During the ninth and tenth centuries, as we learn from the very full descriptions given by Neuburger in his History of Medicine, much zeal was manifested by the monks at St. Gall in Switzerland, at Reichenau in Saxony, and at Fulda, in Hesse Nassau, in the study of the different branches of knowledge, medicine included. The following are the names of those monks who attained the greatest distinction in this work: Hrabanus Maurus, Abbot of the Fulda Monastery, afterward Archbishop of Mayence, and the author of an encyclopaedia in which the science of medicine receives quite full consideration; and Walahfrid Strabo, a pupil of Maurus, Abbot of Reichenau, and the author of a treatise in verse on medicinal plants. CHAPTER XXI MEDICAL INSTRUCTION AT SALERNO, ITALY, IN THE MIDDLE AGES The date of origin of the Medical School at Salerno is not known, but such evidence as we possess shows without a doubt that already in the earliest part of the Middle Ages some sort of facilities for studying medicine were provided in that little town--the _Civitas Hippocratica_, as it was called at a later period. It seems to be the general impression, says Daremberg, that during those early centuries only ignorance and superstition prevailed in Italy and Gaul; in other words, that all desire for scientific research had vanished, and that there no longer existed such a thing as the regular practice of medicine. This impression, he adds, is erroneous. History shows that schools modeled after those established by the Merovingian and Carlovingian kings (448–639 A. D.), existed up to as recent a date as the middle of the seventh century, and that subsequently the bishops organized the teaching in such a manner that it should be entirely under their control. As time went on, however, the schools assumed a more public character, although the actual teaching was still carried on in the cloisters and church edifices. It is well known, furthermore, that the chief of the Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Lombards--the so-called Barbarians, who at that time occupied these parts of Europe as conquerors--showed themselves on many an occasion to be the enlightened protectors of public instruction and the enthusiastic admirers of classical literature and science.