Church no longer enjoyed a monopoly of letters. They travelled into
Spain to attend the Arabic schools.

It is a remarkable fact that Greek learning should have travelled
through Bagdad to reach Europe.

The Arabs were as fond of letters as of war. In the eighth century, when
they overran the Asiatic provinces, they found many Greek books which
they read with eagerness. They translated such as best pleased them into
Arabic. Greek poetry they rejected because it was polytheistic. Of Greek
history they made no use, because it recorded events prior to the advent
of their prophet. The politics of Greece and its eloquence were not
congenial to their despotic notions, and so they passed them by. Grecian
ethics were suspended by the Koran, hence Plato was overlooked.
Mathematics, metaphysics, logic, and medicine, accorded with their
tastes. Hence they translated and studied Aristotle, Galen, and
Hippocrates, and illustrated them with voluminous commentaries. These
works stimulated native authors to write new treatises. The Arabs,
therefore, became distinguished for their skill in logic, medicine,
mathematics, and kindred studies. They founded universities during the
eighth century in the cities of Spain and Africa. Charlemagne commanded
their books to be translated into Latin; thus Aristotle entered Europe
through Asia by the double door of the Arabic and Latin tongues, and, by
long prescription, still holds his place in European schools.

Charlemagne founded the universities of Bononia, Pavia, Paris, and
Osnaburg, in Hanover. These became centres for propagating the new
sciences. The Normans, too, shared in the general progress of learning,
and carried with them their attainments into England. The wild
imagination of the Saracens kindled a love of romantic fiction, wherever