The History Of Education by Ellwood P. Cubberley (epub e reader .txt) 📖

and those who wished to learn found it easier to do so. The state of society and the condition of the times, however, were against any large success for such an ambitious educational undertaking, and after the death of Charlemagne, the division of his empire, and the invasions of the Northmen, education slowly declined again, though never to quite the level it had reached when Charlemagne came to the throne. In a few schools there was no decline, and these became the centers of learning of the future. Charlemagne having substituted merit for favoritism in his realm, promoting to be bishops and abbots the most learned men of his time, many of these became zealous workers in the cause of education and did much to keep up and advance learning after his death.

 

Among the most able of his helpers was Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans. He carried out most thoroughly in his diocese the instructions of the king, giving to his clergy the following directions: Let the priests hold schools in the towns and villages, and if any of the faithful wish to entrust their children to them for the learning of letters, let them not refuse to receive and teach such children.

Moreover, let them teach them from pure affection, remembering that it is written, “the wise shall shine as the splendor of the firmament,”

and “they that instruct many in righteousness shall shine as the stars forever and forever.” And let them exact no price from the children for their teaching, nor receive anything from them, save what their parents may offer voluntarily and from affection.

 

Another able assistant was Alcuin himself, who, after fourteen years of strenuous service at Charlemagne’s court, was rewarded by the king with the office of Abbot at the monastery of Saint Martin, at Tours. There he spent the last eight years of his life in teaching, copying manuscripts, and writing letters to bishops and abbots regarding the advancement of religion and learning. The work of Alcuin in directing the copying of manuscripts has been described. In a letter to Charlemagne, soon after his appointment, he reviews his labors, contrasts the state of learning in England and Frankland, and appeals to Charlemagne for books from England to copy (R. 65). So important was his work as a teacher as well that at his death, in 814, most of the important educational centers of the kingdom were in the hands of his former pupils. Perhaps the most important of all these was Rabanus Maurus, who became head of the monastery school at Fulda. We shall learn more of him in the next chapter.

 

[Illustration: FIG. 42. WHERE THE DANES RAVAGED ENGLAND.]

 

NEW INVASIONS; THE NORTHMEN. Five years after Alcuin went to Frankland to help Charlemagne revive learning in his kingdom, a fresh series of barbarian invasions began with the raiding of the English coast by the Danes. In raid after raid, extending over nearly a hundred years, these Danes gradually overran all of eastern and central England from London north to beyond Whitby, plundering and burning the churches and monasteries, and destroying books and learning everywhere. By the Peace of Wedmore, effected by King Alfred in 878, the Danes were finally given about one half of England, and in return agreed to settle down and accept Christianity. The damage done by these invaders was very large, and King Alfred, in his introduction to an Anglo-Saxon translation of Pope Gregory’s Pastoral Care (R. 66), gives a gloomy picture of the destruction wrought to the churches and the decay of learning in England.

 

Other bands of these Northmen (Danes and Norwegians) began to prey on the northern coast of Frankland, and in the tenth century seized all the coast of what is now northern France and down as far as Paris and Tours. From Tours to Corbie (see Figure 41) churches and monasteries were pillaged and burned, Tours and Corbie with their libraries both perishing. Amiens and Paris were laid siege to, and disorder reigned throughout northern Frankland. The Annals of Xanten and the Annals of Saint Vaast, two mediaeval chronicles of importance, give gloomy pictures of this period.

Three selections will illustrate:

 

According to their custom the Northmen plundered East and West Frisia and burned … towns…. With their boats filled with immense booty, including both men and goods, they returned to their own country. [19]

 

The Normans inflicted much harm in Frisia and about the Rhine. A mighty army of them collected by the river Elbe against the Saxons, and some of the Saxon towns were besieged, others burned, and most terribly did they oppress the Christians. [20]

 

The Northmen ceased not to take Christian people captive and kill them, and to destroy churches and houses and burn villages. Through all the streets lay bodies of the clergy, of laymen, nobles, and others, of women, children, and suckling babes. There was no road or place where the dead did not lie, and all who saw Christian people slaughtered were filled with sorrow and despair. [21]

 

After much destruction, Rollo, Duke of the Normans, finally accepted Christianity, in 912, and agreed to settle down in what has ever since been known as Normandy. From here portions of the invaders afterward passed over to England in the Norman Conquest of 1066. This was the last of the great German tribes to move, and after they had raided and plundered and settled down and accepted Christianity, western Europe, after six centuries of bloodshed and pillage and turmoil and disorder, was at last ready to begin in earnest the building-up of a new civilization and the restoration of the old learning.

 

WORK OF ALFRED IN ENGLAND. The set-back to learning caused by this latest deluge of barbarism was a serious one, and one from which the land did not recover for a long time. In northern Frankland and in England the results were disastrous. The revival which Charlemagne had started was checked, and England did not recover from the blow for centuries. Even in the parts of England not invaded and pillaged, education sadly declined as a result of nearly a century of struggle against the invaders (R. 66). Alfred, known to history as Alfred the Great, who ruled as English king from 871

to 901, made great efforts to revive learning in his kingdom. Probably inspired by the example of Charlemagne, he established a large palace school (R. 68), to the support of which he devoted one eighth of his income; he imported scholars from Mercia and Frankland (R. 67); restored many monasteries; and tried hard to revive schools and encourage learning throughout his realm, and with some success. [22] With the great decay of the Latin learning he tried to encourage the use of the native Anglo-Saxon language, [23] and to this end translated books from Latin into Anglo-Saxon for his people. In his Introduction to Gregory’s volume (R. 66) he expresses the hope, “If we have tranquillity enough, that all the free-born youth now in England, who are rich enough to be able to devote themselves to it … be set to learn … English writing,” while those who were to continue study should then be taught Latin. The coming of the Normans in 1066, with the introduction of Norman-French as the official language of the court and government, for a time seriously interfered with the development of that native English learning of which Alfred wrote.

 

In the preceding chapter and in this one we have traced briefly the great invasions, or migrations, which took place in western Europe, and indicated somewhat the great destruction they wrought within the bounds of the old Empire. In this chapter we have traced the beginnings of Christian schools to replace the ones destroyed, the preservation of learning in the monasteries, and the efforts of Charlemagne and Alfred to revive learning in their kingdoms. In the chapter which follows we shall describe the mediaeval system of education as it had evolved by the twelfth century, after which we shall be ready to pass to the beginnings of that Revival of Learning which ultimately resulted in the rediscovery of the learning of the ancient world.

 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

 

1. Picture the gradual dying-out of Roman learning in the Western Empire, and explain why pagan schools and learning lingered longer in Britain, Ireland, and Italy than elsewhere.

 

2. At what time was the old Roman civilization and learning most nearly extinct?

 

3. Explain how the monasteries were forced to develop schools to maintain any intellectual life.

 

4. Explain how the copying of manuscripts led to further educational development in the monasteries.

 

5. Would the convents have tended to attract a higher quality of women than the monasteries did of men? Why?

 

6. Explain why Greek was known longer in Ireland and Britain than elsewhere in the West.

 

7. What was the relative condition of learning in Frankland and England, about 900 A.D.?

 

8. What light is thrown on the conditions of the civilization of the time by the small permanent success of the efforts of Charlemagne, looking toward a revival of learning in Frankland?

 

9. Explain how Latin came naturally to be the language of the Church, and of scholarship in western Europe throughout all the Middle Ages.

 

10. After reading the story of the migrations, and of the fight to save some vestiges of the old civilization, try to picture what would have been the result had Rome not built up an Empire, and had Christianity not arisen and conquered.

 

SELECTED READINGS

 

In the accompanying Book of Readings the following selections are reproduced:

 

53. Migne: Forms used in connection with monastery life: (a) Form for offering a Child to a Monastery.

(b) The Monastic Vow.

(c) Letter of Honorable Dismissal from a Monastery.

54. Abbot Heriman: The Copying of Books at a Monastery.

55. Othlonus: Work of a Monk in writing and copying Books.

56. A Monk: Work of a Nun in copying Books.

57. Symonds: Scarcity and Cost of Books.

58. Clark: Anathemas to protect Books from Theft.

59. Bede: On Education in Early England.

(a) The Learning of Theodore.

(b) Theodore’s Work for the English Churches.

(c) How Albinus succeeded Abbot Hadrian.

60. Alcuin: Description of the School at York.

61. Alcuin: Catalogue of the Cathedral Library at York.

62. Alcuin: Specimens of the Palace School Instruction.

63. Charlemagne: Letter sending out a Collection of Sermons.

64. Charlemagne: General Proclamations as to Education.

(a) The Proclamation of 787 A.D.

(b) General Admonition of 789 A.D.

(c) Order as to Learning of 802 A.D.

65. Alcuin: Letter to Charlemagne as to Books and Learning.

66. King Alfred: State of Learning in England in his Time.

67. Asser: Alfred obtains Scholars from Abroad.

68. Asser: Education of the Son of King Alfred.

69. Ninth-Century Plan of the Monastery at Saint Gall.

 

QUESTIONS ON THE READINGS

 

1. Point out the similarity between: (a) The form for offering a child to a monastery and the monastic vow (53 a-b), and a modern court form for renouncing or adopting a child. (b) The letter of dismissal from a monastery (53 c), and the modern letter of honorable dismissal of a student from a college or normal school.

 

2. Compare the type of books copied by the Abbot of Saint Martins (55) and those copied by the nun at Wessebrunn (56).

 

3. Was the evolution of the schoolteacher out of the copyist at Ratisbon (55), by a specialization of labor, analogous to the process in more modern times?

 

4. Explain the mediaeval belief in the effectiveness to protect books from theft of such anathemas as are reproduced in 58.

 

5. What do the selections from Bede (59 a-c) indicate as to the preservation of the old learning