Learning and civilization were greatly advanced by the Norman Conquest. Italy at this time was the focus of the knowledge and refinement of the world. The light kindled by the genius of Attica, and nurtured by the philosophy and poetry of the Augustan era, still irradiated the seven-hilled city. Britain, severed from the main-land by a stormy channel, had less intercourse with Rome than the nations of the continent. Though William of Malmesbury may have somewhat overdrawn the statement, still there is much truth in the picture which he gives of the social condition of the Saxons at the time of the Conquest. “In process of time the desire after literature and religion had decayed, for several years before the arrival of the Normans. The clergy, contented with a very slight degree of learning, could scarcely stammer out the words of the sacraments; and a person who understood grammar was an object of wonder and astonishment. The nobility were given up to luxury and wantonness. The commonalty, left unprotected, became a prey to the most powerful, who amassed fortunes, by either seizing on their property, or by selling their persons into foreign countries; although it be an innate quality of this people to be more inclined to revelling, than to the accumulation of wealth. Drinking was a universal practice, in which they passed entire nights as well as days. They consumed their whole substance in mean and despicable houses; unlike Normans and French, who, in noble and splendid mansions, lived with frugality.”[115] There cannot be a doubt that by the introduction of the refinements of life the condition of the people was improved, and that a check was given to the grosser sensualities of our nature. Certain it is that learning received a powerful stimulus by the conquest. At the period of the Norman invasion, a great intellectual movement had commenced in the schools on the continent. Normandy had beyond most other parts profited by it. William brought with him to England some of the most distinguished ornaments of the schools of his native duchy; the consequence of this was that England henceforward took a higher walk in literature than she had ever done before.[116]