legislators, forbade the use of pagan authors without special
permission; yet the coming of the Arabs in the eighth century, and the
struggle between the Gothic, Christian, and Islamic civilizations
resulted, for the next six or seven centuries, in what seems total
oblivion of the poet.

In the ninth and tenth centuries, under the impulse of the Carolingian
favor, France, in which there is heretofore no evidence of Horace's
presence from the end of Roman times, becomes the greatest center of
manuscript activity, the Bernensis and six Parisian exemplars dating
from this period. Yet the indexes of St. Gall, Reichenau, and Bobbio
contain the name of no work of Horace, and only Nevers and Loesch
contained his complete works. The _Ecbasis Captivi_, an animal-epic
appearing at Toul in 940, has one fifth of its verses formed out of
Horace in the manner of the _cento_, or patchwork. At about the same
time, the famous Hrosvitha of Gandersheim writes her six Christian
dramas patterned after Terence, and in them uses Horace. Mention by
Walter of Speyer, and interest shown by the active monastery on the
Tegernsee, are of the same period. The tenth century is sometimes spoken
of as the Latin Renaissance under the Ottos, the first of whom, called
the Great, crowned Emperor at Rome in 962, welcomed scholars at his
court and made every effort to promote learning.

The momentum of intellectual interest is not lost in the eleventh
century. Paris becomes its most ardent center, with Reims, Orléans, and
Fleury also of note. The _Codex Parisinus_ belongs to this period.
German activity, too, is at its height, especially in the education of
boys for the church. Italy affords one catalogue mention, of a Horace
copied under Desiderius. Peter Damian was its man of greatest learning,
but the times were intellectually stagnant. The popes were occupied by