The poem became at once famous. It had the success of Victor Hugo or Byron. Its author took rank, not only at the head of his contemporaries, but even among the classics of antiquity, Leyser chronicles no less than one hundred Latin poets in the twelfth century,[40] but we are assured that not one of them is comparable to Gaultier.[41] M. Edelestand du Meril, who has given especial attention to this period, speaks of the "Alexandreis" as "a great poem," and remarks that its "Latinity is very elegant for the time."[42] Another authority calls him "the first of the modern Latin poets who appears to have had a spark of true poetic genius."[43] And still another says, that, "notwithstanding all its defects, we must regard this poem, and the 'Philippis' of William of Brittany, which appeared about sixty years later, as two brilliant phenomena in the midst of the thick darkness which covered Europe from the decline of the Roman Empire to the revival of letters in Italy."[44] Pasquier, to whom I have already referred, goes so far, in his chapter on the University of Paris, as to illustrate its founder, Peter Lombard, by saying that he had for a contemporary "one Galterus, an eminent poet, who wrote in Latin verses, under the title of the 'Alexandreis,' a great imitator of Lucan"; and the learned writer then adds, that it is in his work that we find a verse often quoted without knowing the author,[45] These testimonies show his position among his contemporaries; but there is something more. An anonymous Latin poet of the next century, who has left a poem on the life and miracles of Saint Oswald, calls Homer, Gaultier, and Lucan the three capital heroic poets. Homer, he says, has celebrated Hercules, Gaultier the son of Philip, and Lucan has sung the praises of Caesar; but these heroes deserve to be immortalized in verse much less than the holy confessor Oswald.[46] In England, the Abbot of Peterborough transcribed Seneca, Terence, Martial, Claudian, and the "Gesta Alexandri."[47] In Denmark, Arnas Magnseus made a version in Icelandic of the "Alexandreis Gualteriana," which has been called "_Incomparabile antiguitatis septentrionalis monumentum_."[48] It appears that the new poem was studied, even to the exclusion of ancient masters and of Virgil himself. Henry of Ghent, who wrote about 1280, says that it "was of such dignity in the schools, that for it the reading of the ancient poets was neglected."[49] This testimony is curiously confirmed by the condition of the manuscripts which have come down to us, most of which are loaded with glosses and interlinear explanations, doubtless for public use in the schools.[50] It is sometimes supposed that Dante repaired to Paris. It is certain that his excellent master, Brunette Latini, passed much time there. This must have been at the very period when the new poem was taught in the schools. Perhaps it may be traced in the "Divina Commedia."