grammaticus_, when ancient culture became practically extinct.

The monastic schools arose in the fifth century to supplant the
Romano-Hellenic schools. Chief among the founders in the West was
Benedict, who in 428 A. D. founded a monastery on Monte Cassino, near
Naples. "He had educational as well as religious aims from the first,
and it is to the monks of this rapidly extending order, or to the
influence which their 'rule' exercised on other conventual orders,
such as the Columban, that we owe the diffusion of schools in the
early part of the Middle Ages and the preservation of ancient
learning. The Benedictine monks not only taught in their own
monasteries, but were everywhere in demand as heads of Episcopal or
Cathedral schools."[A]

[A] Laurie.

The monastic schools multiplied rapidly throughout Europe and took the
lead in education and gained more influence than the episcopal
schools. These schools, sheltered by the church, existed from the
fourth to the twelfth century for the benefit of the ecclesiastical
body. The majority of them did not admit lay instruction until the
middle of the ninth century. Education during this period, with few
exceptional centers, was crude and unenlightened. The power of the
mediaeval machinery was such that these schools gave to the clergy only
the mere rudiments of learning. The conception of education at first
did not embrace the culture of the whole man. It was commonly thought
that the religious life opposed the life of the world, and that the
temporal life should be one of abnegation and asceticism. It was the
belief that human reason could not be trusted to have independent
activity, and so dogma was substituted for its free movement. The mind
was cribbed and confined by rules, for fear that speculations in
philosophy and free investigations would disturb and rationalize
theology. Thought was so fettered that philosophy, literature and
science were almost forgotten. Everything was done to subserve the
faith and suppress heresy. The Latin and Greek classics were denounced
as the offspring of the pagan world. It required several centuries for
the Christian world to conceive that there was no antagonism between
reason and authority, and between Greek and Roman culture and the
Christian religion. These schools, however, did a valuable service to
the cause of education by transcribing manuscripts and becoming
repositories of ancient learning.

The intellectual chaos began to e