Chapter XXXI

., to indicate the place of Carolingian prose in the development of mediaeval Latin styles.

[248] Printed in Migne 101, col. 849-902. Alcuin adopted for his _Grammar_ the dialogue form frequent in Anglo-Saxon literature; and from his time the question and answer of _Discipulus_ and _Magister_ will not cease their cicada chime in didactic Latin writings.

[249] Migne 101, col. 857. See Mullinger, _Schools of Charles the Great_, p. 76 (an excellent book), and West’s _Alcuin_, chap. v. (New York, 1892).

[250] As in his _Disputatio Pippini_ (the son of Charlemagne), Migne 101, col. 975-980, which is just a series of didactic riddles: What is a letter? The guardian of history. What is a word? The betrayer of the mind. What generates language? The tongue. What is the tongue? The whip of the air--and so forth.

[251] _De orthographia_, Migne 101, col. 902-919.

[252] Migne 101, col. 919-950. Mullinger, _o.c._ pp. 83-85.

[253] Migne 101, col. 951-976.

[254] Migne 101, col. 956.

[255] Migne 101, col. 11-56.

[256] Migne 101, col. 613-638.

[257] Migne 100, cols. 737, 744.

[258] An important person. He was born at Mainz about 776. Placed as a child in the convent of Fulda, his talents and learning caused him to be sent at the age of twenty-one to Alcuin at Tours for further instruction. After Alcuin’s death in 804, Rabanus returned to Fulda and was made Principal of the monastery school. In 822 he was elected Abbot. His labours gained for him the title of Primus praeceptor Germaniae. Resigning in 842, he withdrew to devote himself to literary labours; but he was soon drawn from his retreat and made Archbishop of Mainz. He died in 856. While archbishop, and also while abbot, Rabanus with spiteful zeal prosecuted that rebellious monk, the high-born Saxon Gottschalk, who, among other faults, held too harsh views upon Predestination. His works are published in Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 107-112.

Rabanus has left huge Commentaries upon the books of the Old and New Testaments, in which he and his pupils gathered the opinions of the Fathers. He also added such needful comment of his own as his “exiguity” of mind permitted (Praef. to _Com. in Lib. Judicum_, Migne 108, col. 1110). His Commentaries were superseded by the _Glossa ordinaria_ (Migne 113 and 114) of his own pupil, Walafrid Strabo, which was systematically put together from Rabanus and those upon whom he drew. It was smoothly done, and the writer knew how to eliminate obscurity and prolixity, and in fact make his work such that it naturally became the Commentary in widest use for centuries. The dominant interest of these commentators is in the allegorical significance of Scripture, as we shall see (