No More Learning



## p. 206 (#226) ############################################

206
Franciscans of Oxford
Speculum Ecclesiae. Rich was the first in Roger Bacon's day to
expound the Sophistici Elenchi at Oxford'. It was probably under
the influence of Grosseteste and Marsh that Bacon entered the
Franciscan order, a society which, doubtless, had its attractions for
his studious temperament. He is said to have been ordained in
1233. Before 1245, he left Oxford for Paris. He there distin-
guished himself as a teacher; but he had little sympathy with the
scholasticism of the day, and he accordingly returned to England
about 1250.
In the order of St Francis there was room for freedom of
thought, no less than for mystic devotion ; but, some seven years
later, so soon as the party of the mystics was represented in the
new general of that body, Bacon fell under suspicion for his liberal
opinions, and, by command of the "seraphic" Bonaventura, was
sent to Paris and there kept in strict seclusion for ten years
(1257—67). He probably owed his partial release to the goodwill
of Clement IV, who had heard of the studies of the Franciscan friar
before his own elevation to the papal see, and, by a letter written
at Viterbo on 22 June 1266, drew him from his obscurity and
neglect by pressing him for an account of his researches. There-
upon, in the wonderfully brief space of some eighteen months,
the grateful and enthusiastic student wrote three memorable
works, Opus Majus, Opus Minus and Opus Tertium (1267).
These were followed by his Compendium Studii Philosophiae
(1271–2), and by a Greek Grammar of uncertain date. In his
Compendium, he had attacked the clergy and the monastic orders
and the scholastic pedants of the day; and, by a chapter of the
Franciscans held in Paris in 1278, he was, on these and, doubtless,
other grounds, condemned for "certain suspected novelties” of
opinion. Accordingly, he was once more placed under restraint;
but he had again been released before writing his Compendium
Studii Theologiae (1292). At Oxford he died, and was buried
among the Friars Minor, probably in 1294.
Before entering the order, he had written nothing on science;
and, after his admission, he came under the rule that no friar
should be permitted the use of writing materials, or enjoy the
liberty of publishing his work, without the previous approval of
his superiors. The penalty was the confiscation of the work, with
many days of fasting on bread and water. He had only written a
few “chapters on various subjects at the request of his friends. "
* Comp. Theol. (op. J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, 1, 592, ed. 2, 1906).
? Opera Inedita, 13.


## p. 207 (#227) ############################################

Roger Bacon
207
Possibly, he is here referring to the pages on the secret works of
nature and art, on Greek fire, on gunpowder and on the properties
of the magnet', on which he had discoursed in letters addressed
either to William of Auvergne (d. 1248), or to John of Basingstoke
(d. 1252). He was surrounded with difficulties ; he found philo-
sophy and theology neglected in the interests of civil law, and
despised under the delusion that the world knew enough of them
already. He had spent forty years in the study of the sciences
and languages, and, during the first twenty years specially de-
voted by him to the attainment of fuller knowledge (possibly
before joining a mendicant order), he had expended large sums
on his learned pursuits. None would now lend him any money to
meet the expense of preparing his works for the pope, and he
could not persuade any one that there was the slightest use in
science? Thankful, however, for the pope's interest in his studies,
he set to work with enthusiasm and delight, though he was strictly
bound by the vow of poverty, and had now nothing of his own to
spend on his literary and scientific labours.
His principal works, beginning with the three prepared for the
pope, are as follows:
Opus Majus, which remained unknown until its publication
by Samuel Jebb in 1733. It has since been recognised as the
Encyclopédie and the Organon of the thirteenth century. It
is divided into seven parts : (1) the causes of human ignorance ;
(2) the connection between philosophy and theology ; (3) the
study of language ; (4) mathematical science; (5) physics (espe-
cially optics); (6) experimental science; and (7) moral philosophy.
The part on language was preserved in an imperfect form ; that
on moral philosophy was omitted in Jebb's edition.
Opus Minus was first published by John Sherren Brewer
in 1859 (with portions of Opus Tertium and Compendium Studii
Philosophiae). It was written partly to elucidate certain points
in Opus Majus, partly to meet the risk of the earlier treatise
failing to reach its destination. It enters more fully into an
examination of the schoolmen; it exposes the pretensions
of the Franciscan, Alexander of Hales, and of an unnamed
Dominican. It recapitulates the passages in the previous work
which the author deems especially important, and discusses the
six great errors that stand in the way of the studies of Latin
Christendom, namely (1) the subjection of theology to philosophy;
(2) the general ignorance of science ; (3) implicit trust in the dicta of
Opera Inedita, 536 f.
" Ib. 16, 59, 65.


## p. 208 (#228) ############################################

208 Franciscans of Oxford
the earlier schoolmen ; (4) exaggerated respect for the lecturers on
the Sentences, in comparison with the expounders of the text of
the Scriptures ; (5) mistakes in the Vulgate; (6) errors in the
spiritual interpretation of Scripture due to ignorance of Hebrew,
Greek, Latin, archaeology and natural history; and those due to
misunderstanding of the hidden meaning of the Word of God.
After a break, there next follows a comparison between the opinions
of French and English naturalists on the elementary principles
of matter, and, after a second break, an account of the various
metals. Only a fragment, equivalent to some 80 pages of print,
has been preserved in a single MS in the Bodleian.
Opus Tertium, though written later, is intended to serve
as an introduction to the two previous works. In the first
twenty chapters we have an account of the writer's personal
history, his opinions on education, and on the impediments thrown
in its way by the ignorance, prejudice, contempt, carelessness and
indifference of his contemporaries. He next reverts to points that
had been either omitted or inadequately explained in his earlier
writings. After a digression on vacuum, motion and space, he
dwells on the utility of mathematics, geography, chronology and
geometry, adding remarks on accents and aspirates, and on punc-
tuation, metre and rhythm. A subsequent defence of mathe-
matics, with an excursus on the reform of the calendar, leads to a
discourse on chanting and on preaching.
The above three works, even in their incomplete form, fill as
many as 1344 pages of print. It was these three that were com-
pleted in the brief interval of eighteen months.
Compendium Studii Philosophiae, imperfectly preserved in
a single MS in the British Museum, begins with reflections
on the beauty and utility of wisdom. The impediments to its
progress are subsequently considered, and the causes of human
error investigated. The author criticises the current Latin
grammars and lexicons, and urges the importance of the study of
Hebrew, adding as many as thirteen reasons for the study of Greek,
followed by an introduction to Greek grammar.
The above is only the beginning of an encyclopaedic work on
logic, mathematics, physics, metaphysics and ethics. The part on
physics is alone preserved, and extracts from that part have been
printed? .
The Greek Grammar may be conveniently placed after the
above Compendium, and before the next. The author's know-
1 Émile Charles, 369–91.


## p. 209 (#229) ############################################

209
Roger Bacon
ledge of Greek was mainly derived from the Greeks of his own
day, probably from some of the Greek teachers invited to England
by Grossetestel. He invariably adopts the late Byzantine pronun-
ciation; and, in his general treatment of grammar, he follows the
Byzantine tradition. This work was first published by the Cam-
bridge University Press in 1902.
Compendium Studii Theologiae, Bacon's latest work, deals
with causes of error, and also with logic and grammar in reference
to theology. The above parts are extant in an imperfect form,
and only extracts from them have been printed from a MS
in the British Museum? . A "fifth part," on optics, is preserved in
a nearly complete condition in the same library.
Roger Bacon was the earliest of the natural philosophers of
western Europe. In opposition to the physicists of Paris, he
urged that "enquiry should begin with the simplest objects of
science, and rise gradually to the higher and higher,” every obser-
vation being controlled by experiment. In science he was at least
a century in advance of his time; and, in spite of the long and
bitter persecutions that he endured, he was full of hope for the
future. He has been described by Diderot as “one of the most
surprising geniuses that nature had ever produced, and one of the
most unfortunate of men. " He left no disciple. His unknown
grave among the tombs of the Friars Minor was marked by no
monument; a tower, traditionally known as “Friar Bacon's
Study,” stood, until 1779, on the old Grand Pont (the present
Folly bridge) of Oxford. The fact that he had revived the study
of mathematics was recorded by an anonymous writer about
13703. A long passage in his Opus Majus“, on the distance between
the extreme east and west of the habitable globe, inserted (without
mention of its source) in the Imago Mundi of Pierre d'Ailly, was
thence quoted by Columbus in 1498 as one of the authorities that
had prompted him to venture on his great voyages of discovery.
Meanwhile, in popular repute, friar Bacon was regarded only as
an alchemist and a necromancer. During the three centuries
subsequent to his death, only four of his minor works, those on
Alchemy, on the Power of Art and Nature and on the Cure of Old
Age, were published in 1485—1590. Like Vergil, he was reputed
to have used a "glass prospective” of wondrous power, and, like
others in advance of their times, such as Gerbert of Aurillac,
Study," stool of Oxford. The by an anonymo
? Émile Charles, 410—6.
1 Comp. Phil. 434.
3 Little's Grey Friars at Oxford, 195 n.
4 Opus Majus, ed. Bridges, 1, xxxiii, 290.
E. L. I. CH. X.
14


## p. 210 (#230) ############################################

210
Franciscans of Oxford
Albertus Magnus and Grosseteste, to have constructed a “brazen
head” that possessed the faculty of speech. The popular legend
was embodied in The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon, in Greene's
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (c. 1587) and in Terilo's satire
of 1604. At Frankfurt, the parts of Opus Majus dealing with
mathematics and optics were published in 1614; but a hundred
and twenty years passed before a large portion of the remainder
was published in England (1733), and the same interval of time
preceded the first appearance of Opera Inedita (1859). The
seventh part of Opus Majus, that on moral philosophy, was
not printed until 1897. But the rehabilitation of Roger Bacon,
begun by Brewer in 1859, had, happily, meanwhile been indepen-
dently completed by Émile Charles in 1861.
Friar Bacon is associated in legend with friar Bungay, or
Thomas de Bungay in Suffolk), who exemplifies the close con-
nection between the Franciscan order and the eastern counties.
Bungay lectured to the Franciscans at Oxford, and, afterwards, at
Cambridge, where he was placed at the head of the Franciscan
convent. As head of the order in England, he was succeeded
(c. 1275) by John Peckham, who had studied at Paris under
Bonaventura, had joined the Franciscans at Oxford and was arch-
bishop of Canterbury from 1279 to 1292. At Oxford, a number
of grammatical, logical, philosophical and theological doctrines
taught by the Dominicans, and already condemned by the Domi-
nican archbishop, Robert Kilwardby (1276), a Master of Arts of
Paris, famous as a commentator on Priscian, were condemned
once more by the Franciscan archbishop, Peckham (1284). Thomas
Aquinas had held, with Aristotle, that the individualising principle
was not form but matter-an opinion which was regarded as
inconsistent with the medieval theory of the future state. This
opinion, disapproved by Kilwardby, was attacked in 1284 by
William de la Mare, probably an Englishman, possibly an Oxonian,
certainly a Franciscan. Both of them may have owed something
to Roger Bacon. They were certainly among the precursors of the
type of realism represented by Duns Scotus, the Doctor subtilis.
John Duns Scotus was a Franciscan in Oxford in 1300. There
is no satisfactory evidence as to the place of his birth ; a note in
a catalogue at Assisi (1381) simply describes him as de provincia
Hiberniae'. At Oxford he lectured on the Sentences. Late in
1304, he was called to incept as D. D. in Paris, where he probably
1 Little, lib. cit. 219 f. Major, Historia Majoris Britanniae (1740), 170 f. , makes
him a native of Duns, W. of Berwick-on-Tweed.


## p. 211 (#231) ############################################

Duns Scotus
211
BACA
taught until 1307. Among the scholars from Oxford who attended
his lectures, was John Canon (A. 1329), a commentator on Peter
Lombard, and on Aristotle's Physics. Duns Scotus died in 1308,"
at Cologne, where his tomb in the Franciscan church bears the
inscription-Scotia me genuit, Anglia me suscepit, Gallia me
docuit, Colonia me tenet.
The works ascribed to his pen fill twelve folio volumes in the
edition printed at Lyons in 1639. At Oxford, Paris and Cologne,
he constantly opposed the teaching of Thomas Aquinas, thus
founding the philosophical and theological school of the Scotists.
But he was stronger in the criticism of the opinions of others than
in the construction of a system of his own. While the aim of
Aquinas is to bring faith into harmony with reason, Duns Scotus
has less confidence in the power of reason; he accordingly enlarges
the number of doctrines already recognised as capable of being
apprehended by faith alone. In philosophy, his devotion to Aristotle
is less exclusive than that of Aquinas, and he adopts many Platonic
and Neo-Platonic conceptions. “All created things (he holds)
have, besides their form, some species of matter. Not matter, but
form, is the individualising principle; the generic and specific
characters are modified by the individual peculiarity,” by the
haecceitas, or “thisness," of the thing. “The universal essence is
distinct. . . from the individual peculiarity,” but does not exist apart
from it. With the great Dominicans, Albertus Magnus and Thomas
Aquinas, the Franciscan Duns Scotus “agrees in assuming a three-
fold existence of the universal : it is before all things, as form in
the divine mind; in things, as their essence (quidditas); and
after things, as the concept formed by mental abstraction. ” He
claims for the individual a real existence, and he accordingly
condemns nominalism?
But, even in the ranks of the realists, the extravagant realism
of Duns Scotus was followed by a reaction, led by Wyclif, who
(for England at least) is at once "the last of the schoolmen"
and "the first of the reformers. " Later reformers, such as Tindale
(1530), were joined by the humanists in opposing the subtleties
of Scotus. The influence of scholasticism in England ended with
1535, when the idol of the schools was dragged from his pedestal
at Oxford and Cambridge, and when one of Thomas Cromwell's
commissioners wrote to his master from Oxford :
We have set Dance in Bocardo, and have utterly banished him Oxford
for ever, with all his blynd glosses. . . . (At New College) wee fownde all the
1 Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, E. T. I, 453 f.
14—2


## p. 212 (#232) ############################################

212 Franciscans of Oxford
great Quadrant Court full of the leaves of Dunce, the wind blowing them
into every corner1
The teaching of Thomas Aquinas was opposed, not only by the
Franciscan realist, Duns Scotus, but also by another Franciscan,
the great nominalist, William of Ockham Born (c. 1280) in the
little village of that name in Surrey, he became a B. D. of Oxford,
and incepted as D. D. in Paris, where he had a strong influence
over the opponent of the papacy, Marsiglio of Padua. He was
probably present at the chapter of Perugia (1322), and he certainly
took a prominent part in the struggle against pope John XXII.
He was imprisoned at Avignon for seventeen weeks in 1327, but
escaped to Italy and joined the emperor, Lewis of Bavaria, in
1328, accompanying him in 1330 to Bavaria, where he stayed for
the greater part of the remainder of his life, as an inmate of the
Franciscan convent at Munich (d. 1349). He was known to fame
as the Invincible Doctor.
The philosophical and theological writings of his earlier career
included commentaries on the logical treatises of Aristotle and
Porphyry, a treatise on logic (the Caius College MS of which
concludes with a rude portrait of the author), as well as Quaestiones
on the Physics of Aristotle and on the Sentences of Peter Lombard;
the first book of his questions on the latter having been probably
completed before he left Oxford. In the edition of 1495 his work
on the Sentences is followed by his Centilogium theologicum.
The political writings of the last eighteen years of his life include
Opus nonaginta dierum (c. 1330-3), and the Dialogue between
the master and the disciple on the power of the emperor and the
pope (1333—43).
The philosophical school which he founded is nearly indifferent
to the doctrines of the church, but does not deny the church's
authority. While Scotus had reduced the number of doctrines
demonstrable by pure reason, Ockham declared that such doctrines
only existed as articles of faith. He opposes the real existence
of universals, founding his negation of realism on his favourite
principle that “entities must not be unnecessarily multiplied. ”
Realism, which had been shaken, more than two centuries before,
by Roscellinus, was, to all appearance, shattered by William of
Ockham, who is the last of the greater schoolmen.
An intermediate position between the realism of Duns Scotus
and the nominalism of William of Ockham was assumed by a pupil
of the former and a fellow-student of the latter, named Walter
1 Layton in Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, Bk. I, ch. XXIX, sub finem.


## p. 213 (#233) ############################################

Thomas Bradwardine 213
Burleigh, who studied at Paris and taught at Oxford. He was the
first in modern times who attempted to write a history of ancient
philosophy. He knew no Greek; but he, nevertheless, wrote 130
treatises on Aristotle alone, dedicating his commentary on the
Ethics and Politics to Richard of Bury.
Among the opponents of the mendicant orders at Oxford,
about 1321, was a scholar of Paris and Oxford, and a precursor of
Wyclif, named John Baconthorpe (d. 1346), a man of exceedingly
diminutive stature, who is known as the Resolute Doctor, and as
the great glory of the Carmelites. A voluminous writer of
theological and scholastic treatises (including commentaries on
Aristotle), he was long regarded as the prince of the Averroists,
and, nearly three centuries after his death, his works were still
studied in Padua.
Scholasticism survived in the person of Thomas Bradwardine,
who was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, shortly before his
death in 1349. Educated at Merton College, Oxford, he expanded
his college lectures on theology into a treatise that gained him
the title of Doctor profundus. He is respectfully mentioned by
Chaucer in company with St Augustine and Boethius :
But I ne can not bulte it to the bren,
As can the holy doctour Augustyn,
Or Boëce, or the bishop Bradwardyni.
In the favourable opinion of his editor, Sir Henry Savile (1618),
he derived his philosophy from Aristotle and Plato. His pages
abound with quotations from Seneca, Ptolemy, Boethius and
Cassiodorus; but there is reason to believe that all this learning
was gleaned from the library of his friend, Richard of Bury, to
whom he was chaplain in 1335.
Richard of Bury was the son of Sir Richard Aungerville. -
Born within sight of the Benedictine abbey of Bury St Edmunds,
he is sometimes said to have subsequently entered the Bene-
dictine convent at Durham. In the meantime, he bad certainly
distinguished himself in philosophy and theology at Oxford.
From his academic studies he was called to be tutor to prince
Edward, the future king Edward III. The literary interests
with which he inspired the prince may well have led to Edward's
patronage of Chaucer and of Froissart. In 1330 and 1333,
he was sent as envoy to the pope at Avignon; and it was in
recognition of these diplomatic services that he was made dean
of Wells, and bishop of Durham.
i Canterbury Tales, 15,248.


## p. 214 (#234) ############################################

214
Scholars of Oxford
He lives in literature as the author of the Philobiblon,
which was completed on his 58th birthday, 24 January 1345;
and, in the same year, on 14 April, at his manor of Auck-
land, Dominus Ricardus de Bury migravit ad Dominum. In
seven of the thirty-five manuscripts of Philobiblon, it is ascribed
to Robert Holkot, the Dominican (d. 1349). But the evidence
is inconclusive, and the style of Holkot's Moralitates is different
from that of Philobiblon. Holkot, who was one of the bishop's
chaplains, may well have acted as his amanuensis during the
last year of his life, and have thus been wrongly credited with
having "composed” or “compiled” the work. The distinctly
autobiographical character of the volume is in favour of its having
been written by Richard of Bury himself.
The author of Philobiblon is more of a bibliophile than a
scholar. He has only the slightest knowledge of Greek; but he
is fully conscious of the debt of the language of Rome to that
of Greece, and he longs to remedy the prevailing ignorance by
supplying students with grammars of Greek as well as Hebrew,
His library is not limited to works on theology; he places liberal
studies above the study of law, and sanctions the reading of the
poets. His love of letters breathes in every page of his work.
He prefers manuscripts to money, and even “slender pamphlets?
to pampered palfreys. " He confesses with a charming candour:
"we are reported to burn with such a desire for books, and
especially old ones, that it was more easy for any man to gain
our favour by means of books than by means of money"; but
"justice," he hastens to assure us, “suffered no detriment? . " In
inditing this passage, he doubtless remembered that an abbot
of St Albansonce ingratiated himself with the future bishop of
Durham by presenting him with four volumes from the abbey
library, besides selling him thirty volumes from the same collec-
tion, including a large folio MS of the works of John of Salisbury,
which is now in the British Museum.
In the old monastic libraries, Richard of Bury, like Boccaccio
at Monte Cassino, not unfrequently lighted on manuscripts lying
in a wretched state of neglect, murium foetibus cooperti et ver-
mium morsibus terebrati“. But, in those of the new mendicant
orders, he often “found heaped up, amid the utmost poverty,
the utmost riches of wisdoms. " He looks back with regret on
? g 123 (the earliest known example of the word), panfletos exiguos.
• 8$ 119, 122.
8 Gesta Abbatum, II, 200.
* $ 120.
og 135.


## p. 215 (#235) ############################################

Richard of Bury
215
the ages when the monks used to copy manuscripts “between the
hours of prayer? . " He also presents us with a vivid picture of his
own eagerness in collecting books with the aid of the stationarii
and librarii of France, Germany and Italy. For some of his
purchases he sends to Rome, while he dwells with rapture on his
visits to Paris, "the paradise of the world,” “where the days
seemed ever few for the greatness of our love. There are the
delightful libraries, more aromatic than stores of spicery; there,
the verdant pleasure-gardens of all varieties of volumes ? . " He
adds that, in his own manors, he always employed a large number
of copyists, as well as binders and illuminators8; and he pays an
eloquent tribute to his beloved books:
Trath, that triumphs over all things, seems to endure more usefully, and
to fructify with greater profit in books. The meaning of the voice perishes
with the sound; truth latent in the mind is only a hidden wisdom, a buried
treasure; but truth that shines forth from books is eager to manifest itself to
all our senses. It commends itself to the sight, when it is read; to the hearing,
when it is heard; and even to the touch, when it suffers itself to be transcribed,
bound, corrected, and preserved. . . . What pleasantness of teaching there is in
books, how easy, how secret! How safely and how frankly do we disclose to
books our human poverty of mind! They are masters who instruct us without
rod or ferule. . . . If you approach them, they are not asleep; if you inquire of
them, they do not withdraw themselves; they never chide, when you make
mistakes; they never laugh, if you are ignorants.
Towards the close, he confides to us the fact that he had “long
cherished the fixed resolve of founding in perpetual charity a
hall in the revered university of Oxford, the chief nursing-mother
of all liberal arts, and of endowing it with the necessary revenues,
for the maintenance of a number of scholars, and, moreover, to
furnish the ball with the treasures of our books. " He gives rules
for the management of the library, rules founded in part on those
adopted in Paris for the library of the Sorbonne. He contem-
plated the permanent endowment of the Benedictine house of
Durham College in the university of Oxford, and bequeathed
to that college the precious volumes he had collected at Bishop
Auckland. The ancient monastic house was dissolved, and Trinity
College rose on its ruins; but the library, built to contain the
bishop's books, still remains, though the books are lost, and even
the catalogue has vanished. His tomb in Durbam cathedral,
marked by “a faire marble stone, whereon his owne ymage was
most curiously and artificially ingraven in brass 8” has been,
1874.
? g 126.
8 g 143.
• 8$ 23, 26.
5 & 232.
• Description of Monuments (1593), Surtees Society, p. 2.


## p. 216 (#236) ############################################

216
Scholars of Oxford
unfortunately, destroyed; but he lives in literature as the author
of Philobiblon, his sole surviving memorial. One who was in-
spired with the same love of books has justly said of the author
_“His fame will never die? . "
Like the early humanists of Italy, he was one of the new
literary fraternity of Europe-men who foresaw the possibilities
of learning, and were eager to encourage it. On the first of his
missions to the pope at Avignon, he had met Petrarch, who
describes him as vir ardentis ingenii, nec litterarum inscius;
he adds that he had absolutely failed to interest the Englishman
in determining the site of the ancient Thule. But they were
kindred spirits at heart. For, in the same vein as Richard of
Bury, Petrarch tells his brother, that he “cannot be sated with
books"; that, in comparison with books, even gold and silver,
gems and purple, marble halls and richly caparisoned steeds, only
afford a superficial delight; and, finally, he urges that brother to
find trusty men to search for manuscripts in Italy, even as he
himself had sent like messages to his friends in Spain and France
and Englands.
In the course of this brief survey, we have noticed, during
the early part of the twelfth century, the revival of intellectual
interests in the age of Abelard, which resulted in the birth of
the university of Paris. We have watched the first faint traces
of the spirit of humanism in the days when John of Salisbury was
studying Latin literature in the classic calm of Chartres. Two
centuries later, Richard of Bury marks for England the time of
transition between the scholastic era and the revival of learning.
The Oxford of his day was still the “beautiful city, spreading her
gardens to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last
enchantments of the Middle Age. " "Then flash'd a yellow gleam
across the world. ” Few, if any, in our western islands thought to
themselves, “the sun is rising”, though, in another land, the land
of Petrarch, moonlight had already faded away—“the sun had
risen. ”
* Dibdin's Reminiscences, 1, 86 n.
3 Epp. Fam, wu, 1.
3 Epp. Fam. III, 18.


## p. 217 (#237) ############################################

CHAPTER XI
EARLY TRANSITION ENGLISH
STAR
The description which suggests itself for the century from
1150 to 1250, so far as native literature is concerned, is that of the
Early Transition period. It marks the first great advance from
the old to the new, though another period of progress was
necessary to bring about in its fulness the dawn of literary
English. The changes of the period were many and far-reach-
ing. In politics and social affairs we see a gradual welding
together of the various elements of the nation, accompanied by a
slow evolution of the idea of individual liberty. In linguistic
matters we find not only profit and loss in details of the vocabulary,
together with innovation in the direction of a simpler syntax, but
also a modification of actual pronunciation—the effect of the
work of two centuries on Old English speech-sounds. In scribal
methods, again, a transition is visible. Manuscripts were no longer
written in the Celtic characters of pre-Conquest times, but in the
modification of the Latin alphabet practised by French scribes.
And these changes find their counterpart in literary history, in
changes of material, changes of form, changes of literary temper.
Anselm and his school had displayed to English writers a new
realm of theological writings ; Anglo-Norman secular littérateurs
had further enlarged the field for literary adventurers; and, since
the tentative efforts resulting from these innovations took, for the
most part, the form of their models, radical changes in verse-form
soon became palpable. The literary temper began to betray signs
of a desire for freedom. Earlier limitations were no longer capable
of satisfying the new impulses. Legend and romance led on the
imagination; the motives of love and mysticism began lightly
touching the literary work of the time to finer issues; and, such
was the advance in artistic ideals, especially during the latter part
of the period, that it may fairly be regarded as a fresh illustration
of the saying of Ruskin that “the root of all art is struck in the
thirteenth century. ”
The first half of the period (1150—1200) may be roughly
1


## p. 218 (#238) ############################################

218
Early Transition English
?
described as a stage of timid experiment, the second half (1200-
1250) as one of experiment still, but of a bolder and less uncertain
kind. But, before dealing with such literary material as survives,
a word may be said as to the submerged section of popular
poetry. It is true that little can be said definitely concerning this
popular verse, though Layamon refers to the making of folk-songs,
and both William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon
mention some with which their age was familiar. The ancient
epic material must certainly, however, have lived on. Such things
as the legends of Weland and Offa, the story of Wade and his boat
Guingelot, must long have been cherished by the people at large.
This period was also the seed-time of some of the later Middle
English sagas. The stories of Horn and Havelok were silently
changing their Danish colouring and drawing new life from English
soil. The traditions of Guy of Warwick and Bevis of Hampton
were becoming something more than local; the ancient figure of
Woden was being slowly metamorphosed into the attractive Robin
Hood. It was, in short, the rough-hewing stage of later monuments.
With regard to the actual literary remains of the earlier
period, a rough division may be made on the basis of the main
influences, native and foreign, visible in those works. The Here
Prophecy' (c. 1190) scarcely falls within the range of a literary
survey, though it is interesting from both linguistic and historical
standpoints. Among those works primarily reminiscent of earlier
times the Old English Homilies are naturally prominent. Some
of them are merely twelfth-century transcriptions of the work
of Aelfrica; in others foreign influences are seen. But even
then the mould into which the material is run is the same. The
earlier method of conveying religious instruction to English parish-
ioners by means of the homily is still retained. The Proverbs of
Alfred are also strongly reminiscent of earlier native tradition
embodied, not only in the Old English Gnomic Verses, but also in
the proverb dialogues of Salomon and Marcolf, Adrianus and
Ritheus, and in the sententious utterances in which Old English
writers frequently indulged. This Middle English collection of
proverbs is preserved in three MSS of the thirteenth century; but
these versions are obviously recensions of an earlier form, dating
from the second half of the preceding century. The actual con-
See Hales, Folia Litteraria, pp. 55–61; H. Morley, English Writers, m, 200_1.
* See Morris, Old English Homilies (preface passim) for statements regarding the
origin of De Initio Creature, the homily for the 4th Sunday after Pentecost, and
the homily for the 5th Sunday in Lent.


## p. 219 (#239) ############################################

The Proverbs of Alfred
219
nection of the proverbs with Alfred himself must be accepted with
some reserve. His fame as a proverb-maker is implied in the later
Owl and the Nightingale and is even more explicitly maintained
elsewhere: Eluredus in proverbiis ita enituit ut nemo post illum
amplius'. But no collection of Alfredian proverbs is known to have
existed in Old English ; and, since some of the sayings occur in the
later collection known by the name of Hendyng, it may well have been
that the use of the West Saxon king's name in this collection was
nothing more than a patriotic device for adding to popular sayings
the authority of a great name. It is noteworthy that the matter
of the proverbs is curiously mixed. There is, first, the shrewd
philosophy of popular origin. Then there are religious elements :
Christ's will is to be followed; the soldier must fight that the
church may have rest; while monastic scorn possibly lurks in
the sections which deal with woman and marriage. And, thirdly,
there are utterances similar to those in Old English didactic works
like A Father's Instruction, where definite precepts as to conduct
are laid down? . The metrical form of the Proverbs is no less
interesting. The verse is of the earlier alliterative type, but it
shows precisely the same symptoms of change as that of certain
tenth and eleventh century poems. The caesura is preserved, but
the long line is broken in two. The laws of purely alliterative
verse are no longer followed ; an attempt is rather made to place
words in the order of thought. There are occasional appearances
of the leonine rime and assonance, characteristic of tenth and
eleventh century work; but, at best, the structure is irregular. In
section xxü. an attempt has apparently been made possibly by a
later scribe to smooth out irregularities and to approximate the
short couplet in rime and rhythm. The reforming hand of the
adapter, as in other Middle English poems, is also seen elsewhere :
but, these details apart, the work belongs entirely in both form
and spirit to the earlier period.
Alongside these survivals of an earlier day there were not
wanting signs of a new régime. In the Canute Song (c. 1167), for
instance, can be seen the popular verse striving in the direction of
foreign style. The song is of rude workmanship, but the effect
aimed at is not an alliterative one. Rime and assonance are
present, and the line, as compared with earlier examples, will be
seen to reveal definite attempts at hammering out a regular rhythm.
1 Ann. Min. Winton. Anglia Sacra, 1, 289.
se. g. “If thou dost harbour sorrow, let not thine arrow know it; whisper it but
to thy saddle-bow, and ride abroad with song. "
* Cf. O. E. Chronicle, 975, 1036.


## p. 220 (#240) ############################################

220
Early Transition English
In Cantus Beati Godrici (before 1170) is visible a similar grop-
ing after the new style. The matter dealt with is interesting as
anticipating, in some sort, the Virgin cult of the early thirteenth
century. The writer, Godric, was an Englishman who, first a
merchant, became subsequently a recluse connected with Carlisle
and, latterly, with Durham. Three small fragmentary poems have
been handed down connected with his name, one of them, it is
alleged, having been committed to him by the Virgin Mary as he knelt
before the altar. The fragment beginning Sainte Maria Virgine is
the best of the three. The rhythm, the rimes and, also, the strophic
form were clearly suggested by Latin verse, but the diction is
almost entirely of native origin. In Paternoster, a work which
appeared about the same date, or later, in the south, may be
seen a definite advance in carrying out the new artistic notions.
It is a poem of some 300 lines, embodying a lengthy paraphrase of
the Lord's Prayer, each sentence of the prayer affording a text for
homiletic treatment. The work is notable as being the earliest
example of the consistent use of the short riming couplet in
English. The underlying influence is clearly that of some French
or Latin model. The diction is native, but it is used with Latin
simplicity; the lack of verbal ornament marks a striking departure
from the earlier English manner.
By far the most important and interesting work of this period,
however, is Poema Morale. It is interesting in itself, interesting
also in the influence it exercised upon later writers, and its popu-
larity is fairly established by the seven MSS which survive,
though it might also be added that the most recently discovered
of these copies? , being, apparently, due to a different original
from that of the others, affords additional proof that the work
was widely known. The writer opens his sermon-poem in a
subjective vein. He laments his years, his ill-spent life, and exhorts
his readers to pass their days wisely. He alludes to the terrors
of the last judgment. Hell is depicted in all the colours of the
medieval fancy, and the joys of heaven are touched with corre-
sponding charm. And so the reader is alternately intimidated
and allured into keeping the narrow way. All this, of course, is
well-worn material. The Old English work Be Domes Daege had
handled a similar theme. The terrors and glories of the hereafter
had inspired many earlier English pens, and the poet, in fact,
specifically states that part of his descriptions were drawn from
Anna C. Panes, A newly discovered Manuscript of the Poema Morale, Anglia, III
(XVIII), pp. 217–38.
henvorn material omg the narrow mo alternately int


## p. 221 (#241) ############################################

Poema Morale
221
books (cf. 1. 224). But his treatment of the subject has much that
is new. It shows real feeling, though there are also the usual
conventionalities; the poem contains ripe wisdom and sage advice.
If the description of hell is characteristically material, heaven,
on the other hand, is spiritually conceived. The verse-form is also
interesting. Here, for the first time in English, is found the
fourteener line, the catalectic tetrameter of Latin poets. The
iambic movement of that line is adapted with wonderful facility
to the native word-form, accent-displacement is not abnormally
frequent and the lines run in couplets linked by end-rime. The
old heroic utterance is exchanged for the paler abstractions of the
Latin schools, and the loss of colour is emphasised by the absence
of metaphor with its suggestion of energy. A corresponding gain
is, however, derived from the more natural order of words; and, in
general, the merits of the poem are perhaps best recognised by
comparing its workmanship with that of the songs of Godric and
by noting the advances made upon Old English forms in the direc-
tion of later verse.
Mention has already been made of the presence of foreign
influences in certain of the twelfth century Homilies. Corre-
spondences with the homiletic work of Radulfus Ardens of Ac-
quitaine (c. 1100) and of Bernard of Clairvaux (1090—1153) point
to the employment of late Latin originals. Certain quotations in
these Homilies are also taken from Horace and Ovid-an excep-
tional proceeding in Old English works, though common in writings
of the eleventh and twelfth centuries'; and thus the inference is clear
that here Aelfric is not the sole, or even the main, influence, but
that this is rather supplied by those French writers whose religious
works became known in England after the Conquest. The influence
of the same Norman school of theology is, moreover, visible in the
Old Kentish Sermons (1150—1200). They are, in reality, transla-
tions of French texts, and signs of this origin are preserved in the
diction employed, in the use of such words as apierede, cuuenable
and others.
The latter half of the twelfth century was a period of experiment
and of conflicting elements. It was a stage necessarily unproductive,
but of great importance, notwithstanding, in the work of develop-
ment. Older native traditions lived on; but access had been obtained
to continental learning, and, while themes were being borrowed
from Norman writers, as a consequence of the study of other
Vollhardt, Einfluss der lat. geistlichen Litt. auf einige kleinere Schöpfungen der
engl. Vebergangsperiode, pp. 6—18.


## p. 222 (#242) ############################################

222
Early Transition English
French works, the riming couplet and the septenarius had by this
time been adopted, and an alien system of versification, based on
the regular recurrence of accent, seemed in a fair way of being
assimilated. With the attainment of a certain amount of pro-
ficiency in the technique of the new style, the embargo on literary
effort was, in some degree, removed, and the literature of the first
half of the thirteenth century forthwith responded to contemporary
influences. The age became once more articulate, and the four
chief works of the time are eloquent witnesses of the impulses
which were abroad. Ormulum is representative of purely re-
ligious tradition, while the Ancren Riwle points to an increased
interest in the religious life of women, and also, in part, to new
mystical tendencies. Layamon's Brut, with its hoard of legendary
fancy, is clearly the outcome of an impulse fresh to English soil ;
while The Owl and the Nightingale is the herald of the love-theme
in England.
It must be conceded, in the first place, that the general literary
tone of the first half of the thirteenth century was determined by
the prevailing power of the church and the monastery. The intel-
lectual atmosphere of England was mainly cleric, as opposed to
the laic independence which existed across the Channel; and
this difference is suggested by the respective traits of contempo-
rary Gothic architecture in England and in France. From the
eleventh to the thirteenth centuries the power of the pope, so far
as western Europe was concerned, was at its height. National
enthusiasms aroused by the crusades played unconsciously into
the papal hands, and, during this time, more than one pope deposed
a ruling monarch and then disposed of his dominions. Theology
was the main study at the newly-founded universities of Paris and
Oxford; it dominated all learning. And, whereas the church,
generally, had attained the zenith of its power, its influence in
England was visible in the strong personalities of Lanfranc and
Anselm, while the religious revival under Henry I and the coming
of the friars at a later date were ample evidence of the spirit of
devotion which was abroad.
But literature was not destined to remain a religious monotone:
other and subtler influences were to modify its character. The
twelfth century renascence was a period of popular awakening,
and vigorous young nations found scope for their activities in
attempting to cast off the fetters which had bound them in
the past. As the imperial power declined, individual countries
wrested their freedom, and, in England, by 1215, clear ideas had


## p. 223 (#243) ############################################

"
Literary Revolt of the Thirteenth Century 223
been formulated as to the rights of the individual citizen.