SCHOOLS. 



125 



tinct, because, in the confusion which followed the 

 irruption of the barbarians, the salaries of the pro- 

 fessors were not paid; and the cathedral schools 

 and parochial schools for boys and young men of all 

 classes in the cities, were established, in which the 

 learning of reading and writing was followed by 

 the study of the trivium, which had become popu- 

 lar; hence they received, at a later time, the name 

 of trivial schools. These schools, after the sixth 

 century, were surpassed in importance by the con- 

 ventual schools, which, at first, were only seminar- 

 ies to prepare persons for the monastic life, but 

 were soon resorted to by laymen. The Benedic- 

 tine convents those links between the civilization 

 of ancient and modern times flourished in Ireland, 

 England, France and Germany, from the sixth to 

 the eleventh century, and were the chief seats of 

 modern European civilization. The discipline was 

 severe and monkish; but the instruction was gen- 

 erally better than in other institutions, partly on 

 account of the many distinguished literary men who 

 embraced the monastic life, partly on account of 

 the peculiar opportunities which they had to form 

 considerable libraries, in consequence of the con- 

 stant communications among the various convents, 

 and the pleasure which the inmates of these took 

 in copying ; partly on account of the esprit de corps 

 of the order, which delighted in being able to show 

 distinguished members or eminent men who had 

 been educated in its schools. There were several 

 priests or monks, whose reputation was such as to 

 attract pupils from great distances. The convent- 

 ual schools at Armagh and Clogher, Canterbury, 

 York and Westminster, at Tours, Rheims, Cler- 

 raont, Paris, at Salzburg, of St Emmeran at Ratis- 

 bon, Hersfield Corvey, Fulda, Hirschau and St 

 Blasius on the Schwarzwald, &c., were particularly 

 famous. The scholars who proceeded from them 

 gave to the scholastic philosophy its character and 

 name, the teachers in the conventual schools being 

 called scholastici. These schools rivalled the epis- 

 copal and cathedral schools, yet were always directed 

 more to the advantage of the priesthood than to 

 purposes of general instruction, which was owing 

 to a variety of causes springing from the then ex- 

 isting state of things. Charlemagne, had in view 

 a system of national instruction, when he issued, 

 in 789, his decree for the improvement of the 

 schools of his empire. Not only every bishop's 

 see and every convent, but every parish, was to 

 have its school, the two former for the instruction 

 of clergymen and public officers, the latter for the 

 lower classes. At his court, Charlemagne estab- 

 lished an academy of distinguished scholars, to 

 whom he himself resorted for instruction, and whom 

 he employed to educate his children, and capable 

 boys belonging to the nobility and other classes, in 

 the court-school (schola palatii}. Alcuinus was 

 made rector of these two schools, which accom- 

 panied the court in its changes of residence. The 

 ladies of his court also partook in the benefits of 

 instruction, and some nunneries, in their institu- 

 tions for female education, rivalled the seminaries 

 in the monasteries. The ladies learned Latin, 

 which was then the common medium of communi- 

 cation between persons of different countries, as 

 French is at present. Charlemagne took upon him- 

 self the superintendence of the schools in his em- 

 pire, had reports sent to him, made examinations, 

 and delivered addresses to the pupils of the school 

 at his court. These schools often enabled him to 

 discover the talents of young oien, whom he ap- 



pointed to high offices in the church or the state. 

 It is one of the noblest traits in his character, that, 

 in that age of gross ignorance, he laboured with zeal 

 for the instruction of the nations under his sway. 

 See a short article entitled Charlemagne's Life in 

 Private and at Court, in the third volume of Rau- 

 mer's Historical Pocket Book (Leipsic, 1832). 



When the clergy of the cathedrals, in the ninth 

 century, adopted the canonical life, the cathedral 

 schools originated, which approached, in character, 

 to the trivial schools, so called, whilst the episcopal 

 schools remained seminaries for the clerical order, 

 or for particular professions, and at a later period 

 became transformed into universities. Mayence, 

 Treves, Cologne, Liege, Utrecht, Bremen, Hilde- 

 sheim, had, in the tenth century, celebrated cathedral 

 schools. The encouragement which the higher au- 

 thorities had afforded them, however, was soon dis- 

 continued. Charlemagne's decrees were forgotten 

 during the disputes of his grandsons about the govern- 

 ment, under whom, also, the above-mentioned court 

 school was abandoned ; and his great creation declin- 

 ed as the school establishment of the great Alfred, in 

 England, which was begun with equal zeal, and on 

 an equal scale, in the ninth century, was destroyed 

 by the invasions of the Danes, though Edward the 

 confessor endeavoured to restore it. In the mean 

 time, the school of the rabbis, among the Jews in 

 Syria, Northern Africa, and even in Europe (Jew- 

 ish academies existed in the seventh century, at 

 Lunel, in France, and, in the tenth and eleventh 

 centuries, at Cordova, in Spain), preserved the re- 

 mains of ancient learning ; and the Arabian schools 

 established in the ninth century in the Oriental and 

 African caliphates, and in the Moorish kingdoms in 

 Spain, exhibited a freer spirit and better taste. 

 From them a knowledge of the mathematical and 

 medical sciences was first communicated to the 

 south of Christian Europe. In Italy, where, after 

 the barbarism introduced by the Goths and Lom- 

 bards, king Lothaire had been the first to establish 

 schools in the ninth century, for the large cities, as 

 well as in Spain and France, the influence of Ara- 

 bic civilization became observable, in the institution 

 of schools for qualifying men for the different pro- 

 fessions. At Salerno, Montpellier and Seville, 

 Arabic physicians taught ; and the works of the 

 Saracens on natural history and mathematics were 

 sought for even by Christian scholars. The deve- 

 lopment of the papal canon law gave occasion to 

 the foundation of law schools, among which those 

 of Bologna and Lyons acquired the greatest repu- 

 tation. The academical privileges, which the for- 

 mer of these two received, in 1158, from the empe- 

 ror Frederic I., became the foundation of the con- 

 stitution of the continental universities which 

 originated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 

 The inactivity and luxury of the clergy had led to 

 the neglect of the cathedral and conventual schools, 

 and they rapidly declined. The new institutions 

 which had grown up were necessary to form new 

 teachers and to revive the taste for science. But 

 even these became subject to undue clerical influ- 

 ence, as since the beginning of the thirteenth cen- 

 tury, the mendicant monks not only connected 

 popular schools with their convents, and undertook 

 the education of the children in the cities, but also 

 obtained entrance into the universities as teachers, 

 where they laboured to augment the importance ot 

 their various orders and the power of the pope. 



Thus the state of the schools in the middle ages, 

 was by no means so flourishing as might have been 



