SCHOLARSHIP OUTSIDE OF ITALY AND GERMANY

While Italy was literally the alma mater studiorum during the Renaissance, and Germany probably accomplished more in scholarly education at this time that influenced succeeding generations than any other country except Italy, all the countries of Europe shared very largely in the New Learning and did much for classical scholarship before 1550. Indeed, it is probable that to a great many thoroughly educated students of this time the comparisons of achievement that I have suggested will seem invidious or at least uncalled for. Certainly no one appreciates more than I do the magnificent work of the scholarly humanists of France, Spain, Portugal and England during Columbus’ Century. Each of them shared magnificently in the intellectual incentive that had been given by the reintroduction of classical studies and especially of Greek, and each of them, in fine compensation for the impetus lent them by the movement, gave back to it achievements in scholarship that swelled the tide and helped in the diffusion of Humanism throughout all of Western Europe at least. There are national accomplishments of all of these countries that are worthy of note, and each of them accomplished much at this time in education that will never be forgotten.

Probably the easiest way to tell the extent of the scholarship of France during Columbus’ Century is to say that many good authorities have declared that before the end of the century France had taken away from Italy the palm for classical scholarship. The first important teacher of the French was, however, an Italian, Jerome Aleander, who arrived in France shortly after the beginning of the sixteenth century with an introduction from Erasmus. He lectured on Greek as well as Latin, and probably also on Hebrew. He became Rector of the University of Paris in 1512, but returned to Rome in 1517 and was appointed Librarian to the Vatican. His distinguished services for learning and the Church brought him a cardinal’s hat, and he became one of the most prominent members of the Papal Court at this time. It was under his direction that the first Greek printing in France was done. Three of Plutarch’s treatises on Morals were printed in Paris in 1509 in order to serve as text-books for his pupils.

His successor as a teacher of the classics in Paris was the distinguished Frenchman Budaeus, who, before the end of his life, came to be looked upon as perhaps the most eminent of living scholars. He went on diplomatic missions to Popes Julius II and Leo X and thus became very much interested in the New Learning. He learned Greek for himself, and under Francis I and Henry II his fame as a Greek scholar, to quote Sandys, was “one of the glories of his country.” “He opened a new era in the study of Roman Law by his annotations on the ‘Pandects’ of Justinian, and a little later he broke fresh ground as the first serious student of the Roman coinage in his treatise ’De Äße,’ It was the ripe result of no less than nine years’ research, and in twenty years passed through ten editions. Its abundant learning is said to have aroused the envy of Erasmus” (Sandys).

His devotion to study became a proverb. It is said that even on his wedding day, by an exceptional act of self-denial, he limited his time of study to three hours only. It is interesting to learn that his wife shared his enthusiasm for study at least to the extent of aiding him in every possible way by devoted attention, which prevented him from being interrupted or harassed by any cares. Once, when he was busy reading in his library, one of the servants suddenly rushed in to inform him that the house was on fire. The scholar, without lifting up his eyes from his book, simply said: “Go and tell my wife; you know very well that I must not be bothered about household matters.” He suffered greatly from headaches, which the best physicians of his day vainly endeavored to cure by the application of the actual cautery to his scalp. After a time, however, it was suggested to him that what was needed was not a cure, but a better regulation of his life. He learned to take long walks, and spent some time each day cultivating his garden to the great alleviation of his headaches.

His greatest contribution to the scholarship of the time was his successful urging of Francis I, helped as he was by that monarch’s sister, Marguerite of Navarre, to establish the College de France, though for a time at the beginning it had no such ambitious title, but was called simply the Corporation of the Royal Readers. It had no official residences or even public lecture rooms. As was said at the time, “it was built on men.” Budaeus’ statue rightly stands before the College buildings now, for he was the real founder. The amount that was accomplished for genuine education and scholarship before the buildings were erected and the machinery of a college set going shows how much more men mean than an institution.

This Corporation of the Royal Readers had at first teachers of Greek, Hebrew and Mathematics, five in number. The first two teachers in it were Pierre Danes, Danesius as he is known, who edited an important edition of Pliny and later of Justin Martyr and afterwards became Bishop of Lavaur and took an important part in the Council of Trent, and Jacques Toussain, an industrious scholar, the compiler of a Greek and Latin Dictionary. Three men are said to have attended Toussain’s lectures for some time, whose influence on the after-time was to be very marked, and yet the contrast of whose characters is very striking. They were Ignatius Loyola, John Calvin and Francois Rabelais. Turnebus was also one of the students of Toussain, and himself later became a distinguished professor, first at Toulouse and afterwards as the successor of his master at Paris. Toussain had been famous for his erudition. He was a living library. Turnebus, though attracting great attention when a young man by his marvellous memory, became a specialist in Greek textual criticism. He published a series of Greek texts, including Aeschylus and Sophocles, just at the end of Columbus’ Century, and edited Cicero’s “Laws.” He wrote commentaries on Varro and the elder Pliny.

We have from Montaigne, who was one of his pupils just as our century closes, a curiously interesting description of Turnebus, which serves to show that the genus professor has been at all times about the same and that his pupils have loved him often just in proportion as they have found many things to laugh at in his dress and manners. It is, indeed, a distinction, however, to have been the thus beloved master of Montaigne, himself no laggard in scholarliness.

“I have seen Adrianus Turnebus, who, having never professed anything but studie and letters, wherein he was, in mine opinion, the worthiest man that lived these thousand years, . . . notwithstanding had no pedanticall thing about him but the wearing of his gowne, and some external fashions, that could not well be reduced and uncivilized to the courtiers’ cut. For his inward parts, I deeme him to have been one of the most unspotted and truly honest minds that ever was. I have sundry times of purpose urged him to speake of matters farthest from his study, wherein he was so clear-sighted, and could with so quicke an apprehension conceive, and with so sound a judgment distinguish them, that he seemed never to have professed or studied other facultie than warre, and matters of state.”

The French educators of this time seem to have realized very well the true meaning of education. Rabelais is usually not taken seriously, except by students of his works who have given them much attention, but his books contain a number of most interesting contributions to this subject. His striking contrast between what education had been when he was a boy and in his old age, drawn by Gargantua, represents the great advance that took place in education at this time. The paragraphs may be taken as the testimony of a contemporary to the devotion to scholarship on the part of both men and women which then developed in France. He has the usual Renaissance contempt for Gothic culture, a contempt that exists even at the present time among those who know no better.

“I had no supply of such teachers as thou hast had. The time was still dark, and savouring of the misery and calamity wrought by the Goths, who had entirely destroyed all good literature. But by Divine goodness its own light and dignity has been in my lifetime restored to letters, and I see such amendment therein that at present I should hardly be admitted into the first class of the little grammar-boys, although in my youthful days I was reputed, not without reason, as the most learned of that age. . . .

“But now all methods of teaching are restored, the study of the languages renewed Greek, without which it is a disgrace for a man to style himself a scholar; Hebrew, Chaldean, Latin; impressions of books most elegant and correct are in use through printing, which has been invented in my time by Divine inspiration, as on the other side artillery has been invented by devilish suggestion.

“All the world is full of knowing folk, of most learned preceptors, of most extensive libraries, so that I am of opinion that neither in the time of Plato, nor Cicero, nor Papinian was there ever such conveniency for study as is seen at this time. Nor must any hereafter adventure himself in public, or in any company, who shall not have been well polished in the workshop of Minerva. I do see robbers, hangmen, freebooters, grooms, of the present age, more learned than the doctors and preachers of my time.

“What shall I say? Women and young girls have aspired to this praise and celestial manna of good learning. So much is this the case that at my present age I have been constrained to learn the Greek tongue which I had not contemned, like Cato, but which I had not had leisure to learn in my youth; and I do willingly delight myself in reading the Morals of Plutarch, the fine Dialogues of Plato, the Monuments of Pausanias, and the Antiquities of Athenaeus, whilst I wait for the hour when it shall please God my Creator to call me and command me to depart from this earth.”

With all his jesting, humorous spirit (some people would call it ludicrous buffoonery), Rabelais had no illusions with regard to the true meaning of education. The concluding sentences of Gargantua’s letter to his son on Education may very well be taken as representing the serious side of Rabelais’ views with regard to the place of religion in education and his profound recognition of the utter failure of any education which did not include moral training. His golden words, “science without conscience is the ruin of the soul,” have often been quoted. It is doubtful, however, whether most people have realized how precious is the context in the midst of which these words occur. The whole passage is well worth while for educators at least to have near them:

“But because (according to the wise Solomon) wisdom entereth not into a malicious soul, and science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul, it behoveth thee to serve, love, and fear God, and in Him to put all thy thoughts and all thy hope, and to cleave to Him by faith formed of charity, so that thou mayest never be separated from Him by sin.

“Hold in suspicion the deceits of the world. Set not thy heart on vanity; for this life passeth away, but the Word of the Lord endureth for ever. Be serviceable to all thy neighbors and love them as thyself. Revere thy preceptors. Flee from the company of those whom thou wouldst not resemble, and receive not in vain the graces which God hath given thee.

“And when thou shalt perceive that thou hast attained unto all the
knowledge that is acquired in those parts, return unto me, that I
may see thee and give thee my blessing before I die.

“My son, the peace and grace of our Lord be with thee. Amen.”

One of the important teachers at this time in France was Julius Cæsar Scaliger, born in Italy, particularly famous for the part that he took in the controversy over Ciceronianism, and who defended Cicero from the attacks of Erasmus, maintaining that the Latin orator was absolutely perfect. Scaliger is notorious for having introduced the bitterest kind of personalities into classical controversy. Unfortunately, his example was widely followed. His son is the better known Scaliger, but was only ten years old at the time our century closes. His education gives an idea of the educational methods of the century. When he was but fourteen he was required to produce daily a short Latin declamation and to keep a written record of the perennial flow of his father’s Latin verse. It was thus that he acquired his early mastery of Latin. But he was already conscious that “not to know Greek was to know nothing” (Sandys).

In Spain there was a magnificent development of scholarship which began to make itself felt shortly after the discovery of America. Here, as elsewhere, contact with Italy gave the initiative. A Spanish nobleman, Guzman, who visited Italy during the Council of Florence, returned with translations of some of Cicero’s works and of Quintilian, and interest was awakened. Antonio of Lebrixa, commonly called Nebrisensis, after spending twenty years in Italy, returned in 1473 to lecture at Seville, Salamanca and Alcala and to publish grammars of Latin and Greek as well as Hebrew. After this Barbosa, a pupil of Politian, taught Greek at Salamanca. Many of the Spanish bishops who visited Rome in the performance of their ecclesiastical obligations came back with manuscripts, and above all with awakened interest in classical studies to scatter the seeds of the New Learning. Indeed, this constituted a large factor in the great movement for humanism in all the Western countries at this time.

The most important factor for Spanish culture and scholarship, however, was the famous Cardinal Ximenes, sometimes known by his family name of Cisneros. With a career of importance opening out before him in the ecclesiastical life, Ximenes, who had been the Grand Vicar to Cardinal Gonzales of Sigueenza, resigned that office to become a Franciscan of the Strict Observance. His administrative ability soon brought about his election as Guardian of his monastery, and he became known among his brethren for his devotion to the spiritual life. The year of the discovery of America he was selected as the confessor of Queen Isabella. He accepted with the condition that he should be allowed to live in his monastery and appear at Court only when sent for. He had much to do with the successful appeal of Columbus to her Majesty. Three years later he was chosen to succeed his friend Mendoza as Archbishop of Toledo. This post carried with it the Chancellorship of Castile at this time. Ximenes refused the dignity, and it was only after six months of delay, and then in obedience to the express command of the Pope, that he accepted it. As archbishop he continued to live as a simple Franciscan, devoting the greater part of the immense revenues attached to his see to the relief of the poor and particularly for the redemption of captives. Just at this time the activity of the Turks made this one of the burning social needs of the time.

Ximenes was even reprimanded, it is said, by the Pope for neglecting the external splendor that belonged to his rank. He would not wear an episcopal dress, except in such a way that his Franciscan habit might remain visible underneath. His fulfilment of his duties as Chancellor of Castile gave him ample opportunity for the exercise of his administrative ability and demonstrated his power and high sense of justice. He used his high office to the fullest extent to encourage culture and above all classical studies. In 1504 he founded the University of Alcala, obtaining some of the most distinguished scholars from Bologna, Paris and the other Spanish universities to fill its chairs. Practically all the religious orders established houses at Alcala in connection with the University. Among those who were attracted to Alcala was Nunez de Guzman, who brought out an edition of Seneca that earned the praise of Lipsius, and who besides suggested valuable emendations of Pliny’s “Natural History.” He also published, mainly at the suggestion of Cardinal Ximenes, it is said, an interlinear Latin rendering of Saint Basil’s tract on the study of Greek literature. He is known as Pincianus from Pintia, the ancient name of Valladolid, his birthplace, and much of his enthusiasm for classical studies had been derived from visits to Italy during which he collected a number of manuscripts that he brought back with him as precious treasures.

The great work of Cardinal Ximenes, however, was the publication under his patronage of the first Polyglot Bible, known as the Complutensian Polyglot from Complutum, the ancient name for Alcala. This occupied fifteen years, cost an immense sum of money, considerably over a million of dollars in our values, occupied a great many scholars, attracted wide attention and above all created an interest in linguistic studies that spread all over the country and was felt even in other countries. This was completed only four months before the Cardinal’s death and was dedicated to Leo X. Most of the revenues of his archbishopric, which had accumulated because of his careful use of them, he left to his beloved University of Alcala. In spite of a self-denial in the matter of food and drink that had been carried to an extent which it was feared might injure his health, and what seemed to many even at that time, a serious deprivation of sleep for prayer and study, continued amid all his great administrative work, for he was often regent of the kingdom and displayed great ability in military organization he lived to the age of eighty-one. He has been honored as a saint, though this honor has never been confirmed by any formal declaration.

After this, the development of scholarship was comparatively easy. Men like Vives, Vergara, who published a Greek grammar, praised by many of the scholars of the time and thoroughly appreciated by Scaliger, and Sanchez, who was professor of Greek at Salamanca when he was but thirty-one, carried on the New Learning. Sanchez’ text-book on Latin syntax called “The Minerva” came to be more used throughout Europe than almost any other. Haase declared that he had done more for Latin grammar than any of his predecessors, and Sir William Hamilton, the English philosopher, even held that the study of “Minerva” with the notes of the editors was more profitable than that of Newton’s "Principia." Sandys notes that “it is at any rate written in good Latin and the author shows a familiarity with the whole range of Latin literature as well as Aristotle and Plato.”

After this, indeed, grammar, the science of language, came to a great extent to be under the domination of Spanish minds. Nunez, or as he is known by his Latin name Nunnesius of Valencia, who studied in Paris and was professor of Greek at Barcelona, was the author of an interesting little Greek grammar which, according to Sandys, differs little from those now used in schools. With the coming of the Jesuits, Emmanuel Alvarez produced the Latin grammar in which for the first time the principles of the language were formally laid down and the fancies of ancient grammarians laid aside. It became the text-book in all the Jesuit schools, has often been reprinted since, is the foundation of all our modern Latin grammars and is said by experienced teachers to surpass all its successors. Spain did not neglect other phases of scholarship, however. Agostino, after graduation at Salamanca, taught law at Padua and at Florence, became a member of the Papal Tribunal in Rome, studying the inscriptions and ancient monuments as well as the manuscripts of the old city. Later he became the Bishop of Lerida and then Archbishop of Taragona. He published a treatise on Roman Laws, often reprinted, but his masterpiece in classical archaeology was his book on coins, inscriptions and other antiquities, published originally in Spanish and attracting wide, popular attention.

Portugal follows in scholarship the rest of the peninsula and owed its initiative to contact with Italian sources. Resende taught Greek at Lisbon and Evora and counted among his pupils the famous Achilles Statius, whose career comes mainly after the conclusion of Columbus’ Century, though he was twenty-six before the century closed and his scholarship is a product of our period. He won his high reputation in Rome by a work on ancient portraits and by commentaries on the "Ars Poetica" of Horace, when he was not yet thirty, and confirmed this by subsequent fine work on Catullus and Tibullus. He was associated with Muretus in an edition of Propertius, and his studies on the “Illustrious Men of Suetonius” attracted the attention of the learned world of his time and was highly praised by Casaubon. The Jesuit Father Alvarez, whose grammar I have already mentioned, though of Spanish extraction, lived in Portugal and was educated and taught there. The University of Coimbra took on renewed vigor just at the end of Columbus’ Century and its classical school became famous especially under the Jesuits. The University became noted for its Teachers’ College, for graduates who purposed to follow teaching as a vocation, and for its opportunities for the training of the teaching religious orders.

England was often looked upon at the beginning of the Renaissance as so distant from the centres of culture on the Continent that very little was expected of her in scholarship. Of course, the same thing was more or less true with regard to Germany, not because of distance in space, but of speech. The peoples of the Latin languages felt a brotherhood to each other which they did not share with the Germans or English, whose speech it must be confessed, somewhat after the narrow fashion of the Greeks of the older times towards all nations not Greek in origin, they considered barbarous. It is always true that nations quite fail to understand each other, and our own attitude toward Italy at the present time, though the civilization and culture of the world owes more to Italy than to all the other nations of modern history put together, is typical of this constant tendency to national misunderstanding. The Italians were very much surprised to have pupils from England rather early in Columbus’ Century, and still more surprised apparently to have them succeed admirably. They soon came to appreciate them highly, and such men as Linacre, John Free and Caius were even made teachers at Italian universities. Over and over again, the Italians expressed their gratification at the spread of scholarship among the English and their congratulations on their success in the New Learning. The congratulations were amply deserved.

Bishop Creighton, in his “Early Renaissance in England,” says that the first English humanist was Lord Grey of Codnor, who went from Balliol College to Cologne, which was famous at the time for its general culture and education, but as he desired to get classical culture more particularly, he stole away to Florence at night lest his going should be hampered by the many friends that he had made at Cologne. He found much of interest at Florence, ordered a library there and then went to Padua, where he studied for a time. He was attracted to Ferrara, however, by the reputation of Guarino, and from there went to Rome, where the scholarly Nicholas V nominated him Bishop of Ely. One of the next of the great English scholars was John Free, a physician, whose expenses during his Italian trip were paid by Lord Grey, and who had no less success among the Italian scholars. The scholarly doctor was appointed Bishop of Bath in 1465, but died before his consecration.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of Italy’s welcome for these students from Britain, “which is situated outside the world,” was the absolutely unprejudiced way in which they were chosen to important posts in the University in competition with the Italians. Reynold Chicheley, who studied at Ferrara under Guarino, became Rector of the universities there. John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, compelled to leave England by political conditions at the beginning of the latter half of the fifteenth century, went to Venice and to the Holy Land and studied Latin at Padua, visited the aged Guarino at Ferrara, as Sandys in his “History of Classical Scholarship” tells us, and heard Argyropulos lecture on Greek. The Latin oration which he delivered in the presence of Pope Pius II (AEneas Sylvius) is said to have drawn tears of joy from the eyes of the Pope because of the feeling of satisfaction that classical scholarship was now a world possession.

Erasmus, who was certainly in a position to judge both because of his own scholarship and his many years of residence in England, wrote a letter in December, 1499, to a friend in Italy in highest praise of English scholarship. It is a panegyric of his English friends, but it is a glorious tribute:

“I have found in England . . . so much learning and culture, and that of no common kind, but recondite, exact and ancient, Latin and Greek, that I now hardly want to go to Italy, except to see it. When I listen to my friend Colet, I can fancy I am listening to Plato himself. Who can fail to admire Grocyn, with all his encyclopædic erudition? Can anything be more acute, more profound, more refined, than the judgment of Linacre? Has nature ever moulded anything gentler, pleasanter, or happier, than the mind of Thomas More?”

In England, as elsewhere, the Reformation worked sad havoc on education. The confiscation of educational endowments and the suppression of monasteries and the scattering of their libraries almost put an end to scholarship in England. The descent in education continued until the end of the eighteenth century. Only in the past hundred years has England begun to recover lost ground.

At this time men mainly studied Latin, but towards the end of the fifteenth century they took up Greek, The first Englishman who studied Greek in the revival of learning was William Selling, a Benedictine monk. Sandys tells us that “Night and day he was haunted by the vision of Italy, that next to Greece was the nursing mother of men of genius.” He was the uncle of Linacre, who had the privilege of accompanying him on his embassy to the Pope in 1485. Modern English classical scholarship in both Greek and Latin begins with Linacre and his two friends, William Grocyn and William Latimer. Latimer was a great friend of Sir Thomas More. The younger of the group of English Greek scholars was William Lily, who, while on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, studied Greek in Rhodes. He was one of the poor scholars of history who worked his way through school in the midst of all kinds of difficulties and privations. While earning his living in Venice he succeeded in keeping up his studies.

Grocyn was one of the greatest of the Greek scholars of this generation in Europe. He proved that the book known as the “Ecclesiastical Hierarchy” was not by Dionysius the Areopagite, to whom it had been so long attributed, and thus gave the first proof of the critical scholarship of English students of Greek. Still another distinguished Greek scholar was John Fisher, afterwards Bishop Fisher, whose patron, Lady Margaret, under his direction did so much for education and particularly for classical scholarship in England.