Volume 5 — From The Dublin University Magazine. The Libraries Of The Middle Ages And Their Contents.

Father Hardouin On The Classics.

The fourteenth century was doubtlessly an era of great literary activity with regard to transcribing and filling libraries with copies of the Latin Scriptures, of theological works in general, and of the classics. The learned and eccentric Jesuit, Father John Hardouin, fixed on it for the composition of all the supposed classic treasures of antiquity which we possess, except the works of Cicero, Pliny's Natural History, the Satires and Epistles of Horace, the Georgics and nine Eclogues of Virgil, the comedies of Plautus, the poems of Homer, and the history of Herodotus. All the rest were the brain-produce of the cloistered scholars of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, especially the latter, as being distinguished by the rage for collecting manuscripts and forming libraries. Not only were these supposed fruits of the classic pagan tree the growth of the Christian intellect of that late time, but the works of St. Augustin and his disciples were composed for them nine hundred years after their funerals.[Footnote 120]

There was in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries a literary warfare between the Classicists and Romancists as real as that which sprung up in Paris before the three days of July, but much less noisy. We find among the 145 volumes bequeathed to the library of the church of Langres in 1365, by Jean de Saffres, about two dozen of romances whose titles deserve to be remembered. They were Renart, (Reynard the Fox,) Girart de Roussillon, Garin la Loherain, Aimeri de Narbonne, Raoul de Cambrai, Bueves de Barbastre,[Footnote 121] Jean dit le Lanson, Parise la Duchesse, Merlin, Courberau d'Oliferne, Gibert dit Desrée, les Sept Sages, les Machabées, Troie la Grant, (Troy the Great,) Florimont, la Rose, Beaudoux, (Sweet Beauty or Beautifully Sweet.) Clyges, Perceval le Gallois, Basin et Gombaud, Amadas, (Amadis, qu.,) Galaad, Lancelot, Tristan, (Sir Tristrem.)

The Care Bestowed On The Libraries.

We may be certain that St. Benedict had not such books as these in his mind when he composed the following prayer of blessing on the works to be copied by his monks, a prayer which has been preserved in the Abbey of Fleuri-sur-Loire:

"O Lord, let the virtue of thy Holy Spirit descend on these books; let it purify them, bless them, sanctify them. Sweetly enlighten the hearts of those who read them, and impart their true sense to them. Grant us also to be faithful to the precepts emanating from thy light, in accomplishing them by good works, according to thy will"

The same respect for good books is found in an the abbeys of the Benedictines. The very high value the religious communities set on rare works connected with their order, subjected the monks of the abbey of St. Denis to a cruel imposition in 1389. An imposter, such as some who have practised mighty deceptions in our times, a supple Greek named Paul Tagari, passing himself off for the patriarch of Constantinople, obtained thirty thousand crowns of gold from the king of Cyprus, on imparting the royal unction to his majesty, and a magnificent reception from the pope at Avignon, as he held out strong assurances of the return of the Greek schism to the faith. He announced to the simple monks of St. Denis the existence of some manuscripts from the hand of the very patron of their order, Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, who had heard the words of life from the lips of St. Paul himself, when he spoke to the news loving people of Athens on the hill of Mars. Two brothers set out on foot to Marseilles, and, deluded by the knave's representations, journeyed on from that to Rome. The Greek had got their money, but they got nothing by their long journey but the labor and expenses of performing it, and the chagrin of the disappointment.

The monks of Cluni were particular in the illustrating and the binding of their volumes. As a general rule the outsides of the volumes in the abbey libraries were not attractive. The Bernardine houses of Citeaux and Clairvaux affected the plainest style. We may here give an instance of the care taken of the precious volumes, by quoting the library rules of the canons regular: "The armarius (literally, guardian of shelves or presses) should apply labels to the backs, catalogue the volumes, go over them twice or thrice in the year, see that they were not crowded, and that every volume was in its place." In case of a loan he was to record the borrower's address, the title of the volume, and the deposit received, which in all cases should be the registered value of the book. When the book was highly prized, he was not to give it out without the express sanction of the prior or abbot. He had charge of the parchment, the ink, the pens, the bodkins, and the penknives, and he kept an eye on the intern and extern copyists. The writers of funeral billets and of business letters were also under his control. He provided his indoor copiers with a quiet apartment where no one had right of ingress but the abbot, the prior, or the sub-prior. He examined the purity of the texts, the binding, the condition of the volumes. He kept the volumes in daily use, such as the Bibles, the accounts of the passion, the lives of the saints, and the homilies in a place accessible to all, regulated the readings during meal times, and corrected faults committed in reading or chanting, and arranged processions. Our Benedictine librarian had no sinecure.

The Rich Libraries Of the Begging Brothers.

The Dominicans were no less careful of their literary treasures. In a general chapter of the order, held at Saragossa in 1309, it was forbidden to every prior, sub-prior, or officer commissioned by them, to bestow, sell, lend, or pledge any book of which there was but one copy in the respective houses. Whoever was guilty of infraction was to be deprived of his faculties (official to wit) for three years. The theological works should not be sold out of the order. Whoever disobeyed should, till the restitution of the property, fast on bread and water one day in every week. A student was privileged, in cases of urgent necessity, to sell a book, the Bible and the great work of St. Thomas of Aquino excepted.

The English Richard de Bury before mentioned found the Dominicans the most keen-scented and zealous retrievers of rare treasures in bibliography.

"When," said he, "they traverse seas and deserts, when they search the recesses of convents, they never forget me. What beast of chase can escape these keen hunters? What fish so small can wriggle out of their nets?"

He goes on, mentioning how they despatch to him sermons lately preached in Rome, discourses delivered at a Paris university, and adds:

"We are now about visiting their convents and their books. There in a profound poverty we shall discover untold of treasures. We shall find in their baskets and their wallets, along with such crumbs as men fling to the dogs, the unleavened bread of proposition, the bread of angels, the granaries of Joseph filled with wheat, all the riches of Egypt, all the sumptuous presents which the queen of Sheba offered to Solomon. Yes! having come into the vineyard at the eleventh hour, the friars-preachers have secured the richest vintage." (Victor le Clerc.)

These Begging Brothers, being a rich and numerous branch, secured the most valuable works everywhere. The Archbishop of Armagh having sent four theological students to complete their course at Oxford, they were obliged to return as they went, the Mendicant friars having bought up all the books: so that the poor Irishmen could neither borrow nor buy the Bible nor any theological work.

Divers presents were made from time to time to these lovers of books. In the end of a MS. of the Dominicans at Clermont, containing the pastoral of St. Gregory, and some tracts of St. Jerome and St. Isadore of Seville, is found the following note:

"The Seigneur Peter d'Andre, citizen of Clermont, licentiate in both laws, (LL.D.,) at first bishop of Noyon, then of Clermont, and finally of Cambrai, has given us this book and many others. Wherefore we bind ourselves to Celebrate his anniversary [Footnote 122] in perpetuity. You who read in this book, pray to God for him, for he has done us great kindnesses, and we owe much to him, as well as to his family. Let him who shall wickedly efface these words be Anathema! So be it! Dated on St. George's day, the 23d of the month of April, 1377."

The Franciscans possessed poor libraries compared with those of the Dominicans. Indeed the accumulation of the profane writers seemed inconsistent with the spirit of the order. The following story was put in currency either to advance the views of the body or throw ridicule on their fear or neglect of classic literature. We incline to the first theory, and will give the outline of the little drama with as little irreverence as we can.

There were two Friars Minors in a convent at Marseilles, one the guardian of the library, the other the reader, and both attentive students of the rare old pagan classics. On the same night the summons came to both, and a monk of their order, but living in a distant province, had a vision at the moment of their departure which terrified him not a little. He saw them passing to judgment, preceded by two mules heavily laden with books, and it appeared to him that their patron, St. Francis, was commissioned to examine into their lives, and pass sentence. The awe-struck monk then heard the following questions and answers: "What use made you of these books?" "We read them." "Did you act as they recommended?" "By no means." "Then as it was through a principle of vanity and in contempt of your holy law of poverty you amassed so many volumes, and left neglected that which God ordained, you and your books shall!" ...... The poor monk awoke terrified beyond expression, and was confirmed in his utter neglect of Homer, Virgil, and Horace, and in his predilection for the study of the Bible and the early fathers.

The Sorbonne.

If the universities had heard the above narrative, it did not make much impression on them. They multiplied books—the university of Paris particularly; but this last was unprovided with a suitable lodgment for them as well as for itself, and was obliged to borrow accommodation for its assemblies from the establishment of the Mathurins, and for its sermons on great occasions, the pulpit of the Dominicans, corner of the Rue Saint Jacques. It left to posterity only one library of importance, that of the Sorbonne. [Footnote 123]

Among the rare old collections of manuscripts, that of the Sorbonne deserves honorable mention. In 1290 it included 1017 volumes. About that time a heroic socius simply calling himself "John," seeing so many volumes never taken off the shelves nor opened, owing to the want of a catalogue, set to the work, and made out one to the best of his abilities, assorting the books into a few general classes. He arranged the works in each class by the authors' names, and after the title he copied a few words of the commencement—a very useful proceeding. Generally the books in the convents were only lent to the brothers or other inmates of the house, or to some one of the order; but in the Sorbonne library the volumes were freely lent to all applicants on depositing somewhat more than the value of the work in gold, silver, or some more valuable book, the rule being Extraneo sub juramento-to an extern—under oath, (to return the work.)

We find the lending system in full vigor with most of the libraries either gratis or at a very trifling charge. Besides the catalogues, they possessed at the Sorbonne a registry for the lending department. In this registry were not only marked the opening words of the first page, but also those of the third, sometimes those of the last leaf but one, in order that, if the borrower was rogue enough to return a volume different from the one borrowed, he might be easily detected. It is a matter worth attention, the low prices set on books in common use by ordinary folk or by students. Tullius de Officiis, de Senectute et de Amicitia was valued at decem sols—say five pence sterling. Allowing even for the high value of money at the time in relation to that of our day, the price seems out of all proportion with the materials of the book and the time bestowed on the writing. Baron Tauchnitz at this moment would make the poorest student pay about half a florin for it, notwithstanding the aid of movable type and steam presses.

Some of the works in this register were distinguished by the word catenatus, (chained to its place,) others by deficit. Among books in this category were most of the Libri in Gallico. These were called romances, whatever the subject. Thus we find Romancium de Rosa, Romancium quod incipit Miserere mei, (one of the Seven Penitential Psalms;) Romancium de decem praeceptis, sine rigmo, et dicitur Gallice, (romance of the Ten Commandments unrhymed and issued in the French language;) Le libre roiaus (roiaulx, royal) de Vices et Virtus (sic): Incipit Ce sont li X commandemens.

From the year 1321 they began to bestow or sell numbers of the less important works, for the library had outgrown the calculated proportions, and such things as the students' cahiers (copy books) and old sermons only took up valuable space.

The learned Bishop of Durham bequeathed his valuable library to the university of Oxford in 1344; and actuated by the same good spirit, left directions that the books should be lent even as the works in the Sorbonne on receiving sufficient security.

Unprincipled Book Borrowers.

Many were the deplorable losses of valuable books incurred by lending but yet the practice was productive of too many and too great benefits to be discontinued. No one in our days, except a true bibliomaniac or the keeper of a circulating library, can enter into the sore feelings of abbot or rector of a university when the invaluable MS. was either lost or returned damaged. Such a heart-scald was inflicted on Peter called Monoculus, (one-eyed,) abbot of Clairvaux, when a book lent to a neighboring abbot was returned as wet as if it had been placed under a water-pipe. Observe the rascality of the messenger! He came by night, made a great bustle, turned off the attention of the unsuspicious librarian, got another volume instead, and departed at a very early hour to escape a perquisition. This was in 1187. In the next century the Abbot Philip, with feelings soured by such instances of want of principle, would not lend the tracts of St. Augustin, humbly and earnestly demanded. No; there they were—too large to be carried away. "His dear brother was welcome to send an accredited writer to make a copy."

Proprietors of valuable books became so chary from sad experience, that unless the messenger who came to borrow was provided with a good steed, he would not be entrusted with the treasure. This supposes some distance to separate lender from borrower.

Saint Louis and Charles the Wise were liberal in bestowing and lending. Borrowers, as has been their custom since the days of Job, were found frequently false in their vows, and after the reign of poor Charles VI., deficit was found in multiplied instances in the royal register after the names of works in request. So strong was the desire among lettered people to be the owners of valuable works that a certain learned monk was not considered above the temptation of what some lawyers have termed conveyancing. In a life of St. Bernard it is related that one day at Clairvaux he thus addressed three novices: "One of you will make his escape this night: let the others watch and not allow him to take away anything." Two fell asleep, the spirit of evil sitting very heavy on their eyelids. The third, who staid awake, saw about daybreak two giants enter, and place under the nostrils of one of the sleepers a roast fowl encircled by a serpent. Roused by the deluding smell, he got up, approached the library, forced open the door, and was about making off with some of the literary treasures. Being stopped by his fellow-students, he attempted to scale the wall, but being prevented and still remaining impenitent, he lost his reason, and continued in that state till be died.

In some of the old abbeys the place of the library is still to be found sunk in the thickness of the wall, as well as the desks of wood or stone before it, fixed there for the behoof of the copyists.

Fires aided the class of knavish borrowers in destroying the labors of the learned and their copiers. Twenty-two thousand volumes were reported as burned at Saint Vicent at Laon. The entire books of Livy were lost, if some people are to be trusted, at the Benedictine abbey of Malmesbury. A savant said he saw the Treatises on the Republic, by Cicero, in a certain convent in 1517, and when he inquired some time after for it, the reply was, that they had been furto praerepti, [Footnote 124] (thievishly abstracted.)

Besides strong locks and vigorous anathemas, chains were used to secure some of the most valued volumes from pilfering fingers. Some suspected books were even fastened to their shelves with stout nails, as tradition relates to have happened to Roger Bacon's works at the hands of his unscientific brethren, Lord Litton's Friar Bungay being probably the most active on the occasion. Under the treatment of the nails the book could not be read. A relic of the old custom has remained till now in some churches of Florence, where missals and rituals may be read under wire gratings, and even the leaves turned over.

Unworthy Curators.

As a rule libraries in the possession of kings and lords were not as carefully watched as those in convents. A remarkable exception to conventual care is recorded by Boccaccio when relating a visit to the Benedictines of Mount Cassino. He found the door of the library left open, and the books covered by a thick coat of dust, grass growing on the windows, the volumes imperfect, the margins clipped, and everything denoting the greatest negligence. On inquiring the cause of the injury to the volumes, he learned that they erased the writing from the vellum to write psalters (the Seven Penitential Psalms) for young people on them, and clipped off the margins to receive short prayers. About the same time the French king's library was not better secured. It was near the falconry, and the new librarian Giles Malet, apprehensive that the "birds and other beasts" would take the liberty of coming in and injuring the volumes, the wire-worker got eighteen golden francs for applying wire screens to the windows.

At the same convent of Mount Cassino, Mabillon saw the remains of a manuscript of the tenth century, converted to covers. Montfaucon was informed by the archbishop of Rosano that one of his predecessors being rather annoyed by a succession of curious scholars to inspect some Greek documents in his possession, hid them in the earth to get rid of the annoyance. [Footnote 125]

Notwithstanding the care shown in influential quarters by heads of religious houses, by kings, by universities, and even the threats of excommunication issued against all pilferers or destroyers of good books, many instances of cruel neglect such as those quoted occurred. The curators of the Sainte Chapelle of Bourges felt so little interest in their literary property that the library was converted into a fowl-house, and valuable works were discovered there by sorrowful visitors, lying open on the desks, it being hard to say whether they were worse treated by the feathered or the unfeathered two-legged animals. These negligences notwithstanding, the work of conserving and reproducing standard works in the classics, and others in the native tongue, went on vigorously, the brave laborers little aware of the mighty aid near at hand for lightening and abridging the labor of hands and pens, and even unable to conceive the possibility of the results of a few mechanical appliances to the rapid and almost infinite multiplication of literary works, a single copy of which required such close application, and such a length of time for its production.

If Saint Louis, when painfully increasing his library in the Sainte Chapelle, volume by volume, and at slow intervals, had been vouchsafed in one of his nightly visions the knowledge of the art and mystery of printing, and, while his whole being was filled with joy and admiration, suddenly awoke, and found all the steps of the process completely vanished from his memory, what anguish would have seized on him for a time, and with what disgust he would continue to witness the snail-like progress of a book, word by word, and line by line, till the writer reached the colophon. However, the possibility of what we now look on as a commonplace privilege and convenience never disturbed the equanimity of the earnest laborers of the fourteenth century, and they performed their daily tasks with patient content, and frequently with enjoyment.

Lay Libraries and Popular Fictions.

The Bibliotheque Royal dates its origin from a collection in the Sainte Chapelle of Saint Louis's palace, made by the good king for his own special reading, as well as for that of his friends of good taste. Something was done by his successors, but the real history of the royal library begins with Charles V., surnamed the "Wise."

Old house-keeping accounts preserved till the great fire on 27th October, 1737, and then partially destroyed, have put it into the power of archaeologists to point out that particular tower of the Louvre called the Library Tower. There were two floors wainscotted with boìs d'Irlande—shillela oak, as we may suppose—vaulted with cypress wood, and all ornamented with bas-reliefs. The painted windows were furnished with brass wire and iron bars. There were lutrines, (choristers' desks,)' pupitres tournants, (desks revolving on pivots,) and some of these were brought from the palace. Thirty small chandeliers and a silver lamp were lighted when evening came, and thus the students were enabled to study at night.

From some of the household accounts of Charles V. still in preservation, we learn that this Irish oak, to the amount of four hundred and eighty pieces, was presented in 1364 to the Wise King, to be used in the building of his castle, the donor being the seneschal of Hainault. The chief part of the volumes in the library of the Louvre were in the French tongue.

Besides the pieces of native literature already mentioned, we may here quote the following as the established favorites:

Romances About Charlemagne And His Peers: Berte, Roland et Olivier, Roncevaux, Merlin, Gaidon, le Voyage à Jerusalem, Ferabras, Garin de Monglane, Dame Aye, Amis et Amile, Jordain de Blaives, Ogier le Danois, (Holger the Dane,) Beuve d'Aigremont, les Quartre Fils d'Aymon, Maugis, Aubri le Bourgoing, Gui de Nanteuil, Beuve de Hanstone, Basin, Carlon, Anseis de Carthage, Guillaume au Court Nez.

Tales Of The Round Table: La Mort d'Artus, le Saint Graal, Gauvain, l'Atre Perilleux, (Castle Perilous,) Glorion de Bretagne, Giron le Courtois (Sir Gawain, qu.) Meliadus, and those already mentioned.

Poems And Romances: Cleomedes, Blancandin, Gerart de Nevers, le Comte de Poitiers, Flore et Blanche-fleur, Gautier d'Aupais, Gui de Warwick, Meraugia, la Manckine, Robert le Diable.

Poems On Classic Subjects: Troie, Enéas, Narcissus, la Prise de Thèbes, (the Taking of Thebes,) le Siège d'Athènes, Ypomedon, Thesalus, Alexandre, Jules César, Vespasien.

Poems On Religious Traditions: les Machabées, la Passion, les Trois Maries, Barlaam et Josaphat, Lives of the Saints and Miracles.

Poems On Modern Subjects: Godefroi de Bouillon, le Voeu du Paon, (the Vow of the Peacock,) Songs, Fabliaux, collections of stories, such as the Dolopathos, allegorical compositions, as la Rose, le Renart, la Poire, l'Escoufle, instructive compositions like l'Image du Monde, le Livre de Charité, les Bestiaires, les Lapidaires, books of hunting, etc.

Many of these volumes were richly bound, and liberally paid for. The Duchess of Brabant, in 1369, paid to Maitre Jean six sheep for binding a French book. In 1376, Godfrey Bloc (suitable name!) charged his patron, the Duke of Brabant, seven sheep and a half for binding Meliadus, and in 1383, twelve sheep for binding the Saint Graal, called in the bill by its other title, Joseph of Arimathea.

In the age of which we are treating Greek was little studied or known. The scholars were ignorant of the Greek historians, of the dramatic poets, even of Homer, of whom the poet Petrarch said, when his eyes first rested on a copy, "Your Homer is dumb to me, or rather I understand him not." Boccaccio, when young, attempted to translate him. Some Dominicans studied the language, but it was for the sake of their sermons, not to be able to peruse Homer, or even St. Chrysostom or St. Basil. The Greeks were schismatics, and everything coming from them was liable to a moral quarantine. The works of Aristotle and some others were accessible in Latin translations.

It is time to glance at the other subjects which, along with the classics and the romances in the native tongue, occupied the minds of the scholars of the fourteenth century, and filled the books they produced with such care and patience.

The Educational Cursus of the Fourteenth Century.

All the humanities of the day were included in the Trivium and the Quadrivium, the first comprising grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics, and the second, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. This was apparently a strait circle for human intelligence to move in at freedom, but the prime masters in the intellectual craft endeavored to enlarge the various compartments to their widest extent. Thus into rhetoric crept poetry, epistolary correspondence, didactics, and translation. With dialectics came in philosophy entire. "Aristotle and his numerous interpreters," among whom were many saints, authorized free discussions on the highest abstractions of thought, on the natural sciences, on physiology and the curative art, on politics, and even on common law. Thus, without going out of the Trivium, see what a vast amount of facts were lugged in, analyzed, and discussed. In dialectics no subject was let drop till it was turned in every point of view, analyzed, and established in true or fancied relation to every other thing.

Grammar.

They were not at all scant—these earnest seekers—in grammatic manuals. They had their "Large Donatus," their "Small Donatus," and the commentary on Donatus by Remy of Anxerre; Priscian, entire and in abridgments; Bede's metres, and several modern works. Those not content with the mere enunciation of the old rules, would moralize them something in this style:

"'What is a prenomen?' [Footnote 126] Man is thy nomen, sinner is thy prenomen. So when you pray to God, make use only of thy prenomen, and say, 'O Heavenly Father, I invoke not thy name as man, but I implore thy pardon as sinner.'"

Wonderful were the applications of even such simple things as the four (five) declensions. The first declension was from the obedience of God to the suggestion of the devil. Eve made this declension. The second is from the obedience of God to the obedience to the woman. This declension was made by Adam. The third declension is from Paradise to this world; the fourth from this world to hell.

Analogies of grammar and piety were often of a slight and whimsical tissue. Some of them might be classed with modern conundrums, thus. "Why is the preposition a theme of pleasure to the elect? Because Illi praeponuntur damnandis." "Why does an interjection resemble the sufferings of the damned? Because it is the expression of the soul by an unmeaning sound."

Such was the tendency of the time for extracting moral conclusions, that Ovid's Metamorphoses served as an excellent text-book for the learned Dominican Thomas Walleis, for the enunciation of a series of moral axioms which the Epicurean poet of Augustus's court never dreamed of for a moment. Philippe de Vitri, friend to Petrarch, made a Latin prose version of the book, and educed Christian dogmas from the least austere of the tales.

The attention paid by our fourteenth century scholars to their Latin grammar, and their aptitude to convert it to as many uses as the Knave in the folk story did his pack of cards, ceases to excite much wonder when it is recollected that a practical grammar of the native language at the time was a complete desideratum. What a falling was that from the state of things when the Canterbury pilgrims may be supposed to have collected at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, and when the trouvères told and sung their lays. Every Chaucerian will recall at once the sweet nun, Madame Englentyne:

French must consequently have been taught with more or less attention to grammar rules long before the period with which this paper is occupied, and it is a case of comfort to archaeologists that a French grammar exists written by Gautier de Biblesworth in the thirteenth century, for the instruction of English natives in that language, and principally for Lady Dionysia de Monchensi, of the county of Kent, wife to Count Hugh de Vere. The author in his preface modestly announced it as "Le Tretys Ke (qui) Mounsire Gauter de Bibelesworth fist (fit) a ma Dame Dionysie de Mounchenay pur aprise de Language." [Footnote 127] Master Biblesworth, if that was his name, mixed his grammatical rules with educational precepts, beginning very properly at the birth of his pupil, and naming the different parts of the body, terms of agriculture, domestic economy, hunting, fishing, and gardening, and all conveyed in octosyllabic verse, with the slightest possible pretension to poetry.

That people with some pretensions to education took pride in speaking the "Frensch of Paris" with propriety long before the fourteenth century, is evinced by the boast of the Picard trouvère, Guernes, who recited his poem at the tomb of Saint Thomas of Canterbury in 1173:

"Mes languages est buens car en France ful nez." [Footnote 128]

Quenes de Bethunes, a contemporary and authoress of several fine songs, excused herself for using provincial words, for "she was of Artois, not of Pontoise." A century later, the poets mention the request in which professors of French were among foreigners. They relate how "good Queen Bertha of the long feet spoke French like any lady of Paris"—more favored in this than Chaucer's good prioress. There was a humorous poem current among the people, in which Dom. Barbarisme played a ludicrous part, and which would not have circulated among the laity if they had no notion of French grammar.

Domestic troubles and other causes, for whose introduction we have not space, had effected the destruction of grammatical treatises previous to 1400. About that date the translator of the psalter into the vulgar tongue thus bewailed the general ignorance:

"Et pour ceu que, nulz ne tient eu son parlier, ne rigle certenne, mesure, ne raison. Est langue romance si corrompue qu' à poinne li uns eutent l'aultres, et à poinne puet on trouveir à jour d'ieu personne qui saiche escrire, anteir,(Chanter,) ne prononcieir en une meisme semblant menieir, mais eseript, ante, et prononce, li uns en une guise, et li aultre eu une aultre." [Footnote 129]

The strong predilection of churchmen and princes for the Latin tongue was one of the chief causes of the tardy amelioration of the French language and French grammar. In a council held in the palace in 1398, where the vulgar tongue was spoken, a learned ecclesiastic, by name Pierre Plaoul, excused his indifferent style of speaking by his want of familiarity with the tongue. Others spoke as bad or worse, but made no apology. It was as late as 1345 that the government thought it advisable to put forth in the language of the people laws respecting the tanners, curriers, and makers of baldrics and shoes in Paris, as they were ignorant of Latin.

The early composers of French grammars under the new order, instead of studying the spirit of the language as it was then spoken by educated people, subjected it to the rules of the Latin tongue as given by Donatus and others. Much time was lost and much linguistic error propagated by this arrangement. As time went on, and that attention which had been entirely given to a foreign tongue began to be shared with the language of the country, some philologists took to study its construction, and frame suitable rules for the government and concord of its chief parts; and by degrees the orthography and the syntax of the language became subject to laws which fitted its character.

Rhetoric.

Under the name rhetoric, as already mentioned, were joined to eloquence historic recitals, letter writing, didactic teaching, translations, and poetry. Few treatises on the art have survived. The Dominicans were fonder of practising than teaching it, and some who taught it correctly could not refrain from allegorizing on it in the style already alluded to. Under Molenier's management, three kings, Barbarisme, Solecisme [Footnote 130], and Allebolé, make war on three queens, Diction, Oration, and Sentence.

They possess in common ten arrows—pleonasm, tautology, ellipse, tapinosis, (obscurity, qu.,) etc. Allebolé has thirteen daughters, Barbarisme fourteen, and Solecisme twenty-two, and the number of grandchildren is not small. If any reader desires to see how men of some talent can lose themselves in matters trifling and intricate at the same time, let him procure Molenier's treatise, or even that of the chronicler Chastellain, where he will find Dame Rhetoric accompanied by science, gravity, multiform riches, flowery memory, noble nature, precious possession, laudable deduction, old acquisition, etc.

The professors of rhetoric in the middle ages had sundry classic writers to fall back on, such as Quintilian, Aristotle, Cicero, etc. They had also the aid of Priscian, Donatus, and Isadore of Seville. Among the earliest specimens of eloquence assuming the garb of the vulgar tongue was the eulogium pronounced on the brave Bertrand du Gueselin by the bishop of Auxerre, Ferrie Cassinel, at the request of Charles VI. A poet of the century thus described its effects:

Four men of that era distinguished themselves by eloquence at the bar, and in addressing assemblies in the tumultuous days of the poor demented king. Jean Faure and Guillaume le Breul besides their speeches, left behind them valuable works on jurisprudence; and their learned contemporary, Yves de Kaermarten, acquired such a good name that he was promoted to the Calendar of Saints. We are unable to quote any other gentleman of the bar whose sanctity attained the heroic degree. Renault d'Acie and Jean des Marès ventured among the political tempests of the day, and perished in their patriotic efforts.

Few instances of eloquence, ancient or modern, could surpass that of Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, if we can trust the chroniclers. Having been released from prison, and brought to Paris, 29th November, 1357, he ascended a platform near the Pre aux-cleres (the Clerk's Meadow) in the morning, and kept a considerable portion of his ten thousand auditors either crying at, or deeply sympathizing with, his pretended wrongs, till the dinner hour of the citizens had passed. He afterward scattered his poison among multitudes at the Greve and the Halles. His oration made to a deputation at St. Denis bears an annoying resemblance to some delivered not very long since in various American cities, by patriots of our own time:

"Gentlemen and friends," said he, "no ill luck can befall you which I will not freely share. But I strongly counsel you, while you govern Paris, to provide yourselves well with gold and silver. Confide in me. Send me here freely all that you can put together. I shall give you a good account of it, and will have at your service numerous men at arms, many comrades who shall defend you from your enemies."

The speeches of the wicked king were mostly prefaced by texts, but it is not rightly known whether this argumentum ad crumenam was so garnished.

While some exhibited their eloquence in defending or accusing prisoners, and others spoke against king, or chiefs of obnoxious parties, some minstrels were still to be found chanting the old romances for ready money. In 1368, the municipal authorities of Valenciennes are found allowing Colart de Maubeuge, "xii gros, in value vi sols ix deniers, for playing on his instrument, and singing gests of arms." The ancient romances of Charlemagne, of King Arthur, and of the wars of Troy, were still in possession of the popular mind, but such poets as there were did not fail to seize on recent or passing events, and do their best to immortalize them, as well as perpetuate their own fame. The raising of the walls of New Ross, on the Barrow, was celebrated by a poet of the day in two hundred and nineteen verses, in which the patriotism of the citizens, and the clergy, and the ladies, was sung, not forgetting the beauty of the women of all degrees, whose delicate hands did not disdain to bring materials to the masons. "Yet in no part of the earth, where the minstrel had been, did he ever see such beauty."

The siege of Carlaverock by King Edward I., in 1300, where six hundred men defended the place against three thousand assailants, was sung by an eye-witness in octo-syllabic rhyme.

The Vow of the Heron, commencing the war between Edward III. and Philippe de Valois, was not neglected by the rhymers. Collins, trouvere of John of Hainault, Lord of Beaumont, in a poem of five hundred and sixty-six eight-syllable verses, lamented the fate of the brave old king of Bohemia, and his ostrich plume and the other victims of the battle of Creci, signalized by the minstrels of the era as in

The life and deeds of the Black Prince were commemorated by Chandos, the herald of Sir John Chandos, Constable of Aquitaine, in five thousand and forty-six verses, of the same measure as those others recorded. We quote a few lines of the courteous communications between the captive king and the chivalric prince.

The single-minded and patriotic Du Guesclin was not forgotten by the poetic chroniclers. Jean Cuvelier, in 1384, put his deeds in verse.

Judicious historians have not disdained to avail themselves of these productions of the rhymers. They have extracted those passages from them which were despised by the matter-of-fact chroniclers, but which had an air of probability, and were calculated to add picturesque and interesting features to the narrative.

It is highly probable that every ancient narrative poem which was not inspired by mere emulation of former poets had some foundation in fact. The mere invention of subjects, as well as their treatment, is a feature of comparatively modern times. The personages figured by Reynard, Bruin, Isgrim, and the other animals of the great beast-epic of the middle ages, once lived and acted some way in the spirit of their four-footed substitutes.

Toward the end of the century, the taste for the old rhymes, romances, and narratives began to veer round to more trivial and simple subjects, and to take more interest in the distinctions between the different classes of the shorter pieces of poetry. Prosody had been in process of cultivation for some time, and now the attention of such dilettanti as filled courts and the castles of the nobles was more strongly arrested upon feet, accents, lengths, measures, and number of lines in each piece, than in the deed recorded or sentiments expressed.

While Froissart was searching for material for his chronicle, in 1392, Eustache des Champs was instructing poetic students in the difference between chansons, balades, virelais, and rondeaux. He was well entitled to do so, having himself composed 80 virelais, 171 rondeaux, 1,175 balades. These ballads he divided into Leonines, Sonnantes, equivoques, retrogrades, etc., etc.; but in the next century his merits were forgotten in presence of Henri de Croy, who subdivided his ballads into communes, balladantes, fatrisées, and the rondeaux into simple, twin, and double. Then care should be taken not to mix the rhymes beaten, broken, re-linked, doubled tailed, etc., in form of amorous complaint. The combination denominated ricquerac, and that called baguenaude we would explain but for the misfortune of being ignorant of their structure. The first, perhaps, was a disjointed affair, like some negro melody, the other, a perpetual hovering round the predominant idea, whatever it might be.

That was the golden age of bouts rimés, logogriphes, enigmas, chronographes, achrostiches, and fatfasies, (unmeaning combinations of words.) In Henri de Croy's great work, even the single fatrasies were distinguished from the double ones. The reign of these egregious morsels still lingers in some almanacs, people's penny periodicals, and even in the Paris Illustrated News, where the logogriph, consisting partly of letters and partly of pictured objects, keeps the subscribers in misery till next Saturday, when the solution appears.

The taste of the public with regard to spectacles was not superior to that of the readers of the time for such trifles as have been just mentioned. In 1313, when the young princes, sons of Philip the Fair, received the order of knighthood, a grand mystery was exhibited to the people of Paris, where the Infant Saviour was presented smiling on his mother and eating an apple, surrounded by the three kings of Cologne, (the Magi,) the twelve apostles saying their paternosters, the souls of the blessed in paradise singing hymns in unison with ninety angels, and the reprobate in hell howling for the entertainment of about a hundred demons.

Of translations, which were also included under the head rhetoric, we have already spoken. As Latin was almost the only language from which the versions were made, the spirit of that language must have had considerable influence on future compositions in the vulgar tongue.

Dialectics.

In teaching and learning the dialectics, which embraced metaphysics, jurisprudence, political economy, and even claimed physics for its jurisdiction, the object seemed rather a victory in a war of words and ideas than discoveries of new truths or the establishment of old ones. Hair-splitting and sophistry flourished in all the contests. So useless and even criminal seemed this amazing waste of time to quiet-minded and earnest people, that a legend was current in the twelfth century of a dead scholar appearing to a comrade in a robe of hell all covered with sophisms. Another displayed himself wrapped round and oppressed with a heavy parchment all covered with closely written exercises in the dialectique. Both attributed their present sufferings to the sort of logic they had acquired in the Paris schools.

Irish students were as redoubtable in these witty duels in the Sorbonne and in Salamanca as Irish colonels and generals of later times in the armies of France and Spain and Austria. In metaphysics, the realists, with John Duns Scotus for leader, warred with the nominalists, using such arms as were supplied by substantial forms, quiddities, heccéites, polycarpéites, and other such chimeras, the result being nothing but obscurity of the understanding from these clashings in the dark. Sometimes the sharp-witted dialecticians intruded rashly on the domains of theology and morality, and were smartly pulled up, as in the case of the great interpreter of Aristotle, Nicolas d'Autrecourt, in 1348, for this ingenious proposition:

"A young man of good birth met with a sage who undertook to communicate the 'universal science' to him without delay, for a hundred crowns; but the young man had no other means to procure the money than by stealing it. Was he justified in this theft? Certainly; for we must do what is agreeable to God; but it was agreeable to God that this young man should get instruction, and he had no other means to get it than theft; ergo," etc.

A sharp condemnation by the Theological Faculty of Paris was all the honor awarded to Mr. Nicolas's plausible conclusion.

In physics and natural history, our philosophers of the middle ages were more prone to depend on Aristotle and Pliny, and later dreamy sages, than to resort to careful observation. Theory, not induction, was their darling mode of enlarging the domain of human knowledge, and no fact fitted comfortably in its place without being moralized. Far away in the realms of Prester John were to be found giants, pigmies, men with one eye in front and three behind, female warriors, griffins, licorns, and alerions, animals well adapted to point a moral.

The learned Pierre Bercheure, who translated Livy, informed his readers that the toad was mute in every country but France. Moral: The Frenchman, a babbler at home, is perforce mute when he goes abroad. The learned Bercheure either intended to hint that the Gaul too much neglected the study of foreign languages, or that, while vainglorious at home, he became meek and humble when he crossed the frontier.

Still proceeding in this moral strain, Dr. Bercheure asked, "Why, in the territory of Orange, was utterance by sound denied to all toads, one only excepted?" No answer being received, he gave this explanation: The holy bishop, Florent, being much disturbed in his meditations by the disagreeable songs of the toads, ordered them to be silent. They obeyed on the moment, and the good bishop was so touched by their prompt attention to his command that he revoked his order. However, the stupid messenger who brought the news, instead of using the plural form of the verb—cantate—merely said canta, and thus only one of the community ever after could avail itself of the privilege: nasty Mercury! say we. These additions to Pliny could scarcely be called improvements in the science of natural history.

For a long time the healing art was nearly monopolized by the religious houses, but it was not so without an occasional scruple of conscience on the part of the chiefs in the various orders. They feared that their art might too much engross the attention of the practitioners. To moderate their mere scientific ardor, the following legend was sent abroad among them: There was a skilful medical man among the monks of Citeaux, whose time was so much taken up in provincial excursions that he was not found in the convent unless at the great festivals. As he was employed on one of the feasts of the Blessed Virgin, singing in choir with the rest, he was favored with a vision of his heavenly patroness distributing a spoonful of elixir to every one of the singers, himself alone excepted. He made a gesture of supplication not to be treated to such an unenviable distinction, but this reply reached the recesses of his understanding without any action of the senses: "Physician, thou hast no need for my elixir, for you do not deny to yourself any consolation." A radical change was wrought in the man, and on the next solemnity he was favored as the rest. Such was the rapture into which he was thrown, that for the future his healing excursions were as short and as few as possible.

There was no college of physicians at Paris nor Montpellier in the beginning of the twelfth century, but considerable progress was made in founding medical establishments during the next two hundred years. Some enthusiastic pill-taker thus expanded in commendation of the faculty of Paris in 1323:

"In this city, where there is no want or consolation or succor, the physicians appointed to look after our health and the cure of our maladies, and whom the sage orders us to honor as being created by the Most High for our needs, are so numerous that, when they pass through the streets to discharge their duty in their rich dresses and in their doctoral caps, those who have need of them have little trouble to get an interview. Oh! how we should love these good physicians, who, in the practice of their profession, philosophically conform themselves to the rules of science and long experience!"

We have seen a copy of the Medical Review, a brochure, in rhyme, issued in Dublin circa 1775, eulogizing by name the several physicians and surgeons who practised in our city at that period. It was written throughout in the spirit of the above extract, and, but for the evident good faith of the writer, would be supremely ludicrous.

All the old writers on the subject were not so complimentary to the faculty. Some of the members deserved what they got if they were of the sect of the impudent Arnaud de Villeneuve, some of whose counsels to his students took this shape: "You examine perhaps the ... of a patient without being anything the wiser for it, but say, 'There is an obstruction in the liver.' The patient may perhaps answer, 'But, master, it is in my head I feel the illness.' You answer without hesitation, 'It is from the liver it comes.' Always make use of the word obstruction. They don't know the meaning of it, and it's all for the best that they should not."

But skilful or the reverse, the doctors of the fourteenth century found all their resources powerless to arrest the epidemic which about the middle of it swept across Europe. Its visitations were more appalling than those of cholera in our times. The physicians behaved as feeling and heroic men, and were swept off in thousands, while doing their duty by their patients. There was no writer found to introduce a series of licentious stories as sequel to a harrowing account of the scourge.

Among those who essayed to cure Charles VI. of his mental malady was Arnaud Guillem, who came in 1393 from Languedoc to Paris, bringing with him the volume Smagorad, which "Adam had received by way of consolation a century after the death of Abel." There is some doubt about his being put to death for failure; but two Augustine monks suffered in 1398, and four sorcerers in 1403, for the same liberty taken with sick majesty. It is probable that the heads stuck on spikes over palace gates for similar failures in our Household Stories had some foundation in pre-historic times. In one of his lucid intervals the poor king directed that once in the year the dead body of a criminal should be delivered to the Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier, a proof that he set more value on the study of the human subject than the virtue of charms or other superstitious processes. Among medical treatises of the fourteenth century, some disfigured by the dreams of the astrologer, the alchymist, and the sorcerer, that of Gui de Chauliai stands pre-eminent for scientific attainment.

Arithmetic Geometry, Music, and Astronomy.

At first scholars were careful to avoid the title of mathematicians. Something magical and occult was attached to it, as in the old Roman times. Mathematician and felon were synonymous terms. Mere arithmetic was in better odor; it was useful in concocting the ordinary tables set in the beginning of prayer-books, and including the golden number, the epact, the dominical letter, etc.[Footnote 134] Calendars were carefully compiled all through the era in question. It has often puzzled us to know how calculations to any extent could be effected by the Xs and Vs and Is which denoted numbers previous to the eleventh century. Wretched was the pupil's lot (if such an incident ever took place) required to perform an operation in long division, in multiplication by tens of thousands, or to extract the cube root of a large number. Great are our obligations to the Arabians for the use of their system of notation.

A household joke of the day throws light on the incapacity of the wives of small citizens to manage deep calculations. A few of the husbands drinking agree that he whose wife could not count up to four accurately should pay the reckoning. The calculation of Robin's wife was "One, two, three, seven, twelve, and fourteen." John's wife began at two. Tassin's wife tossed her head, and said she was not a baby, and would not count at all. We cannot find out which of the husbands paid the scot.

The geometry of the day chiefly confined itself to the measurement of land, but there were treatises on perspective, and portions of the Latin Euclid extant.

Charles the Wise was not without charts and maps of the world. Many such existed, but, as may be supposed, tolerably incorrect. The earth was supposed to consist of two hemispheres, glued, as it were, to each other, and the globe somehow maintained its place in the void like a suspended lamp.

In 1366, King Charles V., in order to prevail on Pope Urban V. not to remove to Rome, urged that Marseilles was in the centre of the civilized world. This would be rendered still more sensible by cutting off Greece from the general map. "The schismatic Greeks cut themselves off from the spiritual world by their separation from the church: let their land be removed from the material world." It does not appear that this ingenious proposition was put in practice.

Of accounts of foreign parts there was no lack, and it must be said that the early books of travels and accounts of countries, if less strictly confined to facts than ours, were much more entertaining. A copy of Marco Polo's travels was presented in 1307 to Charles Count of Valois by John de Cepoy, son of the Venetian ambassador. John de Meun translated into French the Wonders of Ireland. They had also the Wonders of England, India, the World, etc.

Several works were composed in the fourteenth century on the subject of music, but chiefly in Latin and with reference to the established canons of sacred melody.

Astronomy had a hard strife with the impostor astrology, which had been so long in possession of the general intellect. However, some glimmerings of the true state of heavenly things had been gradually entering the minds of the astrologers themselves. The total eclipse of the moon on the night of the 15th of January, 1305, terrified the Parisians. It was mentioned as an Eclipsis Lunae horribilis. But an eclipse of the sun, 31st January, 1310, was predicted by the Faculty of Astronomy. Another in 1337 was treated of by John of Genoa, who, in 1332, had composed his canon of eclipses. Comets gave considerable disturbance to the public mind during this century. They predicted the death of Louis X., and the destruction of France, the plague, and all varieties of deceit, lies, hatred, and insubordination, etc. However, science was making a sure though slow progress, and toward the close of the century the learned were in possession of many astronomical facts unknown at the beginning. The comets made their fearful visits at these dates—March, 1315, July, 1337. April, 1338, 1340, 1346, 1360, 1368, 1378.

Several voyages and land journeys were performed during this century, and among the rest that by our own Sir John Mandeyille, some of whose discoveries were inferior to those of the truth-loving Lemuel Gulliver alone. The Holy Land possessed strong attractions for devout and cultivated souls. Of all these the most enthusiastic was the Tuscan Dominican, Riccoldo di Monte da Croce. Having gained the valley of Josaphat, he believed himself at the end of the world, and thus gave vent to his burning thoughts:

"We saw about the middle or the valley the tomb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and, considering it to be the place of the final Judgment, we passed between the Mount of Olives and Mount Cavalry, weeping, and trembling with fear, as if the Supreme Judge was already above our heads. In this sentiment of awe we thought within ourselves, and we said to each other—'It is from above this hill that the most Just of Judges will pronounce his decision. Here is the right hand, there is the left. We then selected, to the best of our judgment, our places on the right, and each sunk in the ground a stone to denote his own. I sunk mine, and I retain that spot for myself, and for all those who, after receiving from me the word of God, shall persevere in faith, in charity, and in the truth of the holy gospel, and we marked the stone in the presence of many of the faithful, who wept with us, and whom I call on as witnesses this day."

We have come to the end of our sketch of the progress of intelligence during a brief portion of its course, namely, that portion immediately preceding the epoch of the invention of the printing-press. The impediments in the way of scientific progress were great and humorous. Many weak spirits were discouraged, and did nothing; others, some few of whom we have particularized, wrought like giants, and thus benefited themselves and their kind. Among these benefits we do not reckon in chief the conveniences and luxuries which distinguish our existence from that of the Samoyeds or dog-ribbed Indians. The Mussulman, well to do, and spending the eleven twelfths of his time in mere indolence and indulgence of the senses, would be better off discharging the duties of porter or ferryman. No, the chief advantages we derive from the advance of human knowledge is the easier and swifter communication between the scattered members of the great human family, the advance of education among the working classes, and the healthy occupation of so many active and energetic minds, which, without suitable work to do, would prey on themselves, and become a curse to their possessors.