Letters never perished. In the sanguinary tumult, the royal offspring of intelligence was saved by a pious hand, and protected that it might be restored some day to the world— great, powerful, and fit to reign. [Footnote 195]
[Footnote 195: In the tenth century, we include the end of the ninth and the beginning of the eleventh, as men who lived at the end of the seventeenth century and the commencement of the nineteenth are considered as belonging to the eighteenth; Fontenelle and Delille, for example.]
Charlemagne was hardly laid in his tomb at Aix-la-Chapelle, when his lords, barons, counts, dukes, and the inferior leaders dispersed and established in a thousand places their divided rule; furious and devastating wars overwhelmed the people and spread terror in every heart through the country; there was no longer peace, security, or leisure. Were intellectual pursuits suspended during that time? No. Throughout Europe, then a field of battle, sheltered in the valleys and intrenched on the summits of the mountains, were fortresses, which became the asylum of knowledge, with an army resolved to defend it—monks in their convents. Italy was like a camp with a reserve corps of instruction: there soldiers were formed and organized and drilled in the use of all kinds of arms; the Benedictines of Monte Casino, "where ancient literature was constantly studied," [Footnote 196] the ecclesiastical schools of Modena, the episcopal schools of Milan, the school of jurisprudence at Lucca, of rhetoric at Ravenna, of literature at Verona, of the seven arts at Parma, of grammar at Pavia, and, in the midst, Rome, guardian of the heritage of ancient traditions and the seat of the papacy, "which has always surpassed all other nations in learning." [Footnote 197]
[Footnote 196: And a great number of other religious houses; as late as the seventeenth century there were more than three hundred.]
[Footnote 197: Villemain, Histoire de la. Littérature au Moyen Age, lesson xx.]
Beyond the Alps, traverse Provence, almost Italian, Languedoc, also half Roman in learning and in language, on the banks of the Loire you will find these abbeys, famous as seats of learning: Fleury, St. Benoit, and Ligugé, (near Poitiers;) and proceeding to the north, Ferrière, Saint Wandrille, Luxeuil, Corbie, and Le Bec, (in the eleventh century.) From Lyons you could see, far away on the mountain-heights of Switzerland, Reichnau, whose garrison was re-enforced by foreigners who crossed the water, (Irish monks,) and St. Gall, whose monks quote the Iliad. In Spain, Christians did not strive in valor alone with the Moors; they vied in learning with the Arabs, and studied and translated their works. The mélée was universal. Luitprand, an Englishman, who took part in it, as well as Gerbert, a Frenchman, heard ten languages spoken there; among others, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin. [Footnote 198]
[Footnote 198: Greek by merchants, Hebrew by the Jews, Arabic everywhere, while Latin is the foundation of the national tongue.]
Cross the Channel: in England at every step are colleges and seminaries: that far-off murmur comes from the seven thousand students of Armagh, in Ireland. And if you penetrate the wilds of Germany, among the Saxons but just converted, you will discover the advanced posts—the school of Fulden, founded by St. Boniface; New Corbie on the Weser, where, at a later day, were found the five books of the Annals of Tacitus; and what is more, a convent of learned nuns—the Monastery of Roswitha.
This is the main army, and it is not without support. The leaders of the people and the directors of souls do not abandon these valiant troops. Kings, when they have the power and the leisure, send them reenforcements: there are the schools of Eugene II. for the study of the liberal arts; of grammar under Lothaire in France of jurisprudence at Angers; of Edward the Confessor in England. It is not till the time of Henry of Germany that princes are unmindful of them. He would not listen to the petition of a poet for schools of belles-lettres and law. These are the scattered forts that support and bind together the main army.