After much destruction, Rollo, Duke of the Normans, finally accepted Christianity, in 912, and agreed to settle down in what has ever since been known as Normandy. From here portions of the invaders afterward passed over to England in the Norman Conquest of 1066. This was the last of the great German tribes to move, and after they had raided and plundered and settled down and accepted Christianity, western Europe, after six centuries of bloodshed and pillage and turmoil and disorder, was at last ready to begin in earnest the building-up of a new civilization and the restoration of the old learning.

WORK OF ALFRED IN ENGLAND. The set-back to learning caused by this latest deluge of barbarism was a serious one, and one from which the land did not recover for a long time. In northern Frankland and in England the results were disastrous. The revival which Charlemagne had started was checked, and England did not recover from the blow for centuries. Even in the parts of England not invaded and pillaged, education sadly declined as a result of nearly a century of struggle against the invaders (R. 66). Alfred, known to history as Alfred the Great, who ruled as English king from 871 to 901, made great efforts to revive learning in his kingdom. Probably inspired by the example of Charlemagne, he established a large palace school (R. 68), to the support of which he devoted one eighth of his income; he imported scholars from Mercia and Frankland (R. 67); restored many monasteries; and tried hard to revive schools and encourage learning throughout his realm, and with some success. [22] With the great decay of the Latin learning he tried to encourage the use of the native Anglo-Saxon language, [23] and to this end translated books from Latin into Anglo- Saxon for his people. In his Introduction to Gregory's volume (R. 66) he expresses the hope, "If we have tranquillity enough, that all the free- born youth now in England, who are rich enough to be able to devote themselves to it … be set to learn … English writing," while those who were to continue study should then be taught Latin. The coming of the Normans in 1066, with the introduction of Norman-French as the official language of the court and government, for a time seriously interfered with the development of that native English learning of which Alfred wrote.

In the preceding chapter and in this one we have traced briefly the great invasions, or migrations, which took place in western Europe, and indicated somewhat the great destruction they wrought within the bounds of the old Empire. In this chapter we have traced the beginnings of Christian schools to replace the ones destroyed, the preservation of learning in the monasteries, and the efforts of Charlemagne and Alfred to revive learning in their kingdoms. In the chapter which follows we shall describe the mediaeval system of education as it had evolved by the twelfth century, after which we shall be ready to pass to the beginnings of that Revival of Learning which ultimately resulted in the rediscovery of the learning of the ancient world.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Picture the gradual dying-out of Roman learning in the Western Empire, and explain why pagan schools and learning lingered longer in Britain, Ireland, and Italy than elsewhere.

2. At what time was the old Roman civilization and learning most nearly extinct?

3. Explain how the monasteries were forced to develop schools to maintain any intellectual life.

4. Explain how the copying of manuscripts led to further educational development in the monasteries.

5. Would the convents have tended to attract a higher quality of women than the monasteries did of men? Why?

6. Explain why Greek was known longer in Ireland and Britain than elsewhere in the West.