CHAPTER VIII INFLUENCES TENDING TOWARD A REVIVAL OF LEARNING THE Readings of this chapter are illustrative of a number of the more important movements which took place in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and which did much to prepare the way for the rise of the universities in the thirteenth century and the revival of learning in the fourteenth. The development of a new and, for the time, wonderful Mohammedan civilization in Spain; the rise of Scholasticism within the Western Church; the recovery of the Roman legal code, the revival of the study of Roman law; the restoration of the old city life and conimerce; and the rise of merchant and trade guilds in the cities — these were the most important of the new influences and movements which indicated that a revival of learning in the western world was about to begin. The first of these new influences was the rapid development of Mohammedan civilization and learning in Spain. The influence exerted by this on western Europe, chiefly through the introduction of the lost texts of Aristotle and some new mathematical knowledge, is indicated in the Readings. The first selection (85) pictures the Mohammedan civilization at its best, and the second (86) reveals their remarkable scientific work. The next selection, which is a list of Aristotle's works known to western Europe by 1300 (87), shows the extent to which Christian Europe drew upon Mohammedan translations. The greatness of Aristotle's mind is testified to by the Mohammedan Averroës (88), while the reception given to his writings in the rising universities at Oxford and Paris is indicated by the testimony of Roger Bacon (89) and the four extracts from the Paris Statutes (90 a-d). The latter extend over a period of forty-four years, and cover the time from the earlier prohibition of his works to their later full acceptance by the Western Church authorities. The new questioning attitude of a few thinkers within the Church, another of the new movements of the time, is well shown by the extracts from Abelard's new textbook on Theology, Sic et Non (91 a-b), while the great reconciling and harmonizing work of the Scholastics, all within lines which the Church fully approved, is well set forth in the brief extract from Rashdall (92). The revival of legal study was another of the important new influences of the period under consideration. The extract from the Institutes of Justinian (93), which was an important and introductory part of the famous Justinian Code, sets forth well the nature of this introductory textbook on Roman law, the recovery of which formed the basis for the new study of Roman law in western Europe. The rise of the medieval town, and of the merchant and trade guilds within the town, were other important new movements which indicated a change in thinking and in human endeavor. The two extracts from Giry and Réville (94 a-b) describe the evolution of these towns over a period of centuries. The charter of rights and privileges granted by Henry II to the town of Wallingford, England (95), is an important document as showing not only what rights and privileges a town could beg, buy, or wring from a king, but also as indicating the important position held, at that early date, by the rising guild merchant in such a town. It reveals clearly the evolution of a merchant class as a new Estate. Closely following the rise of these merchant guilds came the trade guilds, and the selections giving the oath of a freeman (96), and the ordinances of the guild of white-tawyers (97), reveal the nature and scope of these new organizations, and the control these mediæval guilds exercised over their members and their trade. These guilds not only developed apprentice education for the sons of their members, but also, in time, schools of their own (98) as well. The old indenture of apprenticeship reproduced (99) is typical of such documents, not only at the time, but also for centuries to come. These new influences and movements indicate that the long period of the Dark Ages was approaching an end. They point unmistakably to the rise of new classes in society and to an approaching intellectual awakening, as well as to a revival of the old long-lost Greek and Roman learning. The eleventh and twelfth centuries were turning-points of great significance in the history of our western civilization, and with the opening of the wonderful thirteenth century the western world was at last headed toward a new life and modern ways of thinking. 85. The Moslem Civilization in Spain (Draper, J. W., History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, vol. II, The following selection gives an interesting picture of life in Mohammedan Spain in the time of its Golden Age. Scarcely had the Arabs become firmly settled in Spain when they commenced a brilliant career. Adopting what had now become the established policy of the Commanders of the Faithful in Asia, the Emirs of Cordova distinguished themselves as patrons of learning, and set an example of refinement strongly contrasting with the condition of the native European princes. Cordova, under their administration, at its highest point of prosperity, boasted of more than two hundred thousand houses, and more than a million of inhabitants. After sunset, a man might walk through it in a straight line for ten miles by the light of the public lamps. Seven hundred years after this time there was not so much as one public lamp in London. Its streets were solidly paved. In Paris, centuries subsequently, whoever stepped over his threshold on a rainy day stepped up to his ankles in mud. Other cities, as Granada, Seville, Toledo, considered themselves as rivals of Cordova. The palaces of the khalifs were magnificently decorated. Those sovereigns might well look down with supercilious contempt on the dwellings of the rulers of Germany, France, and England, which were scarcely better than stables - chimneyless, windowless, and with a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape, like the wigwams of certain Indians. The Spanish Mohammedans had brought with them all the luxuries and prodigalities of Asia. . . . The representation of the human form was religiously forbidden . . . For this reason, the Arabs never produced artists; religion turned them from the beautiful, and made them soldiers, philosophers, and men of affairs. . . . There were, for the master himself, grand libraries. The Khalif Alhakem's was so large that the catalogue alone filled forty volumes. He had also apartments for the transcribing, binding, and ornamenting of books. A taste for caligraphy and the possession of splendidly-illustrated manuscripts seems to have anticipated in the khalifs, both of Asia and Spain, the taste for statuary and paintings among the later popes of Rome. . . . In the midst of all this luxury, which cannot be regarded by the historian with disdain, since in the end it produced a most important result in the south of France, the Spanish khalifs, emulating the example of their Asiatic compeers, and in this strongly contrasting with the popes of Rome, were not only the patrons, but the personal cultivators of all the branches of human learning. One of them was himself the author of a work on polite literature in not less than fifty volumes; another wrote a treatise on algebra. When Zaryab the musician came from the East to Spain, the Khalif Abderrahman rode forth to meet him in honour. The College of Music in Cordova was sustained by ample government patronage, and produced many illustrious professors. Our obligations to the Spanish Moors in the arts of life are even more marked than in the higher branches of science, perhaps only because our ancestors were better prepared to take advantage of things connected with daily affairs. They set an example of skilful agriculture, the practice of which was regulated by a code of laws. Not only did they attend to the cultivation of plants, introducing very many new ones, they likewise paid great attention to the breeding of cattle, especially the sheep and horse. To them we owe the introduction of the great products, rice, sugar, cotton, and also, as we have previously observed, nearly all the fine garden and orchard fruits, together with many less important plants, as spinach and saffron. To them Spain owes the culture of silk; they gave the Xeres and Malaga their celebrity for wine. They introduced the Egyptian system of irrigation by floodgates, wheels, and pumps. They also promoted many important branches of industry; improved the manufacture of textile fabrics, earthenware, iron, steel; the Toledo sword-blades were everywhere prized for their temper. The Arabs, on their expulsion from Spain, carried the manufacture of a kind of leather, in which they were acknowledged to excel, to Morocco, from which country the leather itself has now taken its name. They also introduced inventions of a more ominous kind gunpowder and artillery. The cannon they used appeared to have been made of wrought iron. But perhaps they more than compensated for these evil contrivances by the introduction of the mariner's compass. The mention of the mariner's compass might lead us correctly to infer that the Spanish Arabs were interested in commercial pursuits, a conclusion to which we should also come when we consider the revenues of some of their khalifs. That of Abderrahman III. is stated at five and a half million sterling a vast sum if considered by its modern equivalent, and far more than could possibly be raised by taxes on the produce of the soil. It probably exceeded the entire revenue of all the sovereigns of Christendom taken together. From Barcelona and other ports an immense trade with the Levant was maintained, but it was mainly in the hands of the Jews, who, from the first invasion of Spain by Musa, had ever been the firm allies and collaborators of the Arabs. Together they had participated in the dangers of the invasion; together they had shared its boundless success; together they had held in irreverent derision, nay, even in contempt, the woman-worshippers and polytheistic savages beyond the Pyrenees as they mirthfully called those whose long-delayed vengeance they were in the end to feel; together they were expelled. Against such Jews as lingered behind the hideous persecutions of the Inquisition were directed. But in the days of their prosperity they maintained a merchant marine of more than a thousand ships. They had factories and consuls on the Tanaïs. With Constantinople alone they maintained a great trade; it ramified from the Black Sea and East Mediterranean into the interior of Asia; it reached the ports of India and China, and extended along the African coast as far as Madagascar. Even in these commercial affairs the singular genius of the Jew and Arab shines forth. In the midst of the tenth century, when Europe was about in the same condition that Caffraria is now, enlightened Moors, like Abul Cassem, were writing treatises on the principles of trade and commerce. As on so many other occasions, on these affairs they have left their traces. The smallest weight they used in trade was the grain of barley, four of which were equal to one sweet pea, called in Arabic carat. We still use the grain as our unit of weight, and still speak of gold as being so many carats fine. Such were the Khalifs of the West; such their splendour, their luxury, their knowledge; such some of the obligations we are under to them - obligations which Christian Europe, with singular insincerity, has ever been fain to hide. The cry against the misbeliever has long outlived the Crusades. Considering the enchanting country over which they ruled, it was not without reason that they caused to be engraven on the public seal, "The servant of the Merciful rests contented in the decrees of God." What more, indeed, could Paradise give them? But, considering also the evil end of all this happiness and pomp, this learning, liberality, and wealth, we may well appreciate the solemn truth which these monarchs, in their day of pride and power, grandly wrote in the beautiful mosaics on their palace walls, an ever-recurring warning to him who owes dominion to the sword, "There is no conqueror but God." 86. Learning among the Moslems of Spain (Draper, J. W., History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, vol. 11, pp. 36-42. New York, 1876) The following is a continuation of the preceding selection. The khalifs of the West carried out the precepts of Ali, the fourth successor of Mohammed, in the patronage of literature. They established libraries in all their chief towns; it is said that not fewer than seventy were in existence. To every mosque was attached a public school, in which the children of the poor were taught to read and write, and instructed in the precepts of the Koran. For those in easier circumstances there were academies, usually arranged in twenty-five or thirty apartments, each calculated for accommodating four students; the academy being presided over by a rector. In Cordova, Granada, and other great cities, there were universities, frequently under the superintendence of Jews; the Mohammedan maxim being that the real learn |