Part 23

His own Abbot to his own clerk. You have, my well-beloved, chosen a sufficiently delightful exile, where joys, though they be vain, are in superabundance, where the supply of bread and wine exceeds in richness that of your own land where there is the frequent access of friends, where the dwelling together of comrades is common. Who else besides you is there beneath the sky who has not thought Paris the place of delights, the garden of plantations, the field of first fruits?

Yet, though smiling [at these things], you have said truly that where pleasure of the body is greater and fuller, there is the exile of the soul; and where luxury reigns there the soul is a wretched and afflicted hand-maid. O Paris! How well-suited art thou to captivate and deceive souls! In thee are the nets of the vices, in thee the arrow of Hell transfixes the hearts of the foolish! This my John has felt and therefore he has named it an exile. Would that you were leaving behind that exile of yours just as it is, and were hastening to your native land not in word and tongue only but in very deed and truth! There, in the book of life would you be looking, not upon forms and elements, but upon divinity itself, as it really is, as upon truth--eye to eye, without labor of reading, without tediousness of seeing, without fallacies and mistakes of understanding, without anxiety of retaining, without fear of forgetting. O blessed school, where Christ teaches our hearts with the words of his virtue, where without study and lecture we learn how we should live happily to eternity! There no book is bought, no teacher of things written is hired, there is no circumventing in debate, no intricacy of sophisms, a plain settlement of all questions, a full apprehension of universal reasons and arguments. There life avails more than lecture; simplicity, more than cavilling. There no one is shut in [i.e., limited in freedom] save he who is shut out. In a word; there every reproach is done away with in the answer given to him who evilly presents an evil life: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels;" and to him who sets for a good life: "Come, ye blessed" &c.

Would that the sons of men were as intent upon these better studies as they are on idle talking, on vain and base buffoonery! Certainly they would harvest richer fruits, more excellent favors, certainly greater honors and beyond doubt would learn the end of all perfection,--Christ,--whom they will never find in these. Farewell.

(c) Letters from or to Students at Paris

These letters belong to a period covering nearly four centuries. The first gives an opinion of William of Champeaux in marked contrast to that of Abelard.

(1) A CERTAIN D. WRITES TO A CERTAIN PRIOR CONCERNING HIS STUDIES AT PARIS. (1109-1112.)

I am now in Paris in the School of Master William of Champeaux, the greatest of all the men of his time whom I have known, in every branch of learning. When we hear his voice we think that no man, but, as it were, an angel from heaven, is speaking; for the melody of his words and the profundity of his ideas transcends, as it were, human limitations....

Here, my revered friend, I am training my youth that I may not utterly succumb to those vices which, unless conquered, are wont, as a rule, to overturn this period of life. Here I am doing my best to illumine by doctrine and study my untaught mind, emancipated from the shades of ignorance and the sin of the first man, so far as God, from whom alone comes every blessing of wisdom, shall himself deign to permit. Because the blessing of wisdom, when sought and acquired with pure interest, is rightly believed and considered by all men of discernment as the surmnuni [bonum]. For, as the Apostle says: Knowledge without charity puffeth up but, with charity edifieth: for it uproots vices and grafts in virtues; it instructs itself in its duty to itself, its neighbor, and its Creator; finally, by its presence, it fortifies and defends the mind, over which it presides in person, against all the ills of this life that come to it from without.

(2) PHILIP OF HARVENGT TO HERGALD, A STUDENT AT PARIS (DATE BETWEEN 1154 AND 1181)

Know that I have both read carefully and when read, accepted gratefully the letters which your affection, with memorable feeling, led you to send to me ...because in them I thought I saw evidence of your progress in learning.... Just as the Queen of Sheba is said to have come with a large retinue, that by the sight of her own eyes she might have surer knowledge of those things whose fame she had eagerly absorbed from afar, so you too, drawn by love of knowledge, came to Paris and found a much desired model of Jerusalem, sought for by many. For here David strikes his harp of ten chords, here with mystic touch he composes the psalms. Here Isaiah is read and in the reading his prophecies are revealed; here the rest of the prophets present their diverse strains of harmonious melody. Here the wisdom of Solomon is open for the instruction of those who have gathered from all parts of the world; here his treasure house is thrown open to eager students. Here to stimulate so great a concourse of students there is so great a throng of clerks that it vies with the numerous multitude of the laity. Happy city! in which the Sacred Codes are pored over with so much zeal and their involved mysteries are solved by the gift of the outpoured Spirit, in which there is so much diligence on the part of the readers, and, in short, so much knowledge of Scriptures that it truly deserves to be called Cariath Sepher, that is The City of Letters. Therein would I have you instructed like Gothoniel, not so much in letters as in the spirit, and so to grasp the Scriptures that you may take delight in searching out their inner sweetness.... Farewell.

(3) DESCRIPTION OF PARIS ABOUT 1175 BY GUY DE BASOCHES

To a youth who is noble and so like himself as to be a second self, Guy de Basoches [seeks] to match his nobility of birth by high-bred manners....

My situation then is this: I am indeed in Paris, happy because of soundness of both mind and body, happier were you enjoying it too, and happiest had it but been my lot to have you with me. I am indeed in Paris, in that City of Kings, which not only holds, by the sweet delight of her natural dowry, those who are with her, but also alluringly invites those who are far away. For as the moon by the majesty of its more brilliant mirror overwhelms the rays of the stars, not otherwise does said city raise its imperial head with its diadem of royal dignity above the rest of the cities. It is situated in the lap of a delightful valley, surrounded by a coronet of mountains which Ceres and Bacchus adorn with fervent zeal. The Seine, no humble stream amid the army of rivers, superb in its channel, throwing its two arms about the head, the heart, the very marrow of the city, forms an island. Two suburbs reach out to right and left, the less excellent, even, of which begets envy in envious cities. From the two suburbs two stone bridges stretch over to the island and one of them which has been named for its size, for it is Great, faces the north and the English Sea, while the opposite one, which opens towards the Loire, they call the Little Bridge....

On this island Philosophy, of old, placed a royal throne for herself, Philosophy, who, despised in her solitude, with a sole attendant, Study, now possesses an enduring citadel of light and immortality, and under her victorious feet tramples the withered flowers of a world already in its dotage.

On this island, the seven sisters, to wit, the Liberal Arts, have secured an eternal abiding place for themselves, and, with the ringing clarion of their nobler eloquence, decrees and laws are proclaimed.

Here the healing fount of learning gushes forth, and as it were evoking from itself three most limpid streams, it makes a threefold division of the knowledge of the sacred page into History, Allegory and Morals.

(4) JOHANN VON JENZENSTEIN TO MASTER BENESCH OF HORSCHOWITZ, CONCERNING PARIS. (1375.)

Master Bennessius, dearest comrade and friend. If recent doings at Paris are unknown to you, if the fecundity of pleasures, the abundance of all things edible, the manners of the men, the bountiful supply of all the sciences, even the clever teaching in very many material crafts,--if you could but see the mere shadow of all these, surely, overpowered by their arguments, you would throw off your sluggishness and generously enter into the aforesaid enjoyments; and your eyes, grown old in old sights would renew their youth in these new sights....

For here (says the writer sarcastically) are distinguished doctors of many faculties, some of whom by their crazy ways of thinking, and still others by crazy ways of acting, others, indeed, by inflicting wounds, and still others by abusive words, furnish enjoyment that is exceeding pleasing; and (he adds more seriously) there are other Masters subtly trained in the seven liberal Arts, by whose example and teaching the entire earth, like the heavens, is adorned with stars; and some of these masters are illuminated by the three trivials and some by the four quadrivials and some by both the trivials and the quadrivials.

Now the three trivials are grammar, which teaches clearly the agreement of speech; and starting from that, the youth who holds on to his first teaching makes a beginning whereby he may obtain a deeper taste of the profundities of other knowledge also; the second is rhetoric, which by the charm of its colors adorns as with pearls the subject matter, and ennobles grammar, and instils acceptably into the ears of men that which is heard; the third is logic by means of which the method of skilful deductive reasoning is assigned to the individual sciences, without which the powers of all the sciences are quiescent, and by whose addition all the sciences are regularly organized. (The letter ends with a similar description of the quadrivials.)

2. TWO OXFORD LETTERS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

(1) OXFORD UNIVERSITY TO THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, ACKNOWLEDGING A GIFT OF BOOKS. (1439.)

Most illustrious, most cultured and magnificent Prince, the enduring value of the benefits you have conferred on the English nation, and the meritorious deeds of your most powerful Highness in its behalf can never die, but, with distinguished fame destined to endure, will flourish with ever-renewed praise and happy remembrance. How delightful it certainly is for us to reflect upon these again and again! Among the rest, however, that deed itself redounds to the splendor of your most mighty Highness, namely, that after having brought about the repression of heretic plotting against the church of God, you have chosen to reinvigorate the vineyard of the Lord, your hand-maid, the University of Oxford, with books on all the sciences and virtues, out of which the abundant wine of knowledge and truth may be squeezed by the press of study. For this reason we set forth in this humble letter our thanks, our praise, and our prayers, but we cannot express ourselves adequately.

Which of the Universities has found a Prince so munificent, so illustrious, so magnificent?--whose service in the field has ever been successful, whose mind is most liberal, and who displays charity to all, justice to each, and harm to none. What respecter of the wise was ever so pious, what supporter of them so efficient, what patron of the sciences, of virtues, and of books so generous? And by these not only are the hearts of the living enlightened to the glory of God and the advance of virtue, but even more in coming ages will posterity be illumined. Can the happy memory of deeds so great pass away? Nay, but it will be a benediction forever.

A statute has been made in the words of your supplicant, and is to be forever in force, which will never fail in prayers in your behalf but will serve as an enduring memorial. Wherefore, although the fame of others may ebb with the flow of time or perish through being overshadowed by the rising of greater men, yet your fame cannot perish under the cloud of oblivion nor can it, of a truth, be obscured by the shadow of greater benefactions.

If the great conquests of Alexander come to our ears, renewed day by day through the devices of the wise Greeks who committed such deeds to writing, how much more will this University, your devoted supplicant, bear witness to your magnificent deeds to the end of time, not only by her prayers but also in her writings? Nay, were the tongues of all to be silent the fact itself would bear witness more than speech, the fact, to wit, that one hundred and thirty-nine most precious volumes of theology, medicine, and the seven liberal sciences have been deposited in our library from your own collection, as an eternal witness to your surpassing virtues and munificence.

We pray therefore that you may be willing to look upon this University as your vineyard and your handmaid and perpetual supplicant. And may the Lord Himself most glorious, who chose your serenity for the bestowing of such benefactions, grant to you the fruits of the spirit and guide you to the University of the saints. Written at Oxford in our congregation in the twenty-fifth day of the month of January.

The most humble supplicant of your Serenity, the University of learning at Oxford.