The instruction consisted of reading, writing, and copying Latin, as in the monasteries, as well as music, weaving and spinning, and needlework. Weaving and spinning had an obvious utilitarian purpose, and needlework, in addition to necessary sewing, was especially useful in the production of altar-cloths and sacred vestments. The copying and illuminating of manuscripts, music, and embroidering made a special appeal to women (R. 56), and some of the most beautifully copied and illuminated manuscripts of the mediaeval period are products of their skill. [16] Their contribution to music and art, as it influenced the life of the time, was also large. The convent schools reached their highest development about the middle of the thirteenth century, after which they began to decline in importance,

LEARNING IN IRELAND AND BRITAIN. As was stated earlier in this chapter, the one part of western Europe where something of the old learning was retained during this period was in Ireland, and in those parts of England which had not been overrun by the Germanic tribes. Christian civilization and monastic life had been introduced into Ireland probably as early as 425 A.D., and probably by monastic missionaries from Lerins and Saint Victor (see Figure 41). Saint Patrick preached Christianity to the Irish, about 440 A.D., and during the fifth and sixth centuries churches and monasteries were founded in such numbers over Ireland that the land has been said to have been dotted all over with churches, monasteries, and schools. Saint Patrick had been educated in the old Roman schools, probably at Tours when it was still an important Roman provincial city. Other early missionaries had had similar training, and these, not sharing the antipathy to pagan learning of the early Italian church fathers, had carried Greek and Latin languages and learning to Ireland. Here it flourished so well, largely due to the island being spared from invasion, that Ireland remained a center for instruction in Greek long after it had virtually disappeared elsewhere in western Christendom. So much was this the case, says Sandys, in his History of Classical Scholarship, "that if any one knew Greek it was assumed that he must have come from Ireland."

In 565 A.D., Saint Columba, an eminent Irish scholar and religious leader, crossed over to what is now southwestern Scotland, founded there the monastery of Iona, and began the conversion of the Picts. Saint Augustine landed in Kent in 597, and had begun the conversion of the Angles and Saxons and Jutes who had settled in southeastern Britain, while shortly afterwards the Irish monks from Iona began the conversion of the people of the north of Britain. The monastery of Lindisfarne was founded about 635 A.D., and soon became an important center of religious and classical learning in the north. Irish and English monks also crossed in numbers to northern Frankland, and labored for the conversion of the Franks and Saxons.

In 664 A.D., at a council held at Whitby, the Irish Church in England and the Roman Church were united, and a great enthusiasm for religion and learning swept over the island. In 670, Theodore of Tarsus and the Abbot Hadrian, whom Bede, the scholar and historian of the early English Church, describes as men "instructed in secular and divine literature both Greek and Latin" (R. 59 a), arrived in England from southern Italy and began their work of instructing pupils in Greek and Latin (R. 59 b). Both taught at Canterbury, and raised the cathedral school there to high rank. In 674 the monastery at Wearmouth was founded, and in 682 its companion Yarrow. These were endowed with books from Rome and Vienne, and soon became famous for the instruction they provided. It was at the twin monasteries of Wearmouth and Yarrow that the Venerable Bede (673-735), whose Ecclesiastical History of England gives us our chief picture of education in Britain in his time, was educated and remained as a lifelong student. [17] As a result of all these efforts a number of northern monasteries, as well as a few of the cathedral schools, early became famous for their libraries, scholars, and learning. This culture in Ireland and Britain was of a much higher standard than that obtaining on the Continent at the time, because the classical inheritance there had been less corrupted.

THE CATHEDRAL SCHOOL AT YORK. One of the schools which early attained fame was the cathedral school at York, in northern England. This had, by the middle of the eighth century, come to possess for the time a large library, and contained most of the important Latin authors and textbooks then known (R. 61). In this school, under the scholasticus Aelbert, was trained a youth by the name of Alcuin, born in or near York, about 735 A.D. In a poem describing the school (R. 60), he gives a good portrayal of the instruction he received, telling how the learned Aelbert "moistened thirsty hearts with diverse streams of teaching and the varied dews of learning," and sorted out "youths of conspicuous intelligence" to whom he gave special attention. Alcuin afterward succeeded Aelbert as scholasticus, and was widely known as a gifted teacher. Well aware of the precarious condition of learning amid such a rude and uncouth society, he handed on to his pupils the learning he had received, and imbued them with something of his own love for it and his anxiety for its preservation and advancement. It was this Alcuin who was soon to give a new impetus to the development of schools and the preservation of learning in Frankland.

CHARLEMAGNE AND ALCUIN. In 768 there came to the throne as king of the great Frankish nation one of the most distinguished and capable rulers of all time—a man who would have been a commanding personality in any age or land. His ancestors had developed a great kingdom, and it was his grandfather who had defeated the Saracens at Tours (p. 113) and driven them back over the Pyrenees into Spain. This man Charlemagne easily stands out as one of the greatest figures of all history. For five hundred years before and after him there is no ruler who matched him in insight, force, or executive capacity. He is particularly the dominating figure of mediaeval times. Born in an age of lawlessness and disorder, he used every effort to civilize and rule as intelligently as possible the great Frankish kingdom. Wars he waged to civilize and Christianize the Saxon tribes of northern Germany, to reduce the Lombards of northern Italy to order, and to extend the boundaries of the Frankish nation. At his death, in 814, his kingdom had succeeded to most of the western possessions of the old Roman Empire, including all of what to-day comprises France, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland, large portions of what is now western Germany and northern Italy, and portions of northern Spain. (See Figure 41.)

Realizing better than did his bishops and abbots the need for educational facilities for the nobles and clergy, he early turned his attention to securing teachers capable of giving the needed instruction. These, though, were scarce and hard to obtain. After two unsuccessful efforts to obtain a master scholar to become, as it were, his minister of education, he finally succeeded in drawing to his court perhaps the greatest scholar and teacher in all England. At Parma, in northern Italy, Charlemagne met Alcuin, in 781, and invited him to leave York for Frankland. After obtaining the consent of his archbishop and king, Alcuin accepted, and arrived, with three assistants, at Charlemagne's court, in 782, to take up the work of educational propaganda in Frankland.

[Illustration: PLATE 1. THE CLOISTERS OF A MONASTERY, NEAR FLORENCE, ITALY. This monastery, located on a high hill and resembling a mediaeval fortress as one approaches it, was founded in 1341 by a Florentine merchant. The picture shows the cloisters and interior court. Eighteen cells, two churches, and other rooms are entered from the cloisters. A few monks were still in residence there late as 1905, one of whom is seen, but the monastery was then in the process of being closed by the Italian Government.]

[Illustration: PLATE 2. THE LIBRARY OF THE CHURCH OF SAINT WALLBERG, AT
ZUTPHEN, HOLLAND

"Ponderous Folios for Scholastics made"