THE RENAISSANCE OF SCIENCE. 15 



we must seek the full expression of Arab philosophical thought, while 

 Algazel is its most original expositor. The greatest of the astronomers 

 were Albategnius, Ibn Yonis and Abul-Wefa. 



Greek made its way slowly in Europe, also, though it was never 

 quite lost. In the tenth century, Sister Hrosvita, a nun of Hanover, 

 composed Latin poems and dramas, learned Greek and read Aristotle. 

 In the twelfth Abelard recommended the nuns of the Paraclete to 

 study both Latin and Greek; and Heloise was acquainted with Latin, 

 Greek, and Hebrew as well. In the thirteenth, Greek manuscripts were 

 systematically collected by a few scholars — Eobert of Lincoln, for ex- 

 ample; and Eoger Bacon's far-reaching proposal for the establishment 

 of schools of comparative grammar for the study of Chaldean, Hebrew, 

 Arabic and Greek, as well as Latin, represents the highest wave of a 

 very widespread current. Petrarch's letters are a proof of a great 

 rationalistic movement in the fourteenth century to which the study 

 of the classic authors of Greece, in their original tongue, was a prime 

 necessity. Neither Petrarch nor Dante knew Greek sufficiently well 

 to read Homer in the original. The council which sat at Basel from 

 1431 to 1449 to consider the reconciliation of the Greek and Latin 

 churches attracted many Greek scholars to western Europe, and by the 

 fall of Constantinople in 1453 learned Greeks, who brought with them 

 treasured manuscripts, were dispersed throughout all christian 

 countries. 



Raymond of Toledo, grand chancellor of Castile, established a col- 

 lege of translators shortly before the middle of the twelfth century, 

 and the works of Avicenna and other Arab philosophers were trans- 

 lated into Latin. In all works of this kind learned Jews bore an 

 important part. The translations were barbarous in the extreme. 

 Each Arabic word was translated into Latin by one clerk, and the 

 construction arranged by another. 'The Latin word covered the word 

 in Arabic as a piece in chess covers the square.' The grammatical 

 construction was Arabic rather than Roman. The style was barbaric. 

 "Inuarkin terra alJcanarihy, stediei et haraJci et castrum munitum 

 destendedyn descenderunt adenkirati ubi descendit super eos aqua 

 Euphratis veniens de Euetin" is a phrase from Hermann, the German, 

 and it bears out Roger Bacon's dictum that students would lose their 

 time, trouble and money over translations of the sort. * * Should Cicero 

 or Livy return, ' ' says Petrarch, ' * and stumblingly read his own writings 

 once more, he would promptly declare them the work of another, per- 

 haps of a barbarian." 



We have seen that the eagerness of collectors of manuscripts some- 

 times made Moorish scholars familiar with literary works even before 

 they were published in their native country. Copies were rapidly 

 made and distributed: a popular work would soon be known over the 



