Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/93

Rh at Treves to be his teacher. The coöperation of the Celt recognised as of singular and indispensable importance.

Bruno’s learned ardour and the pains he took to secure the fittest masters and to collect the choicest classical manuscripts that could be found in Italy, are celebrated with wondering admiration by his biographer. He  restored the long ruined fabric of the seven liberal arts; history, rhetoric, poetry, philosophy, especially the more mysterious problems of metaphysics, were the subjects he loved to discuss with the doctors whom he brought together. He joined in the disputations, ready to give counsel, readier to receive it; he would always rather himself be a learner than a teacher. A man of his receptive nature was sure to exercise a personal attraction over those around him, and the power which Bruno possessed he used with a single purpose of leading them through learning to a wisdom that should raise them into another world than that gross and corrupt society in which they lived. His own example, much like king Alfred's, was a model of the union of a scholar and a statesman. Him self continually occupied with every sort of official business he always reserved his early morning hours for study. He withdrew from the noisy mirth of the supper-table to find relief in his books, his energies apparently freshened by the labours of the day. Wherever he went he carried about his library with him as it had been the ark of the Lord.

Yet the age which gloried in the character of archbishop Bruno, could only find in that love of learning which was his special virtue, a reason for doubting whether he were really the saint men called him. The difficulty was resolved in a legend that soon won currency. A certain Poppo, says Thietmar, fell into a trance and was led to an high mountain, whereon he beheld, a great city with beautiful buildings : then approaching a lofty tower he climbed