WILLIAM APPULUS. 117 



city which, for the preceding three hundred years, had 

 been one of the great maritime trading marts of the world. 



It is in an original account of Norman prowess in this 

 part of Europe, written by William Appulus, 1 a native of 

 France, in noo, that a possible trace of the compass ap- 

 pears ; and this only in a single line of a poem which, in 

 describing Amalfi and its glories, mentions the many 

 mariners tarrying in the city as u skilled in opening the 

 ways of the seas and the heavens. " Gibbon 2 regards these 

 words as relating to the compass ; but, inasmuch as the 

 eminent historian himself dwells upon the extension of 

 the Amalfitan trade to the African, Arabian and Indian 

 coasts, they seem more applicable to the general nautical 

 skill which could conduct ships to such distant places, 

 rather than to any specific aid in so doing which the com- 

 pass might afford. 



At all events, if the silence of all written records from 

 the reign of Aelfred to the beginning of the i2th century 

 is to be regarded as disproving the prior or contemporary 

 use of the instrument, the continuance of that same silence 

 after the time of William Appulus and in the face of the 

 great commerce of Amalfi, is even more significant as 

 showing its absence. 



On the other hand, it is not safe to accept these premi- 

 ses as controlling, in view of the existing state of Euro- 

 pean civilization. Hallam tells us that from the middle 

 of the 6th century a condition of general ignorance lasted 

 for a period of about five centuries; and that not until the 

 close of the nth century began vigorous attempts to re- 

 trieve what had been lost of ancient learning, or to supply 

 its place by the original powers of the mind. 3 Then, un- 

 fortunately, the newly-developed energy was turned into a 

 path almost diametrically opposite to that which led to the 



1 William Appulus (apud Muratori, v.) lib, iii., 267. 



2 Gibbon : The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, c. Ivi. 



3 Hallam : Literature of Europe, Part I , c. i., \ 10. 





