542 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
process of getting an education was indeed a painful piece of physical experience.
Guibert's account of his experiences is the most elaborate description we have of mediaeval school life, and one of the most interesting pieces of schoolboys' experience in litera ture.1 The child, early sent to school by his widowed mother, was unmercifully beaten with fist and rod by his teacher, a man who had learned grammar in his advanced years. Though the teacher was an indifferent grammarian, Guibert testifies to the vigor of his moral purpose and the wholesome moral impression he made upon his pupils. The whipping came every day. But the child's ardor for learn ing did not grow cold. On returning to his home one even ing and loosening his shirt, his mother saw the welts and bruises on his shoulders, for he had been beaten black and blue that day; 2 she suggested, in indignation and pity, that her boy give up preparation for the priesthood, and offered to give him the equipment for the career of a knight. But Guibert, greatly excited, resented any such sugges tion.
At Cluny the pupils slept near the masters, and if they were obliged to get up at night, it was not till they had the permission of a master. If they committed any offence in singing the Psalms or other songs, in going to bed, or in any other way, they were punished in their shirts, by the prior or other master, with switches prepared beforehand.3
But there were not wanting teachers who protested against this method. Anselm urged the way of affection and con fidence and urged that a skilful artificer never fashioned his image out of gold plate by blows alone. With wise and gentle hand he pressed it into shape. Ceaseless beating only
1 De vita sua, I. 4-6 ; Migne, 156. 843-848 ; Guizot, in his Hist, of Civiliza tion, Bohn's ed., II. 94 sqq. ; Schinid, p. 249, and Laurie, pp. 80 sqq., consider the account of so much importance that they give it at length in the original, or in translation.
'2 fpxa limntcs attendit ulnulas dorsicula exviminum illisione cutem ubique prominulam. De vita sua, Migne, 156. 847.
3 Quoted by Schinid, p. 246, note.
§ 89. BOOKS AND LIBRARIES. 543
brutalizes. To an abbot who said " day and night we do not cease to chastise the children confided to our care and yet they grow worse and worse," Anselm replied : " Indeed! And when they are grown up, what will they become ? Stupid dolts. A fine education that, which makes brutes of men! . . . If you were to plant a tree in your garden and were to enclose it on all sides, so that it could not extend its branches, what would you find when, at the end of several years, you set it free from its bounds ? A tree whose branches were bent and scraggy, and would it not be your fault for having so unreasonably confined it ? " 1
The principle ruled that an education was free to all whose circumstances did not enable them to pay for it. Others paid their way. Fulbert of Chartres took a fee from the rapidly increasing number of students, regarding philos ophy as worth what was paid for it. But this practice was regarded as exceptional and met with opposition.2 The words of Alcuin, "If you desire to study, you will have what you seek without money," were inscribed on the convent of St. Peter at Salzburg.3 It was the boast that the care given to the humblest scholar at Cluny was as diligent as the care given to children in the palace.4
§ 89. Books and Libraries.
LITERATURE: E.EDWARDS: Libraries and Founders of Libraries, Lond., 1865. — T. GOTTLIEB: Mittelalt. Sibliotheken, Leip., 1890. — F. A. GAS- QUET: Notes on Med. Libraries, Lond., 1891. — E. M. THOMPSON: Hd.book of Gr. and Lat. Palaeography, Lond., 1893. Contains excellent fac similes of med. MSS., etc. — J. W. CLARK: Libraries in the Med. and Eenaiss. Periods, Cambr., 1894. — G. H. PUTNAM : Books and their Mak ers, 476-1709, 2 vols. N.Y., 1896 sq. See his elaborate list of books on monastic education, libraries, etc., I. xviii. sqq. — MIRBT: Publizistik im Zeitalter Greg. VIL, pp. 96 sqq. and 119 sqq.— *MAITLAND: The Dark Ages. — *W. WATTENBACH : D. Schriftwesen im Mittelalter, 3d ed., Leip., 1896. —Art. Bibliothek in Wetzer-Welte, II. 783 sqq. Transl. and Reprints of Univ. of Pa. II. 3.
1 Quoted by Compayre", p. 303. 2 Hauck, IV. 452. See Schmid, p. 250. 8 Discere si cupias gratis quod quceris habebis. Migne, 101. 757. * Schmid, p. 246.