Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/43

Rh quantity. The famous Caroline Books, which (whatever be their actual authorship) indubitably proceed from the court of Charles the Great and from the closing years of the eighth century, speak with quiet assurance of certain usages as allowed rather by the ambition of Rome than by any apostolical tradition. Nor was this feeling confined to the atmosphere of the court. In the matter of image-worship the council of Frankfort thought nothing of placing itself in direct opposition to the policy favoured by the pope. The council too was no mere Frankish diet; it was attended by bishops from all the west, Spain and England, as well as by papal legates. But the authority of the latter was powerless against that of Charles, and the canons of Nicea were formally rejected. That the Greek contention in the end won acceptance is well known. But the process was silent and without express enactment, just as in the east the triumph over the iconoclasts was imperceptibly forgotten and images (in the strict sense) came to be unconsciously proscribed. At present, if the subject was discussed, as indeed it was with considerable vehemence, the question was how little, not how much, reverence could rightly be paid to images.

The extreme party on this side is represented by Claudius, bishop of Turin. A Spaniard, bred – if we may credit the testimony of his opponents – under one of the leading heretics whom the council of Frankfort condemned, he seems rather to have recoiled into a more decided, at least a more primitive, orthodoxy than to have been affected by his dangerous surroundings. He became a master in one of the royal schools of Aquitaine