the French and German languages were not yet organs of literature. This fact explains the speedy decay, as well as the subsequent revival in close connection with the Roman church. The creations of Charlemagne were threatened with utter destruction during the civil wars of his weak successors. But Charles the Bald, a son of Louis the Pious, and king of France (843-877), followed his grandfather in zeal for learning, and gave new lustre to the Palace School at Paris under the direction of John Scotus Erigena, whom he was liberal enough to protect, notwithstanding his eccentricities. The predestinarian controversy, and the first eucharistic controversy took place during his reign, and called forth a great deal of intellectual activity and learning, as shown in the writings of Rabanus Maurus, Hincmar, Remigius, Prudentius, Servatus Lupus, John Scotus Erigena, Paschasius Radbertus, and Ratramnus. We find among these writers the three tendencies, conservative, liberal, and speculative or mystic, which usually characterize periods of intellectual energy and literary productivity. After the death of Charles the Bald a darker night of ignorance and barbarism settled on Europe than ever before. It lasted till towards the middle of the eleventh century, when the Berengar controversy on the eucharist roused the slumbering intellectual energies of the church, and prepared the way for the scholastic philosophy and theology of the twelfth century. The Carolingian male line lasted in Italy till 875, in Germany till 911, in France till 987. § 141. Alfred the Great, and Education in England. Comp. the Jubilee edition of the Whole Works of Alfred the Great, with Preliminary Essays illustrative of the History, Arts and Manners of the Ninth Century. London, 1858, 2 vols. The biographies of Alfred, quoted on p. 395, and FREEMAN'S Old English History 1859. In England the beginning of culture was imported with Christianity by Augustin, the first archbishop of Canterbury, who brought with him the Bible, the church books, the writings of Pope Gregory and the doctrines and practices of Roman Christianity; but little progress was made for a century. Among his successors the Greek monk, Theodore of Tarsus (668–690), was most active in promoting education and discipline among the clergy. The most distinguished scholar of the Saxon period is the Venerable Bede (d. 735), who, as already stated, represented all historical, exegetical and general knowledge of his age. Egbert, archbishop of York, founded a flourishing school in York (732), from which proceeded Alcuin, the teacher and friend of Charlemagne. During the invasion of the heathen Danes and Normans many churches, convents and libraries were destroyed, and the clergy itself relapsed into barbarism so that they did not know the meaning of the Latin formulas which they used in public worship. In this period of wild confusion King ALFRED THE Great (871-901), in his twenty-second year, ascended the throne. He is first in war and first in peace of all the Anglo-Saxon rulers. What Charlemagne was for Germany and France, Alfred was for England. He conquered the forces of the Danes by land and by sea, delivered his country from foreign rule, and introduced a new era of Christian education. He invited scholars from the old British churches in Wales, from Ireland, and the Continent to influential positions. He made collections of choice sentences from the Bible and the fathers. In his thirty-sixth year he learned Latin from Asser, a monk of Wales, who afterwards wrote his biography. He himself, no doubt with the aid of scholars, translated several standard works from Latin into the Anglo-Saxon, and accompanied them with notes, namely a part of the Psalter, Boëthius on the Consolation of Philosophy, Bede's English Church History, Pope Gregory's Pastoral Theology, Augustin's Meditations, the Universal History of Orosius, and Esop's Fables. He sent a copy of Gregory's Pastoral Theology to every diocese for the benefit of the clergy. It is due to his influence chiefly that the Scriptures and service-books at this period were illustrated by so many vernacular glosses. He stood in close connection with the Roman see, as the centre of ecclesiastical unity and civilization. He devoted half of his income to church and school. He founded a school in Oxford similar to the Schola Palatina; but the University of Oxford, like those of Cambridge and Paris, is of much later date (twelfth or thirteenth century). He seems to have conceived even the plan of a general education of the people.' Amid great physical infirmity (he had the epilepsy), he developed an extraordinary activity during a reign of twenty-nine years, and left an enduring fame for purity and piety of character and unselfish devotion to the best interests of his people.2 His example of promoting learning in the vernacular language was followed by ELFRIC, a grammarian, homilist and hagiographer. He has been identified with the archbishop Ælfric of Canterbury (996-1009), and with the archbishop Elfric of York (1023-1051), but there are insuperable difficulties in either view. He calls himself simply "monk and priest." He left behind him a series of eighty Anglo-Saxon Homilies for Sundays and great festivals, and another series for Anglo-Saxon Saints' days, which were used as an authority in the Anglo-Saxon Church.3 1 In the preface to Gregory's Pastoral, he expresses his desire that every freeborn English youth might learn to read English. The work has also great philological importance, and was edited by H. Sweet in 1872 for the “Early English Text Society." 2 Freeman calls Alfred "the most perfect character in history," a saint without superstition, a scholar without ostentation, a conqueror whose hands were never stained by cruelty. History of the Norman Conquest, I. 49, third ed. (1877) 3 They were edited by Thorpe. See Wright's Biograph. Britan. Lit. (AngloSaxon Period), pp. 485, 486; and article “ Ælfric" in Leslie Stephen's “Dietionary of National Biography." London and New York, 1885, vol. I. 164– 166. CHAPTER XIV. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS. [This chapter, with the exception of the last four sections, has been prepared under my direction by the Rev. SAMUEL M. JACKSON, M.A., from the original sources, w th the use of the best modern authorities, and has been revised, completed and adapted to the plan of the work.-P. S. § 142. Chronological List of the Principal Ecclesiastical Writers from the Sixth to the Twelfth Century. 1 See ?? 109-112, pp. 495, 496, 498. See ¿? 94, 100-102, pp. 405 sq., 413, 450, 456. See ?? 67, 70, 107 and 108, pp. 304, 312 sqq., 476 sqq. See 10, p. 30 sqq., and 22 50, 52, pp. 211 sqq. •See 116, p. 511 sqq. See & 13, p. 40 sq. I. MAXIMUS CONFESSOR: Opera in Migne, Patrol. Gr. Tom. XC., XCI., reprint of ed. of Fr. Combefis, Paris, 1673 (only the first two volumes ever appeared), with a few additional treatises from other sources. There is need of a complete critical edition. II. For his life and writings see his Acta in Migne, XC. col. 109-205; Vita Maximi (unknown authorship) col. 67-110; Acta Sanctorum, under Aug. 13; DU PIN (Eng. transl., Lond. 1693 sqq.), VI. 24–58; CEILLIER (second ed., Paris, 1857 sqq.), XI. 760-772. III. For his relation to the Monotheletic controversy see C. W. FRANZ WALCH: Historie der Kezereien, etc., IX. 60-499, sqq.; NEANDER: III. 171 sqq.; this History, IV. 409, 496-498. On other aspects see J. N. HUBER: Die Philosophie der Kirchenväter. München, 1859. JOSEF BACH: Die Dogmengeschichte des Mittelalters. Wien, 1873-75, 2 parts, I. 15-49. Cf. WESER: Maximi Confessoris de incarnatione et deificatione doctrina. Berlin, 1869. 1 See 105, p. 472 sqq. See 96, p. 426, and 120, p. 525 sq. 5 See See 126, p. 546 sqq. 121, p. 528 sqq. See 33 128 and 129, p. 554 sqq.; 564 sqq. 2 See 105, p. 471 sq. * See 127, p. 549. 828 64 and 65, pp. 292 and 295. |