Christian Schools and Scholars: or, Sketches of Education from the Christian Era to the Council of TrentDrane, Augusta Theodosia
History
Christian Schools and Scholars: or, Sketches of Education from the Christian Era to the Council of Trent
Drane, Augusta Theodosia
Church and education; Education -- Europe -- History; Renaissance; Scholasticism
Adalberon’s zeal was not satisfied with the restoration of Gorze; he
invited a learned body of monks over from Ireland, under a superior
named Cradoc, and established them in another deserted monastery,
that of St. Clement’s at Metz. When Gerard, Bishop of Toul, the
successor of Gauzelin, heard of the arrival of the Irishmen, he never
rested till he had procured some of them for his own diocese. He had
already procured a community of exiled Greek monks, among whom, in
the following century, Cardinal Humbert acquired his Greek learning.
A sort of holy emulation sprang up between the two prelates, which
should outstrip the other in their labours at reform and revival; and
Gerard was not content with setting others to work; he worked himself
as hard as the humblest scholasticus. He took into his own hands the
instruction of his clergy in all that appertained to ecclesiastical
discipline and the ministry of preaching; and acting on the principle
that he who instructs others should never cease to be a learner, he
never considered that his time of study was ended; and his historian
declares that even when he was in bed he appointed some of his clerks
to read to him until he fell asleep.
From all that has been said, it may be seen that there was no want
of solicitude on the part of the pastors of the Church to amend
the disorders of the time. In fact, we might appeal to the acts of
those very councils which show what the abuses of the times were, as
affording proof of the strenuous exertions made to correct them.
In Spain we are told the incursions of the Saracens had left
everything in ruins. The school of Palencia, established in the
sixth century for the education of the clergy, had fallen into
decay; the monastic institute had all but disappeared; and the sites
of many monasteries, like the famous one founded near Vierzo by
St. Fructuosus, had become wildernesses, overgrown with thorns and
brushwood. But here, as in France and Germany, bishops were to be
found stemming the strong tide of barbarism. Gennadius of Astorga
restored a great number of abbeys destroyed by the Saracens, and
placed them under the Benedictine Rule. And as the libraries that
formerly enriched them could not be at once replaced, he introduced
a custom by which the books belonging to one house were lent to a
number of others in regular succession, always returning to their
original owners. Among the books so lent appear the works of St.
Gregory, St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine.
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