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cate. He had received a liberal education, and was endowed with many of the qualifications most necessary for an historian. He was inquiring, diligent, candid; and was well acquainted with the true principles of historical composition.† We possess the result of his researches in an ecclesiastical history, which commences with the reign of Constantine, (306,) and concludes with the year 439.

Salamenes Hermias SOZOMENUS was also an advocate, residing in Constantinople. It is, I believe, very generally agreed that he wrote later than Socrates; the deficiencies of whose work it seems to have been his chief object to supply. The works of both extend over precisely the same period. But the authors were men of very different characters. The one was a cool judge of mankind; the other an ardent admirer of monastic fanaticism at the period of its greatest extravagance. And we are ill compensated for the plain good sense of Socrates in the greater elegance of his more rhetorical and more credulous successor.

THEODORET¶ was born at Antioch in 386, and was made bishop of Cyrus in 420. The life of this distinguished prelate, like that of Eusebius, is itself part of the history of the church. His connexion with the Nestorian controversy troubled his later days, and has been, in no small degree, injurious to his memory. He is supposed to have written his ecclesiastical history in 450. His work begins with the rise of Arianism; and it is no small commendation of his moderation and judgment that he discontinued it when he was in danger of being no longer impartial; and made the year 427 the term of his labours, instead of prolonging them beyond the Council of Ephesus. He has communicated much information which is omitted by Socrates and

• The moderation, and even respect, with which Socrates speaks of the Novatians, has led to an opinion that he was a member of that sect. Ὁ τὴν προσηγορίαν, οὐ μὴν δέ ye kai The spoⱭipeoiv kabapós Zwkpáтns. (Nicephor. Callist. Eccles. Hist. lib. i. c. i. p. 35, B.) An opinion which is warmly controverted by Valesius in the Life of Socrates, prefixed to his edition of the work of this author.

It is only necessary to refer to the first chapter, or proœmium of the second book, for proof of this. In his castigation of Ruffinus, he has the sympathy of all students of history who have been misled in their early studies by careless and ignorant writers.

Fabr. Bibl. Græc. vol. vi. p. 121, et seq.

§ (Socratis) "vestigiis libenter videtur insistere, licet nusquam nominet, et non rarò recedat ab ejus sententiâ, plura etiam ab eo omissa suppleat, et de monachis atque Eremitis utpote inter monachos versatus et ab eis institutus (Valesius in notis, pag. 99,) velut in grati animi documentum haud pauca attexat Socrati præterita. Socratem judicio, Sozomenum styli elegantià, quâ Xenophontem referre voluit, præstare viri docti observant." (Fabr. Bibl. Græc. vi. 123.)

I would not be misunderstood in what I say of Sozomen. I do not speak of him contemptuously. It is more pious, and more philosophical, to speak of the different manifestations of religious principle with respect than with ridicule. The Lansiac History (ap. Bibl. PP. Auct. Græcolat. tom. ii. p. 893, et seq.,) of Palladius, the biographer of Chrysostom, (Vita S. Chrysostom, Paris, 1680,) and the Religious History of Theodoret, (Opera, tom. iii. p. 1099, et seq., ed. Halæ,) a man whose understanding no one can despise, are the apologies of the most superstitious parts of Sozomen.

¶ Fabr. Bibl. Græc. vol. vi. p. 124.

VOL. XII.-August, 1837.

S

Sozomen ;* and is declared by Photiust to have excelled all his predecessors in the style suitable to historical composition.

But I have reached the lowest term which can be assigned to the ancient history of the church. The next links in the chain of ecclesiastical historians rank among the writers of the middle ages. My next paper will introduce a series of names, for the most part, much less known than those which it has hitherto been my business to I. G. D.

enumerate.

THE SECRETARY NICHOLAS AND THE SCRIPTORIUM. CONSIDERING that he appears to have felt no reluctance to speak on the subject, I wish that the Secretary Nicholas had given us a fuller account of himself; and, indeed, that I had the means of referring to all that he actually did write. He was, I imagine, a very extraordinary person; and, at all events, he had very peculiar opportunities of gaining, not only all the learning which was to be had in the twelfth century, but a vast deal of information which would be most curious and interesting. In a letter to Henry, Count of Champagne, written about the year 1170, he says, "From my youth I have pleased great men, and the chief princes of this world. But to you in particular, by right of dominion, I owe all that I am, and, by duty of friendship, all that I can. And a wise man has said,

'Principibus placuisse viris non ultima laus est.' "§

Indeed, this seems to have been the case in an extraordinary degree; for though strong feeling and ardent expression are very striking features in the letters of the Dark Ages, yet I know of no man whose

"Il fait plus exactement qu'eux l'Histoire des Ariens, il décrit plusieurs particularitez que ces historiens n'avoient point remarquées, et il rapporte plusieurs choses concernant l'histoire des églises et des evêques du patriarchat d'Antioche, qui seroient demeurées dans l'oubli, s'il n'en eût conservé la memoire. Il ne paroît rien dans l'Histoire de Theodoret, qu'une grande aversion contre toutes les heresies, un grand amour de l'église, un grand respect pour les saints evêques qui ont défendu la foi, et un grand estime pour tous ceux qui ont bien vécu." (Du Pin, Nouvelle Bibliotheque, tom. iv. pp. 94, 95.

+ Bibl. Cod. xxxi., col. 20.

So Mabillon understands him to mean by "Tibi singulariter, ex dominio naturæ debeo quicquid sum, et ex officio amicitiæ quicquid possum."

§ Baluz. Misc. ii. 236. It may seem odd to find Nicholas quoting Horace under such a respectful title, especially if we consider that, according to the customs of Clugny, under which he was brought up, he could never have asked for the book without a most significant, though somewhat comic, expression of contempt for its author. To preserve silence, the monks communicated by signs, by which they were taught to express almost everything which they could wish to say. Of course, there was a sign for "a book." "Pro generali signo libri, extende manum et move sicut folium libri moveri solet." This general sign being made, another was added to distinguish the sort of book wanted; and there were distinct signs for the Missal, the Gospels, the Epistolary, the Psalter, the Rule, and so on; but to distinguish a book written by a heathen, the monk was to scratch his ear like a dog. "Pro signo libri sæcularis, quem aliquis paganus fecit, præmisso generali signo libri, adde ut aurem tangas digito sicut canis cum pede pruriens solet, quia nec immerito infideles tali animanti comparantur."-Mart. de Antiq. Mon. Rit. 885.

correspondents seem to have loved him with more ardent affection. One of those friends was Peter, Abbot of Moutier-la-Celle, by Troyes, who has from that circumstance retained the name of "Cellensis," though he afterwards succeeded our countryman John of Salisbury as Bishop of Chartres, and a specimen may be taken from one of his letters :

"Whenever you write, your letters are composed with an admirable relish to meet my eager appetite. So that (to say the truth to a true friend) it seems as if it might almost be said of them as a peculiar characteristic, They that eat me, shall yet hunger; and they that drink me, shall yet thirst.' (Ecclus. xxiv. 29.) I, however, unskilful as I am as to style in answering, know how to return your affection. I know whom I ought to love, and why, and how much, and how long. Whom, if not the servant of God; if not him who loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity; if not, in short, him who abideth in God and God in him? Why, if not because he is a fellow servant, and a brother, and one for whom Christ suffered ? How much, if

not as much as the Son of God hath loved me, as much as myself, as much as the hand loves the eye? How long, if not until death, if not through all ages, through all eternity, and beyond it? This is the common feeling of those who seek not their own, but the things of Jesus Christ; and who, being filled with charity and love, lie down or feed at noon in the chambers, or in the gardens of spices."

This was Peter's phrase for living in a monastery; but it is more to our purpose to state how Nicholas lived in his, and particularly to transcribe his sketch of what he calls his Scriptoriolum, or little writingcell, a retired apartment, shut in and concealed on every side by the various parts of the monastery :

"Its door opens into the apartment of the novices, where commonly a great number of persons, distinguished by rank as well as by literature, put on the new man in newness of life...... On the right, the cloister of the monks runs off, in which the more advanced part of the community walk......There, under the strictest discipline, they individually open the books of divine eloquence, not that they may winnow forth the treasures of knowledge, but that they may elicit love, compunction, and devotion. From the left projects the infirmary, and the place of exercise (deambulatorium) for the sick, where their bodies, wearied and weakened by the severities of the rule, are refreshed with better food; until, being cured, or at least in better health, they may rejoin the congregation, who labour and pray, who do violence to the kingdom of heaven, and take it by force. And do not suppose that my little tenement is to be despised; for it is a place to be desired, and pleasant to look upon, and comfortable for retirement. It is filled with most choice and divine books, at the delightful view of which I feel contempt for the vanity of this world, considering that, vanity of vanities, all is vanity,' and that nothing is more vain than vanity itself. This place is assigned to me for reading, and writing, and composing, and meditating, and praying, and adoring the Lord of majesty.”

It was not as a common scribe or writing monk that Nicholas occupied this apartment, but because he was my lord abbot's secretary, and conducted his extensive and important correspondence, of which I hope to say more hereafter; but in the meantime I am irresistibly led to say something about the scriptoria of monasteries in the Dark Ages.

I am inclined to suppose, that at a period somewhat later than that to which I generally refer, the writing performed in monasteries was carried on in small apartments or cells, which could not (perhaps at all, or at least without inconvenience,) contain more than one person;

Ep. Lib. iv. ep. iii. ap. Sirmondi Op. iii. 734.

and that, owing to such a use being so generally made of them,-that is, owing to the great quantity of writing, the number of hands engaged in it, and the places occupied by it,-owing, in short, to its being the chief and almost only in-doors business of a monk out of church,-cells, or small rooms, or even larger apartments, which had no other particular name or use, were commonly called scriptoria, even when not actually used, or particularly intended, for the purpose of writing. Thus we are told that Arnold, Abbot of Villers, in Brabant, from A.D. 1240 to 1250, when he resigned his office, occupied a scriptorium, where he lived as a private person in his own apartinent. In fact, it seems to have been a custom, principally and perhaps exclusively in the Cistercian order, to grant such cells as a privilege to certain monks for their private study or amusement.* Jacobus, a successor of Arnold, who became abbot in the year 1276, made scriptoria round the calefactory, and his immediate successor added two, adjoining the house of the sacrist.† The former was the better place, undoubtedly; as the scribes probably obtained some benefit from the apartment, which was heated on purpose that the monks might go there to warm themselves. Many a scribe has, I dare say, felt what Lewis, a monk of Wessobrunn in Bavaria, records as his own experience during his sedentary and protracted labours. In an inscription appended to a copy of Jerome's" Commentary on Daniel," among other grounds on which he claims the sympathy and the prayers of the reader, he says

"Dum scripsit friguit, et quod cum lumine solis
Scribere non potuit, perfecit lumine noctis."

I do not say, however, that these cells were warmed by hot air from the stove in the calefactory, though that is not so completely a modern invention as some people may think. The monks in the Dark Ages were not quite incapable of conceiving and executing such an idea; and it is not going out of our way to mention a proof, which has a moral beauty, far more valuable than its evidence respecting their knowledge and ingenuity. When Bernard, owing to the illness produced by his early austerities, was compelled by the Bishop of Châlons to retire to a cell, he could not be persuaded so far to relax the severity of his asceticism as to allow any fire, or even fire-place, in it. His friends, with pious fraud, (if there ever was such a thing,) contrived to heat his apartment without his knowing it, by introducing hot air through the stone floor under his bed.§

But the scriptorium of earlier times was obviously an apartment capable of containing many persons; and in which many persons did, in fact, work together, in a very business-like manner, at the transcription of books. The first of these points is implied in a very

,,

"Monachi quibus ad studendum vel recreandum scriptoria conceduntur in ipsis scriptoriis non maneant illis horis quibus monachi in claustro residere tenentur.' Stat. selecta Cap. Gen. Ord. Cisterc. A. D. 1278, ap. Mart. iv. 1462. + Mart. iii. 1298.

Pez, Thes. Anec. Noviss. Diss. Isag. in tom. i. p. 20.
Voy. Lit. p. 99.

curious document, which is one of the very few extant specimens of French Wisigothic MS. in uncial characters, and belongs to the eighth century. It is a short form of consecration, or benediction, barbarously entitled, "Orationem in Scripturio," and is to the following effect "Vouchsafe, O Lord, to bless this scriptorium of thy servants, and all that dwell therein; that whatsoever sacred writings shall be here read or written by them, they may receive with understanding, and bring the same to good effect, through our Lord," &c.* That the scriptorium was larger than a mere cell, is also obvious from an anecdote of the ninth century, which is very well worth transcribing on many accounts, though I confess that it has been brought to my mind on this occasion by what has just been said of the scriptorium and calefactory in juxtaposition. Ekkehard, junior, the historian of the monastery of St. Gall, who wrote in the earlier half of the eleventh century, after a chapter concerning Solomon, who had been abbot in the latter part of the ninth century,—another respecting Magister Iso, a monk of the same monastery, and a "doctor nominatissimus," who had Solomon, together with Notker, Tutilo, Ratpert, and some others, for his pupils,-and telling us how the latter three of the pupils just named somewhat grudged at the more indulgent treatment which Solomon received from their master, (delicatius quasi canonicum educaverat,) and how this old grudge had led to some unpleasant collisions after Solomon had risen to be Bishop of Constance, while his three schoolfellows were still monks at St. Gall's, he proceeds :

"These having been thoroughly instructed in divine things by Iso, became (as I have said) scholars of Marcellus; who, being equally versed in sacred and secular learning, taught them the seven liberal arts, but especially music, which being more natural than the rest, and though more difficult in the learning yet more pleasant in the use, they made such progress therein as may be seen by their respective works, of which I have already said something. But these three, though of one heart, were yet, as sometimes happens, very different persons.

"Notker was weak in body, not in mind; and in speech, not in spirit, a stammerer. In spiritual things firm, in adversity patient, mild to all, a severe disciplinarian, timorous in any sudden alarm, except of demons, whom he used to combat manfully. In ornamenting, reading, and composing, assiduous; and, briefly to comprehend all his sacred endowments, he was a vessel of the Holy Spirit not less eminently than any one of his time.

"But Tutilo was very different. He was a good and useful man; as to his arms and all his limbs, such as Fabius teaches us to choose for a wrestler. He was eloquent, with a fine voice, skilful in carving, and a painter. A musician, like his companions; but in all kinds of stringed and wind instruments, (for in a place appointed by the abbot he taught the children of the nobility to play on stringed instruments,) he excelled all others. In building and in his other arts he was eminent. He was, by nature, powerful, and ready at singing in either language; cheerful, whether in jest or in earnest; so that Charles [the Gross] once cursed him for making a monk of such a person. But, with all this, what is of more consequence, he was powerful in the choir, and in secret given to tears, very skilful in making verses and melodies. Chaste as a disciple of Marcellus, who shut his eyes against women. "Ratpert was, however, something between the two whom I have mentioned. He

Nouv. Tr. de Diplom. iii. 190. See also Du Cange in v. Scriptorium, and the supplement in v. Scripturium; why the authors of the latter should say that it is given by the two former" ipsismet verbis" I do not know. I here follow Du Cange's text, opere perficiant," instead of the other," ore percipiant.'

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