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Bernardo Gallegos
Page 01 - Part B
The monasteries became the preservers of learning. Another need developed
the copying of pagan books, and incidentally the preservation of some of
the best of Roman literature. The language of the Church very naturally
was Latin, as it was a direct descendant of Roman life, governmental
organization, citizenship, and education. The writings of the Fathers of
the Western Church had all been in Latin, and in the fourth century the
Bible had been translated from the Greek into the Latin. This edition,
known as the _Vulgate_ [8] _Bible_, became the standard for western Europe
for ten centuries to come. The German tribes which had invaded the Empire
had no written languages of their own, and their spoken dialects differed
much from the Latin speech of those whom they had conquered. Latin was
thus the language of all those of education, and naturally continued as
the language of the Church and the monastery for both speech and writing.
All books were, of course, written in Latin.
Under the rude influences and the general ignorance of the period, though,
the language was easily and rapidly corrupted, and it became necessary for
the monasteries and the churches to have good models of Latin prose and
verse to refer to. These were best found in the old Latin literary
authors--particularly Caesar, Cicero, and Vergil. To have these, due to
the great destruction of old books which had taken place during the
intervening centuries, it was necessary to copy these authors, [9] as well
as the Psalter, the Missal, [10] the sacred books, and the writings of the
Fathers of the Church (Rs. 55, 56). It thus happened that the monasteries
unintentionally began to preserve and use the ancient Roman books, and
from using them at first as models for style, an interest in their
contents was later awakened. While many of the monasteries remained as
farming, charitable, and ascetic institutions almost exclusively, and were
never noted for their educational work, a small but increasing number
gradually accumulated libraries and became celebrated for their literary
activity and for the character of their instruction. The monasteries thus
in time became the storehouses of learning, the publishing houses of the
Middle Ages (Rs. 54, 55, 56), teaching institutions of first importance,
and centers of literary activity and religious thought, as well as centers
for agricultural development, work in the arts and crafts, and Christian
hospitality. Many developed into large and important institutions (R. 69).
Source: THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION, by ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
[ Part A ]
[ Part B ]
[ Part C ]
[ Part D ]
[ Part E ]
[ Part F ]
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