The evidence used in this appendix comes from three sources of unequal value.

(a) Some existing manuscripts are marked in such a way that we know them to have been in fifteenth-century Italy. They are signed by the men who copied or owned them, or they carry other indications of their early wanderings. These marked manuscripts have been objects of interest to scholars for the past two hundred years. Francesco Barbaro's have been noted by Mittarelli, Filelfo's by Omont, Constantine Lascaris's by Iriarte, Leoni's by Dorez, Manetti's by Stevenson, Lorenzo dei Medici's (rather uncertainly) by Mueller, Niccoli's and Vespucci's by Rostagno, and Rudolf Blum has recently traced in the Laurentian Library over fifty codices which had once belonged to Antonio Corbinelli. Where such identifications can be made, we are on firm ground. We have the name of an owner and an exact knowledge of what he possessed. Unfortunately however the manuscripts in question are relatively few in number.

(b) To complete our picture we have to turn therefore to information of a less satisfactory kind. We have to consult the book-lists and catalogues of the period, which tend to provide only vague indications of what each manuscript contained. More often than not, they give only the author's name or some indefinite title like ‘dialogues’, ‘speeches’ or ‘plays’. Moreover, only one of these lists refers indisputably to the first half of the century. This is an account of the manuscripts possessed by Aurispa in Rome during July 1421, which was found by Omont in Cod. Leid. gr. 48. Published in the Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen IV (1887), it has been reprinted in Sabbadini's edition of Aurispa's letters.

The organic character of cultural growth is an observable fact which recent research has done much to underline. Historians and anthropologists have shown from their different standpoints that the various fields of human activity are closely interrelated and dominated in every epoch by certain pervasive tendencies. In the Renaissance there is the spirit of individualism, in the Baroque Age the spirit of centralised order. The life of the Trobriand islanders described by Malinowski centres on the meticulous recognition of reciprocal duties, that of the North American Zuñi on a love of ceremoniousness. By the same token it is possible to note after the middle of the twelfth century the widespread workings of what one might fairly call a spirit of organisation. The object of this organising interest was the whole of human knowledge, but it concentrated more particularly upon that new information which had come to light as a result of the study of classical sources during the preceding two hundred years, and which was still to a great extent an alien element in the existing medieval system.

Various circumstances combined to produce the mental climate of this epoch, which we may perhaps call the Age of Scholasticism after the most eminent of its intellectual products. The essentials of ancient rhetoric, law, medicine, logic and natural philosophy had been laid bare. Further work along the lines followed by an Anselm of Bisate, an Irnerius, an Abélard, a Constantine or a Gundisalvi was not likely to produce memorable fruit.

Fifty years ago the classical education still enjoyed an exceptional measure of public esteem. That training in taste and accuracy of thought, that lucid if somewhat factitious understanding of human institutions and human nature, which a close acquaintance with the Greek and Roman authors could give, were considered to fit the young supremely for the conduct of life. Those who had undergone the rigours of the traditional Humanist discipline in school and university were accepted by the majority of their contemporaries as an authoritative élite. The classical student of Edwardian times had reason to feel that he, if any man, possessed the magic key which would unlock the kingdoms of this world.

His modern counterpart is less fortunately placed. Not only have a number of other disciplines—historical, literary, scientific and technological—taken their place alongside the classical curriculum as its manifest equals in merit, but the struggles that occurred while they made good their claims have left a sad memorial in the shape of a prejudice against Greek and Latin, which philistinism has been quick to use. For if most people are ready to sing the praises of education when their opinion is formally required, the enthusiasm they so easily express too often represents only one aspect of their inner feelings. A manual worker will sometimes educate his children at a great personal sacrifice—and then mock them for their book-learning. An academic worker will sometimes devote his life to scholarly pursuits and still nourish a barely concealed contempt for all subjects but his own.

THE CHARACTER OF THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE

No one has ever brought together on the shelves of a single library all that has been written in Latin and ancient Greek. The collection would be imposing even by modern standards; and for quality as well as for quantity. But its most remarkable feature would have nothing to do with its size or even with the great number of masterpieces it contained. More has been written in English alone; and the best of English writers can take their place without question alongside their classical predecessors. No, the noteworthy and indeed unique characteristic of such a collection would be the space of time it covered, extending from Homer to the present day. For although ancient Greek has been truly a dead language for almost two centuries, Latin is still used by scholars and by the Roman Catholic Church.

The question therefore arises as to how much of this monumental array we can regard as the proper subject-matter of classical studies. No one has ever suggested that the latest Papal encyclicals should be read by classicists alongside Livy and Virgil. But men have wondered about Psellus, and the superiority of Petrarch to Cicero has been seriously maintained. There have been teachers prepared to include Alan of Lille in the curriculum, just as there have been others who were prepared to exclude Tacitus.

We shall find, however, that in practice modern students of the classics tend to regard any work written after the close of the sixth century A.D. as falling outside their proper field of study; and they also tend to neglect the theologians and other specifically Christian authors who flourished before that date.

We have seen how the educational possibilities of the classical heritage came to light one by one in a succession determined by the challenge of events, and how they developed in a manner directly dependent upon social needs.

For some time after the break-up of the old order, the memorials of the Graeco-Roman past lay scattered in a thousand manuscripts, inscriptions, monuments and works of art which could not be interpreted without expert study. Roman civilisation survived in every town, in every village almost, but it was as useless to their inhabitants as an outcrop of coal to a shivering savage. Western man had little understanding of the extent or value of his intellectual inheritance.

The first discoveries of what Latin literature had to offer were made in the eighth century, by which time the virtual disappearance of the imperial schools had led to such a decline in education that the clergy were no longer competent to read their Bibles. Further retreat down the road of ignorance would have endangered the entire fabric of the Church's authority; and at that point, under the pressure of dire need, some of the ancient grammar curriculum was brought back into use. It is true that the Christian writers of the patristic age held first place as text-books and as models for literary imitation. But the pagans were not forgotten. Donatus and Priscian were read for the rules of syntax and prosody. Virgil was popular. Suetonius inspired one famous work —Einhard's Life of Charlemagne; and even mathematics, history and natural science came in for a certain measure of attention.