TWENTY-EIGHTH LECTURE. Of the intellectual condition of Frankish Gaul, from the death of Charlemagne to the accession of Hugh Capet-Sketch of the celebrated men of this period-The theological mind-The philosophical mind-Hincmar and John Erigena are respectively their representatives-Life of Hincmar-His activity and influence as archbishop of Reims-1. Concerning his relations with kings and popes-2. Concerning his administration in the interior of the Gallo-Frankish church and of his diocese-3. Concerning his disputes and theological works-Origin of the theology of the middle ages-Quarrel between Hincmar and the monk Gottschalk upon predestinationNumerous writings upon this subject-Councils of Kiersy, Valence, and Langres-Recapitulation. IN exhibiting the intellectual revival of Frankish Gaul under Charlemagne,' I affirmed that the movement which was then given to mind, did not cease under his successors. It is to the progress of this movement, in the ninth and tenth centuries, that I purpose to direct your attention to-day. When I arranged the table of the celebrated men of the times of Charlemagne,2 I included in it, you remember, those alike, whom he found, and those whom he formed, his contemporaries, properly so called, and their immediate disciples. I have treated in detail only of the first, confining myself, as regards the last, to the indications of their names and their works. The majority of these—for instance, the historians Thegan, Nithard the astronomer, the theologians Raban, Florus, Walfrid Strabo, Paschase Radbirt, Ratramne, and many other erudite and literary men, and poets, who were comprised in the last part of the table which I have placed before you, belong to the epoch whereupon we are now to be engaged; and in adding to this table that of the celebrated men who appeared towards the end of the ninth, and in the course of the tenth century, I complete a summary of the intellectual activity of Frankish Gaul under the Carlovingian line. this supplement : Here is Name. Country. Born. Died. Condition. Works. 1. St. Remi. Gaul. of the ninth century. Beginning 878 Archbish'p Theological writof Lyons. ings; amongst others, writings upon predestina tion and free will. 875 Archbish'p 1. Theological cle. 146 CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. Now, in endeavoring to go further than this series of names, dates, and titles, of works, I experience the same embarrassment which I experienced when I desired to depict the intellectual condition of France under Charlemagne. The works of all those men whom I have just named form no united whole, do not connect themselves with any great idea, or with any general and fruitful system, around which we may group them, or which may be employed as a thread of connection in this study. Their works are detached, partial, little varied, and more remarkable for the activity they manifest than for the results they have produced. In the absence of a systematic summary, shall I take these men one by one, relating the life, and describing the writings of each? Such biographies would be uninteresting and uninstructive unless they were very minute; but we have little time to devote to them. I will solve the question as I solved it in the case of the reign of Charlemagne. I referred the intellectual picture of his epoch to the life of one man, of a man who seemed to me its most faithful representative: I traced in the destiny and works of Alcuin, the delineation of the condition and general movement of mind. I shall adopt the same method for the following epoch: I shall seek for some man who is the image of it, in whom the intellectual life of his contemporaries is reflected: and I shall endeavor to make him thoroughly understood, well assured that, considering the shortness of the time to which I am limited, this will be the best way of making you acquainted with the entire period. Two men will enable us to arrive at this result. In studying the life and writings of Alcuin, we were led to recognize therein a double tendency, a double character: "Alcuin," I said, "was a theologian by profession; the atmosphere in which he lived was essentially theological; but nevertheless the theological spirit did not reign in him alone; his labors and his thoughts also tended towards philosophy and ancient literature. He was familiar with St. Jerome and St. Augustine; but Pythagoras, Aristotle, Aristippus, Diogenes, Plato, Homer, Virgil, Seneca, and Pliny, lived also in his memory. He was a monk, a deacon, the light of the contemporary church, but he was also a man of learning and classical literature. In him, in fact, commences the alliance of the two elements of which the modern mind has so long carried the discordant impress: antiquity and the church; admiration, love-shall I say regret ?—for pagan literature; with sincerity of Christian faith, and eagerness to fathom its mysteries and defend its power."" The same fact is the predominant character of the epoch with which we now occupy ourselves; but it is no longer in any one man that we find its image; the Christian and the Roman mind, the new theology and the ancient philosophy manifest themselves equally, but in a separate and even hostile state. We meet with two men who may be considered as the distinct representations of these two elements. One, Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, is the centre of the theological movement; the other, Scotus or Erigena, is the philosopher of the time. With the life of Hincmar the events and labors of contemporaneous theology connect themselves; in that of Erigena, the modes of ancient philosophy are revealed. In the history of these two men appear the two forces of which the struggle for a long time constituted all the intellectual history of modern Europe; I mean the doctrinal church, and free thought. I shall endeavor to make you acquainted both with one and with the other. It is with Hincmar that I shall begin. You He was born about the year 806, in Frankish-Gaul, properly so called, that is to say, in the north-east of present France. His family was one of the most considerable of the time the famous Bernard II., count of Toulouse, and another Bernard, count of Vermandois, were his relations. He was brought up from his childhood in the monastery of St. Denis, under the abbot Hilduin. Louis le Debonnaire, when he ascended the throne, whether it was that he already knew Hincmar, or whether he took an interest in his family, caused him to come to his court, and retained him near him. know the efforts that were made by this prince, from 816 to. 830, to reform the church, and particularly the monasteries. The monastery of St. Denis, like many others, greatly required reform; discipline and knowledge were there equally declining. Hincmar, young as he was, labored and powerfully assisted, in 829, to enforce their regeneration. He did more: he himself entered the monastery, and led the most rigid life there; but he was not permitted to remain in peace long; the abbot Hilduin took part, about 830, in the quarrels of Louis le Debonnaire with his sons; he declared himself 'Lecture 22. against the emperor; and when Louis recovered power, Hilduin was dispossessed of his monastery and banished to Saxony. Whether from affection to his abbot, or from other considerations with which we cannot now become acquainted, Hincmar followed him there, and nevertheless retained sufficient credit, not only to allow of his son returning to the court himself, but to enable him to cause Hilduin to be recalled and reinstated. To begin from this epoch, we see him sometimes with the emperor, sometimes in his monastery, leading, by turns, the life of a favorite priest, and that of an austere monk. It is difficult, at this distance of time, to decide upon what were the parts taken in his actions by worldly ambition and by religious fervor. What appears certain is, that neither one nor the other was ever wholly absent from him, and that, inthe entire course of his life, as at this epoch, he was almost equally taken up with his fortune and his salvation. At the death of Louis le Debonnaire, in 840, Charles le Chauve took Hincmar into the same favor. From 840 to 844, he lived at the court of this prince as his most intimate confidant, and his principal agent in all ecclesiastical affairs. Charles gave him many abbeys. In 844, he assisted at the council of Verneuil. The archbishopric of Reims had been vacant for nine years, in consequence of the deposition of the archbishop Ebbo-a complicated and obscure business, into the details of which I will not enter. The clergy demanded, at last, that this important see should be filled, and the following year, in 845, at the council at Beauvais, Hincmar, then thirty-nine years old, was elected archbishop of Reims. His activity and influence in the Gallo Frankish church dated from this epoch. He was archbishop of Reims for thirty-nine years, from the year 845 to the 23d of December, 882. In this long space of time we find his signature below the acts of thirty-nine councils, not to speak of many minor ecclesiastical assemblies, of which there remain no records. In the greater part of these councils he presided and directed affairs.1 1 Hincmar assisted, In 844, at the council of Verneuil. of Beauvais. of Meaux. 845, id. In 847, at the council of Paris. 849, of Kiersy. |