Bibliomania in the Middle Ages | Page 5

extract from them some light to
guide us in forming an opinion on the state of literature in those ages of
darkness and obscurity; and here let it be understood that I merely wish
to give a fact as history records it. I will not commence by saying the
Middle Ages were dark and miserably ignorant, and search for some
poor isolated circumstance to prove it; I will not affirm that this was
pre-eminently the age in which real piety flourished and literature was

fondly cherished, and strive to find all those facts which show its
learning, purposely neglecting those which display its unlettered
ignorance: nor let it be deemed ostentation when I say that the literary
anecdotes and bookish memoranda now submitted to the reader have
been taken, where such a course was practicable, from the original
sources, and the references to the authorities from whence they are
derived have been personally consulted and compared.
That the learning of the Middle Ages has been carelessly represented
there can be little doubt: our finest writers in the paths of history have
employed their pens in denouncing it; some have allowed difference of
opinion as regards ecclesiastical policy to influence their conclusions;
and because the poor scribes were monks, the most licentious
principles, the most dismal ignorance and the most repulsive crimes
have been attributed to them. If the monks deserved such reproaches
from posterity, they have received no quarter; if they possessed virtues
as christians, and honorable sentiments as men, they have met with no
reward in the praise or respect of this liberal age: they were monks!
superstitious priests and followers of Rome! What good could come of
them? It cannot be denied that there were crimes perpetrated by men
aspiring to a state of holy sanctity; there are instances to be met with of
priests violating the rules of decorum and morality; of monks revelling
in the dissipating pleasures of sensual enjoyments, and of nuns whose
frail humanity could not maintain the purity of their virgin vows. But
these instances are too rare to warrant the slanders and scurrility that
historians have heaped upon them. And when we talk of the sensuality
of the monks, of their gross indulgences and corporeal ease, we surely
do so without discrimination; for when we speak of the middle ages
thus, our thoughts are dwelling on the sixteenth century, its mocking
piety and superstitious absurdity; but in the olden time of monastic rule,
before monachism had burst its ancient boundaries, there was surely
nothing physically attractive in the austere and dull monotony of a
cloistered life. Look at the monk; mark his hard, dry studies, and his
midnight prayers, his painful fasting and mortifying of the flesh; what
can we find in this to tempt the epicure or the lover of indolence and
sloth? They were fanatics, blind and credulous--I grant it. They read
gross legends, and put faith in traditionary lies--I grant it; but do not

say, for history will not prove it, that in the middle ages the monks
were wine bibbers and slothful gluttons. But let not the Protestant
reader be too hastily shocked. I am not defending the monastic system,
or the corruption of the cloister--far from it. I would see the usefulness
of man made manifest to the world; but the measure of my faith teaches
charity and forgiveness, and I can find in the functions of the monk
much that must have been useful in those dark days of feudal tyranny
and lordly despotism. We much mistake the influence of the monks by
mistaking their position; we regard them as a class, but forget from
whence they sprang; there was nothing aristocratic about them, as their
constituent parts sufficiently testify; they were, perhaps, the best
representatives of the people that could be named, being derived from
all classes of society. Thus Offa, the Saxon king, and Cædman, the
rustic herdsman, were both monks. These are examples by no means
rare, and could easily be multiplied. Such being the case, could not the
monks more readily feel and sympathize with all, and more clearly
discern the frailties of their brother man, and by kind admonition or
stern reproof, mellow down the ferocity of a Saxon nature, or the proud
heart of a Norman tyrant? But our object is not to analyze the social
influence of Monachism in the middle ages: much might be said
against it, and many evils traced to the sad workings of its evil spirit,
but still withal something may be said in favor of it, and those who
regard its influence in those days alone may find more to admire and
defend than they expected, or their Protestant prejudices like to own.
But, leaving these things, I have only to deal with such remains as