Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/304

 286 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. Naturally, no date can be set for the change from quantity to accent and rhyme in Latin poetry. Be- tween the eighth and the tenth centuries a mass of accentual poetry was composed. Herein were hymns and other religious poems; also poems of a secular character. Among the latter were laments (planc- tus)y^ poems upon battles^ or other striking events,^ poems of a satirical or polemic character,* narrative poems with subjects taken from Scripture or from antiquity. At the same time there was an academic use of metre. For these were the centuries of the Carolingian revival, which was necessarily a revival of the antique. In that time of endeavor after a higher order of culture, men could turn only to the antique world. Alcuin, Charlemagne's minister of education, wrote poems in metre, as did others of his time and the times after him.'' In fact, there was no period of (Anglo-Saxon, Norse, Old German) verse depended on the allit- eration of strong syllables ; it gradually modified its rhythm and adopted rhyme under the influence of Latin and Romance poetry. 1 E.g., " Planctus de obitu Karoli," Diimmler, Poet. Lat. Aev. Car., I, 434^36. 2 E.g., " De Pippini regis victoria avarica," Diimmler, op. cit., I, 116; The Battle at Fontanetum (841 a.d.), Diimmler, op. cit., II, 138. 8 E.g., on the destruction and restoration of the cloister at Glonna, Diimmler, op. cit., II, 146. op. cit., II, 150. I, lGl-351. His contemporary, Paulus Diaconus, wrote both metri- cal and accentual verses, see Ebert, Allge. Ges., II, 48-56; poems printed in Diimmler, op. cit., I, 27-8. The Martyrologium of Wandalbert, completed cir. 848, shows considerable knowledge of classic metres and skill in their use; Diimmler, op. cit., II, 569-
 * E.g., against the town of Aquilegia and its claims, Diimmler,
 * Alcuini Carmina, printed in Diimmler, Poet. Lat. Aev. Car.,