218 SKETCH OF THE STATE OF LITERATURE 
learning, obtained under Valdemar I and Canute VI, were utterly 
extinguished. No one then thought of exercising his mental powers 
in scanning the sublimities of mental science, or in conning the nice- 
ties of philology. From the schools, the poets and the rhetoricians, 
the ancient historians and the first philosophers, were altogether 
banished. Saxo’s venerated favourites—Valerius Maximus, Lucan, 
Juvenal, Statius—all were buried in the dust: they were super- 
seded by Summulx, Sententix, Cursus Logicales, Quodlibetice, and 
similar fantastical compilations. The whole course of study was 
employed upon the canon-law and dialectics ; or rather, as Luther 
observed, upon sheer sophistry, for every body had his attention en- 
gaged with trifling and subtlety. 
At this epoch, the list of books used in the Danish schools by the 
pupils, affords an idea of the nature of their studies. Here it stands. 
I. The Doctrinale ; a latin grammar, in hexameter verse, by Dr. 
Alexander Villadeus.* II. The Grecismus ; another latin gram- 
mar, by Eberhard de Bethune. III. The Labyrinthus ; by the same 
author: it formed a sort of system of rhetoric and poétics. IV. 
fEiquivoca ; of these, here follows an example. By a mystical rhe- 
torician, the Earth is denominated hell, a virgin, god, eternal life 
and human flesh, and he supports these various assertions with pas- 
sages from the Bible. Thus, the earth is Hell, because you find in 
Job, “ antequam vadam ad terram tenebrosam :” it is a Virgin, for 
it is written in one of the Psalms, “ veritas de terra orta est de vir- 
gine :” it is God, because in the Scriptures it is said, “ dic tibi terra 
levem ceeli supereminet opem :” it is Eternal Life, for in the Psalms 
it is declared, “ portio mea Domino in terra viventium :” and the 
earth is Human Flesh, because in Job there is the declaration, 
“terra data est in manus impu.” Such were the paralogical exer- 
cises whereon the Danish youth misemployed their time and intel- 
lectual energies, during the middle ages. V. The Synonimorum 
Liber, an ingenious attempt to distinguish the different words which 
have the same signification. VI. The Composita Verborum, which 
would find a place under the head of Etymology in a modern gram- 
matical system: this article and the two preceding were composed 
* « Alexandri Galli, seu de Villa Dei, Doctrinale, sive grammatica latina 
metricé scripta,” was in common use in the Schools, and it passed through 
more than fifty impressisns before the end of the fifteenth century. The 
“ most esteemed” edition of the Doctrinale is that of Venice in folio, with the 
types of John de Spira, between the years 1470 and 1473: it forms a Tract 
composed of forty-five leaves. 
