assimilating and civilizing the barbarians, and probably was a necessity
at the time, but it was bad for the future of the Church as an
institution, and utterly opposed to scientific inquiry and intellectual
progress. Monroe well expresses the situation which came to exist when he
says:

The validity of any statement, the actuality of any alleged instance,
came to be determined, not by any application of rationalistic
principle, not by inherent plausibility, not by actual inquiry into
the facts of the case, but by its agreement with religious feelings or
beliefs, its effect in furthering the influence of the Church or the
reputation of a saint--in general, by its relationship to matters of
faith. Thus it happens that the chronicles of the monks and the lives
of the saints, charming and interesting as they are in their naivete,
their simplicity, their trustful credulity, and their pictures of a
life and an attitude of mind so remote from ours, are filled with
incidents given as facts that test the greatest faith, strain the most
vivid imagination, and shock that innate respect for reality, that it
is the purpose of modern education to inculcate. [23]

This authoritative and repressive attitude of the Church expressed itself
in many ways. The teaching of the period is an excellent example of this
influence. The instruction in the so-called Seven Liberal Arts remained
unchanged throughout a period of half a dozen centuries--so much
accumulated knowledge passed on as a legacy to succeeding generations. It
represented mere instruction; not education. As a recent writer has well
expressed it, the whole knowledge and culture contained in the Seven
Liberal Arts remained "like a substance in suspension in a medium
incapable of absorbing it; unchanged throughout the whole mediaeval
period." Inquiry or doubt in religious matters was not tolerated, and