Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/64

46 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. classics could be preserved only by men who could write, and such men lived in cloisters, which also afforded leisure for the labor and safekeeping for its result. Thus classic literature reached the Middle Ages through the same agents that brought the authori- tative Roman-Christian religion. The classic writ- ings were received as the works of a greater time; they were accepted as authorities upon whatever topic they treated or could be interpreted into treating.^ There was little literary appreciation of them, and scanty severing of legend and fiction from history and science. The utmost human knowledge was ascribed to the authors. It also fell in with the temper of the Middle Ages to interpret the classics, like the Scrip- tures, allegorically. As Virgil was the supreme Latin author, the strangest examples of allegorical interpre- tation are connected with his writings,^ Finally, the 1 It is characteristic of the mediaeval use of ancient literature that it is taken as authoritative. What was a work of art or fan- ciful literature may be taken as praecepta, e.g., Praecepta Ovidii doctoris egregii, as in the beginning of the Eomaricimontis Con- cilius of the early twelfth (or eleventh) century. See Langlois, Sources de la Roman de la Rose (Vol. 57 ;6cole Fran9ais of Rome, p. 7, etc.). The manner in which the Middle Ages accept matters on authority is still shown in Dante. In Conv. Ill, 5, he says that Aristotle — "that glorious philosopher to whom above all others Nature disclosed her secrets " — has proved that the earth is immov- able ; he adds that he will not repeat Aristotle's arguments because " it is enough for all people that I address to know per la sua grande autorita," that this earth is fixed and does not revolve. Cf . Moore, Scripture and Classics in Dante, p. 9. 2 An extraordinary example is the De Continentia Vergiliana of Fulgentius, written not later than the sixth century. See Compa- retti, op. cit., Chap. VIH, Ebert, op. cit., I, p. 480.