enthusiastic, activity in the field of learning and education. The foremost promoters and patrons of this intellectual movement are everywhere ecclesiastics. This fact is so patent that an impartial American scholar wrote quite recently: "The patronage of learning which has always been one of the proudest boasts of the Catholic Church existed especially in the Renaissance, when a genuine love for it on the part of churchmen atoned for many other shortcomings. The higher clergy, moreover, were mostly university men whose scholarly interests had been awakened early in life, and who later were placed in a position to show their gratitude. A zeal for learning and the patronage of scholars became almost an affectation on the part of the higher clergy. ... In all ranks of the Church an interest in the new learning was shown, even by those who were to leave the Roman faith, but who in their zeal for letters continued former traditions."[1]
It may be said, in general, that nowadays all scholarly and fair-minded Protestants, on the strength of incontestable historical evidence, repudiate the traditional views of the pre- Reformation period. Professor Hartfelder of Heidelberg unhesitatingly affirms that "from 1500-1520 Roman Catholic Europe presented the aspect of one large learned community."[2] Numerous similar statements can be quoted, but we must refer the reader to special works on this subject.[3] In the face of such undeniable facts it is unintelligible how certain writers can describe the close of the Middle Ages as an age of intellectual stagnation and degeneracy, or how Mr. Painter can say that shortly before
