Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/65

 IV] THE TRANSMISSION OF LETTERS 47 ijporance and fantastic spirit of the Middle Ages ascribed magic powers and marvellous careers to the classic authors. Many monks regarded the classics as a source of sinful pleasure, save when used for some educational purpose according with the views of the times. If that purpose could be attained in a shorter way, why read the classic authors? Mediaeval education was comprised in the trivium and quadrivium, the seven liberal arts of Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric, Geome- try, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music. These had been held by the ancients to be preparatory to the study of philosophy. The Christian Alexandrians, Clement and Origen, accepted this view and went a step farther. For they held that philosophy and all its preparatory studies jvere preparation for an understanding of Christian theology. In a narrower and barbaric way the Middle Ages held that liberal studies were the handmaids of theology.^ The seven arts included all that was necessary as a preparation for theology, and could most conveniently be studied in compendia. Hence it seemed useless to read the authors themselves. This view tended to discourage 1 See Norden, Antike Kunstprosa, pp. G$0 et seq., where passages are collected and quoted bearing on this subject; i.e. Ennodius, ep. IX, 9; Carolus Magnus, Epist. de Uteris colendis, Mon. Oenn. leg. sect. II, torn. I, p. 79; Alcuinas, Orammatica, Migne, Patr. Lat., Vol. 101, col. 853; Notker Labeo, in a letter, ed. by P. Piper, Die Schri/ten Notker's, pp. 859 ff. ; Honorius Augnstodunensit, de artibm, ed. Pez, Theg. amc. novis»., II (1721), 227 ff.; Abelard, Jntroductio ad theoloffiam, opera ed. Cousin, Vol. II, pp. 67 ff.; Hugo de St. Victor, Erudit. didagc, 1, III, c. 3 (Migne, torn. 176, col. 7GH) ; John of Salisbury, Entheticua, V, 373 t. (Vol. V, p. 2B0, ed. Giles).