and educated as a monk in the Benedictine convent of that place. He accompanied Count Borel of
Barcelona to Spain and acquired there some knowledge of Arabic learning, but probably only
through Latin translations. He also visited Rome (968) in company of his patron Borel, and attracted
the attention of Pope John XIII., who recommended him to Emperor Otho the Great. He afterwards
became the tutor and friend of the youthful Otho III., and inspired him with the romantic and
abortive scheme of re-establishing the Graeco-Roman empire of Constantine the Great in the city
of Rome. He was ambitious and fond of basking in the sunshine of imperial and royal favor.
Gerbert became master of the cathedral school of Rheims and acquired great fame as a
scholar and teacher. He collected rare and valuable books on every subject. He was intensely
interested in every branch of knowledge, divine and human, especially in mathematics, astronomy,
physics, and music; he first introduced the Arabic numerals and the decimal notation into France,
and showed his scientific and mechanical genius by the construction of astronomical instruments
and an organ blown by steam. At the same time he was a man of affairs, a statesman and
politician.^1492
In 972 he obtained through imperial favor the abbey, of Bobbio, but was involved in
contentions with the neighboring nobles and left in disgust, though retaining his dignity. "All Italy,"
he wrote to a friend, "appears to me a Rome, and the morals of the Romans are the horror of the
world." He returned to his position at Rheims, attracted pupils from near and far and raised the
cathedral school to the height of prosperity. He was the secretary of the council held in the basilica
of St. Basolus near Rheims in 991, and gave shape to the flaming speech of the learned bishop
Arnulf of Orleans against the assumptions and corruptions of the papacy.^1493 No Gallican could
have spoken more boldly. By the same synod Arnulf, archbishop of Rheims, an illegitimate son of
one of the last Carolingian kings, was deposed on the charge of treason against Hugh Capet, and
Gerbert was chosen in his place, at the desire of the king. But his election was disputed, and he
assumed an almost schismatical attitude towards Rome. He was deposed, and his rival Arnulf, with
the aid of the pope, reinstated by a Council of Senlis or Rheims (996).^1494 He now left France and
accepted an invitation of his pupil Otho III. to Magdeburg, followed him to Italy (996), was by
imperial favor made archbishop of Ravenna (998), and a year afterwards raised to the papal throne
as Sylvester II. He was the first French pope. The three R’s (Rheims, Ravenna, Rome) mark his
highest dignities, as expressed in the line ascribed to him:
"Scandit ab R. Gerbertus in R., fit postea papa vigens R."
As Gerbert of Rheims he had advocated liberal views and boldly attacked the Roman
Antichrists who at that time were seated in the temple of God; but as Sylvester II. he disowned his
(^1492) Giesebrecht (I. 615) says of Gerbert: "Er gehörte zu den seltenen Gelehrten, die in den weltlichen Dingen gleich
heimisch sind, wie in dem Reich der Ideen, die von unbegrenzter Empfänglichkeit sich jeden Stoff aneignen, leicht alle Verhältnisse
durchschauen und bemeistern, denen die Hülfsmittel des Geistes nie versiegen, und deren Kräfte auch die zerstreuteste Thätigkeit
kaum erschöpft."
(^1493) See above, p. 290 sqq. Baronius declares this synod a fiction of Gerbert, and makes him responsible for the sentiments,
the Benedictine editors of the Hist. Lit. only for the style, of the acts, "qui est beaucoup au-dussus de celuis de quantité d’ autres
écrits du mème temps." The acts were first published in the Magdeburg Centuries, and then by Mansi and Pertz. See Hefele,
IV. 647 sq.
(^1494) Richer says Senlis (in the province of Rheims); Aimons, his continuator says Rheims. The acts of that synod are lost.
See Hefele, IV. 646.