I have mentioned that before Gregory the Great's time almost all Europe had been overrun by the rude nations of the north.[62] Learning nearly died out, and what remained of it was kept up by the monks and clergy only. There is but little to tell of the history of those times; for, although in the Greek empire there were great disputes about some doctrines and practices, these matters were such as you would not care to know about, nor would you be much the wiser if you did know. [62] See Part I., chap XXIII. I may, however, mention that one of these disputes was about images, to which the Christians of those ages, and especially the Greeks, had come by degrees to pay a sort of reverence which St. Augustine and other fathers of older days would have looked on with horror. It had become usual to fall down before images, to pray to them, to kiss them, to burn lights and incense in their honour, to adorn them with gold, silver, and precious stones, to lay the hand on them in taking oaths, and even to use them as godfathers or godmothers for children in baptism. Those who defend the use of images would tell us that the honour is not given to them, but to Almighty God, to the Saviour, and to the saints, through the images. But when we find, for instance, that people paid more honour to one image of the blessed Virgin than to another, and that they supposed their prayers to have a greater hope of being heard when they were said before one image than when they were said before another, we cannot help thinking that they believed the images themselves to have some particular virtue in them.