Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

From the Constitutions of Reculfus, who became Bishop of Soissons in 879, it is evident that he expected the clergy to be able both to read and to write. The Bishop says: “We admonish that each one of you should be careful to have a Missal, a Lectionary, a Book of the Gospels, a Martyrology, an Antiphonary, a Psalter, and a copy of the Forty Homilies of S. Gregory, corrected and pointed by our copies which we use in the holy mother Church; and also fail not to have as many sacred and ecclesiastical books as you can get, for from these you shall receive food and condiment for your souls.... If, however, any one of you is not able to obtain all the books of the Old Testament, at least let him diligently take pains to transcribe for himself correctly the first book of the whole sacred history, that is, Genesis, by reading which he may come to understand the creation of the world.”[162] The counsel was good, even although a perfectly clear understanding of the creation might after all not have been secured.

By the close of the ninth century, a large proportion of the monasteries of the Continent and of England carried on schools which were open to the children of as large a district as could be reached. In many cases, the elementary classes were succeeded by classes in advanced instruction, while from these were selected favourites or exceptionally capable pupils, who enjoyed in still higher studies the advantage of the guidance and service of the best scholars in the monastery. West, in summing up the later influence of Alcuin, speaks of the stream of learning as having flowed from York to Tours and from Tours (through Rabanus) to Fulda, thence to Auxerre, Ferrières, Corbies (old and new), Reichenau, St. Gall, and Rheims, one branch of it finally reaching Paris.[163] Mabillon speaks of the abbey schools of Fleury as containing during the tenth and eleventh centuries as many as five thousand scholars.

In Italy, the most important schools were those instituted at Monte Cassino, Pomposa, and Classe. Giesebrecht is, however, of opinion that the educational work of the Italian monasteries was less important than that carried on by the monasteries in Germany, France, or England. In Germany, the monasteries which have already been mentioned as centres of intellectual activity were also those which had instituted the most important and effective of the schools, the list including St. Gall, Fulda, Reichenau, Hirschau, Wissembourg, Hersfeld, and many others.

In France and Belgium, the names of the conspicuous abbey schools include those of Marmoutier, Fontenelle, Fleury, Corbie, Ferrières, Bec, Clugni. In England, the most noteworthy of the abbey schools were St. Albans, Glastonbury, Malmesbury, Croyland, and S. Peter’s of Canterbury. From the epoch of Charlemagne to that of S. Louis, the great abbeys of Christian Europe served in fact not only as its schools but as its universities. The more intelligent of the nobility and the kings themselves were interested in securing for their children the educational advantages of the monastery schools. Among the French kings who were brought up in this way are to be named Pepin the Little, Robert the Pious, and Louis the Fat. In Spain, Sancho the Great, King of Navarre and of Castile, was a graduate of the monastery of Leyre.

In England, we have the noteworthy example of Alfred, who was not ashamed, after having reached mature years, to repair his imperfect education by attending the school established in Oxford by the Benedictines, where he is said to have studied grammar, philosophy, rhetoric, history, music, and versification.[164]

A large number of the convents, following the example of the abbeys, contained schools in which were trained not only the future novices, but also numbers of young girls destined for the life of the Courts or of the world.

Mabillon finds occasion to correct the impression on the part of some writers of the sixteenth century, that the monasteries had been established solely for the purpose of carrying on educational work. He writes: C’est une illusion de certains gens qui ont écrit dans le siècle précédent que les monastères n’avaient esté d’abord établis que pour servir d’écoles faisantes profession d’enseigner les sciences humaines.

De Rancé, who wrote a Traité de la saincteté et du devoir de la vie monastique, took the ground that the pursuit of literature was inconsistent with the monastic profession, and that the reading of the monks ought to be confined to the Scriptures and a few books of devotion. The treatise was understood to be an attack upon the Benedictine monks of St. Maur, for that they were learned was a matter of general knowledge, and the monks of La Trappe, the Order with which De Rancé had associated himself, had an old-time antagonism to their scholarly neighbours. It may be considered as a good service for literature and for monastic history that the treatise of De Rancé, narrow and unimportant in itself as it was, should have been published. Nine years later, in the year 1691, was issued the reply of the Benedictines, the learned and valuable Traité des Études Monastiques of Dom Mabillon, which will be referred to more particularly in the following chapter.

The historians of these monastic schools have laid stress upon the limited conceptions possessed by their founders and by the instructors, of the purpose and possibilities of education, conceptions which of necessity affected not only the work done in the school-room, but the character of the literature produced in the scriptoria. Laurie, for instance, writes as follows: “The Christian conception of education was, unfortunately (like that of old Cato), narrow. It tended steadily to concentrate and to contract men’s intellectual interests. The Christian did not think of the culture of the whole man. He could not consistently do so. His whole purpose was the salvation of the soul.... Salvation was to be obtained through abnegation of the world and through faith.... Christianity, accordingly, found itself necessarily placed in mortal antagonism to ‘Humanitas’ and to Hellenism, and had to go through the troublous experiences of nearly 1400 years before the possibility of the union of reason with authority, of religion with Hellenism, could be conserved.... As was indeed inevitable, theological discussion more and more occupied the active intellect of the time, to the subordination, if not total neglect of humane letters and philosophy. The Latin and Greek classics were ultimately denounced. As the offspring of the pagan world, if not indeed inspired by demons, they were dangerous to the faith.”[165]

From the Apostolic Constitutions, ascribed to the middle of the fourth century, Mr. Bass Mullinger quotes the injunction: “Refrain from all the writings of the heathen: for what hast thou to do with strange discourses, laws, or false prophets, which, in truth, turn aside from the faith those who are weak in the understanding ... wherefore abstain scrupulously from all strange and devilish books.”[166]