philosophis, imperare. Et primus quidem Socrates universam philosophiam ad corrigendos componendosque mores flexisse memoratur, cum ante illum omnes physicis, id est rebus naturalibus perscrutandis, maximam operam dederint."[1]
These extracts from the writings of saints and scholars may be supplemented by two extracts from compositions of another class. The mediaeval chronicle has not a good reputation. Its credulity and uncritical spirit varied with the time and man. Little can be said in favour of its general form, which usually is stupidly chronological, or annalistic. The example of classical historical composition was lost on mediaeval annalists. Yet their work is not always dull; and, by the twelfth century, their diction had become as mediaeval as that of the theologian rhetoricians, although it rarely crystallizes to personal style by reason of the insignificance of the writers. A well-known work of this kind is the Gesta Dei per Francos, by Guibert of Nogent, who wrote his account of the First Crusade a few years after its turmoil had passed by. The following passage tells of proceedings upon the conclusion of Urban's great crusading oration at the Council of Clermont in 1099:
"Peroraverat vir excellentissimus, et omnes qui se ituros voverant, beati Petri potestate absolvit, eadem, ipsa apostolica auctoritate firmavit, et signum satis conveniens hujus tam honestae professionis instituit, et veluti cingulum militiae, vel potius militaturis Deo
passionis Dominicae stigma tradens, crucis figuram, ex cujuslibet- ↑ "There is another class of philosophers called the Ionic, and it took its origin from the more remote Greeks. The chief of these was Thales the Milesian, one of those seven who were called 'wise.' He, when he had searched out the nature of things, shone among his fellows, and especially stood forth as admirable because, comprehending the laws of astrology, he predicted eclipses of the sun and moon. To him succeeded his hearer, Anaximander, who (in turn) left Anaximenes as disciple and successor. Diogenes, likewise his hearer, arose and Anaxagoras who taught that the divine mind was the author of all things that we see. To him succeeded his pupil Archelaus, whose disciple is said to have been Socrates, the master of Plato, who, according to Apuleius, was first called Aristotle, but then Plato from his breadth of chest, and was borne aloft to such height of philosophy, by vigour of genius, by assiduity of study, by graciousness in all his ways, and by sweetness and force of eloquence, that, as if seated on the throne of wisdom, he has seemed to command by a certain ordained authority the philosophers before and after him. And indeed Socrates is said to have been the first to have turned universal philosophy to the improvement and ordering of manners; since before him all had devoted themselves chiefly to physics, that is to examining the things of nature" (Polycraticus, vii. 5; Migne 199, col. 643).
