A new epoch in their labours abroad is opened in the empire of Charles the Great, whose hearty goodwill towards scholars and whose zeal for the promotion of learning are as characteristic and well-known as his skill as a warrior or as a king. If his reign marks the dividing line between ancient and medieval history, it is not only by virtue of its political facts but also because it begins the age of the education of the northern races, fitting them in time to rule the world as the Romans had done before them. In this great work the Scots, instead of toiling humbly by themselves, were now welcomed and recognised as indispensable cooperators. Their entry into the Frankish realm is related in the Acts of Charles the Great, written by a monk of Saint Gall[1] towards the end of the ninth century, whose account, however much coloured by legendary ornaments, may still P contain some features of a genuine tradition ; at the least it points rightly to the main source from which the impulse of learning was communicated afresh to the continent.
When, says the monk, the illustrious Charles had begun to reign alone in the western parts of the world and the study of letters was everywhere well-nigh forgotten, in such sort that the worship of the true God declined, it chanced that two Scots from Ireland lighted with the British merchants on the coast of Gaul, men learned without compare as well in secular as in sacred writings; who, since they showed nothing for sale, kept crying to the crowd that gathered to buy, If any man is desirous of wisdom, let him come to us and receive it ; for we have it to sell. This therefore they declared they had for sale, since they saw the people to traffic not in gifts but in saleable things, so that they thus might either urge them to purchase wisdom like other goods or, as the events following show, turn them by such declaration to wonder and astonishment. At length their cry being long continued was brought by certain that wondered at them or deemed them mad., to the ears of
- ↑ [Identified with Notker Balbulus : see K. Zeumer, in Historische Aufsatze zum Andenken von Georg Waitz gewidmet 97-118, 1886; and L. Halphen, in the Revue historique, 128 (1918) 293-298.]
