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University of Paris, "we who
read the writings of the pagan
poets. . . ." And Master Konrad
U nckebunck warned: ". . . the
devil is in these poets. They de–
stroy all universities. And I heard
from an old master of Leipsic who
had been Magister for years, and
he said to me that when he was
a young man then did the Uni–
versity stand firm, for there was
not a poet within miles." No
doubt about it, the poets and the
classics had their difficulties. But
the fact of the matter is that the
authoritarian ban was not a total
one; it was, at worst, censorship
tempered by opportunism. The in–
tellectual force and even the
grammatical correctness of the for–
bidden writings were found too
useful. The hateful secular learn–
ing was, after all, indispensable to
the study of the Holy Writ: "To
forbid wholly the reading of the
pagan authors," Gratian could
warn, "is to cloud and weaken
the intellect." In the cultural un–
freedom of the totalitarian world
the mind is not weakened when
dangerous thoughts (no matter
how ingenious and practical) are
withheld; quite the contrary: "ig–
norance is strength."
In reading recently the work of
Helen Waddell on
The Wander–
ing Scholars
I was struck by the
story of one intellectual's tragedy;
and I was even sentimentally
moved by the speculation that
soon, perhaps, such tragedies would
no longer be even possible in an
enslaved world. How could
they
ever be immortalized in the re–
cords? They would only perish
in the snow. He was a German
poet-Gottschalk--ordained as a
priest in 835, brought up in
the
monastery of Fulda where he
"fought for liberty like a caged
panther." His preachings in France
and Italy brought consternation to
the Church; John Scotus was
brought in to refute him.
Gottschalk's book went to the flames
first; he burnt it himself after torture,
like one dead. They condemned him
to solitary confinement; but somehow
this indomitable malignant
(Gothes·
calcus pertinacissimus damnatus est)
secured ink and parchment and the
book appears again. There followed
further accusations, further vengeance
on this man found
hereticus et incoT–
rigibalis.
Twenty years later, in 870,
the long misery ended. Gottschalk,
dying, begged for the sacrament from
which he had so long been barred.
It was promised him, and Christian
burial, after he should sign a recanta–
tion drawn up for him by Hincmar.
He refused, and died without the sa–
craments. "A worthy end to ' such a
life," says Hincmar speaking more
wisely than he knew. There is no
grace about Gottschalk; he had seen
truth and it blinded him.
With that doomed history, there is
a shadow on his verse, the most mu–
sical that was written in Europe for
centuries. One with the refrain,
o
God, and what shall be the
end of me?
is cruel reading, in the light of what
that end was indeed to be. . . .
But at least the Gottschalks of
the past had a recorded end. The
Gottschalks of today would have
their very beginnings erased from
