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tend it ; but these universities or public schools, seem,nevertheless, to have been chiefly frequented by those whowere intended for the church : for during the Saxon andNorman period, our illustrious youth were either educated atthe court, or in the family of some powerful Baron, and veryrarely at home, and this education principally consisted ofmilitary exercises ; thus from the contempt of learning mani-fested by the laity, the clergy, even till the middle of thesixteenth century, were alone found competent to dischargethe duties of the highest civil offices in the state.

Hebrew was taught in our Universities by some Jews in1154; and on their banishment from the country many oftheir books were purchased by the monks, and the knowledgeof it became more general.

Archbishop Nicholson states that at the commencement ofthe fifteenth century there were even bishops that could notwrite; so that in their subscriptions to synodal acts the fol-lowing words are to be found :—“ As I cannot read or writemyself, N. M. hath subscribed for me.”

The classics began to be studied on the Continent in theninth century; the Latin Grammar being called the Donat,from Donatus , the grammarian . The Greek language andHomer was introduced into Italy by Boecacio about the closeof the fourteenth century : but Professor Oekley, in his His-tory of the Saracens, observes that the Greek language wasnot understood in the west of Europe till after the fall ofConstantinople in 1453, when several learned Greeks escap-ing from thence caused the language to be more generallyknown : for previous to this time the learned contented them-selves with Latin translations, not only of the Mahometanauthors, but also of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers^which translations were not made out of the original Gfeek,but from Arabic versions that had been translated from theGreek.

The study of the Classics was brought into England by

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