Page:The Normans in European History.djvu/190

176 methods of study at Bec, and its historian is compelled to fall back upon a general description of the trivium and quadrivium which made up the ordinary monastic curriculum. We do not even know whether Lanfranc actually taught the subject of law of which he was past master, though we can be sure that theology and philosophy had a large place under Anselm, and that the school must have felt the influence of the large part which its leaders took in the theological discussions of their time. An important form of activity in the monasteries of the period was the copying of manuscripts, a sure safeguard against that idleness which St. Benedict declared the enemy of the soul. Lanfranc sat up a good part of the night correcting the daily copies of the monks of Bec; the first abbot of Saint-Évroul had an edifying tale of an erring brother who had secured his salvation by voluntarily copying a holy book of such dimensions that the angels who produced it on his behalf at the judgment were able to check it off letter by letter against his sins and leave at the end a single letter in his favor! The monks of Saint-Évroul prided themselves on their Latin style, especially their Latin verse, and on their chants which were sung even in distant Calabria; yet the best example of their training, the historian Ordericus, freely admits the literary supremacy of Bec, "where almost every one seems to be a philosopher and even the unlearned have something to teach the frothy grammarians."