and at the close of the year he sat in the council of Verneuil, and drew up the canons.^1323 Can. XII.
is directed against the king’s seizure on ecclesiastical property. His own special grievance was that
Charles had rewarded the fidelity of a certain Count Odulf by allowing him the revenues of the cell
or monastery of St. Judocus on the coast of Picardy (St. Josse sur mer), which had belonged to
Alcuin, but was given to Ferrières by Louis the Pious, and the loss of which greatly crippled his
already expensive monastery.^1324 It was not, however, until 849 that the cell was restored. This is
the more strange because Charles had a high regard for his learning and diplomatic skill, as is shown
by his employment of Lupus in delicate public business. Thus in 847 Lupus sat in the peace congress
at Utrecht between Lothair, Louis and Charles the Bald. In midsummer 849 Charles sent him to
Leo IV. at Rome concerning the ecclesiastical encroachments of the Breton Duke Nominoi. In the
spring of 853 he sat in the council of Soissons and took Hincmar’s side regarding the deposition
of those priests whom Ebo had ordained, after his own deposition in 835. In the same year he
attended the convocation of the diocese of Sens and there sided with Prudentius against Hincmar’s
deliverances in the Gottschalk controversy. It is supposed that he was also at the council of Quiercy,
857, because his Admonitio^1325 is written in the spirit of the deliberations of that council respecting
the troubles of the times. In 858 he was sent on diplomatic business to Louis the German. But in
the same year he was forced by the exigencies of the times to deposit the abbey’s valuables with
the monks of St. Germain Auxerrois for safe keeping. In 861 Foleric of Troyes offered protection
to his monastery. In 862 he was at Pistes, and drew up the sentence of the Council against Robert,
archbishop of Mans. As after this date all trace of Lupus is lost, his death during that year is probable,
Servatus Lupus was one of the great scholars of the ninth century. But he gained knowledge
under great difficulties, for the stress of circumstances drove him out of the seclusion he loved, and
forced him to appear as a soldier, although he knew not how to fight, to write begging letters instead
of pursuing his studies, and even to suffer imprisonment. Yet the love of learning which manifested
itself in his childhood and increased with his years, notwithstanding the poor educational
arrangements at Ferrières,^1326 became at length a master passion and dominated his thoughts.^1327 It
mattered not how pressing was the business in hand, he would not let business drive study out of
his mind. He set before him the costly and laborious project of collecting a library of the Latin
classics, and applied to all who could assist him, even to the pope (Benedict III.). He was thankful
for the loan of codices, so that by comparison he might make a good text. He was constantly at
work upon the classics and gives abundant evidence of the culture which such study produces, in
his "uncommon skill in the lucid exposition of a subject."^1328
His Works are very few. Perhaps the horrible confusion of the period hindered authorship,
or like many another scholar he may have shrunk from the labor and the after criticism. In his
collected works the first place is occupied by his
(^1323326)
Hefele, IV. III. Pertz, Legg. I. 383.
(^1324) Epist. 71, Migne, CXIX. col. 533.
(^1325) It appears as Epist. 100 in Migne, ibid. col. 575.
(^1326) Epist. 1, ibid. col. 433.
(^1327) Epist. 35, ibid. col. 502.
(^1328) Neander, vol. iii. p. 482. Ebert has a good passage on this point (l.c. p. 205-206). Also Mullinger, p. 165 sqq.