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State of Literature in the time of Charlemagne.

So far as Literature depends upon the favour of the monarch, no æra in history promised more than the reign of Charlemagne. His education had been neglected; but he had real taste for learning and the arts, was sensible of their beneficial influence both upon the public and the private welfare of a people; and possessed the amplest means of encouraging and diffusing them; his wisdom would suggest to him the properest means of doing it, and the energy of his mind would excite him to constant exertions.

I. 2. State of Literature in the time of Charlemagne.

Nothing that could be effected by a prince thus gifted and disposed, was left untried by Charlemagne. He drew to him the celebrated Alcuin, Peter of Pisa, Paul Warnefrid, and many other distinguished literary characters: he heaped favours upon them; and a marked distinction was always shewn them at his court. He formed them into a literary society, which had frequent meetings. Their conversation was literary, he often bore a part in it; and, what was at least equally gratifying, he always listened with a polite and flattering attention while others spoke. To establish perfect equality among them, the monarch, and, after his example, the other members of this society, dropt their own and adopted other names. Angelbert was called Homer, from his partiality to that poet; Riculphus, archbishop of Mentz, chose the name of Damétas, from an eclogue of Virgil: another member took that of Candidus; Eginhard, the Emperor's biographer, was called Calliopus, from the Muse Calliope; Alcuin received, from his country, the name of Albinus; the archbishop Theodulfe was called Pindar; the abbot Adelard was called Augustine; Charlemagne, as the man of God's own heart, was called David.

800–911

The Emperor corresponded with men of learning, on subjects of literature; they generally related to religion. In one of his letters, he requires of Alcuin an explanation of the words Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima, which denote the Sundays which immediately precede, and the word Quadragesima, which denotes the first Sunday which occurs in Lent. The denominations of those Sundays give rise to two difficulties; one, that they seem to imply that each week consists of ten, not of seven days; the other, that the words sound as if Septuagesima were the seventieth, when it is only the sixty-third day before Easter Sunday; Sexagesima, as if it were the sixtieth, when it is only the fifty-sixth; Quinquagesima, as if it were the fiftieth, when it is the forty-ninth; Quadragesima, as if it were the fortieth, when it is the forty-second. Alcuin's answer is more subtle than satisfactory.

At the meals of Charlemagne some person always read to him. His example was followed by many of his successors, particularly by Francis I. of France, who, in an happier era for learning, imitated with happier effects, the example of the Emperor.

I. 2. State of Literature in the time of Charlemagne.

Alcuin was general director of all the literary schemes of Charlemagne. He was an Englishman by birth; skilled both in the Greek and Latin language, and in many branches of philosophy. Having taught, with great reputation and success, in his own country, he travelled to Rome. In 780, Charlemagne attracted him to his court.

There, Alcuin gave lectures, and published several treatises. In these, he began with Orthography; then proceeded to Grammar; afterwards to Rhetoric, and Dialectic. He composed his treatises in the form of dialogues; and, as Charlemagne frequently attended them, Alcuin made him one of his interlocutors. Few scholars of Alcuin were more attentive than his imperial pupil; he had learned grammar from Peter of Pisa; he was instructed in rhetoric, dialectic, and astronomy by Alcuin. He also engaged in the study of divinity; and had the good sense to stop short of those subtleties, in which Justinian, Heraclius, and other princes, unfortunately both for themselves and their subjects, bewildered themselves. Letters from Giséla and Richtrudis, the daughters of Charlemagne, to Alcuin, shew that they partook of their father's literary zeal: his favourite study was astronomy.

800–911.

The number of persons in his court, who addicted themselves to pursuits of literature, was so great, and their application so regular, that their meetings acquired the appellation of "The School of Charlemagne." Their library was at Aix-la-Chapelle, the favourite residence of the monarch: but they accompanied him in many of his journies. Antiquarians have tracked them at Paris, Thionville, Wormes, Ratisbon, Wurtzburgh, Mentz, and Frankfort.

Charlemagne established schools in every part of his dominions. In 787, he addressed a circular letter to all the metropolitan prelates of his dominions, to be communicated by them to their suffragan bishops, and to the abbots within their provinces. He exhorted them to erect schools in every cathedral and monastery. Schools were accordingly established throughout his vast dominions: they were divided into two classes; arithmetic, grammar, and music were taught in the lower, the liberal arts and theology in the higher.

1. 2. State of Literature in the time of Charlemagne.

In France, the abbeys of Corbie, Fontenelles, Ferrieres, St. Denis, St. Germain of Paris, St. Germain of Auxerre, and St. Benedict on the Loire;—in Germany, the abbeys of Proom, Fulda, and of St. Gall;—in Italy, the abbey of Mount Casino, were celebrated for the excellence of their schools. One, for the express purpose of teaching the Greek language, was founded by Charlemagne at Osnabruck. All were equally open to the children of the nobility and the children of peasants; all received the same treatment. It happened that, on a public examination of the children, the peasant boys were found to have made greater progress than the noble. The Emperor remarked it to the latter, and declared with an oath, that "the bishopricks and abbeys should be given to the diligent poor." "You rely," he said to the patrician youths, "on the merit of your ancestors; these have already been rewarded. The state owes them nothing; those only are entitled to favour, who qualify themselves for serving and illustrating their country by their talents and their merits."

800–911.

The civil law then consisted of the Theodosian code, the Salic, Ripuarian, Allemannic, Bavarian, Burgundian, and other codes; and of the formularies of Angesise and Marculfus. To these Charlemagne added his own capitularies. The whole collection, in opposition to the canon or ecclesiastical law, received the appellation of Lex Mundana, or worldly law. The canon law consisted of the code of canons which Charlemagne brought with him from Rome in 784; a code of the canons of the church of France; the canons inserted in the collection of Angelram, bishop of Metz; the apostolic canons, published by St. Martin, bishop of Braga; the capitularies of Theodulfus, of Orleans; and the penitential canons, published in the Spicilegium of d'Acheri.^[001] To the study, both of the canon and civil law, schools were appropriated by Charlemagne: few, except persons intended for the ecclesiastical state, frequented them. Rabanus Maurus,^[002] abbot of Fulda, and afterwards archbishop of Mentz, has left an interesting account of the studies of this period; it shews that all were referred to theology, and only considered to be useful so far as they could be made serviceable to sacred learning. Such a plan of study could conduce but little to the advancement of general literature or science. Still, it was productive of good, and led to improvement.

I.2. State of Literature in the time of Charlemagne.

It is observable that both antient and modern civilizers of nations, have called music to their aid; among these we may mention Charlemagne. In his residence at Rome, he was delighted with the Gregorian chant. After his return to Germany, he endeavoured to introduce it, both into his French and German dominions. The former had a chant of their own; they called it an improvement, but other nations considered it a corruption of the Gregorian. Greatly against the wish of Charlemagne, his Gallic subjects persisted in their attachment to their national music; the merit of it was gravely debated before the Emperor; they vehemently urged the superiority of their own strains. "Tell me," said the Emperor, "which is purer, the fountain or the rivulet?" They answered, "the former." "Return ye, then," (said the Emperor) "to St. Gregory: he is the fountain, the rivulets are evidently corrupted." The Emperor was obeyed, and the Gregorian chant was taught, both in France and Germany, by Italian choristers. The Italian writers of the times describe the difficulties which they experienced in forming the rough and almost untuneable voices of their French and German pupils to the softness of the Gregorian song. They appear to have succeeded better with the Germans than the French. By these, their lessons were so soon and so completely forgotten, after the decease of Charlemagne, that Lewis the Debonnaire, his son, was obliged to request Pope Gregory IV. to send him from Rome, a new supply of singers to instruct the people.

But music continued to prosper in Germany; it abounded in songs. Some were amatory, (münnelier); some were satirical, (cantica in malitiam); some heroic, (cantica in honorem,); some diabolical, (cantica diabolica.) These consisted of incantations, and of narratives of the feats of evil spirits.

800–911.

Vernacular poetry, and vernacular composition, of every kind, were almost wholly left to the vulgar; all, who aimed at literary eminence, wrote in the Latin language. Some discerning spirits became sensible that the German language was susceptible of great improvement, and excited their countrymen to its cultivation. Among these was Otfroid; he translated the Gospel into German verse. He describes, in strong terms, the difficulties which he had to encounter: "The barbarousness of the German language is," he says, "so great, and its sounds are so incoherent and strange, that it is very difficult to subject them to the rules of grammar, to represent them by syllables, or to find in the alphabet letters which correspond to them." It is however remarkable, that, although he complains of the dissonance of the German language, he never accuses it of poverty.

While France and Germany continued subject to the same monarch, German was the language of the court, and generally used in every class of society. When the treaty of Verdun divided the territories of Charlemagne, the Romande, or Romançe language, a corruption of the Latin, superseded the German in every part of France: it was insensibly refined into the modern French, but the German continued to be the only language spoken in Germany.

Great progress was made in architecture: the churches and palaces constructed by the direction of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, the Basilisc at Germani, the church of St. Recquier at Ponthieu, and many other monuments of great architectural skill and expense, belong to the age of Charlemagne, and bear ample testimony to the well-directed exertions of the monarch, and of some of his descendants, and to their wise and splendid magnificence.