As a rule, the productions of the scribe and the illuminator were considered too valuable to be used for any other than religious purposes. The donation was accompanied with the ceremony of music and prayer as the missal, often enclosed in an exquisite golden casket, was deposited upon the altar.

It was only through political or pecuniary necessity, or to obtain the favor of royalty, that these specimens of art were allowed, even temporarily, to leave the hands of their owners. In 1190 the Bishop of Ely pawned with the Jews of Cambridge thirteen volumes, to aid in obtaining the ransom of Richard Cœur de Lion. To secure the loan of a single missal, a king of France was compelled to give a bond, with his nobles as sureties, and to deposit with the cathedral chapter a quantity of plate of enormous value. One of the kings of Northumberland gave a productive estate for a copy of the Gospels. The Elector of Bavaria offered a city in exchange for a manuscript, and was refused. The illuminated romance of chivalry, worth more than its weight in gold, was the most highly prized possession of the opulent baron. So valuable, in fact, were these treasures that those destined for public inspection were fastened to the walls with massive chains, and guardians were appointed to turn over the leaves. Peter de Nemours, Bishop of Paris, on his departure for the Crusade, presented to the Abbey of St. Victor “his great library, consisting of eighteen volumes;” a gift at that time worth a prince’s ransom. It will be seen from these examples that during the Middle Ages books were not always at the command of the greatest princes, and a collection of a few hundred volumes was a marvel; that of Queen Isabella contained two hundred and one, of which sixty-seven were treatises on theology. Other circumstances contributed to their scarcity. Written usually in a learned language, it required a special education to read them, to say nothing of their composition. The expensiveness of writing materials prevented many from acquiring familiarity with the use of the pen. The dimensions of leaves designed for various purposes were established by law, but the original sizes into which a sheepskin could be folded have been preserved in the quartos, octavos, and duodecimos of the modern bookseller. As a menace to the irreverent and the dishonest, the author frequently appended to his manuscript a malediction on whomsoever should steal or mutilate the product of his industry. The donor also added his imprecations upon the head of the borrower when the book was presented to a church or monastery. As the modern languages of Europe were not formed, communication by other than oral means was not possible among the uneducated; and the art of writing was in some localities entirely lost. With the great mass of the people the word “library” was understood to mean the Holy Scriptures; they were ignorant of the existence of any other books. The immense advantages accruing to the clergy from the habitual use of an idiom unfamiliar to the vulgar, as well as from the monopoly of the simplest rudiments of knowledge, were not lost upon these shrewd observers of human nature. The church became the point whence royal edicts were promulgated and where commercial bargains were concluded. Proclamations were issued at its doors. Contracts were entered into before its altar. Oaths were taken upon the Scriptures and the crucifix. The Host was used in the detection of criminals and in the solemnization of treaties. Land was conveyed by the mere transfer of a twig or a clod of earth in the presence of clerical witnesses. The cross still traced upon legal documents by the hands of the illiterate, in lieu of a signature, is a suggestive reminiscence of an age when the potency of ecclesiastical influence was recognized in every important transaction of life.

The persecution of learning was systematized and maintained, first, by the creation of theological odium, and subsequently by the institution of such tribunals as the Holy Office; not through a desire to preserve a becoming reverence for religious worship, but from a consciousness of the inability of the existing system to withstand the examination of reason. Heresy was a convenient and ever available pretext for crushing that independence of thought which threatened the integrity of doctrine or the permanence of sacerdotal supremacy. The Inquisition was, when its real object is considered, as has already been stated, a temporal rather than an ecclesiastical device. Its unspeakable atrocities and their effects are too well known to require description. In refutation of its claim as a means of moral purification may be introduced the indisputable fact that during the period of its greatest power the worst atheists, blasphemers, and criminals in Europe were to be found masquerading in the cowl and the surplice. The outrages it committed on humanity must be regarded as the legitimate results of the papal system, which, inheriting to a great extent the organization, the prestige, and the traditions of imperial authority, encouraged, by immunity purchased with corruption and by the profligate example of the Holy See, the neglect of every duty and the commission of every crime.

The exercise of the faculties of the human mind in the Dark Ages, when they were permitted to develop and be employed for the benefit of the Church,—their only profitable patron,—are eminently suggestive of the capacity which it possessed when afforded encouragement. The cathedrals, the carvings, and the missals, which, in their respective departments of art, far surpass the efforts of modern times, are appropriate examples of the scope and fertility of mediæval genius.

I have now endeavored to depict the general and more striking features which distinguished society during the Middle Ages coincident with the period of the Hispano-Arab domination. The description, from the limited space allotted to the subject, is necessarily imperfect. Volumes might still be composed on the events and customs of that dismal period whose most prominent characteristic is the intellectual degradation of mankind. The reader cannot have failed to remark, in every instance—whether merely the trifling incidents of private life were affected or whether the interests of extensive kingdoms were involved—the incessant interference as well as the unquestioned predominance of the ecclesiastical power. He cannot but respect, if he is unable to admire, the commanding genius of an organization which could appropriate and utilize with success the profound policy, the consummate skill, the incomparable talents for administration, the heartless selfishness, of its political exemplar and religious prototype, the Roman Empire. He may turn with disgust from its crimes and its horrors; from papal grandeur built upon forgery and maintained by fraud and torture; from the shamelessness of monastic life; from the duplicity of a system which could avail itself of the uncertain caprices and hideous brutality of barbarian kings; from the repulsive chronicles of famous churchmen, with their long catalogue of appalling cruelties, their obscene and portentous legends. But while disapproving of its methods, he must admit its eminent adaptability to secure the end at which it aimed, and acknowledge that since the institution of society no government has ever exercised such a powerful influence over the bodies and minds of men as the Papacy. From that influence no potentate, however great, was free. The reputation of many a mediæval monarch and statesman with posterity is based, in reality, not upon talents and merit, but upon the standing and relations he maintained during his lifetime with the sacerdotal order.

In the universal ignorance of mankind, the familiar phenomena of nature contributed to the ascendency of unprincipled charlatans, who based their hopes of success and its necessary incidents, wealth, power, and glory, on the invention and sedulous propagation of falsehood. The personification of everything material and immaterial, the globe of the earth, the sparkling orbs of the visible heavens, the sudden and often unexpected effects of the action of the imponderable agents, the most ordinary operation of nature’s laws, were classed as supernatural manifestations, were engrafted upon religion and received the obsequious homage of fear and superstition. The wily ecclesiastic never forgot that

“Das Wunder ist des Glaubens liebstes Kind.”

Gnomes, witches, goblins, those imaginary denizens of the spiritual world whose weird and mischievous antics were so well authenticated as to strike the simple masses with terror and to cause even the learned to shudder when their sins had not been removed by the godly solace of confession and absolution, were enlisted as the allies of the politic Church. By the aid of such auxiliaries and the ability to profit by every phase of human weakness and every incitement to human ambition, she has maintained her authority even under the most discouraging circumstances until her achievements in defiance of law and progress, arduous as they seem, are even less remarkable than the apparently eternal duration of her empire.

CHAPTER XXVIII
THE HISPANO-ARAB AGE OF LITERATURE AND SCIENCE
760–1450

Intellectual Stagnation of Europe during the Period of Moslem Greatness—High Rank of Scholars in Spain—Attainments of the Khalifs—Character of Arab Literature—Progress of Science—The Alexandrian Museum—Its Wonderful Discoveries—Its Contributions to Learning—Its Influence on the Career of the Mohammedans—The Arabic Language—Poetry of the Arabs—Its General Characteristics—Theology and Jurisprudence—History—Geography—Philosophy—Libraries—Rationalism—Averroes—Mathematics—Astronomy—Al-Hazen—Gerbert—Botany—Alchemy—Chemistry—Pharmacy—Albertus Magnus, Robert Grossetete, and Roger Bacon—Medicine and Surgery—Ignorance of their Theories and Scientific Application in Mediæval Europe—Prevalence of Imposture—Fatality of Epidemics—Great Advance of the Arabs in Medical Knowledge—Hospitals—Treatment of Various Diseases—The Famous Moslem Practitioners—Contrast between the Christian and the Mohammedan Systems—Enduring Effects of Arab Science—Its Example and Benefits the Creative Influence of Modern Civilization.