The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries
by James J. Walsh · English · Gutenberg #38680 · 1,201,535 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries
Author: James J. Walsh
Release date: January 27, 2012 [eBook #38680]
Most recently updated: January 8, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38680
Credits: Produced by Don Kostuch
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THIRTEENTH, GREATEST OF CENTURIES ***
Produced by Don Kostuch
[Transcriber's notes]
This is derived from these copies on the Internet Archive:
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029759630 (1920)
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014712875 (1907)
The two editions are combined because of missing pages in
one and missing images in the other.
Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly
braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred
in the original book.
Obvious spelling errors have been corrected but "inventive" and
inconsistent spelling is left unchanged.
[End Transcriber's notes]
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS SERIES
MAKERS OF MODERN MEDICINE
Lives of the men to whom nineteenth century medical science owes most.
Second Edition. New York, 1910. $3.00 net.
THE POPES AND SCIENCE
The story of Papal patronage of the sciences and especially
medicine. 45th thousand. New York, 1911. $3.00 net.
MAKERS OF ELECTRICITY
Lives of the men to whom important advances in electricity are due. In
collaboration with Brother Potamian, F. S. C, Sc.D. (London),
Professor of Physics at Manhattan College. New York, 1909. $2.50 net.
EDUCATION, HOW OLD THE NEW
Addresses in the history of education on various occasions.
3rd thousand. New York, 1911. $2.50 net.
OLD-TIME MAKERS OF MEDICINE
The story of the students and teachers of the sciences related to
medicine during the Middle Ages. New York, 1911, $2.50 net.
MODERN PROGRESS AND HISTORY.
Academic addresses on how old the new is in Education, Medicine,
Dentistry, Politics, etc. New York, 1912. $2.50 act.
THE CENTURY OF COLUMBUS
The story of the Renaissance $3.50 net.
THE DOLPHIN PRESS SERIES
CATHOLIC CHURCHMEN IN SCIENCE
First, second and third series, each $1.00 net.
PSYCHOTHERAPY
Lectures on The Influence of the Mind on the Body delivered at Fordham
University School of Medicine. Appletons, New York, 1912. $6.50 net.
{i}
{ii}
[Illustration]
LE BEAU DIEU (AMIENS)
{iii}
THE THIRTEENTH
Greatest of Centuries
BY
JAMES J. WALSH, K.C.St.G., M.D., Ph.D., LL.D,
LITT. D. (Georgetown), Sc.D. (Notre Dame)
MEDICAL DIRECTOR, SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY;
PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY AT CATHEDRAL COLLEGE,
NEW YORK; LECTURER IN PSYCHOLOGY, MARYWOOD COLLEGE,
SCRANTON AND ST. MARY'S COLLEGE, PLAINFIELD;
TRUSTEE OF THE CATHOLIC SUMMER SCHOOL OF AMERICA;
MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, OF THE GERMAN
AND FRENCH AND ITALIAN SOCIETIES OF THE HISTORY OF
MEDICINE, A.M.A., A.A.A.S., ETC.
_Popular Edition_
_ (Sixtieth Thousand)_
CATHOLIC SUMMER SCHOOL PRESS
New York, 1920
{iv}
_ Copyright 1907_
James J. Walsh
Set up and stereotyped 1907 (first edition 2,000)
Reprinted with Appendix 1909
Georgetown edition enlarged and extra illustrated 1910
Fourth edition reprinted with additions (6th thousand) 1912
Fifth edition, Knights of Columbus, 50,000, 1912-1913.
Made by
THE SUPERIOR PRINTING CO
AKRON, OHIO
{v}
To Right Rev. Monsignor M. J. Lavelle,
Rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, sometime President of the
Catholic Summer School, to whose fatherly patronage this book is
largely due, and without whose constant encouragement it would not
have been completed, it is respectfully and affectionately dedicated
by the author.
{vi}
PROEM.
(EPIMETHEUS.)
WAKE again, Teutonic Father-ages,
Speak again, beloved primeval creeds;
Flash ancestral spirit from your pages,
Wake the greedy age to noble deeds.
.....
Ye who built the churches where we worship,
Ye who framed the laws by which we move,
Fathers, long belied, and long forsaken,
Oh, forgive the children of your love!
(PEOMETHEUS.)
There will we find laws which shall interpret,
Through the simpler past, existing life;
Delving up from mines and fairy caverns
Charmed blades to cut the age's strife.
_--Rev. Charles Kingsley.--The Saints' Tragedy._
{vii}
PREFACE.
"Why take the style of these heroic times? For nature brings not back
the mastodon--Nor we those times; and why should any man Remodel
models?"
What Tennyson thus said of his own first essay in the Idyls of the
King, in the introduction to the Morte D'Arthur, occurs as probably
the aptest expression of most men's immediate thought with regard to
such a subject as The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries. Though
Tennyson was confessedly only remodeling the thoughts of the
Thirteenth Century, we would not be willing to concede--
"That nothing new was said, or else.
Something so said, 'twas nothing,"
for the loss of the Idyls would make a large lacuna in the literature
of the Nineteenth Century, "if it is allowed to compare little things
with great," a similar intent to that of the Laureate has seemed
sufficient justification for the paradox the author has tried to set
forth in this volume. It may prove "nothing worth, mere chaff and
draff much better burnt," but many friends have insisted they found it
interesting. Authors usually blame friends for their inflictions upon
the public, and I fear that I can find no better excuse, though the
book has been patiently labored at, with the idea that it should
represent some of the serious work that is being done by the Catholic
Summer School on Lake Champlain, {viii} now completing nearly a decade
and a half of its existence. This volume is, it is hoped, but the
first of a series that will bring to a wider audience some of the
thoughts that have been gathered for Summer School friends by many
workers, and will put in more permanent form contributions that made
summer leisure respond to the Greek term for school.
The object of the book is to interpret, in terms that will be readily
intelligible to this generation, the life and concerns of the people
of a century who, to the author's mind, have done more for human
progress than those of any like period in human history. There are few
whose eyes are now holden as they used to be, as to the surpassing
place in the history of culture of the last three centuries of the
Middle Ages. Personally the author is convinced, however, that only a
beginning of proper appreciation has come as yet, and he feels that
the solution of many problems that are vexing the modern world,
especially in the social order, are to be found in these much
misunderstood ages, and above all in that culmination of medieval
progress--the period from 1200 to 1300.
The subject was originally taken up as a series of lectures in the
extension course of the Catholic Summer School, as given each year in
Lent and Advent at the Catholic Club, New York City. Portions of the
material were subsequently used in lectures in many cities in this
country from Portland, Me., to Portland, Ore., St. Paul, Minn., to New
Orleans, La. The subject was treated _in extenso_ for the Brooklyn
Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1906, after which publication was
suggested.
The author does not flatter himself that the book adequately
represents the great period which it claims to present. The subject
has been the central idea of studies in leisure moments for a dozen
years, and during many wanderings in Europe but there will doubtless
prove to be errors in detail, for which the author would crave the
indulgence of more serious students {ix} of history. The original form
in which the material was cast has influenced the style to some
extent, and has made the book more wordy than it would otherwise have
been, and has been the cause of certain repetitions that appear more
striking in print than they seemed in manuscript. There were what
seemed good reasons for not delaying publication, however, and leisure
for further work at it, instead of growing, was becoming more scant.
It is intrusted to the tender mercies of critics, then, and the
benevolent reader, if he still may be appealed to, for the sake of the
ideas it contains, in spite of their inadequate expression.
PREFACE.
(GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY EDITION).
This third edition is published under the patronage of Georgetown
University as a slight token of appreciation for the degree of Doctor
of Letters, conferred on the author for this work at the last
Commencement. This issue has been enlarged by the addition of many
illustrations selected to bring out the fact that all the various
parts of Europe shared in the achievements of the time and by an
appendix containing in compendium Twenty-Six Chapters that Might Have
Been. Each of these brief sketches could easily have been extended to
the average length of the original chapters. It was impossible to use
all the material that was gathered. These hints of further sources are
now appended so as to afford suggestions for study to those who may
care to follow up the idea of the Thirteenth as The Greatest of
Centuries, that is, of that period in human existence when man's
thoughts on all the important human interests were profoundly valuable
for future generations and their accomplishments models for all the
after time.
{x}
PREFACE.
(FOURTH EDITION).
Many of the now rather numerous readers and hearers of this book, for
it has been read in the refectories of over 200 religious communities,
have said that the title seemed almost deterring at first because of
the high claim that is set up for a medieval century. To mitigate the
possible initial deterrent effect of the paradox of the Thirteenth as
the Greatest of Centuries, it has seemed worth while in this edition
then to premise a series of quotations from some of the most
distinguished historical writers in English of our own time which
amply justify the claim here set up. Frederic Harrison, Macaulay,
Freeman, and Fiske are sufficiently different in themselves to make
their agreement in supreme admiration for the Thirteenth Century very
striking. In spite of their lack of sympathy with many things in the
period, all of them emphatically declare that it is the source of most
that is great and good since, and that while we have added details, we
have failed to surpass its artistic and intellectual achievement in
all the 700 years that have elapsed.
August 15, 1912.
PREFACE.
(FIFTH EDITION).
After the success of the Knights of Columbus edition of the Popes and
Science of which 40,000 were issued it gives me great pleasure to
accede to the request of the Supreme Officers of the Order to permit
them to issue a correspondingly large edition of the present volume.
The good work which the Knights of Columbus have thus done in
diffusing a knowledge of the true relations of the Church to
science,--generous patronage and encouragement, instead of supposed
opposition,--will, I think, be greatly furthered by the wide
distribution of the information contained in this volume with regard
to the supremely helpful attitude of the Church towards art and
architecture, literature, education and above all the important social
problems, which is so well illustrated during the great period of the
Thirteenth Century. I sincerely hope that brother Knights of Columbus
will find in the book some of that renewal of devotion to Mother
Church that came as the result of my own studies of this glorious
period of her history, when her action was untrammelled by political
considerations and when she was free to express herself in every great
movement for the benefit of humanity.
Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 1912.
{xi}
FREDERIC HARRISON, MACAULAY,
FREEMAN, AND FISKE
ON
THE PLACE OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY IN HISTORY
Of all the epochs of effort after a new life, that of the age of
Aquinas, Roger Bacon, St. Francis, St. Louis, Giotto, and Dante is the
most purely spiritual, the most really constructive, and indeed the
most truly philosophic. . . . The whole thirteenth century is crowded
with creative forces in philosophy, art, poetry, and statesmanship as
rich as those of the humanist _Renaissance_. And if we are accustomed
to look on them as so much more limited and rude it is because we
forget how very few and poor were their resources and their
instruments. In creative genius Giotto is the peer, if not the
superior of Raphael. Dante had all the qualities of his three chief
successors and very much more besides. It is a tenable view that in
inventive fertility and in imaginative range, those vast composite
creations--the Cathedrals of the Thirteenth Century, in all their
wealth of architectural statuary, painted glass, enamels,
embroideries, and inexhaustible decorative work may be set beside the
entire painting of the sixteenth century. Albert and Aquinas, in
philosophic range, had no peer until we come down to Descartes, nor
was Roger Bacon surpassed in versatile audacity of genius and in true
encyclopaedic grasp by any thinker between him and his namesake the
Chancellor. In statesmanship and all the qualities of the born leader
of men we can only match the great chiefs of the Thirteenth Century by
comparing them with the greatest names three or even four centuries
later.
Now this great century, the last of the true Middle Ages, which as it
drew to its own end gave birth to Modern Society, has a special
character of its own, a character that gives it an abiding and
enchanting interest. We find in it a harmony of power, a universality
of endowment, a glow, an aspiring ambition and confidence such as we
never find in later centuries, at least so generally and so
permanently diffused. . . .
The Thirteenth Century was an era of no special character. It was in
nothing one-sided and in nothing discordant. It had great thinkers,
great rulers, great teachers, great poets, {xii} great artists, great
moralists, and great workmen. It could not be called the material age,
the devotional age, the political age, or the poetic age in any
special degree. It was equally poetic, political, industrial,
artistic, practical, intellectual, and devotional. And these qualities
acted in harmony on a uniform conception of life with a real symmetry
of purpose.
There was one common creed, one ritual, one worship, one sacred
language, one Church, a single code of manners, a uniform scheme of
society, a common system of education, an accepted type of beauty, a
universal art, something like a recognized standard of the Good, the
Beautiful, and the True. One-half of the world was not occupied in
ridiculing or combating what the other half was doing. Nor were men
absorbed in ideals of their own, while treating the ideals of their
neighbors as matters of indifference and waste of power. Men as
utterly different from each other, as were Stephen Langton, St.
Francis, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Dante, Giotto, St. Louis, Edward
I--all profoundly accepted one common order of ideas, equally applying
to things of the intellect, of moral duty, of action, and of the
soul--to public and private life at once--and they could all feel that
they were all together working out the same task. It may be doubted if
that has happened in Europe ever since.--Frederic Harrison, _A Survey
of the Thirteenth Century in the Meaning of History and Other
Historical Pieces_. Macmillan, 1908.
* * *
The sources of the noblest rivers which spread fertility over
continents, and bear richly laden fleets to the sea, are to be sought
in wild and barren mountain tracts, incorrectly laid down in maps, and
rarely explored by travellers. To such a tract the history of our
country during the Thirteenth Century may not unaptly be compared.
Sterile and obscure as is that portion of our annals, it is there that
we must seek for the origin of our freedom, our prosperity, and our
glory. Then it was that the great English people was formed, that the
national character began to exhibit those peculiarities which it has
ever since retained, and that our fathers became emphatically
islanders, islanders not merely in geographical position, but in their
politics, their feelings, and their manners. Then first appeared with
distinctness that constitution which has ever since, through all
changes, preserved its identity; that constitution of which all the
other free constitutions in the world are copies, and which, in spite
of some defects, deserves to be regarded as the best under which any
great {xiii} society has ever yet existed during many ages. Then it
was that the House of Commons, the archetype of all the representative
assemblies which now meet, either in the old or in the new world, held
its first sittings. Then it was that the common law rose to the
dignity of a science, and rapidly became a not unworthy rival of the
imperial jurisprudence. Then it was that the courage of those sailors
who manned the rude barks of the Cinque Ports first made the flag of
England terrible on the seas. Then it was that the most ancient
colleges which still exist at both the great national seats of
learning were founded. Then was formed that language, less musical
indeed than the languages of the south, but in force, in richness, in
aptitude for all the highest purposes of the poet, the philosopher,
and the orator, inferior to the tongue of Greece alone. Then too
appeared the first faint dawn of that noble literature, the most
splendid and the most durable of the many glories of
England.--Macaulay.
* * *
This time of fusion during which all direct traces of foreign conquest
were got rid of, was naturally the time during which the political and
social institutions of the country gradually took on that form which
distinguishes modern England, the England of the last 600 years from
the older England of the first 600 years of English history. ... By
the time of Edward I, though the English tongue had not yet finally
displaced French, it had assumed the main characters which
distinguished its modern from its ancient form. In architecture a
great change had taken place, by which the Romanesque style gave way
to the so-called Gothic. The subordinate arts had taken prodigious
strides. The sculpture of the thirteenth century is parted from that
of the twelfth by a wider gap than any that parts these centuries, in
law or language. _And in the root of the matter in our law and
constitution itself those changes have been made which wrought the
body politic of England into a shape which has left future ages
nothing to do but to improve in detail_. (Italics ours.)
In short the great destructive and creative age of Europe and
civilized Asia passed over England as it passed over other lands. The
age which saw the Eastern Empire fall beneath the arms of the Frank
and the Eastern Caliphate before the arms of the Mogul--the age which
saw the true power and glory of the Western Empire buried in the grave
of the Wonder of the World--the age which ruled that the warriors of
the Cross should work their will in Spain and in Prussia {xiv} and
should not work their Will in the Holy Land itself--the age which made
Venice mistress of the Eastern seas, and bade Florence stand forth as
the new type of democratic freedom--the age which changed the nominal
kingship of the Lord of Paris and Orleans into the mighty realm of
Philip Augustus and Philip the Fair--this age of wonders did its work
of wonder in England also.--Freeman, _The Norman Conquest_, Vol. V,
page 606. Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1876.
* * *
The moment when this interaction might have seemed on the point of
reaching a complete and harmonious result was the glorious thirteenth
century, the culminating moment of the Holy Roman Empire. Then, as in
the times of Caesar or Trajan, there might have seemed to be a union
among civilized men, in which the separate life of individuals and
localities was not submerged. In that golden age, alike of feudal
system of empire and of Church, there were to be seen the greatest
monarchs, in fullest sympathy with their peoples, that Christendom has
ever known--an Edward I, a St. Louis, a Frederick II. Then when in the
Pontificates of Innocent III and his successors the Roman Church
reached its apogee, the religious yearning of men sought expressions
in the sublimest architecture the world has seen. Then Aquinas summed
up in his profound speculations the substance of Catholic theology,
and while the morning twilight of modern science might be discerned in
the treatises of Roger Bacon, while wandering minstrelsy revealed the
treasures of modern speech, soon to be wrought under the hands of
Dante and Chaucer into forms of exquisite beauty, the sacred fervor of
the apostolic ages found itself renewed in the tender and mystic piety
of St. Francis of Assisi. It was a wonderful time, but after all less
memorable as the culmination of medieval empire and medieval church
than as the dawning of the new era in which we live to-day.
* * *
While wave after wave of Germanic colonization poured over Romanized
Europe, breaking down old boundary lines and working sudden and
astonishing changes on the map, setting up in every quarter baronies,
dukedoms, and kingdoms fermenting with vigorous political life; while
for twenty generations this salutary but wild and dangerous work was
going on, there was never a moment when the imperial sway of {xv} Rome
was quite set aside and forgotten, there was never a time when union
of some sort was not maintained through the dominion which the Church
had established over the European mind. When we duly consider this
great fact in its relations to what went before and what came after,
it is hard to find words fit to express the debt of gratitude which
modern civilization owes to the Roman Catholic Church. When we think
of all the work, big with promise of the future, that went on in those
centuries which modern writers in their ignorance used once to set
apart and stigmatize as the "Dark Ages"; when we consider how the
seeds of what is noblest in modern life were then painfully sown upon
the soil which Imperial Rome had prepared; when we think of the
various work of a Gregory, a Benedict, a Boniface, an Alfred, a
Charlemagne, we feel that there is a sense in which the most brilliant
achievements of pagan antiquity are dwarfed in comparison with these.
Until quite lately, indeed, the student of history has had his
attention too narrowly confined to the ages that have been pre-eminent
for literature and art--the so-called classical ages--and thus his
sense of historical perspective has been impaired.--Fiske, _The
Beginnings of New England, or The Puritan Theocracy in its Relations
to Civil and Religions Liberty_.
{xvi}
{xvii}
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION, THE THIRTEENTH, GREATEST OF CENTURIES. 1
Deeds and men of a marvellous period. Evolution and man. No
intellectual development in historical period. The wonderful medieval
pre-renaissance. Our Gothic ancestors. Education for the classes and
masses. Universities, cathedrals, arts, and crafts. Origins in art.
Supreme literature in every language. Origins in law and liberty.
Beginnings of modern democracy.
CHAPTER II
UNIVERSITIES AND PREPARATORY SCHOOLS. 18
Origins of universities. Triumph of invention. Character unchanged
ever since. University evolution, Salerno, Bologna, Paris, Oxford,
Cambridge, Italian, French and Spanish Universities. Origin of
preparatory schools. Cathedral colleges. Decree of the Council of
Lateran, every cathedral to have a school and metropolitan churches to
have colleges. Attendance at these preparatory schools.
CHAPTER III
WHAT AND HOW THEY STUDIED AT THE UNIVERSITIES. 33
Education of the Middle Ages usually ridiculed. Ignorance of critics.
Scholastics laughed at by those only who know them, but at second
hand. "Logic, ethics and metaphysics owe to scholasticism a precision,
unknown to the ancients themselves" (Condorcet.) Teaching methods.
Scholarly interests quite as in our own day. Magnetism in literature.
A magnetic engine. Aquinas and the indestructibility of matter and the
conservation of energy. Roger Bacon's four grounds of human ignorance.
Prophecy of explosives for motor purposes. Correction of the calendar.
Contributions to optics. Experiment as the basis of scientific
knowledge. Whewell's appreciation. Albertus Magnus and the natural
sciences Humboldt's praise for his physical geography. Contributions
to botany. Declaration with regard to foolish popular notions. The
{xviii} great group of scientific men at the University of Paris.
Robert of Sorbonne's directions how to study. Education of the heart
as well as the head.
CHAPTER IV
THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS AND DISCIPLINE. 58
Largest universities of all time. More students to the population than
at any time since. Discussion as to the numbers in attendance.
Comparative average ages of students. How such numbers were supported.
Working their way through college. Some reasons for false impressions,
as to university attendance. M. Compayre's paragraph on education in
the Middle Ages. Supposed ignorance. The monks at the universities.
How many students clerical. College abuses and discipline. The
"nations," the under-graduate committee on discipline. Teaching
practical democracy.
CHAPTER V
POST-GRADUATE WORK AT THE UNIVERSITIES. 78
Medieval universities and additions to knowledge. Original work done,
their best apology. Extensive writings of professors. Enthusiasm of
students who copied their books. Post-graduate work in theology and in
philosophy. Period of the scholastics. Graduates in law and
collections and digests. Post-graduate work in medicine most
important. Teaching by case histories. The significance of dropsy,
suture of divided nerves, healing by first intention. William of
Salicet and his pupil Lanfranc. The danger of the separation of
surgery from medicine. Red light and smallpox. Mondaville and Arnold
of Villanova. The republication of old texts. The supposed bull
forbidding anatomy. The supposed bull forbidding chemistry. The
encouragement of science in the medieval universities.
CHAPTER VI
THE BOOK OF THE ARTS AND POPULAR EDUCATION. 96
The Gothic Cathedrals, the stone books of medieval arts. St. Hugh of
Lincoln. Wealth of meaning in the Cathedrals. Their power to please.
Gothic architecture everywhere, but no slavish imitation. English,
French, German, and Italian Gothic. Spanish Gothic. Gothic ideas in
modern architecture. Beauty of details. Sculpture. Gothic Statuary,
not stiff, nor ugly. Most affinity with Greek sculpture (Reinach). The
Angel Choir at Lincoln. {xix} The marvellous stained glass of the
period,--Lincoln, York, Chartres, Bourges. Storied windows and their
teachings. Beauty and utility in the arts. Magnificent needlework, the
Cope of Ascoli. The Cathedral as an educator. The Great Stone Book,
which he who ran must read. Symbolism of the Cathedrals. The great
abbeys, the monasteries, municipal and domestic architecture of the
century. Furniture and decorations. Ruskin on Giotto's tower.
CHAPTER VII
ARTS AND CRAFTS--GREAT TECHNICAL SCHOOLS. 124
Solution of problems of social unrest. Blessed is the man who has
found his work. Merrie England. The workman's pleasure in his work.
Influence of the Church in the arts and crafts movement. Rivalry in
building the Cathedrals. Organization of technical instruction.
Correction of optical illusions. The village blacksmith and carpenter.
Comparative perfection of the work done then and now. The trade guilds
and the training of workmen. The system of instruction, apprentice,
journeyman, master. The masterpiece. Social co-operation and
fraternity. Mystery plays and social education.
CHAPTER VIII
GREAT ORIGINS IN PAINTING. 138
Rise of painting. Franciscans and Dominicans, patrons of art. St.
Francis' return to nature, the incentive of art. Cimabue's Madonna.
Gaddi. Guido, Ugolino and Duccio of Siena. Berlinghieri of Lucca,
Giunta of Pisa. Giotto the master. His work at Assisi, Verona, Naples,
Rome. Marvellous universal appreciation of art. Contrast with other
times. False notions with regard to Gothic art. Sadness not a
characteristic. The beauty of the human form divine.
CHAPTER IX
LIBRARIES AND BOOKMEN. 149
Monastic regulations for collecting and lending books. Library rules.
Circulating libraries. The Abbey of St. Victor, the Sorbonne, St.
Germain des Pres, and Notre Dame. Fines for misuse of books. Library
catalogues. Library of La Ste. Chapelle. First medical library at the
Hotel Dieu. How books were collected. Exchange of books. Special
revenue for the libraries in the monasteries. Book collecting and
bequests by ecclesiastics. Cost of books. Franciscan and Dominican
libraries. Richard De Bury's {xx} Philobiblon. How books were valued.
Richard a typical bookman. His place in history. Illuminated books.
The most interesting and original of all time (Humphreys). St. Louis'
beautiful books.
CHAPTER X
THE CID, THE HOLY GRAIL, THE NIBELUNGEN. 166
Literature equal to accomplishment in other lines. Architecture and
literature, and the expression of national feelings. National epics of
three western-most nations informed within the same half century. The
Cid, its unity of authorship and action. Martial interest and spirited
style. Tender domestic scenes. Psychological analysis. Walter Mapes,
and the Arthur Legends. Authorship and place in literature. Launcelot
one of the greatest heroes ever invented. Unity of authorship of
Nibelungen. Place in literature. Modern interest. Influence of these
epics on national poetry.
CHAPTER XI
MEISTERSINGERS, MINNESINGERS, TROUVERES, TROUBADOURS. 182
A great century of song. The high character of women, as represented
in these songs. Nature-poetry, and love. Walter Von der Vogelweide,
Hartman Von Aue, Wolfram Von Eschenbach, Conrad Von Kirchberg. The
Troubadours and their love songs. Selections from Arnaud de Marveil,
Arnaud Daniel, Bertrand de Born, William of St. Gregory, and Peyrols.
CHAPTER XII
GREAT LATIN HYMNS. 194
Greatest poetic bequest of the period. Place of rhyme in Latin. Latin
hymns the first native poetry in the language. Influence of their
charm of rhyme and rhythm on the developing languages of Europe.
Supremacy of the Dies Irae, its many admirers. Other surpassing Latin
Hymns. Celtic origin of rhyme. The Stabat Mater, some translations.
Critical faculty in hymn selection. Jerusalem the Golden, its place in
Christian song. Aquinas' hymn, the Pange Lingua, its popularity.
Musical expression of feeling and plain chant. The best examples from
this period. Invention of part music, its adaptation and development
in popular music.
{xxi}
CHAPTER XIII
THE THREE MOST READ BOOKS. 209
A generation and the books it reads. Reynard the Fox, the Golden
Legend, and the Romance of the Rose. "Reynard the most profoundly
humorous book ever written." Powers of the author as observer. Besides
Gulliver's Travels, Don Quixote and Pilgrim's Progress. Its relations
to Uncle Remus and many other animal stories. The place of the Golden
Legend in literature. Longfellow's use of it. The Romance of the Rose
for three centuries the most read book in Europe. The answer to the
charge of dullness. The Rose as a commentary on the morning paper. The
abuse of wealth as the poet saw it in the Thirteenth Century. Praise
of "poverty light heart and gay."
CHAPTER XIV
SOME THIRTEENTH CENTURY PROSE. 221
Prose of the century as great as the poetry. Medieval Latin
unappreciated but eminently expressive. The prose style, simple,
direct and nicely accurate. Saintsbury's opinion as to the influence
on modern literature of the scholastic philosophers' style. The
chroniclers and the modern war correspondent. Villehardouin, Jocelyn
of Brakelond, Joinville, Matthew of Paris. Vincent of Beauvais and the
first encyclopedia. Pagel's opinion of Vincent's style. Durandus'
famous work on symbolism. Examples of his style. The Scriptures as the
basis of style.
CHAPTER XV
ORIGIN OF DRAMA. 238
St. Francis and the first nativity play. Earlier mystery plays.
Chester cycle. Humorous passages introduced. Complete bible story
represented. Actors' wages and costumes. Innocent diversion and
educational influence. Popular interest. Everyman in our own day.
Comparison with the passion play at Oberammergau. The drama as an
important factor in popular education. Active as well as passive
participation in great poetry. Anticipation of a movement only just
beginning again.
CHAPTER XVI
FRANCIS, THE SAINT--THE FATHER OF THE RENAISSANCE. 254
The Renaissance, so-called. Before the Renaissance. Gothic
architecture and art. Francis the father of the real Renaissance.
{xxii} Matthew Arnold and "the poor little man of God." St. Francis as
a literary man. The canticle of the Sun. St. Francis' career. The
simple life. Ruskin on Francis' poverty. St. Francis in the last ten
years. The disciples who gathered around him. A century of
Franciscans. The third order of St. Francis. Kings and queens, nobles
and scholars hail St. Francis as father. What the religious orders
accomplished. St. Clare and the second order.
CHAPTER XVII
AQUINAS, THE SCHOLAR. 270
The nobility and education. Studies at Cologne and Paris. The
distinguished faculty of Paris in his time. _Summa Contra Gentiles_.
Pope Leo XIII. and Aquinas' teaching. Foundations of Christian
apologetics. Characteristic passages from Aquinas. Necessity for
revelation of God's existence. Explanation of Resurrection. Liberty in
Aquinas' writings. Greatness of Aquinas and his contemporaries and the
subsequent decadence of scholasticism. Contemporary appreciation of
St. Thomas. His capacity for work. His sacred poetry.
CHAPTER XVIII
LOUIS, THE MONARCH. 289
The greatest of rulers. His relations as a son, as a husband, as a
father. His passion for justice. Interest in education, in books, in
the encyclopedia. Tribute of Voltaire. Guizot's praise. The righting
of wrongs. Letters to his son. Affection for his children. Regard for
monks. Would have his children enter monasteries. Treatment of the
poor. Attitude towards lepers. One of nature's noblemen. Louis and the
crusades. Bishop Stubbs, on the real meaning of the crusades. Louis'
interest in the crusades not a stigma, but an added reason for praise.
CHAPTER XIX
DANTE, THE POET. 300
Dante not a solitary phenomenon. A Troubadour. His minor poems and
prose works. His wonderful Sonnets. The growth of appreciation for
him. Italian art, great as it kept nearer to Dante. Tributes from
Italy's' greatest literary men. Michael Angelo's sonnets to him. A
world poet. English admiration old and new. Tributes of the two great
English Cardinals. Dean Church's Essay. Ruskin on the Grotesque on
{xxiii} Dante. German critical appreciation. Humboldt's tribute.
America's burden of praise. Dante and the modern thinker. His
wonderful powers of observation. Comparison with Milton. His place as
one of the supreme poets of all times. A type of the century.
CHAPTER XX
THE WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. 319
Women of the century worthy of the great period. St. Clare of Assisi's
place in history. Happiness. The supper at the Portiuncula. Peace, in
the cloister and woman's influence. Equality of sexes in the religious
orders. St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the first settlement worker. "Dear
St. Elizabeth's" influence on women since her time. Blanche of Castile
as Queen and mother. Her influence as a ruler. Difficulties with her
daughter-in-law. Mabel Rich, the London tradesman's wife, and her
sons. Isabella Countess of Arundel and courageous womanly dignity.
Women's work in the century. Service of the sick. Co-education in
Italy. Reason for absence in France and England. Women professors at
Italian universities. Feminine education four times in history.
Reasons for decline. Women in the literature of the century. The high
place accorded them by the poets of every country. Dante's tribute to
their charm without a hint of the physical.
CHAPTER XXI
CITY HOSPITALS--ORGANIZED CHARITY. 337
Charity occupied a co-ordinate place to education. Pope Innocent III.
organized both. His foundations of the City hospitals of the world,
the Santo Spirito at Rome the model. Rise of hospitals in every
country, Virchow's tribute to Innocent III. Care for lepers in special
hospitals and eradication of this disease. The meaning of this for the
modern time and tuberculosis. Special institutions for erysipelas
which prevented the spread of this disease. The organization of
charity. The monasteries and the people. The freeing of prisoners held
in slavery. Two famous orders for this purpose.
CHAPTER XXII
GREAT ORIGINS IN LAW. 350
Legal origins most surprising feature of the century. Significance of
Magna Charta. Excerpts that show its character. The church, widows and
orphans, common pleas, international law, no {xxiv} tax without
consent, rights of freemen. Development of meaning as time and
progress demanded it. Bracton's digest of the common law. Edward I.
the English Justinian. Simon de Montfort. Real estate laws.
CHAPTER XXIII
JUSTICE AND LEGAL DEVELOPMENT. 364
Legal origins in other countries besides England. Montalembert and
France. St. Louis and the enforcement of law. Fehmic courts of Germany
and our vigilance committees. Andrew II., and the "Golden Bull, that
legalized anarchy" in Hungary. Laws of Poland. The Popes and legal
codification; Innocent III, Gregory IX. Commentaries on law at the
universities. Pope Boniface VIII, the canonist. Origin of "no taxation
without representation."
CHAPTER XXIV
DEMOCRACY, CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM AND NATIONALITY. 375
Origins in popular self-government. Representation in the governing
body. German free cities. Swiss declaration of independence. Christian
socialism and "the three eights." Saturday half-holiday, and the
vigils of holy-days. Christian fraternity and the guilds. Organization
of charity. The guild merchant and fraternal solidarity. The guild of
the Holy Cross, Stratford, and its place in town government and
education. Progress of democracy. How the crusades strengthened the
democratic spirit. Their place in the history of human liberty and of
nationality.
CHAPTER XXV
GREAT EXPLORERS AND THE FOUNDATION OF GEOGRAPHY. 392
Geography's wonderful development. Modern problems, Thibet explored,
Lhasa entered. This perhaps the greatest triumph of the century. Marco
Polo's travels. Former mistrust now unstinted admiration. Striking
observations of Polo. John of Carpini's travels in the Near East.
Colonel Yule on the Book of the Tartars. Friar William of Rubruquis'
travels in Tartary. Anticipations of modern opinions as to language.
Some details of description. Friar Odoric and his Irish companion. The
Praemonstratensian Hayton. Franciscan missionary zeal supplied for our
geographical societies. Idle monks.
{xxv}
CHAPTER XXVI
GREAT BEGINNINGS OF MODERN COMMERCE. 415
This is the most interesting phase for our generation. Hanseatic
League and obscurity of its origin. League of Lombard cities and
effect of crusades. Importance of Hansa. Enforcement of its decrees.
Confederation of cities from England to Central Russia. Surprising
greatness of the cities. Beginnings of international law. Commerce and
peace. Origins of coast regulation. Fraternal initiations and their
equivalents in the aftertime. Origins in hazing. Commerce and liberty.
Fostering of democracy. International comity.
APPENDIX I
So-called history. 430
APPENDIX II
TWENTY-SIX CHAPTERS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 432
I. America in the Thirteenth Century--Papal documents.
II. A representative upper house.
III. The parish, and training in citizenship.
IV. The chance to rise.
V. Insurance--fire, marine, robbery, against injustice.
VI. Old age pensions, disability wages.
VII. Ways and means of charity--organized charity.
VIII. Scientific universities, investigation, writing.
IX. Medical education and high professional status.
X. Magnetism--first perpetual motion inventor--the North Pole.
XI. Biological theories--evolution, recapitulation.
XII. The Pope of the century--Innocent III.
XIII. International arbitration.
XIV. Bible revision.
XV. Fiction of the century.
XVI. Great orators.
XVII. Great beginnings of English literature.
XVIII. Origins of music.
XIX. Refinement and table manners.
XX. Textiles, satins, brocades, laces, needlework.
XXI. Glass-making.
XXII. Inventions.
XXIII. Industry and trade.
XXIV. Fairs and markets.
XXV. Intensive farming.
XXVI. Cartography and the teaching of geography--Hereford Map of the World.
APPENDIX III
CRITICISMS, COMMENTS, DOCUMENTS. 464
Human progress. The century of origins. Education. Technical education
of the masses. How it all stopped. Comfort and poverty. Comfort and
happiness. Comfort and health. Hygiene. Wages and the condition of
working people. Interest and loans. The eighteenth lowest of
centuries.
{xxvi}
{xxvii}
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
1. Le Beau Dieu (Amiens)--Frontispiece (ii)
2. Virgin with the Divine Child (Mosaic, St. Mark's, Venice)--Opposite page 5
3. Pulpit (N. Pisano, Siena)--Opposite page 8
4. Archangel Michael (Giovanni Pisano, Pisa)--Opposite page 13
5. Christ (Andrea Pisano, Florence)--Opposite page 13
6. Sta. Reparata (Andrea Pisano, Florence)--Opposite page 13
7. Paschal Candlestick (Baptistery, Florence)--Opposite page 15
8. Reliquary (Cathedral Orvieto, Ugolino di Vieri)--Opposite page 15
9. The Church in Symbol (Paris)--On page 17
10. Adoration of Magi (Pulpit, Siena, Nic. Pisano)--Opposite page 22
11. Cathedral (Lincoln)--Opposite page 28
12. Cathedral (York)--Opposite page 28
13. Cloister of St. John Lateran (Rome)--Opposite page 32
14. Jacques Coeur's House (Bourges)--On page 32
15. Rathhaus (Tangermuende)--Opposite page 42
16. Cathedral (Hereford)--Opposite page 44
17. Cathedral (York, East)--Opposite page 44
18. Single Flying Buttress--On page 57
19. Christ Driving Out Money Changers (Giotto)--Opposite page 64
20. Bride from Marriage of Cana (Giotto)--Opposite page 64
21. Head (Mosaic, St. Mark's, Venice)--Opposite page 64
22. Head of Blessed Virgin Annunciation--Opposite page 64
23. Petrarch Portraits by Benozzo Gozzoli--Opposite page 71
24. Dante Portraits by Benozzo Gozzoli--Opposite page 71
25. Giotto Portraits by Benozzo Gozzoli--Opposite page 71
26. Screen (Hereford)--Opposite page 87
27. Doorway of Sacristy (Bourges)--Opposite page 87
28. Double Flying Buttress--On page 95
29. Angel Choir (Lincoln)--Opposite page 96
30. Cathedral (Amiens)--Opposite page 105
31. Cathedral (Rheims)--Opposite page 107
32. Cloister of St. Paul's (without the walls, Rome)--Opposite page 112
33. Cathedral (Bourges)--Opposite page 116
34. Cathedral (Chartres)--Opposite page 116
35. Durham Castle and Cathedral--Opposite page 120
36. King John's Castle (Limerick)--Opposite page 120
37. Giotto's Tower (Florence)--Opposite page 122
38. Palazzo Vecchio (Florence) Campanile (Giotto)--Opposite page 122
{xxviii}
39. Fountain (Perugia) [Town Pump]--Opposite page 126
40. Lavatoio (Todi) [Public Wash-House]--Opposite page 126
41. Reliquary (Limoges Museo, Florence)--Opposite page 133
42. Crucifix (Duomo, Siena)--Opposite page 133
43. Madonna, Cimabue (Rucellai Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence)--
Opposite page 136
44. St. Francis' Marriage with Poverty (Giotto, Assisi)--Opposite page 144
45. Espousal of St. Catherine (Gaddi, XIII. Century pupil, Perugia)--
Opposite page 147
46. Group from Visitation (Rheims)--On page 148
47. Monument of Cardinal de Bray (Arnolfo)--Opposite page 156
48. Decoration (XIII. Cent. Psalter MSS.)--On page 165
49. Santa Maria Sopra Minerva (Rome's Gothic Cathedral)--Opposite page 168
50. Crozier (obverse and reverse)--On page 181
51. Tower of Scaligers--On page 193
52. St. Francis Prophesies the Death of Celano
(Giotto, Upper Ch., Assisi)--Opposite page 197
53. Virgin and Child (Pisa, Campo Santo, Giov. Pisano)--Opposite page 200
54. Entombment of Blessed Virgin--On page 208
55. St. Christopher (alto relievo, Venice)--Opposite page 214
56. Madonna and Child (Giov. Pisano, Padua)--Opposite page 214
57. Tower (Lincoln)--On page 220
58. Porta Romana Gate, Florence (N. Pisano)--Opposite page 226
59. Ponte Alle Grazie (Lapo)--Opposite page 226
60. Church and Cloisters, San Antonio (Padua)--Opposite page 232
61. St. Catherine's (Luebeck)--Opposite page 232
62. Stone Carving (Paris)--On page 237
63. The First Nativity Play (Giotto, Upper Church of Assisi)--Opposite page 240
64. Palazzo Buondelmonti (Florence)--Opposite page 248
65. Palazzo Tolomei (Siena)--Opposite page 248
66. Capital (Lincoln)--On page 253
67. The Glorification of St. Francis (Giotto, Lower Church of Assisi)--
Opposite page 256
68. St. Francis (Church of the Frari, Venice, Nic. Pisano)--Opposite page 261
69. St. Clare--Three Franciscans (Giotto)--Opposite page 264
70. St. Louis--Three Franciscans (Giotto)--Opposite page 264
71. St. Elizabeth--Three Franciscans (Giotto)--Opposite page 264
72. Side Capital (Lincoln)--On page 269
73. Notre Dame (Paris)--Opposite page 290
74. La Sainte Chapelle (Paris)--Opposite page 294 [missing]
75. Cathedral (Orvieto)--Opposite page 294 [missing]
{xxix}
76. Apostle (la Sainte Chapelle, Paris)--Opposite page 296
77. Decoration (Queen Mary's Psalter, XIII. Century MS.)--On page 299
78. Portrait of Dante (Giotto, in the Bargello, Florence)--Opposite page 300
79. Torre del Fame (Dante, Pisa)--Opposite page 306
80. Palazzo Pretorio (Todi)--Opposite page 306
81. Angel (Rheims)--On page 318
82. St. Clare Bids the Dead St. Francis Good-bye
(Giotto, Up. Ch. Assisi)--Opposite page 320
83. Church (Doberan, Germany)--Opposite page 322
84. San Damiano (Assisi)--Opposite page 322
85. St. Elizabeth's Cathedral (Marburg)--Opposite page 325
86. Marriage of the Blessed Virgin (Giotto, Padua)--Opposite page 328
87. Mosaic (St. Mark's, Venice, 1220)--Opposite page 333
88. Stone Carving (Amiens)--On page 336
89. Hospital of the Holy Ghost (Luebeck)--Opposite page 341
90. Charity (Giotto)--Opposite page 347
91. Fortitude (Giotto)--Opposite page 347
92. Hope (Giotto)--Opposite page 347
93. Hospital Interior--On page 349
94. Tower (Marburg)--On page 363
95. City Gate (Neubrandenburg)--Opposite page 368
96. Rathhaus (Stralsund)--Opposite page 368
97. Portrait of Pope Boniface VIII. (Giotto, Rome)--Opposite page 372
98. Decoration (XIII. Cent. Psalter)--On page 374
99. Doorway (Lincoln)--Opposite page 381
100. Nave (Durham)--Opposite page 381
101. Broken Arch (St. Mary's, York, Climax of Gothic)--Opposite page 381
102. Animals from Bestiarium (XIII. Cent. MS.)--On page 391
103. Door of Giotto's Tower (Florence)--Opposite page 405
104. Principal Door of Baptistery (Pisa)--Opposite page 405
105. Palazzo dei Consoli (Gubbio)--Opposite page 417
106. Palazzo Zabarella (Padua)--Opposite page 417
107. Rathhaus (Luebeck)--Opposite page 422
108. City Gate (Neubrandenburg)--Opposite page 426
109. Minster (Chorin, Germany)--Opposite page 426
110. Hinge from Schlestadt--On page 429
111. Portion of Letter of Innocent III., Mentioning Greenland--On page 433
112. Double Pivoted Compass Needle--On page 441
113. Peregrinus' Compass--On page 442
114. Portion of MS. of Ormulum--On page 450
115. Key of Map of World (Hereford)--On page 461
116. Map of World (Hereford)--Opposite page 463
{xxx}
{1}
I
INTRODUCTION
THE THIRTEENTH, THE GREATEST OF CENTURIES
It cannot but seem a paradox to say that the Thirteenth was the
greatest of centuries. To most people the idea will appear at once so
preposterous that they may not even care to consider it. A certain
number, of course, will have their curiosity piqued by the thought
that anyone should evolve so curious a notion. Either of these
attitudes of mind will yield at once to a more properly receptive mood
if it is recalled that the Thirteenth is the century of the Gothic
cathedrals, of the foundation of the university, of the signing of
Magna Charta, and of the origin of representative government with
something like constitutional guarantees throughout the west of
Europe. The cathedrals represent a development in the arts that has
probably never been equaled either before or since. The university was
a definite creation of these generations that has lived and maintained
its usefulness practically in the same form in which it was then cast
for the seven centuries ever since. The foundation stones of modern
liberties are to be found in the documents which for the first time
declared the rights of man during this precious period.
A little consideration of the men who, at this period, lived lives of
undying influence on mankind, will still further attract the attention
of those who have not usually grouped these great characters together.
Just before the century opened, three great rulers died at the height
of their influence. They are still and will always be the subject of
men's thoughts and of literature. They were Frederick Barbarossa,
Saladin, and Richard Coeur De Lion. They formed but a suggestive
prelude of what was to come in the following century, when such {2}
great monarchs as St. Louis of France, St. Ferdinand of Spain, Alfonso
the Wise of Castile, Frederick II of Germany, Edward I, the English
Justinian, Rudolph of Hapsburg, whose descendants still rule in
Austria, and Robert Bruce, occupied the thrones of Europe. Was it by
chance or Providence that the same century saw the rise of and the
beginning of the fall of that great Eastern monarchy which had been
created by the genius for conquest of Jenghiz Khan, the Tartar warrior,
who ruled over all the Eastern world from beyond what are now the
western confines of Russia, Poland, and Hungary, into and including
what we now call China.
But the thrones of Europe and of Asia did not monopolize the great men
of the time. The Thirteenth Century claims such wonderful churchmen as
St. Francis and St. Dominic, and while it has only the influence of
St. Hugh of Lincoln, who died just as it began, it can be proud of St.
Edmund of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, and Robert Grosseteste, all men
whose place in history is due to what they did for their people, and
such magnificent women as Queen Blanche of Castile, St. Clare of
Assisi, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. The century opened with one of
the greatest of the Popes on the throne, Innocent III, and it closed
with the most misunderstood of Popes, who is in spite of this one of
the worthiest successors of Peter, Boniface VIII. During the century
there had been such men as Honorius IV, the Patron of Learning,
Gregory IX, to whom Canon Law owes so much, and John XXI, who had been
famous as a scientist before becoming Pope. There are such scholars as
St. Thomas of Aquin, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, St. Bonaventure,
Duns Scotus, Raymond Lully, Vincent of Beauvais, and Alexander of
Hales, and such patrons of learning as Robert of Sorbonne, and the
founders of nearly twenty universities. There were such artists as
Gaddi, Cimabue, and above all Giotto, and such literary men as the
authors of the Arthur Legends and the Nibelungen, the Meistersingers,
the Minnesingers, the Troubadours, and Trouveres, and above all Dante,
who is universally considered now to be one of the greatest literary
men of all times, but who was not, as is so often thought and said, a
solitary phenomenon in the period, but only the culmination of a great
literary movement that had to have {3} some such supreme expression of
itself as this in order to properly round out the cycle of its
existence.
If in addition it be said that this century saw the birth of the
democratic spirit in many different ways in the various countries of
Europe, but always in such form that it was never quite to die out
again, the reasons for talking of it as possibly the greatest of
centuries will be readily appreciated even by those whose reading has
not given them any preliminary basis of information with regard to
this period, which has unfortunately been shrouded from the eyes of
most people by the fact, that its place in the midst of the Middle
Ages would seem to preclude all possibility of the idea that it could
represent a great phase of the development of the human intellect and
its esthetic possibilities.
There would seem to be one more or less insuperable objection to the
consideration of the Thirteenth as the greatest of centuries, and that
arises from the fact that the idea of evolution has consciously and
unconsciously tinged the thoughts of our generation to such a degree,
that it seems almost impossible to think of a period so far in the
distant past as having produced results comparable with those that
naturally flow from the heightened development of a long subsequent
epoch. Whatever of truth there may be in the great theory of
evolution, however, it must not be forgotten that no added evidence
for its acceptance can be obtained from the intellectual history of
the human race. We may be "the heirs of all the ages in the foremost
files of time," but one thing is certain, that we can scarcely hope to
equal, and do not at all think of surpassing, some of the great
literary achievements of long past ages.
In the things of the spirit apparently there is very little, if any,
evolution. Homer wrote nearly three thousand years ago as supreme an
expression of human life in absolute literary values as the world has
ever known, or, with all reverence for the future be it said, is ever
likely to know. The great dramatic poem Job emanated from a Hebrew
poet in those earlier times, and yet, if judged from the standpoint of
mere literature, is as surpassing an expression of human intelligence
in the presence of the mystery of evil as has ever come from the mind
of man. We are no nearer the solution of the problem of {4} evil in
life, though thousands of years have passed and man has been much
occupied with the thoughts that disturbed the mind of the ruler of
Moab. The Code of Hammurabi, recently discovered, has shown very
definitely, that men could make laws nearly five thousand years ago as
well calculated to correct human abuses as those our legislators spend
so much time over at present, and the olden time laws were probably
quite as effective as ours can hope to be, for all our well
intentioned purpose and praiseworthy efforts at reform.
It used to be a favorite expression of Virchow, the great German
pathologist, who was, besides, however, the greatest of living
anthropologists, that from the history of the human race the theory of
evolution receives no confirmation of any kind. His favorite subject,
the study of skulls, and their conformation in the five thousand years
through which such remains could be traced, showed him absolutely no
change. For him there had been also no development in the intellectual
order in human life during the long period of human history. Of course
this is comparatively brief if the long aeons of geological times be
considered, yet some development might be expected to manifest itself
in the more than two hundred generations that have come and gone since
the beginning of human memory. Perhaps, then, the prejudice with
regard to evolution and its supposed effectiveness in making the men
of more recent times superior to those of the past, may be considered
to have very little weight as an _a priori_ objection to the
consideration of the Thirteenth Century as representing the highest
stage in human accomplishment. So far as scientific anthropology goes
there is utter indifference as to the period that may be selected as
representing man at his best.
To most people the greater portion of surprise with regard to the
assertion of the Thirteenth as the greatest of centuries will be the
fact that the period thus picked out is almost in the heart of the
Middle Ages. It would be not so amazing if the fifth century before
Christ, which produced such marvelous accomplishments in letters and
art and philosophy among the Greeks, was chosen as the greatest of
human epochs. There might not even be so much of unpreparedness of
mind if that supreme century of Roman History, from fifty years before
Christ to fifty years after, were picked out for such signal notice.
[Illustration]
VIRGIN WITH THE DIVINE CHILD (MOSAIC, ST. MARK'S, VENICE)
{5}
We have grown accustomed, however, to think of the Middle Ages as
hopelessly backward in the opportunities they afforded men for the
expression of their intellectual and artistic faculties, and above all
for any development of that human liberty which means so much for the
happiness of the race and must constitute the basis of any real
advance worth while talking about in human affairs. It is this that
would make the Thirteenth Century seem out of place in any comparative
study for the purpose of determining proportionate epochal greatness.
The spirit breathes where it will, however, and there was a mighty
wind of the spirit of human progress abroad in that Thirteenth
Century, whose effects usually miss proper recognition in history,
because people fail to group together in their minds all the
influences in our modern life that come to us from that precious
period. All this present volume pretends to do is to gather these
scattered details of influence in order to make the age in which they
all coincided so wonderfully, be properly appreciated.
If we accept the usual historical division which places the Middle
Ages during the thousand years between the fall of the Roman Empire,
in the Fifth Century and the fall of the Grecian Empire of
Constantinople, about the middle of the Fifteenth, the Thirteenth
Century must be considered the culmination of that middle age. It is
three centuries before the Renaissance, and to most minds that magical
word represents the beginning of all that is modern, and therefore all
that is best, in the world. Most people forget entirely how much of
progress had been made before the so-called Renaissance, and how many
great writers and artists had been fostering the taste and developing
the intelligence of the people of Italy long before the fall of
Constantinople. The Renaissance, after all, means only the re-birth of
Greek ideas and ideals, of Greek letters and arts, into the modern
world. If this new birth of Greek esthetics had not found the soil
thoroughly prepared by the fruitful labor of three centuries before,
history would not have seen any such outburst of artistic and literary
accomplishments as actually came at the end of the Fifteenth and
during the Sixteenth centuries.
{6}
In taking up the thesis, The Thirteenth the Greatest of Centuries, it
seems absolutely necessary to define just what is meant by the term
great, in its application to a period. An historical epoch, most
people would concede at once, is really great just in proportion to
the happiness which it provides for the largest possible number of
humanity. That period is greatest that has done most to make men
happy. Happiness consists in the opportunity to express whatever is
best in us, and above all to find utterance for whatever is
individual. An essential element in it is the opportunity to develop
and apply the intellectual faculties, whether this be of purely
artistic or of thoroughly practical character. For such happiness the
opportunity to rise above one's original station is one of the
necessary requisites. Out of these opportunities there comes such
contentment as is possible to man in the imperfect existence that is
his under present conditions.
Almost as important a quality in any epoch that is to be considered
supremely great, is the difference between the condition of men at the
beginning of it and at its conclusion. The period that represents most
progress, even though at the end uplift should not have reached a
degree equal to subsequent periods, must be considered as having best
accomplished its duty to the race. For purposes of comparison it is
the amount of ground actually covered in a definite time, rather than
the comparative position at the end of it, that deserves to be taken
into account. This would seem to be a sort of hedging, as if the terms
of the comparison of the Thirteenth with other centuries were to be
made more favorable by the establishment of different standards. There
is, however, no need of any such makeshift in order to establish the
actual supremacy of the Thirteenth Century, since it can well afford
to be estimated on its own merits alone, and without any allowances
because of the stage of cultural development at which it occurred.
John Ruskin once said that a proper estimation of the accomplishments
of a period in human history can only be obtained by careful study of
three books--The Book of the Deeds, The Book of the Arts, and the Book
of the Words, of the given epoch. The Thirteenth Century may be
promptly ready for this judgment of what it accomplished for men, of
{7} what it wrote for subsequent generations, and of the artistic
qualities to be found in its art remains. In the Book of the Deeds of
the century what is especially important is what was accomplished for
men, that is, what the period did for the education of the people, not
alone the classes but the masses, and what a precious heritage of
liberty and of social coordination it left behind. To most people it
will appear at once that if the most important chapter of Thirteenth
Century accomplishment is to be found in the Book of its Deeds and the
deeds are to be judged according to the standard just given of
education and liberty, then there will be no need to seek further,
since these are words for which it is supposed that there is no actual
equivalent in human life and history for at least several centuries
after the close of the Thirteenth.
As a matter of fact, however, it is in this very chapter that the
Thirteenth Century will be found strongest in its claim to true
greatness. The Thirteenth Century saw the foundation of the
universities and their gradual development into the institutions of
learning which we have at the present time. Those scholars of the
Thirteenth Century recognized that, for its own development and for
practical purposes, the human intellect can best be trained along
certain lines. For its preliminary training, it seemed to them to need
what has since come to be called the liberal arts, that is, a
knowledge of certain languages and of logic, as well as a thorough
consideration of the great problems of the relation of man to his
Creator, to his fellow-men, and to the universe around him. Grammar, a
much wider subject than we now include under the term, and philosophy
constituted the undergraduate studies of the universities of the
Thirteenth Century. For the practical purposes of life, a division of
post-graduate study had to be made so as to suit the life design of
each individual, and accordingly the faculties of theology, for the
training of divines; of medicine, for the training of physicians; and
of law, for the training of advocates, came into existence.
We shall consider this subject in more detail in a subsequent chapter,
but it will be clear at once that the university, as organized by
these wise generations of the Thirteenth Century, has come down
unchanged to us in the modern time. We {8} still have practically the
same methods of preliminary training and the same division of
post-graduate studies. We specialize to a greater degree than they
did, but it must not be forgotten that specialism was not unknown by
any means in the Thirteenth Century, though there were fewer
opportunities for its practical application to the things of life. If
this century had done nothing else but create the instrument by which
the human mind has ever since been trained, it must be considered as
deserving a place of the very highest rank in the periods of human
history.
It is, however, much more for what it accomplished for the education
of the masses than for the institutions it succeeded in developing for
the training of the classes, that the Thirteenth Century merits a
place in the roll of fame. This declaration will doubtless seem
utterly paradoxical to the ordinary reader of history. We are very
prone to consider that it is only in our time that anything like
popular education has come into existence. As a matter of fact,
however, the education afforded to the people in the little towns of
the Middle Ages, represents an ideal of educational uplift for the
masses such as has never been even distantly approached in succeeding
centuries. The Thirteenth Century developed the greatest set of
technical schools that the world has ever known. The technical school
is supposed to be a creation of the last half century at the outside.
These medieval towns, however, during the course of the building of
their cathedrals, of their public buildings and various magnificent
edifices of royalty and for the nobility, succeeded in accomplishing
such artistic results that the world has ever since held them in
admiration, and that this admiration has increased rather than
diminished with the development of taste in very recent years.
Nearly every one of the most important towns of England during the
Thirteenth Century was erecting a cathedral. Altogether some twenty
cathedrals remain as the subject of loving veneration and of frequent
visitation for the modern generation. There was intense rivalry
between these various towns. Each tried to surpass the other in the
grandeur of its cathedral and auxiliary buildings. Instead of lending
workmen to one another there was a civic pride in accomplishing for
one's native town whatever was best.
[Illustration]
PULPIT (PISANO, SIENA)
{9}
Each of these towns, then, none of which had more than twenty thousand
inhabitants except London, and even that scarcely more, had to develop
its own artist-artisans for itself. That they succeeded in doing so
demonstrates a great educational influence at work in arts and crafts
in each of these towns. We scarcely succeed in obtaining such trained
workmen in proportionately much fewer numbers even with the aid of our
technical schools, and while these Thirteenth Century people did not
think of such a term, it is evident that they had the reality and that
they were able to develop artistic handicraftsmen--the best the world
has ever known.
With all this of education abroad in the lands, it is not surprising
that great results should have flowed from human efforts and that
these should prove enduring even down to our own time. Accomplishments
of the highest significance were necessarily bound up with
opportunities for self-expression, so tempting and so complete, as
those provided for the generations of the Thirteenth Century. The
books of the Words as well as of the Arts of the Thirteenth Century
will be found eminently interesting, and no period has ever furnished
so many examples of wondrous initiative, followed almost immediately
by just as marvelous progress and eventual approach to as near
perfection as it is perhaps possible to come in things human.
Ordinarily literary origins are not known with sufficient certainty as
to dates for any but the professional scholar to realize the scope of
the century's literature. Only a very little consideration, however,
is needed to demonstrate how thoroughly representative of what is most
enduring in literary expression in modern times, are the works in
every country that had origin in this century.
There was not a single country in civilized Europe which did not
contribute its quota and that of great significance to the literary
movement of the time. In Spain there came the Cid and certain
accompanying products of ballad poetry which form the basis of the
national literature and are still read not only by scholars and
amateurs, but even by the people generally, because of the supreme
human interest in them. In England, the beginning of the Thirteenth
Century saw the putting {10} into shape of the Arthur Legends in the
form in which they were to appeal most nearly to subsequent
generations. Walter Map's work in these was, as we shall see, one of
the great literary accomplishments of all time. Subsequent treatments
of the same subject are only slight modifications of the theme which
he elaborated, and Mallory's and Spenser's and even our own Tennyson's
work derive their interest from the humanly sympathetic story, written
so close to the heart of nature in the Thirteenth Century that it will
always prove attractive.
In Germany, just at the same time, the Nibelungen-Lied was receiving
the form in which it was to live as the great National epic. The
Meistersingers also were accomplishing their supreme work of
Christianizing and modernizing the old German and Christian legends
which were to prove such a precious heritage of interest for
posterity. In the South of Germany the Minnesingers sang their tuneful
strains and showed how possible it was to take the cruder language of
the North, and pour forth as melodious hymns of praise to nature and
to their beloved ones as in the more fluent Southern tongues. Most of
this was done in the old Suabian high German dialect, and the basis of
the modern German language was thus laid. The low German was to prove
the vehicle for the original form of the animal epic or stories with
regard to Reynard, the Fox, which were to prove so popular throughout
all of Europe for all time thereafter.
In North France the Trouveres were accomplishing a similar work to
that of the Minnesingers in South Germany, but doing it with an
original genius, a refinement of style characteristic of their nation,
and a finish of form that was to impress itself upon French literature
for all subsequent time. Here also Jean de Meun and Guillaume de
Lorris wrote the Romance of the Rose, which was to remain the most
popular book in Europe down to the age of printing and for some time
thereafter. At the South of France the work of the Troubadours,
similar to that of the Trouveres and yet with, a spirit and character
all its own, was creating a type of love songs that the world recurs
to with pleasure whenever the lyrical aspect of poetry becomes
fashionable. The influence of the Troubadours was to be felt in Italy,
and before the end of the {11} Thirteenth Century there were many
writers of short poems that deserve a place in what is best in
literature. Men like Sordello, Guido Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia, and
Dante da Maiano, deserve mention in any historical review of
literature, quite apart from the influence which they had on their
great successor, the Prince of Italian poets and one of the immortal
trio of the world's supreme creative singers--Dante Alighieri. With
what must have seemed the limit of conceit he placed himself among the
six greatest poets, but posterity breathes his name only with those of
Homer and Shakespeare.
Dante, in spite of his giant personality and sublime poetic genius, is
not an exception nor a solitary phenomenon in the course of the
century, but only a worthy culmination of the literary movement which,
beginning in the distant West in Spain and England, gradually worked
eastward quite contrary to the usual trend of human development and
inspired its greatest work in the musical Tuscan dialect after having
helped in the foundation of all the other modern languages. Dante is
the supreme type of the Thirteenth Century, the child of his age, but
the great master whom medieval influences have made all that he is.
That he belongs to the century there can be no doubt, and of himself
alone he would be quite sufficient to lift any period out of obscurity
and place it among the favorite epochs, in which the human mind found
one of those opportune moments for the expression of what is sublimest
in human thought.
It is, however, the bock of the Arts of the Thirteenth Century that
deserves most to be thumbed by the modern reader intent on learning
something of this marvelous period of human existence. There is not a
single branch of art in which the men of this generation did not
accomplish excelling things that have been favorite subjects for study
and loving imitation ever since. Perhaps the most marvelous quality of
the grand old Gothic cathedrals, erected during the Thirteenth
Century, is not their impressiveness as a whole so much as their
wonderful finish in detail. It matters not what element of
construction or decoration be taken into consideration, always there
is an approach to perfection in accomplishment in some one of the
cathedrals that shows with what thoroughness the men of the {12} time
comprehended what was best in art, and how finally their strivings
after perfection were rewarded as bountifully as perhaps it has ever
been given to men to realize.
Of the major arts--architecture itself, sculpture and painting--only a
word will be said here since they will be treated more fully in
subsequent chapters. No more perfect effort at worthy worship of the
Most High has ever been accomplished than is to be seen in the Gothic
cathedrals in every country in Europe as they exist to the present
day. While the movement began in North France, and gradually spread to
other countries, there was never any question of mere slavish
imitation, but on the contrary in each country Gothic architecture
took on a national character and developed into a charming expression
of the special characteristics of the people for whom and by whom it
was made. English Gothic is, of course, quite different to that of
France; Spanish Gothic has a character all its own; the German Gothic
cathedrals partake of the heavier characteristics of the Northern
people, while Italian Gothic adds certain airy decorative qualities to
the French model that give renewed interest and inevitably indicate
the origin of the structures.
In painting, Cimabue's work, so wonderfully appreciated by the people
of Florence that spontaneously they flocked in procession to do honor
to his great picture, was the beginning of modern art. How much was
accomplished before the end of the century will be best appreciated
when the name of Giotto is mentioned as the culmination of the art
movement of the century. As we shall see, the work done by him,
especially at Assisi, has been a source of inspiration for artists
down even to our own time, and there are certain qualities of his art,
especially his faculty for producing the feeling of solidity in his
paintings, in which very probably he has never been surpassed. Gothic
cathedrals in other countries did not lend themselves so well as
subjects of inspiration for decorative art, but in every country the
sacred books in use in the cathedral were adorned, at the command of
the artistic impulse of the period, in a way that has made the
illuminated missals and office books of the Thirteenth Century perhaps
the most precious that there are in the history of book-making.
{opp13}
[Illustration]
ARCHANGEL MICHAEL (GIOVANNI PISANO, PISA)
[Illustration]
CHRIST (ANDREA PISANO, FLORENCE)
[Illustration]
STA. REPARATA (ANDREA PISANO, FLORENCE)
{13}
It might be thought that in sculpture, at least, these
Thirteenth-Century generations would prove to be below the level of
that perfection and artistic expression which came so assuredly in
other lines. It is true that most of the sculptures of the period have
defects that make them unworthy of imitation, though it is in the
matter of technique that they fail rather than in honest effort to
express feelings appropriately within the domain of chiseled work. On
the other hand there are some supreme examples of what is best in
sculpture to be found among the adornments of the cathedrals of the
period. No more simply dignified rendition of the God Man has ever
been made in stone than the statue of Christ, which with such charming
appropriateness the people of Amiens have called _le Beau Dieu_, their
beautiful God, and that visitors to their great cathedral can never
admire sufficiently, admirably set off, as it is, in its beautiful
situation above the main door of the great cathedral. Other examples
are not lacking, as for instance some of the Thirteenth-Century
effigies of the French kings and queens at St. Denis, and some of the
wonderful sculptures at Rheims. In its place as a subsidiary art to
architecture for decorative purposes, sculpture was even more
eminently successful. The best example of this is the famous Angel
Choir of Lincoln, one of the most beautiful things that ever came from
the hand of man and whose designation indicates the belief of the
centuries that only the angels could have made it.
In the handicrafts most nearly allied to the arts, the Thirteenth
Century reigns supreme with a splendor unapproached by what has been
accomplished in any other century. The iron work of their gates and
railings, even of their hinges and latches and locks, has been admired
and imitated by many generations since. When a piece of it is no
longer of use, or loosens from the crumbling woodwork to which it was
attached, it is straightway transported to some museum, there to be
displayed not alone for its antiquarian interest, but also as a model
and a suggestion to the modern designer. This same thing is true of
the precious metal work of the times also, at least as regards the
utensils and ornaments employed in the sacred services. The chalices
and other sacred {14} vessels were made on severely simple lines and
according to models which have since become the types of such sacred
utensils for all times.
The vestments used in the sacred ceremonials partook of this same
character of eminently appropriate handiwork united to the chastest of
designs, executed with supreme taste. The famous cope of Ascoli which
the recent Pierpont Morgan incident brought into prominence a year or
so ago, is a sample of the needlework of the times that illustrates
its perfection. It is said by those who are authorities in the matter
that Thirteenth-Century needlework represents what is best in this
line. It is not the most elaborate, nor the most showy, but it is in
accordance with the best taste, supremely suitable to the objects of
which it formed a part. It is, after all, only an almost inevitable
appendix to the beautiful work done in the illumination of the sacred
books, that the sacred vestments should have been quite as supremely
artistic and just as much triumphs of art.
As a matter of fact, every minutest detail of cathedral construction
and ornamentation shared in this artistic triumph. Even the
inscriptions, done in brass upon the gravestones that formed part of
the cathedral pavements, are models of their kind, and rubbings from
them are frequently taken because of their marvelous effectiveness as
designs in Gothic tracery.
Their bells were made with such care and such perfection that, down to
the present time, nothing better has been accomplished in this
handicraft, and their marvelous retention of tone shows how thorough
was the work of these early bell-makers.
The triumph of artistic decoration in the cathedrals, however, and the
most marvelous page in the book of the Arts of the century, remains to
be spoken of in their magnificent stained-glass windows. Where they
learned their secret of glass-making we know not. Artists of the
modern time, who have spent years in trying to perfect their own work
in this line, would give anything to have some of the secrets of the
glass-makers of the Thirteenth Century. Such windows as the Five
Sisters at York, or the wonderful Jesse window of Chartres with some
of its companions, are the despair of the modern {15} artists in
stained glass. The fact that their glass-making was not done at one,
or even a few, common centers, but was apparently executed in each of
these small medieval towns that were the site of a cathedral, only
adds to the marvel of how the workmen of the time succeeded so well in
accomplishing their purpose of solving the difficult problems of
stained glasswork.
{opp15}
[Illustration ]
PASCHAL CANDLESTICK (BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE)
[Illustration:]
RELIQUARY (CATHEDRAL ORVIETO, UGOLINO DI VIERI)
If, to crown all that has been said about the Thirteenth Century, we
now add a brief account of what was accomplished for men in the matter
of liberty and the establishment of legal rights, we shall have a
reasonably adequate introduction to this great subject. Liberty is
thought to be a word whose true significance is of much more recent
origin than the end of the Middle Ages. The rights of men are usually
supposed to have received serious acknowledgment only in comparatively
recent centuries. The recalling of a few facts, however, will dispel
this illusion and show how these men of the later middle age laid the
foundation of most of the rights and privileges that we are so proud
to consider our birthright in this modern time. The first great fact
in the history of modern liberty is the signing of Magna Charta which
took place only a little after the middle of the first quarter of the
Thirteenth Century. The movement that led up to it had arisen amongst
the guildsmen as well as the churchmen and the nobles of the preceding
century. When the document was signed, however, these men did not
consider that their work was finished. They kept themselves ready to
take further advantage of the necessities of their rulers and it was
not long before they had secured political as well as legal rights.
Shortly after the middle of the Thirteenth Century the first English
parliament met, and in the latter part of that half century it became
a formal institution with regularly appointed times of meeting and
definite duties and privileges. Then began the era of law in its
modern sense for the English people. The English common law took form
and its great principles were enunciated practically in the terms in
which they are stated down to the present day. Bracton made his famous
digest of the English common law for the use of judges and lawyers and
it became a standard work of reference. Such it {16} has remained down
to our own time. At the end of the century, during the reign of Edward
I, the English Justinian, the laws of the land were formulated,
lacunae in legislation filled up, rights and privileges fully
determined, real-estate laws put on a modern basis, and the most
important portions of English law became realities that were to be
modified but not essentially changed in all the after time.
This history of liberty and of law-making, so familiar with regard to
England, must be repeated almost literally with regard to the
continental nations. In France, the foundation of the laws of the
kingdom were laid during the reign of Louis IX, and French authorities
in the history of law, point with pride, to how deeply and broadly the
foundations of French jurisprudence were laid. Under Louis's cousin,
Ferdinand III of Castile, who, like the French monarch, has received
the title of Saint, because of the uprightness of his character and
all that he did for his people, forgetful of himself, the foundations
of Spanish law were laid, and it is to that time that Spanish jurists
trace the origin of nearly all the rights and privileges of their
people. In Germany there is a corresponding story. In Saxony there was
the issue of a famous book of laws, which represented all the grants
of the sovereigns, and all the claims of subjects that had been
admitted by monarchs up to that time. In a word, everywhere there was
a codification of laws and a laying of foundations in jurisprudence,
upon which the modern superstructure of law was to rise.
This is probably the most surprising part of the Thirteenth Century.
When it began men below the rank of nobles were practically slaves.
Whatever rights they had were uncertain, liable to frequent violation
because of their indefinite character, and any generation might, under
the tyranny of some consciousless monarch, have lost even the few
privileges they had enjoyed before. At the close of the Thirteenth
Century this was no longer possible. The laws had been written down
and monarchs were bound by them as well as their subjects. Individual
caprice might no longer deprive them arbitrarily of their rights and
hard won privileges, though tyranny might still assert itself and a
submissive generation might, for a time, {17} allow themselves to be
governed by measures beyond the domain of legal justification. Any
subsequent generation might, however, begin anew its assertion of its
rights from the old-time laws, rather than from the position to which
their forbears had been reduced by a tyrant's whim.
Is it any wonder, then, that we should call the generations that gave
us the cathedrals, the universities, the great technical schools that
were organized by the trades guilds, the great national literatures
that lie at the basis of all our modern literature, the beginnings of
sculpture and of art carried to such heights that artistic principles
were revealed for all time, and, finally, the great men and women of
this century--for more than any other it glories in names that were
born not to die--is it at all surprising that we should claim for the
period which, in addition to all this, saw the foundation of modern
law and liberty, the right to be hailed--the greatest of human
history?
[Illustration]
THE CHURCH [SYMBOLIZED] (PARIS)
{18}
II
UNIVERSITIES AND PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.
To see, at once, how well the Thirteenth deserves the name of the
greatest of centuries, it is necessary, only, to open the book of her
deeds and read therein what was accomplished during this period for
the education of the men of the time. It is, after all, what a
generation accomplishes for intellectual development and social uplift
that must be counted as its greatest triumph. If life is larger in its
opportunities, if men appreciate its significance better, if the
development of the human mind has been rendered easier, if that
precious thing, whose name, education, has been so much abused, is
made readier of attainment, then the generation stamps itself as
having written down in its book of deeds, things worthy for all
subsequent generations to read. Though anything like proper
appreciation of it has come only in very recent times, there is
absolutely no period of equal length in the history of mankind in
which so much was not only attempted, but successfully accomplished
for education, in every sense of the word, as during the Thirteenth
Century. This included, not only the education of the classes but also
the education of the masses.
For the moment, we shall concern ourselves only with the education
offered to, and taken advantage of by so many, in the universities of
the time. It was just at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century that
the great universities came into being as schools, in which all the
ordinary forms of learning were taught. During the Twelfth Century,
Bologna had had a famous school of law which attracted students from
all over Europe. Under Irnerius, canon and civil law secured a
popularity as subjects of study such as they never had before. The
study of the old Roman Law brought back with it an interest in the
Latin classics, and the beginning of the true new birth--the real
renaissance--of modern education must be traced from here. At Paris
there was a theological school attached to {19} the cathedral which
gradually became noted for its devotion to philosophy as the basis of
theology, and, about the middle of the Twelfth Century, attracted
students from every part of the civilized world. As was the case at
Bologna, interest after a time was not limited to philosophy and
theology; other branches of study were admitted to the curriculum and
a university in the modern sense came into existence.
During the first quarter of the Thirteenth Century both of these
schools developed faculties for the teaching of all the known branches
of knowledge. At Bologna faculties of arts, of philosophy and
theology, and finally of medicine, were gradually added, and students
flocked in ever increasing numbers to take advantage of these
additional opportunities. At Paris, the school of medicine was
established early in the Thirteenth Century, and there were graduates
in medicine before the year 1220. Law came later, but was limited to
Canon law to a great extent, Orleans having a monopoly of civil law
for more than a century. These two universities, Bologna and Paris,
were, in every sense of the word, early in the century, real
universities, differing in no essential from our modern institutions
that bear the same name.
If the Thirteenth Century had done nothing else but put into shape
this great instrument for the training of the human mind, which has
maintained its effectiveness during seven centuries, it must be
accorded a place among the epoch-making periods of history. With all
our advances in modern education we have not found it necessary, or
even advisable, to change, in any essential way, this mold in which
the human intellect has been cast for all these years. If a man wants
knowledge for its own sake, or for some practical purpose in life,
then here are the faculties which will enable him to make a good
beginning on the road he wishes to travel. If he wants knowledge of
the liberal arts, or the consideration of man's duties to himself, to
his fellow-man and to his Creator, he will find in the faculties of
arts and philosophy and theology the great sources of knowledge in
these subjects. If, on the other hand, he wishes to apply his mind
either to the disputes of men about property, or to their injustices
toward one another and the correction of abuses, then the faculty of
law will {20} supply his wants, and finally the medical school enables
him, if he wishes, to learn all that can be known at a given time with
regard to man's ills and their healing. We have admitted the
practical-work subjects into university life, though not without
protest, but architecture, engineering, bridge-building and the like,
in which the men of the Thirteenth Century accomplished such wonders,
were relegated to the guilds whose technical schools, though they did
not call them by that name, were quite as effective practical
educators as even the most vaunted of our modern university mechanical
departments.
It is rather interesting to trace the course of the development of
schools in our modern sense of the term, because their evolution
recapitulates, to some degree at least, the history of the
individual's interest in life. The first school which acquired a
European reputation was that of Salernum, a little town not far from
Naples, which possessed a famous medical school as early as the ninth
century, perhaps earlier. This never became a university, though its
reputation as a great medical school was maintained for several
centuries. This first educational opportunity to attract a large body
of students from all over the world concerned mainly the needs of the
body. The next set of interests which man, in the course of evolution
develops, has to do with the acquisition and retention of property and
the maintenance of his rights as an individual. It is not surprising,
then, to find that the next school of world-wide reputation was that
of law at Bologna which became the nucleus of a great university. It
is only after man has looked out for his bodily needs and his property
rights, that he comes to think of his duties toward himself, his
fellow-men, and his Creator, and so the third of these great medieval
schools, in time, was that of philosophy and theology, at Paris.
It is sometimes thought that the word university applied to these
institutions after the aggregation of other faculties, was due to the
fact that there was a universality of studies, that all branches of
knowledge might be followed in them. The word university, however, was
not originally applied to the school itself, which, if it had all the
faculties of the modern university, was, in the Thirteenth Century,
called a _studium generale_. The Latin word universitas had quite a
different {21} usage at that time. Whenever letters were formally
addressed to the combined faculties of a _studium generale_ by
reigning sovereigns, or by the Pope, or by other high ecclesiastical
authorities, they always began with the designation, Universitas
Vestra, implying that the greeting was to all of the faculty,
universally and without exception. Gradually, because of this word
constantly occurring at the beginning of letters to the faculty, the
term universitas came to be applied to the institution. [Footnote 1]
[Footnote 1: Certain other terms that occur in these letters of
greeting to university officials have a more than passing interest.
The rector of the university, for instance, was always formally
addressed as Amplitudo Vestra, that is, Your Ampleness. Considering
the fact that not a few of the rectors of the old time universities,
all of whom were necessarily ecclesiastics, must have had the
ampleness of girth so characteristic of their order under certain
circumstances, there is an appropriateness about this formal
designation which perhaps appeals more to the risibilities of the
modern mind than to those of medieval time.]
While the universities, as is typically exemplified by the histories
of Bologna and Paris, and even to a noteworthy degree of Oxford, grew
up around the cathedrals, they cannot be considered in any sense the
deliberate creation, much less the formal invention, of any particular
set of men. The idea of a university was not born into the world in
full panoply as Minerva from the brain of Jove. No one set about
consciously organizing for the establishment of complete institutions
of learning. Like everything destined to mean much in the world the
universities were a natural growth from the favoring soil in which
living seeds were planted. They sprang from the wonderful inquiring
spirit of the time and the marvelous desire for knowledge and for the
higher intellectual life that came over the people of Europe during
the Thirteenth Century. The school at Paris became famous, and
attracted pupils during the Twelfth Century, because of the new-born
interest in scholastic philosophy. After the pupils had gathered in
large numbers their enthusiasm led to the establishment of further
courses of study. The same thing was true at Bologna, where the study
of Law first attracted a crowd of earnest students, and then the
demand for broader education led to the establishment of other
faculties.
{22}
Above all, there was no conscious attempt on the part of any supposed
better class to stoop down and uplift those presumably below it. As we
shall see, the students of the university came mainly from the middle
class of the population. They became ardently devoted to their
teachers. As in all really educational work, it was the man and not
the institution that counted for much. In case of disagreement of one
of these with the university authorities, not infrequently there was a
sacrifice of personal advantage for the moment on the part of the
students in order to follow a favorite teacher. Paris had examples of
this several times before the Thirteenth Century, and notably in the
case of Abelard had seen thousands of students follow him into the
distant desert where he had retired. Later on, when abuses on the part
of the authorities of Paris limited the University's privileges, led
to the withdrawal of students and the foundation of Oxford, there was
a community of interest on the part of certain members of the faculty
and thousands of students. This movement was, however, distinctly of a
popular character, in the sense that it was not guided by political or
other leaders. Nearly all of the features of university life during
the Thirteenth Century, emphasize the democracy of feeling of the
students, and make it clear that the blowing of the wind of the spirit
of human liberty and intellectual enthusiasm influencing the minds of
the generation, rather than any formal attempt on the part of any
class of men deliberately to provide educational opportunities, is the
underlying feature of university foundation and development.
While the great universities of Paris, Bologna, and Oxford were, by
far, the most important, they must not be considered as the only
educational institutions deserving the name of universities, even in
our modern sense, that took definite form during the Thirteenth
Century. In Italy, mainly under the fostering care of ecclesiastics,
encouraged by such Popes as Innocent III, Gregory IX, and Honorius IV,
nearly a dozen other towns and cities saw the rise of Studia Generalia
eventually destined, and that within a few decades after their
foundation, to have the complete set of faculties, and such a number
of teachers and of students as merited for them the name of
University.
{opp23}
[Illustration]
ADORATION OF MAGI (PULPIT, SIENA, NIC. PISANO).
{23}
Very early in the century Vicenza, Reggio, and Arezzo became
university towns. Before the first quarter of the century was finished
there were universities at Padua, at Naples, and at Vercelli. In spite
of the troublous times and the great reduction in the population of
Rome there was a university founded in connection with the Roman
Curia, that is the Papal Court, before the middle of the century, and
Siena and Piacenza had founded rival university institutions. Perugia
had a famous school which became a complete university early in the
Fourteenth Century.
Nor were other countries much behind Italy in this enthusiastic
movement. Montpelier had, for over a century before the beginning of
the thirteenth, rejoiced in a medical school which was the most
important rival of that at Salernum. At the beginning this reflected
largely the Moorish element in educational affairs in Europe at this
time. During the course of the Thirteenth Century Montpelier developed
into a full-fledged university though the medical school still
continued to be the most important faculty. Medical students from all
over the world flocked to the salubrious town to which patients from
all over were attracted, and its teachers and writers of medicine have
been famous in medical history ever since. How thorough was the
organization of clinical medical work at Montpelier may perhaps best
be appreciated from the fact, noted in the chapter on City
Hospitals--Organized Charity, that when Pope Innocent III. wished to
establish a model hospital at Rome with the idea that it would form an
exemplar for other European cities, he sent down to Montpelier and
summoned Guy, the head of the Hospital of the Holy Ghost in that city,
to the Papal Capital to establish the Roman Hospital of the Holy Ghost
and, in connection with it, a large number of hospitals all over
Europe.
A corresponding state of affairs to that of Montpelier is to be noted
at Orleans, only here the central school, around which the university
gradually grouped itself, was the Faculty of Civil Law. Canon law was
taught at Paris in connection with the theological course, but there
had always been objection to the admission of civil law as a faculty
on a basis of equality with the other faculties. There was indeed {24}
at this time some rivalry between the civil and the canon law and so
the study of civil law was relegated to other universities. Even early
in the Twelfth Century Orleans was famous for its school of civil law
in which the exposition of the principles of the old Roman law
constituted the basis of the university course. During the Thirteenth
Century the remaining departments of the university gradually
developed, so that by the close of the century, there seem to be
conservative claims for over one thousand students. Besides these
three, French universities were also established at Angers, at
Toulouse, and the beginnings of institutions to become universities
early in the next century are recorded at Avignon and Cahors.
Spain felt the impetus of the university movement early in the
Thirteenth Century and a university was founded at Palencia about the
end of the first decade. This was founded by Alfonso XII. and was
greatly encouraged by him. It is sometimes said that this university
was transferred to Salamanca about 1230, but this is denied by
Denifle, whose authority in matters of university history is
unquestionable. It seems not unlikely that Salamanca drew a number of
students from Palencia but that the latter continued still to attract
many students. About the middle of the Thirteenth Century the
university of Valladolid was founded. Before the end of the century a
fourth university, that of Lerida, had been established in the Spanish
peninsula. Spain was to see the greatest development of universities
during the Fourteenth Century. It was not long after the end of the
Thirteenth Century before Coimbra, in Portugal, began to assume
importance as an educational institution, though it was not to have
sufficient faculty and students to deserve the more ambitious title of
university for half a century.
While most people who know anything about the history of education
realize the important position occupied by the universities during the
Thirteenth Century and appreciate the estimation in which they were
held and the numbers that attended them, very few seem to know
anything of the preparatory schools of the time, and are prone to
think that all the educational effort of these generations was
exhausted in connection {25} with the university. It is often said, as
we shall see, that one reason for the large number of students
reported as in attendance at the universities during the Thirteenth
Century is to be found in the fact that these institutions practically
combined the preparatory school and the academy of our time with the
university. The universities are supposed to have been the only
centers of education worthy of mention. There is no doubt that a
number of quite young students were in attendance at the universities,
that is, boys from 12 to 15 who would in our time be only in the
preparatory school. We shall explain, however, in the chapter on the
Numbers in Attendance at the Universities that students went to
college much younger in the past and graduated much earlier than they
do in our day, yet apparently, without any injury to the efficacy of
their educational training.
In the universities of Southern Europe it is still the custom for boys
to graduate with the degree of A. B. at the age of 15 to 16, which
supposes attendance at the university, or its equivalent in
under-graduate courses, at the age of 12 or even less. There is no
need, however, to appeal to the precociousness of the southern nations
in explanation of this, since there are some good examples of it in
comparatively recent times here in America. Most of the colleges in
this country, in the early part of the nineteenth century and the end
of the eighteenth, graduated young men of 16 and 17 and thought that
they were accomplishing a good purpose, in allowing them to get at
their life work in early manhood. Many of the distinguished divines
who made names in educational work are famous for their early
graduations. Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia, whom the medical
profession of this country hails as the Father of American Medicine,
graduated at Princeton at 15. He must have begun his college course,
therefore, about the age of 12. This may be considered inadvisable in
our generation, but, it must be remembered that there are many even in
our day, who think that our college men are allowed to get at their
life-work somewhat too late for their own good.
It must be emphasized, moreover, that in many of the university towns
there were also preparatory schools. Courses {26} were not regularly
organized until well on in the Thirteenth Century, but younger
brothers and friends of students as well as of professors would not
infrequently be placed under their care and thus be enabled to receive
their preparation for university work. At Paris, Robert Sorbonne
founded a preparatory school for that institution under the name of
the College of Calvi. Other colleges of this kind also existed in
Paris. This custom of having a preparatory school in association with
the university has not been abandoned even in our own day, and it has
some decided advantages from an educational standpoint, though perhaps
these are not enough to balance certain ethical disadvantages almost
sure to attach to such a system, disadvantages which ultimately led in
the Middle Ages to the prohibition that young students should be taken
at the universities under any pretext.
The presence of these young students in university towns probably did
add considerably to the numbers reported as in attendance. It must not
be thought, however, that there were no formal preparatory schools
quite apart from university influence. This thought has been the root
of more misunderstanding of the medieval system of education than
almost any other. As a matter of fact there were preliminary and
preparatory schools, what we would now call academies and colleges, in
connection with all of the important monasteries and with every
cathedral. Schools of less importance were required by a decree of a
council held at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century to be
maintained in connection with every bishop's church. During the
Thirteenth Century there were some twenty cathedrals in various parts
of England; each one had its cathedral school. Besides these there
were at least as many important abbeys, nearly a dozen of them immense
institutions, in which there were fine libraries, large writing rooms,
in which copies of books were being constantly made, many of the
members of the communities of which were university men, and around
which, therefore, there clung an atmosphere of bookishness and
educational influence that made them preparatory schools of a high
type. The buildings themselves were of the highest type of
architecture; the community life was well calculated to bring out what
was best in the {27} intellectuality of members of the community, and,
then, there was a rivalry between the various religious orders which
made them prepare their men well in order that they might do honor to
the order when they had the opportunity later, as most of those who
had the ability and the taste actually did have, to go to one or other
of the universities.
This system of preparatory schools need not be accepted on the mere
assumption that the monasteries and churches must surely have set
about such work, because there is abundant evidence of the actual
establishment and maintenance of such schools. With regard to the
monasteries there can be no doubt, because it was the members of the
religious orders who particularly distinguished themselves at the
universities, and the histories of Oxford, Cambridge, and Paris are
full of their accomplishments. They succeeded in obtaining the right
to have their own houses at the universities and to have their own
examinations count in university work, in order that they might
maintain their influence over the members of the orders during the
precious formative period of their intellectual life. With regard to
the church schools there is convincing evidence of another kind.
In the chapter on the foundation of City Hospitals we have detailed on
the authority of Virchow all that Innocent III. accomplished for the
hospital system of Europe. This chapter was published originally in
the form of a lecture from the historical department of the Medical
School of Fordham University and a reprint of it was sent to a
distinguished American educator well known for his condemnation of
supposed church intolerance in the matter of education and scientific
development. He said that he was glad to have it because it confirmed
and even broadened the idea that he had long cherished, that the
Church had done more for Charity during the despised Middle Ages than
national governments had ever been able to accomplish since, though it
was all the more surprising to him that it should not have under the
circumstances, done more for education, since this might have
prevented some of the ills that charity had afterward to relieve. This
expression very probably represents the state of mind of very many
scholars with regard to this period. The Church is supposed to have
interested herself {28} in charity almost to the exclusion of
educational influence. Charity is of course admitted to be her special
work, yet these scholars cannot help but regret that more was not done
in social prophylaxis by the encouragement of education.
In the light of this almost universal expression it is all the more
interesting to find that such opinions are founded entirely on a lack
of knowledge of what was done in education, since the same Pope, in
practically the same way and by the exertion of the same prestige and
ecclesiastical authority, did for education just what he did for
charity in the matter of the hospitals and the ailing poor. Virchow,
as we shall see, declared that to Innocent III. is due the foundation
of practically all the city hospitals in Europe. If the effect of
certain of the decrees issued in his papacy be carefully followed, it
will be found that practically as many schools as hospitals owe their
origin to his beneficent wisdom and his paternal desire to spread the
advantages of Christianity all over the civilized world. This policy
with regard to the hospitals led to the foundation before the end of
the century of at least one hospital in every diocese of all the
countries which were more closely allied with the Holy See. There is
extant a decree issued by the famous council of Lateran, in 1215, a
council in which Innocent's authority was dominant, requiring the
establishment of a Chair of Grammar in connection with every cathedral
in the Christian world. This Chair of Grammar included at least three
of the so-called liberal arts and provided for what would now be
called, the education of a school preparatory to a university.
Before this, Innocent III, [Footnote 2] who had himself received the
benefit of the best education of the time, having spent some years at
Rome and later at Paris and at Bologna, had encouraged the sending of
students to these universities in every way.
[Footnote 2: Most of the details of what was accomplished for
education by Pope Innocent III, and all the references needed to
supply further information, can be found in the _Hestoire
Litteratire de la France_, recent volumes of which were issued by
the French Institute, though the magnificent work itself was begun
by Benedictines of St. Maur, who completed some fifteen volumes. The
sixteenth volume, most of which is written by Daunou, is especially
valuable for this period. Du Boulay, in his History of the
University of Paris, will furnish additional information with regard
to Pope Innocent's relations to education throughout Europe,
especially, of course, in what regards the University of Paris.]
[Illustration]
CATHEDRAL (YORK)
[Illustration]
CATHEDRAL (LINCOLN)
{29}
Bishops who came to Rome were sure to hear inculcated the advisability
of a taste for letters in clergymen, hear it said often enough that
such a taste would surely increase the usefulness of all churchmen.
Schools had been encouraged before the issuance of the decree. This
only came as a confirmatory document calculated to perpetuate the
policy that had already been so prominently in vogue in the church for
over fifteen years of the Pope's reign. It was meant, too, to make
clear to hesitant and tardy bishops, who might have thought that the
papal interest in education was merely personal, that the policy of
the church was concerned in it and recalled them to a sense of duty in
the matter, since the ordinary enthusiasm for letters, even with the
added encouragement of the Pope, did not suffice to make them realize
the necessity for educational establishments.
The institution of the schools of grammar in connection with
cathedrals was well adapted to bring about a definite increase in the
opportunities for book learning for those who desired it. In
connection with the cathedrals there was always a band of canons whose
duty it was to take part in the singing of the daily office. Their
ceremonial and ritual duties did not, however, occupy them more than a
few hours each day. During the rest of the time they were free to
devote themselves to any subject in which they might be interested and
had ample time for teaching. The requirement that there should be at
least a school of grammar in connection with every cathedral afforded
definite opportunity to such of these ecclesiastics as had
intellectual tastes to devote themselves to the spread of knowledge
and of culture, and this reacted, as can be readily understood, to
make the whole band of canons more interested in the things of the
mind, and to make the cathedral even more the intellectual center of
the district than might otherwise have been the case.
For the metropolitan churches a more far-reaching regulation was made
by this same council of Lateran under the inspiration of the Pope
himself. These important Archiepiscopal cathedrals were required to
maintain professors of three chairs. One of these was to teach
grammar, a second philosophy, and a third canon law. Under these
designations there was practically included much of what is now
studied not only in preparatory {30} schools but also at the beginning
of University courses. The regulation was evidently intended to lead
eventually to the formation of many more universities than were then
in existence, because already it had become clear that the traveling
of students to long distances and their gathering in such large
numbers in towns away from home influences, led to many abuses that
might be obviated if they could stay in their native cities, or at
least did not have to leave their native provinces. This was a
far-seeing regulation that, like so many other decrees of the century,
manifests the very practical policy of the Pope in matters of
education as well as charity. As a matter of fact this decree did lead
to the gradual development of about twenty universities during the
Thirteenth Century, and to the establishment of a number of other
schools so important in scope and attendance that their evolution into
universities during the Fourteenth Century became comparatively easy.
This formal church law, moreover, imposed upon ecclesiastical
authorities the necessity for providing for even higher education in
their dioceses and made them realize that it was entirely in sympathy
with the church's spirit and in accord with the wish of the Father of
Christendom, that they should make as ample provision for education as
they did for charity, though this last was supposed to be their
special task as pastors of the Christian flock.
All this important work for the foundation of preparatory schools in
every diocese and of the preliminary organization of teaching
institutions that might easily develop into universities, as they
actually did in a score of cases in metropolitan cities, was
accomplished under the first Pope of the Thirteenth Century, Innocent
III. His successors kept up this good work. Pope Honorius III., his
immediate successor, went so far in this matter as to depose a bishop
who had not read Donatus, the popular grammarian of the time. The
bishop evidently was considered unfit, as far as his mental training
went, to occupy the important post of head of a diocese. Pope Gregory
IX., the nephew of Innocent III., was one of the most important
patrons of the study of law in this period (see Legal Origins in Other
Countries), and encouraged the collection of the decrees of former
Popes so as to make them available for purposes of study as well as
for court use. He is famous for {31} having protected the University
of Paris during some of the serious trouble with the municipal
authorities, when the large increase of the number of students in
attendance at the University had unfortunately brought about strained
relations between town and gown.
Pope Innocent IV. by several decrees encouraged the development of the
University of Paris, increased its rights and conferred new
privileges. He also did much to develop the University of Toulouse,
and especially to raise its standard and make it equal to that of
Paris as far as possible. The patronage of Toulouse on the part of the
Pope is all the more striking because the study of civil law was here
a special feature and the ecclesiastical authorities were often said
to have looked askance at the rising prominence of civil law, since it
threatened to diminish the importance of canon law; and the
cultivation of it, only too frequently, seemed to give rise to
friction between civil and ecclesiastical authorities. While the
pontifical court of Innocent IV. was maintained at Lyons it seemed,
according to the Literary History of France, [Footnote 3] more like
an academy of theology and of canon law than the court of a great
monarch whose power was acknowledged throughout the world, or a great
ecclesiastic who might be expected to be occupied with details of
Church government.
[Footnote 3: Histoire Litteratire de la France, Vol. XVI,
Introductory Discourse.]
Succeeding Popes of the century were not less prominent in their
patronage of education. Pope Alexander IV. supported the cause of the
Mendicant Friars against the University of Paris, but this was
evidently with the best of intentions. The mendicants came to claim
the privilege of having houses in association with the university in
which they might have lectures for the members of their orders, and
asked for due allowance in the matter of degrees for courses thus
taken. The faculty of the University did not want to grant this
privilege, though it was acknowledged that some of the best professors
in the University were members of the Mendicant orders, and we need
only mention such names as Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas from
the Dominicans, and St. Bonaventure, Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus from
the Franciscans, to show the truth of this assertion. To give such a
privilege {32} seemed a derogation of the faculty rights and the
University refused. Then the Holy See interfered to insist that the
University must give degrees for work done, rather than merely for
regulation attendance. The best possible proof that Pope Alexander
cannot be considered as wishing to injure or even diminish the
prestige of the University in any way, is to be found in the fact that
he afterwards sent two of his nephews to Paris to attend at the
University.
All these Popes, so far mentioned, were not Frenchmen and therefore
could have no national feeling in the matter of the University of
Paris or of the French universities in general. It is not surprising
to find that Pope Urban IV., who was a Frenchman and an alumnus of the
University of Paris, elevated many French scholars, and especially his
fellow alumni of Paris, to Church dignitaries of various kinds. After
Urban IV., Nicholas IV. who succeeded him, though once more an
Italian, founded chairs in the University of Montpelier, and also a
professorship in a school that it was hoped would develop into a
university at Gray in Franche Comte. In a word, looked at from every
point of view, it must be admitted that the Church and ecclesiastical
authorities were quite as much interested in education as in charity
during this century, and it is to them that must be traced the
foundation of the preparatory schools, as well as the universities,
and the origin and development of the great educational movement that
stamps this century as the greatest in human history.
[Illustration]
JACQUES COEUR'S HOUSE (BOURGES)
[Illustration]
CLOISTER OF ST. JOHN LATERAN (ROME)
{33}
III
WHAT AND HOW THEY STUDIED AT THE UNIVERSITIES.
It is usually the custom for text books of education to dismiss the
teaching at the universities of the Middle Ages with some such
expression as: "The teachers were mainly engaged in metaphysical
speculations and the students were occupied with exercises in logic
and in dialectics, learning in long drawn out disputations how to use
the intellectual instruments they possessed but never actually
applying them. All knowledge was supposed to be amenable to increase
through dialectical discussion and all truth was supposed, to be
obtainable as the conclusion of a regular syllogism." Great fun
especially is made of the long-winded disputations, the time-taking
public exercises in dialectics, the fine hair-drawn distinctions
presumably with but the scantiest basis of truth behind them and in
general the placing of words for realities in the investigation of
truth and the conveyance of information. The sublime ignorance of
educators who talk thus about the century that saw the rise of the
universities in connection with the erection of the great Cathedrals,
is only equaled by their assumption of knowledge.
It is very easy to make fun of a past generation and often rather
difficult to enter into and appreciate its spirit. Ridicule comes
natural to human nature, alas! but sympathy requires serious mental
application for understanding's sake. Fortunately there has come in
recent years a very different feeling in the minds of many mature and
faithful students of this period, as regards the Middle Ages and its
education. Dialectics may seem to be a waste of time to those who
consider the training of the human mind as of little value in
comparison with the stocking of it with information. Dialectical
training will probably not often enable men to earn more money than
might have otherwise been the case. This will be {34} eminently true
if the dialectician is to devote himself to commercial enterprises in
his future life. If he is to take up one of the professions, however,
there may be some doubt as to whether even his practical effectiveness
will not be increased by a good course of logic. There is, however,
another point of view from which this matter of the study of
dialectics may be viewed, and which has been taken very well by Prof.
Saintsbury of the University of Edinburgh in a recent volume on the
Thirteenth Century.
He insists in a passage which we quote at length in the chapter on the
Prose of the Century, that if this training in logic had not been
obtained at this time in European development, the results might have
been serious for our modern languages and modern education. He says:
"If at the outset of the career of the modern languages, men had
thought with the looseness of modern thought, had indulged in the
haphazard slovenliness of modern logic, had popularized theology and
vulgarized rhetoric, as we have seen both popularized and vulgarized
since, we should indeed have been in evil case." He maintains that
"the far-reaching educative influence in mere language, in mere system
of arrangement and expression, must be considered as one of the great
benefits of Scholasticism." This is, after all, only a similar opinion
to that evidently entertained by Mr. John Stuart Mill, who, as Prof.
Saintsbury says, was not often a scholastically-minded philosopher,
for he quotes in the preface of his logic two very striking opinions
from very different sources, the Scotch philosopher, Hamilton, and the
French philosophical writer, Condorcet. Hamilton said, "It is to the
schoolmen that the vulgar languages are indebted for what precision
and analytical subtlety they possess." Condorcet went even further
than this, and used expressions that doubless will be a great source
of surprise to those who do not realize how much of admiration is
always engendered in those who really study the schoolmen seriously
and do not take opinions of them from the chance reading of a few
scattered passages, or depend for the data of their judgment on some
second-hand authority, who thought it clever to abuse these old-time
thinkers. Condorcet thought them far in advance of the old Greek
philosophers for, he said, "Logic, ethics, and metaphysics {35}
itself, owe to scholasticism a precision unknown to the ancients
themselves."
With regard to the methods and contents of the teaching in the
undergraduate department of the university, that is, in what we would
now call the arts department, there is naturally no little interest at
the present time. Besides the standards set up and the tests required
can scarcely fail to attract attention. Professor Turner, in his
History of Philosophy, has summed up much of what we know in this
matter in a paragraph so full of information that we quote it in order
to give our readers the best possible idea in a compendious form of
these details of the old-time education.
"By statutes issued at various times during the Thirteenth Century
it was provided that the professor should read, that is expound, the
text of certain standard authors in philosophy and theology. In a
document published by Denifle, (the distinguished authority on
medieval universities) and by him referred to the year 1232, we find
the following works among those prescribed for the Faculty of Arts:
Logica Vetus (the old Boethian text of a portion of the Organon,
probably accompanied by Porphyry's Isagoge); Logica Nova (the new
translation of the Organon); Gilbert's Liber Sex Principorium; and
Donatus's Barbarismus. A few years later (1255), the following works
are prescribed: Aristotle's Physics, Metaphysics, De Anima, De
Animalibus, De Caelo et Mundo, Meteorica, the minor psychological
treatises and some Arabian or Jewish works, such as the Liber de
Causis and De Differentia Spirititus et Animae."
"The first degree for which the student of arts presented himself
was that of bachelor. The candidate for this degree, after a
preliminary test called responsiones (this regulation went into
effect not later than 1275), presented himself for the determination
which was a public defense of a certain number of theses against
opponents chosen from the audience. At the end of the disputation,
the defender summed up, or determined, his conclusions. After
determining, the bachelor resumed his studies for the licentiate,
assuming also the task of cursorily explaining to junior students
some portion of the Organon. The test for the degree of licentiate
consisted {36} in a _collatio_, or exposition of several texts,
after the manner of the masters. The student was now a licensed
teacher; he did not, however, become magister, or master of arts,
until he had delivered what was called the _inceptio_, or inaugural
lecture, and was actually installed (_birrettatio_). If he continued
to teach he was called _magisier actu regens_; if he departed from
the university or took up other work, he was called _magister non
regens_. It may be said that, as a general rule, the course of
reading was: (1) for the bachelor's degree, grammar, logic, and
psychology; (2) for the licentiate, natural philosophy; (3) for the
master's degree, ethics, and the completion of the course of natural
philosophy."
Quite apart from the value of its methods, however, scholasticism in
certain of its features had a value in the material which it discussed
and developed that modern generations only too frequently fail to
realize. With regard to this the same distinguished authority whom we
quoted with regard to dialectics, Prof. Saintsbury, does not hesitate
to use expressions which will seem little short of rankly heretical to
those who swear by modern science, and yet may serve to inject some
eminently suggestive ideas into a sadly misunderstood subject.
"Yet there has always in generous souls who have some tincture of
philosophy, subsisted a curious kind of sympathy and yearning over
the work of these generations of mainly disinterested scholars, who,
whatever they were, were thorough, and whatever they could not do,
could think. _And there, have even, in these latter days, been some
graceless ones who have asked whether the Science of the nineteenth
century, after an equal interval, will be of any more positive
value--whether it will not have even less comparative interest than
that which appertains to the Scholasticism of the Thirteenth."_
In the light of this it has seemed well to try to show in terms of
present-day science some of the important reflections with regard to
such problems of natural history, as magnetism, the composition of
matter, and the relation of things physical to one another, which we
now include under the name science, some of the thoughts that these
scholars of the Thirteenth Century were thinking and were developing
for the benefit of the {37} enthusiastic students who flocked to the
universities. We will find in such a review though it must necessarily
be brief many more anticipations of modern science than would be
thought possible.
To take the example for the moment of magnetism which is usually
considered to be a subject entirely of modern attention, a good idea
of the intense interest of this century in things scientific, can be
obtained from the following short paragraph in which Brother Potamian
in his sketch of Petrus Peregrinus, condenses the references to
magnetic phenomena that are found in the literature of the time. Most
of the writers he mentions were not scientists in the ordinary sense
of the word but were literary men, and the fact that these references
occur shows very clearly that there must have been wide-spread
interest in such scientific phenomena, since they had attracted the
attention of literary writers, who would not have spoken of them
doubtless, but that they knew that in this they would be satisfying as
well as exciting public interest.
"Abbot Neckam, the Augustinian (1157-1217), distinguished between
the properties of the two ends of the lodestone, and gives in his De
Utensilibus, what is perhaps the earliest reference to the mariner's
compass that we have. Albertus Magnus, the Dominican (1193-1280), in
his treatise De Mineralibus, enumerates different kinds of natural
magnets and states some of the properties commonly attributed to
them; the minstrel, Guyot de Provins, in a famous satirical poem,
written about 1208, refers to the directive quality of the lodestone
and its use in navigation, as do also Cardinal de Vitry in his
Historia Orientialis (1215-1220), Brunetto Latini, poet, orator and
philosopher (the teacher of Dante), in his Tresor des Sciences, a
veritable library, written in Paris in 1260; Raymond Lully, the
enlightened Doctor, in his treatise, De Contemplatione, begun in
1272, and Guido Guinicelli, the poet-priest of Bologna, who died in
1276." [Footnote 4]
[Footnote 4: The letter of Petrus Peregrinus on the Magnet, A. D.
1269, translated by Bro. Arnold, M. Sc., with an Introductory Note
by Bro. Potamian, N. Y., 1904.]
{38}
The metaphysics of the medieval universities have come in for quite as
much animadversion, not to say ridicule, as the dialectics. None of
its departments is spared in the condemnation, though most fun is made
of the gropings of the medieval mind after truth in the physical
sciences. The cosmology, the science of matter as it appealed to the
medieval mind, is usually considered to have been so entirely
speculative as to deserve no further attention. We have presumably,
learned so much by experimental demonstration and original observation
in the physical sciences, that any thinking of the medieval mind along
these lines may, in the opinion of those who know nothing of what they
speak, be set aside as preposterous, or at best nugatory. It will
surely be a source of surprise, then, to find that in the
consideration of the composition of matter and of the problem of the
forces connected with it, the minds of the medieval schoolmen were
occupied with just the same questions that have been most interesting
to the Nineteenth Century and that curiously enough the conclusions
they reached, though by very different methods of investigation, were
almost exactly the same as those to which modern physical scientists
have attained by their refined methods of investigation.
One or two examples will suffice, I think, to show very clearly that
the students of the Thirteenth Century had presented to them
practically the same problems with regard to matter, its origin and
composition, as occupy the students of the present generation. For
instance Thomas Aquinas usually known as St. Thomas, in a series of
lectures given at the University of Paris toward the end of the third
quarter of the Thirteenth Century, stated as the most important
conclusion with regard to matter, that _"Nihil omnino in nihilum
redigetur_,"' "Nothing at all will ever be reduced to nothingness." By
this it was very evident from the context that he meant that matter
would never be annihilated and could never be destroyed. It might be
changed in various ways but it could never go back into the
nothingness from which it had been taken by the creative act.
Annihilation was pronounced as not being a part of the scheme of
things as far as the human mind could hope to fathom its meaning.
In this sentence, then, Thomas of Aquin was proclaiming the {39}
doctrine of the indestructibility of matter. It was not until well on
in the nineteenth century that the chemists and physicists of modern
times realized the truth of this great principle. The chemists had
seen matter change its form in many ways, had seen it disappear
apparently in the smoke of fire or evaporate under the influence of
heat, but investigation proved that if care were taken in the
collection of the gases that came off under these circumstances, of
the ashes of combustion and of the residue of evaporation, all the
original material that had been contained in the supposedly
disappearing substance could be recovered or at least completely
accounted for. The physicists on their part had realized this same
truth and finally there came the definite enunciation of the absolute
indestructibility of matter. St. Thomas' conclusion "Nothing at all
will ever be reduced to nothingness" had anticipated this doctrine by
nearly seven centuries. What happened in the Nineteenth Century was
that there came an experimental demonstration of the truth of the
principle. The principle itself, however, had been reached long before
by the human mind by speculative processes quite as inerrable in their
way as the more modern method of investigation.
When St. Thomas used the aphorism "Nothing at all will ever be reduced
to nothingness" there was another signification that he attached to
the words quite as clearly as that by which they expressed the
indestructibility of matter. For him _Nihil_ or nothing meant neither
_matter_ nor _form_, that is, neither the material substance nor the
energy which is contained in it. He meant then, that no energy would
ever be destroyed as well as no matter would ever be annihilated. He
was teaching the conservation of energy as well as the
indestructibility of matter. Here once more the experimental
demonstration of the doctrine was delayed for over six centuries and a
half. The truth itself, however, had been reached by this medieval
master-mind and was the subject of his teaching to the university
students in Paris in the Thirteenth Century. These examples should, I
think, serve to illustrate that the minds of medieval students were
occupied with practically the same questions as those which are now
taught to the university students of our day. There are, however, some
even {40} more striking anticipations of modern teaching that will
serve to demonstrate this community of educational interests in spite
of seven centuries of time separation.
In recent years we have come to realize that matter is not the
manifold material we were accustomed to think it when we accepted the
hypothesis that there were some seventy odd different kinds of atoms,
each one absolutely independent of any other and representing an
ultimate term in science. The atomic theory from this standpoint has
proved to be only a working hypothesis that was useful for a time, but
that our physicists are now agreed must not be considered as something
absolute. Radium has been observed changing into helium and the
relations of atoms to one another as they are now known, make it
almost certain that all of them have an underlying sub-stratum the
same in all, but differentiated by the dynamic energies with which
matter in its different forms is gifted. Sir Oliver Lodge has stated
this theory of the constitution of matter very clearly in recent
years, and in doing so has only been voicing the practically universal
sentiment of those who have been following the latest developments in
the physical sciences. Strange as it may appear, this was exactly the
teaching of Aquinas and the schoolmen with regard to the constitution
of matter. They said that the two constituting principles of matter
were prime matter and form. By prime matter they meant the material
sub-stratum the same in all material things. By form they meant the
special dynamic energy which, entering into prime matter, causes it to
act differently from other kinds and gives it all the particular
qualities by which we recognize it. This theory was not original with
them, having been adopted from Aristotle, but it was very clearly set
forth, profoundly discussed, and amply illustrated by the schoolmen.
In its development this theory was made to be of the greatest help in
the explanation of many other difficulties with regard to living as
well as non-living things in their hands. The theory has its
difficulties, but they are less than those of any other theory of the
constitution of matter, and it has been accepted by more philosophic
thinkers since the Thirteenth Century than any other doctrine of
similar nature. It may be said that it was reached only by deduction
and not by experimental observation. Such an expression, {41} however,
instead of being really an objection is rather a demonstration of the
fact that great truths may be reached by deduction yet only
demonstrated by inductive methods many centuries later.
Of course it may well be said even after all these communities of
interest between the medieval and the modern teaching of the general
principles of science has been pointed out, that the universities of
the Middle Ages did not present the subjects under discussion in a
practical way, and their teaching was not likely to lead to directly
beneficial results in applied science. It might well he responded to
this, that it is not the function of a university to teach
applications of science but only the great principles, the broad
generalizations that underlie scientific thinking, leaving details to
be filled in in whatever form of practical work the man may take up.
Very few of those, however, who talk about the purely speculative
character of medieval teaching have manifestly ever made it their
business to know anything about the actual facts of old-time
university teaching by definite knowledge, but have rather allowed
themselves to be guided by speculation and by inadequate second-hand
authorities, whose dicta they have never taken the trouble to
substantiate by a glance at contemporary authorities on medieval
matters.
It will be interesting to quote for the information of such men, the
opinion of the greatest of medieval scientists with regard to the
reason why men do not obtain real knowledge more rapidly than would
seem ought to be the case, from the amount of work which they have
devoted to obtaining it. Roger Bacon, summing up for Pope Clement the
body of doctrine that he was teaching at the University of Oxford in
the Thirteenth Century, starts out with the principle that there are
four grounds of human ignorance. "These are first, trust in inadequate
authority; second, the force of custom which leads men to accept too
unquestioningly what has been accepted before their time; third, the
placing of confidence in the opinion of the inexperienced; and fourth,
the hiding of one's own ignorance with the parade of a superficial
wisdom." Surely no one will ever be able to improve on these four
grounds for human ignorance, and they continue to be as {42} important
in the twentieth century as they were in the Thirteenth. They could
only have emanated from an eminently practical mind, accustomed to
test by observation and by careful searching of authorities, every
proposition that came to him. Professor Henry Morley, Professor of
English Literature at University College, London, says of these
grounds for ignorance of Roger Bacon, in his English Writers, Volume
III, page 321: "No part of that ground has yet been cut away from
beneath the feet of students, although six centuries ago the Oxford
friar clearly pointed out its character. We still make sheep walks of
second, third, and fourth and fiftieth-hand references to authority;
still we are the slaves of habit; still we are found following too
frequently the untaught crowd; still we flinch from the righteous and
wholesome phrase, 'I do not know'; and acquiesce actively in the
opinion of others that we know what we appear to know. Substitute
honest research, original and independent thought, strict truth in the
comparison of only what we really know with what is really known by
others, and the strong redoubt of ignorance has fallen."
The number of things which Roger Bacon succeeded in discovering by the
application of the principle of testing everything by personal
observation, is almost incredible to a modern student of science and
of education who has known nothing before of the progress in science
made by this wonderful man. He has been sometimes declared to be the
discoverer of gunpowder, but this is a mistake since it was known many
years before by the Arabs and by them introduced into Europe. He did
study explosives very deeply, however, and besides learning many
things about them realized how much might be accomplished by their use
in the after-time. He declares in his Opus Magnum: "That one may cause
to burst forth from bronze, thunderbolts more formidable than those
produced by nature. A small quantity of prepared matter occasions a
terrible explosion accompanied by a brilliant light. One may multiply
this phenomenon so far as to destroy a city or an army." Considering
how little was known about gunpowder at this time, this was of itself
a marvelous anticipation of what might be accomplished by it.
[Illustration]
RATHHAUS (TANGERMUeNDE)
Bacon prophesied, however, much more than merely {43} destructive
effects from the use of high explosives, and indeed it is almost
amusing to see how closely he anticipated some of the most modern
usages of high explosives for motor purposes. He seems to have
concluded that some time the apparently uncontrollable forces of
explosion would come under the control of man and be harnessed by him
for his own purposes. He realized that one of the great applications
of such a force would be for transportation. Accordingly he said: "Art
can construct instruments of navigation such that the largest vessels
governed by a single man will traverse rivers and seas more rapidly
than if they were filled with oarsmen. One may also make carriages
which without the aid of any animal will run with remarkable
swiftness." [Footnote 5] When we recall that the very latest thing
in transportation are motor-boats and automobiles driven by gasoline,
a high explosive, Roger Bacon's prophesy becomes one of these weird
anticipations of human progress which seem almost more than human.
[Footnote 5: These quotations are taken from Ozanam's Dante and
Catholic Philosophy, published by the Cathedral Library Association,
New York, 1897. ]
It was not with regard to explosives alone, however, that Roger Bacon
was to make great advances and still more marvelous anticipations in
physical science. He was not, as is sometimes claimed for him, either
the inventor of the telescope or of the theory of lenses. He did more,
however, than perhaps anyone else to make the principles of lenses
clear and to establish them on a mathematical basis. His traditional
connection with the telescope can probably be traced to the fact that
he was very much interested in astronomy and the relations of the
heavens to the earth. He pointed out very clearly the errors which had
crept into the Julian calendar, calculated exactly how much of a
correction was needed in order to restore the year to its proper
place, and suggested the method by which future errors of this kind
could be avoided. His ideas were too far beyond his century to be
applied in a practical way, but they were not to be without their
effect and it is said that they formed the basis of the subsequent
correction of the calendar in the time of Pope Gregory XIII three
centuries later.
{44}
It is rather surprising to find how much besides the theory of lenses
Friar Bacon had succeeded in finding out in the department of optics.
He taught, for instance, the principle of the aberration of light,
and, still more marvelous to consider, taught that light did not
travel instantaneously but had a definite rate of motion, though this
was extremely rapid. It is rather difficult to understand how he
reached this conclusion since light travels so fast that as far as
regards any observation that can be made upon earth, the diffusion is
practically instantaneous. It was not for over three centuries later
that Roemer, the German astronomer, demonstrated the motion of light
and its rate, by his observations upon the moons of Jupiter at
different phases of the earth's orbit, which showed that the light of
these moons took a definite and quite appreciable time to reach the
earth after their eclipse by the planet was over.
We are not surprised to find that Bacon should praise those of his
contemporaries who devoted themselves to mathematics and to
experimental observations in science. Of one of his correspondents who
even from distant Italy sent him his observations in order that he
might have the great Franciscan's precious comments on them. Bacon has
given quite a panegyric. The reasons for his praise, however, are so
different from those which are ordinarily proclaimed to have been the
sources of laudation in distant medieval scientific circles, that we
prefer to quote Bacon's own words from the Opus Tertium. Bacon is
talking of Petrus Peregrinus and says: "I know of only one person who
deserves praise for his work in experimental philosophy, for he does
not care for the discourses of men and their wordy warfare, but
quietly and diligently pursues the works of wisdom. Therefore, what
others grope after blindly, as bats in the evening twilight, this man
contemplates in all their brilliancy because he is a master of
experiment. Hence, he knows all natural science whether pertaining to
medicine and alchemy, or to matters celestial and terrestrial.
"He has worked diligently in the smelting of ores as also in the
working of minerals; he is thoroughly acquainted with all sorts of
arms and implements used in military service and in hunting, besides
which he is skilled in agriculture and in the measurement of lands.
{45} It is impossible to write a useful or correct treatise in
experimental philosophy without mentioning this man's name.
Moreover, he pursues knowledge for its own sake; for if he wished to
obtain royal favor, he could easily find sovereigns who would honor
and enrich him."
[Illustration]
CATHEDRAL (YORK)
[Illustration]
CATHEDRAL (HEREFORD)
Lest it should be thought that these expressions of laudatory
appreciation of the great Thirteenth Century scientist are dictated
more by the desire to magnify his work and to bring out the influence
in science of the Churchmen of the period, it seems well to quote an
expression of opinion from the modern historian of the inductive
sciences, whose praise is scarcely if any less outspoken than that of
others whom we have quoted and who might be supposed to be somewhat
partial in their judgment. This opinion will fortify the doubters who
must have authority and at the same time sums up very excellently the
position which Roger Bacon occupies in the History of Science.
Dr. Whewell says that Roger Bacon's Opus Majus is "the encyclopedia
and Novam Organon of the Thirteenth Century, a work equally wonderful
with regard to its general scheme and to the special treatises with
which the outlines of the plans are filled up. The professed object of
the work is to urge the necessity of a reform in the mode of
philosophizing, to set forth the reasons why knowledge had not made a
greater progress, to draw back attention to the sources of knowledge
which had been unwisely neglected, to discover other sources which
were yet almost untouched, and to animate men in the undertaking by a
prospect of the vast advantages which it offered. In the development
of this plan all the leading portions of science are expanded in the
most complete shape which they had at that time assumed; and
improvements of a very wide and striking kind are proposed in some of
the principal branches of study. Even if the work had no leading
purposes it would have been highly valuable as a treasure of the most
solid knowledge and soundest speculations of the time; even if it had
contained no such details it would have been a work most remarkable
for its general views and scope."
It is only what might have been expected, however, from {46} Roger
Bacon's training that he should have made great progress in the
physical sciences. At the University of Paris his favorite teacher was
Albertus Magnus, who was himself deeply interested in all the physical
sciences, though he was more concerned with the study of chemical
problems than of the practical questions which were to occupy his
greatest pupil. There is no doubt at all that Albertus Magnus
accomplished a great amount of experimental work in chemistry and had
made a large series of actual observations. He was a theologian as
well as a philosopher and a scientist. Some idea of the immense
industry of the man can be obtained from the fact that his complete
works as published consist of some twenty large folio volumes, each
one of which contains on the average at least 500,000 words.
Among these works are many treatises relating to chemistry. The titles
of some of them will serve to show how explicit was Albert in his
consideration of various chemical subjects. He has treatises
concerning Metals and Minerals; concerning Alchemy; A Treatise on the
Secret of Chemistry; A Concordance, that is a Collection of
observations from many sources with regard to the Philosopher's Stone;
A Brief Compend on the Origin of the Metals; A Treatise on Compounds;
most of these are to be found in his works under the general heading
"Theatrum Chemicum."
It is not surprising for those who know of Albert's work, to find that
his pupil Roger Bacon defined the limits of chemistry very accurately
and showed that he understood exactly what the subject and methods of
investigation must be, in order that advance should be made in it. Of
chemistry he speaks in his "Opus Tertium" in the following words:
"There is a science which treats of the generation of things from
their elements and of all inanimate things, as of the elements and
liquids, simple and compound, common stones, gems and marble, gold and
other metals, sulphur, salts, pigments, lapis lazuli, minium and other
colors, oils, bitumen, and infinite more of which we find nothing in
the books of Aristotle; nor are the natural philosophers nor any of
the Latins acquainted with these things."
In physics Albertus Magnus was, if possible, more advanced {47} and
progressive even than in chemistry. His knowledge in the physical
sciences was not merely speculative, but partook to a great degree of
the nature of what we now call applied science. Humboldt, the
distinguished German natural philosopher of the beginning of the
Nineteenth Century, who was undoubtedly the most important leader in
scientific thought in his time and whose own work was great enough to
have an enduring influence in spite of the immense progress of the
Nineteenth Century, has summed up Albert's work and given the headings
under which his scientific research must be considered. He says:
"Albertus Magnus was equally active and influential in promoting the
study of natural science and of the Aristotelian philosophy. His
works contain some exceedingly acute remarks on the organic
structure and physiology of plants. One of his works bearing the
title of 'Liber Cosmographicus de Natura Locorum,' is a species of
physical geography. I have found in it considerations on the
dependence of temperature concurrently on latitude and elevation,
and on the effect of different angles of incidence of the sun's rays
in heating the ground, _which have excited my surprise_."
To take up some of Humboldt's headings in their order and illustrate
them by quotations from Albert himself and from condensed accounts as
they appear in his biographer Sighart and in Christian Schools and
Scholars [Footnote 6], will serve to show at once the extent of
Albert's knowledge and the presumptuous ignorance of those who make
little of the science of the medieval period. When we have catalogued,
for instance, the many facts with regard to astronomy and the physics
of light that are supposed to have come to human ken much later, yet
may be seen to have been clearly within the range of Albert's
knowledge, and evidently formed the subject of his teaching at various
times at both Paris and Cologne, for they are found in his authentic
works, we can scarcely help but be amused at the pretentious
misconception that has relegated their author to a place in education
so trivial as is that which is represented in many minds by the term
scholastic.
[Footnote 6: Christian Schools and Scholars. Drane.]
"He decides that the Milky Way is nothing but a vast {48} assemblage
of stars, but supposes naturally enough that they occupy the orbit
which receives the light of the sun. The figures visible on the
moon's disc are not, he says, as hitherto has been supposed,
reflections of the seas and mountains of the earth, but
configurations of her own surface. He notices, in order to correct
it, the assertion of Aristotle that lunar rainbows appear only twice
in fifty years; 'I myself,' he says have observed two in a single
year.' He has something to say on the refraction of a solar ray,
notices certain crystals which have a power of refraction, and
remarks that none of the ancients and few moderns were acquainted
with the properties of mirrors."
Albert's great pupil Roger Bacon is rightly looked upon as the true
father of inductive science, an honor that history has unfortunately
taken from him to confer it undeservedly on his namesake of four
centuries later, but the teaching out of which Roger Bacon was to
develop the principles of experimental science can be found in many
places in his master's writings. In Albert's tenth book, wherein he
catalogues and describes all the trees, plants, and herbs known in his
time, he observes: "All that is here set down is the result of our own
experience, or has been borrowed from authors whom we know to have
written what their personal experience has confirmed: for in these
matters experience alone can give certainty" (_experimentum solum
certificat in talibus_). "Such an expression," says his biographer,
"which might have proceeded from the pen of (Francis) Bacon, argues in
itself a prodigious scientific progress, and shows that the medieval
friar was on the track so successfully pursued by modern natural
philosophy. He had fairly shaken off the shackles which had hitherto
tied up discovery, and was the slave neither of Pliny nor of
Aristotle."
Botany is supposed to be a very modern science and to most people
Humboldt's expression that he found in Albertus Magnus's writings some
"exceedingly acute remarks on the organic structure and physiology of
plants" will come as a supreme surprise. A few details with regard to
Albert's botanical knowledge, however, will serve to heighten that
surprise and to show, that the foolish tirades of modern sciolists,
{49} who have often expressed their wonder that with all the beauties
of nature around them, these scholars of the Middle Ages did not
devote themselves to nature study, are absurd, because if the critics
but knew it there was profound interest in nature and all her
manifestations and a series of discoveries that anticipated not a
little of what we consider most important in our modern science. The
story of Albert's botanical knowledge has been told in a single very
full paragraph by his biographer. Sighart also quotes an appreciative
opinion from a modern German botanist which will serve to dispel any
doubts with regard to Albert's position in botany that modern students
might perhaps continue to harbor, unless they had good authority to
support their opinion, though of course it will be remembered that the
main difference between the medieval and the modern mind is only too
often said to be, that the medieval required an authority while the
modern makes its opinion for itself. Even the most skeptical of modern
minds however, will probably be satisfied by the following paragraph.
"He was acquainted with the sleep of plants, with the periodical
opening and closing of blossoms, with the diminution of sap through
evaporation from the cuticle of the leaves, and with the influence
of the distribution of the bundles of vessels on the folial
indentations. His minute observations on the forms and variety of
plants intimate an exquisite sense of floral beauty. He
distinguished the star from the bell-floral, tells us that a red
rose will turn white when submitted to the vapor of sulphur and
makes some very sagacious observations on the subject of
germination. . . . The extraordinary erudition and originality of this
treatise (his tenth book) has drawn from M. Meyer the following
comment: 'No Botanist who lived before Albert can be compared to
him, unless Theophrastus, with whom he was not acquainted; and after
him none has painted nature in such living colors or studied it so
profoundly until the time of Conrad Gesner and Cesalpino.' All
honor, then, to the man who made such astonishing progress in the
science of nature as to find no one, I will not say to surpass, but
even to equal him for the space of three centuries."
{50}
We point out in the chapter on Geography and Exploration how much this
wonderful Thirteenth Century added to the knowledge of geographical
science. Even before the great explorers of this time, however, had
accomplished their work, this particular branch of science had made
such great progress as would bring it quite within the domain of what
we call the science of geography at the present time. When we remember
how much has been said about the ignorance of the men of the later
Middle Ages as regards the shape of the earth and its inhabitants, and
how many foolish notions they are supposed to have accepted with
regard to the limitation of possible residents of the world and the
queer ideas as to the antipodes, the following passages taken from
Albert's biographer will serve better than anything else to show how
absurdly the traditional notions with regard to this time and its
knowledge, have been permitted by educators to tinge what are supposed
to be serious opinions with regard to the subject matters of education
in that early university period:
"He treats as fabulous the commonly-received idea, in which Bede had
acquiesced, that the region of the earth south of the equator was
uninhabitable, and considers, that from the equator to the South
Pole, the earth was not only habitable, but in all probability
actually inhabited, except directly at the poles, where he imagines
the cold to be excessive. If there be any animals there, he says,
they must have very thick skins to defend them from the rigor of the
climate, and they are probably of a white color. The intensity of
cold, is however, tempered by the action of the sea. He describes
the antipodes and the countries they comprise, and divides the
climate of the earth into seven zones. He smiles with a scholar's
freedom at the simplicity of those who suppose that persons living
at the opposite region of the earth must fall off, an opinion that
can only rise out of the grossest ignorance, 'for when we speak of
the lower hemisphere, this must be understood merely as relatively
to ourselves.' It is as a geographer that Albert's superiority to
the writers of his own time chiefly appears. Bearing in mind the
astonishing ignorance which then prevailed on this subject, it is
truly admirable to find him correctly tracing the chief mountain
chains of Europe, with the rivers which take {51} their source in
each; remarking on portions of coast which have in later times been
submerged by the ocean, and islands which have been raised by
volcanic action above the level of the sea; noticing the
modification of climate caused by mountains, seas and forests, and
the division of the human race whose differences he ascribes to the
effect upon them of the countries they inhabit! In speaking of the
British Isles he alludes to the commonly-received idea that another
distant island called Tile or Thule, existed far in the Western
Ocean, uninhabitable by reason of its frightful climate, but which,
he says, has perhaps not yet been visited by man."
Nothing will so seriously disturb the complacency of modern minds as
to the wonderful advances that have been made in the last century in
all branches of physical science as to read Albertus Magnus' writings.
Nothing can be more wholesomely chastening of present day conceit than
to get a proper appreciation of the extent of the knowledge of the
Schoolmen.
Albertus Magnus' other great pupil besides Roger Bacon was St. Thomas
Aquinas. If any suspicion were still left that Thomas did not
appreciate just what the significance of his teachings in physics was,
when he announced that neither matter nor force could ever be reduced
to nothingness, it would surely be removed by the consideration that
he had been for many years in intimate relations with Albert and that
he had probably also been close to Roger Bacon. After association with
such men as these, any knowledge he displays with regard to physical
science can scarcely be presumed to have been stumbled upon unawares.
St. Thomas himself has left three treatises on chemical subjects and
it is said that the first occurrence of the word amalgam can be traced
to one of these treatises. Everybody was as much interested then, as
we are at the present time, in the transformation of metals and
mercury with its silvery sheen, its facility to enter into metallic
combinations of all kinds, and its elusive ways, naturally made it the
center of scientific interest quite as radium is at the present
moment. Further material with regard to St. Thomas and also to the
subject of education will be found in the chapter, Aquinas the
Scholar.
After this brief review of only a few of the things that they taught
in science at the Thirteenth Century universities, most {52} people
will scarcely fail to wonder how such peculiar erroneous impressions
with regard to the uselessness of university teaching and training
have come to be so generally accepted. The fault lies, of course, with
those who thought they knew something about university teaching, and
who, because they found a few things that now look ridiculous, as
certain supposed facts of one generation always will to succeeding
generations who know more about them, thought they could conclude from
these as to the character of the whole content of medieval education.
It is only another example of what Artemus Ward pointed out so
effectively when he said that "there is nothing that makes men so
ridiculous as the knowing so many things that aint so." We have been
accepting without question ever so many things that simply are not so
with regard to these wonderful generations, who not only organized the
universities but organized the teaching in them on lines not very
different from those which occupy people seven centuries later.
What would be the most amusing feature, if it were not unfortunately
so serious an arraignment of the literature that has grown up around
these peculiar baseless notions with regard to scholastic philosophy,
is the number of men of science who have permitted themselves to make
fun of certain supposed lucubrations of the great medieval
philosophers. It is not so very long ago that, as pointed out by
Harper in the Metaphysics of the School, Professor Tate in a lecture
on Some Recent Advances in Physical Science repeated the old slander
that even Aquinas occupied the attention of his students with such
inane questions as: "How many angels could dance on the point of a
needle?" Modern science very proudly insists that it occupies itself
with observations and concerns itself little with authority. Prof.
Tate in this unhappy quotation, shows not only that he has made no
personal studies in medieval philosophy but that he has accepted a
very inadequate authority for the statements which he makes with as
much confidence as if they had been the result of prolonged research
in this field. Many other modern scientists (?) have fallen into like
blunders. (For Huxley's opinion see Appendix.)
The modern student, as well as the teacher, is prone to wonder what
were the methods of study and the habits of life {53} of the students
of the Thirteenth Century, and fortunately we have a short sketch,
written by Robert of Sorbonne, the famous founder of the Sorbonne, in
which he gives advice to attendants at that institution as to how they
should spend their time, so that at least we are able to get a hint of
the ideals that were set before the student. Robert, whose long
experience of university life made him thoroughly competent to advise,
said:
"The student who wishes to make progress ought to observe six
essential rules.
"First: He ought to consecrate a certain hour every day to the study
of a determined subject, as St. Bernard counselled his monks in his
letter to the Brothers of the Mont Dieu.
"Second: He ought to concentrate his attention upon what he reads
and ought not to let it pass lightly. There is between reading and
study, as St. Bernard says, the same difference as between a host
and a guest, between a passing salutation exchanged in the street
and an embrace prompted by an unalterable affection.
"Third: He ought to extract from the daily study one thought, some
truth or other, and engrave it deeply upon his memory with special
care. Seneca said _'Cum multa percurreris in die, unum tibi elige
quod illa die excoquas'_--When you have run over many things in a
day select one for yourself which you should digest well on that
day.
"Fourth: Write a resume of it, for words which are not confided to
writing fly as does the dust before the wind.
"Fifth: Talk the matter over with your fellow-students, either in
the regular recitation or in your familiar conversation. This
exercise is even more profitable than study for it has as its result
the clarifying of all doubts and the removing of all the obscurity
that study may have left. Nothing is perfectly known unless it has
been tried by the tooth of disputation.
"Sixth: Pray, for this is indeed one of the best ways of learning.
St. Bernard teaches that study ought to touch the heart and that one
should profit by it always by elevating the heart to God, _without,
however, interrupting the study_."
Sorbonne proceeds in a tone that vividly recalls the modern university
professor who has seen generation after generation {54} of students
and has learned to realize how many of them waste their time.
"Certain students act like fools; they display great subtility over
nonsensical subjects and exhibit themselves devoid of intelligence
with regard to their most important studies. So as not to seem to
have lost their time they gather together many sheets of parchment,
make thick volumes of note books out of them, with many a blank
interval, and cover them with elegant binding in red letters. Then
they return to the paternal domicile with their little sack filled
up with knowledge which can be stolen from them by any thief that
comes along, or may be eaten by rats or by worms or destroyed by
fire or water.
"In order to acquire instruction the student must abstain from
pleasure and not allow himself to be hampered by material cares.
There was at Paris not long since two teachers who were great
friends. One of them had seen much, had read much and used to remain
night and day bent over his books. He scarcely took the time to say
an 'Our Father.' Nevertheless he had but four students. His
colleague possessed a much less complete library, was less devoted
to study and heard mass every morning before delivering his lecture.
In spite of this, his classroom was full. 'How do you do it?' asked
his friend. 'It is very simple,' said his friend smiling. 'God
studies for me. I go to mass and when I come back I know by heart
all that I have to teach.'"
"Meditation," so Sorbonne continues, "is suitable not only for the
master, but the good student ought also to go and take his promenade
along the banks of the Seine, not to play there, but in order to
repeat his lesson and meditate upon it."
These instructions for students are not very different from those that
would be issued by an interested head of a university department to
the freshmen of the present day. His insistence, especially on the
difference between reading and study, might very well be taken to
heart at the present time, when there seems to be some idea that
reading of itself is sufficient to enable one to obtain an education.
The lesson of learning one thing a day and learning that well, might
have been selected as a motto for students for all succeeding
generations with manifest advantage to the success of college study.
{55}
In other things Sorbonne departs further from our modern ideas in the
matter of education, but still there are many even at the present time
who will read with profound sympathy his emphatic advice to the
University students that they must educate their hearts as well as
their intellects, and make their education subserve the purpose of
bringing them closer to God.
A word about certain customs that prevailed more or less generally in
the universities at this time, and that after having been much
misunderstood will now be looked at more sympathetically in the light
of recent educational developments will not be out of place here.
One of the advantages of modern German university education has often
been acclaimed to be the fact that students are tempted to make
portions of their studies in various cities, since all the courses are
equalized in certain ways, so that the time spent at any one of them
will be counted properly for their degrees. It has long been
recognized that travel makes the best possible complement to a
university course, and even when the English universities in the
Eighteenth Century sank to be little more than pleasant abiding places
where young men of the upper classes "ate their terms," the fact that
it was the custom "to make the grand tour" of continental travel,
supplied for much that was lacking in the serious side of their
education. Little as this might be anticipated as a feature of the
ruder times of the Thirteenth Century, when travel was so difficult,
it must be counted as one of the great advantages for the inquiring
spirits of the time. Dante, besides attending the universities in
Italy, and he certainly was at several of them, was also at Paris at
one time and probably also at Oxford. Professor Monroe in his text
book in the History of Education has stated this custom very
distinctly.
"With the founding of the universities and the establishment of the
nations in practically every university, it became quite customary
for students to travel from university to university, finding in
each a home in their appropriate nation. Many, however, willing to
accept the privileges of the clergy and the students without
undertaking their obligations, adopted this wandering life as a
permanent one. Being a privileged order, they readily found a
living, or made it by begging. A monk of {56} the early university
period writes: 'The scholars are accustomed to wander throughout the
whole world and visit all the cities, and their many studies bring
them understanding. For in Paris they seek a knowledge of the
liberal arts; of the ancient writers at Orleans; of medicine at
Salernum; of the black art at Toledo; and in no place decent
manners.'"
With regard to the old monk's criticism it must be remembered that old
age is always rather depreciative in criticism of the present and
over-appreciative of what happened in the past _se pueris_. Abuses
always seem to be creeping in that are going to ruin the force of
education, yet somehow the next generation succeeds in obtaining its
intellectual development in rather good shape. Besides as we must
always remember in educational questions, evils are ever exaggerated
and the memory of them is prone to live longer and to loom up larger
than that of the good with which they were associated and to which
indeed, as anyone of reasonable experience in educational circles
knows, they may constitute by comparison only a very small amount.
Undoubtedly the wanderings of students brought with it many abuses,
and if we were to listen to some of the stories of foreign student
life in Paris in our own time, we might think that much of evil and
nothing of good was accomplished by such wandering, but inasmuch as we
do so we invite serious error of judgment.
Another striking feature of university life which constituted a
distinct anticipation of something very modern in our educational
system, was the lending of professors of different nationalities among
the universities. It is only at the beginning of the Twentieth Century
that we have reestablished this custom. In the Thirteenth Century,
however, Albertus Magnus taught for a time at Cologne and then later
at Paris and apparently also at Rome. St. Thomas of Aquin, after
having taught for a time at Paris, lectured in various Italian
universities and then finally at the University of Rome to which he
was tempted by the Popes. Duns Scotus, besides teaching in Oxford,
taught also at Paris. Alexander of Hales before him seems to have done
the same thing. Roger Bacon, after studying at the University of
Paris, seems to have commenced teaching there, though most of his
professional work was {57} accomplished at the University of Oxford.
Raymond Lully probably had professional experiences at several Spanish
Universities besides at Paris. In a word, if a man were a
distinguished genius he was almost sure to be given the opportunity to
influence his generation at a number of centers of educational life,
and not be confined as has been the case in the centuries since to but
one or at most, and that more by accident than intent, to perhaps two.
In a word there is not a distinctive feature of modern university life
that was not anticipated in the Thirteenth Century.
[Illustration]
FLYING BUTTRESS (AMIENS)
{58}
IV
THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS AND DISCIPLINE.
For most people the surprise of finding that the subjects with which
the students were occupied at the universities of the Thirteenth
Century were very much the same as those which claim the attention of
modern students, will probably be somewhat mitigated by the thought
that after all there were only few in attendance at the universities,
and as a consequence only a small proportion of the population shared
in that illumination, which has become so universal in the spread of
opportunities for the higher education in these later times. While
such an impression is cherished by many even of those who think that
they know the history of education, and unfortunately are considered
_by others_ to be authorities on the subject, it is the falsest
possible idea that could be conceived of this medieval time with which
we are concerned. We may say at once that it is a matter of
comparatively easy collation of statistics to show, that in proportion
to the population of the various countries, there were actually more
students taking advantage of the opportunity to acquire university
education in the Thirteenth Century, than there were at any time in
the Nineteenth Century, or even in the midst of this era of widespread
educational opportunities in the Twentieth Century.
Most people know the traditions which declare that there were between
twenty and thirty thousand students at the University of Paris toward
the end of the Thirteenth Century. At the same time there were said to
have been between fifteen and twenty thousand students at the
University of Bologna. Correspondingly large numbers have been
reported for the University of Oxford and many thousands were supposed
to be in attendance at the University of Cambridge. It is usually
considered, however, that these figures are gross exaggerations. It is
easy to assert this but rather difficult to prove. As a matter of fact
the nearer one comes to the actual times in the {59} history of
education, the more definitely do writers speak of these large numbers
of students in attendance. For instance Gascoigne, who says that there
were thirty thousand students at the University of Oxford at the end
of the Thirteenth Century, lived himself within a hundred years of the
events of which he talks, and he even goes so far as to declare that
he saw the rolls of the University containing this many names. There
is no doubt at all about his evidence in the matter and there is no
mistake possible with regard to his figures. They were written out in
Latin, not expressed in Arabic or Roman numerals, the copying of which
might so easily give opportunities for error to creep in.
In spite of such evidence it is generally conceded that to accept
these large numbers would be almost surely a mistake. There were
without any doubt many thousands of students at the Thirteenth Century
universities. There were certainly more students at the University of
Paris in the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century than there were at
any time during the Nineteenth Century. This of itself is enough to
startle modern complacency out of most of its ridiculous
self-sufficiency. There can be scarcely a doubt that the University of
Bologna at the time of its largest attendance had more students than
any university of modern times, proud as we may be (and deservedly) of
our immense institutions of learning. With regard to the English
universities the presence of very large numbers is much more doubtful.
Making every allowance, however, there can be no hesitation in saying
that Oxford had during the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century a
larger number than ever afterwards within her walls and that
Cambridge, though never so numerous as her rival, had a like good
fortune. Professor Laurie of Edinburgh, a very conservative authority
and one not likely to concede too much to the Middle Ages in anything,
would allow, as we shall see, some ten thousand students to Oxford.
Others have claimed more than half that number for Cambridge as the
lowest possible estimate. Even if it be conceded, as has sometimes
been urged, that all those in service in the universities were also
counted as students, these numbers would not be reduced very
materially and it must not be {60} forgotten that, in those days of
enthusiastic striving after education, young men were perfectly
willing to take up even the onerous duties of personal services to
others, in order to have the opportunity to be closely in touch with a
great educational institution and to receive even a moderate amount of
benefit from its educational system. In our own time there are many
students who are working their way through the universities, and in
the Thirteenth Century when the spirit of independence was much less
developed, and when any stigma that attached to personal service was
much less felt than it is at the present time, there were many more
examples of this earnest striving for intellectual development.
If we discuss the situation in English-speaking countries as regards
the comparative attendance at the universities in the Thirteenth
Century and in our own time, we shall be able to get a reasonably good
idea of what must be thought in this matter. The authorities are
neither difficult of consultation nor distant, and comparatively much
more is known about the population of England at this time than about
most of the continental countries. England was under a single ruler,
while the geographical divisions that we now know by the name of
France, Spain, Italy and Germany were the seats of several rulers at
least and sometimes of many, a circumstance which does not favor our
obtaining an adequate idea of the populations.
That but two universities provided all the opportunities for whatever
higher education there was in England at this time, would of itself
seem to stamp the era as backward in educational matters. A little
consideration of the comparative number of students with reference to
the population of the country who were thus given the opportunity for
higher education--and took advantage of it--at that time and the
present, will show the unreasonableness of such an opinion. It is not
so easy as might be imagined to determine just what was the population
even of England in the Thirteenth Century. During Elizabeth's reign
there were, according to the census, an estimate made about the time
of the great Armada, altogether some four millions of people. Froude,
accepts this estimate as representing very well the actual number of
the population. Certainly there were not more {61} than five millions
at the end of the Sixteenth Century. Lingard, who for this purpose
must be considered as a thoroughly conservative authority, estimates
that there were not much more than two millions of people in England
at the end of the Twelfth Century. This is probably not an
underestimate. At the end of the Thirteenth Century there were not
many more than two millions and a half of people in the country. At
the very outside there were, let us say, three millions. Out of this
meagre population, ten thousand students were, on the most
conservative estimate, taking advantage of the opportunities for the
higher education that were provided for them at the universities.
At the present moment, though we pride ourselves on the numbers in
attendance at our universities, and though the world's population is
so much more numerous and the means of transportation so much more
easy, we have very few universities as large as these of the
Thirteenth Century. No American university at the present moment has
as large a number of students as had Oxford at the end of the
Thirteenth Century, and of course none of them compares at all with
Paris or Bologna in this respect. Even the European universities, as
we have suggested, fall behind their former glory from this
standpoint. In the attendance to the number of population the
comparison is even more startling for those who have not thought at
all of the Middle Ages as a time of wonderful educational facilities
and opportunities. In the greater City of New York as we begin the
Twentieth Century there are perhaps fifteen thousand students in
attendance at educational institutions which have university
privileges. I may say that this is a very liberal allowance. At
universities in the ordinary sense of the word there are not more than
ten thousand students and the remainder is added in order surely to
include all those who may be considered as doing undergraduate work in
colleges and schools of various kinds. Of these fifteen thousand at
least one-fourth come from outside of the greater city, and there are
some who think that even one-third would not be too large a number to
calculate as not being drawn directly from our own population.
Connecticut and New Jersey furnish large numbers of students and then,
besides, the post-graduate schools {62} of the universities have very
large numbers in attendance even from distant states and foreign
countries.
It will be within the bounds of truth, then, to say, that there are
between ten and twelve thousand students, out of our population of
more than four millions in Greater New York taking advantage of the
opportunities for the higher education provided by our universities
and colleges. At the end of the Thirteenth Century in England there
were at least ten thousand students out of a population of not more
and very probably less than three millions, who were glad to avail
themselves of similar opportunities. This seems to be perfectly fair
comparison and we have tried to be as conservative as possible in
every way in order to bring out the truth in the matter.
It can scarcely fail to be a matter of supreme surprise to find that a
century so distant as the Thirteenth, should thus equal our own
vaunted Twentieth Century in the matter of opportunities for the
higher education afforded and taken advantage of. It has always been
presumed that the Middle Ages, while a little better than the Dark
Ages, were typical periods in which there was little, if any desire
for higher education and even fewer opportunities. It was thought that
there was constant repression of the desire for knowledge which
springs so eternally in the human heart and that the Church, or at
least the ecclesiastical authorities of the time, set themselves
firmly against widespread education, because it would set people to
thinking for themselves. As a matter of fact, however, every Cathedral
and every monastery became a center of educational influence, and even
the poorest, who showed special signs of talent, obtained the
opportunity to secure knowledge to the degree that they wished. It is
beyond doubt or cavil, that at no time in the world's history have so
many opportunities for the higher education been open to all classes
as during the Thirteenth Century.
In order to show how thoroughly conservative are the numbers in
attendance at the universities that I have taken, I shall quote two
good recent authorities, one of them Professor Laurie, the Professor
of the Institutes and History of Education in the University of
Edinburgh, and the other Thomas Davidson, a well-known American
authority on educational {63} subjects. Each of their works from which
I shall quote has been published or revised within the last few years.
Professor Laurie in "The Rise and Early Constitution of the University
with a Survey of the Medieval Education," which formed one of the
International Educational Series, edited by Commissioner Harris and
published by Appleton, said:
"When one hears of the large number of students who attended the
earliest universities--ten thousand and even twenty thousand at
Bologna, an equal, and at one time a greater, number at Paris, and
thirty thousand at Oxford--one cannot help thinking that the numbers
have been exaggerated. There is certainly evidence that the Oxford
attendance was never so great as has been alleged (see Anstey's 'Mon
Acad.'); but when we consider that attendants, servitors, college
cooks, etc., were regarded as members of the university community,
and that the universities provided for a time the sole recognized
training grounds for those wishing to enter the ecclesiastical or
legal or teaching professions, I see no reason to doubt the
substantial accuracy of the tradition as to attendance--especially
when we remember that at Paris and Oxford a large number were mere
boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age."
As to the inclusion of servitors, we have already said that many,
probably, indeed, most of them, were actual students working their way
through the university in these enthusiastic days. Professor Laurie's
authority for the assertion that a large number of the students at
Paris and Oxford were mere boys, is a regulation known to have existed
at one of these universities requiring that students should not be
less than twelve years of age. Anyone who has studied medieval
university life, however, will have been impressed with the idea, that
the students were on the average older at the medieval universities
rather than younger than they are at the present time. The rough
hazing methods employed, almost equal to those of our own day! would
seem to indicate this. Besides, as Professor Laurie confesses in the
next paragraph, many of the students were actually much older than at
present. Our university courses are arranged for young men between 17
and 22, but that is, to fall back on Herbert Spencer, presumably
because the period of infancy is {64} lengthening with the evolution
of the race. There are many who consider that at the present time
students are too long delayed in the opportunity to get at the
professional studies, and that it is partly the consequence of this
that the practical branches are so much more taken up under the
elective system. As we said in the chapter on Universities and
Preparatory Schools, in Italy and in other southern countries, it is
not a surprising thing to have a young man graduate at the age of 16
or 17 with his degree of A. B., after a thoroughly creditable
scholastic career. This means that he began his university work proper
under 13 years of age; so that we must judge the medieval universities
to some extent at least with this thought in mind.
Mr. Thomas Davidson in his "History of Education," [Footnote 7] in
the chapter on The Medieval University has a paragraph in which he
discusses the attendance, especially during the Thirteenth Century,
and admits that the numbers, while perhaps not so large as have been
reported, were very large in comparison to modern institutions of the
same kind, and frankly concedes that education rose during these
centuries which are often supposed to have been so unfavorable to
educational development, to an amazing height scarcely ever surpassed.
He says:
[Footnote 7: A History of Education, by Thomas Davidson, author of
Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideas. New York: Scribners, 1900.]
"The number of students reported as having attended some of the
universities in those early days almost passes belief; _e. g._
Oxford is said to have had thirty thousand about the year 1300, and
half that number even as early as 1224. The numbers attending the
University of Paris were still greater. These numbers become less
surprising when we remember with what poor accommodations--a bare
room and an armful of straw--the students of those days were
content, and what numbers of them even a single teacher like Abelard
could, long before draw into lonely retreats. That in the Twelfth
and following centuries there was no lack of enthusiasm for study,
notwithstanding the troubled condition of the times, is very clear.
The instruction given at the universities, moreover, reacted upon
the lower schools, raising their standard and supplying them with
competent teachers. Thus, in the Thirteenth and {65} Fourteenth
centuries, education rose in many European states to a height which
it had not attained since the days of Seneca and Quintilian."
{opp64}
[Illustration]
CHRIST DRIVING OUT MONEY CHANGERS (GIOTTO)
[Illustration]
HEAD FROM ANNUNCIATION (GIOTTO)
[Illustration]
BRIDE MARRIAGE AT CANA (GIOTTO)
[Illustration]
SAINT'S HEAD (MOSAIC, ST. MARK'S VENICE)
A very serious objection that would seem to have so much weight as to
preclude all possibility of accepting as true the large numbers
mentioned, is the fact that it is very hard to understand how such an
immense number of students could have been supported in any town of
the Middle Ages. This objection has carried so much weight to some
minds as to make them give up the thought of large numbers at the
medieval universities. Professor Laurie has answered it very
effectively, however, and in his plausible explanation gives a number
of points which emphasize the intense ardor of these students of the
Middle Ages in their search for knowledge, and shows how ready they
were to bear serious trials and inconveniences, not to say absolute
sufferings and hardships, in order that they might have opportunities
for the higher education. The objection then redounds rather to the
glory of the medieval universities than lessens their prestige, either
as regards numbers or the enthusiasm of their students.
"The chief objection to accepting the tradition (of large numbers at
the universities) lies in the difficulty of seeing how in those
days, so large a number of the young men of Europe could afford the
expense of residence away from their homes. This difficulty,
however, is partly removed when we know that many of the students
were well to do, that a considerable number were matured men,
already monks and canons, and that the endowments of Cathedral
schools also were frequently used to enable promising scholars to
attend foreign universities. Monasteries also regularly sent boys of
thirteen and fourteen to university seats. A papal instruction of
1335 required every Benedictine and Augustinian community to send
boys to the universities in the proportion of one in twenty of their
residents. Then, state authorities ordered free passages for all who
were wending their way through the country to and from the seat of
learning. In the houses of country priests--not to speak of the
monastery hospitals--traveling scholars were always accommodated
gratuitously, and even local subscriptions were frequently made to
help them on their way. {66} Poor traveling scholars were, in fact,
a medieval institution, and it was considered no disgrace for a
student to beg and receive alms for his support."
After reading these authoritative opinions, it would be rather
difficult to understand the false impressions which have obtained so
commonly for the last three centuries with regard to education in the
Middle Ages, if we did not realize that history, especially for
English-speaking people, has for several centuries been written from a
very narrow standpoint and with a very definite purpose. About a
century ago the Comte de Maistre said in his Soirees de St.
Petersburg, that history for the three hundred years before his time
"had been a conspiracy against the truth." Curiously enough the
editors of the Cambridge Modern History in their first volume on the
Renaissance, re-echoed this sentiment of the French historical writer
and philosopher. They even use the very words "history has been a
conspiracy against the truth" and proclaim that if we are to get at
truth in this generation, we must go behind all the classical
historians, and look up contemporary documents and evidence and
authorities once more for ourselves. It is the maintenance of a
tradition that nothing good could possibly have come out of the
Nazareth of the times before the Reformation, that has led to this
serious misapprehension of the true position of those extremely
important centuries in modern education--the Thirteenth and the
Fourteenth.
To those who know even a little of what was accomplished in these
centuries, it is supremely amusing to read the childish treatment
accorded them and the trivial remarks that even accredited historians
of education make with regard to them. Occasionally, however, the
feeling of the reader who knows something of the subject is not one of
amusement, but far from it. There are times when one cannot help but
feel that it is not ignorance, but a deliberate purpose to minimize
the importance of these times in culture and education, that is at the
basis of some of the utterly mistaken remarks that are made. We shall
take occasion only to give one example of this, but that will afford
ample evidence of the intolerant spirit that characterizes the work of
some even of the supposedly most enlightened historians of education.
The quotation will be from Compayre's {67} "History of Pedagogy" which
is, I understand, in use in nearly every Normal School in this country
and is among the books required in many Normal School examinations.
M. Compayre in an infamous paragraph which bears the title "The
Intellectual Feebleness of the Middle Age," furnishes an excellent
example of how utterly misunderstood, if not deliberately
misrepresented, has been the whole spirit and content and the real
progressiveness of education in this wonderful period. After some
belittling expressions as to the influence of Christianity on
education--expressions utterly unjustified by the facts--he has this
to say with regard to the Thirteenth Century, which is all the more
surprising because it is the only place where he calls any attention
to it. He says:
"In 1291, of all the monks in the convent of St. Gall, there was not
one who could read and write. It was so difficult to find notaries
public, that acts had to be passed verbally. The barons took pride
in their ignorance. Even after the efforts of the Twelfth Century,
instruction remained a luxury for the common people; it was the
privilege of the ecclesiastics and even they did not carry it very
far. The Benedictines confess that the mathematics were studied only
for the purpose of calculating the date of Easter."
This whole paragraph of M. Compayre (the rest must be read to be
appreciated), whose history of education was considered to be of such
value that it was deemed worthy of translation by the President of a
State Normal School and that it has been adopted as a work of
reference, in some cases of required study, in many of the Normal
Schools throughout the country, is a most wonderful concoction of
ingredients, all of which are meant to dissolve every possible idea
that people might have of the existence of any tincture of education
during the Middle Ages. There is only one fact which deeply concerns
us because it refers to the Thirteenth Century. M. Compayre says that
in 1291 of all the monks of the Convent of Saint Gall there was not
one who could read and write. This single fact is meant to sum up the
education of the century for the reader. Especially it is meant to
show the student of pedagogy how deeply sunk in ignorance were the
monks and all the ecclesiastics of this period.
{68}
Before attempting to say anything further it may be as well to call
attention to the fact that in the original French edition the writer
did not say that there was not a single monk. He said, "There was but
one m
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/38680