TWENTY-SECOND LECTURE.

Of intellectual decay in Frankish Gaul, from the fifth to the eighth century Of its causes-It ceases under the reign of Charlemagne-Difficulty of describing the state of the human mind at this epoch-Alcuin is its most complete and faithful representative—Life of Alcuin—His labours for the restoration of manuscripts-For the restoration of schools-His teaching in the school of the palace-His relations with Charlemagne— His conduct as abbot of Saint Martin of Tours-His works; 1. Theological; 2. Philosophical and literary; 3. Historical; 4. Poetical-His general character.

I HAVE said, and I consider it established, that, from the fifth to the eighth century, decay in Frankish Gaul was constant and general; that it was the essential character of the time, and only stopped under the reign of Charlemagne.

If this character was anywhere more visible, more signal than elsewhere, it was in the intellectual order, in the history of the human mind at this epoch. Recal to mind through what vicissitudes we have seen it pass. At the end of the fourth century, two literatures, two philosophies, marched, as it were, side by side, profane literature and sacred literature, pagan philosophy and Christian theology. It is true, profane literature and pagan philosophy were dying; but they still breathed. We saw them soon disappear; sacred literature and Christian theology alone remained. We have continued on our way; Christian theology and sacred literature themselves have disappeared; we no longer meet with anything but sermons, legends, monuments of an entirely practical activity, devoted to the wants of actual life, foreign to the research and contemplation of the true and beautiful. This is the state into which the human mind had fallen in the seventh and during the first half of the eighth century.

This decay has been generally attributed to the tyranny of the church, to the triumph of the principle of authority and faith over the principle of liberty and reason. Quite modern writers, men of impartiality and learning-Tennemann, for example, in his History of Philosophy have adopted this explanation. The absolute authority of the church, and the doctrine of pure and simple faith, opposed to that of rational inquiry, have, doubtless, powerfully contributed to weaken the human mind; but it was at a later period that their influence was exercised. At the epoch which occupies us, this cause, I think, had as yet acted but feebly. Recal to mind the picture I placed before you of the state of the Christian church at the fifth century;2 liberty then was great. Now, from the fifth to the eighth century, the church was not constituted with sufficient regularity or strength to exercise tyranny; none of the means of government by which, at a later period, she dominated over mind were then within her hands; the rising papacy as yet possessed only a power of influence and counsel; episcopacy, although it was the dominant system of the ecclesiastical society, was weak and disordered; councils became rare; no authority was firm and general; if there had been any true energy of mind, doubtless it would easily have forced itself into light. At a later period, from the 11th to the 14th century, the church was strong; her power was regularly organized; the principle of implicit submission to her decision reigned in the minds of men; and yet intellectual activity was far greater. There was then a real danger in struggling against the church, and yet men struggled: they resisted her pretensions, they even assailed her title. The seventh century made no attempt at tack or resistance; the ecclesiastical power and freedom of thought had not even occasion to commence a struggle.

It is not, then, to this cause that the intellectual apathy and sterility of this epoch are to be attributed. The fall of the empire, its disorders and miseries, the dissolution of social relations and ties, the occupations and sufferings of personal interests, the impossibility of permanent labour, of

1 In German, vol. viii. p. 1-8.

2 See vol. i., the third and fourth lectures.

tranquil leisure, such were the true causes of the moral, as well as of the political decay, and of the darkness which enveloped the human mind.

Whatever may be the cause of it, the fact is undeniable. If we considered in its entirety the history of the human mind in modern Europe, from the fifth century up to our own days, we should find, I think, that the seventh century is the lowest point to which it has descended, the nadir of its course, so to speak. With the end of the eighth century began its movement of progress.

It is rather difficult to characterize this movement with exactness, and to sum up in a few characteristic words the intellectual state of Frankish-Gaul under Charlemagne. No one simple idea dominates in it. The works which then occupied mind formed no whole, attached themselves to no principle. They are partial, isolated works; the activity is sufficiently great, but manifests itself by no great results; all attempt to systematise this time under a moral point of view-to reduce it to any general and striking fact, would infallibly misrepresent it.

Another method appears to me more suited to make it known and understood. We find in this period a man with a mind doubtless more active and extensive than any around him, except that of Charlemagne; superior in instruction and intellectual activity to any of his contemporaries, without elevating himself much above them by the originality of his knowledge of ideas; in a word, a faithful representative of the intellectual progress of his epoch, which he outstripped in all things, but without ever separating himself from it. This man is Alcuin. It is necessary, as a general rule, to give way only with extreme reserve to the temptation to take a particular man as the image, the representative of an epoch. Such comparisons are more ingenious than solid. On the one hand, a society, however declining and sterile it may be, is almost always, intellectually speaking, greater and richer than an individual. It comprehends a body of ideas, of knowledge of facts, and of moral wants, which are not reproduced within the narrow space of an individual existence. On the other hand, a distinguished man, even when originality is not his pre-eminent characteristic, always differs greatly from the mass of his contemporaries he is himself, and not a

nation; so that, under a twofold relation, the representation is incorrect, and the image fallacious. Care should be taken, in this particular case which occupies us, not to depend too much upon it, though it is, perhaps, here more faithful than in any other instance. Alcuin is, perhaps, one of the men who best represent their epoch; still we must make many reservations. And, at the same time that I place him before you as the expression of the state of the human mind at the end of the eighth century, I should wish to be sure that you will reduce this comparison to its true value.

Alcuin was not a Frenchman. It will be sufficient to cast a glance at the last table in the previous lecture, to see that. Charlemagne took great care to attract distinguished foreigners into his states, and that among those who helped to second intellectual development in Frankish Gaul, many came from abroad. Charlemagne even did more. We see, at the seventeenth century, that Louis XIV., not content with protecting letters in his kingdom, extended his encouragement and favour to them throughout Europe. Colbert wrote to learned Germans, Dutch, Alsatians, to announce to them, on the part of the king, presents and pensions, which went sometimes as high as three thousand livres. Analogous facts are met with under Charlemagne; he not only strove to attract distinguished men into his states, but he protected and encouraged them wherever he discovered them. More than one Anglo-Saxon abbey shared his liberality; and learned men who, after following him into Gaul, wished to return to their country, in no way became strangers to him. Peter of Pisa and Paul Warnefried, who remained but a short time in Gaul, experienced this. Alcuin fixed himself there permanently. He was born in England, at York, about 735. The intellectual state of Ireland and England was then superior to that of the continent; letters and schools prospered there more than anywhere else. It is rather difficult to assign any precise causes for this fact; the principal of them, I think, is the following:-Christianity was carried into Ireland by Greek missionaries, and into England by Latin missionaries. In Ireland, during the first ages which followed its introduction, no invasion of barbarians came to stop its progress. to disperse the monasteries and schools, to stifle the intellectual movement which it had set

on foot. In England, when the missionaries of Gregory the Great arrived, the barbaric invasion was consummated, the Saxons well established; there also, therefore, Christianity had not to undergo, at least not at this epoch, or until the great incursion of the Danes, any social disorder; its studies and its various works were not violently interrupted. I placed before you, in the beginning of this course, the view of the intellectual state of Gaul in the fourth, and at the commencement of the fifth century; neither schools nor literary men were wanting to it; and if the Visigoths, the Burgundians, the Franks, had not brought chaos and ruin inte it, the human mind, although weakened, had not fallen into the state in which we find it at the seventh century. This is the advantage which England possessed at that epoch; society here had not been ravaged or broken up by recent, continual Invasions. The establishments for study and science which Christianity had formed there, were still erect, and quietly pursued their labours.

That

Whether this cause is or is not sufficient to explain it, the fact is incontestable. The schools of England, and particularly that of York, were superior to those of the continent. of York possessed a rich library, where many of the works of pagan antiquity were found; among others, those of Aristotle, which it is a mistake to say were first introduced to the knowledge of modern Europe by the Arabians, and the Arabians only; for from the fifth to the tenth century, there is no epoch in which we do not find them mentioned in some library, in which they were not known and studied by some men of letters. Alcuin himself informs us of the instruction which they gave in the school of the monastery of York. We read in his poem, entitled, Pontiffs and Saints of the Church of York:

"The learned Ælbert gave drink to thirsty minds at the sources of various studies and sciences. To some he was eager to communicate the art and rules of grammar; for others he made flow the waves of rhetoric. He exercised these in the combats of jurisprudence, and those in the songs of Adonia. Some learned from him to sound the pipes of Castalia, and to strike with a lyric foot the summits of Parnassus

1 Vol. i., lectures third and fourth.