The dangers of too much scholarship

Bjorn Weiler reports on Matthew Paris's view of the dangers of approaching schoarship in the wrong spirit:

, scholarly curiosity pursued as an end in itself, unrestrained and unguided by a desire to be useful, posed a grave danger to the writer’s chances of redemption and salvation. This, at least, is the thrust of two episodes recorded in the Gesta abbatum and the Chronica respectively. The Gesta’s account of the abbacy of William of Trumpington (1214–35) includes the monitory example of Alexander de Langley, keeper of the abbot’s seal. Alexander had obtained his position by his skill in rhetoric (he had once written a most elegant letter to the pope). However, Alexander began to study in an almost manic fashion, became arrogant, and went insane. He was eventually whipped for his transgressions and transferred to a remote dependency of St Albans, where he died a miserable and lonely death. 45

Matthew Paris was a thirteenth-century monk, historian, and illustrator.

Matthew Paris shows Louis I of France crossing to England to support the English barons.