THE MEDIEVAL MIND 71 



medicine in the twelfth century. Since Salerno is 

 known to have been first a Greek and then a Roman 

 colony, it is likely that here there existed a direct 

 link between the learning of the ancient and the 

 modern worlds. 



But it should be noted that countries at a distance 

 from Rome, the centre of the chaos, were among 



The Recon- ^ e ^ ISt * s ^ ow s ig ns of a n ^W and 

 struction of distinctive creative spirit. The literary 

 Europe. an( j ar ^j s ^ c development of Ireland, Scot- 

 land and the north of England, beginning with Irish 

 sagas full of poetic extravagances, was quickened by 

 the absorption of Christianity, and thereafter, in the 

 fervour of its missionary spirit, carried back some 

 culture into more southern lands. This northern 

 development culminated in the works of the Anglo- 

 Saxon monk, Bede of Jarrow (673-735), who incorpo- 

 rated into his writings all the knowledge then available 

 in Western Europe. He stands between the Latin 

 commentators Boetius, Cassiodorus, Gregory, and 

 Isidore of Seville, who caught the last direct echoes of 

 classical or patristic learning, and the scholars of the 

 schools of Charlemagne, chief among them Alcuin of 

 York, who carried the tradition into definitely 

 mediaeval times. Bede wrote in Latin chiefly for 

 monks ; but a hundred and fifty years later culture 

 had so broadened that Alfred the Great (849-901) 

 translated or caused to be translated into Anglo- 

 Saxon many Latin books. The influence of Latin 

 literature had begun to pass into the native languages. 

 And indeed by this time mediaeval Europe was 

 taking shape. Nations had crystallized out from the 



