But these affirmations are not to be maintained by reasoning however cogent nor by logic however convincing but by evidence;--by the testimony of the historians for the period in question. The witness of competent historians is summoned in their corroboration. Mr. Lecky declares: "It is undoubted truth that, for a considerable period, almost all the knowledge of Europe was included in the monasteries, and from this it is continually inferred that, had these institutions not existed, knowledge would have been absolutely extinguished.... The monasteries, as corporations of peaceful men protected from the incursions of the barbarians, became very naturally the reservoirs to which the streams of literature flowed; but much of what they are represented as creating, they had in reality only attracted. The inviolable sanctity which they secured rendered them invaluable receptacles of ancient learning in a period of anarchy and perpetual war, and the industry of the monks in transcribing, probably more than counterbalanced their industry in effacing the classical writings."[76] "It is certain," say Munro and Sellery, "that we are indebted for the preservation of classical literature as far as it has been preserved, to the monks above all others. For hundreds of years they truly sheltered and preserved the treasures heaped up by those gone before, and also multiplied them through copying.... If the rules of some monastic orders forbade the reading of the pagan authors, the rules of other orders not only permitted it, but made it an express obligation to copy manuscripts. In this way the monks of the tenth, the eleventh, and the twelfth centuries rendered services to civilization which will never be forgotten.... With the foundation of the monasteries by the missionaries, learning and poetry made their entrance into Germany. Many of the writings of this early time are, of course, lost forever; but enough survives to enable us to declare, with certainty, that virtually all who studied and wrote did so in the quiet of the monastic cells."[77] Hallam testifies: "The monasteries were subjected to strict rules of discipline, and held out, at the worst, more opportunities for study than the secular clergy possessed, and fewer for worldly dissipations. But their most important service was in the fact that they were the secure repositories for books. All our manuscripts have been preserved in this manner, and they could have hardly descended to us by any other channel; at least there were intervals when I do not conceive that any royal or private libraries existed."[78] "The monks were also the civilizers," say Thatcher and Schwill. "Every monastery founded by them became a center of life and learning, and hence a light to the surrounding country. They cleared the lands and brought them under cultivation. They were farmers and taught by their example the dignity of labor in an age when the soldier was the world's hero.