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,[1] 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
- ↑ The historical review prefixed to Mr [now Sir] Arthur J. Evans’s travels Through Bosnia and the Herzegovina, pp. xxiv-xliii, 1876, abundantly shews that such an influence was possible as early as the tenth century ; it is admitted by Noander, 6. 429, 439; and the fact that it. existed later may justify the conclusion that similar results were produced by similar means at the time with which we are here concerned. The firm hold too which the name Bulgarian, as a term of infamous import, has taken both in the French and English languages, points in the same direction.
