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376 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE and mysteries of the preceding sixty years, and, ere he closes, confides an account of his early sinful life and subse- quent monastic adventures. Hermann the Lame, of Reiche- nau, who died in 1054, and Marianus Scotus (1026-1083), an Irish monk who wandered to Germany, wrote world his- tories, and they are noted for their chronological researches. With these men and with Adam of Bremen, who introduces us to the history and geography of northern Europe, and Lambert of Hersfeld, who gives a detailed and well-written, though partisan, account of the eventful years 1 073-1 077, we find the writing of history well developed before the time of the First Crusade. All these works were in Latin. A large number of the famous men of the next generation were said to have been pupils of Gerbert. One of them Famous praised his master as "a man of lofty genius and the C eleventh wonderful eloquence, by whose light, as of a century brightly burning torch, all Gaul, already grow- ing dark, was again illuminated." Gerbert's school at Rheims was followed in the eleventh century by famous teachers or cathedral schools in other French towns such as Chartres, Angers, Paris, Laon, Orleans, Poitiers, and Perigueux. Some monasteries also were noted for their instruction, such as the famous Cluny in Burgundy and Bee in Normandy, whence William the Conqueror took his first archbishop, the learned Italian lawyer Lanfranc. Both the teachers and alumni of these ecclesiastical schools rose to high positions in the Church and the State; but what was taught and learned at these places seems very scanty to us to-day. The main point, however, was that the students thought that they were learning something and sang the praises of their instructors forever after. There was at least, therefore, a growing enthusiasm for learning. Presently the amount of learning also began to increase. Progress in The first notable advance was in medicine. ConltanV In nortn ern Africa about 1015 was born Con- African stantin e, usually known by his Latin name, Con- stantinus Africanus, from his birthplace. After many years of travel in the Orient in quest of knowledge, he