himself reasoning in categories of antique dialectic. Finally, and this was a broad field of humane inclination, if a clerkly educated man loved poetry, eloquence, and history, for their own sakes, he also would turn to the antique.
There is scarcely need to revert again to the use of the Classics in the earlier Middle Ages. We have seen that in Italy they never ceased to form the conscious background to all intellectual life; and that in the north, letters came a handmaid in the train of Latin Christianity—a handmaid that was apt to assert her own value, and also charm the minds of men. From the first, it was the orthodox view that Latin letters should provide the education enabling men to understand the Christian religion adequately. This is the object set forth in Charlemagne's Capitularies upon education.[1] Three hundred years later Honorius of Autun says in his sermonizing way:
"Not only, beloved, do the sacred writings lead us to eternal life, but profane letters also teach us; for edifying matter may be drawn from them. In view of sacred examples no one should be scandalized at this. For the children of Israel spoiled the Egyptians; they took gold and silver, gems and precious vestments, which they afterwards turned into God's treasury to build the tabernacle."[2]
Honorius used Augustine's reference to the Egyptians, and followed this Augustinian view, always recognized as orthodox in the Middle Ages. It was narrower than the practice among those who followed letters. Gerbert at the close of the tenth century loved to teach and read the pagan writers, and drew from them training and discipline.[3] In the next century, the German monk Froumund of Tegernsee, with Bernward and Godehard, bishops of Hildesheim, are instances of German love of antique letters.[4] Yet lofty souls might choose to limit their reading of the Classics, at least in theory, to the needs of their Latinity. Such a one was Hugo of St-Victor, scholar, theologian, man of genius;[5] he professed to care more for the Christian ardours of the soul than for learning even as a means of righteousness,
