Schools of Gaul in the last century of the Western Empire

by T. J. Haarhoff

Eucherius in a letter to Valerianus[1125] gives a list of men who have become monks. Clemens, ‘omni scientia refertus, omniumque liberalium artium peritissimus’; Gregorius, ‘philosophia primus apud mundum et eloquentia praestans’; another Gregorius, ‘litteris et philosophiae deditus’; Paulinus of Nola, ‘peculiare et beatum Galliae nostrae exemplum—uberrimo eloquentiae fonte’; Basilius, a rhetor and a learned man; and many others. Of Eucherius himself Claudianus says: ‘ingenio subtilissimus, scientia plenus, eloquii profluens’.[1126] There was, therefore, considerable learning in the monasteries towards the end of the fourth century. We have seen how many of the aristocracy brought pagan culture into the cloisters; we have also seen that the Christians were not without their rhetors (and rhetorical ability implied the liberal education of the day), nor without their theologians and philosophers. Of Hilary of Arles, whose eloquence Honoratus praises, Gennadius says: ‘Ingenio vero immortali aliqua et parva edidit, quae eruditae animae et fidelis linguae indicio sunt’.[1127] Even where a man did not have the initial advantage of education and birth, he often had the ambition and the opportunity to remedy his ignorance in the cloister. Vincentius, who had come to Lérins after having been a soldier, studied with such zeal that he became one of the tutors of Eucherius’s sons and wrote in a style praised by Gennadius.[1128]

Now all these men became the teachers of the Christian schools. They taught unceasingly and with great eagerness. They had within them the joy of the pioneer, and the inspiration of a great ideal. And if one does not agree entirely with their theory of education, it must be admitted that intellectually they were in most cases better equipped than the professors of Ausonius, and that they did more to inspire a true love of education and to preserve the triumphs of culture. When Gaul was separated from the Empire, it was the schools, and mostly the Christian schools (for imperial protection of education failed with the failing Empire), that saved civilization in Gaul and helped to perpetuate Rome’s great contribution to the world—her Law. Dull and uninteresting as their educational labours often were, they were often, like Browning’s Grammarian, possessed by a real love of learning. The pedestrian quality of the work—the jealous watching over the text of Vergil, the copying of manuscripts, the relentless monastic routine—was perhaps the best service that could have been rendered to humanity. What the world wanted, in view of the dark times that were to follow, was a tenacious watch-dog type of loyalty to letters, not the brilliant genius who needs somebody to look after his manuscripts. Not only books but garden art, architecture, wood- and stone-carving, and pottery were preserved by these watch-dogs. The dull lack of appreciation with which we sometimes think of their work, forgetting its true perspective, is well expressed by Kaufmann:[1129]

‘Der auf Unkenntniss gegründete Hochmuth moderner Bildung glaubt freilich mit dem einen Worte “Scholastik” über die Arbeit dieser Mönche hinweggehen zu können, als über eine Summe nutzloser Versuche ... allein schon die eine Beobachtung, dass in den wichtigsten Fragen schon damals dieselben Gegensätze aufeinanderplatzten, welche heute die Geister trennen, schon diese Beobachtung zeigt dass die kirchlichen Fesseln das geistige Leben nicht erstarren liessen.’

PART IV
CERTAIN EDUCATIONAL IDEAS AND INFLUENCES

While we have looked at the actual curricula and surroundings of the schools, it has been possible to treat Christian and pagan education apart. But there remain certain questions which do not directly or entirely belong to the schools, and yet are of importance for education because of the general educational principles underlying them (as in the case of history or the teaching of a strange language), or because of the ideas by which they moulded the individuality of people (as in the case of morality and art). Here the interplay of influences is such that, in the brief treatment which we propose, a strict division had better not be attempted. For not only would such a division be tedious within so limited a compass, but the merging into one another of customs and ideas makes it almost impossible. The questions we have indicated will therefore be regarded as common to either side of society.

1. Moral Education

To get an insight into the moral state of a bygone age is difficult for two reasons. The first is that the subject is one on which people are most tempted to be hypocrites in their own case, while they delight in expatiating on the wickedness of others, and the second, that there is an extraordinary tendency for particular cases to fill the horizon and prevent us from taking a general view. In our period we have to reckon with a special form of these difficulties: the preaching habit, which, though it was essential to Christianity, was nevertheless as much open to abuse as pagan rhetoric was, especially when it was a means of combating paganism. ‘The world is wide’, said Stevenson in one of his essays, ‘and so are morals.’ But there is a standard—that of the Sermon on the Mount—which presents an ideal, though it does not give the right to condemn. In trying to follow this ideal the Christians saw pagan morality in a lurid light. How far were they justified?

The traditional trait of impulsiveness in the Gallic character suggested to many writers a proneness to immorality.[1130] Florus represents Livy as saying that the Insubrian Gauls, though brutal in spirit and abnormally large, were like their own Alpine snows: the glow of battle dissolved them into sweat, and even slight exertion thawed them like the sun. From this account Ammianus differs widely when he describes the Gauls of the fourth century as excelling in vigour and endurance irrespective of age.[1131] Yet he speaks of the ‘mollities’ of the Aquitanians.[1132] Perhaps in his description of their hardiness he was thinking chiefly of the northern Gauls, as opposed to their slacker brothers in the south. For it is against the south and against Aquitaine in particular that Salvian launches all the thunder of his denunciation. The Aquitanians need the chastisement of the barbarian invasions to kill off the worst among them and to reform the others.[1133] He rails at length against the prevailing corruption. The theatres ‘are so scandalous that no one can with modesty speak out about them’.[1134] The performances consisted of farces, ‘cotidianae obscenitates’,[1135] ‘restes dégénérés et méconnaissables du théâtre antique’ as Fauriel calls them.[1136] The Christian clergy lose no opportunity of condemning them. In contrast to pagan immorality, Salvian describes the chastity of the Goths. This he exaggerates for the sake of effect, but that there was a considerable element of truth in his description is proved by the Codex Visigothorum.[1137]

If the preacher gives a discouraging picture of the moral state of Gaul, so does the writer of comedy. In the fourth-century Querolus much of the moral corruption pictured is due to imitation of Plautus, and we must remember that it was a comedy. Yet we can detect a strain of satire which is a criticism of existing conditions. Stealing, lying, adultery, perjury are treated as exceedingly common peccadilloes which the household god (Lar) is only too ready to pardon in a pleasing and jolly offender. Between the Plautine conception of the relation of slaves to their masters and that here portrayed we can detect no advance. On both sides morality is simply non-existent.