Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/97

Rh Yet the studies which Gerbert avoided were in fact the more dangerous, and it is hardly perhaps a coincidence that the contemporary reawakening of interest in intellectual things was accompanied by a strange crop of heresies. z In a time of mental ferment, now as often in the history of Christianity, it was impossible to restrain the speculations of men with undisciplined faculties, and living, as most of the scholars of the middle ages lived, a cloistered life. The relief which some monks would find from the routine of devotion in works of husbandry or handicraft, the more cultivated would seek in meditation on the mysteries of religion or the secrets of philosophy. If they were teachers such enquiries might be initiated by the questions of pupils. The ambition of novelty, of originality, would be another stimulus to metaphysical exploits; and novelty of this sort would seldom lie within the bounds of the traditional dogma. Men of a less independent spirit, whose minds were just opening to the apprehension of difficulties in the doctrinal system of the church, would be content to accept any new solution of their doubts that was offered to them. In the present instance it was probably contact with the dispersed heretics of the oriental church that kindled the flame, and hence forward in various lands and under various forms there is a constant current of opposition to the authorised belief of Christendom. Unlike the properly intellectual movement, it affected the easily excited people even more than the clergy. The character of the sectaries, their temperance, their earnestness, their devotion, which appeared in a noble contrast with the greed, the profligacy, the worldliness, of the orthodox, were readily accepted