154 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



In the later part of the eighth century begins the great age of 

 medieval learning, the educational work of Charles the Great. . . . 

 There was some leisure and freedom and much literary ambition. 

 The Latin poets of the court of Charlemagne have an enthusiasm and 

 delight in classical poetry. ... In prose there was no less activity. 

 Besides the scientific treatises and the commentaries, the edifying 

 works of Alcuin and others, there were histories. . . . The scholarly 

 spirit of the ninth century ... is not limited to the orthodox routine. 

 One of the chief scholars, with more Greek than most others, Erigena, 

 is famous for more than his learning, as a philosopher, who, whatever 

 his respect for the Church, acknowledged no authority higher than 

 reason. Ker. 



Alcuin himself taught rhetoric, logic, mathematics and di- 

 vinity, becoming master of the great school at St. Martin's of 

 Tours. Of his arithmetic the following problem is an illustra- 

 tion : 



If 100 bushels of corn are distributed among 100 people in such 

 a manner that each man receives 3 bushels, each woman 2, and each 

 child half a bushel ; how many men, women and children are there ? 



Of six possible solutions Alcuin gives but one. 



The mathematics taught in Charlemagne's schools would 

 naturally include the use of the abacus, the multiplication table, 

 and the geometry of Boethius. Beyond this, a little Latin with 

 reading and writing sufficed for the needs of the church and her 

 servants, and was supplemented by music and theology for her 

 higher officers. The recognized intellectual needs of the world 

 were indeed but slight. The civilization of Rome had been 

 gradually submerged by successive waves of barbaric invasion 

 from the north, as a similar fate was soon to be met by the still 

 higher culture of Alexandria. The best intellect of the times was 

 perforce drawn into other forms of activity, while such scholars 

 as remained found no favorable environment for fruitful study. 

 The Benedictine monasteries, indeed, sheltered a few studious 

 monks whose scientific interest scarcely extended beyond the 

 mathematics necessary for their simple accounts, and the com- 

 putation connected with the determination of the date of Easter. 



