his celebrated _Ecclesiastical History_ of
England (731). Nine years after the death of Bede (735), Boniface, "the
apostle of Germany," sanctioned the founding of Fulda (744), which soon
rivalled St Gallen as a school of learning. Alcuin (d. 804), who was
probably born in the year of Bede's death, tells us of the wealth of
Latin literature preserved in the library at York. Through the
invitation of Charles the Great, he became associated with the revival
of learning which marks the reign of that monarch, by presiding over the
School of the Palace (782-790), and by exercising a healthy influence as
abbot of St Martin's at Tours (796-804). Among the friends of Alcuin and
the advisers of Charles was Theodulfus, bishop of Orleans and abbot of
Fleury (d. 821), who is memorable as an accomplished Latin poet, and as
the initiator of free education. Einhard (d. 840), in his classic life
of Charles the Great, models his style on that of Suetonius, and shows
his familiarity with Caesar and Livy and Cicero, while Rabanus Maurus
(d. 856), who long presided over Einhard's school of Fulda, was the
first to introduce Priscian into the schools of Germany. His pupil,
Walafrid Strabo, the abbot of Reichenau (d. 849), had a genuine gift for
Latin poetry, a gift agreeably exemplified in his poem on the plants in
the monastic garden. In the same century an eager interest in the Latin
classics is displayed by Servatus Lupus, who was educated at Fulda, and
was abbot of Ferrieres for the last twenty years of his life (d. 862).
In his literary spirit he is a precursor of the humanists of the
Renaissance. Under Charles the Bald (d. 877) there was a certain revival
of interest in literature, when John the Scot (Erigena) became, for some
thirty years (c. 845-875), the head of the Palace School. He was
familiar with the Greek Fathers, and was chosen to execute a Latin
rendering of the writings of "Dionysius the Areopagite," the patron
saint of France. In the preface the translator praises the king for
prompting him not to rest satisfied with the literature of the West, but
to have recourse to the "most pure and copious waters of the Greeks." In
the next generation Remi of Auxerre was the first to open a school in
Paris (900). Virgil is the main authority quoted in Remi's Commentary on
Donatus, which remained in use until the Renaissance. During the two
centuries after John the Scot, the study of Greek declined in France. In
England the 9th century c