The English restoration of letters, inaugurated by St. Dunstan and his companions, took place at a critical period, when fresh tides of barbarism were overwhelming the continental territories, and reducing the monastic institute in France to its very lowest ebb. This tenth century was, in fact, the famous “Age of Iron,” which, in spite of its celebrity as the very midnight of the Dark Ages, fills, strange to say, a very important place in the history of monastic literature. It will, therefore, be necessary to consider its various bearings at some length; and we will begin with the ungracious task of painting it in its blackest aspect. _CHAPTER IX._ THE IRON AGE. A.D. 900 TO 1000. Baronius, when about to enter on the history of the tenth century, thinks it necessary to prepare his readers for what is coming by a sentence which, in spite of the wildness of its metaphors, has obtained an odd kind of immortality. “We are now entering on a period,” he says, “which for its sterility of every excellence may be denominated _iron_; for its luxuriant growth of vice, _leaden_; and for its dearth of writers, _dark_.” Why iron should be chosen as most fit to typify the sterility of virtue, and lead to figure forth the luxuriance of vice, is not perhaps at first sight obvious; but these words, which are certainly not remarkable for the appropriateness of their imagery, have formed the text for many commentators; from one of whom, as being a professedly Catholic writer, I select a passage which claims to explain at least one of the phenomena of this period--the darkness, namely, that succeeded the establishment of the Carlovingian schools.