fusing information, and the great
monasteries of Tours, Fulda, and St. Gall carry it on. Besides these,
in the ninth century Monte Cassino comes into prominence as an
institution where much was done of what we would now call encyclopedic
work. After his retirement from Salerno Constantine Africanus made his
translations and commentaries on Arabian medicine, constituting what was
really a medical encyclopedia of information not readily available at
that time.

After this, of course, the tradition is taken up by the universities,
and it is only when, with the thirteenth century, there came the
complete development of the university spirit, that encyclopedias
reached their modern expression. Three great encyclopedists, Vincent of
Beauvais, Thomas of Cantimprato, and Bartholomaeus Anglicus, are the most
famous. Vincent consulted all the authors sacred and profane that he
could lay hold on, and the number was, indeed, prodigious. I have given
some account of him in "The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries" (Catholic
Summer School Press, New York, third edition, 1910).

It would be very easy to conclude that these encyclopedias, written by
clergymen for the general information of the educated people of the
times, contain very little that is scientifically valuable, and probably
nothing of serious medical significance. Any such thought is, however,
due entirely to unfamiliarity with the contents of these works. They
undoubtedly contain absurdities, they are often full of misinformation,
they repeat stories on dubious authority, and sometimes on hearsay, but
usually the source of their information is stated, and especially where
it is dubious, as if they did not care to state marvels without due
support. Books of popular information, however, have always had many
queer things,--queer, that is, to subsequent generations,--and it is
rather amusing to pick up an encyclopedia of a century ago, much less a
millennium ago, and see how many absurd things were accepted as true.
The first edition of the "Encyclopedia Britannica," issued one hundred
and fifty years ago, furnishes an easily available source of the
absurdities our more recent forefathers accepted. The men of the Middle
Ages, however, were much better observers as a rule, and used much more
critical judgment, according to their lights, than we have given them
credit for. Often the information that they have to convey is not only
valuable, but well digested, thoroughly practic