Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/52

34 supporter (there is, indeed, no evidence to place them in actual association) of far greater ability and far wider influence in the person of saint Agobard. Like him, born in Spain (A.D. 779.), Agobard was more fortunate in his education. He was brought up from an early age in the south of Gaul, at a time when the impulse given to learning by Charles the Great was in its first vigour: of that civilisation Agobard remained the representative when its founders were dead, and its spirit was falling into decay. Leidrad, archbishop of Lyons, bred him for his successor, made him coädjutor, and after some years secured his appointment to the see when he retired to a cloister in 816. Agobard's life as archbishop corresponds closely with the reign of Lewis the Pious; he died on the 8th June, 840, in the same month as the emperor.

Success was prepared for him by others: he deserved it by his contribution to the defence of the orthodox belief against the heresy of the adoptians. But he continued always entirely unaffected by the circumstances of his high position. Independent and regardless of consequences, he held to the principles which he enounced, with unconquerable audacity. He saw the masses around him sunk in a state of sluggish credulity, and instead of leaving them there, as others did, in the opinion that a debased people is the easiest to govern, he laboured hard for their liberation and attacked unsparingly every form of superstition wherever he found it. His thoughts were wider than Claudius's, but in the matter of images the Gallic and Italian prelates were of one mind. If Agobard was the less active in carrying his views into practice, it was not for want of firm conviction. Certainly he was not withheld by the risk of any opposition he might encounter in the Frankish church. He wrote