And here we must leave that greatest of centres, Paris, whose prosperity at that time seemed so unalterable, and take a glance, necessarily a cursory one, at the other continental universities. Bologna undoubtedly claims the first place. It was called the “Mater Studiorum” of Italy, and vied more successfully with Paris than any other of the universities. The great Countess Mathilda of Tuscany, the liberal patroness of learning and protectress of the Holy See, was connected with its foundation, and by the end of the XIth century it was celebrated as the first law school in Europe.(91) This characteristic it always retained, while in the XIIth century canon law began to be equally studied there. Connected with Bologna was the publication of the _Decretals of Gratian_, a summary of the decrees of the popes, of a hundred and fifty councils, of selections from various royal codes, and of extracts from the fathers and other ecclesiastical writers.(92) The few errors in this gigantic work have often served as a peg whereon to hang many calumnies against the church; but the whole scope of the undertaking, so bold in its conception, so lucid in its exposition—has it ever been sufficiently examined outside the church? And will the world be astonished to know who was its compiler and who spent twenty‐five years of his hidden life upon it? A simple Benedictine monk of Chiusi, of whom nothing is known but his immortal work. M. de Maistre has cleverly said, “_Grattez le Russe et vous trouverez le Tartare_,” and we might adapt the pithy saying thus: Raise but the thinnest crust of what we call civilization, and you will find beneath the solid structure, the immovable foundation of monasticism.