ed it, the church in its blind
policy opposed it, and when the renaissance in Germany had passed
continuously into the Reformation, Luther opposed the new learning with
as much vigor as did the papalists themselves.

But from the fact of the church's assuming this attitude toward the new
learning, it must not be inferred that there was no learning within the
church, for there were scholars in theology, logic, and law, astute and
learned. Yet the church assumed that it had a sort of proprietorship
or monopoly of learning, and that only what it might see fit to
designate was to receive attention, and then only in the church's own
way; all other knowledge was to be opposed. The ecclesiastical
discussions gave evidence of intense mental activity within the church,
but, having little knowledge of the outside world to invigorate it or
to give it something tangible upon which to operate, the mind passed
into speculative fields that were productive of little permanent
culture. Dwelling only upon a few fundamental conceptions at first, it
soon tired itself out with its own weary round.

The church recognized in all secular advocates of literature and
learning its own enemies, and consequently began to expunge from the
literary world as far as possible the remains of the declining Roman
and Greek culture. It became hostile to Greek and Latin literature and
art and sought to repress them. In the rise of new languages and
literature in new nationalities every attempt was made by the church to
destroy the effects of the pagan life. The poems and sagas treating of
the religion and mythologies of these young, rising nationalities were
destroyed. The monuments of the first beginnings of literature, the
products of a period so hard to compass by the historian, were served
in the same way as were the Greek and Latin masterpieces.

The church said, if men will persist in study, let them ponder the
precepts of the gospels as interpreted by the church. {352} For those
who inquired about the problems of life, the churchmen pointed to the
creeds and the dogmas of the church, which had settled all things. If
men were too persistent in inquiring about the nature of this world,
they were told that it is of little importance, only a prelude to the
world to come; that they should spend their time in preparation for the
future. Even as great a man as Gregory of Tours said: "Let us shun the
lying fables of the poets and forego the wisdom