All primary epic is thus concrete. It speaks habitually in the immediate terms of the five senses. But the habit of images crystallized among the Germanic poets in a conventional epic diction. Their style is deliberately removed from common speech. Its most obvious traits are designation by descriptive compounds and accompaniment by descriptive epithets. A lord is “land-ruler,” as above, or “prize-giver,” or “hoard-ward.” His warrior is “hall-counselor,” “earl’s hope,” “rugged-in-war.” The ominous raven is “sallow-brown, swarthy.” Ships especially command a whole store of such phrases as those of the seventh and eighth lines above. Germanic epic has a distinct poetic language. FOOTNOTES: [1] Bede (c. 673-735), Wearmouth. Alcuin (c. 735-804), York, Schools of the Palace, St. Martin’s at Tours. Rabanus (c. 780-856), Fulda. Loup (805-862), Fulda, Ferrières. Remi (841-908), Auxerre, Reims. Gerbert (c. 940-1003), Reims. See Julien Havet’s _Lettres de Gerbert (983-997)_, with his valuable introduction, Paris, 1889. For a suggestive summary of the greater schools and their teaching, with valuable bibliographical notes, see Ermini, vi-xvi, 69-70. [2] _Opera_, Basel, 1563 (whence PL), vol. II, page 343, end of the last book (IV, περὶ διδάξεων) of _De elementis philosophiæ_. Loup’s first letter to Einhard puts _rhetorica_ second (MGH, _Epist._ tom. VI, pars prior, page 8); and so does Rabanus, _De clericorum institutione_, III. xviii (PL 107: 395 B). [3] _Passio S. Christophori, carmen rhythmicum_, rec. C. Strecker, MGH, Poet. lat. med. æv., vol. IV, Part II. 809. The introduction is included among the selections printed in Ermini. Walter’s reference to psalmody is at line 15; to _fabula_, at 55; to _prælectio_, at 91; to _declamatio_, at 140. For all these, except the first, see the indexes to ARP and to the present volume. [4] See above, page 87. Alcuin’s verses on York (MGH, _Poet. lat. æv. Carol._ I. 169) enumerate in the eighth-century library there: Donatus, Eutyches, Phocas, Pompeius, Priscian, Probus, Victorinus, Servius. The ninth-century library of St. Amand had Eutyches, Marius Plotius [Sacerdos], Priscian, Servius, and Victorinus (Desilve, _De schola Elnonensi Sancti Amandi_, Louvain, 1890, page 51). [5] Clerval, _Les écoles de Chartres_, 22; and, for the eleventh century, 47, 48, 56, etc. [6] _De doctrina christiana_, III. xxix. [7] PL. 90: 175; Halm, 607. [8] Grammatica est scientia interpretandi poetas atque historicos et recte scribendi loquendique ratio. Hæc et origo et fundamentum est artium liberalium. _De clericorum institutione_, III. xviii (PL, 107: 395 B). [9] Above, section A, close. [10] _De arte metrica_ (PL, 90: 156. 4; Keil, VII. 234). [11] Above, page 110. The distinction seems to be made by Walafrid Strabo, _Libellus de exordiis et incrementis rerum ecclesiasticarum_ (840-842), cap. 26, pp. 506-508 (MGH, _Capitularia regum francorum_, II, Appendix); and by Hucbald (IXth century):