Читать книгу The History of Education - Ellwood Patterson Cubberley - Страница 75

THE OLD ROMAN CITIES. The old Roman Empire, it will be remembered, came to be largely a collection of provincial cities. These were the centers of Roman civilization and culture. After the downfall of the governing power of Rome, the great highways were no longer repaired, brigandage became common, trade and intercourse largely ceased, and the provincial cities which were not destroyed in the barbarian invasions declined in population and number, passing under the control of their bishops who long ruled them as feudal lords. During the long period of disorder many of the old Roman cities entirely disappeared (R. 49). Only in Italy, and particularly in northern Italy, did these old cities retain anything of their earlier municipal life, or anything worth mentioning of their former industry and commerce. But even here they lost most of their earlier importance as centers of culture and trade, becoming merely ecclesiastical towns. After the death of Charlemagne, the break-up of his empire, and the institution of feudal conditions, the cities and towns declined still more in importance, and few of any size remained.

In Italy feudalism never attained the strength it did in northern Europe. Throughout all the early Middle Ages the cities there retained something of their old privileges, though ruled by prince-bishops residing in them. They also retained something of the old Roman civilization, and Roman legal usages and some knowledge of Roman law never quite died out. In other respects they much resembled mediaeval cities elsewhere.

REESTABLISHMENT OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. After the disintegration of Charlemagne's empire, the portion of it now known as Germany broke up into fragments, largely independent of one another, and full of fight and pride. The result there was continual and pitiless warfare. This, coupled with the raids of the Northmen along the northern coast and the Magyars on the east, led to the election of a king in 919 (Henry the Fowler) who could establish some semblance of unity and order. By 961 the German duchies and small principalities had been so consolidated that a succeeding king (Otto I) felt himself able to attempt to reëstablish the Holy Roman Empire by subjugating Italy and annexing it as an appendage under German rule.

He descended into Italy (961), subjugated the cities, overthrew the Papacy, created a pope to his liking, and reëstablished the old Empire, in name at least. For a century the German rule was nominal, but with the outbreak of the conflict in the eleventh century between king and pope over the question of which one should invest the bishops with their authority (known as the investiture conflict, 1075–1122), Pope Gregory VII humbled the German king (Henry IV) at Canossa (1077) and won a partial success. Then followed repeated invasions of Italy, and a century and a half of conflicts between pope and king before the dream of universal empire under a German feudal king ended in disaster, and Italy was freed from Teutonic rule.

[Illustration: FIG. 54, THE CITY-STATES OF NORTHERN ITALY

All of the cities in the valley of the Po, except Turin, Pavia, and

Mantua, were members of the Lombard League of 1167.]

THE ITALIAN CITIES REVIVE THE STUDY OF ROMAN LAW. As was stated above, Roman legal usages and some knowledge of Roman law had never quite died out in these Italian cities. But, while regarded with reverence, the law was not much understood, little study was given to it, and important parts of it were neglected and forgotten. The struggle with the ruling bishops in the second half of the eleventh century, and the discussions which arose during the investiture conflict, caused new attention to be given to legal questions, and both the study of Roman (civil) and Church (canon) law were revived. The Italian cities stood with the Papacy in the struggles with the German kings, and, in 1167, those in the Valley of the Po formed what was known as the Lombard League for defense. Under the pressure of German oppression they now began a careful study of the known Roman law in an effort to discover some charter, edict, or grant of power upon which they could base their claim for independent legal rights. The result was that the study of Roman law was given an emphasis unknown in Italy since the days of the old Empire. What had been preserved during the period of disorder at last came to be understood, additional books of the law were discovered, and men suddenly awoke to a realization that what had been before considered as of little value actually contained much that was worth studying, as well as many principles of importance that were applicable to the conditions and problems of the time.

[Illustration: FIG. 55. FRAGMENT FROM THE RECOVERED "DIGEST" OF JUSTINIAN Capitals and small letters are here used, but note the difficulty of reading without spacing or punctuation.]

The great student and teacher of law of the period was Irnerius of Bologna (c. 1070–1137), who began to lecture on the Code and the Institutes of Justinian about 1110 to 1115, and soon attracted large numbers of students to hear his interpretations. About this same time the Digest, much the largest and most important part of the old law, was discovered and made known. [17]

This gave clearness to the whole, as before its discovery the study of Roman law was like the study of Aristotle when only parts of the Organon were known. Irnerius and his co-laborers at Bologna now collected and arranged the entire body of Roman civil law (Corpus Juris Civilis) (R. 93), introduced the Digest to western Europe, and thus made a new contribution of first importance to the list of possible higher studies. Law now ceased to be a part of Rhetoric (p. 157) and became a new subject of study, with a body of material large enough to occupy a student for several years. This was an event of great intellectual significance. A new study was now evolved which offered great possibilities for intellectual activity and the exercise of the critical faculty, while at the same time showing veneration for authority. Law was thus placed alongside Theology as a professional subject, and the evolution of the professional lawyer from the priest was now for the first time made possible.

CANON LAW ALSO ORGANIZED AS A SUBJECT OF STUDY. Inspired by the revival of the study of civil law, a monk of Bologna, Gratian by name, set himself to make a compilation of all the Church canons which had been enacted since the Council of Nicaea (325) formulated the first twenty (p. 96), and of the rules for church government as laid down by the church authorities. This he issued in textbook form, about 1142, under the title of Decretum Gratiani. So successful were his efforts that his compilation was "one of those great textbooks that take the world by storm." It did for canon (church) law what the rediscovery of the Justinian Code had done for civil law; that is, it organized canon law as a new and important teaching subject.

The Decretum of Gratian was published in three parts, and was organized after the same plan as Abelard's Sic et Non, except that Gratian drew conclusions from the mass of evidence he presented on each topic. It contained 147 "Distinctions" (questions; cases of church policy), upon each of which were cited the church canons and the views and decisions of important church authorities. [18] This volume was added to by popes later on, [19] so that by the fifteenth century a large body of canon law had grown up, which was known as the Corpus Juris Canonici. Canon Law was thus separated from Theology and added to Civil Law as another new subject of study for both theological and legal students, and the two subjects of Canon and Civil Law came to constitute the work of the law faculties in the universities which soon arose in western Europe.

[Illustration: FIG. 56. THE FATHER OF MEDICINE HIPPOCRATES OF COS (460- 367? B.C.)]

THE BEGINNINGS OF MEDICAL STUDY. The Greeks had made some progress in the beginnings of the study of disease (p. 47). Aristotle had given some anatomical knowledge in his writings on animals, and had theorized a little about the functions of the human body. The real founder of medical science, though, was Hippocrates, of the island of Cos (c. 460–367 B.C.), a contemporary of Plato. He was the first writer on the subject who attempted to base the practice of the healing art on careful observation and scientific principles. He substituted scientific reason for the wrath of offended deities as the causes of disease, and tried to offer proper remedies in place of sacrifices and prayers to the gods for cures. His descriptions of diseases were wonderfully accurate, and his treatments ruled medical practice for ages. [20] He knew, however, little as to anatomy. Another Greek writer, Galen [21](131–201 A.D.), wrote extensively on medicine and left an anatomical account of the human body which was unsurpassed for more than a thousand years. His work was known and used by the Saracens. Avicenna (980–1037), an eastern Mohammedan, wrote a Canon of Medicine in which he summarized the work of all earlier writers, and gave a more minute description of symptoms than any preceding writer had done. These works, together with a few minor writings by teachers in Spain and Salerno, formed the basis of all medical knowledge until Vesalius published his System of Human Anatomy, in 1543.

The Roman knowledge of medicine was based almost entirely on that of the Greeks, and after the rise of the Christians, with their new attitude toward earthly life and contempt for the human body, the science fell into disrepute and decay. Saint Augustine (354–430), in his great work on The City of God, speaks with some bitterness of "medical men who are called anatomists," and who "with a cruel zeal for science have dissected the bodies of the dead, and sometimes of sick persons, who have died under their knives, and have inhumanly pried into the secrets of the human body to learn the nature of disease and its exact seat, and how it might be cured." [22] During the early Middle Ages the Greek medical knowledge practically disappeared, and in its place came the Christian theories of satanic influence, diabolic action, and divine punishment for sin. Correspondingly the cures were prayers at shrines and repositories of sacred relics and images, which were found all over Europe, and to which the injured or fever-stricken peasants hied themselves to make offerings and to pray, and then hope for a miracle.

Toward the middle of the eleventh century Salerno, a small city delightfully situated on the Italian coast (see Map, p. 194), thirty-four miles south of Naples, began to attain some reputation as a health resort. In part this was due to the climate and in part to its mineral springs. Southern Italy had, more than any other part of western Europe, retained touch with old Greek thought. The works of Hippocrates and Galen had been preserved there, the monks at Monte Cassino had made some translations, and sometime toward the middle of the eleventh century the study of the Greek medical books was revived here. The Mohammedan medical work by Avicenna (p. 185), also early became known here in translation. About 1065 Constantine of Carthage, a converted Jew and a learned monk, who had traveled extensively in the East [23] and who had been forced to flee from his native city because of a suspicion of "black art," began to lecture at Salerno on the Greek and Mohammedan medical works and the practice of the medical art. In 1099 Robert, Duke of Normandy, returning from the First Crusade, stopped here to be cured of a wound, and he and his knights later spread the fame of Salerno all over Europe. The result was the revival of the study of Medicine in the West, and Salerno developed into the first of the medical schools of Europe. Montpellier, in southern France, also became another early center for the study of Medicine, drawing much of its medical knowledge from Spain. Another new subject of professional study was now made possible, and Faculties of Medicine were in time organized in most of the universities as they arose. The instruction, though, was chiefly book instruction, Galen being the great textbook until the seventeenth century.