ame of St. Peter was finally more potent than the sword of the Normans.
Their first colony of Aversa subdued and held the state of Capua; and
her princes were reduced to beg their bread before the palace of their
fathers. The dukes of Naples, the present metropolis, maintained the
popular freedom, under the shadow of the Byzantine empire. Among the new
acquisitions of Guiscard, the science of Salerno, [47] and the trade of
Amalphi, [48] may detain for a moment the curiosity of the reader. I. Of
the learned faculties, jurisprudence implies the previous establishment
of laws and property; and theology may perhaps be superseded by the full
light of religion and reason. But the savage and the sage must alike
implore the assistance of physic; and, if our diseases are inflamed by
luxury, the mischiefs of blows and wounds would be more frequent in
the ruder ages of society. The treasures of Grecian medicine had been
communicated to the Arabian colonies of Africa, Spain, and Sicily;
and in the intercourse of peace and war, a spark of knowledge had been
kindled and cherished at Salerno, an illustrious city, in which the men
were honest and the women beautiful. [49] A school, the first that
arose in the darkness of Europe, was consecrated to the healing art:
the conscience of monks and bishops was reconciled to that salutary and
lucrative profession; and a crowd of patients, of the most eminent rank,
and most distant climates, invited or visited the physicians of Salerno.
They were protected by the Norman conquerors; and Guiscard, though bred
in arms, could discern the merit and value of a philosopher. After a
pilgrimage of thirty-nine years, Constantine, an African Christian,
returned from Bagdad, a master of the language and learning of the
Arabians; and Salerno was enriched by the practice, the lessons, and the
writings of the pupil of Avicenna. The school of medicine has long slept
in the name of a university; but her precepts are abridged in a string
of aphorisms, bound together in the Leonine verses, or Latin rhymes, of
the twelfth century. [50] II. Seven miles to the west of Salerno, and
thirty to the south of Naples, the obscure town of Amalphi displayed the
power and rewards of industry. The land, however fertile, was of narrow
extent; but the sea was accessible and open: the inhabitants first
assumed the office of supplying the western world with the manufactures
and productions of the East; and this useful traffic was the