain, Germany or Italy, are in Latin, and the services of the Roman Catholic Church are conducted in that language even today. In the year 1080, the King of Bohemia asked Hildebrand, the Papal head of the church, for permission to have the services performed in the language of the people. This request Hildebrand refused, saying: “It is the will of God that his word should be hidden, lest it should be despised if read by every one.”
In 1229 a council of the church published a decree which not only strictly forbade the translation of the Bible into a “vulgar tongue,” but also forbade all but the clergy to have copies in their possession.
In spite of these mandates, translations of various portions of the Bible were made into common tongues, but at great risk. William Tyndale set about to translate the Bible into English, vowing that ere many years he would cause the plough-boy to know more of the Scriptures than did the priests. By 1526 he had completed the New Testament, but his books were burned in the public squares as soon as completed. Ten years later Tyndale was burned, as had been his books.