_State of Literature during the Saxon Dynasty_.

[Sidenote: 911-1024.]


"In the school of Paderborn," says the biographer of Meinwert, as he is
cited by Schmidt, "there are famous musicians, dialecticians, orators,
grammarians, mathematicians, astronomers and geometricians. Horace, the
great Virgil, Sallust, and Statius, are highly esteemed. The monks amuse
themselves with poetry, books and music. Several are incessantly
employed in transcribing and painting."

A German translation of the Psalms, by Notker, a monk of the abbey of
St. Gall, shews that some attention was paid to the language of the
country. The Greek was cultivated; the writers of the times mention
several persons skilled in it. Notker, in a letter to one of his
correspondents, informs him, that "his Greek brothers salute him."

[Sidenote: II. 2. State of Literature during the Saxon Dynasty.]

Poetry was a favourite study: the celebrated _Gerbert_, afterwards Pope
Silvester II, and _Waldram_, bishop of Strasburgh, were the best poets
of their times. Hroswith,[004] a nun in the monastery of Gardersheim,
published comedies: "Many Catholics," she says, in her preface to them,
"are guilty of a fault, from which I myself am not altogether free;
they prefer profane works, on account of their style, to the holy
Scriptures. Others have the Scriptures always in their hands, and
despise profane authors; yet they often read Terence, and their
attention to the beauties of his style does not prevent the
objectionable passages in his writings from making an impression on