of thought. For example, he is sure of God's omnipotence,
and also sure that God can do nothing which would detract
from the perfection of His nature : God cannot lie : "For it
does not follow, if God wills to lie that it is just to lie ; but
rather that He is not God. For only that will can will to
lie in which truth is corrupted, or rather which is corrupted
by forsaking truth. Therefore when one says *if God wills
to lie,' he says in substance, ' if God is of such a nature as
towilltoUe.'"^
Anselm's other famous work was the Cur Deus homo,
upon the problem why God became man to redeem mankind.
It was connected with his view of sin, and the fall of the
angels, as set forth chiefly in his dialogue De casu Diaboli.
One may note certain cardinal points in his exposition:
Man could be redeemed only by God; for he would have
been the bond-servant of whoever redeemed him, and to
have been the servant of any one except God would not have
restored him to the dignity which would have been his had
he not sinned.* Or again: The devil had no rights over
man, which he lost by unjustly slaying God. For man was
not the devil's, nor does the devil belong to himself but to
God.' Evidently Anselm frees himself from the conception
of any ransom paid to the devil, or any trickery put on
him — thoughts which had lowered current views of the
Atonement. Anselm's arguments (which are too large, and
too interwoven with his views upon connected subjects, to
be done justice to by any casual statement) are free from
^ Cur Demshcmo, 1 12, *IM.ls. * Ibid. 17-
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CHAP. XI ELEVENTH CENTURY: ITALY 281
degrading foolishness. His reasonings were deeply fdt, as
one may see in his MeditaHones, where thought and feeling
mutually support and enlumce each other. So he recalls
Augustine, the great model and predecessor whom he
followed and revered. And still the feeling in Anselm's
MedikUiones, as in the Proslogion, is somewhat sublimated
and lifted above hmnan heart-throbs. Perhaps it may seem
rhetorical, and intentionally stimulated in order to edify.
Even in the MeditaHones upon the hmnanity and passion of
Jesus, Anselm is not very close to the quivering tenderness
of St. Bernard, and very far from the impulsive and
passionate love of Francis of Assisi. One thinks that his
feelings rarely distorted his coimtenance or wet it with tears.^
1 Ejcamples of Ansdm's prose are given post. Chapter XXXn. On Anadm's
position in sdiolastidsm and his scholastic method, see Grabmann, Ges. der scheiasHsckm
Meikode, Bd. I. p. 265 sqq. (xgo^ ).
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CHAPTER Xn
MENTAL ASPECTS OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY: FRANCE
I. Gerbert.
n. Odilo of Cluny.
m. FULBERT AND THE SCHOOL OF ChARTKES; TRIVIUM
AND QUADRIVIUH.
IV. Berengar of Tours, Rosceuin, and the Coming 'Hme.
It appeared in the last chapter that Ansehn's choice of
topic was not uninfluenced by his northern domicile at Bee
in Normandy, from which, one may add, it was no far cry
to the monastery (Marmoutier) of Anselm's sharp critic
Gaimilo. These places lay within the confines of central
and northern France, the home of the most originative
mediaeval development. For this region, the renewed studies
of the Carolingian period were the proper antecedents of
the efforts of the eleventh century. The topics of study
still remained substantially the same; yet die later time
represents a further stage in the appropriation of the antique
and patristic material, and its productions show the genius
of the authors more dearly than Carolingian writings,
which were taken piecemeal from patristic sources or made
of borrowed antique phrase.
The difference is 3een in the personality and writings of
Gerbert of Aurillac,^ the man who with such intellectual
catholicity opens the story of this period. One will be
struck with the apparently arid crudity of his intellectual
processes. Crude they were, and of necessity; arid they
1 On Gerbert see LeUres de Gerbert ^ubHies avec une inirodueUon, eic., par Jalien
Havet (Paris ; Picard, 1889 ; I have cited them according to this edition) ; (Eutres
de Gerbert, ed. by OUeris (Clermont and Paris, 1867); also in Migne, Pol. Lot, 139;
Richenis, Historiarum Kbri IV, (espedaUy lib. iii. cap. 55 sqq.)\ Man. Germ, script,
iii. 561 sqq. ; Migne, Pat. Lot. 138, col. 17 i«g. Also Picavet, Gerbert, m» pape pkihsopke
(Paris: Leroux, 1897); Cantor, Ges. der MathemaHk, i. 728-751 (Leipzig, 1880);
Prantl, Ges. der Logik, iL 53-57 (Leipdg, 1861).
383
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were not, being an unavoidable stage in the progress of
mediaeval thinking. Yet it is a touch of fate's irony that
such an interesting personality should have been afflicted
with them. For Gerbert was the redeeming intellect of the
last part of the tenth century. The cravings of his mind
compassed the intellectual predilections of his contem-
poraries. Secular and by no means priestly they appear
in him; and it is clear that religious motives did not
dominate this extraordinary individual who was reared
among monks, became Abbot of Bobbio, Archbishop of
Rheims, Archbishop of Ravenna, and pope at last.
He appears to have been bom shortly before the year
950. From the ignorance in which we are left as to his
parents and the exact place of his birth in Aquitaine, it may
be inferred that his origin was humble. While still a boy
he was received into the Benedictine monastery of St.
Geraldus at Aurillac in Auvergne. There he studied
granunar (in the extended mediaeval sense), under a monk
named Raymund, and grew to love the classics. A loyal
affectionateness was a life-long trait of Gerbert, and more
than one letter in after life bears witness to the love which
he never ceased to feel for the monks of Aurillac among
whom his youthful years were passed, and especially for
this brother Raymimd from whom he received his first
instruction.
Raymund afterwards became abbot of the convent.
But it was his predecessor, Gerald, who had received the
boy Gerbert, and was still to do something of moment in
directing his career. A certain duke of the Spanish
March came on a pilgrimage to Aurillac; and Gerald
besought him to take Gerbert back with him to Spain for
such further instruction as the convent did not aflford. The
duke departed, taking Gerbert, and placed him under the
tuition of the Bishop of Vich, a town near Barcelona. Here
he studied mathematics. The tradition that he travelled
through Spain and learned from the Arabs lacks prob-
ability. But in the course of time the duke and bishop set
forth to pray for sundry material objects at the fountain-head
of Catholicism, and took their proUgi with them to Rome.
In Rome, Grerbert's destiny advanced apace. His
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patrons, doubtless proud of their yoimg scbolar, introduced
him to the Pope, John Xm., who also was impressed by
Gerbert's personality and learning. John told his own
protector, the great Otto, and informed him of Gerbert's
ability to teach mathematics ; and the two kept Crerbert in
Rome, when the Spanish duke and bishop returned to their
coimtry. Gerbert began to teach, and either at this time or
later had among his pupils the yoimg Augustus, Otto 11.
But he was more anxious to study logic than to teach
mathematics, even under imperial favour. He persuaded
the old emperor to let him go to Rheims with a certain
archdeacon from that place, who was skilled in the science
which he lacked. The emperor dismissed him, with a
liberal hand. In his new home Grerbert rapidly mastered
logic, and impressed all with his genius. He won the love
of the archbishop, Adalberon, who soon set the now triply
accomplished scholar at the head of the episcopal school.
Crerbert's education was complete, in letters, in mathematics
including music, and in logic. Thenceforth for ten years
(972-982), the happiest of his life, he studied and also
taught the whole range of academic knowledge.
Fortune, not altogether kind, bestowed on Gerbert the
favour of three emperors. The gradousness of the first
Otto had enabled hhn to proceed to Rheims. The second
Otto listened to his teaching, admired the teacher, and early
in the year 983 made him Abbot and Count of Bobbio.
Long afterwards the third Otto made him Archbishop of
Ravenna, and then pope.
Bobbio, the chief foundation of Columbanus, situated not
far from Genoa, was powerful and rich; but its vast
possessions, scattered throughout Italy, had been squandered
by worthless abbots or seized by lawless nobles. The new
coimt-abbot, eager to fulfil the ecclesiastical and feudal
fimctions of his position, strove to reclaim the monastery's
property and bring back its monks to decency and learning.
In vain. Now, as more than once in Gerbert's later life,
brute drciunstances proved too strong. Otto died. Gerbert
was imsupported. He struggled and wrote many letters
which serve to set forth the situation for us, though they
did not win the battle for their writer :
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''According to the largeness of my mind, my lord (Otto 11.)
has enriched me with most ample honours. For what part of
Italy does not hold the possessions of the blessed Colimibanus?
So should this be, from the generosity and benevolence of our
Caesar. Fortune, indeed, ordains it otherwise. Forsooth ac-
cording to the largeness of my mind she has loaded me with most
ample store of enemies. For what part of Italy has not my
enemies? My strength is unequal to the strength of Italy!
There is peace on this condition: if I, despoiled, submit, they
cease to strike; intractable in my vested rights, they attack
with the sword. When they do not strike with the sword, they
thrust with javelins of words." *
Within a year Gerbert gave up the struggle at Bobbio,
and returned to Rheims to resume his duties as head of
the school, and secretary and intimate adviser of Adal-
beron. Politically the time was one of uncertainty and
turmoil. The Carolingian house was crumbling, and the
house of Capet was scheming and struggling on to a royalty
scarcely more considerable. In Germany intrigue and revolt
threatened the rights of the child Otto III. Archbishop
Adalberon, guided by Gerbert, was a powerful factor in
the dynastic change in France; and the two were zealous
for Otto. Throughout these troubles Gerbert constantly
appears, directing projected measiures and divining courses
of events, yet somehow, in spite of his unmatched intelli-
gence, failing to control them.
Time passed, and Adalberon died at the beginning of
the year 989. His successor, Amidf, a sdon of the falling
Carolingian house, was subsequently imseated for treason to
the new-sprung house of Capet. In 991 Gerbert himself
was made archbishop. But although seeming to reach his
longed-for goal, troubles redoubled on his head. There was
rage at the choice of one so lowly bom for the princely
dignity. The storm gathered aroimd the new archbishop,
and the See of Rome was moved to interfere, which it did
gladly, since at Rome Gerbert was hated for the reproaches
cast upon its ignorance and corruption by bishops at the
council which elected him and deposed his predecessor. In
that deposition and election Rome had not acquiesced ; and
we read the words of the papal legate :
>£^. 12.
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286 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book n
"The acts of your synod against Amulf, or rather against the
Roman Church, astound me with their insults and blasphemies.
Truly is the word of the Gospel fulfilled in you, * There shall be
many anti-Christs.' . . . Your anti-Christs say that Rome is as a
temple of idols, an image of stone. Because the vicars of Peter
and their disciples will not have as master Plato, Virgil, Terence or
the rest of the herd of Philosophers, ye say they are not worthy to
be door-keepers — ^because they have no part in such song." ^
The battle went against Gerbert. Interdicted from
his archiepiscopal functions, he left France for the Court
of Otto in., where his intellect at once dominated the
aspirations of the young monarch. Otto and Gerbert went
together to Italy, and the emperor made his friend
Archbishop of Ravenna. The next year, 999, Gregory V.
died, and the archbishop became Pope Sylvester 11. For
three short years the glorious young imperial dreamer and
his peerless coimsellor planned and wrought for a great
imited Empire and Papacy on earth. Then death took first
the emperor and soon afterwards the pope-philosopher.
Gerbert was the first mind of his time, its greatest
teacher, its most eager learner, and most imiversal scholar.
His pregnant letters reflect a finished man who has mastered
his acquired knowledge and transformed it into power.
They also evince the authorship of one who had uniquely
profited from the power and spirit of the great minds of the
pagan past, had imbibed their sense of form and pertinency,
and with them had become self-contained and self-controlled,
master of himself and of all that had entered in and made
him what he was. Notice how the personality of the writer,
with his capacities, tastes, and temperament, is imfolded
before us in a letter to a close friend, abbot of a monastery
at Tours :
"Since you hold my memory in honour, and in virtue of
relationship declare great friendship, I deem that I shall be happy
for your opinion, if only I am one who in the judgment of so great
a man is found worthy to be loved. But since I am not one who,
with Panetius, would sometimes separate the good from the useful,
but rather with Tully would mingle it with everjrthing useful, I
wish these best and holiest friendships never to be void of re-
1 Mon, Germ, scriptores. iii. 686.
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CHAP, xn ELEVENTH CENTURY: FRANCE 287
dprocal utility. And as morality and the art of speech are not
to be severed from philosophy, I have slw^ys joined the study of
q>eaking well with the study of living well. For although by
itself living well may be nobler than speaking well, and may
suffice without its fellow for one absolved from the direction of
aflFairs; yet for us, busied with the State, both are needed.
For it is of the greatest utility to speak appositely when persuad-
ing, and with mild discourse check the fury of angry men. In
preparing for such business, I am eagerly collecting a library;
and as formerly at Rome and elsewhere in Italy, so likewise in
Germany and Belgiiun, I have obtained copyists and manu-
scripts with a mass of money, and the help of friends in those
parts. Permit me likewise to beg of you also to promote this
end. We will append at the end of this letter a list of those
writers we wish copied. We have sent for your disposal parch-
ment for the scribes and money to defray the cost, not immind-
ful of your goodness. FinaUy, lest by saying more we should
abuse epistolary convenances, the cause of so much trouble is
contempt of faithless fortune ; a contempt which not nature alone
has given to us — as to many men — ^but careful study. Conse-
quently when at leisure and when busied in affairs, we teach
what we know, and learn where we are ignorant." ^
Gerbert's letters are concise, even elliptical to the verge
of obscurity. He discloses himself in a few words to
his old friend Raymimd at the monastery of Aurillac:
"With what love we are bound to you, the Latins know and
also the barbarians,* who share the fruit of our studies.
Their vows demand your presence. Amid public cares
philosophy is the sole solace; and from her study we have
often been the gainer, when in this stormy time we have thus
broken the attack of fortune raging grievously against others
or ourselves. . . ." •
Save for the language, one might fancy Cicero speaking
to some friend, and not the futuire pope of the year 1000 to
a monk. The sentiment is quite antique. And Grerbert
not only uses antique phrase but is touched, like many a
mediaeval man, with the antique spirit. In another letter
he writes of friendship, and queries whether the divinity has
given anything better to mortals. He refers to his prospects,
* Presumably Gerbert's German-flpeaking scholars are meant.
* Ep. 45, Saimundo monacho.
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288 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book n
and remarks: ''sed involvit mmidum caeca fortuna/' and
he is not certain whither it will cast him.'
Doubtless such antique sentiments were a matter of
mood with Gerbert; he can readily express others of a
Christian colour, and turn again to still other topics very
readily, as in the following letter — a curious one. It is to a
monk:
''Think not, sweetest brother, that it is through my fault I
lack my brethren's society. After leaving thee, I had to undertake
many journeys in the business of my father Columbanus.' The
ambitions of the powers, the hard and wretched times, turn right
to wrong. No one keeps faith. Yet since I know that all things
hang on the decree of God, who changes both hearts and the
kingdoms of the sons of men, I patiently await the end of things.
I admonish and exhort thee, brother, to do the same. In the
meanwhile one thing I beg, which may be accomplished without
danger or loss to thee, and will make me thy friend forever. Thou
knowest with what zeal I gather books everywhere, and thou
knowest how many scribes there are in Italy, in town and country.
Come then, quietly procure me copies of Manlius's (Bo^thius)
De astrologia^ Victorinus's RheioriCy Demosthenes's Optalmicusr}
I promise thee, brother, and will keep my word, to preserve a
sacred silence as to thy praiseworthy compliance, and will remit
twofold whatever thou dost demand. Let this much be known
to the man, and the pay too, and cheer us more frequently with
a letter ; and have no fear that knowledge will come to any one
of any matter thou mayest confide to our good faith." *
When he wrote this letter, about the year 988, Gerbert
was dangerously deep in politics, and great was the power of
this low-bom titular Abbot of Bobbio, head of the school at
Rheims and secretary to the archbishop. The tortuous
statescraft and startling many-sidedness of this "scholar in
politics" must have disturbed his contemporaries, and may
have roused the suspicions from which grew the stories, told
by future men, that this scholar, statesman, and philosopher-
pope was a magician who had learned from forbidden
sources much that should be veiled. Withal, however, one
may deem that the most veritable inner bit of Gerbert was
1 Ep, 46, ad Geraidum Abbalem.
* /.«. on the affairs of the monastery of Bobbio.
* A Greek doctor of Augustus's time, who wrote 00 the diseases of the cgre
*Bp. 130.
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CHAP, xn ELEVENTH CENTURY: FRANCE 289
his love of knowledge and of antique literature, and that the
letters disclosing this are the subtlest revelation of the man
who was ever transmuting his well-guarded knowledge into
himself and his most personal moods.
"For there is nothing more noble for us in human affairs than
a knowledge of the most distingtiished men; and may it be
displayed in volumes upon volumes multiplied. Go on then, as
you have begun, and bring the streams of Cicero to one who
thirsts. Let M. Tullius thrust himself into the midst of the
anxieties which have enveloped us since the betrayal of our city,
so that in the happy eyes of men we are held ui^appy through
our sentence. What things are of the world we have sought,
we have found, we have accomplished, and, as I will say, we have
become chief amcmg the wicked. Lend aid, father, in order that
divinity, expelled by the multitude of sinners, bent by thy prayers,
may return, may visit- us, may dwell with us — and if possible,
may we who mourn the absence of the blessed father Adalberon,
be rejoiced by thy presence." ^
So Gerbert wrote from Rheims, himself a chief intriguer
in a city full of treason.
Gerbert was a power making for letters. The best
scholars sat at his feet ; he was an inspiration at the Courts
of the second and third Ottos, who loved learning and died
so yoimg; and the great sdhool of Chartres, imder the
headship of his pupil Fulbert, was the direct heir to his
instruction. At Rheims, where he taught so many years, he
left to others the elementary instruction in Latin. A pupil,
Richer, who wrote his history, speaks of courses in rhetoric
and literature, to which he introduced his pupils after
instructing them in logic :
''When he wished to lead them on from such studies to
rhetoric, he put in practice his opinion that one cannot attain
the art of oratory without a previous knowledge of the modes
of diction which are to be learned from the poets. So he brought
forwsrd those with whom he thought his pupils should be con-
versant. He read and explained the poets Virgil, Statins, and
Terence, the satirists Juvenal and Persius and Horace, also Lucan
the historiographer. Familiarized with these, and practised in
their locutions, he taught his pupils rhetoric. After they were
1 Ep, 167 On Migne, Ep. 174)*
VOL. I U
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290 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book n
instructed in this art, he brought up a sophist, to practise them
in disputation, so that practised in this art as well, they might
seem to argue artlessly, which he deemed the height of oratory." *
So Gerbert used the classic poets in teaching rhetoric,
and doubtless the great prose writers too, with whom he was
familiar. Following Cicero's precept that the orator should
be a proficient reasoner, he prepared his young rhetoricians
by a course in logic, and completed their discipline with
exercises in disputation.
Richer also speaks of Gerbert's epoch-making mathe-
matical knowledge.* In arithmetic he improved the cur-
rent methods of computation; in geometry he taught the
traditional methods of measurement descended from the
Roman surveyors, and compiled a work from Boethius and
other sources. For astronomy he made spheres and other
instnmients, and in music his teaching was the best obtain-
able. In none of these provinces was he an original
inventor; nor did he exhaust the knowledge had by men
before him. He was, however, the embodiment of mediaeval
progress, in that he drew intelligently upon the sources
within his reach, and then taught with imderstanding and
enthusiasm. Richer's praise is imstinted :
"He began with arithmetic ; then taught music, of which there
had long been ignorance in Gaul. . . . With what pains he set
forth the method of astronomy, it may be well to state, so that the
reader may perceive the sagacity and skill of this great man.
This difficult subject he explained by means of admirable instru-
ments. First he illustrated the world's sphere by one of soUd
wood, the greater by the less. He fixed it obliquely as to the
horizon with two poles, and near the upper pole set the northern
constellations, and by the lower one those of the south. He
determined its position by means of the circle called by the Greeks
orizon and by die Latins limUans, because it divides the consteUa-
tions which are seen from those which are not. By his sphere
thus fixed, he demonstrated the rising and setting of the stars,
and taught his disciples to recognize them. And at night he
followed their courses and marked the place of their rising and
setting upon the different regions of hb model."
The historian passes on to tell how Gerbert with
ingenious devices showed on his sphere the imaginary circles
^ Richer, Hist, iii. 47, 48. * Several of his compoations are extant.
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CHAP, xn ELEVENTH CENTURY: FRANCE 291
called parallels, and on another the movements of the
planets, and on still another marked the constellations of
the heavens, so that even a beginner, upon having one
constellation pointed out, could find the others.*
In the province of philosophy, Gerbert's labours ex-
tended little beyond formal logic, philosophy's instrument.
He could do no more than understand and apply as much of
Boethius's rendering of the Aristotelian Organon as he was
acquainted with. Yet he appears to have used more of the
Boethian writings than any man before him, or for a hun-
dred and fifty years after his death. Richer gives the list.
Beyond this evidence, curious testimony is borne to the
nature of Gerbert's dialectic by Richer's account of a notable
debate. The year was 980, when the fame of the brilliant
young scholasiicus of Rheims had spread through Gaul and
penetrated Germany. A certain master of repute at
Magdeburg, named Otric, sent one of his pupils to report on
Gerbert's teaching, and especially as to his method of laying