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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Thirteenth, by James J. Walsh
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Thirteenth
+       Greatest of Centuries
+
+Author: James J. Walsh
+
+Release Date: January 27, 2012 [EBook #38680]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THIRTEENTH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Kostuch
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's notes]
+  This is derived from these copies on the Internet Archive:
+   http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029759630  (1920)
+   http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014712875  (1907)
+  The two editions are combined because of missing pages in
+  one and missing images in the other.
+
+  Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly
+  braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred
+  in the original book.
+
+  Obvious spelling errors have been corrected but "inventive" and
+  inconsistent spelling is left unchanged.
+
+[End Transcriber's notes]
+
+
+
+
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+
+
+FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS SERIES
+
+MAKERS OF MODERN MEDICINE
+Lives of the men to whom nineteenth century medical science owes most.
+Second Edition. New York, 1910. $3.00 net.
+
+THE POPES AND SCIENCE
+The story of Papal patronage of the sciences and especially
+medicine. 45th thousand. New York, 1911. $3.00 net.
+
+MAKERS OF ELECTRICITY
+Lives of the men to whom important advances in electricity are due. In
+collaboration with Brother Potamian, F. S. C, Sc.D. (London),
+Professor of Physics at Manhattan College. New York, 1909. $2.50 net.
+
+EDUCATION, HOW OLD THE NEW
+Addresses in the history of education on various occasions.
+3rd thousand. New York, 1911. $2.50 net.
+
+OLD-TIME MAKERS OF MEDICINE
+The story of the students and teachers of the sciences related to
+medicine during the Middle Ages. New York, 1911, $2.50 net.
+
+MODERN PROGRESS AND HISTORY.
+Academic addresses on how old the new is in Education, Medicine,
+Dentistry, Politics, etc. New York, 1912. $2.50 act.
+
+THE CENTURY OF COLUMBUS
+The story of the Renaissance $3.50 net.
+
+
+THE DOLPHIN PRESS SERIES
+
+CATHOLIC CHURCHMEN IN SCIENCE
+First, second and third series, each $1.00 net.
+
+
+PSYCHOTHERAPY
+
+Lectures on The Influence of the Mind on the Body delivered at Fordham
+University School of Medicine. Appletons, New York, 1912. $6.50 net.
+
+{i}
+
+{ii}
+
+[Illustration]
+LE BEAU DIEU (AMIENS)
+
+{iii}
+
+THE THIRTEENTH
+
+Greatest of Centuries
+
+
+
+BY
+
+JAMES J. WALSH, K.C.St.G., M.D., Ph.D., LL.D,
+
+LITT. D. (Georgetown), Sc.D. (Notre Dame)
+
+MEDICAL DIRECTOR, SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY;
+PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY AT CATHEDRAL COLLEGE,
+NEW YORK; LECTURER IN PSYCHOLOGY, MARYWOOD COLLEGE,
+SCRANTON AND ST. MARY'S COLLEGE, PLAINFIELD;
+TRUSTEE OF THE CATHOLIC SUMMER SCHOOL OF AMERICA;
+MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, OF THE GERMAN
+AND FRENCH AND ITALIAN SOCIETIES OF THE HISTORY OF
+MEDICINE, A.M.A., A.A.A.S., ETC.
+
+
+
+_Popular Edition_
+
+_ (Sixtieth Thousand)_
+
+
+
+CATHOLIC SUMMER SCHOOL PRESS
+New York, 1920
+
+{iv}
+
+_ Copyright 1907_
+James J. Walsh
+
+
+
+Set up and stereotyped 1907 (first edition 2,000)
+
+Reprinted with Appendix 1909
+
+Georgetown edition enlarged and extra illustrated 1910
+
+Fourth edition reprinted with additions (6th thousand) 1912
+
+Fifth edition, Knights of Columbus, 50,000, 1912-1913.
+
+
+
+Made by
+
+THE SUPERIOR PRINTING CO
+
+AKRON, OHIO
+
+{v}
+
+To Right Rev. Monsignor M. J. Lavelle,
+
+Rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, sometime President of the
+Catholic Summer School, to whose fatherly patronage this book is
+largely due, and without whose constant encouragement it would not
+have been completed, it is respectfully and affectionately dedicated
+by the author.
+
+{vi}
+
+PROEM.
+
+(EPIMETHEUS.)
+
+  WAKE again, Teutonic Father-ages,
+    Speak again, beloved primeval creeds;
+  Flash ancestral spirit from your pages,
+    Wake the greedy age to noble deeds.
+
+.....
+
+  Ye who built the churches where we worship,
+    Ye who framed the laws by which we move,
+  Fathers, long belied, and long forsaken,
+    Oh, forgive the children of your love!
+
+(PEOMETHEUS.)
+
+  There will we find laws which shall interpret,
+    Through the simpler past, existing life;
+  Delving up from mines and fairy caverns
+    Charmed blades to cut the age's strife.
+
+  _--Rev. Charles Kingsley.--The Saints' Tragedy._
+
+
+{vii}
+
+PREFACE.
+
+"Why take the style of these heroic times? For nature brings not back
+the mastodon--Nor we those times; and why should any man Remodel
+models?"
+
+
+What Tennyson thus said of his own first essay in the Idyls of the
+King, in the introduction to the Morte D'Arthur, occurs as probably
+the aptest expression of most men's immediate thought with regard to
+such a subject as The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries. Though
+Tennyson was confessedly only remodeling the thoughts of the
+Thirteenth Century, we would not be willing to concede--
+
+  "That nothing new was said, or else.
+  Something so said, 'twas nothing,"
+
+for the loss of the Idyls would make a large lacuna in the literature
+of the Nineteenth Century, "if it is allowed to compare little things
+with great," a similar intent to that of the Laureate has seemed
+sufficient justification for the paradox the author has tried to set
+forth in this volume. It may prove "nothing worth, mere chaff and
+draff much better burnt," but many friends have insisted they found it
+interesting. Authors usually blame friends for their inflictions upon
+the public, and I fear that I can find no better excuse, though the
+book has been patiently labored at, with the idea that it should
+represent some of the serious work that is being done by the Catholic
+Summer School on Lake Champlain, {viii} now completing nearly a decade
+and a half of its existence. This volume is, it is hoped, but the
+first of a series that will bring to a wider audience some of the
+thoughts that have been gathered for Summer School friends by many
+workers, and will put in more permanent form contributions that made
+summer leisure respond to the Greek term for school.
+
+The object of the book is to interpret, in terms that will be readily
+intelligible to this generation, the life and concerns of the people
+of a century who, to the author's mind, have done more for human
+progress than those of any like period in human history. There are few
+whose eyes are now holden as they used to be, as to the surpassing
+place in the history of culture of the last three centuries of the
+Middle Ages. Personally the author is convinced, however, that only a
+beginning of proper appreciation has come as yet, and he feels that
+the solution of many problems that are vexing the modern world,
+especially in the social order, are to be found in these much
+misunderstood ages, and above all in that culmination of medieval
+progress--the period from 1200 to 1300.
+
+The subject was originally taken up as a series of lectures in the
+extension course of the Catholic Summer School, as given each year in
+Lent and Advent at the Catholic Club, New York City. Portions of the
+material were subsequently used in lectures in many cities in this
+country from Portland, Me., to Portland, Ore., St. Paul, Minn., to New
+Orleans, La. The subject was treated _in extenso_ for the Brooklyn
+Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1906, after which publication was
+suggested.
+
+The author does not flatter himself that the book adequately
+represents the great period which it claims to present. The subject
+has been the central idea of studies in leisure moments for a dozen
+years, and during many wanderings in Europe but there will doubtless
+prove to be errors in detail, for which the author would crave the
+indulgence of more serious students {ix} of history. The original form
+in which the material was cast has influenced the style to some
+extent, and has made the book more wordy than it would otherwise have
+been, and has been the cause of certain repetitions that appear more
+striking in print than they seemed in manuscript. There were what
+seemed good reasons for not delaying publication, however, and leisure
+for further work at it, instead of growing, was becoming more scant.
+It is intrusted to the tender mercies of critics, then, and the
+benevolent reader, if he still may be appealed to, for the sake of the
+ideas it contains, in spite of their inadequate expression.
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+(GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY EDITION).
+
+This third edition is published under the patronage of Georgetown
+University as a slight token of appreciation for the degree of Doctor
+of Letters, conferred on the author for this work at the last
+Commencement. This issue has been enlarged by the addition of many
+illustrations selected to bring out the fact that all the various
+parts of Europe shared in the achievements of the time and by an
+appendix containing in compendium Twenty-Six Chapters that Might Have
+Been. Each of these brief sketches could easily have been extended to
+the average length of the original chapters. It was impossible to use
+all the material that was gathered. These hints of further sources are
+now appended so as to afford suggestions for study to those who may
+care to follow up the idea of the Thirteenth as The Greatest of
+Centuries, that is, of that period in human existence when man's
+thoughts on all the important human interests were profoundly valuable
+for future generations and their accomplishments models for all the
+after time.
+
+{x}
+
+PREFACE.
+(FOURTH EDITION).
+
+Many of the now rather numerous readers and hearers of this book, for
+it has been read in the refectories of over 200 religious communities,
+have said that the title seemed almost deterring at first because of
+the high claim that is set up for a medieval century. To mitigate the
+possible initial deterrent effect of the paradox of the Thirteenth as
+the Greatest of Centuries, it has seemed worth while in this edition
+then to premise a series of quotations from some of the most
+distinguished historical writers in English of our own time which
+amply justify the claim here set up. Frederic Harrison, Macaulay,
+Freeman, and Fiske are sufficiently different in themselves to make
+their agreement in supreme admiration for the Thirteenth Century very
+striking. In spite of their lack of sympathy with many things in the
+period, all of them emphatically declare that it is the source of most
+that is great and good since, and that while we have added details, we
+have failed to surpass its artistic and intellectual achievement in
+all the 700 years that have elapsed.
+
+August 15, 1912.
+
+
+PREFACE.
+(FIFTH EDITION).
+
+After the success of the Knights of Columbus edition of the Popes and
+Science of which 40,000 were issued it gives me great pleasure to
+accede to the request of the Supreme Officers of the Order to permit
+them to issue a correspondingly large edition of the present volume.
+The good work which the Knights of Columbus have thus done in
+diffusing a knowledge of the true relations of the Church to
+science,--generous patronage and encouragement, instead of supposed
+opposition,--will, I think, be greatly furthered by the wide
+distribution of the information contained in this volume with regard
+to the supremely helpful attitude of the Church towards art and
+architecture, literature, education and above all the important social
+problems, which is so well illustrated during the great period of the
+Thirteenth Century. I sincerely hope that brother Knights of Columbus
+will find in the book some of that renewal of devotion to Mother
+Church that came as the result of my own studies of this glorious
+period of her history, when her action was untrammelled by political
+considerations and when she was free to express herself in every great
+movement for the benefit of humanity.
+
+Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 1912.
+
+{xi}
+
+  FREDERIC HARRISON, MACAULAY,
+  FREEMAN, AND FISKE
+
+ON
+
+THE PLACE OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY IN HISTORY
+
+
+Of all the epochs of effort after a new life, that of the age of
+Aquinas, Roger Bacon, St. Francis, St. Louis, Giotto, and Dante is the
+most purely spiritual, the most really constructive, and indeed the
+most truly philosophic. . . . The whole thirteenth century is crowded
+with creative forces in philosophy, art, poetry, and statesmanship as
+rich as those of the humanist _Renaissance_. And if we are accustomed
+to look on them as so much more limited and rude it is because we
+forget how very few and poor were their resources and their
+instruments. In creative genius Giotto is the peer, if not the
+superior of Raphael. Dante had all the qualities of his three chief
+successors and very much more besides. It is a tenable view that in
+inventive fertility and in imaginative range, those vast composite
+creations--the Cathedrals of the Thirteenth Century, in all their
+wealth of architectural statuary, painted glass, enamels,
+embroideries, and inexhaustible decorative work may be set beside the
+entire painting of the sixteenth century. Albert and Aquinas, in
+philosophic range, had no peer until we come down to Descartes, nor
+was Roger Bacon surpassed in versatile audacity of genius and in true
+encyclopaedic grasp by any thinker between him and his namesake the
+Chancellor. In statesmanship and all the qualities of the born leader
+of men we can only match the great chiefs of the Thirteenth Century by
+comparing them with the greatest names three or even four centuries
+later.
+
+Now this great century, the last of the true Middle Ages, which as it
+drew to its own end gave birth to Modern Society, has a special
+character of its own, a character that gives it an abiding and
+enchanting interest. We find in it a harmony of power, a universality
+of endowment, a glow, an aspiring ambition and confidence such as we
+never find in later centuries, at least so generally and so
+permanently diffused. . . .
+
+The Thirteenth Century was an era of no special character. It was in
+nothing one-sided and in nothing discordant. It had great thinkers,
+great rulers, great teachers, great poets, {xii} great artists, great
+moralists, and great workmen. It could not be called the material age,
+the devotional age, the political age, or the poetic age in any
+special degree. It was equally poetic, political, industrial,
+artistic, practical, intellectual, and devotional. And these qualities
+acted in harmony on a uniform conception of life with a real symmetry
+of purpose.
+
+There was one common creed, one ritual, one worship, one sacred
+language, one Church, a single code of manners, a uniform scheme of
+society, a common system of education, an accepted type of beauty, a
+universal art, something like a recognized standard of the Good, the
+Beautiful, and the True. One-half of the world was not occupied in
+ridiculing or combating what the other half was doing. Nor were men
+absorbed in ideals of their own, while treating the ideals of their
+neighbors as matters of indifference and waste of power. Men as
+utterly different from each other, as were Stephen Langton, St.
+Francis, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Dante, Giotto, St. Louis, Edward
+I--all profoundly accepted one common order of ideas, equally applying
+to things of the intellect, of moral duty, of action, and of the
+soul--to public and private life at once--and they could all feel that
+they were all together working out the same task. It may be doubted if
+that has happened in Europe ever since.--Frederic Harrison, _A Survey
+of the Thirteenth Century in the Meaning of History and Other
+Historical Pieces_. Macmillan, 1908.
+
+* * *
+
+The sources of the noblest rivers which spread fertility over
+continents, and bear richly laden fleets to the sea, are to be sought
+in wild and barren mountain tracts, incorrectly laid down in maps, and
+rarely explored by travellers. To such a tract the history of our
+country during the Thirteenth Century may not unaptly be compared.
+Sterile and obscure as is that portion of our annals, it is there that
+we must seek for the origin of our freedom, our prosperity, and our
+glory. Then it was that the great English people was formed, that the
+national character began to exhibit those peculiarities which it has
+ever since retained, and that our fathers became emphatically
+islanders, islanders not merely in geographical position, but in their
+politics, their feelings, and their manners. Then first appeared with
+distinctness that constitution which has ever since, through all
+changes, preserved its identity; that constitution of which all the
+other free constitutions in the world are copies, and which, in spite
+of some defects, deserves to be regarded as the best under which any
+great {xiii} society has ever yet existed during many ages. Then it
+was that the House of Commons, the archetype of all the representative
+assemblies which now meet, either in the old or in the new world, held
+its first sittings. Then it was that the common law rose to the
+dignity of a science, and rapidly became a not unworthy rival of the
+imperial jurisprudence. Then it was that the courage of those sailors
+who manned the rude barks of the Cinque Ports first made the flag of
+England terrible on the seas. Then it was that the most ancient
+colleges which still exist at both the great national seats of
+learning were founded. Then was formed that language, less musical
+indeed than the languages of the south, but in force, in richness, in
+aptitude for all the highest purposes of the poet, the philosopher,
+and the orator, inferior to the tongue of Greece alone. Then too
+appeared the first faint dawn of that noble literature, the most
+splendid and the most durable of the many glories of
+England.--Macaulay.
+
+* * *
+
+This time of fusion during which all direct traces of foreign conquest
+were got rid of, was naturally the time during which the political and
+social institutions of the country gradually took on that form which
+distinguishes modern England, the England of the last 600 years from
+the older England of the first 600 years of English history. ... By
+the time of Edward I, though the English tongue had not yet finally
+displaced French, it had assumed the main characters which
+distinguished its modern from its ancient form. In architecture a
+great change had taken place, by which the Romanesque style gave way
+to the so-called Gothic. The subordinate arts had taken prodigious
+strides. The sculpture of the thirteenth century is parted from that
+of the twelfth by a wider gap than any that parts these centuries, in
+law or language. _And in the root of the matter in our law and
+constitution itself those changes have been made which wrought the
+body politic of England into a shape which has left future ages
+nothing to do but to improve in detail_. (Italics ours.)
+
+In short the great destructive and creative age of Europe and
+civilized Asia passed over England as it passed over other lands. The
+age which saw the Eastern Empire fall beneath the arms of the Frank
+and the Eastern Caliphate before the arms of the Mogul--the age which
+saw the true power and glory of the Western Empire buried in the grave
+of the Wonder of the World--the age which ruled that the warriors of
+the Cross should work their will in Spain and in Prussia {xiv} and
+should not work their Will in the Holy Land itself--the age which made
+Venice mistress of the Eastern seas, and bade Florence stand forth as
+the new type of democratic freedom--the age which changed the nominal
+kingship of the Lord of Paris and Orleans into the mighty realm of
+Philip Augustus and Philip the Fair--this age of wonders did its work
+of wonder in England also.--Freeman, _The Norman Conquest_, Vol. V,
+page 606. Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1876.
+
+* * *
+
+The moment when this interaction might have seemed on the point of
+reaching a complete and harmonious result was the glorious thirteenth
+century, the culminating moment of the Holy Roman Empire. Then, as in
+the times of Caesar or Trajan, there might have seemed to be a union
+among civilized men, in which the separate life of individuals and
+localities was not submerged. In that golden age, alike of feudal
+system of empire and of Church, there were to be seen the greatest
+monarchs, in fullest sympathy with their peoples, that Christendom has
+ever known--an Edward I, a St. Louis, a Frederick II. Then when in the
+Pontificates of Innocent III and his successors the Roman Church
+reached its apogee, the religious yearning of men sought expressions
+in the sublimest architecture the world has seen. Then Aquinas summed
+up in his profound speculations the substance of Catholic theology,
+and while the morning twilight of modern science might be discerned in
+the treatises of Roger Bacon, while wandering minstrelsy revealed the
+treasures of modern speech, soon to be wrought under the hands of
+Dante and Chaucer into forms of exquisite beauty, the sacred fervor of
+the apostolic ages found itself renewed in the tender and mystic piety
+of St. Francis of Assisi. It was a wonderful time, but after all less
+memorable as the culmination of medieval empire and medieval church
+than as the dawning of the new era in which we live to-day.
+
+* * *
+
+While wave after wave of Germanic colonization poured over Romanized
+Europe, breaking down old boundary lines and working sudden and
+astonishing changes on the map, setting up in every quarter baronies,
+dukedoms, and kingdoms fermenting with vigorous political life; while
+for twenty generations this salutary but wild and dangerous work was
+going on, there was never a moment when the imperial sway of {xv} Rome
+was quite set aside and forgotten, there was never a time when union
+of some sort was not maintained through the dominion which the Church
+had established over the European mind. When we duly consider this
+great fact in its relations to what went before and what came after,
+it is hard to find words fit to express the debt of gratitude which
+modern civilization owes to the Roman Catholic Church. When we think
+of all the work, big with promise of the future, that went on in those
+centuries which modern writers in their ignorance used once to set
+apart and stigmatize as the "Dark Ages"; when we consider how the
+seeds of what is noblest in modern life were then painfully sown upon
+the soil which Imperial Rome had prepared; when we think of the
+various work of a Gregory, a Benedict, a Boniface, an Alfred, a
+Charlemagne, we feel that there is a sense in which the most brilliant
+achievements of pagan antiquity are dwarfed in comparison with these.
+Until quite lately, indeed, the student of history has had his
+attention too narrowly confined to the ages that have been pre-eminent
+for literature and art--the so-called classical ages--and thus his
+sense of historical perspective has been impaired.--Fiske, _The
+Beginnings of New England, or The Puritan Theocracy in its Relations
+to Civil and Religions Liberty_.
+
+{xvi}
+
+{xvii}
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTION, THE THIRTEENTH, GREATEST OF CENTURIES.   1
+
+Deeds and men of a marvellous period. Evolution and man. No
+intellectual development in historical period. The wonderful medieval
+pre-renaissance. Our Gothic ancestors. Education for the classes and
+masses. Universities, cathedrals, arts, and crafts. Origins in art.
+Supreme literature in every language. Origins in law and liberty.
+Beginnings of modern democracy.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+UNIVERSITIES AND PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.    18
+
+Origins of universities. Triumph of invention. Character unchanged
+ever since. University evolution, Salerno, Bologna, Paris, Oxford,
+Cambridge, Italian, French and Spanish Universities. Origin of
+preparatory schools. Cathedral colleges. Decree of the Council of
+Lateran, every cathedral to have a school and metropolitan churches to
+have colleges. Attendance at these preparatory schools.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WHAT AND HOW THEY STUDIED AT THE UNIVERSITIES.   33
+
+Education of the Middle Ages usually ridiculed. Ignorance of critics.
+Scholastics laughed at by those only who know them, but at second
+hand. "Logic, ethics and metaphysics owe to scholasticism a precision,
+unknown to the ancients themselves" (Condorcet.) Teaching methods.
+Scholarly interests quite as in our own day. Magnetism in literature.
+A magnetic engine. Aquinas and the indestructibility of matter and the
+conservation of energy. Roger Bacon's four grounds of human ignorance.
+Prophecy of explosives for motor purposes. Correction of the calendar.
+Contributions to optics. Experiment as the basis of scientific
+knowledge. Whewell's appreciation. Albertus Magnus and the natural
+sciences Humboldt's praise for his physical geography. Contributions
+to botany. Declaration with regard to foolish popular notions. The
+{xviii} great group of scientific men at the University of Paris.
+Robert of Sorbonne's directions how to study. Education of the heart
+as well as the head.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS AND DISCIPLINE.   58
+
+Largest universities of all time. More students to the population than
+at any time since. Discussion as to the numbers in attendance.
+Comparative average ages of students. How such numbers were supported.
+Working their way through college. Some reasons for false impressions,
+as to university attendance. M. Compayré's paragraph on education in
+the Middle Ages. Supposed ignorance. The monks at the universities.
+How many students clerical. College abuses and discipline. The
+"nations," the under-graduate committee on discipline. Teaching
+practical democracy.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+POST-GRADUATE WORK AT THE UNIVERSITIES.   78
+
+Medieval universities and additions to knowledge. Original work done,
+their best apology. Extensive writings of professors. Enthusiasm of
+students who copied their books. Post-graduate work in theology and in
+philosophy. Period of the scholastics. Graduates in law and
+collections and digests. Post-graduate work in medicine most
+important. Teaching by case histories. The significance of dropsy,
+suture of divided nerves, healing by first intention. William of
+Salicet and his pupil Lanfranc. The danger of the separation of
+surgery from medicine. Red light and smallpox. Mondaville and Arnold
+of Villanova. The republication of old texts. The supposed bull
+forbidding anatomy. The supposed bull forbidding chemistry. The
+encouragement of science in the medieval universities.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE BOOK OF THE ARTS AND POPULAR EDUCATION.   96
+
+The Gothic Cathedrals, the stone books of medieval arts. St. Hugh of
+Lincoln. Wealth of meaning in the Cathedrals. Their power to please.
+Gothic architecture everywhere, but no slavish imitation. English,
+French, German, and Italian Gothic. Spanish Gothic. Gothic ideas in
+modern architecture. Beauty of details. Sculpture. Gothic Statuary,
+not stiff, nor ugly. Most affinity with Greek sculpture (Reinach). The
+Angel Choir at Lincoln. {xix} The marvellous stained glass of the
+period,--Lincoln, York, Chartres, Bourges. Storied windows and their
+teachings. Beauty and utility in the arts. Magnificent needlework, the
+Cope of Ascoli. The Cathedral as an educator. The Great Stone Book,
+which he who ran must read. Symbolism of the Cathedrals. The great
+abbeys, the monasteries, municipal and domestic architecture of the
+century. Furniture and decorations. Ruskin on Giotto's tower.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ARTS AND CRAFTS--GREAT TECHNICAL SCHOOLS.   124
+
+Solution of problems of social unrest. Blessed is the man who has
+found his work. Merrie England. The workman's pleasure in his work.
+Influence of the Church in the arts and crafts movement. Rivalry in
+building the Cathedrals. Organization of technical instruction.
+Correction of optical illusions. The village blacksmith and carpenter.
+Comparative perfection of the work done then and now. The trade guilds
+and the training of workmen. The system of instruction, apprentice,
+journeyman, master. The masterpiece. Social co-operation and
+fraternity. Mystery plays and social education.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+GREAT ORIGINS IN PAINTING.   138
+
+Rise of painting. Franciscans and Dominicans, patrons of art. St.
+Francis' return to nature, the incentive of art. Cimabue's Madonna.
+Gaddi. Guido, Ugolino and Duccio of Siena. Berlinghieri of Lucca,
+Giunta of Pisa. Giotto the master. His work at Assisi, Verona, Naples,
+Rome. Marvellous universal appreciation of art. Contrast with other
+times. False notions with regard to Gothic art. Sadness not a
+characteristic. The beauty of the human form divine.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+LIBRARIES AND BOOKMEN.  149
+
+Monastic regulations for collecting and lending books. Library rules.
+Circulating libraries. The Abbey of St. Victor, the Sorbonne, St.
+Germain des Prés, and Notre Dame. Fines for misuse of books. Library
+catalogues. Library of La Ste. Chapelle. First medical library at the
+Hotel Dieu. How books were collected. Exchange of books. Special
+revenue for the libraries in the monasteries. Book collecting and
+bequests by ecclesiastics. Cost of books. Franciscan and Dominican
+libraries. Richard De Bury's {xx} Philobiblon. How books were valued.
+Richard a typical bookman. His place in history. Illuminated books.
+The most interesting and original of all time (Humphreys). St. Louis'
+beautiful books.
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE CID, THE HOLY GRAIL, THE NIBELUNGEN.   166
+
+Literature equal to accomplishment in other lines. Architecture and
+literature, and the expression of national feelings. National epics of
+three western-most nations informed within the same half century. The
+Cid, its unity of authorship and action. Martial interest and spirited
+style. Tender domestic scenes. Psychological analysis. Walter Mapes,
+and the Arthur Legends. Authorship and place in literature. Launcelot
+one of the greatest heroes ever invented. Unity of authorship of
+Nibelungen. Place in literature. Modern interest. Influence of these
+epics on national poetry.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MEISTERSINGERS, MINNESINGERS, TROUVÈRES, TROUBADOURS.   182
+
+A great century of song. The high character of women, as represented
+in these songs. Nature-poetry, and love. Walter Von der Vogelweide,
+Hartman Von Aue, Wolfram Von Eschenbach, Conrad Von Kirchberg. The
+Troubadours and their love songs. Selections from Arnaud de Marveil,
+Arnaud Daniel, Bertrand de Born, William of St. Gregory, and Peyrols.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+GREAT LATIN HYMNS.  194
+
+Greatest poetic bequest of the period. Place of rhyme in Latin. Latin
+hymns the first native poetry in the language. Influence of their
+charm of rhyme and rhythm on the developing languages of Europe.
+Supremacy of the Dies Irae, its many admirers. Other surpassing Latin
+Hymns. Celtic origin of rhyme. The Stabat Mater, some translations.
+Critical faculty in hymn selection. Jerusalem the Golden, its place in
+Christian song. Aquinas' hymn, the Pange Lingua, its popularity.
+Musical expression of feeling and plain chant. The best examples from
+this period. Invention of part music, its adaptation and development
+in popular music.
+
+{xxi}
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE THREE MOST READ BOOKS.  209
+
+A generation and the books it reads. Reynard the Fox, the Golden
+Legend, and the Romance of the Rose. "Reynard the most profoundly
+humorous book ever written." Powers of the author as observer. Besides
+Gulliver's Travels, Don Quixote and Pilgrim's Progress. Its relations
+to Uncle Remus and many other animal stories. The place of the Golden
+Legend in literature. Longfellow's use of it. The Romance of the Rose
+for three centuries the most read book in Europe. The answer to the
+charge of dullness. The Rose as a commentary on the morning paper. The
+abuse of wealth as the poet saw it in the Thirteenth Century. Praise
+of "poverty light heart and gay."
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+SOME THIRTEENTH CENTURY PROSE.   221
+
+Prose of the century as great as the poetry. Medieval Latin
+unappreciated but eminently expressive. The prose style, simple,
+direct and nicely accurate. Saintsbury's opinion as to the influence
+on modern literature of the scholastic philosophers' style. The
+chroniclers and the modern war correspondent. Villehardouin, Jocelyn
+of Brakelond, Joinville, Matthew of Paris. Vincent of Beauvais and the
+first encyclopedia. Pagel's opinion of Vincent's style. Durandus'
+famous work on symbolism. Examples of his style. The Scriptures as the
+basis of style.
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ORIGIN OF DRAMA.   238
+
+St. Francis and the first nativity play. Earlier mystery plays.
+Chester cycle. Humorous passages introduced. Complete bible story
+represented. Actors' wages and costumes. Innocent diversion and
+educational influence. Popular interest. Everyman in our own day.
+Comparison with the passion play at Oberammergau. The drama as an
+important factor in popular education. Active as well as passive
+participation in great poetry. Anticipation of a movement only just
+beginning again.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+FRANCIS, THE SAINT--THE FATHER OF THE RENAISSANCE.   254
+
+The Renaissance, so-called. Before the Renaissance. Gothic
+architecture and art. Francis the father of the real Renaissance.
+{xxii} Matthew Arnold and "the poor little man of God." St. Francis as
+a literary man. The canticle of the Sun. St. Francis' career. The
+simple life. Ruskin on Francis' poverty. St. Francis in the last ten
+years. The disciples who gathered around him. A century of
+Franciscans. The third order of St. Francis. Kings and queens, nobles
+and scholars hail St. Francis as father. What the religious orders
+accomplished. St. Clare and the second order.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+AQUINAS, THE SCHOLAR.   270
+
+The nobility and education. Studies at Cologne and Paris. The
+distinguished faculty of Paris in his time. _Summa Contra Gentiles_.
+Pope Leo XIII. and Aquinas' teaching. Foundations of Christian
+apologetics. Characteristic passages from Aquinas. Necessity for
+revelation of God's existence. Explanation of Resurrection. Liberty in
+Aquinas' writings. Greatness of Aquinas and his contemporaries and the
+subsequent decadence of scholasticism. Contemporary appreciation of
+St. Thomas. His capacity for work. His sacred poetry.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+LOUIS, THE MONARCH.   289
+
+The greatest of rulers. His relations as a son, as a husband, as a
+father. His passion for justice. Interest in education, in books, in
+the encyclopedia. Tribute of Voltaire. Guizot's praise. The righting
+of wrongs. Letters to his son. Affection for his children. Regard for
+monks. Would have his children enter monasteries. Treatment of the
+poor. Attitude towards lepers. One of nature's noblemen. Louis and the
+crusades. Bishop Stubbs, on the real meaning of the crusades. Louis'
+interest in the crusades not a stigma, but an added reason for praise.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+DANTE, THE POET.   300
+
+Dante not a solitary phenomenon. A Troubadour. His minor poems and
+prose works. His wonderful Sonnets. The growth of appreciation for
+him. Italian art, great as it kept nearer to Dante. Tributes from
+Italy's' greatest literary men. Michael Angelo's sonnets to him. A
+world poet. English admiration old and new. Tributes of the two great
+English Cardinals. Dean Church's Essay. Ruskin on the Grotesque on
+{xxiii} Dante. German critical appreciation. Humboldt's tribute.
+America's burden of praise. Dante and the modern thinker. His
+wonderful powers of observation. Comparison with Milton. His place as
+one of the supreme poets of all times. A type of the century.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE WOMEN OF THE CENTURY.  319
+
+Women of the century worthy of the great period. St. Clare of Assisi's
+place in history. Happiness. The supper at the Portiuncula. Peace, in
+the cloister and woman's influence. Equality of sexes in the religious
+orders. St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the first settlement worker. "Dear
+St. Elizabeth's" influence on women since her time. Blanche of Castile
+as Queen and mother. Her influence as a ruler. Difficulties with her
+daughter-in-law. Mabel Rich, the London tradesman's wife, and her
+sons. Isabella Countess of Arundel and courageous womanly dignity.
+Women's work in the century. Service of the sick. Co-education in
+Italy. Reason for absence in France and England. Women professors at
+Italian universities. Feminine education four times in history.
+Reasons for decline. Women in the literature of the century. The high
+place accorded them by the poets of every country. Dante's tribute to
+their charm without a hint of the physical.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CITY HOSPITALS--ORGANIZED CHARITY.  337
+
+Charity occupied a co-ordinate place to education. Pope Innocent III.
+organized both. His foundations of the City hospitals of the world,
+the Santo Spirito at Rome the model. Rise of hospitals in every
+country, Virchow's tribute to Innocent III. Care for lepers in special
+hospitals and eradication of this disease. The meaning of this for the
+modern time and tuberculosis. Special institutions for erysipelas
+which prevented the spread of this disease. The organization of
+charity. The monasteries and the people. The freeing of prisoners held
+in slavery. Two famous orders for this purpose.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+GREAT ORIGINS IN LAW.   350
+
+Legal origins most surprising feature of the century. Significance of
+Magna Charta. Excerpts that show its character. The church, widows and
+orphans, common pleas, international law, no {xxiv} tax without
+consent, rights of freemen. Development of meaning as time and
+progress demanded it. Bracton's digest of the common law. Edward I.
+the English Justinian. Simon de Montfort. Real estate laws.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+JUSTICE AND LEGAL DEVELOPMENT.  364
+
+Legal origins in other countries besides England. Montalembert and
+France. St. Louis and the enforcement of law. Fehmic courts of Germany
+and our vigilance committees. Andrew II., and the "Golden Bull, that
+legalized anarchy" in Hungary. Laws of Poland. The Popes and legal
+codification; Innocent III, Gregory IX. Commentaries on law at the
+universities. Pope Boniface VIII, the canonist. Origin of "no taxation
+without representation."
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+DEMOCRACY, CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM AND NATIONALITY.   375
+
+Origins in popular self-government. Representation in the governing
+body. German free cities. Swiss declaration of independence. Christian
+socialism and "the three eights." Saturday half-holiday, and the
+vigils of holy-days. Christian fraternity and the guilds. Organization
+of charity. The guild merchant and fraternal solidarity. The guild of
+the Holy Cross, Stratford, and its place in town government and
+education. Progress of democracy. How the crusades strengthened the
+democratic spirit. Their place in the history of human liberty and of
+nationality.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+GREAT EXPLORERS AND THE FOUNDATION OF GEOGRAPHY.  392
+
+Geography's wonderful development. Modern problems, Thibet explored,
+Lhasa entered. This perhaps the greatest triumph of the century. Marco
+Polo's travels. Former mistrust now unstinted admiration. Striking
+observations of Polo. John of Carpini's travels in the Near East.
+Colonel Yule on the Book of the Tartars. Friar William of Rubruquis'
+travels in Tartary. Anticipations of modern opinions as to language.
+Some details of description. Friar Odoric and his Irish companion. The
+Praemonstratensian Hayton. Franciscan missionary zeal supplied for our
+geographical societies. Idle monks.
+
+{xxv}
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+GREAT BEGINNINGS OF MODERN COMMERCE.  415
+
+This is the most interesting phase for our generation. Hanseatic
+League and obscurity of its origin. League of Lombard cities and
+effect of crusades. Importance of Hansa. Enforcement of its decrees.
+Confederation of cities from England to Central Russia. Surprising
+greatness of the cities. Beginnings of international law. Commerce and
+peace. Origins of coast regulation. Fraternal initiations and their
+equivalents in the aftertime. Origins in hazing. Commerce and liberty.
+Fostering of democracy. International comity.
+
+
+APPENDIX I
+
+So-called history.  430
+
+APPENDIX II
+
+TWENTY-SIX CHAPTERS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.  432
+
+I. America in the Thirteenth Century--Papal documents.
+II. A representative upper house.
+III. The parish, and training in citizenship.
+IV. The chance to rise.
+V. Insurance--fire, marine, robbery, against injustice.
+VI. Old age pensions, disability wages.
+VII. Ways and means of charity--organized charity.
+VIII. Scientific universities, investigation, writing.
+IX. Medical education and high professional status.
+X. Magnetism--first perpetual motion inventor--the North Pole.
+XI. Biological theories--evolution, recapitulation.
+XII. The Pope of the century--Innocent III.
+XIII. International arbitration.
+XIV. Bible revision.
+XV. Fiction of the century.
+XVI. Great orators.
+XVII. Great beginnings of English literature.
+XVIII. Origins of music.
+XIX. Refinement and table manners.
+XX. Textiles, satins, brocades, laces, needlework.
+XXI. Glass-making.
+XXII. Inventions.
+XXIII. Industry and trade.
+XXIV. Fairs and markets.
+XXV. Intensive farming.
+XXVI. Cartography and the teaching of geography--Hereford Map of the World.
+
+
+APPENDIX III
+
+CRITICISMS, COMMENTS, DOCUMENTS.  464
+
+Human progress. The century of origins. Education. Technical education
+of the masses. How it all stopped. Comfort and poverty. Comfort and
+happiness. Comfort and health. Hygiene. Wages and the condition of
+working people. Interest and loans. The eighteenth lowest of
+centuries.
+
+{xxvi}
+
+{xxvii}
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+1. Le Beau Dieu (Amiens)--Frontispiece  (ii)
+
+2. Virgin with the Divine Child (Mosaic, St. Mark's, Venice)--Opposite page 5
+
+3. Pulpit (N. Pisano, Siena)--Opposite page  8
+
+4. Archangel Michael (Giovanni Pisano, Pisa)--Opposite page 13
+
+5. Christ (Andrea Pisano, Florence)--Opposite page 13
+
+6. Sta. Reparata (Andrea Pisano, Florence)--Opposite page 13
+
+7. Paschal Candlestick (Baptistery, Florence)--Opposite page 15
+
+8. Reliquary (Cathedral Orvieto, Ugolino di Vieri)--Opposite page 15
+
+9. The Church in Symbol (Paris)--On page 17
+
+10. Adoration of Magi (Pulpit, Siena, Nic. Pisano)--Opposite page  22
+
+11. Cathedral (Lincoln)--Opposite page 28
+
+12. Cathedral (York)--Opposite page 28
+
+13. Cloister of St. John Lateran (Rome)--Opposite page 32
+
+14. Jacques Coeur's House (Bourges)--On page 32
+
+15. Rathhaus (Tangermünde)--Opposite page 42
+
+16. Cathedral (Hereford)--Opposite page 44
+
+17. Cathedral (York, East)--Opposite page 44
+
+18. Single Flying Buttress--On page 57
+
+19. Christ Driving Out Money Changers (Giotto)--Opposite page 64
+
+20. Bride from Marriage of Cana (Giotto)--Opposite page 64
+
+21. Head (Mosaic, St. Mark's, Venice)--Opposite page 64
+
+22. Head of Blessed Virgin Annunciation--Opposite page 64
+
+23. Petrarch Portraits by Benozzo Gozzoli--Opposite page  71
+
+24. Dante  Portraits by Benozzo Gozzoli--Opposite page 71
+
+25. Giotto Portraits by Benozzo Gozzoli--Opposite page 71
+
+26. Screen (Hereford)--Opposite page 87
+
+27. Doorway of Sacristy (Bourges)--Opposite page 87
+
+28. Double Flying Buttress--On page 95
+
+29. Angel Choir (Lincoln)--Opposite page  96
+
+30. Cathedral (Amiens)--Opposite page 105
+
+31. Cathedral (Rheims)--Opposite page 107
+
+32. Cloister of St. Paul's (without the walls, Rome)--Opposite page 112
+
+33. Cathedral (Bourges)--Opposite page 116
+
+34. Cathedral (Chartres)--Opposite page 116
+
+35. Durham Castle and Cathedral--Opposite page 120
+
+36. King John's Castle (Limerick)--Opposite page 120
+
+37. Giotto's Tower (Florence)--Opposite page 122
+
+38. Palazzo Vecchio (Florence) Campanile (Giotto)--Opposite page 122
+
+{xxviii}
+
+39. Fountain (Perugia) [Town Pump]--Opposite page  126
+
+40. Lavatoio (Todi) [Public Wash-House]--Opposite page  126
+
+41. Reliquary (Limoges Museo, Florence)--Opposite page  133
+
+42. Crucifix (Duomo, Siena)--Opposite page 133
+
+43. Madonna, Cimabue (Rucellai Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence)--
+     Opposite page  136
+
+44. St. Francis' Marriage with Poverty (Giotto, Assisi)--Opposite page 144
+
+45. Espousal of St. Catherine (Gaddi, XIII. Century pupil, Perugia)--
+     Opposite page  147
+
+46. Group from Visitation (Rheims)--On page 148
+
+47. Monument of Cardinal de Bray (Arnolfo)--Opposite page  156
+
+48. Decoration (XIII. Cent. Psalter MSS.)--On page 165
+
+49. Santa Maria Sopra Minerva (Rome's Gothic Cathedral)--Opposite page 168
+
+50. Crozier (obverse and reverse)--On page 181
+
+51. Tower of Scaligers--On page 193
+
+52. St. Francis Prophesies the Death of Celano
+     (Giotto, Upper Ch., Assisi)--Opposite page  197
+
+53. Virgin and Child (Pisa, Campo Santo, Giov. Pisano)--Opposite page 200
+
+54. Entombment of Blessed Virgin--On page 208
+
+55. St. Christopher (alto relievo, Venice)--Opposite page 214
+
+56. Madonna and Child (Giov. Pisano, Padua)--Opposite page 214
+
+57. Tower (Lincoln)--On page 220
+
+58. Porta Romana Gate, Florence (N. Pisano)--Opposite page 226
+
+59. Ponte Alle Grazie (Lapo)--Opposite page 226
+
+60. Church and Cloisters, San Antonio (Padua)--Opposite page 232
+
+61. St. Catherine's (Lübeck)--Opposite page  232
+
+62. Stone Carving (Paris)--On page 237
+
+63. The First Nativity Play (Giotto, Upper Church of Assisi)--Opposite page 240
+
+64. Palazzo Buondelmonti (Florence)--Opposite page 248
+
+65. Palazzo Tolomei (Siena)--Opposite page 248
+
+66. Capital (Lincoln)--On page 253
+
+67. The Glorification of St. Francis (Giotto, Lower Church of Assisi)--
+     Opposite page 256
+
+68. St. Francis (Church of the Frari, Venice, Nic. Pisano)--Opposite page 261
+
+69. St. Clare--Three Franciscans (Giotto)--Opposite page 264
+
+70. St. Louis--Three Franciscans (Giotto)--Opposite page 264
+
+71. St. Elizabeth--Three Franciscans (Giotto)--Opposite page 264
+
+72. Side Capital (Lincoln)--On page 269
+
+73. Notre Dame (Paris)--Opposite page 290
+
+74. La Sainte Chapelle (Paris)--Opposite page 294 [missing]
+
+75. Cathedral (Orvieto)--Opposite page 294 [missing]
+
+{xxix}
+
+76. Apostle (la Sainte Chapelle, Paris)--Opposite page 296
+
+77. Decoration (Queen Mary's Psalter, XIII. Century MS.)--On page 299
+
+78. Portrait of Dante (Giotto, in the Bargello, Florence)--Opposite page 300
+
+79. Torre del Fame (Dante, Pisa)--Opposite page 306
+
+80. Palazzo Pretorio (Todi)--Opposite page 306
+
+81. Angel (Rheims)--On page 318
+
+82. St. Clare Bids the Dead St. Francis Good-bye
+    (Giotto, Up. Ch. Assisi)--Opposite page 320
+
+83. Church (Doberan, Germany)--Opposite page 322
+
+84. San Damiano (Assisi)--Opposite page 322
+
+85. St. Elizabeth's Cathedral (Marburg)--Opposite page 325
+
+86. Marriage of the Blessed Virgin (Giotto, Padua)--Opposite page 328
+
+87. Mosaic (St. Mark's, Venice, 1220)--Opposite page 333
+
+88. Stone Carving (Amiens)--On page 336
+
+89. Hospital of the Holy Ghost (Lübeck)--Opposite page 341
+
+90. Charity (Giotto)--Opposite page 347
+
+91. Fortitude (Giotto)--Opposite page 347
+
+92. Hope (Giotto)--Opposite page 347
+
+93. Hospital Interior--On page 349
+
+94. Tower (Marburg)--On page 363
+
+95. City Gate (Neubrandenburg)--Opposite page 368
+
+96. Rathhaus (Stralsund)--Opposite page 368
+
+97. Portrait of Pope Boniface VIII. (Giotto, Rome)--Opposite page 372
+
+98. Decoration (XIII. Cent. Psalter)--On page 374
+
+99. Doorway (Lincoln)--Opposite page 381
+
+100. Nave (Durham)--Opposite page 381
+
+101. Broken Arch (St. Mary's, York, Climax of Gothic)--Opposite page 381
+
+102. Animals from Bestiarium (XIII. Cent. MS.)--On page 391
+
+103. Door of Giotto's Tower (Florence)--Opposite page 405
+
+104. Principal Door of Baptistery (Pisa)--Opposite page 405
+
+105. Palazzo dei Consoli (Gubbio)--Opposite page 417
+
+106. Palazzo Zabarella (Padua)--Opposite page 417
+
+107. Rathhaus (Lübeck)--Opposite page 422
+
+108. City Gate (Neubrandenburg)--Opposite page 426
+
+109. Minster (Chorin, Germany)--Opposite page 426
+
+110. Hinge from Schlestadt--On page 429
+
+111. Portion of Letter of Innocent III., Mentioning Greenland--On page 433
+
+112. Double Pivoted Compass Needle--On page 441
+
+113. Peregrinus' Compass--On page 442
+
+114. Portion of MS. of Ormulum--On page 450
+
+115. Key of Map of World (Hereford)--On page 461
+
+116. Map of World (Hereford)--Opposite page 463
+
+{xxx}
+
+{1}
+
+I
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+THE THIRTEENTH, THE GREATEST OF CENTURIES
+
+It cannot but seem a paradox to say that the Thirteenth was the
+greatest of centuries. To most people the idea will appear at once so
+preposterous that they may not even care to consider it. A certain
+number, of course, will have their curiosity piqued by the thought
+that anyone should evolve so curious a notion. Either of these
+attitudes of mind will yield at once to a more properly receptive mood
+if it is recalled that the Thirteenth is the century of the Gothic
+cathedrals, of the foundation of the university, of the signing of
+Magna Charta, and of the origin of representative government with
+something like constitutional guarantees throughout the west of
+Europe. The cathedrals represent a development in the arts that has
+probably never been equaled either before or since. The university was
+a definite creation of these generations that has lived and maintained
+its usefulness practically in the same form in which it was then cast
+for the seven centuries ever since. The foundation stones of modern
+liberties are to be found in the documents which for the first time
+declared the rights of man during this precious period.
+
+A little consideration of the men who, at this period, lived lives of
+undying influence on mankind, will still further attract the attention
+of those who have not usually grouped these great characters together.
+Just before the century opened, three great rulers died at the height
+of their influence. They are still and will always be the subject of
+men's thoughts and of literature. They were Frederick Barbarossa,
+Saladin, and Richard Coeur De Lion. They formed but a suggestive
+prelude of what was to come in the following century, when such {2}
+great monarchs as St. Louis of France, St. Ferdinand of Spain, Alfonso
+the Wise of Castile, Frederick II of Germany, Edward I, the English
+Justinian, Rudolph of Hapsburg, whose descendants still rule in
+Austria, and Robert Bruce, occupied the thrones of Europe. Was it by
+chance or Providence that the same century saw the rise of and the
+beginning of the fall of that great Eastern monarchy which had been
+created by the genius for conquest of Jenghiz Khan, the Tartar warrior,
+who ruled over all the Eastern world from beyond what are now the
+western confines of Russia, Poland, and Hungary, into and including
+what we now call China.
+
+But the thrones of Europe and of Asia did not monopolize the great men
+of the time. The Thirteenth Century claims such wonderful churchmen as
+St. Francis and St. Dominic, and while it has only the influence of
+St. Hugh of Lincoln, who died just as it began, it can be proud of St.
+Edmund of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, and Robert Grosseteste, all men
+whose place in history is due to what they did for their people, and
+such magnificent women as Queen Blanche of Castile, St. Clare of
+Assisi, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. The century opened with one of
+the greatest of the Popes on the throne, Innocent III, and it closed
+with the most misunderstood of Popes, who is in spite of this one of
+the worthiest successors of Peter, Boniface VIII. During the century
+there had been such men as Honorius IV, the Patron of Learning,
+Gregory IX, to whom Canon Law owes so much, and John XXI, who had been
+famous as a scientist before becoming Pope. There are such scholars as
+St. Thomas of Aquin, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, St. Bonaventure,
+Duns Scotus, Raymond Lully, Vincent of Beauvais, and Alexander of
+Hales, and such patrons of learning as Robert of Sorbonne, and the
+founders of nearly twenty universities. There were such artists as
+Gaddi, Cimabue, and above all Giotto, and such literary men as the
+authors of the Arthur Legends and the Nibelungen, the Meistersingers,
+the Minnesingers, the Troubadours, and Trouvères, and above all Dante,
+who is universally considered now to be one of the greatest literary
+men of all times, but who was not, as is so often thought and said, a
+solitary phenomenon in the period, but only the culmination of a great
+literary movement that had to have {3} some such supreme expression of
+itself as this in order to properly round out the cycle of its
+existence.
+
+If in addition it be said that this century saw the birth of the
+democratic spirit in many different ways in the various countries of
+Europe, but always in such form that it was never quite to die out
+again, the reasons for talking of it as possibly the greatest of
+centuries will be readily appreciated even by those whose reading has
+not given them any preliminary basis of information with regard to
+this period, which has unfortunately been shrouded from the eyes of
+most people by the fact, that its place in the midst of the Middle
+Ages would seem to preclude all possibility of the idea that it could
+represent a great phase of the development of the human intellect and
+its esthetic possibilities.
+
+There would seem to be one more or less insuperable objection to the
+consideration of the Thirteenth as the greatest of centuries, and that
+arises from the fact that the idea of evolution has consciously and
+unconsciously tinged the thoughts of our generation to such a degree,
+that it seems almost impossible to think of a period so far in the
+distant past as having produced results comparable with those that
+naturally flow from the heightened development of a long subsequent
+epoch. Whatever of truth there may be in the great theory of
+evolution, however, it must not be forgotten that no added evidence
+for its acceptance can be obtained from the intellectual history of
+the human race. We may be "the heirs of all the ages in the foremost
+files of time," but one thing is certain, that we can scarcely hope to
+equal, and do not at all think of surpassing, some of the great
+literary achievements of long past ages.
+
+In the things of the spirit apparently there is very little, if any,
+evolution. Homer wrote nearly three thousand years ago as supreme an
+expression of human life in absolute literary values as the world has
+ever known, or, with all reverence for the future be it said, is ever
+likely to know. The great dramatic poem Job emanated from a Hebrew
+poet in those earlier times, and yet, if judged from the standpoint of
+mere literature, is as surpassing an expression of human intelligence
+in the presence of the mystery of evil as has ever come from the mind
+of man. We are no nearer the solution of the problem of {4} evil in
+life, though thousands of years have passed and man has been much
+occupied with the thoughts that disturbed the mind of the ruler of
+Moab. The Code of Hammurabi, recently discovered, has shown very
+definitely, that men could make laws nearly five thousand years ago as
+well calculated to correct human abuses as those our legislators spend
+so much time over at present, and the olden time laws were probably
+quite as effective as ours can hope to be, for all our well
+intentioned purpose and praiseworthy efforts at reform.
+
+It used to be a favorite expression of Virchow, the great German
+pathologist, who was, besides, however, the greatest of living
+anthropologists, that from the history of the human race the theory of
+evolution receives no confirmation of any kind. His favorite subject,
+the study of skulls, and their conformation in the five thousand years
+through which such remains could be traced, showed him absolutely no
+change. For him there had been also no development in the intellectual
+order in human life during the long period of human history. Of course
+this is comparatively brief if the long aeons of geological times be
+considered, yet some development might be expected to manifest itself
+in the more than two hundred generations that have come and gone since
+the beginning of human memory. Perhaps, then, the prejudice with
+regard to evolution and its supposed effectiveness in making the men
+of more recent times superior to those of the past, may be considered
+to have very little weight as an _a priori_ objection to the
+consideration of the Thirteenth Century as representing the highest
+stage in human accomplishment. So far as scientific anthropology goes
+there is utter indifference as to the period that may be selected as
+representing man at his best.
+
+To most people the greater portion of surprise with regard to the
+assertion of the Thirteenth as the greatest of centuries will be the
+fact that the period thus picked out is almost in the heart of the
+Middle Ages. It would be not so amazing if the fifth century before
+Christ, which produced such marvelous accomplishments in letters and
+art and philosophy among the Greeks, was chosen as the greatest of
+human epochs. There might not even be so much of unpreparedness of
+mind if that supreme century of Roman History, from fifty years before
+Christ to fifty years after, were picked out for such signal notice.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+VIRGIN WITH THE DIVINE CHILD (MOSAIC, ST. MARK'S, VENICE)
+
+
+{5}
+
+We have grown accustomed, however, to think of the Middle Ages as
+hopelessly backward in the opportunities they afforded men for the
+expression of their intellectual and artistic faculties, and above all
+for any development of that human liberty which means so much for the
+happiness of the race and must constitute the basis of any real
+advance worth while talking about in human affairs. It is this that
+would make the Thirteenth Century seem out of place in any comparative
+study for the purpose of determining proportionate epochal greatness.
+The spirit breathes where it will, however, and there was a mighty
+wind of the spirit of human progress abroad in that Thirteenth
+Century, whose effects usually miss proper recognition in history,
+because people fail to group together in their minds all the
+influences in our modern life that come to us from that precious
+period. All this present volume pretends to do is to gather these
+scattered details of influence in order to make the age in which they
+all coincided so wonderfully, be properly appreciated.
+
+If we accept the usual historical division which places the Middle
+Ages during the thousand years between the fall of the Roman Empire,
+in the Fifth Century and the fall of the Grecian Empire of
+Constantinople, about the middle of the Fifteenth, the Thirteenth
+Century must be considered the culmination of that middle age. It is
+three centuries before the Renaissance, and to most minds that magical
+word represents the beginning of all that is modern, and therefore all
+that is best, in the world. Most people forget entirely how much of
+progress had been made before the so-called Renaissance, and how many
+great writers and artists had been fostering the taste and developing
+the intelligence of the people of Italy long before the fall of
+Constantinople. The Renaissance, after all, means only the re-birth of
+Greek ideas and ideals, of Greek letters and arts, into the modern
+world. If this new birth of Greek esthetics had not found the soil
+thoroughly prepared by the fruitful labor of three centuries before,
+history would not have seen any such outburst of artistic and literary
+accomplishments as actually came at the end of the Fifteenth and
+during the Sixteenth centuries.
+
+{6}
+
+In taking up the thesis, The Thirteenth the Greatest of Centuries, it
+seems absolutely necessary to define just what is meant by the term
+great, in its application to a period. An historical epoch, most
+people would concede at once, is really great just in proportion to
+the happiness which it provides for the largest possible number of
+humanity. That period is greatest that has done most to make men
+happy. Happiness consists in the opportunity to express whatever is
+best in us, and above all to find utterance for whatever is
+individual. An essential element in it is the opportunity to develop
+and apply the intellectual faculties, whether this be of purely
+artistic or of thoroughly practical character. For such happiness the
+opportunity to rise above one's original station is one of the
+necessary requisites. Out of these opportunities there comes such
+contentment as is possible to man in the imperfect existence that is
+his under present conditions.
+
+Almost as important a quality in any epoch that is to be considered
+supremely great, is the difference between the condition of men at the
+beginning of it and at its conclusion. The period that represents most
+progress, even though at the end uplift should not have reached a
+degree equal to subsequent periods, must be considered as having best
+accomplished its duty to the race. For purposes of comparison it is
+the amount of ground actually covered in a definite time, rather than
+the comparative position at the end of it, that deserves to be taken
+into account. This would seem to be a sort of hedging, as if the terms
+of the comparison of the Thirteenth with other centuries were to be
+made more favorable by the establishment of different standards. There
+is, however, no need of any such makeshift in order to establish the
+actual supremacy of the Thirteenth Century, since it can well afford
+to be estimated on its own merits alone, and without any allowances
+because of the stage of cultural development at which it occurred.
+
+John Ruskin once said that a proper estimation of the accomplishments
+of a period in human history can only be obtained by careful study of
+three books--The Book of the Deeds, The Book of the Arts, and the Book
+of the Words, of the given epoch. The Thirteenth Century may be
+promptly ready for this judgment of what it accomplished for men, of
+{7} what it wrote for subsequent generations, and of the artistic
+qualities to be found in its art remains. In the Book of the Deeds of
+the century what is especially important is what was accomplished for
+men, that is, what the period did for the education of the people, not
+alone the classes but the masses, and what a precious heritage of
+liberty and of social coordination it left behind. To most people it
+will appear at once that if the most important chapter of Thirteenth
+Century accomplishment is to be found in the Book of its Deeds and the
+deeds are to be judged according to the standard just given of
+education and liberty, then there will be no need to seek further,
+since these are words for which it is supposed that there is no actual
+equivalent in human life and history for at least several centuries
+after the close of the Thirteenth.
+
+As a matter of fact, however, it is in this very chapter that the
+Thirteenth Century will be found strongest in its claim to true
+greatness. The Thirteenth Century saw the foundation of the
+universities and their gradual development into the institutions of
+learning which we have at the present time. Those scholars of the
+Thirteenth Century recognized that, for its own development and for
+practical purposes, the human intellect can best be trained along
+certain lines. For its preliminary training, it seemed to them to need
+what has since come to be called the liberal arts, that is, a
+knowledge of certain languages and of logic, as well as a thorough
+consideration of the great problems of the relation of man to his
+Creator, to his fellow-men, and to the universe around him. Grammar, a
+much wider subject than we now include under the term, and philosophy
+constituted the undergraduate studies of the universities of the
+Thirteenth Century. For the practical purposes of life, a division of
+post-graduate study had to be made so as to suit the life design of
+each individual, and accordingly the faculties of theology, for the
+training of divines; of medicine, for the training of physicians; and
+of law, for the training of advocates, came into existence.
+
+We shall consider this subject in more detail in a subsequent chapter,
+but it will be clear at once that the university, as organized by
+these wise generations of the Thirteenth Century, has come down
+unchanged to us in the modern time. We {8} still have practically the
+same methods of preliminary training and the same division of
+post-graduate studies. We specialize to a greater degree than they
+did, but it must not be forgotten that specialism was not unknown by
+any means in the Thirteenth Century, though there were fewer
+opportunities for its practical application to the things of life. If
+this century had done nothing else but create the instrument by which
+the human mind has ever since been trained, it must be considered as
+deserving a place of the very highest rank in the periods of human
+history.
+
+It is, however, much more for what it accomplished for the education
+of the masses than for the institutions it succeeded in developing for
+the training of the classes, that the Thirteenth Century merits a
+place in the roll of fame. This declaration will doubtless seem
+utterly paradoxical to the ordinary reader of history. We are very
+prone to consider that it is only in our time that anything like
+popular education has come into existence. As a matter of fact,
+however, the education afforded to the people in the little towns of
+the Middle Ages, represents an ideal of educational uplift for the
+masses such as has never been even distantly approached in succeeding
+centuries. The Thirteenth Century developed the greatest set of
+technical schools that the world has ever known. The technical school
+is supposed to be a creation of the last half century at the outside.
+These medieval towns, however, during the course of the building of
+their cathedrals, of their public buildings and various magnificent
+edifices of royalty and for the nobility, succeeded in accomplishing
+such artistic results that the world has ever since held them in
+admiration, and that this admiration has increased rather than
+diminished with the development of taste in very recent years.
+
+Nearly every one of the most important towns of England during the
+Thirteenth Century was erecting a cathedral. Altogether some twenty
+cathedrals remain as the subject of loving veneration and of frequent
+visitation for the modern generation. There was intense rivalry
+between these various towns. Each tried to surpass the other in the
+grandeur of its cathedral and auxiliary buildings. Instead of lending
+workmen to one another there was a civic pride in accomplishing for
+one's native town whatever was best.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+PULPIT (PISANO, SIENA)
+
+
+{9}
+
+Each of these towns, then, none of which had more than twenty thousand
+inhabitants except London, and even that scarcely more, had to develop
+its own artist-artisans for itself. That they succeeded in doing so
+demonstrates a great educational influence at work in arts and crafts
+in each of these towns. We scarcely succeed in obtaining such trained
+workmen in proportionately much fewer numbers even with the aid of our
+technical schools, and while these Thirteenth Century people did not
+think of such a term, it is evident that they had the reality and that
+they were able to develop artistic handicraftsmen--the best the world
+has ever known.
+
+With all this of education abroad in the lands, it is not surprising
+that great results should have flowed from human efforts and that
+these should prove enduring even down to our own time. Accomplishments
+of the highest significance were necessarily bound up with
+opportunities for self-expression, so tempting and so complete, as
+those provided for the generations of the Thirteenth Century. The
+books of the Words as well as of the Arts of the Thirteenth Century
+will be found eminently interesting, and no period has ever furnished
+so many examples of wondrous initiative, followed almost immediately
+by just as marvelous progress and eventual approach to as near
+perfection as it is perhaps possible to come in things human.
+Ordinarily literary origins are not known with sufficient certainty as
+to dates for any but the professional scholar to realize the scope of
+the century's literature. Only a very little consideration, however,
+is needed to demonstrate how thoroughly representative of what is most
+enduring in literary expression in modern times, are the works in
+every country that had origin in this century.
+
+There was not a single country in civilized Europe which did not
+contribute its quota and that of great significance to the literary
+movement of the time. In Spain there came the Cid and certain
+accompanying products of ballad poetry which form the basis of the
+national literature and are still read not only by scholars and
+amateurs, but even by the people generally, because of the supreme
+human interest in them. In England, the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century saw the putting {10} into shape of the Arthur Legends in the
+form in which they were to appeal most nearly to subsequent
+generations. Walter Map's work in these was, as we shall see, one of
+the great literary accomplishments of all time. Subsequent treatments
+of the same subject are only slight modifications of the theme which
+he elaborated, and Mallory's and Spenser's and even our own Tennyson's
+work derive their interest from the humanly sympathetic story, written
+so close to the heart of nature in the Thirteenth Century that it will
+always prove attractive.
+
+In Germany, just at the same time, the Nibelungen-Lied was receiving
+the form in which it was to live as the great National epic. The
+Meistersingers also were accomplishing their supreme work of
+Christianizing and modernizing the old German and Christian legends
+which were to prove such a precious heritage of interest for
+posterity. In the South of Germany the Minnesingers sang their tuneful
+strains and showed how possible it was to take the cruder language of
+the North, and pour forth as melodious hymns of praise to nature and
+to their beloved ones as in the more fluent Southern tongues. Most of
+this was done in the old Suabian high German dialect, and the basis of
+the modern German language was thus laid. The low German was to prove
+the vehicle for the original form of the animal epic or stories with
+regard to Reynard, the Fox, which were to prove so popular throughout
+all of Europe for all time thereafter.
+
+In North France the Trouvères were accomplishing a similar work to
+that of the Minnesingers in South Germany, but doing it with an
+original genius, a refinement of style characteristic of their nation,
+and a finish of form that was to impress itself upon French literature
+for all subsequent time. Here also Jean de Meun and Guillaume de
+Lorris wrote the Romance of the Rose, which was to remain the most
+popular book in Europe down to the age of printing and for some time
+thereafter. At the South of France the work of the Troubadours,
+similar to that of the Trouvères and yet with, a spirit and character
+all its own, was creating a type of love songs that the world recurs
+to with pleasure whenever the lyrical aspect of poetry becomes
+fashionable. The influence of the Troubadours was to be felt in Italy,
+and before the end of the {11} Thirteenth Century there were many
+writers of short poems that deserve a place in what is best in
+literature. Men like Sordello, Guido Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia, and
+Dante da Maiano, deserve mention in any historical review of
+literature, quite apart from the influence which they had on their
+great successor, the Prince of Italian poets and one of the immortal
+trio of the world's supreme creative singers--Dante Alighieri. With
+what must have seemed the limit of conceit he placed himself among the
+six greatest poets, but posterity breathes his name only with those of
+Homer and Shakespeare.
+
+Dante, in spite of his giant personality and sublime poetic genius, is
+not an exception nor a solitary phenomenon in the course of the
+century, but only a worthy culmination of the literary movement which,
+beginning in the distant West in Spain and England, gradually worked
+eastward quite contrary to the usual trend of human development and
+inspired its greatest work in the musical Tuscan dialect after having
+helped in the foundation of all the other modern languages. Dante is
+the supreme type of the Thirteenth Century, the child of his age, but
+the great master whom medieval influences have made all that he is.
+That he belongs to the century there can be no doubt, and of himself
+alone he would be quite sufficient to lift any period out of obscurity
+and place it among the favorite epochs, in which the human mind found
+one of those opportune moments for the expression of what is sublimest
+in human thought.
+
+It is, however, the bock of the Arts of the Thirteenth Century that
+deserves most to be thumbed by the modern reader intent on learning
+something of this marvelous period of human existence. There is not a
+single branch of art in which the men of this generation did not
+accomplish excelling things that have been favorite subjects for study
+and loving imitation ever since. Perhaps the most marvelous quality of
+the grand old Gothic cathedrals, erected during the Thirteenth
+Century, is not their impressiveness as a whole so much as their
+wonderful finish in detail. It matters not what element of
+construction or decoration be taken into consideration, always there
+is an approach to perfection in accomplishment in some one of the
+cathedrals that shows with what thoroughness the men of the {12} time
+comprehended what was best in art, and how finally their strivings
+after perfection were rewarded as bountifully as perhaps it has ever
+been given to men to realize.
+
+Of the major arts--architecture itself, sculpture and painting--only a
+word will be said here since they will be treated more fully in
+subsequent chapters. No more perfect effort at worthy worship of the
+Most High has ever been accomplished than is to be seen in the Gothic
+cathedrals in every country in Europe as they exist to the present
+day. While the movement began in North France, and gradually spread to
+other countries, there was never any question of mere slavish
+imitation, but on the contrary in each country Gothic architecture
+took on a national character and developed into a charming expression
+of the special characteristics of the people for whom and by whom it
+was made. English Gothic is, of course, quite different to that of
+France; Spanish Gothic has a character all its own; the German Gothic
+cathedrals partake of the heavier characteristics of the Northern
+people, while Italian Gothic adds certain airy decorative qualities to
+the French model that give renewed interest and inevitably indicate
+the origin of the structures.
+
+In painting, Cimabue's work, so wonderfully appreciated by the people
+of Florence that spontaneously they flocked in procession to do honor
+to his great picture, was the beginning of modern art. How much was
+accomplished before the end of the century will be best appreciated
+when the name of Giotto is mentioned as the culmination of the art
+movement of the century. As we shall see, the work done by him,
+especially at Assisi, has been a source of inspiration for artists
+down even to our own time, and there are certain qualities of his art,
+especially his faculty for producing the feeling of solidity in his
+paintings, in which very probably he has never been surpassed. Gothic
+cathedrals in other countries did not lend themselves so well as
+subjects of inspiration for decorative art, but in every country the
+sacred books in use in the cathedral were adorned, at the command of
+the artistic impulse of the period, in a way that has made the
+illuminated missals and office books of the Thirteenth Century perhaps
+the most precious that there are in the history of book-making.
+
+{opp13}
+
+[Illustration]
+ARCHANGEL MICHAEL (GIOVANNI PISANO, PISA)
+
+[Illustration]
+CHRIST (ANDREA PISANO, FLORENCE)
+
+[Illustration]
+STA. REPARATA (ANDREA PISANO, FLORENCE)
+
+{13}
+
+It might be thought that in sculpture, at least, these
+Thirteenth-Century generations would prove to be below the level of
+that perfection and artistic expression which came so assuredly in
+other lines. It is true that most of the sculptures of the period have
+defects that make them unworthy of imitation, though it is in the
+matter of technique that they fail rather than in honest effort to
+express feelings appropriately within the domain of chiseled work. On
+the other hand there are some supreme examples of what is best in
+sculpture to be found among the adornments of the cathedrals of the
+period. No more simply dignified rendition of the God Man has ever
+been made in stone than the statue of Christ, which with such charming
+appropriateness the people of Amiens have called _le Beau Dieu_, their
+beautiful God, and that visitors to their great cathedral can never
+admire sufficiently, admirably set off, as it is, in its beautiful
+situation above the main door of the great cathedral. Other examples
+are not lacking, as for instance some of the Thirteenth-Century
+effigies of the French kings and queens at St. Denis, and some of the
+wonderful sculptures at Rheims. In its place as a subsidiary art to
+architecture for decorative purposes, sculpture was even more
+eminently successful. The best example of this is the famous Angel
+Choir of Lincoln, one of the most beautiful things that ever came from
+the hand of man and whose designation indicates the belief of the
+centuries that only the angels could have made it.
+
+In the handicrafts most nearly allied to the arts, the Thirteenth
+Century reigns supreme with a splendor unapproached by what has been
+accomplished in any other century. The iron work of their gates and
+railings, even of their hinges and latches and locks, has been admired
+and imitated by many generations since. When a piece of it is no
+longer of use, or loosens from the crumbling woodwork to which it was
+attached, it is straightway transported to some museum, there to be
+displayed not alone for its antiquarian interest, but also as a model
+and a suggestion to the modern designer. This same thing is true of
+the precious metal work of the times also, at least as regards the
+utensils and ornaments employed in the sacred services. The chalices
+and other sacred {14} vessels were made on severely simple lines and
+according to models which have since become the types of such sacred
+utensils for all times.
+
+The vestments used in the sacred ceremonials partook of this same
+character of eminently appropriate handiwork united to the chastest of
+designs, executed with supreme taste. The famous cope of Ascoli which
+the recent Pierpont Morgan incident brought into prominence a year or
+so ago, is a sample of the needlework of the times that illustrates
+its perfection. It is said by those who are authorities in the matter
+that Thirteenth-Century needlework represents what is best in this
+line. It is not the most elaborate, nor the most showy, but it is in
+accordance with the best taste, supremely suitable to the objects of
+which it formed a part. It is, after all, only an almost inevitable
+appendix to the beautiful work done in the illumination of the sacred
+books, that the sacred vestments should have been quite as supremely
+artistic and just as much triumphs of art.
+
+As a matter of fact, every minutest detail of cathedral construction
+and ornamentation shared in this artistic triumph. Even the
+inscriptions, done in brass upon the gravestones that formed part of
+the cathedral pavements, are models of their kind, and rubbings from
+them are frequently taken because of their marvelous effectiveness as
+designs in Gothic tracery.
+
+Their bells were made with such care and such perfection that, down to
+the present time, nothing better has been accomplished in this
+handicraft, and their marvelous retention of tone shows how thorough
+was the work of these early bell-makers.
+
+The triumph of artistic decoration in the cathedrals, however, and the
+most marvelous page in the book of the Arts of the century, remains to
+be spoken of in their magnificent stained-glass windows. Where they
+learned their secret of glass-making we know not. Artists of the
+modern time, who have spent years in trying to perfect their own work
+in this line, would give anything to have some of the secrets of the
+glass-makers of the Thirteenth Century. Such windows as the Five
+Sisters at York, or the wonderful Jesse window of Chartres with some
+of its companions, are the despair of the modern {15} artists in
+stained glass. The fact that their glass-making was not done at one,
+or even a few, common centers, but was apparently executed in each of
+these small medieval towns that were the site of a cathedral, only
+adds to the marvel of how the workmen of the time succeeded so well in
+accomplishing their purpose of solving the difficult problems of
+stained glasswork.
+
+{opp15}
+
+[Illustration ]
+PASCHAL CANDLESTICK (BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE)
+
+[Illustration:]
+RELIQUARY (CATHEDRAL ORVIETO, UGOLINO DI VIERI)
+
+
+If, to crown all that has been said about the Thirteenth Century, we
+now add a brief account of what was accomplished for men in the matter
+of liberty and the establishment of legal rights, we shall have a
+reasonably adequate introduction to this great subject. Liberty is
+thought to be a word whose true significance is of much more recent
+origin than the end of the Middle Ages. The rights of men are usually
+supposed to have received serious acknowledgment only in comparatively
+recent centuries. The recalling of a few facts, however, will dispel
+this illusion and show how these men of the later middle age laid the
+foundation of most of the rights and privileges that we are so proud
+to consider our birthright in this modern time. The first great fact
+in the history of modern liberty is the signing of Magna Charta which
+took place only a little after the middle of the first quarter of the
+Thirteenth Century. The movement that led up to it had arisen amongst
+the guildsmen as well as the churchmen and the nobles of the preceding
+century. When the document was signed, however, these men did not
+consider that their work was finished. They kept themselves ready to
+take further advantage of the necessities of their rulers and it was
+not long before they had secured political as well as legal rights.
+
+Shortly after the middle of the Thirteenth Century the first English
+parliament met, and in the latter part of that half century it became
+a formal institution with regularly appointed times of meeting and
+definite duties and privileges. Then began the era of law in its
+modern sense for the English people. The English common law took form
+and its great principles were enunciated practically in the terms in
+which they are stated down to the present day. Bracton made his famous
+digest of the English common law for the use of judges and lawyers and
+it became a standard work of reference. Such it {16} has remained down
+to our own time. At the end of the century, during the reign of Edward
+I, the English Justinian, the laws of the land were formulated,
+lacunae in legislation filled up, rights and privileges fully
+determined, real-estate laws put on a modern basis, and the most
+important portions of English law became realities that were to be
+modified but not essentially changed in all the after time.
+
+This history of liberty and of law-making, so familiar with regard to
+England, must be repeated almost literally with regard to the
+continental nations. In France, the foundation of the laws of the
+kingdom were laid during the reign of Louis IX, and French authorities
+in the history of law, point with pride, to how deeply and broadly the
+foundations of French jurisprudence were laid. Under Louis's cousin,
+Ferdinand III of Castile, who, like the French monarch, has received
+the title of Saint, because of the uprightness of his character and
+all that he did for his people, forgetful of himself, the foundations
+of Spanish law were laid, and it is to that time that Spanish jurists
+trace the origin of nearly all the rights and privileges of their
+people. In Germany there is a corresponding story. In Saxony there was
+the issue of a famous book of laws, which represented all the grants
+of the sovereigns, and all the claims of subjects that had been
+admitted by monarchs up to that time. In a word, everywhere there was
+a codification of laws and a laying of foundations in jurisprudence,
+upon which the modern superstructure of law was to rise.
+
+This is probably the most surprising part of the Thirteenth Century.
+When it began men below the rank of nobles were practically slaves.
+Whatever rights they had were uncertain, liable to frequent violation
+because of their indefinite character, and any generation might, under
+the tyranny of some consciousless monarch, have lost even the few
+privileges they had enjoyed before. At the close of the Thirteenth
+Century this was no longer possible. The laws had been written down
+and monarchs were bound by them as well as their subjects. Individual
+caprice might no longer deprive them arbitrarily of their rights and
+hard won privileges, though tyranny might still assert itself and a
+submissive generation might, for a time, {17} allow themselves to be
+governed by measures beyond the domain of legal justification. Any
+subsequent generation might, however, begin anew its assertion of its
+rights from the old-time laws, rather than from the position to which
+their forbears had been reduced by a tyrant's whim.
+
+Is it any wonder, then, that we should call the generations that gave
+us the cathedrals, the universities, the great technical schools that
+were organized by the trades guilds, the great national literatures
+that lie at the basis of all our modern literature, the beginnings of
+sculpture and of art carried to such heights that artistic principles
+were revealed for all time, and, finally, the great men and women of
+this century--for more than any other it glories in names that were
+born not to die--is it at all surprising that we should claim for the
+period which, in addition to all this, saw the foundation of modern
+law and liberty, the right to be hailed--the greatest of human
+history?
+
+[Illustration]
+THE CHURCH [SYMBOLIZED] (PARIS)
+
+
+{18}
+
+II
+
+UNIVERSITIES AND PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.
+
+
+To see, at once, how well the Thirteenth deserves the name of the
+greatest of centuries, it is necessary, only, to open the book of her
+deeds and read therein what was accomplished during this period for
+the education of the men of the time. It is, after all, what a
+generation accomplishes for intellectual development and social uplift
+that must be counted as its greatest triumph. If life is larger in its
+opportunities, if men appreciate its significance better, if the
+development of the human mind has been rendered easier, if that
+precious thing, whose name, education, has been so much abused, is
+made readier of attainment, then the generation stamps itself as
+having written down in its book of deeds, things worthy for all
+subsequent generations to read. Though anything like proper
+appreciation of it has come only in very recent times, there is
+absolutely no period of equal length in the history of mankind in
+which so much was not only attempted, but successfully accomplished
+for education, in every sense of the word, as during the Thirteenth
+Century. This included, not only the education of the classes but also
+the education of the masses.
+
+For the moment, we shall concern ourselves only with the education
+offered to, and taken advantage of by so many, in the universities of
+the time. It was just at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century that
+the great universities came into being as schools, in which all the
+ordinary forms of learning were taught. During the Twelfth Century,
+Bologna had had a famous school of law which attracted students from
+all over Europe. Under Irnerius, canon and civil law secured a
+popularity as subjects of study such as they never had before. The
+study of the old Roman Law brought back with it an interest in the
+Latin classics, and the beginning of the true new birth--the real
+renaissance--of modern education must be traced from here. At Paris
+there was a theological school attached to {19} the cathedral which
+gradually became noted for its devotion to philosophy as the basis of
+theology, and, about the middle of the Twelfth Century, attracted
+students from every part of the civilized world. As was the case at
+Bologna, interest after a time was not limited to philosophy and
+theology; other branches of study were admitted to the curriculum and
+a university in the modern sense came into existence.
+
+During the first quarter of the Thirteenth Century both of these
+schools developed faculties for the teaching of all the known branches
+of knowledge. At Bologna faculties of arts, of philosophy and
+theology, and finally of medicine, were gradually added, and students
+flocked in ever increasing numbers to take advantage of these
+additional opportunities. At Paris, the school of medicine was
+established early in the Thirteenth Century, and there were graduates
+in medicine before the year 1220. Law came later, but was limited to
+Canon law to a great extent, Orleans having a monopoly of civil law
+for more than a century. These two universities, Bologna and Paris,
+were, in every sense of the word, early in the century, real
+universities, differing in no essential from our modern institutions
+that bear the same name.
+
+If the Thirteenth Century had done nothing else but put into shape
+this great instrument for the training of the human mind, which has
+maintained its effectiveness during seven centuries, it must be
+accorded a place among the epoch-making periods of history. With all
+our advances in modern education we have not found it necessary, or
+even advisable, to change, in any essential way, this mold in which
+the human intellect has been cast for all these years. If a man wants
+knowledge for its own sake, or for some practical purpose in life,
+then here are the faculties which will enable him to make a good
+beginning on the road he wishes to travel. If he wants knowledge of
+the liberal arts, or the consideration of man's duties to himself, to
+his fellow-man and to his Creator, he will find in the faculties of
+arts and philosophy and theology the great sources of knowledge in
+these subjects. If, on the other hand, he wishes to apply his mind
+either to the disputes of men about property, or to their injustices
+toward one another and the correction of abuses, then the faculty of
+law will {20} supply his wants, and finally the medical school enables
+him, if he wishes, to learn all that can be known at a given time with
+regard to man's ills and their healing. We have admitted the
+practical-work subjects into university life, though not without
+protest, but architecture, engineering, bridge-building and the like,
+in which the men of the Thirteenth Century accomplished such wonders,
+were relegated to the guilds whose technical schools, though they did
+not call them by that name, were quite as effective practical
+educators as even the most vaunted of our modern university mechanical
+departments.
+
+It is rather interesting to trace the course of the development of
+schools in our modern sense of the term, because their evolution
+recapitulates, to some degree at least, the history of the
+individual's interest in life. The first school which acquired a
+European reputation was that of Salernum, a little town not far from
+Naples, which possessed a famous medical school as early as the ninth
+century, perhaps earlier. This never became a university, though its
+reputation as a great medical school was maintained for several
+centuries. This first educational opportunity to attract a large body
+of students from all over the world concerned mainly the needs of the
+body. The next set of interests which man, in the course of evolution
+develops, has to do with the acquisition and retention of property and
+the maintenance of his rights as an individual. It is not surprising,
+then, to find that the next school of world-wide reputation was that
+of law at Bologna which became the nucleus of a great university. It
+is only after man has looked out for his bodily needs and his property
+rights, that he comes to think of his duties toward himself, his
+fellow-men, and his Creator, and so the third of these great medieval
+schools, in time, was that of philosophy and theology, at Paris.
+
+It is sometimes thought that the word university applied to these
+institutions after the aggregation of other faculties, was due to the
+fact that there was a universality of studies, that all branches of
+knowledge might be followed in them. The word university, however, was
+not originally applied to the school itself, which, if it had all the
+faculties of the modern university, was, in the Thirteenth Century,
+called a _studium generale_. The Latin word universitas had quite a
+different {21} usage at that time. Whenever letters were formally
+addressed to the combined faculties of a _studium generale_ by
+reigning sovereigns, or by the Pope, or by other high ecclesiastical
+authorities, they always began with the designation, Universitas
+Vestra, implying that the greeting was to all of the faculty,
+universally and without exception. Gradually, because of this word
+constantly occurring at the beginning of letters to the faculty, the
+term universitas came to be applied to the institution. [Footnote 1]
+
+  [Footnote 1: Certain other terms that occur in these letters of
+  greeting to university officials have a more than passing interest.
+  The rector of the university, for instance, was always formally
+  addressed as Amplitudo Vestra, that is, Your Ampleness. Considering
+  the fact that not a few of the rectors of the old time universities,
+  all of whom were necessarily ecclesiastics, must have had the
+  ampleness of girth so characteristic of their order under certain
+  circumstances, there is an appropriateness about this formal
+  designation which perhaps appeals more to the risibilities of the
+  modern mind than to those of medieval time.]
+
+While the universities, as is typically exemplified by the histories
+of Bologna and Paris, and even to a noteworthy degree of Oxford, grew
+up around the cathedrals, they cannot be considered in any sense the
+deliberate creation, much less the formal invention, of any particular
+set of men. The idea of a university was not born into the world in
+full panoply as Minerva from the brain of Jove. No one set about
+consciously organizing for the establishment of complete institutions
+of learning. Like everything destined to mean much in the world the
+universities were a natural growth from the favoring soil in which
+living seeds were planted. They sprang from the wonderful inquiring
+spirit of the time and the marvelous desire for knowledge and for the
+higher intellectual life that came over the people of Europe during
+the Thirteenth Century. The school at Paris became famous, and
+attracted pupils during the Twelfth Century, because of the new-born
+interest in scholastic philosophy. After the pupils had gathered in
+large numbers their enthusiasm led to the establishment of further
+courses of study. The same thing was true at Bologna, where the study
+of Law first attracted a crowd of earnest students, and then the
+demand for broader education led to the establishment of other
+faculties.
+
+{22}
+
+Above all, there was no conscious attempt on the part of any supposed
+better class to stoop down and uplift those presumably below it. As we
+shall see, the students of the university came mainly from the middle
+class of the population. They became ardently devoted to their
+teachers. As in all really educational work, it was the man and not
+the institution that counted for much. In case of disagreement of one
+of these with the university authorities, not infrequently there was a
+sacrifice of personal advantage for the moment on the part of the
+students in order to follow a favorite teacher. Paris had examples of
+this several times before the Thirteenth Century, and notably in the
+case of Abelard had seen thousands of students follow him into the
+distant desert where he had retired. Later on, when abuses on the part
+of the authorities of Paris limited the University's privileges, led
+to the withdrawal of students and the foundation of Oxford, there was
+a community of interest on the part of certain members of the faculty
+and thousands of students. This movement was, however, distinctly of a
+popular character, in the sense that it was not guided by political or
+other leaders. Nearly all of the features of university life during
+the Thirteenth Century, emphasize the democracy of feeling of the
+students, and make it clear that the blowing of the wind of the spirit
+of human liberty and intellectual enthusiasm influencing the minds of
+the generation, rather than any formal attempt on the part of any
+class of men deliberately to provide educational opportunities, is the
+underlying feature of university foundation and development.
+
+While the great universities of Paris, Bologna, and Oxford were, by
+far, the most important, they must not be considered as the only
+educational institutions deserving the name of universities, even in
+our modern sense, that took definite form during the Thirteenth
+Century. In Italy, mainly under the fostering care of ecclesiastics,
+encouraged by such Popes as Innocent III, Gregory IX, and Honorius IV,
+nearly a dozen other towns and cities saw the rise of Studia Generalia
+eventually destined, and that within a few decades after their
+foundation, to have the complete set of faculties, and such a number
+of teachers and of students as merited for them the name of
+University.
+
+{opp23}
+
+[Illustration]
+ADORATION OF MAGI (PULPIT, SIENA, NIC. PISANO).
+
+{23}
+
+Very early in the century Vicenza, Reggio, and Arezzo became
+university towns. Before the first quarter of the century was finished
+there were universities at Padua, at Naples, and at Vercelli. In spite
+of the troublous times and the great reduction in the population of
+Rome there was a university founded in connection with the Roman
+Curia, that is the Papal Court, before the middle of the century, and
+Siena and Piacenza had founded rival university institutions. Perugia
+had a famous school which became a complete university early in the
+Fourteenth Century.
+
+Nor were other countries much behind Italy in this enthusiastic
+movement. Montpelier had, for over a century before the beginning of
+the thirteenth, rejoiced in a medical school which was the most
+important rival of that at Salernum. At the beginning this reflected
+largely the Moorish element in educational affairs in Europe at this
+time. During the course of the Thirteenth Century Montpelier developed
+into a full-fledged university though the medical school still
+continued to be the most important faculty. Medical students from all
+over the world flocked to the salubrious town to which patients from
+all over were attracted, and its teachers and writers of medicine have
+been famous in medical history ever since. How thorough was the
+organization of clinical medical work at Montpelier may perhaps best
+be appreciated from the fact, noted in the chapter on City
+Hospitals--Organized Charity, that when Pope Innocent III. wished to
+establish a model hospital at Rome with the idea that it would form an
+exemplar for other European cities, he sent down to Montpelier and
+summoned Guy, the head of the Hospital of the Holy Ghost in that city,
+to the Papal Capital to establish the Roman Hospital of the Holy Ghost
+and, in connection with it, a large number of hospitals all over
+Europe.
+
+A corresponding state of affairs to that of Montpelier is to be noted
+at Orleans, only here the central school, around which the university
+gradually grouped itself, was the Faculty of Civil Law. Canon law was
+taught at Paris in connection with the theological course, but there
+had always been objection to the admission of civil law as a faculty
+on a basis of equality with the other faculties. There was indeed {24}
+at this time some rivalry between the civil and the canon law and so
+the study of civil law was relegated to other universities. Even early
+in the Twelfth Century Orleans was famous for its school of civil law
+in which the exposition of the principles of the old Roman law
+constituted the basis of the university course. During the Thirteenth
+Century the remaining departments of the university gradually
+developed, so that by the close of the century, there seem to be
+conservative claims for over one thousand students. Besides these
+three, French universities were also established at Angers, at
+Toulouse, and the beginnings of institutions to become universities
+early in the next century are recorded at Avignon and Cahors.
+
+Spain felt the impetus of the university movement early in the
+Thirteenth Century and a university was founded at Palencia about the
+end of the first decade. This was founded by Alfonso XII. and was
+greatly encouraged by him. It is sometimes said that this university
+was transferred to Salamanca about 1230, but this is denied by
+Denifle, whose authority in matters of university history is
+unquestionable. It seems not unlikely that Salamanca drew a number of
+students from Palencia but that the latter continued still to attract
+many students. About the middle of the Thirteenth Century the
+university of Valladolid was founded. Before the end of the century a
+fourth university, that of Lerida, had been established in the Spanish
+peninsula. Spain was to see the greatest development of universities
+during the Fourteenth Century. It was not long after the end of the
+Thirteenth Century before Coimbra, in Portugal, began to assume
+importance as an educational institution, though it was not to have
+sufficient faculty and students to deserve the more ambitious title of
+university for half a century.
+
+While most people who know anything about the history of education
+realize the important position occupied by the universities during the
+Thirteenth Century and appreciate the estimation in which they were
+held and the numbers that attended them, very few seem to know
+anything of the preparatory schools of the time, and are prone to
+think that all the educational effort of these generations was
+exhausted in connection {25} with the university. It is often said, as
+we shall see, that one reason for the large number of students
+reported as in attendance at the universities during the Thirteenth
+Century is to be found in the fact that these institutions practically
+combined the preparatory school and the academy of our time with the
+university. The universities are supposed to have been the only
+centers of education worthy of mention. There is no doubt that a
+number of quite young students were in attendance at the universities,
+that is, boys from 12 to 15 who would in our time be only in the
+preparatory school. We shall explain, however, in the chapter on the
+Numbers in Attendance at the Universities that students went to
+college much younger in the past and graduated much earlier than they
+do in our day, yet apparently, without any injury to the efficacy of
+their educational training.
+
+In the universities of Southern Europe it is still the custom for boys
+to graduate with the degree of A. B. at the age of 15 to 16, which
+supposes attendance at the university, or its equivalent in
+under-graduate courses, at the age of 12 or even less. There is no
+need, however, to appeal to the precociousness of the southern nations
+in explanation of this, since there are some good examples of it in
+comparatively recent times here in America. Most of the colleges in
+this country, in the early part of the nineteenth century and the end
+of the eighteenth, graduated young men of 16 and 17 and thought that
+they were accomplishing a good purpose, in allowing them to get at
+their life work in early manhood. Many of the distinguished divines
+who made names in educational work are famous for their early
+graduations. Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia, whom the medical
+profession of this country hails as the Father of American Medicine,
+graduated at Princeton at 15. He must have begun his college course,
+therefore, about the age of 12. This may be considered inadvisable in
+our generation, but, it must be remembered that there are many even in
+our day, who think that our college men are allowed to get at their
+life-work somewhat too late for their own good.
+
+It must be emphasized, moreover, that in many of the university towns
+there were also preparatory schools. Courses {26} were not regularly
+organized until well on in the Thirteenth Century, but younger
+brothers and friends of students as well as of professors would not
+infrequently be placed under their care and thus be enabled to receive
+their preparation for university work. At Paris, Robert Sorbonne
+founded a preparatory school for that institution under the name of
+the College of Calvi. Other colleges of this kind also existed in
+Paris. This custom of having a preparatory school in association with
+the university has not been abandoned even in our own day, and it has
+some decided advantages from an educational standpoint, though perhaps
+these are not enough to balance certain ethical disadvantages almost
+sure to attach to such a system, disadvantages which ultimately led in
+the Middle Ages to the prohibition that young students should be taken
+at the universities under any pretext.
+
+The presence of these young students in university towns probably did
+add considerably to the numbers reported as in attendance. It must not
+be thought, however, that there were no formal preparatory schools
+quite apart from university influence. This thought has been the root
+of more misunderstanding of the medieval system of education than
+almost any other. As a matter of fact there were preliminary and
+preparatory schools, what we would now call academies and colleges, in
+connection with all of the important monasteries and with every
+cathedral. Schools of less importance were required by a decree of a
+council held at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century to be
+maintained in connection with every bishop's church. During the
+Thirteenth Century there were some twenty cathedrals in various parts
+of England; each one had its cathedral school. Besides these there
+were at least as many important abbeys, nearly a dozen of them immense
+institutions, in which there were fine libraries, large writing rooms,
+in which copies of books were being constantly made, many of the
+members of the communities of which were university men, and around
+which, therefore, there clung an atmosphere of bookishness and
+educational influence that made them preparatory schools of a high
+type. The buildings themselves were of the highest type of
+architecture; the community life was well calculated to bring out what
+was best in the {27} intellectuality of members of the community, and,
+then, there was a rivalry between the various religious orders which
+made them prepare their men well in order that they might do honor to
+the order when they had the opportunity later, as most of those who
+had the ability and the taste actually did have, to go to one or other
+of the universities.
+
+This system of preparatory schools need not be accepted on the mere
+assumption that the monasteries and churches must surely have set
+about such work, because there is abundant evidence of the actual
+establishment and maintenance of such schools. With regard to the
+monasteries there can be no doubt, because it was the members of the
+religious orders who particularly distinguished themselves at the
+universities, and the histories of Oxford, Cambridge, and Paris are
+full of their accomplishments. They succeeded in obtaining the right
+to have their own houses at the universities and to have their own
+examinations count in university work, in order that they might
+maintain their influence over the members of the orders during the
+precious formative period of their intellectual life. With regard to
+the church schools there is convincing evidence of another kind.
+
+In the chapter on the foundation of City Hospitals we have detailed on
+the authority of Virchow all that Innocent III. accomplished for the
+hospital system of Europe. This chapter was published originally in
+the form of a lecture from the historical department of the Medical
+School of Fordham University and a reprint of it was sent to a
+distinguished American educator well known for his condemnation of
+supposed church intolerance in the matter of education and scientific
+development. He said that he was glad to have it because it confirmed
+and even broadened the idea that he had long cherished, that the
+Church had done more for Charity during the despised Middle Ages than
+national governments had ever been able to accomplish since, though it
+was all the more surprising to him that it should not have under the
+circumstances, done more for education, since this might have
+prevented some of the ills that charity had afterward to relieve. This
+expression very probably represents the state of mind of very many
+scholars with regard to this period. The Church is supposed to have
+interested herself {28} in charity almost to the exclusion of
+educational influence. Charity is of course admitted to be her special
+work, yet these scholars cannot help but regret that more was not done
+in social prophylaxis by the encouragement of education.
+
+In the light of this almost universal expression it is all the more
+interesting to find that such opinions are founded entirely on a lack
+of knowledge of what was done in education, since the same Pope, in
+practically the same way and by the exertion of the same prestige and
+ecclesiastical authority, did for education just what he did for
+charity in the matter of the hospitals and the ailing poor. Virchow,
+as we shall see, declared that to Innocent III. is due the foundation
+of practically all the city hospitals in Europe. If the effect of
+certain of the decrees issued in his papacy be carefully followed, it
+will be found that practically as many schools as hospitals owe their
+origin to his beneficent wisdom and his paternal desire to spread the
+advantages of Christianity all over the civilized world. This policy
+with regard to the hospitals led to the foundation before the end of
+the century of at least one hospital in every diocese of all the
+countries which were more closely allied with the Holy See. There is
+extant a decree issued by the famous council of Lateran, in 1215, a
+council in which Innocent's authority was dominant, requiring the
+establishment of a Chair of Grammar in connection with every cathedral
+in the Christian world. This Chair of Grammar included at least three
+of the so-called liberal arts and provided for what would now be
+called, the education of a school preparatory to a university.
+
+Before this, Innocent III,  [Footnote 2] who had himself received the
+benefit of the best education of the time, having spent some years at
+Rome and later at Paris and at Bologna, had encouraged the sending of
+students to these universities in every way.
+
+  [Footnote 2: Most of the details of what was accomplished for
+  education by Pope Innocent III, and all the references needed to
+  supply further information, can be found in the _Hestoire
+  Litteratire de la France_, recent volumes of which were issued by
+  the French Institute, though the magnificent work itself was begun
+  by Benedictines of St. Maur, who completed some fifteen volumes. The
+  sixteenth volume, most of which is written by Dauñou, is especially
+  valuable for this period. Du Boulay, in his History of the
+  University of Paris, will furnish additional information with regard
+  to Pope Innocent's relations to education throughout Europe,
+  especially, of course, in what regards the University of Paris.]
+
+
+[Illustration]
+CATHEDRAL (YORK)
+
+
+[Illustration]
+CATHEDRAL (LINCOLN)
+
+
+{29}
+
+Bishops who came to Rome were sure to hear inculcated the advisability
+of a taste for letters in clergymen, hear it said often enough that
+such a taste would surely increase the usefulness of all churchmen.
+Schools had been encouraged before the issuance of the decree. This
+only came as a confirmatory document calculated to perpetuate the
+policy that had already been so prominently in vogue in the church for
+over fifteen years of the Pope's reign. It was meant, too, to make
+clear to hesitant and tardy bishops, who might have thought that the
+papal interest in education was merely personal, that the policy of
+the church was concerned in it and recalled them to a sense of duty in
+the matter, since the ordinary enthusiasm for letters, even with the
+added encouragement of the Pope, did not suffice to make them realize
+the necessity for educational establishments.
+
+The institution of the schools of grammar in connection with
+cathedrals was well adapted to bring about a definite increase in the
+opportunities for book learning for those who desired it. In
+connection with the cathedrals there was always a band of canons whose
+duty it was to take part in the singing of the daily office. Their
+ceremonial and ritual duties did not, however, occupy them more than a
+few hours each day. During the rest of the time they were free to
+devote themselves to any subject in which they might be interested and
+had ample time for teaching. The requirement that there should be at
+least a school of grammar in connection with every cathedral afforded
+definite opportunity to such of these ecclesiastics as had
+intellectual tastes to devote themselves to the spread of knowledge
+and of culture, and this reacted, as can be readily understood, to
+make the whole band of canons more interested in the things of the
+mind, and to make the cathedral even more the intellectual center of
+the district than might otherwise have been the case.
+
+For the metropolitan churches a more far-reaching regulation was made
+by this same council of Lateran under the inspiration of the Pope
+himself. These important Archiepiscopal cathedrals were required to
+maintain professors of three chairs. One of these was to teach
+grammar, a second philosophy, and a third canon law. Under these
+designations there was practically included much of what is now
+studied not only in preparatory {30} schools but also at the beginning
+of University courses. The regulation was evidently intended to lead
+eventually to the formation of many more universities than were then
+in existence, because already it had become clear that the traveling
+of students to long distances and their gathering in such large
+numbers in towns away from home influences, led to many abuses that
+might be obviated if they could stay in their native cities, or at
+least did not have to leave their native provinces. This was a
+far-seeing regulation that, like so many other decrees of the century,
+manifests the very practical policy of the Pope in matters of
+education as well as charity. As a matter of fact this decree did lead
+to the gradual development of about twenty universities during the
+Thirteenth Century, and to the establishment of a number of other
+schools so important in scope and attendance that their evolution into
+universities during the Fourteenth Century became comparatively easy.
+This formal church law, moreover, imposed upon ecclesiastical
+authorities the necessity for providing for even higher education in
+their dioceses and made them realize that it was entirely in sympathy
+with the church's spirit and in accord with the wish of the Father of
+Christendom, that they should make as ample provision for education as
+they did for charity, though this last was supposed to be their
+special task as pastors of the Christian flock.
+
+All this important work for the foundation of preparatory schools in
+every diocese and of the preliminary organization of teaching
+institutions that might easily develop into universities, as they
+actually did in a score of cases in metropolitan cities, was
+accomplished under the first Pope of the Thirteenth Century, Innocent
+III. His successors kept up this good work. Pope Honorius III., his
+immediate successor, went so far in this matter as to depose a bishop
+who had not read Donatus, the popular grammarian of the time. The
+bishop evidently was considered unfit, as far as his mental training
+went, to occupy the important post of head of a diocese. Pope Gregory
+IX., the nephew of Innocent III., was one of the most important
+patrons of the study of law in this period (see Legal Origins in Other
+Countries), and encouraged the collection of the decrees of former
+Popes so as to make them available for purposes of study as well as
+for court use. He is famous for {31} having protected the University
+of Paris during some of the serious trouble with the municipal
+authorities, when the large increase of the number of students in
+attendance at the University had unfortunately brought about strained
+relations between town and gown.
+
+Pope Innocent IV. by several decrees encouraged the development of the
+University of Paris, increased its rights and conferred new
+privileges. He also did much to develop the University of Toulouse,
+and especially to raise its standard and make it equal to that of
+Paris as far as possible. The patronage of Toulouse on the part of the
+Pope is all the more striking because the study of civil law was here
+a special feature and the ecclesiastical authorities were often said
+to have looked askance at the rising prominence of civil law, since it
+threatened to diminish the importance of canon law; and the
+cultivation of it, only too frequently, seemed to give rise to
+friction between civil and ecclesiastical authorities. While the
+pontifical court of Innocent IV. was maintained at Lyons it seemed,
+according to the Literary History of France,  [Footnote 3] more like
+an academy of theology and of canon law than the court of a great
+monarch whose power was acknowledged throughout the world, or a great
+ecclesiastic who might be expected to be occupied with details of
+Church government.
+
+  [Footnote 3: Histoire Litteratire de la France, Vol. XVI,
+  Introductory Discourse.]
+
+Succeeding Popes of the century were not less prominent in their
+patronage of education. Pope Alexander IV. supported the cause of the
+Mendicant Friars against the University of Paris, but this was
+evidently with the best of intentions. The mendicants came to claim
+the privilege of having houses in association with the university in
+which they might have lectures for the members of their orders, and
+asked for due allowance in the matter of degrees for courses thus
+taken. The faculty of the University did not want to grant this
+privilege, though it was acknowledged that some of the best professors
+in the University were members of the Mendicant orders, and we need
+only mention such names as Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas from
+the Dominicans, and St. Bonaventure, Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus from
+the Franciscans, to show the truth of this assertion. To give such a
+privilege {32} seemed a derogation of the faculty rights and the
+University refused. Then the Holy See interfered to insist that the
+University must give degrees for work done, rather than merely for
+regulation attendance. The best possible proof that Pope Alexander
+cannot be considered as wishing to injure or even diminish the
+prestige of the University in any way, is to be found in the fact that
+he afterwards sent two of his nephews to Paris to attend at the
+University.
+
+All these Popes, so far mentioned, were not Frenchmen and therefore
+could have no national feeling in the matter of the University of
+Paris or of the French universities in general. It is not surprising
+to find that Pope Urban IV., who was a Frenchman and an alumnus of the
+University of Paris, elevated many French scholars, and especially his
+fellow alumni of Paris, to Church dignitaries of various kinds. After
+Urban IV., Nicholas IV. who succeeded him, though once more an
+Italian, founded chairs in the University of Montpelier, and also a
+professorship in a school that it was hoped would develop into a
+university at Gray in Franche Comte. In a word, looked at from every
+point of view, it must be admitted that the Church and ecclesiastical
+authorities were quite as much interested in education as in charity
+during this century, and it is to them that must be traced the
+foundation of the preparatory schools, as well as the universities,
+and the origin and development of the great educational movement that
+stamps this century as the greatest in human history.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+JACQUES COEUR'S HOUSE (BOURGES)
+
+[Illustration]
+CLOISTER OF ST. JOHN LATERAN (ROME)
+
+
+{33}
+
+III
+
+WHAT AND HOW THEY STUDIED AT THE UNIVERSITIES.
+
+
+It is usually the custom for text books of education to dismiss the
+teaching at the universities of the Middle Ages with some such
+expression as: "The teachers were mainly engaged in metaphysical
+speculations and the students were occupied with exercises in logic
+and in dialectics, learning in long drawn out disputations how to use
+the intellectual instruments they possessed but never actually
+applying them. All knowledge was supposed to be amenable to increase
+through dialectical discussion and all truth was supposed, to be
+obtainable as the conclusion of a regular syllogism." Great fun
+especially is made of the long-winded disputations, the time-taking
+public exercises in dialectics, the fine hair-drawn distinctions
+presumably with but the scantiest basis of truth behind them and in
+general the placing of words for realities in the investigation of
+truth and the conveyance of information. The sublime ignorance of
+educators who talk thus about the century that saw the rise of the
+universities in connection with the erection of the great Cathedrals,
+is only equaled by their assumption of knowledge.
+
+It is very easy to make fun of a past generation and often rather
+difficult to enter into and appreciate its spirit. Ridicule comes
+natural to human nature, alas! but sympathy requires serious mental
+application for understanding's sake. Fortunately there has come in
+recent years a very different feeling in the minds of many mature and
+faithful students of this period, as regards the Middle Ages and its
+education. Dialectics may seem to be a waste of time to those who
+consider the training of the human mind as of little value in
+comparison with the stocking of it with information. Dialectical
+training will probably not often enable men to earn more money than
+might have otherwise been the case. This will be {34} eminently true
+if the dialectician is to devote himself to commercial enterprises in
+his future life. If he is to take up one of the professions, however,
+there may be some doubt as to whether even his practical effectiveness
+will not be increased by a good course of logic. There is, however,
+another point of view from which this matter of the study of
+dialectics may be viewed, and which has been taken very well by Prof.
+Saintsbury of the University of Edinburgh in a recent volume on the
+Thirteenth Century.
+
+He insists in a passage which we quote at length in the chapter on the
+Prose of the Century, that if this training in logic had not been
+obtained at this time in European development, the results might have
+been serious for our modern languages and modern education. He says:
+"If at the outset of the career of the modern languages, men had
+thought with the looseness of modern thought, had indulged in the
+haphazard slovenliness of modern logic, had popularized theology and
+vulgarized rhetoric, as we have seen both popularized and vulgarized
+since, we should indeed have been in evil case." He maintains that
+"the far-reaching educative influence in mere language, in mere system
+of arrangement and expression, must be considered as one of the great
+benefits of Scholasticism." This is, after all, only a similar opinion
+to that evidently entertained by Mr. John Stuart Mill, who, as Prof.
+Saintsbury says, was not often a scholastically-minded philosopher,
+for he quotes in the preface of his logic two very striking opinions
+from very different sources, the Scotch philosopher, Hamilton, and the
+French philosophical writer, Condorcet. Hamilton said, "It is to the
+schoolmen that the vulgar languages are indebted for what precision
+and analytical subtlety they possess." Condorcet went even further
+than this, and used expressions that doubless will be a great source
+of surprise to those who do not realize how much of admiration is
+always engendered in those who really study the schoolmen seriously
+and do not take opinions of them from the chance reading of a few
+scattered passages, or depend for the data of their judgment on some
+second-hand authority, who thought it clever to abuse these old-time
+thinkers. Condorcet thought them far in advance of the old Greek
+philosophers for, he said, "Logic, ethics, and metaphysics {35}
+itself, owe to scholasticism a precision unknown to the ancients
+themselves."
+
+With regard to the methods and contents of the teaching in the
+undergraduate department of the university, that is, in what we would
+now call the arts department, there is naturally no little interest at
+the present time. Besides the standards set up and the tests required
+can scarcely fail to attract attention. Professor Turner, in his
+History of Philosophy, has summed up much of what we know in this
+matter in a paragraph so full of information that we quote it in order
+to give our readers the best possible idea in a compendious form of
+these details of the old-time education.
+
+  "By statutes issued at various times during the Thirteenth Century
+  it was provided that the professor should read, that is expound, the
+  text of certain standard authors in philosophy and theology. In a
+  document published by Denifle, (the distinguished authority on
+  medieval universities) and by him referred to the year 1232, we find
+  the following works among those prescribed for the Faculty of Arts:
+  Logica Vetus (the old Boethian text of a portion of the Organon,
+  probably accompanied by Porphyry's Isagoge); Logica Nova (the new
+  translation of the Organon); Gilbert's Liber Sex Principorium; and
+  Donatus's Barbarismus. A few years later (1255), the following works
+  are prescribed: Aristotle's Physics, Metaphysics, De Anima, De
+  Animalibus, De Caelo et Mundo, Meteorica, the minor psychological
+  treatises and some Arabian or Jewish works, such as the Liber de
+  Causis and De Differentia Spirititus et Animae."
+
+  "The first degree for which the student of arts presented himself
+  was that of bachelor. The candidate for this degree, after a
+  preliminary test called responsiones (this regulation went into
+  effect not later than 1275), presented himself for the determination
+  which was a public defense of a certain number of theses against
+  opponents chosen from the audience. At the end of the disputation,
+  the defender summed up, or determined, his conclusions. After
+  determining, the bachelor resumed his studies for the licentiate,
+  assuming also the task of cursorily explaining to junior students
+  some portion of the Organon. The test for the degree of licentiate
+  consisted {36} in a _collatio_, or exposition of several texts,
+  after the manner of the masters. The student was now a licensed
+  teacher; he did not, however, become magister, or master of arts,
+  until he had delivered what was called the _inceptio_, or inaugural
+  lecture, and was actually installed (_birrettatio_). If he continued
+  to teach he was called _magisier actu regens_; if he departed from
+  the university or took up other work, he was called _magister non
+  regens_. It may be said that, as a general rule, the course of
+  reading was: (1) for the bachelor's degree, grammar, logic, and
+  psychology; (2) for the licentiate, natural philosophy; (3) for the
+  master's degree, ethics, and the completion of the course of natural
+  philosophy."
+
+Quite apart from the value of its methods, however, scholasticism in
+certain of its features had a value in the material which it discussed
+and developed that modern generations only too frequently fail to
+realize. With regard to this the same distinguished authority whom we
+quoted with regard to dialectics, Prof. Saintsbury, does not hesitate
+to use expressions which will seem little short of rankly heretical to
+those who swear by modern science, and yet may serve to inject some
+eminently suggestive ideas into a sadly misunderstood subject.
+
+  "Yet there has always in generous souls who have some tincture of
+  philosophy, subsisted a curious kind of sympathy and yearning over
+  the work of these generations of mainly disinterested scholars, who,
+  whatever they were, were thorough, and whatever they could not do,
+  could think. _And there, have even, in these latter days, been some
+  graceless ones who have asked whether the Science of the nineteenth
+  century, after an equal interval, will be of any more positive
+  value--whether it will not have even less comparative interest than
+  that which appertains to the Scholasticism of the Thirteenth."_
+
+In the light of this it has seemed well to try to show in terms of
+present-day science some of the important reflections with regard to
+such problems of natural history, as magnetism, the composition of
+matter, and the relation of things physical to one another, which we
+now include under the name science, some of the thoughts that these
+scholars of the Thirteenth Century were thinking and were developing
+for the benefit of the {37} enthusiastic students who flocked to the
+universities. We will find in such a review though it must necessarily
+be brief many more anticipations of modern science than would be
+thought possible.
+
+To take the example for the moment of magnetism which is usually
+considered to be a subject entirely of modern attention, a good idea
+of the intense interest of this century in things scientific, can be
+obtained from the following short paragraph in which Brother Potamian
+in his sketch of Petrus Peregrinus, condenses the references to
+magnetic phenomena that are found in the literature of the time. Most
+of the writers he mentions were not scientists in the ordinary sense
+of the word but were literary men, and the fact that these references
+occur shows very clearly that there must have been wide-spread
+interest in such scientific phenomena, since they had attracted the
+attention of literary writers, who would not have spoken of them
+doubtless, but that they knew that in this they would be satisfying as
+well as exciting public interest.
+
+  "Abbot Neckam, the Augustinian (1157-1217), distinguished between
+  the properties of the two ends of the lodestone, and gives in his De
+  Utensilibus, what is perhaps the earliest reference to the mariner's
+  compass that we have. Albertus Magnus, the Dominican (1193-1280), in
+  his treatise De Mineralibus, enumerates different kinds of natural
+  magnets and states some of the properties commonly attributed to
+  them; the minstrel, Guyot de Provins, in a famous satirical poem,
+  written about 1208, refers to the directive quality of the lodestone
+  and its use in navigation, as do also Cardinal de Vitry in his
+  Historia Orientialis (1215-1220), Brunetto Latini, poet, orator and
+  philosopher (the teacher of Dante), in his Tresor des Sciences, a
+  veritable library, written in Paris in 1260; Raymond Lully, the
+  enlightened Doctor, in his treatise, De Contemplatione, begun in
+  1272, and Guido Guinicelli, the poet-priest of Bologna, who died in
+  1276."   [Footnote 4]
+
+    [Footnote 4: The letter of Petrus Peregrinus on the Magnet, A. D.
+    1269, translated by Bro. Arnold, M. Sc., with an Introductory Note
+    by Bro. Potamian, N. Y., 1904.]
+
+{38}
+
+The metaphysics of the medieval universities have come in for quite as
+much animadversion, not to say ridicule, as the dialectics. None of
+its departments is spared in the condemnation, though most fun is made
+of the gropings of the medieval mind after truth in the physical
+sciences. The cosmology, the science of matter as it appealed to the
+medieval mind, is usually considered to have been so entirely
+speculative as to deserve no further attention. We have presumably,
+learned so much by experimental demonstration and original observation
+in the physical sciences, that any thinking of the medieval mind along
+these lines may, in the opinion of those who know nothing of what they
+speak, be set aside as preposterous, or at best nugatory. It will
+surely be a source of surprise, then, to find that in the
+consideration of the composition of matter and of the problem of the
+forces connected with it, the minds of the medieval schoolmen were
+occupied with just the same questions that have been most interesting
+to the Nineteenth Century and that curiously enough the conclusions
+they reached, though by very different methods of investigation, were
+almost exactly the same as those to which modern physical scientists
+have attained by their refined methods of investigation.
+
+One or two examples will suffice, I think, to show very clearly that
+the students of the Thirteenth Century had presented to them
+practically the same problems with regard to matter, its origin and
+composition, as occupy the students of the present generation. For
+instance Thomas Aquinas usually known as St. Thomas, in a series of
+lectures given at the University of Paris toward the end of the third
+quarter of the Thirteenth Century, stated as the most important
+conclusion with regard to matter, that _"Nihil omnino in nihilum
+redigetur_,"' "Nothing at all will ever be reduced to nothingness." By
+this it was very evident from the context that he meant that matter
+would never be annihilated and could never be destroyed. It might be
+changed in various ways but it could never go back into the
+nothingness from which it had been taken by the creative act.
+Annihilation was pronounced as not being a part of the scheme of
+things as far as the human mind could hope to fathom its meaning.
+
+In this sentence, then, Thomas of Aquin was proclaiming the {39}
+doctrine of the indestructibility of matter. It was not until well on
+in the nineteenth century that the chemists and physicists of modern
+times realized the truth of this great principle. The chemists had
+seen matter change its form in many ways, had seen it disappear
+apparently in the smoke of fire or evaporate under the influence of
+heat, but investigation proved that if care were taken in the
+collection of the gases that came off under these circumstances, of
+the ashes of combustion and of the residue of evaporation, all the
+original material that had been contained in the supposedly
+disappearing substance could be recovered or at least completely
+accounted for. The physicists on their part had realized this same
+truth and finally there came the definite enunciation of the absolute
+indestructibility of matter. St. Thomas' conclusion "Nothing at all
+will ever be reduced to nothingness" had anticipated this doctrine by
+nearly seven centuries. What happened in the Nineteenth Century was
+that there came an experimental demonstration of the truth of the
+principle. The principle itself, however, had been reached long before
+by the human mind by speculative processes quite as inerrable in their
+way as the more modern method of investigation.
+
+When St. Thomas used the aphorism "Nothing at all will ever be reduced
+to nothingness" there was another signification that he attached to
+the words quite as clearly as that by which they expressed the
+indestructibility of matter. For him _Nihil_ or nothing meant neither
+_matter_ nor _form_, that is, neither the material substance nor the
+energy which is contained in it. He meant then, that no energy would
+ever be destroyed as well as no matter would ever be annihilated. He
+was teaching the conservation of energy as well as the
+indestructibility of matter. Here once more the experimental
+demonstration of the doctrine was delayed for over six centuries and a
+half. The truth itself, however, had been reached by this medieval
+master-mind and was the subject of his teaching to the university
+students in Paris in the Thirteenth Century. These examples should, I
+think, serve to illustrate that the minds of medieval students were
+occupied with practically the same questions as those which are now
+taught to the university students of our day. There are, however, some
+even {40} more striking anticipations of modern teaching that will
+serve to demonstrate this community of educational interests in spite
+of seven centuries of time separation.
+
+In recent years we have come to realize that matter is not the
+manifold material we were accustomed to think it when we accepted the
+hypothesis that there were some seventy odd different kinds of atoms,
+each one absolutely independent of any other and representing an
+ultimate term in science. The atomic theory from this standpoint has
+proved to be only a working hypothesis that was useful for a time, but
+that our physicists are now agreed must not be considered as something
+absolute. Radium has been observed changing into helium and the
+relations of atoms to one another as they are now known, make it
+almost certain that all of them have an underlying sub-stratum the
+same in all, but differentiated by the dynamic energies with which
+matter in its different forms is gifted. Sir Oliver Lodge has stated
+this theory of the constitution of matter very clearly in recent
+years, and in doing so has only been voicing the practically universal
+sentiment of those who have been following the latest developments in
+the physical sciences. Strange as it may appear, this was exactly the
+teaching of Aquinas and the schoolmen with regard to the constitution
+of matter. They said that the two constituting principles of matter
+were prime matter and form. By prime matter they meant the material
+sub-stratum the same in all material things. By form they meant the
+special dynamic energy which, entering into prime matter, causes it to
+act differently from other kinds and gives it all the particular
+qualities by which we recognize it. This theory was not original with
+them, having been adopted from Aristotle, but it was very clearly set
+forth, profoundly discussed, and amply illustrated by the schoolmen.
+In its development this theory was made to be of the greatest help in
+the explanation of many other difficulties with regard to living as
+well as non-living things in their hands. The theory has its
+difficulties, but they are less than those of any other theory of the
+constitution of matter, and it has been accepted by more philosophic
+thinkers since the Thirteenth Century than any other doctrine of
+similar nature. It may be said that it was reached only by deduction
+and not by experimental observation. Such an expression, {41} however,
+instead of being really an objection is rather a demonstration of the
+fact that great truths may be reached by deduction yet only
+demonstrated by inductive methods many centuries later.
+
+Of course it may well be said even after all these communities of
+interest between the medieval and the modern teaching of the general
+principles of science has been pointed out, that the universities of
+the Middle Ages did not present the subjects under discussion in a
+practical way, and their teaching was not likely to lead to directly
+beneficial results in applied science. It might well he responded to
+this, that it is not the function of a university to teach
+applications of science but only the great principles, the broad
+generalizations that underlie scientific thinking, leaving details to
+be filled in in whatever form of practical work the man may take up.
+Very few of those, however, who talk about the purely speculative
+character of medieval teaching have manifestly ever made it their
+business to know anything about the actual facts of old-time
+university teaching by definite knowledge, but have rather allowed
+themselves to be guided by speculation and by inadequate second-hand
+authorities, whose dicta they have never taken the trouble to
+substantiate by a glance at contemporary authorities on medieval
+matters.
+
+It will be interesting to quote for the information of such men, the
+opinion of the greatest of medieval scientists with regard to the
+reason why men do not obtain real knowledge more rapidly than would
+seem ought to be the case, from the amount of work which they have
+devoted to obtaining it. Roger Bacon, summing up for Pope Clement the
+body of doctrine that he was teaching at the University of Oxford in
+the Thirteenth Century, starts out with the principle that there are
+four grounds of human ignorance. "These are first, trust in inadequate
+authority; second, the force of custom which leads men to accept too
+unquestioningly what has been accepted before their time; third, the
+placing of confidence in the opinion of the inexperienced; and fourth,
+the hiding of one's own ignorance with the parade of a superficial
+wisdom." Surely no one will ever be able to improve on these four
+grounds for human ignorance, and they continue to be as {42} important
+in the twentieth century as they were in the Thirteenth. They could
+only have emanated from an eminently practical mind, accustomed to
+test by observation and by careful searching of authorities, every
+proposition that came to him. Professor Henry Morley, Professor of
+English Literature at University College, London, says of these
+grounds for ignorance of Roger Bacon, in his English Writers, Volume
+III, page 321: "No part of that ground has yet been cut away from
+beneath the feet of students, although six centuries ago the Oxford
+friar clearly pointed out its character. We still make sheep walks of
+second, third, and fourth and fiftieth-hand references to authority;
+still we are the slaves of habit; still we are found following too
+frequently the untaught crowd; still we flinch from the righteous and
+wholesome phrase, 'I do not know'; and acquiesce actively in the
+opinion of others that we know what we appear to know. Substitute
+honest research, original and independent thought, strict truth in the
+comparison of only what we really know with what is really known by
+others, and the strong redoubt of ignorance has fallen."
+
+The number of things which Roger Bacon succeeded in discovering by the
+application of the principle of testing everything by personal
+observation, is almost incredible to a modern student of science and
+of education who has known nothing before of the progress in science
+made by this wonderful man. He has been sometimes declared to be the
+discoverer of gunpowder, but this is a mistake since it was known many
+years before by the Arabs and by them introduced into Europe. He did
+study explosives very deeply, however, and besides learning many
+things about them realized how much might be accomplished by their use
+in the after-time. He declares in his Opus Magnum: "That one may cause
+to burst forth from bronze, thunderbolts more formidable than those
+produced by nature. A small quantity of prepared matter occasions a
+terrible explosion accompanied by a brilliant light. One may multiply
+this phenomenon so far as to destroy a city or an army." Considering
+how little was known about gunpowder at this time, this was of itself
+a marvelous anticipation of what might be accomplished by it.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+RATHHAUS (TANGERMÜNDE)
+
+
+Bacon prophesied, however, much more than merely {43} destructive
+effects from the use of high explosives, and indeed it is almost
+amusing to see how closely he anticipated some of the most modern
+usages of high explosives for motor purposes. He seems to have
+concluded that some time the apparently uncontrollable forces of
+explosion would come under the control of man and be harnessed by him
+for his own purposes. He realized that one of the great applications
+of such a force would be for transportation. Accordingly he said: "Art
+can construct instruments of navigation such that the largest vessels
+governed by a single man will traverse rivers and seas more rapidly
+than if they were filled with oarsmen. One may also make carriages
+which without the aid of any animal will run with remarkable
+swiftness."   [Footnote 5] When we recall that the very latest thing
+in transportation are motor-boats and automobiles driven by gasoline,
+a high explosive, Roger Bacon's prophesy becomes one of these weird
+anticipations of human progress which seem almost more than human.
+
+  [Footnote 5: These quotations are taken from Ozanam's Dante and
+  Catholic Philosophy, published by the Cathedral Library Association,
+  New York, 1897. ]
+
+It was not with regard to explosives alone, however, that Roger Bacon
+was to make great advances and still more marvelous anticipations in
+physical science. He was not, as is sometimes claimed for him, either
+the inventor of the telescope or of the theory of lenses. He did more,
+however, than perhaps anyone else to make the principles of lenses
+clear and to establish them on a mathematical basis. His traditional
+connection with the telescope can probably be traced to the fact that
+he was very much interested in astronomy and the relations of the
+heavens to the earth. He pointed out very clearly the errors which had
+crept into the Julian calendar, calculated exactly how much of a
+correction was needed in order to restore the year to its proper
+place, and suggested the method by which future errors of this kind
+could be avoided. His ideas were too far beyond his century to be
+applied in a practical way, but they were not to be without their
+effect and it is said that they formed the basis of the subsequent
+correction of the calendar in the time of Pope Gregory XIII three
+centuries later.
+
+{44}
+
+It is rather surprising to find how much besides the theory of lenses
+Friar Bacon had succeeded in finding out in the department of optics.
+He taught, for instance, the principle of the aberration of light,
+and, still more marvelous to consider, taught that light did not
+travel instantaneously but had a definite rate of motion, though this
+was extremely rapid. It is rather difficult to understand how he
+reached this conclusion since light travels so fast that as far as
+regards any observation that can be made upon earth, the diffusion is
+practically instantaneous. It was not for over three centuries later
+that Römer, the German astronomer, demonstrated the motion of light
+and its rate, by his observations upon the moons of Jupiter at
+different phases of the earth's orbit, which showed that the light of
+these moons took a definite and quite appreciable time to reach the
+earth after their eclipse by the planet was over.
+
+We are not surprised to find that Bacon should praise those of his
+contemporaries who devoted themselves to mathematics and to
+experimental observations in science. Of one of his correspondents who
+even from distant Italy sent him his observations in order that he
+might have the great Franciscan's precious comments on them. Bacon has
+given quite a panegyric. The reasons for his praise, however, are so
+different from those which are ordinarily proclaimed to have been the
+sources of laudation in distant medieval scientific circles, that we
+prefer to quote Bacon's own words from the Opus Tertium. Bacon is
+talking of Petrus Peregrinus and says: "I know of only one person who
+deserves praise for his work in experimental philosophy, for he does
+not care for the discourses of men and their wordy warfare, but
+quietly and diligently pursues the works of wisdom. Therefore, what
+others grope after blindly, as bats in the evening twilight, this man
+contemplates in all their brilliancy because he is a master of
+experiment. Hence, he knows all natural science whether pertaining to
+medicine and alchemy, or to matters celestial and terrestrial.
+
+  "He has worked diligently in the smelting of ores as also in the
+  working of minerals; he is thoroughly acquainted with all sorts of
+  arms and implements used in military service and in hunting, besides
+  which he is skilled in agriculture and in the measurement of lands.
+  {45} It is impossible to write a useful or correct treatise in
+  experimental philosophy without mentioning this man's name.
+  Moreover, he pursues knowledge for its own sake; for if he wished to
+  obtain royal favor, he could easily find sovereigns who would honor
+  and enrich him."
+
+
+[Illustration]
+CATHEDRAL (YORK)
+
+[Illustration]
+CATHEDRAL (HEREFORD)
+
+
+Lest it should be thought that these expressions of laudatory
+appreciation of the great Thirteenth Century scientist are dictated
+more by the desire to magnify his work and to bring out the influence
+in science of the Churchmen of the period, it seems well to quote an
+expression of opinion from the modern historian of the inductive
+sciences, whose praise is scarcely if any less outspoken than that of
+others whom we have quoted and who might be supposed to be somewhat
+partial in their judgment. This opinion will fortify the doubters who
+must have authority and at the same time sums up very excellently the
+position which Roger Bacon occupies in the History of Science.
+
+Dr. Whewell says that Roger Bacon's Opus Majus is "the encyclopedia
+and Novam Organon of the Thirteenth Century, a work equally wonderful
+with regard to its general scheme and to the special treatises with
+which the outlines of the plans are filled up. The professed object of
+the work is to urge the necessity of a reform in the mode of
+philosophizing, to set forth the reasons why knowledge had not made a
+greater progress, to draw back attention to the sources of knowledge
+which had been unwisely neglected, to discover other sources which
+were yet almost untouched, and to animate men in the undertaking by a
+prospect of the vast advantages which it offered. In the development
+of this plan all the leading portions of science are expanded in the
+most complete shape which they had at that time assumed; and
+improvements of a very wide and striking kind are proposed in some of
+the principal branches of study. Even if the work had no leading
+purposes it would have been highly valuable as a treasure of the most
+solid knowledge and soundest speculations of the time; even if it had
+contained no such details it would have been a work most remarkable
+for its general views and scope."
+
+It is only what might have been expected, however, from {46} Roger
+Bacon's training that he should have made great progress in the
+physical sciences. At the University of Paris his favorite teacher was
+Albertus Magnus, who was himself deeply interested in all the physical
+sciences, though he was more concerned with the study of chemical
+problems than of the practical questions which were to occupy his
+greatest pupil. There is no doubt at all that Albertus Magnus
+accomplished a great amount of experimental work in chemistry and had
+made a large series of actual observations. He was a theologian as
+well as a philosopher and a scientist. Some idea of the immense
+industry of the man can be obtained from the fact that his complete
+works as published consist of some twenty large folio volumes, each
+one of which contains on the average at least 500,000 words.
+
+Among these works are many treatises relating to chemistry. The titles
+of some of them will serve to show how explicit was Albert in his
+consideration of various chemical subjects. He has treatises
+concerning Metals and Minerals; concerning Alchemy; A Treatise on the
+Secret of Chemistry; A Concordance, that is a Collection of
+observations from many sources with regard to the Philosopher's Stone;
+A Brief Compend on the Origin of the Metals; A Treatise on Compounds;
+most of these are to be found in his works under the general heading
+"Theatrum Chemicum."
+
+It is not surprising for those who know of Albert's work, to find that
+his pupil Roger Bacon defined the limits of chemistry very accurately
+and showed that he understood exactly what the subject and methods of
+investigation must be, in order that advance should be made in it. Of
+chemistry he speaks in his "Opus Tertium" in the following words:
+"There is a science which treats of the generation of things from
+their elements and of all inanimate things, as of the elements and
+liquids, simple and compound, common stones, gems and marble, gold and
+other metals, sulphur, salts, pigments, lapis lazuli, minium and other
+colors, oils, bitumen, and infinite more of which we find nothing in
+the books of Aristotle; nor are the natural philosophers nor any of
+the Latins acquainted with these things."
+
+In physics Albertus Magnus was, if possible, more advanced {47} and
+progressive even than in chemistry. His knowledge in the physical
+sciences was not merely speculative, but partook to a great degree of
+the nature of what we now call applied science. Humboldt, the
+distinguished German natural philosopher of the beginning of the
+Nineteenth Century, who was undoubtedly the most important leader in
+scientific thought in his time and whose own work was great enough to
+have an enduring influence in spite of the immense progress of the
+Nineteenth Century, has summed up Albert's work and given the headings
+under which his scientific research must be considered. He says:
+
+  "Albertus Magnus was equally active and influential in promoting the
+  study of natural science and of the Aristotelian philosophy. His
+  works contain some exceedingly acute remarks on the organic
+  structure and physiology of plants. One of his works bearing the
+  title of 'Liber Cosmographicus de Natura Locorum,' is a species of
+  physical geography. I have found in it considerations on the
+  dependence of temperature concurrently on latitude and elevation,
+  and on the effect of different angles of incidence of the sun's rays
+  in heating the ground, _which have excited my surprise_."
+
+To take up some of Humboldt's headings in their order and illustrate
+them by quotations from Albert himself and from condensed accounts as
+they appear in his biographer Sighart and in Christian Schools and
+Scholars   [Footnote 6], will serve to show at once the extent of
+Albert's knowledge and the presumptuous ignorance of those who make
+little of the science of the medieval period. When we have catalogued,
+for instance, the many facts with regard to astronomy and the physics
+of light that are supposed to have come to human ken much later, yet
+may be seen to have been clearly within the range of Albert's
+knowledge, and evidently formed the subject of his teaching at various
+times at both Paris and Cologne, for they are found in his authentic
+works, we can scarcely help but be amused at the pretentious
+misconception that has relegated their author to a place in education
+so trivial as is that which is represented in many minds by the term
+scholastic.
+
+  [Footnote 6: Christian Schools and Scholars. Drane.]
+
+
+  "He decides that the Milky Way is nothing but a vast {48} assemblage
+  of stars, but supposes naturally enough that they occupy the orbit
+  which receives the light of the sun. The figures visible on the
+  moon's disc are not, he says, as hitherto has been supposed,
+  reflections of the seas and mountains of the earth, but
+  configurations of her own surface. He notices, in order to correct
+  it, the assertion of Aristotle that lunar rainbows appear only twice
+  in fifty years; 'I myself,' he says have observed two in a single
+  year.' He has something to say on the refraction of a solar ray,
+  notices certain crystals which have a power of refraction, and
+  remarks that none of the ancients and few moderns were acquainted
+  with the properties of mirrors."
+
+Albert's great pupil Roger Bacon is rightly looked upon as the true
+father of inductive science, an honor that history has unfortunately
+taken from him to confer it undeservedly on his namesake of four
+centuries later, but the teaching out of which Roger Bacon was to
+develop the principles of experimental science can be found in many
+places in his master's writings. In Albert's tenth book, wherein he
+catalogues and describes all the trees, plants, and herbs known in his
+time, he observes: "All that is here set down is the result of our own
+experience, or has been borrowed from authors whom we know to have
+written what their personal experience has confirmed: for in these
+matters experience alone can give certainty" (_experimentum solum
+certificat in talibus_). "Such an expression," says his biographer,
+"which might have proceeded from the pen of (Francis) Bacon, argues in
+itself a prodigious scientific progress, and shows that the medieval
+friar was on the track so successfully pursued by modern natural
+philosophy. He had fairly shaken off the shackles which had hitherto
+tied up discovery, and was the slave neither of Pliny nor of
+Aristotle."
+
+Botany is supposed to be a very modern science and to most people
+Humboldt's expression that he found in Albertus Magnus's writings some
+"exceedingly acute remarks on the organic structure and physiology of
+plants" will come as a supreme surprise. A few details with regard to
+Albert's botanical knowledge, however, will serve to heighten that
+surprise and to show, that the foolish tirades of modern sciolists,
+{49} who have often expressed their wonder that with all the beauties
+of nature around them, these scholars of the Middle Ages did not
+devote themselves to nature study, are absurd, because if the critics
+but knew it there was profound interest in nature and all her
+manifestations and a series of discoveries that anticipated not a
+little of what we consider most important in our modern science. The
+story of Albert's botanical knowledge has been told in a single very
+full paragraph by his biographer. Sighart also quotes an appreciative
+opinion from a modern German botanist which will serve to dispel any
+doubts with regard to Albert's position in botany that modern students
+might perhaps continue to harbor, unless they had good authority to
+support their opinion, though of course it will be remembered that the
+main difference between the medieval and the modern mind is only too
+often said to be, that the medieval required an authority while the
+modern makes its opinion for itself. Even the most skeptical of modern
+minds however, will probably be satisfied by the following paragraph.
+
+  "He was acquainted with the sleep of plants, with the periodical
+  opening and closing of blossoms, with the diminution of sap through
+  evaporation from the cuticle of the leaves, and with the influence
+  of the distribution of the bundles of vessels on the folial
+  indentations. His minute observations on the forms and variety of
+  plants intimate an exquisite sense of floral beauty. He
+  distinguished the star from the bell-floral, tells us that a red
+  rose will turn white when submitted to the vapor of sulphur and
+  makes some very sagacious observations on the subject of
+  germination. . . . The extraordinary erudition and originality of this
+  treatise (his tenth book) has drawn from M. Meyer the following
+  comment: 'No Botanist who lived before Albert can be compared to
+  him, unless Theophrastus, with whom he was not acquainted; and after
+  him none has painted nature in such living colors or studied it so
+  profoundly until the time of Conrad Gesner and Cesalpino.' All
+  honor, then, to the man who made such astonishing progress in the
+  science of nature as to find no one, I will not say to surpass, but
+  even to equal him for the space of three centuries."
+
+{50}
+
+We point out in the chapter on Geography and Exploration how much this
+wonderful Thirteenth Century added to the knowledge of geographical
+science. Even before the great explorers of this time, however, had
+accomplished their work, this particular branch of science had made
+such great progress as would bring it quite within the domain of what
+we call the science of geography at the present time. When we remember
+how much has been said about the ignorance of the men of the later
+Middle Ages as regards the shape of the earth and its inhabitants, and
+how many foolish notions they are supposed to have accepted with
+regard to the limitation of possible residents of the world and the
+queer ideas as to the antipodes, the following passages taken from
+Albert's biographer will serve better than anything else to show how
+absurdly the traditional notions with regard to this time and its
+knowledge, have been permitted by educators to tinge what are supposed
+to be serious opinions with regard to the subject matters of education
+in that early university period:
+
+  "He treats as fabulous the commonly-received idea, in which Bede had
+  acquiesced, that the region of the earth south of the equator was
+  uninhabitable, and considers, that from the equator to the South
+  Pole, the earth was not only habitable, but in all probability
+  actually inhabited, except directly at the poles, where he imagines
+  the cold to be excessive. If there be any animals there, he says,
+  they must have very thick skins to defend them from the rigor of the
+  climate, and they are probably of a white color. The intensity of
+  cold, is however, tempered by the action of the sea. He describes
+  the antipodes and the countries they comprise, and divides the
+  climate of the earth into seven zones. He smiles with a scholar's
+  freedom at the simplicity of those who suppose that persons living
+  at the opposite region of the earth must fall off, an opinion that
+  can only rise out of the grossest ignorance, 'for when we speak of
+  the lower hemisphere, this must be understood merely as relatively
+  to ourselves.' It is as a geographer that Albert's superiority to
+  the writers of his own time chiefly appears. Bearing in mind the
+  astonishing ignorance which then prevailed on this subject, it is
+  truly admirable to find him correctly tracing the chief mountain
+  chains of Europe, with the rivers which take {51} their source in
+  each; remarking on portions of coast which have in later times been
+  submerged by the ocean, and islands which have been raised by
+  volcanic action above the level of the sea; noticing the
+  modification of climate caused by mountains, seas and forests, and
+  the division of the human race whose differences he ascribes to the
+  effect upon them of the countries they inhabit! In speaking of the
+  British Isles he alludes to the commonly-received idea that another
+  distant island called Tile or Thule, existed far in the Western
+  Ocean, uninhabitable by reason of its frightful climate, but which,
+  he says, has perhaps not yet been visited by man."
+
+Nothing will so seriously disturb the complacency of modern minds as
+to the wonderful advances that have been made in the last century in
+all branches of physical science as to read Albertus Magnus' writings.
+Nothing can be more wholesomely chastening of present day conceit than
+to get a proper appreciation of the extent of the knowledge of the
+Schoolmen.
+
+Albertus Magnus' other great pupil besides Roger Bacon was St. Thomas
+Aquinas. If any suspicion were still left that Thomas did not
+appreciate just what the significance of his teachings in physics was,
+when he announced that neither matter nor force could ever be reduced
+to nothingness, it would surely be removed by the consideration that
+he had been for many years in intimate relations with Albert and that
+he had probably also been close to Roger Bacon. After association with
+such men as these, any knowledge he displays with regard to physical
+science can scarcely be presumed to have been stumbled upon unawares.
+St. Thomas himself has left three treatises on chemical subjects and
+it is said that the first occurrence of the word amalgam can be traced
+to one of these treatises. Everybody was as much interested then, as
+we are at the present time, in the transformation of metals and
+mercury with its silvery sheen, its facility to enter into metallic
+combinations of all kinds, and its elusive ways, naturally made it the
+center of scientific interest quite as radium is at the present
+moment. Further material with regard to St. Thomas and also to the
+subject of education will be found in the chapter, Aquinas the
+Scholar.
+
+After this brief review of only a few of the things that they taught
+in science at the Thirteenth Century universities, most {52} people
+will scarcely fail to wonder how such peculiar erroneous impressions
+with regard to the uselessness of university teaching and training
+have come to be so generally accepted. The fault lies, of course, with
+those who thought they knew something about university teaching, and
+who, because they found a few things that now look ridiculous, as
+certain supposed facts of one generation always will to succeeding
+generations who know more about them, thought they could conclude from
+these as to the character of the whole content of medieval education.
+It is only another example of what Artemus Ward pointed out so
+effectively when he said that "there is nothing that makes men so
+ridiculous as the knowing so many things that aint so." We have been
+accepting without question ever so many things that simply are not so
+with regard to these wonderful generations, who not only organized the
+universities but organized the teaching in them on lines not very
+different from those which occupy people seven centuries later.
+
+What would be the most amusing feature, if it were not unfortunately
+so serious an arraignment of the literature that has grown up around
+these peculiar baseless notions with regard to scholastic philosophy,
+is the number of men of science who have permitted themselves to make
+fun of certain supposed lucubrations of the great medieval
+philosophers. It is not so very long ago that, as pointed out by
+Harper in the Metaphysics of the School, Professor Tate in a lecture
+on Some Recent Advances in Physical Science repeated the old slander
+that even Aquinas occupied the attention of his students with such
+inane questions as: "How many angels could dance on the point of a
+needle?" Modern science very proudly insists that it occupies itself
+with observations and concerns itself little with authority. Prof.
+Tate in this unhappy quotation, shows not only that he has made no
+personal studies in medieval philosophy but that he has accepted a
+very inadequate authority for the statements which he makes with as
+much confidence as if they had been the result of prolonged research
+in this field. Many other modern scientists (?) have fallen into like
+blunders. (For Huxley's opinion see Appendix.)
+
+The modern student, as well as the teacher, is prone to wonder what
+were the methods of study and the habits of life {53} of the students
+of the Thirteenth Century, and fortunately we have a short sketch,
+written by Robert of Sorbonne, the famous founder of the Sorbonne, in
+which he gives advice to attendants at that institution as to how they
+should spend their time, so that at least we are able to get a hint of
+the ideals that were set before the student. Robert, whose long
+experience of university life made him thoroughly competent to advise,
+said:
+
+  "The student who wishes to make progress ought to observe six
+  essential rules.
+
+  "First: He ought to consecrate a certain hour every day to the study
+  of a determined subject, as St. Bernard counselled his monks in his
+  letter to the Brothers of the Mont Dieu.
+
+  "Second: He ought to concentrate his attention upon what he reads
+  and ought not to let it pass lightly. There is between reading and
+  study, as St. Bernard says, the same difference as between a host
+  and a guest, between a passing salutation exchanged in the street
+  and an embrace prompted by an unalterable affection.
+
+  "Third: He ought to extract from the daily study one thought, some
+  truth or other, and engrave it deeply upon his memory with special
+  care. Seneca said _'Cum multa percurreris in die, unum tibi elige
+  quod illa die excoquas'_--When you have run over many things in a
+  day select one for yourself which you should digest well on that
+  day.
+
+  "Fourth: Write a resume of it, for words which are not confided to
+  writing fly as does the dust before the wind.
+
+  "Fifth: Talk the matter over with your fellow-students, either in
+  the regular recitation or in your familiar conversation. This
+  exercise is even more profitable than study for it has as its result
+  the clarifying of all doubts and the removing of all the obscurity
+  that study may have left. Nothing is perfectly known unless it has
+  been tried by the tooth of disputation.
+
+  "Sixth: Pray, for this is indeed one of the best ways of learning.
+  St. Bernard teaches that study ought to touch the heart and that one
+  should profit by it always by elevating the heart to God, _without,
+  however, interrupting the study_."
+
+Sorbonne proceeds in a tone that vividly recalls the modern university
+professor who has seen generation after generation {54} of students
+and has learned to realize how many of them waste their time.
+
+  "Certain students act like fools; they display great subtility over
+  nonsensical subjects and exhibit themselves devoid of intelligence
+  with regard to their most important studies. So as not to seem to
+  have lost their time they gather together many sheets of parchment,
+  make thick volumes of note books out of them, with many a blank
+  interval, and cover them with elegant binding in red letters. Then
+  they return to the paternal domicile with their little sack filled
+  up with knowledge which can be stolen from them by any thief that
+  comes along, or may be eaten by rats or by worms or destroyed by
+  fire or water.
+
+  "In order to acquire instruction the student must abstain from
+  pleasure and not allow himself to be hampered by material cares.
+  There was at Paris not long since two teachers who were great
+  friends. One of them had seen much, had read much and used to remain
+  night and day bent over his books. He scarcely took the time to say
+  an 'Our Father.' Nevertheless he had but four students. His
+  colleague possessed a much less complete library, was less devoted
+  to study and heard mass every morning before delivering his lecture.
+  In spite of this, his classroom was full. 'How do you do it?' asked
+  his friend. 'It is very simple,' said his friend smiling. 'God
+  studies for me. I go to mass and when I come back I know by heart
+  all that I have to teach.'"
+
+  "Meditation," so Sorbonne continues, "is suitable not only for the
+  master, but the good student ought also to go and take his promenade
+  along the banks of the Seine, not to play there, but in order to
+  repeat his lesson and meditate upon it."
+
+These instructions for students are not very different from those that
+would be issued by an interested head of a university department to
+the freshmen of the present day. His insistence, especially on the
+difference between reading and study, might very well be taken to
+heart at the present time, when there seems to be some idea that
+reading of itself is sufficient to enable one to obtain an education.
+The lesson of learning one thing a day and learning that well, might
+have been selected as a motto for students for all succeeding
+generations with manifest advantage to the success of college study.
+
+{55}
+
+In other things Sorbonne departs further from our modern ideas in the
+matter of education, but still there are many even at the present time
+who will read with profound sympathy his emphatic advice to the
+University students that they must educate their hearts as well as
+their intellects, and make their education subserve the purpose of
+bringing them closer to God.
+
+A word about certain customs that prevailed more or less generally in
+the universities at this time, and that after having been much
+misunderstood will now be looked at more sympathetically in the light
+of recent educational developments will not be out of place here.
+
+One of the advantages of modern German university education has often
+been acclaimed to be the fact that students are tempted to make
+portions of their studies in various cities, since all the courses are
+equalized in certain ways, so that the time spent at any one of them
+will be counted properly for their degrees. It has long been
+recognized that travel makes the best possible complement to a
+university course, and even when the English universities in the
+Eighteenth Century sank to be little more than pleasant abiding places
+where young men of the upper classes "ate their terms," the fact that
+it was the custom "to make the grand tour" of continental travel,
+supplied for much that was lacking in the serious side of their
+education. Little as this might be anticipated as a feature of the
+ruder times of the Thirteenth Century, when travel was so difficult,
+it must be counted as one of the great advantages for the inquiring
+spirits of the time. Dante, besides attending the universities in
+Italy, and he certainly was at several of them, was also at Paris at
+one time and probably also at Oxford. Professor Monroe in his text
+book in the History of Education has stated this custom very
+distinctly.
+
+  "With the founding of the universities and the establishment of the
+  nations in practically every university, it became quite customary
+  for students to travel from university to university, finding in
+  each a home in their appropriate nation. Many, however, willing to
+  accept the privileges of the clergy and the students without
+  undertaking their obligations, adopted this wandering life as a
+  permanent one. Being a privileged order, they readily found a
+  living, or made it by begging. A monk of {56} the early university
+  period writes: 'The scholars are accustomed to wander throughout the
+  whole world and visit all the cities, and their many studies bring
+  them understanding. For in Paris they seek a knowledge of the
+  liberal arts; of the ancient writers at Orleans; of medicine at
+  Salernum; of the black art at Toledo; and in no place decent
+  manners.'"
+
+With regard to the old monk's criticism it must be remembered that old
+age is always rather depreciative in criticism of the present and
+over-appreciative of what happened in the past _se pueris_. Abuses
+always seem to be creeping in that are going to ruin the force of
+education, yet somehow the next generation succeeds in obtaining its
+intellectual development in rather good shape. Besides as we must
+always remember in educational questions, evils are ever exaggerated
+and the memory of them is prone to live longer and to loom up larger
+than that of the good with which they were associated and to which
+indeed, as anyone of reasonable experience in educational circles
+knows, they may constitute by comparison only a very small amount.
+Undoubtedly the wanderings of students brought with it many abuses,
+and if we were to listen to some of the stories of foreign student
+life in Paris in our own time, we might think that much of evil and
+nothing of good was accomplished by such wandering, but inasmuch as we
+do so we invite serious error of judgment.
+
+Another striking feature of university life which constituted a
+distinct anticipation of something very modern in our educational
+system, was the lending of professors of different nationalities among
+the universities. It is only at the beginning of the Twentieth Century
+that we have reestablished this custom. In the Thirteenth Century,
+however, Albertus Magnus taught for a time at Cologne and then later
+at Paris and apparently also at Rome. St. Thomas of Aquin, after
+having taught for a time at Paris, lectured in various Italian
+universities and then finally at the University of Rome to which he
+was tempted by the Popes. Duns Scotus, besides teaching in Oxford,
+taught also at Paris. Alexander of Hales before him seems to have done
+the same thing. Roger Bacon, after studying at the University of
+Paris, seems to have commenced teaching there, though most of his
+professional work was {57} accomplished at the University of Oxford.
+Raymond Lully probably had professional experiences at several Spanish
+Universities besides at Paris. In a word, if a man were a
+distinguished genius he was almost sure to be given the opportunity to
+influence his generation at a number of centers of educational life,
+and not be confined as has been the case in the centuries since to but
+one or at most, and that more by accident than intent, to perhaps two.
+In a word there is not a distinctive feature of modern university life
+that was not anticipated in the Thirteenth Century.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+FLYING BUTTRESS (AMIENS)
+
+
+{58}
+
+IV
+
+THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS AND DISCIPLINE.
+
+
+For most people the surprise of finding that the subjects with which
+the students were occupied at the universities of the Thirteenth
+Century were very much the same as those which claim the attention of
+modern students, will probably be somewhat mitigated by the thought
+that after all there were only few in attendance at the universities,
+and as a consequence only a small proportion of the population shared
+in that illumination, which has become so universal in the spread of
+opportunities for the higher education in these later times. While
+such an impression is cherished by many even of those who think that
+they know the history of education, and unfortunately are considered
+_by others_ to be authorities on the subject, it is the falsest
+possible idea that could be conceived of this medieval time with which
+we are concerned. We may say at once that it is a matter of
+comparatively easy collation of statistics to show, that in proportion
+to the population of the various countries, there were actually more
+students taking advantage of the opportunity to acquire university
+education in the Thirteenth Century, than there were at any time in
+the Nineteenth Century, or even in the midst of this era of widespread
+educational opportunities in the Twentieth Century.
+
+Most people know the traditions which declare that there were between
+twenty and thirty thousand students at the University of Paris toward
+the end of the Thirteenth Century. At the same time there were said to
+have been between fifteen and twenty thousand students at the
+University of Bologna. Correspondingly large numbers have been
+reported for the University of Oxford and many thousands were supposed
+to be in attendance at the University of Cambridge. It is usually
+considered, however, that these figures are gross exaggerations. It is
+easy to assert this but rather difficult to prove. As a matter of fact
+the nearer one comes to the actual times in the {59} history of
+education, the more definitely do writers speak of these large numbers
+of students in attendance. For instance Gascoigne, who says that there
+were thirty thousand students at the University of Oxford at the end
+of the Thirteenth Century, lived himself within a hundred years of the
+events of which he talks, and he even goes so far as to declare that
+he saw the rolls of the University containing this many names. There
+is no doubt at all about his evidence in the matter and there is no
+mistake possible with regard to his figures. They were written out in
+Latin, not expressed in Arabic or Roman numerals, the copying of which
+might so easily give opportunities for error to creep in.
+
+In spite of such evidence it is generally conceded that to accept
+these large numbers would be almost surely a mistake. There were
+without any doubt many thousands of students at the Thirteenth Century
+universities. There were certainly more students at the University of
+Paris in the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century than there were at
+any time during the Nineteenth Century. This of itself is enough to
+startle modern complacency out of most of its ridiculous
+self-sufficiency. There can be scarcely a doubt that the University of
+Bologna at the time of its largest attendance had more students than
+any university of modern times, proud as we may be (and deservedly) of
+our immense institutions of learning. With regard to the English
+universities the presence of very large numbers is much more doubtful.
+Making every allowance, however, there can be no hesitation in saying
+that Oxford had during the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century a
+larger number than ever afterwards within her walls and that
+Cambridge, though never so numerous as her rival, had a like good
+fortune. Professor Laurie of Edinburgh, a very conservative authority
+and one not likely to concede too much to the Middle Ages in anything,
+would allow, as we shall see, some ten thousand students to Oxford.
+Others have claimed more than half that number for Cambridge as the
+lowest possible estimate. Even if it be conceded, as has sometimes
+been urged, that all those in service in the universities were also
+counted as students, these numbers would not be reduced very
+materially and it must not be {60} forgotten that, in those days of
+enthusiastic striving after education, young men were perfectly
+willing to take up even the onerous duties of personal services to
+others, in order to have the opportunity to be closely in touch with a
+great educational institution and to receive even a moderate amount of
+benefit from its educational system. In our own time there are many
+students who are working their way through the universities, and in
+the Thirteenth Century when the spirit of independence was much less
+developed, and when any stigma that attached to personal service was
+much less felt than it is at the present time, there were many more
+examples of this earnest striving for intellectual development.
+
+If we discuss the situation in English-speaking countries as regards
+the comparative attendance at the universities in the Thirteenth
+Century and in our own time, we shall be able to get a reasonably good
+idea of what must be thought in this matter. The authorities are
+neither difficult of consultation nor distant, and comparatively much
+more is known about the population of England at this time than about
+most of the continental countries. England was under a single ruler,
+while the geographical divisions that we now know by the name of
+France, Spain, Italy and Germany were the seats of several rulers at
+least and sometimes of many, a circumstance which does not favor our
+obtaining an adequate idea of the populations.
+
+That but two universities provided all the opportunities for whatever
+higher education there was in England at this time, would of itself
+seem to stamp the era as backward in educational matters. A little
+consideration of the comparative number of students with reference to
+the population of the country who were thus given the opportunity for
+higher education--and took advantage of it--at that time and the
+present, will show the unreasonableness of such an opinion. It is not
+so easy as might be imagined to determine just what was the population
+even of England in the Thirteenth Century. During Elizabeth's reign
+there were, according to the census, an estimate made about the time
+of the great Armada, altogether some four millions of people. Froude,
+accepts this estimate as representing very well the actual number of
+the population. Certainly there were not more {61} than five millions
+at the end of the Sixteenth Century. Lingard, who for this purpose
+must be considered as a thoroughly conservative authority, estimates
+that there were not much more than two millions of people in England
+at the end of the Twelfth Century. This is probably not an
+underestimate. At the end of the Thirteenth Century there were not
+many more than two millions and a half of people in the country. At
+the very outside there were, let us say, three millions. Out of this
+meagre population, ten thousand students were, on the most
+conservative estimate, taking advantage of the opportunities for the
+higher education that were provided for them at the universities.
+
+At the present moment, though we pride ourselves on the numbers in
+attendance at our universities, and though the world's population is
+so much more numerous and the means of transportation so much more
+easy, we have very few universities as large as these of the
+Thirteenth Century. No American university at the present moment has
+as large a number of students as had Oxford at the end of the
+Thirteenth Century, and of course none of them compares at all with
+Paris or Bologna in this respect. Even the European universities, as
+we have suggested, fall behind their former glory from this
+standpoint. In the attendance to the number of population the
+comparison is even more startling for those who have not thought at
+all of the Middle Ages as a time of wonderful educational facilities
+and opportunities. In the greater City of New York as we begin the
+Twentieth Century there are perhaps fifteen thousand students in
+attendance at educational institutions which have university
+privileges. I may say that this is a very liberal allowance. At
+universities in the ordinary sense of the word there are not more than
+ten thousand students and the remainder is added in order surely to
+include all those who may be considered as doing undergraduate work in
+colleges and schools of various kinds. Of these fifteen thousand at
+least one-fourth come from outside of the greater city, and there are
+some who think that even one-third would not be too large a number to
+calculate as not being drawn directly from our own population.
+Connecticut and New Jersey furnish large numbers of students and then,
+besides, the post-graduate schools {62} of the universities have very
+large numbers in attendance even from distant states and foreign
+countries.
+
+It will be within the bounds of truth, then, to say, that there are
+between ten and twelve thousand students, out of our population of
+more than four millions in Greater New York taking advantage of the
+opportunities for the higher education provided by our universities
+and colleges. At the end of the Thirteenth Century in England there
+were at least ten thousand students out of a population of not more
+and very probably less than three millions, who were glad to avail
+themselves of similar opportunities. This seems to be perfectly fair
+comparison and we have tried to be as conservative as possible in
+every way in order to bring out the truth in the matter.
+
+It can scarcely fail to be a matter of supreme surprise to find that a
+century so distant as the Thirteenth, should thus equal our own
+vaunted Twentieth Century in the matter of opportunities for the
+higher education afforded and taken advantage of. It has always been
+presumed that the Middle Ages, while a little better than the Dark
+Ages, were typical periods in which there was little, if any desire
+for higher education and even fewer opportunities. It was thought that
+there was constant repression of the desire for knowledge which
+springs so eternally in the human heart and that the Church, or at
+least the ecclesiastical authorities of the time, set themselves
+firmly against widespread education, because it would set people to
+thinking for themselves. As a matter of fact, however, every Cathedral
+and every monastery became a center of educational influence, and even
+the poorest, who showed special signs of talent, obtained the
+opportunity to secure knowledge to the degree that they wished. It is
+beyond doubt or cavil, that at no time in the world's history have so
+many opportunities for the higher education been open to all classes
+as during the Thirteenth Century.
+
+In order to show how thoroughly conservative are the numbers in
+attendance at the universities that I have taken, I shall quote two
+good recent authorities, one of them Professor Laurie, the Professor
+of the Institutes and History of Education in the University of
+Edinburgh, and the other Thomas Davidson, a well-known American
+authority on educational {63} subjects. Each of their works from which
+I shall quote has been published or revised within the last few years.
+Professor Laurie in "The Rise and Early Constitution of the University
+with a Survey of the Medieval Education," which formed one of the
+International Educational Series, edited by Commissioner Harris and
+published by Appleton, said:
+
+  "When one hears of the large number of students who attended the
+  earliest universities--ten thousand and even twenty thousand at
+  Bologna, an equal, and at one time a greater, number at Paris, and
+  thirty thousand at Oxford--one cannot help thinking that the numbers
+  have been exaggerated. There is certainly evidence that the Oxford
+  attendance was never so great as has been alleged (see Anstey's 'Mon
+  Acad.'); but when we consider that attendants, servitors, college
+  cooks, etc., were regarded as members of the university community,
+  and that the universities provided for a time the sole recognized
+  training grounds for those wishing to enter the ecclesiastical or
+  legal or teaching professions, I see no reason to doubt the
+  substantial accuracy of the tradition as to attendance--especially
+  when we remember that at Paris and Oxford a large number were mere
+  boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age."
+
+As to the inclusion of servitors, we have already said that many,
+probably, indeed, most of them, were actual students working their way
+through the university in these enthusiastic days. Professor Laurie's
+authority for the assertion that a large number of the students at
+Paris and Oxford were mere boys, is a regulation known to have existed
+at one of these universities requiring that students should not be
+less than twelve years of age. Anyone who has studied medieval
+university life, however, will have been impressed with the idea, that
+the students were on the average older at the medieval universities
+rather than younger than they are at the present time. The rough
+hazing methods employed, almost equal to those of our own day! would
+seem to indicate this. Besides, as Professor Laurie confesses in the
+next paragraph, many of the students were actually much older than at
+present. Our university courses are arranged for young men between 17
+and 22, but that is, to fall back on Herbert Spencer, presumably
+because the period of infancy is {64} lengthening with the evolution
+of the race. There are many who consider that at the present time
+students are too long delayed in the opportunity to get at the
+professional studies, and that it is partly the consequence of this
+that the practical branches are so much more taken up under the
+elective system. As we said in the chapter on Universities and
+Preparatory Schools, in Italy and in other southern countries, it is
+not a surprising thing to have a young man graduate at the age of 16
+or 17 with his degree of A. B., after a thoroughly creditable
+scholastic career. This means that he began his university work proper
+under 13 years of age; so that we must judge the medieval universities
+to some extent at least with this thought in mind.
+
+Mr. Thomas Davidson in his "History of Education,"   [Footnote 7] in
+the chapter on The Medieval University has a paragraph in which he
+discusses the attendance, especially during the Thirteenth Century,
+and admits that the numbers, while perhaps not so large as have been
+reported, were very large in comparison to modern institutions of the
+same kind, and frankly concedes that education rose during these
+centuries which are often supposed to have been so unfavorable to
+educational development, to an amazing height scarcely ever surpassed.
+He says:
+
+  [Footnote 7: A History of Education, by Thomas Davidson, author of
+  Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideas. New York: Scribners, 1900.]
+
+  "The number of students reported as having attended some of the
+  universities in those early days almost passes belief; _e. g._
+  Oxford is said to have had thirty thousand about the year 1300, and
+  half that number even as early as 1224. The numbers attending the
+  University of Paris were still greater. These numbers become less
+  surprising when we remember with what poor accommodations--a bare
+  room and an armful of straw--the students of those days were
+  content, and what numbers of them even a single teacher like Abelard
+  could, long before draw into lonely retreats. That in the Twelfth
+  and following centuries there was no lack of enthusiasm for study,
+  notwithstanding the troubled condition of the times, is very clear.
+  The instruction given at the universities, moreover, reacted upon
+  the lower schools, raising their standard and supplying them with
+  competent teachers. Thus, in the Thirteenth and {65} Fourteenth
+  centuries, education rose in many European states to a height which
+  it had not attained since the days of Seneca and Quintilian."
+
+{opp64}
+
+[Illustration]
+CHRIST DRIVING OUT MONEY CHANGERS (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+HEAD FROM ANNUNCIATION (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+BRIDE MARRIAGE AT CANA (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+SAINT'S HEAD (MOSAIC, ST. MARK'S VENICE)
+
+
+A very serious objection that would seem to have so much weight as to
+preclude all possibility of accepting as true the large numbers
+mentioned, is the fact that it is very hard to understand how such an
+immense number of students could have been supported in any town of
+the Middle Ages. This objection has carried so much weight to some
+minds as to make them give up the thought of large numbers at the
+medieval universities. Professor Laurie has answered it very
+effectively, however, and in his plausible explanation gives a number
+of points which emphasize the intense ardor of these students of the
+Middle Ages in their search for knowledge, and shows how ready they
+were to bear serious trials and inconveniences, not to say absolute
+sufferings and hardships, in order that they might have opportunities
+for the higher education. The objection then redounds rather to the
+glory of the medieval universities than lessens their prestige, either
+as regards numbers or the enthusiasm of their students.
+
+  "The chief objection to accepting the tradition (of large numbers at
+  the universities) lies in the difficulty of seeing how in those
+  days, so large a number of the young men of Europe could afford the
+  expense of residence away from their homes. This difficulty,
+  however, is partly removed when we know that many of the students
+  were well to do, that a considerable number were matured men,
+  already monks and canons, and that the endowments of Cathedral
+  schools also were frequently used to enable promising scholars to
+  attend foreign universities. Monasteries also regularly sent boys of
+  thirteen and fourteen to university seats. A papal instruction of
+  1335 required every Benedictine and Augustinian community to send
+  boys to the universities in the proportion of one in twenty of their
+  residents. Then, state authorities ordered free passages for all who
+  were wending their way through the country to and from the seat of
+  learning. In the houses of country priests--not to speak of the
+  monastery hospitals--traveling scholars were always accommodated
+  gratuitously, and even local subscriptions were frequently made to
+  help them on their way. {66} Poor traveling scholars were, in fact,
+  a medieval institution, and it was considered no disgrace for a
+  student to beg and receive alms for his support."
+
+After reading these authoritative opinions, it would be rather
+difficult to understand the false impressions which have obtained so
+commonly for the last three centuries with regard to education in the
+Middle Ages, if we did not realize that history, especially for
+English-speaking people, has for several centuries been written from a
+very narrow standpoint and with a very definite purpose. About a
+century ago the Comte de Maistre said in his Soirées de St.
+Petersburg, that history for the three hundred years before his time
+"had been a conspiracy against the truth." Curiously enough the
+editors of the Cambridge Modern History in their first volume on the
+Renaissance, re-echoed this sentiment of the French historical writer
+and philosopher. They even use the very words "history has been a
+conspiracy against the truth" and proclaim that if we are to get at
+truth in this generation, we must go behind all the classical
+historians, and look up contemporary documents and evidence and
+authorities once more for ourselves. It is the maintenance of a
+tradition that nothing good could possibly have come out of the
+Nazareth of the times before the Reformation, that has led to this
+serious misapprehension of the true position of those extremely
+important centuries in modern education--the Thirteenth and the
+Fourteenth.
+
+To those who know even a little of what was accomplished in these
+centuries, it is supremely amusing to read the childish treatment
+accorded them and the trivial remarks that even accredited historians
+of education make with regard to them. Occasionally, however, the
+feeling of the reader who knows something of the subject is not one of
+amusement, but far from it. There are times when one cannot help but
+feel that it is not ignorance, but a deliberate purpose to minimize
+the importance of these times in culture and education, that is at the
+basis of some of the utterly mistaken remarks that are made. We shall
+take occasion only to give one example of this, but that will afford
+ample evidence of the intolerant spirit that characterizes the work of
+some even of the supposedly most enlightened historians of education.
+The quotation will be from Compayré's {67} "History of Pedagogy" which
+is, I understand, in use in nearly every Normal School in this country
+and is among the books required in many Normal School examinations.
+
+M. Compayré in an infamous paragraph which bears the title "The
+Intellectual Feebleness of the Middle Age," furnishes an excellent
+example of how utterly misunderstood, if not deliberately
+misrepresented, has been the whole spirit and content and the real
+progressiveness of education in this wonderful period. After some
+belittling expressions as to the influence of Christianity on
+education--expressions utterly unjustified by the facts--he has this
+to say with regard to the Thirteenth Century, which is all the more
+surprising because it is the only place where he calls any attention
+to it. He says:
+
+  "In 1291, of all the monks in the convent of St. Gall, there was not
+  one who could read and write. It was so difficult to find notaries
+  public, that acts had to be passed verbally. The barons took pride
+  in their ignorance. Even after the efforts of the Twelfth Century,
+  instruction remained a luxury for the common people; it was the
+  privilege of the ecclesiastics and even they did not carry it very
+  far. The Benedictines confess that the mathematics were studied only
+  for the purpose of calculating the date of Easter."
+
+This whole paragraph of M. Compayré (the rest must be read to be
+appreciated), whose history of education was considered to be of such
+value that it was deemed worthy of translation by the President of a
+State Normal School and that it has been adopted as a work of
+reference, in some cases of required study, in many of the Normal
+Schools throughout the country, is a most wonderful concoction of
+ingredients, all of which are meant to dissolve every possible idea
+that people might have of the existence of any tincture of education
+during the Middle Ages. There is only one fact which deeply concerns
+us because it refers to the Thirteenth Century. M. Compayré says that
+in 1291 of all the monks of the Convent of Saint Gall there was not
+one who could read and write. This single fact is meant to sum up the
+education of the century for the reader. Especially it is meant to
+show the student of pedagogy how deeply sunk in ignorance were the
+monks and all the ecclesiastics of this period.
+
+{68}
+
+Before attempting to say anything further it may be as well to call
+attention to the fact that in the original French edition the writer
+did not say that there was not a single monk. He said, "There was but
+one monk, who could read and write." Possibly it seemed to the
+translator to make the story more complete to leave out this one poor
+monk and perhaps one monk more or less, especially a medieval monk,
+may not count for very much to modern students of education. There are
+those of us, however, who consider it too bad to obliterate even a
+single monk in this crude way and we ask that he shall be put back.
+There _was one_ who could read and write and carry on the affairs of
+the monastery. Let us have him at least, by all means.
+
+In the year 1291 when M. Compayré says that there was but a single
+monk at the monastery of St. Gall who could read and write, he, a
+professor himself at a French Normal School, must have known very well
+that there were over twenty thousand students at the University of
+Paris, almost as many at the University of Bologna, and over five
+thousand, some authorities say many more than this (Professor Laurie
+would admit more than ten thousand), at the University of Oxford,
+though all Christian Europe at this time did not have a population of
+more than 15,000,000 people. He must have known, too, or be hopelessly
+ignorant in educational matters, that many of the students at these
+universities belonged to the Franciscans and Dominicans, and that
+indeed many of the greatest teachers at the universities were members
+of these monastic orders. Of this he says nothing, however. All that
+he says is "Education was the privilege of the ecclesiastics and they
+did not carry it very far." This is one way of writing a history of
+education. It is a very effective way of poisoning the wells of
+information and securing the persistence of the tradition that there
+was no education until after the beginning of the Sixteenth Century.
+
+Meantime one can scarcely help but admire the ingenuity of deliberate
+purpose that uses the condition of the monastery of St. Gall to
+confirm his statement. St. Gall had been founded by Irish monks
+probably about the beginning of the Eighth Century. It had been for at
+least three centuries a center of education, civilization and culture,
+as well as of religion, for the {69} barbarians who had settled in the
+Swiss country after the trans-migration of nations. The Irish had
+originally obtained their culture from Christian Missionaries, and now
+as Christian Missionaries they brought it back to Europe and
+accomplished their work with wonderful effectiveness. St. Gall was for
+centuries a lasting monument to their efforts. After the Tenth
+Century, however, the monastery began to degenerate. It was almost
+directly in the path of armies which so frequently went down to Italy
+because of the German interest in the Italian peninsula and the claims
+of the German emperor. After a time according to tradition, the
+emperor insisted that certain of the veterans of his army should be
+received and cared for in their old age at St. Gall. Gradually this
+feature of the institution became more and more prominent until in the
+Thirteenth Century it had become little more than a home for old
+soldiers. In order to live on the benefices of the monastery these men
+had to submit to ecclesiastical regulations and wear the habit. They
+were, it is true, a sort of monk, that is, they were willing, for the
+sake of the peace and ease which it brought, to accept the living thus
+provided for them and obey to some degree at least the rules of the
+monastery. It is not surprising that among these there should have
+been only one who could read and write. The soldiers of the time
+despised the men of letters and prided themselves on not being able to
+write. That a historian of pedagogy, however, should take this one
+fact in order to give students an idea of the depth of ignorance of
+the Middle Ages, is an exhibition of some qualities in our modern
+educated men, that one does not like to think of as compatible with
+the capacity to read and write. It would indeed be better not to be
+able to read and write than thus to read and write one's own
+prejudices into history, and above all the history of education.
+
+Compayré's discussion of the "Causes of the Ignorance" of the Middle
+Ages in the next paragraph, is one of the most curious bits of special
+pleading by a man who holds a brief for one side of the question, that
+I think has ever been seen in what was to be considered serious
+history. He first makes it clear how much opposed the Christian Church
+was to education, then he admits that she did some things which cannot
+be denied, but minimizes their significance. Then he concludes that it
+was not {70} the fault of the Church, but in this there is a precious
+bit of damning by faint praise. It would be impossible for any
+ordinary person who had only Compayré for authority to feel anything
+after reading the paragraph, but that Christianity was a serious
+detriment and surely not a help to the cause of progress in education.
+I quote part of the paragraph:
+
+"What were the permanent causes of that situation which lasted for ten
+centuries? The Catholic Church has sometimes been held responsible for
+this. Doubtless the Christian doctors did not always profess a very
+warm sympathy for intellectual culture. Saint Augustine has said: It
+is the ignorant who gain possession of heaven (indocti coelum
+rapiunt.) Saint Gregory the Great, a Pope of the Sixth Century,
+declared that he would blush to have the holy word conform to the
+rules of grammar. Too many Christians, in a word, confounded ignorance
+with holiness. Doubtless, towards the Seventh Century, the darkness
+still hung thick over the Christian Church. Barbarians invaded the
+Episcopate, and carried with them their rude manners. Doubtless, also,
+during the feudal period the priest often became a soldier, and
+remained ignorant. It would, however, be unjust to bring a
+constructive charge against the Church of the Middle Age, and to
+represent it as systematically hostile to instruction. Directly to the
+contrary, it is the clergy who, in the midst of the general barbarism,
+preserved some vestiges of the ancient culture. The only schools of
+that period are the Episcopal and claustral schools, the first annexed
+to the Bishops' palaces, the second to the monasteries. The religious
+orders voluntarily associated manual labor with mental labor. As far
+back as 530, St. Benedict founded the Convent of Monte Cassino, and
+drew up statutes which made reading and intellectual labor a part of
+the daily life of the monks." When this damning by faint praise is
+taken in connection with the paragraph in which only a single monk at
+the Monastery of St. Gall is declared to have been able to read and
+write, the utterly false impression that is sure to result, can be
+readily understood even by those who are not sympathetic students of
+the Middle Ages. This is how our histories of education have been
+written as a rule, and as a consequence the most precious period in
+modern education, its great origin, has been ignored even by
+professional scholars, to the great detriment not only of historical
+knowledge but also of any proper appreciation of the evolution of
+education.
+
+
+Portraits
+Bennozo Gozzoli
+
+[Illustration]
+PETRARCA OMNIUM VIRTUTUM
+MONARCA
+
+[Illustration]
+GIOTTO, PICTOR EXIMIUS
+
+[Illustration]
+DANTE THEOLOGUS NULLIUS
+DOGMATIS EXPERS
+
+
+{71}
+
+It will be said by those who do not appreciate the conditions that
+existed in the Middle Ages, that these numbers at the universities
+seeking the higher education, mean very little for the culture of the
+people, since practically all of those in attendance at the
+universities belonged to the clerical order. There is no doubt that
+most students were clerics in the Thirteenth Century. This did not
+mean, however, that they had taken major orders or had in any way
+bound themselves irrevocably to continue in the clerical vocation. The
+most surprising thing about the spread of culture and the desire for
+the higher education during the Thirteenth Century, is that they
+developed in spite of the fact that the rulers of the time were all
+during the century, embroiled in war either with their neighbors or
+with the nobility. Anyone who wanted to live a quiet, intellectual
+life turned naturally to the clerical state, which enabled him to
+escape military duties and gave him opportunities for study, as well
+as protection from many exactions that might otherwise be levied upon
+him. The church not only encouraged education, but supplied the
+peaceful asylums in which it might be cultivated to the heart's
+content of the student.
+
+While this clerical state was a necessity during the whole time of
+residence at the university, it was not necessarily maintained
+afterward. Many of the clerics did not even have minor orders--orders
+which it is well understood carry with them no absolute obligation of
+continuing in the clerical state. Sextons and their assistants were
+clerics. When the word canon originally came into use it meant nothing
+more than that the man was entered on the rolls of a church and
+received some form of wages therefrom. Students at the universities
+were by ecclesiastical courtesy then, clerics (from which comes the
+word clerk, one who can read and write) though not in orders, and it
+was because of this that the university was able to maintain the
+rights of students. It was well understood that after graduation men
+might take up the secular life and indeed most of them did. In
+succeeding chapters we shall see examples of this and discuss the
+question further. Professors at the {72} universities had to maintain
+their clerical condition so that even professors of law and of
+medicine were not allowed to marry. This law continued long beyond the
+Thirteenth Century, however. Professors of medicine were the first to
+be freed from the obligation of celibacy, but not until the middle of
+the Fifteenth Century at Paris, while other professors were bound thus
+for a full century later. Certain minor teaching positions at Oxford
+are still under this law, which evidently has seemed to have some
+advantage or it would not have been maintained.
+
+It might perhaps be thought that only the wealthier class, the sons of
+the nobility and of the wealthy merchants of the cities had
+opportunities at the universities. As a matter of fact, however, the
+vast majority of the students was drawn from the great middle class.
+The nobility were nearly always too occupied with their pleasures and
+their martial duties to have time for the higher education. The
+tradition that a nobleman should be an educated gentleman had not yet
+come in. Indeed many of the nobility during the Thirteenth Century
+rather prided themselves on the fact that they not only had no higher
+education, but that they did not know even how to read and write. When
+we reflect, then, on the large numbers who went to the universities,
+it adds to our surprise to realize that they were drawn from the
+burgher class. It is evident that many of the sons even of the poor
+were afforded opportunities in different ways at the universities of
+the time.
+
+Tradition shows that from the earliest time there were foundations on
+which poor students could live, and various arrangements were made by
+which, aside from these, they might make their living while continuing
+their studies. Working one's way through the university was more
+common in the Thirteenth Century than it is at the present day, though
+we are proud of the large numbers who now succeed in the double task
+of supporting and educating themselves, with excellent success in both
+enterprises. There are many stories of poor students who found
+themselves about to be obliged to give up their studies, encountering
+patrons of various kinds who enabled them to go on with their
+education.
+
+There is a very pretty set of legends with regard to St. Edmund of
+Canterbury in this matter. He bears this name {73} because he was
+afterward the sainted primate of England. For many years he taught at
+the University of Oxford. The story is told of a clerical friend
+sending him up a student to Oxford and asking that his bills be sent
+to him. St. Edmund's answer was that he would not be robbed of an
+opportunity of doing good like this, and he took upon himself the
+burden of caring for the student. At the time there were many others
+dependent on his bounty and his reputation was such that he was
+enabled to help a great many through the benefactions of friends, who
+found no higher pleasure in life than being able to come generously to
+Edmund's assistance in his charities.
+
+Those who know the difficulty of managing very large bodies of
+students will wonder inevitably, how the medieval universities, with
+their less formal and less complete organizations, succeeded in
+maintaining discipline for all these thousands of students. Most
+people will remember at once all the stories of roughness, of horse
+play, of drinking and gaming or worse that they have heard of the
+medieval students and will be apt to conclude that they are not to be
+wondered at after all, since it must have been practically impossible
+for the faculties of universities to keep order among such vast
+numbers. As a matter of fact, however, the story of the origin and
+maintenance of discipline in these universities is one of the most
+interesting features of university life. The process of discipline
+became in itself a very precious part of education, as it should be of
+course in any well regulated institution of learning. The very fact,
+moreover, that in spite of these large numbers and other factors that
+we shall call attention to in a moment, comparatively so few
+disgraceful stories of university life have come down to us, and the
+other and still more important fact that the universities could be
+kept so constantly at the attainment of their great purpose for such
+numbers, is itself a magnificent tribute to those who succeeded in
+doing it, and to the system which was gradually evolved, not by the
+faculty alone but by teachers and students for university government.
+
+With regard to the discipline of the medieval universities not much is
+known and considerable of what has been written on this obscure
+subject wears an unfavorable tinge, because it is unfortunately true
+that "the good men do is oft interred with {74} their bones" while the
+evil has an immortality all its own. The student escapades of the
+universities, the quarrels between town and gown, the stories of the
+evils apparently inevitable, where many young men are congregated--the
+hazing, the rough horse play, the carousing, the immoralities--have
+all come down to us, while it is easy to miss the supreme significance
+of the enthusiasm for learning that in these difficult times gathered
+so many students together from distant parts of the world, when
+traveling was so difficult and dangerous, and kept them at the
+universities for long years in spite of the hardships and
+inconveniences of the life. With regard to our modern universities the
+same thing is true, and the outside world knows much more of the
+escapades of the few, the little scandals of college life, that
+scarcely make a ripple but are so easily exaggerated, and so
+frequently repeated and lose nothing by repetition, the waste of time
+in athletics, in gambling, in social things, than of the earnest work
+and the successful intellectual progress and interests of the many.
+This should be quite enough to make the modern university man very
+slow to accept the supposed pictures of medieval student life, which
+are founded mainly on the worse side of it. Goodness is proverbially
+uninteresting, a happy people has no history and the ordinary life of
+the university student needs a patient sympathetic chronicler; and
+such the medieval universities have not found as yet. But they do not
+need many allowances, if it will only be remembered under what
+discouragements they labored and how much they accomplished.
+
+
+
+The reputation of the medieval universities has suffered from this
+very human tendency to be interested in what is evil and to neglect
+the good. Even as it is, however, a good deal with regard to the
+discipline of the universities in the early times is known and does
+not lose in interest from the fact, that the main factor in it was a
+committee of the students themselves working in conjunction with the
+faculty, and thus anticipating what is most modern in the development
+of the disciplinary regime of our up-to-date universities. At first
+apparently, in the schools from which the universities originated
+there was no thought of the necessity for discipline. The desire for
+education was considered to be sufficient to keep men occupied in {75}
+such a way that further discipline would not be necessary. It can
+readily be understood that the crowds that flocked to hear Abelard in
+Paris, and who were sufficiently interested to follow him out to the
+Desert of the Paraclete when he was no longer allowed to continue his
+lectures in connection with the school at Paris, would have quite
+enough of ruling from the internal forum of their supreme interest,
+not to need any discipline in the external forum.
+
+In the course of time, however, with the coming of even greater
+numbers to the University of Paris, and especially when the attendance
+ran up into many thousands, some form of school discipline became an
+absolute necessity. This developed of itself and in a very practical
+way. The masters seem to have had very little to do with it at the
+beginning since they occupied themselves entirely with their teaching
+and preparation for lectures. What was to become later one of the
+principal instruments of discipline was at first scarcely more than a
+social organization among the students. Those who came from different
+countries were naturally attracted to one another, and were more ready
+to help each other. When students first came they were welcomed by
+their compatriots who took care to keep them from being imposed upon,
+enabled them to secure suitable quarters and introduced them to
+university customs generally, so that they might be able to take
+advantage, as soon as possible, of the educational opportunities.
+
+The friendships thus fostered gradually grew into formal
+organizations, the so-called "nations." These began to take form just
+before the beginning of the Thirteenth Century. They made it their
+duty to find lodgings for their student compatriots, and evidently
+also to supply food on some cooperative plan for at least the poorer
+students. Whenever students of a particular nationality were injured
+in any way, their "nation" as a formal organization took up their
+cause and maintained their rights, even to the extent of an appeal to
+formal process of law before the magistrates, if necessary. The
+nations were organized before the faculties in the universities were
+formally recognized as independent divisions of the institution, and
+they acted as intermediaries between the university head and the
+students, making themselves responsible for discipline to no slight
+{76} degree. At the beginning of the Thirteenth Century in Paris all
+the students belonged to one or other of four nations, the Picard, the
+Norman, the French, which embraced Italians, Spaniards, Greeks and
+Orientals, and the English which embraced the English, Irish, Germans,
+Poles (heterogeneous collection we would consider it in these modern
+days) and in addition all other students from the North of Europe.
+
+Professor Laurie, of the University of Edinburgh, in his Rise and
+Early Constitution of Universities in the International Educational
+Series   [Footnote 8] says:
+
+  [Footnote 8: The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities, with a
+  survey of Medieval Education, by S. S. Laurie, LL.D., Professor of
+  the Institutes and History of Education in the University of
+  Edinburgh. New York, D. Appleton & Company, 1901.]
+
+"The subdivisions of the nations were determined by the localities
+from which the students and masters came. Each subdivision elected its
+own dean and kept its own matriculation-book and money-chest. The
+whole "nation" was represented, it is true, by the elected
+procurators; but the deans of the subdivisions were regarded as
+important officials, and were frequently, if not always, assessors of
+the procurators. The procurators, four in number, were elected, not by
+the students as in Bologna and Padua, but by the students and masters.
+Each nation with its procurator and deans was an independent body,
+passing its own statutes and rules, and exercising supervision over
+the lodging-houses of the students. They had each a seal as
+distinguished from the university seal, and each procurator stood to
+his "nation" in the same relation as the Rector did to the whole
+university. The Rector, again, was elected by the procurators, who sat
+as his assessors, and together they constituted the governing body;
+but this for purposes of discipline, protection and defense of
+privileges chiefly, the _consortium magistrorum_ regulating the
+schools. But so independent were the nations that the question whether
+each had power to make statutes that overrode those of the
+_universitas_, was still a question so late as the beginning of the
+Seventeenth Century."
+
+It is typical of the times that the governing system should thus have
+grown up of itself and from amongst the students, rather than that it
+should have been organized by the teachers {77} and imposed upon the
+university. The nations represented the rise of that democratic
+spirit, which was to make itself felt in the claims for the
+recognition of rights for all the people in most of the countries
+during the Thirteenth Century, and undoubtedly the character of the
+government of the student body at the universities fostered this
+spirit and is therefore to a noteworthy degree, responsible for the
+advances in the direction of liberty which are chronicled during this
+great century. This was a form of unconscious education but none the
+less significant for that, and eminently practical in its results. At
+this time in Europe there was no place where the members of the
+community who flocked in largest numbers to the universities, the sons
+of the middle classes, could have any opportunities to share in
+government or learn the precious lessons of such participation, except
+at the universities. There gradually came an effort on the part of the
+faculties to lessen many of the rights of the nations of the
+universities, but the very struggle to maintain these on the part of
+the student body, was of itself a precious training against the
+usurpation of privileges that was to be of great service later in the
+larger arena of national politics, and the effects of which can be
+noted in every country in Europe, nowhere more than in England, where
+the development of law and liberty was to give rise to a supreme
+heritage of democratic jurisprudence for the English speaking peoples
+of all succeeding generations.
+
+{78}
+
+V
+
+POST-GRADUATE WORK AT THE UNIVERSITIES.
+
+
+In modern times it has often been said that no university can be
+considered to be doing its proper work unless, besides teaching, it is
+also adding to the existing body of knowledge by original research.
+Because of unfortunate educational traditions, probably the last thing
+in the world that would enter into the minds of most people to
+conceive as likely to be found in the history of the universities of
+the Thirteenth Century, would be original research in any form. In
+spite of this almost universal false impression, original work of the
+most valuable kind, for much of which workers would be considered as
+amply deserving of their doctorates in the various faculties of the
+post-graduate departments of the most up-to-date of modern
+universities, was constantly being accomplished during this wonderful
+century. It is, as a matter of fact, with this phase of university
+activity that the modern educator is sure to have more sympathy than
+with any other, once the significant details of the work become clear.
+
+All surprise that surpassing original work was accomplished will cease
+when it is recalled that, besides creating the universities
+themselves, this century gave us the great Cathedrals--a well-spring
+of originality, and a literature in every civilized country of Europe
+that has been an inspiration to many subsequent generations. At last
+men had the time to devote to the things of the mind. During what are
+called the Dark Ages, a term that must ever be used with the
+realization that there are many bright points of light in them, men
+had been occupied with wars and civic and political dissensions of all
+kinds, and had been gradually climbing back to the heights of interest
+in intellectual matters which had been theirs before the invasion of
+the barbarians and the migration of nations. With the rebirth of
+intellectual interests there came an intense curiosity to know
+everything and to investigate every manifestation. {79} Everything
+that men touched was novel, and the wonderful advances they made can
+only be realized from actual consultation of their works, while the
+reader puts himself as far as possible at the same mental point of
+view from which they surveyed the world and their relations to it.
+
+The modern university prides itself on the number of volumes written
+by its professors and makes it a special feature of its announcements
+to call attention to its at least supposed additions to knowledge in
+this mode. It must have been immensely more difficult to preserve the
+writings of the professors of the medieval universities for they had
+to be copied out laboriously by hand, yet we have an enormous number
+of large volumes of their works, on nearly every intellectual topic,
+that have been carefully preserved. There are some twenty closely
+printed large folio volumes of the writings of Albertus Magnus that
+have come down to us. For two centuries, until the time of printing,
+ardent students must have been satisfied to spend much time in
+preserving these. While mainly devoted to theology, they treat of
+nearly everything else, and at least one of the folio volumes is taken
+up almost exclusively with physical science. St. Thomas Aquinas has as
+many volumes to his credit and his work is even of more importance.
+Duns Scotus died at a very early age, scarcely more than forty, yet
+his writings are voluminously extensive and have been carefully
+preserved, for few men had as enthusiastic students as he. Alas! that
+his name should be preserved for most people only in the familiar
+satiric appellation 'dunce.' The modern educator will most rejoice at
+the fact that the students of the time must have indeed been devoted
+to their masters to set themselves to the task of copying out their
+work so faithfully for, as Cardinal Newman has pointed out, it is the
+personal influence of the master, rather than the greatness of the
+institution, that makes education effective.
+
+First with regard to philosophy, the mistress of all studies, whose
+throne has been shaken but not shattered in these ultimate times.
+After all it must not be forgotten that this was the great century of
+the development of scholastic philosophy. While this scholastic
+philosophy is supposed by many students of modern philosophy to be a
+thing of the past, it still continues {80} to be the basis of the
+philosophical teaching in the Catholic seminaries and universities
+throughout the world. Catholic philosophers are well known as
+conservative thinkers and writers, and yet are perfectly free to
+confess that they consider themselves the nearer to truth the nearer
+they are to the great scholastic thinkers of the Thirteenth Century.
+Even in the circle of students of philosophy who are outside the
+influence of scholasticism, there is no doubt that in recent years an
+opinion much more favorable to the Schoolmen has gradually arisen.
+This has been due to a study of scholastic sources. Only those despise
+and talk slightingly of scholasticism who either do not know it at all
+or know it only at second hand. With regard to the system of thought,
+as such, ever is it true, that the more close the acquaintanceship the
+more respect there is for it.
+
+With regard to theology the case is even stronger than with regard to
+philosophy. Practically all of the great authorities in theology
+belong to the Thirteenth Century. It is true that men like Saint
+Anselm lived before this time and were leaders in the great movement
+that culminated in our century. Saint Anselm's book, _Cur Deus Homo_,
+is indeed one of the best examples of the combination of scholastic
+philosophy and theology that could well be cited. It is a triumph of
+logical reasoning, applied to religious belief. Besides, it is a great
+classic and any one who can read it unmoved by admiration for the
+thinker who, so many centuries ago, could so trenchantly lay down his
+thesis and develop it, must be lacking in some of the qualities of
+human admiration. The writers of the Thirteenth Century in theology
+are beyond even Anselm in their marvelous powers of systematizing
+thought. One need only mention such names as Albertus Magnus, Thomas
+Aquinas, Bonaventure. Duns Scotus, and Raymond Lully to make those who
+are at all acquainted with the history of the time realize, that this
+is not an idle expression of the enthusiasm of a special votary of the
+Thirteenth Century.
+
+As we shall see in discussing the career of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the
+Catholic Church still continues to teach scholastic theology on
+exactly the same lines as were laid down by this great doctor of the
+church in his teaching at the University of Paris. Amid the crumbling
+of many Christian systems of {81} thought, as upheld by the various
+protestant sects, there has been a very general realization that the
+Catholic Church has built up the only edifice of Christian
+apologetics, which will stand the storms of time and the development
+of human knowledge. Confessedly this edifice is founded on Thirteenth
+Century scholasticism. Pope Leo XIII., than whom, even in the
+estimation of those who are least sympathetic toward his high office,
+there was no man of more supremely practical intelligence in our
+generation, insisted that St. Thomas Aquinas must in general principle
+at least, be the groundwork of the teaching of philosophy and theology
+as they are to form the minds of future Catholic apologists.
+
+The scholastic theology and philosophy of the Thirteenth Century have
+come to us in absolute purity. The huge tomes which represent the
+indefatigable labors of these ardent scholars were well preserved by
+the subsequent generation which thought so much of them, and in spite
+of the absence of printing have come down to us in perfectly clear
+texts. It is easy to neglect them and to say that a study of them is
+not worth while. They represent, however, the post-graduate work and
+the research in the department of philosophy and theology of these
+days, and any university of modern time would consider itself honored
+by having their authors among its professors and alumni. Any one who
+does not think so need only turn to the volumes themselves and read
+them with understanding and sympathy, and there will be another
+convert to the ranks of that growing multitude of scholars, who have
+learned to appreciate the marvelous works of our university colleagues
+of the Thirteenth Century.
+
+With regard to law, not much need be said here, since it is well
+understood that the foundations of our modern jurisprudence (see
+chapters on Legal Origins), as well as the methods of teaching law,
+were laid in the Thirteenth Century and the universities were the most
+active factors, direct and indirect, in this work. The University of
+Bologna developed from a law school. Toward the end of the Twelfth
+Century Irnerius revived the study of the old Roman law and put the
+curriculum of modern Civil Law on a firm basis. A little later Gratian
+made his famous collection of decretals, which are the basis of Canon
+{82} Law. Great popes, during the Thirteenth Century, beginning with
+Innocent III., and continuing through such worthy emulators as Gregory
+IX. and Boniface VIII., made it the special glory of their
+pontificates to collect the decrees of their predecessors and arrange
+and publish them, so that they might be readily available for
+consultation.
+
+French law assumed its modern form, and the basis of French
+jurisprudence was laid, under Louis IX., who called to his assistance,
+in this matter, the Professors of Law at the University of Paris, with
+many of whom he was on the most intimate terms. His cousin, Ferdinand
+of Castile, laid the foundation of the Spanish law about the same time
+under almost similar circumstances, and with corresponding help. The
+study of law in the English universities helped to the formulation of
+the principles of the English Common Law in such simple connected form
+as made them readily accessible for consultation. Just before the
+beginning of the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century, Bracton, of
+whose work much more will be said in a subsequent chapter, drew up the
+digest of the English Common Law, which has been the basis of English
+jurisprudence ever since. It took just about a century for these
+countries, previously without proper codification of the principles of
+their laws, to complete the fundamental work to such a degree, that it
+is still the firm substructure on which rests all our modern laws.
+Legal origins, in our modern sense, came not long before the
+Thirteenth Century; at its end the work was finished, to all intents
+and purposes. Of the influence of the universities and of the
+university law departments, in all this there can be no doubt. The
+incentive, undoubtedly, came from their teachings. The men who did so
+much for legal origins of such far-reaching importance, were mainly
+students of the universities of the time, whose enthusiasm for work
+had not subsided with the obtaining of their degrees.
+
+It is in medicine, however, much more than in law or theology, that
+the eminently practical character of university teaching during the
+Thirteenth Century can be seen, at least in the form in which it will
+appeal to a scientific generation. We are so accustomed to think that
+anything like real progress in medicine, and especially in surgery,
+has only come in very {83} recent years, that it is a source of great
+surprise to find how much these earnest students of a long distant
+century anticipated the answers to problems, the solutions of which
+are usually supposed to be among the most modern advances. Professor
+Allbutt, the Regius professor of Physic in the University of
+Cambridge, a position, the occupant of which is always a leader in
+English medical thought, the present professor being one of the
+world's best authorities in the history of medicine, recently pointed
+out some of these marvels of old-time medicine and surgery. In an
+address On the Historical Relations of Medicine and Surgery to the end
+of the Sixteenth Century, delivered at the Congress of Arts and
+Sciences at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, he (Prof. Allbutt) spoke
+with regard to one of the great university medical teachers of the
+Thirteenth Century as follows:
+
+  "Both for his own great merits, as an original and independent
+  observer, and as the master of Lanfranc, William Salicet (Guglielmo
+  Salicetti of Piacenza, in Latin G. Placentinus de Saliceto--now
+  Cadeo), was eminent among the great Italian physicians of the latter
+  half of the Thirteenth Century. Now these great Italians were as
+  distinguished in surgery as in medicine, and William was one of the
+  protestants of the period against the division of surgery from inner
+  medicine; a division which he regarded as a separation of medicine
+  from intimate touch with nature. Like Lanfranc and the other great
+  surgeons of the Italian tradition, and unlike Franco and Ambroise
+  Paré, he had the advantage of the liberal university education of
+  Italy; but, like Paré and Wurtz, he had large practical experience
+  in hospital and on the battlefield. He practised first at Bologna,
+  afterward in Verona. William fully recognised that surgery cannot be
+  learned from books only. His Surgery contains many case histories,
+  for he rightly opined that good notes of cases are the soundest
+  foundation of good practice; and in this opinion and method Lanfranc
+  followed him. William discovered that dropsy may be due to a
+  '_durities renum_'; he substituted the knife for the Arabist abuse
+  of the cautery; he investigated the causes of the failure of healing
+  by first intention; he described the danger of wounds of the neck;
+  he sutured divided nerves; he forwarded the diagnosis of {84}
+  suppurative disease of the hip, and he referred chancre and
+  phagedaena to their real causes."
+
+This paragraph sets forth some almost incredible anticipations of what
+are usually considered among the most modern phases of medicine and
+surgery. Perhaps the most surprising thing is the simple statement
+that Salicet recognized that surgery cannot be learned from books
+alone. His case histories are instructive even to the modern surgeon
+who reads them. His insistence on his students making careful notes of
+their cases as the soundest foundation of progress in surgery, is a
+direct contradiction of nearly everything that has been said in recent
+years about medieval medicine and especially the teaching of medicine.
+(See Appendix.)
+
+William's great pupil, Lanfranc, followed him in this, and Lanfranc
+encouraged the practise at the University of Paris. There is a
+note-book of a student at the University of Paris, made toward the end
+of the Thirteenth Century, carefully preserved in the Museum of the
+University of Berlin. This notebook was kept during Lanfranc's
+teaching and contains some sketches of dissections, as well as some
+illustrations of operative procedures, as studied with that celebrated
+surgeon. The tradition of case histories continued at the University
+of Paris down to the beginning of modern surgery.
+
+Some of the doctrines in medicine that William of Salicet stated so
+clearly, sound surprisingly modern. The connection, for instance,
+between dropsy and _durities renum_ (hardening of the kidneys) shows
+how wonderfully observant the old master was. At the present time we
+know very little more about the dropsical condition associated with
+chronic Bright's disease than the fact that it constantly occurs where
+there is a sclerosis or contraction of the kidney. Bright in his study
+of albuminuria and contracted kidney practically taught us no more
+than this, except that he added the further symptom of the presence of
+albumin in the urine. It must have been only as the result of many
+carefully studied cases, followed by autopsies, that any such doctrine
+could have come into existence. There is a dropsy that occurs with
+heart disease; there is also a dropsy in connection with certain
+affections of the liver, and yet the most frequent cause is just this
+hardening of the kidneys {85} spoken of by this
+middle-of-the-Thirteenth Century Italian professor of medicine, who,
+if we would believe so many of the historians of medicine, was not
+supposed to occupy himself at all with ante and post-mortem studies of
+patients, but with the old-time medical authorities.
+
+Almost more surprising than the question of dropsy is the
+investigation as to the causes of the failure of healing by first
+intention. The modern surgeon is very apt to think that he is the only
+one who ever occupied himself with the thought, that wounds might be
+made to heal by first intention and without the occurrence of
+suppuration or granulation. Certainly no one would suspect any
+interest in the matter as far back as the Thirteenth Century. William
+of Salicet, however, and Lanfranc, both of them occupied themselves
+much with this question and evidently looked at it from a very
+practical standpoint. Many careful observations must have been made
+and many sources of observational error eliminated to enable these men
+to realize the possibilities of primary union, especially, knowing as
+they did, nothing at all about the external causes of suppuration and
+considering, as did surgeons for nearly seven centuries afterward,
+that it was because of something within the patient's tissues that the
+cases of suppuration had their rise.
+
+Unfortunately, the pioneer work done by William and his great disciple
+did not have that effect upon succeeding generations which it should
+have had. There was a question in men's minds as to whether nature
+worked better by primary union or by means of the suppurative process.
+In the next century surgeons took the wrong horn of the dilemma and
+even so distinguished a surgeon as Guy de Chauliac, who has been
+called, not without good cause, the father of surgery, came to the
+conclusion that suppuration was practically a necessary process in the
+healing of large wounds at least, and that it must be encouraged
+rather than discouraged. This doctrine did not have its first set-back
+until the famous incident in Ambroise Paré's career, when one morning
+after a battle, coming to his patients expecting to find many of them
+very severely ill, he found them on the contrary in better condition
+than the others for whom he had no forebodings. In accord with old
+custom {86} he poured boiling oil into the wounds of all patients, but
+the great surgeon's supply of oil had failed the day before and he
+used plain water to cleanse the wounds of a number, fearing the worst
+for them, however, because of the poison that must necessarily stay in
+their wounds and then had the agreeable disappointment of finding
+these patients in much better condition than those whom he had treated
+with all the rules of his art, as they then were. Even this incident,
+however, did not serve to correct entirely the old idea as to the
+value of suppuration and down to Lister's time, that is almost the
+last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, there is still question of the
+value of suppuration in expediting the healing of wounds, and we hear
+of laudable pus and of the proper inflammatory reaction that is
+expected to bring about wound repair.
+
+The danger of wounds of the neck is, of course, not a modern doctrine,
+and yet very few people would think for a moment that it could be
+traced back to the middle of the Thirteenth Century and to a practical
+teacher of surgery in a medieval Italian university. Here once more
+there is evidence of the work of a careful observer who has seen
+patients expire in a few minutes as the result of some serious
+incident during the course of operations upon the neck. He did not
+realize that the danger was due, in many cases, to the sucking in of
+air into the large veins, but even at the present time this question
+is not wholly settled and the problem as to the danger of the presence
+of air is still the subject of investigation.
+
+As to the suture of divided nerves, it would ordinarily and as a
+matter of course be claimed by most modern historians of surgery and
+by practically all surgeons, as an affair entirely of the last half
+century. William of Salicet, however, neglected none of the ordinary
+surgical procedures that could be undertaken under the discouraging
+surgical circumstances in which he lived. The limitations of
+anesthesia, though there was much more of this aid than there has
+commonly been any idea of, and the frequent occurrence of suppuration
+must have been constant sources of disheartenment. His insistence on
+the use of the knife rather than on the cautery shows how much he
+appreciated the value of proper healing. It is from such a man that we
+might expect the advance by careful {87} investigation as to just what
+tissues had been injured, with the idea of bringing them together in
+such juxtaposition as would prevent loss of function and encourage
+rapid and perfect union.
+
+{opp87}
+[Illustration]
+SCREEN (HEREFORD)
+
+[Illustration]
+DOORWAY OF SACRISTY (BOURGES)
+
+Perhaps to the ordinary individual William's reference of certain
+known venereal affections to their proper cause, will be the most
+astonishing in this marvelous list of anticipations of what is
+supposed to be very modern. The whole subject of venereal disease in
+anything like a scientific treatment of it is supposed to date from
+the early part of the Sixteenth Century. There is even question in
+certain minds as to whether the venereal diseases did not come into
+existence, or at least were not introduced from America or from some
+other distant country that the Europeans had been exploring about this
+time. William's studies in this subject, however, serve to show that
+nothing escaped his watchful eye and that he was in the best sense of
+the word a careful observer and must have been an eminently suggestive
+and helpful teacher.
+
+What has thus been learned about him will serve of itself and without
+more ado, to stamp all that has been said about the unpractical
+character of the medical teaching of the medieval universities as
+utterly unfounded. Because men have not taken the trouble to look up
+the teaching of these times, and because their works were until recent
+years buried in old folios, difficult to obtain and still more
+difficult to read when obtained, it has been easy to ignore their
+merit and even to impugn the value of their teaching completely.
+William of Salicet was destined, moreover, to be surpassed in some
+ways by his most distinguished pupil, Lanfranc, who taught at the
+University of Paris at the end of the Thirteenth Century. Of Lanfranc,
+in the address already quoted from, Professor Allbutt has one very
+striking paragraph that shows how progressive was the work of this
+great French surgeon, and how fruitful had been the suggestive
+teaching of his great master. He says:
+
+  "Lanfranc's 'Chirurgia Magna' was a great work, written by a
+  reverent but independent follower of Salicet. He distinguished
+  between venous and arterial hemorrhage, and used styptics (rabbit's
+  fur, aloes, and white of egg was a popular styptic in elder
+  surgery), digital compression for an hour, or in severe cases
+  ligature. His chapter on injuries of the head {88} is one of the
+  classics of medieval surgery. Clerk (cleric) as he was, Lanfranc
+  nevertheless saw but the more clearly the danger of separating
+  surgery from medicine."
+
+Certain assertions in this paragraph deserve, as in the case of
+Lanfranc's master, to be discussed, because of their anticipations of
+what is sometimes thought to be very modern in surgery. The older
+surgeons are supposed to have feared hemorrhage very much. It is often
+asserted that they knew little or nothing about the ligature and that
+their control of hemorrhage was very inadequate. As a matter of fact,
+however, it was not primary hemorrhage that the old surgeons feared,
+but secondary hemorrhage. Suppuration often led to the opening of an
+important artery, and this accident, as can well be understood, was
+very much dreaded. Surgeons would lose their patients before they
+could come to their relief. How thoroughly Lanfranc knew how to
+control primary hemorrhage can be appreciated from the quotation just
+made from Dr. Allbutt's address. The ligature is sometimes said to
+have been an invention of Ambroise Paré, but, as a matter of fact, it
+had been in use for at least three centuries before his time, and
+perhaps even longer.
+
+Usually it is considered that the difficult chapter of head injuries,
+with all the problems that it involves in diagnosis and treatment, is
+a product of the Nineteenth Century. Hence do we read, with all the
+more interest, Allbutt's declaration that Lanfranc wrote what is
+practically a classical monograph, on the subject. It is not so
+surprising, then, to find that the great French surgeon was far ahead
+of his generation in other matters, or that he should even have
+realized the danger of separating surgery from medicine. Both the
+Regius professors of medicine at the two great English universities,
+Cambridge and Oxford, have, since the beginning of the Twentieth
+Century, made public expression of their opinion that the physician
+should see more of the work of the surgeon, and should not depend on
+the autopsy room for his knowledge of the results of internal disease.
+Professor Osler, particularly, has emphasized his colleague, Professor
+Allbutt's opinion in this matter. That a surgical professor at the
+University of Paris, in the Thirteenth Century, should have
+anticipated these two leaders {89} of medical thought in the Twentieth
+Century, would not be so surprising, only that unfortunately the
+history of medieval teaching has, because of prejudice and a
+lamentable tradition, not been read aright.
+
+Occasionally one finds a startling bit of anticipation of what is most
+modern, in medicine as well as in surgery. For instance, toward the
+end of the Thirteenth Century, a distinguished English professor of
+medicine, known as Gilbert, the Englishman, was teaching at
+Montpelier, and among other things, was insisting that the rooms of
+patients suffering from smallpox should be hung entirely with red
+curtains, and that the doors and the windows should be covered with
+heavy red hangings. He claimed that this made the disease run a
+lighter course, with lessened mortality, and with very much less
+disfigurement. Smallpox was an extremely common disease in the
+Thirteenth Century, and he probably had many chances for observation.
+It is interesting to realize that one of the most important
+observations made at the end of the Nineteenth Century by Dr. Finsen,
+the Danish investigator whose studies in light and its employment in
+therapeutics, drew to him the attention of the world, and eventually
+the Nobel prize of $40,000 for the greatest advance in medicine was,
+that the admission of only red light to the room of smallpox patients
+modified the disease very materially, shortened its course, often
+prevented the secondary fever, and almost did away completely with the
+subsequent disfigurement.
+
+It is evident that these men were searching and investigating for
+themselves, and not following blindly in the footsteps of any master.
+It has often been said that during the Middle Ages it was a heresy to
+depart, ever so little, from the teaching of Galen. Usually it is
+customary to add that the first writer to break away from Galen,
+effectually, was Vesalius, in his De Fabrica Corporis Humani,
+published toward the end of the second quarter of the Sixteenth
+Century. It may be said, in passing, that, as a matter of fact,
+Vesalius, though he accomplished much by original investigation, did
+not break so effectually with Galen as would have been for the best in
+his own work, and, especially, for its influence on his successors. He
+certainly did not set an example of independent research {90} and
+personal observation, any more fully, than did the medical teachers of
+the Thirteenth Century already mentioned, and some others, like
+Mondaville and Arnold of Villanova, whose names well deserve to be
+associated with them.
+
+One reason why it is such a surprise to find how thoroughly practical
+was the teaching of the Thirteenth Century university medical schools,
+is because it has somehow come to be a very general impression that
+medicine was taught mainly by disputations, and by the consultation of
+authorities, and that it was always more important to have a passage
+of Galen to support a medical notion, than, to have an original
+observation. This false impression is due to the fact that the writers
+of the history of medical education have, until recent years, drawn
+largely on their imaginations, and have not consulted the old-time
+medical books. In spite of the fact that printing was not discovered
+for more than two centuries later, there are many treatises on
+medicine that have come down to us from this early time, and the
+historians of medicine now have the opportunity, and are taking the
+trouble, to read them with a consequent alteration of old-time views,
+as to the lack of encouragement for original observation, in the later
+Middle Ages. These old tomes are not easy reading, but nothing daunts
+a German investigator bound to get to the bottom of his subject, and
+such men as Pagel and Puschmann have done much to rediscover for us
+medieval medicine. The French medical historians have not been behind
+their German colleagues and magnificent work has been accomplished,
+especially by the republication of old texts. William of Salicet's
+surgery was republished by Pifteau at Toulouse in 1898. Mondaville's
+Surgery was republished under the auspices of the Society for the
+Publication of old French Texts in 1897 and 1898. These republications
+have made the works of the old-time surgeons readily available for
+study by all interested in our great predecessors in medicine, all
+over the world. Before this, it has always been necessary to get to
+some of the libraries in which the old texts were preserved, and this,
+of course, made it extremely difficult for the ordinary teacher of the
+history of medicine to know anything about them. Besides, old texts
+are such difficult reading that few, except the most earnest of
+students, {91} have patience for them, and they are so time-taking as
+to be practically impossible for modern, hurried students.
+
+Unfortunately, writers of the history of medicine filled up this gap
+in their knowledge, only too frequently, either out of their
+imaginations, or out of their inadequate authorities, with the
+consequence of inveterating the old-time false impression with regard
+to the absence of anything of medical or surgical interest, even in
+the later Middle Ages.
+
+Another and much more serious reason for the false impression with
+regard to the supposed blankness of the middle age in medical
+progress, was the notion, quite generally accepted, and even yet not
+entirely rejected, by many, that the Church was opposed to scientific
+advance in the centuries before the reformation so-called, and that
+even the sciences allied to medicine, fell under her ban. For
+instance, there is not a history of medicine, so far as I know,
+published in the English language, which does not assert that Pope
+Boniface VIII., by a Bull promulgated at the end of the Thirteenth
+Century, forbade the practise of dissection. To most people, it will,
+at once, seem a natural conclusion, that if the feeling against the
+study of the human body by dissection had reached such a pass as to
+call forth a papal decree in the matter, at the end of the century,
+all during the previous hundred years, there must have been enough
+ecclesiastical hampering of anatomical work to prevent anything like
+true progress, and to preclude the idea of any genuinely progressive
+teaching of anatomy.
+
+There is not the slightest basis for this bit of false history except
+an unfortunate, it is to be hoped not intentional, misapprehension on
+the part of historical writers as to the meaning of a papal decree
+issued by Boniface VIII. in the year 1300. He forbade, under pain of
+excommunication, the boiling of bodies and their dismemberment in
+order that thus piecemeal they might be transported to long distances
+for burial purposes. It is now well known that the Bull was aimed at
+certain practises which had crept in, especially among the Crusaders
+in the East. When a member of the nobility fell a victim to wounds or
+to disease, his companions not infrequently dismembered the body,
+boiled it so as to prevent putrefaction, or at least delay decay, and
+then transported it long distances to his home, in {92} order that he
+might have Christian burial in some favorite graveyard, and that his
+friends might have the consolation of knowing where his remains
+rested. The body of the Emperor Frederick Barbarosa, who died in the
+East, is said to have been thus treated. Boniface was one of the most
+broadly educated men of his time, who had been a great professor of
+canon and civil law at Paris when younger, and realized the dangers
+involved in such a proceeding from a sanitary standpoint, and he
+forbade it, requiring that the bodies should be buried where the
+persons had died. He evidently considered that the ancient custom of
+consecrating a portion of earth for the purpose of burial in order
+that the full Christian rites might be performed, was quite sufficient
+for noble as for common soldier.
+
+For this very commendable sanitary regulation Boniface has been set
+down by historians of medicine as striking a death blow at the
+development of anatomy for the next two centuries. As a matter of
+fact, however, anatomy continued to be studied in the universities
+after this Bull as it had been before, and it is evident that never by
+any misapprehension as to its meaning was the practise of dissection
+lessened. Curiously enough the history of human dissection can only be
+traced with absolute certainty from the time immediately after this
+Bull. It is during the next twenty-five years at the University of
+Bologna, which was always closely in touch with the ecclesiastical
+authorities in Italy and especially with the Pope, that the
+foundations of dissection, as the most important practical department
+of medical teaching, were laid by Mondino, whose book on dissection
+continued to be the text book used in most of the medical schools for
+the next two centuries. Guy de Chauliac who studied there during the
+first half of the Fourteenth Century says he saw many dissections made
+there. It was at Montpellier, about the middle of the century, when
+the Popes were at Avignon not far away, that Guy de Chauliac himself
+made attendance at dissections obligatory for every student, and
+obtained permission to use the bodies of criminals for dissection
+purposes. At the time Chauliac occupied the post of chamberlain to the
+Popes. All during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries constant
+progress was making in anatomy, especially in Italy, and some of it
+was accomplished at Rome {93} by distinguished teachers of anatomy who
+had been summoned by the popes to their capital in order to add
+distinction to the teaching staff at the famous Papal School of
+Science, the Sapienza, to which were attached during the next two
+centuries many of the distinguished scientific professors of the time.
+
+This story with regard to the papal prohibition of dissection has no
+foundation in the history of the times. It has had not a little to do,
+however, with making these times very much misunderstood and one still
+continues to see printed references to the misfortune, which is more
+usually called a crime, that prevented the development of a great
+humanitarian science because of ecclesiastical prejudice. This story
+with regard to anatomy, however, is not a whit worse than that which
+is told of chemistry in almost the same terms. At the beginning of the
+Fourteenth Century Pope John XXII. is said to have issued a Bull
+forbidding chemistry under pain of excommunication, which according to
+some writers in the matter is said to have included the death penalty.
+It has been felt in the same way as with regard to anatomy, that this
+was only the culmination of a feeling in ecclesiastical circles
+against chemistry which must have hampered its progress all during the
+Thirteenth Century.
+
+An examination of the so-called Bull with regard to chemistry, it is
+really only a decree, shows even less reason for the slander of Pope
+John XXII. than of Boniface VIII. John had been scarcely a year on the
+papal throne when he issued this decree forbidding "alchemies" and
+inflicting a punishment upon those who practised them. The first
+sentence of the title of the document is: "Alchemies are here
+prohibited and those who practise them or procure their being done are
+punished." This is evidently all of the decree that those who quoted
+it as a prohibition of chemistry seem ever to have read. Under the
+name "alchemies," Pope John, as is clear from the rest of the
+document, meant a particular kind of much-advertised chemical
+manipulations. He forbade the supposed manufacture of gold and silver.
+The first sentence of his decree shows how thoroughly he recognized
+the falsity of the pretensions of the alchemists in this matter. "Poor
+themselves," he says, "the alchemists promise riches which are not
+forthcoming." He then forbids them further to impose upon the poor
+people {94} whose confidence they abuse and whose good money they take
+to return them only base-metal or none at all.
+
+The only punishment inflicted for the doing of these "alchemies" on
+those who might transgress the decree was not death or imprisonment,
+but that the pretended makers of gold and silver should be required to
+turn into the public treasury as much gold and silver as had been paid
+them for their alchemies, the money thus paid in to go to the poor. As
+in the case of the Bull with regard to anatomy, it is very clear that
+by no possible misunderstanding at the time was the development of the
+science of chemistry hindered by this papal document. Chemistry had to
+a certain extent been cultivated at the University of Paris, mainly by
+ecclesiastics. Both Aquinas and his master Albertus wrote treatises on
+chemical subjects. Roger Bacon devoted much time to it as is well
+known, and for the next three centuries the history of chemistry has a
+number of names of men who were not only unhampered by the
+ecclesiastical authorities, but who were themselves usually either
+ecclesiastics, or high in favor with the churchmen of their time and
+place. This is true of Hollandus, of Arnold of Villanova, of Basil
+Valentine, and finally of the many abbots and bishops to whom
+Paracelsus in his time acknowledged his obligations for aid in his
+chemical studies.
+
+Almost needless to say it has been impossible, in a brief sketch of
+this kind limited to a single chapter, to give anything like an
+adequate idea of what the enthusiastic graduate students and
+professors of the Thirteenth Century succeeded in accomplishing. It is
+probably this department of University life, however, that has been
+least understood, or rather we should say most persistently
+misunderstood. The education of the time is usually supposed to be
+eminently unpractical, and great advances in the departments of
+knowledge that had important bearings on human life and its relations
+were not therefore thought possible. It is just here, however, that
+sympathetic interpretation and the pointing out of the coordination of
+intellectual work often considered to be quite distinct from
+university influences were needed. It is hoped then that this short
+sketch will prove sufficient to call the attention of modern educators
+to a field that has been neglected, or at least has {95} received very
+little cultivation compared to its importance, but which must be
+sedulously worked, if our generation is to understand with any degree
+of thoroughness the spirit manifested and the results attained by the
+medieval universities.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+DOUBLE FLYING BUTTRESS (RHEIMS)
+
+
+{96}
+
+VI
+
+THE BOOK OF THE ARTS AND POPULAR EDUCATION.
+
+
+The most important portion of the history of the Thirteenth Century
+and beyond all doubt the most significant chapter in the book of its
+arts, is to be found in the great Gothic Cathedrals, so many of which
+were erected at this time and whose greatest perfection of finish in
+design and in detail came just at the beginning of this wonderful
+period. We are not concerned here with the gradual development of
+Gothic out of the older Romanesque architectural forms, nor with the
+Oriental elements that may have helped this great evolution. All that
+especially concerns us is the fact that the generations of the
+Thirteenth Century took the Gothic ideas in architecture and applied
+them so marvelously, that thereafter it could be felt that no problem
+of structural work had been left unsolved and no feature of ornament
+or decoration left untried or at least unsuggested. The great center
+of Gothic influence was the North of France, but it spread from here
+to every country in Europe, and owing to the intimate relations
+existing between England and France because of the presence of the
+Normans in both countries, developed almost as rapidly and with as
+much beauty, and effectiveness as in the mother country.
+
+It is in fact in England just before the Thirteenth Century, that the
+spirit which gave rise to the Cathedrals can be best observed at work
+and its purposes most thoroughly appreciated. The great Cathedral at
+Lincoln had some of its most important features before the beginning
+of the Thirteenth Century and this was doubtless due to the famous St.
+Hugh of Lincoln, who was a Frenchman by birth and whose experience in
+Normandy in early life enabled him successfully to set about the
+creation of a Gothic Cathedral in the country that had become his by
+adoption.
+
+{opp96}
+
+[Illustration]
+ANGEL CHOIR (LINCOLN)
+
+{97}
+
+Hugh himself was so great of soul, so deeply interested in his people
+and their welfare, so ready to make every sacrifice for them even to
+the extent of incurring the enmity of his King (even Froude usually so
+unsympathetic to medieval men and things has included him among his
+Short Studies of Great Subjects), that one cannot help but think that
+when he devoted himself to the erection of the magnificent Cathedral,
+he realized very well that it would become a center of influence, not
+only religious but eminently educational, in its effects upon the
+people of his diocese. The work was begun then with a consciousness of
+the results to be attained and the influence of the Cathedral must not
+be looked upon as accidental. He must have appreciated that the
+creating of a work of beauty in which the people themselves shared,
+which they looked on as their own property, to which they came nearly
+every second day during the year for religious services, would be a
+telling book out of which they would receive more education than could
+come to them in any other way.
+
+Of course we cannot hope in a short chapter or two to convey any
+adequate impression of the work that was done in and for the
+Cathedrals, nor the even more important reactionary influence they had
+in educating the people. Ferguson says:   [Footnote 9 ]
+
+  [Footnote 9: Ferguson--History of Architecture. N. Y., Dodd, Mead &
+  Co.]
+
+  "The subject of the cathedrals, their architecture and decoration
+  is, in fact, practicably inexhaustible. . . . Priests and laymen
+  worked with masons, painters, and sculptors, and all were bent on
+  producing the best possible building, and improving every part and
+  every detail, till the amount of thought and contrivance accumulated
+  in any single structure is almost incomprehensible. If any one man
+  were to devote a lifetime to the study of one of our great
+  cathedrals--assuming it to be complete in all its medieval
+  arrangements--it is questionable whether he would master all its
+  details, and fathom all the reasonings and experiments which led to
+  the glorious result before him. And when we consider that not in the
+  great cities alone, but in every convent and in every parish,
+  thoughtful professional men were trying to excel what had been done
+  and was doing, by their predecessors and their fellows, we shall
+  {98} understand what an amount of thought is built into the walls of
+  our churches, castles, colleges, and dwelling houses. If any one
+  thinks he can master and reproduce all this, he can hardly fail to
+  be mistaken. My own impression is that not one tenth part of it has
+  been reproduced in all the works written on the subject up to this
+  day, and much of it is probably lost and never again to be recovered
+  for the instruction and delight of future ages."
+
+This profound significance and charming quality of the cathedrals is
+usually unrecognized by those who see them only once or twice, and
+who, though they are very much interested in them for the moment, have
+no idea of the wealth of artistic suggestion and of thoughtful design
+so solicitously yet happily put into them by their builders. People
+who have seen them many times, however, who have lived in close touch
+with them, who have been away from them for a time and have come back
+to them, find the wondrous charm that is in these buildings.
+Architects and workmen put their very souls into them and they will
+always be of interest. It is for this reason, that the casual visitor
+at all times and in all moods finds them ever a source of constantly
+renewed pleasure, no matter how many times they may be seen.
+
+Elizabeth Robbins Pennell has expressed this power of Cathedrals to
+please at all times, even after they have been often seen and are very
+well known, in a recent number of the _Century_, in describing the
+great Cathedral of Notre Dame, "Often as I have seen Notre Dame," she
+says, "the marvel of it never grows less. I go to Paris with no
+thought of time for it, busy about many other things and then on my
+way over one of the bridges across the river perhaps, I see it again
+on its island, the beautiful towers high above the houses and palaces
+and the view now so familiar strikes me afresh with all the wonder of
+my first impression."
+
+This is we think the experience of everyone who has the opportunity to
+see much of Notre Dame. The present writer during the course of his
+medical studies spent many months in daily view of the Cathedral and
+did a good deal of work at the old Morgue, situated behind the
+Cathedral. Even at the end of his stay he was constantly finding new
+beauties in {99} the grand old structure and learning to appreciate it
+more and more as the changing seasons of a Paris fall and winter and
+spring, threw varying lights and shadows over it. It was like a work
+of nature, never growing old, but constantly displaying some new phase
+of beauty to the passers-by. Mrs. Pennell resents only the
+restorations that have been made. Generations down even to our time
+have considered that they could rebuild as beautifully as the
+Thirteenth Century constructors; some of them even have thought that
+they could do better, doubtless, yet their work has in the opinion of
+good critics served only to spoil or at least to detract from the
+finer beauty of the original plan. No wonder that R. M. Stevenson, who
+knew and loved the old Cathedral so well, said: "Notre Dame is the
+only un-Greek thing that unites majesty, elegance, and awfulness."
+Inasmuch as it does so it is a typical product of this wonderful
+Thirteenth Century, the only serious rival the Greeks have ever had.
+But of course it does not stand alone. There are other Cathedrals
+built at the same time at least as handsome and as full of
+suggestions. Indeed in the opinion of many critics it is inferior in
+certain respects to some three or four of the greatest Gothic
+Cathedrals.
+
+It cannot be possible that these generations builded so much better
+than they knew, that it is only by a sort of happy accident that their
+edifices still continue to be the subject of such profound admiration,
+and such endless sources of pleasure after seven centuries of
+experience. If so we would certainly be glad to have some such happy
+accident occur in our generation, for we are building nothing at the
+present time with regard to which we have any such high hopes. Of
+course the generations of Cathedral builders knew and appreciated
+their own work. The triumph of the Thirteenth Century is therefore all
+the more marked and must be considered as directly due to the
+environment and the education of its people. We have then in the study
+of their Cathedrals the keynote for the modern appreciation of the
+character and the development of their builders.
+
+It will be readily understood, how inevitably fragmentary must be our
+consideration of the Cathedrals, yet there is the consolation that
+they are the best known feature of Thirteenth {100} Century
+achievement and that consequently all that will be necessary will be
+to point out the significance of their construction as the basis of
+the great movement of education and uplift in the century. Perhaps
+first a word is needed with regard to the varieties of Gothic in the
+different countries of Europe and what they meant in the period.
+
+Probably, the most interesting feature of the history of Gothic
+architecture, at this period, is to be found in the circumstance that,
+while all of the countries erected Gothic structures along the general
+lines which had been laid down by its great inventors in the North and
+Center of France, none of the architects and builders of the century,
+in other countries, slavishly followed the French models. English
+Gothic is quite distinct from its French ancestor, and while it has
+defects it has beauties, that are all its own, and a simplicity and
+grandeur, well suited to the more rugged character of the people among
+whom it developed. Italian Gothic has less merits, perhaps, than any
+of the other forms of the art that developed in the different nations.
+In Italy, with its bright sunlight, there was less crying need for the
+window space, for the provision of which, in the darker northern
+countries, Gothic was invented, but, even here the possibilities of
+decorated architecture along certain lines were exhausted more fully
+than anywhere else, as might have been expected from the esthetic
+spirit of the Italians. German Gothic has less refinement than any of
+the other national forms, yet it is not lacking in a certain
+straightforward strength and simplicity of appearance, which
+recommends it. The Germans often violated the French canons of
+architecture, yet did not spoil the ultimate effect. St. Stephen's in
+Vienna has many defects, yet as a good architectural authority has
+declared it is the work of a poet, and looks it.
+
+A recent paragraph with regard to Spanish Gothic in an article on
+Spain, by Havelock Ellis, illustrates the national qualities of this
+style very well. As much less is generally known about the special
+development of Gothic architecture in the Spanish peninsula, it has
+seemed worth while to quote it at some length:
+
+  "Moreover, there is no type of architecture which so {101} admirably
+  embodies the romantic spirit as Spanish Gothic. Such a statement
+  implies no heresy against the supremacy of French Gothic. But the
+  very qualities of harmony and balance of finely tempered reason,
+  which make French Gothic so exquisitely satisfying, softened the
+  combination of mysteriously grandiose splendor with detailed
+  realism, in which lies the essence of Gothic as the manifestation of
+  the romantic spirit. Spanish Gothic at once by its massiveness and
+  extravagance and by its realistic naturalness, far more potently
+  embodies the spirit of medieval life. It is less esthetically
+  beautiful but it is more romantic. In Leon Cathedral, Spain
+  possesses one of the very noblest and purest examples of French
+  Gothic--a church which may almost be said to be the supreme type of
+  the Gothic ideal, of a delicate house of glass finely poised between
+  buttresses; but there is nothing Spanish about it. For the typical
+  Gothic of Spain we must go to Toledo and Burgos, to Tarragona and
+  Barcelona. Here we find the elements of stupendous size, of
+  mysterious gloom, of grotesque and yet realistic energy, which are
+  the dominant characters, alike of Spanish architecture and of
+  medieval romance."
+
+Those who think that the Gothic architecture came to a perfection all
+its own by a sort of wonderful manifestation of genius in a single
+generation, and then stayed there, are sadly mistaken. There was a
+constant development to be noted all during the Thirteenth Century.
+This development was always in the line of true improvement, while
+just after the century closed degeneration began, decoration became
+too important a consideration, parts were over-loaded with ornament,
+and the decadence of taste in Gothic architecture cannot escape the
+eye even of the most untutored. All during the Thirteenth Century the
+tendency was always to greater lightness and elegance. One is apt to
+think of these immense structures as manifestations of the power of
+man to overcome great engineering difficulties and to solve immense
+structural problems, rather than as representing opportunities for the
+expression of what was most beautiful and poetic in the intellectual
+aspirations of the generations. But this is what they were, and their
+architects were poets, for in the best sense of the {102} etymology of
+the word they were creators. That their raw material was stone and
+mortar rather than words was only an accident of their environment.
+Each of the architects succeeded in expressing himself with wonderful
+individuality in his own work in each Cathedral.
+
+The improvements introduced by the Thirteenth Century people into the
+architecture that came to them, were all of a very practical kind, and
+were never suggested for the sake of merely adding to opportunities
+for ornamentation. In this matter, skillful combinations of line and
+form were thought out and executed with wonderful success. At the
+beginning of the century, delicate shafts of marble, highly polished,
+were employed rather freely, but as these seldom carried weight, and
+were mainly ornamental in character, they were gradually eliminated,
+yet, without sacrificing any of the beauty of structure since
+combinations of light and shade were secured by the composition of
+various forms, and the use of delicately rounded mouldings alternated
+with hollows, so as to produce forcible effects in high light and deep
+shadow. In a word, these architects and builders, of the Thirteenth
+Century, set themselves the problem of building effectively, making
+every portion count in the building itself, and yet, securing
+ornamental effects out of actual structure such as no other set of
+architects have ever been able to surpass, and, probably, only the
+Greek architects of the Periclean period ever equaled. Needless to
+say, this is the very acme of success in architectural work, and it is
+for this reason that the generations of the after time have all gone
+back so lovingly to study the work of this period.
+
+It might be thought, that while Gothic architecture was a great
+invention in its time and extremely suitable for ecclesiastical or
+even educational edifices of various kinds, its time of usefulness has
+passed and that men's widening experience in structural work, ever
+since, has carried him far away from it. As a matter of fact, most of
+our ecclesiastical buildings are still built on purely Gothic lines,
+and a definite effort is made, as a rule, to have the completed
+religious edifice combine a number of the best features of Thirteenth
+Century Gothic. With what {103} success this has been accomplished can
+best be appreciated from the fact, that none of the modern structures
+attract anything like the attention of the old, and the Cathedrals of
+this early time still continue to be the best asset of the towns in
+which they are situated, because of the number of visitors they
+attract. Far from considering Gothic architecture outlived, architects
+still apply themselves to it with devotion because of the practical
+suggestions which it contains, and there are those of wide experience,
+who still continue to think it the most wonderful example of
+architectural development that has ever come, and even do not hesitate
+to foretell a great future for it.
+
+Reinach, in his Story of Art Throughout the Ages,   [Footnote 10] has
+been so enthusiastic in this matter that a paragraph of his opinion
+must find a place here. Reinach, it may be said, is an excellent
+authority, a member of the Institute of France, who has made special
+studies in comparative architecture, and has written works that carry
+more weight than almost any others of our generation:
+
+  [Footnote 10: Scribners, New York, 1905.]
+
+  "If the aim of architecture, considered as an art, should be to free
+  itself as much as possible from subjection to its materials, it may
+  be said that no buildings have more successfully realized this ideal
+  than the Gothic churches. And there is more to be said in this
+  connection. Its light and airy system of construction, the freedom
+  and slenderness of its supporting skeleton, afford, as it were, a
+  presage of an art that began to develop in the Nineteenth Century,
+  that of metallic architecture. With the help of metal, and of cement
+  reinforced by metal bars, the moderns might equal the most daring
+  feats of the Gothic architects. It would even be easy for them to
+  surpass them, without endangering the solidity of the structure, as
+  did the audacities of Gothic art. In the conflicts that obtain
+  between the two elements of construction, solidity and open space,
+  everything seems to show that the principle of free spaces will
+  prevail, that the palaces and houses of the future will be flooded
+  with air and light, that the formula popularized by Gothic
+  architecture has a great future before it, and that following the
+  revival of the Graeco-Roman style from {104} the Sixteenth Century,
+  to our own day, we shall see a yet more enduring renaissance of the
+  Gothic style applied to novel materials."
+
+It would be a mistake, however, to think that the Gothic Cathedrals
+were impressive only because of their grandeur and immense size. It
+would be still more a mistake to consider them only as examples of a
+great development in architecture. They are much more than this; they
+are the compendious expression of the art impulses of a glorious
+century. Every single detail of the Gothic Cathedrals is not only
+worthy of study but deserving of admiration, if not for itself, then
+always for the inadequate means by which it was secured, and most of
+these details have been found worthy of imitation by subsequent
+generations. It is only by considering the separate details of the art
+work of these Cathedrals that the full lesson of what these wonderful
+people accomplished can be learned. There have been many centuries
+since, in which they would be entirely unappreciated. Fortunately, our
+own time has come back to a recognition of the greatness of the art
+impulse that was at work, perfecting even what might be considered
+trivial portions of the cathedrals, and the brightest hope for the
+future of our own accomplishment is founded on this belated
+appreciation of old-time work.
+
+It has been said that the medieval workman was a lively symbol of the
+Creator Himself, in the way in which he did his work. It mattered not
+how obscure the portion of the cathedral at which he was set, he
+decorated it as beautifully as he knew how, without a thought that his
+work would be appreciated only by the very few that might see it.
+Trivial details were finished with the perfection of important parts.
+Microscopic studies in recent years have revealed beautiful designs on
+pollen grains and diatoms which are far beneath the possibilities of
+human vision, and have only been discovered by lens combinations of
+very high powers of the compound microscope. Always these beauties
+have been there though hidden away from any eye. It was as if the
+Creator's hand could not touch anything without leaving it beautiful
+as well as useful.
+
+{opp105}
+
+[Illustration]
+CATHEDRAL (AMIENS)
+
+
+{105}
+
+To as great extent as it is possible perhaps for man to secure such a
+desideratum, the Thirteenth Century workman succeeded in this same
+purpose. It is for this reason more than even for the magnificent
+grandeur of the design and the skilful execution with inadequate
+means, that makes the Gothic Cathedral such a source of admiration and
+wonder.
+
+To take first the example of sculpture. It is usually considered that
+the Thirteenth Century represented a time entirely too early in the
+history of plastic art for there to have been any fine examples of the
+sculptor's chisel left us from it. Any such impression, however, will
+soon be corrected if one but examines carefully the specimens of this
+form of art in certain Cathedrals. As we have said, probably no more
+charmingly dignified presentation of the human form divine in stone
+has ever been made than the figure of Christ above the main door of
+the cathedral of Amiens, which the Amiennois so lovingly call their
+"beautiful God." There are some other examples of statuary in the same
+cathedral that are wonderful specimens of the sculptor's art, lending
+itself for decorative purposes to architecture. This is true for a
+number of the Cathedrals. The statues in themselves are not so
+beautiful, but as portions of a definite piece of structural work such
+as a doorway or a facade, they are wonderful models of how all the
+different arts became subservient to the general effect to be
+produced. It was at Rheims, however, that sculpture reached its acme
+of accomplishment, and architects have been always unstinted in their
+praise of this feature of what may be called the Capitol church of
+France.
+
+Those who have any doubts as to the place of Gothic art itself in art
+history and who need an authority always to bolster up the opinion
+that they may hold, will find ample support in the enthusiastic
+opinion of an authority whom we have quoted already. The most
+interesting and significant feature of his ardent expression of
+enthusiasm is his comparison of Romanesque with Gothic art in this
+respect. The amount of ground covered from one artistic mode to the
+other is greater than any other advance in art that has ever been
+made. After all, the real value of the work of the period must be
+judged, rather by the amount of progress that has {106} been made than
+by the stage of advance actually reached, since it is development
+rather than accomplishment that counts in the evolution of the race.
+On the other hand it will be found that Reinach's opinion of the
+actual attainments of Gothic art are far beyond anything that used to
+be thought on the subject a half century ago, and much higher than any
+but a few of the modern art critics hold in the matter. He says:
+
+  "In contrast to this Romanesque art, as yet in bondage to
+  convention, ignorant or disdainful of nature, the mature Gothic art
+  of the Thirteenth Century appeared as a brilliant revival or
+  realism. The great sculptors who adorned the Cathedrals of Paris,
+  Amiens, Rheims, and Chartres with their works, were realists in the
+  highest sense of the word. They sought in Nature not only their
+  knowledge of human forms, and of the draperies that cover them, but
+  also that of the principles of decoration. Save in the gargoyles of
+  cathedrals and in certain minor sculptures, we no longer find in the
+  Thirteenth Century those unreal figures of animals, nor those
+  ornaments, complicated as nightmares, which load the capitals of
+  Romanesque churches; the flora of the country, studied with loving
+  attention, is the sole, or almost the sole source from which
+  decorators take their motives. It is in this charming profusion of
+  flowers and foliage that the genius of Gothic architecture is most
+  freely displayed. One of the most admirable of its creations is the
+  famous Capital of the Vintage in Notre Dame at Rheims, carved about
+  the year 1250. Since the first century of the Roman Empire art had
+  never imitated Nature so perfectly, nor has it ever since done so
+  with a like grace and sentiment."
+
+Reinach defends Gothic Art from another and more serious objection
+which is constantly urged against it by those who know only certain
+examples of it, but have not had the advantage of the wide study of
+the whole field of artistic endeavor in the Thirteenth Century, which
+this distinguished member of the Institute of France has succeeded in
+obtaining. It is curious what unfounded opinions have come to be
+prevalent in art circles because, only too often, writers with regard
+to the Cathedrals have spent their time mainly in the large cities, or
+along the principal arteries of travel, and have not realized {107}
+that some of the smaller towns contained work better fitted to
+illustrate Gothic Art principles than those on which they depended for
+their information. If only particular phases of the art of any one
+time, no matter how important, were to be considered in forming a
+judgment of it, that judgment would almost surely be unfavorable in
+many ways because of the lack of completeness of view. This is what
+has happened unfortunately with regard to Gothic art, but a better
+spirit is coming in this matter, with the more careful study of
+periods of art and the return of reverence for the grand old Middle
+Ages.
+
+{opp107}
+
+[Illustration]
+CATHEDRAL (RHEIMS)
+
+
+Reinach says: "There are certain prejudices against this admirable,
+though incomplete, art which it is difficult to combat. It is often
+said, for instance, that all Gothic figures are stiff and emaciated.
+To convince ourselves of the contrary we need only study the marvelous
+sculpture of the meeting between Abraham and Melchisedech, in Rheims
+Cathedral; or again in the same Cathedral, the Visitation, the seated
+Prophet, and the standing Angel, or the exquisite Magdalen of Bordeaux
+Cathedral. What can we see in these that is stiff, sickly, and puny?
+The art that has most affinity with perfect Gothic is neither
+Romanesque nor Byzantine, but the Greek art of from 500 to 450 B. C.
+By a strange coincidence, the Gothic artists even reproduce the
+somewhat stereotyped smile of their forerunners." Usually it is said
+that the Renaissance brought the supreme qualities of Greek plastic
+art back to life, but here is a thoroughly competent critic who finds
+them exhibited long before the Fifteenth Century, as a manifestation
+of what the self-sufficient generations of the Renaissance would have
+called Gothic, meaning thereby, barbarous art.
+
+What has been said of sculpture, however, can be repeated with even
+more force perhaps with regard to every detail of construction and
+decoration. Builders and architects did make mistakes at times, but,
+even their mistakes always reveal an artist's soul struggling for
+expression through inadequate media. Many things had to be done
+experimentally, most things were being done for the first time.
+Everything had an originality of its own that made its execution
+something more than merely a secure accomplishment after previous
+careful {108} tests. In spite of this state of affairs, which might be
+expected sadly to interfere with artistic execution, the Cathedrals,
+in the main, are full of admirable details not only worthy of
+imitation, but that our designers are actually imitating or at least
+finding eminently suggestive at the present time.
+
+To begin with a well known example of decorative effect which is found
+in the earliest of the English Cathedrals, that of Lincoln. The nave
+and choir of this was finished just at the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century. The choir is so beautiful in its conception, so wonderful in
+its construction, so charming in its finish, so satisfactory in all
+its detail, though there is very little of what would be called
+striving after effect in it, that it is still called the Angel Choir.
+
+The name was originally given it because it was considered to be so
+beautiful even during the Thirteenth Century, that visitors could
+scarcely believe that it was constructed by human hands and so the
+legend became current that it was the work of angels. If the critics
+of the Thirteenth Century, who had the opportunity to see work of
+nearly the same kind being constructed in many parts of England,
+judged thus highly of it, it is not surprising that modern visitors
+should be unstinted in their praise. It is interesting to note as
+representative of the feeling of a cultured modern scientific mind
+that Dr. Osler said not long ago, in one of his medical addresses,
+that probably nothing more beautiful had ever come from the hands of
+man than this Angel Choir at Lincoln. As to who were the designers,
+who conceived it, or the workmen who executed it, we have no records.
+It is not unlikely that the famous Hugh of Lincoln, the great Bishop
+to whom the Cathedral owes its foundation and much of its splendor,
+was responsible to no little extent for this beautiful feature of his
+Cathedral church. The workmen who made it were artist-artisans in the
+best sense of the word and it is not surprising that other beautiful
+architectural features should have flourished in a country where such
+workmen could be found.
+
+Almost as impressive as the Angel Choir was the stained glass work at
+Lincoln. The rose windows are among the most beautiful ever made and
+one of them is indeed considered a gem of its kind. The beautiful
+colors and wonderful {109} effectiveness of the stained glass of these
+old time Cathedrals cannot be appreciated unless the windows
+themselves are actually seen. At Lincoln there is a very impressive
+contrast that one can scarcely help calling to attention and that has
+been very frequently the subject of comment by visitors. During the
+Parliamentary time, unfortunately, the stained glass at Lincoln fell
+under the ban of the Puritans. The lower windows were almost
+completely destroyed by the soldiers of Cromwell's army. Only the rose
+windows owing to their height were preserved from the destroyer. There
+was an old sexton at the Cathedral, however, for whom the stained
+glass had become as the apple of his eye. As boy and man he had lived
+in its beautiful colors as they broke the light of the rising and the
+setting sun and they were too precious to be neglected even when lying
+upon the pavement of the Cathedral in fragments. He gathered the
+shattered pieces into bags and hid them away in a dark corner of the
+crypt, saving them at least from the desecration of being trampled to
+dust.
+
+Long afterwards, indeed almost in our own time, they were found here
+and were seen to be so beautiful that regardless of the fact that they
+could not be fitted together in anything like their former places,
+they were pieced into windows and made to serve their original purpose
+once more. It so happened that new stained glass windows for the
+Cathedral of Lincoln were ordered during the Nineteenth Century. These
+were made at an unfortunate time in stained glass making and are as
+nearly absolutely unattractive, to say nothing worse, as it is
+possible to make stained glass. The contrast with the antique windows,
+fragmentary as they are, made up of the broken pieces of Thirteenth
+Century glass is most striking. The old time colors are so rich that
+when the sun shines directly on them they look like jewels. No one
+pays the slightest attention, unless perhaps the doubtful compliment
+of a smile be given, to the modern windows which were, however, very
+costly and the best that could be obtained at that time.
+
+More of the stained glass of the Thirteenth Century is preserved at
+York where, because of the friendship of General Ireton, the town and
+the Cathedral were spared the worst ravages of the Parliamentarians.
+As a consequence York still {110} possesses some of the best of its
+old time windows. It is probable that there is nothing more beautiful
+or wonderful in its effectiveness than the glass in the Five Sisters
+window at York. This is only an ordinary lancet window of five
+compartments--hence the name--in the west front of the Cathedral.
+There are no figures on the window, it is only a mass of beautiful
+greyish green tints which marvelously subdues the western setting sun
+at the vesper hour and produces the most beautiful effects in the
+interior of the Cathedral. Here if anywhere one can realize the
+meaning of the expression dim religious light. In recent years,
+however, it has become the custom for so many people to rave over the
+Five Sisters that we are spared the necessity of more than mentioning
+it. Its tints far from being injured by time have probably been
+enriched. There can be no doubt at all, however, of the artistic
+tastes and esthetic genius of the man who designed it. The other
+windows of the Cathedral were not unworthy of this triumph of art. How
+truly the Cathedral was a Technical School can be appreciated from the
+fact that it was able to inspire such workmen to produce these
+wondrous effects.
+
+Experts in stained glass work have often called attention to the fact
+that the windows constructed in the Thirteenth Century were not only
+of greater artistic value but were also more solidly put together.
+Many of the windows made in the century still maintain their places,
+in spite of the passage of time, though later windows are sometimes
+dropping to pieces. It might be thought that this was due to the fact
+that later stained glass workers were more delicate in the
+construction of their windows in order not to injure the effect of the
+stained glass. To some extent this is true, but the stained glass
+workers of the Thirteenth Century preserve the effectiveness of their
+artistic pictures in glass, though making the frame work very
+substantial. This is only another example of their ability to combine
+the useful with the beautiful so characteristic of the century,
+stamping practically every phase of its accomplishment and making
+their work more admirable because its usefulness does not suffer on
+account of any strained efforts after supposed beauties.
+
+Though it is somewhat out of place here we cannot refrain {111} from
+pointing out the educational value of this stained glass work.
+
+Some of the stories on these windows gave details of many passages
+from the Bible, that must have impressed them upon the people much
+more than any sermon or reading of the text could possibly have
+accomplished. They were literally sermons in glass that he who walked
+by had to read whether he would or not. When we remember that the
+common people in the Middle Ages had no papers to distract them, and
+no books to turn to for information, such illustrations as were
+provided by the stained glass windows, by the painting and the
+statuary decorations of the Cathedrals, must have been studied with
+fondest devotion even apart from religious sentiment and out of mere
+inquisitiveness. The famous "prodigal" window at Chartres is a good
+example of this. Every detail of the story is here pictorially
+displayed in colors, from the time when the young man demands his
+patrimony through all the various temptations he met with in being
+helped to spend it, there being a naive richness of detail in the
+matter of the temptations that is quite medieval, from the boon
+companions who first led him astray to the depths of degradation which
+he finally reached before he returned to his father,--even the picture
+of the fatted calf is not lacking.
+
+On others of these windows there are the stories of the Patron Saints
+of certain crafts. The life of St. Crispin the shoemaker is given in
+rather full detail. The same is true of St. Romain the hunter who was
+the patron of the furriers. The most ordinary experiences of life are
+pictured and the methods by which these were turned to account in
+making the craftsman a saint, must have been in many ways an ideally
+uplifting example for fellow craftsmen whenever they viewed the
+window. This sort of teaching could not be without its effect upon the
+poor. It taught them that there was something else in life besides
+money getting and that happiness and contentment might be theirs in a
+chosen occupation and the reward of Heaven at the end of it all, for
+at the top of these windows the hand of the Almighty is introduced
+reaching down from Heaven to reward his faithful servants. It is just
+by such presentation of ideals even to the poor, that {112} the
+Thirteenth Century differs from the modern time in which even the
+teaching in the schools seems only to emphasize the fact that men must
+get money, honestly if they can, but must get money, if they would
+have what is called success in life.
+
+Another very interesting feature of these windows is the fact that
+they were usually the gifts of the various Guilds and so represented
+much more of interest, for the members. It is true that in France,
+particularly, the monarchs frequently presented stained glass windows
+and in St. Louis time this was so common that scarcely a French
+Cathedral was without one or more testimonials of this kind to his
+generosity; but most of the windows were given by various societies
+among the people themselves. How much the construction of such a
+window when it was well done, would make for the education in taste of
+those who contributed to the expense of its erection, can scarcely be
+over-estimated. There was besides a friendly rivalry in this matter in
+the Thirteenth Century, which served to bring out the talents of local
+artists and by the inevitably suggested comparisons eventually served
+to educate the taste of the people.
+
+It must not be thought, however, that it was only in stained glass and
+painting and sculpture--the major arts--that these workmen attained
+their triumphs. Practically every detail of Cathedral construction is
+a monument to the artistic genius of the century, to the wonderful
+inspiration afforded the workmen and to the education provided by the
+Guilds which really maintained, as we shall see, a kind of Technical
+School with the approbation and the fostering care of the
+ecclesiastics connected with the Cathedrals. An excellent example of a
+very different class of work may be noted in the hinges of the
+Cloister door of the Cathedral at York. Personally I have seen three
+art designers sketching these at the same time only one of whom was an
+Englishman, another coming from the continent and the third from
+America. The hinge still swings the heavy oak door of the Thirteenth
+Century. The arborization of the metal as it spreads out from the main
+shaft of the hinge is beautifully decorative in effect.
+
+{opp112}
+
+[Illustration]
+CLOISTER OF ST. PAUL'S (WITHOUT THE WALLS, ROME)
+
+A little study of the hinge seems to show that these branching
+portions were so arranged as to make the mechanical {113} moment of
+the swinging door less of a dead weight than it would have been if the
+hinge were a solid bar of iron. Besides the spreading of the branches
+over a wide surface serves to hold the woodwork of the door thoroughly
+in place. While the hinge was beautiful, then it was eminently useful
+from a good many standpoints, and trivial though it might be
+considered to be, it was in reality a type of all the work
+accomplished in connection with these Thirteenth Century Cathedrals.
+According to the old Latin proverb "_omne tulit punctum qui miscuit
+utile dulci_," he scores every point who mingles the useful with the
+beautiful, and certainly the Thirteenth Century workman succeeded in
+accomplishing the desideratum to an eminent degree. This mingling of
+the useful and the beautiful is of itself a supreme difference between
+the Thirteenth Century generations and our own. Mr. Yeats, the well
+known Irish poet, in bidding farewell to America some years ago said
+to a party of friends, that no country could consider itself to be
+making real progress in culture until the very utensils in the kitchen
+were beautiful as well as useful. Anything that is merely useful is
+hideous, and anyone who can handle such things with impunity has not
+true culture. In the Thirteenth Century they never by any chance made
+anything that was merely useful, especially not if it was to be
+associated with their beloved Cathedral.
+
+An excellent example of this can be found in their Chalices and other
+ceremonial utensils which were meant for Divine Service. As we have
+said elsewhere The Craftsman, the journal of the Arts and Crafts
+Movement in this country not long since compared a Chalice of the
+Thirteenth Century with the prize cups which are offered for yacht
+races and other competitions in this country. We may say at once that
+the form which the Chalice received during the Thirteenth Century is
+that which constitutes to a great extent the model for this sacred
+vessel ever since and the comparison with the modern design is
+therefore all the more interesting. In spite of the fact that money is
+no object as a rule in the construction of many of the modern prize
+cups, they compare unfavorably according to the writer in The
+Craftsman with the old time chalices. There is a tendency to over
+ornamentation which {114} spoils the effectiveness of the lines of the
+metal work in many cases and there is also only too often, an attempt
+to introduce forms of plastic art which do not lend themselves well to
+this class of work. It is in design particularly that the older
+workman excels his modern colleague though usually there are
+suggestions from several sources for present day work. In a word the
+Thirteenth Century Chalice was much more admirable than the modern
+piece of metal work, because the lines were simpler, the combination
+of beauty with utility more readily recognizable and the obtrusiveness
+of the ornamentation much less marked.
+
+This same thing is true for other even coarser forms of metal work in
+connection with the Cathedrals, and anyone who has seen some of the
+beautiful iron screens built for Cathedral choirs in the olden times
+will realize that even the worker in iron must have been an artist as
+well as a blacksmith. The effect produced, especially in the dim light
+of the Cathedral, is often that of delicate lace work. To appreciate
+the strength of the screen one must actually test it with the hands.
+This of itself represents a very charming adaptation of what might be
+expected to be rough work meant for protective purposes into a
+suitable ornament. Some of the gates of the old churchyards are very
+beautiful in their designs and have often been imitated in quite
+recent years, for the gates of country places, for our modern
+millionaires. The Reverend Augustus Jessopp who has written much with
+regard to the times before the Reformation, says that he has found in
+his investigations, that not infrequently such gates were made by the
+village blacksmiths. Most of the old parish records are lost because
+of the suppression of the parishes as well as the monasteries in Henry
+the Eighth's time. Some of the original documents are, however,
+preserved and among them are receipts from the village blacksmith, for
+what we now admire as specimens of artistic ironwork and corresponding
+receipts from the village carpenter, for woodwork that we now consider
+of equally high order. There were carved bench ends and choir stalls
+which seem to have been produced in this way. Just how these
+generations of the Thirteenth Century, in little towns of less than
+ten thousand inhabitants, {115} succeeded in raising up artisans in
+numbers, capable of doing such fine work, and yet content to make
+their living at such ordinary occupations, is indeed hard to
+understand. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that though there was
+not much furniture during the Thirteenth Century what little there
+was, was as a rule very carefully and artistically made. Thirteenth
+Century benches and tables are famous. Cathedrals and castles worked
+together in inspiring and giving occupation to these wonderful
+workmen.
+
+It was not only the workmen engaged in the construction of the
+edifices proper who made the beautiful things and created marvelously
+artistic treasures during this century. All the adornments of the
+Cathedrals and especially everything associated in any intimate way
+with the religious service was sure to be executed with the most
+delicate taste. The vestments of the time are some of the most
+beautiful that have ever been made. The historians of needlework tell
+us that this period represents the most flourishing era of artistic
+accomplishment with the needle of all modern history. One example of
+this has secured a large share of notoriety in quite recent years. An
+American millionaire bought the famous piece of needlework known as
+the Cope of Ascoli. This is an example of the large garment worn over
+the shoulders in religious processions and at benediction. The price
+paid for the garment is said to have been $60,000. This was not
+considered extortionate or enforced, as the Cope was declared by
+experts to be one of the finest pieces of needlework in the world. The
+jewels which originally adorned it had been removed so that the money
+was paid for the needlework itself. After a time it became clear that
+the Cope had been stolen before being sold, and accordingly it was
+returned to the Italian government who presented the American
+millionaire with a medal for his honesty.
+
+We have spoken of the Cathedrals as great stone books, in which he who
+ran, might read, even though he were not able to read in the technical
+sense of the term. This has been an old-time expression with regard to
+the Cathedrals, but not even its inventor perhaps, and certainly not
+most of those who have repeated it have realized how literally true
+was the saying. I {116} have elsewhere quoted from Reinach's Story of
+Art Throughout the Ages as an authority on the subject. His
+re-statement of the intellectual significance for the people of the
+Cathedrals of their towns, in which it must be remembered that they
+had a personal interest because in a sense they were really theirs,
+and they felt their ownership quite as much as a modern member of a
+parish feels with regard to his church, emphasizes and illuminates
+this subject to a wonderful degree. The realization that the
+information of the time was deliberately woven into these great stone
+structures, mainly of course for decorative purposes, but partly also
+with the idea of educating the people, is a startling confirmation of
+the idea that education was the most important and significant work of
+this great century.
+
+  "The Gothic Cathedral is a perfect encyclopedia of human knowledge.
+  It contains scenes from the Scriptures and the legends of saints;
+  motives from the animal and vegetable kingdom; representations of
+  the seasons of agricultural labor, of' the arts and sciences and
+  crafts, and finally moral allegories, as, for instance, ingenious
+  personifications of the virtues and the vices. In the Thirteenth
+  Century a learned Dominican, Vincent of Beauvais, was employed by
+  St. Louis to write a great work which was to be an epitome of all
+  the knowledge of his times. This compilation, called The Mirror of
+  the World, is divided into four parts: The Mirror of Nature, The
+  Mirror of Science, the Moral Mirror, and the Historical Mirror. A
+  contemporary archaeologist, M. E. Male, has shown that the works of
+  art of our great cathedrals are a translation into stone of the
+  Mirror of Vincent of Beauvais, setting aside the episodes from Greek
+  and Roman History, which would have been out of place. It was not
+  that the imagers had read Vincent's work; but that, like him, they
+  sought to epitomise all the knowledge of their contemporaries. The
+  first aim of their art is not to please, but to teach; they offer an
+  encyclopedia for the use of those who cannot read, translated by
+  sculptor or glass-painter into a clear and precise language, under
+  the lofty direction of the Church which left nothing to chance. It
+  was present always and everywhere, advising and superintending the
+  artist, leaving him to his own devices only when he {117} modelled
+  the fantastic animals of the gargoyles, or borrowed decorative
+  motives from the vegetable kingdom."   [Footnote 11]
+
+  [Footnote 11: Reinach--The Story of Art Throughout the Ages.
+  Scribner's, 1904.]
+
+
+[Illustration]
+CATHEDRAL (BOURGES)
+
+[Illustration: ]
+CATHEDRAL (CHARTRES)
+
+
+As to how much the cathedrals held of meaning for those who built them
+and worshiped in them, only a careful study of the symbolism of the
+time will enable the present-day admirer to understand. Modern
+generations have lost most of their appreciation of the significance
+of symbolism. The occupation of mind with the trivial things that are
+usually read in our day, leaves little or no room for the study of the
+profounder thought an artist may care to put into his work, and so the
+modern artist tells his story as far as possible without any of this
+deeper significance, since it would only be lost. In the Thirteenth
+Century, however, everything artistic had a secondary meaning.
+Literature was full of allegories, even the Arthur Legends were
+considered to be the expression of the battle of a soul with worldly
+influences as well as a poetic presentation of the story of the old
+time British King. The Gothic Cathedrals were a mass of symbolism.
+This will perhaps be best understood from the following explanation of
+Cathedral symbolism, which we take from the translation of Durandus's
+work on the meaning of the Divine Offices, a further account of which
+will be found in the chapter on The Prose of the Century.
+
+  "Far away and long ere we can catch the first view of the city
+  itself, the three spires of its Cathedral, rising high above its din
+  and turmoil, preach to us of the Most High and Undivided Trinity. As
+  we approach, the Transepts, striking out crosswise, tell of the
+  Atonement. The Communion of Saints is set forth by the chapels
+  clustering around Choir and Nave: the mystical weathercock bids us
+  to watch and pray and endure hardness; the hideous forms that are
+  seen hurrying from the eaves speak the misery of those who are cast
+  out of the church; spire, pinnacle, and finial, the upward curl of
+  the sculptured foliage, the upward spring of the flying buttress,
+  the sharp rise of the window arch, the high thrown pitch of the
+  roof, all these, overpowering the horizontal tendency of string
+  course and parapet, teach us, that vanquishing earthly desires, we
+  also should ascend in heart and mind. Lessons of holy {118} wisdom
+  are written in the delicate tracery of the windows; the unity of
+  many members is shadowed forth by the multiplex arcade; the duty of
+  letting our light shine before men, by the pierced and flowered
+  parapet that crowns the whole.
+
+  "We enter. The triple breadth of Nave and Aisles, the triple height
+  of Pier arch, Triforium, and Clerestory, the triple length of Choir,
+  Transepts, and Nave, again set forth the HOLY TRINITY. And what
+  besides is there that does not tell of our Blessed SAVIOUR? that
+  does not point out "HIM First" in the two-fold western door; "HIM
+  Last" in the distant altar; "HIM Midst," in the great Rood; "HIM
+  Without End," in the monogram carved on boss and corbel, in the Holy
+  Lamb, in the Lion of the tribe of Judah, in the Mystic Fish? Close
+  by us is the font; for by regeneration we enter the Church; it is
+  deep and capacious; for we are buried in Baptism with CHRIST; it is
+  of stone, for HE is the Rock; and its spiry cover teaches us, if we
+  be indeed risen from its waters with HIM, to seek those things which
+  are above. Before us in long-drawn vista are the massy piers, which
+  are the Apostles and Prophets--they are each of many members, for
+  many are the Graces in every Saint, there is beautifully delicate
+  foliage round the head of all; for all were plentiful in good works.
+  Beneath our feet are the badges of worldly pomp and glory, the
+  graves of Kings and Nobles and Knights; all in the Presence of God
+  as dross and worthlessness. Over us swells the vast valley of the
+  high pitched roof; from the crossing and interlacing of its curious
+  rafters hang fadeless flowers and fruits which are not of earth;
+  from its hammer-beams project wreaths and stars such as adorn
+  heavenly beings; in its center stands the LAMB as it has been slain;
+  from around HIM the celestial Host, Cherubim and Seraphim, Thrones,
+  Principalities, and Powers, look down peacefully on the worshipers
+  below. Harpers there are among them harping with their harps; for
+  one is the song of the Church in earth and in Heaven. Through the
+  walls wind the narrow cloister galleries; emblems of the path by
+  which holy hermits and anchorets whose conflicts were known only to
+  their GOD, have reached their Home. And we are compassed about with
+  a mighty cloud of witnesses; the rich deep glass of the windows
+  teems {119} with saintly forms, each in its own fair niche, all
+  invested with the same holy repose; there is the glorious company of
+  the Apostles; the goodly fellowship of the Prophets; the noble army
+  of Martyrs; the shining band of Confessors; the jubilant chorus of
+  the Virgins; there are Kings, who have long since changed an earthly
+  for an heavenly crown; and Bishops who have given in a glad account
+  to the Shepherd and Bishop of souls. But on none of these things do
+  we rest; piers, arch behind arch, windows, light behind light,
+  arcades, shaft behind shaft, the roof, bay behind bay, the Saints
+  around us, the Heavenly Hierarchy above with dignity of preeminence
+  still increasing eastward, each and all, lead on eye and soul and
+  thought to the Image of the Crucified Saviour as displayed on the
+  great East window. Gazing steadfastly on that we pass up the Nave,
+  that is through the Church Militant, till we reach the Rood Screen,
+  the barrier between it and the Church Triumphant, and therein
+  shadowing forth the death of the Faithful. High above it hangs on
+  His Triumphant Cross the image of Him who by His death hath overcome
+  death; on it are portrayed Saints and Martyrs, His warriors who,
+  fighting under their LORD have entered into rest and inherit a
+  tearless eternity. They are to be our examples, and the seven lamps
+  above them typify those graces of the SPIRIT, by Whom alone we can
+  tread in their steps. The screen itself glows with gold and crimson;
+  with gold, for they have on their heads golden crowns; with crimson,
+  for they passed the Red Sea of Martyrdom, to obtain them. And
+  through the delicate network, and the unfolding Holy Doors, we catch
+  faint glimpses of the Chancel beyond. There are the massy stalls;
+  for in Heaven is everlasting rest; there are the Sedilia, emblems of
+  the seats of' the Elders round the Throne; there is the Piscina; for
+  they have washed their robes and made them white; and there heart
+  and soul and life of all, the Altar with its unquenched lights, and
+  golden carvings, and mystic steps, and sparkling jewels; even CHRIST
+  Himself, by Whose only Merits we find admission to our Heavenly
+  Inheritance. Verily, as we think on the oneness of its design, we
+  may say: Jerusalem edificatur ut civitas cujus participatio ejus in
+  idipsum."
+
+{120}
+
+It is because of all this wealth of meaning embodied in them, that the
+Cathedrals of this old time continue to be so interesting and so
+unfailingly attractive even to our distant and so differently
+constituted generation.  [Footnote 12]
+
+  [Footnote 12: Those who care to realize to some degree all the
+  Wonderful symbolic meaning of the ornamentation of some of these
+  cathedrals, should read M. Huysman's book La Cathedrale, which has,
+  we believe, been translated into English. Needless to say it has
+  been often in our hands in compiling this chapter, and the death of
+  its author as this chapter is going through the press poignantly
+  recalls all the beauty of his work.]
+
+We cannot close this chapter on the Book of the Arts leaving the
+impression that only the Church Architecture of the time deserves to
+be considered in the category of, great art influences. There were
+many municipal buildings, some stately castles, and a large number of
+impressively magnificent Abbeys and Monasteries, besides educational
+and charitable institutions built at this same time. The town halls of
+some of the great Hansa towns, that is, the German free cities that
+were members of the Hanseatic League, present some very striking
+examples of the civil architecture of the period. It has the same
+characteristics that we have discussed in treating of the Cathedrals.
+While wonderfully impressive, it was eminently suitable for the
+purpose for which it was intended and the decorations always forming
+integral parts of the structure, sounded the note of the combination
+of beauty with utility which is so characteristic of every phase of
+the art accomplishment of the century.
+
+Some of the castles would deserve special description  by themselves
+but unfortunately space forbids more than a passing mention. Certain
+castellated fortresses still standing in England and Ireland come from
+the time of King John, and are excellent examples of the stability and
+forceful character of this form of architecture in the Thirteenth
+Century. It is interesting to find that when we come to build in the
+Twentieth Century in America, the armories which are to be used for
+the training of our militia and the storage of arms and ammunition,
+many of the ideas used in their construction are borrowed from this
+olden time.
+
+{opp120}
+
+[Illustration]
+DURHAM CASTLE AND CATHEDRAL
+
+[Illustration]
+KING JOHN'S CASTLE (LIMERICK)
+
+
+There is a famous castle in Limerick, Ireland, built in John's time
+which constituted an {121} excellent example of this and which has
+doubtlessly often been studied and more or less imitated.
+
+One portion of Kenilworth Castle in England dates from the Thirteenth
+Century and has been often the subject of careful study by modern
+architects. The same thing might be said of many others.
+
+With regard to the English Abbeys too much cannot be said in praise of
+their architecture and it has been the model for large educational and
+municipal buildings ever since. St. Mary's Abbey at York, though only
+a few scattered fragments of its beauties are to be seen and very
+little, of its walls still stand, is almost as interesting as
+Yorkminster, the great Cathedral itself. There were many such abbeys
+as this built in England during the Thirteenth Century--more than a
+dozen of them at least and probably a full score. All of them are as
+distinguished in the history of architecture as the English
+Cathedrals. It will be remembered that what is now called Westminster
+Abbey was not a Cathedral church, but only a monastery church attached
+to the Abbey of Westminster and this, the only well preserved example
+of its class furnishes an excellent idea of what these religious
+institutions signify in the Thirteenth Century. They meant as much for
+the art impulse as the Cathedrals themselves.
+
+One feature of these monastic establishments deserves special mention.
+The cloisters were usually constructed so beautifully as to make them
+veritable gems of the art of the period. These cloisters were the
+porticos usually surrounding a garden of the monastery within which
+the Monks could walk, shaded from the sun, and protected from the rain
+and the snow. They might very easily have been hideously useful
+porches, especially as they were quite concealed from the outer world
+as a rule, and those not belonging to the order were not admitted to
+them except on very special occasions. The name cloister signifies an
+enclosed place and lay persons were not ordinarily admitted to them.
+Those who know anything about them will recall what beautiful
+constructive work was put into them. Certain examples as that of St.
+John Lateran in Rome and the Cloister of St. Paul's without the walls
+some five miles from Rome, constructed during the {122} Thirteenth
+Century and under the influence of the same great art movement as gave
+the Cathedrals, are the most beautiful specimens that now remain. The
+only thing that they can be compared with is the famous Angel Choir at
+Lincoln which indeed they recall in many ways.
+
+The pictures of these two Cloisters which we present will give some
+idea of their beauty. To be thoroughly appreciated, however, they must
+be seen, for there is a delicacy of finish about every detail that
+makes them an unending source of admiration and brings people back
+again and again to see them, yet always to find something new and
+apparently unnoticed before. It might be thought that the studied
+variety in the columns so that no two are of exactly the same form,
+would produce a bizarre effect. The lack of symmetry that might
+result, from this same feature could be expected to spoil their
+essential beauty. Neither of these effects has been produced, however.
+The Cloisters were, moreover, not purple patches on monasteries, but
+ever worthy portions of very beautiful buildings.
+
+All of these buildings were furnished as regards their metal work,
+their wood work, and the portions that lent themselves to decoration,
+in the same spirit as the Cathedrals themselves. The magnificent
+tables and benches of the Thirteenth Century are still considered to
+be the best models of simplicity of line with beauty of form and
+eminent durability in the history of furniture making. The fashion for
+Colonial furniture in our own time has brought us nearer to such
+Thirteenth Century furniture making than has been true at any other
+time in history. Here once more there was one of these delightful
+combinations of beauty and utility which is so characteristic of the
+century. Even the kitchen utensils were beautiful as well as useful
+and the Irish poet might have been satisfied to his heart's content.
+
+{opp122}
+
+[Illustration]
+PALAZZO VECCHIO (ARNULFO, FLORENCE)
+CAMPANILE (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+GIOTTO'S TOWER (FLORENCE)
+
+
+Certain other architectural forms were wonderfully developed during
+the Thirteenth Century and the opening years of the Fourteenth Century
+while men trained during the former period were still at work.
+Giotto's tower, for instance, must be considered a Thirteenth Century
+product since its architect was well past thirty-five years of age
+before the Thirteenth {123} Century closed and all his artistic
+character had been formed under its precious inspiration. It is a
+curious reflection on modern architecture, that some of the modern
+high business buildings are saved from being hideous just in as much
+as they approach the character of some of these tower-like structures
+of the Thirteenth Century. The first of New York's skyscrapers which
+is said to have escaped the stigma of being utterly ugly, as most of
+them are, because of their appeal to mere utility, was the New York
+Times Building which is just Giotto's tower on a large scale set down
+on Broadway at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Seen from a
+mile away the effect is exactly that of the great Florentine
+architect's beautiful structure and this was of course the deliberate
+intention of the modern architect. Anyone who would think, however,
+that our modern business building with its plain walls recalls in any
+adequate sense its great pattern, should read what Mr. Ruskin has said
+with regard to the wealth of meaning that is to be found in Giotto's
+tower. Into such structures just as into the Cathedrals, the
+architects and builders of the time succeeded in putting a whole
+burden of suggestion, which to the generations of the time in which
+they were built, accustomed to the symbolism of every art feature in
+life around them, had a precious wealth of significance that we can
+only appreciate after deep study and long contemplation. We have felt
+that only the quotation from Mr. Ruskin himself can fully illustrate
+what we wish to convey in this matter.
+
+  "Of these representations of human art under heavenly guidance, the
+  series of basreliefs which stud the base of this tower of Giotto's
+  must be held certainly the chief in Europe. At first you may be
+  surprised at the smallness of their scale in proportion to their
+  masonry; but this smallness of scale enabled the master workmen of
+  the tower to execute them with their own hands; and for the rest, in
+  the very finest architecture, the decoration of most precious kind
+  is usually thought of as a jewel, and set with space round it--as
+  the jewels of a crown, or the clasp of a girdle."
+
+
+{124}
+
+VII
+ARTS AND CRAFTS--GREAT TECHNICAL SCHOOLS
+
+
+The most interesting social movement in our time is undoubtedly that
+of the arts and crafts. Its central idea is to lift the workmen up
+above the mere machine that he is likely to become, as the result of
+the monotonous occupation at some trade, that requires him only to do
+a constantly repeated series of acts, or direct, one little portion of
+machinery and so kills the soul in him. Of course, the other idea that
+a generation of workmen shall be created, who will be able to make
+beautiful things, for the use of the household as well as the
+adornment of the house is another principal purpose. Too many people
+have mistaken this entirely secondary aim of the movement for its
+primary end. It is because of the effect upon the workman himself of
+the effort to use his intellect in the designing, his taste in the
+arrangement, and his artisan skill for the execution of beautiful
+things, that the arts and crafts movement has its appeal to the
+generality of mankind.
+
+The success of the movement promises, to do more, to solve social
+problems than all the socialistic agitation that is at present causing
+so much dismay in some quarters and raising so many hopes that are
+destined to be disappointed in the hearts of the laboring classes. The
+solution of the problem of social unrest is to be found, not in
+creating new wants for people and giving them additional wages that
+will still further stimulate their desire to have many things that
+will continue to be in spite of increased wages beyond their means,
+but rather to give them such an interest in their life work that their
+principal source of pleasure is to be found in their occupation.
+Unfortunately work has come to be looked upon as a drudgery and as men
+must spend the greater portion of their lives, at least the vast
+majority of them must, in doing something that will enable them to
+make a living, it is clear that unhappiness {125} and discontent will
+still continue. Blessed is the man who has found his work, blessed is
+the man to whom his work appeals with so much interest that he goes
+from it with a longing to be able to finish what he has been at, and
+comes back to it with a prospect that now he shall be able to
+accomplish what time and perhaps fatigue would not allow him to
+proceed with the day before.
+
+This is the best feature of the promises held out by the arts and
+crafts movement, that men shall be interested in the work they do.
+This may seem to some people an unrealizable idea and a poetic
+aspiration rather than a possible actuality. A little study of what
+was accomplished in this line during the Thirteenth Century, will
+surely prove even to the most skeptical how much of success is capable
+of being realized in this matter. The men who worked around the
+Cathedrals were given opportunities to express themselves and the best
+that was in them as no class of workmen before or since have ever had
+the opportunity. Every single portion of the Cathedral was to be made
+as beautiful as the mind of man could conceive, his taste could plan
+and his hands could achieve. As a consequence the carpenter had the
+chance to express himself in the woodwork, the village blacksmith the
+opportunity to display his skill in such small ironwork as the hinges
+or the latch for the door and every workman felt called upon to do the
+best that was in him.
+
+It is easy to understand under these circumstances with what interest
+the men must have applied themselves to their tasks. They were, as a
+rule, the designers as well as the executors of the work assigned
+them. They planned and executed in the rough and tried, then modified
+and adapted, until finally as we know of most of the Cathedrals, their
+finished product was as nearly perfect in most particulars as it is
+ordinarily given to man to achieve. Their aim above all was to make
+such a combination of utility with beauty of line yet simplicity of
+finish, as would make their work worthy counterparts of all the other
+portions of the Cathedral. The sense of competition must have stirred
+men to the very depths of their souls and yet it was not the heartless
+rivalry that crushes when it succeeds, but the inspiring emulation
+that makes one do as well as or better than others, though not
+necessarily in such a way as to {126} belittle others' efforts by
+contrast or humble them by triumph.
+
+{opp126}
+
+[Illustration]
+FOUNTAIN (PERUGIA) [TOWN PUMP]
+
+[Illustration]
+LAVATOIO (TODI) [PUBLIC WASH-HOUSE]
+
+
+In these old medieval days England used to be called Merrie England
+and it is easy to understand that workmen would be profoundly merry at
+heart, when they had the consciousness of accomplishing such good
+work. Men must have almost tardily quitted their labor in the evening
+while they hoped and strove to accomplish something that would be
+worthy of the magnificent building in which so many of their fellow
+workmen were achieving triumphs of handicraftsmanship. Each went home
+to rest for the night, but also to dream over what he might be able to
+do and awoke in the morning with the thought that possibly to-day
+would see some noteworthy result. This represents the ideal of the
+workman's life. He has an interest quite apart from the mere making of
+money. The picture of the modern workman by contrast looks vain and
+sordid. The vast majority of our workmen labor merely because they
+must make enough money to-day, in order that they may be able to buy
+food enough so as to get strength to work to-morrow. Of interest there
+is very little. Day after day there is the task of providing for self
+and others. Only this and nothing more. Is it any wonder that there
+should be social unrest and discontentment? How can workmen be merry
+unless with the artificial stimulus of strong drink, when there is
+nothing for them to look forward to except days and weeks and years of
+labor succeeding one another remorselessly, and with no surcease until
+Nature puts in her effective demand for rest, or the inevitable end
+comes.
+
+It would be idle to say that these men who knew how to make the
+beautiful things for these cathedrals were not conscious of the
+perfection of the work that they were accomplishing. The very fact
+that each in his own line was achieving such beautiful results must
+have stamped him as thoroughly capable of appreciating the work of
+others. The source of pleasure that there must have been therefore, in
+some twenty towns in England alone, to see their Cathedral approaching
+completion, must have been of itself a joy far beyond anything we can
+imagine as possible for the workmen of the present day. The interest
+in it was supreme and was only heightened by the fact that it was
+being done by relatives and friends and brother workmen, even {127}
+though they might be rivals, and that whatever was done was redounding
+first to the glory of the Lord to whom they turned with so much
+confidence in these ages of faith, and secondly, and there was
+scarcely less satisfaction in the thought, to the reputation of their
+native town and their fellow-townsmen.
+
+This is the feature of the life of the lower classes in the Thirteenth
+Century which most deserves to be studied in our time. We hear much of
+people being kept in ignorance and in servitude. Men who talk this way
+know nothing at all of the lives of the towns of the Middle Ages and
+are able to appreciate not even in the slightest degree the wonderful
+system of education, that made life so much fuller of possibilities
+for intellectual development for all classes and for happiness in
+life, than any other period of which we know. This phase of the
+Thirteenth Century is at once the most interesting, the most
+significant for future generations, and the most important in its
+lessons for all time.
+
+We have been following up thus far the exemplification in the
+Thirteenth Century of John Ruskin's saying, that if you wish to get at
+the real significance of the achievements of a period in history, you
+must read the book of its deeds, the book of its arts and the book of
+its words. We have been turning over a few of the pages of the book of
+the deeds of the Thirteenth Century in studying the history of the
+establishment of the universities and of the method and content of
+university teaching. After all the only deeds that ought to count in
+the history of mankind are those that are done for men--that have
+accomplished something for the uplift of mankind. History is
+unfortunately occupied with deeds of many other kinds, and it is
+perhaps the saddest blot on our modern education, that it is mainly
+the history of deeds that have been destructive of man, of human
+happiness and in only too many cases of human rights and human
+liberties, that are supposed to be most worthy of the study of the
+rising generation. History as written for schools is to a great extent
+a satire on efforts for social progress.
+
+We shall continue the study of the book of the deeds of the Thirteenth
+Century and its most interesting and important chapter, that of the
+education of the masses. We shall find in what was accomplished in
+educating the people of the {128} Thirteenth Century, the model of the
+form of education which in spite of our self-complacency does not
+exist, but must come in our time, if our education is to fulfill its
+real purpose. Perhaps the most interesting phase of this question of
+the education of the masses will be the fact that in studying this
+book of the deeds, we shall have also to study once more the book of
+the arts of the Thirteenth Century. All their best accomplishment was
+linked with achievement and progress in art. Yet it was from the
+masses that the large number of artist-artisans of workmen with the
+true artistic spirit came, who in this time in nearly every part of
+Europe, created masterpieces of art in every department which have
+since been the admiration of the world.
+
+We may say at once that the opportunity for the education of the
+masses was furnished in connection with the Cathedrals. In the light
+of what we read in these great stone books, it is a constant source of
+surprise that the Church should be said to have been opposed to
+education. Reinach in his Story of Art throughout the Ages says:
+
+  "The Church was not only rich and powerful in the Middle Ages; it
+  dominated and directed all the manifestations of human activity.
+  There was practically no art but the art it encouraged, the art it
+  needed to construct and adorn its buildings, carve its ivories and
+  its reliquaries, and paint its glass and its missals. Foremost among
+  the arts it fostered was architecture, which never played so
+  important a part in any other society. Even now, when we enter a
+  Romanesque or Gothic church, we are impressed by the might of that
+  vast force of which it is the manifestation, a force which shaped
+  the destinies of Europe for a thousand years."
+
+It was as the result of this demand for art that the technical schools
+naturally developed around the Cathedrals. To take the example of
+England alone, during the Thirteenth Century some twenty cathedrals
+were erected in various parts of the country. Most of these were built
+in what we would now call small towns, indeed some of them would be
+considered scarcely more than villages. There were no large cities, in
+praise be it spoken, during the Thirteenth Century, and it must not be
+forgotten that the whole population of England at the beginning {129}
+of the century was scarcely more than two millions of people and did
+not reach three millions even at the end of it. Every rood of ground
+did not perhaps maintain its man, but every part of England had its
+quota of population so that there could not be many crowded centers.
+Even London probably at no time during the century had more than
+twenty-five thousand inhabitants and Oxford during the palmiest days
+of the University was perhaps the most populous place in the land.
+
+There was a rivalry in the building of Cathedrals, and as the main
+portion of the buildings were erected in the short space of a single
+century, a feeling of intense competition was rife so that there was
+very little possibility of procuring workmen from other towns. Each
+town had to create not only its cathedral but the workmen who would
+finish it in all its details. When we consider that a Cathedral like
+Salisbury was practically completed in the short space of about
+twenty-five years, it becomes extremely difficult to understand just
+how this little town succeeded in apparently accomplishing the
+impossible. It has often been said that artists cannot be obtained
+merely because of a demand for them and that they are the slow
+creation of rather capricious nature. It is only another way of saying
+that the artist is born, not made. Nature then must have been in a
+particularly fruitful mood and tense during the Thirteenth Century,
+for there is no doubt at all of the wonderful artistic beauty of the
+details of these Gothic cathedrals. While nature's beneficence meant
+much, however, the training of the century probably meant even more
+and the special form of popular education which developed well
+deserves the attention of all other generations.
+
+It may be said at once that education in our sense of teaching
+everybody to read and write there was none. There were more students
+at the universities to the number of the population than in the
+Twentieth Century as we have seen, but people who were not to devote
+themselves in after life to book learning, were not burdened with
+acquisitions of doubtful benefit, which might provide stores of
+useless information for them, or enable them to while away hours of
+precious time reading trash, or make them conceited with the thought
+that because they had absorbed some of the opinions of others on
+things in general, {130} they had a right to judge of most things
+under the sun and a few other things besides. The circulation of our
+newspapers and the records of the books in demand at our libraries,
+show how much a knowledge of reading means for most of our population.
+Popular education of this kind may, and does benefit a few, but it
+works harm to a great many.
+
+Of education in the sense of training the faculties so that the
+individual might express whatever was in him and especially that he
+might bring out what was best in him, there was much. Take again the
+example of England. There was considerably less in population than
+there is in Greater New York at the present time, yet there was some
+twenty places altogether in which they were building Cathedrals during
+this century, that would be monuments of artistic impulse and
+accomplishment for all future time. Any city in this country would be
+proud to have any one of these English cathedrals of the Thirteenth
+Century as the expression of its taste and power to execute. We have
+tried to imitate them more or less in many places. In order to
+accomplish our purpose in this matter, though, we deliberately did
+everything on a much smaller and less ambitious scale than the people
+of the small English towns of seven centuries ago, and our results do
+not bear comparison for a moment with theirs, we had to appeal to
+other parts of the country and even to Europe for architects and
+designers, and even had to secure the finished products of art from
+distant places. This too, in spite of the fact that we are seven
+centuries later and that our education is supposed to be developed to
+a high extent. If there were twenty places of instruction in Greater
+New York where architects and artist workers in iron and glass, and
+metal of all kinds, and wood and stone, were being trained to become
+such finished artisans as were to be found in twenty different little
+towns of England in the Thirteenth Century, we should be sure that our
+manual training schools and our architectural departments of
+universities and schools of design were wonderfully successful.
+
+When we find this to be true of the England of the Thirteenth Century
+we can conclude that somehow better opportunities for art education
+must have been supplied in those times than in our own, and though we
+do not find the mention or {131} records of formal schools, we must
+look patiently for the methods of instruction that enabled these
+generations to accomplish so much. Needless to say such attainments do
+not come spontaneously in a large number of people, but must be
+carefully fostered and are the result of that greatest factor in
+education, environment. It will not be hard to find where the
+ambitious youth of England even of the workman class found
+opportunities for technical education of the highest character in
+these little towns. This was never merely theoretic, though, it was
+sufficiently grounded in principle to enable men to solve problems in
+architecture and engineering, in decoration and artistic arrangement,
+such as are still sources of anxiety for modern students of these
+questions.
+
+To take but a single example, it will be readily appreciated that the
+consideration of the guilds of builders of the Cathedrals as
+constituting a great technical school, is marvelously emphasized by
+certain recent observations with regard to architects' and builders'
+methods in the Cathedrals. There is a passage in Evelyn's Diary in
+which he describes certain corrections that were introduced into Old
+St. Paul's Cathedral, London (the Gothic edifice predecessor of the
+present classical structure), in order to remove appearances of
+dissymmetry and certain seeming mistakes of construction. This passage
+was always so misunderstood that editors usually considered it to be
+defective in some way and as the classical critics always fall back on
+an imperfect text for insoluble difficulties, so somehow Evelyn was
+considered as either not having understood what he intended to say, or
+else the printer failed to put in all the words that he wrote. It was
+the modern readers, however, not Evelyn nor his printer who were
+mistaken. Mr. Goodyear of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences
+has proved by a series of photographs and carefully made observations,
+that many of the old Gothic Cathedrals have incorporated into them by
+their builders, optical corrections which correspond to those made by
+the Greeks in their building in the classical period, which have been
+the subject of so much admiration to the moderns.
+
+The medieval architects and builders knew nothing of these classical
+architectural refinements. They learned for themselves by actual
+experience the necessity for making such optical {132} corrections and
+then introduced them so carefully, that it is not until the last
+decade or so that their presence has been realized. It is only by an
+educational tradition of the greatest value that the use of such a
+refinement could become as general as Professor Goodyear has found it
+to be. Besides the practical work then, and the actual exercise of
+craftsmanship and of design which the apprentices obtained from the
+guild, there was evidently a body of very definite technical
+information conveyed to them, or at least to certain chosen spirits
+among them, which carried on precious traditions from place to place.
+This same state of affairs must of course have existed with regard to
+stained glass work, the making of bells and especially the finer work
+in the precious metals. Practical metallurgy must have been studied
+quite as faithfully as in any modern technical school, at least so far
+as its practical purposes and application were concerned. Here we have
+the secret of the technical schools revealed.
+
+It is extremely interesting to study the details of the very practical
+organization by which this great educational movement in the arts and
+crafts was brought about. It was due entirely to the trades' and
+merchants' guilds of the time. In the cathedral towns the trades'
+guilds preponderated in influence. There gathered around each of these
+cathedrals during the years when work was most active, numbers of
+workmen engaged at various occupations requiring mechanical skill and
+long practice at their trade. These workmen were all affiliated with
+one another and they were gradually organized into trades' unions that
+had a certain independent existence. There was the guild of the stone
+workers; the guild of the metal workers--in some places divided into a
+guild of iron workers and a guild of gold workers, or workers in
+precious metals; there was the guild of the wood workers and then of
+the various other forms of occupation connected with the supplying of
+finished or unfinished materials for the cathedral. In association
+with these were established guilds of tailors, bakers, butchers, all
+affiliated in a merchants' guild which maintained the rights of its
+members as well as the artisans' guilds. Some idea of the number and
+variety of these can be obtained from the list given in the chapter on
+the Origin of the Drama.
+
+{opp133}
+[Illustration]
+RELIQUARY (LIMOGES MUSEO, FLORENCE)
+
+[Illustration]
+CRUCIFIX (DUOMO, SIENA)
+
+{133}
+
+These were the workmen who not only accomplished such brilliant
+results in art work, but also succeeded in training other workmen so
+admirably for every line of artistic endeavor.
+
+It is somewhat difficult to understand just how a village carpenter
+did wood-carving of so exquisite a design and such artistic finish of
+detail that it has remained a subject of admiration for centuries. It
+is quite as difficult to understand how one of the village blacksmiths
+of the time made a handsome gate, that has been the constant
+admiration of posterity ever since, or designed huge hinges for doors
+that artists delight to copy, or locks and latches and bolts that are
+transported to our museums to be looked at with interest, not only
+because they are antiques, but for the wonderful combination of the
+beautiful and the useful which they illustrate. We are assured,
+however, by the Rev. Augustus Jessopp, that he has seen in the
+archives of the old English parishes, some of the receipts for the
+bills of these village workmen as we would term them, for the making
+of these beautiful specimens of arts and crafts.
+
+The surprise grows greater when we realize that these beautiful
+objects were made not alone in one place or even in a few places, but
+in nearly every town of any size in England and France and Italy and
+Germany and Spain at various times during the Thirteenth Century, and
+that at any time a town of considerably less than ten thousand
+inhabitants seemed to be able to obtain among its own inhabitants, men
+who could make such works of art not as copies nor in servile
+imitation of others, but with original ideas of their own, and make
+them in such perfection that in many cases they have remained the
+models for future workmen for many centuries. Even the bells for the
+cathedrals seem to have been cast in practically all cases in the
+little town in which they were to be used. It may be added that these
+bells of the Thirteenth Century represent the highest advances in bell
+making that have ever been attained and that their form and
+composition have simply been imitated over and over again since that
+time. Even the finer precious metal work such as chalices and the
+various sacred vessels and objects used in the church services, were
+not obtained from a distance but were made at home.
+
+An article that appeared a few years ago in The Craftsman {134}
+(Syracuse, N. Y.), a magazine published in the interests of the Arts
+and Crafts movement, called attention to how much more beautifully the
+Thirteenth Century workman in the precious metals accomplished his
+artistic purpose than does the corresponding workman of the present
+day. A definite comparison, was made between some typical chalices of
+the Thirteenth Century and some prize cups which were made without
+regard to cost, as rewards for yachting and other competitions in the
+Twentieth Century. The artist workman of the olden time knew how to
+combine the beautiful with the useful, to use decoration just enough
+not to offend good taste, to make the lines of his work eminently
+artistic and in general to turn out a fine work of art. The modern
+prize cup is usually made by one of the large firms engaged in such
+work who employ special designers for the purpose, such designs
+ordinarily passing through the trained hands of a series of critics
+before being accepted, and only after this are turned over to the
+modern skilled workmen to be executed in metal. All this ought to
+assure the more artistic results; that they do not according to the
+writer in The Craftsman, demonstrates how much such success is a
+matter of men and of individual taste rather than of method. We have
+already called attention to the fact that in needlework and in other
+arts connected with the provision of church ornaments and garments,
+the success of the Thirteenth Century workers was quite as great. The
+Cope of Ascoli considered by experts to be one of the most beautiful
+bits of needlework ever made is an example of this. Many other
+examples are to be found in the treasuries of churches and
+monasteries, in spite of the ravages of time and only too often of
+intolerant and unfortunate destruction by so-called reformers, who
+could see no beauty in even the most beautiful things if they ran
+counter to certain of their religious prejudices.
+
+The training necessary for the production of such beautiful objects of
+handicraftsmanship was obtained through the guilds themselves. The boy
+in the small town who thought that he had a liking for a certain trade
+or craft was received as an apprentice in it. If during the course of
+a year or more he demonstrated his aptness for his chosen craft, he
+was allowed to {135} continue his labor of assisting the workmen in
+various ways, and indeed very early in the history of the guilds was
+bound over to some particular workman, who usually supplied him with
+board and clothing, though with no other remuneration during his years
+of apprenticeship. After four or five years, always, however, with the
+understanding that he had shown a definite talent for his chosen
+trade, he was accepted among the workmen of the lowest grade, the
+journeymen, who usually went traveling in order to perfect their
+knowledge of the various methods by which their craft maintained
+itself and the standard of its workmanship in the different parts of
+the country.
+
+During these three years of "journeying" a striking development was
+likely to take place in the mind of the ambitious young workman. His
+_wanderjahre_ came just at the most susceptible period, sometime
+between 17 and 25, they continued for three years or more, and the
+young workman if at all ambitious was likely to see many men and
+methods and know much of the cities and towns of his country before he
+returned to his native place. Sometimes these craft-wanderings took
+him even into France, where he learned methods and secrets so
+different to those at home.
+
+After these years if he wished to settle down in his native town or in
+some other, having brought evidence of the accomplishment of his
+apprenticeship and then of his years as a journeyman, he became an
+applicant for full membership in the guild to which his years of
+training had been devoted. He was not admitted, however, until he had
+presented to the officials of the organization a piece of work showing
+his skill. This might be only a hinge, or a lock for a door, but on
+the other hand it might be a design for an important window or a
+delicate piece of wood or stone-carving. If it was considered worthy
+of the standard of workmanship of the guild it was declared to be a
+masterpiece. This is where the fine old English word masterpiece comes
+from. The workman was then admitted as a master workman and became a
+full member of the guild.
+
+This membership carried with it a number of other rights besides that
+of permission to work as a master-workman at full wages whenever the
+guild was employed. Guilds had certain privileges conferred on them by
+the towns in which they lived, {136} by the nobles for whom they
+worked and the ecclesiastical authorities on whose various church
+structures they were employed. At the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century at least, feudal ideas prevailed to such an extent that no one
+was supposed to enjoy any rights or privileges except those which had
+been conferred on him by some authority. Besides the workmen of the
+same guild were bound together by ties, so that any injury inflicted
+on one of them was considered to be done to the whole body. When human
+rights were much less recognized than has come to be the case since,
+this constituted an important source of protection against many forms
+of injury and infringement of rights.
+
+Besides the privileges, however, the guild possessed certain other
+decided advantages which made membership desirable, even though it
+involved the fulfilment of certain duties. In the various towns in
+England, after the introduction during the Thirteenth Century of the
+practice of having mystery plays in the various towns, the guild
+claimed and obtained the privilege of giving these at various times
+during the year. The guild of the goldsmiths would give the
+performance of one portion of the Old Testament; the guild of the
+tailors another; the guild of the butchers and so on for each of the
+trades and crafts still another, so that during the year a whole cycle
+of the mysteries of the Christian religion in type and in reality were
+exhibited to the people of each region. Almost needless to say, on
+such festive occasions, for the plays were given on important feast
+days, the people from the countryside flocked in to see them and the
+influence was widespread. What was most important, however, was the
+influence on those who took part in the plays, of such intimate
+contact for a prolonged period with the simplicity of style, the
+sublimity of thought, the concentration of purpose and the
+effectiveness of expression of the Scriptures and the Scripture
+narratives even in their dramatized form.
+
+The fact of actually taking part in these performances meant ever so
+much more than merely viewing them as an outsider. It is doubtless to
+this intimate relationship with the great truths of Christianity that
+the profound devotion so characteristic of the accomplishments of the
+arts and crafts, during the Thirteenth Century, must be to no little
+extent attributed.
+
+{opp136}
+
+[Illustration ]
+MADONNA, CIMABUE
+(RUCELLAI CHAPEL, SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE)
+
+{137}
+
+Their beautiful work could only have come from men of profoundest
+faith, but also it could not have come from those who were ignorant of
+the basis of what they accepted on faith. In other words, there was a
+mental training with regard to some of the sublimest truths of life
+and its significance, the creation of a Christian philosophy of life,
+that made the workman see clearly the great truths of religion and so
+be able to illustrate them by his handiwork. Education of a higher
+order than this has never been conceived of, and the very lack of
+tedious formality in it only made it all the more effectual in action.
+
+Other duties were involved in membership in the guild. All the members
+were bound to attend church services regularly and to perform what is
+known as their religious duties at periodic intervals, that is, the
+rule of the guild required them to go to mass on Sundays and holy
+days, to abstain from manual labor on such days unless there was
+absolute necessity for it, and to go to confession and communion
+several times a year. Besides they were bound to contribute to the
+support of such of their fellow-members as were sick and unable to
+work or as had been injured. A very interesting phase of this duty
+toward sick members existed at least in some parts of the country. A
+workman was supposed to pass one night at certain intervals on his
+turn, in helping to nurse a fellow-workman who was seriously hurt or
+who was very ill. It was considered that the family were quite worn
+out enough with the care of the sick man during the day, and so one of
+his brother guildsmen came to relieve them of this duty at night. It
+is a custom that is still maintained in certain country places but
+which of course has passed out of use entirely in our unsympathetic
+city life. In a word, there was a thorough education not only in the
+life work that made for wages and family support, but also in those
+precious social duties that make for happiness and contentment in
+life.
+
+
+{138}
+
+VIII
+
+GREAT ORIGINS IN PAINTING.   [Footnote 13]
+
+  [Footnote 13: Most of this chapter is taken from the work on Italian
+  painting (La Peinture Italienne depuis les origines jusqu'a la fin
+  du xv Siecle, par Georges Lafenestre, Paris Ancienne Maison Quantin
+  Libraries-Imprimeries Reunies, May & Motteroz, Directeurs, rue
+  Saint-Benoit. Nouvelle Edition), which forms one of the series of
+  text books for instruction in art at L'Ecole Des Beaux-Arts--the
+  famous French Government Art School in Paris. It may be said that
+  this collection of art manuals is recognized as an authority on all
+  matters treated of, having been crowned by the Academie Des
+  Beaux-Arts with the prize Bordin. There is no better source of
+  information with regard to the development of the arts and none
+  which can be more readily consulted nor with more assurance as to
+  the facts and opinions exposed.]
+
+At the commencement of the Thirteenth Century the movement of
+emancipation in every phase of thought and life in Italy went on apace
+with an extraordinary ardor. After a very serious struggle the Italian
+republics were on the point of forcing the German Empire to recognize
+them. Everywhere in the first enthusiasm of their independence which
+had been achieved by valiant deeds and aspirations after liberty as
+lofty as any in modern times, the cities, though united in
+confederations they were acting as independent rivals, brought to all
+enterprises, lay or religious foundations, commercial or educational
+institutions, a wonderful youthful activity and enterprise. The papacy
+allied with them favored this movement in its political as well as its
+educational aspects and strengthened the art movement of the time.
+Christianity under their guidance, by the powerful religious
+exaltation which it inspired in the hearts of all men, became a potent
+factor in all forms of art. From Pope Innocent III to Boniface VIII
+probably no other series of Popes have been so misunderstood and so
+misrepresented by subsequent generations, as certainly the Popes of no
+other century did so much to awaken the enthusiasm of Christians for
+all modes of religious development, and be it said though credit for
+this is {139} only too often refused them, also for educational,
+charitable and social betterment.
+
+The two great church institutions of the time that were destined to
+act upon the people more than any others were the Franciscan and
+Dominican orders--the preachers and the friars minor, who were within
+a short time after their formation to have such deep and widespread
+influence on all strata of society. Both of these orders from their
+very birth showed themselves not only ready but anxious to employ the
+arts as a means of religious education and for the encouragement of
+piety. Their position in this matter had an enormous influence on art
+and on the painters of the time. The Dominicans, as became their more
+ambitious intellectual training and their purpose as preachers of the
+word, demanded encyclopedic and learned compositions; the Franciscans
+asked for loving familiar scenes such as would touch the hearts of the
+common people. Both aided greatly in helping the artist to break away
+from the old fashioned formalism which was no longer sufficient to
+satisfy the new ardors of men's souls. In this way they prepared the
+Italian imagination for the double revolution which was to come.
+
+It was the great body of legends which grew up about St. Francis
+particularly, all of them bound up with supreme charity for one's
+neighbor, with love for all living creatures even the lowliest, with
+the tenderest feelings for every aspect of external nature, which
+appealed to the painters as a veritable light in the darkness of the
+times. It was especially in the churches founded by the disciples of
+"the poor little man of Assisi," that the world saw burst forth before
+the end of the century, the first grand flowers of that renewal of art
+which was to prove the beginning of modern art history. It is hard to
+understand what would have happened to the painters of the time
+without the spirit that was brought into the world by St. Francis'
+beautifully simple love for all and every phase of nature around him.
+This it was above all that encouraged the return to nature that soon
+supplanted Oriental formalism. It was but due compensation that the
+greatest works of the early modern painters should have been done in
+St. Francis' honor. Besides this the most important factor in art was
+the revival of the thirst for knowledge, which arose among the more
+intellectual portions of the {140} communities and developed an
+enthusiasm for antiquity which was only a little later to become a
+veritable passion.
+
+The most important phase of Italian art during the Thirteenth Century
+is that which developed at Florence. It is with this that the world is
+most familiar. It began with Cimabue, who commenced painter, in the
+quaint old English phrase, not long before the middle of the century
+and whose great work occupies the second half of it. There are not
+wanting some interesting traditions of certain other Florentine
+painters before his time as Marchisello, of the early part of the
+century, Lapo who painted, in 1261, the facade of the Cathedral at
+Pistoia, and Fino di Tibaldi who painted a vast picture on the walls
+of the Municipal Palace about the middle of the century, but they are
+so much in the shadow of the later masters' work as to be scarcely
+known. Everywhere Nature began to reassert herself. The workers in
+Mosaic even, who were occupied in the famous baptistry at Florence
+about the middle of the century, though they followed the Byzantine
+rules of their art, introduced certain innovations which brought the
+composition and the subjects closer to nature. These are enough to
+show that there was a school of painting and decoration at Florence
+quite sufficient to account for Cimabue's development, without the
+necessity of appealing to the influence over him of wandering Greek
+artists as has sometimes been done.
+
+Though he was not the absolute inventor of all the new art modes as he
+is sometimes supposed to be, Cimabue was undoubtedly a great original
+genius. Like so many others who have been acclaimed as the very first
+in a particular line of thought or effort, his was only the
+culminating intelligence which grasped all that had been done before,
+assimilated it and made it his own. As a distinct exception to the
+usual history of such great initiators, this father of Italian
+painting was rich, born of a noble family, but of a character that was
+eager for work and with ambition to succeed in his chosen art as the
+mainspring of life. At his death, as the result of his influence,
+artists had acquired a much better social position than had been
+theirs before, and one that it was comparatively easy for his
+successors to maintain. His famous Madonna which was subsequently
+borne in triumph from his studio to the Church of {141} Santa Maria
+Novella, placed the seal of popular approval on the new art, and the
+enthusiasm it evoked raised the artist for all time from the plane of
+a mere worker in colors to that of a member of a liberal profession.
+Even before this triumph his great picture had been deemed worthy of a
+visit by Charles of Anjou, the French King, who was on a visit to
+Florence and according to tradition ever afterwards the portion of the
+city in which it had been painted and through which it was carried in
+procession, bore by reason of these happy events the name Borgo
+Allegri--Ward of Joy.
+
+This picture is still in its place in the Rucellai chapel and is of
+course the subject of devoted attention on the part of visitors.
+Lafenestre says of it, that this monument of Florentine art quite
+justifies the enthusiasm of contemporaries if we compare it with the
+expressionless Madonnas that preceded it. There is an air of
+beneficent dignity on the features quite unlike the rigidity of
+preceding art, and there is besides an attractive suppleness about the
+attitude of the body which is far better proportioned than those of
+its predecessors. Above all there is a certain roseate freshness about
+the colors of the flesh which are pleasant substitutes for the pale
+and greenish tints of the Byzantines. It did not require more than
+this to exalt the imaginations of the people delivered from their
+old-time conventional painting. It was only a ray of the dawn after a
+dark night, but it announced a glorious sunrise of art and the
+confident anticipations of the wondrous day to come, aroused the
+depths of feeling in the peoples' hearts. Life and nature went back
+into art once more; no wonder their re-apparition was saluted with so
+much delight.
+
+Two other Madonnas painted by him, one at Florence in the Academy, the
+other in Paris in the Louvre, besides his great Mosaic in the apse of
+the Cathedral at Pisa, serve to show with what prudence Cimabue
+introduced naturalistic qualities into art, while always respecting
+the tradition of the older art and preserving the solemn graces and
+the majestic style of monumental painting. The old frescoes of the
+upper church at Assisi which represent episodes in the life of St.
+Francis have also been attributed to Cimabue, but evidently were done
+by a number of artists probably under his direction. It is easy to
+{142} see from them what an important role the Florentine artist
+played in directing the gropings of his assistant artists.
+
+After Cimabue the most important name at Florentine in the Thirteenth
+Century is that of his friend, Gaddo Gaddi, whose years of life
+correspond almost exactly with those of his great contemporary. His
+famous Coronation of the Virgin at Santa Maria de Fiore in Florence
+shows that he was greatly influenced by the new ideas that had come
+into art. Greater than either of these well-known predecessors
+however, was Giotto the friend of Dante, whose work is still
+considered worthy of study by artists because of certain qualities in
+which it never has been surpassed nor quite outgrown. From Giotto,
+however, we shall turn aside for a moment to say something of the
+development of art in other cities of Italy, for it must not be
+thought that Florence was the only one to take up the new art methods
+which developed so marvelously during the Thirteenth Century.
+
+Even before the phenomenal rise of modern art in Florence, at Pisa, at
+Lucca and especially at Siena, the new wind of the spirit was felt
+blowing and some fine inspirations were realized in spite of hampering
+difficulties of all kinds. The Madonna of Guido in the Church of St.
+Dominic at Siena is the proof of his emancipation. Besides him
+Ugolino, Segna and Duccio make up the Siena school and enable this
+other Tuscan city to dispute even with Florence the priority of the
+new influence in art. At Lucca Bonaventure Berlinghieri flourished and
+there is a famous St. Francis by him only recently found, which proves
+his right to a place among the great founders of modern art. Giunta of
+Pisa was one of those called to Assisi to paint some of the frescoes
+in the upper church. He is noted as having striven to make his figures
+more exact and his colors more natural. He did much to help his
+generation away from the conventional expressions of the preceding
+time and he must for this reason be counted among the great original
+geniuses in the history of art.
+
+The greatest name in the art of the Thirteenth Century is of course
+that of Giotto. What Dante did for poetry and Villani for history,
+their compatriot and friend did for painting. Ambrogio de Bondone
+familiarly called Ambrogiotto (and with the abbreviating habit that
+the Italians have always had for the names of all those of whom they
+thought much shortened to {143} Giotto, as indeed Dante's name had
+been shortened from Durante) was born just at the beginning of the
+last quarter of the Thirteenth Century. According to a well-known
+legend he was guarding the sheep of his father one day and passing his
+time sketching a lamb upon a smooth stone with a soft pebble when
+Cimabue happened to be passing. The painter struck by the signs of
+genius in the work took the boy with him to Florence, where he made
+rapid progress in art and soon surpassed even his master. The
+wonderful precocity of his genius may be best realized from the fact
+that at the age of twenty he was given the commission of finishing the
+decorations of the upper Church at Assisi, and in fulfilling it broke
+so completely with the Byzantine formalism of the preceding
+millennium, that he must be considered the liberator of art and its
+deliverer from the chains of conventionalism into the freedom of
+nature.
+
+It is no wonder that critics and literary men have been so unstinted
+in his praise. Here is an example:
+
+  "In the Decamerone it is said of him 'that he was so great a genius
+  that there was nothing in nature he had not so reproduced that it
+  was not only like the thing, but seemed to be the thing itself.'
+  Eulogies of this tenor on works of art are, it is quite true, common
+  to all periods alike, to the most accomplished of classical
+  antiquity as well as to the most primitive of the Middle Age; and
+  they must only be accepted relatively, according to the notion
+  entertained by each period of what constitutes truth and
+  naturalness. And from the point of view of his age, Giotto's advance
+  towards nature, considered relatively to his predecessors, was in
+  truth enormous. What he sought was not merely the external truth of
+  sense, but also the inward truth of the spirit. Instead of solemn
+  images of devotion, he painted pictures in which the spectator
+  beheld the likeness of human beings in the exercise of activity and
+  intelligence. His merit lies, as has been well said, in 'an entirely
+  new conception of character and facts.'"   [Footnote 14]
+
+    [Footnote 14: History of Ancient, Early Christian and Medieval
+    Painting from the German of the late Dr. Alfred Woltmann,
+    Professor at the Imperial University of Strasburg, and Karl
+    Woertmann, Professor at the Royal Academy of Arts, Dusselford.
+    Edited by Sidney Colvin, M. A., Dodd, Mead & Co., N. Y., 1894.]
+
+
+{144}
+
+Lafenestre, in his history of Italian painting for the Beaux-Arts of
+Paris already referred to, says that what has survived of Giotto's
+work justifies the enthusiasm of his contemporaries. None of his
+predecessors accomplished anything like the revolution that he worked.
+He fixed the destinies of art in Italy at the moment when Dante fixed
+those of literature. The stiff, confused figures of the mosaics and
+manuscripts grew supple under his fingers and the confusion
+disappeared. He simplified the gestures, varied the expression,
+rectified the proportions. Perhaps the best example of his work is
+that of the upper Church of Assisi, all accomplished before he was
+thirty. What he had to represent were scenes of life almost
+contemporary yet already raised to the realm of poetry by popular
+admiration. He interpreted the beautiful legend of the life of the
+Saint preserved by St. Bonaventure, and like the subject of his
+sketches turned to nature at every step of his work. If his figures
+are compared with those of the artists of the preceding generations,
+their truth to life and natural expressions easily explain the
+surprise and the rapture of his contemporaries.
+
+Beautiful as are the pictures of the Upper Church, however, ten years
+after their completion Giotto's genius can be seen to have taken a
+still higher flight by the study of the pictures on the vast ceilings
+of the Lower Church. The four compartments contain the Triumph of
+Chastity, the Triumph of Poverty, the Triumph of Obedience, and the
+Glorification of St. Francis. The ideal and the real figures in these
+compositions are mingled and grouped with admirable clearness and
+inventive force. To be appreciated properly they must be seen and
+studied _in situ_. Many an artist has made the pilgrimage to Assisi
+and none has come away disappointed. Never before had an artist dared
+to introduce so many and such numerous figures, yet all were done with
+a variety and an ease of movement that is eminently pleasing and even
+now are thoroughly satisfying to the artistic mind. After his work at
+Assisi some of the best of Giotto's pictures are to be found in the
+Chapel of the Arena at Padua. Here there was a magnificent opportunity
+and Giotto took full advantage of it. The whole story of Christ's life
+is told in the fourteen episodes of the life of his Mother which were
+painted here by Giotto. For their sake Padua as well as {145} Assisi
+has been a favorite place of pilgrimage for artists ever since and
+never more so than in our own time.
+
+{opp144}
+
+[Illustration]
+ST. FRANCIS' MARRIAGE WITH POVERTY (GIOTTO, ASSISI)
+
+No greater tribute to the century in which he lived could possibly be
+given than to say that his genius was recognized at once, and he was
+sought from one end of Italy to another by Popes and Kings, Republics
+and Princes, Convents and Municipalities, all of which competed for
+the privilege of having this genius work for them with ever increasing
+enthusiasm. It is easy to think and to say that it is no wonder that
+such a transcendent genius was recognized and appreciated and received
+his due reward. Such has not usually been the case in history,
+however. On the contrary, the more imposing the genius of an artist,
+or a scientist, or any other great innovator in things human, the more
+surely has he been the subject of neglect and even of misunderstanding
+and persecution. The very fact that Giotto lifted art out of the
+routine of formalism in which it was sunk might seem to be enough to
+assure failure of appreciation. Men do not suddenly turn round to like
+even great innovations, when they have long been satisfied with
+something less and when their principles of criticism have been formed
+by their experience with the old.
+
+We need not go farther back than our own supposedly illuminated
+Nineteenth Century to find some striking examples of this. Turner, the
+great English landscapist, failed of appreciation for long years and
+had to wait till the end of his life to obtain even a small meed of
+reward. The famous Barbizon School of French Painters is a still more
+striking example. They went back to nature from the classic formalism
+of the early Nineteenth Century painters just as Giotto went back to
+nature from Byzantine conventionalism. The immediate rewards in the
+two cases were very different and the attitude of contemporaries
+strikingly contrasted. Poor Millet did his magnificent work in spite
+of the fact that his family nearly starved. Only that Madame Millet
+was satisfied to take more than a fair share of hardships for herself
+and the family in order that her husband might have the opportunity to
+develop his genius after his own way, we might not have had the
+magnificent pictures which Millet sold for a few paltry francs that
+barely kept {146} the wolf from the door, and for which the next
+generation has been paying almost fabulous sums.
+
+All through the Thirteenth Century this characteristic will be found
+that genius did not as a rule lack appreciation. The greater the
+revolution a genuinely progressive thinker and worker tried to
+accomplish in human progress, the more sure was he to obtain not only
+a ready audience, but an enthusiastic and encouraging following. This
+is the greatest compliment that could be paid to the enlightenment of
+the age. Men's minds were open and they were ready and willing to see
+things differently from what they had been accustomed to before. This
+constitutes after all the best possible guarantee of progress. It is,
+however, very probably the last thing that we would think of
+attributing to these generations of the Thirteenth Century, who are
+usually said very frankly to have been wrapped up in their own
+notions, to have been only too ready to accept things on authority
+rather than by their own powers of observation and judgment, and to
+have been clingers to the past rather than lookers to the present and
+the future. Giotto's life shows better than any other how much this
+prejudiced view of the Thirteenth Century and perforce of the Middle
+Age needs to be corrected.
+
+During forty years Giotto responded to every demand, and made himself
+suffice for every call, worked in nearly every important city of
+Italy, enkindling everywhere he went the new light of art. Before the
+end of the century he completed a cartoon for the famous picture of
+the Boat of Peter which was to adorn the Facade of St. Peter's. He was
+in Rome in 1300, the first jubilee year, arranging the decorations at
+St. John Lateran. The next year he was at Florence, working in the
+Palace of the Podesta. And so it went for full two score years. He was
+at Pisa, at Lucca, at Arezzo, at Padua, at Milan, then he went South
+to Urbino, to Rome and then even to Naples. Unfortunately the strain
+of all this work proved too much for him and he was carried away at
+the comparatively early age of sixty in the midst of his artistic
+vigor and glory.
+
+{opp147}
+[Illustration]
+ESPOUSAL OF ST. CATHERINE
+(GADDI, XIII. CENTURY PUPIL, PERUGIA)
+
+
+The art of the Middle Ages and especially at the time of the
+beginnings of modern art in the Thirteenth Century, is commonly
+supposed to be inextricably bound up with certain {147} influences
+which place it beyond the pale of imitation for modern life. It has
+frequently been said, that this art besides being too deeply mystical
+and pietistic, is so remote from ordinary human feelings as to
+preclude a proper understanding of it by the men of our time and
+certainly prevent any deep sympathy. The pagan element in art which
+entered at the time of the Renaissance and which emphasized the joy of
+life itself and the pleasure of mere living for its own sake, is
+supposed to have modified this sadder aspect of things in the earlier
+art, so that now no one would care to go back to the pre-Renaissance
+day. There has been so much writing of this kind that has carried
+weight, that it is no wonder that the impression has been deeply made.
+It is founded almost entirely on a misunderstanding, however. Reinach
+whom we have quoted before completely overturns this false notion in
+some paragraphs which bring out better than any others that we know
+something of the true significance of the Thirteenth Century art in
+this particular.
+
+Those who think that Gothic art was mainly gloomy in character, or if
+not absolutely sad at heart that it always expressed the sadder
+portion of religious feelings, who consider that the ascetic side of
+life was always in the ascendant and the brighter side of things
+seldom chosen, for pictorial purposes, should recall that the Gothic
+Cathedrals themselves are the most cheery and lightsome buildings,
+that indeed they owe their character as creations of a new idea in
+architecture to the determined purpose of their builders to get
+admission for all possible light in the dreary Northern climates. The
+contradiction of the idea that Gothic art in its essence was gloomy
+will at once be manifest from this. Quite apart from this, however, if
+Gothic art be studied for itself and in its subjects, that of the
+Thirteenth Century particularly will be found far distant from,
+anything that would justify the criticism of over sadness. Reinach (in
+his Story of Art Throughout the Middle Ages) has stated this so
+clearly that we prefer simply to quote the passage which is at once
+authoritative and informing:
+
+  "It has also been said that Gothic art bears the impress of ardent
+  piety and emotional mysticism, that it dwells on the suffering of
+  Jesus, of the Virgin, and of the martyrs with harrowing persistency.
+  Those who believe this have never studied {148} Gothic art. It is so
+  far from the truth that, as a fact, the Gothic art of the best
+  period, the Thirteenth Century, never represented any sufferings
+  save those of the damned. The Virgins are smiling and gracious,
+  never grief stricken. There is not a single Gothic rendering of the
+  Virgin weeping at the foot of the cross. The words and music of the
+  Stabat Mater, which are sometimes instanced as the highest
+  expression of the religion of the Middle Ages, date from the end of
+  the Thirteenth Century at the very earliest, and did not become
+  popular till the Fifteenth Century. Jesus himself is not represented
+  as suffering, but with a serene and majestic expression. The famous
+  statue known as the Beau Dieu d'Amiens may be instanced as typical."
+
+
+[Illustration]
+GROUP FROM VISITATION (RHEIMS)
+
+
+{149}
+
+IX
+
+LIBRARIES AND BOOKMEN.
+
+
+As the Thirteenth Century begins some 250 years before the art of
+printing was introduced, it would seem idle to talk of libraries and
+especially of circulating libraries during this period and quite as
+futile to talk of bookmen and book collectors. Any such false
+impression, however, is founded entirely upon a lack of knowledge of
+the true state of affairs during this wonderful period. A diocesan
+council held in Paris in the year 1212, with other words of advice to
+religious, recalled to them the duty that they had to lend such books
+as they might possess, with proper guarantee for their return, of
+course, to those who might make good use of them. The council, indeed,
+formally declared that the lending of books was one of the works of
+mercy. The Cathedral chapter of Notre Dame at Paris was one of the
+leaders in this matter and there are records of their having lent many
+books during the Thirteenth Century. At most of the abbeys around
+Paris there were considerable libraries and in them also the lending
+custom obtained. This is especially true of the Abbey of St. Victor of
+which the rule and records are extant.
+
+Of course it will be realized that the number of books was not large,
+but on the other hand it must not be forgotten that many of them were
+works of art in every particular, and some of them that have come down
+to us continue to be even to the present day among the most precious
+bibliophilic treasures of great state and city libraries. Their value
+depends not alone on their antiquity but on their perfection as works
+of art. In general it may be said that the missals and office books,
+and the prayer books made for royal personages and the nobility at
+this time, are yet counted among the best examples of bookmaking the
+world has ever seen. It is not surprising that such should be the case
+since these books were mainly meant for use in the Cathedrals and the
+chapels, and these edifices were so beautiful in every detail that the
+generations that erected them {150} could not think of making books
+for use in them, that would be unworthy of the artistic environment
+for which they were intended. With the candlesticks, the vessels, and
+implements used in the ceremonial surpassing works of art, with every
+form of decoration so nearly perfect as to be a source of unending
+admiration, with the vestments and altar linens specimens of the most
+exquisite handiwork of their kind that had ever been made, the books
+associated with them had to be excellent in execution, expressive of
+the most refined taste and finished with an attention utterly careless
+of the time and labor that might be required, since the sole object
+was to make everything as absolutely beautiful as possible. Hence
+there is no dearth of wonderful examples of the beautiful bookmaking
+of this century in all the great libraries of the world.
+
+The libraries themselves, moreover, are of surpassing interest because
+of their rules and management, for little as it might be expected this
+wonderful century anticipated in these matters most of our very modern
+library regulations. The bookmen of the time not only made beautiful
+books, but they made every provision to secure their free circulation
+and to make them available to as many people as was consonant with
+proper care of the books and the true purposes of libraries. This is a
+chapter of Thirteenth Century history more ignored perhaps than any
+other, but which deserves to be known and will appeal to our century
+more perhaps than to any intervening period.
+
+The constitutions of the Abbey St. Victor of Paris give us an
+excellent idea at once of the solicitude with which the books were
+guarded, yet also of the careful effort that was made to render them
+useful to as many persons as possible. One of the most important rules
+at St. Victor was that the librarian should know the contents of every
+volume in the library, in order to be able to direct those who might
+wish to consult the books in their selection, and while thus sparing
+the books unnecessary handling also save the readers precious time. We
+are apt to think that it is only in very modern times that this
+training of librarians to know their books so as to be of help to the
+readers was insisted on. Here, however, we find it in full force seven
+centuries ago. It would be much more difficult in the present day to
+know all the books confided to his care, but some of the {151}
+librarians at St. Victor were noted for the perfection of their
+knowledge in this regard and were often consulted by those who were
+interested in various subjects.
+
+In his book on the Thirteenth Century   [Footnote 15 ] M. A. Lecoy de
+la Marche says that in France, at least, circulating libraries were
+quite common. As might be expected of the people of so practical a
+century, it was they who first established the rule that a book might
+be taken out provided its value were deposited by the borrower. Such
+lending libraries were to be found at the Sorbonne, at St. Germain des
+Prés, as well as at Notre Dame. There was also a famous library at
+this time at Corbie but practically every one of the large abbeys had
+a library from which books could be obtained. Certain of the castles
+of the nobility, as for instance that of La Ferte en Ponthieu, had
+libraries, with regard to which there is a record, that the librarian
+had the custom of lending certain volumes, provided the person was
+known to him and assumed responsibility for the book.
+
+  [Footnote 15: Le Treizieme Siecle Litteraire et Scientifique, Lille,
+  1857.]
+
+Some of the regulations of the libraries of the century have an
+interest all their own from the exact care that was required with
+regard to the books. The Sorbonne for instance by rule inflicted a
+fine upon anyone who neglected to close large volumes after he had
+been making use of them. Many a librarian of the modern times would be
+glad to put into effect such a regulation as this. A severe fine was
+inflicted upon any library assistant who allowed a stranger to go into
+the library alone, and another for anyone who did not take care to
+close the doors. It seems not unlikely that these regulations, as M.
+Lecoy de la Marche says, were in vigor in many of the ecclesiastical
+and secular libraries of the time.
+
+Some of the regulations of St. Victor are quite as interesting and
+show the liberal spirit of the time as well as indicate how completely
+what is most modern in library management was anticipated. The
+librarian had the charge of all the books of the community, was
+required to have a detailed list of them and each year to have them in
+his possession at least three times. On him was placed the obligation
+to see that the books were not destroyed in any way, either by
+parasites of any kind or by {152} dampness. The librarian was required
+to arrange the books in such a manner as to make the finding of them
+prompt and easy. No book was allowed to be borrowed unless some pledge
+for its safe return were left with the librarian. This was emphasized
+particularly for strangers who must give a pledge equal to the value
+of the book. In all cases, however, the name of the borrower had to be
+taken, also the title of the book borrowed, and the kind of pledge
+left. The larger and more precious books could not be borrowed without
+the special permission of the superior.
+
+The origin of the various libraries in Paris is very interesting as
+proof that the mode of accumulating books was nearly the same as that
+which enriches university and other such libraries at the present
+time. The library of La St. Chapelle was founded by Louis IX, and
+being continuously enriched by the deposit therein of the archives of
+the kingdom soon became of first importance. Many precious volumes
+that were given as presents to St. Louis found their way into this
+library and made it during his lifetime the most valuable collection
+of books in Paris. Louis, moreover, devoted much time and money to
+adding to the library. He made it a point whenever on his journeys he
+stopped, at abbeys or other ecclesiastical institutions, to find out
+what books were in their library that were not at La Saint Chapelle
+and had copies of these made. His intimate friendship with Robert of
+Sorbonne, with St. Thomas of Aquin, with Saint Bonaventure, and above
+all with Vincent of Beauvais, the famous encyclopedist of the century,
+widened his interest in books and must have made him an excellent
+judge of what he ought to procure to complete the library. It was, as
+we shall see, Louis' munificent patronage that enabled Vincent to
+accumulate that precious store of medieval knowledge, which was to
+prove a mine of information for so many subsequent generations.
+
+From the earliest times certain books, mainly on medicine, were
+collected at the Hotel Dieu, the great hospital of Paris, and this
+collection was added to from time to time by the bequests of
+physicians in attendance there. This was doubtless the first regular
+hospital library, though probably medical books had also been
+collected at Salernum. The principal colleges of the universities also
+made collections of books, some of them {153} very valuable, though as
+a rule, it would seem as if no attempt was made to procure any other
+books than those which were absolutely needed for consultation by the
+students. The best working library at Paris was undoubtedly that of
+the Sorbonne, of which indeed its books were for a long time its only
+treasures. For at first the Sorbonne was nothing but a teaching
+institution which only required rooms for its lectures, and usually
+obtained these either from the university authorities or from the
+Canons of the Cathedral and possessed no property except its library.
+From the very beginning the professors bequeathed whatever books they
+had collected to its library and this became a custom. It is easy to
+understand that within a very short time the library became one of the
+very best in Europe. While most of the other libraries were devoted
+mainly to sacred literature, the Sorbonne came to possess a large
+number of works of profane literature. Interesting details with regard
+to this library of the Sorbonne and its precious treasures have been
+given by M. Leopold Delisle, in the second volume of Le Cabinet des
+Manuserits, describing the MSS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale at
+Paris. According to M. Lecoy de la Marche, this gives an excellent
+idea of the persevering efforts which must have been required, to
+bring together so many bibliographic treasures at a time when books
+were such a rarity, and consequently enables us better almost than
+anything else, to appreciate the enthusiasm of the scholars of these
+early times and their wonderful efforts to make the acquisition of
+knowledge easier, not only for their own but for succeeding
+generations. When we recall that the library of the Sorbonne was,
+during the Thirteenth Century, open not only to the professors and
+students of the Sorbonne itself, but also to those interested in books
+and in literature who might come from elsewhere, provided they were
+properly accredited, we can realize to the full the thorough
+liberality of spirit of these early scholars. Usually we are prone to
+consider that this liberality of spirit, even in educational matters,
+came much later into the world.
+
+In spite of the regulations demanding the greatest care, it is easy to
+understand that after a time even books written on vellum or parchment
+would become disfigured and worn under the ardent fingers of
+enthusiastic students, when comparatively so {154} few copies were
+available for general use. In order to replace these worn-out copies
+every abbey had its own scriptorium or writing room, where especially
+the younger monks who were gifted with plain handwriting were required
+to devote certain hours every day to the copying of manuscripts.
+Manuscripts were borrowed from neighboring libraries and copied, or as
+in our modern day exchanges of duplicate copies were made, so as to
+avoid the risk that precious manuscripts might be subject to on the
+journeys from one abbey to another. How much the duty of transcription
+was valued may be appreciated from the fact, that in some abbeys every
+novice was expected to bring on the day of his profession as a
+religious, a volume of considerable size which had been carefully
+copied by his own hands.
+
+Besides these methods of increasing the number of books in the
+library, a special sum of money was set aside in most of the abbeys
+for the procuring of additional volumes for the library by purchase.
+Usually this took the form of an ecclesiastical regulation requiring
+that a certain percentage of the revenues should be spent on the
+libraries. Scholars closely associated with monasteries frequently
+bequeathed their books and besides left money or incomes to be
+especially devoted to the improvement of the library. It is easy to
+understand that with all these sources of enrichment many abbeys
+possessed noteworthy libraries. To quote only those of France,
+important collections of books were to be found at Cluny, Luxeuil,
+Fleury, Saint-Martial, Moissac, Mortemer, Savigny, Fourcarmont, Saint
+Père de Chartres, Saint Denis, Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Saint Corneille
+de Compiègne, Corbie, Saint-Amand, Saint-Martin de Tournai, where
+Vincent de Beauvais said that he found the greatest collections of
+manuscripts that existed in his time, and then especially the great
+Parisian abbeys already referred to, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Saint
+Victor, Saint-Martin-des-Champs, the precious treasures of which are
+well known to all those who are familiar with the Bibliothèque
+Nationale of Paris, of whose manuscript department their relics
+constitute the most valuable nucleus.
+
+Some of the bequests of books that were made to libraries at this time
+are interesting, because they show the spirit of the {155} testators
+and at the same time furnish valuable hints as to the consideration in
+which books were held and the reverent care of their possessors for
+them. Peter of Nemours, the Bishop of Paris, when setting out on the
+crusades with Louis IX. bequeathed to the famous Abbey of St. Victor,
+his Bible in 22 volumes, which was considered one of the finest copies
+of the scriptures at that time in existence. To the Abbey of Olivet he
+gave his Psalter with Glosses, besides the Epistles of St. Paul and
+his Book of Sentences, by which is evidently intended the well-known
+work with that title by the famous Peter Lombard. Finally he gave to
+the Cathedral of Paris all the rest of his books. Besides these he had
+very little to leave. It is typical of the reputation of Paris in that
+century and the devotion of her churchmen to learning and culture,
+that practically all of the revenues that he considered due him for
+his personal services had been invested in books, which he then
+disposed of in such a way as would secure their doing the greatest
+possible good to the largest number of people. His Bible was evidently
+given to the abbey of St. Victor because it was the sort of work that
+should be kept for the occasional reference of the learned rather than
+the frequent consultation of students, who might very well find all
+that they desired in other and less valuable copies. His practical
+intention with regard to his books can be best judged from his gift to
+Notre Dame, which, as we have noted already possessed a very valuable
+library that was allowed to circulate among properly accredited
+scholars in Paris.
+
+According to the will of Peter Ameil, Archbishop of Narbonne, which is
+dated 1238, he gave his books for the use of the scholars whom he had
+supported at the University of Paris and they were to be deposited in
+the Library at Notre Dame, but on condition that they were not to be
+scattered for any reason nor any of them sold or abused. The effort of
+the booklover to keep his books together is characteristic of all the
+centuries since, only most people will be surprised to find it
+manifesting itself so early in bibliophilic history. The Archbishop
+reserved from his books, however, his Bible for his own church. Before
+his death he had given the Dominicans in his diocese many books from
+his library. This churchman of the first half of the {156} Thirteenth
+Century seems evidently to deserve a prominent place among the bookmen
+of all times.
+
+There are records of many others who bequeathed libraries and gave
+books during their lifetime to various institutions, as may be found
+in the Literary History of France,   [Footnote 16] already mentioned,
+as well as in the various histories of the University of Paris. Many
+of these gifts were made on condition that they should not be sold and
+the constantly recurring condition made by these booklovers is that
+their collections should be kept together. The libraries of Paris were
+also in the market for books, however, and there is proof that the
+Sorbonne purchased a number of volumes because the cost price of them
+was noted inside the cover quite as libraries do in our own days. When
+we realize the forbidding cost of them, it is surprising that there
+should be so much to say about them and so many of them constantly
+changing hands. An ordinary folio volume probably cost from 400 to 500
+francs in our values, that is between $80 and $100.
+
+  [Footnote 16: Histoire Litteraire de la France, by the Benedictines
+  of St. Maur.]
+
+While the older abbeys of the Benedictines and other earlier religious
+orders possessed magnificent collections of books, the newer orders of
+the Thirteenth Century, the Mendicants, though as their name indicates
+they were bound to live by alms given them by the faithful, within a
+short time after their foundation began to take a prominent part in
+the library movement. It was in the southern part of France that the
+Dominicans were strongest and so there is record of regulations for
+libraries made at Toulouse in the early part of the Thirteenth
+Century. In Paris, in 1239, considerable time and discussion was
+devoted in one of the chapters of the order to the question of how
+books should be kept, and how the library should be increased. With
+regard to the Franciscans, though their poverty was, if possible,
+stricter, the same thing is known before the end of the century. In
+both orders arrangements were made for the copying of important works
+and it is, of course, to the zeal and enthusiasm of the younger
+members of these orders for this copying work, that we owe the
+preservation by means of a large number of manuscript copies, of the
+{157} voluminous writings of such men as Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas,
+Duns Scotus and others.
+
+
+{opp156}
+[Illustration]
+MONUMENT OF CARDINAL DE BRAY (ARNOLFO)
+
+
+While the existence of libraries of various kinds, and even
+circulating libraries, in the Thirteenth Century may seem definitely
+settled, it will appear to most people that to speak of book
+collecting at this time must be out of place. That fad is usually
+presumed to be of much later origin and indeed to be comparatively
+recent in its manifestations. We have said enough already, however, of
+the various collections of books in libraries especially in France to
+show that the book collector was abroad, but there is much more direct
+evidence of this available from an English writer. Richard de Bury's
+Philobiblon is very well known to all who are interested in books for
+their own sake, but few people realize that this book practically had
+its origin in the Thirteenth Century. The writer was born about the
+beginning of the last quarter of that century, had completed his
+education before its close, and it is only reasonable to attribute to
+the formative influences at work in his intellectual development as a
+young man, the germs of thought from which were to come in later life
+the interesting book on bibliophily, the first of its kind, which was
+to be a treasure for book-lovers ever afterwards.
+
+Philobiblon tells us, among other things, of Richard's visits to the
+continent on an Embassy to the Holy See and on subsequent occasions to
+the Court of France, and the delight which he experienced in handling
+many books which he had never seen before, in buying such of them as
+his purse would allow, or his enthusiasm could tempt from their owners
+and in conversing with those who could tell him about books and their
+contents. Such men were the chosen comrades of his journeys, sat with
+him at table, as Mr. Henry Morley tells us in his English Writers
+(volume IV, page 51), and were in almost constant fellowship with him.
+It was at Paris particularly that Richard's heart was satisfied for a
+time because of the great treasures he found in the magnificent
+libraries of that city. He was interested, of course, in the
+University and the opportunity for intellectual employment afforded by
+Academic proceedings, but above all he found delight in books, which
+monks and monarchs and professors and churchmen of all kinds and
+scholars {158} and students had gathered into this great intellectual
+capital of Europe at that time. Anyone who thinks the books were not
+valued quite as highly in the Thirteenth Century as at the present
+time should read the Philobiblon. He is apt to rise from the reading
+of it with the thought that it is the modern generations who do not
+properly appreciate books.
+
+One of the early chapters of Philobiblon argues that books ought
+always to be bought whatever they cost, provided there are means to
+pay for them, except in two cases, "when they are knavishly
+overcharged, or when a better time for buying is expected." "That sun
+of men, Solomon," Richard says, "bids us buy books readily and sell
+them unwillingly, for one of his proverbs runs, 'Buy the truth and
+sell it not, also wisdom and instruction and understanding.'" Richard
+in his own quaint way thought that most other interests in life were
+only temptations to-draw men away from books. In one famous paragraph
+he has naively personified books as complaining with regard to the
+lack of attention men now display for them and the unworthy objects,
+in Richard's eyes at least, upon which they fasten their affections
+instead, and which take them away from the only great life interest
+that is really worth while--books.
+
+"Yet," complain books, "in these evil times we are cast out of our
+place in the inner chamber, turned out of doors, and our place taken
+by dogs, birds, and the two-legged beast called woman. But that beast
+has always been our rival, and when she spies us in a corner, with no
+better protection than the web of a dead spider, she drags us out with
+a frown and violent speech, laughing us to scorn as useless, and soon
+counsels us to be changed into costly head-gear, fine linen, silk and
+scarlet double dyed, dresses and divers trimmings, linens and woolens.
+And so," complain the books still, "we are turned out of our homes,
+our coats are torn from our backs, our backs and sides ache, we lie
+about disabled, our natural whiteness turns to yellow--without doubt
+we have the jaundice. Some of us are gouty, witness our twisted
+extremities. Our bellies are griped and wrenched and are consumed by
+worms; on each side the dirt cleaves to us, nobody binds up our
+wounds, we lie ragged and weep in dark corners, or meet with Job upon
+a dunghill, or, as seems hardly fit to be said, we are hidden in
+abysses of the {159} sewers. We are sold also like slaves, and lie as
+unredeemed pledges in taverns. We are thrust into cruel butteries, to
+be cut up like sheep and cattle; committed to Jews, Saracens, heretics
+and Pagans, whom we always dread as the plague, and by whom some of
+our forefathers are known to have been poisoned."
+
+Richard De Bury must not be thought to have been some mere wandering
+scholar of the beginning of the Fourteenth Century, however, for he
+was, perhaps, the most important historical personage, not even
+excepting royalty or nobility, of this era and one of the striking
+examples of how high a mere scholar might rise in this period quite
+apart from any achievement in arms, though this is usually supposed to
+be almost the only basis of distinguished reputation and the reason
+for advancement at this time. While he was only the son of a Norman
+knight, Aungervyle by name, born at Bury St. Edmund's, he became the
+steward of the palace and treasurer of the royal wardrobe, then Lord
+Treasurer of England and finally Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. While
+on a mission to the Pope he so commended himself to the Holy See that
+it was resolved to make him the next English bishop. Accordingly he
+was made Bishop of Durham shortly after and on the occasion of his
+installation there was a great banquet at which the young King and
+Queen, the Queen Mother Isabelle, the King of Scotland, two
+Archbishops, five bishops, and most of the great English lords were
+present. At this time the Scots and the English were actually engaged
+in war with one another and a special truce was declared, in order to
+allow them to join in the celebration of the consecration of so
+distinguished an individual to the See of Durham near the frontier.
+
+Before he was consecrated Bishop, Richard De Bury had been for some
+time the treasurer of the kingdom. Before the end of the year in which
+he was consecrated he became Lord Chancellor, at a time when the
+affairs of the kingdom needed a master hand and when the French and
+the Scots were seriously disturbing English peace and prosperity. He
+resigned his office of Chancellor, as Henry Morley states, only to go
+abroad in the royal service as ambassador that he might exercise his
+own trusted sagacity in carrying out the peaceful policy he had {160}
+advised. During this diplomatic mission to the continent he visited
+the courts of Paris, of Flanders, of Hainault and of Germany. He
+succeeded in making terms of peace between the English king and the
+Counts of Hainault and Namur, the Marquis of Juliers and the Dukes of
+Brabant and Guelders. This would seem to indicate that he must be
+considered as one of the most prominent men of Europe at this time.
+
+His attitude toward books is then all the more noteworthy. Many people
+were surprised that a great statesman like Gladstone in the Nineteenth
+Century, should have been interested in so many phases of thought and
+of literature and should himself have been able to find the time to
+contribute important works to English letters. Richard De Bury was at
+least as important a man in his time as Gladstone in ours, and
+occupied himself as much with books as the great English commoner.
+This is what will be the greatest source of surprise to those who in
+our time have been accustomed to think, that the great scholars deeply
+interested in books who were yet men of practical worth in helping
+their generation in its great problems, are limited to modern times
+and are least of all likely to be found in the heart of the Middle
+Ages. In spite of his occupations as a politician and a bookman,
+Richard De Bury was noted for his faithfulness in the fulfilment of
+his duties as a churchman and a bishop. It is worthy of note that many
+of the important clergymen of England, who were to find the highest
+church preferment afterwards, were among the members of his household
+at various times and that the post of secretary to the bishop,
+particularly, was filled at various times by some of the best scholars
+of the period, men who were devoted friends to the bishop, who
+dedicated their works to him and generally added to the reputation
+that stamped him as the greatest scholar of England and one of the
+leading lights of European culture of his time.
+
+This is not so surprising when we realize that to be a member of
+Richard's household was to have access to the best library in England,
+and that many scholars were naturally ambitious to have such an
+opportunity, and as the results showed many took advantage of it.
+Among Richard of Durham's chaplains were Thomas Bradwardine who
+afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Fitzraufe,
+subsequently Archbishop of {161} Armagh, Walter Seagrave, afterwards
+Bishop of Chichester, and Richard Bentworth, who afterwards became
+Bishop of London Among the distinguished scholars who occupied the
+post were Robert Holcot, John Manduit, the astronomer of the
+Fourteenth Century, Richard Kilmington, a distinguished English
+theologian, and Walter Burley, a great commentator on Aristotle, who
+dedicated to the bishop, who had provided him with so many
+opportunities for study, his Commentaries upon the Politics and Ethics
+of the ancient Greek philosopher.
+
+That Richard's love for books and the time he had necessarily devoted
+to politics did not dry up the fountains of charity in his heart, nor
+cause him to neglect his important duties as the pastor of the people
+and especially of the poor, we know very well from certain traditions
+with regard to his charitable donations. According to a standing rule
+in his household eight quarters of wheat were regularly every week
+made into bread and given to the poor. In his alms giving Richard was
+as careful and as discriminating as in his collection of books, and he
+used a number of the regularly organized channels in his diocese to
+make sure that his bounty should be really helpful and should not
+encourage lack of thrift. This is a feature of charitable work that is
+supposed to be modern, but the personal service of the charitably
+inclined in the Thirteenth Century, far surpassed in securing this
+even the elaborate organization of charity in modern times. Whenever
+the bishop traveled generous alms were distributed to the poor people
+along the way. Whenever he made the journey between Durham and New
+Castle eight pounds sterling were set aside for this purpose; five
+pounds for each journey between Durham and Stockton or Middleham, and
+five marks between Durham and Auckland. Money had at that time at
+least ten times the purchasing power which it has at present, so that
+it will be easy to appreciate the good bishop's eminent liberality.
+
+That Richard was justified in his admiration of the books of the time
+we know from those that remain, for it must not be thought for a
+moment that because the making of books was such a time-taking task in
+the Thirteenth Century, they were not therefore made beautiful. On the
+contrary, as we shall see {162} shortly, no more beautiful books have
+ever been made than at this time. This of itself would show how
+precious in the eyes of the collectors of the time their books were,
+since they wanted to have them so beautifully made and were satisfied
+to pay the high prices that had to be demanded for such works of art.
+Very few books of any size cost less than the equivalent of $100 in
+our time and illuminated books cost much higher than this, yet seem
+never to have been a drug on the market. Indeed, considering the
+number of them that are still in existence to this day, in spite of
+the accidents of fire, and water, and war, and neglect, and
+carelessness, and ignorance, there must have been an immense number of
+very handsome books made by the generations of the Thirteenth Century.
+
+While illumination was not an invention of the Thirteenth Century, as
+indeed were very few of the great art features of the century, during
+this time book decoration was carried to great perfection and reached
+that development which artists of the next century were to improve on
+in certain extrinsic features, though the intrinsic qualities were to
+remain those which had been determined as the essential
+characteristics of this branch of art in the earlier time. The
+Thirteenth Century, for instance, saw the introduction of the
+miniature as a principal feature and also the drawing out of initials
+in such a way as to make an illuminated border for the whole side of
+the page. After the development thus given to the art in the
+Thirteenth Century further evolution could only come in certain less
+important details. In this the Thirteenth Century generations were
+accomplishing what they had done in practically everything else that
+they touched, laying foundations broad and deep and giving the
+superstructure the commanding form which future generations were only
+able to modify to slight degree and not always with absolute good
+grace.
+
+Humphreys in his magnificent volume on The Illuminated Books of the
+Middle Ages, which according to its title contains an account of the
+development and progress of the art of illumination as a distinct
+branch of pictorial ornamentation from the Fourth to the Seventeenth
+centuries,  [Footnote 17] has some very striking words of praise for
+Thirteenth Century illuminations and the artists who made them. He
+says:
+
+    [Footnote 17: The Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, by Henry
+    Noel Humphreys Longman. Green, Brown and Longmans, London, 1848.]
+
+{163}
+
+  "Different epochs of the art of illumination present widely
+  different and distinct styles; the most showy and the best known,
+  though the least pure and inventive in design, being that of the
+  middle and end of the Fifteenth Century; whilst the period perhaps
+  the least generally known, that of the Thirteenth Century, may be
+  considered as the most interesting and original, many of the best
+  works of that period displaying an astonishing variety and profusion
+  of invention. The manuscript, of which two pages form the opposite
+  plate, may be ranked among the most elaborate and profusely
+  ornamented of the fine books of that era; every page being
+  sufficient to make the fortune of the modern decorator by the quaint
+  and unexpected novelties of inventions which it displays at every
+  turn of its intricate design."
+
+The illuminations of the century then are worthy of the time and also
+typical of the general work of the century. It is known by experts for
+its originality and for the wealth of invention displayed in the
+designs. Men did not fear that they might exhaust their inventive
+faculty, nor display their originality sparingly, in order that they
+might have enough to complete other work. As the workmen of the
+Cathedrals, the artist illuminators devoted their very best efforts to
+each piece of work that came to their hands, and the results are
+masterpieces of art in this as in every other department of the
+period. The details are beautifully wrought, showing the power of the
+artist to accomplish such a work and yet his designs are never
+overloaded, at least in the best examples of the century, with details
+of ornamentation that obscure and minimize the effect of the original
+design. This fault was to be the error of his most sophisticated
+successors two centuries later.
+
+Nor must it be thought the high opinion of the century is derived from
+the fact that only a very few examples of its illumination and
+bookmaking are now extant, and that these being the chosen specimens
+give the illumination of the century a higher place than it might
+otherwise have. Many examples {164} have been preserved and some of
+them are the most beautiful books that were made. Paris was
+particularly the home of this form of art in the Thirteenth Century,
+and indeed the school established there influenced all the modes of
+illumination everywhere, so much so that Dante speaks of the art with
+the epithet "Parisian," as if it were exclusively done there. The
+incentive to the development of this form of art came from St. Louis
+who, as we have said, was very much interested in books. His taste as
+exhibited in La Sainte Chapelle was such as to demand artistic
+excellence of high grade in this department of art, which has many
+more relations with the architecture of the period, and especially
+with the stained glass, than might possibly be thought at the present
+time, for most of the decoration of books partook of the character of
+the architectural types of the moment.
+
+Among the most precious treasures from the century are three books
+which belonged to St. Louis himself. One of these is the Hours or
+Office Book; a second, is his Psalter, which contains some extremely
+beautiful initials; a third, which is in the Library of the Arsenal at
+Paris, is sometimes known as the Prayer Book of St. Louis himself,
+though a better name for it would be the Prayer Book of Queen Blanche,
+for it was made at Louis' orders for his mother, the famous Blanche of
+Castile, and is a worthy testimonial of the affectionate relations
+which existed between mother and son.
+
+Outside of Paris there are preserved many books of great value that
+come from this century. One of them, a Bestiarum or Book of Beasts, is
+in the Ashmoleam Museum at Oxford. This is said to be a very beautiful
+example of the illumination of the Thirteenth Century, but it is even
+more interesting because it shows the efforts of the artists of the
+time to copy nature in the pictures of animals as they are presented.
+There is said to be an acuity of observation and a vigor of
+representation displayed in the book which is highly complimentary to
+the powers of the Thirteenth Century artists.
+
+Even these brief notes of the books and libraries of the Thirteenth
+Century, will serve to make clear how enthusiastic was the interest of
+the generations of this time in beautiful books and in collections of
+them that were meant for show as {165} well as for practical
+usefulness. There is perhaps nothing more amusing in the attitude of
+modern generations with regard to the Middle Ages, than the assumption
+that all the methods of education and of the distribution of knowledge
+worth while talking about, are the inventions of comparatively modern
+times. The fact that libraries were also a creation of that time and
+that most of the regulations which are supposed to be the first fruit
+of quite recent science in the circulation of books had been adopted
+by these earlier generations, is commonly ignored utterly, though it
+is a precious bit of knowledge that cannot help but increase our
+sympathy with those bookmen of the olden times, who thought so much of
+their books, yet wished to share the privilege of their use with all
+those who would employ them properly, and who, in their great
+practical way succeeded in working out the scheme by which many people
+could have the opportunity of consulting the treasures they thought so
+much of, without risk of their loss or destruction, even though use
+might bring some deterioration of their value.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+DECORATION (XIII. CENT. PSALTER MSS.)
+
+
+{166}
+
+X
+
+THE CID, THE HOLY GRAIL, THE NIBELUNGEN.
+
+
+Anyone who has studied even perfunctorily the Books of the Arts and of
+the Deeds of the Thirteenth Century, who has realized its
+accomplishments in enduring artistic creations, sublime and exemplary
+models and inspirations for all after time, who has appreciated what
+it succeeded in doing for the education of the classes and of the
+masses, the higher education being provided for at least as large a
+proportion of the people as in our present century, while the creation
+of what were practically great technical schools that culled out of
+the masses the latent geniuses who could accomplish supreme artistic
+results in the arts and crafts and did more and better for the masses
+than any subsequent generation, can scarcely help but turn with
+interest to read the Book of the Words of the period and to find out
+what forms of literature interested this surprising people. One is
+almost sure to think at the first moment of consideration that the
+literature will not be found worthy of the other achievements of the
+times. In most men's minds the Thirteenth Century does not readily
+call up the idea of a series of great works in literature, whose
+influence has been at all as profound and enduring as that of the
+universities in the educational order, or of the Cathedrals in the
+artistic order.
+
+This false impression, however, is due only to the fact that the
+literary creations of the Thirteenth Century are so diverse in subject
+and in origin, that they are very seldom associated with each other,
+unless there has been actual recognition of their contemporaneousness
+from deliberate calling to mind of the dates at which certain basic
+works in our modern literatures were composed. It is not the least
+surprise that comes to the student of the Thirteenth Century, to find
+that the great origins of what well deserves the name of classic
+modern literature, comprising a series of immortal works in prose and
+poetry, were initiated by the contemporaries of the makers of the
+{167} universities and the builders of the Cathedrals. If we stop to
+think for a moment it must be realized, that generations who succeeded
+in expressing themselves so effectively in other departments of
+esthetics could scarcely be expected to fail in literature alone, and
+they did not. From the Cid in Spain, through the Arthur Legends in
+England, the Nibelungen in Germany, the Minnesingers and the
+Meistersingers in the southern part of what is now the German Empire,
+the Trouvères in North France, the Troubadours in South France and in
+Italy, down to Dante, who was 35 before the century closed, there has
+never been such a mass of undying literature written within a little
+more than a single hundred years, as came during the period from
+shortly before 1200 down to 1300. Great as was the Fifth Century
+before Christ in this matter it did not surpass the Thirteenth Century
+after Christ in its influence on subsequent generations.
+
+We have already pointed out in discussing the Cathedrals that one of
+the most characteristic features of the Gothic architecture was the
+marvelous ease with which it lent itself to the expression of national
+peculiarities. Norman Gothic is something quite distinct from German
+Gothic which arose in almost contiguous provinces, but so it is also
+from English Gothic; these two were very closely related in origin and
+undoubtedly the English Cathedrals owe much to the Norman influence so
+prevalent in England at the end of the Twelfth Century, and the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century. Italian Gothic has the principal
+characteristic peculiarities of the architectural style which passes
+under the name developed to a remarkable degree, and yet its finished
+product is far distant from any of the three other national forms that
+have been mentioned, yet is not lacking in a similar interest. Spanish
+Gothic has an identity of its own that has always had a special appeal
+for the traveler. Any one who has ever visited the shores of the
+Baltic sea and has seen what was accomplished in such places as
+Stralsund, Greifswald, Lübeck, and others of the old Hansa towns, will
+appreciate still more the power of Gothic to lend itself to the
+feelings of the people and to the materials that they had at hand.
+Here in the distant North they were far away from any sources of the
+stone that would ordinarily be deemed absolutely {168} necessary for
+Gothic construction. How effectively they used brick for
+ecclesiastical edifices can only be realized by those who have seen
+the remains of the Gothic monuments of this portion of Europe.
+
+The distinguishing mark of all these different styles is the eminent
+opportunity for the expression of nationality which, they afford. It
+might be expected that since they were all Gothic, most of them would
+be little better than servile copies, or at best scarce more than good
+imitations of the great originals of the North of France. As a matter
+of fact, the assertion of national characteristics, far from
+destroying the effectiveness of Gothic, rather added new beauties to
+this style of architecture. This was true even occasionally when
+mistakes were made by architects and designers. As Ferguson has said
+in his History of Architecture, St. Stephen's at Vienna is full of
+architectural errors and yet the attractiveness of the Cathedral
+remains. It was a poet who designed it and something of his poetic
+soul gleams out of the material structure after the lapse of
+centuries.
+
+In nearly this same way the literatures of the different countries
+during the Thirteenth Century are eminently national and mirror with
+quite wonderful appropriateness the characteristics of the various
+people. This is true even when similar subjects, as for instance the
+Graal stories, are treated from nearly the same standpoint by the two
+Teutonic nations, the Germans and the English. Parsifal and Galahad
+are national as well as poetic heroes with a distinction of character
+all their own. As we shall see, practically every nation finds in this
+century some fundamental expression of its national feeling that has
+been among its most cherished classics ever since.
+
+{opp168}
+[Illustration]
+SANTA MARIA SOPRA MINERVA (ROME'S GOTHIC CATHEDRAL)
+
+The first of these in time is the Cid, which was written in Spain
+during the latter half of the Twelfth Century, but probably took its
+definite form just about the beginning of the Thirteenth. It might
+well be considered that this old-fashioned Spanish ballad would have
+very little of interest for modern readers, and yet there are very few
+scholars of the past century who have not been interested in this
+literary treasure. Critics of all nations have been unstinted in their
+praise of it. Since the Schlegels recalled world attention to Spanish
+{169} literature, it has been considered almost as unpardonable for
+anyone who pretended to literary culture not to have read the Cid, as
+it would be not to have read Don Quixote.
+
+As is true of all the national epics founded upon a series of ballads
+which had been collecting in the mouth of the people for several
+centuries before a great poetic genius came to give them their supreme
+expression, there has been some doubt expressed as to the single
+authorship of Cid. We shall find the same problem to be considered
+when we come to discuss the Nibelungen Lied. A half a century ago or
+more the fashion of the critics for insisting on the divided
+authorship of such poems was much more prevalent than it is at
+present. At that time a great many scholars, following the initiative
+of Wolf and the German separatist critics, declared even that the
+Homeric poems were due to more than one mind. There are still some who
+cling to this idea with regard to many of these primal national epics,
+but at the present time most literary men are quite content to accept
+the idea of a single authorship. With regard to the Cid in this matter
+Mr. Fitzmaurice Kelly, in his Short History of Spanish Literature in
+the Literatures of the World Series, says very simply:
+
+  "There is a unity of conception and of language which forbids our
+  accepting the Poema (del Cid) as the work of several hands; and the
+  division of the poem into several cantares is managed with a
+  discretion which argues a single artistic intelligence. The first
+  part closes with the marriage of the hero's daughters; the second
+  with the shame of the Infantes de Carrion, and the proud
+  announcement that the Kings of Spain are sprung from the Cid's
+  loins. In both the singer rises to the level of his subject, but his
+  chiefest gust is in the recital of some brilliant deed of arms."
+
+The Spanish ballad epic is a characteristic example of the epics
+formed by the earliest poetic genius of a country, on the basis of the
+patriotic stories of national origin that had been accumulating for
+centuries. Of course the Cid had to be the Christian hero who did most
+in his time against the Moslem in Spain. So interesting has his story
+been made, and so glorious have been his deeds as recorded by the
+poets, that there has been even some doubt of his existence expressed,
+but that he {170} was a genuine historical character seems to be
+clear. Many people will recall the Canons' argument in the forty-ninth
+chapter of Don Quixote in which Cervantes, evidently speaking for
+himself, says: "That there was a Cid no one will deny and likewise a
+Bernardo Del Carpio, but that they performed all the exploits ascribed
+to them, I believe there is good reason to doubt." The Cid derives his
+name from the Arabic Seid which means Lord and owes his usual epithet.
+El Campeador (champion), to the fact that he was the actual champion
+of the Christians against the Moors at the end of the Eleventh
+Century. How gloriously his warlike exploits have been described may
+be best appreciated from the following description of his charge at
+Alcocer:
+
+  "With bucklers braced before their breasts, with lances pointing low.
+  With stooping crests and heads bent down above the saddle-bow.
+  All firm of hand and high of heart they roll upon the foe.
+  And he that in good hour was born, his clarion voice rings out,
+  And clear above the clang of arms is heard his battle-shout,
+  'Among them, gentlemen! Strike home for the love of charity!
+  The Champion of Bivar is here--Ruy Diaz--I am he!'
+  Then bearing where Bermuez still maintains unequal fight.
+  Three hundred lances down they come, their pennons flickering white;
+  Down go three hundred Moors to earth, a man to every blow;
+  And, when they wheel, three hundred more, as charging back they go.
+  It was a sight to see the lances rise and fall that day;
+  The shivered shields and riven mail, to see how thick they lay;
+  The pennons that went in snow-white come out a gory red;
+  The horses running riderless, the riders lying dead;
+  While Moors call on Muhamed, and 'St. James!' the Christians cry."
+
+While the martial interest of such early poems would be generally
+conceded, it would usually be considered that they would be little
+likely to have significant domestic, and even {171} what might be
+called romantic, interests. The Cid's marriage is the result of not
+what would exactly be called a romance nowadays, though in ruder times
+there may have been a certain sense of sentimental reparation in it at
+least. He had killed in fair fight the father of a young woman, who
+being thus left without a protector appealed to the king to appoint
+one for her. In the troublous Middle Ages an heiress was as likely to
+be snapped up by some unsuitable suitor, more literally but with quite
+as much haste, as in a more cultured epoch. The king knew no one whom
+he could trust so well with the guardianship of the rich and fair
+young orphan than the Cid, of whose bravery and honor he had had many
+proofs. Accordingly he suggested him as a protector and the Cid
+himself generously realizing how much the fair Jimena had lost by the
+death of her father consented, and in a famous passage of the poem, a
+little shocking to modern ideas, it must be confessed, frankly states
+his feelings in the matter:
+
+  "And now before the altar the bride and bridegroom stand,
+  And when to fair Jimena the Cid stretched forth his hand,
+  He spake in great confusion: 'Thy father have I slain
+  Not treacherously, but face to face, my just revenge to gain
+  For cruel wrong; a man I slew, a man I give to thee;
+  In place of thy dead father, a husband find in me.'
+  And all who heard well liked the man, approving what he said;
+  Thus Rodrigo the Castilian his stately bride did wed."
+
+There are tender domestic scenes between the Cid and his wife and his
+daughters, which serve to show how sincere was his affection and with
+what sympathetic humanity a great poet knew how to depict the tender
+natural relations which have an interest for all times. Some of these
+domestic scenes are not unworthy to be placed beside Homer's picture
+of the parting of Hector and Andromache, though there is more naive
+self-consciousness in the work of the Spanish bard, than in that of
+his more artistic colleague of the Grecian olden times. There is
+particularly a famous picture of the duties of noble ladies in Spain
+of this time and of the tender solicitude of a father for his
+daughters' innocence, that is quite beyond expectation at {172} the
+hands of a poet whose forte was evidently war and its alarms, rather
+than the expression of the ethical qualities of home life. The
+following passage, descriptive of the Cid's parting from his wife,
+will give some idea of these qualities better than could be conveyed
+in any other way:
+
+  "Thou knowest well, señora, he said before he went,
+  To parting from each other our love doth not consent;
+  But love and joyance never may stand in duty's way,
+  And when the king commandeth the noble must obey.
+  Now let discretion guide thee, thou art of worthy name;
+  While I am parted from thee, let none in thee find blame.
+  Employ thy hours full wisely, and tend thy household well,
+  Be never slothful, woe and death with idleness do dwell.
+  Lay by thy costly dresses until I come again.
+  For in the husband's absence let wives in dress be plain;
+  And look well to thy daughters, nor let them be aware.
+  _Lest they comprehend the danger because they see thy care,
+  And lose unconscious innocence. At home they must abide,
+  For the safety of the daughter is at the mother's side_.
+  Be serious with thy servants, with strangers on thy guard,
+  With friends be kind and friendly, and well thy household ward,
+  To no one show my letters, thy best friends may not see.
+  Lest reading them they also may guess of thine to me.
+  And if good news they bring thee, and woman-like dost seek
+  The sympathy of others, with thy daughters only speak.
+
+* * *
+
+  Farewell, farewell, Jimena, the trumpet's call I hear!
+  One last embrace, and then he mounts the steed without a peer."
+
+The touch of paternal solicitude and prudence in the passage we have
+put in italics is so apparently modern, that it can scarcely fail to
+be a source of surprise, coming as it does from that crude period at
+the end of the Twelfth Century when such minute psychological
+observation as to young folks' ways would be little expected, and
+least of all in the rough warrior {173} hero or his poet creator,
+whose notions of right and wrong are, to judge from many passages of
+the poem, so much coarser than those of our time.
+
+After the Cid in point of time, the next enduring poetic work that was
+destined to have an influence on all succeeding generations, was the
+series of the Arthur Legends as completed in England. As in the case
+of the Cid these stories of King Arthur's Court, his Knights and his
+Round Table, had been for a long time the favorite subject of ballad
+poets among the English people. Just where they originated is not very
+clear, though it seems most likely that the original inspiration came
+from Celtic sources. These old ballads, however, had very little of
+literary form and it was not until the end of the Twelfth and the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century that they were cast in their
+present mold, after having passed through the alembic of the mind of a
+great poetic and literary genius, which refined away the dross and
+left only the pure gold of supremely sympathetic human stories. To
+whom we owe this transformation is not known with absolute certainty,
+though the literary and historical criticism of the last quarter of a
+century seems to have made it clear that the work must be attributed
+to Walter Map or Mapes, an English clergyman who died during the first
+decade of the Thirteenth Century.
+
+His claims to the authorship of the Graal legend in its artistic
+completeness and to the invention of the character of Lancelot, which
+is one of the great triumphs of the Arthur legends as they were told
+at this time, have been much discussed by French and English critics.
+This discussion has perhaps been best summarized by Mr. Henry Morley,
+the late Professor of Literature at the University of London, whose
+third volume of English writers contains an immense amount of valuable
+information with regard to the literary history, not alone of England
+at this time but practically of all the countries of Europe. Mr.
+Morley's plan was conceived with a breath of view that makes his work
+a very interesting and authoritative guide in the literary matters of
+the time. His summation of the position of critical opinion with
+regard to the authorship of the Arthur Legends deserves to be quoted
+in its entirety:
+
+  "The Arthurian Romances were, according to this opinion. {174} all
+  perfectly detached tales, till in the Twelfth Century Robert de
+  Borron (let us add, at Map's suggestion) translated the first
+  Romance of the St. Graal as an introduction to the series, and
+  shortly afterwards Walter Map added his Quest of the Graal,
+  Lancelot, and Mort Artus. The way for such work had been prepared by
+  Geoffrey of Monmouth's bold setting forward of King Arthur as a
+  personage of history, in a book that was much sought and discussed,
+  and that made the Arthurian Romances a fresh subject of interest to
+  educated men.
+
+  "But M. Paulin Paris, whose opinions, founded upon a wide
+  acquaintance with the contents of old MSS. I am now sketching, and
+  in part adopting, looked upon Walter Map as the soul of this work of
+  Christian spiritualisation. Was the romance of the St. Graal Latin,
+  before it was French? He does not doubt that it was. He sees in it
+  the mysticism of the subtlest theologian. It was not a knight or a
+  jongleur who was so well read in the apocryphal gospels, the legends
+  of the first Christian centuries, rabbinical fancies, and old Greek
+  mythology; and there is all this in the St. Graal. There is a
+  theory, too, of the sacrifice of the mass, an explanation of the
+  Saviour's presence in the Eucharist, that is the work, he says, of
+  the loftiest and the most brilliant imagination. These were not
+  matters that a knight of the Twelfth Century would dare to touch.
+  They came from an ecclesiastic and a man of genius. But if so, why
+  should we refuse credit to the assertion, repeated in every MS. that
+  they were first written in Latin? The earliest MSS. are of a date
+  not long subsequent to the death of Walter Map, Latinist,
+  theologian, wit, and Chaplain to King Henry II., who himself took
+  the liveliest interest in Breton legends. King Henry, M. Paris
+  supposes, wished them to be collected, but how? Some would prefer
+  one method, some another; Map reconciled all. He satisfied the
+  clergy, pleased the scholar, filled the chasms in the popular tales,
+  reconciled contradictions, or rejected inconsistencies, and by him
+  also the introductory tale of the Graal was first written in Latin
+  for Robert de Borron to translate into French."
+
+The best literary appreciation of Map's genius, apart, of course, from
+the fact that all generations ever since have acknowledged the supreme
+human interest and eminently {175} sympathetic quality of his work, is
+perhaps to be found in certain remarks of the modern critics who have
+made special studies in these earlier literary periods. Prof. George
+Saintsbury, of the University of Edinburgh, for instance, in the
+second volume of Periods of English Literature,   [Footnote 18] has
+been quite unstinted in his praise of this early English writer. He
+has not hesitated even to say in a striking passage that Map, or at
+least the original author of the Launcelot story, was one of the
+greatest of literary men and deserves a place only next to Dante in
+this century so preciously full of artistic initiative.
+
+  [Footnote 18: The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory, by
+  George Saintsbury, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in
+  the University of Edinburgh (New York, Charles Scribner & Sons,
+  1897).]
+
+  "Whether it was Walter Map, or Chrestien de Troyes, or both, or
+  neither to whom the glory of at once completing and exalting the
+  story is due, I at least have no pretension to decide. Whoever did
+  it, if he did it by himself, was a great man indeed--a man second to
+  Dante among the men of the Middle Age. Even if it was done by an
+  irregular company of men, each patching and piecing the other's
+  efforts, the result shows a marvelous 'wind of the spirit' abroad
+  and blowing on that company."
+
+Prof. Saintsbury then proceeds to show how much even readers of
+Mallory miss of the greatness and especially of the sympathetic
+humanity of the original poem, and in a further passage states his
+firm conviction that the man who created Lancelot was one of the
+greatest literary inventors and sympathetic geniuses of all times, and
+that his work is destined, because the wellsprings of its action are
+so deep down in the human heart, to be of interest to generations of
+men for as long as our present form of civilization lasts.
+
+  "Perhaps the great artistic stroke in the whole legend, and one of
+  the greatest in all literature, is the concoction of a hero who
+  should be not only
+
+      'Like Paris handsome, and like Hector brave,'
+
+  but more heroic than Paris and more interesting than Hector--not
+  only a 'greatest knight,' but at once the sinful lover of his queen
+  and the champion who should himself all but achieve and in the
+  person of his son actually achieve, the sacred {176} adventure of
+  the Holy Graal. If, as there seems no valid reason to disbelieve,
+  the hitting upon this idea, and the invention or adoption of
+  Lancelot to carry it out, be the work of Walter Mapes (or Map), then
+  Walter Mapes is one of the great novelists of the world, and one of
+  the greatest of them. If it was some unknown person (it could hardly
+  be Chrestien, for in Chrestien's form the Graal interest belongs to
+  Percevale, not to Lancelot or Galahad), then the same compliment
+  must be paid to that person unknown. Meanwhile the conception and
+  execution of Lancelot, to whomsoever they may be due, are things
+  most happy. Entirely free from the faultlessness which is the curse
+  of the classical hero; his unequaled valor not seldom rewarded only
+  by reverses; his merits redeemed from mawkishness by his one great
+  fault, yet including all virtues that are themselves most amiable,
+  and deformed by no vice that is actually loathsome; the soul of
+  goodness in him always warring with his human frailty--Sir Lancelot
+  fully deserves the noble funeral eulogy pronounced over his grave,
+  felt by all the elect to be, in both senses, one of the first of all
+  extant pieces of perfect English prose."
+
+To appreciate fully how much Walter Map accomplished by his series of
+stories with regard to King Arthur's Court, it should be remembered
+that poets and painters have in many generations ever since found
+subjects for their inspiration within the bounds of the work which he
+created. After all, the main interest of succeeding poets who have put
+the legends into later forms, has centered more in the depth of
+humanity that there is in the stories, than in the poetic details for
+which they themselves have been responsible. In succeeding generations
+poets have often felt that these stories were so beautiful that they
+deserved to be retold in terms readily comprehensible to their own
+generation. Hence Malory wrote his Morte D'Arthur for the Fifteenth
+Century, Spenser used certain portions of the old myths for the
+Sixteenth, and the late Poet-laureate set himself once more to retell
+the Idyls of the King for the Nineteenth Century. Each of these was
+adding little but new literary form, to a work that genius had drawn
+from sources so close to the heart of human nature, that the stories
+were always to remain of enduring interest.
+
+{177}
+
+For the treasure of poesy with which humanity was enriched when he
+conceived the idea of setting the old ballads of King Arthur into
+literary form, more must be considered as due to the literary original
+writer than to any of his great successors. This is precisely the
+merit of Walter Map. Of some of his less ambitious literary work we
+have many examples that show us how thoroughly interested he was in
+all the details of human existence, even the most trivial. He had his
+likes and dislikes, he seems to have had some disappointed ambition
+that made him rather bitter towards ecclesiastics, he seems to have
+had some unfortunate experiences, especially with the Cistercians,
+though how much of this is assumed rather than genuine, is hard to
+determine at this modern day. Many of the extremely bitter things he
+says with regard to the Cistercians might well be considered as
+examples of that exaggeration, which in certain minds constitutes one
+modality of humor, rather than as serious expressions of actual
+thought. It is hard, for instance, to take such an expression as the
+following as more than an example of this form of jesting by
+exaggeration. Map heard that a Cistercian had become a Jew. His
+comment was: "If he wanted to get far from the Cistercians why didn't
+he become a Christian."
+
+From England the transition to Germany is easy. Exactly contemporary
+with the rise of the Arthur Legends in England to that standard of
+literary excellence that was to give them their enduring poetic value,
+there came also the definite arrangement and literary transformation
+of the old ballads of the German people, into that form in which they
+were to exert a lasting influence upon the German language and
+national feeling. The date of the Nibelungen Lied has been set down
+somewhat indefinitely as between 1190 and 1220. Most of the work was
+undoubtedly accomplished after the beginning of the Thirteenth Century
+and in the form in which we have it at present, there seems to be no
+doubt that much was done after the famous meeting of the
+Meistersingers on the Wartburg--the subject of song and story and
+music drama ever since, which took place very probably in the year
+1207. With regard to the Nibelungen Lied, as in the case of the other
+great literary arrangements of folk-ballads, there has been question
+as to the {178} singleness of authorship. Here, however, as with
+regard to Homer and the Cid, the trend of modern criticism has all
+been towards the attribution of the poem to one writer, and the
+internal evidence of similarity of expression constantly maintained, a
+certain simplicity of feeling and naïveté of repetition seems to leave
+no doubt in the matter.
+
+As regards the merits of the Nibelungen Lied as a great work of
+literature, there has been very little doubt in the English-speaking
+world at least, because of the enthusiastic recognition accorded it by
+German critics and the influence of German criticism in all branches
+of literature over the whole Teutonic race during the Nineteenth
+Century. English admiration for the poem began after Carlyle's
+introduction of it to the English reading public in his essays. Since
+this time it has come to be very well known and yet, notwithstanding
+all that has been said about it no English critic has expressed more
+fully the place of the great German poem in world literature, than did
+this enthusiastic pro-German of the first half of the Nineteenth
+Century.
+
+For those for whom Carlyle's Essays are a sealed book because of loss
+of interest in him with the passage of time, the citation of some of
+his appreciative critical expressions may be necessary.
+
+  "Here in the old Frankish (Oberdeutsch) dialect of the Nibelungen,
+  we have a clear decisive utterance, and in a real system of verse,
+  not without essential regularity, great liveliness and now and then
+  even harmony of rhythm. Doubtless we must often call it a diffuse
+  diluted utterance; at the same time it is genuine, with a certain
+  antique garrulous heartiness, and has a rhythm in the thoughts as
+  well as the words. The simplicity is never silly; even in that
+  perpetual recurrence of epithets, sometimes of rhymes, as where two
+  words, for instance lip (body), lif (leib) and wip (woman), weib
+  (wife) are indissolubly wedded together, and the one never shows
+  itself without the other following--there is something which reminds
+  us not so much of poverty, as of trustfulness and childlike
+  innocence. Indeed a strange charm lies in those old tones, where, in
+  gay dancing melodies, the sternest tidings are sung to us; and deep
+  floods of sadness and strife play lightly in little {179} purling
+  billows, like seas in summer. It is as a meek smile, in whose still,
+  thoughtful depths a whole infinitude of patience, and love, and
+  heroic strength lie revealed. But in other cases too, we have seen
+  this outward sport and inward earnestness offer grateful contrasts,
+  and cunning excitement; for example, in Tasso; of whom, though
+  otherwise different enough, this old Northern Singer has more than
+  once reminded us. There too, as here, we have a dark solemn meaning
+  in light guise; deeds of high temper, harsh self-denial, daring and
+  death, stand embodied in that soft, quick-flowing joyfully-modulated
+  verse. Nay farther, as if the implement, much more than we might
+  fancy, had influenced the work done, these two poems, could we trust
+  our individual feeling, have in one respect the same poetical result
+  for us; in the Nibelungen as in the Gerusalemme, the persons and
+  their story are indeed brought vividly before us, yet not near and
+  palpably present; it is rather as if we looked on that scene through
+  an inverted telescope, whereby the whole was carried far away into
+  the distance, the life-large figures compressed into brilliant
+  miniatures, so clear, so real, yet tiny, elf-like and beautiful as
+  well as lessened, their colors being now closer and brighter, the
+  shadows and trivial features no longer visible. This, as we partly
+  apprehend, comes of singing epic poems; most part of which only
+  pretend to be sung. Tasso's rich melody still lives among the
+  Italian people; the Nibelungen also is what it professes to be, a
+  song."
+
+The story of the Nibelungen would ordinarily be supposed to be so
+distant from the interests of modern life, as scarcely to hold the
+attention of a reader unless he were interested in it from a scholarly
+or more or less antiquarian standpoint. For those who think thus,
+however, there is only one thing that will correct such a false
+impression and that is to read the Nibelungen itself. It has a depth
+of simplicity and a sympathetic human interest all its own but that
+reminds one more of Homer than of anything else in literature, and
+Homer has faults but lack of interest is not one of them. From the
+very beginning the story of the young man who does not think he will
+marry, and whose mother does not think that any one is good enough for
+him, and of the young woman who is sure that no one will come that
+will attract enough of her attention so as to compel {180} her to
+subject herself to the yoke of marriage, are types of what is so
+permanent in humanity, that the readers' attention is at once caught.
+After this the fighting parts of the story become the center of
+interest and hold the attention in spite of the refining influences
+that later centuries are supposed to have brought to humanity.
+
+Hence it is that Prof. Saintsbury in the second volume of his Periods
+of European Literature, already quoted from, is able to say much of
+the modern interest in the story. "There may be," as he says, "too
+many episodic personages--Deitrich of Bern, for instance, has
+extremely little to do in this galley. But the strength, thoroughness,
+and in its own savage way, charm of Kriemhild's character, and the
+incomparable series of battles between the Burgundian princes and
+Etzel's men in the later cantos--cantos which contain the very best
+poetical fighting in the history of the world--far more than redeem
+this. The Nibelungen Lied is a very great poem; and with Beowulf (the
+oldest but the least interesting on the whole), Roland (the most
+artistically finished in form), and the poem of the Cid (the
+cheerfullest and perhaps the fullest of character), composes a
+quartette of epics with which the literary story of the great European
+literary nations most appropriately begins. In bulk, dramatic
+completeness, and a certain furia, the Nibelungen Lied, though the
+youngest and probably the least original is the greatest of the four."
+
+Less need be said of the Nibelungen than of the Cid or Walter Map's
+work because it is much more familiar, and even ordinary readers of
+literature have been brought more closely in touch with it because of
+its relation to the Wagnerian operas. Even those who know the fine old
+German poems only passingly, will yet realize the supreme genius of
+their author, and those who need to have the opinions of distinguished
+critics to back them before they form an estimate for themselves, will
+not need to seek far in our modern literature to find lofty praises of
+the old German epic.
+
+With even this brief treatment no reader will doubt that there is in
+these three epics, typical products of the literary spirit of three
+great European nations whose literatures rising high above these deep
+firm substructures, were to be of the greatest {181} influence in the
+development of the human mind, and yet were to remain practically
+always within the limits of thought and feeling that had been traced
+by these old founders of literature of the early Thirteenth Century,
+whose work, like that of their contemporaries in every other form of
+artistic expression, was to be the model and the source of inspiration
+for future generations.
+
+[Illustration]
+CROZIER (OBVERSE AND REVERSE)
+
+
+{182}
+
+XI
+
+MEISTERSINGERS, MINNESINGERS, TROUVÈRES, TROUBADOURS.
+
+
+It would be a supreme mistake to think because the idea of literature
+in the Thirteenth Century is usually associated with the Arthur
+Legends, the Nibelungen and Dante, that all of the literary content of
+the century was inevitably serious in character or always epical in
+form. As a matter of fact the soul of wit and humor had entered into
+the body social, as we shall see in subsequent chapters, and the
+spirit of gaiety and the light-hearted admiration for nature found as
+frequent expression as at any time in history. With these as always in
+literary history there came outbursts of love in lyric strains that
+were not destined to die. While the poets of South Germany and of
+Italy sang of love that was of the loftiest description, never mingled
+with anything of the merely sensual, their tuneful trifles are quite
+as satisfying to the modern ear in both sense and sound as any of the
+more elaborate _vers de societé_ of the modern times. The German poets
+particularly did not hesitate to emphasize the fact that sensuality
+had no part in Minne--their pretty term for love--and yet they sang
+with all the natural grace and fervid rapture of the Grecian poets of
+the old pagan times, worshiping at the shrines of fleshly goddesses,
+or singing to the frail beauties of an unmoral period. Nothing in the
+history of literature is better proof that ideal love can, unmixed
+with anything sensual, inspire lyric outbursts of supreme and enduring
+beauty, than the poems of the Minnesingers and of some of the French
+and Italian Troubadours of this period. It is easier to understand
+Dante's position in this matter after reading the poems of his
+predecessors in the Thirteenth Century.
+
+For this feeling of the lofty character of the love they sang was not,
+in spite of what is sometimes said, confined only to the Germans,
+though as is well known from time immemorial the {183} Teutonic
+feeling towards woman was by racial influence of higher character than
+that of the southern Nations. As Mr. H. J. Chaytor says in the
+introduction to his Troubadours of Dante, there came a gradual change
+over the mind of the Troubadour about the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century and "seeing that love was the inspiring force to good deeds,"
+the later Troubadours gradually dissociated their love from the object
+which had aroused it. Among them, "as among the Minnesingers, love is
+no longer sexual passion, it is rather the motive to great works, to
+self-surrender, to the winning an honorable name as Courtier and
+Poet." Mr. Chaytor then quotes the well known lines from Bernart de
+Ventadorn, one of the Troubadours to whom Dante refers, and whose
+works Dante seems to have read with special attention since their
+poems contain similar errors of mythology.
+
+    "for indeed I know
+  Of no more subtle passion under heaven
+  Than is the maiden passion for a maid.
+  Not only to keep down the base in man.
+  But teach high thought and amiable words.
+  And courtliness and the desire of fame.
+  And love of truth and all that makes a man."
+
+A sentiment surely that will be considered as true now as it ever was,
+be the time the Thirteenth Century or earlier or later, and that
+represents the best solution of social problems that has ever been put
+forward--nature's own panacea for ills that other remedies at best
+only palliate.
+
+In the early Nineteenth Century Carlyle said of this period what we
+may well repeat here:
+
+  "We shall suppose that this Literary Period is partially known to
+  all readers. Let each recall whatever he has learned or figures
+  regarding it; represent to himself that brave young heyday of
+  Chivalry and Minstrelsy when a stern Barbarossa, a stern Lion-heart,
+  sang sirventes, and with the hand that could wield the sword and
+  sceptre twanged the melodious strings, when knights-errant tilted,
+  and ladies' eyes rained bright influences; and suddenly, as at
+  sunrise, the whole earth had grown {184} vocal and musical. Then
+  truly was the time of singing come; for princes and prelates,
+  emperors and squires, the wise and the simple, men, women and
+  children, all sang and rhymed, or delighted in hearing it done. It
+  was a universal noise of Song; as if the Spring of Manhood had
+  arrived, and warblings from every spray, not, indeed, without
+  infinite twitterings also, which, except their gladness, had no
+  music, were bidding it welcome."
+
+This is the keynote of the Century--song, blithesome and gay as the
+birds, solemn and harmonious as the organ tones that accord so well
+with the great Latin hymns--everywhere song.
+
+"Believers," says Tieck, the great collector of Thirteenth Century
+poetry, "sang of Faith; Lovers of Love; Knights described knightly
+actions and battles; and loving, believing knights were their chief
+audience. The Spring, Beauty, Gaiety, were objects that could never
+tire; great duels and deeds of arms carried away every hearer, the
+more surely the stronger they were painted; and as the pillars and
+dome of the Church encircled the flock, so did Religion, as the
+Highest, encircle Poetry and Reality; and every heart, in equal love,
+humbled itself before her."
+
+The names of the Meistersingers are well-known to musical lovers at
+least, because of the music drama of that name and the famous war of
+the Wartburg. The most familiar of all of them is doubtless Walter von
+der Vogelweide who, when he was asked where he found the tuneful
+melodies for his songs, said that he learned them from the birds.
+Those who recall Longfellow's pretty ballad with regard to Walter and
+his leaving all his substance to feed the birds over his grave near
+Nuremberg's minster towers, will not find it surprising that this
+Meistersinger's poetry breathes the deepest love of Nature, and that
+there is in it a lyric quality of joy in the things of Nature that we
+are apt to think of as modern, until we find over and over again in
+these bards, that the spirit of the woods and of the fields and of the
+spring time, meant as much for them as for any follower of the
+Wordsworth school of poetry in the more conscious after-time. This
+from Walter with regard to the May will serve to illustrate very well
+this phase of his work.
+
+{185}
+
+  Gentle May, thou showerest fairly
+    Gifts afar and near;
+  Clothest all the woods so rarely,
+    And the meadows here;
+  O'er the heath new colors glow;
+  Flowers and clover on the plain.
+  Merry rivals, strive amain
+  Which can fastest grow.
+
+  Lady! part me from my sadness.
+    Love me while 'tis May;
+  Mine is but a borrowed gladness
+    If thou frown alway;
+  Look around and smile anew!
+  All the world is glad and free;
+  Let a little joy from thee
+  Fall to my lot too!
+
+Walter could be on occasion, however, as serious as any of the
+Meistersingers and is especially known for his religious poems. It is
+not surprising that any one who set woman on so high a pedestal as did
+Walter, should have written beautiful poems to the Blessed Virgin. He
+was the first, so it is said, to express the sentiment: "Woman, God
+bless her, by that name, for it is a far nobler name than lady."
+Occasionally he can be seriously didactic and he has not hesitated
+even to express some sentiments with regard to methods of education.
+Among other things he discusses the question as to whether children
+should be whipped or not in the process of education and curiously
+enough takes the very modern view that whipping is always a mistake.
+In this, of course, he disagrees with all the practical educators of
+his time, who considered the rod the most effective instrument for the
+education of children and strictly followed the scriptural injunction
+about sparing the rod and spoiling the child. Walter's opinion is for
+that reason all the more interesting:
+
+  "Children with rod ruling--
+  'Tis the worst of schooling.
+  Who is honor made to know.
+  Him a word seems as a blow."
+
+{186}
+
+The birds were always a favorite subject for poetic inspiration on the
+part of the Minnesingers. Bird music rapt poetic souls into ecstasies
+in which the passage of time was utterly unnoticed. It is from the
+Thirteenth Century that comes the beautiful legend with regard to the
+monk who, having wondered how time could be kept from dragging in
+Heaven, was permitted to listen to the song of a bird one day in the
+forest and when he awoke from his rapture and went back to his convent
+found that a hundred years had passed, that all of the monks of his
+acquaintance were dead, and while his name was found on the rolls of
+the monastery, after it there was a note that he had disappeared one
+day and had never been heard of afterwards. Almost in the same tenor
+as this is a pretty song from Dietmar von Eist, written at the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century, and which was a type of the
+charming songs that were to be so characteristic of the times:
+
+  There sat upon the linden-tree
+    A bird, and sung its strain;
+  So sweet it sung that as I heard
+    My heart went back again.
+  It went to one remember'd spot,
+    It saw the rose-tree grow.
+  And thought again the thoughts of love,
+    There cherished long ago.
+
+  A thousand years to me it seems
+    Since by my fair I sate;
+  Yet thus to be a stranger long
+    Is not my choice, but fate;
+  Since then I have not seen the flowers,
+    Nor heard the birds' sweet song;
+  My joys have all too briefly past.
+    My griefs been all too long.
+
+Hartman von Aue was a contemporary of Walter's and is best known for
+his romantic stories. It is rather curiously interesting to find that
+one of the old chroniclers considers it a great mark of distinction
+that, though Hartman was a knight, he was able to read and write
+whatever he found written in {187} books. It must not be forgotten,
+however, that not all of these poets could read and write, and that
+indeed so distinguished a literary man as Wolfram von Eschenbach, the
+author of Percival, the story on which Wagner founded his opera of
+Parsifal, could neither read nor write. He had developed a very
+wonderful memory and was able to store faithfully his poems in the
+course of their composition so that he was above the need of pen and
+paper. Hartman is most famous for having written the story of Poor
+Henry, which Longfellow has chosen so effectively for his Golden
+Legend. Hartman's appreciation of women can be judged from the
+following lines, which accord her an equal share in her lord's glory
+because of her sufferings in prayer at home.
+
+  Glory be unto her whose word
+    Sends her dear lord to bitter fight;
+  Although he conquer by his sword.
+    She to the praise has equal right;
+  He with the sword in battle, she at home with prayer.
+    Both win the victory, and both the glory share.
+
+Occasionally one finds, as we have said, among the little songs of the
+Minnesingers of the time such tuneful trifles as could be included
+very appropriately in a modern collection of _vers de société_, or as
+might even serve as a love message on a modern valentine or a
+Christmas card. The surprise of finding such things at such a time
+will justify the quotation of one of them from Brother Wernher, who
+owes his title of brother not to his membership in any religious
+order, very probably, but to the fact that he belonged to the
+brotherhood of the poets of the time.
+
+  Since creation I was thine;
+  Now forever thou art mine.
+  I have shut thee fast
+  In my heart at last.
+  I have dropped the key
+  In an unknown sea.
+  Forever must thou my prisoner be!
+
+{188}
+
+Wolfram von Eschenbach was the chief of a group of poets who at the
+close of the Twelfth and beginning of the Thirteenth centuries
+gathered about the Landgraf Hermann of Thuringen in his court on the
+Wartburg, at the foot of which lies Eisenach, in the present Grand
+Duchy of Saxe-Weimar. They shaped tales of knightly adventure, blended
+with reflection, spiritual suggestion, and a grace of verse that
+represented the best culture of the court, and did not address itself
+immediately to the people. Wolfram was a younger son of one of the
+lower noble Bavarian families settled at Eschenbach, nine miles from
+Ausbach, in Middle Franconia. He had a poor little home of his own,
+Wildenberg, but went abroad to seek adventures as a knight, and tell
+adventures as a poet welcome to great lords, and most welcome to the
+lavish friend of poets, Hermann of Thuringen, at whose court on the
+Wartburg he remained twenty years, from 1195 to 1215, in which latter
+year his "Parzival" was finished. From some passages in his poem it
+may safely be inferred that he was happily married, and had children.
+The Landgraf Hermann died in 1216, and, was succeeded by Ludwig,
+husband of St. Elizabeth.
+
+We cannot ascribe to English writers alone the spiritualizing of the
+Grail Legends, when there is Wolfram's "Parzival" drawing from the
+same cycle of myths a noble poem of the striving to bind earthly
+knighthood to the ever-living God. While Gawain, type of the earthly
+knight wins great praise in love and chivalry,
+Parzival--Percival--finds his way on from childhood up, through humble
+searchings of the spirit, till he is ruler in the kingdom of the soul,
+where he designs that Lohengrin, his eldest son, shall be his
+successor, while Kardeiss, his younger son, has rule over his earthly
+possessions.
+
+How beautifully the Minnesingers could enter into the spirit of nature
+and at the same time how much the spirit of Spring has always been
+prone to appeal to poetic sensibilities may be judged from the
+following song of Conrad of Kirchberg, which is translated very
+closely and in the same meter as the original old high German poem. It
+is very evident that none of the spirit of Spring was lost on this
+poet of the olden time, nor on the other hand that any possibility of
+poetic expression was missed by him. There is a music in the lilt of
+the verselets, {189} eminently suggestive of the lyric effect that the
+new birth of things had on the poet himself and that he wished to
+convey to his readers. Of this, however, every one must judge for
+himself and so we give the poem as it may be found in Roscoe's edition
+of Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe.
+
+  May, sweet May, again is come;
+  May, that frees the land from gloom.
+  Up, then, children, we will go
+  Where the blooming roses grow.
+  In a joyful company
+  We the bursting flowers will see;
+  Up! your festal dress prepare!
+  Where gay hearts are meeting, there
+  May hath pleasures most inviting
+  Heart, and sight, and ear delighting:
+  Listen to the bird's sweet song.
+  Hark! how soft it floats along!
+  Courtly dames our pleasures share.
+  Never saw I May so fair;
+  Therefore, dancing will we go:
+  Youths rejoice, the flowrets blow;
+      Sing ye! join the chorus gay!
+      Hail this merry, merry May!
+
+At least as beautiful in their tributes to their lady loves and their
+lyric descriptions of the beauties of Spring, were the Troubadours
+whose tuneful trifles, sometimes deserving of much more serious
+consideration than the application of such a term to them would seem
+to demand, have come down to us though the centuries. One of the best
+known of these is Arnaud de Marveil, who was born in very humble
+circumstances but who succeeded in raising himself by his poetic
+genius to be the companion of ruling princes and the friend of the
+high nobility. Among the provencals he has been called the great
+Master of Love, though this is a name which Petrarch reserves
+especially for Arnaud Daniel, while he calls Marveil the less famous
+of the Arnauds. An example of his work as the Poet of Love, that is
+typical of what is usually considered to have {190} been the favorite
+mode of the Troubadour poets runs as follows:
+
+  All I behold recalls the memory
+  Of her I love. The freshness of the hour
+  Th' enamell'd fields, the many coloured flower,
+  Speaking of her, move me to melody.
+  Had not the poets, with their courtly phrase,
+    Saluted many a fair of meaner worth,
+  I could not now have render'd thee the praise
+    So justly due, of "Fairest of the Earth."
+  To name thee thus had been to speak thy name,
+  And waken, o'er thy cheek, the blush of modest shame.
+
+An example of the love of nature which characterizes some of Arnaud de
+Marveil's work will serve to show how thoroughly he entered into the
+spirit of the spring-time and how much all the sights and sounds of
+nature found an echo in his poetic spirit. The translation of this as
+of the preceding specimen from Arnaud is taken from the English
+edition of the Historical View of the Literature of the South of
+Europe by Sismondi, and this translation we owe to Thomas Roscoe, the
+well known author of the life of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who
+considering that Sismondi does not furnish enough of specimens of this
+Troubadour poet, inserts the following verses, for the translation of
+which he acknowledges himself indebted to the kindness of friends, a
+modest concealment doubtless of his own work:
+
+  Oh! how sweet the breeze of April,
+    Breathing soft as May draws near!
+  While, through nights of tranquil beauty,
+    Songs of gladness meet the ear:
+  Every bird his well-known language
+    Uttering in the morning's pride,
+  Revelling in joy and gladness
+    By his happy partner's side.
+
+  When, around me, all is smiling,
+    When to life the young birds spring,
+  Thoughts of love, I cannot hinder,
+    Come, my heart inspiriting--
+  Nature, habit, both incline me
+    In such joy to bear my part:
+  With such sounds of bliss around me
+    Could I wear a sadden'd heart?
+
+{191}
+
+His description of his lady love is another example of his worship of
+nature in a different strain, which serves to show that a lover's
+exaggeration of the qualities of his lady is not a modern development
+of _la belle passion_.
+
+  Fairer than the far-famed Helen,
+    Lovelier than the flow'rets gay.
+  Snow-white teeth, and lips truth-telling,
+    Heart as open as the day;
+  Golden hair, and fresh bright roses--
+    Heaven, who formed a thing so fair.
+  Knows that never yet another
+    Lived, who can with thee compare.
+
+A single stanza from a love-song by Bertrand De Born will show better
+than any amount of critical appreciation how beautifully he can treat
+the more serious side of love. While the Troubadours are usually said
+to have sung their love strains in less serious vein than their German
+brother poets of the North, this has the ring of tenderness and truth
+about it and yet is not in these qualities very different from others
+of his songs that are well known. The translation we have chosen is
+that made by Roscoe who has rendered a number of the songs of the
+Troubadours into English verse that presents an excellent equivalent
+of the original. Bertrand is insisting with his lady-love that she
+must not listen to the rumors she may hear from others with regard to
+his faithfulness.
+
+  I cannot hide from thee how much I fear
+  The whispers breathed by flatterers in thine ear
+    Against my faith. But turn not, oh, I pray!
+  That heart so true, so faithful, so sincere.
+  So humble and so frank, to me so dear.
+    Oh, lady! turn it not from me away.
+
+{192}
+
+At times one is surprised to find pretty tributes to nature even in
+the midst of songs that are devoted to war. The two things that were
+nearest the hearts of these Troubadour poets were war and their
+lady-loves, but the beauties of nature became mixed up not only with
+their love songs but also with their battle hymns, or at least with
+their ardent descriptions of military preparations and the glories of
+war. An excellent example of this is to be found in the following
+stanza written by William of Saint Gregory, a Troubadour who is best
+known for his songs of war rather than of tenderness.
+
+  The beautiful spring delights me well.
+    When flowers and leaves are growing;
+  And it pleases my heart to hear the swell
+    Of the birds' sweet chorus flowing
+      In the echoing wood;
+  And I love to see all scattered around
+  Pavilions and tents on martial ground;
+      And my spirit finds it good
+  To see on the level plains beyond
+  Gay knights and steeds caparison'd.
+
+Occasionally the Troubadours indulge in religious poetry though
+usually not of a mystical or profoundly devotional character. Even the
+famous Peyrols, who is so well known for his love songs, sometimes
+wandered into religious poetry that was not unworthy to be placed
+beside his lyric effusions on other topics. Peyrols is best known
+perhaps for his lamentations over King Richard the Lion Heart's fate,
+for he had been with that monarch on the crusade, and like most of the
+Troubadours who went with the army, drank in deep admiration for the
+poetic king. After his visit to the Holy Land on this occasion one
+stanza of his song in memory of that visit runs as follows:  [Footnote
+19: Translated by Roscoe.]
+
+{193}
+
+  I have seen the Jordan river,
+    I have seen the holy grave.
+  Lord! to thee my thanks I render
+    For the joys thy goodness gave,
+  Showing to my raptured sight
+  The spot whereon thou saw'st the light.
+
+  Vessel good and favoring breezes,
+    Pilot, trusty, soon shall we
+  Once more see the towers of Marseilles
+    Rising o'er the briny sea.
+  Farewell, Acre, farewell, all.
+  Of Temple or of Hospital:
+
+  Now, alas! the world's decaying.
+    When shall we once more behold
+  Kings like lion-hearted Richard,
+    France's monarch, stout and bold?
+
+
+[Illustration]
+TOWER OF SCALIGERS (VERONA)
+
+
+{194}
+
+XII
+
+GREAT LATIN HYMNS AND CHURCH MUSIC.
+
+
+One of the most precious bequests of the Thirteenth Century to all the
+succeeding centuries is undoubtedly the great Latin hymns. These
+sublime religious poems, comparable only to the Hebrew psalms for
+their wondrous expression of the awe and devotion of religious
+feeling, present the beginnings of rhymed poetry, yet they have been
+acclaimed by competent modern critics as among the greatest poems that
+ever came from the mind of man. They come to us from this period and
+were composed, most of them at least, during the Thirteenth Century
+itself, a few, shortly before it, though all of them received during
+this century the stamp of ecclesiastical and popular approval, which
+made them for many centuries afterward the principal medium of the
+expression of congregational devotion and the exemplar and incentive
+for vernacular poetry. It is from these latter standpoints that they
+deserve the attention of all students of literature quite apart from
+their significance as great expressions of the mind of these wondrous
+generations.
+
+These Latin hymns have sometimes been spoken of with perhaps a certain
+degree of contempt as "rhymed Latin poetry," as if the use of rhyme in
+conjunction with Latin somehow lowered the dignity of the grand old
+tongue in which Cicero wrote his graceful periods and Horace sang his
+tuneful odes. As a matter of fact, far from detracting from the
+beauties of Latin expression, these hymns have added new laurels to
+the glory of the language and have shown the wonderful possibilities
+of the Roman speech in the hands of generations long after the
+classical period. If they served no other purpose than to demonstrate
+beyond cavil how profoundly the scholars of this generation succeeded
+in possessing themselves of the genius of the Latin language, they
+would serve to contradict the foolish critics who talk of the
+education of the period as superficial, or as negligent of everything
+but scholastic philosophy and theology.
+
+{195}
+
+At least one distinguished philologist, Professor F. A. March, who has
+now for the better part of half a century occupied the chair of
+comparative philology at Lafayette College, does not hesitate to say
+that the Latin hymns represent an expression of the genius of the
+Latin people and language, more characteristic than the classical
+poetry even of the golden or silver ages. "These hymns," he says,
+"were the first original poetry of the people in the Latin language,
+unless perhaps those Latin critics may be right who think they find in
+Livy a prose rendering of earlier ballads. The so-called classic
+poetry was an echo of Greece, both in substance and in form. The
+matter and meters were both imitated and the poems were composed for
+the lovers of Grecian art in the Roman Court. It did not spring from
+the people, but the Christian hymns were proper folk poetry, the Bible
+of the people--their Homeric poems. Their making was not so much
+speech as action. They were in substance festive prayers, the simplest
+rhythmic offering of thanks and praise to the Giver of Light and of
+rest both natural and spiritual, at morning and evening and at other
+seasons, suited to the remembrance and rhythmical rehearsal of the
+truths of the Bible." Prof. March's opinion has been echoed by many
+another enthusiastic student of these wonderful hymns. It is only
+those who do not know them who fail to grow enthusiastic about them.
+
+This of itself would stamp these great poems as worthy of careful
+study. There is, however, an additional reason for modern interest in
+them. These hymns were sung by the whole congregation at the many
+services that they attended in the medieval period. In this regard it
+seems well to recall, that it was the custom to go to church much
+oftener then than at present. Besides the Sundays there were many holy
+days of obligation, that is, religious festivals on which attendance
+at Church was obligatory, and in addition a certain number of days of
+devotion on which, because of special reverence for some particular
+saint, or in celebration of some event in the life of the Lord or his
+saints, the people of special parts of the country found themselves
+drawn to attendance on church services. It seems probable that instead
+of the sixty or so times a year that is now obligatory, people went to
+Church during the Thirteenth {196} Century more than a hundred times
+in the year. Twice a week then, at least, there was the uplifting
+cultural influence of this congregational singing of wonderful hymns
+that are among the greatest poems ever written and that belong to
+literature of the very highest order. The educational value of such
+intimate contact with what is best in literary expression could
+scarcely fail to have a distinct effect upon the people. It is idle to
+say that the hymns being in Latin they were not understood, since the
+language of them was close akin to the spoken tongues, the subjects
+were eminently familiar mysteries of religion and constant repetition
+and frequent explanation must have led to a very general comprehension
+even by the least educated classes. For anyone with any pretension to
+education they must have been easy to understand, since Latin was
+practically a universal language.
+
+It is not always realized by the students whose interests have been
+mainly confined to modern literature, in what estimation these Latin
+hymns have been held by those who are in the best position to be able
+to judge critically of their value as poetry. Take for example the
+Dies Irae, confessedly the greatest of them, and it will be found that
+many of the great poets and literary men of the Nineteenth Century
+have counted it among their favorite poems. Such men as Goethe,
+Friedrich and August Schlegel, Scott, Milman and Archbishop Trench
+were enthusiastic in its praise. While such geniuses as Dryden,
+Johnson and Jeremy Taylor, and the musicians Mozart and Hayden, avowed
+supreme admiration for it. Herder, Fichte and August Schlegel besides
+Crashaw, Drummond, Roscommon, Trench and Macaulay gave the proof of
+their appreciation of the great Thirteenth Century hymn by devoting
+themselves to making translations of it, and Goethe's use of it in
+Faust and Scott's in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, show how much
+poets, whose sympathies were not involved in its religious aspects,
+were caught by its literary and esthetic merit.
+
+In very recent times the Latin hymns have been coming more to their
+own again and such distinguished critics as Prof. Henry Morley, and
+Prof. George Saintsbury, have not hesitated to express their critical
+appreciation of these hymns as great {197} literature. Prof.
+Saintsbury says in his volume of the Thirteenth Century literature:
+[Footnote 20]
+
+  [Footnote 20: The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory,
+  Volume II. of Periods of European Literature, Edited by George
+  Saintsbury, New York, Scribners, 1899.]
+
+
+{opp197}
+[Illustration]
+ST. FRANCIS PROPHESIES THE DEATH OF CELANO (GIOTTO, UPPER CH., ASSISI)
+
+
+  "It will be more convenient to postpone to a later chapter of this
+  volume a consideration of the exact way in which Latin sacred poetry
+  affected the prosody of the vernacular; but it is well here to point
+  out that almost all the finest and most famous examples of the
+  medieval hymns, with perhaps the sole exception of the Veni Sancte
+  Spiritus, date from the Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries. Ours (that
+  is, from this period) are the stately rhythms of Adam of St. Victor,
+  and the softer ones of St. Bernard the Greater. It was at this time
+  that Jacopone da Todi, in the intervals of his eccentric vernacular
+  exercises, was inspired to write the Stabat Mater. From this time
+  comes that glorious descant of Bernard of Morlaix, in which, the
+  more its famous and very elegant English paraphrase is read beside
+  it (Jerusalem the Golden), the more does the greatness and the
+  beauty of the original appear.
+
+  "And from this time comes the greatest of all hymns, and one of the
+  greatest of all poems, the Dies Irae. There have been attempts--more
+  than one of them--to make out that the Dies Irae is no such
+  wonderful thing after all; attempts which are, perhaps, the extreme
+  examples of that cheap and despicable paradox which thinks to escape
+  the charge of blind docility by the affectation of heterodox
+  independence. The judgment of the greatest (and not always of the
+  most pious) men of letters of modern times may confirm those who are
+  uncomfortable without authority in a different opinion. Fortunately
+  there is not likely ever to be lack of those who, authority or no
+  authority, in youth and in age, after much reading or without much,
+  in all time of their tribulation and in all time of their wealth,
+  will hold these wonderful triplets, be they Thomas of Celano's or
+  another's, as nearly or quite the most perfect wedding of sound to
+  sense that they know."
+
+This seems almost the limit of praise but Prof. Saintsbury can say
+even more than this: "It would be possible, indeed, to {198}
+illustrate a complete dissertation on the methods of expression in
+serious poetry from the fifty-one lines of the Dies Irae. Rhyme,
+alliteration, cadence, and adjustment of vowel and consonant
+values--all these things receive perfect expression in it, or, at
+least, in the first thirteen stanzas, for the last four are a little
+inferior. It is quite astonishing to reflect upon the careful art or
+the felicitous accident of such a line as:
+
+  Tuba mirum spargens sonum,
+
+with the thud of the trochee falling in each instance in a different
+vowel; and still more on the continuous sequence of five stanzas, from
+_Judex ergo_ to _non sit cassus_, in which not a word could be
+displaced or replaced by another without loss. The climax of verbal
+harmony, corresponding to and expressing religious passion and
+religious awe, is reached in the last--
+
+  Quaerens me sedisti lassus,
+  Redemisti crucem passus:
+  Tantus labor non sit cassus!
+
+where the sudden change from the dominant _e_ sounds (except
+in the rhyme foot) of the first two lines to the _a's_ of the last
+is simply miraculous and miraculously assisted by what may
+be called the internal sub-rhyme of _sedisti_ and _redemisti_. This
+latter effect can rarely be attempted without a jingle: there is
+no jingle here, only an ineffable melody. After the Dies Irae,
+no poet could say that any effect of poetry was, as far as sound
+goes, unattainable, though few could have hoped to equal it,
+and perhaps no one except Dante and Shakespeare has fully
+done so."
+
+Higher praise than this could scarcely be given and it comes from an
+acknowledged authority, whose interests are moreover in secular rather
+than religious literature, and whose enthusiastic praise is therefore
+all the more striking. Here in America, Schaff, whose critical
+judgment in religious literature is unquestionable and whose
+sympathies with the old church and her hymns were not as deep as if he
+had been a Roman Catholic, has been quite as unstinted in laudation.
+
+  "This marvelous hymn is the acknowledged masterpiece of Latin
+  poetry, and the most sublime of all uninspired hymns. {199} ... The
+  secret of its irresistible power lies in the awful grandeur of the
+  theme, the intense earnestness and pathos of the poet, the simple
+  majesty and solemn music of its language, the stately meter, the
+  triple rhyme, and the vowel assonances, chosen in striking
+  adaptation to the sense--all combining to produce an overwhelming
+  effect, as if we heard the final crash of the universe, the
+  commotion of the opening graves, the trumpet of the archangel
+  summoning the quick and the dead, and saw the 'king of tremendous
+  majesty' seated on the throne of justice and of mercy, and ready to
+  dispense everlasting life and everlasting woe."
+
+Neale says of Thomas Aquinas' great hymn the Pange Lingua: "This hymn
+contests the second place among those of the Western Church, with the
+'Vexilla Regis,' the 'Stabat Mater,' the 'Jesu Dulcis Memoria,' the
+'Ad Regias Agni Dapes,' the 'Ad Supernam,' and one or two others,
+leaving the 'Dies Irae' in its unapproachable glory," thus furnishing
+another supreme testimony to the hymn we have been discussing, which
+indeed only needs to be read to be appreciated, since it will
+inevitably tempt to successive readings and these bring with them ever
+and ever increasing admiration, showing in this more than in any other
+way that it is a work of sublime genius.
+
+With regard to rhyme particularly the triumph of art and the influence
+of the Latin hymns is undoubted. This latest beauty of poetry reached
+its perfection of expression in the Latin hymns. It is rather curious
+to trace its gradual development. It constitutes the only feature of
+literature which apparently did not come to us from the East. The
+earlier specimens of poetry of which we know anything among the
+Oriental nations other than the Hebrews, are beautiful examples of the
+possibilities of rhythm and the beginnings of meter. As poetry goes
+westward meter becomes as important as rhythm in poetry and these two
+qualities differentiated it from prose. Both of these literary modes,
+however, are eastern in origin. Rhyme comes from the distant West and
+seems to have originated in the alliteration invented by the Celtic
+bards. The vowel assonance was after a time completed by the addition
+of consonantal assonance and then the invention of rhyme was
+completed. The first fully rhymed hymns seem to have been written by
+the {200} Irish monks and carried over to the Continent by them on
+their Christianizing expeditions, after the irruption of the
+barbarians had obliterated the civilization of Europe. During the
+Tenth and Eleventh centuries rhyme developed mainly in connection with
+ecclesiastical poetry. During the Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries it
+reached an acme of evolution which has never been surpassed during all
+the succeeding generations.
+
+It must not be thought that, because so much attention is given to the
+Dies Irae, this constitutes the only supremely great hymn of the
+Thirteenth Century. There are at least five or six others that well
+deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. One of them, the famous
+Stabat Mater of Jacopone da Todi, has been considered by some critics
+as quite as beautiful as the Dies Irae in poetic expression, though
+below it as poetry because of the lesser sublimity of its subject.
+Certainly no more marvelously poetic expression of all that is saddest
+in human sorrow has ever been put into words, than that which is to be
+found in these stanzas of the Franciscan Monk who had himself known
+all the depths of human sorrow and trial. Most people know the opening
+stanzas of it well enough to scarce need their presentation and yet it
+is from the poem itself, and not from any critical appreciation of it,
+that its greatness must be judged.
+
+{opp200}
+
+[Illustration]
+VIRGIN AND CHILD (PISA, CAMPO SANTO, GIOV. PISANO)
+
+
+  Stabat mater dolorosa
+  Juxta crucem lacrymosa,
+    Dum pendebat filius,
+  Cuius animan gementem,
+  Contristantem at dolentem
+    Pertransivit gladius.
+
+  O quam tristis et afflicta
+  Fuit illa benedicta
+    Mater unigeniti.
+  Quae moerebat et dolebat
+  Et tremebat, dum videbat
+    Nati poenas inclyti.
+
+  Quis est homo, qui non fleret,
+  Matrem Christi si videret,
+    In tanto supplicio?
+
+  Quis non posset contristari,
+  Piam matrem contemplari
+    Dolentem cum filio!
+
+{201}
+
+As in the case of the Dies Irae there have been many translations of
+the Stabat Mater, most of them done by poets whose hearts were in
+their work and who were accomplishing their purpose as labors of love.
+While we realize how many beautiful translations there are, it is
+almost pitiful to think what poor English versions are sometimes used
+in the devotional exercises of the present day. One of the most
+beautiful translations is undoubtedly that by Denis Florence
+MacCarthy, who has been hailed as probably the best translator into
+English of foreign poetry that our generation has known, and whose
+translations of Calderon present the greatest of Spanish poets, in a
+dress as worthy of the original as it is possible for a poet to have
+in a foreign tongue. MacCarthy has succeeded in following the
+intricate rhyme plan of the Stabat with a perfection that would be
+deemed almost impossible in our harsher English, which does not
+readily yield itself to double rhymes and which permits frequency of
+rhyme as a rule only at the sacrifice of vigor of expression. The
+first three stanzas, however, of the Stabat Mater will serve to show
+how well MacCarthy accomplished his difficult task:
+
+  By the cross, on which suspended.
+  With his bleeding hands extended,
+    Hung that Son she so adored,
+  Stood the mournful Mother weeping.
+  She whose heart, its silence keeping.
+    Grief had cleft as with a sword.
+  O, that Mother's sad affliction--
+  Mother of all benediction--
+    Of the sole-begotten One;
+  Oh, the grieving, sense-bereaving,
+  Of her heaving breast, perceiving
+    The dread sufferings of her Son.
+  What man is there so unfeeling.
+  Who, his heart to pity steeling.
+    Could behold that sight unmoved?
+  Could Christ's Mother see there weeping,
+  See the pious Mother keeping
+    Vigil by the Son she loved?
+
+{202}
+
+A very beautiful translation in the meter of the original was also
+made by the distinguished Irish poet, Aubrey de Vere. The last two
+stanzas of this translation have been considered as perhaps the most
+charmingly effective equivalent in English for Jacopone's wonderfully
+devotional termination that has ever been written.
+
+  May his wounds both wound and heal me;
+  His blood enkindle, cleanse, anneal me;
+    Be his cross my hope and stay:
+  Virgin, when the mountains quiver,
+  From that flame which burns for ever,
+    Shield me on the judgment-day.
+
+  Christ, when he that shaped me calls me,
+  When advancing death appalls me.
+    Through her prayer the storm make calm:
+  When to dust my dust returneth
+  Save a soul to thee that yearneth;
+    Grant it thou the crown and palm.
+
+Even distinguished professors of philosophy and theology occasionally
+indulged themselves in the privilege of writing these Latin hymns and,
+what is more surprising, succeeded in making poetry of a very high
+order. At least two of the most distinguished professors in these
+branches at the University of Paris in the latter half of the
+Thirteenth Century, must be acknowledged as having written hymns that
+are confessedly immortal, not because of any canonical usage that
+keeps them alive, but because they express in very different ways, in
+wondrously beautiful language some of the sublimest religious thoughts
+of their time. These two are St. Bonaventure, the Franciscan, and St.
+Thomas of Aquin, the Dominican. St. Bonaventure's hymns on the Passion
+and Cross of Christ represent what has been most beautifully sung on
+these subjects in all the ages. St. Thomas' poetic work centers around
+the Blessed Sacrament in whose honor he was so ardent and so devoted
+{203} that the composition of the office for its feast was confided to
+him by the Pope. The hymns he wrote, far from being the series of
+prosy theological formulas that might have been expected perhaps under
+such circumstances, are great contributions to a form of literature
+which contains more gems of purest ray in its collection than almost
+any other. St. Thomas' poetic jewels shine with no borrowed radiance,
+and their effulgence is not cast into shadow even by the greatest of
+their companion pieces among the Latin hymns of a wonderfully
+productive century. Neale's tribute to one of them has already been
+quoted in an earlier part of this chapter.
+
+It has indeed been considered almost miraculous, that this profoundest
+of thinkers should have been able to attain within the bounds of rhyme
+and rhythm, the accurate expression of some of the most intricate
+theological thoughts that have ever been expressed, and yet should
+have accomplished his purpose with a clarity of language, a simplicity
+and directness of words, a poetic sympathy of feeling, and an utter
+devotion, that make his hymns great literature in the best sense of
+the word. One of them at least, the Pange Lingua Gloriosi, has been in
+constant use in the church ever since his time, and its two last
+stanzas beginning with Tantum Ergo Sacramentum, are perhaps the most
+familiar of all the Latin hymns. Few of those most familiar with it
+realize its place in literature, the greatness of its author, or its
+own marvelous poetic merits.
+
+It must not be forgotten that at the very time when these hymns were
+most popular the modern languages were just assuming shape. Even at
+the end of the Thirteenth Century none of them had reached anything
+like the form that it was to continue to hold, except perhaps the
+Italian and to some extent the Spanish. When Dante wrote his Divine
+Comedy at the beginning of the Fourteenth Century, he was tempted to
+use the Latin language, the common language of all the scholars of his
+day, and the language ordinarily used for any ambitious literary
+project for nearly a century later. It will not be forgotten that when
+Petrarch in the Fourteenth Century wrote his epic, Africa, on which he
+expected his fame as a poet to rest, he preferred to use the Latin
+language. Fortunately Dante was large enough of mind to realize, that
+the vulgar {204} tongue of the Italians would prove the best
+instrument for the expression of the thoughts he wished to
+communicate, and so he cast the Italian language into the mold in
+which it has practically ever since remained.
+
+His very hesitation, however, shows how incomplete as yet were these
+modern languages considered by the scholars who used them. It was at
+this very formative period, however, that the people on whose use of
+the nascent modern languages their future character depended, were
+having dinned into their ears in the numerous church services, the
+great Latin hymns with their wonderful finish of expression.
+Undoubtedly one of the most effective factors of whatever of sweetness
+there is in the modern tongues, must be attributed to this influence
+exerted all unconsciously upon the minds of the people. The rhythm and
+the expressiveness of these magnificent poems could scarcely fail to
+stamp itself to some degree upon the language, crude though it might
+be, of the people who had become so familiar with them. It is, then,
+to no small extent because of the influence of these Latin hymns that
+our modern languages possess a rhythmic melodiousness that in time
+enabled them to become the instruments for poetic diction in such a
+way as to satisfy all the requirements of the modern ear in rhyme, and
+rhythm, and meter. A striking corresponding effect upon the exactness
+of expression in the modern languages, it will be noticed, is pointed
+out in the chapter on the Prose of the Century as representing,
+according to Professor Saintsbury, the greatest benefit that was
+derived from the exaggerated practise of dialectic disputation in the
+curriculum of the medieval Universities.
+
+Those who would think that the Thirteenth Century was happy in
+creative genius but lacking in the critical faculty that would enable
+it to select the best, not only of the hymns presented by its own
+generations but also of those which came from the preceding centuries,
+should make themselves acquainted with the history of these Latin
+hymns. Just before the Thirteenth Century the monks of the famous
+Abbey of St. Victor took up the writing of hymns with wonderful
+success and two of them, Adam and Hugh, became not only the favorites
+of their own but of succeeding generations. The Thirteenth {205}
+Century received the work of these men and gave them a vogue which has
+continued down to our own time. Some of the hymns that were thus
+acclaimed and made popular are among the greatest contributions to
+this form of literature, and while they have had periods of eclipse
+owing to bad taste in the times that followed, the reputation secured
+during the Thirteenth Century has always been sufficient to recall
+them to memory and bring men again to a realization of their beauty
+when a more esthetic generation came into existence.
+
+One of the hymns of the immediately preceding time, which attained
+great popularity during the Thirteenth Century--a popularity that
+reflects credit on those among whom it is noted as well as upon the
+great hymn itself--was Bernard of Cluny's or Bernard of Morlaix's
+hymn, concerning the contempt of the world, many of the ideas of which
+were to be used freely in the book bearing this title written by the
+first Pope of the century, Innocent III, whose name is usually, though
+gratuitously associated with quite other ideas than those of contempt
+for worldly grandeur. The description of the New Jerusalem to come,
+which is found at the beginning of this great poem, is the basis of
+all the modern religious poems on this subject. Few hymns have been
+more praised. Schaff, in his Christ in Song says: "This glowing
+description is the sweetest of all the new Jerusalem Hymns of Heavenly
+Homesickness which have taken their inspiration from the last two
+chapters of Revelation." The extreme difficulty of the meter which its
+author selected and which would seem almost to preclude the
+possibility of expressing great connected thought, especially in so
+long a poem, became under the master hand of this poetic genius, whose
+command of the Latin language is unrivaled, the source of new beauties
+for his poem. Besides maintaining the meter of the old Latin
+hexameters he added double rhymes in each line and yet had every
+alternate line also end in a rhyme. To appreciate the difficulty this
+must be read.
+
+{206}
+
+  Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, vigilemus,
+  Ecce minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus
+  Imminet, imminet ut mala terminet, aequa coronet.
+  Recta remuneret, anxia liberet, aethera donet,
+  Auferat aspera duraque pondera mentis onustae,
+  Sobria muniat, improba puniat, utraque juste.
+
+  Hic breve vivitur, hic breve plangitur, hic breve fletur;
+  Non breve vivere, non breve plangere retribuetur;
+  O retributio! stat brevis actio, vita perennis;
+  O retributio! coelica mansio stat lue plenis;
+  Quid datur et quibus? aether egentibus et cruce dignis,
+  Sidera vermibus, optima sontibus, astra malignis.
+
+There are many versions, but few translators have dared to attempt a
+close imitation of the original meter. Its beauty is so great,
+however, that even the labor required for this has not deterred some
+enthusiastic admirers. Our English tongue, however, does not lend
+itself readily to the production of hexameters, though in these lines
+the rhyme and rhythm has been caught to some extent:
+
+  "These are the latter times, these are not better times;
+      Let us stand waiting;
+  Lo! how with, awfulness, He, first in lawfulness,
+      Comes arbitrating."
+
+Even from this it may be realized that Doctor Neale is justified in
+his enthusiastic opinion that "it is the most lovely, in the same way
+that the Dies Irae is the most sublime, and the Stabat Mater the most
+pathetic, of medieval poems."
+
+While it scarcely has a place here properly, a word must be said with
+regard to the music of the Thirteenth Century. It might possibly be
+thought that these wondrous rhymes had been spoiled in their
+effectiveness by the crude music to which they were set. To harbor any
+such notion, however, would only be another exhibition of that
+intellectual snobbery which concludes that generations so distant
+could not have anything worth the consideration of our more developed
+time. The music of the Thirteenth Century is as great a triumph as any
+other feature of its accomplishment. It would be clearly absurd to
+suppose, that the people who created the Cathedrals and made every
+element associated with the church ceremonial so beautiful as to
+attract the attention of all generations since, could have failed to
+develop a music suitable to these {207} magnificent fanes. As a matter
+of fact no more suitable music for congregational singing than the
+Gregorian Chant, which reached the acme of its development in the
+Thirteenth Century, has been invented, and the fact that the Catholic
+Church, after having tried modern music, is now going back to this
+medieval musical mode for devotional expression, is only a further
+noteworthy tribute to the enduring character of another phase of
+Thirteenth Century accomplishment.
+
+Rockstro, who wrote the article on Plain Chant for Grove's Dictionary
+of Music and for the Encyclopedia Britannica, declared that no more
+wonderful succession of single notes, had even been strung into
+melodies so harmoniously adapted to the expression of the words with
+which they were to be sung, than some of these Plain Chants of the
+Middle Ages and especially of the Thirteenth Century. No more
+sublimely beautiful musical expression of all the depths there are in
+sadness has ever found its way into music, than what is so simply
+expressed in the Lamentations as they are sung in the office called
+Tenebrae during Holy Week. Even more beautiful in its joyousness is
+the marvelous melody of the Exultet which is sung in the Office of
+Holy Saturday. This latter is said to be the sublimest expression of
+joyful sound that has ever come from the human heart and mind. In a
+word, in music as in every other artistic department, the men of the
+Thirteenth Century reached a standard that has never been excelled and
+that remains to the present day as a source of pleasure and admiration
+for intellectual men, and will continue to be so for numberless
+generations yet unborn.
+
+Nor must it be thought that the Thirteenth Century men and women were
+satisfied with Church music alone. About the middle of the century
+part singing came into use in the churches at the less formal
+ceremonials, and soon spread to secular uses. As the Mystery Plays
+gave rise to the modern drama, so church music gave birth to the
+popular music of the time. In England, particularly, about the middle
+of the century, various glee songs were sung, portions of which have
+come down to us, and a great movement of folk music was begun. Before
+the end of the century the interaction of church and secular music had
+given rise to many of the modes of modern musical {208} development,
+and the musical movement was as substantially begun as were any of the
+other great artistic and intellectual movements which this century so
+marvelously initiated. This subject, of course, is of the kind that
+needs to be studied in special works if any satisfactory amount of
+information is to be obtained, but even the passing hint of it which
+we have been able to give will enable the reader to realize the
+important place of the Thirteenth Century in the development of modern
+music.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+ENTOMBMENT OF BLESSED VIRGIN (NOTRE DAME, PARIS)
+
+
+{209}
+
+XIII
+
+THREE MOST READ BOOKS OF THE CENTURY.
+
+
+Three books were more read than any others during the Thirteenth
+Century, that is, of course, apart from Holy Scriptures, which
+contrary to the usually accepted notion in this matter, were
+frequently the subject of study and of almost daily contact in one way
+or another by all classes of people. These three books were, Reynard
+the Fox, that is the series of stories of the animals in which they
+are used as a cloak for a satire upon man and his ways, called often
+the Animal Epic; the Golden Legend, which impressed Longfellow so much
+that he spent many years making what he hoped might prove for the
+modern world a bit of the self-revelation that this wonderful old
+medieval book has been for its own and subsequent generations; and,
+finally, the Romance of the Rose, probably the most read book during
+the Thirteenth and Fourteenth and most of the Fifteenth centuries in
+all the countries of Europe. Its popularity can be well appreciated
+from the fact that, though Chaucer was much read, there are more than
+three times as many manuscript copies of The Romance of the Rose in
+existence as of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and it was one of the
+earliest books to see the light in print.   [Footnote 21]
+
+  [Footnote 21: It was a favorite occupation some few years ago to pick
+  out what were considered the ten best books. Sir John Lubbock first
+  suggested, that it would be an interesting thing to pick out the ten
+  books which, if one were to be confined for life, should be thought
+  the most likely to be of enduring interest. If this favorite game
+  were to be played with the selection limited to the authors of a
+  single century, it is reasonably sure that most educated people
+  would pick out the thirteenth century group of ten for their
+  exclusive reading for the rest of life, rather than any other. An
+  experimental list of ten books selected from the thirteenth century
+  writers would include the Cid, the Legends of King Arthur, the
+  Nibelungen Lied, the Romance of the Rose, Reynard the Fox, the
+  Golden Legend, the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, Parsifal or Perceval
+  by Wolfram von Eschenbach, Durandus's Symbolism and Dante. As will
+  readily be appreciated by anyone who knows literature well, these
+  are eminently books of enduring interest. When it is considered that
+  in making this list no call is made upon Icelandic Literature nor
+  Provençal Literature, both of which are of supreme interest, and
+  both reached their maturity at this time, the abounding literary
+  wealth of the century will be understood.]
+
+
+{210}
+
+It has become the fashion in recent years, to take the pains from time
+to time to find out which are the most read books. The criterion of
+worth thus set up is not very valuable, for unfortunately for the
+increase in readers, there has not come a corresponding demand for the
+best books nor for solid literature. The fact that a book has been the
+best seller, or the most read for a time, usually stamps it at once as
+trivial or at most as being of quite momentary interest and not at all
+likely to endure. It is all the more interesting to find then, that
+these three most read books of the Thirteenth Century, have not only
+more than merely academic interest at the present time, but that they
+are literature in the best sense of the word. They have always been
+not only a means of helping people to pass the time, the sad office to
+which the generality of books has been reduced in our time, but a
+source of inspiration for literary men in many generations since they
+first became popular. The story of Reynard the Fox is one of the most
+profoundly humorous books that was ever written. Its satire was aimed
+at its own time yet it is never for a moment antiquated for the modern
+reader. At a time when, owing to the imperfect development of personal
+rights, it would have been extremely dangerous to satirize as the
+author does very freely, the rulers, the judges, the nobility, the
+ecclesiastical authorities and churchmen, and practically all classes
+of society, the writer, whose name has, unfortunately for the
+completeness of literary history, not come down to us, succeeded in
+painting all the foibles of men and pointing out all the differences
+there are between men's pretensions and their actual accomplishments.
+All the methods by which the cunning scoundrel could escape justice
+are exploited. The various modes of escaping punishment by direct and
+indirect bribery, by pretended repentance and reformation, by cunning
+appeal to the selfishness of judges, are revealed with the fidelity to
+detail of a modern muckraker; yet, all of it with a humanly humorous
+quality which, while it takes away nothing from the completeness of
+the exposure, removes most of the bitterness that probably would have
+made the satire fail of its purpose. While every class in the
+community of the time comes in for satirical allusions, that give us a
+better idea of how closely the men and the women {211} of the time
+resembled those of our own, than is to be found in any other single
+literary work that has been preserved for us from this century, or,
+indeed, any other, the series of stories seemed to be scarcely more
+than a collection of fables for children, and probably was read quite
+unsuspectingly by those who are so unmercifully satirized in it,
+though doubtless, as is usually noted in such cases, each one may have
+applied the satire of the story as he saw it to his neighbor and not
+to himself.
+
+A recent editor has said very well of Reynard the Fox that it is one
+of the most universal of books in its interest for all classes.
+Critics have at all times been ready to praise and few if any have
+found fault. It is one of the books that answers well to what Cardinal
+Newman declared to be at least the accidental definition of a classic;
+it pleases in childhood, in youth, in middle age and even in declining
+years. It is because of the eternal verity of the humanity in the
+book, that with so much truth Froude writing of Reynard can say: "It
+is not addressed to a passing mode of folly or of profligacy, but it
+touches the perennial nature of mankind, laying bare our own
+sympathies, and tastes, and weaknesses, with as keen and true an edge
+as when the living world of the old Suabian poet winced under its
+earliest utterance."
+
+The writer who traced the portraits must be counted one of the great
+observers of all time. As is the case with so many creative artists of
+the Thirteenth Century, though this is truer elsewhere than in
+literature, the author is not known. Perhaps he thought it safer to
+shroud his identity in friendly obscurity, rather than expose himself
+to the risks the finding of supposed keys to his satire might
+occasion. Too much credit must not be given to this explanation,
+however, though some writers have made material out of it to exploit
+Church intolerance, which the conditions do not justify. We are not
+sure who wrote the Arthur Legends, we do not know the author of the
+Cid, even all-pervasive German scholarship has not settled the problem
+of the writer of the Nibelungen, and the authorship of the Dies Irae
+is in doubt, though all of these would be sources of honor and praise
+rather than danger. Authors had evidently not as yet become
+sophisticated to the extent of {212} seeking immortality for their
+works. They even seem to have been indifferent as to whether their
+names were associated with them or not. Enough for them apparently to
+have had the satisfaction of doing, all else seemed futile.
+
+The original of Reynard the Fox was probably written in the
+Netherlands, though it may be somewhat difficult for the modern mind
+to associate so much of wit and humor with the Dutchmen of the Middle
+Ages. It arose there about the time that the Cid came into vogue in
+Spain, the Arthur Legends were being put into shape in England, and
+the Nibelungen reaching its ultimate form in Germany. Reynard thus
+fills up the geographical chart of contemporary literary effort for
+the Thirteenth Century, since France and Italy come in for their share
+in other forms of literature, and no country is missing from the story
+of successful, enduring accomplishment in letters. It was written from
+so close to the heart of Nature, that it makes a most interesting gift
+book even for the Twentieth Century child, and yet will be read with
+probably even more pleasure by the parents. With good reason another
+recent editor has thus summed up the catholicity of its appeal to all
+generations:
+
+"This book belongs to the rare class which is equally delightful to
+children and to their elders. In this regard it may be compared to
+'Gulliver's Travels,' 'Don Quixote' and 'Pilgrim's Progress.' For wit
+and shrewd satire and for pure drollery both in situations and
+descriptions, it is unsurpassed. The animals are not men dressed up in
+the skin of beasts, but are throughout true to their characters, and
+are not only strongly realized but consistently drawn, albeit in so
+simple and captivating a way that the subtle art of the narrator is
+quite hidden, and one is aware only of reading an absorbingly
+interesting and witty tale." To have a place beside Gulliver, the old
+Spanish Knight and Christian, shows the estimation in which the book
+is held by those who are best acquainted with it.
+
+The work is probably best known through the version of it which has
+come to us from the greatest of German poets, Goethe, whose Reineke
+Fuchs has perhaps had more sympathetic readers and a wider audience
+than any other of Goethe's {213} works. The very fact that so deeply
+intellectual a literary man should have considered it worth his while
+to devote his time to making a modern version of it, shows not only
+the estimation in which he held it, but also affords excellent
+testimony to its worth as literature, for Goethe, unlike most poets,
+was a fine literary critic, and one who above all knew the reasons for
+the esthetic faith that was in him. Animal stories in every age,
+however, have been imitations of it much more than is usually
+imagined. While the author probably obtained the hint for his work
+from some of the old-time fables as they came to him by tradition,
+though we have no reason to think that AEsop was familiar to him and
+many for thinking the Greek fabulist was not, he added so much to this
+simple literary mode, transformed it so thoroughly from child's
+literature to world literature, that the main merit of modern animal
+stories must be attributed to him. Uncle Remus and the many
+compilations of this kind that have been popular in our own
+generation, owe much more to the animal Epic than might be thought
+possible by one not familiar with the original Thirteenth Century
+work.
+
+Every language has a translation of the Animal Epic and most of the
+generations since have been interested and amused by the quaint
+conceits, which enable the author to picture so undisguisedly, men and
+women under animal garb. It discloses better than any other specimen
+of the literature of the time that men and women do not change even in
+the course of centuries, and that in the heart of the Middle Ages a
+wise observer could see the foibles of humanity just as they exist at
+the present time. Any one who thinks that evolution after seven
+centuries should have changed men somewhat in their ethical aspects,
+at least, made their aspirations higher and their tendencies less
+commonplace, not to say less degenerative, should read one of the old
+versions of Reynard the Fox and be convinced that men and women in the
+Thirteenth Century were quite the same as we are familiar with them at
+the present moment.
+
+The second of the most read books of the century is the famous Legenda
+Aurea or, as it has been called in English, the Golden Legend, written
+by Jacobus de Voragine, the distinguished Dominican preacher and
+writer (born during the first half of the Thirteenth Century, died
+just at its close), who, {214} after rising to the higher grades in
+his own order, became the Archbishop of Genoa. His work at once sprang
+into popular favor and continued to be perhaps the most widely read
+book, with the exception of the Holy Scriptures, during the Fourteenth
+and Fifteenth centuries. It was one of the earliest books printed in
+Italy, the first edition appearing about 1570, and it is evident that
+it was considered that its widespread popularity would not only
+reimburse the publisher, but would help the nascent art of printing by
+bringing it to the attention of a great many people. Its subject is
+very different from that of the modern most read books; librarians do
+not often have to supply lives of Saints nowadays, though some
+similarities of material with that of books now much in demand help to
+account for its vogue.
+
+Jacobus de Voragine's work consisted of the lives of the greater
+Saints of the Church since the time of Christ, and detailed especially
+the wonderful things that happened in their lives, some of which of
+course were mythical and all of them containing marvelous stories.
+This gave prominence to many legends that have continued to maintain
+their hold upon the popular imagination ever since. With all this
+adventitious interest, however, the book contained a solid fund of
+information with regard to the lives of the Saints, and besides it
+taught the precious lessons of unselfishness and the care for others
+of the men who had come to be greeted by the title of Saint. The work
+must have done not a little to stir up the faith, enliven the charity,
+and build up the characters of the people of the time, and certainly
+has fewer objections than most popular reading at any period of the
+world's history. For young folks the wonderful legends afforded
+excellent and absolutely innocuous exercise of the functions of the
+imagination quite as well as our own modern wonder books or fairy
+tales, while the stories themselves presented many descriptive
+portions out of which subjects for decorative purposes could readily
+be obtained. It must be set down as another typical distinction of the
+Thirteenth Century and an addition to its greatness, that it should
+have made the Golden Legend popular and thus preserved it for future
+generations, who became {215} deeply interested in it, as in most of
+the other precious heritages they received from this great original
+century.
+
+{opp214}
+[Illustration]
+MADONNA AND CHILD (GIOV. PISANO, PADUA)
+
+[Illustration]
+ST. CHRISTOPHER (ALTO RELIEVO, VENICE)
+
+
+The third of the most read books of the century, The Romance of the
+Rose, is not so well known except by scholars as is the Animal Epic or
+perhaps even the Golden Legend. Anyone who wants to understand the
+burden of the time, however, and who wishes to put himself in the mood
+and the tense to comprehend not only the other literature of the era,
+and in this must be included even Dante, but also the social,
+educational, and even scientific movements of the period, must become
+familiar with it. It has been well said that a knowledge and study of
+the three most read books of the century, those which we have named,
+will afford a far clearer insight into the daily life and the spirit
+working within the people for whom they were written, than the annals
+of the wars or political struggles that were waged during the same
+period between kings and nobles. For this clearer insight a knowledge
+of the Romance of the Rose is more important than of the others. It
+provides a better introduction to the customs and habits, the manners
+of thought and of action, the literary and educational interests of
+the people of the Thirteenth Century, than any mere history, however
+detailed, could. In this respect it resembles Homer who, as Froude
+declares, has given us a better idea of Greek life than a whole
+encyclopedia of classified information would have done. The intimate
+life stories of no other periods in history are so well illustrated,
+nor so readily to be comprehended, as those of Homer and the authors
+of the medieval Romaunt.
+
+The Romance of the Rose continued to be for more than two centuries
+the most read book in Europe. Every one with any pretense to
+scholarship or to literary taste in any European country considered it
+necessary to be familiar with it, and without exaggeration what Lowell
+once declared with regard to Don Quixote, that it would be considered
+a mark of lack of culture to miss a reference to it in any country in
+Europe, might well have been repeated during the Fourteenth and
+Fifteenth centuries of the Romance of the Rose. It has in recent years
+been put into very suitable English dress by Mr. F. S. Ellis and
+published among the Temple Classics, thus placing it {216} within easy
+reach of English readers. Mr. Ellis must certainly be considered a
+suitable judge of the interest there is in the work. He spent several
+years in translating its two and twenty thousand six hundred and eight
+lines and yet considers that few books deserve as much attention as
+this typical Thirteenth Century allegory. He says:
+
+  "The charge of dulness once made against this highly imaginative and
+  brilliant book, successive English writers, until quite recent times
+  have been content to accept the verdict, though Professor Morley and
+  others have of late ably repelled the charge. If further testimony
+  were necessary as to the falsity of the accusation, and the opinion
+  of one who has found a grateful pastime in translating it might be
+  considered of any weight, he would not hesitate to traverse the
+  attribution of dulness, and to assert that it is a poem of extreme
+  interest, written as to the first part with delicate fancy, sweet
+  appreciation of natural beauty, clear insight, and skilful
+  invention, while J. de Meun's continuation is distinguished by
+  vigor, brilliant invention, and close observation of human nature.
+  The Thirteenth Century lives before us."
+
+The Rose is written on a lofty plane of literary value, and the fact
+that it was so popular, speaks well for the taste of the times and for
+the enthusiasm of the people for the more serious forms of literature.
+Not that the Romance of the Rose is a very serious book itself, but if
+we compare it with the popular publications which barely touch the
+realities of life in the modern time, it will seem eminently serious.
+In spite of the years that have elapsed since its original publication
+it has not lost all its interest, even for a casual reader, and
+especially for one whose principal study is mankind in its varying
+environment down the ages, for it presents a very interesting picture
+of men and their ways in this wonderful century. Here, as in the
+stories of Reynard the Fox, one is brought face to face with the fact
+that men and women have not changed and that the peccadillos of our
+own generation have their history in the Middle Ages also. Take, for
+instance, the question of the too great love of money which is now the
+subject of so much writing and sermonizing. One might think that at
+least this was {217} modern. Here, however, is what the author of the
+Romance of the Rose has to say about it:
+
+  Three cruel vengeances pursue
+  These miserable wretches who
+  Hoard up their worthless wealth: great toil
+  Is theirs to win it; then their spoil
+  They fear to lose; and lastly, grieve
+  Most bitterly that they must leave
+  Their hoards behind them. Cursed they die
+  Who living, lived but wretchedly;
+  For no man, if he lack of love.
+  Hath peace below or joy above.
+  If those who heap up wealth would show
+  Fair love to others, they would go
+  Through life beloved, and thus would reign
+  Sweet happy days. If they were fain,
+  Who hold so much of good to shower around
+  Their bounty unto those they found
+  In need thereof, and nobly lent
+  Their money, free from measurement
+  Of usury (yet gave it not
+  To idle gangrel men), I wot
+  That then throughout the land were seen
+  No pauper carl or starveling quean.
+  But lust of wealth doth so abase
+  Man's heart, that even love's sweet grace
+  Bows down before it; men but love
+  Their neighbors that their love may prove
+  A profit, and both bought and sold
+  Are friendships at the price of gold.
+  Nay, shameless women set to hire
+  Their bodies, heedless of hell-fire;
+
+It is after reading a passage like this in a book written in the
+Thirteenth Century that one feels the full truth of that expression of
+the greatest of American critics, James Russell Lowell, which so often
+comes back to mind with regard to the works of this century, that to
+read a classic is like reading a commentary on the morning paper. When
+this principle is {218} applied the other way, I suppose it may be
+said, that when a book written in the long ago sounds as if it were
+the utterance of some one aroused by the evils round him in our modern
+life, then it springs from so close to the heart of nature that it is
+destined to live and have an influence far beyond its own time. The
+Romance of the Rose, written seven centuries ago, now promises to have
+renewed youth in the awakening of interest in our Gothic ancestors and
+their accomplishments, before the over-praised renaissance came to
+trouble the stream of thought and writing.
+
+Other passages serve to show how completely the old-time poet realized
+all the abuses of the desire for wealth, and how much it makes men
+waste their lives over unessentials, instead of trying to make
+existence worth while for themselves and others. Here is an
+arraignment of the strenuous life of business every line of which is
+as true for us as it was for the poet's generation:
+
+  'Tis truth (though some 'twill little please)
+  To hear the trader knows no ease;
+  For ever in his soul a prey
+  To anxious care of how he may
+  Amass more wealth: this mad desire
+  Doth all his thought and actions fire.
+  Devising means whereby to stuff
+  His barns and coffers, for 'enough'
+  He ne'er can have, but hungreth yet
+  His neighbors' goods and gold to get.
+  It is as though for thirst he fain
+  Would quaff the volume of the Seine
+  At one full draught, and yet should fail
+  To find its waters of avail
+  To quench his longing. What distress,
+  What anguish, wrath, and bitterness
+  Devour the wretch! fell rage and spite
+  Possess his spirit day and night.
+  And tear his heart; the fear of want
+  Pursues him like a spectre gaunt.
+  The more he hath, a wider mouth
+  He opes, no draught can quench his drouth.
+
+{219}
+
+The old poet pictures the happiness of the poor man by contrast, and
+can in conclusion depict even more pitilessly the real poverty of
+spirit of the man who "having, struggleth still to get" and never
+stops to enjoy life itself by helping his fellows:
+
+  Light-heart and gay
+  Goes many a beggar by the way,
+  But little heeding though his back
+  Be bent beneath a charcoal sack.
+  They labor patiently and sing.
+  And dance, and laugh at whatso thing
+  Befalls, for havings care they nought.
+  But feed on scraps and chitlings bought
+  Beside St. Marcel's, and dispend
+  Their gains for wassail, then, straight wend
+  Once more to work, not grumblingly.
+  But light of heart as bird on tree
+  Winning their bread without desire
+  To fleece their neighbors. Nought they tire
+  Of this their round, but week by week
+  In mirth and work contentment seek;
+  Returning when their work is done
+  Once more to swill the jovial tun.
+  And he who what he holds esteems
+  Enough, is rich beyond the dreams
+  Of many a dreary usurer,
+  And lives his life-days happier far;
+  For nought it signifies what gains
+  The wretched usurer makes, the pains
+  Of poverty afflict him yet
+  Who having, struggleth still to get.
+
+The pictures are as true to life at the beginning of the Twentieth
+Century as they were in the latter half of the Thirteenth. There are
+little touches of realism in both the pictures, which show at once how
+acute an observer, how full of humor his appreciation, and yet how
+sympathetic a writer the author of the Romance was, and at the same
+time reveal something of the sociological value of his work. It
+discloses what is so easily concealed under the mask of formal
+historical writing and {220} tells us of the people rather than of the
+few great ones among them, or those whom time and chance had made
+leaders of men. It seems long to read but as a recent translator has
+said, it represents only the file of a newspaper for eighteen months,
+and while it talks of quite as trivial things as the modern newspaper,
+the information is of a kind that is likely to do more good, and prove
+of more satisfaction, than the passing crimes and scandals that now
+occupy over-anxious readers.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+CENTRAL TOWER (LINCOLN)
+
+{221}
+
+
+XIV
+
+SOME THIRTEENTH CENTURY PROSE.
+
+
+It would be unpardonable to allow the notion to be entertained that it
+was only in poetry that the writers of the Thirteenth Century
+succeeded in creating works of enduring influence. Some of the prose
+writings of the time are deeply interesting for many reasons. Modern
+prose was in its formative period, and the evolution of style, as of
+other things in the making, is proverbially worthy of more serious
+study than even the developed result. The prose writings of the
+Thirteenth Century were mainly done in Latin, but that was not for
+lack of command over the vernacular tongues, as we shall see, but
+because this was practically a universal language. This century had
+among other advantages that subsequent ages have striven for
+unsuccessfully, our own most of all, a common medium of expression for
+all scholars at least. There are, however, the beginnings of Prose in
+all the modern languages and it is easy to understand that the Latin
+of the time had a great influence on the vernacular and that the modes
+of expression which had become familiar in the learned tongue, were
+naturally transferred to the vulgar speech, as it was called, whenever
+accuracy of thought and nicety of expression invited such
+transmutation.
+
+With regard to the Latin of the period it is the custom of many
+presumably well-educated men to sniff a little and say deprecatingly,
+that after all much cannot be expected from the writers of the time,
+since they were dependent on medieval or scholastic Latin for the
+expression of their ideas. This criticism is supposed to do away with
+any idea of the possibility of there having been a praiseworthy prose
+style, at this time in the Middle Ages. In the chapter on the Latin
+Hymns, we call attention to the fact that this same mode of criticism
+was supposed to preclude all possibility of rhymed Latin, as worthy to
+occupy a prominent place in literature. The widespread {222}
+encouragement of this false impression has, as a matter of fact, led
+to a neglect of these wonderful poems, though they may in the opinion
+of competent critics, even be considered as representing the true
+genius of the Latin language and its powers of poetic expression
+better than the Greek poetic modes, which were adopted by the Romans,
+but which, with the possible exception of their two greatest poets,
+never seem to have acquired that spontaneity that would characterize a
+native outburst of lingual vitality.
+
+As for the philosophic writers of the century that great period holds
+in this, as in other departments, the position of the palmiest time of
+the Middle Ages. To it belongs Alexander Hales, the Doctor
+Irrefragabilis who disputes with Aquinas the prize for the best
+example of the Summa Theologiae; Bonaventure the Mystic, and writer of
+beautiful hymns; Roger Bacon, the natural philosopher; Vincent of
+Beauvais, the encyclopedist. While of the four, greatest of all,
+Albertus Magnus, the "Dumb Ox of Cologne," was born seven years before
+its opening, his life lasted over four-fifths of it; that of Aquinas
+covered its second and third quarters; Occam himself, though his main
+exertions lie beyond this century, was probably born before Aquinas
+died; while John Duns Scotus hardly outlived the century's close by a
+decade. Raymond Lully, one of the most characteristic figures of
+Scholasticism and of the medieval period (with his "great art" of
+automatic philosophy), who died in 1315, was born as early as 1235.
+Peter the Spaniard, Pope and author of the Summulae Logicales, the
+grammar of formal logic for ages as well of several medieval treatises
+that have attracted renewed attention in our day, died in 1277.
+
+With regard to what was accomplished in philosophic and theologic
+prose, examples will be found in the chapter on St. Thomas Aquinas,
+which prove beyond all doubt the utter simplicity, the directness, and
+the power of the prose of the Thirteenth Century. In the medical works
+of the time there was less directness, but always a simplicity that
+made them commendable. In general, university writers were influenced
+by the scholastic methods and we find it reflected constantly in their
+works. In the minds of many people this would be {223} enough at once
+to condemn it. It will usually be found, however, as we have noted
+before, that those who are readiest to condemn scholastic writing know
+nothing about it, or so little that their opinion is not worth
+considering. Usually they have whatever knowledge they think they
+possess, at second hand. Sometimes all that they have read of
+scholastic philosophy are some particularly obscure passages on
+abstruse subjects, selected by some prejudiced historian, in order to
+show how impossible was the philosophic writing of these centuries of
+the later Middle Ages.
+
+There are other opinions, however, that are of quite different
+significance and value. We shall quote but one of them, written by
+Professor Saintsbury of the University of Edinburgh, who in his volume
+on the Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (the Twelfth
+and Thirteenth centuries) of his Periods of European Literature, has
+shown how sympathetically the prose writing of the Thirteenth Century
+may appeal even to a scholarly modern, whose main interests have been
+all his life in literature. Far from thinking that prose was spoiled
+by scholasticism. Prof. Saintsbury considers that scholasticism was
+the fortunate training school in which all the possibilities of modern
+prose were brought out and naturally introduced into the budding
+languages of the time. He says:
+
+  "However this may be" (whether the science of the Nineteenth Century
+  after an equal interval will be of any more positive value, whether
+  it will not have even less comparative interest than that which
+  appertains to the scholasticism of the Thirteenth Century) "the
+  claim modest, and even meager as it may seem to some, which has been
+  here once more put forward for this scholasticism--the claim of a
+  far-reaching educative influence in mere language, in mere system of
+  arrangement and expression, will remain valid. If at the outset of
+  the career of modern languages, men had thought with the looseness
+  of modern thought, had indulged in the haphazard slovenliness of
+  modern logic, had popularized theology and vulgarized rhetoric, as
+  we have seen both popularized and vulgarized since, we should indeed
+  have been in evil case. It used to be thought clever to moralize and
+  to felicitate mankind over the rejection of the stays, the fetters,
+  the prison in which its {224} thought was medievally kept. The
+  justice or the injustice, the taste or the vulgarity of these
+  moralizings, of these felicitations, may not concern us here. But in
+  expression, as distinguished from thought, the value of the
+  discipline to which these youthful languages was subjected is not
+  likely now to be denied by any scholar who has paid attention to the
+  subject. It would have been perhaps a pity if thought had not gone
+  through other phases; it would certainly have been a pity if the
+  tongues had been subjected to the fullest influence of Latin
+  constraint. But that the more lawless of them benefited by that
+  constraint there can be no doubt whatever. The influence of form
+  which the best Latin hymns of the Middle Ages exercised in poetry,
+  the influence in vocabulary and in logical arrangement which
+  scholasticism exercised in prose are beyond dispute: and even those
+  who will not pardon literature, whatever its historic and educative
+  importance be, for being something less than masterly in itself,
+  will find it difficult to maintain the exclusion of the Cur Deus
+  Homo, and impossible to refuse admission to the Dies Irae."
+
+Besides this philosophic and scientific prose, there were two forms of
+writing of which this century presents a copious number of examples.
+These are the chronicles and biographies of the time and the stories
+of travelers and explorers. These latter we have treated in a separate
+chapter. The chronicles of the time deserve to be studied with patient
+attention by anyone who wishes to know the prose writers of the
+century and the character of the men of that time and their outlook on
+life. It is usually considered that chroniclers are rather tiresome
+old fogies who talk much and say very little, who accept all sorts of
+legends on insufficient authority and who like to fill up their pages
+with wonderful things regardless of their truth. In this regard it
+must not be forgotten that in times almost within the memory of men
+still alive, Herodotus now looked upon deservedly as the Father of
+History and one of the great historical writers of all time, was
+considered to have a place among these chroniclers, and his works were
+ranked scarcely higher, except for the purity of their Greek style.
+
+The first of the great chroniclers in a modern tongue was the famous
+Geoffrey de Villehardouin, who was not only a writer {225} of, but an
+actor in the scenes which he describes. He was enrolled among the
+elite of French Chivalry, in that Crusade at the beginning of the
+Thirteenth Century, which resulted in the foundation of the
+Greco-Latin Empire. His book entitled "The Conquest of
+Constantinople," includes the story of the expedition during the years
+from 1198 to 1207. Modern war correspondents have seldom succeeded in
+giving a more vivid picture of the events of which they were witnesses
+than this first French chronicler of the Thirteenth Century. It is
+evident that the work was composed with the idea that it should be
+recited, as had been the old poetic Chansons de Geste, in the castles
+of the nobles and before assemblages of the people, perhaps on fair
+days and other times when they were gathered together. The consequence
+is that it is written in a lively straightforward style with direct
+appeals to its auditors.
+
+It contains not a few passages of highly poetic description which show
+that the chronicler was himself a literary man of no mean order and
+probably well versed in the effusions of the old poets of this
+country. His description of the fleet of the Crusaders as it was about
+to set sail for the East and then his description of its arrival
+before the imposing walls of the Imperial City, are the best examples
+of this, and have not been surpassed even by modern writers on similar
+topics.
+
+Though the French writer was beyond all doubt not familiar with the
+Grecian writers and knew nothing of Xenophon, there is a constant
+reminder of the Greek historian in his work. Xenophon's simple
+directness, his thorough-going sincerity, the impression he produces
+of absolute good faith and confidence in the completeness of the
+picture, so that one feels that one has been present almost at many of
+the scenes described, are all to be encountered in his medieval
+successor. Villehardouin went far ahead of his predecessors, the
+chroniclers of foregoing centuries, in his careful devotion to truth.
+A French writer has declared that to Villehardouin must be ascribed
+the foundation of historical probity. None of his facts, stated as
+such, has ever been impugned, and though his long speeches must
+necessarily have been his own composition, there seems no doubt that
+they contain the ideas which had been expressed on various occasions,
+and besides were composed with due reference to {226} the character of
+the speaker and convey something of his special style of expression.
+
+Prof. Saintsbury in his article in the Encyclopedia Britannica on
+Villehardouin, sums up very strikingly the place that this first great
+vernacular historian's book must occupy.
+
+He says: "It is not impertinent, and at the same time an excuse for
+what has been already said, to repeat that Villehardouin's book, brief
+as it is, is in reality one of the capital books of literature, not
+merely for its merit, but because it is the most authentic and the
+most striking embodiment in the contemporary literature of the
+sentiments which determined the action of a great and important period
+of history. There are but very few books which hold this position, and
+Villehardouin's is one of them. If every other contemporary record of
+the crusades perished, we should still be able by aid of this to
+understand and realize what the mental attitude of crusaders, of
+Teutonic Knights, and the rest was, and without this we should lack
+the earliest, the most undoubtedly genuine, and the most
+characteristic of all such records. The very inconsistency with which
+Villehardouin is chargeable, the absence of compunction with which he
+relates the changing of a sacred religious pilgrimage into something
+by no means unlike a mere filibustering raid on a great scale, add a
+charm to the book. For, religious as it is, it is entirely free from
+the very slightest touch of hypocrisy or, indeed, of
+self-consciousness of any kind. The famous description of the
+Crusades, _gesta Dei per Francos_, was evidently to Villehardouin a
+plain matter-of-fact description and it no more occurred to him to
+doubt the divine favor being extended to the expeditions against
+Alexius or Theodore than to doubt that it was shown to expeditions
+against Saracens and Turks."
+
+{opp226}
+
+[Illustration]
+PONTE ALLE GRAZIE (FLORENCE, LAPO)
+
+[Illustration]
+PORTA ROMANA GATE, (FLORENCE, N. PISANO)
+
+
+It was especially in the exploitation of biographical material that
+the Thirteenth Century chroniclers were at their best. Any one who
+recalls Carlyle's unstinted admiration of Jocelyn of Brakelonds' life
+of Abbot Sampson in his essays Past and Present, will be sure that at
+least one writer in England had succeeded in pleasing so difficult a
+critic in this rather thorny mode of literary expression. It is easy
+to say too much or too little about the virtues and the vices of a man
+whose biography one has chosen to write. Jocelyn's simple,
+straightforward story {227} would seem to fulfill the best canons of
+modern criticism in this respect. Probably no more vivid picture of a
+man and his ways was ever given until Boswell's Johnson. Nor was the
+English chronicler alone in this respect. The Sieur de Joinville's
+biographical studies of the life of Louis IX. furnish another example
+of this literary mode at its best, and modern writers of biography
+could not do better than go back to read these intimate pictures of
+the life of a great king, which are not flattered nor overdrawn but
+give us the man as he actually was.
+
+The English biographic chronicler of the olden time could picture
+exciting scenes without any waste of words. A specimen of his work
+will serve to show the merit of his style. After reading it one is not
+likely to be surprised that Carlyle should have so taken the
+Chronicler to heart nor been so enthusiastic in his praise. It is the
+very type of that impressionism in style that has once more in the
+course of time become the fad of our own day.
+
+  "The abbot was informed that the church of Woolpit was vacant,
+  Walter of Coutances being chosen to the bishopric of Lincoln. He
+  presently convened the prior and great part of the convent, and
+  taking up his story thus began: 'You well know what trouble I had in
+  respect of the church of Woolpit; and in order that it should be
+  obtained for your exclusive use I journeyed to Rome at your
+  instance, in the time of the schism between Pope Alexander and
+  Octavian. I passed through Italy at that time when all clerks
+  bearing letters of our lord the Pope Alexander were taken. Some were
+  imprisoned, some hanged, and some, with nose and lips cut off, sent
+  forward to the pope, to his shame and confusion. I, however,
+  pretended to be Scotch; and putting on the garb of a Scotchman, and
+  the gesture of one, I often brandished my staff, in the way they use
+  that weapon called, a gaveloc, at those who mocked me, using
+  threatening language, after the manner of the Scotch. To those that
+  met and questioned me as to who I was, I answered nothing, but,
+  "Ride ride Rome, turne Cantwereberei." This did I to conceal myself
+  and my errand, and that I should get to Rome safer in the guise of a
+  Scotchman.
+
+  "'Having obtained letters from the pope, even as I wished, on my
+  return I passed by a certain castle, as my way led me {228} from the
+  city; and behold the officers thereof came about me, laying hold
+  upon me, and saying, "This vagabond who makes himself out to be a
+  Scotchman is either a spy or bears letters from the false pope
+  Alexander." And while they examined my ragged clothes, and my boots,
+  and my breeches, and even the old shoes which I carried over my
+  shoulders, after the fashion of the Scotch, I thrust my hand into
+  the little wallet which I carried, wherein was contained the letter
+  of our lord the pope, placed under a little cup I had for drinking.
+  The Lord God and St. Edmund so permitting, I drew out both the
+  letter and the cup together, so that, extending my arm aloft, I held
+  the letter underneath the cup. They could see the cup plain enough,
+  but they did not see the letter; and so I got clear out of their
+  hands, in the name of the Lord. Whatever money I had about me they
+  took away; therefore I had to beg from door to door, without any
+  payment, until I arrived in England.'"
+
+Another excellent example of the biographic prose of the century,
+though this is the vernacular, is Joinville's life of St. Louis,
+without doubt one of the precious biographical treasures of all times.
+It contains a vivid portrait of Louis IX., made by a man who knew him
+well personally, took part with him in some of the important actions
+of the book, and in general was an active personage in the affairs of
+the time. Those who think that rapid picturesque description such as
+vividly recalls deeds of battle was reserved for the modern war
+correspondent, should read certain portions of Joinville's book. As an
+example we have ventured to quote the page on which the seneschal
+historian himself recounts the role which he played in the famous
+battle of Mansourah, at which, with the Count de Soissons and Pierre
+de Neuville, he defended a small bridge against the enemy under a hail
+of arrows.
+
+He says: "Before us there were two sergeants of the king, one of whom
+was named William de Boon and the other John of Gamaches. Against
+these the Turks who had placed themselves between the river and the
+little tributary, led a whole mob of villains on foot, who hurled at
+them clods of turf or whatever came to hand. Never could they make
+them recoil upon us, however. As a last resort the Turks sent forward
+a foot soldier {229} who three times launched Greek fire at them. Once
+William de Boon received the pot of green fire upon his buckler. If
+the fire had touched anything on him he would have been entirely
+burned up. We at the rear were all covered by arrows which had missed
+the Sergeants. It happened that I found a waistcoat which had been
+stuffed by one of the Saracens. I turned the open side of it towards
+me and made a shield out of the vest which rendered me great service,
+for I was wounded by their arrows in only five places though my horse
+was wounded in fifteen. One of my own men brought me a banner with my
+arms and a lance. Every time then that we saw that they were pressing
+the Royal Sergeants we charged upon them and they fled. The good Count
+Soissons, from the point at which we were, joked with me and said
+'Senechal, let us hoot out this rabble, for by the headdress of God
+(this was his favorite oath) we shall talk over this day you and I
+many a time in our ladies' halls.'"
+
+We have said that the writing of the Thirteenth Century must have been
+done to a great extent for the sake of the women of the time, and that
+its very existence was a proof that the women possessed a degree of
+culture, that might not be realized from the few details that have
+been preserved to us of their education and habits of life. In this
+last passage of Joinville we have the proof of this, since evidently
+the telling of the stories of these days of battle was done mainly in
+order that the women folks might have their share in the excitement of
+the campaign, and might be enabled vividly to appreciate what the
+dangers had been and how gloriously their lords had triumphed. At
+every period of the world's history it was true that literature was
+mainly made for women and that some of the best portions of it always
+concerned them very closely.
+
+We have purposely left till last, the greatest of the chroniclers of
+the Thirteenth Century, Matthew Paris, the Author of the Historia
+Major, who owes his surname doubtless to the fact that he was educated
+at the University of Paris. Instead of trying to tell anything about
+him from our own slight personal knowledge, we prefer to quote the
+passage from Green's History of the English People, in which one of
+the greatest of our modern English historians pays such a magnificent
+tribute to his colleague of the earlier times:
+
+{230}
+
+  "The story of this period of misrule has been preserved for us by an
+  annalist whose pages glow with the new outburst of patriotic feeling
+  which this common expression of the people and the clergy had
+  produced. Matthew Paris is the greatest, as he is in reality the
+  last of our monastic historians. The school of St. Albans survived
+  indeed till a far later time, but the writers dwindle into mere
+  annalists whose view is bounded by the Abbey precincts, and whose
+  work is as colorless as it is jejune. In Matthew the breadth and
+  precision of the narrative, the copiousness of his information on
+  topics whether national or European, the general fairness and
+  justice of his comments, are only surpassed by the patriotic fire
+  and enthusiasm of the whole. He had succeeded Roger of Wendover as
+  Chronicler of St. Albans; and the Greater Chronicle, with the
+  abridgement of it which has long passed under the name of Matthew of
+  Westminster, a "History of the English," and the "Lives of the
+  Earlier Abbots," were only a few among the voluminous works which
+  attest his prodigious industry. He was an eminent artist as well as
+  a historian, and many of the manuscripts which are preserved are
+  illustrated by his own hand. A large circle of
+  correspondents--bishops like Grosseteste, ministers like Hubert de
+  Burgh, officials like Alexander de Swinford--furnished him with
+  minute accounts of political and ecclesiastical proceedings.
+  Pilgrims from the East and Papal agents brought news of foreign
+  events to his scriptorium at St. Albans. He had access to and quotes
+  largely from state documents, charters, and exchequer rolls. The
+  frequency of the royal visits to the abbey brought him a store of
+  political intelligence and Henry himself contributed to the great
+  chronicle which has preserved with so terrible a faithfulness the
+  memory of his weakness and misgovernment. On one solemn feast-day
+  the King recognized Matthew, and bidding him sit on the middle step
+  between the floor and the throne, begged him to write the story of
+  the day's proceedings. While on a visit to St. Albans he invited him
+  to his table and chamber, and enumerated by name two hundred and
+  fifty of the English barons for his information. But all this royal
+  patronage has left little mark on his work. "_The case,_" as he
+  says, "_of historical writers is hard, for if they tell the truth
+  they provoke men, and if they write what is false they offend God._"
+  {231} With all the fullness of the school of court historians, such
+  as Benedict or Hoveden, Matthew Paris combines an independence and
+  patriotism which is strange to their pages. He denounces with the
+  same unsparing energy the oppression of the Papacy and the King. His
+  point of view is neither that of a courtier nor of a Churchman, but
+  of an Englishman, and the new national tone of his chronicle is but
+  an echo of the national sentiment which at last bound nobles and
+  yeomen and Churchmen together into an English people."
+
+We of the Twentieth Century are a people of information and
+encyclopedias rather than of literature, so that we shall surely
+appreciate one important specimen of the prose writing of the
+Thirteenth Century since it comprises the first modern encyclopedia.
+Its author was the famous Vincent of Beauvais. Vincent consulted all
+the authors, sacred and profane, that he could possibly lay hands on,
+and the number of them was indeed prodigious. It has often been said
+by men supposed to be authorities in history, that the historians of
+the Middle Ages had at their disposition only a small number of books,
+and that above all they were not familiar with the older historians.
+While this was true as regards the Greek, it was not for the Latin
+historical writers. Vincent of Beauvais has quotations from Caesar's
+De Bello Gallico, from Sallust's Catiline and Jugurtha, from Quintus
+Curtius, from Suetonius and from Valerius Maximus and finally from
+Justin's Abridgement of Trogus Pompeius.
+
+Vincent had the advantage of having at his disposition the numerous
+libraries of the monasteries throughout France, the extent of which,
+usually unrealized in modern times, will be appreciated from our
+special chapter on the subject. Besides he consulted the documents in
+the chapter houses of the Cathedrals especially those of Paris, of
+Rouen, of Laon, of Beauvais and of Bayeux, which were particularly
+rich in collections of documents. It might be thought that these
+libraries and archives would be closely guarded. Far from being closed
+to writers from the outer world they were accessible to all to such an
+extent, indeed, that a number of them are mentioned by Vincent as
+public institutions.
+
+{232}
+
+His method of collecting his information is interesting, because it
+shows the system employed by him is practically that which has
+obtained down to our own day. He made use for his immense
+investigation of a whole army of young assistants, most of whom were
+furnished him by his own order, the Dominicans. He makes special
+mention in a number of places of quotations due to their
+collaboration. The costliness of maintaining such a system would have
+made the completion of the work absolutely impossible were it not for
+the liberality of King Louis IX., who generously offered to defray the
+expenses of the composition. Vincent has acknowledged this by
+declaring in his prefatorial letter to the King that, "you have always
+liberally given assistance even to the work of gathering the
+materials."
+
+
+{opp232}
+
+[Illustration]
+ST. CATHERINE'S (LÜBECK)
+
+[Illustration]
+CHURCH AND CLOISTERS, SAN ANTONIO (PADUA)
+
+
+Vincent's method of writing is quite as interesting as his method of
+compilation of facts. The great Dominican was not satisfied with being
+merely a source of information. The philosophy of history has received
+its greatest Christian contribution from St. Augustine's City of God.
+In this an attempt was made to trace the meaning and causal sequence
+of events as well as their mere external connection and place in time.
+In a lesser medieval way Vincent tried deliberately to imitate this
+and besides writing history attempted to trace the philosophy of it.
+For him, as for the great French philosophic historian Bossuet in his
+Universal History five centuries later, everything runs its provided
+race from the creation to the redemption and then on toward the
+consummation of the world. He describes at first the commencements of
+the Church from the time of Abel, through its progress under the
+Patriarchs, the Prophets, Judges, Kings, and leaders of the people,
+down to the Birth of Christ. He traces the history of the Apostles and
+of the first Disciples, though he makes it a point to find place for
+the famous deeds of the great men of Pagan antiquity. He notes the
+commencement of Empires and Kingdoms, their glory, their decadence,
+their ruin, and the Sovereigns who made them illustrious in peace and
+war. There was much that was defective in the details of history as
+they were traced by Vincent, much that was lacking in completeness,
+but the intention was evidently the best, and patience and labor were
+devoted to the {233} sources of history at his command. Perhaps never
+more than at the present moment have we been in a position to realize
+that history at its best can be so full of defects even after further
+centuries of consultation of documents and printed materials, that we
+are not likely to be in the mood to blame this first modern historian
+very much. As for the other portions of his encyclopedia, biographic,
+literary and scientific, they were not only freely consulted by his
+contemporaries and successors, but we find traces of their influence
+in the writings and also in the decorative work of the next two
+centuries. We have already spoken of the use of his book in the
+provision of subjects for the ornamentation of Cathedrals and the same
+thing might be said of edifices of other kinds.
+
+Nor must it be thought that Vincent has only a historic or
+ecclesiastical interest. Dr. Julius Pagel, in his Chapter on Medicine
+in the Middle Ages in Puschmann's Hand-Book of the History of
+Medicine,  [Footnote 22] says, "that there were three writers whose
+works were even more popular than those of Albertus Magnus. These
+three were Bartholomew, the Englishman; Thomas, of Cantimprato, and
+Vincent, of Beauvais, the last of whom must be considered as one of
+the most important contributors to the generalization of scientific
+knowledge, not alone in the Thirteenth but in the immediately
+succeeding centuries. His most important work was really an
+encyclopedia of the knowledge of his time. It was called the Greater
+Triple Mirror and there is no doubt that it reflected the knowledge of
+his period. He had the true scientific spirit and constantly cites the
+authorities from whom his information was derived. He cites hundreds
+of authors and there is scarcely a subject that he does not touch on.
+One book of his work is concerned with human anatomy, and the
+concluding portion of it is an abbreviation of history carried down to
+the year 1250."
+
+  [Footnote 22: Puschmann. Hand-Buch der Geschichte der Medizin, Jena,
+  Fischer, 1902.]
+
+It might be considered that such a compend of information would be
+very dry-as-dust reading and that it would be fragmentary in character
+and little likely to be attractive except to a serious student. Dr.
+Pagel's opinion does not agree with this _a priori_ impression. He
+says with regard to it: {234} "The language is clear, readily
+intelligible, and the information is conveyed usually in an excellent,
+simple style. Through the introduction of interesting similes the
+contents do not lack a certain taking quality, so that the reading of
+the work easily becomes absorbing." This is, I suppose, almost the
+last thing that might be expected of a scientific teacher in the
+Thirteenth Century, because, after all, Vincent of Beauvais must be
+considered as one of the schoolmen, and they are supposed to be
+eminently arid, but evidently, if we are to trust this testimony of a
+modern German physician, only by those who have not taken the trouble
+to read them.
+
+One of the most important works of Thirteenth Century prose is the
+well-known Rationale Divinorum Officiorum (Significance of the Divine
+Offices) written by William Durandus, the Bishop of Mende, in France,
+whose tomb and its inscription in the handsome old Gothic Cathedral of
+Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, in Rome, shares with the body of St.
+Catherine of Sienna the honor of attracting so many visitors. The book
+has been translated into English under the title. The Symbolism of
+Churches and Church Ornaments, and has been very widely read. It was
+very popular in the Thirteenth Century, and the best possible idea of
+its subsequent reputation can be gathered from the fact, that the
+Rationale was the first work from the pen of an uninspired writer to
+be accorded the privilege of being printed. The Editio Princeps, a
+real first edition of supreme value, appeared from the press of John
+Fust in 1459. The only other books that had been printed at that time
+were the Psalters of 1457 and 1459. This edition is, of course, of the
+most extreme rarity. According to the English translators of Durandus
+the beauty of the typography has seldom been exceeded.
+
+The style of Durandus has been praised very much by the critics of
+succeeding centuries for its straightforwardness, simplicity and
+brevity. Most of these qualities it evidently owes to the hours spent
+by its author in the reading of Holy Scriptures. Durandus fashioned
+his style so much on the sacred writings that most of his book
+possesses something of the impressive character of the Bible itself.
+The impression derived from it is that of reading a book on a
+religious subject written {235} in an eminently suitable tone and
+spirit. Most of this impression must be attributed without doubt to
+the fact, that Durandus has not only formed his style on the
+Scriptures, but has actually incorporated Scriptural expressions in
+his writings to such an extent as to make them mostly a scriptural
+composition. This, far from being a fault, appears quite appropriate
+in his book because of its subject and the method of treatment. A
+quotation from the proeme (as it is in the quaint spelling of the
+English translation) will give the best idea of this.
+
+  "All things, as pertain to offices and matters ecclesiastical, be
+  full of divine significations and mysterious, and overflow with
+  celestial sweetness; if so be that a man be diligent in his study of
+  them, and know how to draw HONEY FROM THE ROCK, AND OIL FROM THE
+  HARDEST STONE. But who KNOWETH THE ORDINANCES OF HEAVEN, OR CAN FIX
+  THE REASONS THEREOF UPON THE EARTH? for he that prieth into their
+  majesty, is overwhelmed by the glory of them. Of a truth THE WELL IS
+  DEEP, AND I HAVE NOTHING TO DRAW WITH: unless he giveth it unto me
+  WHO GIVETH TO ALL MEN LIBERALLY, AND UPBRAIDETH NOT: so that WHILE I
+  JOURNEY THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS I may DRAW WATER WITH JOY OUT OF THE
+  WELLS OF SALVATION. Wherefore albeit of the things handed down from
+  our forefathers, capable we are not to explain all, yet if among
+  them there be any thing which is done without reason it should be
+  forthwith put away. Wherefore, I, WILLIAM, by the alone tender mercy
+  of God, Bishop of the Holy Church which is in Mende, will knock
+  diligently at the door, if so be that THE KEY OF DAVID will open
+  unto me: that the King may BRING ME INTO HIS TREASURE? and shew unto
+  me the heavenly pattern which was shewed unto Moses in the mount: so
+  that I may learn those things which pertain to Rites Ecclesiastical
+  whereof they teach and what they signify: and that I may be able
+  plainly to reveal and make manifest the reasons of them, by HIS
+  help, WHO HATH ORDAINED STRENGTH OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES AND
+  SUCKLINGS: WHOSE SPIRITS BLOWETH WHERE IT {236} LISTETH: DIVIDING TO
+  EACH SEVERALLY AS IT WILL to the praise and glory of the Trinity."
+
+This passage alone of Durandus would serve as an excellent refutation
+of the old-time Protestant tradition, fortunately now dying out though
+not as yet entirely eradicated, which stated so emphatically that the
+Bible was not allowed to be read before Luther's time.
+
+Those who wish to obtain a good idea of Durandus' style and the way he
+presents his material, can obtain it very well from his chapter on
+Bells, the first two paragraphs of which we venture to quote. They
+will be found quite as full of interesting information in their way as
+any modern writer might have brought together, and have the dignity
+and simplicity of the best modern prose.
+
+  "Bells are brazen vessels, and were first invented in Nola, a city
+  of Campania. Wherefore the larger bells are called Campanae, from
+  Campania the district, and the smaller Nolae, from Nola the town.
+
+  "You must know that bells, by the sound of which the people
+  assembleth together to the church to hear, and the Clergy to preach,
+  IN THE MORNING THE MERCY OF GOD AND HIS POWER BY NIGHT do signify
+  the silver trumpets, by which under the Old Law the people was
+  called together unto sacrifice. (Of these trumpets we shall speak in
+  our Sixth Book.) For just as the watchmen in a camp rouse one
+  another by trumpets, so do the Ministers of the Church excite each
+  other by the sound of bells to watch the livelong night against the
+  plots of the Devil. Wherefore our brazen bells are more sonorous
+  than the trumpets of the Old Law, because then GOD was known in
+  Judea only, but now in the whole earth. They be also more durable:
+  For they signify that the teaching of the New Testament will be more
+  lasting than the trumpets and sacrifices of the Old Law, namely,
+  even unto the end of the world.
+
+  "Again bells do signify preachers, who ought after the likeness of a
+  bell to exhort the faithful unto faith: the which was typified in
+  that the LORD commanded Moses to make a vestment for the High Priest
+  who entered into the Holy of Holies. Also the cavity of the bell
+  denoteth the mouth of the preacher, {237} according to the saying of
+  the Apostle, I AM BECOME AS SOUNDING BRASS ON A TINKLING CYMBAL."
+
+Of course there are what we would be apt to consider exaggerations of
+symbolic meanings and far-fetched explanations and references, but
+this was of the taste of the time and has not in subsequent centuries
+been so beyond the canons of good taste as at present. Durandus goes
+on to tell that the hardness of the metal of the bell signifies
+fortitude in the mind of the preacher, that the wood of the frame on
+which the bell hangeth doth signify the wood of our Lord's Cross, that
+the rope by which the bell is strung is humility and also showeth the
+measure of life, that the ring in the length of the rope is the crown
+of reward for perseverance unto the end, and then proceeds to show why
+and how often the bells are rung and what the significance of each
+ringing is. He explains why the bells are silent for three days before
+Easter and also during times of interdict, and gives as the
+justification for this last the quotation from the Prophet "I WILL
+MAKE THY TONGUE CLEAVE TO THE ROOF OF THY MOUTH FOR THEY ARE A
+REBELLIOUS HOUSE."
+
+Even these few specimens of the prose of the Thirteenth Century, will
+serve to show that the writers of the period could express themselves
+with a vigor and directness which have made their books interesting
+reading for generations long after their time, and which stamp their
+authors as worthy of a period that found enduring and adequate modes
+of expression for every form of thought and feeling.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+STONE CARVING (PARIS)
+
+
+{238}
+
+XV
+
+ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA.
+
+
+The last place in the world, perhaps, that one would look for a great
+impulse to the development of the modern drama, which is entirely a
+new invention, an outgrowth of Christian culture and has practically
+no connection with the classic drama, would be in the life of St.
+Francis of Assisi. His utter simplicity, his thorough-going and
+cordial poverty, his sincere endeavor all during his life to make
+little of himself, might seem quite enough to forbid any thought of
+him as the father of a literary movement of this kind. "The poor
+little man of God," however, as he liked to call himself, in his
+supreme effort to get back to nature and out of the ways of the
+conventional world, succeeded in accomplishing a number of utterly
+unexpected results. His love for nature led to his wonderful
+expression of his feelings in his favorite hymn, one of the first
+great lyrical outbursts in modern poetry, a religious poem which as we
+shall see in the chapter on the Father of the Renaissance, Renan
+declares can only be appreciated properly by comparing it with the old
+Hebrew psalms, beside which it is worthy to be placed.
+
+Those who know the life of St. Francis best will easily appreciate how
+dramatic, though unconsciously so, were all the actions of his life.
+After all, his utter renunciation of all things, his taking of holy
+poverty to be his bride, his address to the birds, his sisters, his
+famous question of the butcher as to why he killed his brothers, the
+sheep, his personification of the sun and the moon and even of the
+death of the body as his brothers and sisters, are all eminently
+dramatic moments. His life is full of incidents that lent themselves,
+because of their dramatic quality, to the painters of succeeding
+centuries as the subjects of their striking pictures. Before the end
+of the century Giotto had picked out some of the most interesting of
+these for the decorative illustration of the upper church at {239}
+Assisi. During the succeeding century, the author of the Little
+Flowers of St. Francis, embodied many of these beautiful scenes in his
+little work, where they have been the favorite reading of poets for
+many centuries since.
+
+It should not be such a surprise as it might otherwise be, then, to
+find that St. Francis may be considered in one sense as the father of
+the modern drama. The story is a very pretty one and has an additional
+value because it has been illustrated by no less a brush than that of
+Giotto. One Christmas Eve just at the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century, St. Francis gathered round him some of the poor people living
+outside of the town of Assisi, in order to recall vividly to them the
+great event which had taken place on that night so many centuries
+before. A little figure of a child, dressed in swaddling clothes, was
+laid on some straw in a manger with the breath of the nearby animals
+to warm it. To this manger throne of the Child King of Bethlehem,
+there came in adoration, after the hymns that recalled the angels'
+visit, first some of the shepherds from the surrounding country and
+then some of the country people who represented the kings from the
+East with their retinues, bringing with them their royal gifts. After
+this little scene, probably one of the first Nativity plays that had
+ever been given, St. Francis, according to the old legend, took the
+little image in his arms and in an excess of devotion pressed it to
+his heart. According to the old-time story, the infant came to life in
+his embrace and putting its little arms around his neck embraced him
+in return. Of course our modern generation is entirely too devoted to
+"common sense" to accept any such pretty, pious story as this as more
+than a beautiful poetic legend. The legend has provided a subject for
+poet and painter many a time in subsequent centuries. Perhaps never
+has it been used with better effect than by Giotto, whose
+representation is one of the favorite pictures on the wall of the
+upper church of Assisi. Whether the little baby figure of the play
+actually came to life in his arms or not we do not know, but one thing
+is certain, that infant modern dramatic literature did come to life at
+the moment and that before the end of the Thirteenth Century it was to
+have a vigor and an influence that made it {240} one of the great
+factors in the social life of the period. The Franciscans were soon
+spread over the world. With filial reverence they took with them all
+the customs of their loved Father of Assisi, and especially such as
+appealed to the masses and brought home to them in a vivid way the
+great truths of religion. By the middle of the century many of the
+towns had cycles of mystery plays given at various times during the
+year, associated with the different feasts and illustrating and
+enforcing the lessons of the liturgy for the people in a manner so
+effective that it has probably never been equaled before or since.
+
+While the most potent factor in the dissemination of the early
+religious drama can be traced to Francis and the Franciscans, they
+were but promoters of a movement already well begun. Mystery plays
+were attempted before the Thirteenth Century in England and in North
+France. There is a well-known story from Matthew Paris, who wrote
+about the middle of the Thirteenth Century, of one Geoffrey who
+afterwards became Abbot of St. Albans. While yet a secular he borrowed
+certain precious religious vestments to be used in some sort of a
+miracle play in honor of St. Catherine. During the performance of the
+play, these vestments were destroyed by fire and Geogory was so much
+afflicted by the misfortune that in a spirit of reparation he became a
+religious in the Abbey of St. Albans. This must have been about the
+beginning of the Twelfth Century. Towards the end of this century
+mystery plays were not infrequent, though not in anything like the
+developed form nor popular character which they acquired during the
+Thirteenth Century. Fitz Stephen, writing the life of St. Thomas a
+Becket, towards the end of the Twelfth Century, contrasts the holier
+plays of London in his days with the theatrical spectacles of ancient
+Rome. The plays he mentioned were, however, scarcely more than slight
+developments of Church ceremonial with almost literal employment of
+scripture and liturgical language.
+
+{opp240}
+[Illustration]
+ST. FRANCIS' NATIVITY PLAY (GIOTTO)
+
+
+The first cycle of mystery plays of which there is definite mention is
+that of Chester. According to the proclamation of the Chester plays,
+the representation of this cycle dates in some form from the mayoralty
+of John Arneway, who was the {241} Mayor of Chester, between 1268 and
+1276. Of the series of plays as given in the Thirteenth Century there
+are few remains. It is probable, even, that at this early date they
+were not acted in English but in French. English plays were probably
+first given in some of the Cathedral towns along the east coast of
+England, and perhaps York should have the credit of this innovation.
+It is easy to understand how the simpler dramatic additions to the
+ritual of the Church would inevitably develop in the earnest and very
+full religious life of the people which came with the building of the
+cathedrals, the evolution of Church ceremonial and the social life
+fostered by the trade-guilds of the time. While we have none of the
+remains of the actual plays of the Thirteenth Century, there is no
+doubt that an excellent idea of their form and content can be gathered
+from the English mystery plays, that have recently been edited in
+modern form and which serve to show the characteristics of the various
+cycles.
+
+It might perhaps be thought that these mystery plays would not furnish
+any great amount of entertainment for the populace, especially after
+they had seen them a certain number of times. The yearly repetition
+might naturally be expected to bring with it before long a satiety
+that would lead to inattention. As is well known, however, there is an
+enduring interest about these old religious stories that makes them of
+much greater attractiveness than most ordinary historical traditions.
+Many a faithful reader of the Bible finds constantly renewed interest
+in the old Biblical stories in spite of frequent repetition. Their
+significance to the eye of faith in the Middle Ages gave them, beyond
+any doubt, that quality which in any literary work will exemplify and
+fulfill Horace's dictum, _decies repetita placebit_. Besides, it must
+not be forgotten that the men and women of the Thirteenth Century had
+not the superficial facilities of the printing press to cloy their
+intellectual curiosity, and by trivial titillation make them
+constantly crave novelty.
+
+It must not be thought, in spite of the fact that these were religious
+plays, that they were always so serious as to be merely instructive
+without being amusing. A large fund of amusement was injected into the
+old biblical stories by the {242} writers of the different cycles and
+undoubtedly the actors themselves added certain personal elements in
+this matter, which still further enhanced some of the comical aspects
+of the solemn stories. Nearly always the incidents of the Scriptural
+narrative though followed more or less literally, were treated with a
+large humanity that could scarcely fail to introduce elements of humor
+into the dramatic performances. Such liberties, however, were taken
+only with characters not mentioned by the Bible--the inventions of the
+writers. A series of quotations from the Chester Cycle of Plays will
+best illustrate this. We give them in the quaint spelling of the
+oldest version extant. The scene we quote is from the play dealing
+with Noah's flood and pictures Noah's wife as a veritable shrew.
+
+NOYE--
+  Wyffe, in this vessel we shall be kepte:
+  My children and thou, I woulde in ye lepte.
+
+Noye's Wiffe--
+  In fayth, Noye, I hade as leffe thou slepte!
+    For all thy frynishe fare,
+  I will not doe after thy reade.
+
+Noye--
+  Good wyffe, doe nowe as I thee bydde.
+
+Noye's Wiffe--
+  Be Christe! not or I see more neede,
+    Though thou stande all the daye and stare.
+
+Noye--
+  Lorde, that wemen be crabbed aye,
+  And non are meke, I dare well saye.
+  This is well seene by me to daye,
+    In witnesse of you ichone (each one).
+  Goodwiffe, lett be all this beare,
+  That thou maiste in this place heare;
+  For all the wene that thou arte maister,
+    And so thou arte, by Sante John!
+
+All Noah's artful concession of his wife's mastery in the household
+does not avail to move her and so he tries objurgation.
+
+Noye--
+  Wiffe, come in: why standes thou their?
+  Thou arte ever frowarde, I dare well sweare;
+  Come in, one Godes halfe! tyme yt were,
+    For feare leste that we drowne.
+
+{243}
+
+Noye's Wiffe--
+  Yes, sir, sette up youer saile,
+  And rowe fourth with evill haile,
+  For withouten (anye) fayle
+    I will not oute of this towne;
+  But I have my gossippes everyechone,
+  One foote further I will not gone:
+  The shall not drowne, by Sainte John!
+    And I may save ther life.
+  The loven me full well, by Christe!
+  But thou lett them into thy cheiste, (ark)
+  Elles rowe nowe wher thee leiste,
+    And gette thee a newe wiffe.
+
+It is evident that he will not succeed so Noah, wise doubtless with
+the wisdom of experience, forbears to urge but appeals to her sons to
+bring her.
+
+NOYE--
+  Seme, sonne, loe! thy mother is wrawe:
+  Forsooth, such another I doe not knowe.
+
+Sem--
+  Father, I shall fetch her in, I trowe,
+    Withoutten anye fayle.--
+  Mother, my father after thee sends.
+  And byddes thee into yeinder shippe wende.
+  Loke up and see the wynde.
+    For we bene readye to sayle.
+
+Noye's Wiffe--
+  Seme, goe againe to hym, I saie;
+  I will not come theirin to daye.
+
+Noye--
+  Come in, wiffe, in twentye devilles waye!
+    Or elles stand there without.
+
+Ham--
+  Shall we all feche her in?
+
+Noye--
+  Yea, sonnes, in Christe blessinge and myne!
+  I woulde you hied you be-tyme.
+    For of this flude I am in doubte.
+
+Jeffatte--
+  Mother, we praye you all together.
+  For we are heare, youer owne childer.
+  Come into the shippe for feare of the weither,
+    For his love that you boughte!
+
+{244}
+
+Noye's Wiffe--
+  That will not I, for all youer call,
+  But I have my gossippes all.
+
+Sem--
+  In faith, mother, yett you shalle,
+  Wheither thou wylte or (nought).
+
+_(Her sons bring her in; as she steps aboard she is greeted by Noah.)_
+
+Noye--
+  Welckome, wiffe, into this botte.
+
+Noye's Wiffe--
+  Have thou that for thy note!
+  (_Giving her husband a cuff on the head_).
+
+Noye--
+  Ha, ha! Marye, this is hotte!
+    It is good for to be still.
+  Ha! children, me thinkes my botte remeves,
+  Our tarryinge heare highlye me greves,
+  Over the lande the watter spreades;
+    God doe as he will.
+
+This quotation will give a good idea of the human interest of these
+Mystery Plays and serve to show that they did not fail in dramatic
+power for any lack of humor or acute observation. It would be easy to
+illustrate this much more amply. The opportunities to enjoy these
+plays were abundant. We have said that the Chester Cycle is the one of
+which there is earliest mention. The method of its presentation has
+been described by Mr. Henry Morley in the fourth volume of his English
+Writers. He says:
+
+  "There were scaffolds erected for spectators in those places to
+  which the successive pageants would be drawn; and a citizen who on
+  the first day saw in any place the first pageant (that of the Fall
+  of Lucifer), if he kept his place and returned to it in good time on
+  each successive morning, would see the Scripture story, as thus
+  told, pass in its right order before him. Each pageant was drawn on
+  four or six wheels, and had a room in which the actors and
+  properties were concealed, under the upper room or stage on which
+  they played."
+
+Mr. Morley then describes the action of the various parts of the
+cycle, showing how clearly the lessons of the Old Testament history
+and its symbolic and typical meaning were pointed out so that the
+spectators could not miss them.
+
+{245}
+
+How completely the story of the Bible was told may be judged from the
+order of the Pageants of the Play of Corpus Christi, in the time of
+the mayoralty of William Alne, in the third year of the reign of King
+Henry V., compiled by Roger Burton, town clerk.
+
+1. Tanners.
+
+  God the Father Almighty creating and forming the heavens, angels and
+  archangels, Lucifer and the angels that fell with him to hell.
+
+2. Plasterers.
+
+  God the Father, in his own substance, creating the earth and all
+  which is therein, in the space of five days.
+
+3. Cardmakers.
+
+  God the Father creating Adam of the clay of the earth and making Eve
+  of Adam's rib, and inspiring them with the breath of life.
+
+4. Fullers.
+
+  God forbidding Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of life.
+
+5. Coopers.
+
+  Adam and Eve and a tree betwixt them; the serpent deceiving them
+  with apples; God speaking to them and cursing the serpent, and with
+  a sword driving them out of paradise.
+
+6. Armourers.
+
+  Adam and Eve, an angel with a spade and distaff assigning them work.
+
+7. Gaunters (Glovers).
+
+  Abel and Cain offering victims in sacrifice.
+
+8. Shipwrights.
+
+  God warning Noah to make an Ark of floatable wood,
+
+9. Pessoners (Fishmongers) and Mariners.
+
+  Noah in the Ark, with his wife; the three sons of Noah with their
+  wives; with divers animals.
+
+10. Parchment-makers, Bookbinders.
+
+  Abraham sacrificing his son, Isaac, on an altar, a boy with wood and
+  an angel.
+
+11. Hosiers.
+
+  Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness; King Pharaoh; eight
+  Jews wondering and expecting.
+
+12. Spicers.
+
+  A Doctor declaring the sayings of the prophets of the future birth
+  of Christ. Mary; an angel saluting her; Mary saluting Elizabeth.
+
+13. Pewterers, Founders.
+
+  Mary, Joseph wishing to put her away; an angel speaking to them that
+  they go to Bethlehem.
+
+{246}
+
+14. Tylers.
+
+  Mary, Joseph, a midwife; the Child born, lying in a manger betwixt
+  an ox and an ass, and an angel speaking to the shepherds, and to the
+  players in the next pageant.
+
+15. Chandlers.
+
+  The shepherds talking together, the star in the East; an angel
+  giving the shepherds the good tidings of the Child's birth.
+
+16, 17. Orfevers (Goldsmiths), Goldbeaters, Moneymakers.
+
+  The three kings coming from the East, Herod asking them about the
+  child Jesus; the son of Herod, two counsellors, and a messenger.
+  Mary with the Child, a star above, and the three kings offering
+  gifts.
+
+How completely the people of each town were engaged in the
+presentation of the plays, can be judged from the following
+supplementary list of the other trade guilds that took parts. Many of
+them bear quaint names, which are now obsolete. They included the
+girdellers, makers of girdles; nailers, sawyers, lorymers (bridle
+makers), the spurriers (makers of spurs), the fevers or smiths, the
+curriers, the plumbers, the pattern-makers, the bottlers, the
+cap-makers, the skinners, the bladesmiths, the scalers, the
+buckle-makers, the cordwainers, the bowyers (makers of bows), the
+fletchers (arrow-featherers), the tilemakers, the hayresters (workers
+in horse hair), the boilers (bowl-makers), the tunners, the sellers or
+saddlers; the fuystours (makers of saddle tree), the verrours
+(glaziers), the broggours (brokers), the dubbers (refurbishers of
+clothes), the luminers or illuminators, the scriveners, the drapers,
+the potters, the weavers, the hostlers and mercers. The men of no
+occupation, however menial it may seem to us, were barred. Each of
+these companies had a special pageant with a portion of the Old or New
+Testament to represent and in each succeeding year spent much of their
+spare time in preparing for their dramatic performance, studying and
+practising their parts and making everything ready for competition
+with their brother craftsmen in the other pageants. Only those who
+know the supreme educative value of dramatic representations for those
+actively interested in them, will appreciate all that these plays
+meant for popular education in the best sense of the word, but all can
+readily understand how much they stood for in popular occupation of
+mind with high thoughts and how {247} much they must have acted as a
+preventive of debasing dissipations.
+
+It is extremely interesting to follow out some of the details of the
+management of these Mystery Plays. We shall find in even the meagre
+accounts that we have of them, sufficient to show us that men were not
+expected to work for nothing, nor even to be satisfied with what
+compensation there might be in the honor of being chosen for certain
+parts, nor in the special banquets that were provided for the actors
+after the performances. A definite salary was paid to each of the
+actors according to the importance of the part he took. Not only this,
+but the loans of garments for costume purposes, or of furniture or
+other material for stage properties, was repaid by definite sums of
+money. These are not large, but, considering the buying power of money
+at that time and the wages paid workmen, which enabled them to live at
+least as well, comparatively, as modern workmen, the compensation is
+ample. Mr. Morley, in the fourth volume of his "English Writers," has
+given us some of these details and as they have a special social
+interest and the old documents rejoice in a comic literalness of
+statement, they deserve citation.
+
+When about to set up a play, each guild chose for itself a competent
+manager, to whom it gave the rule of the pageant, and voted a fixed
+sum for its expenses. The play-book and the standing wardrobe and
+other properties were handed over to him, and he was accountable, of
+course, for their return after the close of the performances. The
+manager had to appoint his actors, to give them their several parts
+written out for them (perhaps by the prompter, who was a regular
+official), and to see to the rehearsals, of which there would be two
+for an old play and at least five for a new one.
+
+At rehearsal time, as well as during the great performance the actors
+ate and drank at the cost of the guild, ending all with a supper, at
+which they had roast beef and roast goose, with wine for the chiefs,
+and beer for the rest. The actors were paid, of course, according to
+the length of their parts and quantity of business in them, not their
+dignity. Thus in a play setting forth the Trial and Crucifixion of our
+Lord, the actors of Herod and Caiaphas received each 3s. 4d.; {248}
+the representative of Annas, 2s. 2d.; and of Christ 2s.; which was
+also the sum paid to each actor in the parts of His executioners, and
+6d. more than was paid for acting the Devil or Judas. In the united
+plays of the "Descent into Hell" and the "Ascension," the payment was
+to the actor who represented Christ, 1s. 6d.; and 1s. 4d. to him who
+played the Devil. In one play we find this gradation of the scale of
+payment to performers:--"Paid, for playing of Peter, xvid.; to two
+damsels, xiid.; to the demon, vid.; to Fawston for hanging Judas,
+ivd.; paid to Fawston for cock-crowing, ivd."
+
+
+{opp248}
+
+[Illustration]
+PALAZZO BUONDELMONTE (FLORENCE)
+
+[Illustration]
+PALAZZO TOLOMEI (SIENA)
+
+
+Of the costume of the actors, and of the stage furniture a tolerably
+clear notion is also to be drawn from the Coventry account-books, of
+which Mr. Sharp printed all that bears upon such questions. They
+record, of course, chiefly repairs and renewals of stage properties
+and wardrobe. "In one year Pilate has a new green cloak, in another a
+new hat. Pilate's wife was Dame Procula, and we have such entries as,
+'For mending of Dame Procula's garments, viid.' 'To reward to Mrs.
+Grimsby for lending of her gear for Pilate's wife, xiid.' 'For a quart
+of wine for hiring Porcula's gown, iid.' No actor had naked hands.
+Those not in masks had their faces prepared by a painter. The costume
+of each part was traditional, varied little in the course of years,
+and much of it was originally designed after the pictures and painted
+sculpture in the churches. As in those medieval decorations, gilding
+was used freely; the performer of Christ wore a gilt peruke and beard,
+so did Peter, and probably all the Apostles or saints who would be
+represented on church walls with a gilt nimbus." Christ's coat was of
+white sheep-skin, painted and gilded, with a girdle and red sandals.
+The part of the High Priests Caiaphas and Annas were often played in
+ecclesiastical robes hired from a church, a practice (one sad result
+of which because of fire has already been noted) that was eventually
+condemned as likely to lead to disrespect for sacred objects. Herod,
+who wore a mask, was set up as a sceptred royal warrior in a gilt and
+silvered helmet, in armour and gown of blue satin, with such Saracen
+details of dress as the Crusaders connected with the worship of
+Mahomet, including the crooked faulchion, which was gilt. The
+tormentors of Christ wore jackets of black {249} buckram with nails
+and dice upon them. The Virgin Mary was crowned, as in her images. The
+angels wore white surplices and wings. The devil also had wings, and
+was played in an appropriate mask and leather dress trimmed with
+feathers and hair. He was, as the Prologue to the Chester Plays
+describes him, "the devil in his feathers all ragged and rent," or, as
+the Coventry account-books show, carried three pounds of hair upon his
+hose.
+
+There was probably no greater impulse for social uplift and for real
+education of the masses than these mystery and morality plays, in
+which the people took part themselves and in which, as a consequence
+of the presence of friends in the various roles, the spectators had a
+livelier interest than would have been otherwise the case under even
+the most favorable circumstances, or with elaborate presentation. In
+recent years there has come the realization that the drama may thus be
+made a real educational influence. Unfortunately at the present time,
+whatever of influence it has is exerted almost exclusively upon the
+better-to-do classes, who have so many other opportunities for
+educational uplift. These plays during the Thirteenth Century brought
+the people intimately into contact with the great characters of Old
+Testament and New Testament history, and besides giving them precious
+religious information, which of itself, however, might mean very
+little for true education, helped them to an insight into character
+and to a right appreciation of human actions and a sympathy with what
+was right even though it entailed suffering, such as could not have
+otherwise been obtained.
+
+Of course it is easy to say that such dramas constantly repeated, the
+subjects always the same and only the cast varying from year to year,
+would become intolerably familiar and might after a time degenerate
+into the merely contemptible. As a matter of fact, however, they did
+not. These old stories of religious heroes were written so close to
+the heart of nature, involved so intimately all the problems of life
+that they are of undying interest. Their repetition was only from year
+to year and this did not give the opportunity for the familiarity
+which breeds contempt. Besides, though the plays in the various cycles
+existed in definite forms there seems no doubt that {250} certain
+changes were made by the players themselves and by the managers of the
+plays from time to time, and indeed such changes of the text of a play
+as we know from present-day experience, are almost inevitable.
+
+It might be urged, too, that the people themselves would scarcely be
+possessed of the histrionic talent necessary to make the plays
+effective. Ordinarily, however, as we know from our modern city life,
+much less of the actor's art is needed than of interest in the action,
+to secure the attention of the gallery. It must not be assumed too
+readily, however, that the guilds which were able to supply men for
+the great artistic decoration of the cathedrals of the Thirteenth
+Century, could not supply actors who would so enter into the artistic
+expression of a part as to represent it to the life. The actor is more
+born than made, in spite of the number of schools of acting that are
+supposed to be turning out successful rivals of Roscius, on recurring
+graduation days. It must not be forgotten that the only example of
+these mystery plays which is still left to us is the Passion Play at
+Oberammergau, and that is one of the world's greatest spectacles. On
+the last occasion when it was given about half a million of people
+from all over the world, many of them even from distant America and
+Australia, found their way into the Tyrolese Mountains in order to be
+present at it. It is only the old, old, old story of the Passion and
+death of the Lord. It is represented by villagers chosen from among
+the inhabitants of a little village of fourteen hundred inhabitants,
+who while they have a distinct taste for the artistic and produce some
+of the best wood-carving done anywhere in Europe, thus approximating
+very interestingly the Thirteenth Century peoples, are not
+particularly noted for their education, nor for their dramatic
+ability. No one who went up to see the Passion Play came away
+dissatisfied either with the interest of the play or with its manner
+of representation. It is distinctly an example of how well men and
+women do things when they are thoroughly interested in them, and when
+they are under the influence of an old-time tradition according to
+which they must have the ability to accomplish what is expected of
+them. Such a tradition actually existed during the Thirteenth and
+Fourteenth centuries, leading to a gradual development of {251}
+dramatic power both in writers and actors, that eventually was to
+result in the magnificent outburst of dramatic genius during the
+Elizabethan period. For it must not be forgotten, that mystery and
+morality plays continued to hold the stage down almost, if not quite,
+to the time of Shakespeare's early manhood, and he probably saw the
+Coventry Cycle of plays acted.
+
+While we have a certain number of these old-time plays, most of them,
+of course, have disappeared by time's attrition during the centuries
+before the invention of printing, when they were handed round only in
+manuscript form. Of some of these plays we shall have something to say
+after a moment, stopping only to call attention to the fact that in
+this literary mode of the mystery and morality plays, dramatic
+literature in English reached a height of development which has been
+equaled only by our greatest dramatic geniuses.
+
+Within the last few years most of the large cities of the
+English-speaking world, besides the more important universities, have
+been given the opportunity to hear one of the great products of this
+form of literary activity. "Everyman" is probably as great a play as
+there is in English and comparable with the best work of Shakespeare,
+Marlowe and Jonson. Its author only took the four last things to be
+remembered--Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell--the things which must
+come to every man, and wrote his story around them, yet he did it with
+such artistic effectiveness as to make his drama a triumph of literary
+execution.
+
+The Mystery Plays were as interesting in their way to the medieval
+generations as "Everyman" to us. As may be seen from the list quoted
+from Mr. Morley, practically all the significant parts of the Bible
+story were acted by these craftsmen. Too much can scarcely be said of
+the educational value of such dramatic exercises; the Bible itself
+with its deep religious teachings, with its simple but sublime style,
+with its beautiful poetry, entered for a time into the very lives of
+these people. No wonder that our English speech during these centuries
+became saturated with biblical thoughts and words. Anyone who has ever
+had any experience with amateur theatricals when a really great play
+was given, will be able to realize how much more thoroughly every
+quality, dramatic, literary, poetic, even lyric {252} and historical,
+that there might be in the drama, entered into the hearts and minds of
+those who took part. It is this feature that is especially deserving
+of attention with regard to these mystery plays which began in the
+Thirteenth Century. The people's interest in them, lifted them out of
+themselves and their trivial round of life into the higher life of
+this great religious poetry. On the other hand the teachings of the
+Bible came down from the distant plane on which they might otherwise
+have been set and entered into the very life of the people. Their
+familiarity with scripture made it a something not to be discussed
+merely, but to be applied in their everyday affairs.
+
+Besides this, the organization of the company to give the play and the
+necessity for the display and exercise of taste in the costumes and of
+ingenuity in the stage settings, were of themselves of great educative
+value. The rivalry that naturally existed between the various
+companies chosen from the different guilds only added to the zest with
+which rehearsals were taken up, and made the play more fully occupy
+the minds of those actively engaged in its preparation. For several
+dull winter months before Easter time there was an intense
+preoccupation of mind with great thoughts and beautiful words, instead
+of with the paltry round of daily duties, which would otherwise form
+the burden of conversation. Gossip and scandal mongering had fewer
+opportunities since people's minds were taken up by so much worthier
+affairs. The towns in which the plays were given never had more than a
+few thousand inhabitants and most of them must have been personally
+interested in some way in the play. The Jesuits, whose acumen for
+managing students is proverbial, have always considered it of great
+importance to have their students prepare plays several times a year.
+Their reason is the occupation of mind which it affords as well as the
+intellectual and elocutionary training that comes with the work. What
+they do with premeditation, the old guilds did unconsciously but even
+more effectively, and their success must be considered as one of the
+social triumphs of this wonderful Thirteenth Century.
+
+Only in recent years has the idea succeeded in making way in
+government circles on the continent, that the giving of free dramatic
+entertainments for the poor would form an excellent {253} addition to
+other educational procedures. Such performances have new been given
+for nearly a score of years in Berlin. After all, the subvention
+allowed by government to the great theaters and opera houses in Europe
+is part of this same policy, though unfortunately they are calculated
+to affect only the upper classes, who need the help and the stimulus
+of great dramatic art and great music less than the lower classes, who
+have so little of variety or of anything that makes for uplift in
+their lives. In the Thirteenth Century this very modern notion was
+anticipated in such a way as to benefit the very poorest of the
+population, and that not only passively, that is by the hearing of
+dramatic performances, but also actively, by taking parts in them and
+so having all the details of the action and the words impressed upon
+them.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+CAPITAL (LINCOLN)
+
+
+{254}
+
+XVI
+
+FRANCIS THE SAINT--THE FATHER OF THE RENAISSANCE.
+
+
+The Renaissance is often thought of as a movement which originated
+about the middle of the Fifteenth Century. Careful students sometimes
+trace its origin back somewhat further. In recent years it has come to
+be realized, however, that the great intellectual development which
+came during the century after the fall of Constantinople in Italy, and
+gradually spread to all the civilized countries of Europe, had been
+preparing for at least two centuries and a half. While the period from
+the middle of the Fifteenth to the end of the Sixteenth Centuries well
+deserves the name of Renaissance, because one of the most important
+fructifying principles of the movement was the rebirth of Greek ideas
+into the modern world after the dispersion of Greek scholars by the
+Turkish advance into the Byzantine Empire, the term must not be
+allowed to carry with it the mistaken notion which only too often has
+been plausibly accepted, that there was a new birth of poetic,
+literary and esthetic ideas at this time, just as if there had been
+nothing worth considering in these lines before. Any such notion as
+this would be the height of absurdity in the light of the history of
+the previous centuries in Italy. It was a cherished notion of the
+people of the Renaissance themselves that they were the first to do
+artistic and literary work, hence they invented the term Gothic,
+meaning thereby barbarous, for the art of the preceding time, but in
+this they were only exercising that amusing, self-complacency which
+each generation deems its right. Succeeding generations adopting their
+depreciative term have turned it into one of glory so that Gothic art
+is now in highest honor.
+
+Fortunately in recent years there has come, as we have said, a growing
+recognition of the fact that the real beginning of modern art lies
+much farther back in history, and that the real {255} father of the
+Italian Renaissance is a man whom very few people in the last three
+centuries have appreciated at his true worth. Undoubtedly the leader
+in that great return to nature, which constitutes the true basis of
+modern poetic and artistic ideas of all kinds, was St. Francis of
+Assisi. "The poor little man of God," as in his humility he loved to
+call himself, would surely be the last one to suspect that he should
+ever come to be thought of as the initiator of a great movement in
+literature and art. Such he was, however, in the highest sense of the
+term and because of the modern appreciation of him in this regard,
+publications concerning him have been more frequent during the last
+ten years than with regard to almost any other single individual. We
+have under our hand at the present moment what by no means claims to
+be a complete bibliography of St. Francis' life and work, yet we can
+count no less than thirty different works in various languages (not
+reckoning translations separate from the originals) which have issued
+from the press during the last ten years alone. This gives some idea
+of present day interest in St. Francis.
+
+It must not be thought, however, that it is only in our time that
+these significant tributes have been paid him. Much of his influence
+in literature and art, as well as in life, was recognized by the
+southern nations all during the centuries since his death. That it is
+only during the last century that other nations have come to
+appreciate him better, and especially have realized his literary
+significance, has been their loss and that of their literatures. At
+the beginning of the Nineteenth Century Görres, the German historian
+who was so sympathetic towards the Middle Ages, wrote of St. Francis
+as one of the Troubadours, and even did not hesitate to add that
+without St. Francis at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century there
+would have been no Dante at the end. Renan, the well-known French
+rationalist historian and literateur, did not hesitate to proclaim St.
+Francis one of the great religious poets of all time and his famous
+Canticle of the Sun as the greatest religious poem since the Hebrew
+Psalms were written. It was from Renan that Matthew Arnold received
+his introduction to St. Francis as a literary man, and his own studies
+led him to write the famous passages in the Essays in Criticism, which
+are usually so much a source of {256} surprise to those who think of
+Mr. Arnold as the rationalizing critic, rather than the sympathetic
+admirer of a medieval saint.
+
+  "In the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, when the clouds and
+  storms had come, when the gay sensuous pagan life was gone, when men
+  were not living by the senses and understanding, when they were
+  looking for the speedy coming of Antichrist, there appeared in
+  Italy, to the north of Rome, in the beautiful Umbrian country at the
+  foot of the Appennines, a figure of the most magical power and
+  charm, St. Francis. His century is, I think, the most interesting in
+  the history of Christianity after its primitive age; more
+  interesting than even the century of the Reformation; and one of the
+  chief figures, perhaps the very chief, to which this interest
+  attaches itself, is St. Francis. And why? Because of the profound
+  popular instinct which enabled him, more than any man since the
+  primitive age, to fit religion for popular use. He brought religion
+  to the people. He founded the most popular body of ministers of
+  religion that has ever existed in the Church. He transformed
+  monachism by uprooting the stationary monk, delivering him from the
+  bondage of property, and sending him, as a mendicant friar, to be a
+  stranger and sojourner, not in the wilderness, but in the most
+  crowded haunts of men, to console them and to do them good. This
+  popular instinct of his is at the bottom of his famous marriage with
+  poverty. Poverty and suffering are the condition of the people, the
+  multitude, the immense majority of mankind; and it was towards this
+  people that his soul yearned. "He listens," it was said of him, "to
+  those to whom God himself will not listen."
+
+Matthew Arnold has thus surprisingly summed up Francis' age and his
+work. With a sympathy that could scarcely be expected from the man for
+whom the Deity had become merely "a stream of tendency that makes for
+righteousness," he realized the influence that this supreme lover of a
+personal God had over his generation, and his brother poet soul flew
+to its affinity in spite of the apparently insurmountable obstacle of'
+extreme aloofness of spiritual temperament.
+
+{opp256}
+[Illustration: ]
+THE GLORIFICATION OF ST. FRANCIS (GIOTTO, LOWER CHURCH OF ASSISI)
+
+
+Matthew Arnold proceeds:
+
+  "So in return, as no other man, St. Francis was listened to. When an
+  Umbrian town or village heard of his approach, the {257} whole
+  population went out in joyful procession to meet him, with green
+  boughs, flags, music, and songs of gladness. The master, who began
+  with two disciples, could in his own lifetime (and he died at
+  forty-five) collect to keep Whitsuntide with him, in presence of an
+  immense multitude, five thousand of his Minorites. He found
+  fulfilment to his prophetic cry: "I hear in my ears the sound of the
+  tongues of all the nations who shall come unto us; Frenchmen,
+  Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen. The Lord will make of us a great
+  people, even unto the ends of the earth."
+
+When we reach the next paragraph the secret of this surprising
+paradoxical sympathy is out. It is the literary and esthetic side of
+St. Francis that has appealed to him, and like Renan he does not
+hesitate to give "the poor little man of God" a place among the great
+original geniuses of all time, associating his name with that of
+Dante.
+
+  "Prose could not satisfy this ardent soul, and he made poetry. Latin
+  was too learned for this simple, popular nature, and he composed in
+  his mother tongue, in Italian. The beginnings of the mundane poetry
+  of the Italians are in Sicily, at the court of kings; the beginnings
+  of their religious poetry are in Umbria, with St. Francis. His are
+  the humble upper waters of a mighty stream: at the beginning of the
+  Thirteenth Century, it is St. Francis, at the end, Dante. Now it
+  happens that St. Francis, too, like the Alexandrian songstress, has
+  his hymn for the sun, for Adonis; Canticle of the Sun, Canticle of
+  the Creatures, the poem goes by both names. Like the Alexandrian
+  hymn, it is designed for popular use, but not for use by King
+  Ptolemy's people; artless in language, irregular in rhythm, it
+  matches with the childlike genius that produced it, and the simple
+  natures that loved and repeated it."
+
+Probably the most satisfactory translation for those who may not be
+able to appreciate the original of this sublime hymn that has evoked
+so many tributes, is the following literal rendering into English in
+which a quite successful attempt to give the naif rhythm of the
+original Italian, which necessarily disappears in any formal rhymed
+translation, has been made by Father Paschal Robinson of the Order of
+St. Francis for his recent edition of the writings of St. Francis.
+[Footnote 23]
+
+   [Footnote 23: Philadelphia, The Dolphin Press, 1906.]
+
+
+{258}
+
+"Here begin the praises of the Creatures which the Blessed Francis
+made to the praise and honor of God while he was ill at St. Damian's:
+
+  Most high, omnipotent, good Lord,
+  Praise, glory and honor and benediction all, are Thine.
+  To Thee alone do they belong, most High,
+  And there is no man fit to mention Thee.
+  Praise be to Thee, my Lord, with all Thy creatures.
+  Especially to my worshipful brother sun,
+  The which lights up the day, and through him dost Thou brightness give;
+  And beautiful is he and radiant with splendor great;
+  Of Thee, Most High, signification gives.
+  Praised be my Lord, for sister moon and for the stars,
+  In heaven Thou hast formed them clear and precious and fair.
+  Praised be my Lord for brother wind
+  And for the air and clouds and fair and every kind of weather.
+  By the which Thou givest to Thy creatures nourishment.
+  Praised be my Lord for sister water,
+  The which is greatly helpful and humble and precious and pure.
+  Praised be my Lord for brother fire,
+  By the which Thou lightest up the dark.
+  And fair is he and gay and mighty and strong.
+  Praised be my Lord for our sister, mother earth.
+  The which sustains and keeps us
+  And brings forth diverse fruits with grass and flowers bright.
+  Praised be my Lord for those who for Thy love forgive
+  And weakness bear and tribulation.
+  Blessed those who shall in peace endure,
+  For by Thee, Most High, shall they be crowned.
+  Praised be my Lord for our sister, the bodily death.
+  From the which no living man can flee.
+
+{259}
+
+  Woe to them who die in mortal sin;
+  Blessed those who shall find themselves in Thy most holy will,
+  For the second death shall do them no ill.
+  Praise ye and bless ye my Lord, and give Him thanks,
+  And be subject unto Him with great humility."
+
+Except for his place in literature and art, the lives of few men would
+seem to be of so little interest to the modern time as that of St.
+Francis of Assisi, yet it is for the man himself that so many now turn
+to him. His spirit is entirely opposed to the sordid principles that
+have been accepted as the basis of success in modern life. His idea
+was that happiness consisted in being free from unsatisfied desires
+rather than seeking to secure the satisfaction of his wishes. Duty was
+self-denial, not self-seeking under any pretext. He stripped himself
+literally of everything and his mystic marriage to the Lady Poverty
+was, so far as he was concerned, as absolute a reality, as if the
+union had been actual instead of imaginary. The commonplace details of
+his early years seem all the more interesting from these later
+developments, and have been the subject of much sympathetic study in
+recent years.
+
+St. Francis' father was a cloth merchant and St. Francis had been
+brought up and educated as became the son of a man whose commercial
+journeys often took him to France. It was indeed while his father was
+absent on one of these business expeditions that Francis was born and
+on his father's return received from him the name of Francisco--the
+Frenchman--in joyful commemoration of his birth.
+
+As he grew up he did not differ from the ordinary young man of his
+time, but seems to have taken the world and its pleasures quite as he
+found them and after the fashion of those around him. At the age of
+twenty-five he fell seriously ill and then, for the first time, there
+came to him the realization of the true significance of life. As Dean
+Stanley said shortly before his death, "life seemed different when
+viewed from the horizontal position." Life lived for its own sake was
+not worth while. To Francis there came the realization that when God
+Himself became man he lived his life for others. Francis {260} set
+about literally imitating him. Enthusiastic students of his life
+consider him the great type of genuine Christian, the most real
+disciple of Christ who ever lived. Some money and goods that came into
+his hands having been disposed of for the poor, Francis' father made
+serious objection and Francis was brought before the ecclesiastical
+authorities. It was at this moment that he stripped himself of
+everything that he had, the Bishop even having to provide a cloak to
+cover his nakedness, and became the wonderful apostle to the poor that
+he remained during all the rest of his life. Curious as it must ever
+seem, it was not long before he had many who wished to imitate him and
+who insisted on becoming his disciples and followers. St. Francis had
+had no idea how infectious his example was to prove. Before his death
+his disciples could be numbered by the thousands and the great order
+of the Franciscans, that for centuries was to do so much work, had
+come into existence not by any conscious planning, but by the mere
+force of the great Christian principles that were the guiding factors
+in St. Francis' own life.
+
+Ruskin in his Mornings in Florence in discussing Giotto's famous
+picture of St. Francis' renunciation of his inheritance, and his
+incurrence thereby of his father's anger, has a characteristic passage
+that sounds the very keynote of the Saint's life and goes to the heart
+of things. In it he explains the meaning of this apparently
+contradictory incident in St. Francis' life, since Francis' great
+virtue was obedience, yet here, apparently as a beginning of his more
+perfect Christian life, is an act of disobedience. After Ruskin's
+explanation, however, it is all the more difficult to understand the
+present generation's revival of interest in Francis unless it be
+attributed to a liking for contrast.
+
+  "That is the meaning of St. Francis' renouncing his inheritance; and
+  it is the beginning of Giotto's gospel of Works. Unless this hardest
+  of deeds be done first--this inheritance of mammon and the world
+  cast away,--all other deeds are useless. You cannot serve, cannot
+  obey, God and mammon. No charities, no obedience, no self-denials,
+  are of any use while you are still at heart in conformity with the
+  world. You go to church, because the world goes. You keep Sunday,
+  because your {261} neighbor keeps it. But you dress ridiculously
+  because your neighbors ask it; and you dare not do a rough piece of
+  work, because your neighbors despise it. You must renounce your
+  neighbor, in his riches and pride, and remember him in his distress.
+  That is St. Francis' 'disobedience.'"
+
+{opp261}
+[Illustration]
+ST. FRANCIS (CHURCH OF THE FRARI, VENICE, NIC. PISANO)
+
+
+In spite of Ruskin's charming explanation of St. Francis' place in
+history, and his elucidation of the hard passages in his life, most
+people will only find it more difficult, after these explanations, to
+understand the modern acute reawakening of interest in St. Francis.
+Our generation in its ardent devotion to the things of this world does
+not seem a promising field for the evangel, "Give up all thou hast and
+follow me." The mystery of St. Francis' attraction only deepens the
+more we know of him. An American Franciscan has tried to solve the
+problem and his words are worth quoting. Father Paschal Robinson, O.
+S. M., in his "The True St. Francis" says:--
+
+  "What is the cause of the present widespread homage to St. Francis?
+  It is, of course, far too wide a question to allow the present
+  writer to do more than make a few suggestions. First and foremost,
+  we must ever reckon with the perennial charm of the Saint's
+  personality, which seems to wield an ineffable influence over the
+  hearts of men--drawing and holding those of the most different
+  habits of mind, with a sense of personal sympathy. Perhaps no other
+  man, unless it be St. Paul, ever had such wide reaching,
+  all-embracing sympathy: and it may have been wider than St. Paul's,
+  for we find no evidence in the great apostle of a love for nature
+  and of animals. This exquisite Franciscan spirit, as it is called,
+  which is the very perfume of religion--this spirit at once so
+  humble, so tender, so devout, so akin to 'the good odor of
+  Christ'--passed out into the whole world and has become a permanent
+  source of inspiration. A character at once so exhalted and so
+  purified as St. Francis was sure to keep alive an ideal; and so he
+  does. From this one can easily understand St. Francis' dominance
+  among a small but earnest band of enthusiasts now pointing the world
+  back to the reign of the spirit. It was this same gentle idealism of
+  St. Francis which inspired the art of the Umbrian people; it was
+  this which was translated into the paintings of the greatest
+  artists. No school of painting has ever been penetrated with {262}
+  such pure idealism as the Umbrian; and this inspiration, at once
+  religious and artistic, came from the tomb of the _poverello_ above
+  which Giotto had painted his mystical frescoes. The earnest
+  quasi-religious study of the medieval beginnings of western art has
+  therefore rightly been set down as another cause for some of the
+  latter-day pilgrimages to Assisi. In like manner, the scientific
+  treatment of the Romance literature leads naturally to St. Francis
+  as to the humble upper waters of a mighty stream; at the beginning
+  of the Thirteenth Century is St. Francis, at the end is Dante. It
+  was Matthew Arnold, we believe, who first held up the poor man of
+  Assisi as a literary type--a type as distinct and formal as the
+  author of the _Divine Comedy_. 'Prose,' he says, 'could not easily
+  satisfy the saint's ardent soul, and so he made poetry.' 'It was,'
+  writes Ozanam, 'the first cry of a nascent poetry which has grown
+  and made itself heard through the world.'"
+
+Considering how thoroughly impractical Francis seemed to be in his
+life, it can scarcely help but be a source of ever increasing wonder
+that he succeeded in influencing, his generation so widely and so
+thoroughly. It is evident that there were many men of the time tired
+of the more or less strenuous life, which chained them either to the
+cares of business or tempted them for the sake of the bubble
+reputation into a military career. To these St. Francis' method of
+life came with an especially strong appeal. The example of his neglect
+of worldly things and of his so thoroughly maintained resolve not to
+be harassed by the ordinary cares of life, and especially not to take
+too much thought of the future, penetrated into all classes. While it
+made the rich realize how much of their lives they were living merely
+for the sake of others, it helped the poor to be satisfied, since here
+was a sublime and complete recognition of the fact that an existence
+without cares was better than one with many cares, such as were sure
+to come to those who wrought ever and anon increase of the goods of
+this world. Such ideas may seen to be essentially modern, but anyone
+who will turn to the chapter on The Three Most Read Books of the
+Century and read the passages from the "Romance of the Rose" on wealth
+and poverty, will know better than to think them anything but
+perennial.
+
+{263}
+
+Men gathered around St. Francis then and pleaded to be allowed to
+follow his mode of life. Some of the men who thus came to him were the
+choice spirits of the times. Thomas of Celano, who was to be one of
+the Master's favorite disciples and subsequently to be his most
+authoritative biographer, was one of the great literary geniuses of
+all times, the author of the sublime Dies Irae. While most of his
+first companions were men of such extreme simplicity of mind that the
+world has been rather in an amused than admiring attitude with regard
+to them, there can be no doubt that this simplicity was of itself an
+index not only of their genuine sincerity of heart, but of a greatness
+of mind that set them above the ordinary run of mankind and made them
+live poetry when they did not write it. The institute established by
+St. Francis was destined, in the course of the century, to attract to
+it some of the great men of every country. Besides Thomas of Celano
+there was, in Italy, Anthony of Padua, almost as famous as his master
+for the beauty of his saintly life; Jacopone Da Todi, the well-known
+author of the Stabat Mater, a hymn that rivals in poetic genius, the
+Dies Irae; Bonaventure, the great teacher of philosophy and theology
+at the University of Paris, and the writer of some of the sublimest
+treatises of mystical theology that were to be text books for the
+members of the Franciscan order, and of many other religious bodies
+for centuries after his death, indeed down to even our own times.
+There was Roger Bacon, in England, the famous teacher of science at
+Paris and at Oxford; and that Subtle Doctor, Duns Scotus, whose
+influence in philosophical speculation was destined never quite to
+disappear, and many others, the pick of the generations in which they
+lived, all proud to look up to Francis of Assisi as their father; all
+glad of the opportunity that the order gave them, to pass their lives
+in peace, far from the madding crowd with its strifes and competition,
+providing them constantly with opportunities to live their own lives,
+to find their own souls, to cultivate their own individualities
+untrammelled by worldly cares.
+
+Francis' success in this matter and the propaganda of his influence
+will not be so surprising to Americans of this generation, if they
+will only recall what is still a precious memory in {264} the minds of
+men who are yet alive, that efforts to found a community not unlike
+that of the Franciscans in certain ways, attracted widespread
+attention even in our own country half a century ago. After all, the
+men who gathered at Brook Farm had ideas and ideals not so distant
+from those cherished by St. Francis and the early members of the
+Franciscan Order. Their main effort was also to get away from worldly
+cares and have the opportunity to work out their philosophy of life
+far from the disturbing influence of city life, in the peaceful
+pursuit of only such agricultural efforts as might be necessary to
+ensure them simple sustenance, yet at the same time enforce from them
+such exercise in the open air as would guarantee the preservation of
+health. The men of Brook Farm were, in the eyes of their generation,
+quite as far from practical ideas as were the early Franciscans. It
+must not be forgotten, however, that these men who thus attempted in
+the Nineteenth Century what St. Francis succeeded in accomplishing in
+the Thirteenth, in their subsequent careers succeeded in impressing
+themselves very strongly upon the life of the American people. Much of
+what is best in our Nineteenth Century life would be lost if the Brook
+farmers and what they accomplished were to be removed from it. Men of
+ideals are usually also men of working ideas, as these two experiences
+in history would seem to show.
+
+{opp264}
+
+[Illustration]
+ST. ELIZABETH--THREE FRANCISCANS (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+ST. LOUIS--THREE FRANCISCANS (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+ST. CLARE--THREE FRANCISCANS (GIOTTO)
+
+
+It was not alone for the men of his generation, however, that Francis
+was destined to furnish a refuge from worldly care and a place of
+peace and thoughtful life. We have already said that it was by chance,
+certainly without any conscious intention on Francis' part that the
+Franciscan order for men which is usually spoken of as the First Order
+came into existence. The last thing in the world very probably that
+would ever have entered into the mind of Francis when he began to lead
+the simple life of a poor little man of God, was the founding of a
+religious order for women. We tell elsewhere the story, of St. Clare's
+interest in St. Francis' mode of life and of the trials that she
+underwent in order to obtain permission and opportunity to fashion her
+own life in the same way. The problem was even more serious for women
+than for men. St. Francis considered that they should not be {265}
+allowed to follow the Franciscan custom of going out to seek alms and
+yet required that they should live in absolute poverty, possessing
+nothing and supporting themselves only by the contributions of the
+faithful and the work of their hands. St. Clare attempted the
+apparently impossible and solved the problem of a new career for the
+women of her time.
+
+It was not very long before St. Clare's example proved as infective as
+that of St. Francis himself. While in the beginning the members of her
+family had been the most strenuous objectors against her taking up
+such an unwonted mode of existence it was not long before she was
+joined in the monastery of St. Damian where her little community was
+living, by her sister who was to become almost as famous as herself
+under the name of St. Agnes, and by her mother and other near
+relatives, from Assisi and the neighborhood. This Second Order of St.
+Francis to which only women were admitted proved to have in it the
+germ of as active life as that of the first order. Before the end of
+the Thirteenth Century there were women Franciscans in every country
+in Europe. These convents furnished for women a refuge from the
+worried, hurried, over-busy life around them that proved quite as
+attractive as the similar opportunity for the men. For many hundreds
+of years down even to our own time, women were to find in the quiet
+obscurity of such Franciscan convents a peaceful, happy life in which
+they occupied themselves with simple conventual duties, with manual
+labor in their monastery gardens, with the making of needle work in
+which they became the most expert in the world, with the illuminating
+of missals and office books of such artistic beauty that they have
+become the most precious treasures of our great libraries, and with
+the long hours of prayer by which they hoped to accomplish as much in
+making the world better as if they devoted themselves to ardent
+efforts of reform which, of course, the circumstances of the time
+would not have permitted.
+
+Finally there was the Third Order of St. Francis, which was to gather
+to itself so many of the distinguished people of the century whose
+occupations and obligations would not permit them to live the
+conventual life, but who yet felt that they must be attached by some
+bond to this beautiful sanctity that was {266} entering into all the
+better life of the century. The Third Order was established so as to
+permit all the world to become Franciscans to whatever degree it
+considered possible, and to share in the sublime Christianity of the
+founder whom they all admired so much, even if they were not able to
+imitate his sublimer virtues. Into this Third Order of St. Francis
+most of the finer spirits of the time entered with enthusiasm. We need
+only recall that Louis IX. of France, the greatest Monarch of the
+century, considered it a special privilege to be a follower of the
+humble Francis, and that St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the daughter of a
+king, the wife and mother of a ruling prince, gave another example of
+the far-reachingness of Francis' work. Dante was another of the great
+members of the Third Order and was buried in the habit of St. Francis,
+glorying in the thought of the brotherhood this gave him with the
+saint he loved so much.
+
+All down the centuries since, other distinguished men in many
+countries of Europe were proud to claim the same distinction. Modern
+science is supposed to be unorthodox in its tendencies and electricity
+is the most recent of the sciences in development. Three of the great
+founders in electricity, Volta, Galvani and Ampere, were members of
+the Third Order of St. Francis and at least one of them, Galvani,
+insisted on being buried in the habit of the order six centuries after
+the death of his father Francis in order to show how much he
+appreciated the privilege. There is no man who lived in the Thirteenth
+Century who influenced the better side of men more in all the
+succeeding ages down to and including our own time, than the poor
+little man of God of Assisi. He is just coming into a further precious
+heritage of uplift for the men of our time, that is surprising for
+those who are so buried in the merely material that they fail to
+realize how much the ideal still rules the minds of thinking men, but
+that seems only natural and inevitable to those who appreciate all the
+attractiveness there is in a simple life lived without the bootless
+hurry, the unattaining bustle and the over-strained excitement of the
+strenuous existence.
+
+What St. Francis and his order accomplished in Italy another great
+Saint, Dominic, was achieving in the West. The {267} fact that another
+order similar to that of St. Francis in many respects, yet differing
+from it in a number of essential particulars, should have arisen
+almost at the same time shows how profoundly the spirit of
+organization of effort had penetrated into the minds of these
+generations of the Thirteenth Century. While poverty was to be the
+badge of St. Dominic's followers as well as those of St. Francis,
+learning was to replace the simplicity which St. Francis desired for
+his sons. The order of preachers began at once to give many eminent
+scholars to the Church, and for three centuries there was not a single
+generation that did not see as Dominicans some of the most
+intellectual men of Europe. Leaders they were in philosophy, in the
+development of thought, in education, and in every phase of
+ecclesiastical life. The watch dogs of the Lord, (Domini Canes) they
+were called, punning on their name because everwhere, they were in the
+van of defense against the enemies of Christianity. That the
+Thirteenth Century should have given rise to two such great religious
+orders stamps it as a wonderfully fruitful period for religion as well
+as for every other phrase of human development.
+
+In order to understand what these great founders tried to do, the work
+of these two orders must be considered together. They have never
+ceased, during all the intervening seven centuries, to be the source
+of great influence in the religious world. They have proven refuges
+for many gentle spirits at all times and have been the homes of
+learning, as well as of piety. While occasionally their privileges
+have been abused, and men have taken advantage of the opportunities to
+be idle and luxurious, this has happened much seldomer than the world
+imagines. Not a single century has failed to show men among them whom
+the world honors as Saints, and whose lives have been examples of what
+can be accomplished by human nature at its best. They have been
+literally schools of unselfishness, and men have learned to think less
+of themselves and more of their labor by the contemplation of the
+lives of these begging friars. What they did for England, the Rev.
+Augustus Jessopp, a non-conformist clergyman in England, has recently
+told very well, and the more one studies their history, the higher the
+estimation of them; and the more one knows of {268} them, the less
+does one talk of their vices. Green in his "History of the English
+People" has paid them a tribute that it is well to remember:--
+
+  "To bring the world back again within the pale of the Church was the
+  aim of two religious orders which sprang suddenly to life at the
+  opening of the Thirteenth Century. The zeal of the Spaniard Dominic
+  was aroused at the sight of the lordly prelates who sought by fire
+  and sword to win the Albigensian heretics to the faith. 'Zeal,' he
+  cried, 'must be met by zeal, lowliness by lowliness, false sanctity
+  by real sanctity, preaching lies by preaching truth.' His fiery
+  ardor and rigid orthodoxy were seconded by the mystical piety, the
+  imaginative enthusiasm of Francis of Assisi. The life of Francis
+  falls like a stream of tender light across the darkness of the time.
+  In the frescoes of Giotto or the verse of Dante we see him take
+  Poverty for his bride. He strips himself of all: he flings his very
+  clothes at his father's feet, that he may be one with Nature and
+  God. His passionate verse claims the moon for his sister and the sun
+  for his brother; he calls on his brother the Wind, and his sister
+  the Water. His last faint cry was a 'Welcome, Sister Death.'
+  Strangely as the two men differed from each other, their aim was the
+  same, to convert the heathen, to extirpate heresy, to reconcile
+  knowledge with orthodoxy, to carry the Gospel to the poor. The work
+  was to be done by the entire reversal of the older monasticism, by
+  seeking personal salvation in effort for the salvation of their
+  fellow-men, by exchanging the solitary of the cloister for the
+  preacher, the monk for a friar. To force the new 'brethren' into
+  entire dependence on those among whom they labored the vow of
+  Poverty was turned into a stern reality; the 'Begging Friars' were
+  to subsist on the alms of the poor, they might possess neither money
+  nor lands, the very houses in which they lived were to be held in
+  trust for them by others. The tide of popular enthusiasm which
+  welcomed their appearance swept before it the reluctance of Rome,
+  the jealousy of the older orders, the opposition of the parochial
+  priesthood. Thousands of brethren gathered in a few years around
+  Francis and Dominic, and the begging preachers, clad in their coarse
+  frock of serge, with the girdle of rope around their waist, wandered
+  barefooted as {269} missionaries over Asia, battled with heresy in
+  Italy and Gaul, lectured in the Universities, and preached and
+  toiled among the poor."
+
+
+[Illustration]
+SIDE CAPITAL (LINCOLN)
+
+
+{270}
+
+XVII
+
+AQUINAS THE SCHOLAR.
+
+
+No one of all the sons of the Thirteenth Century, not even Dante
+himself, so typifies the greatness of the mentality of the period as
+does Thomas, called from his birthplace Aquinas, or of Aquin, on whom
+his own and immediately succeeding generations because of what they
+considered his almost more than human intellectual acumen, bestowed
+the title of Angelical Doctor, while the Church for the supremely
+unselfish character of his life, formally conferred the title of
+Saint. The life of Aquinas is of special interest, because it serves
+to clarify many questions as to the education of the Thirteenth
+Century and to correct many false impressions that are only too
+prevalent with regard to the intellectual life of the period. Though
+Aquinas came of a noble family which was related to many of the Royal
+houses of Europe and was the son of the Count of Aquino, then one of
+the most important of the non-reigning noble houses of Italy, his
+education was begun in his early years and was continued in the midst
+of such opportunities as even the modern student might well envy.
+
+It is often said that the nobility at this time, paid very little
+attention to the things of the intellect and indeed rather prided
+themselves on their ignorance of even such ordinary attainments as
+reading and writing. While this was doubtless true for not a few of
+them, Aquinas's life stands in open contradiction with the impression
+that any such state of mind was at all general, or that there were not
+so many exceptions as to nullify any such supposed rule. Evidently
+those who wished could and did take advantage of educational
+opportunities quite as in our day. Aquinas's early education was
+received at the famous monastery of Monte Cassino in Southern Italy,
+where the Benedictines for more than six centuries had been providing
+magnificent opportunities for the studious youth of Italy and for
+serious-minded students from all over Europe. {271} When he was
+scarcely more than a boy he proceeded to the University of Naples,
+which at that time, under the patronage of the Emperor Frederick II.,
+was being encouraged not only to take the place so long held by
+Salernum in the educational world of Europe, but also to rival the
+renowned Universities of Paris and Bologna. Here he remained until he
+was seventeen years of age when he resolved to enter the Dominican
+Order, which had been founded only a short time before by St. Dominic,
+yet had already begun to make itself felt throughout the religious and
+educational world of the time.
+
+Just as it is the custom to declare that as a rule, the nobility cared
+little for education, so it is more or less usual to proclaim that
+practically only the clergy had any opportunities for the higher
+education during the Thirteenth Century. Thomas had evidently been
+given his early educational opportunities, however, without any
+thought of the possibility of his becoming a clergyman. His mother was
+very much opposed to his entrance among the Dominicans, and every
+effort was made to picture to him the pleasures and advantages that
+would accrue to him because of his noble connections, in a life in the
+world. Thomas insisted, however, and his firm purpose in the matter
+finally conquered even the serious obstacles that a noble family can
+place in the way of a boy of seventeen, as regards the disposition of
+his life in a way opposed to their wishes.
+
+The Dominicans realized the surpassing intelligence of the youth whom
+they had received and accordingly he was sent to be trained under the
+greatest teacher of their order, the famous Albert the Great, who was
+then lecturing at Cologne. Thomas was not the most brilliant of
+scholars as a young man and seems even to have been the butt of his
+more successful fellow-students. They are said to have called him the
+dumb one, or sometimes because of his bulkiness even as a youth, the
+dumb ox. Albert himself, however, was not deceived in his estimation
+of the intellectual capacity of his young student, and according to
+tradition declared, that the bellowings of this ox would yet be heard
+throughout all Christendom. After a few years spent at Cologne, Thomas
+when he was in his early twenties, accompanied Albert who had been
+called to {272} Paris. It was at Paris that Thomas received his
+bachelor's degree and also took out his license to teach--the doctor's
+degree of our time. After this some years further were spent at
+Cologne and then the greatness of the man began to dawn on his
+generation. He was called back to Paris and became one of the most
+popular of the Professors at that great University in the height of
+her fame, at a time when no greater group of men has perhaps ever been
+gathered together, than shared with him the honors of the professors'
+chairs at that institution.
+
+  "Albert the Great, Roger Bacon, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas
+  Aquinas, form among themselves, so to speak, a complete
+  representation of all the intellectual powers: they are the four
+  doctors who uphold the chair of philosophy in the temple of the
+  Middle Ages. Their mission was truly the reestablishment of the
+  sciences, but not their final consummation. They were not exempt
+  from the ignorances and erroneous opinions of their day, yet they
+  did much to overcome them and succeeded better than is usually
+  acknowledged in introducing the era of modern thought. Often, the
+  majesty, I may even say the grace of their conceptions, disappears
+  under the veil of the expressions in which they are clothed; but
+  these imperfections are amply atoned for by superabundant merits.
+  Those Christian philosophers did not admit within themselves the
+  divorce, since their day become so frequent, between the intellect
+  and the will; their lives were uniformly a laborious application of
+  their doctrines. They realized in its plenitude the practical wisdom
+  so often dreamed of by the ancients--the abstinence of the disciples
+  of Pythagoras, the constancy of the stoics, together with humility
+  and charity, virtues unknown to the antique world. Albert the Great
+  and St. Thomas left the castles of their noble ancestors to seek
+  obscurity in the cloisters of St. Dominic: the former abdicated, and
+  the latter declined, the honors of the Church. It was with the cord
+  of St. Francis that Roger Bacon and St. Bonaventure girded their
+  loins; when the last named was sought that the Roman purple might be
+  placed upon his shoulders, he begged the envoys to wait until he
+  finished washing the dishes of the convent. Thus they did not
+  withdraw themselves {273} within the exclusive mysteries of an
+  esoteric teaching; they opened the doors of their schools to the
+  sons of shepherds and artisans, and, like their Master, Christ, they
+  said: "Come all!" After having broken the bread of the word, they
+  were seen distributing the bread of alms. The poor knew them and
+  blessed their names. Even yet, after the lapse of six hundred years,
+  the dwellers in Paris kneel round the altar of the Angel of the
+  School, and the workmen of Lyons deem it an honor once a year to
+  bear upon their brawny shoulders the triumphant remains of the
+  'Seraphic Doctor.'"
+
+For most modern students and even scholars educated in secular
+universities the name of Aquinas is scarcely more than a type, the
+greatest of them, it is true, of the schoolmen who were so much
+occupied with distant, impractical and, to say the least, merely
+theoretic metaphysical problems, in the later Middle Ages. It is true
+that the renewed interest in Dante in recent years in English speaking
+countries, has brought about a revival of attention in Aquinas's work
+because to Dante, the Angelical Doctor, as he was already called,
+meant so much, and because the Divine Comedy has been declared often
+and often, by competent critics, to be the Summa Theologiae of St.
+Thomas of Aquin in verse. Even this adventitious literary interest,
+however, has not served to lift the obscurity in which Aquinas is
+veiled for the great majority of scholarly people, whose education has
+been conducted according to modern methods and present-day ideas.
+
+As showing a hopeful tendency to recognize the greatness of these
+thinkers of the Middle Ages it is interesting to note that about five
+years ago one of St. Thomas's great works--the Summa Contra
+Gentiles--was placed on the list of subjects which a candidate may at
+his option offer in the final honor school of the _litterae
+humaniores_ at Oxford. There has come a definite appreciation of the
+fact that this old time philosopher represents a phase of intellectual
+development that must not be neglected, and that stands for such
+educational influence as may well be taken advantage of even in our
+day of information rather than mental discipline. For the purposes of
+this course Father Rickaby, S. J., has prepared an annotated
+translation of the great philosophic work under the title, {274} "Of
+God and His Creatures," which was published by Burns and Oates of
+London, 1905. This will enable those for whom the Latin of St. Thomas
+was a stumbling block, to read the thoughts of the great scholastic,
+in translation at least, and it is to be hoped that we shall hear no
+more of the trifling judgments which have so disgraced our English
+philosophical literature.
+
+The fact that Pope Leo XIII., by a famous papal bull, insisted that
+St. Thomas should be the standard of teaching in philosophy and
+theology in all the Catholic institutions of learning throughout the
+world, aroused many thinkers to a realization of the fact that far
+from being a thing of the dead and distant past, Thomas's voice was
+still a great living force in the world of thought. To most people Leo
+XIII. appealed as an intensely practical and thoroughly modern ruler,
+whose judgment could be depended on even with regard to teaching
+problems in philosophy and theology. There was about him none of the
+qualities that would stamp him as a far-away mystic whose thoughts
+were still limited by medieval barriers. The fact that in making his
+declaration the Pope was only formulating as a rule, what had
+spontaneously become the almost constant practice and tradition of
+Catholic schools and universities, of itself served to show how great
+and how enduring was St. Thomas's influence.
+
+In the drawing together of Christian sects that has inevitably come as
+a result of the attacks made upon Christianity by modern materialists,
+and then later by those who would in their ardor for the higher
+criticism do away with practically all that is divine in Christianity,
+there has come a very general realization even on the part of those
+outside of her fold, that the Roman Catholic Church occupies a
+position more solidly founded on consistent logical premises and
+conclusions than any of the denominations. Without her aid Christian
+apologetics would indeed be in sad case. Pope Leo's declaration only
+emphasizes the fact, then, that the foundation stone of Christian
+apologetics was laid by the great work of St. Thomas, and that to him
+more than any other is due that wonderful coordination of secular and
+religious knowledge, which appoints for each of these branches of
+knowledge its {275} proper place, and satisfies the human mind better
+than any other system of philosophic thought. This is the real
+panegyric of St. Thomas, and it only adds to the sublimity of it that
+it should come nearly six centuries and a half after his death. To
+only a bare handful of men in the history of the human race, is it
+given thus to influence the minds of subsequent generations for so
+long and to have laid down the principles of thought that are to
+satisfy men for so many generations. This is why, in any attempt at
+even inadequate treatment of the greatness of the Thirteenth Century,
+Thomas Aquinas, who was its greatest scholar, must have a prominent
+place. The present generation has had sufficient interest in him
+aroused, however, amply to justify such a giving of space.
+
+When Leo XIII. made his recommendation of St. Thomas it was not as one
+who had merely heard of the works of the great medieval thinker, or
+knew them only by tradition, or had slightly dipped into them as a
+dilettante, but as one who had been long familiar with them, who had
+studied the Angelical Doctor in youth, who had pondered his wisdom in
+middle age, and resorted again and again to him for guidance in the
+difficulties of doctrine in maturer years, and the difficulties of
+morals such as presented themselves in his practical life as a
+churchman. It was out of the depths of his knowledge of him, that the
+great Pope, whom all the modern world came to honor so reverently
+before his death, drew his supreme admiration for St. Thomas and his
+recognition of the fact that no safer guide in the thorny path of
+modern Christian apologetics could be followed, than this wonderful
+genius who first systematized human thought as far as the relations of
+Creator to creature are considered, in the heyday of medieval
+scholarship and university teaching.
+
+Those who have their knowledge of scholastic philosophy at second
+hand, from men who proclaim this period of human development as
+occupied entirely with fruitless discussion of metaphysical theories,
+will surely think that they could find nothing of interest for them in
+St. Thomas's writings. It is true the casual reader may not penetrate
+far enough into his writing to realize its significance and to
+appreciate its depth of knowledge, but the serious student finds
+constant {276} details of supreme interest because of their
+applications to the most up-to-date problems. We venture to quote an
+example that will show this more or less perfectly according to the
+special philosophic interest of readers. It is St. Thomas's discussion
+of the necessity there was for the revelation of the truth of the
+existence of God. His statement of the reasons why men, occupied with
+the ordinary affairs of life, would not ordinarily come to this truth
+unless it were revealed to them, though they actually have the mental
+capacity to reach it by reason alone, will show how sympathetically
+the Saint appreciated human conditions as they are.
+
+  "If a truth of this nature were left to the sole inquiry of reason,
+  three disadvantages would follow. One is that the knowledge of God
+  would be confined to few. The discovery of truth is the fruit of
+  studious inquiry. From this very many are hindered. Some are
+  hindered by a constitutional unfitness, their natures being
+  ill-disposed to the acquisition of knowledge. They could never
+  arrive by study at the highest grade of human knowledge, which
+  consists in the knowledge of God. Others are hindered by the claims
+  of business and the ties of the management of property. There must
+  be in human society some men devoted to temporal affairs. These
+  could not possibly spend time enough in the learned lessons of
+  speculative inquiry to arrive at the highest point of human inquiry,
+  the knowledge of God. Some again are hindered by sloth. The
+  knowledge of the truths that reason can investigate concerning God
+  presupposes much previous knowledge; indeed almost the entire study
+  of philosophy is directed to the knowledge of God. Hence, of all
+  parts of philosophy that part stands over to be learned last, which
+  consists of metaphysics dealing with (divine things). Thus only with
+  great labour of study is it possible to arrive at the searching out
+  of the aforesaid truth; and this labour few are willing to undergo
+  for sheer love of knowledge.
+
+  "Another disadvantage is that such as did arrive at the knowledge or
+  discovery of the aforesaid truth would take a long time over it on
+  account of the profundity of such truth, and the many prerequisites
+  to the study, and also because in youth and early manhood the soul,
+  tossed to and fro on the {277} waves of passion, is not fit for the
+  study of such high truth; only in settled age does the soul become
+  prudent and scientific, as the philosopher says. Thus if the only
+  way open to the knowledge of God were the way of reason, the human
+  race would (remain) in thick darkness of ignorance: as the knowledge
+  of God, the best instrument for making men perfect and good, would
+  accrue only to a few after a considerable lapse of time.
+
+  "A third disadvantage is that, owing to the infirmity of our
+  judgment and the perturbing force of imagination, there is some
+  admixture of error in most of the investigations of human reason.
+  This would be a reason to many for continuing to doubt even of the
+  most accurate demonstrations, not perceiving the force of the
+  demonstration, and seeing the divers judgments, of divers persons
+  who have the name of being wise men. Besides, in the midst of much
+  demonstrated truth there is sometimes an element of error, not
+  demonstrated but asserted on the strength of some plausible and
+  sophistic reasoning that is taken for a demonstration. And therefore
+  it was necessary for the real truth concerning divine things to be
+  presented to men with fixed certainty by way of faith. Wholesome,
+  therefore, is the arrangement of divine clemency, whereby things
+  even that reason can investigate are commanded to be held on faith,
+  so that all might be easily partakers of the knowledge of God, and
+  that without doubt and error (Book I. cix)."
+
+A still more striking example of Thomas's eminently sympathetic
+discussion of a most difficult problem, is to be found in his
+treatment of the question of the Resurrection of the Body. The
+doctrine that men will rise again on the last day with the same bodies
+that they had while here on earth, has been a stumbling block for the
+faith of a great many persons from the beginning of Christianity. In
+recent times the discovery of the indestructibility of matter, far
+from lessening the skeptical elements in this problem as might have
+been anticipated, has rather emphasized them. While the material of
+which man's body was composed is never destroyed, it is broken up
+largely into its original elements and is used over and over again in
+many natural processes, and even enters into the composition of other
+men's bodies during the long succeeding generations. Here is a problem
+upon which it would {278} ordinarily be presumed at once, that a
+philosophic writer of the Thirteenth Century could throw no possible
+light. We venture to say, however, that the following passage which we
+quote from an article on St. Thomas in a recent copy of the Dublin
+_Review_, represents the best possible solution of the problem, even
+in the face of all our modern advance in science.
+
+  "What does not bar numerical unity in a man while he lives on
+  uninterruptedly (writes St. Thomas), clearly can be no bar to the
+  identity of the arisen man with the man that was. In a man's body,
+  while he lives, there are not always the same parts in respect of
+  matter but only in respect of species. In respect of matter there is
+  a flux and reflux of parts. Still that fact does not bar the man's
+  numerical unity from the beginning to the end of his life. The form
+  and species of the several parts continue throughout life, but the
+  matter of the parts is dissolved by the natural heat, and new matter
+  accrues through nourishment. Yet the man is not numerically
+  different by the difference of his component parts at different
+  ages, although it is true that the material composition of the man
+  at one stage of his life is not his material composition at another.
+  Addition is made from without to the stature of a boy without
+  prejudice to his identity, for the boy and the adult are numerically
+  the same man."
+
+In a word, Aquinas says that we recognize that the body of the boy and
+of the man are the same though they are composed of quite different
+material. With this in mind the problem of the Resurrection takes on
+quite a new aspect from what it held before. What we would call
+attention to, however, is not so much the matter of the argument as
+the mode of it. It is essentially modern in every respect. Not only
+does Thomas know that the body changes completely during the course of
+years, but he knows that the agent by which the matter of the parts is
+dissolved is "the natural heat," while "new matter accrues through
+nourishment." The passage contains a marvelous anticipation of
+present-day physiology as well as a distinct contribution to Christian
+apologetics. This coordination of science and theology, though usually
+thought to be lacking among scholastic philosophers, is constantly
+typical of their mode of thought and discussion, and this example, far
+from {279} being exceptional, is genuinely representative of them, as
+all serious students of scholasticism know.
+
+Perhaps the last thing for which the ordinary person would expect to
+find a great modern teacher recommending the reading of St. Thomas
+would be to find therein the proper doctrine with regard to liberty
+and the remedies for our modern social evils. Those who will recall,
+however, how well the generations of the Thirteenth Century faced
+social problems even more serious than ours--for the common people had
+no rights at all  [at] the beginning of the century, yet secured them with
+such satisfaction as to lay the foundation of the modern history of
+liberty--will realize that the intellectual men of the time must have
+had a much better grasp of the principles underlying such problems,
+than would otherwise be imagined. As a matter of fact, St. Thomas's
+treatment of Society, its rights and duties, and the mutual
+relationship between it and the individual, is one of the triumphs of
+his wonderful work in ethics. It is no wonder, then, that the great
+Pope of the end of the Nineteenth Century, whose encyclicals showed
+that he understood very thoroughly these social evils of our time,
+recognized their tendencies and appreciated their danger, recommended
+as a remedy for them the reading of St. Thomas. Pope Leo said:
+
+  "Domestic and civil society, even, which, as all see, is exposed to
+  great danger from the plague of perverse opinions, would certainly
+  enjoy a far more peaceful and a securer existence if more wholesome
+  doctrine were taught in the academies and schools--one more in
+  conformity with the teaching of the Church, such as is contained in
+  the works of Thomas Aquinas.
+
+  "For the teachings of Thomas on the true meaning of liberty--which
+  at this time is running into license--on the divine origin of all
+  authority, on laws and their force, on the paternal and just rule of
+  princes, on obedience to the higher powers, on mutual charity one
+  towards another--on all of these and kindred subjects, have very
+  great and invincible force to overturn those principles of the new
+  order which are well known to be dangerous to the peaceful order of
+  things and to public safety."
+
+{280}
+
+For this great Pope, however, there was no greater teacher of any of
+the serious philosophical, ethical and theological problems than this
+Saint of the Thirteenth Century. His position in the matter would only
+seem exaggerated to those who do not appreciate Pope Leo's marvelous
+practical intelligence, and Saint Thomas's exhaustive treatment of
+most of the questions that have always been uppermost in the minds of
+men. While, with characteristic humility, he considered himself
+scarcely more than a commentator on Aristotle, his natural genius was
+eminently original and he added much more of his own than what he took
+from his master. There can be no doubt that his was one of the most
+gifted minds in all humanity's history and that for profundity of
+intelligence he deserves to be classed with Plato and Aristotle, as
+his great disciple Dante is placed between Homer and Shakespeare.
+Those who know St. Thomas the best, and have spent their lives in the
+study of him, not only cordially welcomed but ardently applauded Pope
+Leo's commendation of him, and considered that lofty as was his praise
+there was not a word they would have changed even in such a laudatory
+passage as the following:
+
+  "While, therefore, we hold that every word of wisdom, every useful
+  thing by whomsoever discovered or planned, ought to be received with
+  a willing and grateful mind. We exhort you, Venerable Brethren, in
+  all earnestness to restore the golden wisdom of St. Thomas, and to
+  spread it far and wide for the defense and beauty of the Catholic
+  faith, for the good of society, and for the advantage of all the
+  sciences. The wisdom of St. Thomas, We say--for if anything is taken
+  up with too great subtlety by the scholastic doctors, or too
+  carelessly stated--if there is anything that ill agrees with the
+  discoveries of a later age, or, in a word, improbable in whatever
+  way, it does not enter Our mind, to propose that for imitation to
+  Our age. Let carefully selected teachers endeavor to implant the
+  doctrines of Thomas Aquinas in the minds of students, and set forth
+  clearly his solidity and excellence over others. Let the academies
+  already founded or to be founded by you illustrate and defend this
+  doctrine, and use it for refutation of prevailing errors. But, lest
+  the false for the true or the corrupt for the pure be drunk in, be
+  watchful that the doctrine of Thomas {281} be drawn from his own
+  fountains, or at least from those rivulets which derived from the
+  very fount, have thus far flowed, according to the established
+  agreement of learned men, pure and clear; be careful to guard the
+  minds of youth from those which are said to flow thence, but in
+  reality are gathered from strange and unwholesome streams."
+
+Tributes quite as laudatory are not lacking from modern secular
+writers and while there have been many derogatory remarks, these have
+always come from men who either knew Aquinas only at second hand, or
+who confess that they had been unable to read him understandingly. The
+praise all comes from men who have spent years in the study of his
+writings.
+
+A recent writer in the Dublin _Review_ (January, 1906) sums up his
+appreciation of one of St. Thomas's works, his masterly book in
+philosophy, as follows:
+
+  "The _Summa contra Gentiles_ is an historical monument of the first
+  importance for the history of philosophy. In the variety of its
+  contents, it is a perfect encyclopedia of the learning of the day.
+  By it we can fix the high-water mark of Thirteenth Century thought,
+  for it contains the lectures of a doctor second to none in the great
+  school of thought then flourishing--the University of Paris. It is
+  by the study of such books that one enters into the mental life of
+  the period at which they were written; not by the hasty perusal of
+  histories of philosophy. No student of the Contra Gentiles is likely
+  to acquiesce in the statement that the Middle Ages were a time when
+  mankind seemed to have lost the power of thinking for themselves.
+  Medieval people thought for themselves, thoughts curiously different
+  from ours and profitable to study."
+
+Here is a similar high tribute for Aquinas's great work on Theology
+from his modern biographer, Father Vaughan:
+
+  "The 'Summa Theologica' is a mighty synthesis, thrown into technical
+  and scientific form, of the Catholic traditions of East and West, of
+  the infallible dicta of the Sacred Page, and of the most enlightened
+  conclusions of human reason, gathered from the soaring intuitions of
+  the Academy, and the rigid severity of the Lyceum.
+
+  "Its author was a man endowed with the characteristic notes of the
+  three great Fathers of Greek Philosophy: he possessed {282} the
+  intellectual honesty and precision of Socrates, the analytical
+  keenness of Aristotle, and that yearning after wisdom and light
+  which was the distinguishing mark of 'Plato the divine,' and which
+  has ever been one of the essential conditions of the highest
+  intuitions of religion."
+
+As a matter of fact it was the very greatness of Thomas Aquinas, and
+the great group of contemporaries who were so close to him, that
+produced an unfortunate effect on subsequent thinking and teaching in
+Europe. These men were so surpassing in their grasp of the whole round
+of human thought, that their works came to be worshiped more or less
+as fetishes, and men did not think for themselves but appealed to them
+as authorities. It is a great but an unfortunate tribute to the
+scholastics of the Thirteenth Century that subsequent generations for
+many hundred years not only did not think that they could improve on
+them, but even hesitated to entertain the notion that they could equal
+them. Turner in his History of Philosophy has pointed out this fact
+clearly and has attributed to it, to a great extent, the decadence of
+scholastic philosophy.
+
+  "The causes of the decay of scholastic philosophy were both internal
+  and external. The internal causes are to be found in the condition
+  of Scholastic philosophy at the beginning of the Fourteenth Century.
+  The great work of Christian syncretism had been completed by the
+  masters of the preceding period; revelation and science had been
+  harmonized; contribution had been levied on the pagan philosophies
+  of Greece and Arabia, and whatever truth these philosophies had
+  possessed had been utilized to form the basis of a rational
+  exposition of Christian revelation. The efforts of Roger Bacon and
+  of Alfred the Great to reform scientific method had failed; the
+  sciences were not cultivated. There was, therefore, no source of
+  development, and nothing was left for the later Scholastics except
+  to dispute as to the meaning of principles, to comment on the text
+  of this master or of that, and to subtilize to such an extent that
+  Scholasticism soon became a synonym for captious quibbling. The
+  great Thomistic principle that in philosophy the argument from
+  authority is the weakest of all arguments was forgotten; Aristotle,
+  St. Thomas, or Scotus became the criterion of truth, and as Solomon,
+  whose youthful wisdom had {283} astonished the world, profaned his
+  old age by the worship of idols, the philosophy of the schools, in
+  the days of its decadence, turned from the service of truth to
+  prostrate itself before the shrine of a master. Dialectic, which in
+  the Thirteenth Century had been regarded as the instrument of
+  knowledge, now became an object of study for the sake of display;
+  and to this fault of method was added a fault of style--an
+  uncouthness and barbarity of terminology which bewilder the modern
+  reader."
+
+The appreciation of St. Thomas in his own time is the greatest tribute
+to the critical faculty of the century that could be made. "Genius is
+praised but starves," in the words of the old Roman poet. Certainly
+most of the geniuses of the world have met with anything but their
+proper meed of appreciation in their own time. This is not true,
+however, during our Thirteenth Century. We have already shown how the
+artists, and especially Giotto, (at the end of the Thirteenth Century
+Giotto was only twenty-four years old) were appreciated, and how much
+attention Dante began to attract from his contemporaries, and we may
+add that all the great scholars of the period had a following that
+insured the wide publication of their works, at a time when this had
+to be accomplished by slow and patient hand-labor. The appreciation
+for Thomas, indeed, came near proving inimical to his completion of
+his important works in philosophy and theology. Many places in Europe
+wanted to have the opportunity to hear him. We have only reintroduced
+the practise of exchanging university professors in very recent years.
+This was quite a common practise in the Thirteenth Century, however,
+and so St. Thomas, after having been professor at Paris and later at
+Rome, taught for a while at Naples and then at a number of the Italian
+universities.
+
+Everywhere he went he was noted for the kindliness of his disposition
+and for his power to make friends. Looked upon as the greatest thinker
+of his time it would be easy to expect that there should be some signs
+of consciousness of this, and as a consequence some of that unpleasant
+self-assertion which so often makes great intellectual geniuses
+unpopular. Thomas, however, never seems to have had any
+over-appreciation of his own talents, but, realizing how little he
+knew compared to {284} the whole round of knowledge, and how
+superficial his thinking was compared to the depth of the mysteries he
+was trying, not to solve but to treat satisfactorily, it must be
+admitted that there was no question of conceit having a place in his
+life. This must account for the universal friendship of all who came
+in contact with him. The popes insisted on having him as a professor
+at the Roman university in which they were so much interested, and
+which they wished to make one of the greatest universities of the
+time. Here Thomas was brought in contact with ecclesiastics from all
+over the world and helped to form the mind of the time. Those who
+think the popes of the Middle Ages opposed to education should study
+the records of this Roman university.
+
+Thomas became the great friend of successive popes, some of whom had
+been brought in contact with him during his years of studying and
+teaching at Rome and Paris. This gave him many privileges and abundant
+encouragement, but finally came near ruining his career as a
+philosophic writer and teacher, since his papal friends wished to
+raise him to high ecclesiastical dignities. Urban IV. seems first to
+have thought of this but his successor Clement IV., one of the noblest
+churchmen of the period, who had himself wished to decline the papacy,
+actually made out the Bull, creating Thomas Archbishop of Naples. When
+this document was in due course presented to Aquinas, far from giving
+him any pleasure it proved a source of grief and pain. He saw the
+chance to do his life-work slipping from him. This was so evident to
+his friend the Pope that he withdrew the Bull and St. Thomas was left
+in peace during the rest of his career, and allowed to prosecute that
+one great object to which he had dedicated his mighty intellect. This
+was the summing up of all human knowledge in a work that would show
+the relation of the Creator to the creature, and apply the great
+principles of Greek philosophy to the sublime truths of Christianity.
+Had Thomas consented to accept the Archbishopric of Naples in all
+human probability, as Thomas's great English biographer remarks, the
+Summa Theologica would never have been written. It seems not unlikely
+that the dignity was pressed upon him by the Pope partly at the
+solicitation of powerful members of {285} his family, who hoped in
+this to have some compensation for their relative's having abandoned
+his opportunities for military and worldly glory. It is fortunate that
+their efforts failed, and it is only one of the many examples in
+history of the short-sightedness there may be in considerations that
+seem founded on the highest human prudence.
+
+Thomas was left free then to go on with his great work, and during the
+next five years he applied every spare moment to the completion of his
+Summa. More students have pronounced this the greatest work ever
+written than is true for any other text-book that has ever been used
+in schools. That it should be the basis of modern theological teaching
+after seven centuries is of itself quite sufficient to proclaim its
+merit. The men who are most enthusiastic about it are those who have
+used it the longest and who know it the best.
+
+St. Thomas's English biographer, the Very Rev. Roger Bede Vaughan, who
+is a worthy member of that distinguished Vaughan family who have given
+so many zealous ecclesiastics to the English Church and so many
+scholars to support the cause of Christianity, can scarcely say enough
+of this great work, nor of its place in the realm of theology. When it
+is recalled that Father Vaughan was not a member of St. Thomas's own
+order, the Dominicans, but of the Benedictines, it will be seen that
+it was not because of any _esprit de corps_, but out of the depths of
+his great admiration for the saint, that his words of praise were
+written:
+
+  "It has been shown abundantly that no writer before the Angelical's
+  day could have created a synthesis of all knowledge. The greatest of
+  the classic Fathers have been treated of, and the reasons of their
+  inability are evident. As for the scholastics who more immediately
+  preceded the Angelical, their minds were not ripe for so great and
+  complete a work: the fullness of time had not yet come. Very
+  possibly had not Albert the Great and Alexander (of Hales) preceded
+  him, St. Thomas would not have been prepared to write his
+  master-work; just as, most probably, Newton would never have
+  discovered the law of gravitation had it not been for the previous
+  labors of Galileo and of Kepler. But just as the English astronomer
+  stands solitary in his greatness, though surrounded and {286}
+  succeeded by men of extraordinary eminence, so also the Angelical
+  stands by himself alone, although Albertus Magnus was a genius,
+  Alexander was a theological king, and Bonaventure a seraphic doctor.
+  Just as the Principia is a work unique, unreachable, so, too, is the
+  'Summa Theologica' of the great Angelical. Just as Dante stands
+  alone among the poets, so stands St. Thomas in the schools."
+
+Probably the most marvelous thing about the life of St. Thomas is his
+capacity for work. His written books fill up some twenty folios in
+their most complete edition. This of itself would seem to be enough to
+occupy a lifetime without anything more. His written works, however,
+represent apparently only the products of his hours at leisure. He was
+only a little more than fifty when he died and he had been a
+university professor at Cologne, at Bologna, at Paris, at Rome, and at
+Naples. In spite of the amount of work that he was thus asked to do,
+his order, the Dominican, constantly called on him to busy himself
+with certain of its internal affairs. On one occasion at least he
+visited England in order to attend a Dominican Chapter at Oxford, and
+the better part of several years at Paris was occupied with his labors
+to secure for his brethren a proper place in the university, so that
+they might act as teachers and yet have suitable opportunities for the
+education and the discipline of the members of the Order.
+
+Verily it would seem as though his days must have been at least twice
+as long as those of the ordinary scholar and student to accomplish so
+much; yet he is only a type of the monks of the Middle Ages, of whom
+so many people seem to think that their principal traits were to be
+fat and lazy. Thomas was fat, as we know from the picture of him which
+shows him before a desk from which a special segment has been removed
+to accommodate more conveniently a rather abnormal abdominal
+development, but as to laziness, surely the last thing that would
+occur to anyone who knows anything about him, would be to accuse him
+of it. Clearly those who accept the ancient notion of monkish laziness
+will never understand the Middle Ages. The great educational progress
+of the Thirteenth Century was due almost entirely to monks.
+
+{287}
+
+There is another extremely interesting side to the intellectual
+character of Thomas Aquinas which is usually not realized by the
+ordinary student of philosophy and theology, and still less perhaps by
+those who are interested in him from an educational standpoint. This
+is his poetical faculty. For Thomas as for many of the great
+intellectual geniuses of the modern time, the sacrament of the Holy
+Eucharist was one of the most wondrously satisfying devotional
+mysteries of Christianity and the subject of special devotion. In our
+own time the great Cardinal Newman manifested this same attitude of
+mind. Thomas because of his well-known devotion to the Blessed
+Sacrament, was asked by the Pope to write the office for the then
+recently established feast of Corpus Christi. There are always certain
+hymns incorporated in the offices of the different Feast days. It
+might ordinarily have been expected that a scholar like Aquinas would
+write the prose portions of the office, leaving the hymns for some
+other hand, or selecting hymns from some older sacred poetry. Thomas,
+however, wrote both hymns and prose, and, surprising as it may be, his
+hymns are some of the most beautiful that have ever been composed and
+remain the admiration of posterity.
+
+It must not be forgotten in this regard that Thomas's career occurred
+during the period when Latin hymn writing was at its apogee. The Dies
+Irae and the Stabat Mater were both written during the Thirteenth
+Century, and the most precious Latin hymns of all times were composed
+during the century and a half from 1150 to 1300. Aquinas's hymns do
+not fail to challenge comparison even with the greatest of these.
+While he had an eminently devotional subject, it must not be forgotten
+that certain supremely difficult theological problems were involved in
+the expression of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. In spite of the
+difficulties, Thomas succeeded in making not only good theology but
+great poetry. A portion of one of his hymns, the Tantum Ergo, has been
+perhaps more used in church services than any other, with the possible
+exception of the Dies Irae. Another one of his beautiful hymns that
+especially deserves to be admired, is less well known and so I have
+ventured to quote three selected stanzas of it, as an illustration
+{288} of Thomas's command over rhyme and rhythm in the Latin tongue.
+[Footnote 24]
+
+  Adoro te devote, latens Deitas,
+  Quae sub his figuris vere latitas.
+  Tibi se cor meum totum subjicit,
+  Quia te contemplans totum deficit.
+
+  Visus, tactus, gustus, in te fallitur,
+  Sed auditu solo tute creditur:
+  Credo quidquid dixit Dei filius
+  Nihil veritatis verbo verius.
+
+And the less musical but wonderfully significative fourth, stanza--
+
+  Plagas sicut Thomas non intueor,
+  Deum tamen meum te confiteor,
+  Fac me tibi semper magis credere,
+  In te spem habere, te diligere.
+
+Only the ardent study of many years will give anything like an
+adequate idea of the great schoolman's universal genius. I am content
+if I have conveyed a few hints that will help to a beginning of an
+acquaintance with one of the half dozen supreme minds of our race.
+
+  [Footnote 24: The following translation made by Justice O'Hagan
+  renders sense and sound into English as adequately perhaps as is
+  possible:
+
+    Hidden God, devoutly I adore thee,
+      Truly present underneath these veils:
+    All my heart subdues itself before thee.
+      Since it all before thee faints and fails.
+
+    Not to sight, or taste, or touch be credit.
+      Hearing only do we trust secure;
+    I believe, for God the Son hath said it--
+      Word of truth that ever shall endure.
+
+    ...
+
+    Though I look not on thy wounds with Thomas,
+      Thee, my Lord, and thee, my God, I call:
+    Make me more and more believe thy promise,
+      Hope in thee, and love thee over all.
+  ]
+
+
+{289}
+
+XVIII
+
+ST. LOUIS THE MONARCH.
+
+
+If large numbers of men are to be ruled by one of their number, as
+seems more or less inevitable in the ordinary course of things, then,
+without doubt, the best model of what such a monarch's life should be,
+is to be found in that of Louis IX., who for nearly half a century was
+the ruler of France during our period. Of all the rulers of men of
+whom we have record in history he probably took his duties most
+seriously, with most regard for others, and least for himself and for
+his family. There is not a single relation of life in which he is not
+distinguished and in which his career is not worth studying, as an
+example of what can be done by a simple, earnest, self-forgetful man,
+to make life better and happier for all those who come in contact with
+him.
+
+His relations with his mother are those of an affectionate son in whom
+indeed, from his easy compliance with her wishes in his younger years
+one might suspect some weakness, but whose strength of character is
+displayed at every turn once he himself assumed the reins of
+government. After many years of ruling however, when his departure on
+the Crusade compelled him to be absent from the kingdom it was to her
+he turned again to act as his representative and the wisdom of the
+choice no one can question. As a husband Louis' life was a model, and
+though he could not accomplish the impossible, and was not able to
+keep the relations of his mother and his wife as cordial as he would
+have liked them to be, judging from human experience generally it is
+hard to think this constitutes any serious blot on his fair name. As a
+father, few men have ever thought less of material advantages for
+their children, or more of the necessity for having them realize that
+happiness in life does not consist in the possession of many things,
+but rather in the accomplishment of duty and in the recognition of the
+fact that the giving of happiness to others {290} constitutes the best
+source of felicity for one's self. His letters and instructions to his
+children, as preserved for us by Joinville and other contemporaries,
+give us perhaps the most taking picture of the man that we have, and
+round out a personality, which, while it has in the telling French
+phrase "the defects of its virtues," is surely one of the most
+beautiful characters that has ever been seen upon earth, in a man who
+took an active and extremely important part in the great events of the
+world of his time.
+
+The salient points of his character are his devotion to the three
+great needs of humanity as they present themselves in his time. He
+made it the aim of his life that men should have justice, and
+education, and when for any misfortune they needed it,--charity; and
+every portion of his career is taken up with successful achievement in
+these great departments of social action. It is well known that when
+he became conscious that the judges sometimes abused their power and
+gave sentences for partial reasons, the monarch himself took up the
+onerous duty of hearing appeals and succeeded in making the judges of
+his kingdom realize, that only the strictest justice would save them
+from the king's displeasure, and condign punishment. For an unjust
+judge there was short shrift. The old tree at Versailles, under which
+he used to hear the causes of the poor who appealed to him, stood for
+many centuries as a reminder of Louis' precious effort to make the
+dispensing of justice equal to all men. When the duty of hearing
+appeals took up too much of his time it was transferred to worthy
+shoulders, and so the important phase of jurisprudence in France
+relating to appeals, came to be thoroughly established as a part of
+the organic law of the kingdom.
+
+
+{opp290}
+
+[Illustration]
+NOTRE DAME (PARIS)
+
+
+As regards education, too much can not be said of Louis' influence. It
+is to him more than to anybody else that the University of Paris owes
+the success it achieved as a great institution of learning at the end
+of the Thirteenth Century. Had the monarch been opposed to the spread
+of education with any idea that it might possibly undermine his
+authority, had he even been indifferent to it, Paris would not have
+come to be the educational center of the world. As it was, Louis not
+only encouraged it in every way, but also acted as the patron of great
+{291} subsidiary institutions which were to add to its prestige and
+enhance its facilities. Among the most noteworthy is the Sorbonne. La
+Sainte Chapelle deserves to be mentioned, however, and the library
+attached to it, which owed its foundation and development to Louis,
+were important factors in attracting students to Paris and in
+furnishing them interestingly suggestive material for thought and the
+development of taste during their residence there. His patronage of
+Vincent of Beauvais, the encyclopedist, was but a further
+manifestation of his interest in everything educational. His
+benefactions to the Hotel Dieu must be considered rather under the
+head of charity, and yet they also serve to represent his
+encouragement of medical education and of the proper care for the poor
+in educated hands.
+
+Voltaire, to whom Louis' character as a supreme believer in revealed
+religion must have been so utterly unsympathetic, and whose position
+as the historical symbol of all that Voltaire most held in antipathy
+in medievalism, might have been expected to make the French
+philosopher avoid mention of him since he could not condemn, has been
+forced into some striking utterances in praise of Louis, one of which
+we quote:
+
+  "Louis IX appeared to be a prince destined to reform Europe, if she
+  could have been reformed, to render France triumphant and civilized,
+  and to be in all things a pattern for men. His piety which was that
+  of an anchorite, did not deprive him of any kingly virtue. A wise
+  economy took nothing from his liberality. A profound policy was
+  combined with strict justice and he is perhaps the only sovereign
+  who is entitled to this praise; prudent and firm in counsel,
+  intrepid without rashness in his wars, he was as compassionate as if
+  he had always been unhappy. No man could have carried virtue
+  further."
+
+Guizot, the French statesman and historian, whose unbending Calvinism
+made the men and institutions of the Middle Ages almost
+incomprehensible to him from their Catholic aspects, has much of good
+to say of Louis, though there is not wanting rather definite evidence
+of the reluctance of his admiration:
+
+  "The world has seen more profound politicians on the throne, greater
+  generals, men of more mighty and brilliant intellect, princes who
+  have exercised a more powerful influence {292} over later
+  generations and events subsequent to their own times; but it has
+  never seen such a king as this St. Louis, never seen a man
+  possessing sovereign power and yet not contracting the vices and
+  passions which attend it, displaying upon the throne in such a high
+  degree every human virtue purified and ennobled by Christian faith.
+  St. Louis did not give any new or personal impulse to his age; he
+  did not strongly influence the nature or the development of
+  civilization in France; whilst he endeavored to reform the gravest
+  abuses of the feudal system by the introduction of justice and
+  public order, he did not endeavor to abolish it either by the
+  substitution of a pure monarchy, or by setting class against class
+  in order to raise the royal authority high above all. He was neither
+  an egotist nor a scheming diplomatist; he was, in all sincerity, in
+  harmony with his age and sympathetic alike with the faith, the
+  institutions, the customs, and the tastes of France in the
+  Thirteenth Century. And yet, both in the Thirteenth Century and in
+  later times St. Louis stands apart as a man of profoundly original
+  character, an isolated figure without any peer among his
+  contemporaries or his successors. As far as it was possible in the
+  Middle Ages, he was an ideal man, king, and Christian."
+
+Guizot goes even further than this when he says, "It is reported that
+in the Seventeenth Century, during the brilliant reign of Louis XIV.,
+Montecuculli, on learning of the death of his illustrious rival,
+Turenne, said to his officers, 'A man has died to-day who did honor to
+mankind.' St. Louis did honor to France, to royalty, to humanity, and
+to Christianity. This was the feeling of his contemporaries, and after
+six centuries it is still confirmed by the judgment of the historian."
+
+Of Louis' wonderful influence for good as a ruler all historians are
+agreed in talking in the highest terms. His private life however, is
+even more admirable for our purpose of bringing out the greatness of
+the Thirteenth Century. Of course many legends and myths have gathered
+around his name, but still enough remains of absolutely trustworthy
+tradition and even documentary evidence, to make it very clear that he
+was a man among men, a nobleman of nature's making, who in any
+position of life would have acquitted himself with a perfection sure
+to make his life worthy of admiration. One of the most {293} striking
+traits of his character is his love of justice, his insatiable desire
+to render to all men what was rightly theirs. A biographer has told
+the story that gives the most telling proof of this in relating the
+solicitude with which he tried to right all the wrongs not only of his
+own reign, but of those of his predecessors, before he set out on the
+Crusade. He wished to have the absolute satisfaction that he, nor his,
+owed any man any reparation, as the most precious treasure he could
+take with him on his perilous expedition. He wished even to undo any
+wrongs that might have been done in his name though he was entirely
+unconscious of them.
+
+  "As he wished to be in a state of grace at the moment of departure,
+  and to take with him to the Holy Land a quiet conscience by leaving
+  the kingdom in as happy a condition as possible, he resolved to
+  carry out one of the noblest measures ever undertaken by a king. By
+  his order, inquisitors were sent into all the provinces annexed to
+  the royal dominion since the accession of Philip Augustus. All those
+  who had been maltreated or despoiled by the bailiffs, seneschals,
+  provosts, sergeants, and other representatives of the royal
+  authority, came to declare their wrongs to these newly appointed
+  judges, and to demand the reparation which was due to them; the
+  number was great, since for forty years there had been much
+  suffering in the country districts and even in the towns .... The
+  royal officers had too often acted as if they were in a conquered
+  country; they believed themselves to be safe from observation, so
+  that they might do as they pleased. The people had much to endure
+  during these forty years, and it was a noble idea to make reparation
+  freely and with elaborate care. No prince had been known, of his own
+  accord and at his own cost, to redress the wrongs inflicted on the
+  people during the reigns of his father and grandfather. This made an
+  immense impression, which lasted for centuries. Blanche's son was
+  not merely a good king, he became the unrivalled sovereign, the
+  impeccable judge, the friend and consoler of his subjects."
+
+It is no wonder that so inappeasable a lover of justice should commend
+that virtue above all others to his son. When we read his letters to
+that son who was to be his successor, in the light of Louis' own
+career, we appreciate with what utter {294} sincerity they were
+written. Louis realized that simple justice between men would undo
+more of the world's wrongs than most of the vaunted cures for social
+ills, which are only too often the result of injustice.
+
+  "Dear son," he writes in his Instruction, "if you come to reign, do
+  that which befits a king, that is, be so just as to deviate in
+  nothing from justice, whatever may befall you. If a poor man goes to
+  law with one who is rich, support the poor rather than the rich man
+  until you know the truth, and when the truth is known, do that which
+  is just. And if it happen that any man has a dispute with yourself,
+  maintain the cause of your adversary before the council so as not to
+  appear partial to your own cause, until the truth is known. Unless
+  you do this, those who are of the council may fear to speak against
+  you, and this ought not to be. . . . And if you find that you
+  possess anything unjustly acquired, either in your time or in that
+  of your predecessors, make restitution at once, however great its
+  value, either in land, money, or any other thing. . . . If the
+  matter is doubtful and you cannot find out the truth, follow the
+  advice of trusty men, and make such an agreement as may fully
+  deliver your soul and that of your predecessors. If you hear that
+  your predecessors have made restitution of anything, take great
+  trouble to discover if anything more should be restored, and if you
+  find that this is the case, restore it at once so as to deliver your
+  own soul and that of your predecessors."
+
+  "The education of his children, their future position and
+  well-being, engrossed the attention of the King as entirely, and
+  were subjects of as keen an interest, as if he had been a father
+  with no other task than the care of his children. After supper they
+  followed him to his apartment, where he made them sit around him for
+  a time whilst he instructed them in their duty; he then sent them to
+  bed. He would direct their attention particularly to the good and
+  bad actions of Princes. He used to visit them in their own apartment
+  when he had any leisure, inquire as to their progress, and like a
+  second Tobias, give them excellent instruction .... On Maundy
+  Thursday, he and his children used to wash the feet of a dozen poor
+  persons, give them large alms, and afterward wait upon them whilst
+  they dined. The King together with his son-in-law {295} King
+  Thibault, whom he loved and looked upon as his own son, carried the
+  first poor man to the hospital of Compiègne, and his two oldest
+  sons, Louis and Philippe, carried the second. They were accustomed
+  to act with him in all things, showing him great reverence, and he
+  desired that they and Thibault should also obey him implicitly in
+  everything that he commanded."
+
+Anyone who still retains any trace of the old-fashioned notion, which
+used to be unfortunately a commonplace among English speaking people,
+that the medieval Monks were unworthy of their great calling, and that
+the monasteries were the homes of lazy, fat-witted men whose only
+object in taking up the life was to secure an easy means of
+livelihood, will be thoroughly undeceived, if he but read with some
+attention the stories of Louis' relations to the monasteries. In all
+his journeys he stopped in them, he always asked to see their
+libraries, he insisted on not being treated better than the community
+and in every way he tried to show his esteem for them. There is a
+story which may or may not be true in the "Little Flowers of St.
+Francis," which comes from almost a contemporary source, however, that
+once on his travels he called on Brother Giles, the famous
+simple-minded companion of St. Francis, of whom so many delightfully
+humorous stories are told. Brother Giles received his affectionate
+greeting but said never a word in return. After the first words the
+King himself said nothing, but both sat and communed in silence for
+some time, and then the King departed apparently well-pleased with his
+visit. Needless to say when Brother Giles told the story of the King
+of France having called on him there was a commotion in the community.
+But by this time the King was far distant on his way.
+
+Indeed Louis took so many opportunities to stop in monasteries and
+follow monastic regulations as to prayer and the taking of meals while
+there, that he quite disgusted some of the members of his retinue who
+were most with him. One of the ladies of the court in her impatience
+at him for this, is once said to have remarked under such indiscreet
+circumstances that it was reported to Louis, that she wished they had
+a man and not a monk for King. Louis is said to have asked her very
+{296} gently if she would prefer that he spend most of his time in
+sport and in excesses of various kinds. Even such remarks, however,
+had no effect in turning him from his purpose to live as simply and as
+beneficently for others as possible. His genuine appreciation of the
+monks must be recognized from his wishes with regard to his children.
+On the other hand his readiness to secure their happiness as far as
+possible in the way they wished for themselves shows the tenderness of
+his fatherly heart. A modern biographer has said of him:--
+
+  "He was very anxious that his three children born in the East during
+  the Crusade--Jean Tristan, Pierre, and Blanche--and even his eldest
+  daughter Isabella, should enter the monastic life, which he looked
+  upon as the most likely to insure their salvation; he frequently
+  exhorted them to take this step, writing letters of the greatest
+  tenderness and piety, especially to his daughter Isabella; but, as
+  they did not show any taste for it, he did not attempt to force
+  their inclinations. Thenceforth, he busied himself in making
+  suitable marriages for them, and establishing them according to
+  their rank; at the same time he gave them the most judicious advice
+  as to their conduct and actions in the world upon which they were
+  entering. When he was before Tunis and found that he was sick unto
+  death, he gave the instructions which he had written out in French
+  with his own hand to his eldest son, Philip. They are models of
+  virtue, wisdom and paternal tenderness, worthy of a King and a
+  Christian."
+
+Perhaps the most interesting feature of St. Louis' life was his
+treatment of the poor. He used literally to recall the fact that they
+must stand to him in the place of God. "Whatever you do to the least
+of these you do even unto me" was a favorite expression frequently in
+his mouth. He waited on them personally and no matter how revolting
+their appearance would not be deterred from this personal service. It
+is easy to understand that his courtiers did not sympathize with this
+state of mind, though Louis used to encourage them not only by his
+example but by personal persuasion. Every Holy Thursday he used to
+wash the feet of twelve poor people at a public ceremonial, in honor
+of the washing of the feet of the Apostles by Christ.
+
+{opp296}
+[Illustration]
+APOSTLE (LA SAINTE CHAPELLE, PARIS)
+
+
+It must not be thought moreover, that such a {297} proceeding was
+perhaps less repugnant to the feelings of the men of that time than
+they are to the present generation. It might be considered that the
+general paucity of means for maintaining personal cleanliness in
+medieval times would make the procedure less disgusting. As a proof of
+the contrary of this we have the words of Joinville who tells of the
+following conversation:--
+
+  "Many a time," says Joinville, "I have seen him cut their bread for
+  them, and pour out their drink. One day he asked me if I washed the
+  feet of the poor on Maundy Thursday. "Sire," I answered, "What, the
+  feet of those dirty wretches! No indeed, I shall never wash them."
+  "Truly," replied the King, "you have spoken ill, for you ought not
+  to despise that which God intended for your instruction. I pray you,
+  therefore, first of all for the love of God, and then by your love
+  towards me, that you make a habit of washing their feet."
+
+Even more striking than this however, was his attitude toward the
+lepers of the time. These poor creatures were compelled to live apart
+from the population and were not allowed to approach healthy
+individuals. They were of exceeding interest to Louis however, who
+took every opportunity to mitigate the trials and hardships of their
+existence. Whenever he met them on his journeys he insisted on
+abundant alms being given them, and gave orders that every possible
+provision for their welfare, consonant with the care that their
+affection should not be permitted to spread, be made for them. Over
+and over again he greeted them as his brothers and when his retinue
+feared to approach them, would himself go to them, in order to console
+them by his words and his exhibition of personal interest. There is an
+incident told of his having on one occasion, when a muddy stream
+intervened between him and some lepers, forded the stream alone in
+order to get to them, and neither any personal fear of contagion nor
+any natural repugnance was permitted to deter him from this sublime
+work of charity. It is no wonder that his people proclaimed him a
+saint, that is "one who thinks first of others and only second of
+himself," even during his lifetime.
+
+The only supposed blot upon Louis' character is the denunciation by
+certain modern writers of what they call the fanaticism, {298} which
+prompted him to go on the Crusades instead of remaining at home
+properly to care for his people. The opinion with regard to the place
+that must be assigned to the Crusades as a factor in history and
+national as well as European development, has changed very much in
+recent years. Formerly it was the custom almost entirely to condemn
+them and to look upon them as a serious mistake. Such ideas however,
+are only entertained by those who do not realize the conditions under
+which they were undertaken or the important results which flowed from
+them. Bishop Stubbs in his lectures on Medieval and Modern History,
+delivered while he was professor of History at Oxford, has been at
+some pains to correct this false notion, and his passage constitutes
+one of the best apologies for Louis' interest in the Crusades which
+could be written. He said:--
+
+  "The Crusades are not, in my mind, either the popular delusions that
+  our cheap literature has determined them to be, nor papal
+  conspiracies against kings and peoples, as they appear to Protestant
+  controversialists; nor the savage outbreak of expiring barbarism,
+  thirsting for blood and plunder, nor volcanic explosions of
+  religious intolerance. I believe them to have been in their deep
+  sources, and in the minds of their best champions, and in the main
+  tendency of their results, capable of ample justification. They were
+  the first great effort of medieval life to go beyond the pursuit of
+  selfish and isolated ambitions; they were the trial-feat of the
+  young world, essaying to use, to the glory of God and the benefit of
+  man, the arms of its new knighthood. That they failed in their
+  direct object is only what may be alleged against almost every great
+  design which the great disposer of events has moulded to help the
+  world's progress; for the world has grown wise from the experience
+  of failure, rather than by the winning of high aims. That the good
+  they did was largely leavened with evil may be said of every war
+  that has ever been waged; that bad men rose by them while good men
+  fell, is and must be true, wherever and whenever the race is to the
+  swift and the battle to the strong. But that in the end they were a
+  benefit to the world no one who reads can doubt; and that in their
+  course they brought out a love for all that is heroic in human
+  nature, the love of freedom, the honor of prowess, sympathy with
+  sorrow, {299} perseverance to the last, the chronicles of the age
+  abundantly prove; proving, moreover, that it was by the experience
+  of these times that the forms of those virtues were realized and
+  presented to posterity."  [Footnote 25]
+
+    [Footnote 25: Stubbs, "Seventeen Lectures on Medieval and Modern
+    History," p. 180.]
+
+With the stigma of supposed imprudence or foolhardiness for having
+gone on the Crusade turned into a new cause for honor, Louis must be
+considered as probably the greatest monarch who ever occupied an
+important throne. Instead of being surprised that such a monarch
+should have come in the heart of the Middle Ages and during a century
+so distant as the Thirteenth, readers must now be ready to appreciate
+to some degree at least the fact, that his environment instead of
+being a hindrance in any sense of the word to the development of
+Louis' greatness, should rather be considered as one of the principal
+sources of it. Louis' character was representative of the men of that
+time and exhibits in their most striking form the qualities that were
+set up as ideals in that period. If the century had produced nothing
+else but Louis, it would have to be considered as a great epoch in
+history, for he was no mere accident but typically a son of his age.
+If this is but properly appreciated the true significance not only of
+Louis' life but the period in which he lived will be better understood
+than would be possible by any other means. Those who want to know the
+men of this wonderful century as they actually were should study
+Louis' life in detail, for we have been only able to hint at its most
+striking characteristics.
+
+{opp300}
+
+[Illustration]
+DECORATION (QUEEN MARY'S PSALTER, XIII. CENTURY MS.)
+
+
+{300}
+
+XIX
+
+DANTE THE POET.
+
+
+It is only too often the custom to talk of Dante as a solitary
+phenomenon in his time. Even Carlyle who knew well and properly
+appreciated many things in medieval life and letters and especially in
+the literary productions of the Thirteenth Century said, that in Dante
+"ten silent centuries found a voice." Anyone who has followed what we
+have had to say with regard to the Thirteenth Century will no longer
+think of Dante as standing alone, but will readily appreciate that he
+is only the fitting culmination of a great literary era. After having
+gone over even as hurriedly as has been necessary in our brief space,
+what was accomplished in every country of Europe in literature that
+was destined to live not only because of the greatness of the
+thoughts, but also for the ultimateness of its expression, we should
+expect some surpassing literary genius at the end of the period. It
+seems almost inevitable indeed that a supreme poet, whose name stands
+above all others but one or two at the most in the whole history of
+the race, should have lived in the Thirteenth Century, and should have
+summed up effectually in himself all the greatness of the century and
+enshrined its thoughts in undying verse for all future generations.
+
+
+{opp300}
+[Illustration]
+PORTRAIT OF DANTE (GIOTTO, IN THE BARGELLO, FLORENCE)
+
+
+When Dante himself dares to place his name with those of the men whom
+he considered the five greatest poets of all time, it seems sublimest
+egotism. At first thought many will at once conclude that his reason
+for so doing was, that in the unlettered times his critical faculty
+was not well developed and as he knew that his work far surpassed that
+of his contemporaries, he could scarcely help but conclude that his
+place must be among the great poets. Any such thought however, is
+entirely due to lack of knowledge of the conditions of Dante's life
+and education. He had been in the universities of Italy, and in his
+exile had visited Paris and probably also Oxford. He knew the poets of
+his country well. He appreciated them {301} highly. It was the
+consciousness of genius that made him place himself so high and not
+any faulty comparison with others. Succeeding generations have set him
+even higher than the place chosen by himself and now we breathe his
+name only with those of Homer and Shakespeare, considering that these
+three sublime immortals are so far above all other poets that there is
+scarcely a second to them.
+
+Dante is the most universal of poets. He has won recognition from all
+nations, and he has been the favorite reading of the most diverse
+times and conditions of men. From the very beginning he has been
+appreciated, and even before his death men had begun to realize
+something of the supremacy of his greatness. Commentaries on his works
+that have been preserved down to our own day were written almost
+during his lifetime. Only supreme interest could have tempted men to
+multiply these by the hard labor of patient handwriting. Petrarch who
+as a young man, was his contemporary, recognized him as the Prince of
+Italian poets who had composed in their common tongue, and even was
+tempted to say that the subtle and profound conceptions of the
+Commedia could not have been written without the special gift of the
+Holy Ghost. Boccaccio was wont to speak of him as the Divine Poet, and
+tells us that he had learned that Petrarch deliberately held aloof
+from the Commedia, through fear of losing his originality if he came
+under the spell of so great a master.
+
+Very few realize how great a poet Dante must be considered even if
+only the effusions of his younger years were to be taken as the
+standard of his poetical ability. Some of his sonnets are as beautiful
+of their kind as are to be found in this form of poetry. His
+description of his lady-love is famous among sonnets of lovers and may
+only be compared with some of the Sonnets from the Portuguese in our
+own day, or with one or two of Camoens' original sonnets in the
+Portuguese, for lofty praise of the beloved in worthy numbers. After
+reading Dante's sonnets it is easy to understand how a half century
+later Petrarch was able to raise the sonnet form to an excellence that
+was never to be surpassed. With a beginning like this it is no wonder
+that the sonnet became so popular in Europe during the next three
+centuries, and that every young poet, {302} down to Shakespeare's
+time, had an attack of sonneteering just as he might have had an
+attack of the measles. The first one of a pair of sonnets that are
+considered supreme in their class deserves a place here as an example
+of Dante's poetic faculty in this form, for which he is so much less
+known than he ought to be.
+
+  He sees completely fullest bliss abound
+    Who among ladies sees my Lady's face;
+  Those that with her do go are surely bound
+    To give God thanks for such exceeding grace.
+  And in her beauty such strange might is found.
+    That envy finds in other hearts no place;
+  So she makes them walk with her, clothed all round
+    With love and faith and courteous gentleness.
+  The sight of her makes all things lowly be;
+    Nor of herself alone she gives delight.
+  But each through her receiveth honor due.
+    And in her acts is such great courtesy,
+  That none can recollect that wondrous sight.
+    Who sighs not for it in Love's sweetness true.
+
+It will be noted that Dante has nothing to say of the personal
+appearance of his beloved. This is true, however, of the whole series
+of poems to and about her. He never seems to have thought for a moment
+of her physical qualities. What he finds worthy to praise is her
+goodness which shines out from her features so that everyone rejoices
+in it, while a sweetness fills the heart as if a heavenly visitor had
+come. For him her supreme quality is that, with all her beauty, envy
+finds no place in others' hearts because she is so clothed around with
+love and faith and courteous gentleness. It has often been said that
+Shakespeare did not describe the physical appearances of his heroines
+because he realized that this meant very little, but then Shakespeare
+had to write for the stage and realized that blondes and brunettes,
+especially in the olden time, could not be made to order and that it
+was better to leave the heroine's physical appearance rather vague. It
+would be expected, however, that Dante, with his Southern temperament,
+would have dwelt on the physical perfections of his fair. The next
+{303} sonnet, however, of the best known group emphasizes his
+abstraction of all physical influence in the matter and insists on her
+goodness and the womanly beauty of her character. It will be found in
+our chapter on Women of the Century.
+
+In his earlier years Dante considered himself one of the Troubadours,
+and there can be no doubt that if he had never written the Divine
+Comedy, he still would have been remembered as one of the great poets
+who wrote of love in this Thirteenth Century. Not only does he deserve
+a place among the greatest of the Minnesingers, the Trouvères, and the
+Troubadours, but he is perhaps the greatest of them. That he should
+have sung as he did at the end of the century only shows that he was
+in the stream of literary evolution and not being merely carried idly
+along, but helping to guide it into ever fairer channels. Dante's
+minor poems would have made enduring fame for any poet of less genius
+than himself. His prose works deserve to be read by anyone who wishes
+to know the character of this greatest of poets, and also to
+appreciate what the educational environment of the Thirteenth Century
+succeeded in making out of good intellectual material when presented
+to it. Dante's works are the real treasury of information of the most
+precious kind with regard to the century, since they provide the
+proper standpoint from which to view all that it accomplished.
+
+While Dante was a supreme singer among the poets of a great song time,
+it was only natural, in the light of what we know about the literary
+product of the rest of this century, that he should have put into epic
+form the supreme product of his genius. With the great national epics
+in every country of Europe--the Cid, the Arthur Legends, and the
+Nibelungen, at the beginning of this century, and the epical poems of
+the Meistersingers during its first half, it is not surprising, but on
+the contrary rather what might have been confidently looked for, that
+there should have arisen a great national epic in Italy before the end
+of the century. The Gothic art movement spread through all these
+countries, and so did the wind of the spirit of esthetic
+accomplishment which blew the flame of national literature in each
+country into a mighty blaze, that not only was {304} never to be
+extinguished, but was to be a beacon light in the realm of national
+literatures forever after.
+
+We have already said a word of the well-known contemporary admiration
+for the poet but it should be realized that due appreciation of Dante
+continued in Italy during all the time when Italian art and literature
+was at its highest. It dwindled only at periods of decadence and lack
+of taste. Cornelius' law with regard to Dante's influence on art is
+very well known, Italian art according to him, has been strong and
+vigorous just in proportion as it has worked under Dante's influence,
+while it became weak and sensuous as that influence declined. This has
+held true from the very beginning and has been as true for literature
+as for art. When the Italians became interested in trivialities and
+gave themselves up to weak imitations of the classics, or to pastoral
+poetry that was not a real expression of feeling but a passing fancy
+of literary folk, then Dante was for a time in obscurity. Even at the
+height of the Renaissance, however, when Greek was at the acme of its
+interest and the classics occupied so much attention that Dante might
+be expected to be eclipsed, the great thinkers and critics of the time
+still worshipped at the shrine of their great master of Italian verse.
+The best proof of this is to be found in Michael Angelo's famous
+sonnets in praise of Dante, the second of which would seem to exhaust
+all that can be said in praise of a brother poet.
+
+  Into the dark abyss he made his way;
+    Both nether worlds he saw, and in the might
+    Of his great soul beheld God's splendour bright.
+  And gave to us on earth true light of day:
+  Star of supremest worth with its clear ray.
+    Heaven's secrets he revealed to us through our dim sight.
+    And had for guerdon what the base world's spite
+  Oft gives to souls that noblest grace display,
+  Full ill was Dante's life-work understood,
+    His purpose high, by that ungrateful state.
+  That welcomed all with kindness but the good.
+    Would I were such, to bear like evil fate,
+  To taste his exile, share his lofty mood.
+    For this I'd gladly give all earth calls great.
+
+{305}
+
+In the first of this pair of sonnets, however, Michael Angelo gave if
+possible even higher praise than this. It will be recalled that he
+himself, besides being the greatest of sculptors and one of the
+greatest of painters and architects in a wonderfully productive
+period, was also a very great poet. These sonnets to Dante, the one to
+his crucifix, and one to Vittoria Colonna, are the best proof of this.
+He knew how to chisel thoughts into wonderfully suitable words quite
+as well as marble into the beautiful forms that grew under his hands.
+With all his greatness, and he must have been conscious of it, he
+thinks that he would be perfectly willing to give up all that earth
+calls great, simply to share Dante's lofty mood even in his exile. No
+greater tribute has ever been paid by one poet to another than this,
+and Michael Angelo's genius was above all critical, never
+thoughtlessly laudatory. As emphasizing the highest enlightened taste
+of a great epoch this has seemed to deserve a place here also.
+
+  What should be said of him speech may not tell;
+    His splendor is too great for men's dim sight;
+    And easier 'twere to blame his foes aright
+  Than for his poorest gifts to praise him well.
+  He tracked the path that leads to depths of Hell
+    To teach us wisdom, scaled the eternal height.
+    And heaven with open gates did him invite.
+  Who in his own loved city might not dwell.
+  Ungrateful country step-dame of his fate.
+    To her own loss: full proof we have in this
+  That souls most perfect bear the greatest woe.
+  Of thousand things suffice in this to state:
+    No exile ever was unjust as his,
+  Nor did the world his equal ever know.
+
+In England, in spite of distance of country, race and language, the
+appreciation of Dante began very early. Readers of Chaucer know the
+great Italian as the favorite poet of the Father of English poetry,
+and over and over again he has expressed the feeling of how much
+greater than anything he could hope to do was Dante's accomplishment.
+Readers will remember how Chaucer feels unable to tell the story of
+{306} Ugolino and his starving sons in the Hunger Tower, and refers
+those interested in the conclusion of the tale to Dante. After the
+religious revolt of the early Sixteenth Century Dante was lost sight
+of to a great extent. His temper was too Catholic to be appreciated by
+Puritan England, and the Elizabethans were too much occupied with
+their own creation of a great national literature, to have any time
+for appreciation of a foreigner so different in spirit from their
+times. With the coming of the Oxford Movement, however, Dante at once
+sprang into favor, and a number of important critical appreciations of
+him reintroduced him to a wide reading public in England, most of whom
+were among the most cultured of the island. This renewed interest in
+Dante gave rise to some of the best critical appreciations in any
+language. Dean Church's famous essay is the classic English monograph
+on Dante, and its opening paragraph sounds the keynote of critical
+opinion among English speaking people.
+
+  "The Divina Commedia is one of the landmarks of history. More than a
+  magnificent poem, more than the beginning of a language and the
+  opening of a national literature, more than the inspirer of art and
+  the glory of a great people, it is one of those rare and solemn
+  monuments of the mind's power which measure and test what it can
+  reach to, which rise up ineffaceably and forever as time goes on,
+  marking out its advance by grander divisions than its centuries, and
+  adopted as epochs by the consent of all who come after. It stands
+  with the Iliad and Shakespeare's Plays, with the writings of
+  Aristotle and Plato, with the Novum Organon and the Principia, with
+  Justinian's Code, with the Parthenon and St. Peter's. It is the
+  first Christian Poem, and it opens European literature as the Iliad
+  did that of Greece and Rome. And, like the Iliad, it has never
+  become out of date; it accompanies in undiminished freshness the
+  literature which it began."
+
+
+{opp306}
+
+[Illustration]
+TORRE DEL FAME (DANTE, PISA)
+
+[Illustration]
+PALAZZO PRETORIO (TODI)
+
+
+No better introduction to Dante could be obtained than this from Dean
+Church. Those who have found it difficult to get interested in the
+great Florentine poet, and who have been prone to think that perhaps
+the pretended liking for him on the part of many people was an
+affectation rather than a sincere expression of opinion, should read
+this essay and learn {307} something of the wealth of sympathy there
+is in Dante for even the man of these modern times. Our Thirteenth
+Century poet is not easy to read but there is probably no reading in
+all the world that brings with it so much of intellectual
+satisfaction, so much of awakening of the best feelings in man, so
+many glimpses into the depths of his being, as some lines from Dante
+pondered under favorable circumstances. Like one of these Gothic
+cathedrals of the olden times he never grows old, but, on the
+contrary, every favorite passage seems to have a new message for each
+mood of the reader. This is particularly true for the spiritual side
+of man's being as has been pointed out by Dean Church in a well-known
+passage toward the end of his essay.
+
+  "Those who know the Divina Commedia best will best know how hard it
+  is to be the interpreter of such a mind; but they will sympathize
+  with the wish to call attention to it. They know, and would wish
+  others also to know, not by hearsay, but by experience, the power of
+  that wonderful poem. They know its austere yet submitting beauty;
+  they know what force there is in its free and earnest and solemn
+  verse to strengthen, to tranquillize, to console. It is a small
+  thing that it has the secret of Nature and Man; that a few keen
+  words have opened their eyes to new sights in earth, and sea, and
+  sky; have taught them new mysteries of sound; have made them
+  recognize, in distinct image of thought, fugitive feelings, or their
+  unheeded expression, by look, or gesture, or motion; that it has
+  enriched the public and collective memory of society with new
+  instances, never to be lost, of human feeling and fortune; has
+  charmed mind and ear by the music of its stately march, and the
+  variety and completeness of its plan. But besides this, they know
+  how often its seriousness has put to shame their trifling, its
+  magnanimity their faint-heartedness, its living energy their
+  indolence, its stern and sad grandeur rebuked low thoughts, its
+  thrilling tenderness overcome sullenness and assuaged distress, its
+  strong faith quelled despair, and soothed perplexity, its vast grasp
+  imparted the sense of harmony to the view of clashing truth. They
+  know how often they have found in times of trouble, if not light, at
+  least that deep sense of reality, permanent though unseen, which is
+  more than light can {308} always give--in the view which it has
+  suggested to them of the judgments and love of God."
+
+As might have been expected from the fact of Dante's English
+popularity paralleling the Oxford Movement, both the great English
+Cardinals who were such prominent agents in that movement, looked upon
+him as a favorite author. Both of them have given him precious
+tributes. Newman's lofty compliment was the flattery of imitation when
+he wrote the Dream of Gerontius, that poem for poets which has told
+the men of our generation more about the immediate hereafter than
+anything written in these latter centuries. No poet of the intervening
+period, or of any other time, has so satisfactorily presented the
+after world as these writers so distant in time, so different in
+environment,--the one an Italian of the Thirteenth, the other an
+Englishman of the Nineteenth Century.
+
+Cardinal Manning's tribute was much more formal though not less
+glorious. It occurs in the introduction to Father Bowden's English
+edition of the German critic Hettinger's appreciation of Dante, and
+deserves a place here because it shows how much a representative
+modern churchman thinks of the great Florentine poet.
+
+  "There are three works which always seem to me to form a triad of
+  Dogma, of Poetry, and of Devotion,--The Summa of St. Thomas, The
+  Divina Commedia, and the Paradisus Animae (a manual of devotional
+  exercises by Horstius). All three contain the same outline of Faith.
+  St. Thomas traces it on the intellect, Dante upon the imagination,
+  and the Paradisus Animae upon the heart. The poem unites the book of
+  Dogma and the book of Devotion, clothed in conceptions of intensity
+  and of beauty which have never been surpassed nor equalled. No
+  uninspired hand has ever written thoughts so high in words, so
+  resplendent as the last stanza of the Divina Commedia. It was said
+  of St. Thomas, _'Post Summan Thomae nihil restat nisi lumen
+  gloriae_'--After the Summa of Thomas nothing is left except the
+  light of glory. It may be said of Dante, _'Post Dantis Paradisum
+  nihil restat nisi visio Dei_,'--After Dante's Paradise nothing is
+  left except the vision of God."
+
+Of course John Ruskin had a thorough-going admiration for so great a
+spiritual thinker as Dante and expressed it in no {309} uncertain
+terms. With his wonderful power to point out the significance of
+unexpected manifestations of human genius, Ruskin has even succeeded
+in minimizing one of the great objections urged against Dante, better
+perhaps than could be done by anyone else, for English speaking people
+at least. For many readers Dante is almost unbearable, because of
+certain grotesque elements they find in him. This has been the source
+and cause of more unfavorable criticism than anything else in the
+great Florentine's writings. Ruskin of course saw it but appreciated
+it at its proper significance, and has made clear in a passage that
+every Dante reader needs to go over occasionally, in order to assure
+himself that certain unusual things in Dante's attitude towards life
+are an expression rather of the highest human genius and its outlook
+on life, than some narrow limitation of medievalism. Ruskin said:--
+
+  "I believe that there is no test of greatness in nations, periods,
+  nor men more sure than the development, among them or in them, of a
+  noble grotesque, and no test of comparative smallness or limitation,
+  of one kind or another, more sure than the absence of grotesque
+  invention or incapability of understanding it. I think that the
+  central man of all the world, as representing in perfect balance the
+  imaginative, moral and intellectual faculties, all at their highest
+  is Dante; and in him the grotesque reaches at once the most distinct
+  and the most noble development to which it was ever brought in the
+  human mind. Of the grotesqueness in our own Shakespeare I need
+  hardly speak, nor of its intolerableness to his French critics; nor
+  of that of AEschylus and Homer, as opposed to the lower Greek
+  writers; and so I believe it will be found, at all periods, in all
+  minds of the first order."
+
+Great reverence for Dante might have been expected in Italy but the
+colder Northern nations shared it.
+
+In Germany modern admiration for Dante began with that great wave of
+critical appreciation which entered into German literature with the
+end of the Eighteenth and the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. As
+might almost have been expected, Frederick Schlegel was one of the
+first modern German admirers of Dante, though his brother August,
+whose translations of Shakespeare began that series of German studies
+of {310} Shakespeare which has been so fruitful during the past
+century, was also an open admirer of the medieval poet. Since then
+there has practically been no time when Germany has not had some
+distinguished Dante scholar, and when it has not been supplying the
+world with the products of profound study and deep scholarship with
+regard to him. The modern educational world has come to look so
+confidently toward Germany for the note of its critical appreciation,
+that the Dante devotion of the Germans will be the best possible
+encouragement for those who need to have the feeling, that their own
+liking is shared by good authorities, before they are quite satisfied
+with their appreciation. Dean Plumptre has summed up the Dante
+movement in Germany in a compendious paragraph that must find a place
+here.
+
+  "In the year 1824, Scartazzini, the great Dante scholar of the
+  Nineteenth Century, recognizes a new starting point. The period of
+  neglect of supercilious criticism comes to an end, and one of
+  reverence, admiration and exhaustive study begins. His account of
+  the labors of German scholars during the sixty years that have
+  followed fills a large part of his volume. Translations of the
+  Commedia by Kopisch, Kannegiesser, Witte, Philalethes (the nom de
+  plume of John, King of Saxony), Josefa Von Hoffinger, of the Minor
+  Poems by Witte and Krafft, endless volumes and articles on all
+  points connected with Dante's life and character, the publications
+  of the Deutsche Dante-Gesellschaft from 1867 to 1877, present a body
+  of literature which has scarcely a parallel in history. It is no
+  exaggeration to say that the Germans have taught Italians to
+  understand and appreciate their own poet, just as they have at least
+  helped to teach Englishmen to understand Shakespeare."
+
+Nor must it be thought that only the literary lights of Germany
+thoroughly appreciated the great Florentine. The greater the genius of
+the man the more his admiration for Dante if he but once becomes
+interested in him. A noteworthy example of this is Alexander Von
+Humboldt the distinguished German scientist, who was generally looked
+upon as perhaps the greatest thinker in European science during the
+first quarter of the Nineteenth Century. He is said to have been very
+faithful in his study of Dante and has expressed his admiration in no
+{311} uncertain terms. Curiously enough he found much to admire him
+for in matters scientific, for while it is not generally realized,
+Dante was an acute observer of Nature and has given expression in his
+works to many observations with regard to subjects that would now be
+considered within the scope of natural science, in a way to anticipate
+many supposedly modern bits of information. With regard to this
+Humboldt said in his Cosmos:--
+
+"When the glory of the Aramaic Greek and Roman dominion--or I might
+almost say, when the ancient world had passed away,--we find in the
+great and inspired founder of a new era, Dante Alighieri, occasional
+manifestations of the deepest sensibility to the charms of the
+terrestrial life of Nature, whenever he abstracts himself from the
+passionate and subjective control of that despondent mysticism which
+constituted the general circle of his ideas." How little Humboldt
+seems to have realized in his own absorption in external nature, that
+the qualities he blames in Dante are of the very essence of his
+genius, rounding out his humanity to an interest in all man's
+relations, supernatural as well as natural, and that without them he
+would not be the world poet for all time that he is.
+
+In America Dante came to his own almost as soon as literature obtained
+her proper place in our new country. The first generation of
+distinctly literary men comprise the group at Cambridge including
+Longfellow, Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Eliot Norton,
+James Russell Lowell, and others of minor importance. It soon became a
+favorite occupation among these men to give certain leisure hours to
+Dante. The Cambridge Dante society added not a little to the world's
+knowledge of the poet. Longfellow's translation and edition of Dante's
+works was a monumental achievement, for which its author is likely to
+be remembered better by future generations than perhaps for any of his
+original work. Future generations are likely to remember James Russell
+Lowell for his essays on Dante and Shakespeare better than for
+anything else. His Dante monograph is as magnificently illuminating as
+that of Dean Church's and perhaps even more satisfying to critical
+readers. That these men should have been content to give so much of
+their time to the study of the Thirteenth {312} Century poet shows in
+what appreciation he must be held by the rest of us if we would give
+him his due place in literature.
+
+There are many misunderstandings with regard to Dante which apparently
+only some serious study of the poet serves to remove satisfactorily.
+Most people consider that he was a distant, prophetic, religious
+genius, and that his poetry has in it very little of sympathy for
+humanity. While it is generally conceded that he saw man projected on
+the curtain of eternity, and realized all his relationships to the
+universe and to his Creator better than perhaps any other poet of all
+time, it is usually thought that one must have something of the
+medieval frame of mind in order to read him with interest and
+admiration. Such impressions are largely the result of reading only a
+few lines of Dante, and, finding them difficult of thorough
+comprehension, allowing one's self to be forced to the conclusion that
+he is not of interest to the modern reader. The Inferno being the
+first part of Dante's great poem is the one oftenest read in this
+passing fashion and so many ideas with regard to Dante are derived
+from this portion, which is not only not the masterpiece of the work
+but, if taken alone, sadly misrepresents the genius of the poet. His
+is no morbid sentimentality and does not need the adventitious
+interest of supreme suffering.
+
+As a matter of fact the Purgatorio is a much better introduction to
+Dante's real greatness, and is considered by the generality of Dante
+scholars as the more humanly sympathetic if not really the supreme
+expression of his creative faculty. The ascent of the Mount of
+Expiation with its constant note of hope and the gradually increasing
+facility of the ascent as the summit is approached, touches condolent
+cords in the human heart and arouses feelings that are close to what
+is best in human aspiration in spite of its consciousness of defect.
+Over and over again in the Purgatorio one finds evidence of Dante's
+wonderful powers of observation. The poet is first of all according to
+the etymology of the word a creator, one who gives life to the
+figments of his imagination so that we recognize them as vital
+manifestations of human genius, but is also the seer, the man who sees
+deeper into things and sees more of them than anyone else. Ordinarily
+Dante is considered by those who do not know him as not having been an
+observer of things human and around him in life. There are passages in
+his works, however, that entirely refute this.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+ANGEL (RHEIMS)
+
+
+{313}
+
+The story that he went about the cities of North Italy during his
+exile, with countenance so gloomy and stare so fixed that men pointed
+to him and spoke of him as one who had visited Hell, and the other
+tradition, however well it may be founded, that the women sometimes
+pointed him out to their children and then used the memory of him as a
+bogy man to scare them into doing unpleasant things afterwards, would
+seem to indicate that he had occupied himself very little with the
+things around him, and that above all he had paid very little
+attention to the ways of childhood. He has shown over and over again,
+especially in the Purgatorio, that the simplest and most natural
+actions of child-life had been engraved upon his heart for he uses
+them with supreme truth in his figures. He knows how
+
+  "An infant seeks his mother's breast
+  When fear or anguish vex his troubled heart,"--
+
+but he knows too, how the child who has done wrong, confesses its
+faults.
+
+  "As little children, dumb with shame's keen smart.
+  Will listening stand with eyes upon the ground.
+  Owning their faults with penitential heart,
+  So then stood I."
+
+There is a passage in the Inferno in which he describes so vividly the
+rescue of a child from the flames by its mother that Plumptre has even
+ventured to suggest that Dante himself may have been the actual
+subject of the rescue. Because it helps to an appreciation of Dante's
+intensity of expression and poignancy of vision the passage itself,
+with Plumptre's comment, seems deserving of quotation:
+
+  "Then suddenly my Guide his arms did fling
+  Around me, as a mother, roused by cries,
+  Sees the fierce flames around her gathering
+  And takes her boy, nor ever halts but flies.
+  Caring for him than for herself far more,
+  Though one scant shift her only robe supplies."
+
+{314}
+
+It must not be thought, however, that Dante's quality as an observer
+was limited to the actions of human beings. His capacity to see many
+other things is amply manifested in his great poem. Even the smallest
+of living things, that would surely be thought beneath his notice,
+became the subject of similies that show how much everything in nature
+interested the spirit of genius. The passage with regard to the ants
+has often been quoted, and is indeed a surprising manifestation of
+nature study at an unexpected time and from an entirely unanticipated
+quarter. Dante saw the souls of those who were so soon to enter into
+the realm of blessedness, and who were already in the last circle of
+purgatory, greeting each other with the kiss of peace and his
+picturesque simile for it is:--
+
+  "So oft, within their dusk brown host, proceed
+  This ant and that, till muzzle muzzle meet;
+  Spying their way, or how affairs succeed."
+
+As for the birds his pages are full of references to them and all of
+his bird similies are couched in terms that show how sympathetically
+observant he was of their habits and ways. He knows their different
+methods of flying in groups and singly, he has observed them on their
+nests and knows their wonderful maternal anxiety for their young, and
+describes it with a vividness that would do credit to a naturalist of
+the modern time who had made his home in the woods. Indeed some of his
+figures taken from birds constitute examples of the finest passages of
+poetic description of living nature that have ever been written. The
+domestic animals, moreover, especially the cat and the dog, come in
+for their share of this sympathetic observance, and he is able to add
+greatly to the vividness of the pictures he paints by his references
+to the well-known habits of these animals. It is no wonder that the
+tradition has grown up that he was fond of such pets and possessed
+several of them that were well-known to the early commentators on his
+poems, and the subject of no little erudition.
+
+Nothing escaped the attention of this acute observer in the world
+around him, and over and over again one finds surprising bits of
+observation with regard to natural phenomena usually supposed to be
+quite out of the range of the interest of {315} medieval students
+generally, and above all of literary men of this Middle Age. Alexander
+Von Humboldt calls attention in a well-known passage in his Cosmos to
+the wonderful description of the River of Light in the Thirtieth Canto
+of the Paradiso.
+
+  "I saw a glory like a stream flow by.
+    In brightness rushing and on either shore
+  Were banks that with spring's wondrous hues might vie.
+    And from that river living sparks did soar,
+  And sank on all sides in the flow'rets' bloom,
+    Like precious rubies set in golden ore.
+  Then, as if drunk with all the rich perfume,
+    Back to the wondrous torrent did they roll,
+  And as one sank another filled its room."
+
+Humboldt explains this as follows, with a suggestion that deserves to
+be remembered.
+
+  "It would almost seem as if this picture had its origin in the
+  poet's recollection of that peculiar and rare phosphorescent
+  condition of the ocean in which luminous points appear to rise from
+  the breaking waves, and, spreading themselves over the surface of
+  the waters, convert the liquid plain into a moving sea of sparkling
+  stars."
+
+Probably the best way for a modern to realize how much of interest
+there may be for him in Dante is to consider the great Italian epic
+poet in comparison with our greatest of English epic poets, Milton.
+While any such comparison in the expressive Latin phrase is sure to
+walk lame, it serves to give an excellent idea of the methods of the
+two men in the illustration of their ideas. We venture therefore to
+quote a comparison between these two poets from a distinguished critic
+who knows both of them well, and whose modern training in English
+methods of thought, would seem to make him likely to be partial to the
+more modern poet though as a matter of fact he constantly leans toward
+the great medieval bard.
+
+  "The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante as the
+  hieroglyphics of Egypt differ from the picture-writing of Mexico.
+  The images which Dante employs speak for themselves; they stand
+  simply for what they are. Those of Milton have a {316} signification
+  which is often discernible only to the initiated. . . . However
+  strange, however grotesque, he never shrinks from describing it. He
+  gives us the shape, the color, the sound, the smell, the taste; he
+  counts the numbers; he measures the size. His similies are the
+  illustrations of a traveler. Unlike those of other poets, and
+  especially of Milton, they are introduced in a plain business-like
+  manner, not for the sake of any of the beauty in the objects from
+  which they are drawn; not for the sake of any ornament they may
+  impart to the poem; but simply in order to make the meaning of the
+  writer as clear to the reader as it is to himself."
+
+  "Still more striking is the similarity between Dante and Milton.
+  This may be said to lie rather in the kindred nature of their
+  subjects, and in the parallel development of their minds, than in
+  any mere external resemblance. In both the man was greater than the
+  poet, the souls of both were 'like a star and dwelt apart.' Both
+  were academically trained in the deepest studies of their age; the
+  labour which made Dante lean made Milton blind. The 'Doricke
+  sweetnesse' of the English poet is not absent from the tender pages
+  of the Vita Nuova. The middle life of each was spent in active
+  controversy; each lent his services to the state; each felt the
+  quarrels of his age to be the 'business of posterity,' and left his
+  warnings to ring in the ears of a later time. The lives of both were
+  failures. 'On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues,' they
+  gathered the concentrated experience of their lives into one
+  immortal work, the quintessence of their hopes, their knowledge, and
+  their sufferings. But Dante is something more than this. Milton's
+  voice is grown faint to us--we have passed into other modes of
+  expression and of thought."
+
+The comparison with Vergil is still more striking and more favorable
+to the Italian poet. "Dante's reputation has passed through many
+vicissitudes, and much trouble has been spent by critics in comparing
+him with other poets of established fame. Read and commented upon in
+the Italian universities in the generation immediately succeeding his
+death, his name bcame obscured as the sun of the Renaissance rose
+higher towards its meridian. In the Seventeenth Century he was less
+read than Petrarch, Tasso, or Ariosto; in the Eighteenth he was {317}
+almost universally neglected. His fame is now fully vindicated.
+Translations and commentaries issue from every press in Europe and
+America. Dante Societies are formed to investigate the difficulties of
+his works. He occupies in the lecture-rooms of regenerated Italy a
+place by the side of those great masters whose humble disciple he
+avowed himself to be. The Divine Comedy is indeed as true an epic as
+the AEneid, and Dante is as real a classic as Vergil. His metre is as
+pliable and flexible to every mood of emotion, his diction as
+plaintive and as sonorous. Like him he can immortalize by a simple
+expression, a person, a place, or a phase of nature. Dante is even
+truer in description than Vergil, whether he paints the snow falling
+in the Alps, or the homeward flight of birds, or the swelling of an
+angry torrent. But under this gorgeous pageantry of poetry there lies
+a unity of conception, a power of philosophic grasp, an earnestness of
+religion, which to the Roman poet were entirely unknown."
+
+If we would have a very recent opinion as to the position of Dante as
+a literary man and as a great intellectual force, perhaps no better
+can be obtained than from some recent expressions of Mr. Michael
+Rossetti, whose Italian descent, English training, and literary and
+artistic heredity, seem to place him in an ideal position for writing
+this generation's ultimate judgment with regard to the great poet of
+the Thirteenth Century. In his Literature of Italy he said:--
+
+  "One has to recur time after time, to that astounding protagonist,
+  phenomenon and hero, Dante Alighieri. If one were to say that
+  Italian literature consists of Dante, it would, no doubt, be an
+  exaggeration, and a gross one, and yet it would contain a certain
+  ultimate nucleus of truth."
+
+  "Dante fixed the Italian language, and everyone had to tread in his
+  vestiges. He embodied all the learning and thought of his age and
+  transcended them. He went far ahead of all his predecessors,
+  contemporaries, and successors; he wrote the first remarkable book
+  in Italian prose, La Vita Nuova; and a critical exposition of it in
+  the Convito; in Latin, a linguistic treatise, the De Vulgari
+  Eloquio, which upholds the Vulgare Illustre, or speech of the best
+  cultivated classes, markedly in Tuscany and Bologna, against the
+  common dialects; and a {318} political study, De Monarchia, of the
+  most fundamental quality, which even to us moderns continues to be
+  sane and convincing in its essence, though its direct line of
+  argument has collapsed; and finally, and most important by far, he
+  produced in La Commedia Divina the one poem of modern Europe that
+  counter-balances Shakespeare and challenges antiquity. This is the
+  sole book which makes it a real pity for anyone to be ignorant of
+  Italian. Regarded singly, it is much the most astonishing poem in
+  the world, dwarfing all others by its theme, pulverizing most of
+  them by its majesty and sustainment, unique in the force of its
+  paraded personality and the thunderous reverberation of its
+  judgments on the living and the dead."
+
+
+{319}
+
+XX
+
+THE WOMEN OF THE CENTURY.
+
+
+In generations whose men proved so unending in initiative and so
+forceful in accomplishment, so commanding in intelligence, so
+persistent in their purposes, so acute in their searching, so
+successful in their endeavors, the women of the time could not have
+been unworthy of them. Some hints of this have been already given, in
+what has been said about the making of furnishings for the church,
+especially in the matter of needlework and the handpainting of various
+forms of ornaments. There are further intimations in the histories of
+the time, though unfortunately not very definite information, with
+regard to even more ambitious accomplishments by the women of the
+period. There are, for instance, traditions that the designs for some
+of the Cathedrals and certainly for portions of many of them came from
+women's hands. It is in the ethical sphere, however, that women
+accomplished great things during the Thirteenth Century. Their
+influence stood for what was best and highest in the life of the time
+and their example encouraged not only their own generation, but many
+people in many subsequent generations "to look up, not down, to look
+within, not without" for happiness, and to trust that "God's in his
+heaven and all's well with the world."
+
+There are a number of women of the time whose names the race will not
+let die. While if the ordinary person were asked to enumerate the
+great women of the Thirteenth Century it would be rare to find one
+able properly to place them, as soon as their names are mentioned, it
+will be recognized that they succeeded in accomplishing work of such
+significance that the world is not likely to let the reputation of it
+perish. Some of these names are household words. The bearers of them
+have been written of at length in quite recent years in English as
+well as in other languages. Their work was of the kind that ordinarily
+stands quite apart from the course of history and {320} so dates are
+usually not attached to it. It is thought of as a portion of the
+precious heritage of mankind rather than as belonging to any
+particular period. Three names occur at once. They are St. Clare of
+Assisi, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and Queen Blanche of Castile, the
+mother of St. Louis. To these should be added Queen Berengaria, the
+sister of Blanche, and the mother of Ferdinand of Castile; Mabel Rich,
+the London tradesman's wife, the mother of St. Edmund of Canterbury;
+and Isabella, the famous Countess of Arundel.
+
+The present day interest in St. Francis of Assisi, has brought St.
+Clare under the lime-light of publicity. There is no doubt at all that
+her name is well worthy to be mentioned along with his and that she,
+like him, must be considered one of the strongest and most beautiful
+characters of all time. She was the daughter of a noble family at
+Assisi, who, having heard St. Francis preach, became impressed with
+the idea that she too should have the opportunity to live the simple
+life that St. Francis pictured. Of course her family opposed her in
+any such notion. That a daughter of theirs should take up with a
+wandering preacher, who at that time was looked on not a little
+askance by the regular religious authorities, and whose rags, and
+poverty made him anything but a proper associate for a young lady of
+noble birth, could not but seem an impossible idea. Accordingly Clare
+ran away from home and told Francis that she would never go back and
+that he must help her to live her life in poverty just as he was doing
+himself. He sent her to a neighboring convent to be cared for, and
+also very probably so as to be assured of her vocation.
+
+After a time a special convent home for Clare and some other young
+women, who had become enamored with the life of poverty and simplicity
+was established, and to this Clare's sister Agnes came as a postulant.
+By this time apparently the family had become reconciled to Clare's
+absence from home, but they would not stand another daughter following
+such a foolish example. Accordingly Agnes was removed from the convent
+by force after a scene which caused the greatest excitement in the
+little town. It was not long, however, before Agnes returned to the
+convent and within a few years their mother followed them, and became
+one of the most fervent members of the little community.
+
+
+{opp320}
+[Illustration]
+ST. CLARE'S FAREWELL TO THE DEAD ST. FRANCIS (GIOTTO)
+
+
+{321}
+
+The peace and happiness that came with this life of absolute poverty
+soon attracted many other women and Clare was asked to establish
+houses at a distance. Gradually the order of Poor Clares, the second
+order of St. Francis, thus came into existence. When it was necessary
+to draw up constitutions for the order, Clare showed not only the
+breadth of her intelligence, but the depth of her knowledge of human
+nature, and her appreciation of what was absolutely necessary in order
+to keep her order from degeneration. Against the counsels of all the
+ecclesiastics of her time, including many cardinals and even a Pope,
+she insisted on the most absolute poverty as the only basis for the
+preservation of the spirit of her second order of St. Francis. Her
+character was well manifested in this contest from which she came out
+victorious.
+
+Her body has been miraculously preserved and may still be seen at
+Assisi. Anyone who has seen the strongly set lips and full firm chin
+of the body in the crypt of San Damiano, can easily understand the
+strength of purpose and of character of this young woman who moulded a
+generation to her will. The story is told of her, that once when the
+Saracens invaded Italy and attacked the convent, she mounted the walls
+with a monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament in her hands, and
+the marauders turned away in consternation from the stern brave figure
+that confronted them, and bothered the nuns no more. After St.
+Francis' death she, more than anyone else, succeeded in maintaining
+the spirit of the Franciscan order in the way in which St. Francis
+would have it go. Long after her death a copy of the original rules
+was found in the fold of her garments and did much to restore the
+Franciscan life to its primitive simplicity and purpose, so that even
+after she was no more on earth, she was still the guardian and
+promoter of St. Francis' work.
+
+If one wants to know how much of happiness there came to her in life
+one should read the famous passage which describes her visit to St.
+Francis, and how she and he with sisters and brothers around them
+broke bread together, with a sweetness that was beyond human. The
+passage is to be found in the "Little Flowers of St. Francis of
+Assisi" which was written {322} within a century after the occurrences
+described. It recalls nothing so much as the story of the disciples at
+Emaus and is worthy to be thought of beside the Scripture story.
+[Footnote 26]
+
+  [Footnote 26: When came the day ordained by Francis, Saint Clare
+  with one companion passed forth from out the convent and with the
+  companions of Saint Francis to bear her company came unto Saint Mary
+  of the Angels, and devoutly saluted the Virgin Mary before her
+  altar, where she had been shorn and veiled; so they conducted her to
+  see the house, until such time as the hour for breaking bread was
+  come. And in the meantime Saint Francis let make ready the table on
+  the bare ground, as he was wont to do. And the hour of breaking
+  bread being come, they set themselves down together. Saint Francis
+  and Saint Clare, and one of the companions of Saint Francis with the
+  companion of Saint Clare, and all the other companions took each his
+  place at the table with all humility. And at the first dish, Saint
+  Francis began to speak of God so sweetly, so sublimely and so
+  wondrously, that the fulness of Divine grace came down on them, and
+  they all were wrapt in God. And as they were thus wrapt, with eyes
+  and hands uplift to heaven, the folk of Assisi and Bettona and the
+  country round about, saw that Saint Mary of the Angels, and all the
+  House, and the wood that was just hard by the house, were burning
+  brightly, and it seemed as it were a great fire that filled the
+  church and the House and the whole wood together: for the which
+  cause the folk of Assisi ran thither in great haste to quench the
+  flames, believing of a truth that the whole place was all on fire.
+  But coming closer up to the House and finding no fire at all, they
+  entered within and found Saint Francis and Saint Clare and all their
+  company in contemplation rapt in God and sitting around that humble
+  board. Whereby of a truth they understood that this had been a
+  heavenly flame and no earthly one at all, which God had let appear
+  miraculously, for to show and signify the fire of love divine
+  wherewith the souls of those holy brothers and holy nuns were all
+  aflame; wherefor they got them gone with great consolation in their
+  hearts and with holy edifying. Then after some long space. Saint
+  Francis and Saint Clare, together with all the others, returning to
+  themselves again and feeling of good comfort from the spiritual food
+  took little heed of the food of the body.]
+
+
+{opp322}
+
+[Illustration]
+CHURCH (DOBERAN, GERMANY)
+
+[Illustration]
+SAN DAMIANO (ASSISI)
+
+
+What Saint Clare accomplished as her life work was the making of a new
+vocation for women. There are always a certain number of women who
+look for peace and quiet rather than the struggle for existence. For
+these the older monasteries did not supply a place unless they were of
+the wealthier class as a rule. Among the Poor Clares women of all
+classes were received. In this way a great practical lesson in
+equality was {323} taught. Women did not have to marry, perhaps
+unsuitable, often even objectionable men, simply in order to have a
+mode of life. They could join one of these communities and though in
+absolute poverty, with many hours each day devoted to meditation and
+prayer, had time to give to beautiful needlework, to painting and book
+illumination, and to other feminine occupations; and might thus pass
+long, happy lives, apart from the bustle of the strenuous time.
+
+Italy at this time, it must be recalled, was a seething cauldron of
+political and military strife. Wars were waged, and struggles of all
+kinds engaged in for precedence and power. These women got away from
+this unfortunate state of affairs. Occasionally in times of
+pestilence, when they were specially needed, as happened at least once
+in Saint Clare's life, they took care of the ailing and lent their
+convent as a hospital. Above all they stood in the eyes of their
+generation for chosen people who saw things differently from others.
+They taught the great lesson of not caring too much for the things of
+this world and of not living one's life in order to get admiration
+though usually envy comes, nor idle praise for qualities they either
+do not possess or that are not worthy of notice. They showed people
+the real value of this life by its reflection upon the other. Many a
+man turned aside from ambitious schemes that would have injured
+others, because of the kindly influence of these unselfish women and
+because of the memory of a sister, or an aunt whose sacrificing life
+was thus a rebuke to his foolish selfishness. Other women learned
+something of the vanity of human things by learning to value the
+character of these Poor Clares and realizing how much of happiness
+came to them from the accomplishment of their simple duties. Professor
+Osler said, in his lecture on Science and Immortality, of these
+self-forgetting ones:--"The serene faith of Socrates with the cup of
+Hemlock at his lips, the heroic devotion of a St. Francis or a St.
+Teresa, but more often for each one of us the beautiful life of some
+good woman whose--
+
+  Eyes are homes of silent prayer,
+    . . .
+  Whose loves in higher love endure.
+
+{324}
+
+do more to keep alive among the Laodiceans a belief in immortality
+than all the preaching in the land." This is what St. Clare
+accomplished for her own generation and her influence is still a great
+living force in the world.
+
+What especially should attract the attention of the modern time is the
+perfect basis of equality on which the Franciscan and Dominican orders
+of men and of women were organized. Each community had the opportunity
+to elect its own superiors. The rules were practically the same for
+the first (for men) and the second (for women) order of St. Francis,
+except that while the first order were supposed to live on alms
+collected by begging from door to door, this menial obligation was not
+imposed upon the women, who were expected to be supported by alms
+brought to their convents by the faithful, and by the labor of their
+own hands. This equality of men and women in the monastic
+establishments became widespread after the Thirteenth Century and made
+itself felt in the social order of the time as a factor for feminine
+uplift. Undoubtedly Saint Clare's work in the foundation of the second
+order of St. Francis must be held responsible to no small degree for
+this. Before her death, there were half a dozen scions of royal
+families in various parts of Europe who had become members of her
+order, and literally hundreds of the daughters of the nobility, many
+of them of high rank, had put off their dignity and position in the
+world, to become poor daughters of Saint Clare. They did so for the
+peace and the happiness of the vocation, and the opportunity to seek
+their souls and live their lives in their own quiet way, which her
+convents afforded them.
+
+{opp325}
+[Illustration]
+ST. ELIZABETH'S CATHEDRAL (MARBURG)
+
+After Saint Clare, the best known woman of the Thirteenth Century is
+undoubtedly Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, of whom the world knows some
+pretty legends, while the serious historian recognizes that she was
+the first settlement worker of history. As a child she wandered down
+from the castle walls in which she lived and saw the poor in their
+suffering. She felt so much for them that she stripped herself of most
+of her garments and finally even of her shoes in order to clothe them.
+When she was taken to task for this, she said that she had suffered
+whatever inconvenience there was in it only for a few minutes while
+the poor had suffered all their lives. She became {325} the wife of
+the Duke of Thuringia, and there were three years of ideal happiness
+with her husband and her children. When he went away on the Crusade
+she gave herself up to the care of the poor. When he died, though she
+was only twenty, and according to tradition one of the handsomest
+women of her time, she devoted herself still more to her poor and even
+went to live among them. She tried to teach them, as do the settlement
+workers of the modern time, something of the true significance of
+life, to bring them to realize to some degree at least, that so many
+of the things they so vainly desire are not worth thinking about, but
+that happiness consists in lopping off one's desires rather than
+trying vainly, as it must ever be, to satisfy them. It is no wonder
+that throughout all Germany she came to be called "the dear St.
+Elizabeth." Literally thousands of women since her time have turned to
+read the story of her beautiful devotion to charity, and have been
+incited by her example to do more and more for the poor around them.
+Those who know it only through Kingsley's, "The Saint's Tragedy,"
+though this is disfigured by many failures to understand parts of her
+career and her environment, can scarcely fail to realize that hers was
+one of the world's sublimely beautiful characters. All she attempted
+in the thorny paths of charity was accomplished in such a practical
+way that the amount of good done was almost incalculable. The simple
+recital of what she did as it has often been told, is the story of a
+great individuality that impressed itself deeply upon its generation
+and left the example of a precious life to act as a leaven for good in
+the midst of the social fermentations of succeeding generations.
+
+Yet Elizabeth succeeded in accomplishing all this in spite of the fact
+that she was born the daughter of a king and married the reigning
+prince of one of the most important ducal houses in Germany. One would
+expect to find that her life had been long, so many traditions have
+gathered around her name. She was twenty when her husband died, and
+she survived him only four years. Literally she had accomplished a
+long space in a short time and her generation in raising in her honor
+the charming Gothic Cathedral at Marburg, one of the most {326}
+beautiful in Germany, was honoring itself nobly as well as her. It is
+the greatest monument to a woman in all the world.
+
+The next great woman of the century also belonged to a reigning family
+and is for obvious historical reasons better known, perhaps, than her
+Saint contemporaries. This was Blanche, daughter of the King of
+Castile, but intimately related to the English royal family. Married
+to Louis VIII of France she is known principally as the mother of
+Louis IX. She ruled France for many years while her boy was a minor
+and when he came to the age, when he might ordinarily assume the reins
+of government, he voluntarily permitted his mother to continue her
+regency for some time longer. France was probably happier under her
+than under any ruler that the country has ever had with the possible
+exception of her son Louis. She succeeded in suppressing to a great
+extent the quarrels so common among the nobility, she strengthened and
+centralized the power of the crown, she began the correction of abuses
+in the administration of justice which her son was to complete so
+well, she organized charity in various ways, and the court was an
+example to the kingdom of simple dignified life, without any abuse of
+power, or wealth, or passion. No wonder that when Louis went on the
+Crusade, he left his mother to reign in his stead confident that all
+would go well. If one needed a demonstration that women can rule well
+there is an excellent example in the life of Blanche.
+
+Personally she seems to have had not only an amiable but a deeply
+intellectual character. She encouraged education and beautiful
+book-making and the Gothic architecture which was developing in France
+so wonderfully during her period. Of course she also worshipped her
+boy Louis, but how much her motherly tenderness was tempered with the
+most beautiful Christian feeling can be understood from the famous
+expression attributed to her on good authority, that she "would rather
+see her boy dead at her feet, than have him commit a mortal offense
+against his God or his neighbor." One might almost say that it is no
+wonder that Louis became a saint. As a matter of fact he attributed to
+his mother whatever of goodness there was in himself. There is a touch
+of humanity in the picture, however, a trait that shows, that Blanche
+was a woman, {327} though it is a fault which draws our sympathy to
+her even more surely than if she were the type of perfection she might
+have been without it. She did not get on well with her daughter-in-law
+and one of the trials of Louis' life, as we have said, was to keep the
+scales evenly balanced between his mother and his wife, both of whom
+he loved very dearly. After Blanche's life there could be no doubt
+that a woman, when given the opportunity, can manage men and
+administer government quite as well as any masculine member of the
+race, and the Thirteenth Century had given another example of its
+power to bring out what was best in its fortunate children.
+
+One of the most interesting women of the Thirteenth Century was
+neither a Saint nor a member of the nobility, but only the wife of a
+simple London merchant. This was Mabel Rich, the mother of Saint
+Edmund of Canterbury. Edmund is one of the striking men of a supreme
+century. He had been a student at Paris, and later a professor at
+Oxford. Then, he became the treasurer of the Cathedral at Salisbury
+about the time when, not a little through his influence, that
+magnificent edifice was receiving the form which was to make it one of
+the world's great churches for all time. Later he was the Archbishop
+of Canterbury and while defending the rights of his church and his
+people, came under the ban of Henry III, and spent most of the latter
+years of his life in exile on the continent. Edmund insisted that he
+owed more to his mother than to any other single factor in life. With
+her two boys, aged ten and fourteen, Mabel Rich was left to care for
+the worldly concerns of the household as well as for their education.
+When they were twelve and sixteen, with many misgivings she sent them
+off to the University of Paris to get their education. Edmund tells
+how besides packing their linen very carefully she also packed a
+hairshirt for each of them, which they were to wear occasionally
+according to their promise to her, to remind them that they must not
+look for ease and comfort in life, above all must not yield to sensual
+pleasures, but must be ready to suffer many little troubles
+voluntarily, in order that they might be able to resist temptation
+when severer trials came. Mabel Rich believed in discipline, as a
+factor in education, and thought that character was formed by habits
+of fortitude in resisting {328} petty annoyances until, finally, even
+serious troubles were easy to bear.
+
+Both of her sons proved worthy of her maternal solicitude. Edmund
+tells how the poor around her home in London blessed her for her
+charity. All during his life the thought of his mother was uppermost
+in his mind, and in the immortality that has been given his name,
+because of the utter forgetfulness of self which characterized his
+life, his mother has been associated. Unfortunately details are
+lacking that would show us something of the manner of living of this
+strong woman of the people, but we know enough to make us realize that
+she was a fine type of the Christian mother, memory of whose goodness
+means more not only for her children but for all those who come in
+contact with her, than all the sermons and pious exhortations that
+they hear, and often, such is the way of human nature, even than the
+divine commandments or the personal conscience of those whom she
+loves.
+
+There were noble women among the gentlewomen of England at this time
+too, and though space will not let us dwell on them, at least one must
+be mentioned. This is the famous Isabella, Countess of Arundel, who
+with a dignity which, Matthew Paris says, was more than that of woman,
+reproached Henry III (1252), when he sought to browbeat her. She made
+bold to tell the king, "You govern neither us nor yourself well." On
+this the king, with a sneer and a grin, said with a loud voice, "Ho,
+ho, my lady countess, have the noblemen of England granted you a
+charter and struck a bargain with you to become their spokeswoman
+because of your eloquence?" She answered, "My liege, the nobles have
+made no charter, but you and your father have made a charter, and you
+have sworn to observe it inviolably, and yet many times have you
+extorted money from your subjects and have not kept your word. Where
+are the liberties of England, often reduced to writing, so often
+granted, so often again denied?"  [Footnote 27]
+
+  [Footnote 27: Medieval England, English Feudal Society, from the
+  Norman Conquest to the Middle of the Fourteenth Century, by Mary
+  Bateson.]
+
+The question of womanly occupations apart from their household duties
+will be of great interest to our generation.
+
+{opp328}
+[Illustration]
+MARRIAGE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN (GIOTTO, PADUA)
+
+
+A hint of one form of woman's occupation has already been {329} given
+in discussing the needlework done for the Cathedrals and especially
+the Cope of Ascoli. It must not be forgotten that this was the age not
+alone of Cathedrals but also of monasteries and of convents. In all of
+these convents every effort was made to have whatever was associated
+with the religious ceremonial as beautiful as possible. Hence it was
+that needlework rose to a height of accomplishment such as has never
+been reached since according to the best authorities, and many
+examples of it have come down to us to confirm such an opinion. This
+needlework was done not only for religious purposes, however, but also
+as presents for Kings and Queens and the nobility, and such presents
+proved to be exemplars of artistic beauty that must have helped to
+raise the taste of the time. This was essentially woman's work, and in
+their distant castles the women of the households of the nobility
+occupied themselves with it to much better effect than their sisters
+of the modern time with the grievous burden of their so-called social
+duties.
+
+Miss Bateson  [Footnote 28: Ibidem.] has given a pretty, yet piquant
+picture of woman at these occupations. She says:--"There are not
+wanting Thirteenth Century satires to tell the usual story of female
+levities, and of female devotion to the needle, to German work and
+pierced work, Saracen work and combed work, cutout work and wool-work,
+and a multitude of other "works" to which the clue seems to be now
+wholly lost. Whilst the women are thus engaged, the one who knows most
+reads to them, the others listen attentively, and do not sleep as they
+do at mass, 'pur la prise de vanite dont ont grant leesce (joy).' The
+'opus anglicum' consisted of chain-stitch in circles, with hollows,
+made by a heated iron rod, to represent shadows. A cope of this work
+was made by Rose de Burford at Edward II's order, and sent to Rome.
+One, known as the Syon cope, passed into the possession of the nuns of
+Syon, Isleworth, and can be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum."
+
+Another form of woman's work that came to prominence during the
+century was the service in hospitals. While the records of the
+hospitals of the Holy Ghost, which under Innocent Third's fostering
+care spread so widely throughout Europe in this century, are mainly
+occupied with the institutions of {330} the Brothers of the Holy
+Ghost, there were many hospitals under the care of women, and indeed
+there was an almost universally accepted idea, that women patients and
+obstetrical cases should be cared for by women rather than men. It is
+easy to make little of the hospitals of this time but any such thought
+will be the result of ignorance rather than of any serious attempt to
+know what was actually accomplished. The sisters' hospitals soon
+usurped the most prominent place in the life of the time and during
+succeeding centuries gradually replaced those which had been
+originally under the control of men. It was recognized that nursing
+was a much more suitable occupation for the gentler sex and that there
+were many less abuses than when men were employed. The success of
+these hospitals in gradually eradicating leprosy and in keeping down
+the death-rate from St. Anthony's fire, or erysipelas, shows how
+capable they were of accomplishing great humanitarian work.
+
+Perhaps the most interesting feature of the story of woman's position
+during the Thirteenth Century is that at the Italian universities at
+least, co-education was not only admitted in principle but also in
+practice, and many women were in attendance at the universities. In
+the West of Europe this feature did not exist. It is a startling
+comment on how comparatively trivial a thing may change the course of
+history, that the lamentable Heloise and Abelard incident at the
+University of Paris during the Twelfth Century, precluded all
+subsequent possibility of the admission of women students to the
+University of Paris. Oxford, it will be remembered, was formed by the
+withdrawal of students from the University of Paris, and the same
+tradition was maintained. Cambridge was a grand-daughter of the
+University of Paris and the French and Spanish universities must all
+be considered as standing in the relation of its direct descendants.
+The unfortunate experience at Paris shaped the policy as to the
+co-education of the sexes for all these. It would have been too much
+to expect that university authorities would take the risks which had
+been so clearly demonstrated even with regard to a distinguished
+professor, and so co-education was excluded.
+
+It is not easy to say what proportion of women there were {331} in
+attendance at the university of Bologna during the Thirteenth Century.
+Apparently it should not be difficult to take the lists of the
+matriculates as far as they have been preserved and by a little
+calculation obtain rather exact figures. Italy, like most of the Latin
+countries, differs from the Teutonic regions in not being quite so
+exact in the distribution of names to the different sexes, that the
+first name inevitably determines whether the individual is male or
+female. It is not an unusual thing even at the present day for a man
+to have as a first name in Italy, or France, or Spain, the equivalent
+of our name Mary. On the other hand, not a few girls are called by
+men's names and without the feminine termination which is so
+distinctive among the English speaking peoples. In the olden times
+this was still more the case. Until very recently at least, if not
+now, every child born in Venice was given two names at its
+baptism--Maria and Giovanni--in honor of the two great patron saints
+of the city and then the parents might add further names if they so
+desired. A matriculation list of the University of Bologna then, tells
+very little that is absolute with regard to the sex of the
+matriculates.
+
+All that we know for sure is that there were women students at the
+University of Bologna apparently from the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century, and that some of them secured the distinction of being made
+Professors. Of one of these there is a pretty legend told, which seems
+to illustrate the fact that charming young women of profound
+intellectual qualities did not lose the characteristic modesty and
+thoughtfulness for others of their sex, because of their elevation to
+university professorship. This young woman, Maria di Novella, when
+only twenty-five became the Professor of mathematics at the University
+of Bologna. According to tradition she was very pretty and as is usual
+in life was not unaware of that happy accident. She feared that her
+good looks might disturb the thoughts of her students during her
+lessons and accordingly she delivered her lectures from behind a
+curtain. The story may, of course, be only a myth. One of the best
+woman educators that I know once said to me, that if the tradition
+with regard to her beauty were true, then she doubted the rest of the
+story, but then women are not always the best judges of the {332}
+actions of other women and especially is this true when there is
+question of a grave and learned elderly woman passing judgment on a
+young and handsome professor of mathematics.
+
+The Italians became so much impressed with the advisability of
+permitting women to study at the universities, that a certain amount
+of co-education has existed all down the centuries in Italy and not a
+century has passed since the Thirteenth, which has not chronicled the
+presence of at least one distinguished woman professor at some Italian
+university. Indeed it was doubtless the traditional position of
+tolerance in this matter that made it seem quite natural for women,
+when the Renaissance period came around, to take their places beside
+their brothers and their cousins in the schools where the new learning
+was being taught.
+
+It may be rather difficult for some to understand how with this
+opening wedge for the higher education of women well placed, the real
+opportunity for widespread feminine education should only have come in
+our own time. This last idea, however, which would represent ours as
+the only generation which has given women adequate opportunities for
+intellectual development, is one of those self-complacent bits of
+flattery of ourselves and our own period that is so irritatingly
+characteristic of recent times. There have been at least three times
+in the world's history before our own when as many women as wanted
+them, in the class most interested in educational matters, were given
+the opportunities for the higher education. As a matter of fact
+whenever there have been novelties introduced into educational
+systems, women have demanded and quite naturally--since, "What a good
+woman wants," said a modern saint, "is the will of God"--have obtained
+the privilege of sharing the educational opportunities of the time.
+This was true in Charlemagne's time when the women of the court
+attended the lectures in the traveling palace school the great Charles
+founded and fostered. It was true four centuries later, as we have
+seen, when a great change in educational methods was introduced with
+the foundation of the universities. It was exemplified again when the
+"New Learning" came in and the study of the classics took the place of
+the long hours spent in scholastic disputation, that had previously
+occupied {333} so much university attention. In our own time it was
+the introduction of the study of the social sciences particularly,
+with the consequent appearance of many novelties in the educational
+curriculum, that once more was the signal for women asking and quite
+naturally obtaining educational privileges.
+
+
+{opp333}
+[Illustration]
+MOSAIC (ST. MARK'S, VENICE, 1220)
+
+
+Each of the previous experiences in the matter of feminine education
+has been followed by a considerable period during which there was a
+distinct incuriousness on the part of women in educational matters. Of
+course that is only an analogy and though history is worth studying,
+only because the lessons of the past are the warnings of the future,
+yet this does not foretell a lessening of feminine interest in
+educational matters, after a few generations of experience of its
+vanity to make up to them for the precious special privileges of their
+nature, the proper enjoyment and exercise of which it is so likely to
+hamper. It would be interesting to know just why feminine education,
+after a period of efflorescence during the Thirteenth Century,
+retrograded during the next century. There have been some ungallant
+explanations offered, which we mention merely because of their
+historical interest but without any hint of their having any real
+significance in the matter.
+
+A distinguished German educational authority has called attention to
+the fact that a well-known prepared food, for which Bologna is famous,
+is first heard of about the time that the higher education for women
+came into vogue at the Italian universities. Towards the end of the
+same century a special kind of pudding, since bearing the name of its
+native city, Bologna, which might very well have taken the place of an
+ordinary dessert, also began to come into prominence. This German
+writer suggests then, that possibly the serving of meals consisting of
+these forms of prepared food, which did not require much household
+drudgery and did not necessitate the bending over the kitchen range or
+whatever took its place in those days, may have led the men to grumble
+about the effects of the higher education. After all, he adds, though
+the women get whatever they want, when they ask for it seriously, if
+it proves after a time that the men do not want them to have it, then
+women lose interest and care for it no longer. This, of course, must
+be taken with the proverbial grain of salt, though it {334}
+illustrates certain phases of the domestic life of the time as well as
+affording a possible glimpse into the inner circle of the family life.
+
+The real story of woman's intellectual position in the century is to
+be found in its literature. How deep was the general culture of the
+women of the Thirteenth Century, in Italy at least, can be judged from
+the Sonnets of Dante and his friends to their loved ones at the end of
+this century. Some of the most beautiful poetry that was ever written
+was inspired by these women and like the law of hydrostatics, it is
+one of the rules of the history of poetry, that inspiration never
+rises higher than its source and that poetry addressed to women is
+always the best index of the estimation in which they are held, the
+reflection of the highest qualities of the objects to which it is
+addressed. Anyone who reads certain of the sonnets of Dante, or of his
+friends Guido Cavalcanti or Gino da Pistoia or Dante da Maiano, will
+find ready assurance of the high state of culture and of intellectual
+refinement that must have existed among the women to whom they were
+dedicated. This same form of reasoning will apply also with regard to
+the women of the South of France to whom the Troubadours addressed
+their poetry; to those of the north of France who were greeted by the
+Trouvères; and those of the south of Germany for whom the Minnesingers
+tuned their lyres and invoked the Muses to enable them to sing their
+praises properly. It would seem sometimes to be forgotten that poetry
+generally is written much more for women than for men. Everyone
+realizes that for one man who has read Tennyson's "Idyls of the King"
+there are probably five women to whom they have been a source of
+delight. When we think of the Thirteenth Century as not affording
+opportunities of intellectual culture for its women, we should ask
+ourselves where then did the Meistersingers and the poets of England,
+Germany and France who told their romantic tales in verse find an
+audience, if it was not among the women. The stories selected by the
+Meistersingers are just those which proved so popular to feminine
+readers of Tennyson in the Nineteenth Century, and the chosen subjects
+of interest in the stories show that men and women have not changed
+much during the intervening centuries. The literature of any {335}
+period reflects the interest of the women in it and, as interest is
+itself an index of intellectual development, Thirteenth Century
+literature must be taken as the vivid reflection of the cultural
+character of the women of the time, and this is of itself the highest
+possible tribute to their intelligence and education.
+
+On the other hand the best possible testimony to the estimation of
+women during the Thirteenth Century, is to be found in the attitude of
+the men of the generations towards them, as it is clearly to be seen
+in the literature of the time. In the Holy Graal, the Cid, the
+Minnesingers and the Meistersingers, woman occupies the higher place
+in life and it is recognized that she is the highest incentive to
+good, unfortunately also sometimes to evil, but always the best reward
+that men can have for their exertions in a great cause. The supreme
+tribute to woman comes at the end of the century in Dante's apotheosis
+of her in the Divine Comedy. In this it is a woman who inspires, a
+woman who leads, a woman who is the reward of man's aspirations, and
+though the symbolism may be traced to philosophy, the influence of an
+actual woman in it all is sure beyond all doubt. Nor must it be
+thought that it was merely in this highest flight of his imagination
+that this greatest of poets expressed such lofty sentiments with
+regard to women. Anyone who thinks this does not know Dante's minor
+poems, which contain to women in the flesh and above all to one of
+them, the most wonderful tributes that have ever been paid to woman.
+Take this one of his sonnets for instance.
+
+  So gentle and so fair she seems to be.
+    My Lady, when she others doth salute,
+    That every tongue becomes, all trembling, mute,
+  And every eye is half afraid to see;
+  She goes her way and hears men's praises free.
+    Clothed in a garb of kindness, meek and low.
+    And seems as if from heaven she came, to show
+  Upon the earth a wondrous mystery:
+  To one who looks on her she seems so kind,
+    That through the eye a sweetness fills the heart,
+    Which only he can know who doth it try.
+{336}
+  And through her face there breatheth from her mind
+    A spirit sweet and full of Love's true art,
+  Which to the soul saith, as it cometh, "Sigh."
+
+
+It will be noted that though this contains the highest possible praise
+of the woman whom he loved, it has not a single reference to any of
+her physical perfections, or indeed to any of those charms that poets
+usually sing. We have already called attention to this, that it is not
+the beauty of her face or her figure that has attracted him, but the
+charm of her character, which all others must admire--which even women
+do not envy, it is so beautiful--that constitutes the supreme reason
+for Dante's admiration. Nor must it be thought that this is a unique
+example of Dante's attitude in this matter; on the contrary, it is the
+constant type of his expression of feeling. The succeeding sonnet in
+his collection is probably quite as beautiful as the first quoted, and
+yet is couched in similar terms. It will be found in the chapter on
+Dante the Poet. Need we say more to prove that the women of the
+century were worthy of the men and of the supreme time in which they
+lived; that they were the fit intellectual companions of perhaps the
+greatest generation of men that ever lived?
+
+
+[Illustration]
+STONE CARVING (AMIENS)
+
+
+{337}
+
+XXI
+
+CITY HOSPITALS--ORGANIZED CHARITY.
+
+
+While the Thirteenth Century was engaged in solving the problems of
+the higher education and of technical education for the masses, and
+was occupied so successfully, as we have seen, with the questions of
+the rights of man and the development of law and of liberty, other and
+more directly social and humanitarian works were not neglected. There
+had been hospitals in existence from even before the Christian era,
+but they had been intended rather for the chronic ailments and as the
+name implies, for the furnishing of hospitality to strangers and
+others who had for the time no habitation, than for the care of the
+acutely ill. In the country places there was a larger Christian
+charity which led people to care even for the stranger, and there was
+a sense of human duty that was much more binding than in the modern
+world. The acutely ill were not infrequently taken into the houses of
+even those who did not know them, and cared for with a solicitude
+difficult to understand in this, colder time. This was not so much
+typical of the times, however, as of the social conditions, since we
+have many stories of such events in our colonial days.
+
+In the cities, however, which began more and more to be a feature of
+life in the Thirteenth Century, though they counted their inhabitants
+only by a few thousands where ours count them by hundreds of
+thousands, the need of some other method of caring for such cases made
+itself distinctly felt. At the end of the Twelfth and the beginning of
+the Thirteenth centuries this need became demandingly manifest, and
+the consequence was a movement that proved to be of great and
+far-reaching practical benevolence. It is to the first Pope of the
+Thirteenth Century, Innocent III., that we owe the modern city
+hospital as we have it at the present time, with its main purpose to
+care for the acutely ill who may have no one to take care of them
+properly, as well as for those who have been injured or {338} who have
+been picked up on the street and whose friends are not in a position
+to care for them.
+
+The deliberateness with which Innocent III. set about the
+establishment of the mother city hospital of the world, is a striking
+characteristic of the genius of the man and an excellent illustration
+of the practical character of the century of which he is so thoroughly
+representative.
+
+Pope Innocent recognized the necessity for the existence of a city
+hospital in Rome and by inquiry determined that the model hospital for
+this purpose existed down at Montpelier in connection with the famous
+medical school of the university there. Montpelier had succeeded to
+the heritage of the distinguished reputation in medical matters which
+had been enjoyed by Salernum, not far from Naples, during the Ninth,
+Tenth, and Eleventh centuries. The shores of the Mediterranean have
+always been recognized as possessing a climate especially suitable for
+invalids and with the diminution of the influence of the Salernitan
+school, a transfer of its prestige to Montpelier, where the close
+relationship with Spain had given the medical schools the advantage of
+intimate contact with the medicine of the Arabs, is not a matter of
+surprise. At Montpelier the hospital arrangements made by Guy de
+Montpelier were especially efficient. The hospital of which he had
+charge was under the care of the members of the order of the Holy
+Spirit.
+
+Pope Innocent summoned Guy, or Guido as he was known after this, to
+Rome and founded for him the hospital of the Holy Spirit in the Borgo,
+not far from St. Peter's, where it still exists. This was the mother
+and model hospital for the world. Visitors to Rome saw it, and could
+not fail to admire its great humanitarian work. Bishops from all over
+the world on their official visits to the head of the Church, admired
+the policy under which the hospital was conducted, recognized the
+interest of the Pope in it, and went back to their homes to organize
+institutions of the same kind. How many of these were established in
+various parts of Europe is hard to determine. Virchow in his History
+of the Foundations of the German Hospitals, has a list of over one
+hundred towns in Germany in which hospitals of the Holy Spirit, or
+medical institutions modeled on this hospital at Rome were founded.
+{339} Many of these towns were comparatively small. Most of them
+contained at the time less than five thousand inhabitants, so that it
+can be said without hesitation, that practically every town of any
+importance, at least in Germany, came under the influence of this
+great philanthropic hospital movement.
+
+With regard to other countries, it is more difficult to determine the
+number of places in which such institutions were established. As both
+France and Italy were, however, much more closely in touch with the
+Holy See at this time, it would be surprising if they had not been
+affected as much as Germany by the Pope's enthusiasm in the matter. We
+do know that in various large cities, as in Florence, Siena, Paris and
+London, there was a development of existing hospitals and the
+establishment of new ones, that points to a distinct community of
+interest in the hospital movement. At Paris, the Hotel Dieu was moved
+from the Petit Pont, where it had been, to its present situation and
+received large extensions in size and in usefulness. It was at this
+time, particularly, that it received donations for endowment purposes
+that would enable it to be self-supporting. A number of bequests of
+property, the rent of which was to be paid to the hospital, were made,
+and the details of some of these bequests have an interest of their
+own. Houses were not numbered at this time but were distinguished by
+various signs, usually figures of different kinds that formed part of
+their facade. The Hotel Dieu acquired the houses with the image of St.
+Louis, with the sign of the golden lion of Flanders, with the image of
+the butterfly, with the group of the three monkeys, with the image of
+the wolf, with the image of the iron lion, with the cross of gold,
+with the chimneys, etc. The Hotel Dieu, indeed, seems to have become
+practically a fully endowed institution during the course of the
+Thirteenth Century, for there are apparently no records of special
+revenues voted by the city or the king, though there are such records
+with regard to other places. For instance the Hospital of St. Louis
+received the right to collect a special tax on all the salt that came
+into the city.
+
+In England the hospital movement during the Thirteenth Century is
+evidently quite as active as in Germany, at least as far as the
+records go. These refer mainly to London and show {340} that the
+influence of the work of Innocent III. and his enthusiasm was felt in
+the English capital. The famous St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London
+had been a Priory founded at the beginning of the Twelfth Century,
+which took care of the poor and the ailing, but at the beginning of
+the Thirteenth Century it became more frankly a hospital in the modern
+sense of the word. St. Thomas' Hospital, which remains to the present
+day one of the great medical institutions of London, was founded by
+Richard, Prior of Bermondsey, in 1213. Bethlehem or Bedlam, which
+afterwards became a hospital for the insane, was founded about the
+middle of the Thirteenth Century. The name Bedlam is a corruption of
+Bethlehem, since adopted into the English language to express a place
+where fools do congregate. Bridewell and Christ's Hospital, which were
+the other two of the institutions long known as the five Royal
+Hospitals of London, also seem either to have been founded, or to have
+received a great stimulus and reorganization in the Thirteenth
+Century, but both ceased after some time to be places for the
+reception, of the ailing and became, one of them a prison and the
+other a school.
+
+The names of some of these institutions became associated with that of
+Edward VI. about the middle of the Sixteenth Century. For this,
+however, there was no proper justification, since, at most, all that
+was accomplished within the reign of the boy king, was the
+reestablishment of institutions formerly in existence which had been
+confiscated under the laws of Henry VIII., but the necessity for whose
+existence had been made very clear, because of the suffering entailed
+upon the many ailing poor by the fact, that in their absence there was
+nowhere for them to go to be cared for. As Gairdner points out in his
+History of the English Church in the Sixteenth Century, "Edward has
+left a name in connection with charities and education which critical
+scholars find to be little justified by fact." The supposed foundation
+of St. Thomas' Hospital was only the reestablishment of this
+institution, and even when it was granted by him to the citizens of
+London, this was not, as Gairdner says, "without their paying for it."
+
+How much all this hospital movement owes to Innocent III. will be best
+appreciated from Virchow's account of the German {341} hospitals, the
+great German Scientist not being one of those at all likely to
+exaggerate, the beneficent influence of the Popes, he says:
+
+  "The main cause decisive in influencing and arousing interest of the
+  people of the time in the hospitals of the Holy Ghost was the Papal
+  enthusiasm in the matter. The beginning of their history is
+  connected with the name of that Pope, who made the boldest and
+  farthest-reaching attempt to gather the sum of human interest into
+  the organization of the Catholic Church. The hospitals of the Holy
+  Ghost were one of the many means by which Innocent III. thought to
+  bind humanity to the Holy See. And surely it was one of the most
+  effective. Was it not calculated to create the most profound
+  impression, to see how the mighty Pope who humbled emperors and
+  deposed kings, who was the unrelenting adversary of the Albigenses,
+  turned his eyes sympathetically upon the poor and sick, sought the
+  helpless and the neglected on the streets, and saved the
+  illegitimate children from death in the waters. There is something
+  conciliating and fascinating in the fact that at the very same time
+  at which the Fourth Crusade was inaugurated through his influence,
+  the thought of founding a great organization of an essentially
+  humane character to extend throughout all Christendom, was also
+  taking form in his soul; and that in the same year (1204) in which
+  the new Latin Empire was founded in Constantinople, the newly
+  erected hospital of the Santo Spirito, by the Old Bridge across the
+  Tiber, was blessed and dedicated as the future center of this
+  universal humanitarian organization."
+
+
+{opp341}
+[Illustration]
+HOSPITAL OF THE HOLY GHOST (LÜBECK)
+
+
+Virchow, of course, considers Innocent's action as due to the entirely
+interested motive of binding the Catholic world to the Holy See.
+Others, however, who have studied Innocent's life even more
+profoundly, have not considered his purpose as due to any such mean
+motive. Hurter who wrote a history of Pope Innocent III., the
+researches for which he began as a Protestant with the idea that in
+the life of this Pope better than anywhere else the pretensions of the
+papacy could be most effectively exposed, but who was so taken by the
+character of the man that before he completed his history he had
+become a Catholic, looks at it in a very different way. Even Virchow
+himself quotes {342} Hurter's opinion, though not without taking some
+exceptions to it. Hurter said with regard to charitable foundations in
+his history of Pope Innocent III.: "All benevolent institutions which
+the human race still enjoys, all care for the deserted and needy
+through every stage of suffering from the first moment of birth to the
+return of the material part to earth, have had their origin in the
+church. Some of them directly, some of them indirectly through the
+sentiments and feelings which she aroused, strengthened and vivified
+into action. The church supplied for them the model and sometimes even
+the resources; that these great humanitarian needs were not neglected
+and their remedies not lacking in any respect is essentially due to
+her influence upon human character."
+
+With regard to this Virchow says that hospitals had existed among the
+Arabs and among the Buddhists in the distant East, "nevertheless," he
+adds, "it may be recognized and admitted, that it was reserved for the
+Roman Catholic Church and above all for Innocent III., to establish
+institutions for the care of those suffering from diseases."
+
+A corresponding hospital movement that received considerable attention
+within the Thirteenth Century was the erection of Leproseries or
+hospitals for the care of lepers. Leprosy had become quite common in
+Europe during the Middle Ages, and the contact of the West with the
+East during the Crusades had brought about a notable increase of the
+disease. It is not definitely known how much of what was called
+leprosy at that time really belonged to the specific disease now known
+as lepra. There is no doubt that many affections which have since come
+to be considered as quite harmless and non-contagious, were included
+under the designation leprosy by the populace and even by physicians
+incapable as yet of making a proper differential diagnosis. Probably
+severe cases of eczema and other chronic skin diseases, especially
+when complicated by the results of wrongly directed treatment or of
+lack of cleansing, were sometimes pronounced to be leprosy. Certain of
+the severer forms of what is now known as psoriasis--a non-contagious
+skin disease--running a very slow course and sometimes extremely
+obstinate to treatment, were almost surely included under the
+diagnosis of leprosy. Personally I have seen {343} in the General
+Hospital in Vienna, a patient who had for many months been compelled
+by the villagers among whom he lived to confine himself to his
+dwelling, sustained by food that was thrown into him at the window by
+the neighbors who were fearful of the contagiousness of his skin
+disease, yet he was suffering from only a very neglected case of
+psoriasis.
+
+There is no doubt, however, of the existence of actual leprosy in many
+of the towns of the West from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth centuries,
+and the erection of these special hospitals proved the best possible
+prophylactic against the further spread of the disease. Leprosy is
+contagious, but only mildly so. Years of association with lepers may
+and usually does bring about the communication of the disease to those
+around them, especially if they do not exercise rather carefully
+certain precise precautions as to cleanliness, after personal contact
+or after the handling of things which have previously been in the
+leper's possession. As the result of the existence of these houses of
+segregation, leprosy disappeared during the course of the next three
+centuries and thus a great hygienic triumph was obtained by sanitary
+regulation.
+
+This successful hygienic and sanitary work, which brought about
+practically the complete obliteration of leprosy in the Middle Ages,
+furnished the first example of the possibility of eradicating a
+disease that had become a scourge to mankind. That this should have
+been accomplished by a movement that had its greatest source in the
+Thirteenth Century, is all the more surprising, since we are usually
+accustomed to think of the people of those times, as sadly lacking in
+any interest in sanitary matters. The significance of the success of
+the segregation movement was lost upon men down almost to our own
+time. This was, however, because it was considered that most of the
+epidemic diseases were conveyed by the air. They were thought
+infectious and due to a climatic condition rather than to contagion,
+that is conveyed by actual contact with the person having the disease
+or something that had touched him, which is the view now held. With
+the beginning of the crusade against tuberculosis in the latter part
+of the Nineteenth Century, however, the most encouraging factor for
+those engaged in it, was the history of the success of segregation
+methods and careful {344} prevention of the spread of the disease
+which had been pursued against leprosy. In a word the lessons in
+sanitation and prophylaxis of the Thirteenth Century are only now
+bearing fruit, because the intervening centuries did not have
+sufficient knowledge to realize their import and take advantage of
+them.
+
+Pope Innocent III. was not the only occupant of the papal throne whose
+name deserves to be remembered with benedictions in connection with
+the hospital movement of the Thirteenth Century. His successors took
+up the work of encouragement where he had left it at his death and did
+much to bring about the successful accomplishment of his intentions in
+even wider spheres. Honorius III. is distinguished by having made into
+an order the Antonine Congregation of Vienna, which was especially
+devoted to the care of patients suffering from the holy fire and from
+various mutilations. The disease known as the holy fire seems to have
+been what is called in modern times erysipelas. During the Middle Ages
+it received various titles such as St. Anthony's fire, St. Francis'
+fire, and the like, the latter part of the designation evidently being
+due to the intense redness which characterizes the disease, and which
+can be compared to nothing better than the erythema consequent upon a
+rather severe burn. This affection was a great deal commoner in the
+Middle Ages than in later times, though it must not be forgotten that
+its disappearance has come mainly in the last twenty-five years.
+
+It is now known to be a contagious disease and indeed, as Oliver
+Wendell Holmes pointed out over half a century ago, may readily be
+carried from place to place by the physician in attendance. It does
+not always manifest itself as erysipelas when thus carried, however,
+and the merit of Dr. Holmes' work was in pointing out the fact that
+physicians who attended patients suffering from erysipelas and then
+waited on obstetrical cases, were especially likely to carry the
+infection which manifested itself as puerperal fever. A number of
+cases of this kind were reported and discussed by him, and there is no
+doubt that his warning served to save many precious lives.
+
+Of course nothing was known of this in the Thirteenth Century, yet the
+encouragement given to this religious order, which devoted itself
+practically exclusively to the care in special {345} hospitals of
+erysipelas, must have had not a little effect in bringing about a
+limitation of the spread of the disease. In such hospitals patients
+were not likely to come in contact with many persons and consequently
+the contagion-radius of the disease was limited. In our own time
+immediate segregation of cases when discovered has practically
+eradicated it, so that many a young physician, even though ten years
+in practise, has never seen a case of it. It was so common in America
+during the Civil War and for half a century prior thereto, that there
+were frequent epidemics of it in hospitals and it was generally
+recognized that the disease was so contagious that when it once gained
+a foothold in a hospital, nearly every patient suffering from an open
+wound was likely to be affected by it.
+
+It is interesting then to learn that these people of the Middle Ages
+attempted to control the disease by erecting special hospitals for it,
+though unfortunately we are not in a position to know just how much
+was accomplished by these means. A congregation devoted to the special
+care of the disease had been organized, as we have said, early in the
+Thirteenth Century. At the end of this century this was given the full
+weight of his amplest approval by Pope Boniface VIII., who conferred
+on it the privilege of having priests among its members. It will be
+remembered that Pope Boniface VIII. is said to have issued the Bull
+which forbade the practise of dissection. The decretal in question,
+however, which was not a Bull, only regulated, as I have shown, the
+abuse which had sprung up of dismembering bodies and boiling them in
+order to be able to carry them to a distance for burial, and was in
+itself an excellent hygienic measure.
+
+Many orders for the care of special needs of humanity were established
+during the Thirteenth Century. It is from this period that most of the
+religious habits worn by women originate. These used to be considered
+rather cumbersome for such a serious work as the nursing and care of
+the sick, but in recent years quite a different view has been taken.
+The covering of the head, for instance, and the shearing of the hair
+must have been of distinct value in preventing communication of
+certain diseases. There has been a curious assimilation in the last
+few years, of the dress required to be worn by nurses in operating
+{346} rooms to that worn by most of the religious communities. The
+head must be completely covered, and the garments worn are of material
+that can be washed. It will be recalled that the headdresses of
+religious, being as a rule of spotless white, must be renewed
+frequently and therefore must be kept in a condition of what is
+practically surgical cleanliness. While this was not at all the
+intention of those who adopted the particular style of headdress worn
+by religious, yet their choice has proved, in what may well be
+considered a Providential way, to be an excellent protective for the
+patients against certain dangers that would inevitably have been
+present, if their dress had been the ordinary one of the women of
+their class during these many centuries of hospital nursing by
+religious women.
+
+The organization of charity is supposed to be a feature of social life
+that was reserved for these modern times. A subsequent chapter on
+Democracy, Christian Socialism and National Patriotism, shows how
+false this notion is from one standpoint; a little additional
+interpretation will show that the generations which organized the
+hospitals, took care of the lepers in such a way as to prevent their
+becoming sources of infection for others, and segregated such severe
+contagious diseases as erysipelas, not only knew how to organize
+charitable efforts, but were able to accomplish their purposes in this
+matter in such a way, that the friction of the charity organization
+itself absorbed as little as possible of the beneficent energy put
+into it, and much less than is the case in our own time. Besides the
+monasteries were really active centers of charity organization of the
+most practical character. They not only gave to the people when their
+necessities required it, but they were active employers of labor and
+in times of scarcity constantly made large sacrifices in order to keep
+their people employed, and even the community itself went on short
+rations in order that the suffering in the neighborhood might not be
+extreme. In times of prosperity there were, no doubt, abuses in
+monasteries, but no one ever accused them of neglecting the poor
+during times of famine.
+
+While the Thirteenth Century was so intent upon the relief of the
+social needs consequent upon illness and injury, it did not neglect
+other forms of social endeavor. One of the crying {347} evils of the
+Thirteenth Century was the fact that mariners and merchants, as well
+as pilgrims to the Holy Land, were not infrequently captured by
+corsairs from the northern coast of Africa, and sold into slavery. At
+times, if there was hope of a very large ransom, news of the condition
+of these poor victims might find its way to their homes. As a rule,
+however, they were as much lost to family and friends as if they had
+actually been swallowed up by the sea, which was usually concluded to
+have been their fate. The hardships thus endured and the utter
+helplessness of their conditions made them fitting subjects for
+special social effort. The institution which was to provide relief for
+this sad state of affairs had its rise in a typically Thirteenth
+Century way--what, doubtless, the modern world would be apt to think
+of as characteristically medieval--but the result achieved was as
+good an example of practical benevolence as has ever been effected in
+the most matter-of-fact of centuries.
+
+
+{opp347}
+[Illustration]
+CHARITY (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+FORTITUDE (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+HOPE (GIOTTO)
+
+
+Shortly after the beginning of the Thirteenth Century two very
+intelligent men, whose friends honored them very much for the
+saintliness of their lives--meaning by saintliness not only their
+piety but their thoughtfulness for others before themselves--had a
+dream in which they saw poor captives held in slavery and asking for
+some one out of Christian charity to come and ransom them. One of
+these men was John of Matha, a distinguished teacher of Theology at
+the University of Paris. The other was Felix of Valois, more
+distinguished for his piety than his learning, but by no means an
+ignorant man. On the same night, though living at a distance from one
+another, they had this identical dream. Having told it next day to
+some friends, it happened that after a time it came to their mutual
+knowledge that the other had had a similar vision. The circumstance
+seemed so striking to them that they applied to the Pope for an
+interpretation of it. The Pope, who was Innocent III., the founder of
+city hospitals, saw in it a magnificent opportunity for the foundation
+of another great Christian charity.
+
+Accordingly in interpreting it, he directed their thoughts toward the
+redemption of Christian captives taken by the Saracens. He has as a
+consequence been regarded as the founder of the order of Trinitarians
+(A. D. 1198), and did, in {348} fact, draft its Rule. It was called,
+from its object, Ordo de Redemptione Captivorum, (Order for the
+Redemption of Captives), but its members were more generally known as
+Trinitarians. They wore a white habit, having a red and blue cross on
+the breast. They were well received in France, where they had
+originated, were the recipients of large sums of money to be devoted
+to the objects of the order, and had large accessions to their number,
+among whom were many distinguished by ability and profound learning.
+
+In the year 1200 the first company of ransomed captives arrived from
+Morocco, and one may easily imagine their joy on again regaining their
+freedom and beholding once more their friends and native land.
+
+The members of this order were sometimes called Mathurins, from the
+title of the first church occupied by them in Paris. They spread
+rapidly in Southern France, through Spain, Italy, England, Saxony, and
+Hungary, and foundations of a similar kind were also opened for women.
+Cerfroid, in the diocese of Meaux, where the first house of the order
+was opened, became the residence of the General (minister generalis).
+There was a fine field for their labors in Spain, where the Moors were
+constantly at war with the Christians. The self-sacrificing spirit of
+these religious, which led them to incur almost any dangers in the
+accomplishment of their purpose, was only equaled by their zeal in
+arousing interest for the poor captives. They became the accredited
+agents for the ransoming of prisoners, and also for their exchange and
+even the Mahometans learned to trust and eventually to reverence them.
+When they could not ransom at once they thus succeeded in ameliorating
+the conditions in which slave prisoners were kept, and proved a great
+source of consolation to them.
+
+Another order, having the same object in view but differing somewhat
+in its constitution, was founded in 1218, by Peter of Nolasco, a
+distinguished Frenchman, and Raymond of Pennafort the famous authority
+on canon law. In this, too, medieval supernaturalism evolved the usual
+practical results. In consequence of a vision, the order was placed
+under the special protection of the Blessed Virgin, and called the
+Order of the Blessed Virgin of Mercy (Ordo. B. Mariae de Mercede). Its
+{349} members bound themselves by vow to give their fortunes and to
+serve as soldiers in the cause. Their devotion was so ardent that for
+the accomplishment of their purpose they vowed if necessary to make a
+sacrifice of their very persons, as Peter actually did in Africa, for
+the redemption of Christian captives. Hence their members were divided
+into Knights who wore a white uniform, and Brothers, who took orders
+and provided for the spiritual wants of the community. Gregory IX.,
+admiring the heroic devotion of these intrepid men, approved the
+order. Many thousands of captive Christians who would otherwise have
+dragged out a miserable existence as slaves among the Mahometans of
+North Africa, were thus rescued and restored to their families and a
+life of freedom and happiness in Europe. This was a fine practical
+example of Abolitionism worthy of study and admiration.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+HOSPITAL INTERIOR
+
+
+{350}
+
+XXII
+
+GREAT ORIGINS IN LAW.
+
+
+Perhaps the most surprising phase of Thirteenth Century history is
+that much of what is most valued and most valuable in our modern laws,
+especially as they concern the fundamental rights of man, is to be
+found clearly expressed in the great lawmaking of the Thirteenth
+Century. It can scarcely fail to astonish those who look upon the
+Middle Ages as hopelessly barren in progress, to find that human
+liberty in its development reached such a pass before the end of the
+Middle Ages, or that any period so long before the Renaissance and the
+reformation so-called, could be picked out as representing a
+distinctive epoch in supremely liberal legislation. After careful
+study, the surprise is apt to be rather that there should have been
+comparatively so little advance since that time, seeing how much the
+generations of this marvelous century were able to accomplish in
+definitely formulating principles of human rights.
+
+The first great document in the laws of the Thirteenth Century is, of
+course, Magna Charta, signed in 1215, the foundation of all the
+liberties of English speaking people ever since. Perhaps the highest
+possible tribute to the Great Charter is the fact that it has grown in
+the estimation of intelligent men, rather than lost significance. In
+quite recent years it has become somewhat the custom to belittle its
+import and its influence. But it must not be forgotten that over and
+over again in times of national crises in England, Magna Charta has
+been confidently appealed to as a fundamental law too sacred to be
+altered, as a talisman containing some magic spell capable of averting
+national calamity. Bishop Stubbs said of it, that "the Great Charter
+was the first supreme act of the nation after it had realized its own
+identity."
+
+Perhaps in nothing does its supremacy as basic legislation for
+national purposes so shine forth, as from the fact that it is {351}
+not a vague statement of great principles, not a mere declaration of
+human rights, not a documentary rehearsal of fundamental legalities,
+but a carefully collected series of practical declarations for the
+solution of the problems that were then disturbing the peace of the
+kingdom, and leading to charge and countercharge of infringement of
+right on the part of the king and his subjects. As might have been
+expected from the men of the Thirteenth Century--from the generations
+who more than any other in all human history succeeded in uniting the
+useful with the beautiful in everything from the decoration of their
+churches and other great architectural structures to the ordinary
+objects of everyday life--it was of eminently practical character.
+While it is the custom to talk much of Magna Charta and to praise its
+wonderful influence there are very few people who have ever actually
+read its provisions. The classics are said to be books that everyone
+praises but no one reads, and Magna Charta and the Constitution of the
+United States are documents that are joined in the same fate. A little
+consideration of some of the chapters of the Charter will give an
+excellent idea of its thoroughly straightforward practicalness, though
+it may serve also to undeceive those who would expect to find in this
+primal document a lofty statement of abstract human rights, such as
+the men of the Thirteenth Century were never conscious of, since their
+thoughts were always in the concrete and their efforts were bent to
+the solution of the problems lying just before them, and not to the
+lifting of all the burdens that human nature has to bear.
+
+Before this, of course, there had been some development of legislation
+to furnish the basis for what was to come in the Thirteenth Century.
+The famous Constitutions of Clarendon under Henry II. and the Assizes
+of Clarendon (quite a different matter) and of North Hampton and the
+Forest under Henry II., gave assurances of rights that had only
+existed somewhat shadily before. According to the Constitutions of
+Clarendon sworn men gave their verdict in cases from their own
+knowledge. This was, of course, quite a different matter from the
+giving of a verdict from knowledge obtained through witnesses at a
+trial, but the germ of the jury trial can be seen. It was not,
+however, until the next reign that the men of England {352} did not
+merely wait for the free gifts of legal rights but demanded and
+obtained them. There was a new hitherto undreamt-of spirit abroad in
+the Thirteenth Century, by which men dared to ask for the rights they
+considered should be theirs.
+
+The opening chapter of Magna Charta states especially the subjects of
+the rights that are guaranteed by the document. It is not surprising
+then, to find that the first subject is the Church and that the most
+extensive guarantees are made that the English Church liberties shall
+be inviolate. Churchmen had been largely concerned in the movement
+which secured the signing of Magna Charta, and then after all, as must
+never be forgotten, the Church at this time was distinctly felt by all
+to be the spiritual expression of the religious aspirations of the
+people. Over the concluding sentence of this chapter, "the grant of
+the unwritten liberties to all freemen of our kingdom," there has been
+no little discussion. There are some who would consider that it
+applied to all Englishmen above the condition of villeins or serfs,
+while there are others who would limit its application practically to
+those nobly born in the kingdom. Posterity undoubtedly came to
+translate it in the broader sense, so that, whatever the original
+intention, the phrase became as a grant eventually to all free
+Englishmen.
+
+Chapter I.: "In the first place we have granted to God, and by this
+our present charter confirmed for us and our heirs for ever, that the
+English Church shall be free, and shall have her rights entire, and
+her liberties inviolate; and we will that it be thus observed; which
+is apparent from this that the freedom of elections, which is reckoned
+most important and very essential to the English Church, we of our
+pure and unconstrained will, did grant, and by our charter confirm and
+did obtain the ratification of the same from our lord, Pope Innocent
+III. before the quarrel arose between us and our barons, and this we
+will observe, and our will is that it be observed in good faith by
+our heirs for ever. We have also granted to all freemen of our
+kingdom, for us and for our heirs for ever, all the underwritten
+liberties, to be had and held by them and their heirs, of us and our
+heirs for ever."
+
+Perhaps the most interesting feature of Magna Charta is to {353} be
+found in the fact, that it did actually in most cases come to be
+applied ever so much wider than had apparently been the original
+intention. It was in this sense a vital document as it were, since it
+had within itself the power of developing so as to suit the varying
+circumstances for which recourse was had to it. There is no doubt at
+all of the good faith of the men who appealed to it, nor of their firm
+persuasion that the document actually intended what they claimed to
+find in it. Modern criticism has succeeded in stripping from the
+original expressions many of the added meanings that posterity
+attached to them, but in so doing has really not lessened the
+estimation in which Magna Charta must be held.
+
+The position is indeed noteworthily analagous to that of the original
+deposit of faith and the development of doctrine which has taken
+place. Higher criticism has done much to show how little of certain
+modern ideas was apparently contained explicitly in the original
+formulas of Christian faith, and yet by so doing has not lessened our
+beliefs, but has rather tended to make us realize the vitality of the
+original Christian tenets. As everything living in God's creation,
+they have developed by a principle implanted within them to suit the
+evolutionary conditions of man's intelligence and the developing
+problems that they were supposed to offer solutions for. The
+comparison, of course, like all comparisons, must walk a little lame,
+since after all Magna Charta is a human document, and yet the very
+fact that it should have presented itself under so many varying
+conditions, ever with new significance to succeeding generations of
+thinking men, is the best evidence of how nearly man's work at its
+best may approach that of the Creator. It is an exemplification, in a
+word, of the creative genius of the century, a worthy compeer of the
+other accomplishments which have proved so enduring and so capable of
+making their influence felt even upon distant generations.
+
+It is of the very essence of the practicality of Magna Charta that
+among the early chapters of the important document--Chapter VII.--is
+one that concerns widows and their property rights immediately after
+the death of their husbands. Previous chapters had discussed questions
+of guardianship and inheritance, since it was especially minors who in
+this rude period {354} were likely to suffer from the injustice of the
+crown, of their over-lords in the nobility, and even from their
+guardians. While Magna Charta, then, begins with the principles for
+the regulation of matters of property as regards children, it proceeds
+at once to the next class most liable to injustice because of their
+inability to properly defend themselves by force of arms--the widows.
+
+Chapter VII.: "A widow, after the death of her husband, shall
+forthwith and without difficulty have her marriage portion and
+inheritance; nor shall she give anything for her dower or for her
+marriage portion, or for the inheritance which she and her husband
+held on the day of the death of that husband; and she may remain in
+the house of her husband for forty days after his death, within which
+time her dower shall be assigned to her."
+
+Chapter VIII.: "Let no widow be compelled to marry, so long as she
+prefers to live without a husband; provided always that she gives
+security not to marry without our consent, if she holds of us, or
+without the consent of the lord of whom she holds, if she holds of
+another."
+
+The first of these provisions serves to show very well how early in
+the history of English jurisprudence a thoroughgoing respect for
+woman's legal rights began to have a place. The beginning Thirteenth
+Century made an excellent start in their favor. For some reason the
+movement for justice thus initiated did not continue, but suffered a
+sad interruption down almost to our own times.
+
+The second of these provisions for widows, embodied in Chapter VIII.,
+sounds a little queer to the modern ear. This protection of widows
+from compulsion to marry is apt to seem absolutely unnecessary in
+these modern days. Some of the unmarried are indeed prone to think,
+perhaps, that widows have more than their due opportunity in this
+matter without any necessity for protecting them from compulsion. Of
+course it is to be understood that it was not always so much the
+charms of the lady herself that must be protected from compulsion, as
+those of the property which she inherited and the political and
+martial influence that she might be expected to bring her husband. In
+these troublous times when disputes with {355} appeals to arms were
+extremely frequent, it was important to have the regulation, that
+after the death of a husband there should be no sudden unbalancing of
+political power because of the compelled marriage of the widow of some
+powerful noble.
+
+In certain subsequent chapters up to the twelfth there is question
+mainly of the rights of the Jews, as money-lenders, to collect their
+debts with interest after the death of the principal to whom it was
+loaned. For instance, according to Chapter X., the debt shall not bear
+interest while the heir is under age and if the debt fell to the hands
+of the crown, nothing but the principal was to be taken. In Chapter
+XI. if any one died indebted to the Jews his wife should have her
+dower and pay nothing of that debt. For children under age the same
+principle held and they had a right to the provision of necessaries in
+keeping with the condition of their father. This last clause has been
+perpetuated in the practice of our courts, as some consider even to
+the extent of an abuse, so that debtors cannot collect from the income
+of a young man to whom money has been left, if by so doing the income
+should be impaired to such an extent as to make his method of living
+unsuitable to the condition in life to which he was born and brought
+up.
+
+Chapter XII. has been the subject of more discussion perhaps than any
+other. McKechnie, the most recent commentator on Magna Charta, says of
+it:  [Footnote 29]
+
+  [Footnote 29: Magna Carta, a Commentary on the Great Charter of King
+  John, with an Historical Introduction by William Sharp McKechnie,
+  M.D., LL.B., D. Phil. Glasgow, James Maclehose and Sons, Publishers
+  to the University, 1905.]
+
+  "This is a famous clause, greatly valued at the time it was framed
+  because of its precise terms and narrow scope (which made evasion
+  difficult), and even more highly valued in after days for exactly
+  opposite reasons. It came indeed to be interpreted in a broad
+  general sense by enthusiasts who, with the fully-developed British
+  constitution before them, read the clause as enunciating the modern
+  doctrine that the Crown can impose no financial burden whatsoever on
+  the people without consent of Parliament."
+
+Readers may judge for themselves from the tenor of the {356} chapter,
+how wide a latitude in interpretation it not only permits, but
+invites.
+
+Chapter XII.: "No scutage nor aid shall be imposed in our kingdom,
+unless by common counsel of our kingdom, except for ransoming our
+person, for making our eldest son a knight, and for once marrying our
+eldest daughter; and for these there shall not be levied more than a
+reasonable aid. In like manner it shall be done concerning aids from
+the citizens of London."
+
+There is no doubt that it is hard to read in this chapter all that has
+been found in it by enthusiastic appellants to Magna Charta at many
+times during the succeeding centuries. As a matter of fact, however,
+within half a century after it had been promulgated, it was appealed
+to confidently as one of the reasons why an English Parliament should
+meet if the King required special levies of money for the purpose of
+carrying on war. It was during the sixth and seventh decades of the
+Thirteenth Century that the great principle of English Legislation:
+"There shall be no taxation without representation"--which six
+centuries later was to be appealed to by the American Colonies as the
+justification for their war for independence, gradually came to be
+considered as a fundamental principle of the relationship between the
+government and the people. That it had its origin in Magna Charta
+there seems no doubt, and it is only another example of that
+unconscious development of a vital principle which, as we know from
+History, took place so often with regard to chapters of the Great
+Charter.
+
+Undoubtedly one of the most important chapters of Magna Charta is the
+very brief one, No. 17, which concerns itself with the holding of a
+Court of Common Pleas. The whole of the chapter is, "Common Pleas
+shall not follow our Court but shall be held in some fixed place."
+This represented a distinct step in advance in the dispensing of
+justice. It is a little bit hard for us to understand, but all
+departments of government were originally centered in the king and his
+household--the court--which attended to royal and national business of
+every kind. As pointed out by Mr. McKechnie in his Magna Charta, the
+court united in itself the functions of the modern cabinet of the
+administrative department--the home office, the foreign office and the
+admiralty, and of the various legal tribunals. It {357} was the parent
+of the Court at St. James and the courts at Westminster. Almost
+needless to say, it is from the fact that the dispensing of justice
+was a function of royalty, that the places of holding trials are still
+called courts.
+
+According to this chapter of Magna Charta, thereafter ordinary trials,
+Common Pleas, did not have to follow the Court, that is the royal
+household, in its wanderings through various parts of the kingdom, but
+they were held at an appointed place. In the days of Henry II. the
+entire machinery of royal justice had to follow the monarch as he
+passed, sometimes on the mere impulse of the moment, from one of his
+favorite hunting-seats to another. Crowds thronged after him in hot
+pursuit, since it was difficult to transact business of moment before
+the court without being actually present. This entailed almost
+intolerable delay, extreme annoyance and great expense upon litigants,
+who brought their pleas for the king's decision. There is an account
+of the hardships which this system inflicted upon suitors told of one
+celebrated case. Richard D'Anesty gives a graphic record of his
+journeyings in search of justice throughout a period of five years,
+during which he visited in the king's wake most parts of England,
+Normandy, Aquitaine, and Anjou. Ultimately successful he paid dearly
+for his legal triumph. He had to borrow at a ruinous rate of interest
+in order to meet his enormous expenses, mostly for traveling, and was
+scarcely able to discharge his debts.
+
+All litigation then, that did not directly involve the crown or
+criminal procedures, could be tried thereafter by a set of judges who
+sat permanently in some fixed spot, which though not named was
+probably intended from the beginning to be Westminster. Hence it has
+been said by distinguished English jurists that Magna Charta gave
+England a Capital. On the other hand Chapter XXIV. insured justice in
+criminal cases by reserving these pleas to judges appointed by the
+crown. This short chapter reads: "No sheriff, constable, coroner, or
+others of our bailiffs shall hold pleas of our Crown." This last
+expression did not necessarily mean matters concerned with royal
+business as might be thought, but had in King John's time come to
+signify criminal trials of all kinds. It is easy to understand that
+those accused of crime would look confidently for {358} justice to the
+representative of the central government, while they dreaded the
+jurisdiction of the less responsible officials resident in the
+counties, who had a wide-spread reputation for cruelty and oppression,
+and for a venality that it was hard to suppress.
+
+It would seem as though these quotations would serve to make even the
+casual reader appreciate how thoroughly Magna Charta deserves the
+reputation which it has borne now for nearly seven centuries, of an
+extremely valuable fundamental document in the history of the
+liberties of the English speaking people. Some of the subsequent
+chapters may be quoted without comment because they show with what
+careful attention to detail the rights of the people were guaranteed
+by the Charter, and how many apparently trivial things were considered
+worthy of mention. We may call attention to the fact that in Chapters
+forty-one and forty-two there are definite expressions of guarantee
+for the rights even of aliens, which represent a great advance over
+the feelings in this respect that had animated the people of a century
+or so before, and foreshadow the development of that international
+comity which is only now coming to be the distinguishing mark of our
+modern civilization.
+
+  "A freeman shall not be amerced for a small offence, except in
+  accordance with the degree of the offence; and for a grave offence
+  he shall be amerced in accordance with the gravity of his offence,
+  yet saving always his 'contentment'; and a merchant in the same way,
+  saving his wares; and a villein shall be amerced in the same way,
+  saving his wainage--if they have fallen into our mercy; and none of
+  the aforesaid amercements shall be imposed except by the oath of
+  honest men of the neighborhood.
+
+  "If any freeman shall die intestate, his chattels shall be
+  distributed by the hands of the nearest kinsfolk and friends, under
+  the supervision of the church, saving to everyone the debts which
+  the deceased owed to him.
+
+  "No constable or other bailiff of ours shall take corn or other
+  provisions from anyone without immediately tendering money therefor,
+  unless he can have postponement thereof by permission of the seller.
+
+  "No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other person shall take {359}
+  the horses or carts of any freeman for transport duty, against the
+  will of the said freeman.
+
+  "All kydells for the future shall be removed altogether from the
+  Thames and Medway, and throughout all England, except upon the sea
+  coast.
+
+  "Nothing in the future shall be taken or given for a writ of
+  inquisition of life or limbs, but freely it shall be granted, and
+  never denied.
+
+  "No bailiff for the future shall put any man to his 'law' upon his
+  own mere word of mouth, without credible witnesses brought for this
+  purpose.
+
+  "No freeman shall be arrested or detained in prison, or deprived of
+  his freehold, or outlawed, or banished, or in any way molested, and
+  we will not set forth against him, nor send against him, unless by
+  the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land.
+
+  "To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or
+  justice.
+
+  "All merchants shall have safe and secure exit from England, and
+  entry to England, with the right to tarry there and to move about as
+  well by land as by water, for buying and selling by the ancient and
+  right customs, quit from all evil tolls, except (in time of war)
+  such merchants as are of the land at war with us. And if such are
+  found in our land at the beginning of the war, they shall be
+  detained without injury to their bodies or goods, until information
+  be received by us, or by our chief justiciar, how the merchants of
+  our land found in the land at war with us are treated and if our men
+  are safe there, the others shall be safe in our land.
+
+  "It shall be lawful in future for any one (excepting always those
+  imprisoned or outlawed in accordance with the law of the kingdom,
+  and natives of any country at war with us, and merchants, who shall
+  be treated as is above provided) to leave our kingdom, and to
+  return, safe and secure by land and water, except for a short period
+  in time of war, on grounds of public policy--reserving always the
+  allegiance due to us.
+
+  "We will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs or bailiffs only
+  such as know the law of the realm and mean to observe it well.
+
+{360}
+
+  "We shall have, moreover, the same respite and the same manner in
+  rendering justice concerning the disafforestation or retention of
+  those forests which Henry our father and Richard our brother
+  afforested and concerning the wardship of lands which are of the
+  fief of another (namely, such wardships as we have hitherto had by
+  reason of a fief, which any one held of us by knight's service) and
+  concerning abbeys founded on other fiefs than our own, in which the
+  lord of the fee claims to have right; and when we have returned, or
+  if we desist from our expedition, we will immediately grant full
+  justice to all who complain of such things.
+
+  "All fines made with us unjustly and against the law of this land,
+  and all amercements imposed unjustly and against the law of this
+  land, shall be entirely remitted, or else it shall be done
+  concerning them according to the decision of the five and twenty
+  barons of whom mention is made below, in the clause for securing the
+  peace, or according to the judgment of the majority of the same,
+  along with the aforesaid Stephen Archbishop of Canterbury, if he can
+  be present, and such others as he may wish to bring with him for
+  this purpose, and if he cannot be present the business shall
+  nevertheless proceed without him, provided always that if any one or
+  more of the aforesaid five and twenty barons are in a similar suit,
+  they shall be removed as far as concerns this particular judgment,
+  others being substituted in their places after having been selected
+  by the rest of the same five and twenty for this purpose only, and
+  after having been sworn.
+
+  "Moreover, all the aforesaid customs and liberties, the observance
+  of which we have granted in our kingdom as far as pertains to us
+  towards our men, shall be observed by all of our kingdom, as well by
+  clergy as by laymen, as far as pertains to them towards their men.
+
+  "And, on this head, we have caused to be made out letters patent of
+  Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry, Archbishop of Dublin, the
+  bishops aforesaid, and Master Pandulf, as evidence of this clause of
+  security and of the aforesaid concessions."
+
+These last provisions show how closely the Church was bound up with
+the securing and maintenance of the rights of {361} the English
+people. The clauses we have quoted just before, need no comment to
+show how sturdily the spirit of liberty strode abroad even at the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century, for Magna Charta was signed in
+1215. The rest of the century was to see great advances in liberty and
+human rights, even beyond the guarantees of the Great Charter.
+
+Magna Charta, glorious as it was, was only the beginning of that basic
+legislation which was to distinguish the Thirteenth Century in
+England. About the middle of the century Bracton began his collection
+of the laws of the land which has since been the great English classic
+of the Common Law. His work was accomplished while he was the Chief
+Justiciary during the reign of Henry III. For many years before he had
+occupied various judicial positions, as Justice Itinerant of the
+counties of Nottingham and Derby and for seventeen years his name
+appears as one of the justices of the Aula Regis. This experience put
+him in an eminently fitting position to be the mouthpiece of English
+practice and law applications, and his book was at once accepted as an
+authority. It is a most comprehensive and systematic work in five
+volumes, bearing the title De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, and
+was modeled after the Institutes of Justinian.
+
+It was during the reign of Edward I., the English Justinian as he has
+been called, that the English Common Law came to its supreme
+expression, and this monarch has rightly been placed among the great
+benefactors of mankind for his magnanimous generosity in securing the
+legal rights of his subjects and framing English liberties for all
+time. Not a little of Edward's greatness as a law-maker and his
+readiness to recognize the rights of his subjects, with his consequent
+willingness to have English law arranged and published, must be
+attributed to his connection during his earlier years as Prince of
+Wales with the famous Simon De Montfort. To this man more than to any
+other the English speaking people owe the development of those
+constitutional rights, which gradually came to be considered
+inalienably theirs during the Thirteenth Century. He is undoubtedly
+one of the very great characters of history and the Thirteenth Century
+is by so much greater for having been the scene of his labors, during
+so many years, for the {362} establishment of constitutional
+limitations to the power of the monarch, and the uplifting of the
+rights of subjects not only among the nobility, but also among the
+lower classes.
+
+It was in Edward's time that the English Common Law was fashioned into
+the shape in which it was to exist for many centuries afterwards. How
+true this is may perhaps best be judged by the fact that even the laws
+with regard to real estate have not been changed in essence since that
+time, though medieval titles to land would seem to be so different to
+those of the present day. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica the
+changes which have been made since that time have been mainly due to
+the action of equity and legislation, the latter sometimes interpreted
+by the courts in a manner very different from the intention of
+Parliament. The same authority is responsible for the statement that
+the reign of Edward I., is notable for three leading real estate
+statutes which are still law. One of these was with regard to
+Mortmain, while the important statute known as _Quia Emptores_ (the
+eighteenth of Chapter I. of the Laws of Edward I.) had the practical
+effect of making the transfer of land thenceforward, more of a
+commercial and less of a legal transaction. It is to this same period
+that is owed the writ _Elegit_ which introduced the law practice of a
+creditor's remedy over real estate. How little was accomplished in the
+matter of law-making in subsequent centuries, may be gathered from the
+fact that Mr. James Williams who writes the article on real estate in
+the Encyclopedia Britannica ninth edition, says that from 1290 to the
+reign of Henry VIII., that is down to the Sixteenth Century, there is
+no statute of the first importance dealing with real estate.
+
+In a word, then, it may be said that these law-makers of the
+Thirteenth Century anticipated most of the legal difficulties of the
+after-time. Their statutory provisions, as in the case of the chapters
+of Magna Charta, seemed originally only to have a narrow application
+to certain urgent legal questions of the time, but proved eventually
+to contain in themselves the essence of legal principles that could be
+applied in circumstances such as the original law-maker had not even
+imagined. This is indeed the typical triumph of the century in every
+line of endeavor, that while apparently it devoted itself only to the
+{363} narrow problems of its own time, its solutions of them whether
+in art and architecture or decoration, in literary expression or
+poetic effectiveness, in educational methods or social uplift, always
+proved so complete, so thoroughly human in the broadest sense of that
+word and so consonant with development, that their work did not have
+to be done over again. No greater praise than this could be bestowed.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+SPIRE OF ST. ELIZABETH'S (MARBURG)
+
+
+{364}
+
+XXIII
+
+JUSTICE AND LEGAL DEVELOPMENT.
+
+
+It must not be thought because we have devoted so much time to the
+triumphs of English law-making in the Thirteenth Century that,
+therefore, there is little or nothing to be said about this same
+admirable feature of the time in other countries. As a matter of fact
+every nation in Europe saw the foundation of its modern legal system
+laid, and was responsive witness to the expression of the first
+principles of popular rights and popular liberties. Montalembert in
+his Life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary   [Footnote 30] makes no mention
+in the Introduction which is really a panegyric of the Thirteenth
+Century, of the progress of English law-making, and yet considers that
+he is able to bring together enough evidence to show that legislation
+had its acme of development just at this time. His paragraph on the
+subject will serve as the best possible preface to the scant treatment
+of continental law-making and enforcement of justice in this period,
+that our limited space will allow. He says:
+
+  [Footnote 30: Life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary by the Count De
+  Montalembert, translated by Francis Deming Hoyt, New York,
+  Longman's, Green and Company, 1904.]
+
+  "Legislation never, perhaps, had a more illustrious period. On the
+  one hand, the Popes, supreme authorities in matters of law as well
+  as of faith, gave to canon law the fullest development possible to
+  this magnificent security of Christian civilization; sat themselves
+  as judges with exemplary assiduity, published immense collections,
+  and founded numerous schools. On the other hand, that period gave
+  birth to most of the national legislation of the various states of
+  Europe; the great _Mirrors_ of Swabia and Saxony, the first laws
+  published in the German language by Frederick II. at the diet of
+  Mentz, and the code given by him to Sicily; in France, the
+  Institutes of St. Louis, together with the _Common Law_ of Pierre
+  des Fontaines, {365} and the _Statutes of Beauvoisis_ of Philip of
+  Beaumanoir; and lastly the French version of the _Assizes of
+  Jerusalem_, in which is to be found the most complete résumé now
+  extant of Christian and chivalric law. All these precious monuments
+  of the old Christian organization of the world are preserved in the
+  native languages of the various people, and are distinguished, less
+  even by this fact than by their generous and pious spirit, from that
+  pernicious Roman law, the progress of which was destined soon to
+  change all the principles of the former."
+
+Most of Montalembert's paragraph refers to the law-making in France
+with which he is naturally more familiar. He has supplied ample
+material for consultation for those who wish to follow out this
+interesting theme further. Even more significant, however, than the
+law-making in France, were the new ideas with regard to the
+enforcement in law that came in during the reign of Louis IX. We have
+not had to wait until this generation to realize, that as a rule it is
+not the absence of law so much as the lack of enforcement of such laws
+as exist, that gives rise to many of the injustices between men. St.
+Louis made it his business to bring about the enforcement of the laws
+with proper construction of their terms in such a way as to secure the
+rights of all. He himself sat under the famous old oak of Versailles
+as a Court of Appeals, reviewing especially the cases of the poor. It
+soon came to be known, that it would be a sad occasion for any and
+every court official who was found to have given judgment against the
+poor because of partiality or the yielding to unlawful influence. On
+the other hand, in order to keep the right of appeal from being
+abused, punishments were meted out to those who made appeals without
+good reason.
+
+Finding that he was unable to hear so many causes as were appealed to
+him, Louis chose Stephen Boileau to act as Chief Justice and committed
+the care of proper legal enforcement with confidence into his hands.
+Boileau had become famous by having condemned some very near
+relatives, under circumstances such that relationship might have been
+expected to weigh down the wrong side of the scales of justice, and in
+a few years he enhanced his reputation by the utter disregard of all
+motives in the settlement of suits at law, except those of {366} the
+strictest justice. How much Louis himself did in order to safeguard
+the rights of the poor can be judged from the famous incident told by
+all his biographers, in which he risked the enmity of the most
+powerful among his barons, in order to secure the punishment of one of
+them who had put two students to death. This was the first time that
+the rights of men, as men, were asserted and it constitutes the best
+possible testimony to the development of law and true liberty in
+France.
+
+  "Three young nobles of the county of Flanders were surprised,
+  together with the abbot of St. Nicholas, in a wood pertaining to
+  Coucy, with bows and arrows. Although they had neither dogs nor
+  hunting implements, they were found guilty of having gone out to
+  hunt and were hanged. The abbot and several women of their families
+  made complaint to the king, and Enguerrard was arrested and taken to
+  the Louvre. The king summoned him before him; he appeared, having
+  with him the King of Navarre, the King of Burgundy, the counts of
+  Bar, Soissons, Brittany, and Blois, the Archbishop of Rheims, Sire
+  John of Thorote, and nearly all the great men in the kingdom. The
+  accused said that he wished to take counsel, and he retired with
+  most of the seigneurs who had accompanied him, leaving the king
+  alone with his household. When he returned, John of Thorote, in his
+  name, said that he would not submit to this inquiry, since his
+  person, his honour, and his heritage were at stake, but that he was
+  ready to do battle, denying that he had hanged the three young men,
+  or ordered them to be hanged. His only opponents were the abbot and
+  the women, who were there to ask for justice. The king answered that
+  in causes in which the poor, the churches, and persons worthy of
+  pity, took part, it was not fitting to decide them in battle; for it
+  was not easy to find anyone to fight for such sorts of people
+  against the barons of the kingdom. He said that his action against
+  the accused was no new thing, and he alleged the example of his
+  predecessor Philip Augustus. He therefore agreed to the request of
+  the complainants, and caused Enguerrard to be arrested by the
+  sergeants and taken to the Louvre. All prayers were useless; St.
+  Louis refused to hear them, rose from his seat, and the barons went
+  away astonished and confused.
+
+{367}
+
+  "They did not, however, consider that they were beaten. They again
+  came together; the King of Navarre, the Count of Brittany, and with
+  them the Countess of Flanders, who ought rather to have intervened
+  for the victims. It was as if they had conspired against the king's
+  power and honour; for they were not content to implore Coucy's
+  release, but asserted that he could not be kept in prison. The Count
+  of Brittany maintained that the king had no right to institute
+  inquiries against the barons of his kingdom in matters which
+  concerned their persons, their heritage or their honour. The king
+  replied, 'You did not speak thus in former times when the barons in
+  direct dependence upon you came before me with complaints against
+  yourself, and offered to sustain them in battle. You then said that
+  to do battle was not in the way of justice.' The barons put forward
+  a final argument, namely, that according to the customs of the
+  kingdom, the king could only judge the accused and punish him in
+  person after an inquiry to which he had refused to submit. The king
+  was resolute, and declared that neither the rank of the guilty man
+  nor the power of his friends should prevent him from doing full
+  justice. Coucy's life was, however, spared. The fact that he had not
+  been present at the judgment, nor at the execution, prevailed in his
+  favour. By the advice of his counsellors, the king condemned him to
+  pay 1200 livres parisis, which, considering the difference in the
+  purchasing power of money, may be estimated at considerably more
+  than 400,000 pounds, and he sent this sum to St. John of Acre for
+  the defense of Palestine. The wood in which the young men were
+  hanged was confiscated to the abbey of St. Nicholas. The condemned
+  man was also constrained to found three perpetual chapelries for the
+  souls of his victims, and he forfeited jurisdiction over his woods
+  and fish ponds, so that he was forbidden to imprison or execute for
+  any offense which had to do with them. Since Enguerrard's defender,
+  John of Thorote, had in his anger told the barons that the king
+  would do well to hang them all, the king, who had been told of this,
+  sent for him and said, 'How comes it, John, that you have said I
+  should hang my barons? I certainly will not have them hanged, but I
+  will punish them when they do amiss.' John of Thorote denied that he
+  had said this, and offered to {368} justify himself on the oath of
+  twenty or thirty knights. The king would not carry the matter
+  further, and let him go."
+
+One of the best evidences of the development of the spirit of law in
+Germany during this time is the establishment of the famous Fehmic
+Courts, or Vehmgerichte, which achieved their highest importance
+during the Thirteenth Century. As with regard to the universities,
+there is a tradition that carries the origin of these courts back to
+the time of Charlemagne. They are much more likely to have been
+developments out of the relics of the ancient free courts of the old
+Teutonic Tribe. The first definite knowledge of their existence cannot
+be traced much earlier than a decade or two before the Thirteenth
+Century. They had their principal existence in Westphalia. Practically
+the whole country between the Rhine and the Weser was ruled to a
+subordinate degree by these Fehmic courts. During the Thirteenth
+Century they were used only in the most beneficial and liberal spirit,
+supplying a means of redress at a time when the public administration
+of justice was almost completely in abeyance. As a matter of fact,
+before their establishment disregard for authority to the extent of
+utter lawlessness prevailed in this part of Germany.
+
+
+{opp368}
+[Illustration]
+CITY GATE (NEUBRANDENBURG)
+
+[Illustration]
+RATHHAUS (STRALSUND)
+
+
+The significance of these courts has sometimes been missed. They
+arose, however, out of the justice loving spirit of the people
+themselves and were meant to supply legal enforcements when the
+regularly constituted authorities were unable to secure them. They
+remind one very much of the vigilance committees, which in our own
+country, in the cities of the distant West, bravely and with the
+admirable prudence of the race, have so often supplied the place of
+regular courts and have brought justice and order out of the chaos of
+lawlessness. The last place most people would expect their prototypes,
+however, would be here in the Germany of the Thirteenth Century. How
+much these Vehmgerichte accomplished during the Thirteenth and
+Fourteenth centuries it would be difficult to say. They represent an
+outgrowth of the spirit of the people themselves, that constitutes
+another striking feature of the practical side of the generations of
+the Thirteenth Century. They had much more to do with bringing about
+the development of the modern acute sense of justice among the
+Teutonic peoples {369} than is usually thought. They are the German
+expression of the same feelings that in England dictated trial by
+jury, and secured for the English speaking people of all time the
+precious privileges of even-handed justice and the right to be judged
+by one's peers.
+
+It was not alone in the western countries of Europe that great
+advances were made in liberty. The democratic spirit that was abroad
+made itself felt everywhere and the foundations of rights for the
+people were laid even in central Europe, in countries which ordinarily
+are thought of at this time as scarcely more than emerging from
+barbarism. Hungary may be cited as an example. Andrew II. is usually
+set down by narrow-minded historians as having been entirely too
+visionary in his character, and the fact that he led the fifth
+Crusade, apparently even more fruitless than were most of the others,
+is supposed to be an additional proof of this. Even Duruy in his
+History of the Middle Ages says of him, "he organized a state of
+anarchy by decreeing his Golden Bull, that if the King should violate
+the privileges of the nobility, they should be permitted to resist him
+by force and such resistance should not be treated as rebellion." As a
+matter of fact, his people were thus granted a constitution more
+liberal even than that of Magna Charta, but containing quite similar
+provisions in many respects, and the curious historical analogy is
+heightened when we recall that at the two ends of civilized Europe
+these constitutions were given in the same decade. One cannot help but
+wonder whether the Saxon elements which were in both peoples, for many
+Saxon and Frisian colonists had been induced to settle in certain
+parts of Transylvania just half a century before, did not have much to
+do with this extremely interesting development in Hungary, so like the
+corresponding evolution of the democratic spirit among their western
+kinsfolk.
+
+In Poland the development in law came a little later but evidently as
+the result of the same factors that were at work during the Thirteenth
+Century. Casimir the Great, who was born shortly after the close of
+the Thirteenth Century, gave wise laws to Poland which have
+constituted the basis of Polish law ever since. At this time Poland
+was one of the most important countries in Europe. Casimir, besides
+giving laws to {370} his people, also founded a university for them
+and in every way encouraged the development of such progress as would
+make his subjects intelligently realize their own rights and maintain
+them, apparently foreseeing that thus the King would be better able to
+strengthen himself against the many enemies that surrounded him in
+central Europe.
+
+How much the great Popes of the century accomplished for the
+foundation and development of law, can only be appreciated by those
+who realize the extent of their contributions to the codification of
+canon law. It was the arrangement of this in definite shape that put
+the civil jurists of the time at work setting their house in order.
+Innocent III., who is deservedly called _Pater Juris_, devoted a great
+deal of his wonderful energy and genius to the arrangement of canon
+law. This placed for the first time the canon law on an absolutely
+sure footing and filled up many gaps that formerly existed. Gregory
+IX. commissioned his chaplain, the famous Raymond of Pennafort, who
+had been a professor of canon law in the University of Bologna, to
+codify all the decretals since the time of Gratian. This work was
+officially promulgated in 1234, four years of labor having been
+devoted to it. The laws are in the form of decisions pronounced in
+cases submitted to the Pope from all parts of Christendom, including
+many from the distant East and not a few from England and Scotland.
+Gregory's decretals were published in five books; a supplement under
+the name of the sixth book was published under Pope Boniface VIII. in
+1298. In this for the first time abstract rules of law are laid down
+extracted from actual judgments. A compendium of Roman Law was added
+so as to approximate canon and civil procedure.
+
+This gives the best possible idea of how deeply the popes and the
+authorities in canon law of the century were laying the foundations of
+canonical practise and procedure for all times. The origins of modern
+law are to be found here, and yet not, as might be anticipated because
+of the distance in time, in such a confused or unmanageable fashion
+that they are not worth while consulting, but on the contrary with
+such clarity and distinctness and with such orderly arrangement, that
+they have been the subjects of study on the part of distinguished
+{371} jurists for most of the centuries ever since, and have never
+lost their interest for the great lawyers and canonists, who prefer to
+know things from the foundation rather than accept them at second
+hand.
+
+Some of the commentaries, or glosses as they were called, on canon law
+serve to give an excellent idea of the legal ability as well as the
+intellectual acumen of the canon lawyers of the century. The system of
+teaching was oral, and careful study was devoted to original
+authorities in law. Explanatory notes were added by the professors to
+their copies of the text. When later these texts were given out or
+lent for transcription, the notes were also copied, usually being
+written in the margin. After a time the commentary, however, proved to
+be, for students at least, as important as the text and so was
+transcribed by itself and was called an apparatus, that is a series of
+mechanical helps, as it were, to the understanding of the text.
+
+Of the names of some of the most distinguished glossatores the memory
+has been carefully preserved because they produced so much effect on
+legal teaching. The gloss written on Gratian by Joannes Teutonicus
+(John the German), probably during the first decade of the Thirteenth
+Century, was revised and supplemented by Bartholomew of Brescia about
+the middle of the Thirteenth Century. Some ten years later Bernard of
+Parma wrote a commentary on the decretals of Gregory. All of these are
+important fundamental works in canon law, and they were of very great
+influence in bringing out the principles of law and showing the basis
+on which they were founded. It is almost needless to say that they
+aroused additional interest and made the subject much more easy of
+approach than it had been. The fact that all of these magnificent
+contributions to the science and literatures of law should have been
+made during our Thirteenth Century, serves only to emphasize the fact
+that everything that men touched during this period was sure to be
+illuminated by the practical genius of the time, and put into a form
+in which for many centuries it was to be appealed to as a model and an
+authority in its own line. How much of legal commentary writing there
+was besides these, can be readily understood from the fact that these
+represent the activity only of the University of Bologna {372} which
+was, it is true, the greatest of universities in its law department,
+but it must not be forgotten that many other universities throughout
+Europe also had distinguished professors of law at this time.
+
+All this would seem to be of little interest for the secular
+law-making of the period, but it must not be forgotten that civil law
+was closely related to canon law at all times and that the development
+of canon law always meant a renewed evolution of the principles, and
+practise, and procedure of the civil law. In such countries as
+Scotland, indeed, the canon law formed the basis of the civil
+jurisprudence and its influence was felt even for centuries after the
+so-called reformation. On the other hand it must not be forgotten that
+the popes and the ecclesiastics helped to fight the battles of the
+middle and lower classes against the king and the nobility in
+practically every country in Europe. A very striking example of this
+is to be found in the life of that much misunderstood Pope Boniface
+VIII., the last pope of the century, who had received his legal
+training at Bologna, and who was one of the great jurists of his time.
+Circumstances differ so much, however, and obscure realities to such a
+degree, that at the present time we need the light of sympathetic
+interpretation to enable us to realize what Boniface accomplished.
+
+
+
+{opp372}
+[Illustration]
+PORTRAIT OF POPE BONIFACE VIII. (GIOTTO, ROME)
+
+
+He did much to complete in his time that arrangement and codification
+of canon law which his predecessors during the Thirteenth Century had
+so efficiently commenced. Like Innocent III. he has been much maligned
+because of his supposed attempt to make the governments of the time
+subservient to the Pope and to make the Church in each nation
+independent of the political government. With regard to the famous
+Bull Clericis Laicos, "thrice unhappy in name and fortune" as it has
+been designated, much more can be said in justification than is
+usually considered to be the case. Indeed the Rev. Dr. Barry, whose
+"Story of the Papal Monarchy" in the Stories of the Nations series has
+furnished the latest discussion of this subject, does not hesitate to
+declare that the Bull far from being subversive of political liberties
+or expressive of too arrogant a spirit on the part of the Church, was
+really an expression of a great principle that was to become very
+prominent in {373} modern history, and the basis of many of the modern
+declarations of rights against the claims of tyranny.
+
+He says in part:
+
+  "Imprudent, headlong, but in its main contention founded on history,
+  this extraordinary state-paper declared that the laity had always
+  been hostile to the clergy, and were so now as much as ever. But
+  they possessed no jurisdiction over the persons, no claims on the
+  property of the church, though they had dared to exact a tenth, nay,
+  even a half, of its income for secular objects, and time-serving
+  prelates had not resisted. Now, on no title whatsoever from
+  henceforth should such taxes be levied without permission of the
+  Holy See. Every layman, though king or emperor, receiving these
+  moneys fell by that very act under anathema; every churchman paying
+  them was deposed from his office; universities guilty of the like
+  offense were struck with interdict.
+
+  "Robert of Winchelsea, Langton's successor as primate, shared
+  Langton's views. He was at this moment in Rome, and had doubtless
+  urged Boniface to come to the rescue of a frightened, down-trodden
+  clergy, whom Edward I. would not otherwise regard. In the Parliament
+  at Bury, this very year, the clerics refused to make a grant. Edward
+  sealed up their barns. The archbishop ordered that in every
+  cathedral the pope's interdiction should be read. Hereupon the
+  chief-justice declared the whole clergy outlawed; they might be
+  robbed or murdered without redress. Naturally, not a few gave way; a
+  fifth, and then a fourth, of their revenue was yielded up. But
+  Archbishop Robert alone, with all the prelates except Lincoln
+  against him, and the Dominicans preaching at Paul's cross on behalf
+  of the king, stood out, lost his lands, and was banished to a
+  country parsonage. War broke out in Flanders. It was the saving of
+  the archbishop. At Westminster Edward relented and apologized. He
+  confirmed the two great charters; he did away with illegal judgments
+  that infringed them. Next year the primate excommunicated those
+  royal officers who had seized goods or persons belonging to the
+  clergy, and all who had violated Magna Charta. The Church came out
+  of this conflict exempt, or, more truly a self-governing estate of
+  the realm. It must be considered as {374} having greatly concurred
+  towards the establishment of that fundamental law invoked long after
+  by the thirteen American Colonies, 'No taxation without
+  representation,' which is the corner stone of British freedom."
+
+We have so often heard it said that there is nothing new under the
+sun, that finally the expression has come to mean very little, though
+its startling truth sometimes throws vivid light on historical events.
+Certainly the last place in the world that one would expect to find if
+not the origin, for all during the Thirteenth Century this great
+principle had been gradually asserting itself, at least, a wondrous
+confirmation of the principle on which our American revolution
+justified itself, would be in a papal document of the end of the
+Thirteenth Century. Here, however, is a distinguished scholar, who
+insists that the Colonists' contention that there must be no taxes
+levied unless they were allowed representation in some way in the body
+which determined the mode and the amount of taxation, received its
+first formal justification in history at the hands of a Roman Pontiff,
+nearly five centuries before the beginning of the quarrel between the
+Colonies and the Mother Country. The passage serves to suggest how
+much of what is modern had its definite though unsuspected origin, in
+this earlier time.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+DECORATION THIRTEENTH CENTURY PSALTER MS.
+
+
+{375}
+
+XXIV
+
+DEMOCRACY, CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM AND NATIONALITY.
+
+
+Democracy is a word to conjure with but it is usually considered that
+the thing it represents had its origin in the modern world much later
+than the period with which we are occupied. The idea that the people
+should be ready to realize their own rights, to claim their privileges
+and to ask that they should be allowed to rule themselves, is supposed
+ordinarily to be a product of the last century or two. Perhaps in this
+matter more than any other does the Thirteenth Century need
+interpretation to the modern mind, yet we think that after certain
+democratic factors and developments in the life of this period are
+pointed out and their significance made clear, it will become evident
+that the foundations of our modern democracy were deeply laid in the
+Thirteenth Century, and that the spirit of what was best in the
+aspiration of people to be ruled by themselves, for themselves, and of
+themselves had its birth in this precious seed time of so much that is
+important for our modern life.
+
+Lest it should be thought that this idea of the development of
+democracy has been engendered merely in the enthusiastic ardor of
+special admiration for the author's favorite century, it seems well to
+call attention to the fact that historians in recent years have very
+generally emphasized the role that the Thirteenth Century played in
+the development of freedom. A typical example may be quoted from the
+History of Anglo-Saxon Freedom by Professor James K. Hosmer,
+[Footnote 31] who does not hesitate to say that "while in England
+representative government was gradually developing during this
+century, in Germany the cities were beginning to send deputies to the
+Imperial Parliament and the Emperor, Frederick II., was allowing a
+certain amount of representation in the {376} Government of Sicily. In
+Spain, Alfonso the Wise, of Castile, permitted the cities to send
+representatives to the Cortez, and in France this same spirit
+developed to such a degree that a representative parliament met at the
+beginning of the Fourteenth Century." In none of these countries,
+however, unfortunately did the spirit of representative government
+continue to develop as in England and in many of them the privileges
+obtained in the Thirteenth Century were subsequently lost.
+
+  [Footnote 31: Scribners, New York, 1890.]
+
+Certain phases of the rise of the democratic spirit have already been
+discussed, and the reader can only be referred to them now with the
+definite idea of recognizing in them the democratic tendencies of the
+time. What we have said about the trade guilds constitutes one
+extremely important element of the movement which will be further
+discussed in this chapter. After this comes the guild merchant in its
+various forms. After all the Hanseatic League was only one
+manifestation of these guilds. Its widespread influence in awakening
+in people's minds the realization that they could do for themselves
+much more, and secure success in their endeavors much better by their
+own united efforts, than by anything that their accepted political
+rulers could do or at least would do for them, will be readily
+appreciated by all who read that chapter.
+
+Hansa must have been a great enlightener for the Teutonic peoples. The
+History of the league shows over and over again their political rulers
+rather interfering with than fostering their commercial prosperity.
+These rulers were always more than a little jealous of the wealth
+which the citizens of these growing towns in their realm were able to
+accumulate, and they showed it on more than one occasion. The history
+of the Hansa towns exhibits the citizens doing everything to dissemble
+the feelings of disaffection that inevitably came to them as the
+result of their appreciation of the fact, that they could rule
+themselves so much better than they were being ruled, and that they
+could accomplish so much more for themselves by their commercial
+combination with other cities than had ever been done for them by
+these hereditary princes, who claimed so much yet gave so little in
+their turn.
+
+The training in self-government that came with the {377} necessities
+for defense as well as for the protection of commercial visitors from
+other cities in the league, who trustfully came to deal with their
+people, was an education in democracy such as could not fail to bring
+results. The rise of the free cities in Germany represents the growth
+of the democratic spirit down to our own time, better than any other
+single set of manifestations that we have. The international relations
+of these cities did more, as we have said, to broaden men's minds and
+make them realize the brotherhood of man in spite of national
+boundaries than any other factor in human history. Commerce has always
+been a great leveler and such it proved to be in these early days in
+Germany, only it must not be thought that these German cities had but
+faint glimmerings of the great purpose they were engaged in, for
+seldom has the spirit of popular government risen higher than with
+them.
+
+How clearly the Teutonic mind had grasped the idea of democracy can be
+best appreciated perhaps from the attitude of the Swiss in this
+matter. These hardy mountaineers whose difficult country and rather
+severe climate separate them effectually from the other nations, soon
+learned the advisability of ruling themselves for their own benefit.
+Before the end of the Thirteenth Century they had formed a defensive
+and offensive union among themselves against the Hapsburgs, and though
+for a time overborne by the influence of this house after its head
+ascended the Imperial throne, immediately on Rudolph's death they
+proceeded to unite themselves still more firmly together. They then
+formed the famous league of 1291 which represents so important a step
+in the democracy of modern times. The formal document which
+constituted this league a federal government deserves to be quoted. It
+is the first great declaration of independence, and its ideas were to
+crop out in many another declaration in the after times. It is an
+original document in the strictest sense of the word. It runs as
+follows:
+
+  "Know all men that we, the people of the valley of Uri, the
+  community of the valley of Schwiz, and the mountaineers of the lower
+  valley, seeing the malice of the times, have solemnly agreed and
+  bound ourselves by oath to aid and defend each other with all our
+  might and main, with our lives and property, {378} both within and
+  without our boundaries each at his own expense, against every enemy
+  whatever who shall attempt to molest us, either singly or
+  collectively. This is our ancient covenant. Whoever hath a lord let
+  him obey him according to his bounden duty. We have decreed that we
+  shall accept no magistrate in our valleys who shall have obtained
+  his office for a price, or who is not a native or resident among us.
+  Every difference among us shall be decided by our wisest men; and
+  whoever shall reject their award shall be compelled by the other
+  confederates. Whoever shall wilfully commit a murder shall suffer
+  death, and he who shall attempt to screen the murderer from justice
+  shall be banished from our valleys. An incendiary shall lose his
+  privileges as a free member of the community, and whoever harbors
+  him shall make good the damage. Whoever robs or molests another
+  shall make full restitution out of the property he possesses among
+  us. Everyone shall acknowledge the authority of a chief magistrate
+  in either of the valleys. If internal quarrels arise, and one of the
+  parties shall refuse fair satisfaction, the confederates shall
+  support the other party. This covenant for our common weal, shall,
+  God willing, endure forever."
+
+In England democracy was fostered in the guilds, which, as we have
+already seen in connection with the cathedrals, proved the sources of
+education and intellectual development in nearly every mode of thought
+and art. The most interesting feature of these guilds was the fact
+that they were not institutions suggested to the workmen and tradesmen
+by those above them, but were the outgrowth of the spirit of self help
+and organization which, came over mankind during this century. At the
+beginning they were scarcely more than simple beneficial associations
+meant to be aids in times of sickness and trial, and to make the
+parting of families and especially the death of the head of the family
+not quite so difficult for the survivors, since affiliated brother
+workmen remained behind who would care for them. During this century,
+however, the spirit of democracy, that is the organized effort of the
+people to take care of themselves, better their conditions, and add to
+their own happiness, led to the development of the guilds in a fashion
+that it is rather difficult for generations of the modern time to
+{379} understand, for our trades' unions do not, as yet at least,
+present anything that quite resembles their work in our times.
+
+It was because of the effective social work of these guilds that
+Urbain Gohier, the well-known French socialist and writer on
+sociological subjects, was able to say not long ago in the North
+American Review:
+
+"When the workmen of the European Continent demand 'the three
+eights'--eight hours of work, eight hours of rest and refreshment,
+physical and mental, and eight hours of sleep--some of them are aware
+of the fact that this reform already exists in the Anglo-Saxon
+countries; but all are ignorant of this other fact that, during the
+Middle Ages, in an immense number of labor corporations and cities, a
+work-day was often only nine, eight and even seven hours long. Nor
+have they ever been told that every Saturday, and on the eve of over
+two dozen holidays, work was stopped everywhere at four o'clock." The
+Saturday half holiday began it may be said even earlier, namely at the
+Vesper Hour which according to medieval church customs was some time
+between two and three p. m. and the same was true on the vigils, as
+the eves of the important church festivals were called.
+
+The only possible way to give a reasonably good idea of the spirit of
+the old-time guilds which succeeded in accomplishing such a wonderful
+social revolution, is to quote some of their rules, which serve to
+show their intents and purposes at least, even though they may not
+always have fulfilled their aims. Their rules regard two things
+particularly--the religious and the social functions of the guild.
+There was a fine for absence from the special religious services held
+for the members but also a fine of equal amount for absence from the
+annual banquet. In this they resemble the rules of the religious
+orders which were coming to be widely known at the end of the Twelfth
+and the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, and according to which
+the members of the religious community were required quite as strictly
+to be present at daily recreation, that is, at the hour of
+conversation after meals, as at daily prayer. An interesting phase of
+the social rules of the guild is that a member was expected to bring
+his wife with him, or if not his wife then his sweetheart. They were
+franker in these matters {380} in this simpler age and doubtless the
+custom encouraged matrimony a little bit more than our modern colder
+customs.
+
+As giving a fair idea of the ordinances of the pre-Reformation guilds
+in their original shape the rules of the Guild of St. Luke at Lincoln,
+may be cited. St. Luke had been chosen as patron because according to
+tradition he was an artist as well as an evangelist. The patron saint
+was chosen always so that he might be a model of life as well as a
+protector in Heaven. Its members were the painters, guilders,
+stainers, and alabaster men of the city. The first rule provides that
+on the Sunday next after the feast of St. Luke all the brothers and
+sisters of the Guild shall, with their officers, go in procession from
+an appointed place, carrying a great candle, to the Cathedral Church
+of Lincoln, and there every two of the brethren and sisters shall
+offer one half-penny or more after their devotion, and then shall
+offer the great candle before an image of St. Luke within the church.
+And any who were absent without lawful cause shall forfeit one pound
+of wax to the sustentation of the said great candle.
+
+On the same Sunday, "for love and amity and good communication to be
+had for the several weal of the fraternity," the guildmen dined
+together, every brother paying for himself and his wife, or
+sweetheart, the sum of four pence. Absentees were fined one pound of
+wax towards the aforesaid, candle.
+
+The third rule provided that four "mornspeeches"--that its business
+meetings--should be held each year, "for ordering and good rule to be
+had and made amongst them." Absentees from a mornspeech forfeited one
+pound of wax to St. Luke's candle. Another rule provided that the
+decision of ambiguities or doubts about the forfeitures prescribed
+should be referred to the mayor and four aldermen of the city. Rules 4
+to 11, and also 13, regulate the taking of apprentices and the setting
+up in trade; forbid the employing of strangers; provide for the
+settlement of disputes and the examination of work not sufficiently
+done after the sample. Already the tendency to limit the number of
+workmen that might be employed which was later to prove a stumbling
+block to artistic progress is to be noted. On the other hand the
+effort to keep work up to a certain standard, which was to mean so
+much for artistic {381} accomplishment in the next few generations
+must be noted as a compensatory feature of the Guild regulations.
+
+{opp381}
+[Illustration]
+DOORWAY (LINCOLN)
+
+[Illustration]
+NAVE (DURHAM CATHEDRAL)
+
+[Illustration]
+BROKEN ARCH (ST. MARY'S, YORK, CLIMAX OF GOTHIC)
+
+
+Rule 12 directs that "when it shall happen any brother or sister of
+the said fraternity to depart and decease from the world, at his first
+Mass the gracemen and wardens (skyvens) for the time being shall offer
+of the goods and chattels of the said fraternity, two pence; and at
+his eighth day, or thirtieth day, every brother and sister shall give
+to a poor creature a token made by the dean, for which tokens every
+brother and sister shall pay the dean a fixed sum of money, and with
+the money thus raised he shall buy white bread to give to the poor
+creatures" holding the tokens, the bread to be distributed at the
+church of the parish in which the deceased lived.
+
+This twelfth rule with regard to the manner of giving charity is
+particularly striking, because it shows a deliberate effort to avoid
+certain dangers, the evil possibilities of which our modern organized
+charity has emphasized. According to this rule of the Guild of St.
+Luke's at Lincoln, all the members were bound to give a certain amount
+in charity, for the benefit of a deceased member. This was not,
+however, by direct alms, but by means of tokens for which they paid a
+fixed price to the Dean, who redeemed the tokens when they were
+presented by the deserving poor. This guaranteed that each member
+would give the fixed sum in charity and at the same time safeguarded
+the almsgiving from any abuses, since the member of the guild himself
+would be likely to know something of the poor person and his
+deservingness, and if not there was always the question of the Dean
+being informed with regard to the needs of the case. All of this was
+accomplished, however, without hurting the feelings of the recipients
+of the charity, since they felt that it was done not for them but for
+the benefit of a deceased member.
+
+How much the guilds came to influence the life of the people during
+the next two centuries may be best appreciated from their great
+increase in number and wealth.
+
+In England, it is computed that at the beginning of the Sixteenth
+Century there were thirty thousand of these institutions spread over
+the country. The county of Norfolk alone had nine hundred, of which
+number the small town of {382} Wymondham had at least eleven still
+known by names, one--the Guild of Holy Trinity, Wymondham--being
+possessed of a guild-hall of its own, whilst it and the other guilds
+of the town are said to have been "well endowed with lands and
+tenements." In Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, there were twenty-three
+guilds; Boston, Lincolnshire, had fourteen, of which the titles and
+other particulars are known, whilst in London their number must have
+been very great. Of the London trade guilds, Stow, the Elizabethan
+antiquary, records the names of sixty of sufficient importance to
+entitle their representatives to places at the civic banquets in the
+reign of Henry VIII. Many of them are still in existence, having been
+spared at the time of the Reformation on the plea that they were
+trading or secular associations. Fifteen of the largest of
+them--including the merchant tailors, the goldsmiths and the
+stationers--have at the present time an annual income of over $50,000
+each.
+
+The reasons for their popularity can be readily found in the many
+social needs which they cared for. Socialistic cooperation has,
+perhaps, never been carried so far as in these medieval institutions
+which were literally "of the people, by the people, and for the
+people." Often their regulation made provisions for insurance against
+poverty, fire, and sometimes against burglary. Frequently they
+provided schoolmasters for the schools. Their funds they loaned out to
+needy brethren in small sums on easy terms, whilst trade and other
+disputes likely to give rise to ill-feeling and contention were
+constantly referred to the guilds for arbitration. One of the rules of
+the Guild of our Lady at Wymondham thus ordains, that for no manner of
+cause should any of the brothers or sisters of the fraternity go to
+law till the officers of the guild had been informed of the
+circumstances and had done their best to settle the dispute and
+restore "unity and love betwixt the parties." To assist at the burial
+of deceased brethren, and to aid in providing for the celebration of
+obits for the repose of their souls, were duties incumbent on all,
+defaulters without good excuse being subject to fines and censure.
+
+It must not be thought that these tendencies to true democracy were
+confined to the trades guilds, however. The historian of the merchant
+guilds has demonstrated that they had the {383} same spirit and this
+was especially true for the great guild merchant. He says:
+
+  "To this category of powerful affinities must be added the Gild
+  Merchant. The latter was from the outset a compact body emphatically
+  characterized by fraternal solidarity of interests, a protective
+  union that naturally engendered a consciousness of strength and a
+  spirit of independence. As the same men generally directed the
+  counsels of both the town and the Gild, there would be a gradual,
+  unconscious extension of the unity of the one to the other, the
+  cohesive force of the Gild making itself felt throughout the whole
+  municipal organism. But the influence of the fraternity was material
+  as well as moral. It constituted a bond of union between the
+  heterogeneous sokes (classes of tenants) of a borough; the townsmen
+  might be exclusively amenable to the courts of different lords, but,
+  if engaged in trade within the town, they were all members of one
+  and the same Gild Merchant. The independent regulation of trade also
+  accustomed the burgesses to self-government, and constituted an
+  important step toward autonomy; the town judiciary was always more
+  dependent upon the crown or mesne lord than was the Gild Merchant."
+
+Because of the supreme interest in everything connected with
+Shakespeare, the existence of one of the most important guilds in
+Stratford, has led to the illustration of guilds' works there better
+than for any English town during this period. The Guild of the Holy
+Cross was the most important institution of Stratford and enthusiastic
+Shakespeare scholars have applied themselves to find out every detail
+of its history as far as it is now available, in order to make clear
+the conditions--social and religious--that existed in the great
+dramatist's birthplace. Halliwell, in his Descriptive Calendar of the
+Records of Stratford on Avon, and Sidney Lee, in his Stratford on Avon
+in the Time of the Shakespeares, have gathered together much of this
+information:--"The Guild has lasted, wrote its chief officer in 1309,
+for many, many years and its beginning was from time whereunto the
+memory of man reaches not." Bowden, in his volume on the Religion of
+Shakespeare, has a number of the most important details with regard to
+Stratford's Guild. The earliest extant documents with regard to it are
+from the {384} Reign of Henry III., 1216-1272, and include a deed of
+gift by one William Sede, of a tenement to the Guild, and an
+indulgence granted October 7th, 1270, by Giffard, Bishop of Wooster,
+of forty days to all sincere penitents who after having duly confessed
+had conferred benefits on the Guild.
+
+By the close of the reign of Edward I., at the beginning of the
+Fourteenth Century, the Guild was wealthy in houses and lands, and the
+foundation was laid of its chapel and almshouses which, with the hall
+of meeting--the "Rode or Reed Hall"--stood where the Guild Hall is at
+the present day. Edward III. and Richard II., during the Fourteenth
+Century, confirmed the rights of the Guild and even added to its
+privileges. Though it was a purely local institution, the fame of its
+good works had spread so wide during these next centuries that
+affiliation with it became a distinction, and the nobility were
+attracted to its ranks. George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward,
+with his wife and children, and the Earl of Warwick, and the Lady
+Margaret were counted among its members, and merchants of distant
+towns counted it an honor to belong to it. Later, also, Judge
+Littleton, one of the famous founders of English law, was on its roll
+of membership.
+
+The objects of the Guild were many and varied and touched the social
+life of Stratford at every point. The first object was mutual prayer.
+The Guild maintained five priests or chaplains who were to say masses
+daily, hour by hour, from six to ten o'clock for its members, it being
+expected that some of them would be present at each of the masses. Out
+of the fees of the Guild one wax candle was to be kept alight every
+day throughout the year at every mass in the church before the rood,
+or cross, "so that God and our Blessed Virgin and the Venerated Cross
+may keep and guard all the brethren and sisters of the Guilds from
+every ill." The second object was charity, under which was included
+all the various Works of Mercy. The needs of any brother or sister who
+had fallen into poverty or been robbed were to be provided for "as
+long as he bears himself rightly towards the brethren." When a brother
+died all the brethren were bound to follow the body to the church and
+to pray for his soul at its burial. The Guild candle and eight smaller
+ones were to be kept burning by the body from the {385} time of death
+till the funeral. When a poor man died in the town the brethren and
+sisters were, for their soul's health, to find four wax candles, a
+sheet, and a hearse cloth for the corpse. This rule also applied in
+the event of a stranger's death, if the stranger had not the necessary
+means for burial. Nor were the efforts of the Guild at Stratford
+devoted solely to the alleviation of the ills of mankind and the more
+serious purposes of life. Once a year, in Easter Week, a feast of the
+members was held in order to foster peace and true brotherly love
+among them. At this time offerings were made for the poor in order
+that they too might share in the happiness of the festival time. There
+was attendance at church before the feasting and a prayer was offered
+by all the "brethren and sisters that God and our Blessed Virgin and
+the Venerated Cross in whose honor we have come together will keep us
+from all ills and sins." This frequent reference to the Cross will be
+better understood if it is recalled that the Guild at Stratford bore
+the name of the Guild of the Holy Cross, and the figure of the
+crucified One was one of its most respected symbols and was always
+looked upon as a special object of veneration on the part of the
+members.
+
+The thoroughly progressive spirit of the Guild at Stratford will
+perhaps be best appreciated by the modern mind from the fact, that to
+it the town owed the foundation of its famous free school. During the
+Thirteenth and Fourteenth centuries the study of grammar, and of the
+various theoretical branches, was not considered the essential part of
+an education. Gradually, however, there had arisen the feeling that
+all the children should be taught the ground-work of the vulgar
+tongue, and that those whose parents wished it should receive
+education in Latin also; hence the establishment of grammar schools,
+that at Stratford being founded for the children of the members of the
+Guild about the middle of the Fifteenth Century. This was only the
+normal development of the earlier spirit of the Guild which enabled it
+to meet the growing social needs of the time. It was at this school,
+as reconstituted under Edward VI., that Shakespeare was educated, and
+the reestablishment by Edward was only in response to the many
+complaints which arose because of the absence of the school after its
+suppression by {386} Henry VIII. The fact that Shakespeare was
+educated at an Edward VI. grammar school, has often given occasion for
+commentators to point out that it was practically the Reformation in
+England which led to the establishment of free schools. Any such
+suggestion, however, can be made only in complete ignorance of the
+preexisting state of affairs in which the people, by organization,
+succeeded in accomplishing so much for themselves.
+
+As a matter of fact the Guild at Stratford, as in most of the towns in
+England--for we have taken this as an example only because it is
+easier to get at the details of its history--was the most important
+factor in the preservation of social order, in the distribution of
+charity, in the providing of education, and even the maintenance of
+the security of the life and property of its inhabitants. When it was
+dissolved, in 1547, Stratford found itself in a chaotic state and had
+to petition Edward VI. to reconstitute the Guild as a civil
+corporation, which he did by charter in 1553.
+
+After this consideration of the guilds and their purpose and success,
+it is no wonder that we should declare that the wind of the spirit of
+democracy was blowing in England and carrying away the old landmarks
+of absolute government. It is to the spirit thus fostered that must be
+attributed the marvelous progress in representative government, the
+steps of which we recall.
+
+In 1215, all England united against the odious John Lackland and
+obliged him to grant the Magna Charta--a declaration of national
+liberty.
+
+In 1257, the Provisions of Oxford, under Henry III., established, for
+the moment, the stated recurrence of the great national council of
+Parliament.
+
+In 1265, under the same Prince, the earl of Leicester admitted to
+Parliament the knights of the shire and the representatives of the
+townspeople, who formed later the lower house, or House of Commons,
+while those personally summoned to attend by the king from the great
+nobles formed the upper house, or House of Lords.
+
+Beginning with the year 1295, in the reign of Edward I., the
+attendance of the county and town members became {387} regular, making
+Parliament really representative of the country.
+
+In 1309, in the reign of Edward II., Parliament revealed its possible
+strength by putting conditions on its vote for taxes.
+
+There were other factors at work, however, and one of them at least,
+because of its importance, deserves to be recalled here. In the
+chapter on Great Beginnings of Modern Commerce we call attention to
+the fact, that the Crusades were responsible to a great degree for the
+spirit of enterprise which led to the formation of the Lombard league
+of cities, and later to the great Hanseatic League, which seems to
+have taken at least its incentive from the Southern Confederation. In
+the chapter on Louis IX. we point out that the Crusades, and his
+connection with them, far from being blots on Louis's career must
+rather be considered as manifestations of the great heart of the time
+which was awakening to all needs, and had its religious aspirations
+stirred so deeply that men were ready to give up everything in order
+to follow an idea. One thing is certain, the Crusades did more to set
+ferments at work in the social organization of Europe than would have
+been possible by any other movement. These ferments brought about two
+results, one the uplift of the common people, the other the
+centralization of power in the hands of the kings with the gradual
+diminution of the influence of the nobility. While fostering the
+spirit of democracy on the one hand, they gave birth to the spirit of
+nationality and to all that this has accomplished in modern history.
+
+Storrs, in his life of St. Bernard, recently issued, has given
+expression to this thought in a very striking fashion. He says:
+
+  "It used to be the fashion to regard the Crusades as mere fantastic
+  exhibitions of a temporary turbulent religious fanaticism, aiming at
+  ends wholly visionary, and missing them, wasting the best life of
+  Europe in colossal and bloody undertakings, and leaving effects only
+  of evil for the time which came after. More reasonable views now
+  prevail; and while the impulse in which the vast movement took its
+  rise is recognized as passionate and semi-barbaric, it is seen that
+  many effects followed which were beneficial rather than harmful,
+  which could not perhaps have been at the time in other ways
+  realized. As I have already suggested, properties were to an
+  important {388} extent redistributed in Europe, and the
+  constitutions of states were favorably affected. Lands were sold at
+  low prices by those who were going on the distant expeditions, very
+  probably, as they knew, never to return; and horses and armor, with
+  all martial equipments, were bought at high prices by the Jews, who
+  could not hold land, and the history of whom throughout the Middle
+  Ages is commonly traced in fearful lines of blood and fire, but who
+  increased immeasurably their movable wealth through these transfers
+  of property. Communes bought liberties by large contributions to the
+  needs of their lord; and their liberties, once secured, were
+  naturally confirmed and augmented, as the years went on. The smaller
+  tended to be absorbed in the larger; the larger often to come more
+  strictly under royal control, thus increasing the power of the
+  sovereign--which meant at the time, general laws, instead of local,
+  a less minutely oppressive administration, the furtherance of the
+  movement toward national unity. It is a noticeable fact that Italy
+  took but a comparatively small part in the Crusades; and the long
+  postponement of organic union between different parts of the
+  magnificent peninsula is not without relation to this. The influence
+  which operated elsewhere in Europe to efface distinction of custom
+  and language in separate communities, to override and extinguish
+  local animosities, to make scattered peoples conscious of kinship,
+  did not operate there; and the persistent severance of sections from
+  each other, favored, of course, by the run of the rivers and the
+  vast separating walls of the Apenines, was the natural consequence
+  of the want of this powerful unifying force."   [Footnote 32]
+
+    [Footnote 32: Storrs, "Bernard of Chairvaux," New York
+    (Scribners), 1897, pp. 544-45. ]
+
+As a matter of fact very few people realize how much was accomplished
+for the spirit of democracy, for liberty, for true progress, as
+regards the rights of men of all classes, and for the feeling of the
+brotherhood of man itself, by the Crusades. A practical money-making
+age may consider them examples of foolish religious fanaticism, but
+those who have studied them most profoundly and with most sympathy,
+who are deeply interested in the social amelioration which they
+brought about, and, above all, those who look at them in the higher
+poetic {389} spirit of what they did to lift man above the sordid
+cares of everyday life, see them in a far different way. Charles
+Kingsley sang in the poem of The Saints Tragedy:
+
+  "Tell us how our stout crusading fathers
+  Fought and bled for God and not for gold."
+
+But quite apart from the poetry of them, from the practical side much
+can be said which even the most matter of fact of men will appreciate.
+Here, for instance, are a series of paragraphs from the history of the
+Middle Ages by George Washington Greene, which he confesses to have
+taken chiefly from the French,   [Footnote 33] which will make clear
+something of the place these great expeditions should be considered as
+holding in the history of democracy and of liberty:
+
+  [Footnote 33: New York, Appleton, 1867.]
+
+  "Christendom had not spent in vain its treasures and its blood in
+  the holy wars. Its immense sacrifices were repaid by immense
+  results, and the evils which these great expeditions necessarily
+  brought with them were more than compensated for by the advantages
+  which they procured for the whole of Europe.
+
+  "The Crusades saved Europe from the Mussulman invasion and this was
+  their immediate good. Their influence was felt, too, in a manner
+  less direct, but not less useful. The Crusades had been preached by
+  a religion of equality in a society divided by odious distinctions.
+  All had taken part in them, the weak as well as the strong, the serf
+  and the baron, man and woman, and it was by them that the equality
+  of man and woman, which Christianity taught, was made a social fact.
+  St. Louis declared that he could do nothing without the consent of
+  his queen, his wife. It was from this period that we must date that
+  influence of woman which gave rise to chivalric courtesy, the first
+  step towards refinement of manners and civilization. The poor, too,
+  were the adopted children of the Christian chivalry of the Crusades.
+  The celebrated orders of Palestine were instituted for the
+  protection of poor pilgrims. The Knights of the hospitals called the
+  poor their masters. Surely no lesson was more needed by these proud
+  barons of the Middle Ages than that of charity and humility.
+
+{390}
+
+  "These ideas were the first to shake the stern despotism of
+  feudality, by opposing to it the generous principles of chivalry
+  which sprang all armed from the Crusades. Bound to the military
+  orders by a solemn vow--and in the interests of all Christendom--the
+  knight felt himself free from feudal dependence, and raised above
+  national limits, as the immediate warrior and servant of the united
+  Christendom and of God. Chivalry founded not upon territorial
+  influence, but upon personal distinction, necessarily weakened
+  nobility by rendering it accessible to all, and diminishing the
+  interval which separated the different classes of society. Every
+  warrior who had distinguished himself by his valor could kneel
+  before the king to be dubbed a knight, and rise up the equal, the
+  superior even, of powerful vassals. The poorest knight could sit at
+  the king's table while the noble son of a duke or prince was
+  excluded, unless he had won the golden spurs of knighthood. Another
+  way by which the Crusades contributed to the decay of feudalism was
+  by favoring the enfranchisement of serfs, even without the consent
+  of their masters. Whoever took the cross became free, just as every
+  slave becomes free on touching the soil of England or France.
+
+  "The communities whose development is to be referred to the period
+  of the Crusades, multiplied rapidly; the nobility gladly granting
+  charters and privileges in exchange for men and money. With the
+  communities the royal power grew, and that of the aristocracy
+  decreased. The royal domain was enlarged, by the escheating of a
+  great number of fiefs which had been left vacant by the death of
+  their lords. The kings protected the communities, favored their
+  enfranchisement, and employed them usefully against insubordinate
+  vassals. The extension of the royal power favored the organization
+  of the nation, by establishing a principle of unity, for till then,
+  and with that multitude of masters, the nation had been little else
+  than an agglomeration of provinces, strangers to one another, and
+  destitute of any common bond or common interest. The great vassals,
+  themselves, often united under the royal banner, became accustomed
+  during these distant expeditions to submission and discipline, and
+  learned to recognize a legitimate authority; and if they lost by
+  this submission a part of their {391} personal power, they gained in
+  compensation the honorable distinctions of chivalry.
+
+  "But it was not the national feeling alone which was fostered by the
+  Crusades. Relations of fraternity, till then wholly unknown, grew up
+  between different nations, and softened the deep-rooted antipathy of
+  races. The knights, whom a common object united in common dangers,
+  became brothers in arms and formally formed permanent ties of
+  friendship. That barbarous law which gave the feudal lord a right to
+  call every man his serf who settled in his domains was softened.
+  Stranger and enemy seemed to be synonymous, and 'the Crusaders,' say
+  the chroniclers of the times, 'although divided by language, seemed
+  to form only one people, by their love for God and their neighbor.'
+  And without coloring the picture too warmly, and making all due
+  allowance for the exaggerations which were so natural to the first
+  recorders of such a movement, we may say that human society was
+  founded and united and Europe began to pass from the painful period
+  of organization, to one of fuller and more rapid development."
+
+Here in reality modern democracy had its rise, striking its roots deep
+into the disintegrating soil of the old feudalism whence it was never
+to be plucked, and though at times it languished it was to remain ever
+alive until its luxuriant growth in recent times.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+ANIMALS FROM BESTIARIUM, THIRTEENTH CENTURY MS.
+
+
+{392}
+
+XXV
+
+GREAT EXPLORERS AND THE FOUNDATION OF GEOGRAPHY.
+
+
+Geography is usually considered to be quite a modern subject. The idea
+that great contributions were made to it in the Thirteenth Century
+would ordinarily not be entertained. America was discovered at the end
+of the Fifteenth Century. Knowledge of the East was obtained during
+the Sixteenth Century. Africa was explored in the Nineteenth and a
+detailed knowledge of Asia came to us in such recent years that the
+books are still among the novelties of publication. Our knowledge of
+Persia, of Northern India, of Thibet, and of the interior of China are
+all triumphs of Nineteenth Century enterprise and exploration. As a
+matter of fact, however, all portions of the East were explored, the
+Capital and the dominions of Jenghis Khan described, Lhasa was entered
+and the greater part of China thoroughly explored by travelers of the
+Thirteenth Century, whose books still remain as convincing evidence of
+the great work that they accomplished. This chapter of Thirteenth
+Century accomplishment is, indeed, one of the most interesting and
+surprising in the whole story of the time.
+
+It is usually considered that the teaching, supposed to have been more
+or less generally accepted, that the Antipodes did not exist,
+prevented any significant development of geography until comparatively
+modern times. While the question of the existence of antipodes was
+discussed in the schools of the Middle Ages, and especially of the
+Thirteenth Century when men's minds were occupied with practically all
+of the important problems even of physical science, and while many
+intelligent men accepted the idea that there could not be inhabitants
+on the other side of the world because of physical difficulties which
+supposedly made it impossible, it would be a mistake to think that
+this idea was universally accepted. We have already called attention
+to the fact in the chapter on "What was Taught at the {393}
+Universities," that Albertus Magnus, for instance, ridiculed the
+notion that men could not live with their heads down, as was urged
+against the doctrine of the existence of antipodes, by suggesting very
+simply that for those on the other side of the earth what we call down
+was really not down but up. This expresses, of course, the very heart
+of the solution of the supposed difficulty.
+
+As a matter of fact it seems clear that many of the great travelers
+and explorers of the later Middle Ages harbored the notion that the
+earth was round. As we shall note a little later in mentioning Sir
+John Mandeville's work, the writer, whomever he was who took that
+pseudonym, believed thoroughly in the rotundity of the earth and did
+not hesitate to use some striking expressions--which have been often
+quoted--that he had heard of travelers who by traveling continually to
+the eastward had come back eventually to the point from which they
+started. While in the schools, then, the existence of antipodes may
+have been under discussion, there was a practical acceptance of their
+existence among those who were better informed with regard to
+countries and peoples and all the other topics which form the proper
+subject matter of geography.
+
+It must be realized, moreover, that though the existence of the
+Antipodes is an important matter in geography, at this early period it
+was a mere theory, not a condition antecedent to progress. It was
+really a side issue as compared with many other questions relating to
+the earth's surface and its inhabitants with which the medieval mind
+was occupied. To consider that no knowledge of geography could be
+obtained until there was a definite acceptance of the right view of
+the earth's surface, would be to obliterate much precious knowledge.
+The argument as to the existence of antipodes, as it was carried on,
+was entirely outside of geography properly so-called. It never
+influenced in the slightest degree the men who were consciously and
+unconsciously laying deep and broad the foundations of modern
+geography. To consider such a matter as vital to the development of as
+many sided a subject as geography, illustrates very typically the
+narrowness of view of so many modern scholars, who apparently can see
+the value of nothing which does not entirely accord with modern
+knowledge. The really {394} interesting historian of knowledge,
+however, is he who can point out the beginnings of what we now know,
+in unexpected quarters in the medieval mind.
+
+As the story of these travels and explorations is really a glorious
+chapter in the history of the encouragement of things intellectual, as
+well as an interesting phase of an important origin whose foundations
+were laid broad and deep in the Thirteenth Century, it must be told
+here in some detail. Our century was the great leader in exploration
+and geography as in so many other matters in which its true place is
+often unrecognized.
+
+The people of the time are usually considered to have had such few
+facilities for travel that they did not often go far from home, and
+that what was known about distant countries, therefore, was very
+little and mainly legendary. Nothing could be more false than any such
+impression as this. The Crusades during the previous century had given
+the people not only a deep interest in distant lands, but the
+curiosity to go and see for themselves. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land
+were frequent, ecclesiastics often traveled at least as far as Italy,
+and in general the tide of travel in proportion to the number of
+population must have been not very much less in amount than in our own
+day. After the establishment of the religious orders, missionary
+expeditions to the East became very common and during the Thirteenth
+Century, as we shall see, the Franciscans particularly, established
+themselves in many parts of the Near East, but also of the Far East,
+especially in China. Many of those wrote accounts of their travels,
+and so the literature of travel and exploration during the Thirteenth
+Century is one of the most interesting chapters of the literature of
+these times, while the wonderfully deep foundations that were laid for
+the science of geography, are worthy to be set beside the great
+origins in other sciences and in the arts, for which the century is so
+noteworthy.
+
+To most people it will come as a distinct surprise to learn that the
+travelers and explorers of the Thirteenth Century--merchants,
+ambassadors, and missionaries--succeeded in solving many of the
+geographical problems that have been of deepest interest to the
+generations of the last half of last century. {395} The eastern part
+of Asia particularly was traveled over and very thoroughly described
+by them. Even the northern part of India, however, was not neglected
+in spite of the difficulties that were encountered, and Thibet was
+explored and Lhasa entered by travelers of the Thirteenth Century. Of
+China as much was written as had been learned by succeeding
+generations down practically to our own time. This may sound like a
+series of fairy-tales instead of serious science, but it is the
+travelers and explorers of the modern time who have thought it worth
+while to comment on the writings of these old-time wanderers of the
+Thirteenth Century, and who have pointed out the significance of their
+work. These men described not only the countries through which they
+passed, but also the characters of the people, their habits and
+customs, their forms of speech, with many marvelous hints as regards
+the relationship of the different languages, and even something about
+the religious practises of these countries and their attitude toward
+the great truths of Christianity when they were presented to them.
+
+Undoubtedly one of the greatest travelers and explorers of all times
+was Marco Polo, whose book was for so long considered to be mainly
+made up of imaginary descriptions of things and places never seen, but
+which the development of modern geographical science by travels and
+expeditions has proved to be one of the most valuable contributions to
+this department of knowledge that has ever been made. It took many
+centuries for Marco Polo to come to his own in this respect but the
+Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries have almost more than made up for
+the neglect of their predecessors. Marco Polo suffered the same fate
+as did Herodotus of whom Voltaire sneered "father of history, say,
+rather, father of lies." So long as succeeding generations had no
+knowledge themselves of the things of which both these great writers
+had written, they were distrusted and even treated contemptuously.
+Just as soon, however, as definite knowledge began to come it was seen
+how wonderfully accurate both of them were in their descriptions of
+things they had actually seen, though they admitted certain
+over-wonderful stories on the authority of others. Herodotus has now
+come to be acknowledged as {396} one of the greatest of historians. In
+his lives of celebrated travelers, James Augustus St. John states the
+change of mind with regard to Marco Polo rather forcibly:
+
+  "When the travels of Marco Polo first appeared, they were generally
+  regarded as fiction; and as this absurd belief had so far gained
+  ground, that when he lay upon his death bed, his friends and nearest
+  relatives, coming to take their eternal adieu, conjured him as he
+  valued the salvation of his soul, to retract whatever he had
+  advanced in his book, or at least many such passages as every person
+  looked upon as untrue; but the traveler whose conscience was
+  untouched upon that score, declared solemnly, in that awful moment,
+  that far from being guilty of exaggeration, he had not described
+  one-half of the wonderful things which he had beheld. Such was the
+  reception which the discoveries of this extraordinary man
+  experienced when first promulgated. By degrees, however, as
+  enterprise lifted more and more the veil from Central and Eastern
+  Asia the relations of our traveler rose in the estimation of
+  geographers; and now that the world--though containing many unknown
+  tracts--has been more successfully explored, we begin to perceive
+  that Marco Polo, like Herodotus, was a man of the most rigid
+  veracity, whose testimony presumptuous ignorance alone can call in
+  question."
+
+There is many a fable that clings around the name of Marco Polo, but
+this distinguished traveler needs no fictitious adornments of his tale
+to make him one of the greatest explorers of all time. It is sometimes
+said that he helped to introduce many important inventions into Europe
+and one even finds his name connected with the mariner's compass and
+with gunpowder. There are probably no good grounds for thinking that
+Europe owes any knowledge of either of these great inventions to the
+Venetian traveler. With regard to printing there is more doubt and
+Polo's passage with regard to movable blocks for printing paper money
+as used in China may have proved suggestive.
+
+There is no need, however, of surmises in order to increase his fame
+for the simple story of his travels is quite sufficient for his
+reputation for all time. As has been well said most of the modern
+travelers and explorers have only been developing what Polo indicated
+at least in outline, and they have been {397} scarcely more than
+describing with more precision of detail what he first touched upon
+and brought to general notice. When it is remembered that he visited
+such cities in Eastern Turkestan as Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan,
+which have been the subject of much curiosity only satisfied in quite
+recent years, that he had visited Thibet, or at least had traveled
+along its frontier, that to him the medieval world owed some definite
+knowledge of the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia and all that it was to
+know of China for centuries almost, his merits will be readily
+appreciated. As a matter of fact there was scarcely an interesting
+country of the East of which Marco Polo did not have something to
+relate from his personal experiences. He told of Burmah, of Siam, of
+Cochin China, of Japan, of Java, of Sumatra, and of other islands of
+the great Archipelago, of Ceylon, and of India, and all of these not
+in the fabulous dreamland spirit of one who has not been in contact
+with the East but in very definite and precise fashion. Nor was this
+all. He had heard and could tell much, though his geographical lore
+was legendary and rather dim, of the Coast of Zanzibar, of the vast
+and distant Madagascar, and in the remotely opposite direction of
+Siberia, of the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and of the curious customs
+of the inhabitants of these distant countries.
+
+How wonderfully acute and yet how thoroughly practical some of Polo's
+observations were can be best appreciated by some quotations from his
+description of products and industries as he saw them on his travels.
+We are apt to think of the use of petroleum as dating from much later
+than the Thirteenth Century, but Marco Polo had not only seen it in
+the Near East on his travels, but evidently had learned much of the
+great rock-oil deposits at Baku which constitute the basis for the
+important Russian petroleum industry in modern times. He says:
+
+  "On the north (of Armenia) is found a fountain from which a liquor
+  like oil flows, which, though unprofitable for the seasoning of
+  meat, is good for burning and for anointing camels afflicted with
+  the mange. This oil flows constantly and copiously, so that camels
+  are laden with it."
+
+He is quite as definite in the information acquired with regard, to
+the use of coal. He knew and states very confidently that {398} there
+were immense deposits of coal in China, deposits which are so
+extensive that distinguished geologists and mineralogists who have
+learned of them in modern times have predicted that eventually the
+world's great manufacturing industries would be transferred to China.
+We are apt to think that this mineral wealth is not exploited by the
+Chinese, yet even in Marco Polo's time, as one commentator has
+remarked, the rich and poor of that land had learned the value of the
+black stone.
+
+  "Through the whole Province of Cathay," says Polo, "certain black
+  stones are dug from the mountains, which, put into the fire, burn
+  like wood, and being kindled, preserve fire a long time, and if they
+  be kindled in the evening they keep fire all the night."
+
+Another important mineral product which even more than petroleum or
+coal is supposed to be essentially modern in its employment is
+asbestos. Polo had not only seen this but had realized exactly what it
+was, had found out its origin and had recognized its value. Curiously
+enough he attempts to explain the origin of a peculiar usage of the
+word salamander (the salamander having been supposed to be an animal
+which was not injured by fire) by reference to the incombustibility of
+asbestos. The whole passage as it appears in The Romance of Travel and
+Exploration deserves to be quoted. While discoursing about Dsungaria,
+Polo says:
+
+  "And you must know that in the mountain there is a substance from
+  which Salamander is made. The real truth is that the Salamander is
+  no beast as they allege in our part of the world, but is a substance
+  found in the earth. Everybody can be aware that it can be no
+  animal's nature to live in fire seeing that every animal is composed
+  of all the four elements. Now I, Marco Polo, had a Turkish
+  acquaintance who related that he had lived three years in that
+  region on behalf of the Great Khan, in order to procure these
+  salamanders for him. He said that the way they got them was by
+  digging in that mountain till they found a certain vein. The
+  substance of this vein was taken and crushed, and when so treated it
+  divides, as it were, into fibres of wool, which they set forth to
+  dry. When dry these fibres were pounded in a copper mortar and then
+  washed so as to remove all the earth and to leave only the fibres,
+  like {399} fibres of wool. These were then spun and made into
+  napkins." Needless to say this is an excellent description of
+  asbestos.
+
+It is not surprising, then, that the Twentieth Century so interested
+in travel and exploration should be ready to lay its tributes at the
+feet of Marco Polo, and that one of the important book announcements
+of recent years should be that of the publication of an annotated
+edition of Marco Polo from the hands of a modern explorer, who
+considered that there was no better way of putting definitely before
+the public in its true historical aspect the evolution of modern
+geographical knowledge with regard to Eastern countries.
+
+It can scarcely fail to be surprising to the modern mind that Polo
+should practically have been forced into print. He had none of the
+itch of the modern traveler for publicity. The story of his travels he
+had often told and because of the wondrous tales he could unfold and
+the large numbers he found it frequently so necessary to use in order
+to give proper ideas of some of his wanderings, had acquired the
+nickname of Marco Millioni. He had never thought, however, of
+committing his story to writing or perhaps he feared the drudgery of
+such literary labor. After his return from his travels, however, he
+bravely accepted a patriot's duty of fighting for his native country
+on board one of her galleys and was captured by the Genoese in a
+famous sea-fight in the Adriatic in 1298. He was taken prisoner and
+remained in captivity in Genoa for nearly a year.
+
+It was during this time that one Rusticiano, a writer by profession,
+was attracted to him and tempted him to tell him the complete story of
+his travels in order that they might be put into connected form.
+Rusticiano was a Pisan who had been a compiler of French romances and
+accordingly Polo's story was first told in French prose. It is not
+surprising that Rusticiano should have chosen French since he
+naturally wished his story of Polo's travels to be read by as many
+people as possible and realized that it would be of quite as much
+interest to ordinary folk as to the literary circles of Europe. How
+interesting the story is only those who have read it even with the
+knowledge acquired by all the other explorers since his time, can
+properly appreciate. It lacks entirely the egotistic quality that
+usually characterizes an explorer's account of his travels, and,
+indeed, {400} there can scarcely fail to be something of
+disappointment because of this fact. No doubt a touch more of personal
+adventure would have added to the interest of the book. It was not a
+characteristic of the Thirteenth Century, however, to insist on the
+merely personal and consequently the world has lost a treat it might
+otherwise have had. There is no question, however, or the greatness of
+Polo's work as a traveler, nor of the glory that was shed by it on the
+Thirteenth Century. Like nearly everything else that was done in this
+marvelous century he represents the acme of successful endeavor in his
+special line down even to our own time.
+
+It has sometimes been said that Marco Polo's work greatly influenced
+Columbus and encouraged him in his attempt to seek India by sailing
+around the globe. Of this, however, there is considerable doubt. We
+have learned in recent times, that a very definite tradition with
+regard to the possibility of finding land by sailing straight westward
+over the Atlantic existed long before Columbus' time.   [Footnote 34]
+Polo's indirect influence on Columbus by his creation of an interest
+in geographical matters generally is much clearer. There can be no
+doubt of how much his work succeeded in drawing men's minds to
+geographical questions during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries.
+
+  [Footnote 34: My learned friend, Father DeRoo, of Portland, Ore.,
+  who has written two very interesting volumes on the History of
+  America before Columbus, does not hesitate to say that Columbus may
+  even have met in his travels and spoken with sailors who had touched
+  on some portions of the American Continent, and that, of course, the
+  traditions with regard to Greenland were very clear.]
+
+After Marco Polo, undoubtedly, the most enterprising explorer and
+interesting writer on Travel in the Thirteenth Century was John of
+Carpini, the author of a wonderful series of descriptions of things
+seen in Northern Asia. Like so many other travelers and explorers at
+this time John was a Franciscan Friar, and seems to have been one of
+the early companions and disciples of St. Francis of Assisi, whom he
+joined when he was only a young man himself. Before going on his
+missionary and ambassadorial expedition he had been one of the most
+prominent men in the order. He had much to do with its {401}
+propagation among the Northern nations of Europe, and occupied
+successively the offices of custos or prior in Saxony and of
+Provincial in Germany. He seems afterwards to have been sent as an
+organizer into Spain and to have gone even as far as the Barbary
+coast.
+
+It is not surprising, then, that when, in 1245, Pope Innocent IV.
+(sometime after the Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe and the
+disastrous battle of Legamites which threatened to place European
+civilization and Christianity in the power of the Tartars) resolved to
+send a mission to the Tartar monarch, John of Carpini was selected for
+the dangerous and important mission.
+
+At this time Friar John was more than sixty years of age, but such was
+the confidence in his ability and in his executive power that
+everything on the embassy was committed to his discretion. He started
+from Lyons on Easter Day, 1245. He sought the counsel first of his old
+friend Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia, and from that country took with
+him another friar, a Pole, to act as his interpreter. The first stage
+in his journey was to Kiev, and from here, having crossed the Dnieper
+and the Don to the Volga, he traveled to the camp of Batu, at this
+time the senior living member of Jenghis Khan's family. Batu after
+exchanging presents allowed them to proceed to the court of the
+supreme Khan in Mongolia. As Col. Yule says, the stout-hearted old man
+rode on horseback something like three thousand miles in the next
+hundred days. The bodies of himself and companion had to be tightly
+bandaged to enable them to stand the excessive fatigue of this
+enormous ride, which led them across the Ural Mountains and River past
+the northern part of the Caspian, across the Jaxartes, whose name they
+could not find out, along the Dzungarian Lakes till they reached the
+Imperial Camp, called the Yellow Pavilion, near the Orkhon River.
+There had been an interregnum in the empire which was terminated by a
+formal election while the Friars were at the Yellow Pavilion, where
+they had the opportunity to see between three and four thousand envoys
+and deputies from all parts of Asia and Eastern Europe, who brought
+with them tributes and presents for the ruler to be elected.
+
+{402}
+
+It was not for three months after this, in November, that the Emperor
+dismissed them with a letter to the Pope written in Latin, Arabic, and
+Mongolian, but containing only a brief imperious assertion that the
+Khan of the Tartars was the scourge of God for Christianity, and that
+he must fulfill his mission. Then sad at heart, the ambassadors began
+their homeward journey in the midst of the winter. Their sufferings
+can be better imagined than described, but Friar John who does not
+dwell on them much tells enough of them to make their realization
+comparatively easy. They reached Kiev seven months later, in June, and
+were welcomed there by the Slavonic Christians as though arisen from
+the dead. From thence they continued their journey to Lyons where they
+delivered the Khan's letter to the Pope.
+
+Friar John embodied the information that he had obtained in this
+journey in a book that has been called Liber Tartarorum (the Book of
+the Tartars or according to another manuscript, History of the Mongols
+whom we call Tartars). Col. Yule notes that like most of the other
+medieval monks' itineraries, it shows an entire absence of that
+characteristic traveler's egotism with which we have become abundantly
+familiar in more recent years, and contains very little personal
+narrative. We know that John was a stout man and this in addition to
+his age when he went on the mission, cannot but make us realize the
+thoroughly unselfish spirit with which he followed the call of Holy
+Obedience, to undertake a work that seemed sure to prove fatal and
+that would inevitably bring in its train suffering of the severest
+kind. Of the critical historical value of his work a good idea can be
+obtained from the fact, that half a century ago an educated Mongol,
+Galsang Gombeyev, in the Historical and Philological Bulletin of the
+Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, reviewed the book and bore
+testimony to the great accuracy of its statements, to the care with
+which its details had been verified, and the evident personal
+character of all its observations.
+
+Friar John's book attracted the attention of compilers of information
+with regard to distant countries very soon after it was issued, and an
+abridgment of it is to be found in the Encyclopedia of Vincent of
+Beauvais, which was written shortly {403} after the middle of the
+Thirteenth Century. At the end of the Sixteenth Century Hakluyt
+published portions of the original work, as did Borgeron at the
+beginning of the Seventeenth Century. The Geographical Society of
+Paris published a fine edition of the work about the middle of the
+Nineteenth Century, and at the same time a brief narrative taken down
+from the lips of John's companion. Friar Benedict the Pole, which is
+somewhat more personal in its character and fully substantiates all
+that Friar John had written.
+
+As can readily be understood the curiosity of his contemporaries was
+deeply aroused and Friar John had to tell his story many times after
+his return. Hence the necessity he found himself under of committing
+it to paper, so as to save himself from the bother of telling it all
+over again, and in order that his brother Franciscans throughout the
+world might have the opportunity to read it.
+
+Col. Yule says "The book must have been prepared immediately after the
+return of the traveler, for the Friar Salimbene, who met him in France
+in the very year of his return (1247) gives us these interesting
+particulars: 'He was a clever and conversable man, well lettered, a
+great discourser, and full of diversity of experience. He wrote a big
+book about the Tartars (sic), and about other marvels that he had seen
+and whenever he felt weary of telling about the Tartars, he would
+cause this book of his to be read, as I have often heard and seen.
+(Chron. Fr. Salembene Parmensis in Monum. Histor. ad Provinceam
+Placent: Pertinentia, Parma 1857).'"
+
+Another important traveler of the Thirteenth Century whose work has
+been the theme of praise and extensive annotation in modern times was
+William of Rubruk, usually known under the name of Rubruquis, a
+Franciscan friar, thought, as the result of recent investigations,
+probably to owe his cognomen to his birth in the little town of Rubruk
+in Brabant, who was the author of a remarkable narrative of Asiatic
+travel during the Thirteenth Century, and whose death seems to have
+taken place about 1298. The name Rubruquis has been commonly used to
+designate him because it is found in the Latin original of his work,
+which was printed by Hayluyt in his collection of Voyages at the end
+of the {404} Sixteenth Century. Friar William was sent partly as an
+ambassador and partly as an explorer by Louis IX. of France into
+Tartary. At that time the descendants of Jenghis Khan ruled over an
+immense Empire in the Orient and King Louis was deeply interested in
+introducing Christianity into the East and if possible making their
+rulers Christians. About the middle of the Thirteenth Century a rumor
+spread throughout Europe that one of the nephews of the great Khan had
+embraced Christianity. St. Louis thought this a favorable opportunity
+for getting in touch with the Eastern Potentate and so he dispatched
+at least two missions into Tartary at the head of the second of which
+was William of Rubruk.
+
+His accounts of his travels proved most interesting reading to his own
+and to many subsequent generations, perhaps to none more than our own.
+The Encyclopedia Britannica (ninth edition) says that the narrative of
+his journey is everywhere full of life and interest, and some details
+of his travels will show the reasons for this. Rubruk and his party
+landed on the Crimean Coast at Sudak or Soldaia, a port which formed
+the chief seat of communication between the Mediterranean countries
+and what is now Southern Russia. The Friar succeeded in making his way
+from here to the Great Khan's Court which was then held not far from
+Karakorum. This journey was one of several thousand miles. The route
+taken has been worked out by laborious study and the key to it is the
+description given of the country intervening between the basin of the
+Talas and Lake Ala-Kul. This enables the whole geography of the
+region, including the passage of the River Ili, the plain south of the
+Bal Cash, and the Ala-Kul itself, to be identified beyond all
+reasonable doubt.
+
+The return journey was made during the summertime, and the route lay
+much farther to the north. The travelers traversed the Jabkan Valley
+and passed north of the River Bal Cash, following a rather direct
+course which led them to the mouth of the Volga. From here they
+traveled south past Derbend and Shamakii to the Uraxes, and on through
+Iconium to the coast of Cilicia, and finally to the port of Ayas,
+where they embarked for Cyprus. All during his travels Friar William
+made observations on men and cities, and rivers and mountains, and
+{405} languages and customs, implements and utensils, and most of
+these modern criticism has accepted as representing the actual state
+of things as they would appear to a medieval sightseer. Occasionally
+during the period intervening between his time and our own, scholars
+who thought that they knew better, have been conceited enough to
+believe themselves in a position to point out glaring errors in
+Rubruquis' accounts of what he saw. Subsequent investigation and
+discovery have, as a rule, proved the accuracy of the earlier
+observations rather than the modern scholar's corrections. An
+excellent example of this is quoted in the Encyclopedia Britannica
+article on Rubruquis already referred to.
+
+
+{opp405}
+[Illustration]
+DOORWAY OF GIOTTO'S TOWER (FLORENCE)
+
+[Illustration]
+PRINCIPAL DOOR OF BAPTISTERY (PISA, DIOTISALVI)
+
+
+The writer says: "This sagacious and honest observer is denounced as
+an ignorant and untruthful blunderer by Isaac Jacob Schmidt (a man no
+doubt of useful learning, of a kind rare in his day but narrow and
+long-headed and in natural acumen and candour far inferior to the
+Thirteenth Century friar whom he maligns), simply because the evidence
+of the latter as to the Turkish dialect of the Uigurs traversed a pet
+heresy long since exploded which Schmidt entertained, namely, that the
+Uigurs were by race and language Tibetan."
+
+Some of the descriptions of the towns through which the travelers
+passed are interesting because of comparisons with towns of
+corresponding size in Europe. Karakorum, for instance, was described
+as a small city about the same size as the town of St. Denis near
+Paris. In Karakorum the ambassador missionary maintained a public
+disputation with certain pagan priests in the presence of three of the
+secretaries of the Khan. The religion of these umpires is rather
+interesting from its diversity: the first was a Christian, the second
+a Mohammedan, and the third a Buddhist. A very interesting feature of
+the disputation was the fact that the Khan ordered under pain of death
+that none of the disputants should slander, traduce, or abuse his
+adversaries, or endeavor by rumor or insinuations to excite popular
+indignation against them. This would seem to indicate that the great
+Tartar Khan who is usually considered to have been a cruel, ignorant
+despot, whose one quality that gave him supremacy was military valor,
+was really a large, liberal-minded man. His idea seems to have been to
+discover {406} the truth of these different religions and adopt that
+one which was adjudged to have the best groundwork of reason for it.
+It is easy to understand, however, that such a disputation argued
+through interpreters wholly ignorant of the subject and without any
+proper understanding of the nice distinctions of words or any practise
+in conveying their proper significance, could come to no serious
+conclusion. The arguments, therefore, fell flat and a decision was not
+rendered.
+
+Friar William's work was not unappreciated by his contemporaries and
+even its scientific value was thoroughly realized. It is not
+surprising, of course, that his great contemporary in the Franciscan
+order, Roger Bacon, should have come to the knowledge of his Brother
+Minorite's book and should have made frequent and copious quotations
+from it in the geographical section of his Opus Majus, which was
+written some time during the seventh decade of the Thirteenth Century.
+Bacon says that Brother William traversed the Oriental and Northern
+regions and the places adjacent to them, and wrote accounts of them
+for the illustrious King of France who sent him on the expedition to
+Tartary. He adds: "I have read his book diligently and have compared
+it with similar accounts." Roger Bacon recognized by a sort of
+scientific intuition of his own, certain passages which have proved to
+be the best in recent times. The description, for instance, of the
+Caspian was the best down to this time, and Friar William corrects the
+error made by Isidore, and which had generally been accepted before
+this, that the Caspian Sea was a gulf. Rubruk, as quoted by Roger
+Bacon, states very explicitly that it nowhere touches the ocean but is
+surrounded on all sides by land. For those who do not think that the
+foundations of scientific geography were laid until recent times, a
+little consultation of Roger Bacon's Opus Majus would undoubtedly be a
+revelation.
+
+It is probably with regard to language that one might reasonably
+expect to find least that would be of interest to modern scholars in
+Friar William's book. As might easily have been gathered from previous
+references, however, it is here that the most frequent surprises as to
+the acuity of this medieval traveler await the modern reader.
+Scientific philology is so much a product of the last century, that it
+is difficult to {407} understand how this old-time missionary was able
+to reach so many almost intuitive recognitions of the origin and
+relationships of the languages of the people among whom he traveled.
+He came in contact with the group of nations occupying what is now
+known as the Near East, whose languages, as is well known, have
+constituted a series of the most difficult problems with which
+philology had to deal until its thorough establishment on scientific
+lines enabled it to separate them properly. It is all the more
+surprising then, to find that Friar William should have so much in his
+book that even the modern philologist will read with attention and
+unstinted admiration.
+
+With regard to this Colonel Yule, whose personal experience makes him
+a valuable guide in such matters, has written a paragraph which
+contains so much compressed information that we venture to quote it
+entire. It furnishes the grounds for the claim (which might seem
+overstrained if it were not that its author was himself one of the
+greatest of modern explorers) that William was an acute and most
+intelligent observer, keen in the acquisition of knowledge; and the
+author in fact of one of the best narratives of travel in existence.
+Col. Yule says:
+
+  "Of his interest and acumen in matters of language we may cite
+  examples. The language of the Pascatir (or Bashkirds) and of the
+  Hungarians is the same, as, he had learned from Dominicans who had
+  been among them. The language of the Ruthenians, Poles, Bohemians,
+  and Slavonians is one, and is the same with that of the Wandals or
+  Wends. In the town of Equinus (immediately beyond the Ili, perhaps
+  Aspara) the people were Mohammedans speaking Persian, though so far
+  remote from Persia. The Yugurs (or Uigurs) of the country about the
+  Cailac had formed a language and character of their own, and in that
+  language and character the Nestorians of that tract used to perform
+  their office and write their books. The Yugurs are those among whom
+  are found the fountain and root of the Turkish and Comanian tongue.
+  Their character has been adopted by the Moghals. In using it they
+  begin writing from the top and write downwards, whilst line follows
+  line from left to right. The Nestorians say their service, and have
+  their holy book in Syriac, but know nothing of the {408} language,
+  just as some of our Monks sing the mass without knowing Latin. The
+  Tibet people write as we do, and their letters have a strong
+  resemblance to ours. The Tangut people write from right to left like
+  the Arabs, and their lines advance upwards."
+
+There were other matters besides language and religion on which Friar
+William made observations, and though his book is eminently human
+giving us a very interesting view of his own personality and of his
+difficulties with his dragoman, which many a modern Eastern traveler
+will sympathize with, and a picture that includes the detail that he
+was a very heavy man, _valde ponderosus_, which makes his travel on
+horseback for some 10,000 miles all the more wonderful; it also
+contains a mass of particulars, marvelously true--or so near the truth
+as to be almost more interesting--as to Asiatic nature, ethnography,
+manners, morals, commercial customs, and nearly everything else
+relating to the life of the peoples among whom he traveled. A typical
+example of this is to be found in the following suggestive paragraph:
+
+"The current money of Cathay is of cotton paper, a palm in length and
+breath, and on this they print lines like those of Mangu Khan's seal:
+'imprimunt lineas sicut est sigillum Mangu'"--a remarkable expression.
+"They write with a painter's pencil and combine in one character
+several letters, forming one expression: 'faciunt in una figura plures
+literas comprehendentes unam dictionem'"--a still more remarkable
+utterance, showing an approximate apprehension of the nature of
+Chinese writing.
+
+There are other distinguished travelers whose inspiration came to them
+during the Thirteenth Century though their works were published in the
+early part of the next century. Some of these we know mainly through
+their adaptation and incorporation into his work without due
+recognition, by that first great writer of spurious travels Sir John
+Mandeville. Mandeville's work was probably written some time during
+the early part of the second half of the Fourteenth Century, but he
+used materials gathered from travelers of the end of the Thirteenth
+and the beginning of the next (his own) century. Sir Henry Yule has
+pointed out, that by far the greater part of the supposed {409} more
+distant travels of Sir John Mandeville were appropriated from the
+narrative of Friar Odoric, a monk, who became a member of the
+Franciscan order about the end of the Thirteenth Century, and whose
+travels as a missionary in the East gave him the opportunities to
+collect a precious fund of information which is contained in Odoric's
+famous story of his voyages. Of Odoric himself we shall have something
+to say presently.
+
+In the meantime it seems well worth while calling to attention, that
+the accepted narrative of Sir John Mandeville as it is called, and
+which may have been written by a physician of the name of John of
+Burgoigne under an assumed name, contains a number of interesting
+anticipations of facts that were supposed to enter into the domain of
+human knowledge much later in the intellectual development of the
+race. In certain passages, and especially in one which is familiar
+from its being cited by Dr. Johnson in the preface to his dictionary,
+Mandeville, to use the name under which the story is best known, shows
+that he had a correct idea of the form of the earth and of position in
+latitude as it could be ascertained by observation of the Pole Star.
+He knew also, as we noted at the beginning of this article, that there
+are antipodes, and if ships were sent on voyages of discovery they
+might sail around the world. As Col. Yule has pointed out, Mandeville
+tells a curious story which he had heard in his youth of how "a worthy
+man did travel ever eastward until he came to his own country again."
+
+Odoric of whom we have already spoken must be considered as the next
+great missionary traveler of this age. He took Franciscan vows when
+scarcely a boy and was encouraged to travel in the East by the example
+of his Holy Father St. Francis, and also by the interest and
+missionary zeal to convert the East which had been aroused by Marco
+Polo's travels. His long journeys will be more readily understood,
+however, if we realize, as is stated in the article on him in the
+Encyclopedia Britannica, an authority that will surely be unsuspected
+of too great partiality for the work of Catholic missionaries, that
+"There had risen also during the latter half of the Thirteenth Century
+an energetic missionary action, extending all over the East on the
+part of both the new orders of Preaching and Minorite (or Dominican
+and Franciscan) Friars which had caused {410} members of these orders,
+of the last especially, to become established in Persia and what is
+now Southern Russia, in Tartary and in China."
+
+In the course of his travels in the East Odoric visited Malabar
+touching at Pandarini (twenty miles north of Calicut), at Craganore
+and at Quilon, preceding thence, apparently, to Ceylon and to the
+Shrine of St. Thomas at Mailapur near Madras.
+
+Even more interesting than his travels in India, however, are those in
+China. He sailed from the Hindustan Peninsula in a Chinese junk to
+Sumatra, visiting various ports on the northern coast of that island
+and telling something about the inhabitants and the customs of the
+country. According to Sir Henry Yule he then visited Java and it would
+seem also the coast of Borneo, finally reaching Kanton, at that time
+known to Western Asiatics as Chin Kalan or Great China. From there he
+went to the great ports of Fuhkeen and Schwan Chow, where he found two
+houses of his order, thence he proceeded to Fuchau from which place he
+struck across the mountains into Chekaeng and then visited Hang Chow
+at that time renowned under the name of Cansay. Modern authorities in
+exploration have suggested that this might be King Sae, the Chinese
+name for Royal Residence, which was then one of the greatest cities of
+the world. Thence Odoric passed northward by Nanking, and, crossing
+the great Kiang, embarked on the Grand Canal and traveled to Cambaluc
+or Pekin, where he remained for three years and where it is thought
+that he was attached to one of the churches founded by Archbishop John
+of Monte Corvino, who was at this time in extreme old age.
+
+The most surprising part of Odoric's travels were still to come. When
+the fever for traveling came upon him again he turned almost directly
+westward to the Great Wall and through Shenshua. From here the
+adventurous traveler (we are still practically quoting Sir Henry Yule)
+entered Thibet and appears to have visited Lhasa. Considering how much
+of interest has been aroused by recent attempts to enter Lhasa and the
+surprising adventures that men have gone through in the effort, the
+success of this medieval monk in such an expedition would seem
+incredible, if it were not substantiated by documents that {411} place
+the matter beyond all doubt even in the minds of the most
+distinguished modern authorities in geography and exploration. How
+Odoric returned home is not definitely known, though certain
+fragmentary notices seem to indicate that he passed through Khorasan
+and probably Tabriz to Europe.
+
+It only remains to complete the interest of Odoric's wondrous tale to
+add that during a large portion of these years' long journeys his
+companion was Friar James, an Irishman who had been attracted to Italy
+in order to become a Franciscan. As appears from a record in the
+public books of the town of Udine in Italy, where the monastery of
+which both he and Odoric were members was situated, a present of two
+marks was made by the municipal authorities to the Irish friar shortly
+after Odoric's death. The reason for the gift was stated to be, that
+Friar James had been for the love of God and of Odoric (a typical
+Celtic expression and characteristic) a companion of the blessed
+Odoric in his wanderings. Unfortunately Odoric died within two years
+after his return though not until the story of his travels had been
+taken down in homely Latin by Friar William of Bologna. Shortly after
+his death Odoric became an object of reverence on the part of his
+brother friars and of devotion on the part of the people, who
+recognized the wonderful apostolic spirit that he had displayed in his
+long wanderings, and the patience and good-will with which he had
+borne sufferings and hardships for the sake of winning the souls of
+those outside the Church.
+
+Sir Henry Yule summed up his opinion of Odoric in the following
+striking passage which bears forcible testimony also to the healthy
+curiosity of the times with regard to all these original sources of
+information which were recognized as valuable because first hand:
+
+  "The numerous MSS. of Odoric's narrative that have come down to our
+  time (upwards of forty are known), and chiefly from the Fourteenth
+  Century, show how speedily and widely it acquired popularity. It
+  does not deserve the charge of general mendacity brought up against
+  it by some, though the language of other writers who have spoken of
+  the traveler as a man of learning is still more injudicious. Like
+  most of the medieval travelers, he is indiscriminating in accepting
+  strange tales; but while some of these are the habitual stories of
+  the {412} age, many particulars which he recited attest the genuine
+  character of the narrative, and some of those which Tiraboschi and
+  others have condemned as mendacious interpolations are the very
+  seals of truth."
+
+Besides Odoric there is another monkish traveler from whom Mandeville
+has borrowed much, though without giving him any credit. This is the
+well-known Praemonstratensian Monk Hayton, who is said to have been a
+member of a princely Armenian family and who just at the beginning of
+the Fourteenth Century dictated a work on the affairs of the Orient
+and especially the history of the nearer East in his own time, of
+which, from the place of his nativity and bringing up, he had abundant
+information, while he found all round him in France, where he was
+living at the time, the greatest thirst for knowledge with regard to
+this part of the world. His book seems to have been dictated
+originally in French at Poictiers, and to have attracted great
+attention because of its subject, many copies of it being made as well
+as translations into other languages within a few years after its
+original appearance.
+
+The story of Odoric is a forcible reminder of how much the
+missionaries accomplished for geography, ethnology, and ethnography in
+the Thirteenth Century, as they did in succeeding centuries. If what
+the missionaries have added to these sciences were to have been lost,
+there would have been enormous gaps in the knowledge with which modern
+scholars began their scientific labors in philology. It may be a
+surprise to most people, moreover, to be thus forcibly reminded of the
+wonderful evangelizing spirit which characterized the later middle
+age. Needless to say these graduates of the Thirteenth Century
+universities who wandered in distant eastern lands, brought with them
+their European culture for the uplifting of the Orientals, and brought
+back to Europe many ideas that were to be fruitful sources of
+suggestions not only for geographical, ethnological, philological, and
+other departments of learning, but also in manufactures and in arts.
+
+We mentioned the fact that Odoric in his travels eventually reached
+Cambaluc, or Pekin, where he found Archbishop John of Monte Corvino
+still alive though at an advanced age, and was probably attached for
+the three years of his stay to one of {413} the churches that had been
+founded by this marvelous old Friar, who had been made Archbishop
+because of the wonderful power of organization and administration
+displayed during his earlier career as a missionary. The story of this
+grand old man of the early Franciscan missions is another one of the
+romances of Thirteenth Century travels and exploration which well
+deserves to be studied in detail. Unfortunately the old Archbishop was
+too much occupied with his work as a missionary and an ecclesiastic to
+return to Europe in order to tell of it, or to write any lengthy
+account of his experiences. Like many another great man of the
+Thirteenth Century he was a doer and not a writer, and, but for the
+casual mention of him by others, the records of his deeds would only
+be found in certain ecclesiastical records, and his work would now be
+known to the Master alone, for whom it was so unselfishly done.
+
+It will be noted that most of these traveling missionaries were
+Franciscans but it must not be thought that it was only the
+Franciscans who sent out such missionaries. The Dominicans
+(established at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century) also did
+wonderful missionary work and quite as faithfully as even their
+Franciscan brothers. Undoubtedly the Franciscans surpassed them in the
+extent of their labors, but then the Dominicans were founded with the
+idea of preaching and uplifting the people of Europe rather than of
+spreading the good news of the Gospel outside the bounds of
+Christianity as it then existed. From the very earliest traditions of
+their order the Franciscans had their eyes attracted towards the East.
+The story that St. Francis himself went to the Holy Land at the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century in order to convert Saladin, the
+Eastern monarch whose name has been made famous by the stories of the
+Crusade in which Richard Coeur de Lion took part, has been doubted,
+but it seems to be founded on too good contemporary authority to be
+considered as entirely apocryphal. St. Francis' heart went out to
+those in darkness who knew nothing of the Christ whom he had learned
+to love so ardently, and it was a supreme desire of his life that the
+good tidings of Christianity should be spread by his followers all
+over the world. While they did this great work they accomplished
+unwittingly great things in all the series of sciences {414} now
+included under the term geography, and gathered precious information
+as to the races of men, their relations to one another and to the part
+of the earth in which they live. The scientific progress thus made
+will always redound largely to their credit in the story of the
+intellectual development of modern Europe. Most of their work was far
+ahead of the times and was not to be properly appreciated until quite
+recent generations, but this must only emphasize our sympathy for
+those obscure, patient but fruitful workers in a great field of human
+knowledge. As to what should be thought of those who ignorant of their
+work proclaim that the Church did not tolerate geography it is hard to
+say. Our geographical knowledge comes mainly from travelers whose wish
+it is to gain commercial opportunities for themselves or their
+compatriots; that of the Middle Ages was gained by men who wished
+anxiously to spread the light of Christianity throughout the world.
+The geographical societies of these earlier days were the religious
+orders who sent but the explorers and travelers, furnished them on
+their return with an enthusiastic audience to hear their stories, and
+then helped to disseminate their books all over the then civilized
+world.
+
+There is probably no better refutation of the expression so often
+heard from those who know nothing about it, with regard to the
+supposed laziness of the Monks of the Middle Ages, than this chapter
+of the story of their exploration and missionary labors during the
+Thirteenth Century. It is usually supposed that if a Monk was fat he
+could not possibly have accomplished any serious work in life. Some of
+these men were _valde ponderosi_, very weighty, yet they did not
+hesitate to take on themselves these long journeys to the East. Their
+lives are the best illustration of the expression of Montalembert:
+
+  "Let us then banish into the world of fiction that affirmation so
+  long repeated by foolish credulity which made monasteries an asylum
+  for indolence and incapacity, for misanthropy and pusillanimity, for
+  feeble and melancholic temperaments, and for men who were no longer
+  fit to serve society in the world. It was not the sick souls, but on
+  the contrary the most vigorous and healthful the human race has ever
+  produced who presented themselves in crowds to fill them."
+
+
+{415}
+
+XXVI
+
+GREAT BEGINNINGS OF MODERN COMMERCE.
+
+
+For our present eminently commercial age nothing of all the
+accomplishment of the Thirteenth Century will probably possess
+livelier interest than the fact that, in spite of what must have
+seemed insuperable difficulties to a less enterprising generation, the
+men of that time succeeded in making such business combinations and
+municipal affiliations, besides arranging various trade facilities
+among distant, different peoples, that not only was commerce rendered
+possible and even easy, but some of the most modern developments of
+the facilitation of international intercourse were anticipated. The
+story of the rise of this combination of many men of different
+nations, of many cities whose inhabitants were of different races and
+of different languages, of commercial enterprise that carried men
+comparatively much farther than they now go on trade expeditions,
+though we have thought that our age had exhausted the possibilities of
+progress in this matter, cannot fail to have an interest for everyone
+whose attention has been attracted to the people of this time and must
+be taken as a symbol of the all-pervading initiative of the
+generations, which allowed no obstacle to hinder their progress and
+thought no difficulty too great to be surmounted.
+
+In beginning the history of the great commercial league which in the
+Thirteenth Century first opened men's minds to the possibilities of
+peace and commerce among the nations and alas! that it should be said,
+did more perhaps than any other agent except Christianity to awaken in
+different races the sense of the brotherhood of man, the English
+historian of the Hanseatic League, Miss Zimmern in the Stories of the
+Nations, said:
+
+"There is scarcely a more remarkable chapter in history than that
+which deals with the trading alliance or association known as the
+Hanseatic League. The league has long since {416} passed away having
+served its time and fulfilled its purpose. The needs and circumstances
+of mankind have changed, and new methods and new instruments have been
+devised for carrying on the commerce of the world. Yet, if the league
+has disappeared, the beneficial results of its action survive to
+Europe though they have become so completely a part of our daily life
+that we accept them as matters of course, and do not stop to inquire
+into their origin." This last declaration may seem surprising for
+comparatively few know anything about this medieval commercial league,
+yet the effects claimed for it are only what we have seen to be true
+with regard to most of the important institutions of the period--they
+were the origins of what is best in our modern life.
+
+Like many of the great movements of the Thirteenth Century the origin
+of the Hanseatic League is clouded somewhat by the obscurity of the
+times and the lack of definite historical documents.  [Footnote 35]
+There is no doubt, however, that just before the middle of the century
+it was in flourishing existence, and that by the end of the century it
+had reached that acme of its power and influence which it was to
+maintain for several centuries in spite of the jealousy of the
+nobility, of certain towns that did not have the same privileges, and
+even of the authorities of the various countries who resented more and
+more as time went on the growing freedom and independence of these
+wealthy cities. The impetus for the formation of the League seems to
+have been given during the Crusades. Like so many other of the
+important movements of the time commerce was greatly influenced by
+these expeditions, and the commercial spirit not only aroused but
+shown the possibility of {417} accomplishing hitherto impossible
+results in the matter of transportation and exchange. The returning
+crusaders brought back with them many precious Eastern objects whose
+possession was a source of envy to others and whose value was rated so
+high as to make even distant travel for them well worth while. The
+returning crusaders also knew how cheaply objects considered very
+precious in the West might be purchased in the East, and they told the
+stories of their own acquisition of them to willing listeners, who
+were stimulated to try their fortunes in expeditions that promised
+such rich rewards.
+
+  [Footnote 35: Perhaps no better idea of the obscurity of the origin of
+  the Hansa confederation can be given, than is to be derived from the
+  fact that even the derivation of the word Hansa is not very clear.
+  Bishop Ulfilas in his old Gothic translation of the Scriptures used
+  the word "hansa" to designate the mob of soldiers and servants of
+  the High Priest who came to take Christ prisoner in the Garden.
+  Later on the word Hansa was used to mean a tax or a contribution.
+  This term was originally employed to designate the sum of money
+  which each of the cities was compelled to pay on becoming a member
+  of the league, and it is thought to be from this that the terms
+  Hansa and Hanseatic League were eventually derived.]
+
+
+{opp417}
+[Illustration]
+PALAZZO DEI CONSOLI (GUBBIO)
+
+[Illustration]
+PALAZZO ZABARELLA (PADUA)
+
+
+Besides the crusaders on their return through Italy had observed what
+was accomplished by the League of the Lombard cities which had been in
+existence in a more or less imperfect way for more than a century, and
+at the end of the Twelfth and the beginning of the Thirteenth Century
+had begun to provide an example of the strength there is in union, and
+of the power for good there is in properly regulated combinations of
+commercial interests with due regard for civic rights and privileges.
+This League of the Lombard cities was encouraged by the popes
+especially by Innocent III. and his successors who are usually said to
+have given it their approbation for their own purposes, though this is
+to look at but one side of the case. The German Emperors endeavored to
+assert their rights over Italian territory and in so doing came into
+collision with the popes not only in temporal matters but also in
+spiritual things. As we have noted in the short sketch of the popes of
+the century, Innocent III. was the first great Italian patriot and
+original advocate of Italy for the Italians. He constantly opposed the
+influence of the German Emperor in Italian politics, mainly, of
+course, because this interfered with the power of the Church, but to a
+very great degree also because it proved a source of manifold
+political evil for the Italian cities.
+
+The Germans then, who in the train of the Emperor went down into Italy
+saw the working of this League of Lombard cities, talked about it on
+their return, and were naturally tempted to essay what might be
+accomplished by the same means on German territory. These two
+elements, the incentive of the crusades and the stimulus of the
+example of the {418} Italians, must be considered as at the basis of
+Hansa, though these were only seeds, and it was the nurture and
+fostering care of the German mind which ever since the days of Tacitus
+had been noted as the freest in Europe, that gave the League its
+wonderful development.
+
+It is difficult to tell how many towns belonged to the Hanseatic
+League during the Thirteenth Century but at the end of this period,
+Hansa, as it came to be called, was, as we have said, in its most
+flourishing condition and we know something definite of its numbers a
+little more than half a century later. In 1367 deputies from all the
+towns met in the large council chamber of the famous town hall at
+Cologne to discuss certain injustices that had been committed against
+the members of the League, or as the document set forth "against the
+free German merchants," in order to determine some way of preventing
+further injuries and inflict due punishment. Altogether the deputies
+of 77 towns were present and declared most solemnly "that because of
+the wrongs and the injuries done by the King of Denmark to the common
+German merchant the cities would be his enemies and help one another
+faithfully." The distant and smaller cities were not expected to send
+troops or even naval forces but promised to give contributions in
+money. Such cities as did not take part in this movement were to be
+considered as having forfeited their membership and would no longer be
+permitted to trade with the members of Hansa.
+
+Lest it should be thought that the cities were incapable of enforcing
+any such boycott with effect, the story of the town of Lübeck must be
+recalled. Lübeck on one occasion refused to join with the other Hansa
+towns in a boycott of certain places in Flanders which had refused to
+observe the regulations as to trading. One of these was to the effect
+that such vessels as were lost on a coast did not become the property
+of the people of the neighborhood, though they had a right to a due
+share for salvage, but a fair proportion must be returned to the
+citizens of the town that suffered the loss. Lübeck was at the moment
+one of the most powerful commercial cities in Germany, and her
+citizens seemed to think that they could violate the Hansa regulation
+with impunity. For 30 years. {419} however, the Hansa boycott was
+maintained and so little trading was done in the city that according
+to one old writer "the people starved, the markets were deserted,
+grass grew in the street and the inhabitants left in large numbers."
+Such a lesson as this was enough to make the Hanseatic decrees be
+observed with scrupulous care and shows the perfection of the
+organization.
+
+The outcome of the war with Denmark demonstrates the power of the
+league. The King of Denmark is said to have scorned their declaration
+of war, and making an untranslatable pun on the word "Hansa" called
+the members of the League "geese who cackled much but need not be
+feared." The fleet of the League, however, succeeded in shutting off
+all the commerce of the coast of Denmark and though there was a truce
+each winter the war was renewed vigorously, and with summer many of
+the Danish cities were ransacked and plundered. At the end of the
+second year Denmark was exhausted and the people so weary of war that
+they pleaded for peace, and Valdemar had to accept the terms which the
+"geese" were willing to offer him. This triumph of the common people
+over a reigning monarch is one of the most striking passages in
+medieval history. It comes about a half century after the close of the
+Thirteenth, and is evidently the direct result of the great practical
+forces that were set in movement during that wonderful period, when
+the mighty heart of humanity was everywhere bestirring men to deeds of
+high purpose and far-reaching significance.
+
+As a matter of fact, Hansa became, very early in its career, one of
+the firmest authorities in the midst of these troubled times and meted
+out unfailingly the sternest justice against those who infringed its
+rights if they were outsiders, or broke the rules of the League if
+they were its members. It was ever ready to send its ships against
+offenders and while it soon came to be feared, this fear was mingled
+with respect, and its regulations were seldom infringed. It is a most
+interesting reflection, that as its English Historian says, "never
+once in the whole course of its history did it draw the sword
+aggressively or against its own members." While it was ever on the
+look-out to increase its power by adding new cities to the League,
+cities were not forced to join and when it meted {420} out punishments
+to its members this was not by the levying of war but by fines, the
+refusal to pay these being followed by the "declaration of boycott,"
+which soon brought the offender to terms. War was only declared in all
+cases as a last resort, and the ships of the League were constantly
+spoken of and designated in all documents as "peace ships," and even
+the forts which the League built for the protection of its towns, or
+as places where its members might be sure of protection, were
+described as "Peace Burgs."
+
+Unfortunately, the lessons of peace that were thus taught by commerce
+were not to bear fruit abundantly for many centuries after the
+Thirteenth. It is practically only in our own time that they have been
+renewed, and the last generation or two, has rather plumed itself over
+the fact that trade was doing so much to prevent war. Evidently this
+is no guarantee of the perpetuation of such an improvement in national
+or international morals, for the influence of Hansa for peace came to
+be lost entirely, after a few centuries. The cities themselves,
+however, that belonged to the League gradually became more and more
+free, and more independent of their rulers. It was thus, in fact, that
+the free cities of Germany had their origin, and in them much more of
+modern liberty was born than has ever been appreciated, except by
+those whose studies have brought them close to these marvelous
+medieval manifestations of the old spirit of Teutonic freedom.
+
+The names of most of the cities that were members of the Hansa League
+are well known, though it is not easy to understand in the decrepitude
+that has come over many of them, how they could have been of so much
+importance as has been claimed for them in the Middle Ages. All the
+cities of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea were united together, and
+while we think of these as German, many of them really belonged to
+Slav people at this time, so that the membership of a number of
+Russian cities is not surprising. While the Rhenish cities were
+important factors in the League, Cologne indeed being one of the most
+important, Bremen and Hamburg and both the Frankforts, and Rostock,
+and Lübeck and Stralsund, and Tangermünde and Warnemunde, were
+important members. Novgorod was founded by Hansa for the purpose of
+trading {421} with the Orientals, and the Volga, the Dnieper, the
+Dwina, and the Oder were extensively used for the purpose of
+transporting goods here and there in central Europe. One of their most
+famous towns, Winetha in German, Julin in Danish, disappeared beneath
+the waters of the Baltic Sea and gave rise to many legends of its
+reappearance. It is hard to realize that it was so important that it
+was called the Venice of the North, and was seriously compared with
+its great southern rival.
+
+A good idea of the intimate relations of the Hansa towns to England
+and the English people can be obtained from the article on the subject
+written by Richard Lodge for the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopedia
+Britannica. A single paragraph of this compresses much of the external
+and internal history of the "Rise and Development of Hansa." It was
+rather to be expected that the commercial relations between England
+and the various cities situated along the North Sea, as well as the
+Baltic and up the Rhine, would be active and would have to be
+submitted to careful regulation. Unless the modern mind is actually
+brought directly in touch, however, with the complex yet very
+practical state of affairs, which actually existed, it will utterly
+fail to appreciate how thoroughly progressive and enterprising were
+these medieval peoples. Enterprise and practicalness we are apt to
+think of as the exclusive possession of much more modern generations.
+Least of all would we be apt to consider them as likely to be found in
+the Thirteenth Century, yet here they are, and the commercial
+arrangements which were made are as absolute premonitions of our
+modern thought as were the literature and architecture, the painting,
+even the teachings of science at the same period.
+
+"The members of this League (Hanseatic) came to England mostly from
+Cologne, the first German town which obtained great importance both at
+home and abroad. Its citizens possessed at an early date a guild-hall
+of their own (in London), and all Germans who wished to trade with
+England had to join their guild. This soon included merchants from
+Dortmund, Soest and Munster, in Westphalia; from Utrecht, Stavern and
+Groningen, in the Netherlands, and from Bremen and Hamburg on the
+North Sea. But, when at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, the
+rapidly rising town of Lübeck {422} wished to be admitted into the
+guild, every effort was made to keep her out. The intervention of
+Frederick II. was powerless to overcome the dread felt by Cologne
+towards a possible rival to its supremacy. But this obstacle to the
+extension of the League was soon overcome. In 1260 a charter of Henry
+III. assured protection to all German merchants. A few years later
+Hamburg and Lübeck also were allowed to form their own guilds. The
+Hansa of Cologne, which had long been the only guild, now sinks to the
+position of a branch Hansa, and has to endure others with equal
+privileges. Over all the branch Hansas rises the "Hansa Alamanniae,"
+first mentioned in 1282.
+
+This article gives additional information with regard to the many and
+varied influences at work at the end of the Thirteenth Century. It
+furnishes in brief, moreover, an excellent picture of the activity of
+mind and power of organization so frequently displayed during this
+period in every branch of life. This is after all the highest quality
+of man. The development of associations of various kinds, especially
+such as are helpfully purposive, are the outcome of that social
+quality in man's mind which is the surest index of his rational
+quality. Succeeding centuries lost for some almost unaccountable
+reason much of this faculty of organization and the result was a
+lamentable retrogression from the advances made by older generations,
+so that it was only in quite recent years that anything like this old
+international comity was reestablished.
+
+
+{opp422}
+[Illustration]
+RATHHAUS (LÜBECK)
+
+
+The extent and very natural development of this community of interests
+must ever attract attention. It is the first time in our modern
+history that it occurs and men of some seven different races and
+tongues were at last drawn into it. In this it represents the greatest
+advance of history, for it led to assimilation of laws and of
+liberties, with some of the best features of each nation's old-time
+customs preserved in the new codes. Its extension even to Novgorod, in
+what is now the heart of Russia is a surprising demonstration of
+successful enterprise and spread of influence almost incredible. The
+settling of the trade disputes of this distant Russian City in the
+courts of a North Sea town, is an evidence of advance in commercial
+relations emphasized by the writer in the Britannica, that deserves to
+be well weighed as a manifestation of what is often thought {423} to
+be the exclusively modern recognition of the rights of commerce and
+the claims of justice over even national feelings.
+
+"The league between Lübeck and Hamburg was not the only, and possibly
+not the first, league among the German towns. But it gradually
+absorbed all others. Besides the influence of foreign commercial
+interests there were other motives which compelled the towns to union.
+The chief of these were the protection of commercial routes both by
+sea and land, and the vindication of town independence as opposed to
+claims of the landed aristocracy. The first to join the League were
+the Wendish towns to the East, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, etc., which
+had always been intimately connected with Lübeck, and were united by a
+common system of laws known as the 'Lübisches Recht' (Lübeck Laws).
+The Saxon and Westphalian towns had long possessed a league among
+themselves; they also joined themselves to Lübeck. Lübeck now became
+the most important town in Germany. It had already surpassed Cologne
+both in London and Bruges. It soon gained a similar victory over
+Wisby. At a great convention in which twenty-four towns from Cologne
+to Revel took part, it was decided that appeals from Novgorod which
+had hitherto been decided at Wisby should henceforth be brought to
+Lübeck."
+
+After much travail and vexation of spirit, after much diplomacy and
+political and parliamentary discussion, after much striving on the
+part of the men in all nations, who have the great cause of universal
+peace for mankind at heart, we have reached a position where at least
+commercial difficulties can be referred to a sort of international
+court for adjudication. The standing of this court is not very clear
+as yet. Special arrangements at least are required, if not special
+treaties in many cases, even for the reference of such merely
+commercial difficulties as debt-collecting to it. In the last quarter
+of the Nineteenth Century special tribunals had to be erected for the
+settlement of such difficulties between nations. In the Twentieth
+Century the outlook is more hopeful and the actual accomplishment is
+indeed encouraging. In the Thirteenth Century with the absence of the
+telegraph and the cable, with the slowness of sailing vessels and the
+distance of towns {424} emphasizing all the difficulties of the
+situation, the Hanseatic League succeeded in obtaining an
+international tribunal, whose judgments with regard to commercial
+difficulties were final and were accepted by men of many different
+races and habits and customs, and to which causes were referred
+without any of the immense machinery apparently required at the
+present time.
+
+This is the real triumph of the commercial development of the
+Thirteenth Century. While it may be astonishing to many modern people
+to learn how much was accomplished in this utterly unexpected quarter,
+it will not be a surprise to those who realize the thoroughly
+practical character of the century and the perfectly matter of fact
+way in which it went about settling all the difficulties that
+presented themselves; and how often they succeeded in reaching a very
+practical if not always ideal solution. The sad feature of the case is
+to think that most of this coming together of nations was lost by the
+gradual development of national feeling, much of benefit as there may
+have been in that for the human race, and by the drawing of the
+language lines between nations more closely than they had been before,
+for the next three centuries saw the development of modern tongues
+into the form which they have held ever since.
+
+Hansa did more than almost any other institution in northern Europe to
+establish the reign of Law. If it had accomplished no other purpose,
+this would make it eminently worthy of the study of those who are
+interested in sociology and social evolution. Before the time of Hansa
+the merchant by sea or land was liable to all sorts of impositions,
+arbitrary taxes, injustices, and even the loss of life as well of his
+goods. As Hansa gained in power however, these abuses disappeared.
+Perhaps the most noteworthy improvement came with regard to
+navigation. There is a story told of a famous rock in Brittany on
+which many ships were wrecked during the Middle Ages. Even as late as
+the Thirteenth Century sometimes false lights were displayed on this
+rock with the idea of tempting vessels to their destruction on it.
+Everything that was thrown ashore in the neighborhood was considered
+to be the property of the people who gathered it, except that a
+certain portion of its value had to be paid to the Lord of the Manor.
+{425} This worthy representative of the upper classes is said to have
+pointed out the rock to some visiting nobleman friends one day, and
+declared that it was more precious to him than the most precious stone
+in the diadem of any ruling monarch in Europe. This represents the
+state of feeling with regard to such subjects when Hansa started in to
+correct the abuses.
+
+It may be looked upon as a serious disgrace to the Thirteenth Century
+that such a low state of ethical feeling should have existed, but it
+is the amelioration of conditions which obliterated such false
+sentiments that constitutes the triumph of the period. On the other
+hand we must not with smug self-complacency think that our generation
+is so much better than those of the past. It is easy to be pharisaical
+while we forget that many a fortune in modern times suffers shipwreck
+on the coasts of business and investment, because the false lights of
+advertising intended to deceive, are displayed very prominently, for
+those who are only anxious as were the mariners of the olden times to
+make their fortunes. Doubtless too the proprietors of many of the
+papers which display such advertisements, and it is nonsense to say
+that they are unconscious of the harm they do, are quite as proud of
+the magnificent revenue that their advertising columns bring to them
+as was the Breton noble of the Thirteenth Century. Man has not changed
+much in the interval.
+
+Lest it should be thought that even the present-day initiation into
+secret societies of various kinds is the invention of modern times, it
+seems well to give some of the details of the tests through which
+those seeking to be members of the Hanseatic League were subjected, by
+those who were already initiated. It may possibly seem that some of
+these customs were too barbarous to mention in the same breath with
+the present-day initiations, but if it is recalled that at least once
+a year some serious accident is reported as the result of the
+thoughtless fooling of "frat" students at our universities, this
+opinion may be withdrawn. Miss Helen Zimmern in her story of the Hansa
+Towns already quoted several times, has a paragraph or two of
+descriptions of these that we shall quote. It may be well to remember
+that these tests were not entirely without a serious significance for
+the members of the Hansa. Much {426} was expected of those who
+belonged to the Hansa Guild. A number of precious trade secrets were
+entrusted them, and they alone knew the methods and mysteries of
+Hansa. In order that these might not by any possibility be betrayed,
+the members of Hansa who lived in foreign countries were forbidden to
+marry while abroad and were bound under the severest penalties to live
+a life of celibacy. They were not supposed to be absent from the
+houses assigned to them during the night, and their factories so
+called, or common-places of residence, were guarded by night watchman
+and fierce dogs in order to secure the keeping of these rules.
+
+Besides torture was a very common thing in those times and a man who
+belonged to a country that happened to be at war for the moment, might
+very easily be subjected to torture for some reason or another with
+the idea of securing important information from him. If the members of
+Hansa wanted to be reasonably assured that new members would not give
+up their secrets without a brave struggle, they had no better way than
+by these tests, for which there was therefore some excuse. As to the
+brutality of the tests perhaps Miss Zimmern in maidenly way has said
+too much. We commend her paragraphs to the modern committees of
+reception of college secret societies, because here as elsewhere this
+generation may get points from the Thirteenth Century.
+
+
+{opp426}
+[Illustration]
+MINSTER (CHORIN, GERMANY)
+
+[Illustration]
+CITY GATE (NEUBRANDENBURG)
+
+
+"We cannot sully our pages by detailing the thirteen different games
+or modes of martyrdom that were in use at Bergen. Our more civilized
+age could not tolerate the recital. In those days they attracted a
+crowd of eager spectators who applauded the more vociferously the more
+cruel and barbarous the tortures. The most popular were those
+practices known as the smoke, water and flogging games; mad, cruel
+pranks calculated to cause a freshman to lose health and reason. Truly
+Dantesque hell tortures were these initiations into Hansa mysteries.
+Merely to indicate their nature we will mention that for the smoke
+game the victim was pulled up the big chimney of the Schutting while
+there burned beneath him the most filthy materials, sending up a most
+nauseous stench and choking wreaths of smoke. While in this position
+he was asked a number of questions, to which he was forced, under yet
+more terrible penalties, to reply. If {427} he survived his torture he
+was taken out into the yard and plied under the pump with six tons of
+water." (Even the "Water Cure" is not new).
+
+There was a variety about the tests at different times and places that
+show no lack of invention on the part of the members of Hansa. With
+regard to other water tests Miss Zimmern has furnished some
+interesting details:
+
+"The 'water' game that took place at Whitsuntide consisted in first
+treating the probationer to food, and then taking him out to sea in a
+boat. Here he was stripped thrown into the ocean, ducked three times,
+made to swallow much sea-water, and thereafter mercilessly flogged by
+all the inmates of the boats. The third chief game was no less
+dangerous to life and limb. It took place a few days after, and was a
+rude perversion of the May games. The victims had first to go out into
+the woods to gather the branches with which later they were to be
+birched. Returned to the factory, rough horse play pranks were
+practised upon them. Then followed an ample dinner, which was
+succeeded by mock combats, and ended in the victims being led into the
+so-called Paradise, where twenty-four disguised men whipped them till
+they drew blood, while outside this black hole another party made
+hellish music with pipes, drums and triangles to deafen the screams of
+the tortured. The 'game' as considered ended when the shrieks of the
+victims were sufficiently loud to overcome the pandemonic music." Some
+of the extreme physical cruelties of the initiations our modern
+fraternities have eliminated, but the whole story has a much more
+familiar air than we might have expected.
+
+Probably the most interesting feature of the history of the Hanseatic
+League is the fact that this great combination for purposes of trade
+and commerce proved a source of liberty for the citizens of the
+various towns, and enabled them to improve their political status
+better than any other single means at this precious time of
+development of legal and social rights. This is all the more
+interesting because great commercial combinations with similar
+purposes in modern times have usually proved fruitful rather of
+opposite results. A few persons have been very much benefited by them,
+or at least have made much money by them, which is quite another
+thing, though money is {428} supposed to represent power and
+influence, but the great mass of the people have been deprived of
+opportunities to rise and have had taken from them many chances for
+the exercise of initiative that existed before.
+
+There is a curious effect of Hansa upon the political fortunes of the
+people of the cities that were members of the League which deserves to
+be carefully studied. As with regard to so many other improvements
+that have come in the history of the race, it was not a question so
+much of the recognition of great principles as of money and revenues
+that proved the origin of amelioration of civic conditions. These
+commercial cities accumulated wealth. Money was necessary for their
+rulers for the maintenance of their power and above all for the waging
+of war. In return for moneys given for such purposes the cities
+claimed for the inhabitants and were granted many privileges. These
+became perpetuated and as time went on were added to as new
+opportunities for the collection of additional revenues occurred,
+until finally an important set of fundamental rights with documentary
+confirmation were in the hands of the city authorities. One would like
+to think that this state of affairs developed as the result of the
+recognition on the part of the ruling sovereign, of the benefits that
+were conferred on his realm by having in it, or associated with it, an
+important trading city whose enterprising citizens gave occupation to
+many hands. This was very rarely the case, however, but as was true of
+the legal rights obtained by England's citizens during the Thirteenth
+Century, it was largely a question of the coordination of taxation and
+legislative representation and the consequent attainment of
+privileges.
+
+The most important effect on the life of Europe and the growth of
+civilization that the Hanseatic League exerted, was its success in
+showing that people of many different nations and races, living under
+very different circumstances, might still be united under similar laws
+that would enable them to accomplish certain objects which they had in
+view. Germans, Slavs and English learned to live in one another's
+towns and while observing the customs of these various places
+maintained the privileges of their homes. The mutual influence of
+these people on one another, many of them being the most practical and
+{429} enterprising individuals of the time, could scarcely fail to
+produce noteworthy effects in broadening the minds of those with whom
+they came in contact. It is to this period that we must trace the
+beginnings of international law. Hansa showed the world how much
+commercial relations were facilitated by uniform laws and by just
+treatment of even the citizens of foreign countries. It is to commerce
+that we owe the first recognition of the rights of the people of other
+countries even in time of war. If the Hanseatic League had done
+nothing else but this, it must be considered as an important factor in
+the development of our modern civilization and an element of influence
+great as any other in this wonderful century.
+
+[Illustration]
+HINGE FROM CATHEDRAL, SCHLESTADT
+
+{430}
+
+APPENDIX I
+
+
+SO-CALLED HISTORY.
+
+RULERS.
+
+
+EMPERORS OF GERMANY.
+
+  Otho IV  1198-1218
+  Frederick II  1212-1250
+  Conrad IV  1250-1254
+  William of Holland  1254-1256
+  Richard Earl of Cornwall   1257-1273
+  Rudolph of Hapsburg   1273-1291
+  Adolph of Nassau   1292-1298
+  Albert of Austria   1298-1308
+
+
+KINGS OF SCOTLAND..
+
+  William   1175-1214
+  Alexander II  1214-1249
+  Alexander III   1249-1286
+  Margaret   1286-1292
+  John Balliol   1292-1296
+  Interregnum   1296-1306
+
+
+KINGS OF CASTILE AND LEON.
+
+  Alfonso IX   1188-1214
+  Henry I   1214-1217
+  St. Ferdinand III   1217-1252
+  Alfonso X   1252-1284
+  Sancho IV   1284-1295
+  Ferdinand IV   1295-1312
+
+
+KINGS OF ENGLAND.
+
+  John Lackland   1199-1216
+  Henry III   1216-1272
+  Edward I   1272-1307
+
+
+KINGS OF FRANCE.
+
+  Philip II   1180-1223
+  Louis VIII   1223-1226
+  Louis IX   1226-1270
+  Philip III   1270-1285
+  Louis [Philip] IV   1314-1316
+
+
+KINGS OF ARAGON.
+
+  Pedro II   1196-1213
+  James I., the Conqueror   1215-1276
+  Pedro III   1276-1285
+  Alfonso III   1285-1291
+  James II   1291-1327
+
+
+KINGS OF NAPLES.
+
+  Conrad  1250-1254
+  Conradin   1254-1258
+  Manfred   1258-1266
+  Charles of Anjou   1266-1285
+  Charles   1285-1309
+
+
+EVENTS.
+
+1202.--Fourth great crusade under Boniface, marquis of Montferrat.
+
+1204.--The English stripped of Normandy, etc.,
+          by Philip Augustus of France.
+
+1206.--Jenghis-Khan: foundation of the great empire of the Moguls.
+
+1212.--Battle of Ubeda: defeat and fall of Almohads of  Africa.
+
+1213.--John Lackland acknowledges himself vassal of the pope.
+
+1213.--Battle of Bouvines won by Philip Augustus.
+
+1215.--Magna Charta.
+         The palatinate of the Rhine goes to the house of Wittelsbach.
+
+1217.--Crusade of Andrew II., King of Hungary.
+
+1218.--Extinction of the dukes of Zarringuia:
+      Switzerland becomes an immediate province of the empire.
+
+{431}
+
+1222.--Charter or decree of Andrew II.,
+          basis of the Hungarian constitution.
+
+1226.--Renewal of the League of Lombardy
+           to oppose the Emperor Frederick II.
+
+1227.--Battle of Bornhoeved in Holstein: Waldemar II., King of
+   Denmark, loses his conquests on the southern coast of the Baltic.
+
+1228.--Crusade of the Emperor Frederick II.
+
+1230.--The Teutonic order establishes itself in Prussia.
+Conquest of the Balearic islands by the King of Aragon.
+
+1235.--Formation of the Duchy of Brunswick in favor
+of the house of the Guelphs.
+
+1236.--Conquest of the Kingdoms of Cordova, Murcia and
+Seville by the Castilians.
+
+1237.--Conquest of Russia by Baton-Khan: origin of the
+Mogul or Tartar horde of Kaptschak.
+
+1241.--Invasion of Poland, Silesia, and Hungary by the Moguls.
+
+1248.--Crusade of St. Louis, King of France.
+
+1250.--Beginning of the great interregnum in Germany.
+
+1254.--Accessions of the emperors of different houses in
+Germany. End of the dominion of the Agubites in Egypt and
+Syria; beginning of the empire of the Mamelukes.
+
+1256.--Enfranchisement of the serfs at Bologna in Italy.
+
+1261.--Michel Paleologus, emperor of Nice,
+takes Constantinople; end of the empire of the Latins.
+
+1265.--Accession of the house of Anjou to the throne of the
+Two Sicilies.
+
+1266.--Admission of the Commons to the Parliament of England.
+
+1268.--Corradino decapitated at Naples; extinction of the house of
+     Hohenstaufen. Suabia and Franconia become immediate
+     provinces of the empire.
+
+1271.--The county of Toulouse passes to the King of
+France, and the Venaissin to the Pope.
+
+1273.--Accession of the Emperor Rudolph of Hapsburg to
+the throne of the empire: first election by the seven electors.
+
+1282.--Conquest of Wales by the King of England.
+
+1282.--The Sicilian Vespers, the kingdom of Sicily passes to
+the King of Aragon. The Emperor Rudolph gives to his sons the
+duchies of Austria; foundation of the house of Hapsburg.
+
+1283.--The Teutonic order completes the conquest of Prussia.
+
+1289.--Extinction of the male line of the old race of Scotch
+kings. Contest of Baliol and Bruce.
+
+1290.--Decline of the republic of Piza. Aggrandizement of that of Genoa.
+
+1291.--Taking of Ptolemais and Tyre by the Mamelukes.
+End of the crusades.
+
+1294.--Decline of the Mogul empire at the death of Kublai-Khan.
+
+1298.--Introduction of an hereditary aristocracy at Venice.
+
+1300.--Foundation of the modern Turkish empire by
+Ottoman I. First Jubilee proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII.
+
+
+{432}
+
+
+APPENDIX II.
+
+TWENTY-SIX CHAPTERS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.
+
+I. AMERICA IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+To most people it would seem quite out of the question that a chapter
+on America in the Thirteenth Century might have been written. One of
+the most surprising chapters for most readers in the previous edition
+was that on Great Explorers and the Foundation of Geography, for it
+was a revelation to learn that Thirteenth Century travelers had
+anticipated all of our discoveries in the Far and in the Near East
+seven centuries ago. Certain documents have turned up, however, which
+make it very clear that with the same motives as those which urged
+Eastern travelers, Europeans went just as far towards the West at this
+time. Documents found in the Vatican Archives in 1903 and exhibited at
+St. Louis in 1904, have set at rest finally and absolutely the long
+disputed question of the discovery of America by the Norsemen, and in
+connection with these the story of America in the Thirteenth Century
+might well have been told. There is a letter from Pope Innocent III.,
+dated February 13, 1206, addressed to the Archbishop of Norway, who
+held jurisdiction over Greenland, which shows not only the presence of
+the Norsemen on the American Continent at this time, but also that
+they had been here for a considerable period, and that there were a
+number of churches and pastors and large flocks in whom the Roman See
+had a lively interest. There are Americana from three other Popes of
+the Thirteenth Century. John XXI. wrote, in 1276, Nicholas III. two
+letters, one dated January 31, 1279, and another June 9, 1279, and
+Martin III. wrote 1282. We have inserted on the opposite page a
+reproduction of a portion of the first Papal document extant relating
+to America, the letter of Pope Innocent III., taken from "The Norse
+Discovery of America" (The Norraena Society, N. Y., 1908). The word
+_Grenelandie_, underscored, indicates the subject. The writing as an
+example of the chirography of the century is of interest.
+
+
+II. A REPRESENTATIVE UPPER HOUSE.
+
+In most historical attempts at government by the people it has been
+recognized that legislation is better balanced if there are two
+chambers in the law-making body, one directly elected by the people,
+the other indirectly chosen and representing important vested
+interests that are likely to make its members conservative. The
+initiative for legislation comes, as a rule, from the direct
+representatives of the people, while the upper chamber represses
+radical law-making or sudden changes in legislative policy, yet does
+not hamper too much the progress of democracy.
+
+ {433}
+
+[Illustration]
+PART OF LETTER OF POPE INNOCENT III. MENTIONING GREENLAND.
+
+
+{434}
+
+During the last few years a crisis in English politics has led to a
+very general demand for a modification of the status of the House of
+Lords, while almost similar conditions have led to the beginning at
+least of a similar demand for the modification of our Senate in this
+country. Both these upper chambers have come to represent vested
+interests to too great a degree. The House of Lords has been the
+subject of special deprecation. The remark is sometimes made that it
+is unfortunate that England is weighted down by this political
+incubus, the House of Lords, which is spoken of as a heritage from the
+Middle Ages. The general impression, of course, is that the English
+House of Lords, as at present constituted, comes down from the oldest
+times of constitutional government in England. Nothing could well be
+more untrue than any such idea.
+
+The old upper chamber of England, the medieval House of Lords, was an
+eminently representative body. Out of the 625 or more of members of
+the English House of Lords at the present time about five hundred and
+fifty hold their seats by heredity. Only about seventy-five are in
+some sense elective. At least one-half of these elected peers,
+however, must be chosen from the hereditary nobility of Ireland and
+Scotland. Nearly nineteen-twentieths of the membership of the House of
+Lords, as at present constituted, owe their place in national
+legislation entirely to heredity. Until the reformation so-called this
+was not so. More than one-half of the English House of Lords, a good
+working majority, consisted of the Lords spiritual. Besides the
+Bishops and Archbishops there were the Abbots and Priors of
+monasteries, and the masters of religious orders. These men as a rule
+had come up from the people. They had risen to their positions by
+intellectual abilities and by administrative capacity. The abbots and
+other superiors of religious orders had been chosen by their monks as
+a rule because, having shown that they knew how to rule themselves,
+they were deemed most fitting to rule over others.
+
+Even in our day, when the Church occupies nothing like the position in
+the hearts of the masses that she held in the ages of faith, our
+Catholic Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops, both here and in England,
+are chosen as members of arbitration boards to settle strikes and
+other social difficulties, because it is felt that the working class
+has full confidence in them, and that they are thoroughly
+representative of the spirit of democracy. In England Cardinal Manning
+served more than once in critical social conditions. In this country
+we have had a series of such examples. From these we can better
+understand what the Lords spiritual represented in the English House
+of Lords. There were abuses, though they were not nearly so frequent
+as were thought, by which unworthy men sometimes reached such
+positions, for men abuse even the best things, but in general these
+clerical members of the House of Lords were the chosen intellectual
+and moral products of the kingdom. Since they were without families
+they had {435} less temptation to serve personal interests and,
+besides, they had received a life-long training in unselfishness, and
+the best might be expected of them. For an ideal second chamber I know
+none that can compare with this old English House of Lords of the
+Middle Ages. How much it was responsible for the foundation of the
+liberties of which the English-speaking people are deservedly so
+proud, and which have been treated in some detail in the chapter on
+Origins in Law, would be interesting to trace.
+
+
+III. THE PARISH, AND TRAINING IN CITIZENSHIP.
+
+Mr. Toulmin Smith, in his book on "The Parish," and Dom Gasquet, in
+his volume on "The Parish Before the Reformation," have shown what a
+magnificent institution for popular self-government was the English
+medieval parish, and how much this contributed to the solution of
+important social problems and to the creation of a true democratic
+spirit. Mr. Toulmin Smith calls particular attention to the fact that
+when local self-government gets out of the hands of the people of a
+neighborhood personal civic energy goes to sleep. The feeling of
+mutual responsibility of the men of the place is lost, to the great
+detriment of their larger citizenship in municipality and nation. In
+the parish, however, forming a separate community, of which the
+members had rights and duties, the primal solid basis for government,
+the parish authorities took charge of the highways, the roads, the
+paths, the health, the police, the constabulary, and the fires of
+their neighborhood. They kept, besides, a registry of births and
+deaths and marriages. When these essentially local concerns are
+controlled in large bodies the liability to abuse at once becomes easy
+and political corruption sets in. He mentions, besides many parochial
+institutions, a parochial friendly society for loans on security,
+parish gilds for insurance, and many other phases of that thoroughly
+organized mutual aid so characteristic of the Middle Ages.
+
+These parishes became completely organized, so as to be thoroughly
+democratic and representative of all the possibilities of local
+self-government under King Edward at the end of the Thirteenth and the
+beginning of the Fourteenth Century. Rev. Augustus Jessopp, in "After
+the Great Pillage," tells the story of how the parishes were broken up
+as a consequence of the confiscation of their endowment during the
+so-called reformation. The quotation from him may be found in Appendix
+III. in the section on "How it all stopped."
+
+Toulmin Smith is not so emphatic, but he is scarcely less explicit
+than Jessopp. "The attempts of ecclesiastical authority to encroach on
+the civil authorities of the parish have been more successful since
+the reformation." As a matter of fact, at that time all government
+became centralized, and complete contradiction though it may seem to
+be of what is sometimes declared the place of the reformation in the
+history {436} of human liberty, the genuine democratic institutions of
+England were to a great extent impaired by the reform, and an
+autocracy, which later developed into an autocratic aristocracy,
+largely took its place. Out of that England has gradually lifted
+itself during the Nineteenth Century. Even now, however, as pointed
+out in the preceding chapter that might have been, the House of Lords
+is not at all what it was in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
+when the majority of its members were Lords spiritual, men who had
+come up from the masses as a rule.
+
+
+IV. THE CHANCE TO RISE.
+
+We are very prone to think that even though there may have been
+excellent opportunities for the higher education in the Thirteenth
+Century and, in many ways, an ideal education of the masses, still
+there was one great social drawback in those times, the lack of
+opportunity for men of humble birth to rise to higher stations.
+Nothing, however, is less true. There probably never was a time when
+even members of the poorest families might rise more readily or
+rapidly to the highest positions in the land. The sons of village
+merchants and village artisans, nay, the sons and grandsons of farmers
+bound to the soil, could by educational success become clergymen in
+various ranks, and by attaining a bishopric or the position of abbot
+or prior of a monastery, reach a seat in the House of Lords. Most of
+the Lord High Chancellors of England during the Middle Ages--and some
+of them are famous for their genius as canon and civil lawyers, for
+their diplomatic abilities and their breadth of view and capacity as
+administrators--were the sons of humble parents.
+
+Take the single example of Stratford, the details of whose
+inhabitants' lives, because of the greatness of one of them, have
+attracted more attention than those of any other town of corresponding
+size in England. At the beginning of the Fourteenth Century it is only
+what we would call a village, and it probably did not have 3,000
+inhabitants, if, indeed, the number was not less than 2,000. In his
+book, "Shakespeare the Boy," Mr. Rolfe calls attention to certain
+conditions that interest us in the old village. He tells us of what
+happened as a result of the development of liberty in the Thirteenth
+Century:
+
+  "Villeinage gradually disappeared in the reign of Edward VII.
+  (1327-1337), and those who had been subject to it became free
+  tenants, paying definite rents for house and land. Three natives of
+  the town, who, after the fashion of the time, took their surnames
+  from the place of their birth, rose to high positions in the Church,
+  one becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, and the others respectively
+  Bishops of London and Chichester. John of Stratford and Robert of
+  Stratford were brothers, and Ralph of Stratford was their nephew.
+  John and Robert were both for a time Chancellors of England, and
+  there is no other instance of two brothers attaining that high
+  office in succession."
+
+{437}
+
+To many people the fact that the avenue to rise was through the Clergy
+more than in any other way will be disappointing. One advantage,
+however, that the old people would insist that they had from their
+system was that these men, having no direct descendants, were less
+likely to pursue selfish aims and more likely to try to secure the
+benefit of the Community than are those who, in our time, rise through
+the legal profession. The Lord High Chancellors of recent time have
+all been lawyers. Would not most of the world confess that the
+advantage was with the medieval peoples?
+
+President Woodrow Wilson of Princeton realized sympathetically this
+great element of saving democracy in the Middle Ages, and has paid
+worthy tribute to it. He said: "The only reason why government did not
+suffer dry rot in the Middle Ages under the aristocratic systems which
+then prevailed was that the men who were efficient instruments of
+government were drawn from the church--from that great church, that
+body which we now distinguish from other church bodies as the Roman
+Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church then, as now, was a great
+democracy. There was no peasant so humble that he might not become a
+priest, and no priest so obscure that he might not become Pope of
+Christendom, and every chancellery in Europe was ruled by those
+learned, trained and accomplished men--the priesthood of that great
+and then dominant church; and so, what kept government alive in the
+Middle Ages was this constant rise of the sap from the bottom, from
+the rank and file of the great body of the people through the open
+channels of the Roman Catholic priesthood."
+
+
+V. INSURANCE.
+
+Insurance is usually supposed to be a modern idea representing one of
+those developments of the capitalization of mutual risks of life,
+property, and the like that have come as a consequence of modern
+progress. The insurance system of the Middle Ages, the organization of
+which came in the Thirteenth Century, is therefore extremely
+interesting. It was accomplished, as was every form of co-operation
+and co-ordination of effort, through special gilds or through the
+trade or merchant gilds. Among the objects of the gilds enumerated by
+Toulmin Smith is insurance against loss by fire. This was paid through
+the particular gild to which the merchant belonged, or in the case of
+the artisan through a special gild which he joined for the purpose.
+Provision was made, however, for much more than insurance by fire. Our
+fire insurance companies are probably several centuries old, so also
+are our insurance arrangements against shipwreck. Other features of
+insurance, however, are much more recent. Practically all of these
+were in active existence during the Middle Ages, though they
+disappeared with the so-called reformation, and then {438} did not
+come into existence again for several centuries and, indeed, not until
+our own time.
+
+The old gilds, for instance, provided insurance against loss from
+flood, a feature of insurance that has not, so far as I know,
+developed in our time, against loss by robbery (our burglary insurance
+is quite recent), against loss by the fall of a house, by
+imprisonment, and then also insurance against the loss of cattle and
+farm products. All the features of life insurance also were in
+existence. The partial disability clauses of life or accident
+insurance policies are recent developments. In the old days there is
+insurance against the loss of sight, against the loss of a limb, or
+any other form of crippling. The deaf and dumb might be insured so as
+to secure an income for them, and corresponding relief for leprosy
+might be obtained; so that, if one were set apart from the community
+by the law requiring segregation of lepers, there might be provision
+for food and lodging, even though productive work had become
+impossible. In a word, the insurance system of the Middle Ages was
+thoroughly developed. It was not capitalistic. The charges were only
+enough to maintain the system, and not such as to provide large
+percentage returns on invested stock and on bonds, and the
+accumulation of huge surpluses that almost inevitably lead to gross
+abuses. What is best in our modern system of insurance is an imitation
+of the older methods. Certain of the trade insurance companies which
+assume a portion of the risk on mills, factories and the like, are
+typical examples. They know the conditions, enforce proper
+precautions, keep an absolute check on suspicious losses, accumulate
+only a moderate surplus and present very few opportunities for
+insurance abuses. The same thing is true for the fraternal societies
+that conduct life insurance. When properly managed they represent the
+lowest possible cost and the best efficiency with least opportunities
+for fraud and without any temptations to interfere with legislation
+and any allurements for legislators to spend their time making strike
+and graft bills instead of doing legislative work.
+
+
+VI. OLD AGE PENSIONS.
+
+This generation has occupied itself much with the question of old age
+pensions. Probably most people feel that this is the first time in the
+world's history that such arrangements have been made. The movement is
+supposed to represent a recent development of humanitarian purpose,
+and to be a feature of recent philanthropic evolution. It is rather
+interesting, in the light of that idea, to see how well they
+accomplish this same purpose in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth
+Centuries. In our time it has been a government affair, with all the
+possibilities of abuse that there are in a huge pension system, and
+surely no country knows it better than we do here in America. The old
+countries, Germany and France, have established a contributing {439}
+system of pension. This was the model of their system of caring for
+the old and the disabled in the Middle Ages. Toulmin Smith cites a
+rule of one of the gilds which gives us exactly the status of the old
+age disability pension question. After a workman had been seven years
+a member, the gild assured him a livelihood in case of disability from
+any cause.
+
+When we recall that employer as well as employee as a rule belonged to
+the gild and this was a real mutual organization in which there was a
+sharing of the various risks of life, we see how eminently well
+adapted to avoid abuses this old system was. Where the pensioners
+appeal to a government pension system, abuses are almost inevitable.
+There is the constant temptation to exploit the system on the part of
+the pensioners, because they have the feeling that if they do not,
+others will. Then the investigation of each particular case is
+difficult, and favoritism and graft of various kinds inevitably finds
+its way in. Where the pension is paid by a small body of fellow
+workmen, the investigation is easy, the temptation to exploit does not
+readily find place, and while abuses are to some extent inevitable,
+these are small in amount, and not likely to be frequent. Friends and
+neighbors know conditions, and men are not pauperized by the system,
+and if, after an injury that seemed at first so disabling as to be
+permanent, the pensioner should improve enough to be able to get back
+to work, or, at least, to do something to support himself, the system
+is elastic enough so that he is not likely to be tempted to continue
+to live on others rather than on his own efforts.
+
+
+VII. THE WAYS AND MEANS OF CHARITY--ORGANIZED CHARITY.
+
+Most of us would be apt to think that our modern methods of obtaining
+funds for charitable purposes represented definite developments, and
+that at least special features of our collections for charity were our
+own invention. In recent years the value of being able to reach a
+great many people even for small amounts has been particularly
+recognized. "Tag day" is one manifestation of that. Everyone in a
+neighborhood is asked to contribute a small amount for a particular
+charitable purpose, and the whole collection usually runs up to a snug
+sum. Practices very similar to this were quite common in the
+Thirteenth Century. As in our time, it was the women who collected the
+money. A rope, for instance, was stretched across a marketplace, where
+traffic was busy, and everyone who passed was required to pay a toll
+for charity. Occasionally the rope was stretched across a bridge and
+the tolls were collected on a particular day each year. Other forms of
+charitable accumulation resembled ours in many respects.
+Entertainments of various kinds were given for charity, and special
+collections were made during the exhibition of mystery plays {440}
+partly to pay the expenses of the representation, and the surplus to
+go to the charities of the particular gild.
+
+Most of the charity, however, was organized. Indeed it is the
+organization of charity during the Thirteenth Century that represents
+the best feature of its fraternalism. The needy were cared for by the
+gilds themselves. There were practically no poorhouses, and if a man
+was willing to work and had already shown this willingness, there were
+definite bureaus that would help him at least to feed his family while
+he was out of work. This system, however, was flexible enough to
+provide also for the ne'er-do-wells, the tramps, the beggars, but they
+were given not money, but tokens which enabled them to obtain the
+necessaries of life without being able to abuse charity. The
+committees of the gilds consulted in various ways among themselves and
+with the church wardens so as to be sure that, while all the needy
+were receiving help, no one was abusing charity by drawing help from a
+number of different quarters. Of course, they did not have the problem
+of large city life that we have, and so their comparatively simple
+organization of charity sufficed for all the needs of the time, and at
+the same time anticipated our methods.
+
+
+VIII. SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSITIES.
+
+In the first edition of this book I called attention to the fact, that
+science, even in our sense of physical science, was, in spite of
+impressions to the contrary, a favorite subject for students and
+teachers in the early universities. What might have been insisted on,
+however, is that these old universities were scientific universities
+resembling our own so closely in their devotion to science as to
+differ from them only in certain unimportant aspects. Because the
+universities for three centuries before the Nineteenth had been
+occupied mainly with classical studies, we are prone to think that
+these were the main subjects of university teaching for all the
+centuries before. Nothing could well be less true. The undergraduate
+studies consisted of the seven liberal arts so-called, though these
+were largely studied from the scientific standpoint. The quotation
+from Prof. Huxley (Appendix III., Education) makes this very clear.
+What we would now call the graduate studies consisted of metaphysics,
+in which considerable physics were studied, astronomy, medicine, above
+all, mathematics, and then the ethical sciences, under which were
+studied what we now call ethics, politics and economics. The picture
+of these medieval universities as I have given them in my lecture on
+Medieval Scientific Universities, in "Education, How Old the New,"
+makes this very clear. The interests and studies were very like those
+of our own time, only the names for them being different. Nature-study
+was a favorite subject, and, as I have pointed out in "The Popes and
+Science," Dante must be considered as a great nature student, for he
+was able to draw the most exquisite figures from details of knowledge
+of living things with which few {441} poets are familiar. The books of
+the professors of the Thirteenth Century which have been preserved,
+those of Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Aquinas, Duns Scotus and
+others, make it very clear that scientific teaching was the main
+occupation of the university faculties, while the preservation of
+these huge tomes by the diligent copying of disciples shows how deeply
+interested were their pupils in the science of the time.
+
+
+IX. MEDICAL TEACHING AND PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS.
+
+At all times in the history of education, the standards of scientific
+education, and the institutions of learning, can be best judged from
+the condition of the medical schools. When the medical sciences are
+taken seriously, when thorough preparation is demanded before their
+study may be taken up, when four or five years of attention to
+theoretic and practical medicine are required for graduation, and when
+the professors are writing textbooks that are to attract attention for
+generations afterwards, then, there is always a thoroughly scientific
+temper m the university itself. Medicine is likely to suffer, first,
+whenever there is neglect of science. The studies of the German
+historians, Puschmann, Pagel, Neuberger, and Sudhoff in recent years,
+have made it very clear that the medical schools of the universities
+of the Thirteenth Century were maintaining high standards. The
+republication of old texts, especially in France, has called attention
+to the magnificent publications of their professors, while a review of
+their laws and regulations confirms the idea of the good work that was
+being done. Gurlt, in his history of surgery, "Geschichte der
+Chirurgie" (Berlin, 1898), has reviewed the textbooks of Roger and
+Roland and the Four Masters, of William of Salicet and Lanfranc and of
+many others, in a way to make it very clear that these men were
+excellent teachers.
+
+When we discover that three years of preparatory university work was
+required before the study of medicine could be begun, and four years
+of medical studies were required, with a subsequent year of practice
+under a physician's direction, before a license for independent
+practice could be issued, then the scientific character of the medical
+schools and therefore of the universities to which they were attached
+is placed beyond all doubt. These are the terms of the law issued by
+the Emperor Frederick II. for the Two Sicilies. That, in substance, it
+applied to other countries we learn from the fact that the charters of
+medical schools granted by the Popes at this time require proper
+university preliminary studies, and four or five years at medicine
+before the degree of Doctor could be given. We know besides that in
+the cities only those who were graduates of properly recognized
+medical schools were allowed to practice medicine, so that there was
+every encouragement for the maintenance of professional standards.
+Indeed, {442} strange as it may seem to our generation, the standards
+of the Thirteenth Century in medical education were much higher than
+our own, and their medical schools were doing fine work.
+
+
+X. MAGNETISM.
+
+For proper understanding of the Thirteenth Century scholars, it is
+especially important to appreciate their thoroughly scientific temper
+of mind, their powers of observation, and their successful attainments
+in science. I know no more compendious way of reaching the knowledge
+of these qualities in the medieval mind, than a study of the letter of
+Peregrinus, which we would in our time call a monograph on magnetism.
+Brother Potamian, in his chapter in "Makers of Electricity" (Fordham
+University Press, N. Y., 1909) on Peregrinus and Columbus, sums up the
+very interesting contributions of this medieval student of magnetism
+to the subject. The list of chapters alone in Peregrinus' monograph
+(Epistola) makes it very clear how deep were his interests and how
+thoroughly practical his investigations.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+THE DOUBLE PIVOTED NEEDLE OF PEREGRINUS.
+
+
+They are:--"Part I., Chapter i, purpose of this work; 2,
+qualifications of the experimenter; 3, characteristics of a good
+lodestone; 4, how to distinguish the poles of a lodestone; 5, how to
+tell which pole is north and which is south; 6, how one lodestone
+attracts another; 7, how iron touched by a lodestone turns toward the
+poles of the world; 8, how a lodestone attracts iron; 9, why the north
+pole of one lodestone attracts the south pole of another, and vice
+versa; 10, an inquiry into the natural virtue of the lodestone.
+
+"Part II., Chapter 1, construction of an instrument for measuring the
+azimuth of the sun, the moon or any star then in the horizon; 2,
+construction of a better instrument for the same purpose; 3, the art
+of making a wheel of perpetual motion."
+
+In order to illustrate what Peregrinus accomplished it has seemed
+worth while to reproduce here the sketches which illustrate his
+epistle. We have the double pivoted needle and the first pivoted
+compass.
+
+In the light of certain recent events a passage from the "New Naval
+History or Complete Review of the British Marine" (London, 1757) is of
+special interest. It illustrates perhaps the new confidence that came
+to men in sailing to long distances as the result of the {443}
+realization of the practical value of the magnetic needle during the
+Thirteenth Century.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+FIRST PIVOTED COMPASS (PEREGRINUS, 1269).
+
+
+"In the year 1360 it is recorded that a friar of Oxford called
+Nicholas de Linna (of Lynn), being a good astronomer, went in company
+with others to the most northern island, and thence traveled alone,
+and that he went to the North Pole, by means of his skill in magic, or
+the black art; but this magic or black art may probably have been
+nothing more than a knowledge of the magnetic needle or compass, found
+out about sixty years before, though not in common use until many
+years after."
+
+
+XI. BIOLOGICAL THEORIES, EVOLUTION, RECAPITULATION.
+
+Of course only those who are quite unfamiliar with the history of
+philosophic thought are apt to think that the theory of evolution is
+modern. Serious students of biology are familiar with the long history
+of the theory, and especially its anticipations by the Greeks. Very
+few know, however, that certain phases of evolutionary theory
+attracted not a little attention from the scholastic philosophers. It
+would not be difficult to find expressions in Roger Bacon and Albertus
+Magnus, that would serve to show that they thought not only of the
+possibility of some very intimate relation of species but of
+developmental connections. The great teacher of the time, St. Thomas
+Aquinas, has some striking expressions in the matter, which deserve to
+be quoted, because he is the most important representative of the
+philosophy and science of the century and the one whose works most
+influenced succeeding generations. In the lecture on Medieval
+Scientific Universities, published in "Education, How Old the New"
+(Fordham University Press, N. Y., 1910), I called particular attention
+to this phase of St. Thomas' teaching. Two quotations will serve to
+make it clear here.
+
+Prof. Osborne, in "From the Greeks to Darwin," quotes Aquinas'
+commentary on St. Augustine's opinion with regard to the origin of
+things as they are. Augustine declared that the Creator had simply
+{444} brought into life the seeds of things, and given these the power
+to develop. Aquinas, expounding Augustine, says:
+
+  "As to production of plants, Augustine holds a different view, . . .
+  for some say that on the third day plants were actually produced,
+  each in his kind--a view favored by the superficial reading of
+  Scripture. But Augustine says that the earth is then said to have
+  brought forth grass and trees _causaliter_; that is, it then
+  received power to produce them." (Quoting Genesis ii:4): "For in
+  those first days, . . . God made creation primarily or _causaliter_,
+  and then rested from His work."
+
+Like expressions might be quoted from him, and other writers of the
+Thirteenth Century might well be cited in confirmation of the fact
+that while these great teachers of the Middle Ages thoroughly
+recognize the necessity for creation to begin with and the placing by
+the Creator of some power in living things that enables them to
+develop, they were by no means bound to the thought that all living
+species were due to special creations. They even did not hesitate to
+teach the possibility of the lower order of living beings at least
+coming into existence by spontaneous generation, and would probably
+have found no difficulty in accepting a theory of descent with the
+limitations that most scientific men of our generation are prone to
+demand for it.
+
+Lest it should be thought that this is a mere accidental agreement
+with modern thought, due much more to a certain looseness of terms
+than to actual similarity of view, it seems well to point out how
+close St. Thomas came to that thought in modern biology, which is
+probably considered to be one of our distinct modern contributions to
+the theory of evolution, though, in recent years, serious doubts have
+been thrown on it. It is expressed by the formula of Herbert Spencer,
+"Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." According to this, the completed
+being repeats in the course of its development the history of the
+race, that is to say, the varying phases of foetal development from
+the single cell in which it originates up to the perfect being of the
+special type as it is born into the world, retrace the history by
+which from the single cell being the creature in question has
+gradually developed.
+
+It is very curious to find that St. Thomas Aquinas, in his teaching
+with regard to the origin and development of the human being, says,
+almost exactly, what the most ardent supporters of this so-called
+fundamental biogenetic law proclaimed during the latter half of the
+Nineteenth Century, thinking they were expressing an absolutely new
+thought. He says that "the higher a form is in the scale of being and
+the farther it is removed from mere material form, the more
+intermediate forms must be passed through before the finally perfect
+form is reached. Therefore, in the generation of animal and man--
+these having the most perfect forms--there occur many intermediate
+forms in generations, and consequently destruction, because the {445}
+generation of one being is the destruction of another." St. Thomas
+draws the ultimate conclusions from this doctrine without hesitation.
+He proclaims that the human material is first animated by a vegetative
+soul or principle of life, and then by an animal soul, and only
+ultimately when the matter has been properly prepared for it by a
+rational soul. He said: "The vegetative soul, therefore, which is
+first in embryo, while it lives the life of a plant, is destroyed, and
+there succeeds a more perfect soul, which is at once nutrient and
+sentient, and for that time the embryo lives the life of an animal:
+upon the destruction of this there succeeds the rational soul, infused
+from without."
+
+
+XII. THE POPE OF THE CENTURY.
+
+The absence of a chapter on the Pope of the Century has always seemed
+a lacuna in the previous editions of this book. Pope Innocent III.,
+whose pontificate began just before the century opened, and occupied
+the first fifteen years of it, well deserves a place beside Francis
+the Saint, Thomas the Scholar, Dante the Poet, and Louis the Monarch
+of this great century. More than any other single individual he was
+responsible for the great development of the intellectual life that
+took place, but at the same time his wonderfully broad influence
+enabled him to initiate many of the movements that meant most for
+human uplift and for the alleviation of suffering in this period. It
+was in Councils of the Church summoned by him that the important
+legislation was passed requiring the development of schools, the
+foundation of colleges in every diocese and of universities in
+important metropolitan sees. What he accomplished for hospitals has
+been well told by Virchow, from whom I quote a magnanimous tribute in
+the chapter on the Foundation of City Hospitals. The legislation of
+Innocent III. did much to encourage, and yet to regulate properly the
+religious orders of this time engaged in charitable work. Besides
+doing so much for charity, he was a stern upholder of morals. As more
+than one king of the time realized while Innocent was Pope, there
+could be no trifling with marriage vows.
+
+On the other hand, while Innocent was so stern as to the enforcement
+of marriage laws, his wonderfully judicious character and his care for
+the weak and the innocent can be particularly noted in his treatment
+of the children in these cases. While he compelled recalcitrant kings
+to take back the wives they would repudiate, and put away other women
+who had won their affections, he did not hesitate to make due
+provision as far as possible for the illegitimate children. Pirie
+Gordon, in his recent life of Pope Innocent III., notes that he
+invariably legitimated the offspring of these illegal unions of kings,
+and even declared them capable of succession. He would not visit the
+guilt of the parent on the innocent offspring.
+
+{446}
+
+Innocent did more to encourage the idea of international arbitration
+than anyone up to his time. During his period more than once he was
+the arbitrator to whom rival national claims that might have led to
+war were referred. Probably his greatest claim on our admiration in
+the modern time is his attitude toward the Jews. In this he is
+centuries ahead of his time and, indeed, the policy that he laid down
+is far ahead of what is accorded to them by many of the nations even
+at the present time, and it must not be forgotten that it is only
+during the past hundred years that the Jew has come to have any real
+privileges comparable to those accorded to other men. At a time when
+the Jew had no real rights in law, Innocent insisted on according them
+all the rights of men. His famous edict in this regard is well known.
+"Let no Christian by violence compel them to come dissenting or
+unwilling to Baptism. Further let no Christian venture maliciously to
+harm their persons without a judgment of the civil power, to carry off
+their property or change their good customs which they have had
+hitherto in that district which they inhabit." When, in addition to
+all this, it is recalled that he was a distinguished scholar and
+graduate of the University of Paris, looked up to as one of the
+intellectual geniuses of the time, the author of a treatise "On the
+Contempt of the World" at a time when the kings of the earth were
+obeying him, known for his personal piety and for his thorough
+regulation of his own household, something of the greatness of the man
+will be appreciated. No wonder that historians who have taken up the
+special study of his career have always been won over to deep personal
+admiration of him, and though many of them began prejudiced in his
+regard, practically all of them were converted to be his sincere
+admirers.
+
+
+XIII. INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION.
+
+During the Peace Conference in New York in 1908 I was on the programme
+with Mr. William T. Stead of London, the editor of the English _Review
+of Reviews_, who was very much interested in the volume on the
+Thirteenth Century, and who suggested that one chapter in the book
+should have been devoted to the consideration of what was accomplished
+for peace and for International Arbitration during this century. There
+is no doubt that there developed, as the result of many Papal decrees,
+a greater tendency than has existed ever before or since, to refer
+quarrels between nations that would ordinarily end in war to decision
+by some selected umpire. Usually the Pope, as the head of the
+Christian Church, to which all the nations of the civilized world
+belonged, was selected as the arbitrator. This international
+arbitration, strengthened by the decrees of Pope Innocent III., Pope
+Honorius III. and Pope Alexander III., developed in a way that is well
+worth while studying, and that has deservedly been the subject of
+careful investigation since the present {447} peace movement began.
+Certainly the outlook for the securing of peace by international
+arbitration was better at this time than it has been at any time
+since. What a striking example, for instance, is the choice of King
+Louis of France as the umpire in the dispute between the Barons and
+the King of England, which might have led to war. Louis' position with
+regard to the Empire and the Papacy was to a great extent that of a
+pacificator, and his influence for peace was felt everywhere
+throughout Europe. The spirit of the century was all for arbitration
+and the adjudication of intranational as well as international
+difficulties by peaceful means.
+
+
+XIV. BIBLE REVISION.
+
+Most people will be quite sure that at least the question of Bible
+revision with critical study of text and comparative investigation of
+sources was reserved for our time. The two orders of friars founded in
+the early part of the Thirteenth Century, however, devoted themselves
+to the task of supplying to the people a thoroughly reliable edition
+of the Scriptures. The first systematic revision was made by the
+Dominicans about 1236. After twenty years this revision was set aside
+as containing too many errors, and another Dominican correction
+replaced it. Then came that great scholar, Hugh of St. Cher, known
+later as the Cardinal of Santa Sabina, the author of the first great
+Biblical Concordance. His Bible studies did much to clarify
+obscurities in the text. Sometime about 1240 he organized a commission
+of friars for the revision of what was known as the Paris Exemplar,
+the Bible text that was most in favor at that time. The aim of Hugh of
+St. Cher was to establish the old Vulgate of St. Jerome, the text
+which received this name during this century, but with such revision
+as would make this version correspond as nearly as possible to the
+Hebrew and the Greek.
+
+This activity on the part of the Dominicans was rivaled by the
+Franciscans. We might not expect to find the great scientist, Roger
+Bacon, as a Biblical scholar and reviser, but such he was, working
+with Willermus de Mara, to whom, according to Father Denifle, late the
+Librarian of the Vatican Library, must be attributed the title given
+him by Roger Bacon of Sapientissimus Vir. The Dominicans under the
+leadership of Hugh of St. Cher with high ideals had hoped to achieve a
+perfect primitive text. The version made by de Mara, however, with the
+approval and advice of Bacon, was only meant to bring out St. Jerome's
+text as perfectly as possible. These two revisions made in the
+Thirteenth Century are typical of all the efforts that men have made
+since in that same direction. Contrary to usual present day
+impressions, they are characterized by critical scholarship, and
+probably represent as great a contribution to Biblical lore as was
+made by any other century.
+
+{448}
+
+XV. FICTION OF THE CENTURY.
+
+Ordinarily it would be presumed that life was taken entirely too
+seriously during the Thirteenth Century for the generation to pay much
+attention to fiction. In a certain sense this is true. In the sense,
+however, that they had no stories worthy of the great literature in
+other departments it would be quite untrue. There is a naiveté about
+their story telling that rather amuses our sophisticated age, yet all
+the elements of our modern fiction are to be found in the stories that
+were popular during the century, and arranged with a dramatic effect
+that must have given them a wide appeal.
+
+The most important contribution to the fiction of the century is to be
+found in the collection known as the _Cento Novelle Antiche_ or
+"Hundred Ancient Tales," which contains the earliest prose fiction
+extant in Italian. Many of these come from a period anterior to Dante,
+and it is probable from what Manni, the learned editor of the
+_Novelliero_, says, that they were written out in the Thirteenth
+Century and collected in the early part of the Fourteenth Century.
+They did not all originate in Italy, and, indeed, Manni considers that
+most of them derived their origin from Provence. They represent the
+interest of the century in fiction and in anecdotal literature.
+
+As for the longer fiction, the pure love story of the modern time, we
+have one typical example of it in that curious relic of the Middle
+Ages, "Aucassin and Nicolette." The manuscript which preserved this
+for us comes from the Thirteenth Century. Perhaps, as M. Paris
+suggests, the tale itself is from the preceding century. At least it
+was the interest of the Thirteenth Century in it that saved it for us.
+For those who think that the love romance in any of its features is
+novel, though we call it by that name, or that there has been any
+development of human nature which enables the writer of love stories
+to appeal to other and deeper, or purer and loftier feelings in his
+loved ones now than in the past, all that is needed, as it seems to
+me, is a casual reading of this pretty old song-story.
+
+Perhaps the most interesting feature of this oldest specimen of modern
+fiction is the number of precious bits of psychologic analysis or, at
+least, what is called that in the recent time, which occur in the
+course of it. For instance, when Aucassin is grieving because he
+cannot find Nicolette he wanders through the forest on horseback, and
+is torn by trees and brambles, but "he feels it not at all." On the
+other hand, when he finds Nicolette, though he is suffering from a
+dislocated shoulder, he no longer feels any pain in it, because of his
+joy at the meeting, and Nicolette (first aid to the injured) is able
+to replace the dislocated part without difficulty (the trained nurse
+in fiction) because he is so happy as not to notice the pain
+(psychotherapy). The herdsman whom he meets wonders that Aucassin,
+with plenty of money and victuals, should grieve so much over the loss
+of Nicolette, {449} while he has so much more cause to grieve over the
+loss of an ox, which means starvation to him. Toward the end of the
+story we have the scene in which Nicolette, stolen from home when very
+young, and utterly unable to remember anything about her childhood,
+has brought back to her memory by the view of the city of Carthage
+forgotten events of her childhood (subconscious memory). These
+represent naively enough, it is true, the study of the mind under
+varying conditions that has in recent years been given the rather
+ambitious name of psychology in fiction.
+
+
+XVI. GREAT ORATORS.
+
+Without a chapter on the great orators of the period an account of the
+Thirteenth Century is quite incomplete. Great as were the other forms
+of literature, epic, lyric and religious poetry and the prose writing,
+it is probable that the oratory of the time surpassed them all. When
+we recall that the Cid, the Arthur Legends, the Nibelungen, the
+Meistersingers, and the Minnesingers, Reynard the Fox, the Romance of
+the Rose, the Troubadours, and even Dante are included in the other
+term of the comparison thus made, it may seem extravagant, but what we
+know of the effect of the orators of the time fully justifies it. Just
+before the Thirteenth Century, great religious orators swayed the
+hearts and minds of people, to the organization of the Crusades. At
+the beginning of the Thirteenth Century the mendicant orders were
+organized, and their important duties were preaching and teaching. The
+Dominicans were of course the Order of Preachers, and we have
+traditions of their sway over the minds of the people of the time
+which make it very clear that their power was equal to that exerted in
+any other department of human expression. There are traditions
+particularly of the oratory of the Dominicans among the German races,
+which serve to show how even a phlegmatic people can be stirred to the
+very depths of their being by the eloquent spoken word. In France the
+traditions are almost as explicit in this matter, and there are
+remains of religious orations that fully confirm the reputation of the
+orators of the time.
+
+Rhetoric and oratory was studied very assiduously. Cicero was the
+favorite reading of the great preachers of the time, and we find the
+court preachers of St. Louis, Étienne de Bourbon, Elinand, Guillaume
+de Perrault and others appealing to his precepts as the infallible
+guide to oratory. Quintilian was not neglected, however, and Symmachus
+and Sidonius Apollinaris were also faithfully studied. If we turn to
+the speeches that are incorporated in the epics, as, for instance, the
+Cid, or in some of the historians, as Villehardouin, we have definite
+evidence of the thorough command of the writers of the time over the
+forms of oratory. M. Paullin Paris, the authority in our time on the
+literature of the Thirteenth Century, quotes a passage from
+Villehardouin in which Canon de Bethune speaks in the {450} name of
+the French chiefs of the Fourth Crusade to the Emperors Isaac and
+Alexis Comnenus. M. Paris does not hesitate to declare that the
+passage is equal to many of the same kind that have been much admired
+in the classic authors. It has the force, the finish and the
+compression of Thucydides.
+
+
+XVII. GREAT BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE.
+
+Only the fact that this work was getting beyond the number of printed
+pages determined for it in the first edition prevented the insertion
+of a chapter especially devoted to the great beginnings of English
+literature in the Thirteenth Century. The most important contributions
+to Early English were made at this period. The Ormulum and Layamon's
+Brut, both written probably during the first decade of the Thirteenth
+Century, have become familiar to all students of Old English. Mr.
+Gollancz goes so far as to say that "The Ormulum is perhaps the most
+valuable document we possess for the history of English sound. Orm was
+a purist in orthography as well as in vocabulary, and may fittingly be
+described as the first of English phoneticians."
+
+
+[Illustration]
+MANUSCRIPT OF ORMULUM (THIRTEENTH CENTURY)
+
+
+Of Layamon, Garnett said in his "English Literature" (Garnett and
+Gosse): "It would have sufficed for the fame of Layamon had he been no
+more than the first minstrel to celebrate Arthur in English song, but
+his own pretensions as a poet are by no means inconsiderate. He is
+everywhere vigorous and graphic, and improved upon his predecessor,
+Wace, alike by his additions and expansions, and by his more spiritual
+handling of the subjects common to both." Even more important in the
+history of language than these is _The Ancren Riwle_ (The Anchorites'
+Rule). This was probably written by Richard Poore, Bishop of
+Salisbury, for three Cistercian nuns. Its place in English literature
+may be judged from a quotation or two with regard to it. Mr.
+Kington-Oliphant says: "_The Ancren Riwle_ is the forerunner of a
+wondrous change in our speech. More than anything else written outside
+the Danelagh, that piece has influenced our standard {451} English."
+Garnett says: "_The Ancren Riwle_ is a work of great literary merit
+and, in spite of its linguistic innovations, most of which have
+established themselves, well deserves to be described as 'one of the
+most perfect models of simple eloquent prose in our language.'"
+
+The religious poetry of the time is not behind the great prose of _The
+Ancren Riwle_, and one of them, the _Luve Ron_ (Love Song) of Thomas
+de Hales, is very akin to the spirit of that work, and has been well
+described as "a contemplative lyric of the simplest, noblest mold."
+Garnett says: "The reflections are such as are common to all who have
+in all ages pleaded for the higher life under whatsoever form, and
+deplored the frailty and transitoriness of man's earthly estate. Two
+stanzas on the latter theme as expressed in a modernized version might
+almost pass for Villon's:--
+
+  "Paris and Helen, where are they,
+    Fairest in beauty, bright to view?
+  Amadas, Tristrem, Ideine, yea
+    Isold, that lived with love so true?
+  And Caesar, rich in power and sway,
+    Hector the strong, with might to do?
+  All glided from earth's realm away,
+    Like shaft that from the bow-string flew.
+
+  "It is as if they ne'er were here.
+    Their wondrous woes have been a' told,
+  That it is sorrow but to hear;
+    How anguish killed them sevenfold,
+  And how with dole their lives were drear;
+    Now is their heat all turned to cold.
+  Thus this world gives false hope, false fear;
+    A fool, who in her strength is bold."
+
+
+XVIII. GREAT ORIGINS IN MUSIC.
+
+In the chapter on the Great Latin Hymns a few words were said about
+one phase of the important musical development in the Thirteenth
+Century, that of plain chant. In that simple mode the musicians of the
+Thirteenth Century succeeded in reaching a climax of expression of
+human feeling in such chants as the _Exultet_ and the _Lamentation_
+that has never been surpassed. Something was also said about the
+origin of part music, but so little that it might easily be thought
+that in this the century lagged far behind its achievements in other
+departments. M, Pierre Aubry has recently published (1909) _Cent
+Motets du XIIIe Siècle_ in three volumes. His first volume contains a
+photographic reproduction of the manuscript of Bamberg from which the
+hundred musical modes are secured, the second a transcription in
+modern musical notation of the old music, and the third volume studies
+and commentaries on the music and the times. If anything were needed
+to show how utterly ignorant we have been of the interests and
+artistic achievements of the Middle Ages, it is this book of M. Aubry.
+
+Victor Hugo said that music dates from the Sixteenth Century, and it
+has been quite the custom, even for people who thought they {452} knew
+something about music, to declare that we had no remains of any music
+before the Sixteenth Century worth while talking about. Ancient music
+is probably lost to us forever, but M. Aubry has shown conclusively
+that we have abundant remains to show us that the musicians of the
+Thirteenth Century devoted themselves to their art with as great
+success as their rivals in the other Gothic arts and, indeed, they
+thought that they had nearly exhausted its possibilities and tried to
+make a science of it. By their supposedly scientific rules they
+succeeded in binding music so firmly as to bring about its obscuration
+in succeeding centuries. This is, however, the old story of what has
+happened in every art whenever genius succeeds in finding a great mode
+of expression. A formula is evolved which often binds expression so
+rigorously as to prevent natural development.
+
+
+XIX. A CHAPTER ON MANNERS.
+
+Whatever the people of the Middle Ages may have been in morals, their
+manners are supposed to have been about as lacking in refinement as
+possible. As for nearly everything else, however, this impression is
+utterly false, and is due to the assumption that because we are
+better-mannered than the generations of a century or two ago,
+therefore we must be almost infinitely in advance, in the same
+respect, of the people of seven centuries ago. There are ups and downs
+in manners, however, as there are in education, and the beginnings of
+the formal setting forth of modern manners are, like everything else
+modern, to be found in the Thirteenth Century. About the year 1215
+Thomasin Zerklaere wrote in German a rather lengthy treatise, _Der
+Wälsche Gast_, on manners. It contains most of the details of polite
+conduct that have been accepted in later times. Not long afterwards,
+John Garland, an Oxford man who had lived in France for many years,
+wrote a book on manners for English young men. He meant this to be a
+supplement to Dionysius Cato's treatise, written probably in the
+Fourth Century in Latin, which was concerned more with morals than
+manners and had been very popular during the Middle Ages. Garland's
+book was the first of a series of such treatises on manners which
+appeared in England at the close of the Middle Ages. Many of them have
+been recently republished, and are a revelation of the development of
+manners among our English forefathers. The book is usually alluded to
+in literature as Liber Faceti, or as Facet; the full title was, "The
+Book of the Polite Man, Teaching Manners for Men, Especially for Boys,
+as a Supplement to those which were Omitted by the Most Moral Cato."
+The "Romance of the Rose" has, of course, many references to manners
+which show us how courtesy was cultivated in France. In Italy, Dante's
+teacher, Bruneto Latini, published his "Tesoretto," which treats of
+manners, and which was soon followed by a number of similar treatises
+in {453} Italian. In a word, we must look to the Thirteenth Century
+for the origin, or at least the definite acceptance, of most of those
+conventions which make for kindly courtesy among men, and have made
+possible human society and friendly intercourse in our modern sense of
+those words.
+
+We are prone to think that refinement in table manners is a matter of
+distinctly modern times. In "The Babees' Book," which is one of the
+oldest books of English manners, the date of which in its present form
+is about the middle of the Fourteenth Century, many of our rules of
+politeness at table are anticipated. This book is usually looked upon
+as a compilation from preceding times, and the original of it is
+supposed to be from the preceding century. A few quotations from it
+will show how closely it resembles our own instructions to children:
+
+  "Thou shalt not laugh nor speak nothing
+  While thy mouth be full of meat or drink;
+  Nor sup thou not with great sounding
+  Neither pottage nor other thing.
+  At meat cleanse not thy teeth, nor pick
+  With knife or straw or wand or stick.
+  While thou holdest meat in mouth, beware
+  To drink; that is an unhonest chare;
+  And also physic forbids it quite.
+  Also eschew, without strife.
+  To foul the board cloth with thy knife.
+
+  Nor blow not on thy drink or meat,
+  Neither for cold, neither for heat.
+  Nor bear with meat thy knife to mouth.
+  Whether thou be set by strong or couth.
+  Lean not on elbow at thy meat,
+  Neither for cold nor for heat.
+  Dip not thy thumb thy drink into;
+  Thou art uncourteous if thou it do.
+  In salt-cellar if thou put
+  Or fish or flesh that men see it,
+  That is a vice, as men me tells;
+  And great wonder it would be else."
+
+The directions, "how to behave thyself in talking with any man," in
+one of these old books, are very minute and specific:--
+
+  "If a man demand a question of thee.
+  In thine answer making be not too hasty;
+  Weigh well his words, the case understand
+  Ere an answer to make thou take in hand;
+  Else may he judge in thee little wit,
+  To answer to a thing and not hear it.
+  Suffer his tale whole out to be told.
+  Then speak thou mayst, and not be controlled;
+
+  In audible voice thy words do thou utter,
+  Not high nor low, but using a measure.
+  Thy words see that thou pronounce plaine.
+  And that they spoken be not in vain;
+  In uttering whereon keep thou an order,
+  Thy matter thereby thou shalt much forder
+  Which order if thou do not observe.
+  From the purpose needs must thou swerve."
+
+
+{454}
+
+
+XX. TEXTILE WORK OF THE CENTURY.
+
+A special chapter might easily have been written on the making of fine
+cloths of various kinds, most of which reached their highest
+perfection in the Thirteenth Century. Velvet, for instance, is
+mentioned for the first time in England in 1295, but existed earlier
+on the continent, and cut velvets with elaborate patterns were made in
+Genoa exactly as we know finished velvet now. Baudekin or Baldichin, a
+very costly textile of gold and silk largely used in altar coverings
+and hangings, came to very high perfection in this century also. The
+canopy for the Blessed Sacrament is, because of its manufacture from
+this cloth, still called in Italy a _baldichino_. Chaucer in the next
+century tells how the streets in royal processions were "hanged with
+cloth of gold and not with serge." Satin also was first manufactured
+very probably in the Thirteenth Century. It is first mentioned in
+England about the middle of the Fourteenth Century, when Bishop
+Grandison made a gift of choice satins to Exeter Cathedral. The word
+satin, however, is derived from the silks of the Mediterranean, called
+by the Italians _seta_ and by the Spanish _seda_, and the art of
+making it was brought to perfection during the preceding century.
+
+The art of making textiles ornamented with elaborate designs of animal
+forms and of floral ornaments reached its highest perfection in the
+Thirteenth Century. In one of the Chronicles we learn that in 1295 St.
+Paul's in London owned a hanging "patterned with wheels and two-headed
+birds." We have accounts of such elaborate textile ornamentation as
+peacocks, lions, griffins and the like. Almeria in Andalusia was a
+rich city in the Thirteenth Century, noted for its manufactures of
+textiles. A historian of the period writes: "Christians of all nations
+came to its port to buy and sell. Then they traveled to other parts of
+the interior of the country, where they loaded their vessels with such
+goods as they wanted. Costly silken robes of the brightest colors are
+manufactured in Almeria." Marco-Polo says of the Persians that, when
+he passed through that country (end of the Thirteenth Century), "there
+are excellent artificers in the city who make wonderful things in
+gold, silk and embroidery. The women make excellent needlework in silk
+with all sorts of creatures very admirably wrought therein." He also
+reports the King of Tartary as wearing on his birthday a most precious
+garment of gold, and tells of the girdles of gold and silver, with
+pearls and ornaments of great price on them.
+
+Unfortunately English embroidery fell off very greatly at the time of
+the Wars of the Roses. These wars constitute the main reason why
+nearly every form of intellectual accomplishment and artistic
+achievement went into decadence during the Fourteenth Century, from
+which they were only just emerging when the so-called {455}
+reformation, with its confiscation of monastic property, and its
+destruction of monastic life, came to ruin schools of all kinds, and,
+above all, those in which the arts and crafts had been taught so
+successfully. France at the end of the Thirteenth Century saw a
+similar rise to excellence of textile and embroidery work. In 1299
+there is an allusion to one Clément le Brodeur who furnished a
+magnificent cope for the Count of Artois. In 1316 a beautifully
+decorated set of hangings was made for the Queen by Gautier de
+Poulleigny. There are other references to work done in the early part
+of the Fourteenth Century, which serve to show the height which art
+had reached in this mode during the Thirteenth Century. In Ireland,
+while the finer work had its due place, the making of woolens was the
+specialty, and the dyeing of woolen cloth made the Irish famous and
+brought many travelers from the continent to learn the secret.
+
+The work done in England in embroidery attracted the attention of the
+world. English needlework became a proverb. In the body of the book I
+mentioned the cope of Ascoli, but there were many such beautiful
+garments. The Syon cope is, in the opinion of Miss Addison, author of
+"Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages," the most conspicuous example of
+the medieval embroiderers' art. It was made by nuns about the middle
+of the Thirteenth Century, that is, just about the same time as the
+cope of Ascoli, but in a convent near Coventry. According to Miss
+Addison "it is solid stitchery on a canvas ground, wrought about with
+divers colors' on green. The design is laid out in a series of
+interlacing square forms, with rounded and barbed sides and corners.
+In each of these is a figure or a Scriptural scene. The orphreys, or
+straight borders, which go down on both fronts of the cope, are
+decorated with heraldic charges. Much of the embroidery is raised, and
+wrought in the stitch known as Opus Anglicanum. The effect was
+produced by pressing a heated metal knob into the work at such points
+as were to be raised. The real embroidery was executed on a flat
+surface, and then bossed up by this means until it looked like
+bas-relief. The stitches in every part run in zig-zags, the vestments,
+and even the nimbi about the heads, are all executed with the stitches
+slanting in one direction, from the center of the cope outward,
+without consideration of the positions of the figures. Each face is
+worked in circular progression outward from the center, as well. The
+interlaces are of crimson, and look well on the green ground. The
+wheeled cherubim is well developed in the design of this famous cope,
+and is a pleasing decorative bit of archaic ecclesiasticism. In the
+central design of the Crucifixion, the figure of the Lord is rendered
+in silver on a gold ground."
+
+
+XXI. GLASS-MAKING.
+
+A chapter might well have been devoted to Thirteenth Century
+glass-making quite apart from the stained glass of the cathedral {456}
+windows. All over Europe some of the most wonderful specimens of
+colored glass we possess were made in the Thirteenth Century. Recently
+Mr. Frederick Rolfe has looked up for me Venetian glass, of the three
+centuries, the Twelfth, the Thirteenth and the Fourteenth. He says
+Twelfth Century glass is small in form, simple and ignorant in model,
+excessively rich and brilliant in colors; the artist evidently had no
+ideal, but the Byzantine of jewels and emeralds.
+
+  "Thirteenth Century glass is absolutely different. The specimens are
+  pretty. The work of the Beroviero family is large and splendid in
+  form, exquisite and sometimes elaborate in model, mostly crystal
+  glass reticently studded with tiny colored gem-like knobs. There are
+  also fragments of two windows pieced together, and missing parts
+  filled with the best which modern Murano can do. These show the
+  celebrated Beroviero Ruby glass (secret lost) of marvelous depth and
+  brilliancy in comparison with which the modern work is merely
+  watery. The ancient is just like a decanter of port-wine.
+
+  "Fourteenth Century returns to the wriggling ideal and exiguous form
+  of the Twelfth Century, and fails woefully in brilliance of color.
+  It is small and dull and undistinguished. One may find out what war
+  or pest afflicted Murano at this epoch to explain the singular
+  degradation."
+
+This same curious degradation took place in the manufacture of most
+art objects during the Fourteenth Century. One would feel in Mr.
+Rolfe's words like looking for some physical cause for it. The
+decadence is so universal, however, that it seems not unlikely that it
+follows some little known human law, according to which, after man has
+reached a certain perfection of expression in an art or craft, there
+comes, in the striving after originality yet variety, an overbalancing
+of the judgment, a vitiation of the taste in the very luxuriance of
+beauty discovered that leads to decay. It is the very contradiction of
+the supposed progress of mankind through evolution, but it is
+illustrated in many phases of human history and, above all, the
+history of art, letters, education and the arts and crafts.
+
+
+XXII. INVENTIONS.
+
+Most people are sure to think that, at least in the matter of
+inventions, ours is the only time worth considering. The people of the
+Thirteenth Century, however, made many wonderful inventions and
+adaptations of mechanical principles, as well as many ingenious
+appliances. Their faculty of invention was mainly devoted to work in
+other departments besides that of mechanics. They were inventors of
+designs in architecture, in decoration, in furnishings, in textiles,
+and in the beautiful things of life generally. Their inventiveness in
+the arts and crafts was especially admirable and, indeed, has been
+fruitful in our time, since, with the reawakening in this matter, we
+have gone back to imitate their designs. Good authorities declare
+these to be endless in number and variety. Such mechanical inventions
+as were {457} needed for the building of their great cathedrals, their
+municipal buildings, abbeys, castles, piers, bridges and the like were
+admirably worked out. Necessity is the mother of invention, and
+whenever needs asserted themselves, these old generations responded to
+them, very successfully. There are, however, a number of inventions
+that would attract attention even, in the modern time for their
+practical usefulness and ingenuity. With the growth of the
+universities writing became much more common, textbooks were needed,
+and so paper was invented. With the increase of reading, to replace
+teaching by hearing, spectacles were invented. Time became more
+precious, clocks were greatly improved, and we hear of the invention
+of something like an alarm clock, an apparatus which, after a fixed
+number of hours, woke the monk of the abbey whose duty it was to
+arouse the others. Organs for churches were greatly improved, bells
+were perfected, and everything else in connection with the churches so
+well fashioned that we still use them in their Thirteenth Century
+forms. Gunpowder was not invented, but a great many new uses were
+found for it, and Roger Bacon even suggested, as I have said, that
+sometime explosives would enable boats to move by sea without sails or
+oars, or carriages to move on land without horses or men. Roger Bacon
+even suggested the possibility of airships, described how one might be
+made, the wings of which would be worked by a windlass, and thought
+that he could make it. His friend and pupil, Peregrinus, invented the
+double pivoted compass, and, as the first perpetual-motion faddist,
+described how he would set about making a magnetic engine that he
+thought would run forever. When we recall how much they accomplished
+mechanically in the construction of buildings, it becomes evident that
+any mechanical problem that these generations wanted solved they
+succeeded in solving very well. What they have left us as inventions
+are among the most useful appliances that we have. Without paper and
+without spectacles, the intellectual world would be in a sad case,
+indeed. Many of the secrets of their inventions in the arts and crafts
+have been lost, and, in spite of all our study, we have not succeeded
+in rediscovering them.
+
+
+XXIII. INDUSTRY AND TRADE.
+
+We are rather inclined to think that large organizations of industry
+and trade were reserved for comparatively modern times. To think so,
+however, is to forget the place occupied by the monasteries and
+convents in the olden time. We have heard much of the lazy monks, but
+only from those who know nothing at all about them. Idleness in the
+monasteries was one of the accusations made by the commission set to
+furnish evidence to Henry VIII. on which he might suppress the
+monasteries, but every modern historian has rejected the findings of
+that commission as false. Many forms of manufacture were carried on in
+the monasteries and convents. They were {458} the principal bookmakers
+and bookbinders. To a great extent they were the manufacturers of art
+fabrics and arts-and-crafts work intended for church use, but also for
+the decoration of luxurious private apartments. Most of us have known
+something of all this finer work, but not that they had much to do
+with cruder industries also. They were millers, cloth-makers,
+brush- and broom-makers, shoemakers for themselves and their tenantry;
+knitting was done in the convents, and all the finer fancy work. A
+recent meeting of the Institute of Mining Engineers in England brought
+out some discussion of coal mining in connection with the early
+history of the coal mines in England. The records of many of the
+English monasteries show that in early times the monks knew the value
+of coal, and used it rather freely. They also mined it for others. The
+monks at Tynemouth are known to have been mining coal on the Manor of
+Tynemouth in 1269, and shipping it to a distance. At Durham and at
+Finchale Abbey they were doing this also about the same time. It would
+require special study to bring out the interesting details, but there
+is abundant material not alone for a chapter, but for a volume on the
+industries of the Thirteenth Century, which, like the education and
+the literature and the culture of the time, we have thought
+undeveloped, because we knew nothing of them.
+
+The relation of the monasteries to trade, domestic and foreign, is
+very well brought out in a paragraph of Mr. Ralph Adams Cram's book on
+"The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain" (New York, The Churchman Co.,
+1905), in which he describes the remains at Beaulieu, which show the
+place of that monastery, not by any means one of the most important in
+England, in trade. For the benefit of their tenantry others had done
+even more.
+
+  "Some idea of the power of one of these great monasteries may be
+  gained from traces still existing of the center of trade built up by
+  the monks outside their gates. Here, at the head of tide water, in a
+  most out-of-the-way spot, a great stone quay was constructed, to
+  which came ships from foreign lands. Near by was a great
+  marketplace, now, as then, called Cheapside, though commerce exists
+  there no longer. At the height of monastic glory the religious
+  houses were actually the chief centers of industry and civilization,
+  and around them grew up the eager villages, many of which now exist,
+  even though their impulse and original inspiration have long since
+  departed. Of course, the possessions of the abbey reached far away
+  from the walls in every direction, including many farms even at a
+  great distance, for the abbeys were then the great landowners, and
+  beneficent landlords they were as well, even in their last days, for
+  we have many records of the cruelty and hardships that came to the
+  tenants the moment the stolen lands came into the hands of laymen."
+
+
+XXIV. FAIRS AND MARKETS.
+
+A chapter might well have been devoted to showing the significance of
+those curious old institutions, the fairs and market days of the {459}
+Middle Ages. The country folk flocked into town, bringing with them
+their produce, and found there gathered from many parts merchants come
+to exchange and barter. The expense of maintaining a store all the
+year around was done away with, and profits did not have to be large.
+Exchanges were direct, and the profits of the middlemen were to a
+great extent eliminated. It was distinctly to the advantage of the
+poor, for the expenses of commerce were limited to the greatest
+possible extent, and every advantage accrued to the customer.
+
+Besides, these market days became days of innocent merriment,
+amusement and diversion. Wandering purveyors of amusement followed the
+fairs, and obtained their living from the generosity of the people who
+were amused. These amusements were conducted out of doors, and with
+very few of the objectionable features as regards hygiene and morality
+that are likely to attach themselves to the same things in our day.
+The amusement was what we would call now vaudeville, singing, dancing,
+the exhibition of trained animals, acrobatic feats of various kinds,
+so that we cannot very well say that our people are in advance of
+their medieval forbears in such matters, since their taste is about
+the same. Fairs and market days made country life less monotonous by
+their regular recurrence, and so prevented that emptying of the
+country into the city which we deprecate in our time. They had
+economic, social, even moral advantages, that are worth while
+studying.
+
+
+XXV. INTENSIVE FARMING.
+
+We hear much of intensive farming in the modern time, and it is
+supposed to be a distinctly modern invention mothered by the necessity
+due to great increase of population. One of the most striking features
+of the story of monasticism in the countries of Europe, however,
+during the Middle Ages, and especially during the Thirteenth Century,
+when so many of the greatest abbeys reached a climax of power and
+influence and beauty of construction, is their successful devotion
+paid to agriculture. In the modern time we are gradually learning the
+lesson of growing larger and larger crops on the same area of ground
+by proper selection of seed, and of developing cattle in such a way as
+to make them most valuable as a by-product of farming. This is exactly
+what the old monastic establishments did. At the beginning of the
+Thirteenth Century many of them were situated in rather barren
+regions, sometimes, indeed, surrounded by thick forests, but at the
+end of the century all the great monastic establishments had succeeded
+in making beautiful luxuriant gardens for themselves, and had taught
+their numerous tenantry the great lessons of agricultural improvement
+which made for plenty and happiness.
+
+Many monasteries belonged to the same religious order, and the
+traditions of these were carried from one to the other by visiting
+{460} monks or sometimes by the transfer of members of one community
+to another. The monastic establishments were the great farmers of
+Europe, and it was their proud boast that their farming lands, instead
+of being exhausted from year to year, were rather increasing in value.
+They doubtless had many secrets of farming that were lost and had to
+be rediscovered in the modern time, just as in the arts and crafts,
+for their success in farming was as noteworthy. Their knowledge of
+trees must have been excellent, since they surrounded themselves with
+fine forests, at times arranged so as to provide shady walks and
+charming avenues. Their knowledge of simple farming must have been
+thorough, for the farms of the monasteries were always the most
+prosperous, and the tenantry were always the happiest. With the
+traditions that we have especially in English history, this seems
+almost impossible to credit, but these traditions, manufactured for a
+purpose, have now been entirely discredited. We have learned in recent
+years what wonderful scholars, architects, painters, teachers,
+engineers these monks were, and so it is not surprising to find that
+they had magnificently developed agricultural knowledge as well as
+that of every other department in which they were particularly
+interested.
+
+
+XXVI. CARTOGRAPHY AND THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY.
+
+In the chapter on Great Explorers and The Foundation of Geography, in
+the body of the book, much might have been said about maps and
+map-making, for the Thirteenth Century was a great period in this
+matter. Lecoy de la Marche among his studies of the Thirteenth Century
+has included a volume of a collection of the maps of the Thirteenth
+Century. If the purpose had been to make this a work of erudition
+rather than of popular information, much might have been said of the
+cartography of the time even from this work alone (_Receuil de Charles
+du XIII e Siècle_, Paris, 1878). One of the great maps of the
+Thirteenth Century, that on the Cathedral wall of Hereford, deserves a
+place here. It was made just at the end of the Thirteenth Century. The
+idea of its maker was to convey as much information as possible about
+the earth, and not merely indicate its political divisions and the
+relative size and position of the different parts. It is to a certain
+extent at least a resume of history, of physical geography, and even
+of geographical biology and anthropology, for it has indications as to
+the dwelling-place of animals and curious types of men. It contains,
+besides, references to interesting objects of other kinds. Because of
+its interest I have reproduced the map itself, and the key to it with
+explanations published at Hereford.
+
+{461}
+
+  [Illustration]
+  _Key to the Photograph of the Ancient Map of the World_.
+  PRESERVED IN HEREFORD CATHEDRAL.
+
+  [Illustration]
+  MAP OF THE WORLD (HEREFORD CATHEDRAL)
+
+The Map is executed on a single sheet of vellum, 54 in. in breadth, by
+63 in. in extreme height, it is fixed on a strong framework of oak. At
+the top (Fig. 1) is a representation of the Last Judgment. Our Saviour
+is represented in glory, and below is the Virgin Mary interceding for
+mankind.
+
+For convenience of reference the Key Map is divided into squares
+marked by Roman capitals, with the more prominent objects in figures.
+I.--Commencing with sq. 1. the circle marked by Fig. 2 represents the
+Garden of Eden, with the four rivers, and Adam and Eve eating the
+forbidden fruit. The remainder of the square, as also in II. and III.,
+is occupied by India. At Fig. 3 is shown the expulsion of Adam and
+Eve, to the right of which is shown a race of Giants, and to the left
+the City of Enoch, and still further the Golden Mountains guarded by
+Dragons. Below these mountains are shown a race of pigmies. In a space
+bounded by two rivers is placed a crocodile, and immediately below a
+female warrior. To the left of the latter are a pair of birds called
+in the Map Alerions. The large {462} river to the left is the Ganges.
+II.--Shows one of the inhabitants of this part of India, who are said
+to have but one foot, which is sufficiently large to serve as an
+umbrella to shelter themselves from the sun. The city in the center is
+Samarcand. III.--In which is seen an Elephant, to the left a Parrot. A
+part of the Red Sea is also shown with the Island of Taprobana
+(Ceylon), on which are shown two Dragons. It also bears an inscription
+denoting that dragons and elephants are found there. The small Islands
+shown are Crise, Argire, Ophir, and Frondisia (Aphrodisia).
+IV.--Contains the Caspian Sea, below which is a figure holding its
+tail in his hand, and which the author calls the Minotaur. To the left
+is shown one of the Albani, who are said to see better at night than
+in the daytime. Below are two warriors in combat with a Griffin (Fig.
+27). V.--In the upper part are Bokhara and Thrace, in the latter of
+which (Fig. 29) is shown the Pelican feeding its young, to the left a
+singular figure representing the Cicones, and to the right the Camel,
+in Bactria. Below to the left is the Tiger, and on the right an animal
+with a human head and the body of a lion, called the Mantichora. Still
+lower is seen Noah's ark (Fig. 28), in which are shown three human
+figures, with beasts, birds and serpents. In the lower corner, at Fig.
+26, is the Golden Fleece. VI.--The upper parts contain Babylonia, with
+the City of Babylon (Fig. 4) on the river Euphrates, below which is
+the city of Damascus, which has on its right an unknown animal called
+the Marsok. To the right is Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt
+(Fig. 8). Decapolis and the River Jordan are near the bottom of the
+square. Above the River Euphrates is a figure in a frame representing
+the Patriarch Abraham's residence at Ur of the Chaldees. VII.--The Red
+Sea (Figs. 5, 5) is the most conspicuous object here. In the fork
+formed by it is shown the giving of the Tables of The Law on Mount
+Sinai. Below, and touching the line (Fig. 6) showing the wanderings of
+the Israelites, is seen the worship of the Golden Calf. The Dead Sea
+and submerged Cities are shown lower down to the left, and between
+this and the Red Sea is the Phoenix. At the bottom is a mythical
+animal with long horns, called the Eale. VIII.--In the upper part is
+the Monastery of St. Anthony in Ethiopia. The river to the left is the
+Nile, between this and a great interior lake (Figs. 7, 7) is a figure
+of Satyr. Beyond the lake, and extending a distance down the Map
+(Figs. 12, 12, 12), are various singular figures, supposed to
+represent the races dwelling there. In a circular island to the left
+(Meroe) is a man riding a crocodile, and at the bottom left-hand
+corner is a centaur. IX.--The upper part is Scythia, and shows some
+cannibals, below which (Fig. 25) are two Scythians in combat. Under
+this again is a man leading a horse with a human skin thrown over it,
+and to the right of the latter is placed the ostrich. X.--Asia Minor
+with the Black Sea (Fig. 24). Many cities are shown prominent, among
+which is Troy (Fig. 21), described as "_Troja civitas
+bellicosissima_." Near the bottom to the left is Constantinople. The
+lynx is shown near the center. XI.--Is nearly filled by the Holy Land.
+In the center is Jerusalem (Fig. 23), the supposed center of the
+world, surrounded by a high wall, and above is the Crucifixion. Below
+Jerusalem to the right is Bethlehem with the manger. Near a circular
+place to the right, called _"Puteus Juramenti"_ (well of the oath), is
+an unknown bird, called on the Map Avis Cirenus. XII.--Egypt with the
+Nile. At the upper part (Fig. 9) are Joseph's granaries, i.e., the
+Pyramids, immediately below which is the Salamander, and to the right
+of that the Mandrake. Fig. 10 denotes the Delta with its cities. {463}
+On the other side of the Nile, and partly in sq. XIII., is the
+Rhinoceros, and below it the Unicorn. XIII.--Ethiopia. In the upper
+left-hand corner is the Sphinx, and near the bottom the Temple of
+Jupiter Ammon, represented by a singular horse-shoe shaped figure. The
+camp of Alexander the Great is in the bottom left-hand corner,
+immediately above which is the boundary line between Asia and Africa,
+XIV.--At the top of the left is Norway, in which the author has placed
+the Monkey. The middle is filled by Russia. The small circular islands
+on the left are the Orkneys, immediately below which is an inscription
+relating to the Seven Sleepers, Scotland and part of England are shown
+in the lower part, but the British Isles will be described in sq. XIX.
+The singular triangular figure in the center of this square cannot be
+identified. XV.--Germany, with part of Greece, in the upper part to
+the right. The Danube and its tributaries are seen in the upper part,
+in the lower is the Rhine. On the bank of the latter the scorpion is
+placed; Venice is shown on the right, XVI.--Contains Italy and a great
+part of the Mediterranean Sea (Fig. 14). About the center (Fig. 17) is
+Rome, which bears the inscription, "Roma caput mundi tenet orbis frena
+rotundi." In the upper part of the Mediterranean Sea is seen a
+Mermaid, below (Fig. 11) is the Island of Crete, with its famous
+labyrinth, to the left of which is the rock Scylla. Below Crete is
+Sicily (Fig. 15), on which Mount Etna is shown; close to Sicily is the
+whirlpool Charybdis, XVII.--Part of Africa; in the lower part to the
+left, on a promontory, is seen Carthage; on the right the Leopard is
+shown. XVIII.--Also part of Africa. The upper part is Fezzan, below is
+shown the basilisk, and still lower some Troglodytes or dwellers in
+caves. XIX.--On the left hand are the British Isles (Figs. 19, 20,
+22), on the right France. Great Britain (Figs. 19, 22) is very fully
+laid down, but of Ireland the author seemed to know but little. In
+England twenty-six cities and towns are delineated, among which
+Hereford (H'ford) is conspicuous. Twenty rivers are also seen, but the
+only mountains shown are the Clee Hills. In Wales, Snowdon is seen,
+and the towns of Carnarvon, Conway and St. David's. In Ireland four
+towns, Armagh, Bangor, Dublin and Kildare, with two rivers, the Banne,
+which, as shown, divides the island in two, and the Shannon. In
+Scotland there are six towns. In France the City of Paris (Fig. 18) is
+conspicuous. XX.--The upper part is Provence, the lower Spain. In the
+Mediterranean Sea are laid down, among others, the Islands of Corsica,
+Sardinia, Majorca, and Minorca. At the bottom are (Fig. 16) the
+pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar), which were considered the extreme
+western limits of the world. XXI.--At the top to the left (Fig. 13) is
+St. Augustine of Hippo, in his pontifical habit. And at the opposite
+corner the Lion, below which are the Agriophagi, a one-eyed people who
+live on the flesh of lions and other beasts. The kingdoms on the shore
+of the Mediterranean are Algiers, Setif, and Tangier.
+
+
+{464}
+
+
+APPENDIX III.
+
+CRITICISMS, COMMENTS, DOCUMENTS.
+
+
+HUMAN PROGRESS.
+
+For most people the impossible would apparently be accomplished if a
+century so far back as the Thirteenth were to be even seriously
+thought of as the greatest of centuries. Evolution has come to be
+accepted so unquestioningly, that of course "we are the heirs of all
+the ages of the foremost files of time," and must be far ahead of our
+forbears, especially of the distant past, in everything. When a man
+talks glibly about great progress in recent times, he usually knows
+only the history of his own time and not very much about that. Men who
+have studied other periods seriously hesitate about the claim of
+progress, and the more anyone knows about any other period, the less
+does he think of his own as surpassing. There are many
+exemplifications of this in recent literature. Because this was a
+cardinal point in many criticisms of the book, it has seemed well to
+illustrate the position here taken as to the absence of progress in
+humanity by quotations from recognized authorities. Just as the first
+edition of this book came from the press, Ambassador Bryce delivered
+his address at Harvard on "What is Progress?" It appeared in the
+_Atlantic Monthly_ for August, 1907. Mr. Bryce is evidently not at all
+persuaded that there is human progress in any real sense of the word.
+Some striking quotations may be made from the address, but to get the
+full impression of Mr. Bryce's reasons for hesitation about accepting
+any progress, the whole article needs to be read. For instance, he
+said:
+
+  "It does not seem possible, if we go back to the earliest literature
+  which survives to us from Western Asia and Southeastern Europe, to
+  say that the creative powers of the human mind in such subjects as
+  poetry, philosophy, and historical narrative or portraiture, have
+  either improved or deteriorated. The poetry of the early Hebrews and
+  of the early Greeks has never been surpassed and hardly ever
+  equaled. Neither has the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, nor the
+  speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero. Geniuses like Dante, Chaucer,
+  and Shakespeare appear without our being able to account for them,
+  and for aught we know another may appear at any moment. It is just
+  as difficult, if we look back five centuries, to assert either
+  progress or decline in painting. Sculpture has never again risen to
+  so high a level as it touched in the fifth century, B. C, nor within
+  the last three centuries, to so high a level as it reached at the
+  end of the fifteenth. But we can found no generalizations upon that
+  fact. Music is the most inscrutable of the arts, and whether there
+  is any progress to be expected other {465} than that which may come
+  from a further improvement in instruments constituting an orchestra,
+  I will not attempt to conjecture, any more than I should dare to
+  raise controversy by inquiring whether Beethoven represents progress
+  from Mozart, Wagner progress from Beethoven."
+
+Perhaps the most startling evidence on this subject of the absence of
+evolution in humanity is the opinion of Prof. Flinders Petrie, the
+distinguished English authority on Egyptology, who has added nearly a
+millennium to the history of Egypt. His studies have brought him in
+intimate contact with Egypt from 2,000 to 5,000 B. C. He has found no
+reason at all for thinking that our generation is farther advanced in
+any important qualities than men were during this period. In an
+article on "The Romance of Early Civilization" (_The Independent_,
+Jan. 7, 1909), he said:
+
+  "We have now before us a view of the powers of man at the earliest
+  point to which we can trace written history, and what strikes us
+  most is how very little his nature or abilities have changed in
+  seven thousand years; _what he admired we admire; what were his
+  limits in fine handiwork also are ours_. We may have a wider
+  outlook, a greater understanding of things; our interests may have
+  extended in this interval; but so far as human nature and tastes go,
+  man is essentially unchanged in this interval." . . . "This is the
+  practical outcome of extending our view of man three times as far
+  back as we used to look, and it must teach us how little material
+  civilization is likely in the future to change the nature, the
+  weaknesses, or the abilities of our ancestors in ages yet to come."
+
+Those who think that man has advanced in practical wisdom during the
+6,000 years of history, forget entirely the lessons of literature.
+Whenever a great genius has written, he has displayed a knowledge of
+human nature as great as any to be found at any other time in the
+world's history. The wisdom of Homer and of Solomon are typical
+examples. Probably the most striking evidence in this matter is to be
+found in what is considered to be the oldest book ever written. This
+is the Instructions of Ptah Hotep to his son. Ptah Hotep was the
+vizier of King Itosi, of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt (about 3650 B.C.).
+There is nothing that a father of the modern time would wish to tell
+his boy as the result of his own experience that is not to be found in
+this wise advice of a father, nearly 6,000 years ago. This was written
+longer before Solomon than Solomon is before us, yet no practical
+knowledge to be gained from intercourse with men has been added to
+what this careful father of the long ago has written out for his son.
+
+
+THE CENTURY OF ORIGINS.
+
+To many readers apparently, it has seemed that the main reason for
+writing of The Thirteenth as the Greatest of Centuries was the fact
+that the Church occupied so large a place in the life of that time,
+and that, therefore, most of what was accomplished must naturally
+revert {466} to her account. It is not only those who are interested
+in the old Church, however, who have written enthusiastically about
+the Thirteenth Century. Since writing this volume, I have found that
+Mr. Frederick Harrison is almost, if not quite, as ardent in his
+praise of it as I have been. There are many others, especially among
+the historians of art and of architecture, who apparently have not
+been able to say all that they would wish in admiration of this
+supreme century. Most of these have not been Catholics; and if we
+place beside Mr. Frederick Harrison, the great Positivist of our
+generation, Mr. John Morley, the great Rationalist, the chorus of
+agreement on the subject of the greatness of the Thirteenth Century
+ought to be considered about complete. Mr. Morley, in his address on
+Popular Culture, delivered as President of the Midland Institute,
+England, October, 1876 (Great Essays. Putnam, New York), said:
+
+  "It is the present that really interests us; it is the present that
+  we seek to understand and to explain. I do not in the least want to
+  know what happened in the past, except as it enables me to see my
+  way more clearly through what is happening to-day. I want to know
+  what men thought and did in the Thirteenth Century, not out of any
+  dilettante or idle antiquarian's curiosity, but because the
+  Thirteenth Century is at the root of what men think and do in the
+  nineteenth."
+
+
+EDUCATION.
+
+Many even of the most benevolent readers of the book have been quite
+sure that it exaggerated the significance of medieval education and,
+above all, claimed too much for the breadth of culture given by the
+early universities. Prof. Huxley is perhaps the last man of recent
+times who would be suspected for a moment of exaggerating the import
+of medieval education. In his Inaugural Address on Universities Actual
+and Ideal, delivered as Rector of Aberdeen University, after
+discussing the subject very thoroughly, he said:
+
+  "The scholars of the Medieval Universities seem to have studied
+  grammar, logic and rhetoric; arithmetic and geometry; astronomy,
+  theology and music. Thus their work, however imperfect and faulty,
+  judged by modern lights, it may have been, brought them face to face
+  with all the leading aspects of the many-sided mind of man. For
+  these studies did really contain, at any rate in embryo, sometimes
+  it may be in caricature, what we now call philosophy, mathematical
+  and physical science, and art. _And I doubt if the curriculum of any
+  modern university shows so clear and generous a comprehension of
+  what is meant by culture, as this old Trivium and Quadrivium does_."
+  (Italics ours.)
+
+The results of this system of education may be judged best perhaps
+from Dante as an example. In The Popes and Science (Fordham University
+Press, N. Y., 1908) a chapter is devoted to Dante as the typical
+university man of the time, above all in his knowledge of science as
+displayed in his great poem. No poet of the modern time has {467}
+turned with so much confidence to every phase of science for his
+figures as this product of medieval universities. Anyone who thinks
+that the study of science is recent, or that nature study was delayed
+till our day, need only read Dante to be completely undeceived.
+
+The fact that the scholars and the professors at the universities were
+almost without exception believers in the possibility of the
+transmutation of metals in the old days, used to be considered by many
+educated people as quite sufficient to stamp them as lacking in
+judgment and as prone to believe all sorts of incredible and even
+impossible things without justification. Such supercilious
+condemnation of the point of view of the medieval scholars in this
+matter, however, has recently received a very serious jolt. Sometime
+ago, Sir William Ramsey, the greatest of living English chemists,
+announced at the meeting of the British Association for the
+Advancement of Science, that he had succeeded in changing copper into
+lithium. This created a sensation at the time, but represented, after
+all, a culmination of effort in this direction that had long been
+expected. More recently, Sir William has reported to the British
+Chemical Society that he has succeeded in obtaining carbon from four
+substances not containing this element--bismuth, hydro-fluo-silicic
+acid, thorium and zirconium. An American professor of chemistry has
+declared that he would like to remove all traces of silver from a
+quantity of lead ore, and then, after allowing it to stand for some
+years, have the opportunity to re-examine it, since he is confident
+that he would find further traces of silver in it that had developed
+in the meantime. He is sure that the reason why these two metals
+always occur together, as do copper and, gold, is that they are
+products of a developmental process, the precious metals being a step
+farther on in that process than the so-called base metals. It would
+seem, then, that the medieval scholars were not so silly as they used
+to appear before we knew enough about the subject to judge them
+properly. Only their supercilious critics were silly.
+
+It is probably with regard to the exact sciences that most even
+educated people are quite sure that the Thirteenth Century does not
+deserve to be thought of as representing great human advance. For them
+the Middle Ages were drowsily speculative, but never exact in
+thinking. Of course, such people know nothing of the intense exactness
+of thought of St. Thomas or Albertus Magnus or Duns Scotus. It would
+be impossible, moreover, to make them realize, from the writings of
+these men, how exact human thought actually was in the Thirteenth
+Century, though the more that modern students devote themselves to
+scholastic philosophy, the more surely do they appreciate and admire
+this very quality in the medieval philosophy. For such people, very
+probably, the only evidence that would have made quite an adequate
+answer to their objection, would be a chapter on the mathematics of
+the Thirteenth Century. {468} That might very easily have been made,
+for Cantor, in his History of Mathematics (Vorlesungen Über Geschichte
+der Mathematik, Leipzig, 1892), devotes nearly 100 pages of his second
+volume to the mathematicians of the Thirteenth Century, two of whom,
+Leonardo of Pisa and Jordanus Nemorarius, did so much in Arithmetic,
+the Theory of Numbers, Algebra and Geometry, as to make a revolution
+in mathematics. Cantor says that they accomplished so much, that their
+contemporaries and successors could scarcely follow them, much less go
+beyond them. They had great disciples, like John of Sacrobusco
+(probably John of Holywood, near Dublin), Joannes Campanus and others.
+Cantor calls attention particularly to the spread of arithmetical
+knowledge among the masses, which is a well-deserved tribute to the
+century, for it was a characteristic of the time that the new thoughts
+and discoveries of scholars were soon made practical and penetrated
+very widely among the people. Brewer, in the Preface to Roger Bacon's
+works, quotes some of Bacon's expressions with regard to the value of
+mathematics. The English Franciscan said: "For without mathematics,
+nothing worth knowing in philosophy can be attained." And again: "For
+he who knows not mathematics cannot know any other science; what is
+more, he cannot discover his own ignorance or find its proper remedy."
+The term mathematics, as used by Bacon, had a much wider application
+then than now, and Brewer notes that the Thirteenth Century scientist
+included therein Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music.
+
+With regard to post-graduate education; the best evidence that, far
+from any exaggeration of what was accomplished in the Thirteenth
+Century, there has been a very conservative estimate of it made in the
+book, may be gathered from the legally erected standards of the
+medical schools and the legal status of the medical profession. In the
+Appendix of The Popes and Science, two Bulls are published, issued by
+Pope John XXII. (_Circa_, 1320), establishing medical schools in
+Perugia, at that time in the Papal States, and in Cahors, the
+birthplace of this pope. These bulls were really the formal charters
+of the medical schools. They require three years of preliminary study
+at the university and four or five years at medicine before the degree
+of doctor may be granted, and in addition emphasized that the
+curricula of the new medical schools must be equal to those of Paris
+and Bologna. These bulls were issued in the early part of the
+fourteenth century, and show the height to which the standards of
+medical education had been raised. There will be found also a law of
+Frederick II., issued 1241, requiring for all physicians who wished to
+practice in the Two Sicilies three years of preliminary study--four
+years at the medical school and a year of practice with a physician
+before the diploma which constituted a license to practice would be
+issued. This law is also a pure drug law forbidding the sale of impure
+drugs under penalty of confiscation of goods, and the preparation of
+them under penalty of death. Our pure drug law was passed about the
+time of the issue of the first edition of this book.
+
+{469}
+
+Those who ask for the results of this post-graduate training may find
+them in the story of Guy de Chauliac, the Father of Modern Surgery.
+His life formed the basis of a lecture before the Johns Hopkins
+Medical Club that is to be published in the Bulletin of John Hopkins
+Hospital. It is incorporated in Catholic Churchmen in Science, Second
+Series (The Dolphin Press, Phila., 1909). We know Chauliac's work not
+by tradition, but from his great text-book on surgery. This great
+Papal physician of the fourteenth century operated within the skull,
+did not hesitate to open the thorax, sewed up wounds of the
+intestines, and discussed such subjects as hernia, catheterization,
+the treatment of fractures, and manipulative surgery generally with
+wonderful technical ability. His book was the most used text-book for
+the next two centuries, and has won the admiration of everyone who has
+ever read it.
+
+
+
+TECHNICAL EDUCATION OF THE MASSES.
+
+Some of my friends courteously but firmly have insisted with me that I
+have greatly exaggerated the technical abilities of the village
+workmen of the Middle Ages. That every town of less than ten thousand
+inhabitants in England was able to supply such workmen as we can
+scarcely obtain in our cities of a million inhabitants, and in that
+scanty population supply them in greater numbers than we can now
+secure them from our teeming populations, seems to many simply
+impossible.
+
+What I have been trying to say, however, in the chapters on the Arts
+and Crafts and on Popular Education, has been much better said by an
+authority that will scarcely be questioned by my critics. The Rev.
+Augustus Jessopp, D. D., who has been for twenty years the Rector of
+Searning in England, who is an Honorary Fellow of St. John's College
+and of Worcester College, Oxford, besides being an Honorary Canon in
+the Cathedral of Norwich, has devoted much time and study to this
+question of how the cathedrals were built and finished. Twenty years
+of his life have been spent in the study of the old English parish and
+of parish life. He has studied the old parish registers, and talks,
+therefore, not from distant impressions, but from the actual facts as
+they are recorded. If to his position as an antiquarian authority I
+add the fact that he is not a member of the Roman Catholic Church, to
+the credit of which so much of this popular education and
+accomplishment in the arts and crafts of the century accrues, the
+value of his evidence is placed entirely above suspicion of partisan
+partiality. In his chapter on Parish Life in England, in his book
+"Before the Great Pillage" (Before the Great Pillage with other
+Miscellanies, by Augustus Jessopp, D. D., London. T. Fisher Unwin,
+Paternoster Square, 1901), he says:
+
+  "The evidence is abundant and positive, and is increasing upon us
+  year by year, that the work done upon the fabrics of our churches,
+  and the other work done in the beautifying of the interior of our
+  churches, such as the woodcarving of our screens, the painting of
+  the lovely {470} figures in the panels of those screens, the
+  embroidery of the banners and vestments, the frescoes on the walls,
+  the engraving of the monumental brasses, the stained glass in the
+  windows, and all that vast aggregate of artistic achievements which
+  existed in immense profusion in our village churches till the
+  sixteenth century stripped them bare--all this was executed by local
+  craftsmen. The evidence for this is accumulating upon us every year,
+  as one antiquary after another succeeds in unearthing fragments of
+  pre-Reformation church-wardens' accounts.
+
+  "We have actual contracts for church building and church repairing
+  undertaken by village contractors. We have the cost of a rood screen
+  paid to a village carpenter, of painting executed by local artists.
+  We find the name of an artificer, described as aurifaber, or worker
+  in gold and silver, living in a parish which could never have had
+  five hundred inhabitants; we find the people in another place
+  casting a new bell and making the mould for it themselves; we find
+  the blacksmith of another place forging the iron work for the church
+  door, or we get a payment entered for the carving of the bench ends
+  in a little church five hundred years ago, which bench ends are to
+  be seen in that church at the present moment. And we get fairly
+  bewildered by the astonishing wealth of skill and artistic taste and
+  aesthetic feeling which there must have been in this England of
+  ours, in times which till lately we had assumed to be barbaric
+  times. Bewildered, I say, because we cannot understand how it all
+  came to a dead-stop in a single generation, not knowing that the
+  frightful spoliation of our churches and other parish buildings, and
+  the outrageous plunder of the parish gilds in the reign of Edward
+  the Sixth by the horrible band of robbers that carried on their
+  detestable work, effected such a hideous obliteration, such a clean
+  sweep of the precious treasures that were dispersed in rich
+  profusion over the whole land, that a dull despair of ever replacing
+  what had been ruthlessly pillaged crushed the spirit of the whole
+  nation, and art died out in rural England, and King Whitewash and
+  Queen Ugliness ruled supreme for centuries."
+
+My argument is that a century which produced such artist-artisans
+everywhere, had technical schools in great profusion, though they may
+not have been called by any such ambitious name.
+
+
+HOW IT ALL STOPPED.
+
+To most people it seems impossible to understand how it is that, if
+artistic evolution proceeded to the perfection which it now seems
+clear that it actually attained in the thirteenth and fourteenth
+centuries, we are only just getting back to a proper state of public
+taste and a right degree of artistic skill in many of these same
+accomplishments at the present time. That thought has come to many
+others who, knowing and appreciating medieval progress in art and
+literature, have tried to work out the reasons for the gap that exists
+between medieval art and modern artistic endeavor. Some of these
+explanations, because they serve to make clear why art evolution
+stopped so abruptly and we are retracing our steps and taking models
+from the past rather than doing original work that is an advance, must
+be quoted here. Many people will find in them, I think, the reasons
+for their misunderstanding of the old times.
+
+{471}
+
+Gerhardt Hauptmann, who is very well known, even among
+English-speaking people, as one of the great living German dramatists,
+and whose "Sunken Bell" attracted considerable attention in both its
+German and English versions here in New York, in a recent criticism of
+a new German book, declared that the reason for the gap between modern
+and medieval art was the movement now coming to be known as the
+religious revolt in Germany in the sixteenth century. He said:
+
+  "I, as a Protestant, have often had to regret that we purchased our
+  freedom of conscience, our individual liberty, at entirely too high
+  a price. In order to make room for a small, mean little plant of
+  personal life, we destroyed a whole garden of fancy and hewed down a
+  virgin forest of aesthetic ideas. We went even so far in the
+  insanity of our weakness as to throw out of the garden of our souls
+  the fruitful soil that had been accumulating for thousands of years,
+  or else we plowed it under sterile clay.
+
+  "We have to-day, then, an intellectual culture that is well
+  protected by a hedge of our personality, but within this hedge we
+  have only delicate dwarf trees and unworthy plants, the poorer
+  progeny of great predecessors. We have telegraph lines, bridges and
+  railroads, but there grow no churches and cathedrals, only sentry
+  boxes and barracks. We need gardeners who will cause the present
+  sterilizing process of the soil to stop, and will enrich the surface
+  by working up into it the rich layers beneath. In my work-room there
+  is ever before me the photograph of Sebaldus' Tomb (model
+  Metropolitan Museum, New York). This rich German symbol rose from
+  the invisible in the most luxuriant developmental period of German
+  art. As a formal product of that art, it is very difficult to
+  appreciate it as it deserves. It seems to me as one of the most
+  wonderful bits of work in the whole field of artistic
+  accomplishment. The soul of all the great medieval period encircles
+  this silver coffin, wrapping it up into a noble unity, and enthrones
+  on the very summit of death. Life as a growing child. Such a work
+  could only have come to its perfection in the protected spaces of
+  the old Mother Church."
+
+Rev. Dr. Jessopp, in his book, already cited, "The Great Pillage,"
+does not hesitate to state in unmistakable terms the reason why all
+the beauty and happiness went out of English country life some two
+centuries after the Thirteenth Century, and how it came about that the
+modern generations have had to begin over again from the beginning,
+and not where our Catholic forefathers of the medieval period left us,
+in what used to be the despised Middle Ages. He says:
+
+  "When I talk of the great pillage, I mean that horrible and
+  outrageous looting of our churches other than conventual, and the
+  robbing of the people of this country of property in land and
+  movables, which property had actually been inherited by them as
+  members of those organized religious communities known as parishes.
+  It is necessary to emphasize the fact that in the general scramble
+  of the Terror under Henry the Eighth, and of the Anarchy in the days
+  of Edward the Sixth, there was only one class that was permitted to
+  retain any large portion of its endowments. The monasteries were
+  plundered even to their very pots and pans. Almshouses in which old
+  men and women were fed and clothed were robbed to the last pound,
+  the poor alms-folk being turned out into the cold at an hour's
+  warning to beg their bread. {472} Hospitals for the sick and needy,
+  sometimes magnificently provided with nurses and chaplains, whose
+  very raison d'etre was that they were to look after and care for
+  those who were past caring for themselves--these were stripped of
+  all their belongings, the inmates sent out to hobble into some
+  convenient dry ditch to lie down and die in, or to crawl into some
+  barn or hovel, there to be tended, not without fear of consequences,
+  by some kindly man or woman who could not bear to see a suffering
+  fellow creature drop down and die at their own doorposts.
+
+  "We talk with a great deal of indignation of the Tweed ring. The day
+  will come when someone will write the story of two other rings--the
+  ring of the miscreants who robbed the monasteries in the reign of
+  Henry the Eighth was the first; but the ring of the robbers who
+  robbed the poor and helpless in the reign of Edward the Sixth was
+  ten times worse than the first.
+
+  "The Universities only just escaped the general confiscation; the
+  friendly societies and benefit clubs and the gilds did not escape.
+  The accumulated wealth of centuries, their houses and lands, their
+  money, their vessels of silver and their vessels of gold, their
+  ancient cups and goblets and salvers, even to their very chairs and
+  tables, were all set down in inventories and catalogues, and all
+  swept into the great robbers' hoard. Last, but not least, the
+  immense treasures in the churches, the joy and boast of every man
+  and woman and child in England, who day by day and week by week
+  assembled to worship in the old houses of God which they and their
+  fathers had built, and whose every vestment and chalice and
+  candlestick and banner, organs and bells, and picture and image and
+  altar and shrine they looked upon as their own and part of their
+  birthright--all these were torn away by the rudest spoilers, carted
+  off, they knew not whither, with jeers and scoffs and ribald
+  shoutings, while none dared raise a hand or let his voice be heard
+  above the whisper of a prayer of bitter grief and agony.
+
+  "One class was spared. The clergy of this Church of England of ours
+  managed to retain some of their endowments; but if the boy king had
+  lived another three years, there is good reason for believing that
+  these too would have gone."
+
+Graft prevailed, and the old order disappeared in a slough of
+selfishness.
+
+
+COMFORT AND POVERTY.
+
+A number of friendly critics have insisted that _of course_ the
+Thirteenth Century was far behind later times in the comfort of the
+people. Poverty is supposed to have been almost universal. Doubtless
+many of the people were then very poor. Personally, I doubt if there
+was as much poverty, that is, misery due to actual want of necessaries
+of life, as there is at the present time. Certainly it was not
+emphasized by having close to it, constantly rendering the pains of
+poverty poignant by contrast, the luxury of the modern time. They had
+not the large city, and people in the country do not suffer as much as
+people in the city. In recent years, investigations of poverty in
+England have been appalling in the statistics that they have
+presented. Mr. Robert Hunter, in his book Poverty, has furnished us
+with some details that make one feel that our generation should be the
+last to say {473} that the Thirteenth Century was behind in progress,
+because so many of the people were so poor. Ruskin once said that the
+ideal of the great nation is one wherein there must be "as many as
+possible full-breathed, bright-eyed and happy-hearted human
+creatures." I am sure that, tried by this standard, the Thirteenth
+Century in Merrie England is ahead of any other generation and, above
+all, far in advance of our recent generations.
+
+By contrast to what we know of the merrie English men and women of the
+Thirteenth Century, I would quote Mr. Hunter's paragraphs on the
+Poverty of the Modern English People. He says:
+
+  "A few years ago, England did not know the extent of her own
+  poverty. Economists and writers gave opinions of all kinds. Some
+  said conditions were 'bad,' others said such statements were
+  misleading; and here they were, tilting at each other, backward and
+  forward, in the most ponderous and serious way, until Mr. Booth, a
+  business man, undertook to get at the facts. _No one, even the most
+  radical economist, would have dared to have estimated the poverty of
+  London as extending to 30 per cent of the people_ (as it proved).
+  The extent of poverty--the number of underfed, underclothed in
+  insanitary houses--was greater than could reasonably have been
+  estimated."
+
+Some of the details of this investigation by Mr. Booth were so
+startling that some explanation had to be found. They could not deny,
+in the face of Mr. Booth's facts, but they set up the claim that the
+conditions in London were exceptional. Then Mr. Rountree made an
+investigation in York with precisely the same results. More than one
+in four of the population was in poverty. To quote Mr. Hunter once
+more:
+
+  "As has been said, it was not until Mr. Charles Booth published, in
+  1891, the results of his exhaustive inquiries that the actual
+  conditions of poverty in London became known. About 1,000,000
+  people, or about thirty per cent of the entire population of London,
+  were found to be unable to obtain the necessaries for a sound
+  livelihood. They were in a state of poverty, living in conditions,
+  if not of actual misery, at any rate bordering upon it. In many
+  districts, considerably more than half of the population were either
+  in distress or on the verge of distress. When these results were
+  made public, the more conservative economists gave it as their
+  opinion that the conditions in London were, of course, exceptional,
+  and that it would be unsafe to make any generalizations for the
+  whole of England on the basis of Mr. Booth's figures for London.
+  About ten years later, Mr. B. S. Rountree, incited by the work of
+  Mr. Booth, undertook a similar inquiry in his native town, York, a
+  small provincial city, in most ways typical of the smaller towns of
+  England. In a large volume in which the results are published, it is
+  shown that the poverty in York was only slightly less extensive than
+  that of London. In the summary, Mr. Rountree compares the conditions
+  of London with those of York. His comments are as follows: 'The
+  proportions arrived at for the total populations living in poverty
+  in London and York respectively were as under:
+
+    London--30.7 per cent
+    York--27.84 per cent
+
+{474}
+
+The proportion of the population living in poverty in York may be
+regarded as practically the same as in London, especially when we
+remember that Mr. Booth's information was gathered in 1887-1892, a
+period of only average trade prosperity, whilst the York figures were
+collected in 1899, when trade was unusually prosperous.'"
+
+He continues: "We have been accustomed to look upon the poverty in
+London as exceptional, but when the result of careful investigation
+shows that the proportion of poverty in London is practically equalled
+in what may be regarded as a typical provincial town, we are faced by
+the startling probability that from 25 to 30 per cent of the town
+populations of the United Kingdom are living in poverty."
+
+Most of us will be inclined to think that Mr. Rountree must
+exaggerate, and what he calls poverty most of us would doubtless be
+inclined to think a modest competency a little below respectability.
+He fixed the standard of twenty-one shillings eight pence ($5.25) a
+week as a necessary one for a family of ordinary size. He says:
+
+  "A family living upon the scale allowed for in this estimate, must
+  never spend a penny on railway fare or omnibus. They must never go
+  into the country unless they walk. They must never purchase a
+  half-penny newspaper or spend a penny to buy a ticket for a popular
+  concert. They must write no letters to absent children, for they
+  cannot afford to pay the postage. They must never contribute
+  anything to their church or chapel, nor give any help to a neighbor
+  which costs them money. They cannot save, nor can they join sick
+  club or trade union, because they cannot pay the necessary
+  subscription. The children must have no pocket money for dolls,
+  marbles or sweets. The father must smoke no tobacco nor drink no
+  beer. The mother must never buy any pretty clothes for herself or
+  for her children, the character for the family wardrobe, as for the
+  family diet, being governed by the regulation, 'Nothing must be
+  bought but that which is absolutely necessary for the maintenance of
+  physical health, and that which is bought must be of the plainest
+  and most economical description.' Should a child fall ill, it must
+  be attended by the family parish doctor; should it die, it must be
+  buried by the parish. Finally, the wage-earner must never be absent
+  from his work for a single day."
+
+_More than one in four of the population living below this scale!_
+
+Conditions are, if anything, worse on the Continent. In Germany,
+industry is at the best. Conditions in Berlin have been recently
+reported in the Daily Consular Reports by a U. S. Government official.
+Of the somewhat more than two millions of people who live in Berlin,
+1,125,000 have an income. Nearly one-half of the incomes, however, are
+exempt from taxation because they do not amount to the minimum taxable
+income, though that is only $214--$4 per week. Of the 600,000 who have
+taxable incomes, nearly 550,000 have less than $700 a year; that is,
+get about $2 a day or less. Less than sixty thousand out of the total
+population get more than $2 a day. It is easy to say, but hard to
+understand, that this is a living wage, because things are cheaper in
+Germany. Meat is, however, nearly twice as dear; sugar is twice as
+dear; bread is dearer than it is in this country; coffee is dearer;
+and only rent is somewhat cheaper.
+
+{475}
+
+It is easy to talk about the spread of comfort among the people of our
+generation and the raising of the standard of living, but if one
+compares these wages with the price of things as they are now, it is
+hard to understand on just what basis of fact the claim for betterment
+in our time, meaning more general comfort and happiness, is made.
+
+People always refuse to believe that conditions are as bad as they
+really are in these matters. Americans will at once have the feeling,
+on reading Mr. Hunter and Mr. Rountree's words and the account of the
+American Consul at Berlin, that this may be true for England and
+Germany, but that of course it is very different here in America. It
+is extremely doubtful whether it is very different here in America. In
+this matter, Mr. Hunter's opinion deserves weight. He has for years
+devoted himself to gathering information with regard to this subject.
+He seems to be sure that one in seven of our population is in poverty.
+Probably the number is higher than this. Here is his opinion:
+
+  "How many people in the country are in poverty? Is the number yearly
+  growing larger? Are there each year more and more of the unskilled
+  classes pursuing hopelessly the elusive phantom of self-support and
+  independence? Are they, as in a dream, working faster, only the more
+  swiftly to move backward? Are there each year more and more hungry
+  children and more and more fathers whose utmost effort may not bring
+  into the home as much energy in food as it takes out in industry?
+  These are not fanciful questions, nor are they sentimental ones. I
+  have not the slightest doubt that there are in the United States ten
+  million persons in precisely these conditions of poverty, but I am
+  largely guessing, and there may be as many as fifteen or twenty
+  millions!"
+
+Perhaps Mr. Hunter exaggerates. As a physician, I should be inclined
+to think not; but certainly his words and, above all, the English
+statistics will give any one pause who is sure, on general principles,
+that the great mass of the people are happier now or more comfortable,
+above all, in mind--the only real happiness--than they were in the
+Thirteenth Century. After due consideration of this kind, no one will
+insist on the comparative misery and suffering of the poor in old
+times. England had less than 3,000,000 in the Thirteenth Century, and
+probably there was never a time in her history when a greater majority
+of her people fulfilled Ruskin's and Morris' ideals of happy-hearted
+human beings. The two-handed worker got at least what the four-footed
+worker, in Carlyle's words, has always obtained, due food and lodging.
+England was not "a nation with sleek, well-fed English horses, and
+hungry, dissatisfied Englishmen."
+
+
+COMFORT AND HAPPINESS.
+
+There is another side to the question of comparative happiness that
+may be stated in the words of William Morris, when he says, in "Hopes
+and Fears for Art," that a Greek or a Roman of the luxurious time (and
+of course _a fortiori_ a medieval of the Thirteenth Century) would
+{476} stare astonished could he be brought back again and shown the
+comforts of a well-to-do middle-class house. This expression is often
+re-echoed, and one is prone to wonder how many of those who use it
+realize that it is a quotation, and, above all, appreciate the fact
+that Morris made the statement in order to rebut it. His answer is in
+certain ways so complete that it deserves to be quoted.
+
+  "When you hear of the luxuries of the Ancients, you must remember
+  that they were not like our luxuries, they were rather indulgence in
+  pieces of extravagant folly than what we to-day call luxury--which,
+  perhaps, you would rather call comfort; well, I accept the word, and
+  say that a Greek or a Roman of the luxurious time would stare
+  astonished could he be brought back again and shown the comforts of
+  a well-to-do middle-class house.
+
+  "But some, I know, think that the attainment of these very comforts
+  is what makes the difference between civilization and
+  uncivilization--that they are the essence of civilization. Is it so
+  indeed? Farewell my hope then! I had thought that civilization meant
+  the attainment of peace and order and freedom, of good-will between
+  man and man, of the love of truth and the hatred of injustice, and
+  by consequence the attainment of the good life which these things
+  breed, a life free from craven fear, but full of incident; that was
+  what I thought it meant, not more stuffed chairs and more cushions,
+  and more carpets and gas, and more dainty meat and drink--and
+  therewithal more and sharper differences between class and class.
+
+  "If that be what it is, I for my part wish I were well out of it and
+  living in a tent in the Persian desert, or a turf hut on the Iceland
+  hillside. But, however it be, and I think my view is the true view,
+  I tell you that art abhors that side of civilization; she cannot
+  breath in the houses that lie under its stuffy slavery.
+
+  "Believe me, if we want art to begin at home, as it must, we must
+  clear our houses of troublesome superfluities that are forever in
+  our way, conventional comforts that are no real comforts, and do but
+  make work for servants and doctors. If you want a golden rule that
+  will fit everybody, this is it: 'Have nothing in your houses that
+  you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.'"
+
+
+COMFORT AND HEALTH.
+
+A comment on William Morris's significant paragraphs may be summed up
+in some reflections on the scornful expression of a friend who asked,
+how is it possible to talk of happiness at a time when there were no
+glass in windows and no heating apparatus except the open fireplace in
+the great hall of the larger houses, or in the kitchen of the dwelling
+houses. To this there is the ready answer that, in the modern time, we
+have gone so far to the opposite extreme as to work serious harm to
+health. When a city dweller develops tuberculosis, his physician now
+sends him out to the mountains, asks him to sleep with his window wide
+open, and requires him to spend just as much of his time as possible
+in the open air, even with the temperature below zero. In our
+hospitals, the fad for making patients comfortable by artificial heat
+is passing, and that of stimulating them by cold, fresh air is gaining
+ground. We know that, for all the fevers and all the respiratory {477}
+diseases this brings about a notable reduction in the mortality.
+Surely, what is good for the ailing must be even better to keep them
+well from disease. Many a physician now arranges to sleep out of doors
+all winter. Certainly all the respiratory diseases are rendered much
+more fatal and modern liability to them greatly increased by our
+shut-up houses. The medieval people were less comfortable, from a
+sensual standpoint, but the healthy glow and reaction after cold
+probably made them enjoy life better than we do in our steam-heated
+houses. They secured bodily warmth by an active circulation of their
+blood. We secure it by the circulation of hot water or steam in our
+houses. Ours may be the better way, but the question is not yet
+absolutely decided. A physician friend points to the great reduction
+in the death-rate in modern times, and insists that this, of course,
+means definite progress. Even this is not quite so sure as is often
+thought. We are saving a great many lives that heretofore, in the
+course of nature, under conditions requiring a more vigorous life,
+passed out of existence early. It is doubtful, however, whether this
+is an advantage for the race, since our insane asylums, our hospitals
+for incurables and our homes of various kinds now have inmates in much
+greater proportion to the population than ever before in history.
+These are mainly individuals of lower resistive vitality, who would
+have been allowed to get out of existence early, save themselves and
+their friends from useless suffering, and whose presence in life does
+not add greatly if at all to the possibilities of human
+accomplishment. Our reduced death-rate is, because of comfort seeking,
+more than counterbalanced by a reduced birth-rate, so that no
+advantage is reaped for the race in the end. These reflections, of
+course, are only meant to suggest how important it is to view such
+questions from all sides before being sure that they represent
+definite progress for humanity. Progress is much more elusive than is
+ordinarily thought, and is never the simple, unmistakable movement of
+advance it is often thought.
+
+
+HYGIENE.
+
+The objection that medical friends have had to the claims of The
+Thirteenth as the Greatest of Centuries is that it failed to pay any
+attention to hygiene. Here, once more, we have a presumption that is
+not founded on real knowledge of the time. It is rather easy to show
+that these generations were anticipating many of our solutions of
+hygienic problems quite as well as our solutions of other social and
+intellectual difficulties. In the sketch of Pope John XXI., the
+physician who became Pope during the second half of the Thirteenth
+Century, which was published in Ophthalmology, a quarterly review of
+eye diseases (Jan., 1909), because Pope John wrote a little book on
+this subject which has many valuable anticipations of modern
+knowledge, I called attention to the fact that, while a physician and
+professor of {478} medicine at the medical school of the University of
+Sienna, this Pope, then known as Peter of Spain, had made some
+contributions to sanitary science. Later he was appointed Archiater,
+that is, Physician in charge of the City of Rome. As pointed out in
+the sketch of him as enlarged for the volume containing a second
+series of Catholic Churchmen in Science (The Dolphin Press, Phila.,
+1909), he seems to have been particularly interested in popular
+health, for we have a little book, Thesaurus Pauperum--The Treasure of
+the Poor--which contains many directions for the maintenance of health
+and the treatment of disease by those who are too poor to secure
+physicians' advice. The fact that the head of the Bureau of Health in
+Rome should have been made Pope in the Thirteenth Century, itself
+speaks volumes for the awakening of the educated classes at least to
+the value of hygiene and sanitation.
+
+Their attention to hygiene can be best shown by a consideration of the
+hospitals. Ordinarily it is assumed that the hospitals provided a roof
+for the sick and the injured, but scarcely more. Most physicians will
+probably be quite sure that they were rather hot-beds of disease than
+real blessings to the ailing. That is not what we find when we study
+them carefully. These generations gave us a precious lesson by
+eradicating leprosy, which was quite as general as tuberculosis is
+now, and they made special hospitals for erysipelas, which materially
+lessened the diffusion of that disease. In rewriting the chapter on
+The Foundation of City Hospitals for my book, The Popes and Science
+(Fordham University Press, N. Y., 1908), I incorporated into it a
+description of the hospital erected at Tanierre, in France, in 1293,
+by Marguerite of Bourgogne, the sister of St. Louis. Of this hospital
+Mr. Arthur Dillon, from the standpoint of the modern architect, says:
+
+  "It was an admirable hospital in every way, and it is doubtful if we
+  to-day surpass it. It was isolated, the ward was separated from the
+  other buildings; it had the advantage we often lose, of being but
+  one story high, and more space was given to each patient than we now
+  afford.
+
+  "The ventilation by the great windows and ventilators in the ceiling
+  was excellent; it was cheerfully lighted, and the arrangement of the
+  gallery shielded the patients from dazzling light and from draughts
+  from the windows, and afforded an easy means of supervision, while
+  the division by the roofless, low partitions isolated the sick and
+  obviated the depression that comes from the sight of others in pain.
+
+  "It was, moreover, in great contrast to the cheerless white wards of
+  to-day. The vaulted ceiling was very beautiful; the woodwork was
+  richly carved, and the great windows over the altars were filled
+  with colored glass. Altogether, it was one of the best examples of
+  the best period of Gothic architecture."
+
+In their individual Hygiene there was, of course, much to be desired
+among the people of the Thirteenth Century, and it has been declared
+that the history of Europe from the fifth to the fifteenth century
+might, from the hygienic standpoint, he summed up as a thousand years
+without a bath. The more we know about this period, however, the less
+of {479} point do we find in the epigram. Mr. Cram, in the Ruined
+Abbeys of Great Britain (Pott & Co., N. Y., 1907), has described
+wonderful arrangements within the monasteries (!) for the conduction
+of water from long distances for all toilet purposes. There was much
+more attention to sanitary details than we have been prone to think.
+Mr. Cram, in describing what was by no means one of the greatest of
+the English abbeys of the Thirteenth Century, says:
+
+  "Here at Beaulieu the water was brought by an underground conduit
+  from an unfailing spring a mile away, and this served for drinking,
+  washing and bathing, the supply of the fish ponds, and for a
+  constant flushing of the elaborate system of drainage. In sanitary
+  matters, the monks were as far in advance of the rest of society as
+  they were in learning and agriculture."
+
+
+WAGES AND THE CONDITION OP WORKING PEOPLE.
+
+What every reader of the Thirteenth Century seems to be perfectly sure
+of is that, whatever else there may have been in this precious time,
+at least the workmen were not well paid and men worked practically for
+nothing. It is confessed that, of course, working as they did on their
+cathedrals, they had a right to work for very little if they wished,
+but at least there has been a decided step upward in evolution in the
+gradual raising of wages, until at last the workman is beginning to be
+paid some adequate compensation. There is probably no phase of the
+life of the Middle Ages with regard to which people are more mistaken
+than this supposition that the workmen of this early time were paid
+inadequately. I have already called attention to the fact that the
+workmen of this period claimed and obtained "the three eights"--eight
+hours of work, eight hours of sleep and eight hours for recreation and
+bodily necessities. They obtained the Saturday half-holiday, and also
+release from work on the vigils of all feast days, and there were
+nearly forty of these in the year. After the vesper hour, that is,
+three in Summer and two in Winter, there was no work on the Eves of
+Holy-days of Obligation. With regard to wages, there is just one way
+to get at the subject, and that is, to present the legal table of
+wages enacted by Parliament, placing beside it the legal maximum price
+of necessities of life, as also determined by Parliamentary enactment.
+
+An Act of Edward III. fixes the wages, without food, as follows. There
+are many other things mentioned, but the following will be enough for
+our purpose:
+
+[Price in Shillings and Pence; s. d.]  s.  d.
+
+A woman hay-making, or weeding corn for the day--0 1
+
+A man filling dung-cart--0  3-1/2
+
+A reaper--0 4
+
+Mowing an acre of grass--0 4
+
+Threshing a quarter of wheat--0 4
+
+{480}
+
+The price of shoes, cloth and provisions, throughout the time that
+this law continued in force, was as follows:
+
+[Price in Pounds, Shillings and Pence; s. d.] £. s. d.
+
+A pair of shoes--0  0 4
+
+Russet broadcloth, the yard--0 1 1
+
+A stall fed ox--1 4  0
+
+A grass fed ox--0 16  0
+
+A fat sheep unshorn--0 1 8
+
+A fat sheep shorn--0 1 2
+
+A fat hog two years old--0 3 4
+
+A fat goose--0  0  2-1/2.
+
+Ale, the gallon, by proclamation--0  0  1
+
+Wheat, the quarter--0  3  4
+
+White wine, the gallon--0  0  6
+
+Red wine--0  0  4
+
+An Act of Parliament of the fourteenth century, in fixing the price of
+meat, names the four sorts of meat--beef, pork, mutton and veal, and
+sets forth in its preamble the words, "these being the food of the
+poorer sort." The poor in England do not eat these kinds of meat now,
+and the investigators of the poverty of the country declare that most
+of the poor live almost exclusively on bread. The fact of the matter
+is, that large city populations are likely to harbor many very
+miserable people, while the rural population of England in the Middle
+Ages, containing the bulk of the people, were happy-hearted and merry.
+When we recall this in connection with what I have given in the text
+with regard to the trades-unions and their care for the people, the
+foolish notion, founded on a mere assumption and due to that
+Aristophanic joke, our complacent self-sufficiency, which makes us so
+ready to believe that our generation _must_ be better off than others
+were, vanishes completely.
+
+It is easy to understand that beef, pork, mutton, veal and even
+poultry were the food of the poor, when a workman could earn the price
+of a sheep in less than four days or buy nearly two fat geese for his
+day's wages. A day laborer will work from forty to fifty days now to
+earn the price of an ox on the hoof, and it was about the same at the
+close of the Thirteenth Century. When a fat hog costs less than a
+dollar, a man's wages, at eight cents a day, are not too low. When a
+gallon of good ale can be obtained for two cents, no workman is likely
+to go dry. When a gallon of red wine can be obtained for a day's
+wages, it is hard to see any difference between a workman of the olden
+time and the present in this regard. Two yards of cloth made a coat
+for a gentleman and cost only a little over two shillings. The making
+of it brought the price of it up to two shilling and six pence. These
+prices are taken from the Preciosum of Bishop Fleetwood, who took them
+from the accounts kept by the bursars of convents. Fleetwood's book is
+accepted very generally as an excellent authority in the history of
+economics.
+
+{481}
+
+Cobbett, in his History of the Protestant Reformation, has made an
+exhaustive study of just this question of the material and economic
+condition of the people of England before and since the reformation.
+He says:
+
+  "These things prove, beyond all dispute, that England was, in
+  Catholic times, a real wealthy country; that wealth was generally
+  diffused; that every part of the country abounded in men of solid
+  property; and that, of course, there were always great resources at
+  hand in cases of emergency." ... "In short, everything shows that
+  England was then a country abounding in men of real wealth."
+
+Fortesque, the Lord High Chancellor of England under Henry VI., king a
+century after the Thirteenth, has this to say with regard to the legal
+and economic conditions in England in his time. Some people may think
+the picture he gives an exaggeration, but it was written by a great
+lawyer with the definite idea of giving a picture of the times, and,
+under ordinary circumstances, we would say that there could be no
+better authority.
+
+  "The King of England cannot alter the laws, or make new ones,
+  without the express consent of the whole kingdom in Parliament
+  assembled. Every inhabitant is at his liberty fully to use and enjoy
+  whatever his farm produceth, the fruits of the earth, the increase
+  of his flock and the like--all the improvements he makes, whether by
+  his own proper industry or of those he retains in his service, are
+  his own, to use and enjoy, without the let, interruption or denial
+  of any. If he be in any wise injured or oppressed, he shall have his
+  amends and satisfactions against the party offending. Hence it is
+  that the inhabitants are rich in gold, silver, and in all the
+  necessaries and conveniences of life. They drink no water unless at
+  certain times, upon a religious score, and by way of doing penance.
+  They are fed in great abundance, with all sorts of flesh and fish,
+  of which they have plenty everywhere; they are clothed throughout in
+  good woollens, their bedding and other furniture in the house are of
+  wool, and that in great store. They are also well provided with all
+  sorts of household goods and necessary implements for husbandry.
+  Every one, according to his rank, hath all things which conduce to
+  make mind and life easy and happy."
+
+
+INTEREST AND LOANS.
+
+A number of commercial friends have been interested in the wonderful
+story of business organizations traced in the chapter on Great
+Beginnings of Modern Commerce. They have all been sure, however, that
+it is quite idle to talk of great commercial possibilities at a time
+when ecclesiastical regulations forbade the taking of interest. This
+would seem to make it quite impossible that great commercial
+transactions could be carried on, yet somehow these people succeeded
+in accomplishing them. A number of writers on economics in recent
+years have suggested that possibly one solution of the danger to
+government and popular rights from the accumulation of large fortunes
+might be avoided by a return to the system of prohibition of interest
+taking. There is {482} much more in that proposition than might
+possibly be thought by those who are unfamiliar with it from serious
+consideration. They did succeed in getting on without it in the
+Thirteenth Century, and at the same time they solved the other problem
+of providing loans, not alone for business people, but for all those
+who might need them. We are solving the "loan shark" evil at the
+present time in nearly the same way that they solved it seven
+centuries ago. Abbot Gasquet, in his "Parish Life in England Before
+the Reformation," describes the methods of the early days as follows:
+
+  "The parish wardens had their duties towards the poorer members of
+  the district. In more than one instance they were guardians of the
+  common chest, out of which temporary loans could be obtained by
+  needy parishioners, to tide over persons in difficulties. These
+  loans were secured by pledges and the additional security of other
+  parishioners. No interest was charged for the use of the money, and
+  in case the pledge had to be sold, everything over and above the sum
+  lent was returned to the borrower."
+
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH
+LOWEST OF CENTURIES.
+
+There is no doubt that the nineteenth century, and especially the
+latter half of it, saw some very satisfactory progress over
+immediately preceding times. With the recognition of this fact, that
+the last century so far surpassed its predecessor there has been a
+tendency to assume, because evolution occupies men's minds, that the
+eighteenth must have quite as far surpassed the seventeenth, and the
+seventeenth the sixteenth, and so on, so that of course we are far
+ahead in everything of the despised Middle Ages. In recent years,
+indeed, we have dropped the attitude of blaming the earlier ages, for
+one of complacent pity that they were not born soon enough, and,
+therefore, could not enjoy our advantages. Unfortunately for any such
+conclusion as this, the term of comparison nearest to us, the
+eighteenth century is without doubt the lowest hundred years in human
+accomplishment, at least during the past seven centuries.
+
+This is true for every form of human endeavor and every phase of human
+existence. Prof. Goodyear, of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and
+Science, the well-known author of a series of books on art and
+history, in one of the chapters of his Handbook on Renaissance and
+Modern Art (New York, The McMillan Co.), in describing the Greek
+revival of the latter part of the eighteenth century says: "According
+to our accounts so far throughout this whole book, either of
+architecture, painting, or sculpture, it will appear that the earlier
+nineteenth century represents the foot of a hill, whose gradual
+descent began about 1530." As a matter of fact, in every department of
+artistic expression the taste of the eighteenth century was almost the
+worst possible. The monuments that we have from that time, in the
+shape of churches and municipal buildings, are few, but such as they
+are, they are the least {483} worthy of imitation, and the art ideas
+they represent are most to be deprecated of any in the whole history
+of modern art.
+
+Perhaps the most awful arraignment of the eighteenth and early
+nineteenth century that was ever made is that of Mr. Cram, in the
+Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain, from which I have already quoted. He
+calls attention to the fact that, during this century, some of the
+most beautiful sculptured work that ever came from the hand of man was
+torn out of the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, York, to serve no better
+purpose than to make lime. His description of the sculpture of the
+Abbey will give some idea of its beauty and render all the more
+poignant the loss that was thus inflicted on art. He says:
+
+  "Most wonderful of all amongst a horde of smaller statues, a
+  mutilated fragment of a statue of Our Lady and the Holy Child, so
+  consummate in its faultless art that it deserves a place with the
+  masterpieces of sculpture of every age and race. Here in this dim
+  and scanty undercraft is an epitome of the English art of four
+  centuries, precious and beautiful beyond the power of words to
+  describe.
+
+  "York Abbey was a national monument, the aesthetic and historic
+  value of which was beyond computation. It is with feelings of horror
+  and unutterable dismay that, as we stand beside the few existing
+  fragments, realizing the irreparable loss they make so clear, we
+  call into mind Henry's sacrilege in the sixteenth century, and his
+  silly palace doomed to instant destruction, and the crass ignorance
+  and stolidity of the eighteenth century with its grants of building
+  material, and the mercenary savagery of the nineteenth century when,
+  from smoking lime kilns rose into the air the vanishing ghosts of
+  the noblest creations that owed their existence to man.
+
+  "Nothing is sadder to realize than the failure of appreciation for
+  art of the early nineteenth and the eighteenth century. Men had
+  lost, apparently, all proper realization of the value of artistic
+  effort and achievement. It was an era of travel and commerce and,
+  unfortunately, of industrial development. As a consequence, in many
+  parts of Europe, and especially of England, art remains of
+  inestimable value suffered at the hands of utilitarians who found
+  them of use in their enterprises. We are accustomed to rail against
+  the barbarians and the Turks for their failure to appreciate the
+  remains of Latin and Greek art and for their wanton destruction of
+  them, but what shall we say of modern Englishmen, who quite as
+  ruthlessly destroyed objects of art of equal value at least with
+  Roman and Greek, while the great body of the nation made no
+  complaint, and no protest was heard anywhere in the kingdom."
+
+What is so true of the arts is, as might be reasonably expected, quite
+as true of other phases of intellectual development. Education, for
+instance, is at the lowest ebb that it has reached since the
+foundation of the Universities at the end of the twelfth century. In
+Germany, there was only one university, that of Göttingen, in which
+there was a professorship of Greek. When Winckelmann introduced the
+study of Greek into his school at Seehausen, no school-books for this
+language were available, and he was obliged to write out texts for his
+students. What was the case in Germany was also true, to a great {484}
+degree, of the rest of Europe. Leading French critics ridiculed the
+Greek authors. Homer was considered a ballad singer and compared to
+the street singers of Paris. Voltaire thought that the AEneid of
+Virgil was superior to all that the Greek writers had ever done. No
+edition of Plato had been published in Europe since the end of the
+sixteenth century. Other Greek authors were almost as much neglected,
+and of true scholarship there was very little. When Cardinal Newman,
+in his Idea of a University, wants to find the lowest possible term of
+comparison for the intellectual life of the university, he takes the
+English universities of the middle of the eighteenth century.
+
+With this neglect of education, and above all of the influence that
+Greek has always had in chastening and perfecting taste, it is not
+surprising that literature was in every country of Europe at a very
+low ebb. It was not so feeble as art, but the two are interdependent,
+much more than is usually thought. Only France has anything to show in
+literature that has had an enduring influence in the subsequent
+centuries. When we compare the French literature of the eighteenth
+with that of the seventeenth century, however, it is easy to see how
+much of a descent there has been from Corneille, Racine, Moliêre,
+Boileau, La Fontaine, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Fénelon to Voltaire,
+Marivaux, Lesage, Diderot, and Bernardin de St. Pierre. This same
+decadence of literature can be noted even more strikingly in England,
+in Spain, and in Italy. The seventeenth, especially the first half of
+it, saw the origin of some of the greatest works of modern literature.
+The eighteenth century produced practically nothing that was to live
+and be a vital force in aftertimes.
+
+What is true in art, letters and education is, above all, true in what
+men did for liberty and for their fellow-men. Hospital organization
+and the care of the ailing was at its lowest ebb during the eighteenth
+century.  Jacobson, the German historian of the hospitals, says:
+[Footnote 36]
+
+    [Footnote 36: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Krankencomforts.
+    Deutsche Krankenpflege Zeitung, 1898, in 4 parts.]
+
+  "It is a remarkable fact that attention to the well-being of the
+  sick, improvements in hospitals and institutions generally and to
+  details of nursing care, had a period of complete and lasting
+  stagnation after the middle of the seventeenth century, or from the
+  close of the Thirty Years' War. Neither officials nor physicians
+  took any interest in the elevation of nursing or improving the
+  conditions of hospitals. During the first two-thirds of the
+  eighteenth century, nothing was done to bring either construction or
+  nursing to a better state. Solely among the religious orders did
+  nursing remain an interest, and some remnants of technique survive.
+  The result was that, in this period, the general level of nursing
+  fell far below that of earlier periods. The hospitals of cities were
+  like prisons, with bare, undecorated walls and little dark rooms,
+  small windows where no sun could enter, and dismal wards where fifty
+  or one hundred patients were crowded together, deprived of all
+  comforts and even of necessaries. In the municipal and state
+  institutions of this period, the beautiful gardens, roomy halls, and
+  {485} springs of water of the old cloister hospital of the Middle
+  Ages were not heard of, still less the comforts of their friendly
+  interiors."
+
+As might be expected, with the hospitals so badly organized, the art
+of nursing was in a decay that is almost unutterable. Miss Nutting, of
+Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Superintendent of Nurses, and Miss Dock,
+the Secretary of the International Council of Nurses, have in their
+History of Nursing a chapter on the Dark Period of Nursing, in which
+the decadence of the eighteenth century, in what regards the training
+of nurses for the intelligent care of the sick, is brought out very
+clearly. They say:   [Footnote 37]
+
+    [Footnote 37: A History of Nursing, by M. Adelaide Nutting and
+    Lavinia L. Dock, in two volumes, illustrated. G. P. Putnam's Sons,
+    New York, 1907.]
+
+  "It is commonly agreed that the darkest known period in the history
+  of nursing was that from the latter part of the seventeenth up to
+  the middle of the nineteenth century. During the time, the condition
+  of the nursing art, the well-being of the patient, and the status of
+  the nurse, all sank to an indescribable level of degradation."
+
+Taine, in his History of the Old Regimé of France, has told the awful
+story of the attitude of the so-called better classes toward the poor.
+While conditions were at their worst in France, every country in
+Europe saw something of the same thing. In certain parts of Germany
+conditions were, if possible, worse. It is no wonder that the French
+Revolution came at the end of the eighteenth century, and that a
+series of further revolutions during the nineteenth century were
+required to win back some of the rights which men had gained for
+themselves in earlier centuries and then lost, sinking into a state of
+decadence out of which we are only emerging, though in most countries
+we have not reached quite the level of human liberty and, above all,
+of Christian democracy that our forefathers had secured seven
+centuries ago.
+
+With these considerations in mind, it is easier to understand how men
+in the later nineteenth century and beginning twentieth century are
+prone to think of their periods as representing an acme in the course
+of progress. There is no doubt that we are far above the eighteenth
+century. That, however, was a deep valley in human accomplishment,
+indeed, a veritable slough of despond, out of which we climbed; and,
+looking back, are prone to think how fortunate we are in having
+ascended so high, though beyond our vision on the other side of the
+valley the hills rise much higher into the clouds of human aspiration
+and artistic excellence than anything that we have attained as yet.
+Indeed, whenever we try to do serious work at the present time, we
+confessedly go back from four to seven centuries for the models that
+we must follow. With Renaissance art and Gothic architecture and the
+literature before the end of the sixteenth century cut out of our
+purview, we would have nothing to look to for models. This phase of
+history needs to be recalled by all those who would approach with
+equanimity the consideration of The Thirteenth as the Greatest of
+Centuries.
+
+{486}
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+A.
+
+Abbey schools, 26;
+  of St. Victor, 150
+Aberration of light, 44
+Abingdon, Edmund of, 327
+Adam of St. Victor, 204
+Age of Students, 25-63
+Albertus Magnus, 46
+Alchemies, 93
+Alfonso the Wise, 2
+Aliens' rights, 358
+Allbutt, Prof., 83
+Amiens, 105
+Andrew II, Golden Bull, 369
+Angel Choir, 13, 108
+Angelo on Dante, 305
+Anselm, 80
+Antipodes, 50, 392
+Ants in Dante, 314
+Appreciation of art, 146
+Aquinas, 38;
+  and Albertus, 271;
+  appreciation of, 283;
+  capacity for work, 286;
+  education, 270;
+  on Existence of God, 276;
+  on liberty and society, 279;
+  at Paris, 272;
+  as a poet, 287;
+  and Pope Leo XIII, 374;
+  on Resurrection, 278;
+  tributes to, 281
+
+Arbitration, 382
+Arena Padua, 144
+Arezzo, 23
+Arnaud, Daniel, 189
+Arnaud de Marveil, 189
+Arnold, Matthew, and Francis, 256
+Art and the Friars, 139
+Artemus Ward, 52
+Arts and Crafts, 124
+Arthur Legends, 10, 173
+Arundel, Countess of, 320
+Asbestos, 398
+Ascoli, Cope, 14, 134
+Assisi, 144
+Assizes of Clarendon, 351;
+  of Jerusalem, 365
+Avignon, 24
+
+
+B.
+
+Bacon, 41
+Barbarossa, 1
+Barbizon School, 145
+Basil Valentine, 94
+Bateson, Miss, 328
+Beau Dieu, 13
+Beautiful God, 105
+Beauty and usefulness, 113
+Beauvoisis, Statutes of, 365
+Bell-making, 133
+Beowulf, 180
+Berrengaria, Queen, 320
+Bernardo del Carpio, 170
+Bernart de Ventadorn, 183
+Bernard of Cluny, or Morlaix, 205
+Bertrand de Born, 191
+Bestiarium, 164
+Bible study, 234, 252
+Blanche of Castile, 289, 320;
+  as a mother, 326;
+  as a ruler, 326
+Blessed work, 125
+Boileau, Stephen, 365
+Boniface VII and American Revolution, 374
+Books, beautiful, 150;
+  bequests, 155;
+  collecting, 154, 157;
+  great stone, 115
+Booklovers, 155
+Book-learning, 129
+Book of Arts, Deeds, Words, 5
+Borgo Allegri, 141
+Botany, 149
+Bracton, 361
+Bracton's digest, 15, 82
+Bremen, 420
+Brook farm, 264
+
+
+C.
+
+Cahors, 34
+Calendar, 43
+Calvi, College of, 26
+Capital, English, created, 357
+Canon law, codified, 370
+Canticle of Sun, 258
+Carlyle,
+  Minnesong, 183;
+  Nibelungen, 178
+Case histories, 84
+Casimir the Great, 369
+Caspian not a gulf, 406
+Castles and armories, 120
+Catalogues of libraries, 151
+Cathedral Symbolism, 118
+Cavalcanti, 10
+Celano, 197
+Chalices, 113
+Charity organizations, 27, 345
+Chartres, glass, 14;
+  windows, 111
+Chauliac, 92
+Chemistry, 46;
+  not forbidden, 93
+Chester cycle, 240, 242
+Chrestien de Troyes, 175
+Chronicles, 224
+Cid, El, 9
+Cimabue, 2, 12, 140
+Cino da Pistoia, 10
+Circulating libraries, 149
+Clare, St., and St. Francis, 322
+Clare, St., 320;
+  character, 321;
+  happiness, 322;
+  life, 320
+Clarendon assizes, 351;
+  constitutions, 351
+Clerics at the universities, 71
+Cloisters, Lateran, 121;
+  St. Paul's, Rome, 121
+Coal, 397
+Code of Hammurabi, 3
+Coeducation, 330
+Colleges, Origin of, 29
+Cologne, 420
+Common Law, 361
+Commentaries on Law, 371
+Common pleas, 35
+Comparative university attendance, 61
+Compayré, 67
+Complaints of books, 158
+Composition of matter, 38
+Condorcet, 34
+Conrad of Kirchberg, 188
+Conservation of energy, 39
+Cope of Ascoli, 115
+Corrections, Optical, 131
+
+{487}
+
+Cost of books, 156
+Crusades and democracy, 389;
+  Greene, on, 389;
+  Storrs on, 388;
+  Stubbs on, 298
+Curtain lectures, 331
+
+
+D.
+
+Dante da Maiano, 10
+Dante and children, 313;
+  and Milton, 315;
+  and Virgil, 316;
+  education, 300;
+  in America, 311;
+  in England, 305;
+  in Germany, 309;
+  in Italy, 304;
+  not alone, 300;
+  power of observation, 313;
+  present estimation, 317;
+  sonnets, 302;
+  troubadour, 303;
+  universality, 301
+
+Dante-Gesellschaft, 310
+Dean Church's Dante, 306
+Decay of Philosophy, 282
+Declaration of Independence, Swiss, 377
+Degrees, 36
+De Maistre, 66
+Democracy and the Crusades, 388;
+  guilds, 378
+Denifle, 35
+De Roo on pre-Columbian America, 400
+Dialectics, 33
+Dies Irae, Admirers of, 199;
+  supreme, 197
+Dietmar von Eist, 186
+Digest of common law, 361
+Discipline at universities, 73;
+  and democracy, 76
+Disease segregation, 343
+Dissection not forbidden, 91
+Dominicans and art, 139;
+  and books, 156
+St. Dominic, 266;
+  and St. Francis, 267
+Donatus, Deposition for ignorance of, 30
+Drama and St. Francis, 238
+Durandus, 117, 234
+
+
+E.
+
+Education, classes, 7;
+  masses, 8;
+  popular, 129;
+  of women, four periods, 331
+Edward I, 2, 361
+Edward VI and charity, 340;
+  education, 386
+El Cid, 169;
+  battle scene, 170;
+  daughters' innocence, 172;
+  marriage, 171;
+  single author, 169
+Emulation of workers, 125
+Encyclopedia, 231
+Enforcement of law, 366
+English democracy, 378
+Enterprise, commercial, 421
+Epic poetry, 167
+Equality of women, 324, 389
+Erysipelas segregated, 344
+Evelyn's diary, 131
+Evolution and man, 3
+Experiment, 44
+Explosives, 42
+Exultet, 207
+
+
+F.
+
+Fehmic Courts, 368
+Felix of Valois, 347
+Feminine education, 330;
+  four periods, 331
+  reasons for decline, 333
+Ferguson, 97
+Francis, St., great disciples, 263;
+  in drama, 239;
+  influence still, 266;
+  life, 259;
+  literary man, 255;
+  modern interest in, 261;
+  Ruskin on, 260;
+  second order, 265;
+  third order, 265;
+  troubadour, 255
+Franciscans and Art, 139;
+  explorers, 394
+Fraternal insurance, 382
+Fraternity, initiations, 425
+Frederick II, 2
+Freedom, development of, 375
+Free cities, 377;
+  schools, 385
+Freemen's rights, 358
+Friars, 267;
+  Green's tribute to, 268;
+  explorers, 409
+Froude, 97;
+  on Reynard, 211
+Furniture, 122
+Finsen anticipated, 89
+Five Sisters, York, 14, 110
+Founder of Hospitals, 337
+
+
+G.
+
+Gaddi, 2, 142
+Galsang Gombeyev, 402
+Geography, 50
+German Guild-hall, London, 421
+Gerontius' dream, 308
+Gild merchant, 383
+Giotto, 2, 12, 142;
+  appreciation of, 145;
+  immense work, 146
+Giotto's tower, 122
+Gladstone and Richard de Bury, 160
+Glosses, Law, 371
+Goethe's Reynard, 213
+Goerres, 255
+Gohier, Urbain, 379
+Golden Bull, 369
+Golden Legend, 213
+Goodyear, 131
+Gothic, development, 102;
+  English, 100;
+  French, North German, 167;
+  Sculpture, 105-107;
+  Spanish, 100;
+  varieties, 12, 100, 167
+Grail Legends, 174
+Gratian, 81
+Gray, 32
+Green on Matthew Paris, 229
+Greatness of an epoch, 6
+Gregorian chant, 207
+Grotesque in Dante, 309
+Grounds of ignorance, 41
+Guido de Montpelier, 338
+Guido, 142
+Guilds, 132;
+  and the drama, 136;
+  and democracy, 378;
+  Boston, 382;
+  London, 382;
+  number, 381;
+  rules, 38;
+  list of, 245
+
+
+H.
+
+Hamburg, 420
+Hamilton, 34
+Hammurabi, 4
+Hansa Alamanniae, 422;
+  and Denmark, 419;
+  geese cackle, 419;
+  obscurity of origin, 416
+Harper, 52
+Hartman von Aue, 186
+Hayton, 412
+Healing by first intention, 85
+Herodotus and Marco Polo, 396
+History, so-called, 127, appendix
+Hollandus, 94
+
+{488}
+
+Homer, 3
+Hospitals, earliest, 337;
+  England, 339
+Hotel Dieu, 339;
+  endowment, 339
+Human life, value, 367
+Human rights, 366
+Humboldt on Dante, 311-315
+Humboldt, 47
+Humor in mystery plays, 241
+Humphreys, 162
+Huysmans, 120
+Hymns often heard, 195;
+  and languages, 203;
+  seven greatest, 199
+
+
+I.
+
+Ignorance and servitude, 127
+Illuminated books, 162
+Indestructibility of matter, 39
+International court, 424;
+  comity, 428;
+  fraternity, 391
+Irnerius, 18, 81
+Iron work, 114
+
+
+J.
+
+Jenghis Khan, 2
+Jerusalem the Golden, 205
+Jessopp, Rev. Augustus, 133
+Job, 3
+Jocelyn of Brakelond, 226;
+  and Boswell, 227;
+  selection, 227
+John of Carpini, 400
+John of Matha, 347
+John of Monte Corvino, 410-412
+Joinville and the poor, 297;
+  selection, 228
+Journeymen, 135
+Justinian, English, 363
+
+
+K.
+
+Kenilworth, 121
+Kidney disease, 84
+
+
+L.
+
+Lafenestre, 138-144
+Lamentations, 207
+Lanfranc, 37, 83
+Lancelot, 175
+Lateran, Council of, 28
+Laurie, 59, 63, 65, 76
+Law, Canon, 370;
+  French, 364;
+  German, 368;
+  Glosses, 371;
+  Hungarian, 369;
+  Polish, 369;
+  Spanish, 15
+
+Lea, Henry C, 60
+League, Lombard, 417
+Legenda Aurea, 213
+Lending of books, 152
+Lending of professors, 56
+Leo XIII, 81
+Lepers, Louis IX and, 297
+Leprosy eradicated, 343
+Lerida, 24
+Lhasa entered, 410
+Liberties and customs, 360;
+  English, 358;
+  Hungary and Poland, 369
+Library of La Ste. Chapelle, 152;
+  circulating, 152, 165;
+  of Hotel Dieu, 153;
+  of the Sorbonne, 153
+Lincoln, 96
+Lingard, 61
+Literature for women, 334
+Lodge, Sir Oliver, 40
+Longfellow, 209;
+  Dante, 311
+Louis IX, 289;
+  books, 164;
+  charity, 296;
+  crusades, 298;
+  education, 291;
+  father, 290-294;
+  husband, 289;
+  justice, 293, 294;
+  law, 365;
+  monks, 295;
+  son, 289
+
+Lowell on Dante, 311
+Lübeck punished, 418;
+  laws, 422
+Lully, 57
+Lunar rainbows, 48
+
+
+M.
+
+Mabel Rich, 327
+MacCarthy, 201
+Magna Charta, 1, 350;
+  development of, 353;
+  excerpts, 352, et seq.
+Malory, 175
+Mandeville, 408
+Manning on Dante, 308
+Map or Mapes, Walter, 174-176
+March on Latin Hymns, 195
+Marco Millioni, 396
+Maria di Novella, 331
+Masterpieces, 135
+Matter and form, 40;
+  constitution of, 40
+Matthew Paris, 229;
+  Green's tribute, 229
+Meaning of Cathedral, 118
+Meistersingers, 10
+Merchants' privileges, 359
+Merrie England, 126
+Metaphysical speculations, 33-37
+Method of study, 53
+Meyer, 49
+Middle Ages, place of, 5
+Middle class students, 72
+Mill, 34
+Millet, 145
+Minnesingers, 10
+Modern war correspondents anticipated, 225, 228
+Mondino, 93
+Money and privileges, 426
+Money grabbers, 217
+Monks, Idle, 414;
+  explorers, 413
+Monroe, 55
+Montalembert, monks, 414;
+  laws, 364
+Montpelier, 23
+Morley, Henry, 42, 157, 173, 244
+Most read books. Ten, 209
+Motor cars, 43
+Music, Church, 206;
+  part, 207
+Mutual Aid, 379
+Mystery plays, players, 247, 250;
+  bible study, 251;
+  influence, 252
+
+
+N.
+
+Names, Medieval, 331
+Nations, 76
+Neale, 206
+Needlework, 14
+Nerve suture, 86
+Newman's tribute to Dante, 306
+New York Times Building, 123
+Nibelungen, 177
+Noah and wife, 242
+Nolasco, Peter, 348
+Notebook, The elegant, 54
+Novgorod founded, 421
+Numbers of students, 63, et seq
+Nurses' habits, 345
+
+
+O.
+
+Odoric, 409
+One thing a day, 54
+Optics, 44
+
+{489}
+
+Optical corrections, 131
+Opus Majus, 45
+Organized charity, 381
+Osler, 108, 323
+Oxford, 22
+
+
+P.
+
+Padua, 23
+Pagel, 90;
+  on Vincent of Beauvais,  233
+Palencia, 24
+Pange Lingua, 199
+Papal Court and academy, 31
+Parliament, First English, 14
+Parzifal, 188
+Peace Burgs, 420
+Pennell, Elizabeth Robbins, 98
+Peregrinus, 37-44
+Perugia, 23
+Petroleum, 397
+Peyrols, 192
+Philobiblon, 157
+Philosophic writers, 222
+Phosphorescence in Dante, 315
+Physical geography, 47
+Place of women, 319
+Plain Chant, 207
+Plumptre's Dante, 310
+Polo, Marco, 396
+Poor students, 72
+Poor, Washing feet of, 297
+Popes and Laws, 370
+Pope Alexander IV, 31;
+  Boniface VIII, 2;
+  Gregory IX, 2, 30;
+  Honorius IV, 2, 30;
+  Innocent III, 2, 30, 337
+Population of England, 61
+Potamian, Brother, 37
+Piacenza, 23
+Practical knowledge, 41
+Preparatory schools, 26
+Pre-renaissance, 5, 254
+Professors' publications, 79
+Progress of liberty, 386
+
+
+Q.
+
+Queen Berengaria, 320
+Queen Blanche of Castile, 320
+
+
+R.
+
+Ransom of prisoners, 347
+Raymond of Pennafort, 348
+Real Estate Law, 362
+Redemption of captives, 348
+Red-light therapy, 89
+Religious order for erysipelas, 345;
+  for slaves, 347
+Reinach, 103, 116, 128
+Representative government, 372, 386
+Renaissance, 5
+Reynard the Fox, 210;
+  original, 212
+Rheims, 105, 107
+Rhenish cities, 420
+Rhymed Latin, 104
+Rhyme, origin, 199
+Richard Coeur de Lion, 1
+Richard de Bury, 157;
+  as a churchman, 161;
+  chaplains, 160;
+  charity, 161;
+  place in history, 159
+
+Rich, Mabel, 327;
+  and her sons, 327
+Robinson, Fr. Paschal, 257, 261
+Rod in school, 185
+Roland, 181
+Romance of Rose, 215;
+  charge of dullness, 216;
+  poor happy, 219;
+  misers miserable, 218;
+  satire on money grabbers, 217
+Rossetti on Dante, 317
+Rubruquis, 403;
+  on customs, 408;
+  on languages, 405, 407
+Rucellai Madonna, 141
+Rudolph of Hapsburg, 2, appendix
+Ruskin, 6, 123, 260, 309
+Rusticiano, 399
+
+
+S.
+
+Sadness absent in Gothic art, 147
+Saintsbury, 34, 36, 175, 180, 197, 223, 226
+Saladin, 1
+Salamanca, 24
+Salamander, asbestos, 398
+Salicet, 83
+Salimbene, Friar, 403
+Salisbury, 129
+Saturday, half-holiday, 379
+Schaff, 198, 205
+Scholasticism and style, 223
+Sculpture, Amiens, 13, 105;
+  Rheims, 105
+  St. Denis, 13
+Settlement work, 325;
+  Seneca, 53
+Siena, 23
+Sigbart, 47
+Simon de Montfort, 361
+Social unrest, 124
+Sorbonne, Robert, 53
+Sordello, 10
+St. Bonaventure, 2, 203;
+  Clare, 2, 320;
+  Dominic, 267;
+  Edmund, 72, 327;
+  Elizabeth, 320, 325;
+  Ferdinand, 15;
+  Hugh, 2, 96;
+  Thomas, 203
+
+St. Gall, 69
+St. John, Lateran, 121
+St. Mary's Abbey, 121
+St. Paul's, Rome, 121
+St. Victor, Adam and Hugh of, 204
+Stabat Mater, 200;
+  translations, 201
+Stained Glass, 14;
+  Lincoln, 109;
+  York, 110
+Stevenson, R. M., 99
+Storrs on Crusades, 388
+Stubbs on Crusades, 298
+Students, Support of, 65
+Studies, 33
+Studium generale, 21
+Symbolism, 117
+Systematizing thought, 80
+
+
+T.
+
+Tarragona, 101
+Tartars, Book of, 402
+Tasso and Nibelungen, 179
+Taste, Popular, 112
+Tate, 52
+Taxation and representation, 336;
+  no, without representation, 374
+"The Three Eights," 379
+Thibet, 410
+Thomas, St., See Aquinas
+Thule, 51
+Toledo, 101
+Toulouse, 24
+Towns and cathedrals, 9
+Trade facilities, 415
+Travel, medieval, 394
+Troubadours, 190
+Trouvères, 10
+Turner, 35, 145
+Training intellect
+
+{490}
+
+U.
+
+Ungreek, only thing, 99
+Universitas, 21
+University, Bologna, 19, 58;
+  foundation, 18;
+  Orleans, 19;
+  Oxford, 58;
+  Paris, 18, 58;
+  Salernum, 20;
+  roughness, 73
+
+
+V.
+
+Vehmgerichte, 368
+Vercelli, 23
+Vicenza, 23
+Vienna Cathedral, 168
+Vigilance committees, 368
+Vigils, holidays, 379
+Villehardouin, 224;
+  and Xenophon, 225
+Vincent of Beauvais, 231;
+  and historical writers, 231;
+  methods, 232;
+  style, 233
+Virchow and evolution, 3;
+  on hospitals, 338;
+  on Pope Innocent, 342
+Vocation for women, 322
+Vogelweide, 185
+Voragine, Jacobus de, 213
+
+
+W.
+
+Wandering students, 57
+Wanderjahre, 135
+Water cure, 427
+Wernher, 187
+Whewell, 45
+Widows, Magna Charta, 354
+William of Rubruk, 403
+William of Salicet, 83
+William of St. Gregory, 192
+Wolfram von Eschenbach, 187
+Women, in hospitals, 328;
+  in literature, 335;
+  occupations, 329;
+  position, 334
+Working students, 60
+Wounds of neck, 86
+
+
+X.
+
+Xenophon, and Villehardouin, 225
+
+
+Y.
+
+Yeats, 113
+Yule, Colonel, 401;
+  on Odoric, 411;
+  on Rubruquis, 407
+
+
+Z.
+
+Zimmern, Miss, on Hansa, 415;
+  on medieval initiations, 425
+
+
+[End text; advertisements]
+
+Books by Dr. Walsh
+---------------------------
+Dear Dr. Walsh:
+
+I beg to thank you for your interesting letter enclosing syllabus
+of Advent Lectures and circular of your latest work. The highest
+value attaches to historical research on the lines you so ably indicate,
+especially at the present time, when the enemies of Holy
+Church are making renewed efforts to show her antagonism to
+science and human progress generally. I shall have much pleasure
+in perusing your work entitled "The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries."
+
+Wishing you every blessing, I am, Yours sincerely in Xt.,
+Rome, January 18th, 1908. R. Card. MERRY DEL VAL.
+
+----------------------
+
+_Fordham University Press Series_
+
+MAKERS OF MODERN MEDICINE
+
+  A series of Biographies of the men to whom we owe the important
+  advances in the development of modern medicine. By James J. Walsh,
+  M. D., Ph. D., LL.D., Dean and Professor of the History of Medicine
+  at Fordham University School of Medicine, N. Y. Third Edition, 1914,
+  442 pp. Price, $3.00 net.
+
+_The London Lancet_ said: "The list is well chosen, and we
+have to express gratitude for so convenient and agreeable a collection
+of biographies, for which we might otherwise have to search
+through many scattered books. The sketches are pleasantly written,
+interesting, and well adapted to convey the thoughtful members
+of our profession just the amount of historical knowledge
+that they would wish to obtain. We hope that the book will find
+many readers."
+
+_The New York Times_: "The book is intended primarily for
+students of medicine, but laymen will find it not a little interesting."
+
+_Il Morgagni_ (Italy): "Professor Walsh narrates important
+lives in modern medicine with an easy style that makes his book
+delightful reading. It certainly will give the young physician an
+excellent idea of who made our modern medicine."
+
+_The Church Standard_ (Protestant Episcopal): "There is
+perhaps no profession in which the lives of its leaders would make
+more fascinating reading than that of medicine, and Dr. Walsh by
+his clever style and sympathetic treatment by no means mars the
+interest which we might thus expect."
+
+_The New York Medical Journal_: "We welcome works of this
+kind; they are evidence of the growth of culture within the medical
+profession, which betokens that the time has come when our
+teachers have the leisure to look backward to what has been
+accomplished."
+
+_Science_: "The sketches are extremely entertaining and useful.
+Perhaps the most striking thing is that everyone of the men
+described was of the Catholic faith, and the dominant idea is that
+great scientific work is not incompatible with devout adherence to
+the tenets of the Catholic religion."
+
+
+
+MAKERS OF ELECTRICITY
+
+  By Brother Potamian, F. S. C, Sc. D. (London), Professor of Physics
+  in Manhattan College, and James J. Walsh, M. D., Ph. D., Litt. D.,
+  Dean and Professor of the History of Medicine and of Nervous
+  Diseases at Fordham University School of Medicine, New York. Fordham
+  University Press, 110 West 74th Street. Illustrated Price, $2.50
+  net. Postage, 15 Cents Extra.
+
+_The Scientific American_: "One will find in this book very
+good sketches of the lives of the great pioneers in Electricity, with a
+clear presentation of how it was that these men came to make their
+fundamental experiments, and how we now reach conclusions in
+Science that would have been impossible until their work of revealing
+was done. The biographies are those of Peregrinus, Columbus,
+Norman and Gilbert, Franklin and some contemporaries, Galvini,
+Volta, Coulomb, Oersted, Ampere, Ohm, Faraday, Clerk Maxwell,
+and Kelvin."
+
+_The Boston Globe_: "The book is of surpassing interest."
+
+_The New York Sun_: "The researches of Brother Potamian
+among the pioneers in antiquity and the Middle Ages are perhaps
+more interesting than Dr. Walsh's admirable summaries of the
+accomplishment of the heroes of modern science. The book testifies
+to the excellence of Catholic scholarship."
+
+_The Evening Post_: "It is a matter of importance that the work
+and lives of men like Gilbert, Franklin, Galvini, Volta, Ampere and
+others should be made known to the students of Electricity, and this
+office has been well fulfilled by the present authors. The book is no
+mere compilation, but brings out many interesting and obscure facts,
+especially about the earlier men."
+
+_The Philadelphia Record_: "It is a glance at the whole field of
+Electricity by men who are noted for the thoroughness of their
+research, and it should be made accessible to every reader capable
+of taking a serious interest in the wonderful phenomena of nature."
+
+_Electrical World_: "Aside from the intrinsic interest of its
+matter, the book is delightful to read owing to the graceful literary
+style common to both authors. One not having the slightest
+acquaintance with electrical science will find the book of absorbing
+interest as treating in a human way and with literary art the life
+work of some of the greatest men of modern times; and, moreover,
+in the course of his reading he will incidentally obtain a sound
+knowledge of the main principles upon which almost all present-day
+electrical development is based. It is a shining example of how
+science can be popularized without the slightest twisting of facts or
+distortion of perspective. Electrical readers will find the book also
+a scholarly treatise on the evolution of electrical science, and a
+most refreshing change from the "Engineering English" of the
+typical technical writer."
+
+
+
+EDUCATION, HOW OLD THE NEW
+
+  A Series of Lectures and Addresses on Phases of Education in the
+  Past Which Anticipate Most of Our Modern Advances, by James J.
+  Walsh, M. D., Ph. D., Litt. D., K. C. St. G. Dean and Professor of
+  the History of Medicine and of Nervous Diseases at Fordham
+  University School of Medicine. Fordham University Press, 1910. 470
+  pp. Price, $2.50 net. Postage, 15 Cents Extra.
+
+
+Cardinal Moran (Sydney, Australia): "I have to thank you for the
+excellent volume Education How Old the New. The lectures are
+admirable, just the sort of reading we want for English readers of the
+present day."
+
+_New York Sun_: "It is all bright and witty and based on deep
+erudition."
+
+_The North American_ (Phila.): "Wide historical research, clear
+graphic statement are salient elements of this interesting and
+suggestive addition to the modern welter of educational literature."
+
+_Detroit Free Press_: "Full of interesting facts and parallels drawn
+from them that afford much material for reflection."
+
+_Chicago Inter-Ocean_: "Incidentally it does away with a number of
+popular misconceptions as to education in the Middle Ages and as to
+education in the Latin-American countries at a somewhat later time.
+The book is written in a straight unpretentious and interesting
+style."
+
+_Wilkes-Barre Record_: "The volume is most interesting and shows deep
+research bearing the marks of the indefatigable student."
+
+_Pittsburg Post_: "There is no bitterness of controversy and one of
+the first things to strike the reader is that the dean of Fordham
+quotes from nearly everybody worth while, Protestant or Catholic,
+poetry, biography, history, science or what not."
+
+_The Wall Street News_ (N. Y.): "The book is calculated to cause a
+healthy reduction in the conceit which each generation enjoys at the
+expense of that which preceded it."
+
+_Rochester Post Express_: "The book is well worth reading."
+
+_The New Orleans Democrat_: "The book makes very interesting reading,
+but there is a succession of shocks in store in it for the complacent
+New Englander or Bostonian and for the orthodox or perfunctory reader
+of American literature."
+
+
+
+OLD TIME MAKERS OF MEDICINE
+
+  The Story of the Medical Sciences during the Middle Ages. By James
+  J. Walsh, K. C. St, G., M. D., Ph. D. Dean and Professor of the
+  History of Medicine and of Nervous Diseases at Fordham University
+  School of Medicine. Fordham University Press, 1911. Price, $2.50
+  net. Postage, 15 cents.
+
+
+What we now know of art, architecture, literature, the arts and crafts
+in the Middle Ages has almost won for them the name of the Bright Ages
+instead of the Dark Ages. There seems just one dark spot--the neglect
+of science. This book removes that. It tells the story of medieval
+medical education with higher standards than ours, of medieval surgery
+with anaesthesia and antisepsis, with beautiful hospitals and fine
+nursing, and of medieval dentistry with gold fillings and bridgework.
+
+_The Lancet_ (London): "We have said enough to whet the appetite of
+all interested in the history of the early makers of medicine. We
+cordially commend the perusal of this fascinating volume, which shows
+how much was accomplished in every department of intellectual effort
+in what is usually regarded as the unprogressive, stagnant, dark
+period of the Middle Ages."
+
+_The New York World_ said: "As in Dr. Walsh's 'Thirteenth The Greatest
+of Centuries' he carries amazement with his revelations of how old are
+many things we call new."
+
+
+
+MODERN PROGRESS AND HISTORY:
+
+  Lectures on various academic occasions by James J. Walsh, M. D., Ph.
+  D., K. C. St. G., Litt, D., Sc. D. Dean and Professor of The History
+  of Medicine and of Functional Nervous Diseases at Fordham University
+  School of Medicine, Fordham University Press, 1912. Pp. 450 Twelve
+  illustrations. Price, $2.50 net. Postage, 15 cents.
+
+
+Though delivered on various occasions, these lectures are all on the
+theme that our modern progress is but a repetition of previous phases
+of human accomplishment and that whenever men faced certain problems
+they solved them as well at any time in history as they do now.
+Educational problems are shown to have been the same in Greece and
+Rome as in our own time. Old time prescriptions in medicine are
+strangely like many that we have now. Old time dentists filled teeth
+with gold and tin, did fine bridgework, invented movable dentures,
+transplanted teeth successfully and anticipated our dental progress.
+Pronunciation, Old and New, shows that the Irish brogue is
+Shakespeare's pronunciation while The Women of Two Republics
+demonstrates how old are our political problems, even suffragettism.
+"The book is disillusioning, but marvelously illuminating."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Thirteenth, by James J. Walsh
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THIRTEENTH ***
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+
+<head>
+<meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type">
+<title>
+THE THIRTEENTH Greatest of Centuries; By James J. Walsh
+</title>
+
+<style type="text/css">
+
+h1 {font-size: 160%;  text-align:center;}
+
+h2 {font-size: 120%;  text-align:center;}
+
+i  { font-weight: bold; }
+
+pre       { font-family: Serif; }
+
+.cite     { margin-left: 5%; }
+
+.cite2    { margin-left: 10%; }
+
+.footnote { margin-left: 8%; margin-right: 8%;}
+
+.center   { text-align: center; }
+
+.image   { text-align: center; }
+
+.right    { text-align: right; }
+
+</style>
+
+</head>
+
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Thirteenth, by James J. Walsh
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Thirteenth
+       Greatest of Centuries
+
+Author: James J. Walsh
+
+Release Date: January 27, 2012 [EBook #38680]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THIRTEENTH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Kostuch
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p>
+[Transcriber's notes]
+<p class="cite">
+  This is derived from these copies on the Internet Archive:<br>
+   http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029759630    (1920)<br>
+   http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014712875    (1907)<br>
+  The two editions are combined because of missing pages in
+  one and missing images in the other.
+<br>
+<br>
+  Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly
+  braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred
+  in the original book.
+<br>
+<br>
+  Obvious spelling errors have been corrected but "inventive" and
+  inconsistent spelling is left unchanged.
+</p>
+<p>
+[End Transcriber's notes]
+</p>
+
+
+<hr>
+<p>
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+<br><br><br>
+
+FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS SERIES
+<br><br>
+MAKERS OF MODERN MEDICINE<br>
+Lives of the men to whom nineteenth century medical science owes most.
+Second Edition. New York, 1910. $3.00 net.
+<br><br>
+THE POPES AND SCIENCE<br>
+The story of Papal patronage of the sciences and especially
+medicine. 45th thousand. New York, 1911. $3.00 net.
+<br><br>
+MAKERS OF ELECTRICITY<br>
+Lives of the men to whom important advances in electricity are due. In
+collaboration with Brother Potamian, F. S. C, Sc.D. (London),
+Professor of Physics at Manhattan College. New York, 1909. $2.50 net.
+<br><br>
+EDUCATION, HOW OLD THE NEW<br>
+Addresses in the history of education on various occasions.
+3rd thousand. New York, 1911. $2.50 net.
+<br><br>
+OLD-TIME MAKERS OF MEDICINE<br>
+The story of the students and teachers of the sciences related to
+medicine during the Middle Ages. New York, 1911, $2.50 net.
+<br><br>
+MODERN PROGRESS AND HISTORY.<br>
+Academic addresses on how old the new is in Education, Medicine,
+Dentistry, Politics, etc. New York, 1912. $2.50 act.
+<br><br>
+THE CENTURY OF COLUMBUS<br>
+The story of the Renaissance $3.50 net.
+<br><br><br>
+
+THE DOLPHIN PRESS SERIES
+<br><br>
+CATHOLIC CHURCHMEN IN SCIENCE<br>
+First, second and third series, each $1.00 net.
+<br><br>
+
+PSYCHOTHERAPY
+<br>
+Lectures on The Influence of the Mind on the Body delivered at Fordham
+University School of Medicine. Appletons, New York, 1912. $6.50 net.
+</p>
+{i}
+<br><br>
+{ii}
+<br>
+<a name="front"></a>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_front.jpg" border=1>
+<br>
+LE BEAU DIEU (AMIENS)
+</p>
+<br>
+
+
+{iii}
+<br>
+<h1>THE THIRTEENTH
+<br><br>
+Greatest of Centuries</h1>
+
+<p class="center">
+BY
+<br><br>
+JAMES J. WALSH, K.C.St.G., M.D., Ph.D., LL.D,
+LITT. D. (Georgetown), Sc.D. (Notre Dame)
+<br><br>
+MEDICAL DIRECTOR, SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY;
+PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY AT CATHEDRAL COLLEGE,
+NEW YORK; LECTURER IN PSYCHOLOGY, MARYWOOD COLLEGE,
+SCRANTON AND ST. MARY'S COLLEGE, PLAINFIELD;
+TRUSTEE OF THE CATHOLIC SUMMER SCHOOL OF AMERICA;
+MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, OF THE GERMAN
+AND FRENCH AND ITALIAN SOCIETIES OF THE HISTORY OF
+MEDICINE, A.M.A., A.A.A.S., ETC.
+<br><br><br>
+
+
+<i>Popular Edition</i>
+<br><br>
+<i>(Sixtieth Thousand)</i>
+<br><br>
+
+
+CATHOLIC SUMMER SCHOOL PRESS<br>
+New York, 1920
+</p>
+{iv}
+<br><br>
+<p class="center">
+<i>Copyright 1907</i><br>
+James J. Walsh
+<br><br>
+
+
+Set up and stereotyped 1907 (first edition 2,000)
+<br>
+Reprinted with Appendix 1909
+<br>
+Georgetown edition enlarged and extra illustrated 1910
+<br>
+Fourth edition reprinted with additions (6th thousand) 1912
+<br>
+Fifth edition, Knights of Columbus, 50,000, 1912-1913.
+<br>
+<br>
+
+Made by
+<br>
+THE SUPERIOR PRINTING CO
+<br>
+AKRON, OHIO
+</p>
+{v}
+<p class="center">
+To Right Rev. Monsignor M. J. Lavelle,
+</p>
+<p>
+Rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, sometime President of the
+Catholic Summer School, to whose fatherly patronage this book is
+largely due, and without whose constant encouragement it would not
+have been completed, it is respectfully and affectionately dedicated
+by the author.
+</p>
+{vi}
+
+<h1>PROEM.</h1>
+<h2>
+(EPIMETHEUS.)</h2>
+<pre>
+  WAKE again, Teutonic Father-ages,
+    Speak again, beloved primeval creeds;
+  Flash ancestral spirit from your pages,
+    Wake the greedy age to noble deeds.
+
+&hellip;&hellip;
+
+  Ye who built the churches where we worship,
+    Ye who framed the laws by which we move,
+  Fathers, long belied, and long forsaken,
+    Oh, forgive the children of your love!
+
+(PEOMETHEUS.)
+
+  There will we find laws which shall interpret,
+    Through the simpler past, existing life;
+  Delving up from mines and fairy caverns
+    Charmed blades to cut the age's strife.
+
+  <i> &mdash;Rev. Charles Kingsley.&mdash;The Saints' Tragedy.</i>
+</pre>
+<br>
+<br>
+{vii}
+<br>
+<h1>PREFACE.</h1>
+<p>
+"Why take the style of these heroic times? For nature brings not back
+the mastodon&mdash;Nor we those times; and why should any man Remodel
+models?"
+</p>
+<p>
+What Tennyson thus said of his own first essay in the Idyls of the
+King, in the introduction to the Morte D'Arthur, occurs as probably
+the aptest expression of most men's immediate thought with regard to
+such a subject as The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries. Though
+Tennyson was confessedly only remodeling the thoughts of the
+Thirteenth Century, we would not be willing to concede&mdash;
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "That nothing new was said, or else.<br>
+  Something so said, 'twas nothing,"
+</p>
+<p>
+for the loss of the Idyls would make a large lacuna in the literature
+of the Nineteenth Century, "if it is allowed to compare little things
+with great," a similar intent to that of the Laureate has seemed
+sufficient justification for the paradox the author has tried to set
+forth in this volume. It may prove "nothing worth, mere chaff and
+draff much better burnt," but many friends have insisted they found it
+interesting. Authors usually blame friends for their inflictions upon
+the public, and I fear that I can find no better excuse, though the
+book has been patiently labored at, with the idea that it should
+represent some of the serious work that is being done by the Catholic
+Summer School on Lake Champlain, {viii} now completing nearly a decade
+and a half of its existence. This volume is, it is hoped, but the
+first of a series that will bring to a wider audience some of the
+thoughts that have been gathered for Summer School friends by many
+workers, and will put in more permanent form contributions that made
+summer leisure respond to the Greek term for school.
+</p>
+<p>
+The object of the book is to interpret, in terms that will be readily
+intelligible to this generation, the life and concerns of the people
+of a century who, to the author's mind, have done more for human
+progress than those of any like period in human history. There are few
+whose eyes are now holden as they used to be, as to the surpassing
+place in the history of culture of the last three centuries of the
+Middle Ages. Personally the author is convinced, however, that only a
+beginning of proper appreciation has come as yet, and he feels that
+the solution of many problems that are vexing the modern world,
+especially in the social order, are to be found in these much
+misunderstood ages, and above all in that culmination of medieval
+progress&mdash;the period from 1200 to 1300.
+</p>
+<p>
+The subject was originally taken up as a series of lectures in the
+extension course of the Catholic Summer School, as given each year in
+Lent and Advent at the Catholic Club, New York City. Portions of the
+material were subsequently used in lectures in many cities in this
+country from Portland, Me., to Portland, Ore., St. Paul, Minn., to New
+Orleans, La. The subject was treated <i>in extenso</i> for the Brooklyn
+Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1906, after which publication was
+suggested.
+</p>
+<p>
+The author does not flatter himself that the book adequately
+represents the great period which it claims to present. The subject
+has been the central idea of studies in leisure moments for a dozen
+years, and during many wanderings in Europe but there will doubtless
+prove to be errors in detail, for which the author would crave the
+indulgence of more serious students {ix} of history. The original form
+in which the material was cast has influenced the style to some
+extent, and has made the book more wordy than it would otherwise have
+been, and has been the cause of certain repetitions that appear more
+striking in print than they seemed in manuscript. There were what
+seemed good reasons for not delaying publication, however, and leisure
+for further work at it, instead of growing, was becoming more scant.
+It is intrusted to the tender mercies of critics, then, and the
+benevolent reader, if he still may be appealed to, for the sake of the
+ideas it contains, in spite of their inadequate expression.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+<p class="center">
+(GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY EDITION).
+</p>
+<p>
+This third edition is published under the patronage of Georgetown
+University as a slight token of appreciation for the degree of Doctor
+of Letters, conferred on the author for this work at the last
+Commencement. This issue has been enlarged by the addition of many
+illustrations selected to bring out the fact that all the various
+parts of Europe shared in the achievements of the time and by an
+appendix containing in compendium Twenty-Six Chapters that Might Have
+Been. Each of these brief sketches could easily have been extended to
+the average length of the original chapters. It was impossible to use
+all the material that was gathered. These hints of further sources are
+now appended so as to afford suggestions for study to those who may
+care to follow up the idea of the Thirteenth as The Greatest of
+Centuries, that is, of that period in human existence when man's
+thoughts on all the important human interests were profoundly valuable
+for future generations and their accomplishments models for all the
+after time.
+</p>
+{x}
+<br>
+<h2>PREFACE.<br>
+(FOURTH EDITION).</h2>
+<p>
+Many of the now rather numerous readers and hearers of this book, for
+it has been read in the refectories of over 200 religious communities,
+have said that the title seemed almost deterring at first because of
+the high claim that is set up for a medieval century. To mitigate the
+possible initial deterrent effect of the paradox of the Thirteenth as
+the Greatest of Centuries, it has seemed worth while in this edition
+then to premise a series of quotations from some of the most
+distinguished historical writers in English of our own time which
+amply justify the claim here set up. Frederic Harrison, Macaulay,
+Freeman, and Fiske are sufficiently different in themselves to make
+their agreement in supreme admiration for the Thirteenth Century very
+striking. In spite of their lack of sympathy with many things in the
+period, all of them emphatically declare that it is the source of most
+that is great and good since, and that while we have added details, we
+have failed to surpass its artistic and intellectual achievement in
+all the 700 years that have elapsed.
+</p>
+<p>
+August 15, 1912.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>PREFACE.<br>
+(FIFTH EDITION).</h2>
+<p>
+After the success of the Knights of Columbus edition of the Popes and
+Science of which 40,000 were issued it gives me great pleasure to
+accede to the request of the Supreme Officers of the Order to permit
+them to issue a correspondingly large edition of the present volume.
+The good work which the Knights of Columbus have thus done in
+diffusing a knowledge of the true relations of the Church to
+science,&mdash;generous patronage and encouragement, instead of supposed
+opposition,&mdash;will, I think, be greatly furthered by the wide
+distribution of the information contained in this volume with regard
+to the supremely helpful attitude of the Church towards art and
+architecture, literature, education and above all the important social
+problems, which is so well illustrated during the great period of the
+Thirteenth Century. I sincerely hope that brother Knights of Columbus
+will find in the book some of that renewal of devotion to Mother
+Church that came as the result of my own studies of this glorious
+period of her history, when her action was untrammelled by political
+considerations and when she was free to express herself in every great
+movement for the benefit of humanity.
+</p>
+<p>
+Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 1912.
+</p>
+<br>
+{xi}
+
+  <h1>FREDERIC HARRISON, MACAULAY,<br>
+  FREEMAN, AND FISKE</h1>
+
+<h2>ON
+<br>
+THE PLACE OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY IN HISTORY</h2>
+
+<p>
+Of all the epochs of effort after a new life, that of the age of
+Aquinas, Roger Bacon, St. Francis, St. Louis, Giotto, and Dante is the
+most purely spiritual, the most really constructive, and indeed the
+most truly philosophic. &hellip; The whole thirteenth century is crowded
+with creative forces in philosophy, art, poetry, and statesmanship as
+rich as those of the humanist <i>Renaissance</i>. And if we are accustomed
+to look on them as so much more limited and rude it is because we
+forget how very few and poor were their resources and their
+instruments. In creative genius Giotto is the peer, if not the
+superior of Raphael. Dante had all the qualities of his three chief
+successors and very much more besides. It is a tenable view that in
+inventive fertility and in imaginative range, those vast composite
+creations&mdash;the Cathedrals of the Thirteenth Century, in all their
+wealth of architectural statuary, painted glass, enamels,
+embroideries, and inexhaustible decorative work may be set beside the
+entire painting of the sixteenth century. Albert and Aquinas, in
+philosophic range, had no peer until we come down to Descartes, nor
+was Roger Bacon surpassed in versatile audacity of genius and in true
+encyclopaedic grasp by any thinker between him and his namesake the
+Chancellor. In statesmanship and all the qualities of the born leader
+of men we can only match the great chiefs of the Thirteenth Century by
+comparing them with the greatest names three or even four centuries
+later.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now this great century, the last of the true Middle Ages, which as it
+drew to its own end gave birth to Modern Society, has a special
+character of its own, a character that gives it an abiding and
+enchanting interest. We find in it a harmony of power, a universality
+of endowment, a glow, an aspiring ambition and confidence such as we
+never find in later centuries, at least so generally and so
+permanently diffused. &hellip;
+</p>
+<p>
+The Thirteenth Century was an era of no special character. It was in
+nothing one-sided and in nothing discordant. It had great thinkers,
+great rulers, great teachers, great poets, {xii} great artists, great
+moralists, and great workmen. It could not be called the material age,
+the devotional age, the political age, or the poetic age in any
+special degree. It was equally poetic, political, industrial,
+artistic, practical, intellectual, and devotional. And these qualities
+acted in harmony on a uniform conception of life with a real symmetry
+of purpose.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was one common creed, one ritual, one worship, one sacred
+language, one Church, a single code of manners, a uniform scheme of
+society, a common system of education, an accepted type of beauty, a
+universal art, something like a recognized standard of the Good, the
+Beautiful, and the True. One-half of the world was not occupied in
+ridiculing or combating what the other half was doing. Nor were men
+absorbed in ideals of their own, while treating the ideals of their
+neighbors as matters of indifference and waste of power. Men as
+utterly different from each other, as were Stephen Langton, St.
+Francis, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Dante, Giotto, St. Louis, Edward
+I&mdash;all profoundly accepted one common order of ideas, equally applying
+to things of the intellect, of moral duty, of action, and of the
+soul&mdash;to public and private life at once&mdash;and they could all feel that
+they were all together working out the same task. It may be doubted if
+that has happened in Europe ever since.&mdash;Frederic Harrison, <i>A Survey
+of the Thirteenth Century in the Meaning of History and Other
+Historical Pieces</i>. Macmillan, 1908.
+</p>
+* * *
+<p>
+The sources of the noblest rivers which spread fertility over
+continents, and bear richly laden fleets to the sea, are to be sought
+in wild and barren mountain tracts, incorrectly laid down in maps, and
+rarely explored by travellers. To such a tract the history of our
+country during the Thirteenth Century may not unaptly be compared.
+Sterile and obscure as is that portion of our annals, it is there that
+we must seek for the origin of our freedom, our prosperity, and our
+glory. Then it was that the great English people was formed, that the
+national character began to exhibit those peculiarities which it has
+ever since retained, and that our fathers became emphatically
+islanders, islanders not merely in geographical position, but in their
+politics, their feelings, and their manners. Then first appeared with
+distinctness that constitution which has ever since, through all
+changes, preserved its identity; that constitution of which all the
+other free constitutions in the world are copies, and which, in spite
+of some defects, deserves to be regarded as the best under which any
+great {xiii} society has ever yet existed during many ages. Then it
+was that the House of Commons, the archetype of all the representative
+assemblies which now meet, either in the old or in the new world, held
+its first sittings. Then it was that the common law rose to the
+dignity of a science, and rapidly became a not unworthy rival of the
+imperial jurisprudence. Then it was that the courage of those sailors
+who manned the rude barks of the Cinque Ports first made the flag of
+England terrible on the seas. Then it was that the most ancient
+colleges which still exist at both the great national seats of
+learning were founded. Then was formed that language, less musical
+indeed than the languages of the south, but in force, in richness, in
+aptitude for all the highest purposes of the poet, the philosopher,
+and the orator, inferior to the tongue of Greece alone. Then too
+appeared the first faint dawn of that noble literature, the most
+splendid and the most durable of the many glories of
+England.&mdash;Macaulay.
+</p>
+* * *
+<p>
+This time of fusion during which all direct traces of foreign conquest
+were got rid of, was naturally the time during which the political and
+social institutions of the country gradually took on that form which
+distinguishes modern England, the England of the last 600 years from
+the older England of the first 600 years of English history. &hellip; By
+the time of Edward I, though the English tongue had not yet finally
+displaced French, it had assumed the main characters which
+distinguished its modern from its ancient form. In architecture a
+great change had taken place, by which the Romanesque style gave way
+to the so-called Gothic. The subordinate arts had taken prodigious
+strides. The sculpture of the thirteenth century is parted from that
+of the twelfth by a wider gap than any that parts these centuries, in
+law or language. <i>And in the root of the matter in our law and
+constitution itself those changes have been made which wrought the
+body politic of England into a shape which has left future ages
+nothing to do but to improve in detail</i>. (Italics ours.)
+</p>
+<p>
+In short the great destructive and creative age of Europe and
+civilized Asia passed over England as it passed over other lands. The
+age which saw the Eastern Empire fall beneath the arms of the Frank
+and the Eastern Caliphate before the arms of the Mogul&mdash;the age which
+saw the true power and glory of the Western Empire buried in the grave
+of the Wonder of the World&mdash;the age which ruled that the warriors of
+the Cross should work their will in Spain and in Prussia {xiv} and
+should not work their Will in the Holy Land itself&mdash;the age which made
+Venice mistress of the Eastern seas, and bade Florence stand forth as
+the new type of democratic freedom&mdash;the age which changed the nominal
+kingship of the Lord of Paris and Orleans into the mighty realm of
+Philip Augustus and Philip the Fair&mdash;this age of wonders did its work
+of wonder in England also.&mdash;Freeman, <i>The Norman Conquest</i>, Vol. V,
+page 606. Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1876.
+</p>
+* * *
+<p>
+The moment when this interaction might have seemed on the point of
+reaching a complete and harmonious result was the glorious thirteenth
+century, the culminating moment of the Holy Roman Empire. Then, as in
+the times of Caesar or Trajan, there might have seemed to be a union
+among civilized men, in which the separate life of individuals and
+localities was not submerged. In that golden age, alike of feudal
+system of empire and of Church, there were to be seen the greatest
+monarchs, in fullest sympathy with their peoples, that Christendom has
+ever known&mdash;an Edward I, a St. Louis, a Frederick II. Then when in the
+Pontificates of Innocent III and his successors the Roman Church
+reached its apogee, the religious yearning of men sought expressions
+in the sublimest architecture the world has seen. Then Aquinas summed
+up in his profound speculations the substance of Catholic theology,
+and while the morning twilight of modern science might be discerned in
+the treatises of Roger Bacon, while wandering minstrelsy revealed the
+treasures of modern speech, soon to be wrought under the hands of
+Dante and Chaucer into forms of exquisite beauty, the sacred fervor of
+the apostolic ages found itself renewed in the tender and mystic piety
+of St. Francis of Assisi. It was a wonderful time, but after all less
+memorable as the culmination of medieval empire and medieval church
+than as the dawning of the new era in which we live to-day.
+</p>
+* * *
+<p>
+While wave after wave of Germanic colonization poured over Romanized
+Europe, breaking down old boundary lines and working sudden and
+astonishing changes on the map, setting up in every quarter baronies,
+dukedoms, and kingdoms fermenting with vigorous political life; while
+for twenty generations this salutary but wild and dangerous work was
+going on, there was never a moment when the imperial sway of {xv} Rome
+was quite set aside and forgotten, there was never a time when union
+of some sort was not maintained through the dominion which the Church
+had established over the European mind. When we duly consider this
+great fact in its relations to what went before and what came after,
+it is hard to find words fit to express the debt of gratitude which
+modern civilization owes to the Roman Catholic Church. When we think
+of all the work, big with promise of the future, that went on in those
+centuries which modern writers in their ignorance used once to set
+apart and stigmatize as the "Dark Ages"; when we consider how the
+seeds of what is noblest in modern life were then painfully sown upon
+the soil which Imperial Rome had prepared; when we think of the
+various work of a Gregory, a Benedict, a Boniface, an Alfred, a
+Charlemagne, we feel that there is a sense in which the most brilliant
+achievements of pagan antiquity are dwarfed in comparison with these.
+Until quite lately, indeed, the student of history has had his
+attention too narrowly confined to the ages that have been pre-eminent
+for literature and art&mdash;the so-called classical ages&mdash;and thus his
+sense of historical perspective has been impaired.&mdash;Fiske, <i>The
+Beginnings of New England, or The Puritan Theocracy in its Relations
+to Civil and Religions Liberty</i>.
+</p>
+{xvi}
+<br><br>
+{xvii}
+<br>
+<h1>CONTENTS.</h1>
+
+
+<h1>CHAPTER I</h1>
+
+<h2>INTRODUCTION, THE THIRTEENTH, GREATEST OF CENTURIES.  <a href="#1">1</a></h2>
+<p>
+Deeds and men of a marvellous period. Evolution and man. No
+intellectual development in historical period. The wonderful medieval
+pre-renaissance. Our Gothic ancestors. Education for the classes and
+masses. Universities, cathedrals, arts, and crafts. Origins in art.
+Supreme literature in every language. Origins in law and liberty.
+Beginnings of modern democracy.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER II</h1>
+
+<h2>UNIVERSITIES AND PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.   <a href="#18">18</a></h2>
+<p>
+Origins of universities. Triumph of invention. Character unchanged
+ever since. University evolution, Salerno, Bologna, Paris, Oxford,
+Cambridge, Italian, French and Spanish Universities. Origin of
+preparatory schools. Cathedral colleges. Decree of the Council of
+Lateran, every cathedral to have a school and metropolitan churches to
+have colleges. Attendance at these preparatory schools.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER III</h1>
+
+<h2>WHAT AND HOW THEY STUDIED AT THE UNIVERSITIES.  <a href="#33">33</a></h2>
+<p>
+Education of the Middle Ages usually ridiculed. Ignorance of critics.
+Scholastics laughed at by those only who know them, but at second
+hand. "Logic, ethics and metaphysics owe to scholasticism a precision,
+unknown to the ancients themselves" (Condorcet.) Teaching methods.
+Scholarly interests quite as in our own day. Magnetism in literature.
+A magnetic engine. Aquinas and the indestructibility of matter and the
+conservation of energy. Roger Bacon's four grounds of human ignorance.
+Prophecy of explosives for motor purposes. Correction of the calendar.
+Contributions to optics. Experiment as the basis of scientific
+knowledge. Whewell's appreciation. Albertus Magnus and the natural
+sciences Humboldt's praise for his physical geography. Contributions
+to botany. Declaration with regard to foolish popular notions. The
+{xviii} great group of scientific men at the University of Paris.
+Robert of Sorbonne's directions how to study. Education of the heart
+as well as the head.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER IV</h1>
+
+<h2>THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS AND DISCIPLINE.  <a href="#58">58</a></h2>
+<p>
+Largest universities of all time. More students to the population than
+at any time since. Discussion as to the numbers in attendance.
+Comparative average ages of students. How such numbers were supported.
+Working their way through college. Some reasons for false impressions,
+as to university attendance. M. Compayré's paragraph on education in
+the Middle Ages. Supposed ignorance. The monks at the universities.
+How many students clerical. College abuses and discipline. The
+"nations," the under-graduate committee on discipline. Teaching
+practical democracy.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER V</h1>
+
+<h2>POST-GRADUATE WORK AT THE UNIVERSITIES.  <a href="#78">78</a></h2>
+<p>
+Medieval universities and additions to knowledge. Original work done,
+their best apology. Extensive writings of professors. Enthusiasm of
+students who copied their books. Post-graduate work in theology and in
+philosophy. Period of the scholastics. Graduates in law and
+collections and digests. Post-graduate work in medicine most
+important. Teaching by case histories. The significance of dropsy,
+suture of divided nerves, healing by first intention. William of
+Salicet and his pupil Lanfranc. The danger of the separation of
+surgery from medicine. Red light and smallpox. Mondaville and Arnold
+of Villanova. The republication of old texts. The supposed bull
+forbidding anatomy. The supposed bull forbidding chemistry. The
+encouragement of science in the medieval universities.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER VI</h1>
+
+<h2>THE BOOK OF THE ARTS AND POPULAR EDUCATION.  <a href="#96">96</a></h2>
+<p>
+The Gothic Cathedrals, the stone books of medieval arts. St. Hugh of
+Lincoln. Wealth of meaning in the Cathedrals. Their power to please.
+Gothic architecture everywhere, but no slavish imitation. English,
+French, German, and Italian Gothic. Spanish Gothic. Gothic ideas in
+modern architecture. Beauty of details. Sculpture. Gothic Statuary,
+not stiff, nor ugly. Most affinity with Greek sculpture (Reinach). The
+Angel Choir at Lincoln. {xix} The marvellous stained glass of the
+period,&mdash;Lincoln, York, Chartres, Bourges. Storied windows and their
+teachings. Beauty and utility in the arts. Magnificent needlework, the
+Cope of Ascoli. The Cathedral as an educator. The Great Stone Book,
+which he who ran must read. Symbolism of the Cathedrals. The great
+abbeys, the monasteries, municipal and domestic architecture of the
+century. Furniture and decorations. Ruskin on Giotto's tower.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER VII</h1>
+
+<h2>ARTS AND CRAFTS&mdash;GREAT TECHNICAL SCHOOLS.  <a href="#124">124</a></h2>
+<p>
+Solution of problems of social unrest. Blessed is the man who has
+found his work. Merrie England. The workman's pleasure in his work.
+Influence of the Church in the arts and crafts movement. Rivalry in
+building the Cathedrals. Organization of technical instruction.
+Correction of optical illusions. The village blacksmith and carpenter.
+Comparative perfection of the work done then and now. The trade guilds
+and the training of workmen. The system of instruction, apprentice,
+journeyman, master. The masterpiece. Social co-operation and
+fraternity. Mystery plays and social education.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER VIII</h1>
+<h2>
+GREAT ORIGINS IN PAINTING.  <a href="#138">138</a></h2>
+<p>
+Rise of painting. Franciscans and Dominicans, patrons of art. St.
+Francis' return to nature, the incentive of art. Cimabue's Madonna.
+Gaddi. Guido, Ugolino and Duccio of Siena. Berlinghieri of Lucca,
+Giunta of Pisa. Giotto the master. His work at Assisi, Verona, Naples,
+Rome. Marvellous universal appreciation of art. Contrast with other
+times. False notions with regard to Gothic art. Sadness not a
+characteristic. The beauty of the human form divine.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER IX</h1>
+<h2>
+LIBRARIES AND BOOKMEN. <a href="#149">149</a></h2>
+<p>
+Monastic regulations for collecting and lending books. Library rules.
+Circulating libraries. The Abbey of St. Victor, the Sorbonne, St.
+Germain des Prés, and Notre Dame. Fines for misuse of books. Library
+catalogues. Library of La Ste. Chapelle. First medical library at the
+Hotel Dieu. How books were collected. Exchange of books. Special
+revenue for the libraries in the monasteries. Book collecting and
+bequests by ecclesiastics. Cost of books. Franciscan and Dominican
+libraries. Richard De Bury's {xx} Philobiblon. How books were valued.
+Richard a typical bookman. His place in history. Illuminated books.
+The most interesting and original of all time (Humphreys). St. Louis'
+beautiful books.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER X</h1>
+
+<h2>THE CID, THE HOLY GRAIL, THE NIBELUNGEN.  <a href="#166">166</a></h2>
+<p>
+Literature equal to accomplishment in other lines. Architecture and
+literature, and the expression of national feelings. National epics of
+three western-most nations informed within the same half century. The
+Cid, its unity of authorship and action. Martial interest and spirited
+style. Tender domestic scenes. Psychological analysis. Walter Mapes,
+and the Arthur Legends. Authorship and place in literature. Launcelot
+one of the greatest heroes ever invented. Unity of authorship of
+Nibelungen. Place in literature. Modern interest. Influence of these
+epics on national poetry.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER XI</h1>
+
+<h2>MEISTERSINGERS, MINNESINGERS, TROUVÈRES, TROUBADOURS.  <a href="#182">182</a></h2>
+<p>
+A great century of song. The high character of women, as represented
+in these songs. Nature-poetry, and love. Walter Von der Vogelweide,
+Hartman Von Aue, Wolfram Von Eschenbach, Conrad Von Kirchberg. The
+Troubadours and their love songs. Selections from Arnaud de Marveil,
+Arnaud Daniel, Bertrand de Born, William of St. Gregory, and Peyrols.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER XII</h1>
+
+<h2>GREAT LATIN HYMNS. <a href="#194">194</a></h2>
+<p>
+Greatest poetic bequest of the period. Place of rhyme in Latin. Latin
+hymns the first native poetry in the language. Influence of their
+charm of rhyme and rhythm on the developing languages of Europe.
+Supremacy of the Dies Irae, its many admirers. Other surpassing Latin
+Hymns. Celtic origin of rhyme. The Stabat Mater, some translations.
+Critical faculty in hymn selection. Jerusalem the Golden, its place in
+Christian song. Aquinas' hymn, the Pange Lingua, its popularity.
+Musical expression of feeling and plain chant. The best examples from
+this period. Invention of part music, its adaptation and development
+in popular music.
+</p>
+<br>
+{xxi}
+<br>
+<h1>CHAPTER XIII</h1>
+
+<h2>THE THREE MOST READ BOOKS. <a href="#209">209</a></h2>
+<p>
+A generation and the books it reads. Reynard the Fox, the Golden
+Legend, and the Romance of the Rose. "Reynard the most profoundly
+humorous book ever written." Powers of the author as observer. Besides
+Gulliver's Travels, Don Quixote and Pilgrim's Progress. Its relations
+to Uncle Remus and many other animal stories. The place of the Golden
+Legend in literature. Longfellow's use of it. The Romance of the Rose
+for three centuries the most read book in Europe. The answer to the
+charge of dullness. The Rose as a commentary on the morning paper. The
+abuse of wealth as the poet saw it in the Thirteenth Century. Praise
+of "poverty light heart and gay."
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER XIV</h1>
+
+<h2>SOME THIRTEENTH CENTURY PROSE.  <a href="#221">221</a></h2>
+<p>
+Prose of the century as great as the poetry. Medieval Latin
+unappreciated but eminently expressive. The prose style, simple,
+direct and nicely accurate. Saintsbury's opinion as to the influence
+on modern literature of the scholastic philosophers' style. The
+chroniclers and the modern war correspondent. Villehardouin, Jocelyn
+of Brakelond, Joinville, Matthew of Paris. Vincent of Beauvais and the
+first encyclopedia. Pagel's opinion of Vincent's style. Durandus'
+famous work on symbolism. Examples of his style. The Scriptures as the
+basis of style.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER XV</h1>
+
+<h2>ORIGIN OF DRAMA.  <a href="#238">238</a></h2>
+<p>
+St. Francis and the first nativity play. Earlier mystery plays.
+Chester cycle. Humorous passages introduced. Complete bible story
+represented. Actors' wages and costumes. Innocent diversion and
+educational influence. Popular interest. Everyman in our own day.
+Comparison with the passion play at Oberammergau. The drama as an
+important factor in popular education. Active as well as passive
+participation in great poetry. Anticipation of a movement only just
+beginning again.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER XVI</h1>
+
+<h2>FRANCIS, THE SAINT&mdash;THE FATHER OF THE RENAISSANCE.  <a href="#254">254</a></h2>
+<p>
+The Renaissance, so-called. Before the Renaissance. Gothic
+architecture and art. Francis the father of the real Renaissance.
+{xxii} Matthew Arnold and "the poor little man of God." St. Francis as
+a literary man. The canticle of the Sun. St. Francis' career. The
+simple life. Ruskin on Francis' poverty. St. Francis in the last ten
+years. The disciples who gathered around him. A century of
+Franciscans. The third order of St. Francis. Kings and queens, nobles
+and scholars hail St. Francis as father. What the religious orders
+accomplished. St. Clare and the second order.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER XVII</h1>
+
+<h2>AQUINAS, THE SCHOLAR.  <a href="#270">270</a></h2>
+<p>
+The nobility and education. Studies at Cologne and Paris. The
+distinguished faculty of Paris in his time. <i>Summa Contra Gentiles</i>.
+Pope Leo XIII. and Aquinas' teaching. Foundations of Christian
+apologetics. Characteristic passages from Aquinas. Necessity for
+revelation of God's existence. Explanation of Resurrection. Liberty in
+Aquinas' writings. Greatness of Aquinas and his contemporaries and the
+subsequent decadence of scholasticism. Contemporary appreciation of
+St. Thomas. His capacity for work. His sacred poetry.
+</p>
+<h1>
+CHAPTER XVIII</h1>
+<h2>
+LOUIS, THE MONARCH.  <a href="#289">289</a></h2>
+<p>
+The greatest of rulers. His relations as a son, as a husband, as a
+father. His passion for justice. Interest in education, in books, in
+the encyclopedia. Tribute of Voltaire. Guizot's praise. The righting
+of wrongs. Letters to his son. Affection for his children. Regard for
+monks. Would have his children enter monasteries. Treatment of the
+poor. Attitude towards lepers. One of nature's noblemen. Louis and the
+crusades. Bishop Stubbs, on the real meaning of the crusades. Louis'
+interest in the crusades not a stigma, but an added reason for praise.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER XIX</h1>
+
+<h2>DANTE, THE POET.  <a href="#300">300</a></h2>
+<p>
+Dante not a solitary phenomenon. A Troubadour. His minor poems and
+prose works. His wonderful Sonnets. The growth of appreciation for
+him. Italian art, great as it kept nearer to Dante. Tributes from
+Italy's' greatest literary men. Michael Angelo's sonnets to him. A
+world poet. English admiration old and new. Tributes of the two great
+English Cardinals. Dean Church's Essay. Ruskin on the Grotesque on
+{xxiii} Dante. German critical appreciation. Humboldt's tribute.
+America's burden of praise. Dante and the modern thinker. His
+wonderful powers of observation. Comparison with Milton. His place as
+one of the supreme poets of all times. A type of the century.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER XX</h1>
+
+<h2>THE WOMEN OF THE CENTURY. <a href="#319">319</a></h2>
+<p>
+Women of the century worthy of the great period. St. Clare of Assisi's
+place in history. Happiness. The supper at the Portiuncula. Peace, in
+the cloister and woman's influence. Equality of sexes in the religious
+orders. St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the first settlement worker. "Dear
+St. Elizabeth's" influence on women since her time. Blanche of Castile
+as Queen and mother. Her influence as a ruler. Difficulties with her
+daughter-in-law. Mabel Rich, the London tradesman's wife, and her
+sons. Isabella Countess of Arundel and courageous womanly dignity.
+Women's work in the century. Service of the sick. Co-education in
+Italy. Reason for absence in France and England. Women professors at
+Italian universities. Feminine education four times in history.
+Reasons for decline. Women in the literature of the century. The high
+place accorded them by the poets of every country. Dante's tribute to
+their charm without a hint of the physical.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER XXI</h1>
+
+<h2>CITY HOSPITALS&mdash;ORGANIZED CHARITY. <a href="#337">337</a></h2>
+<p>
+Charity occupied a co-ordinate place to education. Pope Innocent III.
+organized both. His foundations of the City hospitals of the world,
+the Santo Spirito at Rome the model. Rise of hospitals in every
+country, Virchow's tribute to Innocent III. Care for lepers in special
+hospitals and eradication of this disease. The meaning of this for the
+modern time and tuberculosis. Special institutions for erysipelas
+which prevented the spread of this disease. The organization of
+charity. The monasteries and the people. The freeing of prisoners held
+in slavery. Two famous orders for this purpose.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER XXII</h1>
+
+<h2>GREAT ORIGINS IN LAW.  <a href="#350">350</a></h2>
+<p>
+Legal origins most surprising feature of the century. Significance of
+Magna Charta. Excerpts that show its character. The church, widows and
+orphans, common pleas, international law, no {xxiv} tax without
+consent, rights of freemen. Development of meaning as time and
+progress demanded it. Bracton's digest of the common law. Edward I.
+the English Justinian. Simon de Montfort. Real estate laws.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER XXIII</h1>
+<h2>
+JUSTICE AND LEGAL DEVELOPMENT. <a href="#364">364</a></h2>
+<p>
+Legal origins in other countries besides England. Montalembert and
+France. St. Louis and the enforcement of law. Fehmic courts of Germany
+and our vigilance committees. Andrew II., and the "Golden Bull, that
+legalized anarchy" in Hungary. Laws of Poland. The Popes and legal
+codification; Innocent III, Gregory IX. Commentaries on law at the
+universities. Pope Boniface VIII, the canonist. Origin of "no taxation
+without representation."
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER XXIV</h1>
+
+<h2>DEMOCRACY, CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM AND NATIONALITY.  <a href="#375">375</a></h2>
+<p>
+Origins in popular self-government. Representation in the governing
+body. German free cities. Swiss declaration of independence. Christian
+socialism and "the three eights." Saturday half-holiday, and the
+vigils of holy-days. Christian fraternity and the guilds. Organization
+of charity. The guild merchant and fraternal solidarity. The guild of
+the Holy Cross, Stratford, and its place in town government and
+education. Progress of democracy. How the crusades strengthened the
+democratic spirit. Their place in the history of human liberty and of
+nationality.
+</p>
+
+<h1>CHAPTER XXV</h1>
+
+<h2>GREAT EXPLORERS AND THE FOUNDATION OF GEOGRAPHY. <a href="#392">392</a></h2>
+<p>
+Geography's wonderful development. Modern problems, Thibet explored,
+Lhasa entered. This perhaps the greatest triumph of the century. Marco
+Polo's travels. Former mistrust now unstinted admiration. Striking
+observations of Polo. John of Carpini's travels in the Near East.
+Colonel Yule on the Book of the Tartars. Friar William of Rubruquis'
+travels in Tartary. Anticipations of modern opinions as to language.
+Some details of description. Friar Odoric and his Irish companion. The
+Praemonstratensian Hayton. Franciscan missionary zeal supplied for our
+geographical societies. Idle monks.
+</p>
+<br>
+{xxv}
+<br>
+<h1>CHAPTER XXVI</h1>
+
+<h2>GREAT BEGINNINGS OF MODERN COMMERCE. <a href="#415">415</a></h2>
+<p>
+This is the most interesting phase for our generation. Hanseatic
+League and obscurity of its origin. League of Lombard cities and
+effect of crusades. Importance of Hansa. Enforcement of its decrees.
+Confederation of cities from England to Central Russia. Surprising
+greatness of the cities. Beginnings of international law. Commerce and
+peace. Origins of coast regulation. Fraternal initiations and their
+equivalents in the aftertime. Origins in hazing. Commerce and liberty.
+Fostering of democracy. International comity.
+</p>
+
+<h1>APPENDIX I</h1>
+<p>
+So-called history. <a href="#430">430</a>
+</p>
+<br>
+<h1>APPENDIX II</h1>
+
+<h2>TWENTY-SIX CHAPTERS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. <a href="#432">432</a></h2>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" width="100%">
+<tbody>
+<tr><td>I.</td><td> America in the Thirteenth Century--Papal documents.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>II. </td><td>A representative upper house.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>III.</td><td> The parish, and training in citizenship.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>IV.</td><td> The chance to rise.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>V. </td><td>Insurance--fire, marine, robbery, against injustice.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>VI.</td><td> Old age pensions, disability wages.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>VII.</td><td>Ways and means of charity--organized charity.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>VIII.</td><td> Scientific universities, investigation, writing.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>IX. </td><td>Medical education and high professional status.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>X.</td><td> Magnetism--first perpetual motion inventor--the North Pole.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XI.</td><td> Biological theories--evolution, recapitulation.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XII.</td><td> The Pope of the century--Innocent III.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XIII. </td><td>International arbitration.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XIV.</td><td> Bible revision.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XV.</td><td> Fiction of the century.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XVI. </td><td>Great orators.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XVII.</td><td> Great beginnings of English literature.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XVIII.</td><td>Origins of music.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XIX. </td><td>Refinement and table manners.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XX.</td><td> Textiles, satins, brocades, laces, needlework.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XXI.</td><td> Glass-making.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XXII.</td><td>Inventions.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XXIII.</td><td> Industry and trade.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XXIV.</td><td>Fairs and markets.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XXV. </td><td>Intensive farming.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>XXVI.</td><td> Cartography and the teaching of geography--Hereford Map of the World.</td></tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+<br>
+<h1>APPENDIX III</h1>
+
+<h2>CRITICISMS, COMMENTS, DOCUMENTS. <a href="#464">464</a></h2>
+<p>
+Human progress. The century of origins. Education. Technical education
+of the masses. How it all stopped. Comfort and poverty. Comfort and
+happiness. Comfort and health. Hygiene. Wages and the condition of
+working people. Interest and loans. The eighteenth lowest of
+centuries.
+</p>
+<br>
+{xxvi}
+<br><br>
+{xxvii}
+<br>
+<h1>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h1>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" width="100%">
+<col width="8%"><col width="62%"><col width="30%">
+<tbody>
+<tr><td>1</td><td> Le Beau Dieu (Amiens)</td><td><a href="#front">Frontispiece</a> (ii)</td></tr>
+<tr><td>2</td><td> Virgin with the Divine Child (Mosaic, St. Mark's, Venice)</td><td><a href="#opp5">Opposite page 5</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>3</td><td> Pulpit (N. Pisano, Siena)</td><td><a href="#opp8">Opposite page 8</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>4</td><td> Archangel Michael (Giovanni Pisano, Pisa)</td><td><a href="#opp13">Opposite page 13</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>5</td><td> Christ (Andrea Pisano, Florence)</td><td><a href="#opp13">Opposite page 13</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>6</td><td> Sta. Reparata (Andrea Pisano, Florence)</td><td><a href="#opp13">Opposite page 13</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>7</td><td> Paschal Candlestick (Baptistery, Florence)</td><td><a href="#opp15">Opposite page 15</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>8</td><td> Reliquary (Cathedral Orvieto, Ugolino di Vieri)</td><td><a href="#opp15">Opposite page 15</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>9</td><td> The Church in Symbol (Paris)</td><td><a href="#17">On page 17</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>10</td><td> Adoration of Magi (Pulpit, Siena, Nic. Pisano)</td><td><a href="#opp22">Opposite page 22</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>11</td><td> Cathedral (Lincoln)</td><td><a href="#opp28">Opposite page 28</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>12</td><td> Cathedral (York)</td><td><a href="#opp28">Opposite page 28</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>13</td><td> Cloister of St. John Lateran (Rome)</td><td><a href="#opp32">Opposite page 32</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>14</td><td> Jacques Coeur's House (Bourges)</td><td><a href="#32">On page 32</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>15</td><td> Rathhaus (Tangerm&uuml;nde)</td><td><a href="#opp42">Opposite page 42</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>16</td><td> Cathedral (Hereford)</td><td><a href="#opp44">Opposite page 44</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>17</td><td> Cathedral (York, East)</td><td><a href="#opp44">Opposite page 44</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>18</td><td> Single Flying Buttress</td><td><a href="#57">On page 57</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>19</td><td> Christ Driving Out Money Changers (Giotto)</td><td><a href="#opp64">Opposite page 64</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>20</td><td> Bride from Marriage of Cana (Giotto)</td><td><a href="#opp64">Opposite page 64</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>21</td><td> Head (Mosaic, St. Mark's, Venice)</td><td><a href="#opp64">Opposite page 64</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>22</td><td> Head of Blessed Virgin Annunciation</td><td><a href="#opp64">Opposite page 64</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>23</td><td> Petrarch Portraits by Benozzo Gozzoli</td><td><a href="#opp71">Opposite page 71</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>24</td><td> Dante Portraits by Benozzo Gozzoli</td><td><a href="#opp71">Opposite page 71</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>25</td><td> Giotto Portraits by Benozzo Gozzoli</td><td><a href="#opp71">Opposite page 71</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>26</td><td> Screen (Hereford)</td><td><a href="#opp87">Opposite page 87</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>27</td><td> Doorway of Sacristy (Bourges)</td><td><a href="#opp87">Opposite page 87</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>28</td><td> Double Flying Buttress</td><td><a href="#95">On page 95</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>29</td><td> Angel Choir (Lincoln)</td><td><a href="#opp96">Opposite page 96</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>30</td><td> Cathedral (Amiens)</td><td><a href="#opp105">Opposite page 105</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>31</td><td> Cathedral (Rheims)</td><td><a href="#opp107">Opposite page 107</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>32</td><td> Cloister of St. Paul's (without the walls, Rome)</td><td><a href="#opp112">Opposite page 112</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>33</td><td> Cathedral (Bourges)</td><td><a href="#opp116">Opposite page 116</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>34</td><td> Cathedral (Chartres)</td><td><a href="#opp116">Opposite page 116</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>35</td><td> Durham Castle and Cathedral</td><td><a href="#opp120">Opposite page 120</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>36</td><td> King John's Castle (Limerick)</td><td><a href="#opp120">Opposite page 120</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>37</td><td> Giotto's Tower (Florence)</td><td><a href="#opp122">Opposite page 122</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>38</td><td> Palazzo Vecchio (Arnulfo, Florence)<br>
+                                    Campanile (Giotto)</td><td><a href="#opp122">Opposite page 122</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>{xxviii}</td></tr>
+<tr><td>39</td><td> Fountain (Perugia) [Town Pump]</td><td><a href="#opp126">Opposite page 126</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>40</td><td> Lavatoio (Todi) [Public Wash-House]</td><td><a href="#opp126">Opposite page 126</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>41</td><td> Reliquary (Limoges Museo, Florence)</td><td><a href="#opp133">Opposite page 133</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>42</td><td> Crucifix (Duomo, Siena)</td><td><a href="#opp133">Opposite page 133</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>43</td><td> Madonna, Cimabue (Rucellai Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence)</td><td> <a href="#opp136">Opposite page 136</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>44</td><td> St. Francis' Marriage with Poverty (Giotto, Assisi)</td><td><a href="#opp144">Opposite page 144</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>45</td><td> Espousal of St. Catherine (Gaddi, XIII. Century pupil, Perugia)</td><td> <a href="#opp147">Opposite page 147</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>46</td><td> Group from Visitation (Rheims)</td><td><a href="#148">On page 148</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>47</td><td> Monument of Cardinal de Bray (Arnolfo)</td><td><a href="#opp156">Opposite page 156</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>48</td><td> Decoration (XIII. Cent. Psalter MSS.)</td><td><a href="#165">On page 165</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>49</td><td> Santa Maria Sopra Minerva (Rome's Gothic Cathedral)</td><td><a href="#opp168">Opposite page 168</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>50</td><td> Crozier (obverse and reverse)</td><td><a href="#181">On page 181</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>51</td><td>Tower of Scaligers</td><td><a href="#193">On page 193</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>52</td><td> St. Francis Prophesies the Death of Celano (Giotto, Upper Ch., Assisi)</td><td><a href="#opp197">Opposite page 197</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>53</td><td> Virgin and Child (Pisa, Campo Santo, Giov. Pisano)</td><td><a href="#opp200">Opposite page 200</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>54</td><td> Entombment of Blessed Virgin</td><td><a href="#208">On page 208</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>55</td><td> St. Christopher (alto relievo, Venice)</td><td><a href="#opp214">Opposite page 214</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>56</td><td>Madonna and Child (Giov. Pisano, Padua)</td><td><a href="#opp214">Opposite page 214</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>57</td><td> Tower (Lincoln)</td><td><a href="#220">On page 220</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>58</td><td> Porta Romana Gate, Florence (N. Pisano)</td><td><a href="#opp226">Opposite page 226</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>59</td><td>Ponte Alle Grazie (Lapo)</td><td><a href="#opp226">Opposite page 226</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>60</td><td>Church and Cloisters, San Antonio (Padua)</td><td><a href="#opp232">Opposite page 232</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>61</td><td> St. Catherine's (L&uuml;beck)</td><td><a href="#opp232">Opposite page 232</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>62</td><td> Stone Carving (Paris)</td><td><a href="#237">On page 237</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>63</td><td> The First Nativity Play (Giotto, Upper Church of Assisi)</td><td><a href="#opp240">Opposite page 240</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>64</td><td>Palazzo Buondelmonti (Florence)</td><td><a href="#opp248">Opposite page 248</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>65</td><td> Palazzo Tolomei (Siena)</td><td><a href="#opp248">Opposite page 248</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>66</td><td> Capital (Lincoln)</td><td><a href="#253">On page 253</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>67</td><td> The Glorification of St. Francis (Giotto, Lower Church of Assisi)</td><td> <a href="#opp256">Opposite page 256</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>68</td><td> St. Francis (Church of the Frari, Venice, Nic. Pisano)</td><td><a href="#opp261">Opposite page 261</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>69</td><td> St. Clare&mdash;Three Franciscans (Giotto)</td><td><a href="#opp264">Opposite page 264</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>70</td><td> St. Louis&mdash;Three Franciscans (Giotto)</td><td><a href="#opp264">Opposite page 264</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>71</td><td> St. Elizabeth&mdash;Three Franciscans (Giotto)</td><td><a href="#opp264">Opposite page 264</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>72</td><td> Side Capital (Lincoln)</td><td><a href="#269">On page 269</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>73</td><td> Notre Dame (Paris)</td><td><a href="#opp290">Opposite page 290</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>74</td><td> La Sainte Chapelle (Paris)</td><td>Opposite page 294 [missing]</td></tr>
+<tr><td>75</td><td>Cathedral (Orvieto)</td><td>Opposite page 294 [missing]</td></tr>
+<tr><td>{xxix}</td></tr>
+<tr><td>76</td><td>Apostle (la Sainte Chapelle, Paris)</td><td><a href="#opp296">Opposite page 296</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>77</td><td> Decoration (Queen Mary's Psalter, XIII. Century MS.)</td><td><a href="#299">On page 299</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>78</td><td> Portrait of Dante (Giotto, in the Bargello, Florence)</td><td><a href="#opp300">Opposite page 300</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>79</td><td>Torre del Fame (Dante, Pisa)</td><td><a href="#opp306">Opposite page 306</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>80</td><td> Palazzo Pretorio (Todi)</td><td><a href="#opp306">Opposite page 306</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>81</td><td> Angel (Rheims)</td><td><a href="#318">On page 318</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>82</td><td> St. Clare Bids the Dead St. Francis Good-bye (Giotto, Up. Ch. Assisi)</td><td><a href="#opp320">Opposite page 320</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>83</td><td> Church (Doberan, Germany)</td><td><a href="#opp322">Opposite page 322</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>84</td><td> San Damiano (Assisi)</td><td><a href="#opp322">Opposite page 322</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>85</td><td> St. Elizabeth's Cathedral (Marburg)</td><td><a href="#opp325">Opposite page 325</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>86</td><td> Marriage of the Blessed Virgin (Giotto, Padua)</td><td><a href="#opp328">Opposite page 328</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>87</td><td> Mosaic (St. Mark's, Venice, 1220)</td><td><a href="#opp333">Opposite page 333</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>88</td><td> Stone Carving (Amiens)</td><td><a href="#336">On page 336</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>89</td><td> Hospital of the Holy Ghost (L&uuml;beck)</td><td><a href="#opp341">Opposite page 341</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>90</td><td>Charity (Giotto)</td><td><a href="#opp347">Opposite page 347</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>91</td><td> Fortitude (Giotto)</td><td><a href="#opp347">Opposite page 347</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>92</td><td> Hope (Giotto)</td><td><a href="#opp347">Opposite page 347</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>93</td><td> Hospital Interior</td><td><a href="#349">On page 349</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>94</td><td> Tower (Marburg)</td><td><a href="#363">On page 363</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>95</td><td> City Gate (Neubrandenburg)</td><td><a href="#opp368">Opposite page 368</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>96</td><td> Rathhaus (Stralsund)</td><td><a href="#opp368">Opposite page 368</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>97</td><td> Portrait of Pope Boniface VIII. (Giotto, Rome)</td><td><a href="#opp372">Opposite page 372</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>98</td><td>Decoration (XIII. Cent. Psalter)</td><td><a href="#374">On page 374</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>99</td><td> Doorway (Lincoln)</td><td><a href="#opp381">Opposite page 381</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>100</td><td> Nave (Durham)</td><td><a href="#opp381">Opposite page 381</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>101</td><td>Broken Arch (St. Mary's, York, Climax of Gothic)</td><td><a href="#opp381">Opposite page 381</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>102</td><td> Animals from Bestiarium (XIII. Cent. MS.)</td><td><a href="#391">On page 391</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>103</td><td>Door of Giotto's Tower (Florence)</td><td><a href="#opp405">Opposite page 405</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>104</td><td> Principal Door of Baptistery (Pisa)</td><td><a href="#opp405">Opposite page 405</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>105</td><td> Palazzo dei Consoli (Gubbio)</td><td><a href="#opp417">Opposite page 417</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>106</td><td> Palazzo Zabarella (Padua)</td><td><a href="#opp417">Opposite page 417</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>107</td><td> Rathhaus (L&uuml;beck)</td><td><a href="#opp422">Opposite page 422</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>108</td><td> City Gate (Neubrandenburg)</td><td><a href="#opp426">Opposite page 426</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>109</td><td> Minster (Chorin, Germany)</td><td><a href="#opp426">Opposite page 426</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>110</td><td> Hinge from Schlestadt</td><td><a href="#429">On page 429</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>111</td><td> Portion of Letter of Innocent III., Mentioning Greenland</td><td><a href="#433">On page 433</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>112</td><td> Double Pivoted Compass Needle</td><td><a href="#442">On page 441</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>113</td><td> Peregrinus' Compass</td><td><a href="#443">On page 442</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>114</td><td> Portion of MS. of Ormulum</td><td><a href="#450">On page 450</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>115</td><td> Key of Map of World (Hereford)</td><td><a href="#461">On page 461</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>116</td><td> Map of World (Hereford)</td><td><a href="#opp463">Opposite page 463</a></td></tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+<br>
+{xxx}
+<br><br>
+<a name="1">{1}</a>
+<br>
+<h1>I
+<br><br>
+INTRODUCTION</h1>
+
+<h2>THE THIRTEENTH, THE GREATEST OF CENTURIES</h2>
+<p>
+It cannot but seem a paradox to say that the Thirteenth was the
+greatest of centuries. To most people the idea will appear at once so
+preposterous that they may not even care to consider it. A certain
+number, of course, will have their curiosity piqued by the thought
+that anyone should evolve so curious a notion. Either of these
+attitudes of mind will yield at once to a more properly receptive mood
+if it is recalled that the Thirteenth is the century of the Gothic
+cathedrals, of the foundation of the university, of the signing of
+Magna Charta, and of the origin of representative government with
+something like constitutional guarantees throughout the west of
+Europe. The cathedrals represent a development in the arts that has
+probably never been equaled either before or since. The university was
+a definite creation of these generations that has lived and maintained
+its usefulness practically in the same form in which it was then cast
+for the seven centuries ever since. The foundation stones of modern
+liberties are to be found in the documents which for the first time
+declared the rights of man during this precious period.
+</p>
+<p>
+A little consideration of the men who, at this period, lived lives of
+undying influence on mankind, will still further attract the attention
+of those who have not usually grouped these great characters together.
+Just before the century opened, three great rulers died at the height
+of their influence. They are still and will always be the subject of
+men's thoughts and of literature. They were Frederick Barbarossa,
+Saladin, and Richard Coeur De Lion. They formed but a suggestive
+prelude of what was to come in the following century, when such <a name="2">{2}</a>
+great monarchs as St. Louis of France, St. Ferdinand of Spain, Alfonso
+the Wise of Castile, Frederick II of Germany, Edward I, the English
+Justinian, Rudolph of Hapsburg, whose descendants still rule in
+Austria, and Robert Bruce, occupied the thrones of Europe. Was it by
+chance or Providence that the same century saw the rise of and the
+beginning of the fall of that great Eastern monarchy which had been
+created by the genius for conquest of Jenghiz Khan, the Tartar warrior,
+who ruled over all the Eastern world from beyond what are now the
+western confines of Russia, Poland, and Hungary, into and including
+what we now call China.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the thrones of Europe and of Asia did not monopolize the great men
+of the time. The Thirteenth Century claims such wonderful churchmen as
+St. Francis and St. Dominic, and while it has only the influence of
+St. Hugh of Lincoln, who died just as it began, it can be proud of St.
+Edmund of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, and Robert Grosseteste, all men
+whose place in history is due to what they did for their people, and
+such magnificent women as Queen Blanche of Castile, St. Clare of
+Assisi, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. The century opened with one of
+the greatest of the Popes on the throne, Innocent III, and it closed
+with the most misunderstood of Popes, who is in spite of this one of
+the worthiest successors of Peter, Boniface VIII. During the century
+there had been such men as Honorius IV, the Patron of Learning,
+Gregory IX, to whom Canon Law owes so much, and John XXI, who had been
+famous as a scientist before becoming Pope. There are such scholars as
+St. Thomas of Aquin, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, St. Bonaventure,
+Duns Scotus, Raymond Lully, Vincent of Beauvais, and Alexander of
+Hales, and such patrons of learning as Robert of Sorbonne, and the
+founders of nearly twenty universities. There were such artists as
+Gaddi, Cimabue, and above all Giotto, and such literary men as the
+authors of the Arthur Legends and the Nibelungen, the Meistersingers,
+the Minnesingers, the Troubadours, and Trouvères, and above all Dante,
+who is universally considered now to be one of the greatest literary
+men of all times, but who was not, as is so often thought and said, a
+solitary phenomenon in the period, but only the culmination of a great
+literary movement that had to have <a name="3">{3}</a> some such supreme expression of
+itself as this in order to properly round out the cycle of its
+existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+If in addition it be said that this century saw the birth of the
+democratic spirit in many different ways in the various countries of
+Europe, but always in such form that it was never quite to die out
+again, the reasons for talking of it as possibly the greatest of
+centuries will be readily appreciated even by those whose reading has
+not given them any preliminary basis of information with regard to
+this period, which has unfortunately been shrouded from the eyes of
+most people by the fact, that its place in the midst of the Middle
+Ages would seem to preclude all possibility of the idea that it could
+represent a great phase of the development of the human intellect and
+its esthetic possibilities.
+</p>
+<p>
+There would seem to be one more or less insuperable objection to the
+consideration of the Thirteenth as the greatest of centuries, and that
+arises from the fact that the idea of evolution has consciously and
+unconsciously tinged the thoughts of our generation to such a degree,
+that it seems almost impossible to think of a period so far in the
+distant past as having produced results comparable with those that
+naturally flow from the heightened development of a long subsequent
+epoch. Whatever of truth there may be in the great theory of
+evolution, however, it must not be forgotten that no added evidence
+for its acceptance can be obtained from the intellectual history of
+the human race. We may be "the heirs of all the ages in the foremost
+files of time," but one thing is certain, that we can scarcely hope to
+equal, and do not at all think of surpassing, some of the great
+literary achievements of long past ages.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the things of the spirit apparently there is very little, if any,
+evolution. Homer wrote nearly three thousand years ago as supreme an
+expression of human life in absolute literary values as the world has
+ever known, or, with all reverence for the future be it said, is ever
+likely to know. The great dramatic poem Job emanated from a Hebrew
+poet in those earlier times, and yet, if judged from the standpoint of
+mere literature, is as surpassing an expression of human intelligence
+in the presence of the mystery of evil as has ever come from the mind
+of man. We are no nearer the solution of the problem of <a name="4">{4}</a> evil in
+life, though thousands of years have passed and man has been much
+occupied with the thoughts that disturbed the mind of the ruler of
+Moab. The Code of Hammurabi, recently discovered, has shown very
+definitely, that men could make laws nearly five thousand years ago as
+well calculated to correct human abuses as those our legislators spend
+so much time over at present, and the olden time laws were probably
+quite as effective as ours can hope to be, for all our well
+intentioned purpose and praiseworthy efforts at reform.
+</p>
+<p>
+It used to be a favorite expression of Virchow, the great German
+pathologist, who was, besides, however, the greatest of living
+anthropologists, that from the history of the human race the theory of
+evolution receives no confirmation of any kind. His favorite subject,
+the study of skulls, and their conformation in the five thousand years
+through which such remains could be traced, showed him absolutely no
+change. For him there had been also no development in the intellectual
+order in human life during the long period of human history. Of course
+this is comparatively brief if the long aeons of geological times be
+considered, yet some development might be expected to manifest itself
+in the more than two hundred generations that have come and gone since
+the beginning of human memory. Perhaps, then, the prejudice with
+regard to evolution and its supposed effectiveness in making the men
+of more recent times superior to those of the past, may be considered
+to have very little weight as an <i>a priori</i> objection to the
+consideration of the Thirteenth Century as representing the highest
+stage in human accomplishment. So far as scientific anthropology goes
+there is utter indifference as to the period that may be selected as
+representing man at his best.
+</p>
+<p>
+To most people the greater portion of surprise with regard to the
+assertion of the Thirteenth as the greatest of centuries will be the
+fact that the period thus picked out is almost in the heart of the
+Middle Ages. It would be not so amazing if the fifth century before
+Christ, which produced such marvelous accomplishments in letters and
+art and philosophy among the Greeks, was chosen as the greatest of
+human epochs. There might not even be so much of unpreparedness of
+mind if that supreme century of Roman History, from fifty years before
+Christ to fifty years after, were picked out for such signal notice.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp5">{opp5}</a>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp005.jpg" border=1>
+<br>
+VIRGIN WITH THE DIVINE CHILD (MOSAIC, ST. MARK'S, VENICE)
+</p>
+<br>
+
+<a name="5">{5}</a>
+<p>
+We have grown accustomed, however, to think of the Middle Ages as
+hopelessly backward in the opportunities they afforded men for the
+expression of their intellectual and artistic faculties, and above all
+for any development of that human liberty which means so much for the
+happiness of the race and must constitute the basis of any real
+advance worth while talking about in human affairs. It is this that
+would make the Thirteenth Century seem out of place in any comparative
+study for the purpose of determining proportionate epochal greatness.
+The spirit breathes where it will, however, and there was a mighty
+wind of the spirit of human progress abroad in that Thirteenth
+Century, whose effects usually miss proper recognition in history,
+because people fail to group together in their minds all the
+influences in our modern life that come to us from that precious
+period. All this present volume pretends to do is to gather these
+scattered details of influence in order to make the age in which they
+all coincided so wonderfully, be properly appreciated.
+</p>
+<p>
+If we accept the usual historical division which places the Middle
+Ages during the thousand years between the fall of the Roman Empire,
+in the Fifth Century and the fall of the Grecian Empire of
+Constantinople, about the middle of the Fifteenth, the Thirteenth
+Century must be considered the culmination of that middle age. It is
+three centuries before the Renaissance, and to most minds that magical
+word represents the beginning of all that is modern, and therefore all
+that is best, in the world. Most people forget entirely how much of
+progress had been made before the so-called Renaissance, and how many
+great writers and artists had been fostering the taste and developing
+the intelligence of the people of Italy long before the fall of
+Constantinople. The Renaissance, after all, means only the re-birth of
+Greek ideas and ideals, of Greek letters and arts, into the modern
+world. If this new birth of Greek esthetics had not found the soil
+thoroughly prepared by the fruitful labor of three centuries before,
+history would not have seen any such outburst of artistic and literary
+accomplishments as actually came at the end of the Fifteenth and
+during the Sixteenth centuries.
+</p>
+<a name="6">{6}</a>
+<p>
+In taking up the thesis, The Thirteenth the Greatest of Centuries, it
+seems absolutely necessary to define just what is meant by the term
+great, in its application to a period. An historical epoch, most
+people would concede at once, is really great just in proportion to
+the happiness which it provides for the largest possible number of
+humanity. That period is greatest that has done most to make men
+happy. Happiness consists in the opportunity to express whatever is
+best in us, and above all to find utterance for whatever is
+individual. An essential element in it is the opportunity to develop
+and apply the intellectual faculties, whether this be of purely
+artistic or of thoroughly practical character. For such happiness the
+opportunity to rise above one's original station is one of the
+necessary requisites. Out of these opportunities there comes such
+contentment as is possible to man in the imperfect existence that is
+his under present conditions.
+</p>
+<p>
+Almost as important a quality in any epoch that is to be considered
+supremely great, is the difference between the condition of men at the
+beginning of it and at its conclusion. The period that represents most
+progress, even though at the end uplift should not have reached a
+degree equal to subsequent periods, must be considered as having best
+accomplished its duty to the race. For purposes of comparison it is
+the amount of ground actually covered in a definite time, rather than
+the comparative position at the end of it, that deserves to be taken
+into account. This would seem to be a sort of hedging, as if the terms
+of the comparison of the Thirteenth with other centuries were to be
+made more favorable by the establishment of different standards. There
+is, however, no need of any such makeshift in order to establish the
+actual supremacy of the Thirteenth Century, since it can well afford
+to be estimated on its own merits alone, and without any allowances
+because of the stage of cultural development at which it occurred.
+</p>
+<p>
+John Ruskin once said that a proper estimation of the accomplishments
+of a period in human history can only be obtained by careful study of
+three books&mdash;The Book of the Deeds, The Book of the Arts, and the Book
+of the Words, of the given epoch. The Thirteenth Century may be
+promptly ready for this judgment of what it accomplished for men, of
+<a name="7">{7}</a> what it wrote for subsequent generations, and of the artistic
+qualities to be found in its art remains. In the Book of the Deeds of
+the century what is especially important is what was accomplished for
+men, that is, what the period did for the education of the people, not
+alone the classes but the masses, and what a precious heritage of
+liberty and of social coordination it left behind. To most people it
+will appear at once that if the most important chapter of Thirteenth
+Century accomplishment is to be found in the Book of its Deeds and the
+deeds are to be judged according to the standard just given of
+education and liberty, then there will be no need to seek further,
+since these are words for which it is supposed that there is no actual
+equivalent in human life and history for at least several centuries
+after the close of the Thirteenth.
+</p>
+<p>
+As a matter of fact, however, it is in this very chapter that the
+Thirteenth Century will be found strongest in its claim to true
+greatness. The Thirteenth Century saw the foundation of the
+universities and their gradual development into the institutions of
+learning which we have at the present time. Those scholars of the
+Thirteenth Century recognized that, for its own development and for
+practical purposes, the human intellect can best be trained along
+certain lines. For its preliminary training, it seemed to them to need
+what has since come to be called the liberal arts, that is, a
+knowledge of certain languages and of logic, as well as a thorough
+consideration of the great problems of the relation of man to his
+Creator, to his fellow-men, and to the universe around him. Grammar, a
+much wider subject than we now include under the term, and philosophy
+constituted the undergraduate studies of the universities of the
+Thirteenth Century. For the practical purposes of life, a division of
+post-graduate study had to be made so as to suit the life design of
+each individual, and accordingly the faculties of theology, for the
+training of divines; of medicine, for the training of physicians; and
+of law, for the training of advocates, came into existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+We shall consider this subject in more detail in a subsequent chapter,
+but it will be clear at once that the university, as organized by
+these wise generations of the Thirteenth Century, has come down
+unchanged to us in the modern time. We <a name="8">{8}</a> still have practically the
+same methods of preliminary training and the same division of
+post-graduate studies. We specialize to a greater degree than they
+did, but it must not be forgotten that specialism was not unknown by
+any means in the Thirteenth Century, though there were fewer
+opportunities for its practical application to the things of life. If
+this century had done nothing else but create the instrument by which
+the human mind has ever since been trained, it must be considered as
+deserving a place of the very highest rank in the periods of human
+history.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is, however, much more for what it accomplished for the education
+of the masses than for the institutions it succeeded in developing for
+the training of the classes, that the Thirteenth Century merits a
+place in the roll of fame. This declaration will doubtless seem
+utterly paradoxical to the ordinary reader of history. We are very
+prone to consider that it is only in our time that anything like
+popular education has come into existence. As a matter of fact,
+however, the education afforded to the people in the little towns of
+the Middle Ages, represents an ideal of educational uplift for the
+masses such as has never been even distantly approached in succeeding
+centuries. The Thirteenth Century developed the greatest set of
+technical schools that the world has ever known. The technical school
+is supposed to be a creation of the last half century at the outside.
+These medieval towns, however, during the course of the building of
+their cathedrals, of their public buildings and various magnificent
+edifices of royalty and for the nobility, succeeded in accomplishing
+such artistic results that the world has ever since held them in
+admiration, and that this admiration has increased rather than
+diminished with the development of taste in very recent years.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nearly every one of the most important towns of England during the
+Thirteenth Century was erecting a cathedral. Altogether some twenty
+cathedrals remain as the subject of loving veneration and of frequent
+visitation for the modern generation. There was intense rivalry
+between these various towns. Each tried to surpass the other in the
+grandeur of its cathedral and auxiliary buildings. Instead of lending
+workmen to one another there was a civic pride in accomplishing for
+one's native town whatever was best.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp8"></a>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp008.jpg" border=1><br>
+PULPIT (PISANO, SIENA)
+</p>
+
+<a name="9">{9}</a>
+<p>
+Each of these towns, then, none of which had more than twenty thousand
+inhabitants except London, and even that scarcely more, had to develop
+its own artist-artisans for itself. That they succeeded in doing so
+demonstrates a great educational influence at work in arts and crafts
+in each of these towns. We scarcely succeed in obtaining such trained
+workmen in proportionately much fewer numbers even with the aid of our
+technical schools, and while these Thirteenth Century people did not
+think of such a term, it is evident that they had the reality and that
+they were able to develop artistic handicraftsmen&mdash;the best the world
+has ever known.
+</p>
+<p>
+With all this of education abroad in the lands, it is not surprising
+that great results should have flowed from human efforts and that
+these should prove enduring even down to our own time. Accomplishments
+of the highest significance were necessarily bound up with
+opportunities for self-expression, so tempting and so complete, as
+those provided for the generations of the Thirteenth Century. The
+books of the Words as well as of the Arts of the Thirteenth Century
+will be found eminently interesting, and no period has ever furnished
+so many examples of wondrous initiative, followed almost immediately
+by just as marvelous progress and eventual approach to as near
+perfection as it is perhaps possible to come in things human.
+Ordinarily literary origins are not known with sufficient certainty as
+to dates for any but the professional scholar to realize the scope of
+the century's literature. Only a very little consideration, however,
+is needed to demonstrate how thoroughly representative of what is most
+enduring in literary expression in modern times, are the works in
+every country that had origin in this century.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was not a single country in civilized Europe which did not
+contribute its quota and that of great significance to the literary
+movement of the time. In Spain there came the Cid and certain
+accompanying products of ballad poetry which form the basis of the
+national literature and are still read not only by scholars and
+amateurs, but even by the people generally, because of the supreme
+human interest in them. In England, the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century saw the putting <a name="10">{10}</a> into shape of the Arthur Legends in the
+form in which they were to appeal most nearly to subsequent
+generations. Walter Map's work in these was, as we shall see, one of
+the great literary accomplishments of all time. Subsequent treatments
+of the same subject are only slight modifications of the theme which
+he elaborated, and Mallory's and Spenser's and even our own Tennyson's
+work derive their interest from the humanly sympathetic story, written
+so close to the heart of nature in the Thirteenth Century that it will
+always prove attractive.
+</p>
+<p>
+In Germany, just at the same time, the Nibelungen-Lied was receiving
+the form in which it was to live as the great National epic. The
+Meistersingers also were accomplishing their supreme work of
+Christianizing and modernizing the old German and Christian legends
+which were to prove such a precious heritage of interest for
+posterity. In the South of Germany the Minnesingers sang their tuneful
+strains and showed how possible it was to take the cruder language of
+the North, and pour forth as melodious hymns of praise to nature and
+to their beloved ones as in the more fluent Southern tongues. Most of
+this was done in the old Suabian high German dialect, and the basis of
+the modern German language was thus laid. The low German was to prove
+the vehicle for the original form of the animal epic or stories with
+regard to Reynard, the Fox, which were to prove so popular throughout
+all of Europe for all time thereafter.
+</p>
+<p>
+In North France the Trouvères were accomplishing a similar work to
+that of the Minnesingers in South Germany, but doing it with an
+original genius, a refinement of style characteristic of their nation,
+and a finish of form that was to impress itself upon French literature
+for all subsequent time. Here also Jean de Meun and Guillaume de
+Lorris wrote the Romance of the Rose, which was to remain the most
+popular book in Europe down to the age of printing and for some time
+thereafter. At the South of France the work of the Troubadours,
+similar to that of the Trouvères and yet with, a spirit and character
+all its own, was creating a type of love songs that the world recurs
+to with pleasure whenever the lyrical aspect of poetry becomes
+fashionable. The influence of the Troubadours was to be felt in Italy,
+and before the end of the <a name="11">{11}</a> Thirteenth Century there were many
+writers of short poems that deserve a place in what is best in
+literature. Men like Sordello, Guido Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia, and
+Dante da Maiano, deserve mention in any historical review of
+literature, quite apart from the influence which they had on their
+great successor, the Prince of Italian poets and one of the immortal
+trio of the world's supreme creative singers&mdash;Dante Alighieri. With
+what must have seemed the limit of conceit he placed himself among the
+six greatest poets, but posterity breathes his name only with those of
+Homer and Shakespeare.
+</p>
+<p>
+Dante, in spite of his giant personality and sublime poetic genius, is
+not an exception nor a solitary phenomenon in the course of the
+century, but only a worthy culmination of the literary movement which,
+beginning in the distant West in Spain and England, gradually worked
+eastward quite contrary to the usual trend of human development and
+inspired its greatest work in the musical Tuscan dialect after having
+helped in the foundation of all the other modern languages. Dante is
+the supreme type of the Thirteenth Century, the child of his age, but
+the great master whom medieval influences have made all that he is.
+That he belongs to the century there can be no doubt, and of himself
+alone he would be quite sufficient to lift any period out of obscurity
+and place it among the favorite epochs, in which the human mind found
+one of those opportune moments for the expression of what is sublimest
+in human thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is, however, the bock of the Arts of the Thirteenth Century that
+deserves most to be thumbed by the modern reader intent on learning
+something of this marvelous period of human existence. There is not a
+single branch of art in which the men of this generation did not
+accomplish excelling things that have been favorite subjects for study
+and loving imitation ever since. Perhaps the most marvelous quality of
+the grand old Gothic cathedrals, erected during the Thirteenth
+Century, is not their impressiveness as a whole so much as their
+wonderful finish in detail. It matters not what element of
+construction or decoration be taken into consideration, always there
+is an approach to perfection in accomplishment in some one of the
+cathedrals that shows with what thoroughness the men of the <a name="12">{12}</a> time
+comprehended what was best in art, and how finally their strivings
+after perfection were rewarded as bountifully as perhaps it has ever
+been given to men to realize.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of the major arts&mdash;architecture itself, sculpture and painting&mdash;only a
+word will be said here since they will be treated more fully in
+subsequent chapters. No more perfect effort at worthy worship of the
+Most High has ever been accomplished than is to be seen in the Gothic
+cathedrals in every country in Europe as they exist to the present
+day. While the movement began in North France, and gradually spread to
+other countries, there was never any question of mere slavish
+imitation, but on the contrary in each country Gothic architecture
+took on a national character and developed into a charming expression
+of the special characteristics of the people for whom and by whom it
+was made. English Gothic is, of course, quite different to that of
+France; Spanish Gothic has a character all its own; the German Gothic
+cathedrals partake of the heavier characteristics of the Northern
+people, while Italian Gothic adds certain airy decorative qualities to
+the French model that give renewed interest and inevitably indicate
+the origin of the structures.
+</p>
+<p>
+In painting, Cimabue's work, so wonderfully appreciated by the people
+of Florence that spontaneously they flocked in procession to do honor
+to his great picture, was the beginning of modern art. How much was
+accomplished before the end of the century will be best appreciated
+when the name of Giotto is mentioned as the culmination of the art
+movement of the century. As we shall see, the work done by him,
+especially at Assisi, has been a source of inspiration for artists
+down even to our own time, and there are certain qualities of his art,
+especially his faculty for producing the feeling of solidity in his
+paintings, in which very probably he has never been surpassed. Gothic
+cathedrals in other countries did not lend themselves so well as
+subjects of inspiration for decorative art, but in every country the
+sacred books in use in the cathedral were adorned, at the command of
+the artistic impulse of the period, in a way that has made the
+illuminated missals and office books of the Thirteenth Century perhaps
+the most precious that there are in the history of book-making.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp13">{opp13}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp013.jpg" border=1><br>
+ARCHANGEL MICHAEL (GIOVANNI PISANO, PISA)<br>
+CHRIST (ANDREA PISANO, FLORENCE)<br>
+STA. REPARATA (ANDREA PISANO, FLORENCE)
+</p>
+
+<a name="13">{13}</a>
+<p>
+It might be thought that in sculpture, at least, these
+Thirteenth-Century generations would prove to be below the level of
+that perfection and artistic expression which came so assuredly in
+other lines. It is true that most of the sculptures of the period have
+defects that make them unworthy of imitation, though it is in the
+matter of technique that they fail rather than in honest effort to
+express feelings appropriately within the domain of chiseled work. On
+the other hand there are some supreme examples of what is best in
+sculpture to be found among the adornments of the cathedrals of the
+period. No more simply dignified rendition of the God Man has ever
+been made in stone than the statue of Christ, which with such charming
+appropriateness the people of Amiens have called <i>le Beau Dieu</i>, their
+beautiful God, and that visitors to their great cathedral can never
+admire sufficiently, admirably set off, as it is, in its beautiful
+situation above the main door of the great cathedral. Other examples
+are not lacking, as for instance some of the Thirteenth-Century
+effigies of the French kings and queens at St. Denis, and some of the
+wonderful sculptures at Rheims. In its place as a subsidiary art to
+architecture for decorative purposes, sculpture was even more
+eminently successful. The best example of this is the famous Angel
+Choir of Lincoln, one of the most beautiful things that ever came from
+the hand of man and whose designation indicates the belief of the
+centuries that only the angels could have made it.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the handicrafts most nearly allied to the arts, the Thirteenth
+Century reigns supreme with a splendor unapproached by what has been
+accomplished in any other century. The iron work of their gates and
+railings, even of their hinges and latches and locks, has been admired
+and imitated by many generations since. When a piece of it is no
+longer of use, or loosens from the crumbling woodwork to which it was
+attached, it is straightway transported to some museum, there to be
+displayed not alone for its antiquarian interest, but also as a model
+and a suggestion to the modern designer. This same thing is true of
+the precious metal work of the times also, at least as regards the
+utensils and ornaments employed in the sacred services. The chalices
+and other sacred <a name="14">{14}</a> vessels were made on severely simple lines and
+according to models which have since become the types of such sacred
+utensils for all times.
+</p>
+<p>
+The vestments used in the sacred ceremonials partook of this same
+character of eminently appropriate handiwork united to the chastest of
+designs, executed with supreme taste. The famous cope of Ascoli which
+the recent Pierpont Morgan incident brought into prominence a year or
+so ago, is a sample of the needlework of the times that illustrates
+its perfection. It is said by those who are authorities in the matter
+that Thirteenth-Century needlework represents what is best in this
+line. It is not the most elaborate, nor the most showy, but it is in
+accordance with the best taste, supremely suitable to the objects of
+which it formed a part. It is, after all, only an almost inevitable
+appendix to the beautiful work done in the illumination of the sacred
+books, that the sacred vestments should have been quite as supremely
+artistic and just as much triumphs of art.
+</p>
+<p>
+As a matter of fact, every minutest detail of cathedral construction
+and ornamentation shared in this artistic triumph. Even the
+inscriptions, done in brass upon the gravestones that formed part of
+the cathedral pavements, are models of their kind, and rubbings from
+them are frequently taken because of their marvelous effectiveness as
+designs in Gothic tracery.
+</p>
+<p>
+Their bells were made with such care and such perfection that, down to
+the present time, nothing better has been accomplished in this
+handicraft, and their marvelous retention of tone shows how thorough
+was the work of these early bell-makers.
+</p>
+<p>
+The triumph of artistic decoration in the cathedrals, however, and the
+most marvelous page in the book of the Arts of the century, remains to
+be spoken of in their magnificent stained-glass windows. Where they
+learned their secret of glass-making we know not. Artists of the
+modern time, who have spent years in trying to perfect their own work
+in this line, would give anything to have some of the secrets of the
+glass-makers of the Thirteenth Century. Such windows as the Five
+Sisters at York, or the wonderful Jesse window of Chartres with some
+of its companions, are the despair of the modern <a name="15">{15}</a> artists in
+stained glass. The fact that their glass-making was not done at one,
+or even a few, common centers, but was apparently executed in each of
+these small medieval towns that were the site of a cathedral, only
+adds to the marvel of how the workmen of the time succeeded so well in
+accomplishing their purpose of solving the difficult problems of
+stained glasswork.
+</p>
+<a name="opp15">{opp15}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp015.jpg" border=1><br>
+PASCHAL CANDLESTICK (BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE)<br>
+RELIQUARY (CATHEDRAL ORVIETO, UGOLINO DI VIERI)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If, to crown all that has been said about the Thirteenth Century, we
+now add a brief account of what was accomplished for men in the matter
+of liberty and the establishment of legal rights, we shall have a
+reasonably adequate introduction to this great subject. Liberty is
+thought to be a word whose true significance is of much more recent
+origin than the end of the Middle Ages. The rights of men are usually
+supposed to have received serious acknowledgment only in comparatively
+recent centuries. The recalling of a few facts, however, will dispel
+this illusion and show how these men of the later middle age laid the
+foundation of most of the rights and privileges that we are so proud
+to consider our birthright in this modern time. The first great fact
+in the history of modern liberty is the signing of Magna Charta which
+took place only a little after the middle of the first quarter of the
+Thirteenth Century. The movement that led up to it had arisen amongst
+the guildsmen as well as the churchmen and the nobles of the preceding
+century. When the document was signed, however, these men did not
+consider that their work was finished. They kept themselves ready to
+take further advantage of the necessities of their rulers and it was
+not long before they had secured political as well as legal rights.
+</p>
+<p>
+Shortly after the middle of the Thirteenth Century the first English
+parliament met, and in the latter part of that half century it became
+a formal institution with regularly appointed times of meeting and
+definite duties and privileges. Then began the era of law in its
+modern sense for the English people. The English common law took form
+and its great principles were enunciated practically in the terms in
+which they are stated down to the present day. Bracton made his famous
+digest of the English common law for the use of judges and lawyers and
+it became a standard work of reference. Such it <a name="16">{16}</a> has remained down
+to our own time. At the end of the century, during the reign of Edward
+I, the English Justinian, the laws of the land were formulated,
+lacunae in legislation filled up, rights and privileges fully
+determined, real-estate laws put on a modern basis, and the most
+important portions of English law became realities that were to be
+modified but not essentially changed in all the after time.
+</p>
+<p>
+This history of liberty and of law-making, so familiar with regard to
+England, must be repeated almost literally with regard to the
+continental nations. In France, the foundation of the laws of the
+kingdom were laid during the reign of Louis IX, and French authorities
+in the history of law, point with pride, to how deeply and broadly the
+foundations of French jurisprudence were laid. Under Louis's cousin,
+Ferdinand III of Castile, who, like the French monarch, has received
+the title of Saint, because of the uprightness of his character and
+all that he did for his people, forgetful of himself, the foundations
+of Spanish law were laid, and it is to that time that Spanish jurists
+trace the origin of nearly all the rights and privileges of their
+people. In Germany there is a corresponding story. In Saxony there was
+the issue of a famous book of laws, which represented all the grants
+of the sovereigns, and all the claims of subjects that had been
+admitted by monarchs up to that time. In a word, everywhere there was
+a codification of laws and a laying of foundations in jurisprudence,
+upon which the modern superstructure of law was to rise.
+</p>
+<p>
+This is probably the most surprising part of the Thirteenth Century.
+When it began men below the rank of nobles were practically slaves.
+Whatever rights they had were uncertain, liable to frequent violation
+because of their indefinite character, and any generation might, under
+the tyranny of some consciousless monarch, have lost even the few
+privileges they had enjoyed before. At the close of the Thirteenth
+Century this was no longer possible. The laws had been written down
+and monarchs were bound by them as well as their subjects. Individual
+caprice might no longer deprive them arbitrarily of their rights and
+hard won privileges, though tyranny might still assert itself and a
+submissive generation might, for a time, <a name="17">{17}</a> allow themselves to be
+governed by measures beyond the domain of legal justification. Any
+subsequent generation might, however, begin anew its assertion of its
+rights from the old-time laws, rather than from the position to which
+their forbears had been reduced by a tyrant's whim.
+</p>
+<p>
+Is it any wonder, then, that we should call the generations that gave
+us the cathedrals, the universities, the great technical schools that
+were organized by the trades guilds, the great national literatures
+that lie at the basis of all our modern literature, the beginnings of
+sculpture and of art carried to such heights that artistic principles
+were revealed for all time, and, finally, the great men and women of
+this century&mdash;for more than any other it glories in names that were
+born not to die&mdash;is it at all surprising that we should claim for the
+period which, in addition to all this, saw the foundation of modern
+law and liberty, the right to be hailed&mdash;the greatest of human
+history?
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i017.jpg" border=1><br>
+THE CHURCH [SYMBOLIZED] (PARIS)
+</p>
+
+
+<a name="18">{18}</a>
+
+<h1>II
+<br><br>
+UNIVERSITIES AND PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.</h1>
+
+<p>
+To see, at once, how well the Thirteenth deserves the name of the
+greatest of centuries, it is necessary, only, to open the book of her
+deeds and read therein what was accomplished during this period for
+the education of the men of the time. It is, after all, what a
+generation accomplishes for intellectual development and social uplift
+that must be counted as its greatest triumph. If life is larger in its
+opportunities, if men appreciate its significance better, if the
+development of the human mind has been rendered easier, if that
+precious thing, whose name, education, has been so much abused, is
+made readier of attainment, then the generation stamps itself as
+having written down in its book of deeds, things worthy for all
+subsequent generations to read. Though anything like proper
+appreciation of it has come only in very recent times, there is
+absolutely no period of equal length in the history of mankind in
+which so much was not only attempted, but successfully accomplished
+for education, in every sense of the word, as during the Thirteenth
+Century. This included, not only the education of the classes but also
+the education of the masses.
+</p>
+<p>
+For the moment, we shall concern ourselves only with the education
+offered to, and taken advantage of by so many, in the universities of
+the time. It was just at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century that
+the great universities came into being as schools, in which all the
+ordinary forms of learning were taught. During the Twelfth Century,
+Bologna had had a famous school of law which attracted students from
+all over Europe. Under Irnerius, canon and civil law secured a
+popularity as subjects of study such as they never had before. The
+study of the old Roman Law brought back with it an interest in the
+Latin classics, and the beginning of the true new birth&mdash;the real
+renaissance&mdash;of modern education must be traced from here. At Paris
+there was a theological school attached to <a name="19">{19}</a> the cathedral which
+gradually became noted for its devotion to philosophy as the basis of
+theology, and, about the middle of the Twelfth Century, attracted
+students from every part of the civilized world. As was the case at
+Bologna, interest after a time was not limited to philosophy and
+theology; other branches of study were admitted to the curriculum and
+a university in the modern sense came into existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+During the first quarter of the Thirteenth Century both of these
+schools developed faculties for the teaching of all the known branches
+of knowledge. At Bologna faculties of arts, of philosophy and
+theology, and finally of medicine, were gradually added, and students
+flocked in ever increasing numbers to take advantage of these
+additional opportunities. At Paris, the school of medicine was
+established early in the Thirteenth Century, and there were graduates
+in medicine before the year 1220. Law came later, but was limited to
+Canon law to a great extent, Orleans having a monopoly of civil law
+for more than a century. These two universities, Bologna and Paris,
+were, in every sense of the word, early in the century, real
+universities, differing in no essential from our modern institutions
+that bear the same name.
+</p>
+<p>
+If the Thirteenth Century had done nothing else but put into shape
+this great instrument for the training of the human mind, which has
+maintained its effectiveness during seven centuries, it must be
+accorded a place among the epoch-making periods of history. With all
+our advances in modern education we have not found it necessary, or
+even advisable, to change, in any essential way, this mold in which
+the human intellect has been cast for all these years. If a man wants
+knowledge for its own sake, or for some practical purpose in life,
+then here are the faculties which will enable him to make a good
+beginning on the road he wishes to travel. If he wants knowledge of
+the liberal arts, or the consideration of man's duties to himself, to
+his fellow-man and to his Creator, he will find in the faculties of
+arts and philosophy and theology the great sources of knowledge in
+these subjects. If, on the other hand, he wishes to apply his mind
+either to the disputes of men about property, or to their injustices
+toward one another and the correction of abuses, then the faculty of
+law will <a name="20">{20}</a> supply his wants, and finally the medical school enables
+him, if he wishes, to learn all that can be known at a given time with
+regard to man's ills and their healing. We have admitted the
+practical-work subjects into university life, though not without
+protest, but architecture, engineering, bridge-building and the like,
+in which the men of the Thirteenth Century accomplished such wonders,
+were relegated to the guilds whose technical schools, though they did
+not call them by that name, were quite as effective practical
+educators as even the most vaunted of our modern university mechanical
+departments.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is rather interesting to trace the course of the development of
+schools in our modern sense of the term, because their evolution
+recapitulates, to some degree at least, the history of the
+individual's interest in life. The first school which acquired a
+European reputation was that of Salernum, a little town not far from
+Naples, which possessed a famous medical school as early as the ninth
+century, perhaps earlier. This never became a university, though its
+reputation as a great medical school was maintained for several
+centuries. This first educational opportunity to attract a large body
+of students from all over the world concerned mainly the needs of the
+body. The next set of interests which man, in the course of evolution
+develops, has to do with the acquisition and retention of property and
+the maintenance of his rights as an individual. It is not surprising,
+then, to find that the next school of world-wide reputation was that
+of law at Bologna which became the nucleus of a great university. It
+is only after man has looked out for his bodily needs and his property
+rights, that he comes to think of his duties toward himself, his
+fellow-men, and his Creator, and so the third of these great medieval
+schools, in time, was that of philosophy and theology, at Paris.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is sometimes thought that the word university applied to these
+institutions after the aggregation of other faculties, was due to the
+fact that there was a universality of studies, that all branches of
+knowledge might be followed in them. The word university, however, was
+not originally applied to the school itself, which, if it had all the
+faculties of the modern university, was, in the Thirteenth Century,
+called a <i>studium generale</i>. The Latin word universitas had quite a
+different <a name="21">{21}</a> usage at that time. Whenever letters were formally
+addressed to the combined faculties of a <i>studium generale</i> by
+reigning sovereigns, or by the Pope, or by other high ecclesiastical
+authorities, they always began with the designation, Universitas
+Vestra, implying that the greeting was to all of the faculty,
+universally and without exception. Gradually, because of this word
+constantly occurring at the beginning of letters to the faculty, the
+term universitas came to be applied to the institution. [Footnote 1]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 1: Certain other terms that occur in these letters of
+  greeting to university officials have a more than passing interest.
+  The rector of the university, for instance, was always formally
+  addressed as Amplitudo Vestra, that is, Your Ampleness. Considering
+  the fact that not a few of the rectors of the old time universities,
+  all of whom were necessarily ecclesiastics, must have had the
+  ampleness of girth so characteristic of their order under certain
+  circumstances, there is an appropriateness about this formal
+  designation which perhaps appeals more to the risibilities of the
+  modern mind than to those of medieval time.]
+</p>
+<p>
+While the universities, as is typically exemplified by the histories
+of Bologna and Paris, and even to a noteworthy degree of Oxford, grew
+up around the cathedrals, they cannot be considered in any sense the
+deliberate creation, much less the formal invention, of any particular
+set of men. The idea of a university was not born into the world in
+full panoply as Minerva from the brain of Jove. No one set about
+consciously organizing for the establishment of complete institutions
+of learning. Like everything destined to mean much in the world the
+universities were a natural growth from the favoring soil in which
+living seeds were planted. They sprang from the wonderful inquiring
+spirit of the time and the marvelous desire for knowledge and for the
+higher intellectual life that came over the people of Europe during
+the Thirteenth Century. The school at Paris became famous, and
+attracted pupils during the Twelfth Century, because of the new-born
+interest in scholastic philosophy. After the pupils had gathered in
+large numbers their enthusiasm led to the establishment of further
+courses of study. The same thing was true at Bologna, where the study
+of Law first attracted a crowd of earnest students, and then the
+demand for broader education led to the establishment of other
+faculties.
+</p>
+<a name="22">{22}</a>
+<p>
+Above all, there was no conscious attempt on the part of any supposed
+better class to stoop down and uplift those presumably below it. As we
+shall see, the students of the university came mainly from the middle
+class of the population. They became ardently devoted to their
+teachers. As in all really educational work, it was the man and not
+the institution that counted for much. In case of disagreement of one
+of these with the university authorities, not infrequently there was a
+sacrifice of personal advantage for the moment on the part of the
+students in order to follow a favorite teacher. Paris had examples of
+this several times before the Thirteenth Century, and notably in the
+case of Abelard had seen thousands of students follow him into the
+distant desert where he had retired. Later on, when abuses on the part
+of the authorities of Paris limited the University's privileges, led
+to the withdrawal of students and the foundation of Oxford, there was
+a community of interest on the part of certain members of the faculty
+and thousands of students. This movement was, however, distinctly of a
+popular character, in the sense that it was not guided by political or
+other leaders. Nearly all of the features of university life during
+the Thirteenth Century, emphasize the democracy of feeling of the
+students, and make it clear that the blowing of the wind of the spirit
+of human liberty and intellectual enthusiasm influencing the minds of
+the generation, rather than any formal attempt on the part of any
+class of men deliberately to provide educational opportunities, is the
+underlying feature of university foundation and development.
+</p>
+<p>
+While the great universities of Paris, Bologna, and Oxford were, by
+far, the most important, they must not be considered as the only
+educational institutions deserving the name of universities, even in
+our modern sense, that took definite form during the Thirteenth
+Century. In Italy, mainly under the fostering care of ecclesiastics,
+encouraged by such Popes as Innocent III, Gregory IX, and Honorius IV,
+nearly a dozen other towns and cities saw the rise of Studia Generalia
+eventually destined, and that within a few decades after their
+foundation, to have the complete set of faculties, and such a number
+of teachers and of students as merited for them the name of
+University.
+<p>
+<a name="opp22">{opp22}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp022.jpg" border=1><br>
+ADORATION OF MAGI (PULPIT, SIENA, NIC. PISANO).
+</p>
+
+<a name="23">{23}</a>
+
+<p>
+Very early in the century Vicenza, Reggio, and Arezzo became
+university towns. Before the first quarter of the century was finished
+there were universities at Padua, at Naples, and at Vercelli. In spite
+of the troublous times and the great reduction in the population of
+Rome there was a university founded in connection with the Roman
+Curia, that is the Papal Court, before the middle of the century, and
+Siena and Piacenza had founded rival university institutions. Perugia
+had a famous school which became a complete university early in the
+Fourteenth Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nor were other countries much behind Italy in this enthusiastic
+movement. Montpelier had, for over a century before the beginning of
+the thirteenth, rejoiced in a medical school which was the most
+important rival of that at Salernum. At the beginning this reflected
+largely the Moorish element in educational affairs in Europe at this
+time. During the course of the Thirteenth Century Montpelier developed
+into a full-fledged university though the medical school still
+continued to be the most important faculty. Medical students from all
+over the world flocked to the salubrious town to which patients from
+all over were attracted, and its teachers and writers of medicine have
+been famous in medical history ever since. How thorough was the
+organization of clinical medical work at Montpelier may perhaps best
+be appreciated from the fact, noted in the chapter on City
+Hospitals&mdash;Organized Charity, that when Pope Innocent III. wished to
+establish a model hospital at Rome with the idea that it would form an
+exemplar for other European cities, he sent down to Montpelier and
+summoned Guy, the head of the Hospital of the Holy Ghost in that city,
+to the Papal Capital to establish the Roman Hospital of the Holy Ghost
+and, in connection with it, a large number of hospitals all over
+Europe.
+</p>
+<p>
+A corresponding state of affairs to that of Montpelier is to be noted
+at Orleans, only here the central school, around which the university
+gradually grouped itself, was the Faculty of Civil Law. Canon law was
+taught at Paris in connection with the theological course, but there
+had always been objection to the admission of civil law as a faculty
+on a basis of equality with the other faculties. There was indeed <a name="24">{24}</a>
+at this time some rivalry between the civil and the canon law and so
+the study of civil law was relegated to other universities. Even early
+in the Twelfth Century Orleans was famous for its school of civil law
+in which the exposition of the principles of the old Roman law
+constituted the basis of the university course. During the Thirteenth
+Century the remaining departments of the university gradually
+developed, so that by the close of the century, there seem to be
+conservative claims for over one thousand students. Besides these
+three, French universities were also established at Angers, at
+Toulouse, and the beginnings of institutions to become universities
+early in the next century are recorded at Avignon and Cahors.
+</p>
+<p>
+Spain felt the impetus of the university movement early in the
+Thirteenth Century and a university was founded at Palencia about the
+end of the first decade. This was founded by Alfonso XII. and was
+greatly encouraged by him. It is sometimes said that this university
+was transferred to Salamanca about 1230, but this is denied by
+Denifle, whose authority in matters of university history is
+unquestionable. It seems not unlikely that Salamanca drew a number of
+students from Palencia but that the latter continued still to attract
+many students. About the middle of the Thirteenth Century the
+university of Valladolid was founded. Before the end of the century a
+fourth university, that of Lerida, had been established in the Spanish
+peninsula. Spain was to see the greatest development of universities
+during the Fourteenth Century. It was not long after the end of the
+Thirteenth Century before Coimbra, in Portugal, began to assume
+importance as an educational institution, though it was not to have
+sufficient faculty and students to deserve the more ambitious title of
+university for half a century.
+</p>
+<p>
+While most people who know anything about the history of education
+realize the important position occupied by the universities during the
+Thirteenth Century and appreciate the estimation in which they were
+held and the numbers that attended them, very few seem to know
+anything of the preparatory schools of the time, and are prone to
+think that all the educational effort of these generations was
+exhausted in connection <a name="25">{25}</a> with the university. It is often said, as
+we shall see, that one reason for the large number of students
+reported as in attendance at the universities during the Thirteenth
+Century is to be found in the fact that these institutions practically
+combined the preparatory school and the academy of our time with the
+university. The universities are supposed to have been the only
+centers of education worthy of mention. There is no doubt that a
+number of quite young students were in attendance at the universities,
+that is, boys from 12 to 15 who would in our time be only in the
+preparatory school. We shall explain, however, in the chapter on the
+Numbers in Attendance at the Universities that students went to
+college much younger in the past and graduated much earlier than they
+do in our day, yet apparently, without any injury to the efficacy of
+their educational training.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the universities of Southern Europe it is still the custom for boys
+to graduate with the degree of A. B. at the age of 15 to 16, which
+supposes attendance at the university, or its equivalent in
+under-graduate courses, at the age of 12 or even less. There is no
+need, however, to appeal to the precociousness of the southern nations
+in explanation of this, since there are some good examples of it in
+comparatively recent times here in America. Most of the colleges in
+this country, in the early part of the nineteenth century and the end
+of the eighteenth, graduated young men of 16 and 17 and thought that
+they were accomplishing a good purpose, in allowing them to get at
+their life work in early manhood. Many of the distinguished divines
+who made names in educational work are famous for their early
+graduations. Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia, whom the medical
+profession of this country hails as the Father of American Medicine,
+graduated at Princeton at 15. He must have begun his college course,
+therefore, about the age of 12. This may be considered inadvisable in
+our generation, but, it must be remembered that there are many even in
+our day, who think that our college men are allowed to get at their
+life-work somewhat too late for their own good.
+</p>
+<p>
+It must be emphasized, moreover, that in many of the university towns
+there were also preparatory schools. Courses <a name="26">{26}</a> were not regularly
+organized until well on in the Thirteenth Century, but younger
+brothers and friends of students as well as of professors would not
+infrequently be placed under their care and thus be enabled to receive
+their preparation for university work. At Paris, Robert Sorbonne
+founded a preparatory school for that institution under the name of
+the College of Calvi. Other colleges of this kind also existed in
+Paris. This custom of having a preparatory school in association with
+the university has not been abandoned even in our own day, and it has
+some decided advantages from an educational standpoint, though perhaps
+these are not enough to balance certain ethical disadvantages almost
+sure to attach to such a system, disadvantages which ultimately led in
+the Middle Ages to the prohibition that young students should be taken
+at the universities under any pretext.
+</p>
+<p>
+The presence of these young students in university towns probably did
+add considerably to the numbers reported as in attendance. It must not
+be thought, however, that there were no formal preparatory schools
+quite apart from university influence. This thought has been the root
+of more misunderstanding of the medieval system of education than
+almost any other. As a matter of fact there were preliminary and
+preparatory schools, what we would now call academies and colleges, in
+connection with all of the important monasteries and with every
+cathedral. Schools of less importance were required by a decree of a
+council held at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century to be
+maintained in connection with every bishop's church. During the
+Thirteenth Century there were some twenty cathedrals in various parts
+of England; each one had its cathedral school. Besides these there
+were at least as many important abbeys, nearly a dozen of them immense
+institutions, in which there were fine libraries, large writing rooms,
+in which copies of books were being constantly made, many of the
+members of the communities of which were university men, and around
+which, therefore, there clung an atmosphere of bookishness and
+educational influence that made them preparatory schools of a high
+type. The buildings themselves were of the highest type of
+architecture; the community life was well calculated to bring out what
+was best in the <a name="27">{27}</a> intellectuality of members of the community, and,
+then, there was a rivalry between the various religious orders which
+made them prepare their men well in order that they might do honor to
+the order when they had the opportunity later, as most of those who
+had the ability and the taste actually did have, to go to one or other
+of the universities.
+</p>
+<p>
+This system of preparatory schools need not be accepted on the mere
+assumption that the monasteries and churches must surely have set
+about such work, because there is abundant evidence of the actual
+establishment and maintenance of such schools. With regard to the
+monasteries there can be no doubt, because it was the members of the
+religious orders who particularly distinguished themselves at the
+universities, and the histories of Oxford, Cambridge, and Paris are
+full of their accomplishments. They succeeded in obtaining the right
+to have their own houses at the universities and to have their own
+examinations count in university work, in order that they might
+maintain their influence over the members of the orders during the
+precious formative period of their intellectual life. With regard to
+the church schools there is convincing evidence of another kind.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the chapter on the foundation of City Hospitals we have detailed on
+the authority of Virchow all that Innocent III. accomplished for the
+hospital system of Europe. This chapter was published originally in
+the form of a lecture from the historical department of the Medical
+School of Fordham University and a reprint of it was sent to a
+distinguished American educator well known for his condemnation of
+supposed church intolerance in the matter of education and scientific
+development. He said that he was glad to have it because it confirmed
+and even broadened the idea that he had long cherished, that the
+Church had done more for Charity during the despised Middle Ages than
+national governments had ever been able to accomplish since, though it
+was all the more surprising to him that it should not have under the
+circumstances, done more for education, since this might have
+prevented some of the ills that charity had afterward to relieve. This
+expression very probably represents the state of mind of very many
+scholars with regard to this period. The Church is supposed to have
+interested herself <a name="28">{28}</a> in charity almost to the exclusion of
+educational influence. Charity is of course admitted to be her special
+work, yet these scholars cannot help but regret that more was not done
+in social prophylaxis by the encouragement of education.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the light of this almost universal expression it is all the more
+interesting to find that such opinions are founded entirely on a lack
+of knowledge of what was done in education, since the same Pope, in
+practically the same way and by the exertion of the same prestige and
+ecclesiastical authority, did for education just what he did for
+charity in the matter of the hospitals and the ailing poor. Virchow,
+as we shall see, declared that to Innocent III. is due the foundation
+of practically all the city hospitals in Europe. If the effect of
+certain of the decrees issued in his papacy be carefully followed, it
+will be found that practically as many schools as hospitals owe their
+origin to his beneficent wisdom and his paternal desire to spread the
+advantages of Christianity all over the civilized world. This policy
+with regard to the hospitals led to the foundation before the end of
+the century of at least one hospital in every diocese of all the
+countries which were more closely allied with the Holy See. There is
+extant a decree issued by the famous council of Lateran, in 1215, a
+council in which Innocent's authority was dominant, requiring the
+establishment of a Chair of Grammar in connection with every cathedral
+in the Christian world. This Chair of Grammar included at least three
+of the so-called liberal arts and provided for what would now be
+called, the education of a school preparatory to a university.
+</p>
+<p>
+Before this, Innocent III,  [Footnote 2] who had himself received the
+benefit of the best education of the time, having spent some years at
+Rome and later at Paris and at Bologna, had encouraged the sending of
+students to these universities in every way.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 2: Most of the details of what was accomplished for
+  education by Pope Innocent III, and all the references needed to
+  supply further information, can be found in the <i>Hestoire
+  Litteratire de la France</i>, recent volumes of which were issued by
+  the French Institute, though the magnificent work itself was begun
+  by Benedictines of St. Maur, who completed some fifteen volumes. The
+  sixteenth volume, most of which is written by Dauñou, is especially
+  valuable for this period. Du Boulay, in his History of the
+  University of Paris, will furnish additional information with regard
+  to Pope Innocent's relations to education throughout Europe,
+  especially, of course, in what regards the University of Paris.]
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp28"></a>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp028a.jpg" border=1><br>
+CATHEDRAL (YORK)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp028b.jpg" border=1><br>
+CATHEDRAL (LINCOLN)
+</p>
+
+<a name="29">{29}</a>
+
+<p>
+Bishops who came to Rome were sure to hear inculcated the advisability
+of a taste for letters in clergymen, hear it said often enough that
+such a taste would surely increase the usefulness of all churchmen.
+Schools had been encouraged before the issuance of the decree. This
+only came as a confirmatory document calculated to perpetuate the
+policy that had already been so prominently in vogue in the church for
+over fifteen years of the Pope's reign. It was meant, too, to make
+clear to hesitant and tardy bishops, who might have thought that the
+papal interest in education was merely personal, that the policy of
+the church was concerned in it and recalled them to a sense of duty in
+the matter, since the ordinary enthusiasm for letters, even with the
+added encouragement of the Pope, did not suffice to make them realize
+the necessity for educational establishments.
+</p>
+<p>
+The institution of the schools of grammar in connection with
+cathedrals was well adapted to bring about a definite increase in the
+opportunities for book learning for those who desired it. In
+connection with the cathedrals there was always a band of canons whose
+duty it was to take part in the singing of the daily office. Their
+ceremonial and ritual duties did not, however, occupy them more than a
+few hours each day. During the rest of the time they were free to
+devote themselves to any subject in which they might be interested and
+had ample time for teaching. The requirement that there should be at
+least a school of grammar in connection with every cathedral afforded
+definite opportunity to such of these ecclesiastics as had
+intellectual tastes to devote themselves to the spread of knowledge
+and of culture, and this reacted, as can be readily understood, to
+make the whole band of canons more interested in the things of the
+mind, and to make the cathedral even more the intellectual center of
+the district than might otherwise have been the case.
+</p>
+<p>
+For the metropolitan churches a more far-reaching regulation was made
+by this same council of Lateran under the inspiration of the Pope
+himself. These important Archiepiscopal cathedrals were required to
+maintain professors of three chairs. One of these was to teach
+grammar, a second philosophy, and a third canon law. Under these
+designations there was practically included much of what is now
+studied not only in preparatory <a name="30">{30}</a> schools but also at the beginning
+of University courses. The regulation was evidently intended to lead
+eventually to the formation of many more universities than were then
+in existence, because already it had become clear that the traveling
+of students to long distances and their gathering in such large
+numbers in towns away from home influences, led to many abuses that
+might be obviated if they could stay in their native cities, or at
+least did not have to leave their native provinces. This was a
+far-seeing regulation that, like so many other decrees of the century,
+manifests the very practical policy of the Pope in matters of
+education as well as charity. As a matter of fact this decree did lead
+to the gradual development of about twenty universities during the
+Thirteenth Century, and to the establishment of a number of other
+schools so important in scope and attendance that their evolution into
+universities during the Fourteenth Century became comparatively easy.
+This formal church law, moreover, imposed upon ecclesiastical
+authorities the necessity for providing for even higher education in
+their dioceses and made them realize that it was entirely in sympathy
+with the church's spirit and in accord with the wish of the Father of
+Christendom, that they should make as ample provision for education as
+they did for charity, though this last was supposed to be their
+special task as pastors of the Christian flock.
+</p>
+<p>
+All this important work for the foundation of preparatory schools in
+every diocese and of the preliminary organization of teaching
+institutions that might easily develop into universities, as they
+actually did in a score of cases in metropolitan cities, was
+accomplished under the first Pope of the Thirteenth Century, Innocent
+III. His successors kept up this good work. Pope Honorius III., his
+immediate successor, went so far in this matter as to depose a bishop
+who had not read Donatus, the popular grammarian of the time. The
+bishop evidently was considered unfit, as far as his mental training
+went, to occupy the important post of head of a diocese. Pope Gregory
+IX., the nephew of Innocent III., was one of the most important
+patrons of the study of law in this period (see Legal Origins in Other
+Countries), and encouraged the collection of the decrees of former
+Popes so as to make them available for purposes of study as well as
+for court use. He is famous for <a name="31">{31}</a> having protected the University
+of Paris during some of the serious trouble with the municipal
+authorities, when the large increase of the number of students in
+attendance at the University had unfortunately brought about strained
+relations between town and gown.
+</p>
+<p>
+Pope Innocent IV. by several decrees encouraged the development of the
+University of Paris, increased its rights and conferred new
+privileges. He also did much to develop the University of Toulouse,
+and especially to raise its standard and make it equal to that of
+Paris as far as possible. The patronage of Toulouse on the part of the
+Pope is all the more striking because the study of civil law was here
+a special feature and the ecclesiastical authorities were often said
+to have looked askance at the rising prominence of civil law, since it
+threatened to diminish the importance of canon law; and the
+cultivation of it, only too frequently, seemed to give rise to
+friction between civil and ecclesiastical authorities. While the
+pontifical court of Innocent IV. was maintained at Lyons it seemed,
+according to the Literary History of France,  [Footnote 3] more like
+an academy of theology and of canon law than the court of a great
+monarch whose power was acknowledged throughout the world, or a great
+ecclesiastic who might be expected to be occupied with details of
+Church government.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 3: Histoire Litteratire de la France, Vol. XVI,
+  Introductory Discourse.]
+</p>
+<p>
+Succeeding Popes of the century were not less prominent in their
+patronage of education. Pope Alexander IV. supported the cause of the
+Mendicant Friars against the University of Paris, but this was
+evidently with the best of intentions. The mendicants came to claim
+the privilege of having houses in association with the university in
+which they might have lectures for the members of their orders, and
+asked for due allowance in the matter of degrees for courses thus
+taken. The faculty of the University did not want to grant this
+privilege, though it was acknowledged that some of the best professors
+in the University were members of the Mendicant orders, and we need
+only mention such names as Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas from
+the Dominicans, and St. Bonaventure, Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus from
+the Franciscans, to show the truth of this assertion. To give such a
+privilege <a name="32">{32}</a> seemed a derogation of the faculty rights and the
+University refused. Then the Holy See interfered to insist that the
+University must give degrees for work done, rather than merely for
+regulation attendance. The best possible proof that Pope Alexander
+cannot be considered as wishing to injure or even diminish the
+prestige of the University in any way, is to be found in the fact that
+he afterwards sent two of his nephews to Paris to attend at the
+University.
+</p>
+<p>
+All these Popes, so far mentioned, were not Frenchmen and therefore
+could have no national feeling in the matter of the University of
+Paris or of the French universities in general. It is not surprising
+to find that Pope Urban IV., who was a Frenchman and an alumnus of the
+University of Paris, elevated many French scholars, and especially his
+fellow alumni of Paris, to Church dignitaries of various kinds. After
+Urban IV., Nicholas IV. who succeeded him, though once more an
+Italian, founded chairs in the University of Montpelier, and also a
+professorship in a school that it was hoped would develop into a
+university at Gray in Franche Comte. In a word, looked at from every
+point of view, it must be admitted that the Church and ecclesiastical
+authorities were quite as much interested in education as in charity
+during this century, and it is to them that must be traced the
+foundation of the preparatory schools, as well as the universities,
+and the origin and development of the great educational movement that
+stamps this century as the greatest in human history.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i032.jpg" border=1><br>
+JACQUES COEUR'S HOUSE (BOURGES)
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp32">{opp32}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp032.jpg" border=1><br>
+CLOISTER OF ST. JOHN LATERAN (ROME)
+</p>
+<br>
+<a name="33">{33}</a>
+<br>
+<h1>III
+<br>
+WHAT AND HOW THEY STUDIED AT THE UNIVERSITIES.</h1>
+
+<p>
+It is usually the custom for text books of education to dismiss the
+teaching at the universities of the Middle Ages with some such
+expression as: "The teachers were mainly engaged in metaphysical
+speculations and the students were occupied with exercises in logic
+and in dialectics, learning in long drawn out disputations how to use
+the intellectual instruments they possessed but never actually
+applying them. All knowledge was supposed to be amenable to increase
+through dialectical discussion and all truth was supposed, to be
+obtainable as the conclusion of a regular syllogism." Great fun
+especially is made of the long-winded disputations, the time-taking
+public exercises in dialectics, the fine hair-drawn distinctions
+presumably with but the scantiest basis of truth behind them and in
+general the placing of words for realities in the investigation of
+truth and the conveyance of information. The sublime ignorance of
+educators who talk thus about the century that saw the rise of the
+universities in connection with the erection of the great Cathedrals,
+is only equaled by their assumption of knowledge.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is very easy to make fun of a past generation and often rather
+difficult to enter into and appreciate its spirit. Ridicule comes
+natural to human nature, alas! but sympathy requires serious mental
+application for understanding's sake. Fortunately there has come in
+recent years a very different feeling in the minds of many mature and
+faithful students of this period, as regards the Middle Ages and its
+education. Dialectics may seem to be a waste of time to those who
+consider the training of the human mind as of little value in
+comparison with the stocking of it with information. Dialectical
+training will probably not often enable men to earn more money than
+might have otherwise been the case. This will be <a name="34">{34}</a> eminently true
+if the dialectician is to devote himself to commercial enterprises in
+his future life. If he is to take up one of the professions, however,
+there may be some doubt as to whether even his practical effectiveness
+will not be increased by a good course of logic. There is, however,
+another point of view from which this matter of the study of
+dialectics may be viewed, and which has been taken very well by Prof.
+Saintsbury of the University of Edinburgh in a recent volume on the
+Thirteenth Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+He insists in a passage which we quote at length in the chapter on the
+Prose of the Century, that if this training in logic had not been
+obtained at this time in European development, the results might have
+been serious for our modern languages and modern education. He says:
+"If at the outset of the career of the modern languages, men had
+thought with the looseness of modern thought, had indulged in the
+haphazard slovenliness of modern logic, had popularized theology and
+vulgarized rhetoric, as we have seen both popularized and vulgarized
+since, we should indeed have been in evil case." He maintains that
+"the far-reaching educative influence in mere language, in mere system
+of arrangement and expression, must be considered as one of the great
+benefits of Scholasticism." This is, after all, only a similar opinion
+to that evidently entertained by Mr. John Stuart Mill, who, as Prof.
+Saintsbury says, was not often a scholastically-minded philosopher,
+for he quotes in the preface of his logic two very striking opinions
+from very different sources, the Scotch philosopher, Hamilton, and the
+French philosophical writer, Condorcet. Hamilton said, "It is to the
+schoolmen that the vulgar languages are indebted for what precision
+and analytical subtlety they possess." Condorcet went even further
+than this, and used expressions that doubless will be a great source
+of surprise to those who do not realize how much of admiration is
+always engendered in those who really study the schoolmen seriously
+and do not take opinions of them from the chance reading of a few
+scattered passages, or depend for the data of their judgment on some
+second-hand authority, who thought it clever to abuse these old-time
+thinkers. Condorcet thought them far in advance of the old Greek
+philosophers for, he said, "Logic, ethics, and metaphysics <a name="35">{35}</a>
+itself, owe to scholasticism a precision unknown to the ancients
+themselves."
+</p>
+<p>
+With regard to the methods and contents of the teaching in the
+undergraduate department of the university, that is, in what we would
+now call the arts department, there is naturally no little interest at
+the present time. Besides the standards set up and the tests required
+can scarcely fail to attract attention. Professor Turner, in his
+History of Philosophy, has summed up much of what we know in this
+matter in a paragraph so full of information that we quote it in order
+to give our readers the best possible idea in a compendious form of
+these details of the old-time education.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "By statutes issued at various times during the Thirteenth Century
+  it was provided that the professor should read, that is expound, the
+  text of certain standard authors in philosophy and theology. In a
+  document published by Denifle, (the distinguished authority on
+  medieval universities) and by him referred to the year 1232, we find
+  the following works among those prescribed for the Faculty of Arts:
+  Logica Vetus (the old Boethian text of a portion of the Organon,
+  probably accompanied by Porphyry's Isagoge); Logica Nova (the new
+  translation of the Organon); Gilbert's Liber Sex Principorium; and
+  Donatus's Barbarismus. A few years later (1255), the following works
+  are prescribed: Aristotle's Physics, Metaphysics, De Anima, De
+  Animalibus, De Caelo et Mundo, Meteorica, the minor psychological
+  treatises and some Arabian or Jewish works, such as the Liber de
+  Causis and De Differentia Spirititus et Animae."
+<br><br>
+  "The first degree for which the student of arts presented himself
+  was that of bachelor. The candidate for this degree, after a
+  preliminary test called responsiones (this regulation went into
+  effect not later than 1275), presented himself for the determination
+  which was a public defense of a certain number of theses against
+  opponents chosen from the audience. At the end of the disputation,
+  the defender summed up, or determined, his conclusions. After
+  determining, the bachelor resumed his studies for the licentiate,
+  assuming also the task of cursorily explaining to junior students
+  some portion of the Organon. The test for the degree of licentiate
+  consisted <a name="36">{36}</a> in a <i>collatio</i>, or exposition of several texts,
+  after the manner of the masters. The student was now a licensed
+  teacher; he did not, however, become magister, or master of arts,
+  until he had delivered what was called the <i>inceptio</i>, or inaugural
+  lecture, and was actually installed (<i>birrettatio</i>). If he continued
+  to teach he was called <i>magisier actu regens</i>; if he departed from
+  the university or took up other work, he was called <i>magister non
+  regens</i>. It may be said that, as a general rule, the course of
+  reading was: (1) for the bachelor's degree, grammar, logic, and
+  psychology; (2) for the licentiate, natural philosophy; (3) for the
+  master's degree, ethics, and the completion of the course of natural
+  philosophy."
+</p>
+<p>
+Quite apart from the value of its methods, however, scholasticism in
+certain of its features had a value in the material which it discussed
+and developed that modern generations only too frequently fail to
+realize. With regard to this the same distinguished authority whom we
+quoted with regard to dialectics, Prof. Saintsbury, does not hesitate
+to use expressions which will seem little short of rankly heretical to
+those who swear by modern science, and yet may serve to inject some
+eminently suggestive ideas into a sadly misunderstood subject.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Yet there has always in generous souls who have some tincture of
+  philosophy, subsisted a curious kind of sympathy and yearning over
+  the work of these generations of mainly disinterested scholars, who,
+  whatever they were, were thorough, and whatever they could not do,
+  could think. <i>And there, have even, in these latter days, been some
+  graceless ones who have asked whether the Science of the nineteenth
+  century, after an equal interval, will be of any more positive
+  value&mdash;whether it will not have even less comparative interest than
+  that which appertains to the Scholasticism of the Thirteenth."</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+In the light of this it has seemed well to try to show in terms of
+present-day science some of the important reflections with regard to
+such problems of natural history, as magnetism, the composition of
+matter, and the relation of things physical to one another, which we
+now include under the name science, some of the thoughts that these
+scholars of the Thirteenth Century were thinking and were developing
+for the benefit of the <a name="37">{37}</a> enthusiastic students who flocked to the
+universities. We will find in such a review though it must necessarily
+be brief many more anticipations of modern science than would be
+thought possible.
+</p>
+<p>
+To take the example for the moment of magnetism which is usually
+considered to be a subject entirely of modern attention, a good idea
+of the intense interest of this century in things scientific, can be
+obtained from the following short paragraph in which Brother Potamian
+in his sketch of Petrus Peregrinus, condenses the references to
+magnetic phenomena that are found in the literature of the time. Most
+of the writers he mentions were not scientists in the ordinary sense
+of the word but were literary men, and the fact that these references
+occur shows very clearly that there must have been wide-spread
+interest in such scientific phenomena, since they had attracted the
+attention of literary writers, who would not have spoken of them
+doubtless, but that they knew that in this they would be satisfying as
+well as exciting public interest.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Abbot Neckam, the Augustinian (1157-1217), distinguished between
+  the properties of the two ends of the lodestone, and gives in his De
+  Utensilibus, what is perhaps the earliest reference to the mariner's
+  compass that we have. Albertus Magnus, the Dominican (1193-1280), in
+  his treatise De Mineralibus, enumerates different kinds of natural
+  magnets and states some of the properties commonly attributed to
+  them; the minstrel, Guyot de Provins, in a famous satirical poem,
+  written about 1208, refers to the directive quality of the lodestone
+  and its use in navigation, as do also Cardinal de Vitry in his
+  Historia Orientialis (1215-1220), Brunetto Latini, poet, orator and
+  philosopher (the teacher of Dante), in his Tresor des Sciences, a
+  veritable library, written in Paris in 1260; Raymond Lully, the
+  enlightened Doctor, in his treatise, De Contemplatione, begun in
+  1272, and Guido Guinicelli, the poet-priest of Bologna, who died in
+  1276."   [Footnote 4]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+    [Footnote 4: The letter of Petrus Peregrinus on the Magnet, A. D.
+    1269, translated by Bro. Arnold, M. Sc., with an Introductory Note
+    by Bro. Potamian, N. Y., 1904.]
+</p>
+<br>
+<a name="38">{38}</a>
+<p>
+The metaphysics of the medieval universities have come in for quite as
+much animadversion, not to say ridicule, as the dialectics. None of
+its departments is spared in the condemnation, though most fun is made
+of the gropings of the medieval mind after truth in the physical
+sciences. The cosmology, the science of matter as it appealed to the
+medieval mind, is usually considered to have been so entirely
+speculative as to deserve no further attention. We have presumably,
+learned so much by experimental demonstration and original observation
+in the physical sciences, that any thinking of the medieval mind along
+these lines may, in the opinion of those who know nothing of what they
+speak, be set aside as preposterous, or at best nugatory. It will
+surely be a source of surprise, then, to find that in the
+consideration of the composition of matter and of the problem of the
+forces connected with it, the minds of the medieval schoolmen were
+occupied with just the same questions that have been most interesting
+to the Nineteenth Century and that curiously enough the conclusions
+they reached, though by very different methods of investigation, were
+almost exactly the same as those to which modern physical scientists
+have attained by their refined methods of investigation.
+</p>
+<p>
+One or two examples will suffice, I think, to show very clearly that
+the students of the Thirteenth Century had presented to them
+practically the same problems with regard to matter, its origin and
+composition, as occupy the students of the present generation. For
+instance Thomas Aquinas usually known as St. Thomas, in a series of
+lectures given at the University of Paris toward the end of the third
+quarter of the Thirteenth Century, stated as the most important
+conclusion with regard to matter, that <i>"Nihil omnino in nihilum
+redigetur</i>,"' "Nothing at all will ever be reduced to nothingness." By
+this it was very evident from the context that he meant that matter
+would never be annihilated and could never be destroyed. It might be
+changed in various ways but it could never go back into the
+nothingness from which it had been taken by the creative act.
+Annihilation was pronounced as not being a part of the scheme of
+things as far as the human mind could hope to fathom its meaning.
+</p>
+<p>
+In this sentence, then, Thomas of Aquin was proclaiming the <a name="39">{39}</a>
+doctrine of the indestructibility of matter. It was not until well on
+in the nineteenth century that the chemists and physicists of modern
+times realized the truth of this great principle. The chemists had
+seen matter change its form in many ways, had seen it disappear
+apparently in the smoke of fire or evaporate under the influence of
+heat, but investigation proved that if care were taken in the
+collection of the gases that came off under these circumstances, of
+the ashes of combustion and of the residue of evaporation, all the
+original material that had been contained in the supposedly
+disappearing substance could be recovered or at least completely
+accounted for. The physicists on their part had realized this same
+truth and finally there came the definite enunciation of the absolute
+indestructibility of matter. St. Thomas' conclusion "Nothing at all
+will ever be reduced to nothingness" had anticipated this doctrine by
+nearly seven centuries. What happened in the Nineteenth Century was
+that there came an experimental demonstration of the truth of the
+principle. The principle itself, however, had been reached long before
+by the human mind by speculative processes quite as inerrable in their
+way as the more modern method of investigation.
+</p>
+<p>
+When St. Thomas used the aphorism "Nothing at all will ever be reduced
+to nothingness" there was another signification that he attached to
+the words quite as clearly as that by which they expressed the
+indestructibility of matter. For him <i>Nihil</i> or nothing meant neither
+<i>matter</i> nor <i>form</i>, that is, neither the material substance nor the
+energy which is contained in it. He meant then, that no energy would
+ever be destroyed as well as no matter would ever be annihilated. He
+was teaching the conservation of energy as well as the
+indestructibility of matter. Here once more the experimental
+demonstration of the doctrine was delayed for over six centuries and a
+half. The truth itself, however, had been reached by this medieval
+master-mind and was the subject of his teaching to the university
+students in Paris in the Thirteenth Century. These examples should, I
+think, serve to illustrate that the minds of medieval students were
+occupied with practically the same questions as those which are now
+taught to the university students of our day. There are, however, some
+even <a name="40">{40}</a> more striking anticipations of modern teaching that will
+serve to demonstrate this community of educational interests in spite
+of seven centuries of time separation.
+</p>
+<p>
+In recent years we have come to realize that matter is not the
+manifold material we were accustomed to think it when we accepted the
+hypothesis that there were some seventy odd different kinds of atoms,
+each one absolutely independent of any other and representing an
+ultimate term in science. The atomic theory from this standpoint has
+proved to be only a working hypothesis that was useful for a time, but
+that our physicists are now agreed must not be considered as something
+absolute. Radium has been observed changing into helium and the
+relations of atoms to one another as they are now known, make it
+almost certain that all of them have an underlying sub-stratum the
+same in all, but differentiated by the dynamic energies with which
+matter in its different forms is gifted. Sir Oliver Lodge has stated
+this theory of the constitution of matter very clearly in recent
+years, and in doing so has only been voicing the practically universal
+sentiment of those who have been following the latest developments in
+the physical sciences. Strange as it may appear, this was exactly the
+teaching of Aquinas and the schoolmen with regard to the constitution
+of matter. They said that the two constituting principles of matter
+were prime matter and form. By prime matter they meant the material
+sub-stratum the same in all material things. By form they meant the
+special dynamic energy which, entering into prime matter, causes it to
+act differently from other kinds and gives it all the particular
+qualities by which we recognize it. This theory was not original with
+them, having been adopted from Aristotle, but it was very clearly set
+forth, profoundly discussed, and amply illustrated by the schoolmen.
+In its development this theory was made to be of the greatest help in
+the explanation of many other difficulties with regard to living as
+well as non-living things in their hands. The theory has its
+difficulties, but they are less than those of any other theory of the
+constitution of matter, and it has been accepted by more philosophic
+thinkers since the Thirteenth Century than any other doctrine of
+similar nature. It may be said that it was reached only by deduction
+and not by experimental observation. Such an expression, <a name="41">{41}</a> however,
+instead of being really an objection is rather a demonstration of the
+fact that great truths may be reached by deduction yet only
+demonstrated by inductive methods many centuries later.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course it may well be said even after all these communities of
+interest between the medieval and the modern teaching of the general
+principles of science has been pointed out, that the universities of
+the Middle Ages did not present the subjects under discussion in a
+practical way, and their teaching was not likely to lead to directly
+beneficial results in applied science. It might well he responded to
+this, that it is not the function of a university to teach
+applications of science but only the great principles, the broad
+generalizations that underlie scientific thinking, leaving details to
+be filled in in whatever form of practical work the man may take up.
+Very few of those, however, who talk about the purely speculative
+character of medieval teaching have manifestly ever made it their
+business to know anything about the actual facts of old-time
+university teaching by definite knowledge, but have rather allowed
+themselves to be guided by speculation and by inadequate second-hand
+authorities, whose dicta they have never taken the trouble to
+substantiate by a glance at contemporary authorities on medieval
+matters.
+</p>
+<p>
+It will be interesting to quote for the information of such men, the
+opinion of the greatest of medieval scientists with regard to the
+reason why men do not obtain real knowledge more rapidly than would
+seem ought to be the case, from the amount of work which they have
+devoted to obtaining it. Roger Bacon, summing up for Pope Clement the
+body of doctrine that he was teaching at the University of Oxford in
+the Thirteenth Century, starts out with the principle that there are
+four grounds of human ignorance. "These are first, trust in inadequate
+authority; second, the force of custom which leads men to accept too
+unquestioningly what has been accepted before their time; third, the
+placing of confidence in the opinion of the inexperienced; and fourth,
+the hiding of one's own ignorance with the parade of a superficial
+wisdom." Surely no one will ever be able to improve on these four
+grounds for human ignorance, and they continue to be as <a name="42">{42}</a> important
+in the twentieth century as they were in the Thirteenth. They could
+only have emanated from an eminently practical mind, accustomed to
+test by observation and by careful searching of authorities, every
+proposition that came to him. Professor Henry Morley, Professor of
+English Literature at University College, London, says of these
+grounds for ignorance of Roger Bacon, in his English Writers, Volume
+III, page 321: "No part of that ground has yet been cut away from
+beneath the feet of students, although six centuries ago the Oxford
+friar clearly pointed out its character. We still make sheep walks of
+second, third, and fourth and fiftieth-hand references to authority;
+still we are the slaves of habit; still we are found following too
+frequently the untaught crowd; still we flinch from the righteous and
+wholesome phrase, 'I do not know'; and acquiesce actively in the
+opinion of others that we know what we appear to know. Substitute
+honest research, original and independent thought, strict truth in the
+comparison of only what we really know with what is really known by
+others, and the strong redoubt of ignorance has fallen."
+</p>
+<p>
+The number of things which Roger Bacon succeeded in discovering by the
+application of the principle of testing everything by personal
+observation, is almost incredible to a modern student of science and
+of education who has known nothing before of the progress in science
+made by this wonderful man. He has been sometimes declared to be the
+discoverer of gunpowder, but this is a mistake since it was known many
+years before by the Arabs and by them introduced into Europe. He did
+study explosives very deeply, however, and besides learning many
+things about them realized how much might be accomplished by their use
+in the after-time. He declares in his Opus Magnum: "That one may cause
+to burst forth from bronze, thunderbolts more formidable than those
+produced by nature. A small quantity of prepared matter occasions a
+terrible explosion accompanied by a brilliant light. One may multiply
+this phenomenon so far as to destroy a city or an army." Considering
+how little was known about gunpowder at this time, this was of itself
+a marvelous anticipation of what might be accomplished by it.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp42">{opp42}</a>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp042.jpg" border=1><br>
+RATHHAUS (TANGERMÜNDE)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bacon prophesied, however, much more than merely <a name="43">{43}</a> destructive
+effects from the use of high explosives, and indeed it is almost
+amusing to see how closely he anticipated some of the most modern
+usages of high explosives for motor purposes. He seems to have
+concluded that some time the apparently uncontrollable forces of
+explosion would come under the control of man and be harnessed by him
+for his own purposes. He realized that one of the great applications
+of such a force would be for transportation. Accordingly he said: "Art
+can construct instruments of navigation such that the largest vessels
+governed by a single man will traverse rivers and seas more rapidly
+than if they were filled with oarsmen. One may also make carriages
+which without the aid of any animal will run with remarkable
+swiftness."   [Footnote 5] When we recall that the very latest thing
+in transportation are motor-boats and automobiles driven by gasoline,
+a high explosive, Roger Bacon's prophesy becomes one of these weird
+anticipations of human progress which seem almost more than human.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 5: These quotations are taken from Ozanam's Dante and
+  Catholic Philosophy, published by the Cathedral Library Association,
+  New York, 1897. ]
+</p>
+<p>
+It was not with regard to explosives alone, however, that Roger Bacon
+was to make great advances and still more marvelous anticipations in
+physical science. He was not, as is sometimes claimed for him, either
+the inventor of the telescope or of the theory of lenses. He did more,
+however, than perhaps anyone else to make the principles of lenses
+clear and to establish them on a mathematical basis. His traditional
+connection with the telescope can probably be traced to the fact that
+he was very much interested in astronomy and the relations of the
+heavens to the earth. He pointed out very clearly the errors which had
+crept into the Julian calendar, calculated exactly how much of a
+correction was needed in order to restore the year to its proper
+place, and suggested the method by which future errors of this kind
+could be avoided. His ideas were too far beyond his century to be
+applied in a practical way, but they were not to be without their
+effect and it is said that they formed the basis of the subsequent
+correction of the calendar in the time of Pope Gregory XIII three
+centuries later.
+</p>
+<a name="44">{44}</a>
+<p>
+It is rather surprising to find how much besides the theory of lenses
+Friar Bacon had succeeded in finding out in the department of optics.
+He taught, for instance, the principle of the aberration of light,
+and, still more marvelous to consider, taught that light did not
+travel instantaneously but had a definite rate of motion, though this
+was extremely rapid. It is rather difficult to understand how he
+reached this conclusion since light travels so fast that as far as
+regards any observation that can be made upon earth, the diffusion is
+practically instantaneous. It was not for over three centuries later
+that Römer, the German astronomer, demonstrated the motion of light
+and its rate, by his observations upon the moons of Jupiter at
+different phases of the earth's orbit, which showed that the light of
+these moons took a definite and quite appreciable time to reach the
+earth after their eclipse by the planet was over.
+</p>
+<p>
+We are not surprised to find that Bacon should praise those of his
+contemporaries who devoted themselves to mathematics and to
+experimental observations in science. Of one of his correspondents who
+even from distant Italy sent him his observations in order that he
+might have the great Franciscan's precious comments on them. Bacon has
+given quite a panegyric. The reasons for his praise, however, are so
+different from those which are ordinarily proclaimed to have been the
+sources of laudation in distant medieval scientific circles, that we
+prefer to quote Bacon's own words from the Opus Tertium. Bacon is
+talking of Petrus Peregrinus and says: "I know of only one person who
+deserves praise for his work in experimental philosophy, for he does
+not care for the discourses of men and their wordy warfare, but
+quietly and diligently pursues the works of wisdom. Therefore, what
+others grope after blindly, as bats in the evening twilight, this man
+contemplates in all their brilliancy because he is a master of
+experiment. Hence, he knows all natural science whether pertaining to
+medicine and alchemy, or to matters celestial and terrestrial.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  "He has worked diligently in the smelting of ores as also in the
+  working of minerals; he is thoroughly acquainted with all sorts of
+  arms and implements used in military service and in hunting, besides
+  which he is skilled in agriculture and in the measurement of lands.
+  <a name="45">{45}</a> It is impossible to write a useful or correct treatise in
+  experimental philosophy without mentioning this man's name.
+  Moreover, he pursues knowledge for its own sake; for if he wished to
+  obtain royal favor, he could easily find sovereigns who would honor
+  and enrich him."
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp44">{opp44}</a>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp044a.jpg" border=1><br>
+CATHEDRAL (YORK)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp044b.jpg" border=1><br>
+CATHEDRAL (HEREFORD)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lest it should be thought that these expressions of laudatory
+appreciation of the great Thirteenth Century scientist are dictated
+more by the desire to magnify his work and to bring out the influence
+in science of the Churchmen of the period, it seems well to quote an
+expression of opinion from the modern historian of the inductive
+sciences, whose praise is scarcely if any less outspoken than that of
+others whom we have quoted and who might be supposed to be somewhat
+partial in their judgment. This opinion will fortify the doubters who
+must have authority and at the same time sums up very excellently the
+position which Roger Bacon occupies in the History of Science.
+</p>
+<p>
+Dr. Whewell says that Roger Bacon's Opus Majus is "the encyclopedia
+and Novam Organon of the Thirteenth Century, a work equally wonderful
+with regard to its general scheme and to the special treatises with
+which the outlines of the plans are filled up. The professed object of
+the work is to urge the necessity of a reform in the mode of
+philosophizing, to set forth the reasons why knowledge had not made a
+greater progress, to draw back attention to the sources of knowledge
+which had been unwisely neglected, to discover other sources which
+were yet almost untouched, and to animate men in the undertaking by a
+prospect of the vast advantages which it offered. In the development
+of this plan all the leading portions of science are expanded in the
+most complete shape which they had at that time assumed; and
+improvements of a very wide and striking kind are proposed in some of
+the principal branches of study. Even if the work had no leading
+purposes it would have been highly valuable as a treasure of the most
+solid knowledge and soundest speculations of the time; even if it had
+contained no such details it would have been a work most remarkable
+for its general views and scope."
+</p>
+<p>
+It is only what might have been expected, however, from <a name="46">{46}</a> Roger
+Bacon's training that he should have made great progress in the
+physical sciences. At the University of Paris his favorite teacher was
+Albertus Magnus, who was himself deeply interested in all the physical
+sciences, though he was more concerned with the study of chemical
+problems than of the practical questions which were to occupy his
+greatest pupil. There is no doubt at all that Albertus Magnus
+accomplished a great amount of experimental work in chemistry and had
+made a large series of actual observations. He was a theologian as
+well as a philosopher and a scientist. Some idea of the immense
+industry of the man can be obtained from the fact that his complete
+works as published consist of some twenty large folio volumes, each
+one of which contains on the average at least 500,000 words.
+</p>
+<p>
+Among these works are many treatises relating to chemistry. The titles
+of some of them will serve to show how explicit was Albert in his
+consideration of various chemical subjects. He has treatises
+concerning Metals and Minerals; concerning Alchemy; A Treatise on the
+Secret of Chemistry; A Concordance, that is a Collection of
+observations from many sources with regard to the Philosopher's Stone;
+A Brief Compend on the Origin of the Metals; A Treatise on Compounds;
+most of these are to be found in his works under the general heading
+"Theatrum Chemicum."
+</p>
+<p>
+It is not surprising for those who know of Albert's work, to find that
+his pupil Roger Bacon defined the limits of chemistry very accurately
+and showed that he understood exactly what the subject and methods of
+investigation must be, in order that advance should be made in it. Of
+chemistry he speaks in his "Opus Tertium" in the following words:
+"There is a science which treats of the generation of things from
+their elements and of all inanimate things, as of the elements and
+liquids, simple and compound, common stones, gems and marble, gold and
+other metals, sulphur, salts, pigments, lapis lazuli, minium and other
+colors, oils, bitumen, and infinite more of which we find nothing in
+the books of Aristotle; nor are the natural philosophers nor any of
+the Latins acquainted with these things."
+</p>
+<p>
+In physics Albertus Magnus was, if possible, more advanced <a name="47">{47}</a> and
+progressive even than in chemistry. His knowledge in the physical
+sciences was not merely speculative, but partook to a great degree of
+the nature of what we now call applied science. Humboldt, the
+distinguished German natural philosopher of the beginning of the
+Nineteenth Century, who was undoubtedly the most important leader in
+scientific thought in his time and whose own work was great enough to
+have an enduring influence in spite of the immense progress of the
+Nineteenth Century, has summed up Albert's work and given the headings
+under which his scientific research must be considered. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Albertus Magnus was equally active and influential in promoting the
+  study of natural science and of the Aristotelian philosophy. His
+  works contain some exceedingly acute remarks on the organic
+  structure and physiology of plants. One of his works bearing the
+  title of 'Liber Cosmographicus de Natura Locorum,' is a species of
+  physical geography. I have found in it considerations on the
+  dependence of temperature concurrently on latitude and elevation,
+  and on the effect of different angles of incidence of the sun's rays
+  in heating the ground, <i>which have excited my surprise</i>."
+</p>
+<p>
+To take up some of Humboldt's headings in their order and illustrate
+them by quotations from Albert himself and from condensed accounts as
+they appear in his biographer Sighart and in Christian Schools and
+Scholars   [Footnote 6], will serve to show at once the extent of
+Albert's knowledge and the presumptuous ignorance of those who make
+little of the science of the medieval period. When we have catalogued,
+for instance, the many facts with regard to astronomy and the physics
+of light that are supposed to have come to human ken much later, yet
+may be seen to have been clearly within the range of Albert's
+knowledge, and evidently formed the subject of his teaching at various
+times at both Paris and Cologne, for they are found in his authentic
+works, we can scarcely help but be amused at the pretentious
+misconception that has relegated their author to a place in education
+so trivial as is that which is represented in many minds by the term
+scholastic.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 6: Christian Schools and Scholars. Drane.]
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+   "He decides that the Milky Way is nothing but a vast <a
+   name="48">{48}</a> assemblage of stars, but supposes naturally
+   enough that they occupy the orbit which receives the light of the
+   sun. The figures visible on the moon's disc are not, he says, as
+   hitherto has been supposed, reflections of the seas and mountains
+   of the earth, but configurations of her own surface. He notices, in
+   order to correct it, the assertion of Aristotle that lunar rainbows
+   appear only twice in fifty years; 'I myself,' he says have observed
+   two in a single year.' He has something to say on the refraction of
+   a solar ray, notices certain crystals which have a power of
+   refraction, and remarks that none of the ancients and few moderns
+   were acquainted with the properties of mirrors."
+</p>
+<p>
+Albert's great pupil Roger Bacon is rightly looked upon as the true
+father of inductive science, an honor that history has unfortunately
+taken from him to confer it undeservedly on his namesake of four
+centuries later, but the teaching out of which Roger Bacon was to
+develop the principles of experimental science can be found in many
+places in his master's writings. In Albert's tenth book, wherein he
+catalogues and describes all the trees, plants, and herbs known in his
+time, he observes: "All that is here set down is the result of our own
+experience, or has been borrowed from authors whom we know to have
+written what their personal experience has confirmed: for in these
+matters experience alone can give certainty" (<i>experimentum solum
+certificat in talibus</i>). "Such an expression," says his biographer,
+"which might have proceeded from the pen of (Francis) Bacon, argues in
+itself a prodigious scientific progress, and shows that the medieval
+friar was on the track so successfully pursued by modern natural
+philosophy. He had fairly shaken off the shackles which had hitherto
+tied up discovery, and was the slave neither of Pliny nor of
+Aristotle."
+</p>
+<p>
+Botany is supposed to be a very modern science and to most people
+Humboldt's expression that he found in Albertus Magnus's writings some
+"exceedingly acute remarks on the organic structure and physiology of
+plants" will come as a supreme surprise. A few details with regard to
+Albert's botanical knowledge, however, will serve to heighten that
+surprise and to show, that the foolish tirades of modern sciolists,
+<a name="49">{49}</a> who have often expressed their wonder that with all the beauties
+of nature around them, these scholars of the Middle Ages did not
+devote themselves to nature study, are absurd, because if the critics
+but knew it there was profound interest in nature and all her
+manifestations and a series of discoveries that anticipated not a
+little of what we consider most important in our modern science. The
+story of Albert's botanical knowledge has been told in a single very
+full paragraph by his biographer. Sighart also quotes an appreciative
+opinion from a modern German botanist which will serve to dispel any
+doubts with regard to Albert's position in botany that modern students
+might perhaps continue to harbor, unless they had good authority to
+support their opinion, though of course it will be remembered that the
+main difference between the medieval and the modern mind is only too
+often said to be, that the medieval required an authority while the
+modern makes its opinion for itself. Even the most skeptical of modern
+minds however, will probably be satisfied by the following paragraph.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "He was acquainted with the sleep of plants, with the periodical
+  opening and closing of blossoms, with the diminution of sap through
+  evaporation from the cuticle of the leaves, and with the influence
+  of the distribution of the bundles of vessels on the folial
+  indentations. His minute observations on the forms and variety of
+  plants intimate an exquisite sense of floral beauty. He
+  distinguished the star from the bell-floral, tells us that a red
+  rose will turn white when submitted to the vapor of sulphur and
+  makes some very sagacious observations on the subject of
+  germination. &hellip; The extraordinary erudition and originality of this
+  treatise (his tenth book) has drawn from M. Meyer the following
+  comment: 'No Botanist who lived before Albert can be compared to
+  him, unless Theophrastus, with whom he was not acquainted; and after
+  him none has painted nature in such living colors or studied it so
+  profoundly until the time of Conrad Gesner and Cesalpino.' All
+  honor, then, to the man who made such astonishing progress in the
+  science of nature as to find no one, I will not say to surpass, but
+  even to equal him for the space of three centuries."
+</p>
+<a name="50">{50}</a>
+<p>
+We point out in the chapter on Geography and Exploration how much this
+wonderful Thirteenth Century added to the knowledge of geographical
+science. Even before the great explorers of this time, however, had
+accomplished their work, this particular branch of science had made
+such great progress as would bring it quite within the domain of what
+we call the science of geography at the present time. When we remember
+how much has been said about the ignorance of the men of the later
+Middle Ages as regards the shape of the earth and its inhabitants, and
+how many foolish notions they are supposed to have accepted with
+regard to the limitation of possible residents of the world and the
+queer ideas as to the antipodes, the following passages taken from
+Albert's biographer will serve better than anything else to show how
+absurdly the traditional notions with regard to this time and its
+knowledge, have been permitted by educators to tinge what are supposed
+to be serious opinions with regard to the subject matters of education
+in that early university period:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "He treats as fabulous the commonly-received idea, in which Bede had
+  acquiesced, that the region of the earth south of the equator was
+  uninhabitable, and considers, that from the equator to the South
+  Pole, the earth was not only habitable, but in all probability
+  actually inhabited, except directly at the poles, where he imagines
+  the cold to be excessive. If there be any animals there, he says,
+  they must have very thick skins to defend them from the rigor of the
+  climate, and they are probably of a white color. The intensity of
+  cold, is however, tempered by the action of the sea. He describes
+  the antipodes and the countries they comprise, and divides the
+  climate of the earth into seven zones. He smiles with a scholar's
+  freedom at the simplicity of those who suppose that persons living
+  at the opposite region of the earth must fall off, an opinion that
+  can only rise out of the grossest ignorance, 'for when we speak of
+  the lower hemisphere, this must be understood merely as relatively
+  to ourselves.' It is as a geographer that Albert's superiority to
+  the writers of his own time chiefly appears. Bearing in mind the
+  astonishing ignorance which then prevailed on this subject, it is
+  truly admirable to find him correctly tracing the chief mountain
+  chains of Europe, with the rivers which take <a name="51">{51}</a> their source in
+  each; remarking on portions of coast which have in later times been
+  submerged by the ocean, and islands which have been raised by
+  volcanic action above the level of the sea; noticing the
+  modification of climate caused by mountains, seas and forests, and
+  the division of the human race whose differences he ascribes to the
+  effect upon them of the countries they inhabit! In speaking of the
+  British Isles he alludes to the commonly-received idea that another
+  distant island called Tile or Thule, existed far in the Western
+  Ocean, uninhabitable by reason of its frightful climate, but which,
+  he says, has perhaps not yet been visited by man."
+</p>
+<p>
+Nothing will so seriously disturb the complacency of modern minds as
+to the wonderful advances that have been made in the last century in
+all branches of physical science as to read Albertus Magnus' writings.
+Nothing can be more wholesomely chastening of present day conceit than
+to get a proper appreciation of the extent of the knowledge of the
+Schoolmen.
+</p>
+<p>
+Albertus Magnus' other great pupil besides Roger Bacon was St. Thomas
+Aquinas. If any suspicion were still left that Thomas did not
+appreciate just what the significance of his teachings in physics was,
+when he announced that neither matter nor force could ever be reduced
+to nothingness, it would surely be removed by the consideration that
+he had been for many years in intimate relations with Albert and that
+he had probably also been close to Roger Bacon. After association with
+such men as these, any knowledge he displays with regard to physical
+science can scarcely be presumed to have been stumbled upon unawares.
+St. Thomas himself has left three treatises on chemical subjects and
+it is said that the first occurrence of the word amalgam can be traced
+to one of these treatises. Everybody was as much interested then, as
+we are at the present time, in the transformation of metals and
+mercury with its silvery sheen, its facility to enter into metallic
+combinations of all kinds, and its elusive ways, naturally made it the
+center of scientific interest quite as radium is at the present
+moment. Further material with regard to St. Thomas and also to the
+subject of education will be found in the chapter, Aquinas the
+Scholar.
+</p>
+<p>
+After this brief review of only a few of the things that they taught
+in science at the Thirteenth Century universities, most <a name="52">{52}</a> people
+will scarcely fail to wonder how such peculiar erroneous impressions
+with regard to the uselessness of university teaching and training
+have come to be so generally accepted. The fault lies, of course, with
+those who thought they knew something about university teaching, and
+who, because they found a few things that now look ridiculous, as
+certain supposed facts of one generation always will to succeeding
+generations who know more about them, thought they could conclude from
+these as to the character of the whole content of medieval education.
+It is only another example of what Artemus Ward pointed out so
+effectively when he said that "there is nothing that makes men so
+ridiculous as the knowing so many things that aint so." We have been
+accepting without question ever so many things that simply are not so
+with regard to these wonderful generations, who not only organized the
+universities but organized the teaching in them on lines not very
+different from those which occupy people seven centuries later.
+</p>
+<p>
+What would be the most amusing feature, if it were not unfortunately
+so serious an arraignment of the literature that has grown up around
+these peculiar baseless notions with regard to scholastic philosophy,
+is the number of men of science who have permitted themselves to make
+fun of certain supposed lucubrations of the great medieval
+philosophers. It is not so very long ago that, as pointed out by
+Harper in the Metaphysics of the School, Professor Tate in a lecture
+on Some Recent Advances in Physical Science repeated the old slander
+that even Aquinas occupied the attention of his students with such
+inane questions as: "How many angels could dance on the point of a
+needle?" Modern science very proudly insists that it occupies itself
+with observations and concerns itself little with authority. Prof.
+Tate in this unhappy quotation, shows not only that he has made no
+personal studies in medieval philosophy but that he has accepted a
+very inadequate authority for the statements which he makes with as
+much confidence as if they had been the result of prolonged research
+in this field. Many other modern scientists (?) have fallen into like
+blunders. (For Huxley's opinion see. <a href="#466Hux">Appendix</a>)
+</p>
+<p>
+The modern student, as well as the teacher, is prone to wonder what
+were the methods of study and the habits of life <a name="53">{53}</a> of the students
+of the Thirteenth Century, and fortunately we have a short sketch,
+written by Robert of Sorbonne, the famous founder of the Sorbonne, in
+which he gives advice to attendants at that institution as to how they
+should spend their time, so that at least we are able to get a hint of
+the ideals that were set before the student. Robert, whose long
+experience of university life made him thoroughly competent to advise,
+said:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The student who wishes to make progress ought to observe six
+  essential rules.
+<br><br>
+  "First: He ought to consecrate a certain hour every day to the study
+  of a determined subject, as St. Bernard counselled his monks in his
+  letter to the Brothers of the Mont Dieu.
+<br><br>
+  "Second: He ought to concentrate his attention upon what he reads
+  and ought not to let it pass lightly. There is between reading and
+  study, as St. Bernard says, the same difference as between a host
+  and a guest, between a passing salutation exchanged in the street
+  and an embrace prompted by an unalterable affection.
+<br><br>
+  "Third: He ought to extract from the daily study one thought, some
+  truth or other, and engrave it deeply upon his memory with special
+  care. Seneca said <i>'Cum multa percurreris in die, unum tibi elige
+  quod illa die excoquas'</i>&mdash;When you have run over many things in a
+  day select one for yourself which you should digest well on that
+  day.
+<br><br>
+  "Fourth: Write a resume of it, for words which are not confided to
+  writing fly as does the dust before the wind.
+<br><br>
+  "Fifth: Talk the matter over with your fellow-students, either in
+  the regular recitation or in your familiar conversation. This
+  exercise is even more profitable than study for it has as its result
+  the clarifying of all doubts and the removing of all the obscurity
+  that study may have left. Nothing is perfectly known unless it has
+  been tried by the tooth of disputation.
+<br><br>
+  "Sixth: Pray, for this is indeed one of the best ways of learning.
+  St. Bernard teaches that study ought to touch the heart and that one
+  should profit by it always by elevating the heart to God, <i>without,
+  however, interrupting the study</i>."
+</p>
+<p>
+Sorbonne proceeds in a tone that vividly recalls the modern university
+professor who has seen generation after generation <a name="54">{54}</a> of students
+and has learned to realize how many of them waste their time.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Certain students act like fools; they display great subtility over
+  nonsensical subjects and exhibit themselves devoid of intelligence
+  with regard to their most important studies. So as not to seem to
+  have lost their time they gather together many sheets of parchment,
+  make thick volumes of note books out of them, with many a blank
+  interval, and cover them with elegant binding in red letters. Then
+  they return to the paternal domicile with their little sack filled
+  up with knowledge which can be stolen from them by any thief that
+  comes along, or may be eaten by rats or by worms or destroyed by
+  fire or water.
+<br><br>
+  "In order to acquire instruction the student must abstain from
+  pleasure and not allow himself to be hampered by material cares.
+  There was at Paris not long since two teachers who were great
+  friends. One of them had seen much, had read much and used to remain
+  night and day bent over his books. He scarcely took the time to say
+  an 'Our Father.' Nevertheless he had but four students. His
+  colleague possessed a much less complete library, was less devoted
+  to study and heard mass every morning before delivering his lecture.
+  In spite of this, his classroom was full. 'How do you do it?' asked
+  his friend. 'It is very simple,' said his friend smiling. 'God
+  studies for me. I go to mass and when I come back I know by heart
+  all that I have to teach.'"
+<br><br>
+  "Meditation," so Sorbonne continues, "is suitable not only for the
+  master, but the good student ought also to go and take his promenade
+  along the banks of the Seine, not to play there, but in order to
+  repeat his lesson and meditate upon it."
+</p>
+<p>
+These instructions for students are not very different from those that
+would be issued by an interested head of a university department to
+the freshmen of the present day. His insistence, especially on the
+difference between reading and study, might very well be taken to
+heart at the present time, when there seems to be some idea that
+reading of itself is sufficient to enable one to obtain an education.
+The lesson of learning one thing a day and learning that well, might
+have been selected as a motto for students for all succeeding
+generations with manifest advantage to the success of college study.
+</p>
+<a name="55">{55}</a>
+<p>
+In other things Sorbonne departs further from our modern ideas in the
+matter of education, but still there are many even at the present time
+who will read with profound sympathy his emphatic advice to the
+University students that they must educate their hearts as well as
+their intellects, and make their education subserve the purpose of
+bringing them closer to God.
+</p>
+<p>
+A word about certain customs that prevailed more or less generally in
+the universities at this time, and that after having been much
+misunderstood will now be looked at more sympathetically in the light
+of recent educational developments will not be out of place here.
+</p>
+<p>
+One of the advantages of modern German university education has often
+been acclaimed to be the fact that students are tempted to make
+portions of their studies in various cities, since all the courses are
+equalized in certain ways, so that the time spent at any one of them
+will be counted properly for their degrees. It has long been
+recognized that travel makes the best possible complement to a
+university course, and even when the English universities in the
+Eighteenth Century sank to be little more than pleasant abiding places
+where young men of the upper classes "ate their terms," the fact that
+it was the custom "to make the grand tour" of continental travel,
+supplied for much that was lacking in the serious side of their
+education. Little as this might be anticipated as a feature of the
+ruder times of the Thirteenth Century, when travel was so difficult,
+it must be counted as one of the great advantages for the inquiring
+spirits of the time. Dante, besides attending the universities in
+Italy, and he certainly was at several of them, was also at Paris at
+one time and probably also at Oxford. Professor Monroe in his text
+book in the History of Education has stated this custom very
+distinctly.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "With the founding of the universities and the establishment of the
+  nations in practically every university, it became quite customary
+  for students to travel from university to university, finding in
+  each a home in their appropriate nation. Many, however, willing to
+  accept the privileges of the clergy and the students without
+  undertaking their obligations, adopted this wandering life as a
+  permanent one. Being a privileged order, they readily found a
+  living, or made it by begging. A monk of <a name="56">{56}</a> the early university
+  period writes: 'The scholars are accustomed to wander throughout the
+  whole world and visit all the cities, and their many studies bring
+  them understanding. For in Paris they seek a knowledge of the
+  liberal arts; of the ancient writers at Orleans; of medicine at
+  Salernum; of the black art at Toledo; and in no place decent
+  manners.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+With regard to the old monk's criticism it must be remembered that old
+age is always rather depreciative in criticism of the present and
+over-appreciative of what happened in the past <i>se pueris</i>. Abuses
+always seem to be creeping in that are going to ruin the force of
+education, yet somehow the next generation succeeds in obtaining its
+intellectual development in rather good shape. Besides as we must
+always remember in educational questions, evils are ever exaggerated
+and the memory of them is prone to live longer and to loom up larger
+than that of the good with which they were associated and to which
+indeed, as anyone of reasonable experience in educational circles
+knows, they may constitute by comparison only a very small amount.
+Undoubtedly the wanderings of students brought with it many abuses,
+and if we were to listen to some of the stories of foreign student
+life in Paris in our own time, we might think that much of evil and
+nothing of good was accomplished by such wandering, but inasmuch as we
+do so we invite serious error of judgment.
+</p>
+<p>
+Another striking feature of university life which constituted a
+distinct anticipation of something very modern in our educational
+system, was the lending of professors of different nationalities among
+the universities. It is only at the beginning of the Twentieth Century
+that we have reestablished this custom. In the Thirteenth Century,
+however, Albertus Magnus taught for a time at Cologne and then later
+at Paris and apparently also at Rome. St. Thomas of Aquin, after
+having taught for a time at Paris, lectured in various Italian
+universities and then finally at the University of Rome to which he
+was tempted by the Popes. Duns Scotus, besides teaching in Oxford,
+taught also at Paris. Alexander of Hales before him seems to have done
+the same thing. Roger Bacon, after studying at the University of
+Paris, seems to have commenced teaching there, though most of his
+professional work was <a name="57">{57}</a> accomplished at the University of Oxford.
+Raymond Lully probably had professional experiences at several Spanish
+Universities besides at Paris. In a word, if a man were a
+distinguished genius he was almost sure to be given the opportunity to
+influence his generation at a number of centers of educational life,
+and not be confined as has been the case in the centuries since to but
+one or at most, and that more by accident than intent, to perhaps two.
+In a word there is not a distinctive feature of modern university life
+that was not anticipated in the Thirteenth Century.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i057.jpg" border=1><br>
+FLYING BUTTRESS (AMIENS)
+</p>
+<br>
+<a name="58">{58}</a>
+<br>
+<h1>IV
+<br>
+THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS AND DISCIPLINE.</h1>
+
+<p>
+For most people the surprise of finding that the subjects with which
+the students were occupied at the universities of the Thirteenth
+Century were very much the same as those which claim the attention of
+modern students, will probably be somewhat mitigated by the thought
+that after all there were only few in attendance at the universities,
+and as a consequence only a small proportion of the population shared
+in that illumination, which has become so universal in the spread of
+opportunities for the higher education in these later times. While
+such an impression is cherished by many even of those who think that
+they know the history of education, and unfortunately are considered
+<i>by others</i> to be authorities on the subject, it is the falsest
+possible idea that could be conceived of this medieval time with which
+we are concerned. We may say at once that it is a matter of
+comparatively easy collation of statistics to show, that in proportion
+to the population of the various countries, there were actually more
+students taking advantage of the opportunity to acquire university
+education in the Thirteenth Century, than there were at any time in
+the Nineteenth Century, or even in the midst of this era of widespread
+educational opportunities in the Twentieth Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+Most people know the traditions which declare that there were between
+twenty and thirty thousand students at the University of Paris toward
+the end of the Thirteenth Century. At the same time there were said to
+have been between fifteen and twenty thousand students at the
+University of Bologna. Correspondingly large numbers have been
+reported for the University of Oxford and many thousands were supposed
+to be in attendance at the University of Cambridge. It is usually
+considered, however, that these figures are gross exaggerations. It is
+easy to assert this but rather difficult to prove. As a matter of fact
+the nearer one comes to the actual times in the <a name="59">{59}</a> history of
+education, the more definitely do writers speak of these large numbers
+of students in attendance. For instance Gascoigne, who says that there
+were thirty thousand students at the University of Oxford at the end
+of the Thirteenth Century, lived himself within a hundred years of the
+events of which he talks, and he even goes so far as to declare that
+he saw the rolls of the University containing this many names. There
+is no doubt at all about his evidence in the matter and there is no
+mistake possible with regard to his figures. They were written out in
+Latin, not expressed in Arabic or Roman numerals, the copying of which
+might so easily give opportunities for error to creep in.
+</p>
+<p>
+In spite of such evidence it is generally conceded that to accept
+these large numbers would be almost surely a mistake. There were
+without any doubt many thousands of students at the Thirteenth Century
+universities. There were certainly more students at the University of
+Paris in the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century than there were at
+any time during the Nineteenth Century. This of itself is enough to
+startle modern complacency out of most of its ridiculous
+self-sufficiency. There can be scarcely a doubt that the University of
+Bologna at the time of its largest attendance had more students than
+any university of modern times, proud as we may be (and deservedly) of
+our immense institutions of learning. With regard to the English
+universities the presence of very large numbers is much more doubtful.
+Making every allowance, however, there can be no hesitation in saying
+that Oxford had during the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century a
+larger number than ever afterwards within her walls and that
+Cambridge, though never so numerous as her rival, had a like good
+fortune. Professor Laurie of Edinburgh, a very conservative authority
+and one not likely to concede too much to the Middle Ages in anything,
+would allow, as we shall see, some ten thousand students to Oxford.
+Others have claimed more than half that number for Cambridge as the
+lowest possible estimate. Even if it be conceded, as has sometimes
+been urged, that all those in service in the universities were also
+counted as students, these numbers would not be reduced very
+materially and it must not be <a name="60">{60}</a> forgotten that, in those days of
+enthusiastic striving after education, young men were perfectly
+willing to take up even the onerous duties of personal services to
+others, in order to have the opportunity to be closely in touch with a
+great educational institution and to receive even a moderate amount of
+benefit from its educational system. In our own time there are many
+students who are working their way through the universities, and in
+the Thirteenth Century when the spirit of independence was much less
+developed, and when any stigma that attached to personal service was
+much less felt than it is at the present time, there were many more
+examples of this earnest striving for intellectual development.
+</p>
+<p>
+If we discuss the situation in English-speaking countries as regards
+the comparative attendance at the universities in the Thirteenth
+Century and in our own time, we shall be able to get a reasonably good
+idea of what must be thought in this matter. The authorities are
+neither difficult of consultation nor distant, and comparatively much
+more is known about the population of England at this time than about
+most of the continental countries. England was under a single ruler,
+while the geographical divisions that we now know by the name of
+France, Spain, Italy and Germany were the seats of several rulers at
+least and sometimes of many, a circumstance which does not favor our
+obtaining an adequate idea of the populations.
+</p>
+<p>
+That but two universities provided all the opportunities for whatever
+higher education there was in England at this time, would of itself
+seem to stamp the era as backward in educational matters. A little
+consideration of the comparative number of students with reference to
+the population of the country who were thus given the opportunity for
+higher education&mdash;and took advantage of it&mdash;at that time and the
+present, will show the unreasonableness of such an opinion. It is not
+so easy as might be imagined to determine just what was the population
+even of England in the Thirteenth Century. During Elizabeth's reign
+there were, according to the census, an estimate made about the time
+of the great Armada, altogether some four millions of people. Froude,
+accepts this estimate as representing very well the actual number of
+the population. Certainly there were not more <a name="61">{61}</a> than five millions
+at the end of the Sixteenth Century. Lingard, who for this purpose
+must be considered as a thoroughly conservative authority, estimates
+that there were not much more than two millions of people in England
+at the end of the Twelfth Century. This is probably not an
+underestimate. At the end of the Thirteenth Century there were not
+many more than two millions and a half of people in the country. At
+the very outside there were, let us say, three millions. Out of this
+meagre population, ten thousand students were, on the most
+conservative estimate, taking advantage of the opportunities for the
+higher education that were provided for them at the universities.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the present moment, though we pride ourselves on the numbers in
+attendance at our universities, and though the world's population is
+so much more numerous and the means of transportation so much more
+easy, we have very few universities as large as these of the
+Thirteenth Century. No American university at the present moment has
+as large a number of students as had Oxford at the end of the
+Thirteenth Century, and of course none of them compares at all with
+Paris or Bologna in this respect. Even the European universities, as
+we have suggested, fall behind their former glory from this
+standpoint. In the attendance to the number of population the
+comparison is even more startling for those who have not thought at
+all of the Middle Ages as a time of wonderful educational facilities
+and opportunities. In the greater City of New York as we begin the
+Twentieth Century there are perhaps fifteen thousand students in
+attendance at educational institutions which have university
+privileges. I may say that this is a very liberal allowance. At
+universities in the ordinary sense of the word there are not more than
+ten thousand students and the remainder is added in order surely to
+include all those who may be considered as doing undergraduate work in
+colleges and schools of various kinds. Of these fifteen thousand at
+least one-fourth come from outside of the greater city, and there are
+some who think that even one-third would not be too large a number to
+calculate as not being drawn directly from our own population.
+Connecticut and New Jersey furnish large numbers of students and then,
+besides, the post-graduate schools <a name="62">{62}</a> of the universities have very
+large numbers in attendance even from distant states and foreign
+countries.
+</p>
+<p>
+It will be within the bounds of truth, then, to say, that there are
+between ten and twelve thousand students, out of our population of
+more than four millions in Greater New York taking advantage of the
+opportunities for the higher education provided by our universities
+and colleges. At the end of the Thirteenth Century in England there
+were at least ten thousand students out of a population of not more
+and very probably less than three millions, who were glad to avail
+themselves of similar opportunities. This seems to be perfectly fair
+comparison and we have tried to be as conservative as possible in
+every way in order to bring out the truth in the matter.
+</p>
+<p>
+It can scarcely fail to be a matter of supreme surprise to find that a
+century so distant as the Thirteenth, should thus equal our own
+vaunted Twentieth Century in the matter of opportunities for the
+higher education afforded and taken advantage of. It has always been
+presumed that the Middle Ages, while a little better than the Dark
+Ages, were typical periods in which there was little, if any desire
+for higher education and even fewer opportunities. It was thought that
+there was constant repression of the desire for knowledge which
+springs so eternally in the human heart and that the Church, or at
+least the ecclesiastical authorities of the time, set themselves
+firmly against widespread education, because it would set people to
+thinking for themselves. As a matter of fact, however, every Cathedral
+and every monastery became a center of educational influence, and even
+the poorest, who showed special signs of talent, obtained the
+opportunity to secure knowledge to the degree that they wished. It is
+beyond doubt or cavil, that at no time in the world's history have so
+many opportunities for the higher education been open to all classes
+as during the Thirteenth Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+In order to show how thoroughly conservative are the numbers in
+attendance at the universities that I have taken, I shall quote two
+good recent authorities, one of them Professor Laurie, the Professor
+of the Institutes and History of Education in the University of
+Edinburgh, and the other Thomas Davidson, a well-known American
+authority on educational <a name="63">{63}</a> subjects. Each of their works from which
+I shall quote has been published or revised within the last few years.
+Professor Laurie in "The Rise and Early Constitution of the University
+with a Survey of the Medieval Education," which formed one of the
+International Educational Series, edited by Commissioner Harris and
+published by Appleton, said:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "When one hears of the large number of students who attended the
+  earliest universities&mdash;ten thousand and even twenty thousand at
+  Bologna, an equal, and at one time a greater, number at Paris, and
+  thirty thousand at Oxford&mdash;one cannot help thinking that the numbers
+  have been exaggerated. There is certainly evidence that the Oxford
+  attendance was never so great as has been alleged (see Anstey's 'Mon
+  Acad.'); but when we consider that attendants, servitors, college
+  cooks, etc., were regarded as members of the university community,
+  and that the universities provided for a time the sole recognized
+  training grounds for those wishing to enter the ecclesiastical or
+  legal or teaching professions, I see no reason to doubt the
+  substantial accuracy of the tradition as to attendance&mdash;especially
+  when we remember that at Paris and Oxford a large number were mere
+  boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age."
+</p>
+<p>
+As to the inclusion of servitors, we have already said that many,
+probably, indeed, most of them, were actual students working their way
+through the university in these enthusiastic days. Professor Laurie's
+authority for the assertion that a large number of the students at
+Paris and Oxford were mere boys, is a regulation known to have existed
+at one of these universities requiring that students should not be
+less than twelve years of age. Anyone who has studied medieval
+university life, however, will have been impressed with the idea, that
+the students were on the average older at the medieval universities
+rather than younger than they are at the present time. The rough
+hazing methods employed, almost equal to those of our own day! would
+seem to indicate this. Besides, as Professor Laurie confesses in the
+next paragraph, many of the students were actually much older than at
+present. Our university courses are arranged for young men between 17
+and 22, but that is, to fall back on Herbert Spencer, presumably
+because the period of infancy is <a name="64">{64}</a> lengthening with the evolution
+of the race. There are many who consider that at the present time
+students are too long delayed in the opportunity to get at the
+professional studies, and that it is partly the consequence of this
+that the practical branches are so much more taken up under the
+elective system. As we said in the chapter on Universities and
+Preparatory Schools, in Italy and in other southern countries, it is
+not a surprising thing to have a young man graduate at the age of 16
+or 17 with his degree of A. B., after a thoroughly creditable
+scholastic career. This means that he began his university work proper
+under 13 years of age; so that we must judge the medieval universities
+to some extent at least with this thought in mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Thomas Davidson in his "History of Education,"   [Footnote 7] in
+the chapter on The Medieval University has a paragraph in which he
+discusses the attendance, especially during the Thirteenth Century,
+and admits that the numbers, while perhaps not so large as have been
+reported, were very large in comparison to modern institutions of the
+same kind, and frankly concedes that education rose during these
+centuries which are often supposed to have been so unfavorable to
+educational development, to an amazing height scarcely ever surpassed.
+He says:
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 7: A History of Education, by Thomas Davidson, author of
+  Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideas. New York: Scribners, 1900.]
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The number of students reported as having attended some of the
+  universities in those early days almost passes belief; <i>e. g.</i>
+  Oxford is said to have had thirty thousand about the year 1300, and
+  half that number even as early as 1224. The numbers attending the
+  University of Paris were still greater. These numbers become less
+  surprising when we remember with what poor accommodations&mdash;a bare
+  room and an armful of straw&mdash;the students of those days were
+  content, and what numbers of them even a single teacher like Abelard
+  could, long before draw into lonely retreats. That in the Twelfth
+  and following centuries there was no lack of enthusiasm for study,
+  notwithstanding the troubled condition of the times, is very clear.
+  The instruction given at the universities, moreover, reacted upon
+  the lower schools, raising their standard and supplying them with
+  competent teachers. Thus, in the Thirteenth and <a name="65">{65}</a> Fourteenth
+  centuries, education rose in many European states to a height which
+  it had not attained since the days of Seneca and Quintilian."
+</p>
+<a name="opp64">{opp64}</a>
+<br>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp064a.jpg" border=1><br>
+CHRIST DRIVING OUT MONEY CHANGERS (GIOTTO)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp064b.jpg" border=1><br>
+HEAD FROM ANNUNCIATION (GIOTTO)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp064c.jpg" border=1><br>
+BRIDE MARRIAGE AT CANA (GIOTTO)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp064d.jpg" border=1><br>
+SAINT'S HEAD (MOSAIC, ST. MARK'S VENICE)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A very serious objection that would seem to have so much weight as to
+preclude all possibility of accepting as true the large numbers
+mentioned, is the fact that it is very hard to understand how such an
+immense number of students could have been supported in any town of
+the Middle Ages. This objection has carried so much weight to some
+minds as to make them give up the thought of large numbers at the
+medieval universities. Professor Laurie has answered it very
+effectively, however, and in his plausible explanation gives a number
+of points which emphasize the intense ardor of these students of the
+Middle Ages in their search for knowledge, and shows how ready they
+were to bear serious trials and inconveniences, not to say absolute
+sufferings and hardships, in order that they might have opportunities
+for the higher education. The objection then redounds rather to the
+glory of the medieval universities than lessens their prestige, either
+as regards numbers or the enthusiasm of their students.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The chief objection to accepting the tradition (of large numbers at
+  the universities) lies in the difficulty of seeing how in those
+  days, so large a number of the young men of Europe could afford the
+  expense of residence away from their homes. This difficulty,
+  however, is partly removed when we know that many of the students
+  were well to do, that a considerable number were matured men,
+  already monks and canons, and that the endowments of Cathedral
+  schools also were frequently used to enable promising scholars to
+  attend foreign universities. Monasteries also regularly sent boys of
+  thirteen and fourteen to university seats. A papal instruction of
+  1335 required every Benedictine and Augustinian community to send
+  boys to the universities in the proportion of one in twenty of their
+  residents. Then, state authorities ordered free passages for all who
+  were wending their way through the country to and from the seat of
+  learning. In the houses of country priests&mdash;not to speak of the
+  monastery hospitals&mdash;traveling scholars were always accommodated
+  gratuitously, and even local subscriptions were frequently made to
+  help them on their way. <a name="66">{66}</a> Poor traveling scholars were, in fact,
+  a medieval institution, and it was considered no disgrace for a
+  student to beg and receive alms for his support."
+</p>
+<p>
+After reading these authoritative opinions, it would be rather
+difficult to understand the false impressions which have obtained so
+commonly for the last three centuries with regard to education in the
+Middle Ages, if we did not realize that history, especially for
+English-speaking people, has for several centuries been written from a
+very narrow standpoint and with a very definite purpose. About a
+century ago the Comte de Maistre said in his Soirées de St.
+Petersburg, that history for the three hundred years before his time
+"had been a conspiracy against the truth." Curiously enough the
+editors of the Cambridge Modern History in their first volume on the
+Renaissance, re-echoed this sentiment of the French historical writer
+and philosopher. They even use the very words "history has been a
+conspiracy against the truth" and proclaim that if we are to get at
+truth in this generation, we must go behind all the classical
+historians, and look up contemporary documents and evidence and
+authorities once more for ourselves. It is the maintenance of a
+tradition that nothing good could possibly have come out of the
+Nazareth of the times before the Reformation, that has led to this
+serious misapprehension of the true position of those extremely
+important centuries in modern education&mdash;the Thirteenth and the
+Fourteenth.
+</p>
+<p>
+To those who know even a little of what was accomplished in these
+centuries, it is supremely amusing to read the childish treatment
+accorded them and the trivial remarks that even accredited historians
+of education make with regard to them. Occasionally, however, the
+feeling of the reader who knows something of the subject is not one of
+amusement, but far from it. There are times when one cannot help but
+feel that it is not ignorance, but a deliberate purpose to minimize
+the importance of these times in culture and education, that is at the
+basis of some of the utterly mistaken remarks that are made. We shall
+take occasion only to give one example of this, but that will afford
+ample evidence of the intolerant spirit that characterizes the work of
+some even of the supposedly most enlightened historians of education.
+The quotation will be from Compayré's <a name="67">{67}</a> "History of Pedagogy" which
+is, I understand, in use in nearly every Normal School in this country
+and is among the books required in many Normal School examinations.
+</p>
+<p>
+M. Compayré in an infamous paragraph which bears the title "The
+Intellectual Feebleness of the Middle Age," furnishes an excellent
+example of how utterly misunderstood, if not deliberately
+misrepresented, has been the whole spirit and content and the real
+progressiveness of education in this wonderful period. After some
+belittling expressions as to the influence of Christianity on
+education&mdash;expressions utterly unjustified by the facts&mdash;he has this
+to say with regard to the Thirteenth Century, which is all the more
+surprising because it is the only place where he calls any attention
+to it. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "In 1291, of all the monks in the convent of St. Gall, there was not
+  one who could read and write. It was so difficult to find notaries
+  public, that acts had to be passed verbally. The barons took pride
+  in their ignorance. Even after the efforts of the Twelfth Century,
+  instruction remained a luxury for the common people; it was the
+  privilege of the ecclesiastics and even they did not carry it very
+  far. The Benedictines confess that the mathematics were studied only
+  for the purpose of calculating the date of Easter."
+</p>
+<p>
+This whole paragraph of M. Compayré (the rest must be read to be
+appreciated), whose history of education was considered to be of such
+value that it was deemed worthy of translation by the President of a
+State Normal School and that it has been adopted as a work of
+reference, in some cases of required study, in many of the Normal
+Schools throughout the country, is a most wonderful concoction of
+ingredients, all of which are meant to dissolve every possible idea
+that people might have of the existence of any tincture of education
+during the Middle Ages. There is only one fact which deeply concerns
+us because it refers to the Thirteenth Century. M. Compayré says that
+in 1291 of all the monks of the Convent of Saint Gall there was not
+one who could read and write. This single fact is meant to sum up the
+education of the century for the reader. Especially it is meant to
+show the student of pedagogy how deeply sunk in ignorance were the
+monks and all the ecclesiastics of this period.
+</p>
+<a name="68">{68}</a>
+<p>
+Before attempting to say anything further it may be as well to call
+attention to the fact that in the original French edition the writer
+did not say that there was not a single monk. He said, "There was but
+one monk, who could read and write." Possibly it seemed to the
+translator to make the story more complete to leave out this one poor
+monk and perhaps one monk more or less, especially a medieval monk,
+may not count for very much to modern students of education. There are
+those of us, however, who consider it too bad to obliterate even a
+single monk in this crude way and we ask that he shall be put back.
+There <i>was one</i> who could read and write and carry on the affairs of
+the monastery. Let us have him at least, by all means.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the year 1291 when M. Compayré says that there was but a single
+monk at the monastery of St. Gall who could read and write, he, a
+professor himself at a French Normal School, must have known very well
+that there were over twenty thousand students at the University of
+Paris, almost as many at the University of Bologna, and over five
+thousand, some authorities say many more than this (Professor Laurie
+would admit more than ten thousand), at the University of Oxford,
+though all Christian Europe at this time did not have a population of
+more than 15,000,000 people. He must have known, too, or be hopelessly
+ignorant in educational matters, that many of the students at these
+universities belonged to the Franciscans and Dominicans, and that
+indeed many of the greatest teachers at the universities were members
+of these monastic orders. Of this he says nothing, however. All that
+he says is "Education was the privilege of the ecclesiastics and they
+did not carry it very far." This is one way of writing a history of
+education. It is a very effective way of poisoning the wells of
+information and securing the persistence of the tradition that there
+was no education until after the beginning of the Sixteenth Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+Meantime one can scarcely help but admire the ingenuity of deliberate
+purpose that uses the condition of the monastery of St. Gall to
+confirm his statement. St. Gall had been founded by Irish monks
+probably about the beginning of the Eighth Century. It had been for at
+least three centuries a center of education, civilization and culture,
+as well as of religion, for the <a name="69">{69}</a> barbarians who had settled in the
+Swiss country after the trans-migration of nations. The Irish had
+originally obtained their culture from Christian Missionaries, and now
+as Christian Missionaries they brought it back to Europe and
+accomplished their work with wonderful effectiveness. St. Gall was for
+centuries a lasting monument to their efforts. After the Tenth
+Century, however, the monastery began to degenerate. It was almost
+directly in the path of armies which so frequently went down to Italy
+because of the German interest in the Italian peninsula and the claims
+of the German emperor. After a time according to tradition, the
+emperor insisted that certain of the veterans of his army should be
+received and cared for in their old age at St. Gall. Gradually this
+feature of the institution became more and more prominent until in the
+Thirteenth Century it had become little more than a home for old
+soldiers. In order to live on the benefices of the monastery these men
+had to submit to ecclesiastical regulations and wear the habit. They
+were, it is true, a sort of monk, that is, they were willing, for the
+sake of the peace and ease which it brought, to accept the living thus
+provided for them and obey to some degree at least the rules of the
+monastery. It is not surprising that among these there should have
+been only one who could read and write. The soldiers of the time
+despised the men of letters and prided themselves on not being able to
+write. That a historian of pedagogy, however, should take this one
+fact in order to give students an idea of the depth of ignorance of
+the Middle Ages, is an exhibition of some qualities in our modern
+educated men, that one does not like to think of as compatible with
+the capacity to read and write. It would indeed be better not to be
+able to read and write than thus to read and write one's own
+prejudices into history, and above all the history of education.
+</p>
+<p>
+Compayré's discussion of the "Causes of the Ignorance" of the Middle
+Ages in the next paragraph, is one of the most curious bits of special
+pleading by a man who holds a brief for one side of the question, that
+I think has ever been seen in what was to be considered serious
+history. He first makes it clear how much opposed the Christian Church
+was to education, then he admits that she did some things which cannot
+be denied, but minimizes their significance. Then he concludes that it
+was not <a name="70">{70}</a> the fault of the Church, but in this there is a precious
+bit of damning by faint praise. It would be impossible for any
+ordinary person who had only Compayré for authority to feel anything
+after reading the paragraph, but that Christianity was a serious
+detriment and surely not a help to the cause of progress in education.
+I quote part of the paragraph:
+</p>
+<p>
+"What were the permanent causes of that situation which lasted for ten
+centuries? The Catholic Church has sometimes been held responsible for
+this. Doubtless the Christian doctors did not always profess a very
+warm sympathy for intellectual culture. Saint Augustine has said: It
+is the ignorant who gain possession of heaven (indocti coelum
+rapiunt.) Saint Gregory the Great, a Pope of the Sixth Century,
+declared that he would blush to have the holy word conform to the
+rules of grammar. Too many Christians, in a word, confounded ignorance
+with holiness. Doubtless, towards the Seventh Century, the darkness
+still hung thick over the Christian Church. Barbarians invaded the
+Episcopate, and carried with them their rude manners. Doubtless, also,
+during the feudal period the priest often became a soldier, and
+remained ignorant. It would, however, be unjust to bring a
+constructive charge against the Church of the Middle Age, and to
+represent it as systematically hostile to instruction. Directly to the
+contrary, it is the clergy who, in the midst of the general barbarism,
+preserved some vestiges of the ancient culture. The only schools of
+that period are the Episcopal and claustral schools, the first annexed
+to the Bishops' palaces, the second to the monasteries. The religious
+orders voluntarily associated manual labor with mental labor. As far
+back as 530, St. Benedict founded the Convent of Monte Cassino, and
+drew up statutes which made reading and intellectual labor a part of
+the daily life of the monks." When this damning by faint praise is
+taken in connection with the paragraph in which only a single monk at
+the Monastery of St. Gall is declared to have been able to read and
+write, the utterly false impression that is sure to result, can be
+readily understood even by those who are not sympathetic students of
+the Middle Ages. This is how our histories of education have been
+written as a rule, and as a consequence the most precious period in
+modern education, its great origin, has been ignored even by
+professional scholars, to the great detriment not only of historical
+knowledge but also of any proper appreciation of the evolution of
+education.
+</p>
+<br>
+<a name="opp71"></a>
+<p class="center">
+Portraits<br>
+Bennozo Gozzoli
+</p>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp071a.jpg" border=1><br>
+PETRARCA OMNIUM VIRTUTUM<br>
+MONARCA
+</p>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp071b.jpg" border=1><br>
+GIOTTO, PICTOR EXIMIUS
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp071c.jpg" border=1><br>
+DANTE THEOLOGUS NULLIUS<br>
+DOGMATIS EXPERS
+</p>
+<br>
+<a name="71">{71}</a>
+<br>
+<p>
+It will be said by those who do not appreciate the conditions that
+existed in the Middle Ages, that these numbers at the universities
+seeking the higher education, mean very little for the culture of the
+people, since practically all of those in attendance at the
+universities belonged to the clerical order. There is no doubt that
+most students were clerics in the Thirteenth Century. This did not
+mean, however, that they had taken major orders or had in any way
+bound themselves irrevocably to continue in the clerical vocation. The
+most surprising thing about the spread of culture and the desire for
+the higher education during the Thirteenth Century, is that they
+developed in spite of the fact that the rulers of the time were all
+during the century, embroiled in war either with their neighbors or
+with the nobility. Anyone who wanted to live a quiet, intellectual
+life turned naturally to the clerical state, which enabled him to
+escape military duties and gave him opportunities for study, as well
+as protection from many exactions that might otherwise be levied upon
+him. The church not only encouraged education, but supplied the
+peaceful asylums in which it might be cultivated to the heart's
+content of the student.
+</p>
+<p>
+While this clerical state was a necessity during the whole time of
+residence at the university, it was not necessarily maintained
+afterward. Many of the clerics did not even have minor orders&mdash;orders
+which it is well understood carry with them no absolute obligation of
+continuing in the clerical state. Sextons and their assistants were
+clerics. When the word canon originally came into use it meant nothing
+more than that the man was entered on the rolls of a church and
+received some form of wages therefrom. Students at the universities
+were by ecclesiastical courtesy then, clerics (from which comes the
+word clerk, one who can read and write) though not in orders, and it
+was because of this that the university was able to maintain the
+rights of students. It was well understood that after graduation men
+might take up the secular life and indeed most of them did. In
+succeeding chapters we shall see examples of this and discuss the
+question further. Professors at the <a name="72">{72}</a> universities had to maintain
+their clerical condition so that even professors of law and of
+medicine were not allowed to marry. This law continued long beyond the
+Thirteenth Century, however. Professors of medicine were the first to
+be freed from the obligation of celibacy, but not until the middle of
+the Fifteenth Century at Paris, while other professors were bound thus
+for a full century later. Certain minor teaching positions at Oxford
+are still under this law, which evidently has seemed to have some
+advantage or it would not have been maintained.
+</p>
+<p>
+It might perhaps be thought that only the wealthier class, the sons of
+the nobility and of the wealthy merchants of the cities had
+opportunities at the universities. As a matter of fact, however, the
+vast majority of the students was drawn from the great middle class.
+The nobility were nearly always too occupied with their pleasures and
+their martial duties to have time for the higher education. The
+tradition that a nobleman should be an educated gentleman had not yet
+come in. Indeed many of the nobility during the Thirteenth Century
+rather prided themselves on the fact that they not only had no higher
+education, but that they did not know even how to read and write. When
+we reflect, then, on the large numbers who went to the universities,
+it adds to our surprise to realize that they were drawn from the
+burgher class. It is evident that many of the sons even of the poor
+were afforded opportunities in different ways at the universities of
+the time.
+</p>
+<p>
+Tradition shows that from the earliest time there were foundations on
+which poor students could live, and various arrangements were made by
+which, aside from these, they might make their living while continuing
+their studies. Working one's way through the university was more
+common in the Thirteenth Century than it is at the present day, though
+we are proud of the large numbers who now succeed in the double task
+of supporting and educating themselves, with excellent success in both
+enterprises. There are many stories of poor students who found
+themselves about to be obliged to give up their studies, encountering
+patrons of various kinds who enabled them to go on with their
+education.
+</p>
+<p>
+There is a very pretty set of legends with regard to St. Edmund of
+Canterbury in this matter. He bears this name <a name="73">{73}</a> because he was
+afterward the sainted primate of England. For many years he taught at
+the University of Oxford. The story is told of a clerical friend
+sending him up a student to Oxford and asking that his bills be sent
+to him. St. Edmund's answer was that he would not be robbed of an
+opportunity of doing good like this, and he took upon himself the
+burden of caring for the student. At the time there were many others
+dependent on his bounty and his reputation was such that he was
+enabled to help a great many through the benefactions of friends, who
+found no higher pleasure in life than being able to come generously to
+Edmund's assistance in his charities.
+</p>
+<p>
+Those who know the difficulty of managing very large bodies of
+students will wonder inevitably, how the medieval universities, with
+their less formal and less complete organizations, succeeded in
+maintaining discipline for all these thousands of students. Most
+people will remember at once all the stories of roughness, of horse
+play, of drinking and gaming or worse that they have heard of the
+medieval students and will be apt to conclude that they are not to be
+wondered at after all, since it must have been practically impossible
+for the faculties of universities to keep order among such vast
+numbers. As a matter of fact, however, the story of the origin and
+maintenance of discipline in these universities is one of the most
+interesting features of university life. The process of discipline
+became in itself a very precious part of education, as it should be of
+course in any well regulated institution of learning. The very fact,
+moreover, that in spite of these large numbers and other factors that
+we shall call attention to in a moment, comparatively so few
+disgraceful stories of university life have come down to us, and the
+other and still more important fact that the universities could be
+kept so constantly at the attainment of their great purpose for such
+numbers, is itself a magnificent tribute to those who succeeded in
+doing it, and to the system which was gradually evolved, not by the
+faculty alone but by teachers and students for university government.
+</p>
+<p>
+With regard to the discipline of the medieval universities not much is
+known and considerable of what has been written on this obscure
+subject wears an unfavorable tinge, because it is unfortunately true
+that "the good men do is oft interred with <a name="74">{74}</a> their bones" while the
+evil has an immortality all its own. The student escapades of the
+universities, the quarrels between town and gown, the stories of the
+evils apparently inevitable, where many young men are congregated&mdash;the
+hazing, the rough horse play, the carousing, the immoralities&mdash;have
+all come down to us, while it is easy to miss the supreme significance
+of the enthusiasm for learning that in these difficult times gathered
+so many students together from distant parts of the world, when
+traveling was so difficult and dangerous, and kept them at the
+universities for long years in spite of the hardships and
+inconveniences of the life. With regard to our modern universities the
+same thing is true, and the outside world knows much more of the
+escapades of the few, the little scandals of college life, that
+scarcely make a ripple but are so easily exaggerated, and so
+frequently repeated and lose nothing by repetition, the waste of time
+in athletics, in gambling, in social things, than of the earnest work
+and the successful intellectual progress and interests of the many.
+This should be quite enough to make the modern university man very
+slow to accept the supposed pictures of medieval student life, which
+are founded mainly on the worse side of it. Goodness is proverbially
+uninteresting, a happy people has no history and the ordinary life of
+the university student needs a patient sympathetic chronicler; and
+such the medieval universities have not found as yet. But they do not
+need many allowances, if it will only be remembered under what
+discouragements they labored and how much they accomplished.
+</p>
+<p>
+The reputation of the medieval universities has suffered from this
+very human tendency to be interested in what is evil and to neglect
+the good. Even as it is, however, a good deal with regard to the
+discipline of the universities in the early times is known and does
+not lose in interest from the fact, that the main factor in it was a
+committee of the students themselves working in conjunction with the
+faculty, and thus anticipating what is most modern in the development
+of the disciplinary regime of our up-to-date universities. At first
+apparently, in the schools from which the universities originated
+there was no thought of the necessity for discipline. The desire for
+education was considered to be sufficient to keep men occupied in <a name="75">{75}</a>
+such a way that further discipline would not be necessary. It can
+readily be understood that the crowds that flocked to hear Abelard in
+Paris, and who were sufficiently interested to follow him out to the
+Desert of the Paraclete when he was no longer allowed to continue his
+lectures in connection with the school at Paris, would have quite
+enough of ruling from the internal forum of their supreme interest,
+not to need any discipline in the external forum.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the course of time, however, with the coming of even greater
+numbers to the University of Paris, and especially when the attendance
+ran up into many thousands, some form of school discipline became an
+absolute necessity. This developed of itself and in a very practical
+way. The masters seem to have had very little to do with it at the
+beginning since they occupied themselves entirely with their teaching
+and preparation for lectures. What was to become later one of the
+principal instruments of discipline was at first scarcely more than a
+social organization among the students. Those who came from different
+countries were naturally attracted to one another, and were more ready
+to help each other. When students first came they were welcomed by
+their compatriots who took care to keep them from being imposed upon,
+enabled them to secure suitable quarters and introduced them to
+university customs generally, so that they might be able to take
+advantage, as soon as possible, of the educational opportunities.
+</p>
+<p>
+The friendships thus fostered gradually grew into formal
+organizations, the so-called "nations." These began to take form just
+before the beginning of the Thirteenth Century. They made it their
+duty to find lodgings for their student compatriots, and evidently
+also to supply food on some cooperative plan for at least the poorer
+students. Whenever students of a particular nationality were injured
+in any way, their "nation" as a formal organization took up their
+cause and maintained their rights, even to the extent of an appeal to
+formal process of law before the magistrates, if necessary. The
+nations were organized before the faculties in the universities were
+formally recognized as independent divisions of the institution, and
+they acted as intermediaries between the university head and the
+students, making themselves responsible for discipline to no slight
+<a name="76">{76}</a> degree. At the beginning of the Thirteenth Century in Paris all
+the students belonged to one or other of four nations, the Picard, the
+Norman, the French, which embraced Italians, Spaniards, Greeks and
+Orientals, and the English which embraced the English, Irish, Germans,
+Poles (heterogeneous collection we would consider it in these modern
+days) and in addition all other students from the North of Europe.
+</p>
+<p>
+Professor Laurie, of the University of Edinburgh, in his Rise and
+Early Constitution of Universities in the International Educational
+Series   [Footnote 8] says:
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 8: The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities, with a
+  survey of Medieval Education, by S. S. Laurie, LL.D., Professor of
+  the Institutes and History of Education in the University of
+  Edinburgh. New York, D. Appleton & Company, 1901.]
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+"The subdivisions of the nations were determined by the localities
+from which the students and masters came. Each subdivision elected its
+own dean and kept its own matriculation-book and money-chest. The
+whole "nation" was represented, it is true, by the elected
+procurators; but the deans of the subdivisions were regarded as
+important officials, and were frequently, if not always, assessors of
+the procurators. The procurators, four in number, were elected, not by
+the students as in Bologna and Padua, but by the students and masters.
+Each nation with its procurator and deans was an independent body,
+passing its own statutes and rules, and exercising supervision over
+the lodging-houses of the students. They had each a seal as
+distinguished from the university seal, and each procurator stood to
+his "nation" in the same relation as the Rector did to the whole
+university. The Rector, again, was elected by the procurators, who sat
+as his assessors, and together they constituted the governing body;
+but this for purposes of discipline, protection and defense of
+privileges chiefly, the <i>consortium magistrorum</i> regulating the
+schools. But so independent were the nations that the question whether
+each had power to make statutes that overrode those of the
+<i>universitas</i>, was still a question so late as the beginning of the
+Seventeenth Century."
+</p>
+<p>
+It is typical of the times that the governing system should thus have
+grown up of itself and from amongst the students, rather than that it
+should have been organized by the teachers <a name="77">{77}</a> and imposed upon the
+university. The nations represented the rise of that democratic
+spirit, which was to make itself felt in the claims for the
+recognition of rights for all the people in most of the countries
+during the Thirteenth Century, and undoubtedly the character of the
+government of the student body at the universities fostered this
+spirit and is therefore to a noteworthy degree, responsible for the
+advances in the direction of liberty which are chronicled during this
+great century. This was a form of unconscious education but none the
+less significant for that, and eminently practical in its results. At
+this time in Europe there was no place where the members of the
+community who flocked in largest numbers to the universities, the sons
+of the middle classes, could have any opportunities to share in
+government or learn the precious lessons of such participation, except
+at the universities. There gradually came an effort on the part of the
+faculties to lessen many of the rights of the nations of the
+universities, but the very struggle to maintain these on the part of
+the student body, was of itself a precious training against the
+usurpation of privileges that was to be of great service later in the
+larger arena of national politics, and the effects of which can be
+noted in every country in Europe, nowhere more than in England, where
+the development of law and liberty was to give rise to a supreme
+heritage of democratic jurisprudence for the English speaking peoples
+of all succeeding generations.
+</p>
+<a name="78">{78}</a>
+<br><br>
+<h1>V
+<br>
+POST-GRADUATE WORK AT THE UNIVERSITIES.</h1>
+
+<p>
+In modern times it has often been said that no university can be
+considered to be doing its proper work unless, besides teaching, it is
+also adding to the existing body of knowledge by original research.
+Because of unfortunate educational traditions, probably the last thing
+in the world that would enter into the minds of most people to
+conceive as likely to be found in the history of the universities of
+the Thirteenth Century, would be original research in any form. In
+spite of this almost universal false impression, original work of the
+most valuable kind, for much of which workers would be considered as
+amply deserving of their doctorates in the various faculties of the
+post-graduate departments of the most up-to-date of modern
+universities, was constantly being accomplished during this wonderful
+century. It is, as a matter of fact, with this phase of university
+activity that the modern educator is sure to have more sympathy than
+with any other, once the significant details of the work become clear.
+</p>
+<p>
+All surprise that surpassing original work was accomplished will cease
+when it is recalled that, besides creating the universities
+themselves, this century gave us the great Cathedrals&mdash;a well-spring
+of originality, and a literature in every civilized country of Europe
+that has been an inspiration to many subsequent generations. At last
+men had the time to devote to the things of the mind. During what are
+called the Dark Ages, a term that must ever be used with the
+realization that there are many bright points of light in them, men
+had been occupied with wars and civic and political dissensions of all
+kinds, and had been gradually climbing back to the heights of interest
+in intellectual matters which had been theirs before the invasion of
+the barbarians and the migration of nations. With the rebirth of
+intellectual interests there came an intense curiosity to know
+everything and to investigate every manifestation. <a name="79">{79}</a> Everything
+that men touched was novel, and the wonderful advances they made can
+only be realized from actual consultation of their works, while the
+reader puts himself as far as possible at the same mental point of
+view from which they surveyed the world and their relations to it.
+</p>
+<p>
+The modern university prides itself on the number of volumes written
+by its professors and makes it a special feature of its announcements
+to call attention to its at least supposed additions to knowledge in
+this mode. It must have been immensely more difficult to preserve the
+writings of the professors of the medieval universities for they had
+to be copied out laboriously by hand, yet we have an enormous number
+of large volumes of their works, on nearly every intellectual topic,
+that have been carefully preserved. There are some twenty closely
+printed large folio volumes of the writings of Albertus Magnus that
+have come down to us. For two centuries, until the time of printing,
+ardent students must have been satisfied to spend much time in
+preserving these. While mainly devoted to theology, they treat of
+nearly everything else, and at least one of the folio volumes is taken
+up almost exclusively with physical science. St. Thomas Aquinas has as
+many volumes to his credit and his work is even of more importance.
+Duns Scotus died at a very early age, scarcely more than forty, yet
+his writings are voluminously extensive and have been carefully
+preserved, for few men had as enthusiastic students as he. Alas! that
+his name should be preserved for most people only in the familiar
+satiric appellation 'dunce.' The modern educator will most rejoice at
+the fact that the students of the time must have indeed been devoted
+to their masters to set themselves to the task of copying out their
+work so faithfully for, as Cardinal Newman has pointed out, it is the
+personal influence of the master, rather than the greatness of the
+institution, that makes education effective.
+</p>
+<p>
+First with regard to philosophy, the mistress of all studies, whose
+throne has been shaken but not shattered in these ultimate times.
+After all it must not be forgotten that this was the great century of
+the development of scholastic philosophy. While this scholastic
+philosophy is supposed by many students of modern philosophy to be a
+thing of the past, it still continues <a name="80">{80}</a> to be the basis of the
+philosophical teaching in the Catholic seminaries and universities
+throughout the world. Catholic philosophers are well known as
+conservative thinkers and writers, and yet are perfectly free to
+confess that they consider themselves the nearer to truth the nearer
+they are to the great scholastic thinkers of the Thirteenth Century.
+Even in the circle of students of philosophy who are outside the
+influence of scholasticism, there is no doubt that in recent years an
+opinion much more favorable to the Schoolmen has gradually arisen.
+This has been due to a study of scholastic sources. Only those despise
+and talk slightingly of scholasticism who either do not know it at all
+or know it only at second hand. With regard to the system of thought,
+as such, ever is it true, that the more close the acquaintanceship the
+more respect there is for it.
+</p>
+<p>
+With regard to theology the case is even stronger than with regard to
+philosophy. Practically all of the great authorities in theology
+belong to the Thirteenth Century. It is true that men like Saint
+Anselm lived before this time and were leaders in the great movement
+that culminated in our century. Saint Anselm's book, <i>Cur Deus Homo</i>,
+is indeed one of the best examples of the combination of scholastic
+philosophy and theology that could well be cited. It is a triumph of
+logical reasoning, applied to religious belief. Besides, it is a great
+classic and any one who can read it unmoved by admiration for the
+thinker who, so many centuries ago, could so trenchantly lay down his
+thesis and develop it, must be lacking in some of the qualities of
+human admiration. The writers of the Thirteenth Century in theology
+are beyond even Anselm in their marvelous powers of systematizing
+thought. One need only mention such names as Albertus Magnus, Thomas
+Aquinas, Bonaventure. Duns Scotus, and Raymond Lully to make those who
+are at all acquainted with the history of the time realize, that this
+is not an idle expression of the enthusiasm of a special votary of the
+Thirteenth Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+As we shall see in discussing the career of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the
+Catholic Church still continues to teach scholastic theology on
+exactly the same lines as were laid down by this great doctor of the
+church in his teaching at the University of Paris. Amid the crumbling
+of many Christian systems of <a name="81">{81}</a> thought, as upheld by the various
+protestant sects, there has been a very general realization that the
+Catholic Church has built up the only edifice of Christian
+apologetics, which will stand the storms of time and the development
+of human knowledge. Confessedly this edifice is founded on Thirteenth
+Century scholasticism. Pope Leo XIII., than whom, even in the
+estimation of those who are least sympathetic toward his high office,
+there was no man of more supremely practical intelligence in our
+generation, insisted that St. Thomas Aquinas must in general principle
+at least, be the groundwork of the teaching of philosophy and theology
+as they are to form the minds of future Catholic apologists.
+</p>
+<p>
+The scholastic theology and philosophy of the Thirteenth Century have
+come to us in absolute purity. The huge tomes which represent the
+indefatigable labors of these ardent scholars were well preserved by
+the subsequent generation which thought so much of them, and in spite
+of the absence of printing have come down to us in perfectly clear
+texts. It is easy to neglect them and to say that a study of them is
+not worth while. They represent, however, the post-graduate work and
+the research in the department of philosophy and theology of these
+days, and any university of modern time would consider itself honored
+by having their authors among its professors and alumni. Any one who
+does not think so need only turn to the volumes themselves and read
+them with understanding and sympathy, and there will be another
+convert to the ranks of that growing multitude of scholars, who have
+learned to appreciate the marvelous works of our university colleagues
+of the Thirteenth Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+With regard to law, not much need be said here, since it is well
+understood that the foundations of our modern jurisprudence (see
+chapters on Legal Origins), as well as the methods of teaching law,
+were laid in the Thirteenth Century and the universities were the most
+active factors, direct and indirect, in this work. The University of
+Bologna developed from a law school. Toward the end of the Twelfth
+Century Irnerius revived the study of the old Roman law and put the
+curriculum of modern Civil Law on a firm basis. A little later Gratian
+made his famous collection of decretals, which are the basis of Canon
+<a name="82">{82}</a> Law. Great popes, during the Thirteenth Century, beginning with
+Innocent III., and continuing through such worthy emulators as Gregory
+IX. and Boniface VIII., made it the special glory of their
+pontificates to collect the decrees of their predecessors and arrange
+and publish them, so that they might be readily available for
+consultation.
+</p>
+<p>
+French law assumed its modern form, and the basis of French
+jurisprudence was laid, under Louis IX., who called to his assistance,
+in this matter, the Professors of Law at the University of Paris, with
+many of whom he was on the most intimate terms. His cousin, Ferdinand
+of Castile, laid the foundation of the Spanish law about the same time
+under almost similar circumstances, and with corresponding help. The
+study of law in the English universities helped to the formulation of
+the principles of the English Common Law in such simple connected form
+as made them readily accessible for consultation. Just before the
+beginning of the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century, Bracton, of
+whose work much more will be said in a subsequent chapter, drew up the
+digest of the English Common Law, which has been the basis of English
+jurisprudence ever since. It took just about a century for these
+countries, previously without proper codification of the principles of
+their laws, to complete the fundamental work to such a degree, that it
+is still the firm substructure on which rests all our modern laws.
+Legal origins, in our modern sense, came not long before the
+Thirteenth Century; at its end the work was finished, to all intents
+and purposes. Of the influence of the universities and of the
+university law departments, in all this there can be no doubt. The
+incentive, undoubtedly, came from their teachings. The men who did so
+much for legal origins of such far-reaching importance, were mainly
+students of the universities of the time, whose enthusiasm for work
+had not subsided with the obtaining of their degrees.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is in medicine, however, much more than in law or theology, that
+the eminently practical character of university teaching during the
+Thirteenth Century can be seen, at least in the form in which it will
+appeal to a scientific generation. We are so accustomed to think that
+anything like real progress in medicine, and especially in surgery,
+has only come in very <a name="83">{83}</a> recent years, that it is a source of great
+surprise to find how much these earnest students of a long distant
+century anticipated the answers to problems, the solutions of which
+are usually supposed to be among the most modern advances. Professor
+Allbutt, the Regius professor of Physic in the University of
+Cambridge, a position, the occupant of which is always a leader in
+English medical thought, the present professor being one of the
+world's best authorities in the history of medicine, recently pointed
+out some of these marvels of old-time medicine and surgery. In an
+address On the Historical Relations of Medicine and Surgery to the end
+of the Sixteenth Century, delivered at the Congress of Arts and
+Sciences at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, he (Prof. Allbutt) spoke
+with regard to one of the great university medical teachers of the
+Thirteenth Century as follows:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Both for his own great merits, as an original and independent
+  observer, and as the master of Lanfranc, William Salicet (Guglielmo
+  Salicetti of Piacenza, in Latin G. Placentinus de Saliceto&mdash;now
+  Cadeo), was eminent among the great Italian physicians of the latter
+  half of the Thirteenth Century. Now these great Italians were as
+  distinguished in surgery as in medicine, and William was one of the
+  protestants of the period against the division of surgery from inner
+  medicine; a division which he regarded as a separation of medicine
+  from intimate touch with nature. Like Lanfranc and the other great
+  surgeons of the Italian tradition, and unlike Franco and Ambroise
+  Paré, he had the advantage of the liberal university education of
+  Italy; but, like Paré and Wurtz, he had large practical experience
+  in hospital and on the battlefield. He practised first at Bologna,
+  afterward in Verona. William fully recognised that surgery cannot be
+  learned from books only. His Surgery contains many case histories,
+  for he rightly opined that good notes of cases are the soundest
+  foundation of good practice; and in this opinion and method Lanfranc
+  followed him. William discovered that dropsy may be due to a
+  '<i>durities renum</i>'; he substituted the knife for the Arabist abuse
+  of the cautery; he investigated the causes of the failure of healing
+  by first intention; he described the danger of wounds of the neck;
+  he sutured divided nerves; he forwarded the diagnosis of <a name="84">{84}</a>
+  suppurative disease of the hip, and he referred chancre and
+  phagedaena to their real causes."
+</p>
+<p>
+This paragraph sets forth some almost incredible anticipations of what
+are usually considered among the most modern phases of medicine and
+surgery. Perhaps the most surprising thing is the simple statement
+that Salicet recognized that surgery cannot be learned from books
+alone. His case histories are instructive even to the modern surgeon
+who reads them. His insistence on his students making careful notes of
+their cases as the soundest foundation of progress in surgery, is a
+direct contradiction of nearly everything that has been said in recent
+years about medieval medicine and especially the teaching of medicine.
+(See Appendix.)
+</p>
+<p>
+William's great pupil, Lanfranc, followed him in this, and Lanfranc
+encouraged the practise at the University of Paris. There is a
+note-book of a student at the University of Paris, made toward the end
+of the Thirteenth Century, carefully preserved in the Museum of the
+University of Berlin. This notebook was kept during Lanfranc's
+teaching and contains some sketches of dissections, as well as some
+illustrations of operative procedures, as studied with that celebrated
+surgeon. The tradition of case histories continued at the University
+of Paris down to the beginning of modern surgery.
+</p>
+<p>
+Some of the doctrines in medicine that William of Salicet stated so
+clearly, sound surprisingly modern. The connection, for instance,
+between dropsy and <i>durities renum</i> (hardening of the kidneys) shows
+how wonderfully observant the old master was. At the present time we
+know very little more about the dropsical condition associated with
+chronic Bright's disease than the fact that it constantly occurs where
+there is a sclerosis or contraction of the kidney. Bright in his study
+of albuminuria and contracted kidney practically taught us no more
+than this, except that he added the further symptom of the presence of
+albumin in the urine. It must have been only as the result of many
+carefully studied cases, followed by autopsies, that any such doctrine
+could have come into existence. There is a dropsy that occurs with
+heart disease; there is also a dropsy in connection with certain
+affections of the liver, and yet the most frequent cause is just this
+hardening of the kidneys <a name="85">{85}</a> spoken of by this
+middle-of-the-Thirteenth Century Italian professor of medicine, who,
+if we would believe so many of the historians of medicine, was not
+supposed to occupy himself at all with ante and post-mortem studies of
+patients, but with the old-time medical authorities.
+</p>
+<p>
+Almost more surprising than the question of dropsy is the
+investigation as to the causes of the failure of healing by first
+intention. The modern surgeon is very apt to think that he is the only
+one who ever occupied himself with the thought, that wounds might be
+made to heal by first intention and without the occurrence of
+suppuration or granulation. Certainly no one would suspect any
+interest in the matter as far back as the Thirteenth Century. William
+of Salicet, however, and Lanfranc, both of them occupied themselves
+much with this question and evidently looked at it from a very
+practical standpoint. Many careful observations must have been made
+and many sources of observational error eliminated to enable these men
+to realize the possibilities of primary union, especially, knowing as
+they did, nothing at all about the external causes of suppuration and
+considering, as did surgeons for nearly seven centuries afterward,
+that it was because of something within the patient's tissues that the
+cases of suppuration had their rise.
+</p>
+<p>
+Unfortunately, the pioneer work done by William and his great disciple
+did not have that effect upon succeeding generations which it should
+have had. There was a question in men's minds as to whether nature
+worked better by primary union or by means of the suppurative process.
+In the next century surgeons took the wrong horn of the dilemma and
+even so distinguished a surgeon as Guy de Chauliac, who has been
+called, not without good cause, the father of surgery, came to the
+conclusion that suppuration was practically a necessary process in the
+healing of large wounds at least, and that it must be encouraged
+rather than discouraged. This doctrine did not have its first set-back
+until the famous incident in Ambroise Paré's career, when one morning
+after a battle, coming to his patients expecting to find many of them
+very severely ill, he found them on the contrary in better condition
+than the others for whom he had no forebodings. In accord with old
+custom <a name="86">{86}</a> he poured boiling oil into the wounds of all patients, but
+the great surgeon's supply of oil had failed the day before and he
+used plain water to cleanse the wounds of a number, fearing the worst
+for them, however, because of the poison that must necessarily stay in
+their wounds and then had the agreeable disappointment of finding
+these patients in much better condition than those whom he had treated
+with all the rules of his art, as they then were. Even this incident,
+however, did not serve to correct entirely the old idea as to the
+value of suppuration and down to Lister's time, that is almost the
+last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, there is still question of the
+value of suppuration in expediting the healing of wounds, and we hear
+of laudable pus and of the proper inflammatory reaction that is
+expected to bring about wound repair.
+</p>
+<p>
+The danger of wounds of the neck is, of course, not a modern doctrine,
+and yet very few people would think for a moment that it could be
+traced back to the middle of the Thirteenth Century and to a practical
+teacher of surgery in a medieval Italian university. Here once more
+there is evidence of the work of a careful observer who has seen
+patients expire in a few minutes as the result of some serious
+incident during the course of operations upon the neck. He did not
+realize that the danger was due, in many cases, to the sucking in of
+air into the large veins, but even at the present time this question
+is not wholly settled and the problem as to the danger of the presence
+of air is still the subject of investigation.
+</p>
+<p>
+As to the suture of divided nerves, it would ordinarily and as a
+matter of course be claimed by most modern historians of surgery and
+by practically all surgeons, as an affair entirely of the last half
+century. William of Salicet, however, neglected none of the ordinary
+surgical procedures that could be undertaken under the discouraging
+surgical circumstances in which he lived. The limitations of
+anesthesia, though there was much more of this aid than there has
+commonly been any idea of, and the frequent occurrence of suppuration
+must have been constant sources of disheartenment. His insistence on
+the use of the knife rather than on the cautery shows how much he
+appreciated the value of proper healing. It is from such a man that we
+might expect the advance by careful <a name="87">{87}</a> investigation as to just what
+tissues had been injured, with the idea of bringing them together in
+such juxtaposition as would prevent loss of function and encourage
+rapid and perfect union.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp87">{opp87}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp087a.jpg" border=1><br>
+SCREEN (HEREFORD)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp087b.jpg" border=1><br>
+DOORWAY OF SACRISTY (BOURGES)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps to the ordinary individual William's reference of certain
+known venereal affections to their proper cause, will be the most
+astonishing in this marvelous list of anticipations of what is
+supposed to be very modern. The whole subject of venereal disease in
+anything like a scientific treatment of it is supposed to date from
+the early part of the Sixteenth Century. There is even question in
+certain minds as to whether the venereal diseases did not come into
+existence, or at least were not introduced from America or from some
+other distant country that the Europeans had been exploring about this
+time. William's studies in this subject, however, serve to show that
+nothing escaped his watchful eye and that he was in the best sense of
+the word a careful observer and must have been an eminently suggestive
+and helpful teacher.
+</p>
+<p>
+What has thus been learned about him will serve of itself and without
+more ado, to stamp all that has been said about the unpractical
+character of the medical teaching of the medieval universities as
+utterly unfounded. Because men have not taken the trouble to look up
+the teaching of these times, and because their works were until recent
+years buried in old folios, difficult to obtain and still more
+difficult to read when obtained, it has been easy to ignore their
+merit and even to impugn the value of their teaching completely.
+William of Salicet was destined, moreover, to be surpassed in some
+ways by his most distinguished pupil, Lanfranc, who taught at the
+University of Paris at the end of the Thirteenth Century. Of Lanfranc,
+in the address already quoted from, Professor Allbutt has one very
+striking paragraph that shows how progressive was the work of this
+great French surgeon, and how fruitful had been the suggestive
+teaching of his great master. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Lanfranc's 'Chirurgia Magna' was a great work, written by a
+  reverent but independent follower of Salicet. He distinguished
+  between venous and arterial hemorrhage, and used styptics (rabbit's
+  fur, aloes, and white of egg was a popular styptic in elder
+  surgery), digital compression for an hour, or in severe cases
+  ligature. His chapter on injuries of the head <a name="88">{88}</a> is one of the
+  classics of medieval surgery. Clerk (cleric) as he was, Lanfranc
+  nevertheless saw but the more clearly the danger of separating
+  surgery from medicine."
+</p>
+<p>
+Certain assertions in this paragraph deserve, as in the case of
+Lanfranc's master, to be discussed, because of their anticipations of
+what is sometimes thought to be very modern in surgery. The older
+surgeons are supposed to have feared hemorrhage very much. It is often
+asserted that they knew little or nothing about the ligature and that
+their control of hemorrhage was very inadequate. As a matter of fact,
+however, it was not primary hemorrhage that the old surgeons feared,
+but secondary hemorrhage. Suppuration often led to the opening of an
+important artery, and this accident, as can well be understood, was
+very much dreaded. Surgeons would lose their patients before they
+could come to their relief. How thoroughly Lanfranc knew how to
+control primary hemorrhage can be appreciated from the quotation just
+made from Dr. Allbutt's address. The ligature is sometimes said to
+have been an invention of Ambroise Paré, but, as a matter of fact, it
+had been in use for at least three centuries before his time, and
+perhaps even longer.
+</p>
+<p>
+Usually it is considered that the difficult chapter of head injuries,
+with all the problems that it involves in diagnosis and treatment, is
+a product of the Nineteenth Century. Hence do we read, with all the
+more interest, Allbutt's declaration that Lanfranc wrote what is
+practically a classical monograph, on the subject. It is not so
+surprising, then, to find that the great French surgeon was far ahead
+of his generation in other matters, or that he should even have
+realized the danger of separating surgery from medicine. Both the
+Regius professors of medicine at the two great English universities,
+Cambridge and Oxford, have, since the beginning of the Twentieth
+Century, made public expression of their opinion that the physician
+should see more of the work of the surgeon, and should not depend on
+the autopsy room for his knowledge of the results of internal disease.
+Professor Osler, particularly, has emphasized his colleague, Professor
+Allbutt's opinion in this matter. That a surgical professor at the
+University of Paris, in the Thirteenth Century, should have
+anticipated these two leaders <a name="89">{89}</a> of medical thought in the Twentieth
+Century, would not be so surprising, only that unfortunately the
+history of medieval teaching has, because of prejudice and a
+lamentable tradition, not been read aright.
+</p>
+<p>
+Occasionally one finds a startling bit of anticipation of what is most
+modern, in medicine as well as in surgery. For instance, toward the
+end of the Thirteenth Century, a distinguished English professor of
+medicine, known as Gilbert, the Englishman, was teaching at
+Montpelier, and among other things, was insisting that the rooms of
+patients suffering from smallpox should be hung entirely with red
+curtains, and that the doors and the windows should be covered with
+heavy red hangings. He claimed that this made the disease run a
+lighter course, with lessened mortality, and with very much less
+disfigurement. Smallpox was an extremely common disease in the
+Thirteenth Century, and he probably had many chances for observation.
+It is interesting to realize that one of the most important
+observations made at the end of the Nineteenth Century by Dr. Finsen,
+the Danish investigator whose studies in light and its employment in
+therapeutics, drew to him the attention of the world, and eventually
+the Nobel prize of $40,000 for the greatest advance in medicine was,
+that the admission of only red light to the room of smallpox patients
+modified the disease very materially, shortened its course, often
+prevented the secondary fever, and almost did away completely with the
+subsequent disfigurement.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is evident that these men were searching and investigating for
+themselves, and not following blindly in the footsteps of any master.
+It has often been said that during the Middle Ages it was a heresy to
+depart, ever so little, from the teaching of Galen. Usually it is
+customary to add that the first writer to break away from Galen,
+effectually, was Vesalius, in his De Fabrica Corporis Humani,
+published toward the end of the second quarter of the Sixteenth
+Century. It may be said, in passing, that, as a matter of fact,
+Vesalius, though he accomplished much by original investigation, did
+not break so effectually with Galen as would have been for the best in
+his own work, and, especially, for its influence on his successors. He
+certainly did not set an example of independent research <a name="90">{90}</a> and
+personal observation, any more fully, than did the medical teachers of
+the Thirteenth Century already mentioned, and some others, like
+Mondaville and Arnold of Villanova, whose names well deserve to be
+associated with them.
+</p>
+<p>
+One reason why it is such a surprise to find how thoroughly practical
+was the teaching of the Thirteenth Century university medical schools,
+is because it has somehow come to be a very general impression that
+medicine was taught mainly by disputations, and by the consultation of
+authorities, and that it was always more important to have a passage
+of Galen to support a medical notion, than, to have an original
+observation. This false impression is due to the fact that the writers
+of the history of medical education have, until recent years, drawn
+largely on their imaginations, and have not consulted the old-time
+medical books. In spite of the fact that printing was not discovered
+for more than two centuries later, there are many treatises on
+medicine that have come down to us from this early time, and the
+historians of medicine now have the opportunity, and are taking the
+trouble, to read them with a consequent alteration of old-time views,
+as to the lack of encouragement for original observation, in the later
+Middle Ages. These old tomes are not easy reading, but nothing daunts
+a German investigator bound to get to the bottom of his subject, and
+such men as Pagel and Puschmann have done much to rediscover for us
+medieval medicine. The French medical historians have not been behind
+their German colleagues and magnificent work has been accomplished,
+especially by the republication of old texts. William of Salicet's
+surgery was republished by Pifteau at Toulouse in 1898. Mondaville's
+Surgery was republished under the auspices of the Society for the
+Publication of old French Texts in 1897 and 1898. These republications
+have made the works of the old-time surgeons readily available for
+study by all interested in our great predecessors in medicine, all
+over the world. Before this, it has always been necessary to get to
+some of the libraries in which the old texts were preserved, and this,
+of course, made it extremely difficult for the ordinary teacher of the
+history of medicine to know anything about them. Besides, old texts
+are such difficult reading that few, except the most earnest of
+students, <a name="91">{91}</a> have patience for them, and they are so time-taking as
+to be practically impossible for modern, hurried students.
+</p>
+<p>
+Unfortunately, writers of the history of medicine filled up this gap
+in their knowledge, only too frequently, either out of their
+imaginations, or out of their inadequate authorities, with the
+consequence of inveterating the old-time false impression with regard
+to the absence of anything of medical or surgical interest, even in
+the later Middle Ages.
+</p>
+<p>
+Another and much more serious reason for the false impression with
+regard to the supposed blankness of the middle age in medical
+progress, was the notion, quite generally accepted, and even yet not
+entirely rejected, by many, that the Church was opposed to scientific
+advance in the centuries before the reformation so-called, and that
+even the sciences allied to medicine, fell under her ban. For
+instance, there is not a history of medicine, so far as I know,
+published in the English language, which does not assert that Pope
+Boniface VIII., by a Bull promulgated at the end of the Thirteenth
+Century, forbade the practise of dissection. To most people, it will,
+at once, seem a natural conclusion, that if the feeling against the
+study of the human body by dissection had reached such a pass as to
+call forth a papal decree in the matter, at the end of the century,
+all during the previous hundred years, there must have been enough
+ecclesiastical hampering of anatomical work to prevent anything like
+true progress, and to preclude the idea of any genuinely progressive
+teaching of anatomy.
+</p>
+<p>
+There is not the slightest basis for this bit of false history except
+an unfortunate, it is to be hoped not intentional, misapprehension on
+the part of historical writers as to the meaning of a papal decree
+issued by Boniface VIII. in the year 1300. He forbade, under pain of
+excommunication, the boiling of bodies and their dismemberment in
+order that thus piecemeal they might be transported to long distances
+for burial purposes. It is now well known that the Bull was aimed at
+certain practises which had crept in, especially among the Crusaders
+in the East. When a member of the nobility fell a victim to wounds or
+to disease, his companions not infrequently dismembered the body,
+boiled it so as to prevent putrefaction, or at least delay decay, and
+then transported it long distances to his home, in <a name="92">{92}</a> order that he
+might have Christian burial in some favorite graveyard, and that his
+friends might have the consolation of knowing where his remains
+rested. The body of the Emperor Frederick Barbarosa, who died in the
+East, is said to have been thus treated. Boniface was one of the most
+broadly educated men of his time, who had been a great professor of
+canon and civil law at Paris when younger, and realized the dangers
+involved in such a proceeding from a sanitary standpoint, and he
+forbade it, requiring that the bodies should be buried where the
+persons had died. He evidently considered that the ancient custom of
+consecrating a portion of earth for the purpose of burial in order
+that the full Christian rites might be performed, was quite sufficient
+for noble as for common soldier.
+</p>
+<p>
+For this very commendable sanitary regulation Boniface has been set
+down by historians of medicine as striking a death blow at the
+development of anatomy for the next two centuries. As a matter of
+fact, however, anatomy continued to be studied in the universities
+after this Bull as it had been before, and it is evident that never by
+any misapprehension as to its meaning was the practise of dissection
+lessened. Curiously enough the history of human dissection can only be
+traced with absolute certainty from the time immediately after this
+Bull. It is during the next twenty-five years at the University of
+Bologna, which was always closely in touch with the ecclesiastical
+authorities in Italy and especially with the Pope, that the
+foundations of dissection, as the most important practical department
+of medical teaching, were laid by Mondino, whose book on dissection
+continued to be the text book used in most of the medical schools for
+the next two centuries. Guy de Chauliac who studied there during the
+first half of the Fourteenth Century says he saw many dissections made
+there. It was at Montpellier, about the middle of the century, when
+the Popes were at Avignon not far away, that Guy de Chauliac himself
+made attendance at dissections obligatory for every student, and
+obtained permission to use the bodies of criminals for dissection
+purposes. At the time Chauliac occupied the post of chamberlain to the
+Popes. All during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries constant
+progress was making in anatomy, especially in Italy, and some of it
+was accomplished at Rome <a name="93">{93}</a> by distinguished teachers of anatomy who
+had been summoned by the popes to their capital in order to add
+distinction to the teaching staff at the famous Papal School of
+Science, the Sapienza, to which were attached during the next two
+centuries many of the distinguished scientific professors of the time.
+</p>
+<p>
+This story with regard to the papal prohibition of dissection has no
+foundation in the history of the times. It has had not a little to do,
+however, with making these times very much misunderstood and one still
+continues to see printed references to the misfortune, which is more
+usually called a crime, that prevented the development of a great
+humanitarian science because of ecclesiastical prejudice. This story
+with regard to anatomy, however, is not a whit worse than that which
+is told of chemistry in almost the same terms. At the beginning of the
+Fourteenth Century Pope John XXII. is said to have issued a Bull
+forbidding chemistry under pain of excommunication, which according to
+some writers in the matter is said to have included the death penalty.
+It has been felt in the same way as with regard to anatomy, that this
+was only the culmination of a feeling in ecclesiastical circles
+against chemistry which must have hampered its progress all during the
+Thirteenth Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+An examination of the so-called Bull with regard to chemistry, it is
+really only a decree, shows even less reason for the slander of Pope
+John XXII. than of Boniface VIII. John had been scarcely a year on the
+papal throne when he issued this decree forbidding "alchemies" and
+inflicting a punishment upon those who practised them. The first
+sentence of the title of the document is: "Alchemies are here
+prohibited and those who practise them or procure their being done are
+punished." This is evidently all of the decree that those who quoted
+it as a prohibition of chemistry seem ever to have read. Under the
+name "alchemies," Pope John, as is clear from the rest of the
+document, meant a particular kind of much-advertised chemical
+manipulations. He forbade the supposed manufacture of gold and silver.
+The first sentence of his decree shows how thoroughly he recognized
+the falsity of the pretensions of the alchemists in this matter. "Poor
+themselves," he says, "the alchemists promise riches which are not
+forthcoming." He then forbids them further to impose upon the poor
+people <a name="94">{94}</a> whose confidence they abuse and whose good money they take
+to return them only base-metal or none at all.
+</p>
+<p>
+The only punishment inflicted for the doing of these "alchemies" on
+those who might transgress the decree was not death or imprisonment,
+but that the pretended makers of gold and silver should be required to
+turn into the public treasury as much gold and silver as had been paid
+them for their alchemies, the money thus paid in to go to the poor. As
+in the case of the Bull with regard to anatomy, it is very clear that
+by no possible misunderstanding at the time was the development of the
+science of chemistry hindered by this papal document. Chemistry had to
+a certain extent been cultivated at the University of Paris, mainly by
+ecclesiastics. Both Aquinas and his master Albertus wrote treatises on
+chemical subjects. Roger Bacon devoted much time to it as is well
+known, and for the next three centuries the history of chemistry has a
+number of names of men who were not only unhampered by the
+ecclesiastical authorities, but who were themselves usually either
+ecclesiastics, or high in favor with the churchmen of their time and
+place. This is true of Hollandus, of Arnold of Villanova, of Basil
+Valentine, and finally of the many abbots and bishops to whom
+Paracelsus in his time acknowledged his obligations for aid in his
+chemical studies.
+</p>
+<p>
+Almost needless to say it has been impossible, in a brief sketch of
+this kind limited to a single chapter, to give anything like an
+adequate idea of what the enthusiastic graduate students and
+professors of the Thirteenth Century succeeded in accomplishing. It is
+probably this department of University life, however, that has been
+least understood, or rather we should say most persistently
+misunderstood. The education of the time is usually supposed to be
+eminently unpractical, and great advances in the departments of
+knowledge that had important bearings on human life and its relations
+were not therefore thought possible. It is just here, however, that
+sympathetic interpretation and the pointing out of the coordination of
+intellectual work often considered to be quite distinct from
+university influences were needed. It is hoped then that this short
+sketch will prove sufficient to call the attention of modern educators
+to a field that has been neglected, or at least has <a name="95">{95}</a> received very
+little cultivation compared to its importance, but which must be
+sedulously worked, if our generation is to understand with any degree
+of thoroughness the spirit manifested and the results attained by the
+medieval universities.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i095.jpg" border=1><br>
+DOUBLE FLYING BUTTRESS (RHEIMS)
+</p>
+
+<a name="96">{96}</a>
+
+<h1>VI
+<br>
+THE BOOK OF THE ARTS AND POPULAR EDUCATION.</h1>
+
+<p>
+The most important portion of the history of the Thirteenth Century
+and beyond all doubt the most significant chapter in the book of its
+arts, is to be found in the great Gothic Cathedrals, so many of which
+were erected at this time and whose greatest perfection of finish in
+design and in detail came just at the beginning of this wonderful
+period. We are not concerned here with the gradual development of
+Gothic out of the older Romanesque architectural forms, nor with the
+Oriental elements that may have helped this great evolution. All that
+especially concerns us is the fact that the generations of the
+Thirteenth Century took the Gothic ideas in architecture and applied
+them so marvelously, that thereafter it could be felt that no problem
+of structural work had been left unsolved and no feature of ornament
+or decoration left untried or at least unsuggested. The great center
+of Gothic influence was the North of France, but it spread from here
+to every country in Europe, and owing to the intimate relations
+existing between England and France because of the presence of the
+Normans in both countries, developed almost as rapidly and with as
+much beauty, and effectiveness as in the mother country.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is in fact in England just before the Thirteenth Century, that the
+spirit which gave rise to the Cathedrals can be best observed at work
+and its purposes most thoroughly appreciated. The great Cathedral at
+Lincoln had some of its most important features before the beginning
+of the Thirteenth Century and this was doubtless due to the famous St.
+Hugh of Lincoln, who was a Frenchman by birth and whose experience in
+Normandy in early life enabled him successfully to set about the
+creation of a Gothic Cathedral in the country that had become his by
+adoption.
+</p>
+<a name="opp96">{opp96}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp096.jpg" border=1><br>
+ANGEL CHOIR (LINCOLN)
+</p>
+
+<a name="97">{97}</a>
+
+<p>
+Hugh himself was so great of soul, so deeply interested in his people
+and their welfare, so ready to make every sacrifice for them even to
+the extent of incurring the enmity of his King (even Froude usually so
+unsympathetic to medieval men and things has included him among his
+Short Studies of Great Subjects), that one cannot help but think that
+when he devoted himself to the erection of the magnificent Cathedral,
+he realized very well that it would become a center of influence, not
+only religious but eminently educational, in its effects upon the
+people of his diocese. The work was begun then with a consciousness of
+the results to be attained and the influence of the Cathedral must not
+be looked upon as accidental. He must have appreciated that the
+creating of a work of beauty in which the people themselves shared,
+which they looked on as their own property, to which they came nearly
+every second day during the year for religious services, would be a
+telling book out of which they would receive more education than could
+come to them in any other way.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course we cannot hope in a short chapter or two to convey any
+adequate impression of the work that was done in and for the
+Cathedrals, nor the even more important reactionary influence they had
+in educating the people. Ferguson says:   [Footnote 9 ]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 9: Ferguson&mdash;History of Architecture. N. Y., Dodd, Mead &
+  Co.]
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The subject of the cathedrals, their architecture and decoration
+  is, in fact, practicably inexhaustible. . . . Priests and laymen
+  worked with masons, painters, and sculptors, and all were bent on
+  producing the best possible building, and improving every part and
+  every detail, till the amount of thought and contrivance accumulated
+  in any single structure is almost incomprehensible. If any one man
+  were to devote a lifetime to the study of one of our great
+  cathedrals&mdash;assuming it to be complete in all its medieval
+  arrangements&mdash;it is questionable whether he would master all its
+  details, and fathom all the reasonings and experiments which led to
+  the glorious result before him. And when we consider that not in the
+  great cities alone, but in every convent and in every parish,
+  thoughtful professional men were trying to excel what had been done
+  and was doing, by their predecessors and their fellows, we shall
+  <a name="98">{98}</a> understand what an amount of thought is built into the walls of
+  our churches, castles, colleges, and dwelling houses. If any one
+  thinks he can master and reproduce all this, he can hardly fail to
+  be mistaken. My own impression is that not one tenth part of it has
+  been reproduced in all the works written on the subject up to this
+  day, and much of it is probably lost and never again to be recovered
+  for the instruction and delight of future ages."
+</p>
+<p>
+This profound significance and charming quality of the cathedrals is
+usually unrecognized by those who see them only once or twice, and
+who, though they are very much interested in them for the moment, have
+no idea of the wealth of artistic suggestion and of thoughtful design
+so solicitously yet happily put into them by their builders. People
+who have seen them many times, however, who have lived in close touch
+with them, who have been away from them for a time and have come back
+to them, find the wondrous charm that is in these buildings.
+Architects and workmen put their very souls into them and they will
+always be of interest. It is for this reason, that the casual visitor
+at all times and in all moods finds them ever a source of constantly
+renewed pleasure, no matter how many times they may be seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+Elizabeth Robbins Pennell has expressed this power of Cathedrals to
+please at all times, even after they have been often seen and are very
+well known, in a recent number of the <i>Century</i>, in describing the
+great Cathedral of Notre Dame, "Often as I have seen Notre Dame," she
+says, "the marvel of it never grows less. I go to Paris with no
+thought of time for it, busy about many other things and then on my
+way over one of the bridges across the river perhaps, I see it again
+on its island, the beautiful towers high above the houses and palaces
+and the view now so familiar strikes me afresh with all the wonder of
+my first impression."
+</p>
+<p>
+This is we think the experience of everyone who has the opportunity to
+see much of Notre Dame. The present writer during the course of his
+medical studies spent many months in daily view of the Cathedral and
+did a good deal of work at the old Morgue, situated behind the
+Cathedral. Even at the end of his stay he was constantly finding new
+beauties in <a name="99">{99}</a> the grand old structure and learning to appreciate it
+more and more as the changing seasons of a Paris fall and winter and
+spring, threw varying lights and shadows over it. It was like a work
+of nature, never growing old, but constantly displaying some new phase
+of beauty to the passers-by. Mrs. Pennell resents only the
+restorations that have been made. Generations down even to our time
+have considered that they could rebuild as beautifully as the
+Thirteenth Century constructors; some of them even have thought that
+they could do better, doubtless, yet their work has in the opinion of
+good critics served only to spoil or at least to detract from the
+finer beauty of the original plan. No wonder that R. M. Stevenson, who
+knew and loved the old Cathedral so well, said: "Notre Dame is the
+only un-Greek thing that unites majesty, elegance, and awfulness."
+Inasmuch as it does so it is a typical product of this wonderful
+Thirteenth Century, the only serious rival the Greeks have ever had.
+But of course it does not stand alone. There are other Cathedrals
+built at the same time at least as handsome and as full of
+suggestions. Indeed in the opinion of many critics it is inferior in
+certain respects to some three or four of the greatest Gothic
+Cathedrals.
+</p>
+<p>
+It cannot be possible that these generations builded so much better
+than they knew, that it is only by a sort of happy accident that their
+edifices still continue to be the subject of such profound admiration,
+and such endless sources of pleasure after seven centuries of
+experience. If so we would certainly be glad to have some such happy
+accident occur in our generation, for we are building nothing at the
+present time with regard to which we have any such high hopes. Of
+course the generations of Cathedral builders knew and appreciated
+their own work. The triumph of the Thirteenth Century is therefore all
+the more marked and must be considered as directly due to the
+environment and the education of its people. We have then in the study
+of their Cathedrals the keynote for the modern appreciation of the
+character and the development of their builders.
+</p>
+<p>
+It will be readily understood, how inevitably fragmentary must be our
+consideration of the Cathedrals, yet there is the consolation that
+they are the best known feature of Thirteenth <a name="100">{100}</a> Century
+achievement and that consequently all that will be necessary will be
+to point out the significance of their construction as the basis of
+the great movement of education and uplift in the century. Perhaps
+first a word is needed with regard to the varieties of Gothic in the
+different countries of Europe and what they meant in the period.
+</p>
+<p>
+Probably, the most interesting feature of the history of Gothic
+architecture, at this period, is to be found in the circumstance that,
+while all of the countries erected Gothic structures along the general
+lines which had been laid down by its great inventors in the North and
+Center of France, none of the architects and builders of the century,
+in other countries, slavishly followed the French models. English
+Gothic is quite distinct from its French ancestor, and while it has
+defects it has beauties, that are all its own, and a simplicity and
+grandeur, well suited to the more rugged character of the people among
+whom it developed. Italian Gothic has less merits, perhaps, than any
+of the other forms of the art that developed in the different nations.
+In Italy, with its bright sunlight, there was less crying need for the
+window space, for the provision of which, in the darker northern
+countries, Gothic was invented, but, even here the possibilities of
+decorated architecture along certain lines were exhausted more fully
+than anywhere else, as might have been expected from the esthetic
+spirit of the Italians. German Gothic has less refinement than any of
+the other national forms, yet it is not lacking in a certain
+straightforward strength and simplicity of appearance, which
+recommends it. The Germans often violated the French canons of
+architecture, yet did not spoil the ultimate effect. St. Stephen's in
+Vienna has many defects, yet as a good architectural authority has
+declared it is the work of a poet, and looks it.
+</p>
+<p>
+A recent paragraph with regard to Spanish Gothic in an article on
+Spain, by Havelock Ellis, illustrates the national qualities of this
+style very well. As much less is generally known about the special
+development of Gothic architecture in the Spanish peninsula, it has
+seemed worth while to quote it at some length:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Moreover, there is no type of architecture which so <a name="101">{101}</a> admirably
+  embodies the romantic spirit as Spanish Gothic. Such a statement
+  implies no heresy against the supremacy of French Gothic. But the
+  very qualities of harmony and balance of finely tempered reason,
+  which make French Gothic so exquisitely satisfying, softened the
+  combination of mysteriously grandiose splendor with detailed
+  realism, in which lies the essence of Gothic as the manifestation of
+  the romantic spirit. Spanish Gothic at once by its massiveness and
+  extravagance and by its realistic naturalness, far more potently
+  embodies the spirit of medieval life. It is less esthetically
+  beautiful but it is more romantic. In Leon Cathedral, Spain
+  possesses one of the very noblest and purest examples of French
+  Gothic&mdash;a church which may almost be said to be the supreme type of
+  the Gothic ideal, of a delicate house of glass finely poised between
+  buttresses; but there is nothing Spanish about it. For the typical
+  Gothic of Spain we must go to Toledo and Burgos, to Tarragona and
+  Barcelona. Here we find the elements of stupendous size, of
+  mysterious gloom, of grotesque and yet realistic energy, which are
+  the dominant characters, alike of Spanish architecture and of
+  medieval romance."
+</p>
+<p>
+Those who think that the Gothic architecture came to a perfection all
+its own by a sort of wonderful manifestation of genius in a single
+generation, and then stayed there, are sadly mistaken. There was a
+constant development to be noted all during the Thirteenth Century.
+This development was always in the line of true improvement, while
+just after the century closed degeneration began, decoration became
+too important a consideration, parts were over-loaded with ornament,
+and the decadence of taste in Gothic architecture cannot escape the
+eye even of the most untutored. All during the Thirteenth Century the
+tendency was always to greater lightness and elegance. One is apt to
+think of these immense structures as manifestations of the power of
+man to overcome great engineering difficulties and to solve immense
+structural problems, rather than as representing opportunities for the
+expression of what was most beautiful and poetic in the intellectual
+aspirations of the generations. But this is what they were, and their
+architects were poets, for in the best sense of the <a name="102">{102}</a> etymology of
+the word they were creators. That their raw material was stone and
+mortar rather than words was only an accident of their environment.
+Each of the architects succeeded in expressing himself with wonderful
+individuality in his own work in each Cathedral.
+</p>
+<p>
+The improvements introduced by the Thirteenth Century people into the
+architecture that came to them, were all of a very practical kind, and
+were never suggested for the sake of merely adding to opportunities
+for ornamentation. In this matter, skillful combinations of line and
+form were thought out and executed with wonderful success. At the
+beginning of the century, delicate shafts of marble, highly polished,
+were employed rather freely, but as these seldom carried weight, and
+were mainly ornamental in character, they were gradually eliminated,
+yet, without sacrificing any of the beauty of structure since
+combinations of light and shade were secured by the composition of
+various forms, and the use of delicately rounded mouldings alternated
+with hollows, so as to produce forcible effects in high light and deep
+shadow. In a word, these architects and builders, of the Thirteenth
+Century, set themselves the problem of building effectively, making
+every portion count in the building itself, and yet, securing
+ornamental effects out of actual structure such as no other set of
+architects have ever been able to surpass, and, probably, only the
+Greek architects of the Periclean period ever equaled. Needless to
+say, this is the very acme of success in architectural work, and it is
+for this reason that the generations of the after time have all gone
+back so lovingly to study the work of this period.
+</p>
+<p>
+It might be thought, that while Gothic architecture was a great
+invention in its time and extremely suitable for ecclesiastical or
+even educational edifices of various kinds, its time of usefulness has
+passed and that men's widening experience in structural work, ever
+since, has carried him far away from it. As a matter of fact, most of
+our ecclesiastical buildings are still built on purely Gothic lines,
+and a definite effort is made, as a rule, to have the completed
+religious edifice combine a number of the best features of Thirteenth
+Century Gothic. With what <a name="103">{103}</a> success this has been accomplished can
+best be appreciated from the fact, that none of the modern structures
+attract anything like the attention of the old, and the Cathedrals of
+this early time still continue to be the best asset of the towns in
+which they are situated, because of the number of visitors they
+attract. Far from considering Gothic architecture outlived, architects
+still apply themselves to it with devotion because of the practical
+suggestions which it contains, and there are those of wide experience,
+who still continue to think it the most wonderful example of
+architectural development that has ever come, and even do not hesitate
+to foretell a great future for it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Reinach, in his Story of Art Throughout the Ages,   [Footnote 10] has
+been so enthusiastic in this matter that a paragraph of his opinion
+must find a place here. Reinach, it may be said, is an excellent
+authority, a member of the Institute of France, who has made special
+studies in comparative architecture, and has written works that carry
+more weight than almost any others of our generation:
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 10: Scribners, New York, 1905.]
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "If the aim of architecture, considered as an art, should be to free
+  itself as much as possible from subjection to its materials, it may
+  be said that no buildings have more successfully realized this ideal
+  than the Gothic churches. And there is more to be said in this
+  connection. Its light and airy system of construction, the freedom
+  and slenderness of its supporting skeleton, afford, as it were, a
+  presage of an art that began to develop in the Nineteenth Century,
+  that of metallic architecture. With the help of metal, and of cement
+  reinforced by metal bars, the moderns might equal the most daring
+  feats of the Gothic architects. It would even be easy for them to
+  surpass them, without endangering the solidity of the structure, as
+  did the audacities of Gothic art. In the conflicts that obtain
+  between the two elements of construction, solidity and open space,
+  everything seems to show that the principle of free spaces will
+  prevail, that the palaces and houses of the future will be flooded
+  with air and light, that the formula popularized by Gothic
+  architecture has a great future before it, and that following the
+  revival of the Graeco-Roman style from <a name="104">{104}</a> the Sixteenth Century,
+  to our own day, we shall see a yet more enduring renaissance of the
+  Gothic style applied to novel materials."
+</p>
+<p>
+It would be a mistake, however, to think that the Gothic Cathedrals
+were impressive only because of their grandeur and immense size. It
+would be still more a mistake to consider them only as examples of a
+great development in architecture. They are much more than this; they
+are the compendious expression of the art impulses of a glorious
+century. Every single detail of the Gothic Cathedrals is not only
+worthy of study but deserving of admiration, if not for itself, then
+always for the inadequate means by which it was secured, and most of
+these details have been found worthy of imitation by subsequent
+generations. It is only by considering the separate details of the art
+work of these Cathedrals that the full lesson of what these wonderful
+people accomplished can be learned. There have been many centuries
+since, in which they would be entirely unappreciated. Fortunately, our
+own time has come back to a recognition of the greatness of the art
+impulse that was at work, perfecting even what might be considered
+trivial portions of the cathedrals, and the brightest hope for the
+future of our own accomplishment is founded on this belated
+appreciation of old-time work.
+</p>
+<p>
+It has been said that the medieval workman was a lively symbol of the
+Creator Himself, in the way in which he did his work. It mattered not
+how obscure the portion of the cathedral at which he was set, he
+decorated it as beautifully as he knew how, without a thought that his
+work would be appreciated only by the very few that might see it.
+Trivial details were finished with the perfection of important parts.
+Microscopic studies in recent years have revealed beautiful designs on
+pollen grains and diatoms which are far beneath the possibilities of
+human vision, and have only been discovered by lens combinations of
+very high powers of the compound microscope. Always these beauties
+have been there though hidden away from any eye. It was as if the
+Creator's hand could not touch anything without leaving it beautiful
+as well as useful.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp105">{opp105}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp105.jpg" border=1><br>
+CATHEDRAL (AMIENS)
+</p>
+
+<a name="105">{105}</a>
+
+<p>
+To as great extent as it is possible perhaps for man to secure such a
+desideratum, the Thirteenth Century workman succeeded in this same
+purpose. It is for this reason more than even for the magnificent
+grandeur of the design and the skilful execution with inadequate
+means, that makes the Gothic Cathedral such a source of admiration and
+wonder.
+</p>
+<p>
+To take first the example of sculpture. It is usually considered that
+the Thirteenth Century represented a time entirely too early in the
+history of plastic art for there to have been any fine examples of the
+sculptor's chisel left us from it. Any such impression, however, will
+soon be corrected if one but examines carefully the specimens of this
+form of art in certain Cathedrals. As we have said, probably no more
+charmingly dignified presentation of the human form divine in stone
+has ever been made than the figure of Christ above the main door of
+the cathedral of Amiens, which the Amiennois so lovingly call their
+"beautiful God." There are some other examples of statuary in the same
+cathedral that are wonderful specimens of the sculptor's art, lending
+itself for decorative purposes to architecture. This is true for a
+number of the Cathedrals. The statues in themselves are not so
+beautiful, but as portions of a definite piece of structural work such
+as a doorway or a facade, they are wonderful models of how all the
+different arts became subservient to the general effect to be
+produced. It was at Rheims, however, that sculpture reached its acme
+of accomplishment, and architects have been always unstinted in their
+praise of this feature of what may be called the Capitol church of
+France.
+</p>
+<p>
+Those who have any doubts as to the place of Gothic art itself in art
+history and who need an authority always to bolster up the opinion
+that they may hold, will find ample support in the enthusiastic
+opinion of an authority whom we have quoted already. The most
+interesting and significant feature of his ardent expression of
+enthusiasm is his comparison of Romanesque with Gothic art in this
+respect. The amount of ground covered from one artistic mode to the
+other is greater than any other advance in art that has ever been
+made. After all, the real value of the work of the period must be
+judged, rather by the amount of progress that has <a name="106">{106}</a> been made than
+by the stage of advance actually reached, since it is development
+rather than accomplishment that counts in the evolution of the race.
+On the other hand it will be found that Reinach's opinion of the
+actual attainments of Gothic art are far beyond anything that used to
+be thought on the subject a half century ago, and much higher than any
+but a few of the modern art critics hold in the matter. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "In contrast to this Romanesque art, as yet in bondage to
+  convention, ignorant or disdainful of nature, the mature Gothic art
+  of the Thirteenth Century appeared as a brilliant revival or
+  realism. The great sculptors who adorned the Cathedrals of Paris,
+  Amiens, Rheims, and Chartres with their works, were realists in the
+  highest sense of the word. They sought in Nature not only their
+  knowledge of human forms, and of the draperies that cover them, but
+  also that of the principles of decoration. Save in the gargoyles of
+  cathedrals and in certain minor sculptures, we no longer find in the
+  Thirteenth Century those unreal figures of animals, nor those
+  ornaments, complicated as nightmares, which load the capitals of
+  Romanesque churches; the flora of the country, studied with loving
+  attention, is the sole, or almost the sole source from which
+  decorators take their motives. It is in this charming profusion of
+  flowers and foliage that the genius of Gothic architecture is most
+  freely displayed. One of the most admirable of its creations is the
+  famous Capital of the Vintage in Notre Dame at Rheims, carved about
+  the year 1250. Since the first century of the Roman Empire art had
+  never imitated Nature so perfectly, nor has it ever since done so
+  with a like grace and sentiment."
+</p>
+<p>
+Reinach defends Gothic Art from another and more serious objection
+which is constantly urged against it by those who know only certain
+examples of it, but have not had the advantage of the wide study of
+the whole field of artistic endeavor in the Thirteenth Century, which
+this distinguished member of the Institute of France has succeeded in
+obtaining. It is curious what unfounded opinions have come to be
+prevalent in art circles because, only too often, writers with regard
+to the Cathedrals have spent their time mainly in the large cities, or
+along the principal arteries of travel, and have not realized <a name="107">{107}</a>
+that some of the smaller towns contained work better fitted to
+illustrate Gothic Art principles than those on which they depended for
+their information. If only particular phases of the art of any one
+time, no matter how important, were to be considered in forming a
+judgment of it, that judgment would almost surely be unfavorable in
+many ways because of the lack of completeness of view. This is what
+has happened unfortunately with regard to Gothic art, but a better
+spirit is coming in this matter, with the more careful study of
+periods of art and the return of reverence for the grand old Middle
+Ages.
+</p>
+<a name="opp107">{opp107}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp107.jpg" border=1><br>
+CATHEDRAL (RHEIMS)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Reinach says: "There are certain prejudices against this admirable,
+though incomplete, art which it is difficult to combat. It is often
+said, for instance, that all Gothic figures are stiff and emaciated.
+To convince ourselves of the contrary we need only study the marvelous
+sculpture of the meeting between Abraham and Melchisedech, in Rheims
+Cathedral; or again in the same Cathedral, the Visitation, the seated
+Prophet, and the standing Angel, or the exquisite Magdalen of Bordeaux
+Cathedral. What can we see in these that is stiff, sickly, and puny?
+The art that has most affinity with perfect Gothic is neither
+Romanesque nor Byzantine, but the Greek art of from 500 to 450 B. C.
+By a strange coincidence, the Gothic artists even reproduce the
+somewhat stereotyped smile of their forerunners." Usually it is said
+that the Renaissance brought the supreme qualities of Greek plastic
+art back to life, but here is a thoroughly competent critic who finds
+them exhibited long before the Fifteenth Century, as a manifestation
+of what the self-sufficient generations of the Renaissance would have
+called Gothic, meaning thereby, barbarous art.
+</p>
+<p>
+What has been said of sculpture, however, can be repeated with even
+more force perhaps with regard to every detail of construction and
+decoration. Builders and architects did make mistakes at times, but,
+even their mistakes always reveal an artist's soul struggling for
+expression through inadequate media. Many things had to be done
+experimentally, most things were being done for the first time.
+Everything had an originality of its own that made its execution
+something more than merely a secure accomplishment after previous
+careful <a name="108">{108}</a> tests. In spite of this state of affairs, which might be
+expected sadly to interfere with artistic execution, the Cathedrals,
+in the main, are full of admirable details not only worthy of
+imitation, but that our designers are actually imitating or at least
+finding eminently suggestive at the present time.
+</p>
+<p>
+To begin with a well known example of decorative effect which is found
+in the earliest of the English Cathedrals, that of Lincoln. The nave
+and choir of this was finished just at the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century. The choir is so beautiful in its conception, so wonderful in
+its construction, so charming in its finish, so satisfactory in all
+its detail, though there is very little of what would be called
+striving after effect in it, that it is still called the Angel Choir.
+</p>
+<p>
+The name was originally given it because it was considered to be so
+beautiful even during the Thirteenth Century, that visitors could
+scarcely believe that it was constructed by human hands and so the
+legend became current that it was the work of angels. If the critics
+of the Thirteenth Century, who had the opportunity to see work of
+nearly the same kind being constructed in many parts of England,
+judged thus highly of it, it is not surprising that modern visitors
+should be unstinted in their praise. It is interesting to note as
+representative of the feeling of a cultured modern scientific mind
+that Dr. Osler said not long ago, in one of his medical addresses,
+that probably nothing more beautiful had ever come from the hands of
+man than this Angel Choir at Lincoln. As to who were the designers,
+who conceived it, or the workmen who executed it, we have no records.
+It is not unlikely that the famous Hugh of Lincoln, the great Bishop
+to whom the Cathedral owes its foundation and much of its splendor,
+was responsible to no little extent for this beautiful feature of his
+Cathedral church. The workmen who made it were artist-artisans in the
+best sense of the word and it is not surprising that other beautiful
+architectural features should have flourished in a country where such
+workmen could be found.
+</p>
+<p>
+Almost as impressive as the Angel Choir was the stained glass work at
+Lincoln. The rose windows are among the most beautiful ever made and
+one of them is indeed considered a gem of its kind. The beautiful
+colors and wonderful <a name="109">{109}</a> effectiveness of the stained glass of these
+old time Cathedrals cannot be appreciated unless the windows
+themselves are actually seen. At Lincoln there is a very impressive
+contrast that one can scarcely help calling to attention and that has
+been very frequently the subject of comment by visitors. During the
+Parliamentary time, unfortunately, the stained glass at Lincoln fell
+under the ban of the Puritans. The lower windows were almost
+completely destroyed by the soldiers of Cromwell's army. Only the rose
+windows owing to their height were preserved from the destroyer. There
+was an old sexton at the Cathedral, however, for whom the stained
+glass had become as the apple of his eye. As boy and man he had lived
+in its beautiful colors as they broke the light of the rising and the
+setting sun and they were too precious to be neglected even when lying
+upon the pavement of the Cathedral in fragments. He gathered the
+shattered pieces into bags and hid them away in a dark corner of the
+crypt, saving them at least from the desecration of being trampled to
+dust.
+</p>
+<p>
+Long afterwards, indeed almost in our own time, they were found here
+and were seen to be so beautiful that regardless of the fact that they
+could not be fitted together in anything like their former places,
+they were pieced into windows and made to serve their original purpose
+once more. It so happened that new stained glass windows for the
+Cathedral of Lincoln were ordered during the Nineteenth Century. These
+were made at an unfortunate time in stained glass making and are as
+nearly absolutely unattractive, to say nothing worse, as it is
+possible to make stained glass. The contrast with the antique windows,
+fragmentary as they are, made up of the broken pieces of Thirteenth
+Century glass is most striking. The old time colors are so rich that
+when the sun shines directly on them they look like jewels. No one
+pays the slightest attention, unless perhaps the doubtful compliment
+of a smile be given, to the modern windows which were, however, very
+costly and the best that could be obtained at that time.
+</p>
+<p>
+More of the stained glass of the Thirteenth Century is preserved at
+York where, because of the friendship of General Ireton, the town and
+the Cathedral were spared the worst ravages of the Parliamentarians.
+As a consequence York still <a name="110">{110}</a> possesses some of the best of its
+old time windows. It is probable that there is nothing more beautiful
+or wonderful in its effectiveness than the glass in the Five Sisters
+window at York. This is only an ordinary lancet window of five
+compartments&mdash;hence the name&mdash;in the west front of the Cathedral.
+There are no figures on the window, it is only a mass of beautiful
+greyish green tints which marvelously subdues the western setting sun
+at the vesper hour and produces the most beautiful effects in the
+interior of the Cathedral. Here if anywhere one can realize the
+meaning of the expression dim religious light. In recent years,
+however, it has become the custom for so many people to rave over the
+Five Sisters that we are spared the necessity of more than mentioning
+it. Its tints far from being injured by time have probably been
+enriched. There can be no doubt at all, however, of the artistic
+tastes and esthetic genius of the man who designed it. The other
+windows of the Cathedral were not unworthy of this triumph of art. How
+truly the Cathedral was a Technical School can be appreciated from the
+fact that it was able to inspire such workmen to produce these
+wondrous effects.
+</p>
+<p>
+Experts in stained glass work have often called attention to the fact
+that the windows constructed in the Thirteenth Century were not only
+of greater artistic value but were also more solidly put together.
+Many of the windows made in the century still maintain their places,
+in spite of the passage of time, though later windows are sometimes
+dropping to pieces. It might be thought that this was due to the fact
+that later stained glass workers were more delicate in the
+construction of their windows in order not to injure the effect of the
+stained glass. To some extent this is true, but the stained glass
+workers of the Thirteenth Century preserve the effectiveness of their
+artistic pictures in glass, though making the frame work very
+substantial. This is only another example of their ability to combine
+the useful with the beautiful so characteristic of the century,
+stamping practically every phase of its accomplishment and making
+their work more admirable because its usefulness does not suffer on
+account of any strained efforts after supposed beauties.
+</p>
+<p>
+Though it is somewhat out of place here we cannot refrain <a name="111">{111}</a> from
+pointing out the educational value of this stained glass work.
+</p>
+<p>
+Some of the stories on these windows gave details of many passages
+from the Bible, that must have impressed them upon the people much
+more than any sermon or reading of the text could possibly have
+accomplished. They were literally sermons in glass that he who walked
+by had to read whether he would or not. When we remember that the
+common people in the Middle Ages had no papers to distract them, and
+no books to turn to for information, such illustrations as were
+provided by the stained glass windows, by the painting and the
+statuary decorations of the Cathedrals, must have been studied with
+fondest devotion even apart from religious sentiment and out of mere
+inquisitiveness. The famous "prodigal" window at Chartres is a good
+example of this. Every detail of the story is here pictorially
+displayed in colors, from the time when the young man demands his
+patrimony through all the various temptations he met with in being
+helped to spend it, there being a naive richness of detail in the
+matter of the temptations that is quite medieval, from the boon
+companions who first led him astray to the depths of degradation which
+he finally reached before he returned to his father,&mdash;even the picture
+of the fatted calf is not lacking.
+</p>
+<p>
+On others of these windows there are the stories of the Patron Saints
+of certain crafts. The life of St. Crispin the shoemaker is given in
+rather full detail. The same is true of St. Romain the hunter who was
+the patron of the furriers. The most ordinary experiences of life are
+pictured and the methods by which these were turned to account in
+making the craftsman a saint, must have been in many ways an ideally
+uplifting example for fellow craftsmen whenever they viewed the
+window. This sort of teaching could not be without its effect upon the
+poor. It taught them that there was something else in life besides
+money getting and that happiness and contentment might be theirs in a
+chosen occupation and the reward of Heaven at the end of it all, for
+at the top of these windows the hand of the Almighty is introduced
+reaching down from Heaven to reward his faithful servants. It is just
+by such presentation of ideals even to the poor, that <a name="112">{112}</a> the
+Thirteenth Century differs from the modern time in which even the
+teaching in the schools seems only to emphasize the fact that men must
+get money, honestly if they can, but must get money, if they would
+have what is called success in life.
+</p>
+<p>
+Another very interesting feature of these windows is the fact that
+they were usually the gifts of the various Guilds and so represented
+much more of interest, for the members. It is true that in France,
+particularly, the monarchs frequently presented stained glass windows
+and in St. Louis time this was so common that scarcely a French
+Cathedral was without one or more testimonials of this kind to his
+generosity; but most of the windows were given by various societies
+among the people themselves. How much the construction of such a
+window when it was well done, would make for the education in taste of
+those who contributed to the expense of its erection, can scarcely be
+over-estimated. There was besides a friendly rivalry in this matter in
+the Thirteenth Century, which served to bring out the talents of local
+artists and by the inevitably suggested comparisons eventually served
+to educate the taste of the people.
+</p>
+<p>
+It must not be thought, however, that it was only in stained glass and
+painting and sculpture&mdash;the major arts&mdash;that these workmen attained
+their triumphs. Practically every detail of Cathedral construction is
+a monument to the artistic genius of the century, to the wonderful
+inspiration afforded the workmen and to the education provided by the
+Guilds which really maintained, as we shall see, a kind of Technical
+School with the approbation and the fostering care of the
+ecclesiastics connected with the Cathedrals. An excellent example of a
+very different class of work may be noted in the hinges of the
+Cloister door of the Cathedral at York. Personally I have seen three
+art designers sketching these at the same time only one of whom was an
+Englishman, another coming from the continent and the third from
+America. The hinge still swings the heavy oak door of the Thirteenth
+Century. The arborization of the metal as it spreads out from the main
+shaft of the hinge is beautifully decorative in effect.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp112">{opp112}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp112.jpg" border=1><br>
+CLOISTER OF ST. PAUL'S (WITHOUT THE WALLS, ROME)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A little study of the hinge seems to show that these branching
+portions were so arranged as to make the mechanical <a name="113">{113}</a> moment of
+the swinging door less of a dead weight than it would have been if the
+hinge were a solid bar of iron. Besides the spreading of the branches
+over a wide surface serves to hold the woodwork of the door thoroughly
+in place. While the hinge was beautiful, then it was eminently useful
+from a good many standpoints, and trivial though it might be
+considered to be, it was in reality a type of all the work
+accomplished in connection with these Thirteenth Century Cathedrals.
+According to the old Latin proverb "<i>omne tulit punctum qui miscuit
+utile dulci</i>," he scores every point who mingles the useful with the
+beautiful, and certainly the Thirteenth Century workman succeeded in
+accomplishing the desideratum to an eminent degree. This mingling of
+the useful and the beautiful is of itself a supreme difference between
+the Thirteenth Century generations and our own. Mr. Yeats, the well
+known Irish poet, in bidding farewell to America some years ago said
+to a party of friends, that no country could consider itself to be
+making real progress in culture until the very utensils in the kitchen
+were beautiful as well as useful. Anything that is merely useful is
+hideous, and anyone who can handle such things with impunity has not
+true culture. In the Thirteenth Century they never by any chance made
+anything that was merely useful, especially not if it was to be
+associated with their beloved Cathedral.
+</p>
+<p>
+An excellent example of this can be found in their Chalices and other
+ceremonial utensils which were meant for Divine Service. As we have
+said elsewhere The Craftsman, the journal of the Arts and Crafts
+Movement in this country not long since compared a Chalice of the
+Thirteenth Century with the prize cups which are offered for yacht
+races and other competitions in this country. We may say at once that
+the form which the Chalice received during the Thirteenth Century is
+that which constitutes to a great extent the model for this sacred
+vessel ever since and the comparison with the modern design is
+therefore all the more interesting. In spite of the fact that money is
+no object as a rule in the construction of many of the modern prize
+cups, they compare unfavorably according to the writer in The
+Craftsman with the old time chalices. There is a tendency to over
+ornamentation which <a name="114">{114}</a> spoils the effectiveness of the lines of the
+metal work in many cases and there is also only too often, an attempt
+to introduce forms of plastic art which do not lend themselves well to
+this class of work. It is in design particularly that the older
+workman excels his modern colleague though usually there are
+suggestions from several sources for present day work. In a word the
+Thirteenth Century Chalice was much more admirable than the modern
+piece of metal work, because the lines were simpler, the combination
+of beauty with utility more readily recognizable and the obtrusiveness
+of the ornamentation much less marked.
+</p>
+<p>
+This same thing is true for other even coarser forms of metal work in
+connection with the Cathedrals, and anyone who has seen some of the
+beautiful iron screens built for Cathedral choirs in the olden times
+will realize that even the worker in iron must have been an artist as
+well as a blacksmith. The effect produced, especially in the dim light
+of the Cathedral, is often that of delicate lace work. To appreciate
+the strength of the screen one must actually test it with the hands.
+This of itself represents a very charming adaptation of what might be
+expected to be rough work meant for protective purposes into a
+suitable ornament. Some of the gates of the old churchyards are very
+beautiful in their designs and have often been imitated in quite
+recent years, for the gates of country places, for our modern
+millionaires. The Reverend Augustus Jessopp who has written much with
+regard to the times before the Reformation, says that he has found in
+his investigations, that not infrequently such gates were made by the
+village blacksmiths. Most of the old parish records are lost because
+of the suppression of the parishes as well as the monasteries in Henry
+the Eighth's time. Some of the original documents are, however,
+preserved and among them are receipts from the village blacksmith, for
+what we now admire as specimens of artistic ironwork and corresponding
+receipts from the village carpenter, for woodwork that we now consider
+of equally high order. There were carved bench ends and choir stalls
+which seem to have been produced in this way. Just how these
+generations of the Thirteenth Century, in little towns of less than
+ten thousand inhabitants, <a name="115">{115}</a> succeeded in raising up artisans in
+numbers, capable of doing such fine work, and yet content to make
+their living at such ordinary occupations, is indeed hard to
+understand. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that though there was
+not much furniture during the Thirteenth Century what little there
+was, was as a rule very carefully and artistically made. Thirteenth
+Century benches and tables are famous. Cathedrals and castles worked
+together in inspiring and giving occupation to these wonderful
+workmen.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was not only the workmen engaged in the construction of the
+edifices proper who made the beautiful things and created marvelously
+artistic treasures during this century. All the adornments of the
+Cathedrals and especially everything associated in any intimate way
+with the religious service was sure to be executed with the most
+delicate taste. The vestments of the time are some of the most
+beautiful that have ever been made. The historians of needlework tell
+us that this period represents the most flourishing era of artistic
+accomplishment with the needle of all modern history. One example of
+this has secured a large share of notoriety in quite recent years. An
+American millionaire bought the famous piece of needlework known as
+the Cope of Ascoli. This is an example of the large garment worn over
+the shoulders in religious processions and at benediction. The price
+paid for the garment is said to have been $60,000. This was not
+considered extortionate or enforced, as the Cope was declared by
+experts to be one of the finest pieces of needlework in the world. The
+jewels which originally adorned it had been removed so that the money
+was paid for the needlework itself. After a time it became clear that
+the Cope had been stolen before being sold, and accordingly it was
+returned to the Italian government who presented the American
+millionaire with a medal for his honesty.
+</p>
+<p>
+We have spoken of the Cathedrals as great stone books, in which he who
+ran, might read, even though he were not able to read in the technical
+sense of the term. This has been an old-time expression with regard to
+the Cathedrals, but not even its inventor perhaps, and certainly not
+most of those who have repeated it have realized how literally true
+was the saying. I <a name="116">{116}</a> have elsewhere quoted from Reinach's Story of
+Art Throughout the Ages as an authority on the subject. His
+re-statement of the intellectual significance for the people of the
+Cathedrals of their towns, in which it must be remembered that they
+had a personal interest because in a sense they were really theirs,
+and they felt their ownership quite as much as a modern member of a
+parish feels with regard to his church, emphasizes and illuminates
+this subject to a wonderful degree. The realization that the
+information of the time was deliberately woven into these great stone
+structures, mainly of course for decorative purposes, but partly also
+with the idea of educating the people, is a startling confirmation of
+the idea that education was the most important and significant work of
+this great century.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The Gothic Cathedral is a perfect encyclopedia of human knowledge.
+  It contains scenes from the Scriptures and the legends of saints;
+  motives from the animal and vegetable kingdom; representations of
+  the seasons of agricultural labor, of' the arts and sciences and
+  crafts, and finally moral allegories, as, for instance, ingenious
+  personifications of the virtues and the vices. In the Thirteenth
+  Century a learned Dominican, Vincent of Beauvais, was employed by
+  St. Louis to write a great work which was to be an epitome of all
+  the knowledge of his times. This compilation, called The Mirror of
+  the World, is divided into four parts: The Mirror of Nature, The
+  Mirror of Science, the Moral Mirror, and the Historical Mirror. A
+  contemporary archaeologist, M. E. Male, has shown that the works of
+  art of our great cathedrals are a translation into stone of the
+  Mirror of Vincent of Beauvais, setting aside the episodes from Greek
+  and Roman History, which would have been out of place. It was not
+  that the imagers had read Vincent's work; but that, like him, they
+  sought to epitomise all the knowledge of their contemporaries. The
+  first aim of their art is not to please, but to teach; they offer an
+  encyclopedia for the use of those who cannot read, translated by
+  sculptor or glass-painter into a clear and precise language, under
+  the lofty direction of the Church which left nothing to chance. It
+  was present always and everywhere, advising and superintending the
+  artist, leaving him to his own devices only when he <a
+  name="117">{117}</a> modelled the fantastic animals of the
+  gargoyles, or borrowed decorative motives from the vegetable
+  kingdom."   [Footnote 11]
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp116">{opp116}</a>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 11: Reinach&mdash;The Story of Art Throughout the Ages.
+  Scribner's, 1904.]
+<p>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp116a.jpg" border=1><br>
+CATHEDRAL (BOURGES)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp116b.jpg" border=1><br>
+CATHEDRAL (CHARTRES)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As to how much the cathedrals held of meaning for those who built them
+and worshiped in them, only a careful study of the symbolism of the
+time will enable the present-day admirer to understand. Modern
+generations have lost most of their appreciation of the significance
+of symbolism. The occupation of mind with the trivial things that are
+usually read in our day, leaves little or no room for the study of the
+profounder thought an artist may care to put into his work, and so the
+modern artist tells his story as far as possible without any of this
+deeper significance, since it would only be lost. In the Thirteenth
+Century, however, everything artistic had a secondary meaning.
+Literature was full of allegories, even the Arthur Legends were
+considered to be the expression of the battle of a soul with worldly
+influences as well as a poetic presentation of the story of the old
+time British King. The Gothic Cathedrals were a mass of symbolism.
+This will perhaps be best understood from the following explanation of
+Cathedral symbolism, which we take from the translation of Durandus's
+work on the meaning of the Divine Offices, a further account of which
+will be found in the chapter on The Prose of the Century.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Far away and long ere we can catch the first view of the city
+  itself, the three spires of its Cathedral, rising high above its din
+  and turmoil, preach to us of the Most High and Undivided Trinity. As
+  we approach, the Transepts, striking out crosswise, tell of the
+  Atonement. The Communion of Saints is set forth by the chapels
+  clustering around Choir and Nave: the mystical weathercock bids us
+  to watch and pray and endure hardness; the hideous forms that are
+  seen hurrying from the eaves speak the misery of those who are cast
+  out of the church; spire, pinnacle, and finial, the upward curl of
+  the sculptured foliage, the upward spring of the flying buttress,
+  the sharp rise of the window arch, the high thrown pitch of the
+  roof, all these, overpowering the horizontal tendency of string
+  course and parapet, teach us, that vanquishing earthly desires, we
+  also should ascend in heart and mind. Lessons of holy <a
+  name="118">{118}</a> wisdom are written in the delicate tracery of
+  the windows; the unity of many members is shadowed forth by the
+  multiplex arcade; the duty of letting our light shine before men, by
+  the pierced and flowered parapet that crowns the whole.
+<br><br>
+  "We enter. The triple breadth of Nave and Aisles, the triple height
+  of Pier arch, Triforium, and Clerestory, the triple length of Choir,
+Transepts, and Nave, again set forth the HOLY TRINITY. And what
+  besides is there that does not tell of our Blessed SAVIOUR? that
+  does not point out "HIM First" in the two-fold western door; "HIM
+  Last" in the distant altar; "HIM Midst," in the great Rood; "HIM
+  Without End," in the monogram carved on boss and corbel, in the Holy
+  Lamb, in the Lion of the tribe of Judah, in the Mystic Fish? Close
+  by us is the font; for by regeneration we enter the Church; it is
+  deep and capacious; for we are buried in Baptism with CHRIST; it is
+  of stone, for HE is the Rock; and its spiry cover teaches us, if we
+  be indeed risen from its waters with HIM, to seek those things which
+  are above. Before us in long-drawn vista are the massy piers, which
+  are the Apostles and Prophets&mdash;they are each of many members,
+  for many are the Graces in every Saint, there is beautifully
+  delicate foliage round the head of all; for all were plentiful in
+  good works. Beneath our feet are the badges of worldly pomp and
+  glory, the graves of Kings and Nobles and Knights; all in the
+  Presence of God as dross and worthlessness. Over us swells the vast
+  valley of the high pitched roof; from the crossing and interlacing
+  of its curious rafters hang fadeless flowers and fruits which are
+  not of earth; from its hammer-beams project wreaths and stars such
+  as adorn heavenly beings; in its center stands the LAMB as it has
+  been slain; from around HIM the celestial Host, Cherubim and
+  Seraphim, Thrones, Principalities, and Powers, look down peacefully
+  on the worshipers below. Harpers there are among them harping with
+  their harps; for one is the song of the Church in earth and in
+  Heaven. Through the walls wind the narrow cloister galleries;
+  emblems of the path by which holy hermits and anchorets whose
+  conflicts were known only to their GOD, have reached their Home. And
+  we are compassed about with a mighty cloud of witnesses; the rich
+  deep glass of the windows teems <a name="119">{119}</a> with saintly
+  forms, each in its own fair niche, all invested with the same holy
+  repose; there is the glorious company of the Apostles; the goodly
+  fellowship of the Prophets; the noble army of Martyrs; the shining
+  band of Confessors; the jubilant chorus of the Virgins; there are
+  Kings, who have long since changed an earthly for an heavenly crown;
+  and Bishops who have given in a glad account to the Shepherd and
+  Bishop of souls. But on none of these things do we rest; piers, arch
+  behind arch, windows, light behind light, arcades, shaft behind
+  shaft, the roof, bay behind bay, the Saints around us, the Heavenly
+  Hierarchy above with dignity of preeminence still increasing
+  eastward, each and all, lead on eye and soul and thought to the
+  Image of the Crucified Saviour as displayed on the great East
+  window. Gazing steadfastly on that we pass up the Nave, that is
+  through the Church Militant, till we reach the Rood Screen, the
+  barrier between it and the Church Triumphant, and therein shadowing
+  forth the death of the Faithful. High above it hangs on His
+  Triumphant Cross the image of Him who by His death hath overcome
+  death; on it are portrayed Saints and Martyrs, His warriors who,
+  fighting under their LORD have entered into rest and inherit a
+  tearless eternity. They are to be our examples, and the seven lamps
+  above them typify those graces of the SPIRIT, by Whom alone we can
+  tread in their steps. The screen itself glows with gold and crimson;
+  with gold, for they have on their heads golden crowns; with crimson,
+  for they passed the Red Sea of Martyrdom, to obtain them. And
+  through the delicate network, and the unfolding Holy Doors, we catch
+  faint glimpses of the Chancel beyond. There are the massy stalls;
+  for in Heaven is everlasting rest; there are the Sedilia, emblems of
+  the seats of' the Elders round the Throne; there is the Piscina; for
+  they have washed their robes and made them white; and there heart
+  and soul and life of all, the Altar with its unquenched lights, and
+  golden carvings, and mystic steps, and sparkling jewels; even CHRIST
+  Himself, by Whose only Merits we find admission to our Heavenly
+  Inheritance. Verily, as we think on the oneness of its design, we
+  may say: Jerusalem edificatur ut civitas cujus participatio ejus in
+  idipsum."
+</p>
+<a name="120">{120}</a>
+<p>
+It is because of all this wealth of meaning embodied in them, that the
+Cathedrals of this old time continue to be so interesting and so
+unfailingly attractive even to our distant and so differently
+constituted generation.  [Footnote 12]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 12: Those who care to realize to some degree all the
+  Wonderful symbolic meaning of the ornamentation of some of these
+  cathedrals, should read M. Huysman's book La Cathedrale, which has,
+  we believe, been translated into English. Needless to say it has
+  been often in our hands in compiling this chapter, and the death of
+  its author as this chapter is going through the press poignantly
+  recalls all the beauty of his work.]
+</p>
+<p>
+We cannot close this chapter on the Book of the Arts leaving the
+impression that only the Church Architecture of the time deserves to
+be considered in the category of, great art influences. There were
+many municipal buildings, some stately castles, and a large number of
+impressively magnificent Abbeys and Monasteries, besides educational
+and charitable institutions built at this same time. The town halls of
+some of the great Hansa towns, that is, the German free cities that
+were members of the Hanseatic League, present some very striking
+examples of the civil architecture of the period. It has the same
+characteristics that we have discussed in treating of the Cathedrals.
+While wonderfully impressive, it was eminently suitable for the
+purpose for which it was intended and the decorations always forming
+integral parts of the structure, sounded the note of the combination
+of beauty with utility which is so characteristic of every phase of
+the art accomplishment of the century.
+</p>
+<p>
+Some of the castles would deserve special description  by themselves
+but unfortunately space forbids more than a passing mention. Certain
+castellated fortresses still standing in England and Ireland come from
+the time of King John, and are excellent examples of the stability and
+forceful character of this form of architecture in the Thirteenth
+Century. It is interesting to find that when we come to build in the
+Twentieth Century in America, the armories which are to be used for
+the training of our militia and the storage of arms and ammunition,
+many of the ideas used in their construction are borrowed from this
+olden time.
+</p>
+<a name="opp120">{opp120}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp120.jpg" border=1><br>
+DURHAM CASTLE AND CATHEDRAL<br>
+KING JOHN'S CASTLE (LIMERICK)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is a famous castle in Limerick, Ireland, built in John's time
+which constituted an <a name="121">{121}</a> excellent example of this and which has
+doubtlessly often been studied and more or less imitated.
+</p>
+<p>
+One portion of Kenilworth Castle in England dates from the Thirteenth
+Century and has been often the subject of careful study by modern
+architects. The same thing might be said of many others.
+</p>
+<p>
+With regard to the English Abbeys too much cannot be said in praise of
+their architecture and it has been the model for large educational and
+municipal buildings ever since. St. Mary's Abbey at York, though only
+a few scattered fragments of its beauties are to be seen and very
+little, of its walls still stand, is almost as interesting as
+Yorkminster, the great Cathedral itself. There were many such abbeys
+as this built in England during the Thirteenth Century&mdash;more than a
+dozen of them at least and probably a full score. All of them are as
+distinguished in the history of architecture as the English
+Cathedrals. It will be remembered that what is now called Westminster
+Abbey was not a Cathedral church, but only a monastery church attached
+to the Abbey of Westminster and this, the only well preserved example
+of its class furnishes an excellent idea of what these religious
+institutions signify in the Thirteenth Century. They meant as much for
+the art impulse as the Cathedrals themselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+One feature of these monastic establishments deserves special mention.
+The cloisters were usually constructed so beautifully as to make them
+veritable gems of the art of the period. These cloisters were the
+porticos usually surrounding a garden of the monastery within which
+the Monks could walk, shaded from the sun, and protected from the rain
+and the snow. They might very easily have been hideously useful
+porches, especially as they were quite concealed from the outer world
+as a rule, and those not belonging to the order were not admitted to
+them except on very special occasions. The name cloister signifies an
+enclosed place and lay persons were not ordinarily admitted to them.
+Those who know anything about them will recall what beautiful
+constructive work was put into them. Certain examples as that of St.
+John Lateran in Rome and the Cloister of St. Paul's without the walls
+some five miles from Rome, constructed during the <a name="122">{122}</a> Thirteenth
+Century and under the influence of the same great art movement as gave
+the Cathedrals, are the most beautiful specimens that now remain. The
+only thing that they can be compared with is the famous Angel Choir at
+Lincoln which indeed they recall in many ways.
+</p>
+<p>
+The pictures of these two Cloisters which we present will give some
+idea of their beauty. To be thoroughly appreciated, however, they must
+be seen, for there is a delicacy of finish about every detail that
+makes them an unending source of admiration and brings people back
+again and again to see them, yet always to find something new and
+apparently unnoticed before. It might be thought that the studied
+variety in the columns so that no two are of exactly the same form,
+would produce a bizarre effect. The lack of symmetry that might
+result, from this same feature could be expected to spoil their
+essential beauty. Neither of these effects has been produced, however.
+The Cloisters were, moreover, not purple patches on monasteries, but
+ever worthy portions of very beautiful buildings.
+</p>
+<p>
+All of these buildings were furnished as regards their metal work,
+their wood work, and the portions that lent themselves to decoration,
+in the same spirit as the Cathedrals themselves. The magnificent
+tables and benches of the Thirteenth Century are still considered to
+be the best models of simplicity of line with beauty of form and
+eminent durability in the history of furniture making. The fashion for
+Colonial furniture in our own time has brought us nearer to such
+Thirteenth Century furniture making than has been true at any other
+time in history. Here once more there was one of these delightful
+combinations of beauty and utility which is so characteristic of the
+century. Even the kitchen utensils were beautiful as well as useful
+and the Irish poet might have been satisfied to his heart's content.
+</p>
+<a name="opp122">{opp122}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp122a.jpg" border=1><br>
+PALAZZO VECCHIO (ARNULFO, FLORENCE)<br>
+CAMPANILE (GIOTTO)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp122b.jpg" border=1><br>
+GIOTTO'S TOWER (FLORENCE)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Certain other architectural forms were wonderfully developed during
+the Thirteenth Century and the opening years of the Fourteenth Century
+while men trained during the former period were still at work.
+Giotto's tower, for instance, must be considered a Thirteenth Century
+product since its architect was well past thirty-five years of age
+before the Thirteenth <a name="123">{123}</a> Century closed and all his artistic
+character had been formed under its precious inspiration. It is a
+curious reflection on modern architecture, that some of the modern
+high business buildings are saved from being hideous just in as much
+as they approach the character of some of these tower-like structures
+of the Thirteenth Century. The first of New York's skyscrapers which
+is said to have escaped the stigma of being utterly ugly, as most of
+them are, because of their appeal to mere utility, was the New York
+Times Building which is just Giotto's tower on a large scale set down
+on Broadway at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Seen from a
+mile away the effect is exactly that of the great Florentine
+architect's beautiful structure and this was of course the deliberate
+intention of the modern architect. Anyone who would think, however,
+that our modern business building with its plain walls recalls in any
+adequate sense its great pattern, should read what Mr. Ruskin has said
+with regard to the wealth of meaning that is to be found in Giotto's
+tower. Into such structures just as into the Cathedrals, the
+architects and builders of the time succeeded in putting a whole
+burden of suggestion, which to the generations of the time in which
+they were built, accustomed to the symbolism of every art feature in
+life around them, had a precious wealth of significance that we can
+only appreciate after deep study and long contemplation. We have felt
+that only the quotation from Mr. Ruskin himself can fully illustrate
+what we wish to convey in this matter.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Of these representations of human art under heavenly guidance, the
+  series of basreliefs which stud the base of this tower of Giotto's
+  must be held certainly the chief in Europe. At first you may be
+  surprised at the smallness of their scale in proportion to their
+  masonry; but this smallness of scale enabled the master workmen of
+  the tower to execute them with their own hands; and for the rest, in
+  the very finest architecture, the decoration of most precious kind
+  is usually thought of as a jewel, and set with space round it&mdash;as
+  the jewels of a crown, or the clasp of a girdle."
+</p>
+
+<a name="124">{124}</a>
+
+<h1>VII<br>
+ARTS AND CRAFTS&mdash;GREAT TECHNICAL SCHOOLS</h1>
+
+<p>
+The most interesting social movement in our time is undoubtedly that
+of the arts and crafts. Its central idea is to lift the workmen up
+above the mere machine that he is likely to become, as the result of
+the monotonous occupation at some trade, that requires him only to do
+a constantly repeated series of acts, or direct, one little portion of
+machinery and so kills the soul in him. Of course, the other idea that
+a generation of workmen shall be created, who will be able to make
+beautiful things, for the use of the household as well as the
+adornment of the house is another principal purpose. Too many people
+have mistaken this entirely secondary aim of the movement for its
+primary end. It is because of the effect upon the workman himself of
+the effort to use his intellect in the designing, his taste in the
+arrangement, and his artisan skill for the execution of beautiful
+things, that the arts and crafts movement has its appeal to the
+generality of mankind.
+</p>
+<p>
+The success of the movement promises, to do more, to solve social
+problems than all the socialistic agitation that is at present causing
+so much dismay in some quarters and raising so many hopes that are
+destined to be disappointed in the hearts of the laboring classes. The
+solution of the problem of social unrest is to be found, not in
+creating new wants for people and giving them additional wages that
+will still further stimulate their desire to have many things that
+will continue to be in spite of increased wages beyond their means,
+but rather to give them such an interest in their life work that their
+principal source of pleasure is to be found in their occupation.
+Unfortunately work has come to be looked upon as a drudgery and as men
+must spend the greater portion of their lives, at least the vast
+majority of them must, in doing something that will enable them to
+make a living, it is clear that unhappiness <a name="125">{125}</a> and discontent will
+still continue. Blessed is the man who has found his work, blessed is
+the man to whom his work appeals with so much interest that he goes
+from it with a longing to be able to finish what he has been at, and
+comes back to it with a prospect that now he shall be able to
+accomplish what time and perhaps fatigue would not allow him to
+proceed with the day before.
+</p>
+<p>
+This is the best feature of the promises held out by the arts and
+crafts movement, that men shall be interested in the work they do.
+This may seem to some people an unrealizable idea and a poetic
+aspiration rather than a possible actuality. A little study of what
+was accomplished in this line during the Thirteenth Century, will
+surely prove even to the most skeptical how much of success is capable
+of being realized in this matter. The men who worked around the
+Cathedrals were given opportunities to express themselves and the best
+that was in them as no class of workmen before or since have ever had
+the opportunity. Every single portion of the Cathedral was to be made
+as beautiful as the mind of man could conceive, his taste could plan
+and his hands could achieve. As a consequence the carpenter had the
+chance to express himself in the woodwork, the village blacksmith the
+opportunity to display his skill in such small ironwork as the hinges
+or the latch for the door and every workman felt called upon to do the
+best that was in him.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is easy to understand under these circumstances with what interest
+the men must have applied themselves to their tasks. They were, as a
+rule, the designers as well as the executors of the work assigned
+them. They planned and executed in the rough and tried, then modified
+and adapted, until finally as we know of most of the Cathedrals, their
+finished product was as nearly perfect in most particulars as it is
+ordinarily given to man to achieve. Their aim above all was to make
+such a combination of utility with beauty of line yet simplicity of
+finish, as would make their work worthy counterparts of all the other
+portions of the Cathedral. The sense of competition must have stirred
+men to the very depths of their souls and yet it was not the heartless
+rivalry that crushes when it succeeds, but the inspiring emulation
+that makes one do as well as or better than others, though not
+necessarily in such a way as to <a name="126">{126}</a> belittle others' efforts by
+contrast or humble them by triumph.
+</p>
+<a name="opp126">{opp126}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp126a.jpg" border=1><br>
+FOUNTAIN (PERUGIA) [TOWN PUMP]
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp126b.jpg" border=1><br>
+LAVATOIO (TODI) [PUBLIC WASH-HOUSE]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In these old medieval days England used to be called Merrie England
+and it is easy to understand that workmen would be profoundly merry at
+heart, when they had the consciousness of accomplishing such good
+work. Men must have almost tardily quitted their labor in the evening
+while they hoped and strove to accomplish something that would be
+worthy of the magnificent building in which so many of their fellow
+workmen were achieving triumphs of handicraftsmanship. Each went home
+to rest for the night, but also to dream over what he might be able to
+do and awoke in the morning with the thought that possibly to-day
+would see some noteworthy result. This represents the ideal of the
+workman's life. He has an interest quite apart from the mere making of
+money. The picture of the modern workman by contrast looks vain and
+sordid. The vast majority of our workmen labor merely because they
+must make enough money to-day, in order that they may be able to buy
+food enough so as to get strength to work to-morrow. Of interest there
+is very little. Day after day there is the task of providing for self
+and others. Only this and nothing more. Is it any wonder that there
+should be social unrest and discontentment? How can workmen be merry
+unless with the artificial stimulus of strong drink, when there is
+nothing for them to look forward to except days and weeks and years of
+labor succeeding one another remorselessly, and with no surcease until
+Nature puts in her effective demand for rest, or the inevitable end
+comes.
+</p>
+<p>
+It would be idle to say that these men who knew how to make the
+beautiful things for these cathedrals were not conscious of the
+perfection of the work that they were accomplishing. The very fact
+that each in his own line was achieving such beautiful results must
+have stamped him as thoroughly capable of appreciating the work of
+others. The source of pleasure that there must have been therefore, in
+some twenty towns in England alone, to see their Cathedral approaching
+completion, must have been of itself a joy far beyond anything we can
+imagine as possible for the workmen of the present day. The interest
+in it was supreme and was only heightened by the fact that it was
+being done by relatives and friends and brother workmen, even <a name="127">{127}</a>
+though they might be rivals, and that whatever was done was redounding
+first to the glory of the Lord to whom they turned with so much
+confidence in these ages of faith, and secondly, and there was
+scarcely less satisfaction in the thought, to the reputation of their
+native town and their fellow-townsmen.
+</p>
+<p>
+This is the feature of the life of the lower classes in the Thirteenth
+Century which most deserves to be studied in our time. We hear much of
+people being kept in ignorance and in servitude. Men who talk this way
+know nothing at all of the lives of the towns of the Middle Ages and
+are able to appreciate not even in the slightest degree the wonderful
+system of education, that made life so much fuller of possibilities
+for intellectual development for all classes and for happiness in
+life, than any other period of which we know. This phase of the
+Thirteenth Century is at once the most interesting, the most
+significant for future generations, and the most important in its
+lessons for all time.
+</p>
+<p>
+We have been following up thus far the exemplification in the
+Thirteenth Century of John Ruskin's saying, that if you wish to get at
+the real significance of the achievements of a period in history, you
+must read the book of its deeds, the book of its arts and the book of
+its words. We have been turning over a few of the pages of the book of
+the deeds of the Thirteenth Century in studying the history of the
+establishment of the universities and of the method and content of
+university teaching. After all the only deeds that ought to count in
+the history of mankind are those that are done for men&mdash;that have
+accomplished something for the uplift of mankind. History is
+unfortunately occupied with deeds of many other kinds, and it is
+perhaps the saddest blot on our modern education, that it is mainly
+the history of deeds that have been destructive of man, of human
+happiness and in only too many cases of human rights and human
+liberties, that are supposed to be most worthy of the study of the
+rising generation. History as written for schools is to a great extent
+a satire on efforts for social progress.
+</p>
+<p>
+We shall continue the study of the book of the deeds of the Thirteenth
+Century and its most interesting and important chapter, that of the
+education of the masses. We shall find in what was accomplished in
+educating the people of the <a name="128">{128}</a> Thirteenth Century, the model of the
+form of education which in spite of our self-complacency does not
+exist, but must come in our time, if our education is to fulfill its
+real purpose. Perhaps the most interesting phase of this question of
+the education of the masses will be the fact that in studying this
+book of the deeds, we shall have also to study once more the book of
+the arts of the Thirteenth Century. All their best accomplishment was
+linked with achievement and progress in art. Yet it was from the
+masses that the large number of artist-artisans of workmen with the
+true artistic spirit came, who in this time in nearly every part of
+Europe, created masterpieces of art in every department which have
+since been the admiration of the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+We may say at once that the opportunity for the education of the
+masses was furnished in connection with the Cathedrals. In the light
+of what we read in these great stone books, it is a constant source of
+surprise that the Church should be said to have been opposed to
+education. Reinach in his Story of Art throughout the Ages says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The Church was not only rich and powerful in the Middle Ages; it
+  dominated and directed all the manifestations of human activity.
+  There was practically no art but the art it encouraged, the art it
+  needed to construct and adorn its buildings, carve its ivories and
+  its reliquaries, and paint its glass and its missals. Foremost among
+  the arts it fostered was architecture, which never played so
+  important a part in any other society. Even now, when we enter a
+  Romanesque or Gothic church, we are impressed by the might of that
+  vast force of which it is the manifestation, a force which shaped
+  the destinies of Europe for a thousand years."
+</p>
+<p>
+It was as the result of this demand for art that the technical schools
+naturally developed around the Cathedrals. To take the example of
+England alone, during the Thirteenth Century some twenty cathedrals
+were erected in various parts of the country. Most of these were built
+in what we would now call small towns, indeed some of them would be
+considered scarcely more than villages. There were no large cities, in
+praise be it spoken, during the Thirteenth Century, and it must not be
+forgotten that the whole population of England at the beginning <a name="129">{129}</a>
+of the century was scarcely more than two millions of people and did
+not reach three millions even at the end of it. Every rood of ground
+did not perhaps maintain its man, but every part of England had its
+quota of population so that there could not be many crowded centers.
+Even London probably at no time during the century had more than
+twenty-five thousand inhabitants and Oxford during the palmiest days
+of the University was perhaps the most populous place in the land.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a rivalry in the building of Cathedrals, and as the main
+portion of the buildings were erected in the short space of a single
+century, a feeling of intense competition was rife so that there was
+very little possibility of procuring workmen from other towns. Each
+town had to create not only its cathedral but the workmen who would
+finish it in all its details. When we consider that a Cathedral like
+Salisbury was practically completed in the short space of about
+twenty-five years, it becomes extremely difficult to understand just
+how this little town succeeded in apparently accomplishing the
+impossible. It has often been said that artists cannot be obtained
+merely because of a demand for them and that they are the slow
+creation of rather capricious nature. It is only another way of saying
+that the artist is born, not made. Nature then must have been in a
+particularly fruitful mood and tense during the Thirteenth Century,
+for there is no doubt at all of the wonderful artistic beauty of the
+details of these Gothic cathedrals. While nature's beneficence meant
+much, however, the training of the century probably meant even more
+and the special form of popular education which developed well
+deserves the attention of all other generations.
+</p>
+<p>
+It may be said at once that education in our sense of teaching
+everybody to read and write there was none. There were more students
+at the universities to the number of the population than in the
+Twentieth Century as we have seen, but people who were not to devote
+themselves in after life to book learning, were not burdened with
+acquisitions of doubtful benefit, which might provide stores of
+useless information for them, or enable them to while away hours of
+precious time reading trash, or make them conceited with the thought
+that because they had absorbed some of the opinions of others on
+things in general, <a name="130">{130}</a> they had a right to judge of most things
+under the sun and a few other things besides. The circulation of our
+newspapers and the records of the books in demand at our libraries,
+show how much a knowledge of reading means for most of our population.
+Popular education of this kind may, and does benefit a few, but it
+works harm to a great many.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of education in the sense of training the faculties so that the
+individual might express whatever was in him and especially that he
+might bring out what was best in him, there was much. Take again the
+example of England. There was considerably less in population than
+there is in Greater New York at the present time, yet there was some
+twenty places altogether in which they were building Cathedrals during
+this century, that would be monuments of artistic impulse and
+accomplishment for all future time. Any city in this country would be
+proud to have any one of these English cathedrals of the Thirteenth
+Century as the expression of its taste and power to execute. We have
+tried to imitate them more or less in many places. In order to
+accomplish our purpose in this matter, though, we deliberately did
+everything on a much smaller and less ambitious scale than the people
+of the small English towns of seven centuries ago, and our results do
+not bear comparison for a moment with theirs, we had to appeal to
+other parts of the country and even to Europe for architects and
+designers, and even had to secure the finished products of art from
+distant places. This too, in spite of the fact that we are seven
+centuries later and that our education is supposed to be developed to
+a high extent. If there were twenty places of instruction in Greater
+New York where architects and artist workers in iron and glass, and
+metal of all kinds, and wood and stone, were being trained to become
+such finished artisans as were to be found in twenty different little
+towns of England in the Thirteenth Century, we should be sure that our
+manual training schools and our architectural departments of
+universities and schools of design were wonderfully successful.
+</p>
+<p>
+When we find this to be true of the England of the Thirteenth Century
+we can conclude that somehow better opportunities for art education
+must have been supplied in those times than in our own, and though we
+do not find the mention or <a name="131">{131}</a> records of formal schools, we must
+look patiently for the methods of instruction that enabled these
+generations to accomplish so much. Needless to say such attainments do
+not come spontaneously in a large number of people, but must be
+carefully fostered and are the result of that greatest factor in
+education, environment. It will not be hard to find where the
+ambitious youth of England even of the workman class found
+opportunities for technical education of the highest character in
+these little towns. This was never merely theoretic, though, it was
+sufficiently grounded in principle to enable men to solve problems in
+architecture and engineering, in decoration and artistic arrangement,
+such as are still sources of anxiety for modern students of these
+questions.
+</p>
+<p>
+To take but a single example, it will be readily appreciated that the
+consideration of the guilds of builders of the Cathedrals as
+constituting a great technical school, is marvelously emphasized by
+certain recent observations with regard to architects' and builders'
+methods in the Cathedrals. There is a passage in Evelyn's Diary in
+which he describes certain corrections that were introduced into Old
+St. Paul's Cathedral, London (the Gothic edifice predecessor of the
+present classical structure), in order to remove appearances of
+dissymmetry and certain seeming mistakes of construction. This passage
+was always so misunderstood that editors usually considered it to be
+defective in some way and as the classical critics always fall back on
+an imperfect text for insoluble difficulties, so somehow Evelyn was
+considered as either not having understood what he intended to say, or
+else the printer failed to put in all the words that he wrote. It was
+the modern readers, however, not Evelyn nor his printer who were
+mistaken. Mr. Goodyear of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences
+has proved by a series of photographs and carefully made observations,
+that many of the old Gothic Cathedrals have incorporated into them by
+their builders, optical corrections which correspond to those made by
+the Greeks in their building in the classical period, which have been
+the subject of so much admiration to the moderns.
+</p>
+<p>
+The medieval architects and builders knew nothing of these classical
+architectural refinements. They learned for themselves by actual
+experience the necessity for making such optical <a name="132">{132}</a> corrections and
+then introduced them so carefully, that it is not until the last
+decade or so that their presence has been realized. It is only by an
+educational tradition of the greatest value that the use of such a
+refinement could become as general as Professor Goodyear has found it
+to be. Besides the practical work then, and the actual exercise of
+craftsmanship and of design which the apprentices obtained from the
+guild, there was evidently a body of very definite technical
+information conveyed to them, or at least to certain chosen spirits
+among them, which carried on precious traditions from place to place.
+This same state of affairs must of course have existed with regard to
+stained glass work, the making of bells and especially the finer work
+in the precious metals. Practical metallurgy must have been studied
+quite as faithfully as in any modern technical school, at least so far
+as its practical purposes and application were concerned. Here we have
+the secret of the technical schools revealed.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is extremely interesting to study the details of the very practical
+organization by which this great educational movement in the arts and
+crafts was brought about. It was due entirely to the trades' and
+merchants' guilds of the time. In the cathedral towns the trades'
+guilds preponderated in influence. There gathered around each of these
+cathedrals during the years when work was most active, numbers of
+workmen engaged at various occupations requiring mechanical skill and
+long practice at their trade. These workmen were all affiliated with
+one another and they were gradually organized into trades' unions that
+had a certain independent existence. There was the guild of the stone
+workers; the guild of the metal workers&mdash;in some places divided into a
+guild of iron workers and a guild of gold workers, or workers in
+precious metals; there was the guild of the wood workers and then of
+the various other forms of occupation connected with the supplying of
+finished or unfinished materials for the cathedral. In association
+with these were established guilds of tailors, bakers, butchers, all
+affiliated in a merchants' guild which maintained the rights of its
+members as well as the artisans' guilds. Some idea of the number and
+variety of these can be obtained from the list given in the chapter on
+the Origin of the Drama.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp133">{opp133}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp133b.jpg" border=1><br>
+RELIQUARY (LIMOGES MUSEO, FLORENCE)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp133a.jpg" border=1><br>
+CRUCIFIX (DUOMO, SIENA)
+</p>
+
+<a name="133">{133}</a>
+
+<p>
+These were the workmen who not only accomplished such brilliant
+results in art work, but also succeeded in training other workmen so
+admirably for every line of artistic endeavor.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is somewhat difficult to understand just how a village carpenter
+did wood-carving of so exquisite a design and such artistic finish of
+detail that it has remained a subject of admiration for centuries. It
+is quite as difficult to understand how one of the village blacksmiths
+of the time made a handsome gate, that has been the constant
+admiration of posterity ever since, or designed huge hinges for doors
+that artists delight to copy, or locks and latches and bolts that are
+transported to our museums to be looked at with interest, not only
+because they are antiques, but for the wonderful combination of the
+beautiful and the useful which they illustrate. We are assured,
+however, by the Rev. Augustus Jessopp, that he has seen in the
+archives of the old English parishes, some of the receipts for the
+bills of these village workmen as we would term them, for the making
+of these beautiful specimens of arts and crafts.
+</p>
+<p>
+The surprise grows greater when we realize that these beautiful
+objects were made not alone in one place or even in a few places, but
+in nearly every town of any size in England and France and Italy and
+Germany and Spain at various times during the Thirteenth Century, and
+that at any time a town of considerably less than ten thousand
+inhabitants seemed to be able to obtain among its own inhabitants, men
+who could make such works of art not as copies nor in servile
+imitation of others, but with original ideas of their own, and make
+them in such perfection that in many cases they have remained the
+models for future workmen for many centuries. Even the bells for the
+cathedrals seem to have been cast in practically all cases in the
+little town in which they were to be used. It may be added that these
+bells of the Thirteenth Century represent the highest advances in bell
+making that have ever been attained and that their form and
+composition have simply been imitated over and over again since that
+time. Even the finer precious metal work such as chalices and the
+various sacred vessels and objects used in the church services, were
+not obtained from a distance but were made at home.
+</p>
+<p>
+An article that appeared a few years ago in The Craftsman <a name="134">{134}</a>
+(Syracuse, N. Y.), a magazine published in the interests of the Arts
+and Crafts movement, called attention to how much more beautifully the
+Thirteenth Century workman in the precious metals accomplished his
+artistic purpose than does the corresponding workman of the present
+day. A definite comparison, was made between some typical chalices of
+the Thirteenth Century and some prize cups which were made without
+regard to cost, as rewards for yachting and other competitions in the
+Twentieth Century. The artist workman of the olden time knew how to
+combine the beautiful with the useful, to use decoration just enough
+not to offend good taste, to make the lines of his work eminently
+artistic and in general to turn out a fine work of art. The modern
+prize cup is usually made by one of the large firms engaged in such
+work who employ special designers for the purpose, such designs
+ordinarily passing through the trained hands of a series of critics
+before being accepted, and only after this are turned over to the
+modern skilled workmen to be executed in metal. All this ought to
+assure the more artistic results; that they do not according to the
+writer in The Craftsman, demonstrates how much such success is a
+matter of men and of individual taste rather than of method. We have
+already called attention to the fact that in needlework and in other
+arts connected with the provision of church ornaments and garments,
+the success of the Thirteenth Century workers was quite as great. The
+Cope of Ascoli considered by experts to be one of the most beautiful
+bits of needlework ever made is an example of this. Many other
+examples are to be found in the treasuries of churches and
+monasteries, in spite of the ravages of time and only too often of
+intolerant and unfortunate destruction by so-called reformers, who
+could see no beauty in even the most beautiful things if they ran
+counter to certain of their religious prejudices.
+</p>
+<p>
+The training necessary for the production of such beautiful objects of
+handicraftsmanship was obtained through the guilds themselves. The boy
+in the small town who thought that he had a liking for a certain trade
+or craft was received as an apprentice in it. If during the course of
+a year or more he demonstrated his aptness for his chosen craft, he
+was allowed to <a name="135">{135}</a> continue his labor of assisting the workmen in
+various ways, and indeed very early in the history of the guilds was
+bound over to some particular workman, who usually supplied him with
+board and clothing, though with no other remuneration during his years
+of apprenticeship. After four or five years, always, however, with the
+understanding that he had shown a definite talent for his chosen
+trade, he was accepted among the workmen of the lowest grade, the
+journeymen, who usually went traveling in order to perfect their
+knowledge of the various methods by which their craft maintained
+itself and the standard of its workmanship in the different parts of
+the country.
+</p>
+<p>
+During these three years of "journeying" a striking development was
+likely to take place in the mind of the ambitious young workman. His
+<i>wanderjahre</i> came just at the most susceptible period, sometime
+between 17 and 25, they continued for three years or more, and the
+young workman if at all ambitious was likely to see many men and
+methods and know much of the cities and towns of his country before he
+returned to his native place. Sometimes these craft-wanderings took
+him even into France, where he learned methods and secrets so
+different to those at home.
+</p>
+<p>
+After these years if he wished to settle down in his native town or in
+some other, having brought evidence of the accomplishment of his
+apprenticeship and then of his years as a journeyman, he became an
+applicant for full membership in the guild to which his years of
+training had been devoted. He was not admitted, however, until he had
+presented to the officials of the organization a piece of work showing
+his skill. This might be only a hinge, or a lock for a door, but on
+the other hand it might be a design for an important window or a
+delicate piece of wood or stone-carving. If it was considered worthy
+of the standard of workmanship of the guild it was declared to be a
+masterpiece. This is where the fine old English word masterpiece comes
+from. The workman was then admitted as a master workman and became a
+full member of the guild.
+</p>
+<p>
+This membership carried with it a number of other rights besides that
+of permission to work as a master-workman at full wages whenever the
+guild was employed. Guilds had certain privileges conferred on them by
+the towns in which they lived, <a name="136">{136}</a> by the nobles for whom they
+worked and the ecclesiastical authorities on whose various church
+structures they were employed. At the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century at least, feudal ideas prevailed to such an extent that no one
+was supposed to enjoy any rights or privileges except those which had
+been conferred on him by some authority. Besides the workmen of the
+same guild were bound together by ties, so that any injury inflicted
+on one of them was considered to be done to the whole body. When human
+rights were much less recognized than has come to be the case since,
+this constituted an important source of protection against many forms
+of injury and infringement of rights.
+</p>
+<p>
+Besides the privileges, however, the guild possessed certain other
+decided advantages which made membership desirable, even though it
+involved the fulfilment of certain duties. In the various towns in
+England, after the introduction during the Thirteenth Century of the
+practice of having mystery plays in the various towns, the guild
+claimed and obtained the privilege of giving these at various times
+during the year. The guild of the goldsmiths would give the
+performance of one portion of the Old Testament; the guild of the
+tailors another; the guild of the butchers and so on for each of the
+trades and crafts still another, so that during the year a whole cycle
+of the mysteries of the Christian religion in type and in reality were
+exhibited to the people of each region. Almost needless to say, on
+such festive occasions, for the plays were given on important feast
+days, the people from the countryside flocked in to see them and the
+influence was widespread. What was most important, however, was the
+influence on those who took part in the plays, of such intimate
+contact for a prolonged period with the simplicity of style, the
+sublimity of thought, the concentration of purpose and the
+effectiveness of expression of the Scriptures and the Scripture
+narratives even in their dramatized form.
+</p>
+<p>
+The fact of actually taking part in these performances meant ever so
+much more than merely viewing them as an outsider. It is doubtless to
+this intimate relationship with the great truths of Christianity that
+the profound devotion so characteristic of the accomplishments of the
+arts and crafts, during the Thirteenth Century, must be to no little
+extent attributed.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp136">{opp136}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp136.jpg" border=1><br>
+MADONNA, CIMABUE<br>
+(RUCELLAI CHAPEL, SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE)
+</p>
+
+<a name="137">{137}</a>
+
+<p>
+Their beautiful work could only have come from men of profoundest
+faith, but also it could not have come from those who were ignorant of
+the basis of what they accepted on faith. In other words, there was a
+mental training with regard to some of the sublimest truths of life
+and its significance, the creation of a Christian philosophy of life,
+that made the workman see clearly the great truths of religion and so
+be able to illustrate them by his handiwork. Education of a higher
+order than this has never been conceived of, and the very lack of
+tedious formality in it only made it all the more effectual in action.
+</p>
+<p>
+Other duties were involved in membership in the guild. All the members
+were bound to attend church services regularly and to perform what is
+known as their religious duties at periodic intervals, that is, the
+rule of the guild required them to go to mass on Sundays and holy
+days, to abstain from manual labor on such days unless there was
+absolute necessity for it, and to go to confession and communion
+several times a year. Besides they were bound to contribute to the
+support of such of their fellow-members as were sick and unable to
+work or as had been injured. A very interesting phase of this duty
+toward sick members existed at least in some parts of the country. A
+workman was supposed to pass one night at certain intervals on his
+turn, in helping to nurse a fellow-workman who was seriously hurt or
+who was very ill. It was considered that the family were quite worn
+out enough with the care of the sick man during the day, and so one of
+his brother guildsmen came to relieve them of this duty at night. It
+is a custom that is still maintained in certain country places but
+which of course has passed out of use entirely in our unsympathetic
+city life. In a word, there was a thorough education not only in the
+life work that made for wages and family support, but also in those
+precious social duties that make for happiness and contentment in
+life.
+</p>
+
+<a name="138">{138}</a>
+
+<h1>VIII
+<br>
+GREAT ORIGINS IN PAINTING.   <small>[Footnote 13]</small></h1>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 13: Most of this chapter is taken from the work on Italian
+  painting (La Peinture Italienne depuis les origines jusqu'a la fin
+  du xv Siecle, par Georges Lafenestre, Paris Ancienne Maison Quantin
+  Libraries-Imprimeries Reunies, May & Motteroz, Directeurs, rue
+  Saint-Benoit. Nouvelle Edition), which forms one of the series of
+  text books for instruction in art at L'Ecole Des Beaux-Arts&mdash;the
+  famous French Government Art School in Paris. It may be said that
+  this collection of art manuals is recognized as an authority on all
+  matters treated of, having been crowned by the Academie Des
+  Beaux-Arts with the prize Bordin. There is no better source of
+  information with regard to the development of the arts and none
+  which can be more readily consulted nor with more assurance as to
+  the facts and opinions exposed.]
+</p>
+<p>
+At the commencement of the Thirteenth Century the movement of
+emancipation in every phase of thought and life in Italy went on apace
+with an extraordinary ardor. After a very serious struggle the Italian
+republics were on the point of forcing the German Empire to recognize
+them. Everywhere in the first enthusiasm of their independence which
+had been achieved by valiant deeds and aspirations after liberty as
+lofty as any in modern times, the cities, though united in
+confederations they were acting as independent rivals, brought to all
+enterprises, lay or religious foundations, commercial or educational
+institutions, a wonderful youthful activity and enterprise. The papacy
+allied with them favored this movement in its political as well as its
+educational aspects and strengthened the art movement of the time.
+Christianity under their guidance, by the powerful religious
+exaltation which it inspired in the hearts of all men, became a potent
+factor in all forms of art. From Pope Innocent III to Boniface VIII
+probably no other series of Popes have been so misunderstood and so
+misrepresented by subsequent generations, as certainly the Popes of no
+other century did so much to awaken the enthusiasm of Christians for
+all modes of religious development, and be it said though credit for
+this is <a name="139">{139}</a> only too often refused them, also for educational,
+charitable and social betterment.
+</p>
+<p>
+The two great church institutions of the time that were destined to
+act upon the people more than any others were the Franciscan and
+Dominican orders&mdash;the preachers and the friars minor, who were within
+a short time after their formation to have such deep and widespread
+influence on all strata of society. Both of these orders from their
+very birth showed themselves not only ready but anxious to employ the
+arts as a means of religious education and for the encouragement of
+piety. Their position in this matter had an enormous influence on art
+and on the painters of the time. The Dominicans, as became their more
+ambitious intellectual training and their purpose as preachers of the
+word, demanded encyclopedic and learned compositions; the Franciscans
+asked for loving familiar scenes such as would touch the hearts of the
+common people. Both aided greatly in helping the artist to break away
+from the old fashioned formalism which was no longer sufficient to
+satisfy the new ardors of men's souls. In this way they prepared the
+Italian imagination for the double revolution which was to come.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was the great body of legends which grew up about St. Francis
+particularly, all of them bound up with supreme charity for one's
+neighbor, with love for all living creatures even the lowliest, with
+the tenderest feelings for every aspect of external nature, which
+appealed to the painters as a veritable light in the darkness of the
+times. It was especially in the churches founded by the disciples of
+"the poor little man of Assisi," that the world saw burst forth before
+the end of the century, the first grand flowers of that renewal of art
+which was to prove the beginning of modern art history. It is hard to
+understand what would have happened to the painters of the time
+without the spirit that was brought into the world by St. Francis'
+beautifully simple love for all and every phase of nature around him.
+This it was above all that encouraged the return to nature that soon
+supplanted Oriental formalism. It was but due compensation that the
+greatest works of the early modern painters should have been done in
+St. Francis' honor. Besides this the most important factor in art was
+the revival of the thirst for knowledge, which arose among the more
+intellectual portions of the <a name="140">{140}</a> communities and developed an
+enthusiasm for antiquity which was only a little later to become a
+veritable passion.
+</p>
+<p>
+The most important phase of Italian art during the Thirteenth Century
+is that which developed at Florence. It is with this that the world is
+most familiar. It began with Cimabue, who commenced painter, in the
+quaint old English phrase, not long before the middle of the century
+and whose great work occupies the second half of it. There are not
+wanting some interesting traditions of certain other Florentine
+painters before his time as Marchisello, of the early part of the
+century, Lapo who painted, in 1261, the facade of the Cathedral at
+Pistoia, and Fino di Tibaldi who painted a vast picture on the walls
+of the Municipal Palace about the middle of the century, but they are
+so much in the shadow of the later masters' work as to be scarcely
+known. Everywhere Nature began to reassert herself. The workers in
+Mosaic even, who were occupied in the famous baptistry at Florence
+about the middle of the century, though they followed the Byzantine
+rules of their art, introduced certain innovations which brought the
+composition and the subjects closer to nature. These are enough to
+show that there was a school of painting and decoration at Florence
+quite sufficient to account for Cimabue's development, without the
+necessity of appealing to the influence over him of wandering Greek
+artists as has sometimes been done.
+</p>
+<p>
+Though he was not the absolute inventor of all the new art modes as he
+is sometimes supposed to be, Cimabue was undoubtedly a great original
+genius. Like so many others who have been acclaimed as the very first
+in a particular line of thought or effort, his was only the
+culminating intelligence which grasped all that had been done before,
+assimilated it and made it his own. As a distinct exception to the
+usual history of such great initiators, this father of Italian
+painting was rich, born of a noble family, but of a character that was
+eager for work and with ambition to succeed in his chosen art as the
+mainspring of life. At his death, as the result of his influence,
+artists had acquired a much better social position than had been
+theirs before, and one that it was comparatively easy for his
+successors to maintain. His famous Madonna which was subsequently
+borne in triumph from his studio to the Church of <a name="141">{141}</a> Santa Maria
+Novella, placed the seal of popular approval on the new art, and the
+enthusiasm it evoked raised the artist for all time from the plane of
+a mere worker in colors to that of a member of a liberal profession.
+Even before this triumph his great picture had been deemed worthy of a
+visit by Charles of Anjou, the French King, who was on a visit to
+Florence and according to tradition ever afterwards the portion of the
+city in which it had been painted and through which it was carried in
+procession, bore by reason of these happy events the name Borgo
+Allegri&mdash;Ward of Joy.
+</p>
+<p>
+This picture is still in its place in the Rucellai chapel and is of
+course the subject of devoted attention on the part of visitors.
+Lafenestre says of it, that this monument of Florentine art quite
+justifies the enthusiasm of contemporaries if we compare it with the
+expressionless Madonnas that preceded it. There is an air of
+beneficent dignity on the features quite unlike the rigidity of
+preceding art, and there is besides an attractive suppleness about the
+attitude of the body which is far better proportioned than those of
+its predecessors. Above all there is a certain roseate freshness about
+the colors of the flesh which are pleasant substitutes for the pale
+and greenish tints of the Byzantines. It did not require more than
+this to exalt the imaginations of the people delivered from their
+old-time conventional painting. It was only a ray of the dawn after a
+dark night, but it announced a glorious sunrise of art and the
+confident anticipations of the wondrous day to come, aroused the
+depths of feeling in the peoples' hearts. Life and nature went back
+into art once more; no wonder their re-apparition was saluted with so
+much delight.
+</p>
+<p>
+Two other Madonnas painted by him, one at Florence in the Academy, the
+other in Paris in the Louvre, besides his great Mosaic in the apse of
+the Cathedral at Pisa, serve to show with what prudence Cimabue
+introduced naturalistic qualities into art, while always respecting
+the tradition of the older art and preserving the solemn graces and
+the majestic style of monumental painting. The old frescoes of the
+upper church at Assisi which represent episodes in the life of St.
+Francis have also been attributed to Cimabue, but evidently were done
+by a number of artists probably under his direction. It is easy to
+<a name="142">{142}</a> see from them what an important role the Florentine artist
+played in directing the gropings of his assistant artists.
+</p>
+<p>
+After Cimabue the most important name at Florentine in the Thirteenth
+Century is that of his friend, Gaddo Gaddi, whose years of life
+correspond almost exactly with those of his great contemporary. His
+famous Coronation of the Virgin at Santa Maria de Fiore in Florence
+shows that he was greatly influenced by the new ideas that had come
+into art. Greater than either of these well-known predecessors
+however, was Giotto the friend of Dante, whose work is still
+considered worthy of study by artists because of certain qualities in
+which it never has been surpassed nor quite outgrown. From Giotto,
+however, we shall turn aside for a moment to say something of the
+development of art in other cities of Italy, for it must not be
+thought that Florence was the only one to take up the new art methods
+which developed so marvelously during the Thirteenth Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+Even before the phenomenal rise of modern art in Florence, at Pisa, at
+Lucca and especially at Siena, the new wind of the spirit was felt
+blowing and some fine inspirations were realized in spite of hampering
+difficulties of all kinds. The Madonna of Guido in the Church of St.
+Dominic at Siena is the proof of his emancipation. Besides him
+Ugolino, Segna and Duccio make up the Siena school and enable this
+other Tuscan city to dispute even with Florence the priority of the
+new influence in art. At Lucca Bonaventure Berlinghieri flourished and
+there is a famous St. Francis by him only recently found, which proves
+his right to a place among the great founders of modern art. Giunta of
+Pisa was one of those called to Assisi to paint some of the frescoes
+in the upper church. He is noted as having striven to make his figures
+more exact and his colors more natural. He did much to help his
+generation away from the conventional expressions of the preceding
+time and he must for this reason be counted among the great original
+geniuses in the history of art.
+</p>
+<p>
+The greatest name in the art of the Thirteenth Century is of course
+that of Giotto. What Dante did for poetry and Villani for history,
+their compatriot and friend did for painting. Ambrogio de Bondone
+familiarly called Ambrogiotto (and with the abbreviating habit that
+the Italians have always had for the names of all those of whom they
+thought much shortened to <a name="143">{143}</a> Giotto, as indeed Dante's name had
+been shortened from Durante) was born just at the beginning of the
+last quarter of the Thirteenth Century. According to a well-known
+legend he was guarding the sheep of his father one day and passing his
+time sketching a lamb upon a smooth stone with a soft pebble when
+Cimabue happened to be passing. The painter struck by the signs of
+genius in the work took the boy with him to Florence, where he made
+rapid progress in art and soon surpassed even his master. The
+wonderful precocity of his genius may be best realized from the fact
+that at the age of twenty he was given the commission of finishing the
+decorations of the upper Church at Assisi, and in fulfilling it broke
+so completely with the Byzantine formalism of the preceding
+millennium, that he must be considered the liberator of art and its
+deliverer from the chains of conventionalism into the freedom of
+nature.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is no wonder that critics and literary men have been so unstinted
+in his praise. Here is an example:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "In the Decamerone it is said of him 'that he was so great a genius
+  that there was nothing in nature he had not so reproduced that it
+  was not only like the thing, but seemed to be the thing itself.'
+  Eulogies of this tenor on works of art are, it is quite true, common
+  to all periods alike, to the most accomplished of classical
+  antiquity as well as to the most primitive of the Middle Age; and
+  they must only be accepted relatively, according to the notion
+  entertained by each period of what constitutes truth and
+  naturalness. And from the point of view of his age, Giotto's advance
+  towards nature, considered relatively to his predecessors, was in
+  truth enormous. What he sought was not merely the external truth of
+  sense, but also the inward truth of the spirit. Instead of solemn
+  images of devotion, he painted pictures in which the spectator
+  beheld the likeness of human beings in the exercise of activity and
+  intelligence. His merit lies, as has been well said, in 'an entirely
+  new conception of character and facts.'"   [Footnote 14]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+    [Footnote 14: History of Ancient, Early Christian and Medieval
+    Painting from the German of the late Dr. Alfred Woltmann,
+    Professor at the Imperial University of Strasburg, and Karl
+    Woertmann, Professor at the Royal Academy of Arts, Dusselford.
+    Edited by Sidney Colvin, M. A., Dodd, Mead & Co., N. Y., 1894.]
+</p>
+
+<a name="144">{144}</a>
+<p>
+Lafenestre, in his history of Italian painting for the Beaux-Arts of
+Paris already referred to, says that what has survived of Giotto's
+work justifies the enthusiasm of his contemporaries. None of his
+predecessors accomplished anything like the revolution that he worked.
+He fixed the destinies of art in Italy at the moment when Dante fixed
+those of literature. The stiff, confused figures of the mosaics and
+manuscripts grew supple under his fingers and the confusion
+disappeared. He simplified the gestures, varied the expression,
+rectified the proportions. Perhaps the best example of his work is
+that of the upper Church of Assisi, all accomplished before he was
+thirty. What he had to represent were scenes of life almost
+contemporary yet already raised to the realm of poetry by popular
+admiration. He interpreted the beautiful legend of the life of the
+Saint preserved by St. Bonaventure, and like the subject of his
+sketches turned to nature at every step of his work. If his figures
+are compared with those of the artists of the preceding generations,
+their truth to life and natural expressions easily explain the
+surprise and the rapture of his contemporaries.
+</p>
+<p>
+Beautiful as are the pictures of the Upper Church, however, ten years
+after their completion Giotto's genius can be seen to have taken a
+still higher flight by the study of the pictures on the vast ceilings
+of the Lower Church. The four compartments contain the Triumph of
+Chastity, the Triumph of Poverty, the Triumph of Obedience, and the
+Glorification of St. Francis. The ideal and the real figures in these
+compositions are mingled and grouped with admirable clearness and
+inventive force. To be appreciated properly they must be seen and
+studied <i>in situ</i>. Many an artist has made the pilgrimage to Assisi
+and none has come away disappointed. Never before had an artist dared
+to introduce so many and such numerous figures, yet all were done with
+a variety and an ease of movement that is eminently pleasing and even
+now are thoroughly satisfying to the artistic mind. After his work at
+Assisi some of the best of Giotto's pictures are to be found in the
+Chapel of the Arena at Padua. Here there was a magnificent opportunity
+and Giotto took full advantage of it. The whole story of Christ's life
+is told in the fourteen episodes of the life of his Mother which were
+painted here by Giotto. For their sake Padua as well as <a name="145">{145}</a> Assisi
+has been a favorite place of pilgrimage for artists ever since and
+never more so than in our own time.
+</p>
+<a name="opp144">{opp144}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp144.jpg" border=1><br>
+ST. FRANCIS' MARRIAGE WITH POVERTY (GIOTTO, ASSISI)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No greater tribute to the century in which he lived could possibly be
+given than to say that his genius was recognized at once, and he was
+sought from one end of Italy to another by Popes and Kings, Republics
+and Princes, Convents and Municipalities, all of which competed for
+the privilege of having this genius work for them with ever increasing
+enthusiasm. It is easy to think and to say that it is no wonder that
+such a transcendent genius was recognized and appreciated and received
+his due reward. Such has not usually been the case in history,
+however. On the contrary, the more imposing the genius of an artist,
+or a scientist, or any other great innovator in things human, the more
+surely has he been the subject of neglect and even of misunderstanding
+and persecution. The very fact that Giotto lifted art out of the
+routine of formalism in which it was sunk might seem to be enough to
+assure failure of appreciation. Men do not suddenly turn round to like
+even great innovations, when they have long been satisfied with
+something less and when their principles of criticism have been formed
+by their experience with the old.
+</p>
+<p>
+We need not go farther back than our own supposedly illuminated
+Nineteenth Century to find some striking examples of this. Turner, the
+great English landscapist, failed of appreciation for long years and
+had to wait till the end of his life to obtain even a small meed of
+reward. The famous Barbizon School of French Painters is a still more
+striking example. They went back to nature from the classic formalism
+of the early Nineteenth Century painters just as Giotto went back to
+nature from Byzantine conventionalism. The immediate rewards in the
+two cases were very different and the attitude of contemporaries
+strikingly contrasted. Poor Millet did his magnificent work in spite
+of the fact that his family nearly starved. Only that Madame Millet
+was satisfied to take more than a fair share of hardships for herself
+and the family in order that her husband might have the opportunity to
+develop his genius after his own way, we might not have had the
+magnificent pictures which Millet sold for a few paltry francs that
+barely kept <a name="146">{146}</a> the wolf from the door, and for which the next
+generation has been paying almost fabulous sums.
+</p>
+<p>
+All through the Thirteenth Century this characteristic will be found
+that genius did not as a rule lack appreciation. The greater the
+revolution a genuinely progressive thinker and worker tried to
+accomplish in human progress, the more sure was he to obtain not only
+a ready audience, but an enthusiastic and encouraging following. This
+is the greatest compliment that could be paid to the enlightenment of
+the age. Men's minds were open and they were ready and willing to see
+things differently from what they had been accustomed to before. This
+constitutes after all the best possible guarantee of progress. It is,
+however, very probably the last thing that we would think of
+attributing to these generations of the Thirteenth Century, who are
+usually said very frankly to have been wrapped up in their own
+notions, to have been only too ready to accept things on authority
+rather than by their own powers of observation and judgment, and to
+have been clingers to the past rather than lookers to the present and
+the future. Giotto's life shows better than any other how much this
+prejudiced view of the Thirteenth Century and perforce of the Middle
+Age needs to be corrected.
+</p>
+<p>
+During forty years Giotto responded to every demand, and made himself
+suffice for every call, worked in nearly every important city of
+Italy, enkindling everywhere he went the new light of art. Before the
+end of the century he completed a cartoon for the famous picture of
+the Boat of Peter which was to adorn the Facade of St. Peter's. He was
+in Rome in 1300, the first jubilee year, arranging the decorations at
+St. John Lateran. The next year he was at Florence, working in the
+Palace of the Podesta. And so it went for full two score years. He was
+at Pisa, at Lucca, at Arezzo, at Padua, at Milan, then he went South
+to Urbino, to Rome and then even to Naples. Unfortunately the strain
+of all this work proved too much for him and he was carried away at
+the comparatively early age of sixty in the midst of his artistic
+vigor and glory.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp147">{opp147}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp147.jpg" border=1><br>
+ESPOUSAL OF ST. CATHERINE<br>
+(GADDI, XIII. CENTURY PUPIL, PERUGIA)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The art of the Middle Ages and especially at the time of the
+beginnings of modern art in the Thirteenth Century, is commonly
+supposed to be inextricably bound up with certain <a name="147">{147}</a> influences
+which place it beyond the pale of imitation for modern life. It has
+frequently been said, that this art besides being too deeply mystical
+and pietistic, is so remote from ordinary human feelings as to
+preclude a proper understanding of it by the men of our time and
+certainly prevent any deep sympathy. The pagan element in art which
+entered at the time of the Renaissance and which emphasized the joy of
+life itself and the pleasure of mere living for its own sake, is
+supposed to have modified this sadder aspect of things in the earlier
+art, so that now no one would care to go back to the pre-Renaissance
+day. There has been so much writing of this kind that has carried
+weight, that it is no wonder that the impression has been deeply made.
+It is founded almost entirely on a misunderstanding, however. Reinach
+whom we have quoted before completely overturns this false notion in
+some paragraphs which bring out better than any others that we know
+something of the true significance of the Thirteenth Century art in
+this particular.
+</p>
+<p>
+Those who think that Gothic art was mainly gloomy in character, or if
+not absolutely sad at heart that it always expressed the sadder
+portion of religious feelings, who consider that the ascetic side of
+life was always in the ascendant and the brighter side of things
+seldom chosen, for pictorial purposes, should recall that the Gothic
+Cathedrals themselves are the most cheery and lightsome buildings,
+that indeed they owe their character as creations of a new idea in
+architecture to the determined purpose of their builders to get
+admission for all possible light in the dreary Northern climates. The
+contradiction of the idea that Gothic art in its essence was gloomy
+will at once be manifest from this. Quite apart from this, however, if
+Gothic art be studied for itself and in its subjects, that of the
+Thirteenth Century particularly will be found far distant from,
+anything that would justify the criticism of over sadness. Reinach (in
+his Story of Art Throughout the Middle Ages) has stated this so
+clearly that we prefer simply to quote the passage which is at once
+authoritative and informing:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "It has also been said that Gothic art bears the impress of ardent
+  piety and emotional mysticism, that it dwells on the suffering of
+  Jesus, of the Virgin, and of the martyrs with harrowing persistency.
+  Those who believe this have never studied <a name="148">{148}</a> Gothic art. It is so
+  far from the truth that, as a fact, the Gothic art of the best
+  period, the Thirteenth Century, never represented any sufferings
+  save those of the damned. The Virgins are smiling and gracious,
+  never grief stricken. There is not a single Gothic rendering of the
+  Virgin weeping at the foot of the cross. The words and music of the
+  Stabat Mater, which are sometimes instanced as the highest
+  expression of the religion of the Middle Ages, date from the end of
+  the Thirteenth Century at the very earliest, and did not become
+  popular till the Fifteenth Century. Jesus himself is not represented
+  as suffering, but with a serene and majestic expression. The famous
+  statue known as the <a href="#front">Beau Dieu</a> d'Amiens may be instanced as typical."
+<p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i148.jpg" border=1><br>
+GROUP FROM VISITATION (RHEIMS)
+</p>
+
+<a name="149">{149}</a>
+
+<h1>IX
+<br>
+LIBRARIES AND BOOKMEN.</h1>
+
+<p>
+As the Thirteenth Century begins some 250 years before the art of
+printing was introduced, it would seem idle to talk of libraries and
+especially of circulating libraries during this period and quite as
+futile to talk of bookmen and book collectors. Any such false
+impression, however, is founded entirely upon a lack of knowledge of
+the true state of affairs during this wonderful period. A diocesan
+council held in Paris in the year 1212, with other words of advice to
+religious, recalled to them the duty that they had to lend such books
+as they might possess, with proper guarantee for their return, of
+course, to those who might make good use of them. The council, indeed,
+formally declared that the lending of books was one of the works of
+mercy. The Cathedral chapter of Notre Dame at Paris was one of the
+leaders in this matter and there are records of their having lent many
+books during the Thirteenth Century. At most of the abbeys around
+Paris there were considerable libraries and in them also the lending
+custom obtained. This is especially true of the Abbey of St. Victor of
+which the rule and records are extant.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course it will be realized that the number of books was not large,
+but on the other hand it must not be forgotten that many of them were
+works of art in every particular, and some of them that have come down
+to us continue to be even to the present day among the most precious
+bibliophilic treasures of great state and city libraries. Their value
+depends not alone on their antiquity but on their perfection as works
+of art. In general it may be said that the missals and office books,
+and the prayer books made for royal personages and the nobility at
+this time, are yet counted among the best examples of bookmaking the
+world has ever seen. It is not surprising that such should be the case
+since these books were mainly meant for use in the Cathedrals and the
+chapels, and these edifices were so beautiful in every detail that the
+generations that erected them <a name="150">{150}</a> could not think of making books
+for use in them, that would be unworthy of the artistic environment
+for which they were intended. With the candlesticks, the vessels, and
+implements used in the ceremonial surpassing works of art, with every
+form of decoration so nearly perfect as to be a source of unending
+admiration, with the vestments and altar linens specimens of the most
+exquisite handiwork of their kind that had ever been made, the books
+associated with them had to be excellent in execution, expressive of
+the most refined taste and finished with an attention utterly careless
+of the time and labor that might be required, since the sole object
+was to make everything as absolutely beautiful as possible. Hence
+there is no dearth of wonderful examples of the beautiful bookmaking
+of this century in all the great libraries of the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+The libraries themselves, moreover, are of surpassing interest because
+of their rules and management, for little as it might be expected this
+wonderful century anticipated in these matters most of our very modern
+library regulations. The bookmen of the time not only made beautiful
+books, but they made every provision to secure their free circulation
+and to make them available to as many people as was consonant with
+proper care of the books and the true purposes of libraries. This is a
+chapter of Thirteenth Century history more ignored perhaps than any
+other, but which deserves to be known and will appeal to our century
+more perhaps than to any intervening period.
+</p>
+<p>
+The constitutions of the Abbey St. Victor of Paris give us an
+excellent idea at once of the solicitude with which the books were
+guarded, yet also of the careful effort that was made to render them
+useful to as many persons as possible. One of the most important rules
+at St. Victor was that the librarian should know the contents of every
+volume in the library, in order to be able to direct those who might
+wish to consult the books in their selection, and while thus sparing
+the books unnecessary handling also save the readers precious time. We
+are apt to think that it is only in very modern times that this
+training of librarians to know their books so as to be of help to the
+readers was insisted on. Here, however, we find it in full force seven
+centuries ago. It would be much more difficult in the present day to
+know all the books confided to his care, but some of the <a name="151">{151}</a>
+librarians at St. Victor were noted for the perfection of their
+knowledge in this regard and were often consulted by those who were
+interested in various subjects.
+</p>
+<p>
+In his book on the Thirteenth Century   [Footnote 15 ] M. A. Lecoy de
+la Marche says that in France, at least, circulating libraries were
+quite common. As might be expected of the people of so practical a
+century, it was they who first established the rule that a book might
+be taken out provided its value were deposited by the borrower. Such
+lending libraries were to be found at the Sorbonne, at St. Germain des
+Prés, as well as at Notre Dame. There was also a famous library at
+this time at Corbie but practically every one of the large abbeys had
+a library from which books could be obtained. Certain of the castles
+of the nobility, as for instance that of La Ferte en Ponthieu, had
+libraries, with regard to which there is a record, that the librarian
+had the custom of lending certain volumes, provided the person was
+known to him and assumed responsibility for the book.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 15: Le Treizieme Siecle Litteraire et Scientifique, Lille,
+  1857.]
+</p>
+<p>
+Some of the regulations of the libraries of the century have an
+interest all their own from the exact care that was required with
+regard to the books. The Sorbonne for instance by rule inflicted a
+fine upon anyone who neglected to close large volumes after he had
+been making use of them. Many a librarian of the modern times would be
+glad to put into effect such a regulation as this. A severe fine was
+inflicted upon any library assistant who allowed a stranger to go into
+the library alone, and another for anyone who did not take care to
+close the doors. It seems not unlikely that these regulations, as M.
+Lecoy de la Marche says, were in vigor in many of the ecclesiastical
+and secular libraries of the time.
+</p>
+<p>
+Some of the regulations of St. Victor are quite as interesting and
+show the liberal spirit of the time as well as indicate how completely
+what is most modern in library management was anticipated. The
+librarian had the charge of all the books of the community, was
+required to have a detailed list of them and each year to have them in
+his possession at least three times. On him was placed the obligation
+to see that the books were not destroyed in any way, either by
+parasites of any kind or by <a name="152">{152}</a> dampness. The librarian was required
+to arrange the books in such a manner as to make the finding of them
+prompt and easy. No book was allowed to be borrowed unless some pledge
+for its safe return were left with the librarian. This was emphasized
+particularly for strangers who must give a pledge equal to the value
+of the book. In all cases, however, the name of the borrower had to be
+taken, also the title of the book borrowed, and the kind of pledge
+left. The larger and more precious books could not be borrowed without
+the special permission of the superior.
+</p>
+<p>
+The origin of the various libraries in Paris is very interesting as
+proof that the mode of accumulating books was nearly the same as that
+which enriches university and other such libraries at the present
+time. The library of La St. Chapelle was founded by Louis IX, and
+being continuously enriched by the deposit therein of the archives of
+the kingdom soon became of first importance. Many precious volumes
+that were given as presents to St. Louis found their way into this
+library and made it during his lifetime the most valuable collection
+of books in Paris. Louis, moreover, devoted much time and money to
+adding to the library. He made it a point whenever on his journeys he
+stopped, at abbeys or other ecclesiastical institutions, to find out
+what books were in their library that were not at La Saint Chapelle
+and had copies of these made. His intimate friendship with Robert of
+Sorbonne, with St. Thomas of Aquin, with Saint Bonaventure, and above
+all with Vincent of Beauvais, the famous encyclopedist of the century,
+widened his interest in books and must have made him an excellent
+judge of what he ought to procure to complete the library. It was, as
+we shall see, Louis' munificent patronage that enabled Vincent to
+accumulate that precious store of medieval knowledge, which was to
+prove a mine of information for so many subsequent generations.
+</p>
+<p>
+From the earliest times certain books, mainly on medicine, were
+collected at the Hotel Dieu, the great hospital of Paris, and this
+collection was added to from time to time by the bequests of
+physicians in attendance there. This was doubtless the first regular
+hospital library, though probably medical books had also been
+collected at Salernum. The principal colleges of the universities also
+made collections of books, some of them <a name="153">{153}</a> very valuable, though as
+a rule, it would seem as if no attempt was made to procure any other
+books than those which were absolutely needed for consultation by the
+students. The best working library at Paris was undoubtedly that of
+the Sorbonne, of which indeed its books were for a long time its only
+treasures. For at first the Sorbonne was nothing but a teaching
+institution which only required rooms for its lectures, and usually
+obtained these either from the university authorities or from the
+Canons of the Cathedral and possessed no property except its library.
+From the very beginning the professors bequeathed whatever books they
+had collected to its library and this became a custom. It is easy to
+understand that within a very short time the library became one of the
+very best in Europe. While most of the other libraries were devoted
+mainly to sacred literature, the Sorbonne came to possess a large
+number of works of profane literature. Interesting details with regard
+to this library of the Sorbonne and its precious treasures have been
+given by M. Leopold Delisle, in the second volume of Le Cabinet des
+Manuserits, describing the MSS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale at
+Paris. According to M. Lecoy de la Marche, this gives an excellent
+idea of the persevering efforts which must have been required, to
+bring together so many bibliographic treasures at a time when books
+were such a rarity, and consequently enables us better almost than
+anything else, to appreciate the enthusiasm of the scholars of these
+early times and their wonderful efforts to make the acquisition of
+knowledge easier, not only for their own but for succeeding
+generations. When we recall that the library of the Sorbonne was,
+during the Thirteenth Century, open not only to the professors and
+students of the Sorbonne itself, but also to those interested in books
+and in literature who might come from elsewhere, provided they were
+properly accredited, we can realize to the full the thorough
+liberality of spirit of these early scholars. Usually we are prone to
+consider that this liberality of spirit, even in educational matters,
+came much later into the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+In spite of the regulations demanding the greatest care, it is easy to
+understand that after a time even books written on vellum or parchment
+would become disfigured and worn under the ardent fingers of
+enthusiastic students, when comparatively so <a name="154">{154}</a> few copies were
+available for general use. In order to replace these worn-out copies
+every abbey had its own scriptorium or writing room, where especially
+the younger monks who were gifted with plain handwriting were required
+to devote certain hours every day to the copying of manuscripts.
+Manuscripts were borrowed from neighboring libraries and copied, or as
+in our modern day exchanges of duplicate copies were made, so as to
+avoid the risk that precious manuscripts might be subject to on the
+journeys from one abbey to another. How much the duty of transcription
+was valued may be appreciated from the fact, that in some abbeys every
+novice was expected to bring on the day of his profession as a
+religious, a volume of considerable size which had been carefully
+copied by his own hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+Besides these methods of increasing the number of books in the
+library, a special sum of money was set aside in most of the abbeys
+for the procuring of additional volumes for the library by purchase.
+Usually this took the form of an ecclesiastical regulation requiring
+that a certain percentage of the revenues should be spent on the
+libraries. Scholars closely associated with monasteries frequently
+bequeathed their books and besides left money or incomes to be
+especially devoted to the improvement of the library. It is easy to
+understand that with all these sources of enrichment many abbeys
+possessed noteworthy libraries. To quote only those of France,
+important collections of books were to be found at Cluny, Luxeuil,
+Fleury, Saint-Martial, Moissac, Mortemer, Savigny, Fourcarmont, Saint
+Père de Chartres, Saint Denis, Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Saint Corneille
+de Compiègne, Corbie, Saint-Amand, Saint-Martin de Tournai, where
+Vincent de Beauvais said that he found the greatest collections of
+manuscripts that existed in his time, and then especially the great
+Parisian abbeys already referred to, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Saint
+Victor, Saint-Martin-des-Champs, the precious treasures of which are
+well known to all those who are familiar with the Bibliothèque
+Nationale of Paris, of whose manuscript department their relics
+constitute the most valuable nucleus.
+</p>
+<p>
+Some of the bequests of books that were made to libraries at this time
+are interesting, because they show the spirit of the <a name="155">{155}</a> testators
+and at the same time furnish valuable hints as to the consideration in
+which books were held and the reverent care of their possessors for
+them. Peter of Nemours, the Bishop of Paris, when setting out on the
+crusades with Louis IX. bequeathed to the famous Abbey of St. Victor,
+his Bible in 22 volumes, which was considered one of the finest copies
+of the scriptures at that time in existence. To the Abbey of Olivet he
+gave his Psalter with Glosses, besides the Epistles of St. Paul and
+his Book of Sentences, by which is evidently intended the well-known
+work with that title by the famous Peter Lombard. Finally he gave to
+the Cathedral of Paris all the rest of his books. Besides these he had
+very little to leave. It is typical of the reputation of Paris in that
+century and the devotion of her churchmen to learning and culture,
+that practically all of the revenues that he considered due him for
+his personal services had been invested in books, which he then
+disposed of in such a way as would secure their doing the greatest
+possible good to the largest number of people. His Bible was evidently
+given to the abbey of St. Victor because it was the sort of work that
+should be kept for the occasional reference of the learned rather than
+the frequent consultation of students, who might very well find all
+that they desired in other and less valuable copies. His practical
+intention with regard to his books can be best judged from his gift to
+Notre Dame, which, as we have noted already possessed a very valuable
+library that was allowed to circulate among properly accredited
+scholars in Paris.
+</p>
+<p>
+According to the will of Peter Ameil, Archbishop of Narbonne, which is
+dated 1238, he gave his books for the use of the scholars whom he had
+supported at the University of Paris and they were to be deposited in
+the Library at Notre Dame, but on condition that they were not to be
+scattered for any reason nor any of them sold or abused. The effort of
+the booklover to keep his books together is characteristic of all the
+centuries since, only most people will be surprised to find it
+manifesting itself so early in bibliophilic history. The Archbishop
+reserved from his books, however, his Bible for his own church. Before
+his death he had given the Dominicans in his diocese many books from
+his library. This churchman of the first half of the <a name="156">{156}</a> Thirteenth
+Century seems evidently to deserve a prominent place among the bookmen
+of all times.
+</p>
+<p>
+There are records of many others who bequeathed libraries and gave
+books during their lifetime to various institutions, as may be found
+in the Literary History of France,   [Footnote 16] already mentioned,
+as well as in the various histories of the University of Paris. Many
+of these gifts were made on condition that they should not be sold and
+the constantly recurring condition made by these booklovers is that
+their collections should be kept together. The libraries of Paris were
+also in the market for books, however, and there is proof that the
+Sorbonne purchased a number of volumes because the cost price of them
+was noted inside the cover quite as libraries do in our own days. When
+we realize the forbidding cost of them, it is surprising that there
+should be so much to say about them and so many of them constantly
+changing hands. An ordinary folio volume probably cost from 400 to 500
+francs in our values, that is between $80 and $100.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 16: Histoire Litteraire de la France, by the Benedictines
+  of St. Maur.]
+</p>
+<p>
+While the older abbeys of the Benedictines and other earlier religious
+orders possessed magnificent collections of books, the newer orders of
+the Thirteenth Century, the Mendicants, though as their name indicates
+they were bound to live by alms given them by the faithful, within a
+short time after their foundation began to take a prominent part in
+the library movement. It was in the southern part of France that the
+Dominicans were strongest and so there is record of regulations for
+libraries made at Toulouse in the early part of the Thirteenth
+Century. In Paris, in 1239, considerable time and discussion was
+devoted in one of the chapters of the order to the question of how
+books should be kept, and how the library should be increased. With
+regard to the Franciscans, though their poverty was, if possible,
+stricter, the same thing is known before the end of the century. In
+both orders arrangements were made for the copying of important works
+and it is, of course, to the zeal and enthusiasm of the younger
+members of these orders for this copying work, that we owe the
+preservation by means of a large number of manuscript copies, of the
+<a name="157">{157}</a> voluminous writings of such men as Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas,
+Duns Scotus and others.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp156">{opp156}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp156.jpg" border=1><br>
+MONUMENT OF CARDINAL DE BRAY (ARNOLFO)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While the existence of libraries of various kinds, and even
+circulating libraries, in the Thirteenth Century may seem definitely
+settled, it will appear to most people that to speak of book
+collecting at this time must be out of place. That fad is usually
+presumed to be of much later origin and indeed to be comparatively
+recent in its manifestations. We have said enough already, however, of
+the various collections of books in libraries especially in France to
+show that the book collector was abroad, but there is much more direct
+evidence of this available from an English writer. Richard de Bury's
+Philobiblon is very well known to all who are interested in books for
+their own sake, but few people realize that this book practically had
+its origin in the Thirteenth Century. The writer was born about the
+beginning of the last quarter of that century, had completed his
+education before its close, and it is only reasonable to attribute to
+the formative influences at work in his intellectual development as a
+young man, the germs of thought from which were to come in later life
+the interesting book on bibliophily, the first of its kind, which was
+to be a treasure for book-lovers ever afterwards.
+</p>
+<p>
+Philobiblon tells us, among other things, of Richard's visits to the
+continent on an Embassy to the Holy See and on subsequent occasions to
+the Court of France, and the delight which he experienced in handling
+many books which he had never seen before, in buying such of them as
+his purse would allow, or his enthusiasm could tempt from their owners
+and in conversing with those who could tell him about books and their
+contents. Such men were the chosen comrades of his journeys, sat with
+him at table, as Mr. Henry Morley tells us in his English Writers
+(volume IV, page 51), and were in almost constant fellowship with him.
+It was at Paris particularly that Richard's heart was satisfied for a
+time because of the great treasures he found in the magnificent
+libraries of that city. He was interested, of course, in the
+University and the opportunity for intellectual employment afforded by
+Academic proceedings, but above all he found delight in books, which
+monks and monarchs and professors and churchmen of all kinds and
+scholars <a name="158">{158}</a> and students had gathered into this great intellectual
+capital of Europe at that time. Anyone who thinks the books were not
+valued quite as highly in the Thirteenth Century as at the present
+time should read the Philobiblon. He is apt to rise from the reading
+of it with the thought that it is the modern generations who do not
+properly appreciate books.
+</p>
+<p>
+One of the early chapters of Philobiblon argues that books ought
+always to be bought whatever they cost, provided there are means to
+pay for them, except in two cases, "when they are knavishly
+overcharged, or when a better time for buying is expected." "That sun
+of men, Solomon," Richard says, "bids us buy books readily and sell
+them unwillingly, for one of his proverbs runs, 'Buy the truth and
+sell it not, also wisdom and instruction and understanding.'" Richard
+in his own quaint way thought that most other interests in life were
+only temptations to-draw men away from books. In one famous paragraph
+he has naively personified books as complaining with regard to the
+lack of attention men now display for them and the unworthy objects,
+in Richard's eyes at least, upon which they fasten their affections
+instead, and which take them away from the only great life interest
+that is really worth while&mdash;books.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Yet," complain books, "in these evil times we are cast out of our
+place in the inner chamber, turned out of doors, and our place taken
+by dogs, birds, and the two-legged beast called woman. But that beast
+has always been our rival, and when she spies us in a corner, with no
+better protection than the web of a dead spider, she drags us out with
+a frown and violent speech, laughing us to scorn as useless, and soon
+counsels us to be changed into costly head-gear, fine linen, silk and
+scarlet double dyed, dresses and divers trimmings, linens and woolens.
+And so," complain the books still, "we are turned out of our homes,
+our coats are torn from our backs, our backs and sides ache, we lie
+about disabled, our natural whiteness turns to yellow&mdash;without doubt
+we have the jaundice. Some of us are gouty, witness our twisted
+extremities. Our bellies are griped and wrenched and are consumed by
+worms; on each side the dirt cleaves to us, nobody binds up our
+wounds, we lie ragged and weep in dark corners, or meet with Job upon
+a dunghill, or, as seems hardly fit to be said, we are hidden in
+abysses of the <a name="159">{159}</a> sewers. We are sold also like slaves, and lie as
+unredeemed pledges in taverns. We are thrust into cruel butteries, to
+be cut up like sheep and cattle; committed to Jews, Saracens, heretics
+and Pagans, whom we always dread as the plague, and by whom some of
+our forefathers are known to have been poisoned."
+</p>
+<p>
+Richard De Bury must not be thought to have been some mere wandering
+scholar of the beginning of the Fourteenth Century, however, for he
+was, perhaps, the most important historical personage, not even
+excepting royalty or nobility, of this era and one of the striking
+examples of how high a mere scholar might rise in this period quite
+apart from any achievement in arms, though this is usually supposed to
+be almost the only basis of distinguished reputation and the reason
+for advancement at this time. While he was only the son of a Norman
+knight, Aungervyle by name, born at Bury St. Edmund's, he became the
+steward of the palace and treasurer of the royal wardrobe, then Lord
+Treasurer of England and finally Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. While
+on a mission to the Pope he so commended himself to the Holy See that
+it was resolved to make him the next English bishop. Accordingly he
+was made Bishop of Durham shortly after and on the occasion of his
+installation there was a great banquet at which the young King and
+Queen, the Queen Mother Isabelle, the King of Scotland, two
+Archbishops, five bishops, and most of the great English lords were
+present. At this time the Scots and the English were actually engaged
+in war with one another and a special truce was declared, in order to
+allow them to join in the celebration of the consecration of so
+distinguished an individual to the See of Durham near the frontier.
+</p>
+<p>
+Before he was consecrated Bishop, Richard De Bury had been for some
+time the treasurer of the kingdom. Before the end of the year in which
+he was consecrated he became Lord Chancellor, at a time when the
+affairs of the kingdom needed a master hand and when the French and
+the Scots were seriously disturbing English peace and prosperity. He
+resigned his office of Chancellor, as Henry Morley states, only to go
+abroad in the royal service as ambassador that he might exercise his
+own trusted sagacity in carrying out the peaceful policy he had <a name="160">{160}</a>
+advised. During this diplomatic mission to the continent he visited
+the courts of Paris, of Flanders, of Hainault and of Germany. He
+succeeded in making terms of peace between the English king and the
+Counts of Hainault and Namur, the Marquis of Juliers and the Dukes of
+Brabant and Guelders. This would seem to indicate that he must be
+considered as one of the most prominent men of Europe at this time.
+</p>
+<p>
+His attitude toward books is then all the more noteworthy. Many people
+were surprised that a great statesman like Gladstone in the Nineteenth
+Century, should have been interested in so many phases of thought and
+of literature and should himself have been able to find the time to
+contribute important works to English letters. Richard De Bury was at
+least as important a man in his time as Gladstone in ours, and
+occupied himself as much with books as the great English commoner.
+This is what will be the greatest source of surprise to those who in
+our time have been accustomed to think, that the great scholars deeply
+interested in books who were yet men of practical worth in helping
+their generation in its great problems, are limited to modern times
+and are least of all likely to be found in the heart of the Middle
+Ages. In spite of his occupations as a politician and a bookman,
+Richard De Bury was noted for his faithfulness in the fulfilment of
+his duties as a churchman and a bishop. It is worthy of note that many
+of the important clergymen of England, who were to find the highest
+church preferment afterwards, were among the members of his household
+at various times and that the post of secretary to the bishop,
+particularly, was filled at various times by some of the best scholars
+of the period, men who were devoted friends to the bishop, who
+dedicated their works to him and generally added to the reputation
+that stamped him as the greatest scholar of England and one of the
+leading lights of European culture of his time.
+</p>
+<p>
+This is not so surprising when we realize that to be a member of
+Richard's household was to have access to the best library in England,
+and that many scholars were naturally ambitious to have such an
+opportunity, and as the results showed many took advantage of it.
+Among Richard of Durham's chaplains were Thomas Bradwardine who
+afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Fitzraufe,
+subsequently Archbishop of <a name="161">{161}</a> Armagh, Walter Seagrave, afterwards
+Bishop of Chichester, and Richard Bentworth, who afterwards became
+Bishop of London Among the distinguished scholars who occupied the
+post were Robert Holcot, John Manduit, the astronomer of the
+Fourteenth Century, Richard Kilmington, a distinguished English
+theologian, and Walter Burley, a great commentator on Aristotle, who
+dedicated to the bishop, who had provided him with so many
+opportunities for study, his Commentaries upon the Politics and Ethics
+of the ancient Greek philosopher.
+</p>
+<p>
+That Richard's love for books and the time he had necessarily devoted
+to politics did not dry up the fountains of charity in his heart, nor
+cause him to neglect his important duties as the pastor of the people
+and especially of the poor, we know very well from certain traditions
+with regard to his charitable donations. According to a standing rule
+in his household eight quarters of wheat were regularly every week
+made into bread and given to the poor. In his alms giving Richard was
+as careful and as discriminating as in his collection of books, and he
+used a number of the regularly organized channels in his diocese to
+make sure that his bounty should be really helpful and should not
+encourage lack of thrift. This is a feature of charitable work that is
+supposed to be modern, but the personal service of the charitably
+inclined in the Thirteenth Century, far surpassed in securing this
+even the elaborate organization of charity in modern times. Whenever
+the bishop traveled generous alms were distributed to the poor people
+along the way. Whenever he made the journey between Durham and New
+Castle eight pounds sterling were set aside for this purpose; five
+pounds for each journey between Durham and Stockton or Middleham, and
+five marks between Durham and Auckland. Money had at that time at
+least ten times the purchasing power which it has at present, so that
+it will be easy to appreciate the good bishop's eminent liberality.
+</p>
+<p>
+That Richard was justified in his admiration of the books of the time
+we know from those that remain, for it must not be thought for a
+moment that because the making of books was such a time-taking task in
+the Thirteenth Century, they were not therefore made beautiful. On the
+contrary, as we shall see <a name="162">{162}</a> shortly, no more beautiful books have
+ever been made than at this time. This of itself would show how
+precious in the eyes of the collectors of the time their books were,
+since they wanted to have them so beautifully made and were satisfied
+to pay the high prices that had to be demanded for such works of art.
+Very few books of any size cost less than the equivalent of $100 in
+our time and illuminated books cost much higher than this, yet seem
+never to have been a drug on the market. Indeed, considering the
+number of them that are still in existence to this day, in spite of
+the accidents of fire, and water, and war, and neglect, and
+carelessness, and ignorance, there must have been an immense number of
+very handsome books made by the generations of the Thirteenth Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+While illumination was not an invention of the Thirteenth Century, as
+indeed were very few of the great art features of the century, during
+this time book decoration was carried to great perfection and reached
+that development which artists of the next century were to improve on
+in certain extrinsic features, though the intrinsic qualities were to
+remain those which had been determined as the essential
+characteristics of this branch of art in the earlier time. The
+Thirteenth Century, for instance, saw the introduction of the
+miniature as a principal feature and also the drawing out of initials
+in such a way as to make an illuminated border for the whole side of
+the page. After the development thus given to the art in the
+Thirteenth Century further evolution could only come in certain less
+important details. In this the Thirteenth Century generations were
+accomplishing what they had done in practically everything else that
+they touched, laying foundations broad and deep and giving the
+superstructure the commanding form which future generations were only
+able to modify to slight degree and not always with absolute good
+grace.
+</p>
+<p>
+Humphreys in his magnificent volume on The Illuminated Books of the
+Middle Ages, which according to its title contains an account of the
+development and progress of the art of illumination as a distinct
+branch of pictorial ornamentation from the Fourth to the Seventeenth
+centuries,  [Footnote 17] has some very striking words of praise for
+Thirteenth Century illuminations and the artists who made them. He
+says:
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+    [Footnote 17: The Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, by Henry
+    Noel Humphreys Longman. Green, Brown and Longmans, London, 1848.]
+</p>
+<a name="163">{163}</a>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Different epochs of the art of illumination present widely
+  different and distinct styles; the most showy and the best known,
+  though the least pure and inventive in design, being that of the
+  middle and end of the Fifteenth Century; whilst the period perhaps
+  the least generally known, that of the Thirteenth Century, may be
+  considered as the most interesting and original, many of the best
+  works of that period displaying an astonishing variety and profusion
+  of invention. The manuscript, of which two pages form the opposite
+  plate, may be ranked among the most elaborate and profusely
+  ornamented of the fine books of that era; every page being
+  sufficient to make the fortune of the modern decorator by the quaint
+  and unexpected novelties of inventions which it displays at every
+  turn of its intricate design."
+</p>
+<p>
+The illuminations of the century then are worthy of the time and also
+typical of the general work of the century. It is known by experts for
+its originality and for the wealth of invention displayed in the
+designs. Men did not fear that they might exhaust their inventive
+faculty, nor display their originality sparingly, in order that they
+might have enough to complete other work. As the workmen of the
+Cathedrals, the artist illuminators devoted their very best efforts to
+each piece of work that came to their hands, and the results are
+masterpieces of art in this as in every other department of the
+period. The details are beautifully wrought, showing the power of the
+artist to accomplish such a work and yet his designs are never
+overloaded, at least in the best examples of the century, with details
+of ornamentation that obscure and minimize the effect of the original
+design. This fault was to be the error of his most sophisticated
+successors two centuries later.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nor must it be thought the high opinion of the century is derived from
+the fact that only a very few examples of its illumination and
+bookmaking are now extant, and that these being the chosen specimens
+give the illumination of the century a higher place than it might
+otherwise have. Many examples <a name="164">{164}</a> have been preserved and some of
+them are the most beautiful books that were made. Paris was
+particularly the home of this form of art in the Thirteenth Century,
+and indeed the school established there influenced all the modes of
+illumination everywhere, so much so that Dante speaks of the art with
+the epithet "Parisian," as if it were exclusively done there. The
+incentive to the development of this form of art came from St. Louis
+who, as we have said, was very much interested in books. His taste as
+exhibited in La Sainte Chapelle was such as to demand artistic
+excellence of high grade in this department of art, which has many
+more relations with the architecture of the period, and especially
+with the stained glass, than might possibly be thought at the present
+time, for most of the decoration of books partook of the character of
+the architectural types of the moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+Among the most precious treasures from the century are three books
+which belonged to St. Louis himself. One of these is the Hours or
+Office Book; a second, is his Psalter, which contains some extremely
+beautiful initials; a third, which is in the Library of the Arsenal at
+Paris, is sometimes known as the Prayer Book of St. Louis himself,
+though a better name for it would be the Prayer Book of Queen Blanche,
+for it was made at Louis' orders for his mother, the famous Blanche of
+Castile, and is a worthy testimonial of the affectionate relations
+which existed between mother and son.
+</p>
+<p>
+Outside of Paris there are preserved many books of great value that
+come from this century. One of them, a Bestiarum or Book of Beasts, is
+in the Ashmoleam Museum at Oxford. This is said to be a very beautiful
+example of the illumination of the Thirteenth Century, but it is even
+more interesting because it shows the efforts of the artists of the
+time to copy nature in the pictures of animals as they are presented.
+There is said to be an acuity of observation and a vigor of
+representation displayed in the book which is highly complimentary to
+the powers of the Thirteenth Century artists.
+</p>
+<p>
+Even these brief notes of the books and libraries of the Thirteenth
+Century, will serve to make clear how enthusiastic was the interest of
+the generations of this time in beautiful books and in collections of
+them that were meant for show as <a name="165">{165}</a> well as for practical
+usefulness. There is perhaps nothing more amusing in the attitude of
+modern generations with regard to the Middle Ages, than the assumption
+that all the methods of education and of the distribution of knowledge
+worth while talking about, are the inventions of comparatively modern
+times. The fact that libraries were also a creation of that time and
+that most of the regulations which are supposed to be the first fruit
+of quite recent science in the circulation of books had been adopted
+by these earlier generations, is commonly ignored utterly, though it
+is a precious bit of knowledge that cannot help but increase our
+sympathy with those bookmen of the olden times, who thought so much of
+their books, yet wished to share the privilege of their use with all
+those who would employ them properly, and who, in their great
+practical way succeeded in working out the scheme by which many people
+could have the opportunity of consulting the treasures they thought so
+much of, without risk of their loss or destruction, even though use
+might bring some deterioration of their value.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i165.jpg" border=1><br>
+DECORATION (XIII. CENT. PSALTER MSS.)
+</p>
+
+
+<a name="166">{166}</a>
+
+<h1>X
+<br>
+THE CID, THE HOLY GRAIL, THE NIBELUNGEN.</h1>
+
+<p>
+Anyone who has studied even perfunctorily the Books of the Arts and of
+the Deeds of the Thirteenth Century, who has realized its
+accomplishments in enduring artistic creations, sublime and exemplary
+models and inspirations for all after time, who has appreciated what
+it succeeded in doing for the education of the classes and of the
+masses, the higher education being provided for at least as large a
+proportion of the people as in our present century, while the creation
+of what were practically great technical schools that culled out of
+the masses the latent geniuses who could accomplish supreme artistic
+results in the arts and crafts and did more and better for the masses
+than any subsequent generation, can scarcely help but turn with
+interest to read the Book of the Words of the period and to find out
+what forms of literature interested this surprising people. One is
+almost sure to think at the first moment of consideration that the
+literature will not be found worthy of the other achievements of the
+times. In most men's minds the Thirteenth Century does not readily
+call up the idea of a series of great works in literature, whose
+influence has been at all as profound and enduring as that of the
+universities in the educational order, or of the Cathedrals in the
+artistic order.
+</p>
+<p>
+This false impression, however, is due only to the fact that the
+literary creations of the Thirteenth Century are so diverse in subject
+and in origin, that they are very seldom associated with each other,
+unless there has been actual recognition of their contemporaneousness
+from deliberate calling to mind of the dates at which certain basic
+works in our modern literatures were composed. It is not the least
+surprise that comes to the student of the Thirteenth Century, to find
+that the great origins of what well deserves the name of classic
+modern literature, comprising a series of immortal works in prose and
+poetry, were initiated by the contemporaries of the makers of the
+<a name="167">{167}</a> universities and the builders of the Cathedrals. If we stop to
+think for a moment it must be realized, that generations who succeeded
+in expressing themselves so effectively in other departments of
+esthetics could scarcely be expected to fail in literature alone, and
+they did not. From the Cid in Spain, through the Arthur Legends in
+England, the Nibelungen in Germany, the Minnesingers and the
+Meistersingers in the southern part of what is now the German Empire,
+the Trouvères in North France, the Troubadours in South France and in
+Italy, down to Dante, who was 35 before the century closed, there has
+never been such a mass of undying literature written within a little
+more than a single hundred years, as came during the period from
+shortly before 1200 down to 1300. Great as was the Fifth Century
+before Christ in this matter it did not surpass the Thirteenth Century
+after Christ in its influence on subsequent generations.
+</p>
+<p>
+We have already pointed out in discussing the Cathedrals that one of
+the most characteristic features of the Gothic architecture was the
+marvelous ease with which it lent itself to the expression of national
+peculiarities. Norman Gothic is something quite distinct from German
+Gothic which arose in almost contiguous provinces, but so it is also
+from English Gothic; these two were very closely related in origin and
+undoubtedly the English Cathedrals owe much to the Norman influence so
+prevalent in England at the end of the Twelfth Century, and the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century. Italian Gothic has the principal
+characteristic peculiarities of the architectural style which passes
+under the name developed to a remarkable degree, and yet its finished
+product is far distant from any of the three other national forms that
+have been mentioned, yet is not lacking in a similar interest. Spanish
+Gothic has an identity of its own that has always had a special appeal
+for the traveler. Any one who has ever visited the shores of the
+Baltic sea and has seen what was accomplished in such places as
+Stralsund, Greifswald, Lübeck, and others of the old Hansa towns, will
+appreciate still more the power of Gothic to lend itself to the
+feelings of the people and to the materials that they had at hand.
+Here in the distant North they were far away from any sources of the
+stone that would ordinarily be deemed absolutely <a name="168">{168}</a> necessary for
+Gothic construction. How effectively they used brick for
+ecclesiastical edifices can only be realized by those who have seen
+the remains of the Gothic monuments of this portion of Europe.
+</p>
+<p>
+The distinguishing mark of all these different styles is the eminent
+opportunity for the expression of nationality which, they afford. It
+might be expected that since they were all Gothic, most of them would
+be little better than servile copies, or at best scarce more than good
+imitations of the great originals of the North of France. As a matter
+of fact, the assertion of national characteristics, far from
+destroying the effectiveness of Gothic, rather added new beauties to
+this style of architecture. This was true even occasionally when
+mistakes were made by architects and designers. As Ferguson has said
+in his History of Architecture, St. Stephen's at Vienna is full of
+architectural errors and yet the attractiveness of the Cathedral
+remains. It was a poet who designed it and something of his poetic
+soul gleams out of the material structure after the lapse of
+centuries.
+</p>
+<p>
+In nearly this same way the literatures of the different countries
+during the Thirteenth Century are eminently national and mirror with
+quite wonderful appropriateness the characteristics of the various
+people. This is true even when similar subjects, as for instance the
+Graal stories, are treated from nearly the same standpoint by the two
+Teutonic nations, the Germans and the English. Parsifal and Galahad
+are national as well as poetic heroes with a distinction of character
+all their own. As we shall see, practically every nation finds in this
+century some fundamental expression of its national feeling that has
+been among its most cherished classics ever since.
+</p>
+<a name="opp168">{opp168}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp168.jpg" border=1><br>
+SANTA MARIA SOPRA MINERVA (ROME'S GOTHIC CATHEDRAL)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first of these in time is the Cid, which was written in Spain
+during the latter half of the Twelfth Century, but probably took its
+definite form just about the beginning of the Thirteenth. It might
+well be considered that this old-fashioned Spanish ballad would have
+very little of interest for modern readers, and yet there are very few
+scholars of the past century who have not been interested in this
+literary treasure. Critics of all nations have been unstinted in their
+praise of it. Since the Schlegels recalled world attention to Spanish
+<a name="169">{169}</a> literature, it has been considered almost as unpardonable for
+anyone who pretended to literary culture not to have read the Cid, as
+it would be not to have read Don Quixote.
+</p>
+<p>
+As is true of all the national epics founded upon a series of ballads
+which had been collecting in the mouth of the people for several
+centuries before a great poetic genius came to give them their supreme
+expression, there has been some doubt expressed as to the single
+authorship of Cid. We shall find the same problem to be considered
+when we come to discuss the Nibelungen Lied. A half a century ago or
+more the fashion of the critics for insisting on the divided
+authorship of such poems was much more prevalent than it is at
+present. At that time a great many scholars, following the initiative
+of Wolf and the German separatist critics, declared even that the
+Homeric poems were due to more than one mind. There are still some who
+cling to this idea with regard to many of these primal national epics,
+but at the present time most literary men are quite content to accept
+the idea of a single authorship. With regard to the Cid in this matter
+Mr. Fitzmaurice Kelly, in his Short History of Spanish Literature in
+the Literatures of the World Series, says very simply:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "There is a unity of conception and of language which forbids our
+  accepting the Poema (del Cid) as the work of several hands; and the
+  division of the poem into several cantares is managed with a
+  discretion which argues a single artistic intelligence. The first
+  part closes with the marriage of the hero's daughters; the second
+  with the shame of the Infantes de Carrion, and the proud
+  announcement that the Kings of Spain are sprung from the Cid's
+  loins. In both the singer rises to the level of his subject, but his
+  chiefest gust is in the recital of some brilliant deed of arms."
+</p>
+<p>
+The Spanish ballad epic is a characteristic example of the epics
+formed by the earliest poetic genius of a country, on the basis of the
+patriotic stories of national origin that had been accumulating for
+centuries. Of course the Cid had to be the Christian hero who did most
+in his time against the Moslem in Spain. So interesting has his story
+been made, and so glorious have been his deeds as recorded by the
+poets, that there has been even some doubt of his existence expressed,
+but that he <a name="170">{170}</a> was a genuine historical character seems to be
+clear. Many people will recall the Canons' argument in the forty-ninth
+chapter of Don Quixote in which Cervantes, evidently speaking for
+himself, says: "That there was a Cid no one will deny and likewise a
+Bernardo Del Carpio, but that they performed all the exploits ascribed
+to them, I believe there is good reason to doubt." The Cid derives his
+name from the Arabic Seid which means Lord and owes his usual epithet.
+El Campeador (champion), to the fact that he was the actual champion
+of the Christians against the Moors at the end of the Eleventh
+Century. How gloriously his warlike exploits have been described may
+be best appreciated from the following description of his charge at
+Alcocer:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "With bucklers braced before their breasts, with lances pointing low.<br>
+  With stooping crests and heads bent down above the saddle-bow.<br>
+  All firm of hand and high of heart they roll upon the foe.<br>
+  And he that in good hour was born, his clarion voice rings out,<br>
+  And clear above the clang of arms is heard his battle-shout,<br>
+  'Among them, gentlemen! Strike home for the love of charity!<br>
+  The Champion of Bivar is here&mdash;Ruy Diaz&mdash;I am he!'<br>
+  Then bearing where Bermuez still maintains unequal fight.<br>
+  Three hundred lances down they come, their pennons flickering white;<br>
+  Down go three hundred Moors to earth, a man to every blow;<br>
+  And, when they wheel, three hundred more, as charging back they go.<br>
+  It was a sight to see the lances rise and fall that day;<br>
+  The shivered shields and riven mail, to see how thick they lay;<br>
+  The pennons that went in snow-white come out a gory red;<br>
+  The horses running riderless, the riders lying dead;<br>
+  While Moors call on Muhamed, and 'St. James!' the Christians cry."<br>
+</p>
+<p>
+While the martial interest of such early poems would be generally
+conceded, it would usually be considered that they would be little
+likely to have significant domestic, and even <a name="171">{171}</a> what might be
+called romantic, interests. The Cid's marriage is the result of not
+what would exactly be called a romance nowadays, though in ruder times
+there may have been a certain sense of sentimental reparation in it at
+least. He had killed in fair fight the father of a young woman, who
+being thus left without a protector appealed to the king to appoint
+one for her. In the troublous Middle Ages an heiress was as likely to
+be snapped up by some unsuitable suitor, more literally but with quite
+as much haste, as in a more cultured epoch. The king knew no one whom
+he could trust so well with the guardianship of the rich and fair
+young orphan than the Cid, of whose bravery and honor he had had many
+proofs. Accordingly he suggested him as a protector and the Cid
+himself generously realizing how much the fair Jimena had lost by the
+death of her father consented, and in a famous passage of the poem, a
+little shocking to modern ideas, it must be confessed, frankly states
+his feelings in the matter:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "And now before the altar the bride and bridegroom stand,<br>
+  And when to fair Jimena the Cid stretched forth his hand,<br>
+  He spake in great confusion: 'Thy father have I slain<br>
+  Not treacherously, but face to face, my just revenge to gain<br>
+  For cruel wrong; a man I slew, a man I give to thee;<br>
+  In place of thy dead father, a husband find in me.'<br>
+  And all who heard well liked the man, approving what he said;<br>
+  Thus Rodrigo the Castilian his stately bride did wed."
+</p>
+<p>
+There are tender domestic scenes between the Cid and his wife and his
+daughters, which serve to show how sincere was his affection and with
+what sympathetic humanity a great poet knew how to depict the tender
+natural relations which have an interest for all times. Some of these
+domestic scenes are not unworthy to be placed beside Homer's picture
+of the parting of Hector and Andromache, though there is more naive
+self-consciousness in the work of the Spanish bard, than in that of
+his more artistic colleague of the Grecian olden times. There is
+particularly a famous picture of the duties of noble ladies in Spain
+of this time and of the tender solicitude of a father for his
+daughters' innocence, that is quite beyond expectation at <a name="172">{172}</a> the
+hands of a poet whose forte was evidently war and its alarms, rather
+than the expression of the ethical qualities of home life. The
+following passage, descriptive of the Cid's parting from his wife,
+will give some idea of these qualities better than could be conveyed
+in any other way:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Thou knowest well, señora, he said before he went,<br>
+  To parting from each other our love doth not consent;<br>
+  But love and joyance never may stand in duty's way,<br>
+  And when the king commandeth the noble must obey.<br>
+  Now let discretion guide thee, thou art of worthy name;<br>
+  While I am parted from thee, let none in thee find blame.<br>
+  Employ thy hours full wisely, and tend thy household well,<br>
+  Be never slothful, woe and death with idleness do dwell.<br>
+  Lay by thy costly dresses until I come again.<br>
+  For in the husband's absence let wives in dress be plain;<br>
+  And look well to thy daughters, nor let them be aware.<br>
+  <i>Lest they comprehend the danger because they see thy care,<br>
+  And lose unconscious innocence. At home they must abide,<br>
+  For the safety of the daughter is at the mother's side</i>.<br>
+  Be serious with thy servants, with strangers on thy guard,<br>
+  With friends be kind and friendly, and well thy household ward,<br>
+  To no one show my letters, thy best friends may not see.<br>
+  Lest reading them they also may guess of thine to me.<br>
+  And if good news they bring thee, and woman-like dost seek<br>
+  The sympathy of others, with thy daughters only speak.<br>
+<br>
+* * *<br>
+<br>
+  Farewell, farewell, Jimena, the trumpet's call I hear!<br>
+  One last embrace, and then he mounts the steed without a peer."
+</p>
+<p>
+The touch of paternal solicitude and prudence in the passage we have
+put in italics is so apparently modern, that it can scarcely fail to
+be a source of surprise, coming as it does from that crude period at
+the end of the Twelfth Century when such minute psychological
+observation as to young folks' ways would be little expected, and
+least of all in the rough warrior <a name="173">{173}</a> hero or his poet creator,
+whose notions of right and wrong are, to judge from many passages of
+the poem, so much coarser than those of our time.
+</p>
+<p>
+After the Cid in point of time, the next enduring poetic work that was
+destined to have an influence on all succeeding generations, was the
+series of the Arthur Legends as completed in England. As in the case
+of the Cid these stories of King Arthur's Court, his Knights and his
+Round Table, had been for a long time the favorite subject of ballad
+poets among the English people. Just where they originated is not very
+clear, though it seems most likely that the original inspiration came
+from Celtic sources. These old ballads, however, had very little of
+literary form and it was not until the end of the Twelfth and the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century that they were cast in their
+present mold, after having passed through the alembic of the mind of a
+great poetic and literary genius, which refined away the dross and
+left only the pure gold of supremely sympathetic human stories. To
+whom we owe this transformation is not known with absolute certainty,
+though the literary and historical criticism of the last quarter of a
+century seems to have made it clear that the work must be attributed
+to Walter Map or Mapes, an English clergyman who died during the first
+decade of the Thirteenth Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+His claims to the authorship of the Graal legend in its artistic
+completeness and to the invention of the character of Lancelot, which
+is one of the great triumphs of the Arthur legends as they were told
+at this time, have been much discussed by French and English critics.
+This discussion has perhaps been best summarized by Mr. Henry Morley,
+the late Professor of Literature at the University of London, whose
+third volume of English writers contains an immense amount of valuable
+information with regard to the literary history, not alone of England
+at this time but practically of all the countries of Europe. Mr.
+Morley's plan was conceived with a breath of view that makes his work
+a very interesting and authoritative guide in the literary matters of
+the time. His summation of the position of critical opinion with
+regard to the authorship of the Arthur Legends deserves to be quoted
+in its entirety:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The Arthurian Romances were, according to this opinion. <a name="174">{174}</a> all
+  perfectly detached tales, till in the Twelfth Century Robert de
+  Borron (let us add, at Map's suggestion) translated the first
+  Romance of the St. Graal as an introduction to the series, and
+  shortly afterwards Walter Map added his Quest of the Graal,
+  Lancelot, and Mort Artus. The way for such work had been prepared by
+  Geoffrey of Monmouth's bold setting forward of King Arthur as a
+  personage of history, in a book that was much sought and discussed,
+  and that made the Arthurian Romances a fresh subject of interest to
+  educated men.
+<br><br>
+  "But M. Paulin Paris, whose opinions, founded upon a wide
+  acquaintance with the contents of old MSS. I am now sketching, and
+  in part adopting, looked upon Walter Map as the soul of this work of
+  Christian spiritualisation. Was the romance of the St. Graal Latin,
+  before it was French? He does not doubt that it was. He sees in it
+  the mysticism of the subtlest theologian. It was not a knight or a
+  jongleur who was so well read in the apocryphal gospels, the legends
+  of the first Christian centuries, rabbinical fancies, and old Greek
+  mythology; and there is all this in the St. Graal. There is a
+  theory, too, of the sacrifice of the mass, an explanation of the
+  Saviour's presence in the Eucharist, that is the work, he says, of
+  the loftiest and the most brilliant imagination. These were not
+  matters that a knight of the Twelfth Century would dare to touch.
+  They came from an ecclesiastic and a man of genius. But if so, why
+  should we refuse credit to the assertion, repeated in every MS. that
+  they were first written in Latin? The earliest MSS. are of a date
+  not long subsequent to the death of Walter Map, Latinist,
+  theologian, wit, and Chaplain to King Henry II., who himself took
+  the liveliest interest in Breton legends. King Henry, M. Paris
+  supposes, wished them to be collected, but how? Some would prefer
+  one method, some another; Map reconciled all. He satisfied the
+  clergy, pleased the scholar, filled the chasms in the popular tales,
+  reconciled contradictions, or rejected inconsistencies, and by him
+  also the introductory tale of the Graal was first written in Latin
+  for Robert de Borron to translate into French."
+</p>
+<p>
+The best literary appreciation of Map's genius, apart, of course, from
+the fact that all generations ever since have acknowledged the supreme
+human interest and eminently <a name="175">{175}</a> sympathetic quality of his work, is
+perhaps to be found in certain remarks of the modern critics who have
+made special studies in these earlier literary periods. Prof. George
+Saintsbury, of the University of Edinburgh, for instance, in the
+second volume of Periods of English Literature,   [Footnote 18] has
+been quite unstinted in his praise of this early English writer. He
+has not hesitated even to say in a striking passage that Map, or at
+least the original author of the Launcelot story, was one of the
+greatest of literary men and deserves a place only next to Dante in
+this century so preciously full of artistic initiative.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 18: The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory, by
+  George Saintsbury, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in
+  the University of Edinburgh (New York, Charles Scribner & Sons,
+  1897).]
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Whether it was Walter Map, or Chrestien de Troyes, or both, or
+  neither to whom the glory of at once completing and exalting the
+  story is due, I at least have no pretension to decide. Whoever did
+  it, if he did it by himself, was a great man indeed&mdash;a man second to
+  Dante among the men of the Middle Age. Even if it was done by an
+  irregular company of men, each patching and piecing the other's
+  efforts, the result shows a marvelous 'wind of the spirit' abroad
+  and blowing on that company."
+</p>
+<p>
+Prof. Saintsbury then proceeds to show how much even readers of
+Mallory miss of the greatness and especially of the sympathetic
+humanity of the original poem, and in a further passage states his
+firm conviction that the man who created Lancelot was one of the
+greatest literary inventors and sympathetic geniuses of all times, and
+that his work is destined, because the wellsprings of its action are
+so deep down in the human heart, to be of interest to generations of
+men for as long as our present form of civilization lasts.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Perhaps the great artistic stroke in the whole legend, and one of
+  the greatest in all literature, is the concoction of a hero who
+  should be not only
+</p>
+<p class="cite2">
+      'Like Paris handsome, and like Hector brave,'
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  but more heroic than Paris and more interesting than Hector&mdash;not
+  only a 'greatest knight,' but at once the sinful lover of his queen
+  and the champion who should himself all but achieve and in the
+  person of his son actually achieve, the sacred <a name="176">{176}</a> adventure of
+  the Holy Graal. If, as there seems no valid reason to disbelieve,
+  the hitting upon this idea, and the invention or adoption of
+  Lancelot to carry it out, be the work of Walter Mapes (or Map), then
+  Walter Mapes is one of the great novelists of the world, and one of
+  the greatest of them. If it was some unknown person (it could hardly
+  be Chrestien, for in Chrestien's form the Graal interest belongs to
+  Percevale, not to Lancelot or Galahad), then the same compliment
+  must be paid to that person unknown. Meanwhile the conception and
+  execution of Lancelot, to whomsoever they may be due, are things
+  most happy. Entirely free from the faultlessness which is the curse
+  of the classical hero; his unequaled valor not seldom rewarded only
+  by reverses; his merits redeemed from mawkishness by his one great
+  fault, yet including all virtues that are themselves most amiable,
+  and deformed by no vice that is actually loathsome; the soul of
+  goodness in him always warring with his human frailty&mdash;Sir Lancelot
+  fully deserves the noble funeral eulogy pronounced over his grave,
+  felt by all the elect to be, in both senses, one of the first of all
+  extant pieces of perfect English prose."
+</p>
+<p>
+To appreciate fully how much Walter Map accomplished by his series of
+stories with regard to King Arthur's Court, it should be remembered
+that poets and painters have in many generations ever since found
+subjects for their inspiration within the bounds of the work which he
+created. After all, the main interest of succeeding poets who have put
+the legends into later forms, has centered more in the depth of
+humanity that there is in the stories, than in the poetic details for
+which they themselves have been responsible. In succeeding generations
+poets have often felt that these stories were so beautiful that they
+deserved to be retold in terms readily comprehensible to their own
+generation. Hence Malory wrote his Morte D'Arthur for the Fifteenth
+Century, Spenser used certain portions of the old myths for the
+Sixteenth, and the late Poet-laureate set himself once more to retell
+the Idyls of the King for the Nineteenth Century. Each of these was
+adding little but new literary form, to a work that genius had drawn
+from sources so close to the heart of human nature, that the stories
+were always to remain of enduring interest.
+</p>
+<a name="177">{177}</a>
+<p>
+For the treasure of poesy with which humanity was enriched when he
+conceived the idea of setting the old ballads of King Arthur into
+literary form, more must be considered as due to the literary original
+writer than to any of his great successors. This is precisely the
+merit of Walter Map. Of some of his less ambitious literary work we
+have many examples that show us how thoroughly interested he was in
+all the details of human existence, even the most trivial. He had his
+likes and dislikes, he seems to have had some disappointed ambition
+that made him rather bitter towards ecclesiastics, he seems to have
+had some unfortunate experiences, especially with the Cistercians,
+though how much of this is assumed rather than genuine, is hard to
+determine at this modern day. Many of the extremely bitter things he
+says with regard to the Cistercians might well be considered as
+examples of that exaggeration, which in certain minds constitutes one
+modality of humor, rather than as serious expressions of actual
+thought. It is hard, for instance, to take such an expression as the
+following as more than an example of this form of jesting by
+exaggeration. Map heard that a Cistercian had become a Jew. His
+comment was: "If he wanted to get far from the Cistercians why didn't
+he become a Christian."
+</p>
+<p>
+From England the transition to Germany is easy. Exactly contemporary
+with the rise of the Arthur Legends in England to that standard of
+literary excellence that was to give them their enduring poetic value,
+there came also the definite arrangement and literary transformation
+of the old ballads of the German people, into that form in which they
+were to exert a lasting influence upon the German language and
+national feeling. The date of the Nibelungen Lied has been set down
+somewhat indefinitely as between 1190 and 1220. Most of the work was
+undoubtedly accomplished after the beginning of the Thirteenth Century
+and in the form in which we have it at present, there seems to be no
+doubt that much was done after the famous meeting of the
+Meistersingers on the Wartburg&mdash;the subject of song and story and
+music drama ever since, which took place very probably in the year
+1207. With regard to the Nibelungen Lied, as in the case of the other
+great literary arrangements of folk-ballads, there has been question
+as to the <a name="178">{178}</a> singleness of authorship. Here, however, as with
+regard to Homer and the Cid, the trend of modern criticism has all
+been towards the attribution of the poem to one writer, and the
+internal evidence of similarity of expression constantly maintained, a
+certain simplicity of feeling and naïveté of repetition seems to leave
+no doubt in the matter.
+</p>
+<p>
+As regards the merits of the Nibelungen Lied as a great work of
+literature, there has been very little doubt in the English-speaking
+world at least, because of the enthusiastic recognition accorded it by
+German critics and the influence of German criticism in all branches
+of literature over the whole Teutonic race during the Nineteenth
+Century. English admiration for the poem began after Carlyle's
+introduction of it to the English reading public in his essays. Since
+this time it has come to be very well known and yet, notwithstanding
+all that has been said about it no English critic has expressed more
+fully the place of the great German poem in world literature, than did
+this enthusiastic pro-German of the first half of the Nineteenth
+Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+For those for whom Carlyle's Essays are a sealed book because of loss
+of interest in him with the passage of time, the citation of some of
+his appreciative critical expressions may be necessary.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Here in the old Frankish (Oberdeutsch) dialect of the Nibelungen,
+  we have a clear decisive utterance, and in a real system of verse,
+  not without essential regularity, great liveliness and now and then
+  even harmony of rhythm. Doubtless we must often call it a diffuse
+  diluted utterance; at the same time it is genuine, with a certain
+  antique garrulous heartiness, and has a rhythm in the thoughts as
+  well as the words. The simplicity is never silly; even in that
+  perpetual recurrence of epithets, sometimes of rhymes, as where two
+  words, for instance lip (body), lif (leib) and wip (woman), weib
+  (wife) are indissolubly wedded together, and the one never shows
+  itself without the other following&mdash;there is something which reminds
+  us not so much of poverty, as of trustfulness and childlike
+  innocence. Indeed a strange charm lies in those old tones, where, in
+  gay dancing melodies, the sternest tidings are sung to us; and deep
+  floods of sadness and strife play lightly in little <a name="179">{179}</a> purling
+  billows, like seas in summer. It is as a meek smile, in whose still,
+  thoughtful depths a whole infinitude of patience, and love, and
+  heroic strength lie revealed. But in other cases too, we have seen
+  this outward sport and inward earnestness offer grateful contrasts,
+  and cunning excitement; for example, in Tasso; of whom, though
+  otherwise different enough, this old Northern Singer has more than
+  once reminded us. There too, as here, we have a dark solemn meaning
+  in light guise; deeds of high temper, harsh self-denial, daring and
+  death, stand embodied in that soft, quick-flowing joyfully-modulated
+  verse. Nay farther, as if the implement, much more than we might
+  fancy, had influenced the work done, these two poems, could we trust
+  our individual feeling, have in one respect the same poetical result
+  for us; in the Nibelungen as in the Gerusalemme, the persons and
+  their story are indeed brought vividly before us, yet not near and
+  palpably present; it is rather as if we looked on that scene through
+  an inverted telescope, whereby the whole was carried far away into
+  the distance, the life-large figures compressed into brilliant
+  miniatures, so clear, so real, yet tiny, elf-like and beautiful as
+  well as lessened, their colors being now closer and brighter, the
+  shadows and trivial features no longer visible. This, as we partly
+  apprehend, comes of singing epic poems; most part of which only
+  pretend to be sung. Tasso's rich melody still lives among the
+  Italian people; the Nibelungen also is what it professes to be, a
+  song."
+</p>
+<p>
+The story of the Nibelungen would ordinarily be supposed to be so
+distant from the interests of modern life, as scarcely to hold the
+attention of a reader unless he were interested in it from a scholarly
+or more or less antiquarian standpoint. For those who think thus,
+however, there is only one thing that will correct such a false
+impression and that is to read the Nibelungen itself. It has a depth
+of simplicity and a sympathetic human interest all its own but that
+reminds one more of Homer than of anything else in literature, and
+Homer has faults but lack of interest is not one of them. From the
+very beginning the story of the young man who does not think he will
+marry, and whose mother does not think that any one is good enough for
+him, and of the young woman who is sure that no one will come that
+will attract enough of her attention so as to compel <a name="180">{180}</a> her to
+subject herself to the yoke of marriage, are types of what is so
+permanent in humanity, that the readers' attention is at once caught.
+After this the fighting parts of the story become the center of
+interest and hold the attention in spite of the refining influences
+that later centuries are supposed to have brought to humanity.
+</p>
+<p>
+Hence it is that Prof. Saintsbury in the second volume of his Periods
+of European Literature, already quoted from, is able to say much of
+the modern interest in the story. "There may be," as he says, "too
+many episodic personages&mdash;Deitrich of Bern, for instance, has
+extremely little to do in this galley. But the strength, thoroughness,
+and in its own savage way, charm of Kriemhild's character, and the
+incomparable series of battles between the Burgundian princes and
+Etzel's men in the later cantos&mdash;cantos which contain the very best
+poetical fighting in the history of the world&mdash;far more than redeem
+this. The Nibelungen Lied is a very great poem; and with Beowulf (the
+oldest but the least interesting on the whole), Roland (the most
+artistically finished in form), and the poem of the Cid (the
+cheerfullest and perhaps the fullest of character), composes a
+quartette of epics with which the literary story of the great European
+literary nations most appropriately begins. In bulk, dramatic
+completeness, and a certain furia, the Nibelungen Lied, though the
+youngest and probably the least original is the greatest of the four."
+</p>
+<p>
+Less need be said of the Nibelungen than of the Cid or Walter Map's
+work because it is much more familiar, and even ordinary readers of
+literature have been brought more closely in touch with it because of
+its relation to the Wagnerian operas. Even those who know the fine old
+German poems only passingly, will yet realize the supreme genius of
+their author, and those who need to have the opinions of distinguished
+critics to back them before they form an estimate for themselves, will
+not need to seek far in our modern literature to find lofty praises of
+the old German epic.
+</p>
+<p>
+With even this brief treatment no reader will doubt that there is in
+these three epics, typical products of the literary spirit of three
+great European nations whose literatures rising high above these deep
+firm substructures, were to be of the greatest <a name="181">{181}</a> influence in the
+development of the human mind, and yet were to remain practically
+always within the limits of thought and feeling that had been traced
+by these old founders of literature of the early Thirteenth Century,
+whose work, like that of their contemporaries in every other form of
+artistic expression, was to be the model and the source of inspiration
+for future generations.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i181.jpg" border=1><br>
+CROZIER (OBVERSE AND REVERSE)
+</p>
+
+<a name="182">{182}</a>
+
+<h1>XI
+<br>
+MEISTERSINGERS, MINNESINGERS, TROUVÈRES, TROUBADOURS.</h1>
+
+<p>
+It would be a supreme mistake to think because the idea of literature
+in the Thirteenth Century is usually associated with the Arthur
+Legends, the Nibelungen and Dante, that all of the literary content of
+the century was inevitably serious in character or always epical in
+form. As a matter of fact the soul of wit and humor had entered into
+the body social, as we shall see in subsequent chapters, and the
+spirit of gaiety and the light-hearted admiration for nature found as
+frequent expression as at any time in history. With these as always in
+literary history there came outbursts of love in lyric strains that
+were not destined to die. While the poets of South Germany and of
+Italy sang of love that was of the loftiest description, never mingled
+with anything of the merely sensual, their tuneful trifles are quite
+as satisfying to the modern ear in both sense and sound as any of the
+more elaborate <i>vers de societé</i> of the modern times. The German poets
+particularly did not hesitate to emphasize the fact that sensuality
+had no part in Minne&mdash;their pretty term for love&mdash;and yet they sang
+with all the natural grace and fervid rapture of the Grecian poets of
+the old pagan times, worshiping at the shrines of fleshly goddesses,
+or singing to the frail beauties of an unmoral period. Nothing in the
+history of literature is better proof that ideal love can, unmixed
+with anything sensual, inspire lyric outbursts of supreme and enduring
+beauty, than the poems of the Minnesingers and of some of the French
+and Italian Troubadours of this period. It is easier to understand
+Dante's position in this matter after reading the poems of his
+predecessors in the Thirteenth Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+For this feeling of the lofty character of the love they sang was not,
+in spite of what is sometimes said, confined only to the Germans,
+though as is well known from time immemorial the <a name="183">{183}</a> Teutonic
+feeling towards woman was by racial influence of higher character than
+that of the southern Nations. As Mr. H. J. Chaytor says in the
+introduction to his Troubadours of Dante, there came a gradual change
+over the mind of the Troubadour about the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century and "seeing that love was the inspiring force to good deeds,"
+the later Troubadours gradually dissociated their love from the object
+which had aroused it. Among them, "as among the Minnesingers, love is
+no longer sexual passion, it is rather the motive to great works, to
+self-surrender, to the winning an honorable name as Courtier and
+Poet." Mr. Chaytor then quotes the well known lines from Bernart de
+Ventadorn, one of the Troubadours to whom Dante refers, and whose
+works Dante seems to have read with special attention since their
+poems contain similar errors of mythology.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+<span class="cite2">"for indeed I know</span><br>
+  Of no more subtle passion under heaven<br>
+  Than is the maiden passion for a maid.<br>
+  Not only to keep down the base in man.<br>
+  But teach high thought and amiable words.<br>
+  And courtliness and the desire of fame.<br>
+  And love of truth and all that makes a man."
+</p>
+<p>
+A sentiment surely that will be considered as true now as it ever was,
+be the time the Thirteenth Century or earlier or later, and that
+represents the best solution of social problems that has ever been put
+forward&mdash;nature's own panacea for ills that other remedies at best
+only palliate.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the early Nineteenth Century Carlyle said of this period what we
+may well repeat here:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "We shall suppose that this Literary Period is partially known to
+  all readers. Let each recall whatever he has learned or figures
+  regarding it; represent to himself that brave young heyday of
+  Chivalry and Minstrelsy when a stern Barbarossa, a stern Lion-heart,
+  sang sirventes, and with the hand that could wield the sword and
+  sceptre twanged the melodious strings, when knights-errant tilted,
+  and ladies' eyes rained bright influences; and suddenly, as at
+  sunrise, the whole earth had grown <a name="184">{184}</a> vocal and musical. Then
+  truly was the time of singing come; for princes and prelates,
+  emperors and squires, the wise and the simple, men, women and
+  children, all sang and rhymed, or delighted in hearing it done. It
+  was a universal noise of Song; as if the Spring of Manhood had
+  arrived, and warblings from every spray, not, indeed, without
+  infinite twitterings also, which, except their gladness, had no
+  music, were bidding it welcome."
+</p>
+<p>
+This is the keynote of the Century&mdash;song, blithesome and gay as the
+birds, solemn and harmonious as the organ tones that accord so well
+with the great Latin hymns&mdash;everywhere song.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Believers," says Tieck, the great collector of Thirteenth Century
+poetry, "sang of Faith; Lovers of Love; Knights described knightly
+actions and battles; and loving, believing knights were their chief
+audience. The Spring, Beauty, Gaiety, were objects that could never
+tire; great duels and deeds of arms carried away every hearer, the
+more surely the stronger they were painted; and as the pillars and
+dome of the Church encircled the flock, so did Religion, as the
+Highest, encircle Poetry and Reality; and every heart, in equal love,
+humbled itself before her."
+</p>
+<p>
+The names of the Meistersingers are well-known to musical lovers at
+least, because of the music drama of that name and the famous war of
+the Wartburg. The most familiar of all of them is doubtless Walter von
+der Vogelweide who, when he was asked where he found the tuneful
+melodies for his songs, said that he learned them from the birds.
+Those who recall Longfellow's pretty ballad with regard to Walter and
+his leaving all his substance to feed the birds over his grave near
+Nuremberg's minster towers, will not find it surprising that this
+Meistersinger's poetry breathes the deepest love of Nature, and that
+there is in it a lyric quality of joy in the things of Nature that we
+are apt to think of as modern, until we find over and over again in
+these bards, that the spirit of the woods and of the fields and of the
+spring time, meant as much for them as for any follower of the
+Wordsworth school of poetry in the more conscious after-time. This
+from Walter with regard to the May will serve to illustrate very well
+this phase of his work.
+</p>
+<a name="185">{185}</a>
+<pre>
+  Gentle May, thou showerest fairly
+    Gifts afar and near;
+  Clothest all the woods so rarely,
+    And the meadows here;
+  O'er the heath new colors glow;
+  Flowers and clover on the plain.
+  Merry rivals, strive amain
+  Which can fastest grow.
+
+  Lady! part me from my sadness.
+    Love me while 'tis May;
+  Mine is but a borrowed gladness
+    If thou frown alway;
+  Look around and smile anew!
+  All the world is glad and free;
+  Let a little joy from thee
+  Fall to my lot too!
+</pre>
+<p>
+Walter could be on occasion, however, as serious as any of the
+Meistersingers and is especially known for his religious poems. It is
+not surprising that any one who set woman on so high a pedestal as did
+Walter, should have written beautiful poems to the Blessed Virgin. He
+was the first, so it is said, to express the sentiment: "Woman, God
+bless her, by that name, for it is a far nobler name than lady."
+Occasionally he can be seriously didactic and he has not hesitated
+even to express some sentiments with regard to methods of education.
+Among other things he discusses the question as to whether children
+should be whipped or not in the process of education and curiously
+enough takes the very modern view that whipping is always a mistake.
+In this, of course, he disagrees with all the practical educators of
+his time, who considered the rod the most effective instrument for the
+education of children and strictly followed the scriptural injunction
+about sparing the rod and spoiling the child. Walter's opinion is for
+that reason all the more interesting:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Children with rod ruling&mdash;<br>
+  'Tis the worst of schooling.<br>
+  Who is honor made to know.<br>
+  Him a word seems as a blow."
+</p>
+<a name="186">{186}</a>
+<p>
+The birds were always a favorite subject for poetic inspiration on the
+part of the Minnesingers. Bird music rapt poetic souls into ecstasies
+in which the passage of time was utterly unnoticed. It is from the
+Thirteenth Century that comes the beautiful legend with regard to the
+monk who, having wondered how time could be kept from dragging in
+Heaven, was permitted to listen to the song of a bird one day in the
+forest and when he awoke from his rapture and went back to his convent
+found that a hundred years had passed, that all of the monks of his
+acquaintance were dead, and while his name was found on the rolls of
+the monastery, after it there was a note that he had disappeared one
+day and had never been heard of afterwards. Almost in the same tenor
+as this is a pretty song from Dietmar von Eist, written at the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century, and which was a type of the
+charming songs that were to be so characteristic of the times:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  There sat upon the linden-tree
+    A bird, and sung its strain;
+  So sweet it sung that as I heard
+    My heart went back again.
+  It went to one remember'd spot,
+    It saw the rose-tree grow.
+  And thought again the thoughts of love,
+    There cherished long ago.
+
+  A thousand years to me it seems
+    Since by my fair I sate;
+  Yet thus to be a stranger long
+    Is not my choice, but fate;
+  Since then I have not seen the flowers,
+    Nor heard the birds' sweet song;
+  My joys have all too briefly past.
+    My griefs been all too long.
+</pre>
+<p>
+Hartman von Aue was a contemporary of Walter's and is best known for
+his romantic stories. It is rather curiously interesting to find that
+one of the old chroniclers considers it a great mark of distinction
+that, though Hartman was a knight, he was able to read and write
+whatever he found written in <a name="187">{187}</a> books. It must not be forgotten,
+however, that not all of these poets could read and write, and that
+indeed so distinguished a literary man as Wolfram von Eschenbach, the
+author of Percival, the story on which Wagner founded his opera of
+Parsifal, could neither read nor write. He had developed a very
+wonderful memory and was able to store faithfully his poems in the
+course of their composition so that he was above the need of pen and
+paper. Hartman is most famous for having written the story of Poor
+Henry, which Longfellow has chosen so effectively for his Golden
+Legend. Hartman's appreciation of women can be judged from the
+following lines, which accord her an equal share in her lord's glory
+because of her sufferings in prayer at home.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  Glory be unto her whose word
+    Sends her dear lord to bitter fight;
+  Although he conquer by his sword.
+    She to the praise has equal right;
+  He with the sword in battle, she at home with prayer.
+    Both win the victory, and both the glory share.
+</pre>
+<p>
+Occasionally one finds, as we have said, among the little songs of the
+Minnesingers of the time such tuneful trifles as could be included
+very appropriately in a modern collection of <i>vers de société</i>, or as
+might even serve as a love message on a modern valentine or a
+Christmas card. The surprise of finding such things at such a time
+will justify the quotation of one of them from Brother Wernher, who
+owes his title of brother not to his membership in any religious
+order, very probably, but to the fact that he belonged to the
+brotherhood of the poets of the time.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  Since creation I was thine;
+  Now forever thou art mine.
+  I have shut thee fast
+  In my heart at last.
+  I have dropped the key
+  In an unknown sea.
+  Forever must thou my prisoner be!
+</pre>
+<a name="188">{188}</a>
+<p>
+Wolfram von Eschenbach was the chief of a group of poets who at the
+close of the Twelfth and beginning of the Thirteenth centuries
+gathered about the Landgraf Hermann of Thuringen in his court on the
+Wartburg, at the foot of which lies Eisenach, in the present Grand
+Duchy of Saxe-Weimar. They shaped tales of knightly adventure, blended
+with reflection, spiritual suggestion, and a grace of verse that
+represented the best culture of the court, and did not address itself
+immediately to the people. Wolfram was a younger son of one of the
+lower noble Bavarian families settled at Eschenbach, nine miles from
+Ausbach, in Middle Franconia. He had a poor little home of his own,
+Wildenberg, but went abroad to seek adventures as a knight, and tell
+adventures as a poet welcome to great lords, and most welcome to the
+lavish friend of poets, Hermann of Thuringen, at whose court on the
+Wartburg he remained twenty years, from 1195 to 1215, in which latter
+year his "Parzival" was finished. From some passages in his poem it
+may safely be inferred that he was happily married, and had children.
+The Landgraf Hermann died in 1216, and, was succeeded by Ludwig,
+husband of St. Elizabeth.
+</p>
+<p>
+We cannot ascribe to English writers alone the spiritualizing of the
+Grail Legends, when there is Wolfram's "Parzival" drawing from the
+same cycle of myths a noble poem of the striving to bind earthly
+knighthood to the ever-living God. While Gawain, type of the earthly
+knight wins great praise in love and chivalry,
+Parzival&mdash;Percival&mdash;finds his way on from childhood up, through humble
+searchings of the spirit, till he is ruler in the kingdom of the soul,
+where he designs that Lohengrin, his eldest son, shall be his
+successor, while Kardeiss, his younger son, has rule over his earthly
+possessions.
+</p>
+<p>
+How beautifully the Minnesingers could enter into the spirit of nature
+and at the same time how much the spirit of Spring has always been
+prone to appeal to poetic sensibilities may be judged from the
+following song of Conrad of Kirchberg, which is translated very
+closely and in the same meter as the original old high German poem. It
+is very evident that none of the spirit of Spring was lost on this
+poet of the olden time, nor on the other hand that any possibility of
+poetic expression was missed by him. There is a music in the lilt of
+the verselets, <a name="189">{189}</a> eminently suggestive of the lyric effect that the
+new birth of things had on the poet himself and that he wished to
+convey to his readers. Of this, however, every one must judge for
+himself and so we give the poem as it may be found in Roscoe's edition
+of Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  May, sweet May, again is come;
+  May, that frees the land from gloom.
+  Up, then, children, we will go
+  Where the blooming roses grow.
+  In a joyful company
+  We the bursting flowers will see;
+  Up! your festal dress prepare!
+  Where gay hearts are meeting, there
+  May hath pleasures most inviting
+  Heart, and sight, and ear delighting:
+  Listen to the bird's sweet song.
+  Hark! how soft it floats along!
+  Courtly dames our pleasures share.
+  Never saw I May so fair;
+  Therefore, dancing will we go:
+  Youths rejoice, the flowrets blow;
+      Sing ye! join the chorus gay!
+      Hail this merry, merry May!
+</pre>
+<p>
+At least as beautiful in their tributes to their lady loves and their
+lyric descriptions of the beauties of Spring, were the Troubadours
+whose tuneful trifles, sometimes deserving of much more serious
+consideration than the application of such a term to them would seem
+to demand, have come down to us though the centuries. One of the best
+known of these is Arnaud de Marveil, who was born in very humble
+circumstances but who succeeded in raising himself by his poetic
+genius to be the companion of ruling princes and the friend of the
+high nobility. Among the provencals he has been called the great
+Master of Love, though this is a name which Petrarch reserves
+especially for Arnaud Daniel, while he calls Marveil the less famous
+of the Arnauds. An example of his work as the Poet of Love, that is
+typical of what is usually considered to have <a name="190">{190}</a> been the favorite
+mode of the Troubadour poets runs as follows:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  All I behold recalls the memory
+  Of her I love. The freshness of the hour
+  Th' enamell'd fields, the many coloured flower,
+  Speaking of her, move me to melody.
+  Had not the poets, with their courtly phrase,
+    Saluted many a fair of meaner worth,
+  I could not now have render'd thee the praise
+    So justly due, of "Fairest of the Earth."
+  To name thee thus had been to speak thy name,
+  And waken, o'er thy cheek, the blush of modest shame.
+</pre>
+<p>
+An example of the love of nature which characterizes some of Arnaud de
+Marveil's work will serve to show how thoroughly he entered into the
+spirit of the spring-time and how much all the sights and sounds of
+nature found an echo in his poetic spirit. The translation of this as
+of the preceding specimen from Arnaud is taken from the English
+edition of the Historical View of the Literature of the South of
+Europe by Sismondi, and this translation we owe to Thomas Roscoe, the
+well known author of the life of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who
+considering that Sismondi does not furnish enough of specimens of this
+Troubadour poet, inserts the following verses, for the translation of
+which he acknowledges himself indebted to the kindness of friends, a
+modest concealment doubtless of his own work:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  Oh! how sweet the breeze of April,
+    Breathing soft as May draws near!
+  While, through nights of tranquil beauty,
+    Songs of gladness meet the ear:
+  Every bird his well-known language
+    Uttering in the morning's pride,
+  Revelling in joy and gladness
+    By his happy partner's side.
+
+  When, around me, all is smiling,
+    When to life the young birds spring,
+  Thoughts of love, I cannot hinder,
+    Come, my heart inspiriting&mdash;
+  Nature, habit, both incline me
+    In such joy to bear my part:
+  With such sounds of bliss around me
+    Could I wear a sadden'd heart?
+</pre>
+<a name="191">{191}</a>
+<p>
+His description of his lady love is another example of his worship of
+nature in a different strain, which serves to show that a lover's
+exaggeration of the qualities of his lady is not a modern development
+of <i>la belle passion</i>.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  Fairer than the far-famed Helen,
+    Lovelier than the flow'rets gay.
+  Snow-white teeth, and lips truth-telling,
+    Heart as open as the day;
+  Golden hair, and fresh bright roses&mdash;
+    Heaven, who formed a thing so fair.
+  Knows that never yet another
+    Lived, who can with thee compare.
+</pre>
+<p>
+A single stanza from a love-song by Bertrand De Born will show better
+than any amount of critical appreciation how beautifully he can treat
+the more serious side of love. While the Troubadours are usually said
+to have sung their love strains in less serious vein than their German
+brother poets of the North, this has the ring of tenderness and truth
+about it and yet is not in these qualities very different from others
+of his songs that are well known. The translation we have chosen is
+that made by Roscoe who has rendered a number of the songs of the
+Troubadours into English verse that presents an excellent equivalent
+of the original. Bertrand is insisting with his lady-love that she
+must not listen to the rumors she may hear from others with regard to
+his faithfulness.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  I cannot hide from thee how much I fear
+  The whispers breathed by flatterers in thine ear
+    Against my faith. But turn not, oh, I pray!
+  That heart so true, so faithful, so sincere.
+  So humble and so frank, to me so dear.
+    Oh, lady! turn it not from me away.
+</pre>
+<a name="192">{192}</a>
+<p>
+At times one is surprised to find pretty tributes to nature even in
+the midst of songs that are devoted to war. The two things that were
+nearest the hearts of these Troubadour poets were war and their
+lady-loves, but the beauties of nature became mixed up not only with
+their love songs but also with their battle hymns, or at least with
+their ardent descriptions of military preparations and the glories of
+war. An excellent example of this is to be found in the following
+stanza written by William of Saint Gregory, a Troubadour who is best
+known for his songs of war rather than of tenderness.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  The beautiful spring delights me well.
+    When flowers and leaves are growing;
+  And it pleases my heart to hear the swell
+    Of the birds' sweet chorus flowing
+      In the echoing wood;
+  And I love to see all scattered around
+  Pavilions and tents on martial ground;
+      And my spirit finds it good
+  To see on the level plains beyond
+  Gay knights and steeds caparison'd.
+</pre>
+<p>
+Occasionally the Troubadours indulge in religious poetry though
+usually not of a mystical or profoundly devotional character. Even the
+famous Peyrols, who is so well known for his love songs, sometimes
+wandered into religious poetry that was not unworthy to be placed
+beside his lyric effusions on other topics. Peyrols is best known
+perhaps for his lamentations over King Richard the Lion Heart's fate,
+for he had been with that monarch on the crusade, and like most of the
+Troubadours who went with the army, drank in deep admiration for the
+poetic king. After his visit to the Holy Land on this occasion one
+stanza of his song in memory of that visit runs as follows:  [Footnote
+19: Translated by Roscoe.]
+</p>
+<a name="193">{193}</a>
+<pre>
+  I have seen the Jordan river,
+    I have seen the holy grave.
+  Lord! to thee my thanks I render
+    For the joys thy goodness gave,
+  Showing to my raptured sight
+  The spot whereon thou saw'st the light.
+
+  Vessel good and favoring breezes,
+    Pilot, trusty, soon shall we
+  Once more see the towers of Marseilles
+    Rising o'er the briny sea.
+  Farewell, Acre, farewell, all.
+  Of Temple or of Hospital:
+
+  Now, alas! the world's decaying.
+    When shall we once more behold
+  Kings like lion-hearted Richard,
+    France's monarch, stout and bold?
+</pre>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i193.jpg" border=1><br>
+TOWER OF SCALIGERS (VERONA)
+</p>
+
+<a name="194">{194}</a>
+
+<h1>XII
+<br>
+GREAT LATIN HYMNS AND CHURCH MUSIC.</h1>
+
+<p>
+One of the most precious bequests of the Thirteenth Century to all the
+succeeding centuries is undoubtedly the great Latin hymns. These
+sublime religious poems, comparable only to the Hebrew psalms for
+their wondrous expression of the awe and devotion of religious
+feeling, present the beginnings of rhymed poetry, yet they have been
+acclaimed by competent modern critics as among the greatest poems that
+ever came from the mind of man. They come to us from this period and
+were composed, most of them at least, during the Thirteenth Century
+itself, a few, shortly before it, though all of them received during
+this century the stamp of ecclesiastical and popular approval, which
+made them for many centuries afterward the principal medium of the
+expression of congregational devotion and the exemplar and incentive
+for vernacular poetry. It is from these latter standpoints that they
+deserve the attention of all students of literature quite apart from
+their significance as great expressions of the mind of these wondrous
+generations.
+</p>
+<p>
+These Latin hymns have sometimes been spoken of with perhaps a certain
+degree of contempt as "rhymed Latin poetry," as if the use of rhyme in
+conjunction with Latin somehow lowered the dignity of the grand old
+tongue in which Cicero wrote his graceful periods and Horace sang his
+tuneful odes. As a matter of fact, far from detracting from the
+beauties of Latin expression, these hymns have added new laurels to
+the glory of the language and have shown the wonderful possibilities
+of the Roman speech in the hands of generations long after the
+classical period. If they served no other purpose than to demonstrate
+beyond cavil how profoundly the scholars of this generation succeeded
+in possessing themselves of the genius of the Latin language, they
+would serve to contradict the foolish critics who talk of the
+education of the period as superficial, or as negligent of everything
+but scholastic philosophy and theology.
+</p>
+<a name="195">{195}</a>
+<p>
+At least one distinguished philologist, Professor F. A. March, who has
+now for the better part of half a century occupied the chair of
+comparative philology at Lafayette College, does not hesitate to say
+that the Latin hymns represent an expression of the genius of the
+Latin people and language, more characteristic than the classical
+poetry even of the golden or silver ages. "These hymns," he says,
+"were the first original poetry of the people in the Latin language,
+unless perhaps those Latin critics may be right who think they find in
+Livy a prose rendering of earlier ballads. The so-called classic
+poetry was an echo of Greece, both in substance and in form. The
+matter and meters were both imitated and the poems were composed for
+the lovers of Grecian art in the Roman Court. It did not spring from
+the people, but the Christian hymns were proper folk poetry, the Bible
+of the people&mdash;their Homeric poems. Their making was not so much
+speech as action. They were in substance festive prayers, the simplest
+rhythmic offering of thanks and praise to the Giver of Light and of
+rest both natural and spiritual, at morning and evening and at other
+seasons, suited to the remembrance and rhythmical rehearsal of the
+truths of the Bible." Prof. March's opinion has been echoed by many
+another enthusiastic student of these wonderful hymns. It is only
+those who do not know them who fail to grow enthusiastic about them.
+</p>
+<p>
+This of itself would stamp these great poems as worthy of careful
+study. There is, however, an additional reason for modern interest in
+them. These hymns were sung by the whole congregation at the many
+services that they attended in the medieval period. In this regard it
+seems well to recall, that it was the custom to go to church much
+oftener then than at present. Besides the Sundays there were many holy
+days of obligation, that is, religious festivals on which attendance
+at Church was obligatory, and in addition a certain number of days of
+devotion on which, because of special reverence for some particular
+saint, or in celebration of some event in the life of the Lord or his
+saints, the people of special parts of the country found themselves
+drawn to attendance on church services. It seems probable that instead
+of the sixty or so times a year that is now obligatory, people went to
+Church during the Thirteenth <a name="196">{196}</a> Century more than a hundred times
+in the year. Twice a week then, at least, there was the uplifting
+cultural influence of this congregational singing of wonderful hymns
+that are among the greatest poems ever written and that belong to
+literature of the very highest order. The educational value of such
+intimate contact with what is best in literary expression could
+scarcely fail to have a distinct effect upon the people. It is idle to
+say that the hymns being in Latin they were not understood, since the
+language of them was close akin to the spoken tongues, the subjects
+were eminently familiar mysteries of religion and constant repetition
+and frequent explanation must have led to a very general comprehension
+even by the least educated classes. For anyone with any pretension to
+education they must have been easy to understand, since Latin was
+practically a universal language.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is not always realized by the students whose interests have been
+mainly confined to modern literature, in what estimation these Latin
+hymns have been held by those who are in the best position to be able
+to judge critically of their value as poetry. Take for example the
+Dies Irae, confessedly the greatest of them, and it will be found that
+many of the great poets and literary men of the Nineteenth Century
+have counted it among their favorite poems. Such men as Goethe,
+Friedrich and August Schlegel, Scott, Milman and Archbishop Trench
+were enthusiastic in its praise. While such geniuses as Dryden,
+Johnson and Jeremy Taylor, and the musicians Mozart and Hayden, avowed
+supreme admiration for it. Herder, Fichte and August Schlegel besides
+Crashaw, Drummond, Roscommon, Trench and Macaulay gave the proof of
+their appreciation of the great Thirteenth Century hymn by devoting
+themselves to making translations of it, and Goethe's use of it in
+Faust and Scott's in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, show how much
+poets, whose sympathies were not involved in its religious aspects,
+were caught by its literary and esthetic merit.
+</p>
+<p>
+In very recent times the Latin hymns have been coming more to their
+own again and such distinguished critics as Prof. Henry Morley, and
+Prof. George Saintsbury, have not hesitated to express their critical
+appreciation of these hymns as great <a name="197">{197}</a> literature. Prof.
+Saintsbury says in his volume of the Thirteenth Century literature:
+[Footnote 20]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 20: The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory,
+  Volume II. of Periods of European Literature, Edited by George
+  Saintsbury, New York, Scribners, 1899.]
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp197">{opp197}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp197.jpg" border=1><br>
+ST. FRANCIS PROPHESIES THE DEATH OF CELANO (GIOTTO, UPPER CH., ASSISI)
+</p>
+
+<p class="cite">
+  "It will be more convenient to postpone to a later chapter of this
+  volume a consideration of the exact way in which Latin sacred poetry
+  affected the prosody of the vernacular; but it is well here to point
+  out that almost all the finest and most famous examples of the
+  medieval hymns, with perhaps the sole exception of the Veni Sancte
+  Spiritus, date from the Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries. Ours (that
+  is, from this period) are the stately rhythms of Adam of St. Victor,
+  and the softer ones of St. Bernard the Greater. It was at this time
+  that Jacopone da Todi, in the intervals of his eccentric vernacular
+  exercises, was inspired to write the Stabat Mater. From this time
+  comes that glorious descant of Bernard of Morlaix, in which, the
+  more its famous and very elegant English paraphrase is read beside
+  it (Jerusalem the Golden), the more does the greatness and the
+  beauty of the original appear.
+<br><br>
+  "And from this time comes the greatest of all hymns, and one of the
+  greatest of all poems, the Dies Irae. There have been attempts&mdash;more
+  than one of them&mdash;to make out that the Dies Irae is no such
+  wonderful thing after all; attempts which are, perhaps, the extreme
+  examples of that cheap and despicable paradox which thinks to escape
+  the charge of blind docility by the affectation of heterodox
+  independence. The judgment of the greatest (and not always of the
+  most pious) men of letters of modern times may confirm those who are
+  uncomfortable without authority in a different opinion. Fortunately
+  there is not likely ever to be lack of those who, authority or no
+  authority, in youth and in age, after much reading or without much,
+  in all time of their tribulation and in all time of their wealth,
+  will hold these wonderful triplets, be they Thomas of Celano's or
+  another's, as nearly or quite the most perfect wedding of sound to
+  sense that they know."
+</p>
+<p>
+This seems almost the limit of praise but Prof. Saintsbury can say
+even more than this: "It would be possible, indeed, to <a name="198">{198}</a>
+illustrate a complete dissertation on the methods of expression in
+serious poetry from the fifty-one lines of the Dies Irae. Rhyme,
+alliteration, cadence, and adjustment of vowel and consonant
+values&mdash;all these things receive perfect expression in it, or, at
+least, in the first thirteen stanzas, for the last four are a little
+inferior. It is quite astonishing to reflect upon the careful art or
+the felicitous accident of such a line as:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  Tuba mirum spargens sonum,
+</p>
+<p>
+with the thud of the trochee falling in each instance in a different
+vowel; and still more on the continuous sequence of five stanzas, from
+<i>Judex ergo</i> to <i>non sit cassus</i>, in which not a word could be
+displaced or replaced by another without loss. The climax of verbal
+harmony, corresponding to and expressing religious passion and
+religious awe, is reached in the last&mdash;
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  Quaerens me sedisti lassus,<br>
+  Redemisti crucem passus:<br>
+  Tantus labor non sit cassus!
+</p>
+<p>
+where the sudden change from the dominant <i>e</i> sounds (except
+in the rhyme foot) of the first two lines to the <i>a's</i> of the last
+is simply miraculous and miraculously assisted by what may
+be called the internal sub-rhyme of <i>sedisti</i> and <i>redemisti</i>. This
+latter effect can rarely be attempted without a jingle: there is
+no jingle here, only an ineffable melody. After the Dies Irae,
+no poet could say that any effect of poetry was, as far as sound
+goes, unattainable, though few could have hoped to equal it,
+and perhaps no one except Dante and Shakespeare has fully
+done so."
+</p>
+<p>
+Higher praise than this could scarcely be given and it comes from an
+acknowledged authority, whose interests are moreover in secular rather
+than religious literature, and whose enthusiastic praise is therefore
+all the more striking. Here in America, Schaff, whose critical
+judgment in religious literature is unquestionable and whose
+sympathies with the old church and her hymns were not as deep as if he
+had been a Roman Catholic, has been quite as unstinted in laudation.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "This marvelous hymn is the acknowledged masterpiece of Latin
+  poetry, and the most sublime of all uninspired hymns. <a name="199">{199}</a>
+  &hellip; The secret of its irresistible power lies in the awful grandeur of the
+  theme, the intense earnestness and pathos of the poet, the simple
+  majesty and solemn music of its language, the stately meter, the
+  triple rhyme, and the vowel assonances, chosen in striking
+  adaptation to the sense&mdash;all combining to produce an overwhelming
+  effect, as if we heard the final crash of the universe, the
+  commotion of the opening graves, the trumpet of the archangel
+  summoning the quick and the dead, and saw the 'king of tremendous
+  majesty' seated on the throne of justice and of mercy, and ready to
+  dispense everlasting life and everlasting woe."
+</p>
+<p>
+Neale says of Thomas Aquinas' great hymn the Pange Lingua: "This hymn
+contests the second place among those of the Western Church, with the
+'Vexilla Regis,' the 'Stabat Mater,' the 'Jesu Dulcis Memoria,' the
+'Ad Regias Agni Dapes,' the 'Ad Supernam,' and one or two others,
+leaving the 'Dies Irae' in its unapproachable glory," thus furnishing
+another supreme testimony to the hymn we have been discussing, which
+indeed only needs to be read to be appreciated, since it will
+inevitably tempt to successive readings and these bring with them ever
+and ever increasing admiration, showing in this more than in any other
+way that it is a work of sublime genius.
+</p>
+<p>
+With regard to rhyme particularly the triumph of art and the influence
+of the Latin hymns is undoubted. This latest beauty of poetry reached
+its perfection of expression in the Latin hymns. It is rather curious
+to trace its gradual development. It constitutes the only feature of
+literature which apparently did not come to us from the East. The
+earlier specimens of poetry of which we know anything among the
+Oriental nations other than the Hebrews, are beautiful examples of the
+possibilities of rhythm and the beginnings of meter. As poetry goes
+westward meter becomes as important as rhythm in poetry and these two
+qualities differentiated it from prose. Both of these literary modes,
+however, are eastern in origin. Rhyme comes from the distant West and
+seems to have originated in the alliteration invented by the Celtic
+bards. The vowel assonance was after a time completed by the addition
+of consonantal assonance and then the invention of rhyme was
+completed. The first fully rhymed hymns seem to have been written by
+the <a name="200">{200}</a> Irish monks and carried over to the Continent by them on
+their Christianizing expeditions, after the irruption of the
+barbarians had obliterated the civilization of Europe. During the
+Tenth and Eleventh centuries rhyme developed mainly in connection with
+ecclesiastical poetry. During the Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries it
+reached an acme of evolution which has never been surpassed during all
+the succeeding generations.
+</p>
+<p>
+It must not be thought that, because so much attention is given to the
+Dies Irae, this constitutes the only supremely great hymn of the
+Thirteenth Century. There are at least five or six others that well
+deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. One of them, the famous
+Stabat Mater of Jacopone da Todi, has been considered by some critics
+as quite as beautiful as the Dies Irae in poetic expression, though
+below it as poetry because of the lesser sublimity of its subject.
+Certainly no more marvelously poetic expression of all that is saddest
+in human sorrow has ever been put into words, than that which is to be
+found in these stanzas of the Franciscan Monk who had himself known
+all the depths of human sorrow and trial. Most people know the opening
+stanzas of it well enough to scarce need their presentation and yet it
+is from the poem itself, and not from any critical appreciation of it,
+that its greatness must be judged.
+</p>
+<a name="opp200">{opp200}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp200.jpg" border=1><br>
+VIRGIN AND CHILD (PISA, CAMPO SANTO, GIOV. PISANO)
+</p>
+
+<pre>
+  Stabat mater dolorosa
+  Juxta crucem lacrymosa,
+    Dum pendebat filius,
+  Cuius animan gementem,
+  Contristantem at dolentem
+    Pertransivit gladius.
+
+  O quam tristis et afflicta
+  Fuit illa benedicta
+    Mater unigeniti.
+  Quae moerebat et dolebat
+  Et tremebat, dum videbat
+    Nati poenas inclyti.
+
+  Quis est homo, qui non fleret,
+  Matrem Christi si videret,
+    In tanto supplicio?
+
+  Quis non posset contristari,
+  Piam matrem contemplari
+    Dolentem cum filio!
+</pre>
+
+<a name="201">{201}</a>
+<p>
+As in the case of the Dies Irae there have been many translations of
+the Stabat Mater, most of them done by poets whose hearts were in
+their work and who were accomplishing their purpose as labors of love.
+While we realize how many beautiful translations there are, it is
+almost pitiful to think what poor English versions are sometimes used
+in the devotional exercises of the present day. One of the most
+beautiful translations is undoubtedly that by Denis Florence
+MacCarthy, who has been hailed as probably the best translator into
+English of foreign poetry that our generation has known, and whose
+translations of Calderon present the greatest of Spanish poets, in a
+dress as worthy of the original as it is possible for a poet to have
+in a foreign tongue. MacCarthy has succeeded in following the
+intricate rhyme plan of the Stabat with a perfection that would be
+deemed almost impossible in our harsher English, which does not
+readily yield itself to double rhymes and which permits frequency of
+rhyme as a rule only at the sacrifice of vigor of expression. The
+first three stanzas, however, of the Stabat Mater will serve to show
+how well MacCarthy accomplished his difficult task:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  By the cross, on which suspended.
+  With his bleeding hands extended,
+    Hung that Son she so adored,
+  Stood the mournful Mother weeping.
+  She whose heart, its silence keeping.
+    Grief had cleft as with a sword.
+  O, that Mother's sad affliction&mdash;
+  Mother of all benediction&mdash;
+    Of the sole-begotten One;
+  Oh, the grieving, sense-bereaving,
+  Of her heaving breast, perceiving
+    The dread sufferings of her Son.
+  What man is there so unfeeling.
+  Who, his heart to pity steeling.
+    Could behold that sight unmoved?
+  Could Christ's Mother see there weeping,
+  See the pious Mother keeping
+    Vigil by the Son she loved?
+</pre>
+<a name="202">{202}</a>
+<p>
+A very beautiful translation in the meter of the original was also
+made by the distinguished Irish poet, Aubrey de Vere. The last two
+stanzas of this translation have been considered as perhaps the most
+charmingly effective equivalent in English for Jacopone's wonderfully
+devotional termination that has ever been written.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  May his wounds both wound and heal me;
+  His blood enkindle, cleanse, anneal me;
+    Be his cross my hope and stay:
+  Virgin, when the mountains quiver,
+  From that flame which burns for ever,
+    Shield me on the judgment-day.
+
+  Christ, when he that shaped me calls me,
+  When advancing death appalls me.
+    Through her prayer the storm make calm:
+  When to dust my dust returneth
+  Save a soul to thee that yearneth;
+    Grant it thou the crown and palm.
+</pre>
+<p>
+Even distinguished professors of philosophy and theology occasionally
+indulged themselves in the privilege of writing these Latin hymns and,
+what is more surprising, succeeded in making poetry of a very high
+order. At least two of the most distinguished professors in these
+branches at the University of Paris in the latter half of the
+Thirteenth Century, must be acknowledged as having written hymns that
+are confessedly immortal, not because of any canonical usage that
+keeps them alive, but because they express in very different ways, in
+wondrously beautiful language some of the sublimest religious thoughts
+of their time. These two are St. Bonaventure, the Franciscan, and St.
+Thomas of Aquin, the Dominican. St. Bonaventure's hymns on the Passion
+and Cross of Christ represent what has been most beautifully sung on
+these subjects in all the ages. St. Thomas' poetic work centers around
+the Blessed Sacrament in whose honor he was so ardent and so devoted
+<a name="203">{203}</a> that the composition of the office for its feast was confided to
+him by the Pope. The hymns he wrote, far from being the series of
+prosy theological formulas that might have been expected perhaps under
+such circumstances, are great contributions to a form of literature
+which contains more gems of purest ray in its collection than almost
+any other. St. Thomas' poetic jewels shine with no borrowed radiance,
+and their effulgence is not cast into shadow even by the greatest of
+their companion pieces among the Latin hymns of a wonderfully
+productive century. Neale's tribute to one of them has already been
+quoted in an earlier part of this chapter.
+</p>
+<p>
+It has indeed been considered almost miraculous, that this profoundest
+of thinkers should have been able to attain within the bounds of rhyme
+and rhythm, the accurate expression of some of the most intricate
+theological thoughts that have ever been expressed, and yet should
+have accomplished his purpose with a clarity of language, a simplicity
+and directness of words, a poetic sympathy of feeling, and an utter
+devotion, that make his hymns great literature in the best sense of
+the word. One of them at least, the Pange Lingua Gloriosi, has been in
+constant use in the church ever since his time, and its two last
+stanzas beginning with Tantum Ergo Sacramentum, are perhaps the most
+familiar of all the Latin hymns. Few of those most familiar with it
+realize its place in literature, the greatness of its author, or its
+own marvelous poetic merits.
+</p>
+<p>
+It must not be forgotten that at the very time when these hymns were
+most popular the modern languages were just assuming shape. Even at
+the end of the Thirteenth Century none of them had reached anything
+like the form that it was to continue to hold, except perhaps the
+Italian and to some extent the Spanish. When Dante wrote his Divine
+Comedy at the beginning of the Fourteenth Century, he was tempted to
+use the Latin language, the common language of all the scholars of his
+day, and the language ordinarily used for any ambitious literary
+project for nearly a century later. It will not be forgotten that when
+Petrarch in the Fourteenth Century wrote his epic, Africa, on which he
+expected his fame as a poet to rest, he preferred to use the Latin
+language. Fortunately Dante was large enough of mind to realize, that
+the vulgar <a name="204">{204}</a> tongue of the Italians would prove the best
+instrument for the expression of the thoughts he wished to
+communicate, and so he cast the Italian language into the mold in
+which it has practically ever since remained.
+</p>
+<p>
+His very hesitation, however, shows how incomplete as yet were these
+modern languages considered by the scholars who used them. It was at
+this very formative period, however, that the people on whose use of
+the nascent modern languages their future character depended, were
+having dinned into their ears in the numerous church services, the
+great Latin hymns with their wonderful finish of expression.
+Undoubtedly one of the most effective factors of whatever of sweetness
+there is in the modern tongues, must be attributed to this influence
+exerted all unconsciously upon the minds of the people. The rhythm and
+the expressiveness of these magnificent poems could scarcely fail to
+stamp itself to some degree upon the language, crude though it might
+be, of the people who had become so familiar with them. It is, then,
+to no small extent because of the influence of these Latin hymns that
+our modern languages possess a rhythmic melodiousness that in time
+enabled them to become the instruments for poetic diction in such a
+way as to satisfy all the requirements of the modern ear in rhyme, and
+rhythm, and meter. A striking corresponding effect upon the exactness
+of expression in the modern languages, it will be noticed, is pointed
+out in the chapter on the Prose of the Century as representing,
+according to Professor Saintsbury, the greatest benefit that was
+derived from the exaggerated practise of dialectic disputation in the
+curriculum of the medieval Universities.
+</p>
+<p>
+Those who would think that the Thirteenth Century was happy in
+creative genius but lacking in the critical faculty that would enable
+it to select the best, not only of the hymns presented by its own
+generations but also of those which came from the preceding centuries,
+should make themselves acquainted with the history of these Latin
+hymns. Just before the Thirteenth Century the monks of the famous
+Abbey of St. Victor took up the writing of hymns with wonderful
+success and two of them, Adam and Hugh, became not only the favorites
+of their own but of succeeding generations. The Thirteenth <a name="205">{205}</a>
+Century received the work of these men and gave them a vogue which has
+continued down to our own time. Some of the hymns that were thus
+acclaimed and made popular are among the greatest contributions to
+this form of literature, and while they have had periods of eclipse
+owing to bad taste in the times that followed, the reputation secured
+during the Thirteenth Century has always been sufficient to recall
+them to memory and bring men again to a realization of their beauty
+when a more esthetic generation came into existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+One of the hymns of the immediately preceding time, which attained
+great popularity during the Thirteenth Century&mdash;a popularity that
+reflects credit on those among whom it is noted as well as upon the
+great hymn itself&mdash;was Bernard of Cluny's or Bernard of Morlaix's
+hymn, concerning the contempt of the world, many of the ideas of which
+were to be used freely in the book bearing this title written by the
+first Pope of the century, Innocent III, whose name is usually, though
+gratuitously associated with quite other ideas than those of contempt
+for worldly grandeur. The description of the New Jerusalem to come,
+which is found at the beginning of this great poem, is the basis of
+all the modern religious poems on this subject. Few hymns have been
+more praised. Schaff, in his Christ in Song says: "This glowing
+description is the sweetest of all the new Jerusalem Hymns of Heavenly
+Homesickness which have taken their inspiration from the last two
+chapters of Revelation." The extreme difficulty of the meter which its
+author selected and which would seem almost to preclude the
+possibility of expressing great connected thought, especially in so
+long a poem, became under the master hand of this poetic genius, whose
+command of the Latin language is unrivaled, the source of new beauties
+for his poem. Besides maintaining the meter of the old Latin
+hexameters he added double rhymes in each line and yet had every
+alternate line also end in a rhyme. To appreciate the difficulty this
+must be read.
+</p>
+<a name="206">{206}</a>
+<pre>
+  Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, vigilemus,
+  Ecce minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus
+  Imminet, imminet ut mala terminet, aequa coronet.
+  Recta remuneret, anxia liberet, aethera donet,
+  Auferat aspera duraque pondera mentis onustae,
+  Sobria muniat, improba puniat, utraque juste.
+
+  Hic breve vivitur, hic breve plangitur, hic breve fletur;
+  Non breve vivere, non breve plangere retribuetur;
+  O retributio! stat brevis actio, vita perennis;
+  O retributio! coelica mansio stat lue plenis;
+  Quid datur et quibus? aether egentibus et cruce dignis,
+  Sidera vermibus, optima sontibus, astra malignis.
+</pre>
+<p>
+There are many versions, but few translators have dared to attempt a
+close imitation of the original meter. Its beauty is so great,
+however, that even the labor required for this has not deterred some
+enthusiastic admirers. Our English tongue, however, does not lend
+itself readily to the production of hexameters, though in these lines
+the rhyme and rhythm has been caught to some extent:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  "These are the latter times, these are not better times;
+      Let us stand waiting;
+  Lo! how with, awfulness, He, first in lawfulness,
+      Comes arbitrating."
+</pre>
+<p>
+Even from this it may be realized that Doctor Neale is justified in
+his enthusiastic opinion that "it is the most lovely, in the same way
+that the Dies Irae is the most sublime, and the Stabat Mater the most
+pathetic, of medieval poems."
+</p>
+<p>
+While it scarcely has a place here properly, a word must be said with
+regard to the music of the Thirteenth Century. It might possibly be
+thought that these wondrous rhymes had been spoiled in their
+effectiveness by the crude music to which they were set. To harbor any
+such notion, however, would only be another exhibition of that
+intellectual snobbery which concludes that generations so distant
+could not have anything worth the consideration of our more developed
+time. The music of the Thirteenth Century is as great a triumph as any
+other feature of its accomplishment. It would be clearly absurd to
+suppose, that the people who created the Cathedrals and made every
+element associated with the church ceremonial so beautiful as to
+attract the attention of all generations since, could have failed to
+develop a music suitable to these <a name="207">{207}</a> magnificent fanes. As a matter
+of fact no more suitable music for congregational singing than the
+Gregorian Chant, which reached the acme of its development in the
+Thirteenth Century, has been invented, and the fact that the Catholic
+Church, after having tried modern music, is now going back to this
+medieval musical mode for devotional expression, is only a further
+noteworthy tribute to the enduring character of another phase of
+Thirteenth Century accomplishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+Rockstro, who wrote the article on Plain Chant for Grove's Dictionary
+of Music and for the Encyclopedia Britannica, declared that no more
+wonderful succession of single notes, had even been strung into
+melodies so harmoniously adapted to the expression of the words with
+which they were to be sung, than some of these Plain Chants of the
+Middle Ages and especially of the Thirteenth Century. No more
+sublimely beautiful musical expression of all the depths there are in
+sadness has ever found its way into music, than what is so simply
+expressed in the Lamentations as they are sung in the office called
+Tenebrae during Holy Week. Even more beautiful in its joyousness is
+the marvelous melody of the Exultet which is sung in the Office of
+Holy Saturday. This latter is said to be the sublimest expression of
+joyful sound that has ever come from the human heart and mind. In a
+word, in music as in every other artistic department, the men of the
+Thirteenth Century reached a standard that has never been excelled and
+that remains to the present day as a source of pleasure and admiration
+for intellectual men, and will continue to be so for numberless
+generations yet unborn.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nor must it be thought that the Thirteenth Century men and women were
+satisfied with Church music alone. About the middle of the century
+part singing came into use in the churches at the less formal
+ceremonials, and soon spread to secular uses. As the Mystery Plays
+gave rise to the modern drama, so church music gave birth to the
+popular music of the time. In England, particularly, about the middle
+of the century, various glee songs were sung, portions of which have
+come down to us, and a great movement of folk music was begun. Before
+the end of the century the interaction of church and secular music had
+given rise to many of the modes of modern musical <a name="208">{208}</a> development,
+and the musical movement was as substantially begun as were any of the
+other great artistic and intellectual movements which this century so
+marvelously initiated. This subject, of course, is of the kind that
+needs to be studied in special works if any satisfactory amount of
+information is to be obtained, but even the passing hint of it which
+we have been able to give will enable the reader to realize the
+important place of the Thirteenth Century in the development of modern
+music.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i208.jpg" border=1><br>
+ENTOMBMENT OF BLESSED VIRGIN (NOTRE DAME, PARIS)
+</p>
+
+<a name="209">{209}</a>
+
+<h1>XIII
+<br>
+THREE MOST READ BOOKS OF THE CENTURY.</h1>
+
+<p>
+Three books were more read than any others during the Thirteenth
+Century, that is, of course, apart from Holy Scriptures, which
+contrary to the usually accepted notion in this matter, were
+frequently the subject of study and of almost daily contact in one way
+or another by all classes of people. These three books were, Reynard
+the Fox, that is the series of stories of the animals in which they
+are used as a cloak for a satire upon man and his ways, called often
+the Animal Epic; the Golden Legend, which impressed Longfellow so much
+that he spent many years making what he hoped might prove for the
+modern world a bit of the self-revelation that this wonderful old
+medieval book has been for its own and subsequent generations; and,
+finally, the Romance of the Rose, probably the most read book during
+the Thirteenth and Fourteenth and most of the Fifteenth centuries in
+all the countries of Europe. Its popularity can be well appreciated
+from the fact that, though Chaucer was much read, there are more than
+three times as many manuscript copies of The Romance of the Rose in
+existence as of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and it was one of the
+earliest books to see the light in print.   [Footnote 21]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 21: It was a favorite occupation some few years ago to pick
+  out what were considered the ten best books. Sir John Lubbock first
+  suggested, that it would be an interesting thing to pick out the ten
+  books which, if one were to be confined for life, should be thought
+  the most likely to be of enduring interest. If this favorite game
+  were to be played with the selection limited to the authors of a
+  single century, it is reasonably sure that most educated people
+  would pick out the thirteenth century group of ten for their
+  exclusive reading for the rest of life, rather than any other. An
+  experimental list of ten books selected from the thirteenth century
+  writers would include the Cid, the Legends of King Arthur, the
+  Nibelungen Lied, the Romance of the Rose, Reynard the Fox, the
+  Golden Legend, the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, Parsifal or Perceval
+  by Wolfram von Eschenbach, Durandus's Symbolism and Dante. As will
+  readily be appreciated by anyone who knows literature well, these
+  are eminently books of enduring interest. When it is considered that
+  in making this list no call is made upon Icelandic Literature nor
+  Provençal Literature, both of which are of supreme interest, and
+  both reached their maturity at this time, the abounding literary
+  wealth of the century will be understood.]
+</p>
+
+<a name="210">{210}</a>
+<p>
+It has become the fashion in recent years, to take the pains from time
+to time to find out which are the most read books. The criterion of
+worth thus set up is not very valuable, for unfortunately for the
+increase in readers, there has not come a corresponding demand for the
+best books nor for solid literature. The fact that a book has been the
+best seller, or the most read for a time, usually stamps it at once as
+trivial or at most as being of quite momentary interest and not at all
+likely to endure. It is all the more interesting to find then, that
+these three most read books of the Thirteenth Century, have not only
+more than merely academic interest at the present time, but that they
+are literature in the best sense of the word. They have always been
+not only a means of helping people to pass the time, the sad office to
+which the generality of books has been reduced in our time, but a
+source of inspiration for literary men in many generations since they
+first became popular. The story of Reynard the Fox is one of the most
+profoundly humorous books that was ever written. Its satire was aimed
+at its own time yet it is never for a moment antiquated for the modern
+reader. At a time when, owing to the imperfect development of personal
+rights, it would have been extremely dangerous to satirize as the
+author does very freely, the rulers, the judges, the nobility, the
+ecclesiastical authorities and churchmen, and practically all classes
+of society, the writer, whose name has, unfortunately for the
+completeness of literary history, not come down to us, succeeded in
+painting all the foibles of men and pointing out all the differences
+there are between men's pretensions and their actual accomplishments.
+All the methods by which the cunning scoundrel could escape justice
+are exploited. The various modes of escaping punishment by direct and
+indirect bribery, by pretended repentance and reformation, by cunning
+appeal to the selfishness of judges, are revealed with the fidelity to
+detail of a modern muckraker; yet, all of it with a humanly humorous
+quality which, while it takes away nothing from the completeness of
+the exposure, removes most of the bitterness that probably would have
+made the satire fail of its purpose. While every class in the
+community of the time comes in for satirical allusions, that give us a
+better idea of how closely the men and the women <a name="211">{211}</a> of the time
+resembled those of our own, than is to be found in any other single
+literary work that has been preserved for us from this century, or,
+indeed, any other, the series of stories seemed to be scarcely more
+than a collection of fables for children, and probably was read quite
+unsuspectingly by those who are so unmercifully satirized in it,
+though doubtless, as is usually noted in such cases, each one may have
+applied the satire of the story as he saw it to his neighbor and not
+to himself.
+</p>
+<p>
+A recent editor has said very well of Reynard the Fox that it is one
+of the most universal of books in its interest for all classes.
+Critics have at all times been ready to praise and few if any have
+found fault. It is one of the books that answers well to what Cardinal
+Newman declared to be at least the accidental definition of a classic;
+it pleases in childhood, in youth, in middle age and even in declining
+years. It is because of the eternal verity of the humanity in the
+book, that with so much truth Froude writing of Reynard can say: "It
+is not addressed to a passing mode of folly or of profligacy, but it
+touches the perennial nature of mankind, laying bare our own
+sympathies, and tastes, and weaknesses, with as keen and true an edge
+as when the living world of the old Suabian poet winced under its
+earliest utterance."
+</p>
+<p>
+The writer who traced the portraits must be counted one of the great
+observers of all time. As is the case with so many creative artists of
+the Thirteenth Century, though this is truer elsewhere than in
+literature, the author is not known. Perhaps he thought it safer to
+shroud his identity in friendly obscurity, rather than expose himself
+to the risks the finding of supposed keys to his satire might
+occasion. Too much credit must not be given to this explanation,
+however, though some writers have made material out of it to exploit
+Church intolerance, which the conditions do not justify. We are not
+sure who wrote the Arthur Legends, we do not know the author of the
+Cid, even all-pervasive German scholarship has not settled the problem
+of the writer of the Nibelungen, and the authorship of the Dies Irae
+is in doubt, though all of these would be sources of honor and praise
+rather than danger. Authors had evidently not as yet become
+sophisticated to the extent of <a name="212">{212}</a> seeking immortality for their
+works. They even seem to have been indifferent as to whether their
+names were associated with them or not. Enough for them apparently to
+have had the satisfaction of doing, all else seemed futile.
+</p>
+<p>
+The original of Reynard the Fox was probably written in the
+Netherlands, though it may be somewhat difficult for the modern mind
+to associate so much of wit and humor with the Dutchmen of the Middle
+Ages. It arose there about the time that the Cid came into vogue in
+Spain, the Arthur Legends were being put into shape in England, and
+the Nibelungen reaching its ultimate form in Germany. Reynard thus
+fills up the geographical chart of contemporary literary effort for
+the Thirteenth Century, since France and Italy come in for their share
+in other forms of literature, and no country is missing from the story
+of successful, enduring accomplishment in letters. It was written from
+so close to the heart of Nature, that it makes a most interesting gift
+book even for the Twentieth Century child, and yet will be read with
+probably even more pleasure by the parents. With good reason another
+recent editor has thus summed up the catholicity of its appeal to all
+generations:
+</p>
+<p>
+"This book belongs to the rare class which is equally delightful to
+children and to their elders. In this regard it may be compared to
+'Gulliver's Travels,' 'Don Quixote' and 'Pilgrim's Progress.' For wit
+and shrewd satire and for pure drollery both in situations and
+descriptions, it is unsurpassed. The animals are not men dressed up in
+the skin of beasts, but are throughout true to their characters, and
+are not only strongly realized but consistently drawn, albeit in so
+simple and captivating a way that the subtle art of the narrator is
+quite hidden, and one is aware only of reading an absorbingly
+interesting and witty tale." To have a place beside Gulliver, the old
+Spanish Knight and Christian, shows the estimation in which the book
+is held by those who are best acquainted with it.
+</p>
+<p>
+The work is probably best known through the version of it which has
+come to us from the greatest of German poets, Goethe, whose Reineke
+Fuchs has perhaps had more sympathetic readers and a wider audience
+than any other of Goethe's <a name="213">{213}</a> works. The very fact that so deeply
+intellectual a literary man should have considered it worth his while
+to devote his time to making a modern version of it, shows not only
+the estimation in which he held it, but also affords excellent
+testimony to its worth as literature, for Goethe, unlike most poets,
+was a fine literary critic, and one who above all knew the reasons for
+the esthetic faith that was in him. Animal stories in every age,
+however, have been imitations of it much more than is usually
+imagined. While the author probably obtained the hint for his work
+from some of the old-time fables as they came to him by tradition,
+though we have no reason to think that AEsop was familiar to him and
+many for thinking the Greek fabulist was not, he added so much to this
+simple literary mode, transformed it so thoroughly from child's
+literature to world literature, that the main merit of modern animal
+stories must be attributed to him. Uncle Remus and the many
+compilations of this kind that have been popular in our own
+generation, owe much more to the animal Epic than might be thought
+possible by one not familiar with the original Thirteenth Century
+work.
+</p>
+<p>
+Every language has a translation of the Animal Epic and most of the
+generations since have been interested and amused by the quaint
+conceits, which enable the author to picture so undisguisedly, men and
+women under animal garb. It discloses better than any other specimen
+of the literature of the time that men and women do not change even in
+the course of centuries, and that in the heart of the Middle Ages a
+wise observer could see the foibles of humanity just as they exist at
+the present time. Any one who thinks that evolution after seven
+centuries should have changed men somewhat in their ethical aspects,
+at least, made their aspirations higher and their tendencies less
+commonplace, not to say less degenerative, should read one of the old
+versions of Reynard the Fox and be convinced that men and women in the
+Thirteenth Century were quite the same as we are familiar with them at
+the present moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+The second of the most read books of the century is the famous Legenda
+Aurea or, as it has been called in English, the Golden Legend, written
+by Jacobus de Voragine, the distinguished Dominican preacher and
+writer (born during the first half of the Thirteenth Century, died
+just at its close), who, <a name="214">{214}</a> after rising to the higher grades in
+his own order, became the Archbishop of Genoa. His work at once sprang
+into popular favor and continued to be perhaps the most widely read
+book, with the exception of the Holy Scriptures, during the Fourteenth
+and Fifteenth centuries. It was one of the earliest books printed in
+Italy, the first edition appearing about 1570, and it is evident that
+it was considered that its widespread popularity would not only
+reimburse the publisher, but would help the nascent art of printing by
+bringing it to the attention of a great many people. Its subject is
+very different from that of the modern most read books; librarians do
+not often have to supply lives of Saints nowadays, though some
+similarities of material with that of books now much in demand help to
+account for its vogue.
+</p>
+<p>
+Jacobus de Voragine's work consisted of the lives of the greater
+Saints of the Church since the time of Christ, and detailed especially
+the wonderful things that happened in their lives, some of which of
+course were mythical and all of them containing marvelous stories.
+This gave prominence to many legends that have continued to maintain
+their hold upon the popular imagination ever since. With all this
+adventitious interest, however, the book contained a solid fund of
+information with regard to the lives of the Saints, and besides it
+taught the precious lessons of unselfishness and the care for others
+of the men who had come to be greeted by the title of Saint. The work
+must have done not a little to stir up the faith, enliven the charity,
+and build up the characters of the people of the time, and certainly
+has fewer objections than most popular reading at any period of the
+world's history. For young folks the wonderful legends afforded
+excellent and absolutely innocuous exercise of the functions of the
+imagination quite as well as our own modern wonder books or fairy
+tales, while the stories themselves presented many descriptive
+portions out of which subjects for decorative purposes could readily
+be obtained. It must be set down as another typical distinction of the
+Thirteenth Century and an addition to its greatness, that it should
+have made the Golden Legend popular and thus preserved it for future
+generations, who became <a name="215">{215}</a> deeply interested in it, as in most of
+the other precious heritages they received from this great original
+century.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp214">{opp214}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp214a.jpg" border=1><br>
+MADONNA AND CHILD (GIOV. PISANO, PADUA)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp214b.jpg" border=1><br>
+ST. CHRISTOPHER (ALTO RELIEVO, VENICE)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The third of the most read books of the century, The Romance of the
+Rose, is not so well known except by scholars as is the Animal Epic or
+perhaps even the Golden Legend. Anyone who wants to understand the
+burden of the time, however, and who wishes to put himself in the mood
+and the tense to comprehend not only the other literature of the era,
+and in this must be included even Dante, but also the social,
+educational, and even scientific movements of the period, must become
+familiar with it. It has been well said that a knowledge and study of
+the three most read books of the century, those which we have named,
+will afford a far clearer insight into the daily life and the spirit
+working within the people for whom they were written, than the annals
+of the wars or political struggles that were waged during the same
+period between kings and nobles. For this clearer insight a knowledge
+of the Romance of the Rose is more important than of the others. It
+provides a better introduction to the customs and habits, the manners
+of thought and of action, the literary and educational interests of
+the people of the Thirteenth Century, than any mere history, however
+detailed, could. In this respect it resembles Homer who, as Froude
+declares, has given us a better idea of Greek life than a whole
+encyclopedia of classified information would have done. The intimate
+life stories of no other periods in history are so well illustrated,
+nor so readily to be comprehended, as those of Homer and the authors
+of the medieval Romaunt.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Romance of the Rose continued to be for more than two centuries
+the most read book in Europe. Every one with any pretense to
+scholarship or to literary taste in any European country considered it
+necessary to be familiar with it, and without exaggeration what Lowell
+once declared with regard to Don Quixote, that it would be considered
+a mark of lack of culture to miss a reference to it in any country in
+Europe, might well have been repeated during the Fourteenth and
+Fifteenth centuries of the Romance of the Rose. It has in recent years
+been put into very suitable English dress by Mr. F. S. Ellis and
+published among the Temple Classics, thus placing it <a name="216">{216}</a> within easy
+reach of English readers. Mr. Ellis must certainly be considered a
+suitable judge of the interest there is in the work. He spent several
+years in translating its two and twenty thousand six hundred and eight
+lines and yet considers that few books deserve as much attention as
+this typical Thirteenth Century allegory. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The charge of dulness once made against this highly imaginative and
+  brilliant book, successive English writers, until quite recent times
+  have been content to accept the verdict, though Professor Morley and
+  others have of late ably repelled the charge. If further testimony
+  were necessary as to the falsity of the accusation, and the opinion
+  of one who has found a grateful pastime in translating it might be
+  considered of any weight, he would not hesitate to traverse the
+  attribution of dulness, and to assert that it is a poem of extreme
+  interest, written as to the first part with delicate fancy, sweet
+  appreciation of natural beauty, clear insight, and skilful
+  invention, while J. de Meun's continuation is distinguished by
+  vigor, brilliant invention, and close observation of human nature.
+  The Thirteenth Century lives before us."
+</p>
+<p>
+The Rose is written on a lofty plane of literary value, and the fact
+that it was so popular, speaks well for the taste of the times and for
+the enthusiasm of the people for the more serious forms of literature.
+Not that the Romance of the Rose is a very serious book itself, but if
+we compare it with the popular publications which barely touch the
+realities of life in the modern time, it will seem eminently serious.
+In spite of the years that have elapsed since its original publication
+it has not lost all its interest, even for a casual reader, and
+especially for one whose principal study is mankind in its varying
+environment down the ages, for it presents a very interesting picture
+of men and their ways in this wonderful century. Here, as in the
+stories of Reynard the Fox, one is brought face to face with the fact
+that men and women have not changed and that the peccadillos of our
+own generation have their history in the Middle Ages also. Take, for
+instance, the question of the too great love of money which is now the
+subject of so much writing and sermonizing. One might think that at
+least this was <a name="217">{217}</a> modern. Here, however, is what the author of the
+Romance of the Rose has to say about it:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  Three cruel vengeances pursue
+  These miserable wretches who
+  Hoard up their worthless wealth: great toil
+  Is theirs to win it; then their spoil
+  They fear to lose; and lastly, grieve
+  Most bitterly that they must leave
+  Their hoards behind them. Cursed they die
+  Who living, lived but wretchedly;
+  For no man, if he lack of love.
+  Hath peace below or joy above.
+  If those who heap up wealth would show
+  Fair love to others, they would go
+  Through life beloved, and thus would reign
+  Sweet happy days. If they were fain,
+  Who hold so much of good to shower around
+  Their bounty unto those they found
+  In need thereof, and nobly lent
+  Their money, free from measurement
+  Of usury (yet gave it not
+  To idle gangrel men), I wot
+  That then throughout the land were seen
+  No pauper carl or starveling quean.
+  But lust of wealth doth so abase
+  Man's heart, that even love's sweet grace
+  Bows down before it; men but love
+  Their neighbors that their love may prove
+  A profit, and both bought and sold
+  Are friendships at the price of gold.
+  Nay, shameless women set to hire
+  Their bodies, heedless of hell-fire;
+</pre>
+<p>
+It is after reading a passage like this in a book written in the
+Thirteenth Century that one feels the full truth of that expression of
+the greatest of American critics, James Russell Lowell, which so often
+comes back to mind with regard to the works of this century, that to
+read a classic is like reading a commentary on the morning paper. When
+this principle is <a name="218">{218}</a> applied the other way, I suppose it may be
+said, that when a book written in the long ago sounds as if it were
+the utterance of some one aroused by the evils round him in our modern
+life, then it springs from so close to the heart of nature that it is
+destined to live and have an influence far beyond its own time. The
+Romance of the Rose, written seven centuries ago, now promises to have
+renewed youth in the awakening of interest in our Gothic ancestors and
+their accomplishments, before the over-praised renaissance came to
+trouble the stream of thought and writing.
+</p>
+<p>
+Other passages serve to show how completely the old-time poet realized
+all the abuses of the desire for wealth, and how much it makes men
+waste their lives over unessentials, instead of trying to make
+existence worth while for themselves and others. Here is an
+arraignment of the strenuous life of business every line of which is
+as true for us as it was for the poet's generation:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  'Tis truth (though some 'twill little please)
+  To hear the trader knows no ease;
+  For ever in his soul a prey
+  To anxious care of how he may
+  Amass more wealth: this mad desire
+  Doth all his thought and actions fire.
+  Devising means whereby to stuff
+  His barns and coffers, for 'enough'
+  He ne'er can have, but hungreth yet
+  His neighbors' goods and gold to get.
+  It is as though for thirst he fain
+  Would quaff the volume of the Seine
+  At one full draught, and yet should fail
+  To find its waters of avail
+  To quench his longing. What distress,
+  What anguish, wrath, and bitterness
+  Devour the wretch! fell rage and spite
+  Possess his spirit day and night.
+  And tear his heart; the fear of want
+  Pursues him like a spectre gaunt.
+  The more he hath, a wider mouth
+  He opes, no draught can quench his drouth.
+</pre>
+<a name="219">{219}</a>
+<p>
+The old poet pictures the happiness of the poor man by contrast, and
+can in conclusion depict even more pitilessly the real poverty of
+spirit of the man who "having, struggleth still to get" and never
+stops to enjoy life itself by helping his fellows:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  Light-heart and gay
+  Goes many a beggar by the way,
+  But little heeding though his back
+  Be bent beneath a charcoal sack.
+  They labor patiently and sing.
+  And dance, and laugh at whatso thing
+  Befalls, for havings care they nought.
+  But feed on scraps and chitlings bought
+  Beside St. Marcel's, and dispend
+  Their gains for wassail, then, straight wend
+  Once more to work, not grumblingly.
+  But light of heart as bird on tree
+  Winning their bread without desire
+  To fleece their neighbors. Nought they tire
+  Of this their round, but week by week
+  In mirth and work contentment seek;
+  Returning when their work is done
+  Once more to swill the jovial tun.
+  And he who what he holds esteems
+  Enough, is rich beyond the dreams
+  Of many a dreary usurer,
+  And lives his life-days happier far;
+  For nought it signifies what gains
+  The wretched usurer makes, the pains
+  Of poverty afflict him yet
+  Who having, struggleth still to get.
+</pre>
+<p>
+The pictures are as true to life at the beginning of the Twentieth
+Century as they were in the latter half of the Thirteenth. There are
+little touches of realism in both the pictures, which show at once how
+acute an observer, how full of humor his appreciation, and yet how
+sympathetic a writer the author of the Romance was, and at the same
+time reveal something of the sociological value of his work. It
+discloses what is so easily concealed under the mask of formal
+historical writing and <a name="220">{220}</a> tells us of the people rather than of the
+few great ones among them, or those whom time and chance had made
+leaders of men. It seems long to read but as a recent translator has
+said, it represents only the file of a newspaper for eighteen months,
+and while it talks of quite as trivial things as the modern newspaper,
+the information is of a kind that is likely to do more good, and prove
+of more satisfaction, than the passing crimes and scandals that now
+occupy over-anxious readers.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i220.jpg" border=1><br>
+CENTRAL TOWER (LINCOLN)
+</p>
+
+<a name="221">{221}</a>
+
+
+<h1>XIV
+<br>
+SOME THIRTEENTH CENTURY PROSE.</h1>
+
+<p>
+It would be unpardonable to allow the notion to be entertained that it
+was only in poetry that the writers of the Thirteenth Century
+succeeded in creating works of enduring influence. Some of the prose
+writings of the time are deeply interesting for many reasons. Modern
+prose was in its formative period, and the evolution of style, as of
+other things in the making, is proverbially worthy of more serious
+study than even the developed result. The prose writings of the
+Thirteenth Century were mainly done in Latin, but that was not for
+lack of command over the vernacular tongues, as we shall see, but
+because this was practically a universal language. This century had
+among other advantages that subsequent ages have striven for
+unsuccessfully, our own most of all, a common medium of expression for
+all scholars at least. There are, however, the beginnings of Prose in
+all the modern languages and it is easy to understand that the Latin
+of the time had a great influence on the vernacular and that the modes
+of expression which had become familiar in the learned tongue, were
+naturally transferred to the vulgar speech, as it was called, whenever
+accuracy of thought and nicety of expression invited such
+transmutation.
+</p>
+<p>
+With regard to the Latin of the period it is the custom of many
+presumably well-educated men to sniff a little and say deprecatingly,
+that after all much cannot be expected from the writers of the time,
+since they were dependent on medieval or scholastic Latin for the
+expression of their ideas. This criticism is supposed to do away with
+any idea of the possibility of there having been a praiseworthy prose
+style, at this time in the Middle Ages. In the chapter on the Latin
+Hymns, we call attention to the fact that this same mode of criticism
+was supposed to preclude all possibility of rhymed Latin, as worthy to
+occupy a prominent place in literature. The widespread <a name="222">{222}</a>
+encouragement of this false impression has, as a matter of fact, led
+to a neglect of these wonderful poems, though they may in the opinion
+of competent critics, even be considered as representing the true
+genius of the Latin language and its powers of poetic expression
+better than the Greek poetic modes, which were adopted by the Romans,
+but which, with the possible exception of their two greatest poets,
+never seem to have acquired that spontaneity that would characterize a
+native outburst of lingual vitality.
+</p>
+<p>
+As for the philosophic writers of the century that great period holds
+in this, as in other departments, the position of the palmiest time of
+the Middle Ages. To it belongs Alexander Hales, the Doctor
+Irrefragabilis who disputes with Aquinas the prize for the best
+example of the Summa Theologiae; Bonaventure the Mystic, and writer of
+beautiful hymns; Roger Bacon, the natural philosopher; Vincent of
+Beauvais, the encyclopedist. While of the four, greatest of all,
+Albertus Magnus, the "Dumb Ox of Cologne," was born seven years before
+its opening, his life lasted over four-fifths of it; that of Aquinas
+covered its second and third quarters; Occam himself, though his main
+exertions lie beyond this century, was probably born before Aquinas
+died; while John Duns Scotus hardly outlived the century's close by a
+decade. Raymond Lully, one of the most characteristic figures of
+Scholasticism and of the medieval period (with his "great art" of
+automatic philosophy), who died in 1315, was born as early as 1235.
+Peter the Spaniard, Pope and author of the Summulae Logicales, the
+grammar of formal logic for ages as well of several medieval treatises
+that have attracted renewed attention in our day, died in 1277.
+</p>
+<p>
+With regard to what was accomplished in philosophic and theologic
+prose, examples will be found in the chapter on St. Thomas Aquinas,
+which prove beyond all doubt the utter simplicity, the directness, and
+the power of the prose of the Thirteenth Century. In the medical works
+of the time there was less directness, but always a simplicity that
+made them commendable. In general, university writers were influenced
+by the scholastic methods and we find it reflected constantly in their
+works. In the minds of many people this would be <a name="223">{223}</a> enough at once
+to condemn it. It will usually be found, however, as we have noted
+before, that those who are readiest to condemn scholastic writing know
+nothing about it, or so little that their opinion is not worth
+considering. Usually they have whatever knowledge they think they
+possess, at second hand. Sometimes all that they have read of
+scholastic philosophy are some particularly obscure passages on
+abstruse subjects, selected by some prejudiced historian, in order to
+show how impossible was the philosophic writing of these centuries of
+the later Middle Ages.
+</p>
+<p>
+There are other opinions, however, that are of quite different
+significance and value. We shall quote but one of them, written by
+Professor Saintsbury of the University of Edinburgh, who in his volume
+on the Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (the Twelfth
+and Thirteenth centuries) of his Periods of European Literature, has
+shown how sympathetically the prose writing of the Thirteenth Century
+may appeal even to a scholarly modern, whose main interests have been
+all his life in literature. Far from thinking that prose was spoiled
+by scholasticism. Prof. Saintsbury considers that scholasticism was
+the fortunate training school in which all the possibilities of modern
+prose were brought out and naturally introduced into the budding
+languages of the time. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "However this may be" (whether the science of the Nineteenth Century
+  after an equal interval will be of any more positive value, whether
+  it will not have even less comparative interest than that which
+  appertains to the scholasticism of the Thirteenth Century) "the
+  claim modest, and even meager as it may seem to some, which has been
+  here once more put forward for this scholasticism&mdash;the claim of a
+  far-reaching educative influence in mere language, in mere system of
+  arrangement and expression, will remain valid. If at the outset of
+  the career of modern languages, men had thought with the looseness
+  of modern thought, had indulged in the haphazard slovenliness of
+  modern logic, had popularized theology and vulgarized rhetoric, as
+  we have seen both popularized and vulgarized since, we should indeed
+  have been in evil case. It used to be thought clever to moralize and
+  to felicitate mankind over the rejection of the stays, the fetters,
+  the prison in which its <a name="224">{224}</a> thought was medievally kept. The
+  justice or the injustice, the taste or the vulgarity of these
+  moralizings, of these felicitations, may not concern us here. But in
+  expression, as distinguished from thought, the value of the
+  discipline to which these youthful languages was subjected is not
+  likely now to be denied by any scholar who has paid attention to the
+  subject. It would have been perhaps a pity if thought had not gone
+  through other phases; it would certainly have been a pity if the
+  tongues had been subjected to the fullest influence of Latin
+  constraint. But that the more lawless of them benefited by that
+  constraint there can be no doubt whatever. The influence of form
+  which the best Latin hymns of the Middle Ages exercised in poetry,
+  the influence in vocabulary and in logical arrangement which
+  scholasticism exercised in prose are beyond dispute: and even those
+  who will not pardon literature, whatever its historic and educative
+  importance be, for being something less than masterly in itself,
+  will find it difficult to maintain the exclusion of the Cur Deus
+  Homo, and impossible to refuse admission to the Dies Irae."
+</p>
+<p>
+Besides this philosophic and scientific prose, there were two forms of
+writing of which this century presents a copious number of examples.
+These are the chronicles and biographies of the time and the stories
+of travelers and explorers. These latter we have treated in a separate
+chapter. The chronicles of the time deserve to be studied with patient
+attention by anyone who wishes to know the prose writers of the
+century and the character of the men of that time and their outlook on
+life. It is usually considered that chroniclers are rather tiresome
+old fogies who talk much and say very little, who accept all sorts of
+legends on insufficient authority and who like to fill up their pages
+with wonderful things regardless of their truth. In this regard it
+must not be forgotten that in times almost within the memory of men
+still alive, Herodotus now looked upon deservedly as the Father of
+History and one of the great historical writers of all time, was
+considered to have a place among these chroniclers, and his works were
+ranked scarcely higher, except for the purity of their Greek style.
+</p>
+<p>
+The first of the great chroniclers in a modern tongue was the famous
+Geoffrey de Villehardouin, who was not only a writer <a name="225">{225}</a> of, but an
+actor in the scenes which he describes. He was enrolled among the
+elite of French Chivalry, in that Crusade at the beginning of the
+Thirteenth Century, which resulted in the foundation of the
+Greco-Latin Empire. His book entitled "The Conquest of
+Constantinople," includes the story of the expedition during the years
+from 1198 to 1207. Modern war correspondents have seldom succeeded in
+giving a more vivid picture of the events of which they were witnesses
+than this first French chronicler of the Thirteenth Century. It is
+evident that the work was composed with the idea that it should be
+recited, as had been the old poetic Chansons de Geste, in the castles
+of the nobles and before assemblages of the people, perhaps on fair
+days and other times when they were gathered together. The consequence
+is that it is written in a lively straightforward style with direct
+appeals to its auditors.
+</p>
+<p>
+It contains not a few passages of highly poetic description which show
+that the chronicler was himself a literary man of no mean order and
+probably well versed in the effusions of the old poets of this
+country. His description of the fleet of the Crusaders as it was about
+to set sail for the East and then his description of its arrival
+before the imposing walls of the Imperial City, are the best examples
+of this, and have not been surpassed even by modern writers on similar
+topics.
+</p>
+<p>
+Though the French writer was beyond all doubt not familiar with the
+Grecian writers and knew nothing of Xenophon, there is a constant
+reminder of the Greek historian in his work. Xenophon's simple
+directness, his thorough-going sincerity, the impression he produces
+of absolute good faith and confidence in the completeness of the
+picture, so that one feels that one has been present almost at many of
+the scenes described, are all to be encountered in his medieval
+successor. Villehardouin went far ahead of his predecessors, the
+chroniclers of foregoing centuries, in his careful devotion to truth.
+A French writer has declared that to Villehardouin must be ascribed
+the foundation of historical probity. None of his facts, stated as
+such, has ever been impugned, and though his long speeches must
+necessarily have been his own composition, there seems no doubt that
+they contain the ideas which had been expressed on various occasions,
+and besides were composed with due reference to <a name="226">{226}</a> the character of
+the speaker and convey something of his special style of expression.
+</p>
+<p>
+Prof. Saintsbury in his article in the Encyclopedia Britannica on
+Villehardouin, sums up very strikingly the place that this first great
+vernacular historian's book must occupy.
+</p>
+<p>
+He says: "It is not impertinent, and at the same time an excuse for
+what has been already said, to repeat that Villehardouin's book, brief
+as it is, is in reality one of the capital books of literature, not
+merely for its merit, but because it is the most authentic and the
+most striking embodiment in the contemporary literature of the
+sentiments which determined the action of a great and important period
+of history. There are but very few books which hold this position, and
+Villehardouin's is one of them. If every other contemporary record of
+the crusades perished, we should still be able by aid of this to
+understand and realize what the mental attitude of crusaders, of
+Teutonic Knights, and the rest was, and without this we should lack
+the earliest, the most undoubtedly genuine, and the most
+characteristic of all such records. The very inconsistency with which
+Villehardouin is chargeable, the absence of compunction with which he
+relates the changing of a sacred religious pilgrimage into something
+by no means unlike a mere filibustering raid on a great scale, add a
+charm to the book. For, religious as it is, it is entirely free from
+the very slightest touch of hypocrisy or, indeed, of
+self-consciousness of any kind. The famous description of the
+Crusades, <i>gesta Dei per Francos</i>, was evidently to Villehardouin a
+plain matter-of-fact description and it no more occurred to him to
+doubt the divine favor being extended to the expeditions against
+Alexius or Theodore than to doubt that it was shown to expeditions
+against Saracens and Turks."
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp226">{opp226}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp226a.jpg" border=1><br>
+PONTE ALLE GRAZIE (FLORENCE, LAPO)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp226b.jpg" border=1><br>
+PORTA ROMANA GATE, (FLORENCE, N. PISANO)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was especially in the exploitation of biographical material that
+the Thirteenth Century chroniclers were at their best. Any one who
+recalls Carlyle's unstinted admiration of Jocelyn of Brakelonds' life
+of Abbot Sampson in his essays Past and Present, will be sure that at
+least one writer in England had succeeded in pleasing so difficult a
+critic in this rather thorny mode of literary expression. It is easy
+to say too much or too little about the virtues and the vices of a man
+whose biography one has chosen to write. Jocelyn's simple,
+straightforward story <a name="227">{227}</a> would seem to fulfill the best canons of
+modern criticism in this respect. Probably no more vivid picture of a
+man and his ways was ever given until Boswell's Johnson. Nor was the
+English chronicler alone in this respect. The Sieur de Joinville's
+biographical studies of the life of Louis IX. furnish another example
+of this literary mode at its best, and modern writers of biography
+could not do better than go back to read these intimate pictures of
+the life of a great king, which are not flattered nor overdrawn but
+give us the man as he actually was.
+</p>
+<p>
+The English biographic chronicler of the olden time could picture
+exciting scenes without any waste of words. A specimen of his work
+will serve to show the merit of his style. After reading it one is not
+likely to be surprised that Carlyle should have so taken the
+Chronicler to heart nor been so enthusiastic in his praise. It is the
+very type of that impressionism in style that has once more in the
+course of time become the fad of our own day.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The abbot was informed that the church of Woolpit was vacant,
+  Walter of Coutances being chosen to the bishopric of Lincoln. He
+  presently convened the prior and great part of the convent, and
+  taking up his story thus began: 'You well know what trouble I had in
+  respect of the church of Woolpit; and in order that it should be
+  obtained for your exclusive use I journeyed to Rome at your
+  instance, in the time of the schism between Pope Alexander and
+  Octavian. I passed through Italy at that time when all clerks
+  bearing letters of our lord the Pope Alexander were taken. Some were
+  imprisoned, some hanged, and some, with nose and lips cut off, sent
+  forward to the pope, to his shame and confusion. I, however,
+  pretended to be Scotch; and putting on the garb of a Scotchman, and
+  the gesture of one, I often brandished my staff, in the way they use
+  that weapon called, a gaveloc, at those who mocked me, using
+  threatening language, after the manner of the Scotch. To those that
+  met and questioned me as to who I was, I answered nothing, but,
+  "Ride ride Rome, turne Cantwereberei." This did I to conceal myself
+  and my errand, and that I should get to Rome safer in the guise of a
+  Scotchman.
+<br><br>
+  "'Having obtained letters from the pope, even as I wished, on my
+  return I passed by a certain castle, as my way led me <a name="228">{228}</a> from the
+  city; and behold the officers thereof came about me, laying hold
+  upon me, and saying, "This vagabond who makes himself out to be a
+  Scotchman is either a spy or bears letters from the false pope
+  Alexander." And while they examined my ragged clothes, and my boots,
+  and my breeches, and even the old shoes which I carried over my
+  shoulders, after the fashion of the Scotch, I thrust my hand into
+  the little wallet which I carried, wherein was contained the letter
+  of our lord the pope, placed under a little cup I had for drinking.
+  The Lord God and St. Edmund so permitting, I drew out both the
+  letter and the cup together, so that, extending my arm aloft, I held
+  the letter underneath the cup. They could see the cup plain enough,
+  but they did not see the letter; and so I got clear out of their
+  hands, in the name of the Lord. Whatever money I had about me they
+  took away; therefore I had to beg from door to door, without any
+  payment, until I arrived in England.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+Another excellent example of the biographic prose of the century,
+though this is the vernacular, is Joinville's life of St. Louis,
+without doubt one of the precious biographical treasures of all times.
+It contains a vivid portrait of Louis IX., made by a man who knew him
+well personally, took part with him in some of the important actions
+of the book, and in general was an active personage in the affairs of
+the time. Those who think that rapid picturesque description such as
+vividly recalls deeds of battle was reserved for the modern war
+correspondent, should read certain portions of Joinville's book. As an
+example we have ventured to quote the page on which the seneschal
+historian himself recounts the role which he played in the famous
+battle of Mansourah, at which, with the Count de Soissons and Pierre
+de Neuville, he defended a small bridge against the enemy under a hail
+of arrows.
+</p>
+<p>
+He says: "Before us there were two sergeants of the king, one of whom
+was named William de Boon and the other John of Gamaches. Against
+these the Turks who had placed themselves between the river and the
+little tributary, led a whole mob of villains on foot, who hurled at
+them clods of turf or whatever came to hand. Never could they make
+them recoil upon us, however. As a last resort the Turks sent forward
+a foot soldier <a name="229">{229}</a> who three times launched Greek fire at them. Once
+William de Boon received the pot of green fire upon his buckler. If
+the fire had touched anything on him he would have been entirely
+burned up. We at the rear were all covered by arrows which had missed
+the Sergeants. It happened that I found a waistcoat which had been
+stuffed by one of the Saracens. I turned the open side of it towards
+me and made a shield out of the vest which rendered me great service,
+for I was wounded by their arrows in only five places though my horse
+was wounded in fifteen. One of my own men brought me a banner with my
+arms and a lance. Every time then that we saw that they were pressing
+the Royal Sergeants we charged upon them and they fled. The good Count
+Soissons, from the point at which we were, joked with me and said
+'Senechal, let us hoot out this rabble, for by the headdress of God
+(this was his favorite oath) we shall talk over this day you and I
+many a time in our ladies' halls.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+We have said that the writing of the Thirteenth Century must have been
+done to a great extent for the sake of the women of the time, and that
+its very existence was a proof that the women possessed a degree of
+culture, that might not be realized from the few details that have
+been preserved to us of their education and habits of life. In this
+last passage of Joinville we have the proof of this, since evidently
+the telling of the stories of these days of battle was done mainly in
+order that the women folks might have their share in the excitement of
+the campaign, and might be enabled vividly to appreciate what the
+dangers had been and how gloriously their lords had triumphed. At
+every period of the world's history it was true that literature was
+mainly made for women and that some of the best portions of it always
+concerned them very closely.
+</p>
+<p>
+We have purposely left till last, the greatest of the chroniclers of
+the Thirteenth Century, Matthew Paris, the Author of the Historia
+Major, who owes his surname doubtless to the fact that he was educated
+at the University of Paris. Instead of trying to tell anything about
+him from our own slight personal knowledge, we prefer to quote the
+passage from Green's History of the English People, in which one of
+the greatest of our modern English historians pays such a magnificent
+tribute to his colleague of the earlier times:
+</p>
+<a name="230">{230}</a>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The story of this period of misrule has been preserved for us by an
+  annalist whose pages glow with the new outburst of patriotic feeling
+  which this common expression of the people and the clergy had
+  produced. Matthew Paris is the greatest, as he is in reality the
+  last of our monastic historians. The school of St. Albans survived
+  indeed till a far later time, but the writers dwindle into mere
+  annalists whose view is bounded by the Abbey precincts, and whose
+  work is as colorless as it is jejune. In Matthew the breadth and
+  precision of the narrative, the copiousness of his information on
+  topics whether national or European, the general fairness and
+  justice of his comments, are only surpassed by the patriotic fire
+  and enthusiasm of the whole. He had succeeded Roger of Wendover as
+  Chronicler of St. Albans; and the Greater Chronicle, with the
+  abridgement of it which has long passed under the name of Matthew of
+  Westminster, a "History of the English," and the "Lives of the
+  Earlier Abbots," were only a few among the voluminous works which
+  attest his prodigious industry. He was an eminent artist as well as
+  a historian, and many of the manuscripts which are preserved are
+  illustrated by his own hand. A large circle of
+  correspondents&mdash;bishops like Grosseteste, ministers like Hubert de
+  Burgh, officials like Alexander de Swinford&mdash;furnished him with
+  minute accounts of political and ecclesiastical proceedings.
+  Pilgrims from the East and Papal agents brought news of foreign
+  events to his scriptorium at St. Albans. He had access to and quotes
+  largely from state documents, charters, and exchequer rolls. The
+  frequency of the royal visits to the abbey brought him a store of
+  political intelligence and Henry himself contributed to the great
+  chronicle which has preserved with so terrible a faithfulness the
+  memory of his weakness and misgovernment. On one solemn feast-day
+  the King recognized Matthew, and bidding him sit on the middle step
+  between the floor and the throne, begged him to write the story of
+  the day's proceedings. While on a visit to St. Albans he invited him
+  to his table and chamber, and enumerated by name two hundred and
+  fifty of the English barons for his information. But all this royal
+  patronage has left little mark on his work. "<i>The case,</i>" as he
+  says, "<i>of historical writers is hard, for if they tell the truth
+  they provoke men, and if they write what is false they offend God.</i>"
+  <a name="231">{231}</a> With all the fullness of the school of court historians, such
+  as Benedict or Hoveden, Matthew Paris combines an independence and
+  patriotism which is strange to their pages. He denounces with the
+  same unsparing energy the oppression of the Papacy and the King. His
+  point of view is neither that of a courtier nor of a Churchman, but
+  of an Englishman, and the new national tone of his chronicle is but
+  an echo of the national sentiment which at last bound nobles and
+  yeomen and Churchmen together into an English people."
+</p>
+<p>
+We of the Twentieth Century are a people of information and
+encyclopedias rather than of literature, so that we shall surely
+appreciate one important specimen of the prose writing of the
+Thirteenth Century since it comprises the first modern encyclopedia.
+Its author was the famous Vincent of Beauvais. Vincent consulted all
+the authors, sacred and profane, that he could possibly lay hands on,
+and the number of them was indeed prodigious. It has often been said
+by men supposed to be authorities in history, that the historians of
+the Middle Ages had at their disposition only a small number of books,
+and that above all they were not familiar with the older historians.
+While this was true as regards the Greek, it was not for the Latin
+historical writers. Vincent of Beauvais has quotations from Caesar's
+De Bello Gallico, from Sallust's Catiline and Jugurtha, from Quintus
+Curtius, from Suetonius and from Valerius Maximus and finally from
+Justin's Abridgement of Trogus Pompeius.
+</p>
+<p>
+Vincent had the advantage of having at his disposition the numerous
+libraries of the monasteries throughout France, the extent of which,
+usually unrealized in modern times, will be appreciated from our
+special chapter on the subject. Besides he consulted the documents in
+the chapter houses of the Cathedrals especially those of Paris, of
+Rouen, of Laon, of Beauvais and of Bayeux, which were particularly
+rich in collections of documents. It might be thought that these
+libraries and archives would be closely guarded. Far from being closed
+to writers from the outer world they were accessible to all to such an
+extent, indeed, that a number of them are mentioned by Vincent as
+public institutions.
+</p>
+<a name="232">{232}</a>
+<p>
+His method of collecting his information is interesting, because it
+shows the system employed by him is practically that which has
+obtained down to our own day. He made use for his immense
+investigation of a whole army of young assistants, most of whom were
+furnished him by his own order, the Dominicans. He makes special
+mention in a number of places of quotations due to their
+collaboration. The costliness of maintaining such a system would have
+made the completion of the work absolutely impossible were it not for
+the liberality of King Louis IX., who generously offered to defray the
+expenses of the composition. Vincent has acknowledged this by
+declaring in his prefatorial letter to the King that, "you have always
+liberally given assistance even to the work of gathering the
+materials."
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp232">{opp232}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp232a.jpg" border=1><br>
+ST. CATHERINE'S (LÜBECK)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp232b.jpg" border=1><br>
+CHURCH AND CLOISTERS, SAN ANTONIO (PADUA)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vincent's method of writing is quite as interesting as his method of
+compilation of facts. The great Dominican was not satisfied with being
+merely a source of information. The philosophy of history has received
+its greatest Christian contribution from St. Augustine's City of God.
+In this an attempt was made to trace the meaning and causal sequence
+of events as well as their mere external connection and place in time.
+In a lesser medieval way Vincent tried deliberately to imitate this
+and besides writing history attempted to trace the philosophy of it.
+For him, as for the great French philosophic historian Bossuet in his
+Universal History five centuries later, everything runs its provided
+race from the creation to the redemption and then on toward the
+consummation of the world. He describes at first the commencements of
+the Church from the time of Abel, through its progress under the
+Patriarchs, the Prophets, Judges, Kings, and leaders of the people,
+down to the Birth of Christ. He traces the history of the Apostles and
+of the first Disciples, though he makes it a point to find place for
+the famous deeds of the great men of Pagan antiquity. He notes the
+commencement of Empires and Kingdoms, their glory, their decadence,
+their ruin, and the Sovereigns who made them illustrious in peace and
+war. There was much that was defective in the details of history as
+they were traced by Vincent, much that was lacking in completeness,
+but the intention was evidently the best, and patience and labor were
+devoted to the <a name="233">{233}</a> sources of history at his command. Perhaps never
+more than at the present moment have we been in a position to realize
+that history at its best can be so full of defects even after further
+centuries of consultation of documents and printed materials, that we
+are not likely to be in the mood to blame this first modern historian
+very much. As for the other portions of his encyclopedia, biographic,
+literary and scientific, they were not only freely consulted by his
+contemporaries and successors, but we find traces of their influence
+in the writings and also in the decorative work of the next two
+centuries. We have already spoken of the use of his book in the
+provision of subjects for the ornamentation of Cathedrals and the same
+thing might be said of edifices of other kinds.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nor must it be thought that Vincent has only a historic or
+ecclesiastical interest. Dr. Julius Pagel, in his Chapter on Medicine
+in the Middle Ages in Puschmann's Hand-Book of the History of
+Medicine,  [Footnote 22] says, "that there were three writers whose
+works were even more popular than those of Albertus Magnus. These
+three were Bartholomew, the Englishman; Thomas, of Cantimprato, and
+Vincent, of Beauvais, the last of whom must be considered as one of
+the most important contributors to the generalization of scientific
+knowledge, not alone in the Thirteenth but in the immediately
+succeeding centuries. His most important work was really an
+encyclopedia of the knowledge of his time. It was called the Greater
+Triple Mirror and there is no doubt that it reflected the knowledge of
+his period. He had the true scientific spirit and constantly cites the
+authorities from whom his information was derived. He cites hundreds
+of authors and there is scarcely a subject that he does not touch on.
+One book of his work is concerned with human anatomy, and the
+concluding portion of it is an abbreviation of history carried down to
+the year 1250."
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 22: Puschmann. Hand-Buch der Geschichte der Medizin, Jena,
+  Fischer, 1902.]
+</p>
+<p>
+It might be considered that such a compend of information would be
+very dry-as-dust reading and that it would be fragmentary in character
+and little likely to be attractive except to a serious student. Dr.
+Pagel's opinion does not agree with this <i>a priori</i> impression. He
+says with regard to it: <a name="234">{234}</a> "The language is clear, readily
+intelligible, and the information is conveyed usually in an excellent,
+simple style. Through the introduction of interesting similes the
+contents do not lack a certain taking quality, so that the reading of
+the work easily becomes absorbing." This is, I suppose, almost the
+last thing that might be expected of a scientific teacher in the
+Thirteenth Century, because, after all, Vincent of Beauvais must be
+considered as one of the schoolmen, and they are supposed to be
+eminently arid, but evidently, if we are to trust this testimony of a
+modern German physician, only by those who have not taken the trouble
+to read them.
+</p>
+<p>
+One of the most important works of Thirteenth Century prose is the
+well-known Rationale Divinorum Officiorum (Significance of the Divine
+Offices) written by William Durandus, the Bishop of Mende, in France,
+whose tomb and its inscription in the handsome old Gothic Cathedral of
+Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, in Rome, shares with the body of St.
+Catherine of Sienna the honor of attracting so many visitors. The book
+has been translated into English under the title. The Symbolism of
+Churches and Church Ornaments, and has been very widely read. It was
+very popular in the Thirteenth Century, and the best possible idea of
+its subsequent reputation can be gathered from the fact, that the
+Rationale was the first work from the pen of an uninspired writer to
+be accorded the privilege of being printed. The Editio Princeps, a
+real first edition of supreme value, appeared from the press of John
+Fust in 1459. The only other books that had been printed at that time
+were the Psalters of 1457 and 1459. This edition is, of course, of the
+most extreme rarity. According to the English translators of Durandus
+the beauty of the typography has seldom been exceeded.
+</p>
+<p>
+The style of Durandus has been praised very much by the critics of
+succeeding centuries for its straightforwardness, simplicity and
+brevity. Most of these qualities it evidently owes to the hours spent
+by its author in the reading of Holy Scriptures. Durandus fashioned
+his style so much on the sacred writings that most of his book
+possesses something of the impressive character of the Bible itself.
+The impression derived from it is that of reading a book on a
+religious subject written <a name="235">{235}</a> in an eminently suitable tone and
+spirit. Most of this impression must be attributed without doubt to
+the fact, that Durandus has not only formed his style on the
+Scriptures, but has actually incorporated Scriptural expressions in
+his writings to such an extent as to make them mostly a scriptural
+composition. This, far from being a fault, appears quite appropriate
+in his book because of its subject and the method of treatment. A
+quotation from the proeme (as it is in the quaint spelling of the
+English translation) will give the best idea of this.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "All things, as pertain to offices and matters ecclesiastical, be
+  full of divine significations and mysterious, and overflow with
+  celestial sweetness; if so be that a man be diligent in his study of
+  them, and know how to draw HONEY FROM THE ROCK, AND OIL FROM THE
+  HARDEST STONE. But who KNOWETH THE ORDINANCES OF HEAVEN, OR CAN FIX
+  THE REASONS THEREOF UPON THE EARTH? for he that prieth into their
+  majesty, is overwhelmed by the glory of them. Of a truth THE WELL IS
+  DEEP, AND I HAVE NOTHING TO DRAW WITH: unless he giveth it unto me
+  WHO GIVETH TO ALL MEN LIBERALLY, AND UPBRAIDETH NOT: so that WHILE I
+  JOURNEY THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS I may DRAW WATER WITH JOY OUT OF THE
+  WELLS OF SALVATION. Wherefore albeit of the things handed down from
+  our forefathers, capable we are not to explain all, yet if among
+  them there be any thing which is done without reason it should be
+  forthwith put away. Wherefore, I, WILLIAM, by the alone tender mercy
+  of God, Bishop of the Holy Church which is in Mende, will knock
+  diligently at the door, if so be that THE KEY OF DAVID will open
+  unto me: that the King may BRING ME INTO HIS TREASURE? and shew unto
+  me the heavenly pattern which was shewed unto Moses in the mount: so
+  that I may learn those things which pertain to Rites Ecclesiastical
+  whereof they teach and what they signify: and that I may be able
+  plainly to reveal and make manifest the reasons of them, by HIS
+  help, WHO HATH ORDAINED STRENGTH OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES AND
+  SUCKLINGS: WHOSE SPIRITS BLOWETH WHERE IT <a name="236">{236}</a> LISTETH: DIVIDING TO
+  EACH SEVERALLY AS IT WILL to the praise and glory of the Trinity."
+</p>
+<p>
+This passage alone of Durandus would serve as an excellent refutation
+of the old-time Protestant tradition, fortunately now dying out though
+not as yet entirely eradicated, which stated so emphatically that the
+Bible was not allowed to be read before Luther's time.
+</p>
+<p>
+Those who wish to obtain a good idea of Durandus' style and the way he
+presents his material, can obtain it very well from his chapter on
+Bells, the first two paragraphs of which we venture to quote. They
+will be found quite as full of interesting information in their way as
+any modern writer might have brought together, and have the dignity
+and simplicity of the best modern prose.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Bells are brazen vessels, and were first invented in Nola, a city
+  of Campania. Wherefore the larger bells are called Campanae, from
+  Campania the district, and the smaller Nolae, from Nola the town.
+<br><br>
+  "You must know that bells, by the sound of which the people
+  assembleth together to the church to hear, and the Clergy to preach,
+  IN THE MORNING THE MERCY OF GOD AND HIS POWER BY NIGHT do signify
+  the silver trumpets, by which under the Old Law the people was
+  called together unto sacrifice. (Of these trumpets we shall speak in
+  our Sixth Book.) For just as the watchmen in a camp rouse one
+  another by trumpets, so do the Ministers of the Church excite each
+  other by the sound of bells to watch the livelong night against the
+  plots of the Devil. Wherefore our brazen bells are more sonorous
+  than the trumpets of the Old Law, because then GOD was known in
+  Judea only, but now in the whole earth. They be also more durable:
+  For they signify that the teaching of the New Testament will be more
+  lasting than the trumpets and sacrifices of the Old Law, namely,
+  even unto the end of the world.
+<br><br>
+  "Again bells do signify preachers, who ought after the likeness of a
+  bell to exhort the faithful unto faith: the which was typified in
+  that the LORD commanded Moses to make a vestment for the High Priest
+  who entered into the Holy of Holies. Also the cavity of the bell
+  denoteth the mouth of the preacher, <a name="237">{237}</a> according to the saying of
+  the Apostle, I AM BECOME AS SOUNDING BRASS ON A TINKLING CYMBAL."
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course there are what we would be apt to consider exaggerations of
+symbolic meanings and far-fetched explanations and references, but
+this was of the taste of the time and has not in subsequent centuries
+been so beyond the canons of good taste as at present. Durandus goes
+on to tell that the hardness of the metal of the bell signifies
+fortitude in the mind of the preacher, that the wood of the frame on
+which the bell hangeth doth signify the wood of our Lord's Cross, that
+the rope by which the bell is strung is humility and also showeth the
+measure of life, that the ring in the length of the rope is the crown
+of reward for perseverance unto the end, and then proceeds to show why
+and how often the bells are rung and what the significance of each
+ringing is. He explains why the bells are silent for three days before
+Easter and also during times of interdict, and gives as the
+justification for this last the quotation from the Prophet "I WILL
+MAKE THY TONGUE CLEAVE TO THE ROOF OF THY MOUTH FOR THEY ARE A
+REBELLIOUS HOUSE."
+</p>
+<p>
+Even these few specimens of the prose of the Thirteenth Century, will
+serve to show that the writers of the period could express themselves
+with a vigor and directness which have made their books interesting
+reading for generations long after their time, and which stamp their
+authors as worthy of a period that found enduring and adequate modes
+of expression for every form of thought and feeling.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i237.jpg" border=1><br>
+STONE CARVING (PARIS)
+</p>
+
+<a name="238">{238}</a>
+
+<h1>XV
+<br>
+ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA.</h1>
+
+<p>
+The last place in the world, perhaps, that one would look for a great
+impulse to the development of the modern drama, which is entirely a
+new invention, an outgrowth of Christian culture and has practically
+no connection with the classic drama, would be in the life of St.
+Francis of Assisi. His utter simplicity, his thorough-going and
+cordial poverty, his sincere endeavor all during his life to make
+little of himself, might seem quite enough to forbid any thought of
+him as the father of a literary movement of this kind. "The poor
+little man of God," however, as he liked to call himself, in his
+supreme effort to get back to nature and out of the ways of the
+conventional world, succeeded in accomplishing a number of utterly
+unexpected results. His love for nature led to his wonderful
+expression of his feelings in his favorite hymn, one of the first
+great lyrical outbursts in modern poetry, a religious poem which as we
+shall see in the chapter on the Father of the Renaissance, Renan
+declares can only be appreciated properly by comparing it with the old
+Hebrew psalms, beside which it is worthy to be placed.
+</p>
+<p>
+Those who know the life of St. Francis best will easily appreciate how
+dramatic, though unconsciously so, were all the actions of his life.
+After all, his utter renunciation of all things, his taking of holy
+poverty to be his bride, his address to the birds, his sisters, his
+famous question of the butcher as to why he killed his brothers, the
+sheep, his personification of the sun and the moon and even of the
+death of the body as his brothers and sisters, are all eminently
+dramatic moments. His life is full of incidents that lent themselves,
+because of their dramatic quality, to the painters of succeeding
+centuries as the subjects of their striking pictures. Before the end
+of the century Giotto had picked out some of the most interesting of
+these for the decorative illustration of the upper church at <a name="239">{239}</a>
+Assisi. During the succeeding century, the author of the Little
+Flowers of St. Francis, embodied many of these beautiful scenes in his
+little work, where they have been the favorite reading of poets for
+many centuries since.
+</p>
+<p>
+It should not be such a surprise as it might otherwise be, then, to
+find that St. Francis may be considered in one sense as the father of
+the modern drama. The story is a very pretty one and has an additional
+value because it has been illustrated by no less a brush than that of
+Giotto. One Christmas Eve just at the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century, St. Francis gathered round him some of the poor people living
+outside of the town of Assisi, in order to recall vividly to them the
+great event which had taken place on that night so many centuries
+before. A little figure of a child, dressed in swaddling clothes, was
+laid on some straw in a manger with the breath of the nearby animals
+to warm it. To this manger throne of the Child King of Bethlehem,
+there came in adoration, after the hymns that recalled the angels'
+visit, first some of the shepherds from the surrounding country and
+then some of the country people who represented the kings from the
+East with their retinues, bringing with them their royal gifts. After
+this little scene, probably one of the first Nativity plays that had
+ever been given, St. Francis, according to the old legend, took the
+little image in his arms and in an excess of devotion pressed it to
+his heart. According to the old-time story, the infant came to life in
+his embrace and putting its little arms around his neck embraced him
+in return. Of course our modern generation is entirely too devoted to
+"common sense" to accept any such pretty, pious story as this as more
+than a beautiful poetic legend. The legend has provided a subject for
+poet and painter many a time in subsequent centuries. Perhaps never
+has it been used with better effect than by Giotto, whose
+representation is one of the favorite pictures on the wall of the
+upper church of Assisi. Whether the little baby figure of the play
+actually came to life in his arms or not we do not know, but one thing
+is certain, that infant modern dramatic literature did come to life at
+the moment and that before the end of the Thirteenth Century it was to
+have a vigor and an influence that made it <a name="240">{240}</a> one of the great
+factors in the social life of the period. The Franciscans were soon
+spread over the world. With filial reverence they took with them all
+the customs of their loved Father of Assisi, and especially such as
+appealed to the masses and brought home to them in a vivid way the
+great truths of religion. By the middle of the century many of the
+towns had cycles of mystery plays given at various times during the
+year, associated with the different feasts and illustrating and
+enforcing the lessons of the liturgy for the people in a manner so
+effective that it has probably never been equaled before or since.
+</p>
+<p>
+While the most potent factor in the dissemination of the early
+religious drama can be traced to Francis and the Franciscans, they
+were but promoters of a movement already well begun. Mystery plays
+were attempted before the Thirteenth Century in England and in North
+France. There is a well-known story from Matthew Paris, who wrote
+about the middle of the Thirteenth Century, of one Geoffrey who
+afterwards became Abbot of St. Albans. While yet a secular he borrowed
+certain precious religious vestments to be used in some sort of a
+miracle play in honor of St. Catherine. During the performance of the
+play, these vestments were destroyed by fire and Geogory was so much
+afflicted by the misfortune that in a spirit of reparation he became a
+religious in the Abbey of St. Albans. This must have been about the
+beginning of the Twelfth Century. Towards the end of this century
+mystery plays were not infrequent, though not in anything like the
+developed form nor popular character which they acquired during the
+Thirteenth Century. Fitz Stephen, writing the life of St. Thomas a
+Becket, towards the end of the Twelfth Century, contrasts the holier
+plays of London in his days with the theatrical spectacles of ancient
+Rome. The plays he mentioned were, however, scarcely more than slight
+developments of Church ceremonial with almost literal employment of
+scripture and liturgical language.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp240">{opp240}</a>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp240.jpg" border=1><br>
+ST. FRANCIS' NATIVITY PLAY (GIOTTO)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first cycle of mystery plays of which there is definite mention is
+that of Chester. According to the proclamation of the Chester plays,
+the representation of this cycle dates in some form from the mayoralty
+of John Arneway, who was the <a name="241">{241}</a> Mayor of Chester, between 1268 and
+1276. Of the series of plays as given in the Thirteenth Century there
+are few remains. It is probable, even, that at this early date they
+were not acted in English but in French. English plays were probably
+first given in some of the Cathedral towns along the east coast of
+England, and perhaps York should have the credit of this innovation.
+It is easy to understand how the simpler dramatic additions to the
+ritual of the Church would inevitably develop in the earnest and very
+full religious life of the people which came with the building of the
+cathedrals, the evolution of Church ceremonial and the social life
+fostered by the trade-guilds of the time. While we have none of the
+remains of the actual plays of the Thirteenth Century, there is no
+doubt that an excellent idea of their form and content can be gathered
+from the English mystery plays, that have recently been edited in
+modern form and which serve to show the characteristics of the various
+cycles.
+</p>
+<p>
+It might perhaps be thought that these mystery plays would not furnish
+any great amount of entertainment for the populace, especially after
+they had seen them a certain number of times. The yearly repetition
+might naturally be expected to bring with it before long a satiety
+that would lead to inattention. As is well known, however, there is an
+enduring interest about these old religious stories that makes them of
+much greater attractiveness than most ordinary historical traditions.
+Many a faithful reader of the Bible finds constantly renewed interest
+in the old Biblical stories in spite of frequent repetition. Their
+significance to the eye of faith in the Middle Ages gave them, beyond
+any doubt, that quality which in any literary work will exemplify and
+fulfill Horace's dictum, <i>decies repetita placebit</i>. Besides, it must
+not be forgotten that the men and women of the Thirteenth Century had
+not the superficial facilities of the printing press to cloy their
+intellectual curiosity, and by trivial titillation make them
+constantly crave novelty.
+</p>
+<p>
+It must not be thought, in spite of the fact that these were religious
+plays, that they were always so serious as to be merely instructive
+without being amusing. A large fund of amusement was injected into the
+old biblical stories by the <a name="242">{242}</a> writers of the different cycles and
+undoubtedly the actors themselves added certain personal elements in
+this matter, which still further enhanced some of the comical aspects
+of the solemn stories. Nearly always the incidents of the Scriptural
+narrative though followed more or less literally, were treated with a
+large humanity that could scarcely fail to introduce elements of humor
+into the dramatic performances. Such liberties, however, were taken
+only with characters not mentioned by the Bible&mdash;the inventions of the
+writers. A series of quotations from the Chester Cycle of Plays will
+best illustrate this. We give them in the quaint spelling of the
+oldest version extant. The scene we quote is from the play dealing
+with Noah's flood and pictures Noah's wife as a veritable shrew.
+</p>
+<pre>
+NOYE&mdash;
+  Wyffe, in this vessel we shall be kepte:
+  My children and thou, I woulde in ye lepte.
+
+Noye's Wiffe&mdash;
+  In fayth, Noye, I hade as leffe thou slepte!
+    For all thy frynishe fare,
+  I will not doe after thy reade.
+
+Noye&mdash;
+  Good wyffe, doe nowe as I thee bydde.
+
+Noye's Wiffe&mdash;
+  Be Christe! not or I see more neede,
+    Though thou stande all the daye and stare.
+
+Noye&mdash;
+  Lorde, that wemen be crabbed aye,
+  And non are meke, I dare well saye.
+  This is well seene by me to daye,
+    In witnesse of you ichone (each one).
+  Goodwiffe, lett be all this beare,
+  That thou maiste in this place heare;
+  For all the wene that thou arte maister,
+    And so thou arte, by Sante John!
+</pre>
+<p>
+All Noah's artful concession of his wife's mastery in the household
+does not avail to move her and so he tries objurgation.
+</p>
+<pre>
+Noye&mdash;
+  Wiffe, come in: why standes thou their?
+  Thou arte ever frowarde, I dare well sweare;
+  Come in, one Godes halfe! tyme yt were,
+    For feare leste that we drowne.
+
+<a name="243">{243}</a>
+
+Noye's Wiffe&mdash;
+  Yes, sir, sette up youer saile,
+  And rowe fourth with evill haile,
+  For withouten (anye) fayle
+    I will not oute of this towne;
+  But I have my gossippes everyechone,
+  One foote further I will not gone:
+  The shall not drowne, by Sainte John!
+    And I may save ther life.
+  The loven me full well, by Christe!
+  But thou lett them into thy cheiste, (ark)
+  Elles rowe nowe wher thee leiste,
+    And gette thee a newe wiffe.
+</pre>
+<p>
+It is evident that he will not succeed so Noah, wise doubtless with
+the wisdom of experience, forbears to urge but appeals to her sons to
+bring her.
+</p>
+<pre>
+NOYE&mdash;
+  Seme, sonne, loe! thy mother is wrawe:
+  Forsooth, such another I doe not knowe.
+
+Sem&mdash;
+  Father, I shall fetch her in, I trowe,
+    Withoutten anye fayle.&mdash;
+  Mother, my father after thee sends.
+  And byddes thee into yeinder shippe wende.
+  Loke up and see the wynde.
+    For we bene readye to sayle.
+
+Noye's Wiffe&mdash;
+  Seme, goe againe to hym, I saie;
+  I will not come theirin to daye.
+
+Noye&mdash;
+  Come in, wiffe, in twentye devilles waye!
+    Or elles stand there without.
+
+Ham&mdash;
+  Shall we all feche her in?
+
+Noye&mdash;
+  Yea, sonnes, in Christe blessinge and myne!
+  I woulde you hied you be-tyme.
+    For of this flude I am in doubte.
+
+Jeffatte&mdash;
+  Mother, we praye you all together.
+  For we are heare, youer owne childer.
+  Come into the shippe for feare of the weither,
+    For his love that you boughte!
+
+<a name="244">{244}</a>
+
+Noye's Wiffe&mdash;
+  That will not I, for all youer call,
+  But I have my gossippes all.
+
+Sem&mdash;
+  In faith, mother, yett you shalle,
+  Wheither thou wylte or (nought).
+</pre>
+<p>
+<i>(Her sons bring her in; as she steps aboard she is greeted by Noah.)</i>
+</p>
+<pre>
+Noye&mdash;
+  Welckome, wiffe, into this botte.
+
+Noye's Wiffe&mdash;
+  Have thou that for thy note!
+  (<i>Giving her husband a cuff on the head</i>).
+
+Noye&mdash;
+  Ha, ha! Marye, this is hotte!
+    It is good for to be still.
+  Ha! children, me thinkes my botte remeves,
+  Our tarryinge heare highlye me greves,
+  Over the lande the watter spreades;
+    God doe as he will.
+</pre>
+<p>
+This quotation will give a good idea of the human interest of these
+Mystery Plays and serve to show that they did not fail in dramatic
+power for any lack of humor or acute observation. It would be easy to
+illustrate this much more amply. The opportunities to enjoy these
+plays were abundant. We have said that the Chester Cycle is the one of
+which there is earliest mention. The method of its presentation has
+been described by Mr. Henry Morley in the fourth volume of his English
+Writers. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "There were scaffolds erected for spectators in those places to
+  which the successive pageants would be drawn; and a citizen who on
+  the first day saw in any place the first pageant (that of the Fall
+  of Lucifer), if he kept his place and returned to it in good time on
+  each successive morning, would see the Scripture story, as thus
+  told, pass in its right order before him. Each pageant was drawn on
+  four or six wheels, and had a room in which the actors and
+  properties were concealed, under the upper room or stage on which
+  they played."
+</p>
+<p>
+Mr. Morley then describes the action of the various parts of the
+cycle, showing how clearly the lessons of the Old Testament history
+and its symbolic and typical meaning were pointed out so that the
+spectators could not miss them.
+</p>
+<a name="245">{245}</a>
+<p>
+How completely the story of the Bible was told may be judged from the
+order of the Pageants of the Play of Corpus Christi, in the time of
+the mayoralty of William Alne, in the third year of the reign of King
+Henry V., compiled by Roger Burton, town clerk.
+</p>
+<p>
+1. Tanners.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  God the Father Almighty creating and forming the heavens, angels and
+  archangels, Lucifer and the angels that fell with him to hell.
+</p>
+<p>
+2. Plasterers.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  God the Father, in his own substance, creating the earth and all
+  which is therein, in the space of five days.
+</p>
+<p>
+3. Cardmakers.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  God the Father creating Adam of the clay of the earth and making Eve
+  of Adam's rib, and inspiring them with the breath of life.
+</p>
+<p>
+4. Fullers.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  God forbidding Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of life.
+</p>
+<p>
+5. Coopers.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  Adam and Eve and a tree betwixt them; the serpent deceiving them
+  with apples; God speaking to them and cursing the serpent, and with
+  a sword driving them out of paradise.
+</p>
+<p>
+6. Armourers.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  Adam and Eve, an angel with a spade and distaff assigning them work.
+</p>
+<p>
+7. Gaunters (Glovers).
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  Abel and Cain offering victims in sacrifice.
+</p>
+<p>
+8. Shipwrights.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  God warning Noah to make an Ark of floatable wood,
+</p>
+<p>
+9. Pessoners (Fishmongers) and Mariners.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  Noah in the Ark, with his wife; the three sons of Noah with their
+  wives; with divers animals.
+</p>
+<p>
+10. Parchment-makers, Bookbinders.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  Abraham sacrificing his son, Isaac, on an altar, a boy with wood and
+  an angel.
+</p>
+<p>
+11. Hosiers.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness; King Pharaoh; eight
+  Jews wondering and expecting.
+</p>
+<p>
+12. Spicers.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  A Doctor declaring the sayings of the prophets of the future birth
+  of Christ. Mary; an angel saluting her; Mary saluting Elizabeth.
+</p>
+<p>
+13. Pewterers, Founders.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  Mary, Joseph wishing to put her away; an angel speaking to them that
+  they go to Bethlehem.
+</p>
+
+<a name="246">{246}</a>
+
+<p>
+14. Tylers.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  Mary, Joseph, a midwife; the Child born, lying in a manger betwixt
+  an ox and an ass, and an angel speaking to the shepherds, and to the
+  players in the next pageant.
+</p>
+<p>
+15. Chandlers.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  The shepherds talking together, the star in the East; an angel
+  giving the shepherds the good tidings of the Child's birth.
+</p>
+<p>
+16, 17. Orfevers (Goldsmiths), Goldbeaters, Moneymakers.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  The three kings coming from the East, Herod asking them about the
+  child Jesus; the son of Herod, two counsellors, and a messenger.
+  Mary with the Child, a star above, and the three kings offering
+  gifts.
+</p>
+<p>
+How completely the people of each town were engaged in the
+presentation of the plays, can be judged from the following
+supplementary list of the other trade guilds that took parts. Many of
+them bear quaint names, which are now obsolete. They included the
+girdellers, makers of girdles; nailers, sawyers, lorymers (bridle
+makers), the spurriers (makers of spurs), the fevers or smiths, the
+curriers, the plumbers, the pattern-makers, the bottlers, the
+cap-makers, the skinners, the bladesmiths, the scalers, the
+buckle-makers, the cordwainers, the bowyers (makers of bows), the
+fletchers (arrow-featherers), the tilemakers, the hayresters (workers
+in horse hair), the boilers (bowl-makers), the tunners, the sellers or
+saddlers; the fuystours (makers of saddle tree), the verrours
+(glaziers), the broggours (brokers), the dubbers (refurbishers of
+clothes), the luminers or illuminators, the scriveners, the drapers,
+the potters, the weavers, the hostlers and mercers. The men of no
+occupation, however menial it may seem to us, were barred. Each of
+these companies had a special pageant with a portion of the Old or New
+Testament to represent and in each succeeding year spent much of their
+spare time in preparing for their dramatic performance, studying and
+practising their parts and making everything ready for competition
+with their brother craftsmen in the other pageants. Only those who
+know the supreme educative value of dramatic representations for those
+actively interested in them, will appreciate all that these plays
+meant for popular education in the best sense of the word, but all can
+readily understand how much they stood for in popular occupation of
+mind with high thoughts and how <a name="247">{247}</a> much they must have acted as a
+preventive of debasing dissipations.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is extremely interesting to follow out some of the details of the
+management of these Mystery Plays. We shall find in even the meagre
+accounts that we have of them, sufficient to show us that men were not
+expected to work for nothing, nor even to be satisfied with what
+compensation there might be in the honor of being chosen for certain
+parts, nor in the special banquets that were provided for the actors
+after the performances. A definite salary was paid to each of the
+actors according to the importance of the part he took. Not only this,
+but the loans of garments for costume purposes, or of furniture or
+other material for stage properties, was repaid by definite sums of
+money. These are not large, but, considering the buying power of money
+at that time and the wages paid workmen, which enabled them to live at
+least as well, comparatively, as modern workmen, the compensation is
+ample. Mr. Morley, in the fourth volume of his "English Writers," has
+given us some of these details and as they have a special social
+interest and the old documents rejoice in a comic literalness of
+statement, they deserve citation.
+</p>
+<p>
+When about to set up a play, each guild chose for itself a competent
+manager, to whom it gave the rule of the pageant, and voted a fixed
+sum for its expenses. The play-book and the standing wardrobe and
+other properties were handed over to him, and he was accountable, of
+course, for their return after the close of the performances. The
+manager had to appoint his actors, to give them their several parts
+written out for them (perhaps by the prompter, who was a regular
+official), and to see to the rehearsals, of which there would be two
+for an old play and at least five for a new one.
+</p>
+<p>
+At rehearsal time, as well as during the great performance the actors
+ate and drank at the cost of the guild, ending all with a supper, at
+which they had roast beef and roast goose, with wine for the chiefs,
+and beer for the rest. The actors were paid, of course, according to
+the length of their parts and quantity of business in them, not their
+dignity. Thus in a play setting forth the Trial and Crucifixion of our
+Lord, the actors of Herod and Caiaphas received each 3s. 4d.; <a name="248">{248}</a>
+the representative of Annas, 2s. 2d.; and of Christ 2s.; which was
+also the sum paid to each actor in the parts of His executioners, and
+6d. more than was paid for acting the Devil or Judas. In the united
+plays of the "Descent into Hell" and the "Ascension," the payment was
+to the actor who represented Christ, 1s. 6d.; and 1s. 4d. to him who
+played the Devil. In one play we find this gradation of the scale of
+payment to performers:&mdash;"Paid, for playing of Peter, xvid.; to two
+damsels, xiid.; to the demon, vid.; to Fawston for hanging Judas,
+ivd.; paid to Fawston for cock-crowing, ivd."
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp248">{opp248}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp248a.jpg" border=1><br>
+PALAZZO BUONDELMONTE (FLORENCE)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp248b.jpg" border=1><br>
+PALAZZO TOLOMEI (SIENA)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of the costume of the actors, and of the stage furniture a tolerably
+clear notion is also to be drawn from the Coventry account-books, of
+which Mr. Sharp printed all that bears upon such questions. They
+record, of course, chiefly repairs and renewals of stage properties
+and wardrobe. "In one year Pilate has a new green cloak, in another a
+new hat. Pilate's wife was Dame Procula, and we have such entries as,
+'For mending of Dame Procula's garments, viid.' 'To reward to Mrs.
+Grimsby for lending of her gear for Pilate's wife, xiid.' 'For a quart
+of wine for hiring Porcula's gown, iid.' No actor had naked hands.
+Those not in masks had their faces prepared by a painter. The costume
+of each part was traditional, varied little in the course of years,
+and much of it was originally designed after the pictures and painted
+sculpture in the churches. As in those medieval decorations, gilding
+was used freely; the performer of Christ wore a gilt peruke and beard,
+so did Peter, and probably all the Apostles or saints who would be
+represented on church walls with a gilt nimbus." Christ's coat was of
+white sheep-skin, painted and gilded, with a girdle and red sandals.
+The part of the High Priests Caiaphas and Annas were often played in
+ecclesiastical robes hired from a church, a practice (one sad result
+of which because of fire has already been noted) that was eventually
+condemned as likely to lead to disrespect for sacred objects. Herod,
+who wore a mask, was set up as a sceptred royal warrior in a gilt and
+silvered helmet, in armour and gown of blue satin, with such Saracen
+details of dress as the Crusaders connected with the worship of
+Mahomet, including the crooked faulchion, which was gilt. The
+tormentors of Christ wore jackets of black <a name="249">{249}</a> buckram with nails
+and dice upon them. The Virgin Mary was crowned, as in her images. The
+angels wore white surplices and wings. The devil also had wings, and
+was played in an appropriate mask and leather dress trimmed with
+feathers and hair. He was, as the Prologue to the Chester Plays
+describes him, "the devil in his feathers all ragged and rent," or, as
+the Coventry account-books show, carried three pounds of hair upon his
+hose.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was probably no greater impulse for social uplift and for real
+education of the masses than these mystery and morality plays, in
+which the people took part themselves and in which, as a consequence
+of the presence of friends in the various roles, the spectators had a
+livelier interest than would have been otherwise the case under even
+the most favorable circumstances, or with elaborate presentation. In
+recent years there has come the realization that the drama may thus be
+made a real educational influence. Unfortunately at the present time,
+whatever of influence it has is exerted almost exclusively upon the
+better-to-do classes, who have so many other opportunities for
+educational uplift. These plays during the Thirteenth Century brought
+the people intimately into contact with the great characters of Old
+Testament and New Testament history, and besides giving them precious
+religious information, which of itself, however, might mean very
+little for true education, helped them to an insight into character
+and to a right appreciation of human actions and a sympathy with what
+was right even though it entailed suffering, such as could not have
+otherwise been obtained.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course it is easy to say that such dramas constantly repeated, the
+subjects always the same and only the cast varying from year to year,
+would become intolerably familiar and might after a time degenerate
+into the merely contemptible. As a matter of fact, however, they did
+not. These old stories of religious heroes were written so close to
+the heart of nature, involved so intimately all the problems of life
+that they are of undying interest. Their repetition was only from year
+to year and this did not give the opportunity for the familiarity
+which breeds contempt. Besides, though the plays in the various cycles
+existed in definite forms there seems no doubt that <a name="250">{250}</a> certain
+changes were made by the players themselves and by the managers of the
+plays from time to time, and indeed such changes of the text of a play
+as we know from present-day experience, are almost inevitable.
+</p>
+<p>
+It might be urged, too, that the people themselves would scarcely be
+possessed of the histrionic talent necessary to make the plays
+effective. Ordinarily, however, as we know from our modern city life,
+much less of the actor's art is needed than of interest in the action,
+to secure the attention of the gallery. It must not be assumed too
+readily, however, that the guilds which were able to supply men for
+the great artistic decoration of the cathedrals of the Thirteenth
+Century, could not supply actors who would so enter into the artistic
+expression of a part as to represent it to the life. The actor is more
+born than made, in spite of the number of schools of acting that are
+supposed to be turning out successful rivals of Roscius, on recurring
+graduation days. It must not be forgotten that the only example of
+these mystery plays which is still left to us is the Passion Play at
+Oberammergau, and that is one of the world's greatest spectacles. On
+the last occasion when it was given about half a million of people
+from all over the world, many of them even from distant America and
+Australia, found their way into the Tyrolese Mountains in order to be
+present at it. It is only the old, old, old story of the Passion and
+death of the Lord. It is represented by villagers chosen from among
+the inhabitants of a little village of fourteen hundred inhabitants,
+who while they have a distinct taste for the artistic and produce some
+of the best wood-carving done anywhere in Europe, thus approximating
+very interestingly the Thirteenth Century peoples, are not
+particularly noted for their education, nor for their dramatic
+ability. No one who went up to see the Passion Play came away
+dissatisfied either with the interest of the play or with its manner
+of representation. It is distinctly an example of how well men and
+women do things when they are thoroughly interested in them, and when
+they are under the influence of an old-time tradition according to
+which they must have the ability to accomplish what is expected of
+them. Such a tradition actually existed during the Thirteenth and
+Fourteenth centuries, leading to a gradual development of <a name="251">{251}</a>
+dramatic power both in writers and actors, that eventually was to
+result in the magnificent outburst of dramatic genius during the
+Elizabethan period. For it must not be forgotten, that mystery and
+morality plays continued to hold the stage down almost, if not quite,
+to the time of Shakespeare's early manhood, and he probably saw the
+Coventry Cycle of plays acted.
+</p>
+<p>
+While we have a certain number of these old-time plays, most of them,
+of course, have disappeared by time's attrition during the centuries
+before the invention of printing, when they were handed round only in
+manuscript form. Of some of these plays we shall have something to say
+after a moment, stopping only to call attention to the fact that in
+this literary mode of the mystery and morality plays, dramatic
+literature in English reached a height of development which has been
+equaled only by our greatest dramatic geniuses.
+</p>
+<p>
+Within the last few years most of the large cities of the
+English-speaking world, besides the more important universities, have
+been given the opportunity to hear one of the great products of this
+form of literary activity. "Everyman" is probably as great a play as
+there is in English and comparable with the best work of Shakespeare,
+Marlowe and Jonson. Its author only took the four last things to be
+remembered&mdash;Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell&mdash;the things which must
+come to every man, and wrote his story around them, yet he did it with
+such artistic effectiveness as to make his drama a triumph of literary
+execution.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Mystery Plays were as interesting in their way to the medieval
+generations as "Everyman" to us. As may be seen from the list quoted
+from Mr. Morley, practically all the significant parts of the Bible
+story were acted by these craftsmen. Too much can scarcely be said of
+the educational value of such dramatic exercises; the Bible itself
+with its deep religious teachings, with its simple but sublime style,
+with its beautiful poetry, entered for a time into the very lives of
+these people. No wonder that our English speech during these centuries
+became saturated with biblical thoughts and words. Anyone who has ever
+had any experience with amateur theatricals when a really great play
+was given, will be able to realize how much more thoroughly every
+quality, dramatic, literary, poetic, even lyric <a name="252">{252}</a> and historical,
+that there might be in the drama, entered into the hearts and minds of
+those who took part. It is this feature that is especially deserving
+of attention with regard to these mystery plays which began in the
+Thirteenth Century. The people's interest in them, lifted them out of
+themselves and their trivial round of life into the higher life of
+this great religious poetry. On the other hand the teachings of the
+Bible came down from the distant plane on which they might otherwise
+have been set and entered into the very life of the people. Their
+familiarity with scripture made it a something not to be discussed
+merely, but to be applied in their everyday affairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+Besides this, the organization of the company to give the play and the
+necessity for the display and exercise of taste in the costumes and of
+ingenuity in the stage settings, were of themselves of great educative
+value. The rivalry that naturally existed between the various
+companies chosen from the different guilds only added to the zest with
+which rehearsals were taken up, and made the play more fully occupy
+the minds of those actively engaged in its preparation. For several
+dull winter months before Easter time there was an intense
+preoccupation of mind with great thoughts and beautiful words, instead
+of with the paltry round of daily duties, which would otherwise form
+the burden of conversation. Gossip and scandal mongering had fewer
+opportunities since people's minds were taken up by so much worthier
+affairs. The towns in which the plays were given never had more than a
+few thousand inhabitants and most of them must have been personally
+interested in some way in the play. The Jesuits, whose acumen for
+managing students is proverbial, have always considered it of great
+importance to have their students prepare plays several times a year.
+Their reason is the occupation of mind which it affords as well as the
+intellectual and elocutionary training that comes with the work. What
+they do with premeditation, the old guilds did unconsciously but even
+more effectively, and their success must be considered as one of the
+social triumphs of this wonderful Thirteenth Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+Only in recent years has the idea succeeded in making way in
+government circles on the continent, that the giving of free dramatic
+entertainments for the poor would form an excellent <a name="253">{253}</a> addition to
+other educational procedures. Such performances have new been given
+for nearly a score of years in Berlin. After all, the subvention
+allowed by government to the great theaters and opera houses in Europe
+is part of this same policy, though unfortunately they are calculated
+to affect only the upper classes, who need the help and the stimulus
+of great dramatic art and great music less than the lower classes, who
+have so little of variety or of anything that makes for uplift in
+their lives. In the Thirteenth Century this very modern notion was
+anticipated in such a way as to benefit the very poorest of the
+population, and that not only passively, that is by the hearing of
+dramatic performances, but also actively, by taking parts in them and
+so having all the details of the action and the words impressed upon
+them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i253.jpg" border=1><br>
+CAPITAL (LINCOLN)
+</p>
+
+<a name="254">{254}</a>
+
+<h1>XVI
+<br>
+FRANCIS THE SAINT&mdash;THE FATHER OF THE RENAISSANCE.</h1>
+
+<p>
+The Renaissance is often thought of as a movement which originated
+about the middle of the Fifteenth Century. Careful students sometimes
+trace its origin back somewhat further. In recent years it has come to
+be realized, however, that the great intellectual development which
+came during the century after the fall of Constantinople in Italy, and
+gradually spread to all the civilized countries of Europe, had been
+preparing for at least two centuries and a half. While the period from
+the middle of the Fifteenth to the end of the Sixteenth Centuries well
+deserves the name of Renaissance, because one of the most important
+fructifying principles of the movement was the rebirth of Greek ideas
+into the modern world after the dispersion of Greek scholars by the
+Turkish advance into the Byzantine Empire, the term must not be
+allowed to carry with it the mistaken notion which only too often has
+been plausibly accepted, that there was a new birth of poetic,
+literary and esthetic ideas at this time, just as if there had been
+nothing worth considering in these lines before. Any such notion as
+this would be the height of absurdity in the light of the history of
+the previous centuries in Italy. It was a cherished notion of the
+people of the Renaissance themselves that they were the first to do
+artistic and literary work, hence they invented the term Gothic,
+meaning thereby barbarous, for the art of the preceding time, but in
+this they were only exercising that amusing, self-complacency which
+each generation deems its right. Succeeding generations adopting their
+depreciative term have turned it into one of glory so that Gothic art
+is now in highest honor.
+</p>
+<p>
+Fortunately in recent years there has come, as we have said, a growing
+recognition of the fact that the real beginning of modern art lies
+much farther back in history, and that the real <a name="255">{255}</a> father of the
+Italian Renaissance is a man whom very few people in the last three
+centuries have appreciated at his true worth. Undoubtedly the leader
+in that great return to nature, which constitutes the true basis of
+modern poetic and artistic ideas of all kinds, was St. Francis of
+Assisi. "The poor little man of God," as in his humility he loved to
+call himself, would surely be the last one to suspect that he should
+ever come to be thought of as the initiator of a great movement in
+literature and art. Such he was, however, in the highest sense of the
+term and because of the modern appreciation of him in this regard,
+publications concerning him have been more frequent during the last
+ten years than with regard to almost any other single individual. We
+have under our hand at the present moment what by no means claims to
+be a complete bibliography of St. Francis' life and work, yet we can
+count no less than thirty different works in various languages (not
+reckoning translations separate from the originals) which have issued
+from the press during the last ten years alone. This gives some idea
+of present day interest in St. Francis.
+</p>
+<p>
+It must not be thought, however, that it is only in our time that
+these significant tributes have been paid him. Much of his influence
+in literature and art, as well as in life, was recognized by the
+southern nations all during the centuries since his death. That it is
+only during the last century that other nations have come to
+appreciate him better, and especially have realized his literary
+significance, has been their loss and that of their literatures. At
+the beginning of the Nineteenth Century Görres, the German historian
+who was so sympathetic towards the Middle Ages, wrote of St. Francis
+as one of the Troubadours, and even did not hesitate to add that
+without St. Francis at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century there
+would have been no Dante at the end. Renan, the well-known French
+rationalist historian and literateur, did not hesitate to proclaim St.
+Francis one of the great religious poets of all time and his famous
+Canticle of the Sun as the greatest religious poem since the Hebrew
+Psalms were written. It was from Renan that Matthew Arnold received
+his introduction to St. Francis as a literary man, and his own studies
+led him to write the famous passages in the Essays in Criticism, which
+are usually so much a source of <a name="256">{256}</a> surprise to
+those who think of Mr. Arnold as the rationalizing critic, rather than
+the sympathetic admirer of a medieval saint.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "In the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, when the clouds and
+  storms had come, when the gay sensuous pagan life was gone, when men
+  were not living by the senses and understanding, when they were
+  looking for the speedy coming of Antichrist, there appeared in
+  Italy, to the north of Rome, in the beautiful Umbrian country at the
+  foot of the Appennines, a figure of the most magical power and
+  charm, St. Francis. His century is, I think, the most interesting in
+  the history of Christianity after its primitive age; more
+  interesting than even the century of the Reformation; and one of the
+  chief figures, perhaps the very chief, to which this interest
+  attaches itself, is St. Francis. And why? Because of the profound
+  popular instinct which enabled him, more than any man since the
+  primitive age, to fit religion for popular use. He brought religion
+  to the people. He founded the most popular body of ministers of
+  religion that has ever existed in the Church. He transformed
+  monachism by uprooting the stationary monk, delivering him from the
+  bondage of property, and sending him, as a mendicant friar, to be a
+  stranger and sojourner, not in the wilderness, but in the most
+  crowded haunts of men, to console them and to do them good. This
+  popular instinct of his is at the bottom of his famous marriage with
+  poverty. Poverty and suffering are the condition of the people, the
+  multitude, the immense majority of mankind; and it was towards this
+  people that his soul yearned. "He listens," it was said of him, "to
+  those to whom God himself will not listen."
+</p>
+<p>
+Matthew Arnold has thus surprisingly summed up Francis' age and his
+work. With a sympathy that could scarcely be expected from the man for
+whom the Deity had become merely "a stream of tendency that makes for
+righteousness," he realized the influence that this supreme lover of a
+personal God had over his generation, and his brother poet soul flew
+to its affinity in spite of the apparently insurmountable obstacle of'
+extreme aloofness of spiritual temperament.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp256">{opp256}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp256.jpg" border=1><br>
+THE GLORIFICATION OF ST. FRANCIS (GIOTTO, LOWER CHURCH OF ASSISI)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Matthew Arnold proceeds:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "So in return, as no other man, St. Francis was listened to. When an
+  Umbrian town or village heard of his approach, the <a name="257">{257}</a> whole
+  population went out in joyful procession to meet him, with green
+  boughs, flags, music, and songs of gladness. The master, who began
+  with two disciples, could in his own lifetime (and he died at
+  forty-five) collect to keep Whitsuntide with him, in presence of an
+  immense multitude, five thousand of his Minorites. He found
+  fulfilment to his prophetic cry: "I hear in my ears the sound of the
+  tongues of all the nations who shall come unto us; Frenchmen,
+  Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen. The Lord will make of us a great
+  people, even unto the ends of the earth."
+</p>
+<p>
+When we reach the next paragraph the secret of this surprising
+paradoxical sympathy is out. It is the literary and esthetic side of
+St. Francis that has appealed to him, and like Renan he does not
+hesitate to give "the poor little man of God" a place among the great
+original geniuses of all time, associating his name with that of
+Dante.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Prose could not satisfy this ardent soul, and he made poetry. Latin
+  was too learned for this simple, popular nature, and he composed in
+  his mother tongue, in Italian. The beginnings of the mundane poetry
+  of the Italians are in Sicily, at the court of kings; the beginnings
+  of their religious poetry are in Umbria, with St. Francis. His are
+  the humble upper waters of a mighty stream: at the beginning of the
+  Thirteenth Century, it is St. Francis, at the end, Dante. Now it
+  happens that St. Francis, too, like the Alexandrian songstress, has
+  his hymn for the sun, for Adonis; Canticle of the Sun, Canticle of
+  the Creatures, the poem goes by both names. Like the Alexandrian
+  hymn, it is designed for popular use, but not for use by King
+  Ptolemy's people; artless in language, irregular in rhythm, it
+  matches with the childlike genius that produced it, and the simple
+  natures that loved and repeated it."
+</p>
+<p>
+Probably the most satisfactory translation for those who may not be
+able to appreciate the original of this sublime hymn that has evoked
+so many tributes, is the following literal rendering into English in
+which a quite successful attempt to give the naif rhythm of the
+original Italian, which necessarily disappears in any formal rhymed
+translation, has been made by Father Paschal Robinson of the Order of
+St. Francis for his recent edition of the writings of St. Francis.
+[Footnote 23]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+   [Footnote 23: Philadelphia, The Dolphin Press, 1906.]
+</p>
+
+<a name="258">{258}</a>
+<p>
+"Here begin the praises of the Creatures which the Blessed Francis
+made to the praise and honor of God while he was ill at St. Damian's:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  Most high, omnipotent, good Lord,
+  Praise, glory and honor and benediction all, are Thine.
+  To Thee alone do they belong, most High,
+  And there is no man fit to mention Thee.
+  Praise be to Thee, my Lord, with all Thy creatures.
+  Especially to my worshipful brother sun,
+  The which lights up the day, and through him dost Thou brightness give;
+  And beautiful is he and radiant with splendor great;
+  Of Thee, Most High, signification gives.
+  Praised be my Lord, for sister moon and for the stars,
+  In heaven Thou hast formed them clear and precious and fair.
+  Praised be my Lord for brother wind
+  And for the air and clouds and fair and every kind of weather.
+  By the which Thou givest to Thy creatures nourishment.
+  Praised be my Lord for sister water,
+  The which is greatly helpful and humble and precious and pure.
+  Praised be my Lord for brother fire,
+  By the which Thou lightest up the dark.
+  And fair is he and gay and mighty and strong.
+  Praised be my Lord for our sister, mother earth.
+  The which sustains and keeps us
+  And brings forth diverse fruits with grass and flowers bright.
+  Praised be my Lord for those who for Thy love forgive
+  And weakness bear and tribulation.
+  Blessed those who shall in peace endure,
+  For by Thee, Most High, shall they be crowned.
+  Praised be my Lord for our sister, the bodily death.
+  From the which no living man can flee.
+
+<a name="259">{259}</a>
+
+  Woe to them who die in mortal sin;
+  Blessed those who shall find themselves in Thy most holy will,
+  For the second death shall do them no ill.
+  Praise ye and bless ye my Lord, and give Him thanks,
+  And be subject unto Him with great humility."
+</pre>
+<p>
+Except for his place in literature and art, the lives of few men would
+seem to be of so little interest to the modern time as that of St.
+Francis of Assisi, yet it is for the man himself that so many now turn
+to him. His spirit is entirely opposed to the sordid principles that
+have been accepted as the basis of success in modern life. His idea
+was that happiness consisted in being free from unsatisfied desires
+rather than seeking to secure the satisfaction of his wishes. Duty was
+self-denial, not self-seeking under any pretext. He stripped himself
+literally of everything and his mystic marriage to the Lady Poverty
+was, so far as he was concerned, as absolute a reality, as if the
+union had been actual instead of imaginary. The commonplace details of
+his early years seem all the more interesting from these later
+developments, and have been the subject of much sympathetic study in
+recent years.
+</p>
+<p>
+St. Francis' father was a cloth merchant and St. Francis had been
+brought up and educated as became the son of a man whose commercial
+journeys often took him to France. It was indeed while his father was
+absent on one of these business expeditions that Francis was born and
+on his father's return received from him the name of Francisco&mdash;the
+Frenchman&mdash;in joyful commemoration of his birth.
+</p>
+<p>
+As he grew up he did not differ from the ordinary young man of his
+time, but seems to have taken the world and its pleasures quite as he
+found them and after the fashion of those around him. At the age of
+twenty-five he fell seriously ill and then, for the first time, there
+came to him the realization of the true significance of life. As Dean
+Stanley said shortly before his death, "life seemed different when
+viewed from the horizontal position." Life lived for its own sake was
+not worth while. To Francis there came the realization that when God
+Himself became man he lived his life for others. Francis <a name="260">{260}</a> set
+about literally imitating him. Enthusiastic students of his life
+consider him the great type of genuine Christian, the most real
+disciple of Christ who ever lived. Some money and goods that came into
+his hands having been disposed of for the poor, Francis' father made
+serious objection and Francis was brought before the ecclesiastical
+authorities. It was at this moment that he stripped himself of
+everything that he had, the Bishop even having to provide a cloak to
+cover his nakedness, and became the wonderful apostle to the poor that
+he remained during all the rest of his life. Curious as it must ever
+seem, it was not long before he had many who wished to imitate him and
+who insisted on becoming his disciples and followers. St. Francis had
+had no idea how infectious his example was to prove. Before his death
+his disciples could be numbered by the thousands and the great order
+of the Franciscans, that for centuries was to do so much work, had
+come into existence not by any conscious planning, but by the mere
+force of the great Christian principles that were the guiding factors
+in St. Francis' own life.
+</p>
+<p>
+Ruskin in his Mornings in Florence in discussing Giotto's famous
+picture of St. Francis' renunciation of his inheritance, and his
+incurrence thereby of his father's anger, has a characteristic passage
+that sounds the very keynote of the Saint's life and goes to the heart
+of things. In it he explains the meaning of this apparently
+contradictory incident in St. Francis' life, since Francis' great
+virtue was obedience, yet here, apparently as a beginning of his more
+perfect Christian life, is an act of disobedience. After Ruskin's
+explanation, however, it is all the more difficult to understand the
+present generation's revival of interest in Francis unless it be
+attributed to a liking for contrast.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "That is the meaning of St. Francis' renouncing his inheritance; and
+  it is the beginning of Giotto's gospel of Works. Unless this hardest
+  of deeds be done first&mdash;this inheritance of mammon and the world
+  cast away,&mdash;all other deeds are useless. You cannot serve, cannot
+  obey, God and mammon. No charities, no obedience, no self-denials,
+  are of any use while you are still at heart in conformity with the
+  world. You go to church, because the world goes. You keep Sunday,
+  because your <a name="261">{261}</a> neighbor keeps it. But you dress ridiculously
+  because your neighbors ask it; and you dare not do a rough piece of
+  work, because your neighbors despise it. You must renounce your
+  neighbor, in his riches and pride, and remember him in his distress.
+  That is St. Francis' 'disobedience.'"
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp261">{opp261}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp261.jpg" border=1><br>
+ST. FRANCIS (CHURCH OF THE FRARI, VENICE, NIC. PISANO)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In spite of Ruskin's charming explanation of St. Francis' place in
+history, and his elucidation of the hard passages in his life, most
+people will only find it more difficult, after these explanations, to
+understand the modern acute reawakening of interest in St. Francis.
+Our generation in its ardent devotion to the things of this world does
+not seem a promising field for the evangel, "Give up all thou hast and
+follow me." The mystery of St. Francis' attraction only deepens the
+more we know of him. An American Franciscan has tried to solve the
+problem and his words are worth quoting. Father Paschal Robinson, O.
+S. M., in his "The True St. Francis" says:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "What is the cause of the present widespread homage to St. Francis?
+  It is, of course, far too wide a question to allow the present
+  writer to do more than make a few suggestions. First and foremost,
+  we must ever reckon with the perennial charm of the Saint's
+  personality, which seems to wield an ineffable influence over the
+  hearts of men&mdash;drawing and holding those of the most different
+  habits of mind, with a sense of personal sympathy. Perhaps no other
+  man, unless it be St. Paul, ever had such wide reaching,
+  all-embracing sympathy: and it may have been wider than St. Paul's,
+  for we find no evidence in the great apostle of a love for nature
+  and of animals. This exquisite Franciscan spirit, as it is called,
+  which is the very perfume of religion&mdash;this spirit at once so
+  humble, so tender, so devout, so akin to 'the good odor of
+  Christ'&mdash;passed out into the whole world and has become a permanent
+  source of inspiration. A character at once so exhalted and so
+  purified as St. Francis was sure to keep alive an ideal; and so he
+  does. From this one can easily understand St. Francis' dominance
+  among a small but earnest band of enthusiasts now pointing the world
+  back to the reign of the spirit. It was this same gentle idealism of
+  St. Francis which inspired the art of the Umbrian people; it was
+  this which was translated into the paintings of the greatest
+  artists. No school of painting has ever been penetrated with <a name="262">{262}</a>
+  such pure idealism as the Umbrian; and this inspiration, at once
+  religious and artistic, came from the tomb of the <i>poverello</i> above
+  which Giotto had painted his mystical frescoes. The earnest
+  quasi-religious study of the medieval beginnings of western art has
+  therefore rightly been set down as another cause for some of the
+  latter-day pilgrimages to Assisi. In like manner, the scientific
+  treatment of the Romance literature leads naturally to St. Francis
+  as to the humble upper waters of a mighty stream; at the beginning
+  of the Thirteenth Century is St. Francis, at the end is Dante. It
+  was Matthew Arnold, we believe, who first held up the poor man of
+  Assisi as a literary type&mdash;a type as distinct and formal as the
+  author of the <i>Divine Comedy</i>. 'Prose,' he says, 'could not easily
+  satisfy the saint's ardent soul, and so he made poetry.' 'It was,'
+  writes Ozanam, 'the first cry of a nascent poetry which has grown
+  and made itself heard through the world.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+Considering how thoroughly impractical Francis seemed to be in his
+life, it can scarcely help but be a source of ever increasing wonder
+that he succeeded in influencing, his generation so widely and so
+thoroughly. It is evident that there were many men of the time tired
+of the more or less strenuous life, which chained them either to the
+cares of business or tempted them for the sake of the bubble
+reputation into a military career. To these St. Francis' method of
+life came with an especially strong appeal. The example of his neglect
+of worldly things and of his so thoroughly maintained resolve not to
+be harassed by the ordinary cares of life, and especially not to take
+too much thought of the future, penetrated into all classes. While it
+made the rich realize how much of their lives they were living merely
+for the sake of others, it helped the poor to be satisfied, since here
+was a sublime and complete recognition of the fact that an existence
+without cares was better than one with many cares, such as were sure
+to come to those who wrought ever and anon increase of the goods of
+this world. Such ideas may seen to be essentially modern, but anyone
+who will turn to the chapter on The Three Most Read Books of the
+Century and read the passages from the "Romance of the Rose" on wealth
+and poverty, will know better than to think them anything but
+perennial.
+</p>
+<a name="263">{263}</a>
+<p>
+Men gathered around St. Francis then and pleaded to be allowed to
+follow his mode of life. Some of the men who thus came to him were the
+choice spirits of the times. Thomas of Celano, who was to be one of
+the Master's favorite disciples and subsequently to be his most
+authoritative biographer, was one of the great literary geniuses of
+all times, the author of the sublime Dies Irae. While most of his
+first companions were men of such extreme simplicity of mind that the
+world has been rather in an amused than admiring attitude with regard
+to them, there can be no doubt that this simplicity was of itself an
+index not only of their genuine sincerity of heart, but of a greatness
+of mind that set them above the ordinary run of mankind and made them
+live poetry when they did not write it. The institute established by
+St. Francis was destined, in the course of the century, to attract to
+it some of the great men of every country. Besides Thomas of Celano
+there was, in Italy, Anthony of Padua, almost as famous as his master
+for the beauty of his saintly life; Jacopone Da Todi, the well-known
+author of the Stabat Mater, a hymn that rivals in poetic genius, the
+Dies Irae; Bonaventure, the great teacher of philosophy and theology
+at the University of Paris, and the writer of some of the sublimest
+treatises of mystical theology that were to be text books for the
+members of the Franciscan order, and of many other religious bodies
+for centuries after his death, indeed down to even our own times.
+There was Roger Bacon, in England, the famous teacher of science at
+Paris and at Oxford; and that Subtle Doctor, Duns Scotus, whose
+influence in philosophical speculation was destined never quite to
+disappear, and many others, the pick of the generations in which they
+lived, all proud to look up to Francis of Assisi as their father; all
+glad of the opportunity that the order gave them, to pass their lives
+in peace, far from the madding crowd with its strifes and competition,
+providing them constantly with opportunities to live their own lives,
+to find their own souls, to cultivate their own individualities
+untrammelled by worldly cares.
+</p>
+<p>
+Francis' success in this matter and the propaganda of his influence
+will not be so surprising to Americans of this generation, if they
+will only recall what is still a precious memory in <a name="264">{264}</a> the minds of
+men who are yet alive, that efforts to found a community not unlike
+that of the Franciscans in certain ways, attracted widespread
+attention even in our own country half a century ago. After all, the
+men who gathered at Brook Farm had ideas and ideals not so distant
+from those cherished by St. Francis and the early members of the
+Franciscan Order. Their main effort was also to get away from worldly
+cares and have the opportunity to work out their philosophy of life
+far from the disturbing influence of city life, in the peaceful
+pursuit of only such agricultural efforts as might be necessary to
+ensure them simple sustenance, yet at the same time enforce from them
+such exercise in the open air as would guarantee the preservation of
+health. The men of Brook Farm were, in the eyes of their generation,
+quite as far from practical ideas as were the early Franciscans. It
+must not be forgotten, however, that these men who thus attempted in
+the Nineteenth Century what St. Francis succeeded in accomplishing in
+the Thirteenth, in their subsequent careers succeeded in impressing
+themselves very strongly upon the life of the American people. Much of
+what is best in our Nineteenth Century life would be lost if the Brook
+farmers and what they accomplished were to be removed from it. Men of
+ideals are usually also men of working ideas, as these two experiences
+in history would seem to show.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp264">{opp264}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp264a.jpg" border=1><br>
+ST. ELIZABETH&mdash;THREE FRANCISCANS (GIOTTO)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp264b.jpg" border=1><br>
+ST. LOUIS&mdash;THREE FRANCISCANS (GIOTTO)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp264c.jpg" border=1><br>
+ST. CLARE&mdash;THREE FRANCISCANS (GIOTTO)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was not alone for the men of his generation, however, that Francis
+was destined to furnish a refuge from worldly care and a place of
+peace and thoughtful life. We have already said that it was by chance,
+certainly without any conscious intention on Francis' part that the
+Franciscan order for men which is usually spoken of as the First Order
+came into existence. The last thing in the world very probably that
+would ever have entered into the mind of Francis when he began to lead
+the simple life of a poor little man of God, was the founding of a
+religious order for women. We tell elsewhere the story, of St. Clare's
+interest in St. Francis' mode of life and of the trials that she
+underwent in order to obtain permission and opportunity to fashion her
+own life in the same way. The problem was even more serious for women
+than for men. St. Francis considered that they should not be <a name="265">{265}</a>
+allowed to follow the Franciscan custom of going out to seek alms and
+yet required that they should live in absolute poverty, possessing
+nothing and supporting themselves only by the contributions of the
+faithful and the work of their hands. St. Clare attempted the
+apparently impossible and solved the problem of a new career for the
+women of her time.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was not very long before St. Clare's example proved as infective as
+that of St. Francis himself. While in the beginning the members of her
+family had been the most strenuous objectors against her taking up
+such an unwonted mode of existence it was not long before she was
+joined in the monastery of St. Damian where her little community was
+living, by her sister who was to become almost as famous as herself
+under the name of St. Agnes, and by her mother and other near
+relatives, from Assisi and the neighborhood. This Second Order of St.
+Francis to which only women were admitted proved to have in it the
+germ of as active life as that of the first order. Before the end of
+the Thirteenth Century there were women Franciscans in every country
+in Europe. These convents furnished for women a refuge from the
+worried, hurried, over-busy life around them that proved quite as
+attractive as the similar opportunity for the men. For many hundreds
+of years down even to our own time, women were to find in the quiet
+obscurity of such Franciscan convents a peaceful, happy life in which
+they occupied themselves with simple conventual duties, with manual
+labor in their monastery gardens, with the making of needle work in
+which they became the most expert in the world, with the illuminating
+of missals and office books of such artistic beauty that they have
+become the most precious treasures of our great libraries, and with
+the long hours of prayer by which they hoped to accomplish as much in
+making the world better as if they devoted themselves to ardent
+efforts of reform which, of course, the circumstances of the time
+would not have permitted.
+</p>
+<p>
+Finally there was the Third Order of St. Francis, which was to gather
+to itself so many of the distinguished people of the century whose
+occupations and obligations would not permit them to live the
+conventual life, but who yet felt that they must be attached by some
+bond to this beautiful sanctity that was <a name="266">{266}</a> entering into all the
+better life of the century. The Third Order was established so as to
+permit all the world to become Franciscans to whatever degree it
+considered possible, and to share in the sublime Christianity of the
+founder whom they all admired so much, even if they were not able to
+imitate his sublimer virtues. Into this Third Order of St. Francis
+most of the finer spirits of the time entered with enthusiasm. We need
+only recall that Louis IX. of France, the greatest Monarch of the
+century, considered it a special privilege to be a follower of the
+humble Francis, and that St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the daughter of a
+king, the wife and mother of a ruling prince, gave another example of
+the far-reachingness of Francis' work. Dante was another of the great
+members of the Third Order and was buried in the habit of St. Francis,
+glorying in the thought of the brotherhood this gave him with the
+saint he loved so much.
+</p>
+<p>
+All down the centuries since, other distinguished men in many
+countries of Europe were proud to claim the same distinction. Modern
+science is supposed to be unorthodox in its tendencies and electricity
+is the most recent of the sciences in development. Three of the great
+founders in electricity, Volta, Galvani and Ampere, were members of
+the Third Order of St. Francis and at least one of them, Galvani,
+insisted on being buried in the habit of the order six centuries after
+the death of his father Francis in order to show how much he
+appreciated the privilege. There is no man who lived in the Thirteenth
+Century who influenced the better side of men more in all the
+succeeding ages down to and including our own time, than the poor
+little man of God of Assisi. He is just coming into a further precious
+heritage of uplift for the men of our time, that is surprising for
+those who are so buried in the merely material that they fail to
+realize how much the ideal still rules the minds of thinking men, but
+that seems only natural and inevitable to those who appreciate all the
+attractiveness there is in a simple life lived without the bootless
+hurry, the unattaining bustle and the over-strained excitement of the
+strenuous existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+What St. Francis and his order accomplished in Italy another great
+Saint, Dominic, was achieving in the West. The <a name="267">{267}</a> fact that another
+order similar to that of St. Francis in many respects, yet differing
+from it in a number of essential particulars, should have arisen
+almost at the same time shows how profoundly the spirit of
+organization of effort had penetrated into the minds of these
+generations of the Thirteenth Century. While poverty was to be the
+badge of St. Dominic's followers as well as those of St. Francis,
+learning was to replace the simplicity which St. Francis desired for
+his sons. The order of preachers began at once to give many eminent
+scholars to the Church, and for three centuries there was not a single
+generation that did not see as Dominicans some of the most
+intellectual men of Europe. Leaders they were in philosophy, in the
+development of thought, in education, and in every phase of
+ecclesiastical life. The watch dogs of the Lord, (Domini Canes) they
+were called, punning on their name because everwhere, they were in the
+van of defense against the enemies of Christianity. That the
+Thirteenth Century should have given rise to two such great religious
+orders stamps it as a wonderfully fruitful period for religion as well
+as for every other phrase of human development.
+</p>
+<p>
+In order to understand what these great founders tried to do, the work
+of these two orders must be considered together. They have never
+ceased, during all the intervening seven centuries, to be the source
+of great influence in the religious world. They have proven refuges
+for many gentle spirits at all times and have been the homes of
+learning, as well as of piety. While occasionally their privileges
+have been abused, and men have taken advantage of the opportunities to
+be idle and luxurious, this has happened much seldomer than the world
+imagines. Not a single century has failed to show men among them whom
+the world honors as Saints, and whose lives have been examples of what
+can be accomplished by human nature at its best. They have been
+literally schools of unselfishness, and men have learned to think less
+of themselves and more of their labor by the contemplation of the
+lives of these begging friars. What they did for England, the Rev.
+Augustus Jessopp, a non-conformist clergyman in England, has recently
+told very well, and the more one studies their history, the higher the
+estimation of them; and the more one knows of <a name="268">{268}</a> them, the less
+does one talk of their vices. Green in his "History of the English
+People" has paid them a tribute that it is well to remember:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "To bring the world back again within the pale of the Church was the
+  aim of two religious orders which sprang suddenly to life at the
+  opening of the Thirteenth Century. The zeal of the Spaniard Dominic
+  was aroused at the sight of the lordly prelates who sought by fire
+  and sword to win the Albigensian heretics to the faith. 'Zeal,' he
+  cried, 'must be met by zeal, lowliness by lowliness, false sanctity
+  by real sanctity, preaching lies by preaching truth.' His fiery
+  ardor and rigid orthodoxy were seconded by the mystical piety, the
+  imaginative enthusiasm of Francis of Assisi. The life of Francis
+  falls like a stream of tender light across the darkness of the time.
+  In the frescoes of Giotto or the verse of Dante we see him take
+  Poverty for his bride. He strips himself of all: he flings his very
+  clothes at his father's feet, that he may be one with Nature and
+  God. His passionate verse claims the moon for his sister and the sun
+  for his brother; he calls on his brother the Wind, and his sister
+  the Water. His last faint cry was a 'Welcome, Sister Death.'
+  Strangely as the two men differed from each other, their aim was the
+  same, to convert the heathen, to extirpate heresy, to reconcile
+  knowledge with orthodoxy, to carry the Gospel to the poor. The work
+  was to be done by the entire reversal of the older monasticism, by
+  seeking personal salvation in effort for the salvation of their
+  fellow-men, by exchanging the solitary of the cloister for the
+  preacher, the monk for a friar. To force the new 'brethren' into
+  entire dependence on those among whom they labored the vow of
+  Poverty was turned into a stern reality; the 'Begging Friars' were
+  to subsist on the alms of the poor, they might possess neither money
+  nor lands, the very houses in which they lived were to be held in
+  trust for them by others. The tide of popular enthusiasm which
+  welcomed their appearance swept before it the reluctance of Rome,
+  the jealousy of the older orders, the opposition of the parochial
+  priesthood. Thousands of brethren gathered in a few years around
+  Francis and Dominic, and the begging preachers, clad in their coarse
+  frock of serge, with the girdle of rope around their waist, wandered
+  barefooted as <a name="269">{269}</a> missionaries over Asia, battled with heresy in
+  Italy and Gaul, lectured in the Universities, and preached and
+  toiled among the poor."
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i269.jpg" border=1><br>
+SIDE CAPITAL (LINCOLN)
+</p>
+
+<a name="270">{270}</a>
+
+<h1>XVII
+<br>
+AQUINAS THE SCHOLAR.</h1>
+
+<p>
+No one of all the sons of the Thirteenth Century, not even Dante
+himself, so typifies the greatness of the mentality of the period as
+does Thomas, called from his birthplace Aquinas, or of Aquin, on whom
+his own and immediately succeeding generations because of what they
+considered his almost more than human intellectual acumen, bestowed
+the title of Angelical Doctor, while the Church for the supremely
+unselfish character of his life, formally conferred the title of
+Saint. The life of Aquinas is of special interest, because it serves
+to clarify many questions as to the education of the Thirteenth
+Century and to correct many false impressions that are only too
+prevalent with regard to the intellectual life of the period. Though
+Aquinas came of a noble family which was related to many of the Royal
+houses of Europe and was the son of the Count of Aquino, then one of
+the most important of the non-reigning noble houses of Italy, his
+education was begun in his early years and was continued in the midst
+of such opportunities as even the modern student might well envy.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is often said that the nobility at this time, paid very little
+attention to the things of the intellect and indeed rather prided
+themselves on their ignorance of even such ordinary attainments as
+reading and writing. While this was doubtless true for not a few of
+them, Aquinas's life stands in open contradiction with the impression
+that any such state of mind was at all general, or that there were not
+so many exceptions as to nullify any such supposed rule. Evidently
+those who wished could and did take advantage of educational
+opportunities quite as in our day. Aquinas's early education was
+received at the famous monastery of Monte Cassino in Southern Italy,
+where the Benedictines for more than six centuries had been providing
+magnificent opportunities for the studious youth of Italy and for
+serious-minded students from all over Europe. <a name="271">{271}</a> When he was
+scarcely more than a boy he proceeded to the University of Naples,
+which at that time, under the patronage of the Emperor Frederick II.,
+was being encouraged not only to take the place so long held by
+Salernum in the educational world of Europe, but also to rival the
+renowned Universities of Paris and Bologna. Here he remained until he
+was seventeen years of age when he resolved to enter the Dominican
+Order, which had been founded only a short time before by St. Dominic,
+yet had already begun to make itself felt throughout the religious and
+educational world of the time.
+</p>
+<p>
+Just as it is the custom to declare that as a rule, the nobility cared
+little for education, so it is more or less usual to proclaim that
+practically only the clergy had any opportunities for the higher
+education during the Thirteenth Century. Thomas had evidently been
+given his early educational opportunities, however, without any
+thought of the possibility of his becoming a clergyman. His mother was
+very much opposed to his entrance among the Dominicans, and every
+effort was made to picture to him the pleasures and advantages that
+would accrue to him because of his noble connections, in a life in the
+world. Thomas insisted, however, and his firm purpose in the matter
+finally conquered even the serious obstacles that a noble family can
+place in the way of a boy of seventeen, as regards the disposition of
+his life in a way opposed to their wishes.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Dominicans realized the surpassing intelligence of the youth whom
+they had received and accordingly he was sent to be trained under the
+greatest teacher of their order, the famous Albert the Great, who was
+then lecturing at Cologne. Thomas was not the most brilliant of
+scholars as a young man and seems even to have been the butt of his
+more successful fellow-students. They are said to have called him the
+dumb one, or sometimes because of his bulkiness even as a youth, the
+dumb ox. Albert himself, however, was not deceived in his estimation
+of the intellectual capacity of his young student, and according to
+tradition declared, that the bellowings of this ox would yet be heard
+throughout all Christendom. After a few years spent at Cologne, Thomas
+when he was in his early twenties, accompanied Albert who had been
+called to <a name="272">{272}</a> Paris. It was at Paris that Thomas received his
+bachelor's degree and also took out his license to teach&mdash;the doctor's
+degree of our time. After this some years further were spent at
+Cologne and then the greatness of the man began to dawn on his
+generation. He was called back to Paris and became one of the most
+popular of the Professors at that great University in the height of
+her fame, at a time when no greater group of men has perhaps ever been
+gathered together, than shared with him the honors of the professors'
+chairs at that institution.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Albert the Great, Roger Bacon, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas
+  Aquinas, form among themselves, so to speak, a complete
+  representation of all the intellectual powers: they are the four
+  doctors who uphold the chair of philosophy in the temple of the
+  Middle Ages. Their mission was truly the reestablishment of the
+  sciences, but not their final consummation. They were not exempt
+  from the ignorances and erroneous opinions of their day, yet they
+  did much to overcome them and succeeded better than is usually
+  acknowledged in introducing the era of modern thought. Often, the
+  majesty, I may even say the grace of their conceptions, disappears
+  under the veil of the expressions in which they are clothed; but
+  these imperfections are amply atoned for by superabundant merits.
+  Those Christian philosophers did not admit within themselves the
+  divorce, since their day become so frequent, between the intellect
+  and the will; their lives were uniformly a laborious application of
+  their doctrines. They realized in its plenitude the practical wisdom
+  so often dreamed of by the ancients&mdash;the abstinence of the disciples
+  of Pythagoras, the constancy of the stoics, together with humility
+  and charity, virtues unknown to the antique world. Albert the Great
+  and St. Thomas left the castles of their noble ancestors to seek
+  obscurity in the cloisters of St. Dominic: the former abdicated, and
+  the latter declined, the honors of the Church. It was with the cord
+  of St. Francis that Roger Bacon and St. Bonaventure girded their
+  loins; when the last named was sought that the Roman purple might be
+  placed upon his shoulders, he begged the envoys to wait until he
+  finished washing the dishes of the convent. Thus they did not
+  withdraw themselves <a name="273">{273}</a> within the exclusive mysteries of an
+  esoteric teaching; they opened the doors of their schools to the
+  sons of shepherds and artisans, and, like their Master, Christ, they
+  said: "Come all!" After having broken the bread of the word, they
+  were seen distributing the bread of alms. The poor knew them and
+  blessed their names. Even yet, after the lapse of six hundred years,
+  the dwellers in Paris kneel round the altar of the Angel of the
+  School, and the workmen of Lyons deem it an honor once a year to
+  bear upon their brawny shoulders the triumphant remains of the
+  'Seraphic Doctor.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+For most modern students and even scholars educated in secular
+universities the name of Aquinas is scarcely more than a type, the
+greatest of them, it is true, of the schoolmen who were so much
+occupied with distant, impractical and, to say the least, merely
+theoretic metaphysical problems, in the later Middle Ages. It is true
+that the renewed interest in Dante in recent years in English speaking
+countries, has brought about a revival of attention in Aquinas's work
+because to Dante, the Angelical Doctor, as he was already called,
+meant so much, and because the Divine Comedy has been declared often
+and often, by competent critics, to be the Summa Theologiae of St.
+Thomas of Aquin in verse. Even this adventitious literary interest,
+however, has not served to lift the obscurity in which Aquinas is
+veiled for the great majority of scholarly people, whose education has
+been conducted according to modern methods and present-day ideas.
+</p>
+<p>
+As showing a hopeful tendency to recognize the greatness of these
+thinkers of the Middle Ages it is interesting to note that about five
+years ago one of St. Thomas's great works&mdash;the Summa Contra
+Gentiles&mdash;was placed on the list of subjects which a candidate may at
+his option offer in the final honor school of the <i>litterae
+humaniores</i> at Oxford. There has come a definite appreciation of the
+fact that this old time philosopher represents a phase of intellectual
+development that must not be neglected, and that stands for such
+educational influence as may well be taken advantage of even in our
+day of information rather than mental discipline. For the purposes of
+this course Father Rickaby, S. J., has prepared an annotated
+translation of the great philosophic work under the title, <a name="274">{274}</a> "Of
+God and His Creatures," which was published by Burns and Oates of
+London, 1905. This will enable those for whom the Latin of St. Thomas
+was a stumbling block, to read the thoughts of the great scholastic,
+in translation at least, and it is to be hoped that we shall hear no
+more of the trifling judgments which have so disgraced our English
+philosophical literature.
+</p>
+<p>
+The fact that Pope Leo XIII., by a famous papal bull, insisted that
+St. Thomas should be the standard of teaching in philosophy and
+theology in all the Catholic institutions of learning throughout the
+world, aroused many thinkers to a realization of the fact that far
+from being a thing of the dead and distant past, Thomas's voice was
+still a great living force in the world of thought. To most people Leo
+XIII. appealed as an intensely practical and thoroughly modern ruler,
+whose judgment could be depended on even with regard to teaching
+problems in philosophy and theology. There was about him none of the
+qualities that would stamp him as a far-away mystic whose thoughts
+were still limited by medieval barriers. The fact that in making his
+declaration the Pope was only formulating as a rule, what had
+spontaneously become the almost constant practice and tradition of
+Catholic schools and universities, of itself served to show how great
+and how enduring was St. Thomas's influence.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the drawing together of Christian sects that has inevitably come as
+a result of the attacks made upon Christianity by modern materialists,
+and then later by those who would in their ardor for the higher
+criticism do away with practically all that is divine in Christianity,
+there has come a very general realization even on the part of those
+outside of her fold, that the Roman Catholic Church occupies a
+position more solidly founded on consistent logical premises and
+conclusions than any of the denominations. Without her aid Christian
+apologetics would indeed be in sad case. Pope Leo's declaration only
+emphasizes the fact, then, that the foundation stone of Christian
+apologetics was laid by the great work of St. Thomas, and that to him
+more than any other is due that wonderful coordination of secular and
+religious knowledge, which appoints for each of these branches of
+knowledge its <a name="275">{275}</a> proper place, and satisfies the human mind better
+than any other system of philosophic thought. This is the real
+panegyric of St. Thomas, and it only adds to the sublimity of it that
+it should come nearly six centuries and a half after his death. To
+only a bare handful of men in the history of the human race, is it
+given thus to influence the minds of subsequent generations for so
+long and to have laid down the principles of thought that are to
+satisfy men for so many generations. This is why, in any attempt at
+even inadequate treatment of the greatness of the Thirteenth Century,
+Thomas Aquinas, who was its greatest scholar, must have a prominent
+place. The present generation has had sufficient interest in him
+aroused, however, amply to justify such a giving of space.
+</p>
+<p>
+When Leo XIII. made his recommendation of St. Thomas it was not as one
+who had merely heard of the works of the great medieval thinker, or
+knew them only by tradition, or had slightly dipped into them as a
+dilettante, but as one who had been long familiar with them, who had
+studied the Angelical Doctor in youth, who had pondered his wisdom in
+middle age, and resorted again and again to him for guidance in the
+difficulties of doctrine in maturer years, and the difficulties of
+morals such as presented themselves in his practical life as a
+churchman. It was out of the depths of his knowledge of him, that the
+great Pope, whom all the modern world came to honor so reverently
+before his death, drew his supreme admiration for St. Thomas and his
+recognition of the fact that no safer guide in the thorny path of
+modern Christian apologetics could be followed, than this wonderful
+genius who first systematized human thought as far as the relations of
+Creator to creature are considered, in the heyday of medieval
+scholarship and university teaching.
+</p>
+<p>
+Those who have their knowledge of scholastic philosophy at second
+hand, from men who proclaim this period of human development as
+occupied entirely with fruitless discussion of metaphysical theories,
+will surely think that they could find nothing of interest for them in
+St. Thomas's writings. It is true the casual reader may not penetrate
+far enough into his writing to realize its significance and to
+appreciate its depth of knowledge, but the serious student finds
+constant <a name="276">{276}</a> details of supreme interest because of their
+applications to the most up-to-date problems. We venture to quote an
+example that will show this more or less perfectly according to the
+special philosophic interest of readers. It is St. Thomas's discussion
+of the necessity there was for the revelation of the truth of the
+existence of God. His statement of the reasons why men, occupied with
+the ordinary affairs of life, would not ordinarily come to this truth
+unless it were revealed to them, though they actually have the mental
+capacity to reach it by reason alone, will show how sympathetically
+the Saint appreciated human conditions as they are.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "If a truth of this nature were left to the sole inquiry of reason,
+  three disadvantages would follow. One is that the knowledge of God
+  would be confined to few. The discovery of truth is the fruit of
+  studious inquiry. From this very many are hindered. Some are
+  hindered by a constitutional unfitness, their natures being
+  ill-disposed to the acquisition of knowledge. They could never
+  arrive by study at the highest grade of human knowledge, which
+  consists in the knowledge of God. Others are hindered by the claims
+  of business and the ties of the management of property. There must
+  be in human society some men devoted to temporal affairs. These
+  could not possibly spend time enough in the learned lessons of
+  speculative inquiry to arrive at the highest point of human inquiry,
+  the knowledge of God. Some again are hindered by sloth. The
+  knowledge of the truths that reason can investigate concerning God
+  presupposes much previous knowledge; indeed almost the entire study
+  of philosophy is directed to the knowledge of God. Hence, of all
+  parts of philosophy that part stands over to be learned last, which
+  consists of metaphysics dealing with (divine things). Thus only with
+  great labour of study is it possible to arrive at the searching out
+  of the aforesaid truth; and this labour few are willing to undergo
+  for sheer love of knowledge.
+<br><br>
+  "Another disadvantage is that such as did arrive at the knowledge or
+  discovery of the aforesaid truth would take a long time over it on
+  account of the profundity of such truth, and the many prerequisites
+  to the study, and also because in youth and early manhood the soul,
+  tossed to and fro on the <a name="277">{277}</a> waves of passion, is not fit for the
+  study of such high truth; only in settled age does the soul become
+  prudent and scientific, as the philosopher says. Thus if the only
+  way open to the knowledge of God were the way of reason, the human
+  race would (remain) in thick darkness of ignorance: as the knowledge
+  of God, the best instrument for making men perfect and good, would
+  accrue only to a few after a considerable lapse of time.
+<br><br>
+  "A third disadvantage is that, owing to the infirmity of our
+  judgment and the perturbing force of imagination, there is some
+  admixture of error in most of the investigations of human reason.
+  This would be a reason to many for continuing to doubt even of the
+  most accurate demonstrations, not perceiving the force of the
+  demonstration, and seeing the divers judgments, of divers persons
+  who have the name of being wise men. Besides, in the midst of much
+  demonstrated truth there is sometimes an element of error, not
+  demonstrated but asserted on the strength of some plausible and
+  sophistic reasoning that is taken for a demonstration. And therefore
+  it was necessary for the real truth concerning divine things to be
+  presented to men with fixed certainty by way of faith. Wholesome,
+  therefore, is the arrangement of divine clemency, whereby things
+  even that reason can investigate are commanded to be held on faith,
+  so that all might be easily partakers of the knowledge of God, and
+  that without doubt and error (Book I. cix)."
+</p>
+<p>
+A still more striking example of Thomas's eminently sympathetic
+discussion of a most difficult problem, is to be found in his
+treatment of the question of the Resurrection of the Body. The
+doctrine that men will rise again on the last day with the same bodies
+that they had while here on earth, has been a stumbling block for the
+faith of a great many persons from the beginning of Christianity. In
+recent times the discovery of the indestructibility of matter, far
+from lessening the skeptical elements in this problem as might have
+been anticipated, has rather emphasized them. While the material of
+which man's body was composed is never destroyed, it is broken up
+largely into its original elements and is used over and over again in
+many natural processes, and even enters into the composition of other
+men's bodies during the long succeeding generations. Here is a problem
+upon which it would <a name="278">{278}</a> ordinarily be presumed at once, that a
+philosophic writer of the Thirteenth Century could throw no possible
+light. We venture to say, however, that the following passage which we
+quote from an article on St. Thomas in a recent copy of the Dublin
+<i>Review</i>, represents the best possible solution of the problem, even
+in the face of all our modern advance in science.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "What does not bar numerical unity in a man while he lives on
+  uninterruptedly (writes St. Thomas), clearly can be no bar to the
+  identity of the arisen man with the man that was. In a man's body,
+  while he lives, there are not always the same parts in respect of
+  matter but only in respect of species. In respect of matter there is
+  a flux and reflux of parts. Still that fact does not bar the man's
+  numerical unity from the beginning to the end of his life. The form
+  and species of the several parts continue throughout life, but the
+  matter of the parts is dissolved by the natural heat, and new matter
+  accrues through nourishment. Yet the man is not numerically
+  different by the difference of his component parts at different
+  ages, although it is true that the material composition of the man
+  at one stage of his life is not his material composition at another.
+  Addition is made from without to the stature of a boy without
+  prejudice to his identity, for the boy and the adult are numerically
+  the same man."
+</p>
+<p>
+In a word, Aquinas says that we recognize that the body of the boy and
+of the man are the same though they are composed of quite different
+material. With this in mind the problem of the Resurrection takes on
+quite a new aspect from what it held before. What we would call
+attention to, however, is not so much the matter of the argument as
+the mode of it. It is essentially modern in every respect. Not only
+does Thomas know that the body changes completely during the course of
+years, but he knows that the agent by which the matter of the parts is
+dissolved is "the natural heat," while "new matter accrues through
+nourishment." The passage contains a marvelous anticipation of
+present-day physiology as well as a distinct contribution to Christian
+apologetics. This coordination of science and theology, though usually
+thought to be lacking among scholastic philosophers, is constantly
+typical of their mode of thought and discussion, and this example, far
+from <a name="279">{279}</a> being exceptional, is genuinely representative of them, as
+all serious students of scholasticism know.
+</p>
+<p>
+Perhaps the last thing for which the ordinary person would expect to
+find a great modern teacher recommending the reading of St. Thomas
+would be to find therein the proper doctrine with regard to liberty
+and the remedies for our modern social evils. Those who will recall,
+however, how well the generations of the Thirteenth Century faced
+social problems even more serious than ours&mdash;for the common people had
+no rights at all [at] the beginning of the century, yet secured them with
+such satisfaction as to lay the foundation of the modern history of
+liberty&mdash;will realize that the intellectual men of the time must have
+had a much better grasp of the principles underlying such problems,
+than would otherwise be imagined. As a matter of fact, St. Thomas's
+treatment of Society, its rights and duties, and the mutual
+relationship between it and the individual, is one of the triumphs of
+his wonderful work in ethics. It is no wonder, then, that the great
+Pope of the end of the Nineteenth Century, whose encyclicals showed
+that he understood very thoroughly these social evils of our time,
+recognized their tendencies and appreciated their danger, recommended
+as a remedy for them the reading of St. Thomas. Pope Leo said:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Domestic and civil society, even, which, as all see, is exposed to
+  great danger from the plague of perverse opinions, would certainly
+  enjoy a far more peaceful and a securer existence if more wholesome
+  doctrine were taught in the academies and schools&mdash;one more in
+  conformity with the teaching of the Church, such as is contained in
+  the works of Thomas Aquinas.
+<br><br>
+  "For the teachings of Thomas on the true meaning of liberty&mdash;which
+  at this time is running into license&mdash;on the divine origin of all
+  authority, on laws and their force, on the paternal and just rule of
+  princes, on obedience to the higher powers, on mutual charity one
+  towards another&mdash;on all of these and kindred subjects, have very
+  great and invincible force to overturn those principles of the new
+  order which are well known to be dangerous to the peaceful order of
+  things and to public safety."
+</p>
+<a name="280">{280}</a>
+<p>
+For this great Pope, however, there was no greater teacher of any of
+the serious philosophical, ethical and theological problems than this
+Saint of the Thirteenth Century. His position in the matter would only
+seem exaggerated to those who do not appreciate Pope Leo's marvelous
+practical intelligence, and Saint Thomas's exhaustive treatment of
+most of the questions that have always been uppermost in the minds of
+men. While, with characteristic humility, he considered himself
+scarcely more than a commentator on Aristotle, his natural genius was
+eminently original and he added much more of his own than what he took
+from his master. There can be no doubt that his was one of the most
+gifted minds in all humanity's history and that for profundity of
+intelligence he deserves to be classed with Plato and Aristotle, as
+his great disciple Dante is placed between Homer and Shakespeare.
+Those who know St. Thomas the best, and have spent their lives in the
+study of him, not only cordially welcomed but ardently applauded Pope
+Leo's commendation of him, and considered that lofty as was his praise
+there was not a word they would have changed even in such a laudatory
+passage as the following:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "While, therefore, we hold that every word of wisdom, every useful
+  thing by whomsoever discovered or planned, ought to be received with
+  a willing and grateful mind. We exhort you, Venerable Brethren, in
+  all earnestness to restore the golden wisdom of St. Thomas, and to
+  spread it far and wide for the defense and beauty of the Catholic
+  faith, for the good of society, and for the advantage of all the
+  sciences. The wisdom of St. Thomas, We say&mdash;for if anything is taken
+  up with too great subtlety by the scholastic doctors, or too
+  carelessly stated&mdash;if there is anything that ill agrees with the
+  discoveries of a later age, or, in a word, improbable in whatever
+  way, it does not enter Our mind, to propose that for imitation to
+  Our age. Let carefully selected teachers endeavor to implant the
+  doctrines of Thomas Aquinas in the minds of students, and set forth
+  clearly his solidity and excellence over others. Let the academies
+  already founded or to be founded by you illustrate and defend this
+  doctrine, and use it for refutation of prevailing errors. But, lest
+  the false for the true or the corrupt for the pure be drunk in, be
+  watchful that the doctrine of Thomas <a name="281">{281}</a> be drawn from his own
+  fountains, or at least from those rivulets which derived from the
+  very fount, have thus far flowed, according to the established
+  agreement of learned men, pure and clear; be careful to guard the
+  minds of youth from those which are said to flow thence, but in
+  reality are gathered from strange and unwholesome streams."
+</p>
+<p>
+Tributes quite as laudatory are not lacking from modern secular
+writers and while there have been many derogatory remarks, these have
+always come from men who either knew Aquinas only at second hand, or
+who confess that they had been unable to read him understandingly. The
+praise all comes from men who have spent years in the study of his
+writings.
+</p>
+<p>
+A recent writer in the Dublin <i>Review</i> (January, 1906) sums up his
+appreciation of one of St. Thomas's works, his masterly book in
+philosophy, as follows:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The <i>Summa contra Gentiles</i> is an historical monument of the first
+  importance for the history of philosophy. In the variety of its
+  contents, it is a perfect encyclopedia of the learning of the day.
+  By it we can fix the high-water mark of Thirteenth Century thought,
+  for it contains the lectures of a doctor second to none in the great
+  school of thought then flourishing&mdash;the University of Paris. It is
+  by the study of such books that one enters into the mental life of
+  the period at which they were written; not by the hasty perusal of
+  histories of philosophy. No student of the Contra Gentiles is likely
+  to acquiesce in the statement that the Middle Ages were a time when
+  mankind seemed to have lost the power of thinking for themselves.
+  Medieval people thought for themselves, thoughts curiously different
+  from ours and profitable to study."
+</p>
+<p>
+Here is a similar high tribute for Aquinas's great work on Theology
+from his modern biographer, Father Vaughan:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The 'Summa Theologica' is a mighty synthesis, thrown into technical
+  and scientific form, of the Catholic traditions of East and West, of
+  the infallible dicta of the Sacred Page, and of the most enlightened
+  conclusions of human reason, gathered from the soaring intuitions of
+  the Academy, and the rigid severity of the Lyceum.
+<br><br>
+  "Its author was a man endowed with the characteristic notes of the
+  three great Fathers of Greek Philosophy: he possessed <a name="282">{282}</a> the
+  intellectual honesty and precision of Socrates, the analytical
+  keenness of Aristotle, and that yearning after wisdom and light
+  which was the distinguishing mark of 'Plato the divine,' and which
+  has ever been one of the essential conditions of the highest
+  intuitions of religion."
+</p>
+<p>
+As a matter of fact it was the very greatness of Thomas Aquinas, and
+the great group of contemporaries who were so close to him, that
+produced an unfortunate effect on subsequent thinking and teaching in
+Europe. These men were so surpassing in their grasp of the whole round
+of human thought, that their works came to be worshiped more or less
+as fetishes, and men did not think for themselves but appealed to them
+as authorities. It is a great but an unfortunate tribute to the
+scholastics of the Thirteenth Century that subsequent generations for
+many hundred years not only did not think that they could improve on
+them, but even hesitated to entertain the notion that they could equal
+them. Turner in his History of Philosophy has pointed out this fact
+clearly and has attributed to it, to a great extent, the decadence of
+scholastic philosophy.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The causes of the decay of scholastic philosophy were both internal
+  and external. The internal causes are to be found in the condition
+  of Scholastic philosophy at the beginning of the Fourteenth Century.
+  The great work of Christian syncretism had been completed by the
+  masters of the preceding period; revelation and science had been
+  harmonized; contribution had been levied on the pagan philosophies
+  of Greece and Arabia, and whatever truth these philosophies had
+  possessed had been utilized to form the basis of a rational
+  exposition of Christian revelation. The efforts of Roger Bacon and
+  of Alfred the Great to reform scientific method had failed; the
+  sciences were not cultivated. There was, therefore, no source of
+  development, and nothing was left for the later Scholastics except
+  to dispute as to the meaning of principles, to comment on the text
+  of this master or of that, and to subtilize to such an extent that
+  Scholasticism soon became a synonym for captious quibbling. The
+  great Thomistic principle that in philosophy the argument from
+  authority is the weakest of all arguments was forgotten; Aristotle,
+  St. Thomas, or Scotus became the criterion of truth, and as Solomon,
+  whose youthful wisdom had <a name="283">{283}</a> astonished the world, profaned his
+  old age by the worship of idols, the philosophy of the schools, in
+  the days of its decadence, turned from the service of truth to
+  prostrate itself before the shrine of a master. Dialectic, which in
+  the Thirteenth Century had been regarded as the instrument of
+  knowledge, now became an object of study for the sake of display;
+  and to this fault of method was added a fault of style&mdash;an
+  uncouthness and barbarity of terminology which bewilder the modern
+  reader."
+</p>
+<p>
+The appreciation of St. Thomas in his own time is the greatest tribute
+to the critical faculty of the century that could be made. "Genius is
+praised but starves," in the words of the old Roman poet. Certainly
+most of the geniuses of the world have met with anything but their
+proper meed of appreciation in their own time. This is not true,
+however, during our Thirteenth Century. We have already shown how the
+artists, and especially Giotto, (at the end of the Thirteenth Century
+Giotto was only twenty-four years old) were appreciated, and how much
+attention Dante began to attract from his contemporaries, and we may
+add that all the great scholars of the period had a following that
+insured the wide publication of their works, at a time when this had
+to be accomplished by slow and patient hand-labor. The appreciation
+for Thomas, indeed, came near proving inimical to his completion of
+his important works in philosophy and theology. Many places in Europe
+wanted to have the opportunity to hear him. We have only reintroduced
+the practise of exchanging university professors in very recent years.
+This was quite a common practise in the Thirteenth Century, however,
+and so St. Thomas, after having been professor at Paris and later at
+Rome, taught for a while at Naples and then at a number of the Italian
+universities.
+</p>
+<p>
+Everywhere he went he was noted for the kindliness of his disposition
+and for his power to make friends. Looked upon as the greatest thinker
+of his time it would be easy to expect that there should be some signs
+of consciousness of this, and as a consequence some of that unpleasant
+self-assertion which so often makes great intellectual geniuses
+unpopular. Thomas, however, never seems to have had any
+over-appreciation of his own talents, but, realizing how little he
+knew compared to <a name="284">{284}</a> the whole round of knowledge, and how
+superficial his thinking was compared to the depth of the mysteries he
+was trying, not to solve but to treat satisfactorily, it must be
+admitted that there was no question of conceit having a place in his
+life. This must account for the universal friendship of all who came
+in contact with him. The popes insisted on having him as a professor
+at the Roman university in which they were so much interested, and
+which they wished to make one of the greatest universities of the
+time. Here Thomas was brought in contact with ecclesiastics from all
+over the world and helped to form the mind of the time. Those who
+think the popes of the Middle Ages opposed to education should study
+the records of this Roman university.
+</p>
+<p>
+Thomas became the great friend of successive popes, some of whom had
+been brought in contact with him during his years of studying and
+teaching at Rome and Paris. This gave him many privileges and abundant
+encouragement, but finally came near ruining his career as a
+philosophic writer and teacher, since his papal friends wished to
+raise him to high ecclesiastical dignities. Urban IV. seems first to
+have thought of this but his successor Clement IV., one of the noblest
+churchmen of the period, who had himself wished to decline the papacy,
+actually made out the Bull, creating Thomas Archbishop of Naples. When
+this document was in due course presented to Aquinas, far from giving
+him any pleasure it proved a source of grief and pain. He saw the
+chance to do his life-work slipping from him. This was so evident to
+his friend the Pope that he withdrew the Bull and St. Thomas was left
+in peace during the rest of his career, and allowed to prosecute that
+one great object to which he had dedicated his mighty intellect. This
+was the summing up of all human knowledge in a work that would show
+the relation of the Creator to the creature, and apply the great
+principles of Greek philosophy to the sublime truths of Christianity.
+Had Thomas consented to accept the Archbishopric of Naples in all
+human probability, as Thomas's great English biographer remarks, the
+Summa Theologica would never have been written. It seems not unlikely
+that the dignity was pressed upon him by the Pope partly at the
+solicitation of powerful members of <a name="285">{285}</a> his family, who hoped in
+this to have some compensation for their relative's having abandoned
+his opportunities for military and worldly glory. It is fortunate that
+their efforts failed, and it is only one of the many examples in
+history of the short-sightedness there may be in considerations that
+seem founded on the highest human prudence.
+</p>
+<p>
+Thomas was left free then to go on with his great work, and during the
+next five years he applied every spare moment to the completion of his
+Summa. More students have pronounced this the greatest work ever
+written than is true for any other text-book that has ever been used
+in schools. That it should be the basis of modern theological teaching
+after seven centuries is of itself quite sufficient to proclaim its
+merit. The men who are most enthusiastic about it are those who have
+used it the longest and who know it the best.
+</p>
+<p>
+St. Thomas's English biographer, the Very Rev. Roger Bede Vaughan, who
+is a worthy member of that distinguished Vaughan family who have given
+so many zealous ecclesiastics to the English Church and so many
+scholars to support the cause of Christianity, can scarcely say enough
+of this great work, nor of its place in the realm of theology. When it
+is recalled that Father Vaughan was not a member of St. Thomas's own
+order, the Dominicans, but of the Benedictines, it will be seen that
+it was not because of any <i>esprit de corps</i>, but out of the depths of
+his great admiration for the saint, that his words of praise were
+written:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "It has been shown abundantly that no writer before the Angelical's
+  day could have created a synthesis of all knowledge. The greatest of
+  the classic Fathers have been treated of, and the reasons of their
+  inability are evident. As for the scholastics who more immediately
+  preceded the Angelical, their minds were not ripe for so great and
+  complete a work: the fullness of time had not yet come. Very
+  possibly had not Albert the Great and Alexander (of Hales) preceded
+  him, St. Thomas would not have been prepared to write his
+  master-work; just as, most probably, Newton would never have
+  discovered the law of gravitation had it not been for the previous
+  labors of Galileo and of Kepler. But just as the English astronomer
+  stands solitary in his greatness, though surrounded and <a name="286">{286}</a>
+  succeeded by men of extraordinary eminence, so also the Angelical
+  stands by himself alone, although Albertus Magnus was a genius,
+  Alexander was a theological king, and Bonaventure a seraphic doctor.
+  Just as the Principia is a work unique, unreachable, so, too, is the
+  'Summa Theologica' of the great Angelical. Just as Dante stands
+  alone among the poets, so stands St. Thomas in the schools."
+</p>
+<p>
+Probably the most marvelous thing about the life of St. Thomas is his
+capacity for work. His written books fill up some twenty folios in
+their most complete edition. This of itself would seem to be enough to
+occupy a lifetime without anything more. His written works, however,
+represent apparently only the products of his hours at leisure. He was
+only a little more than fifty when he died and he had been a
+university professor at Cologne, at Bologna, at Paris, at Rome, and at
+Naples. In spite of the amount of work that he was thus asked to do,
+his order, the Dominican, constantly called on him to busy himself
+with certain of its internal affairs. On one occasion at least he
+visited England in order to attend a Dominican Chapter at Oxford, and
+the better part of several years at Paris was occupied with his labors
+to secure for his brethren a proper place in the university, so that
+they might act as teachers and yet have suitable opportunities for the
+education and the discipline of the members of the Order.
+</p>
+<p>
+Verily it would seem as though his days must have been at least twice
+as long as those of the ordinary scholar and student to accomplish so
+much; yet he is only a type of the monks of the Middle Ages, of whom
+so many people seem to think that their principal traits were to be
+fat and lazy. Thomas was fat, as we know from the picture of him which
+shows him before a desk from which a special segment has been removed
+to accommodate more conveniently a rather abnormal abdominal
+development, but as to laziness, surely the last thing that would
+occur to anyone who knows anything about him, would be to accuse him
+of it. Clearly those who accept the ancient notion of monkish laziness
+will never understand the Middle Ages. The great educational progress
+of the Thirteenth Century was due almost entirely to monks.
+</p>
+<a name="287">{287}</a>
+<p>
+There is another extremely interesting side to the intellectual
+character of Thomas Aquinas which is usually not realized by the
+ordinary student of philosophy and theology, and still less perhaps by
+those who are interested in him from an educational standpoint. This
+is his poetical faculty. For Thomas as for many of the great
+intellectual geniuses of the modern time, the sacrament of the Holy
+Eucharist was one of the most wondrously satisfying devotional
+mysteries of Christianity and the subject of special devotion. In our
+own time the great Cardinal Newman manifested this same attitude of
+mind. Thomas because of his well-known devotion to the Blessed
+Sacrament, was asked by the Pope to write the office for the then
+recently established feast of Corpus Christi. There are always certain
+hymns incorporated in the offices of the different Feast days. It
+might ordinarily have been expected that a scholar like Aquinas would
+write the prose portions of the office, leaving the hymns for some
+other hand, or selecting hymns from some older sacred poetry. Thomas,
+however, wrote both hymns and prose, and, surprising as it may be, his
+hymns are some of the most beautiful that have ever been composed and
+remain the admiration of posterity.
+</p>
+<p>
+It must not be forgotten in this regard that Thomas's career occurred
+during the period when Latin hymn writing was at its apogee. The Dies
+Irae and the Stabat Mater were both written during the Thirteenth
+Century, and the most precious Latin hymns of all times were composed
+during the century and a half from 1150 to 1300. Aquinas's hymns do
+not fail to challenge comparison even with the greatest of these.
+While he had an eminently devotional subject, it must not be forgotten
+that certain supremely difficult theological problems were involved in
+the expression of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. In spite of the
+difficulties, Thomas succeeded in making not only good theology but
+great poetry. A portion of one of his hymns, the Tantum Ergo, has been
+perhaps more used in church services than any other, with the possible
+exception of the Dies Irae. Another one of his beautiful hymns that
+especially deserves to be admired, is less well known and so I have
+ventured to quote three selected stanzas of it, as an illustration
+<a name="288">{288}</a> of Thomas's command over rhyme and rhythm in the Latin tongue.
+[Footnote 24]
+</p>
+<pre>
+  Adoro te devote, latens Deitas,
+  Quae sub his figuris vere latitas.
+  Tibi se cor meum totum subjicit,
+  Quia te contemplans totum deficit.
+
+  Visus, tactus, gustus, in te fallitur,
+  Sed auditu solo tute creditur:
+  Credo quidquid dixit Dei filius
+  Nihil veritatis verbo verius.
+</pre>
+<p>
+And the less musical but wonderfully significative fourth, stanza&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  Plagas sicut Thomas non intueor,
+  Deum tamen meum te confiteor,
+  Fac me tibi semper magis credere,
+  In te spem habere, te diligere.
+</pre>
+<p>
+Only the ardent study of many years will give anything like an
+adequate idea of the great schoolman's universal genius. I am content
+if I have conveyed a few hints that will help to a beginning of an
+acquaintance with one of the half dozen supreme minds of our race.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 24: The following translation made by Justice O'Hagan
+  renders sense and sound into English as adequately perhaps as is
+  possible:
+<pre class="cite2">
+    Hidden God, devoutly I adore thee,
+      Truly present underneath these veils:
+    All my heart subdues itself before thee.
+      Since it all before thee faints and fails.
+
+    Not to sight, or taste, or touch be credit.
+      Hearing only do we trust secure;
+    I believe, for God the Son hath said it&mdash;
+      Word of truth that ever shall endure.
+
+    &hellip;
+
+    Though I look not on thy wounds with Thomas,
+      Thee, my Lord, and thee, my God, I call:
+    Make me more and more believe thy promise,
+      Hope in thee, and love thee over all.
+</pre>
+  ]
+<br>
+
+<a name="289">{289}</a>
+
+<h1>XVIII
+<br>
+ST. LOUIS THE MONARCH.</h1>
+
+<p>
+If large numbers of men are to be ruled by one of their number, as
+seems more or less inevitable in the ordinary course of things, then,
+without doubt, the best model of what such a monarch's life should be,
+is to be found in that of Louis IX., who for nearly half a century was
+the ruler of France during our period. Of all the rulers of men of
+whom we have record in history he probably took his duties most
+seriously, with most regard for others, and least for himself and for
+his family. There is not a single relation of life in which he is not
+distinguished and in which his career is not worth studying, as an
+example of what can be done by a simple, earnest, self-forgetful man,
+to make life better and happier for all those who come in contact with
+him.
+</p>
+<p>
+His relations with his mother are those of an affectionate son in whom
+indeed, from his easy compliance with her wishes in his younger years
+one might suspect some weakness, but whose strength of character is
+displayed at every turn once he himself assumed the reins of
+government. After many years of ruling however, when his departure on
+the Crusade compelled him to be absent from the kingdom it was to her
+he turned again to act as his representative and the wisdom of the
+choice no one can question. As a husband Louis' life was a model, and
+though he could not accomplish the impossible, and was not able to
+keep the relations of his mother and his wife as cordial as he would
+have liked them to be, judging from human experience generally it is
+hard to think this constitutes any serious blot on his fair name. As a
+father, few men have ever thought less of material advantages for
+their children, or more of the necessity for having them realize that
+happiness in life does not consist in the possession of many things,
+but rather in the accomplishment of duty and in the recognition of the
+fact that the giving of happiness to others <a name="290">{290}</a> constitutes the best
+source of felicity for one's self. His letters and instructions to his
+children, as preserved for us by Joinville and other contemporaries,
+give us perhaps the most taking picture of the man that we have, and
+round out a personality, which, while it has in the telling French
+phrase "the defects of its virtues," is surely one of the most
+beautiful characters that has ever been seen upon earth, in a man who
+took an active and extremely important part in the great events of the
+world of his time.
+</p>
+<p>
+The salient points of his character are his devotion to the three
+great needs of humanity as they present themselves in his time. He
+made it the aim of his life that men should have justice, and
+education, and when for any misfortune they needed it,&mdash;charity; and
+every portion of his career is taken up with successful achievement in
+these great departments of social action. It is well known that when
+he became conscious that the judges sometimes abused their power and
+gave sentences for partial reasons, the monarch himself took up the
+onerous duty of hearing appeals and succeeded in making the judges of
+his kingdom realize, that only the strictest justice would save them
+from the king's displeasure, and condign punishment. For an unjust
+judge there was short shrift. The old tree at Versailles, under which
+he used to hear the causes of the poor who appealed to him, stood for
+many centuries as a reminder of Louis' precious effort to make the
+dispensing of justice equal to all men. When the duty of hearing
+appeals took up too much of his time it was transferred to worthy
+shoulders, and so the important phase of jurisprudence in France
+relating to appeals, came to be thoroughly established as a part of
+the organic law of the kingdom.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp290">{opp290}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp290.jpg" border=1><br>
+NOTRE DAME (PARIS)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As regards education, too much can not be said of Louis' influence. It
+is to him more than to anybody else that the University of Paris owes
+the success it achieved as a great institution of learning at the end
+of the Thirteenth Century. Had the monarch been opposed to the spread
+of education with any idea that it might possibly undermine his
+authority, had he even been indifferent to it, Paris would not have
+come to be the educational center of the world. As it was, Louis not
+only encouraged it in every way, but also acted as the patron of great
+<a name="291">{291}</a> subsidiary institutions which were to add to its prestige and
+enhance its facilities. Among the most noteworthy is the Sorbonne. La
+Sainte Chapelle deserves to be mentioned, however, and the library
+attached to it, which owed its foundation and development to Louis,
+were important factors in attracting students to Paris and in
+furnishing them interestingly suggestive material for thought and the
+development of taste during their residence there. His patronage of
+Vincent of Beauvais, the encyclopedist, was but a further
+manifestation of his interest in everything educational. His
+benefactions to the Hotel Dieu must be considered rather under the
+head of charity, and yet they also serve to represent his
+encouragement of medical education and of the proper care for the poor
+in educated hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+Voltaire, to whom Louis' character as a supreme believer in revealed
+religion must have been so utterly unsympathetic, and whose position
+as the historical symbol of all that Voltaire most held in antipathy
+in medievalism, might have been expected to make the French
+philosopher avoid mention of him since he could not condemn, has been
+forced into some striking utterances in praise of Louis, one of which
+we quote:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Louis IX appeared to be a prince destined to reform Europe, if she
+  could have been reformed, to render France triumphant and civilized,
+  and to be in all things a pattern for men. His piety which was that
+  of an anchorite, did not deprive him of any kingly virtue. A wise
+  economy took nothing from his liberality. A profound policy was
+  combined with strict justice and he is perhaps the only sovereign
+  who is entitled to this praise; prudent and firm in counsel,
+  intrepid without rashness in his wars, he was as compassionate as if
+  he had always been unhappy. No man could have carried virtue
+  further."
+</p>
+<p>
+Guizot, the French statesman and historian, whose unbending Calvinism
+made the men and institutions of the Middle Ages almost
+incomprehensible to him from their Catholic aspects, has much of good
+to say of Louis, though there is not wanting rather definite evidence
+of the reluctance of his admiration:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The world has seen more profound politicians on the throne, greater
+  generals, men of more mighty and brilliant intellect, princes who
+  have exercised a more powerful influence <a name="292">{292}</a> over later
+  generations and events subsequent to their own times; but it has
+  never seen such a king as this St. Louis, never seen a man
+  possessing sovereign power and yet not contracting the vices and
+  passions which attend it, displaying upon the throne in such a high
+  degree every human virtue purified and ennobled by Christian faith.
+  St. Louis did not give any new or personal impulse to his age; he
+  did not strongly influence the nature or the development of
+  civilization in France; whilst he endeavored to reform the gravest
+  abuses of the feudal system by the introduction of justice and
+  public order, he did not endeavor to abolish it either by the
+  substitution of a pure monarchy, or by setting class against class
+  in order to raise the royal authority high above all. He was neither
+  an egotist nor a scheming diplomatist; he was, in all sincerity, in
+  harmony with his age and sympathetic alike with the faith, the
+  institutions, the customs, and the tastes of France in the
+  Thirteenth Century. And yet, both in the Thirteenth Century and in
+  later times St. Louis stands apart as a man of profoundly original
+  character, an isolated figure without any peer among his
+  contemporaries or his successors. As far as it was possible in the
+  Middle Ages, he was an ideal man, king, and Christian."
+</p>
+<p>
+Guizot goes even further than this when he says, "It is reported that
+in the Seventeenth Century, during the brilliant reign of Louis XIV.,
+Montecuculli, on learning of the death of his illustrious rival,
+Turenne, said to his officers, 'A man has died to-day who did honor to
+mankind.' St. Louis did honor to France, to royalty, to humanity, and
+to Christianity. This was the feeling of his contemporaries, and after
+six centuries it is still confirmed by the judgment of the historian."
+</p>
+<p>
+Of Louis' wonderful influence for good as a ruler all historians are
+agreed in talking in the highest terms. His private life however, is
+even more admirable for our purpose of bringing out the greatness of
+the Thirteenth Century. Of course many legends and myths have gathered
+around his name, but still enough remains of absolutely trustworthy
+tradition and even documentary evidence, to make it very clear that he
+was a man among men, a nobleman of nature's making, who in any
+position of life would have acquitted himself with a perfection sure
+to make his life worthy of admiration. One of the most <a name="293">{293}</a> striking
+traits of his character is his love of justice, his insatiable desire
+to render to all men what was rightly theirs. A biographer has told
+the story that gives the most telling proof of this in relating the
+solicitude with which he tried to right all the wrongs not only of his
+own reign, but of those of his predecessors, before he set out on the
+Crusade. He wished to have the absolute satisfaction that he, nor his,
+owed any man any reparation, as the most precious treasure he could
+take with him on his perilous expedition. He wished even to undo any
+wrongs that might have been done in his name though he was entirely
+unconscious of them.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "As he wished to be in a state of grace at the moment of departure,
+  and to take with him to the Holy Land a quiet conscience by leaving
+  the kingdom in as happy a condition as possible, he resolved to
+  carry out one of the noblest measures ever undertaken by a king. By
+  his order, inquisitors were sent into all the provinces annexed to
+  the royal dominion since the accession of Philip Augustus. All those
+  who had been maltreated or despoiled by the bailiffs, seneschals,
+  provosts, sergeants, and other representatives of the royal
+  authority, came to declare their wrongs to these newly appointed
+  judges, and to demand the reparation which was due to them; the
+  number was great, since for forty years there had been much
+  suffering in the country districts and even in the towns. &hellip; The
+  royal officers had too often acted as if they were in a conquered
+  country; they believed themselves to be safe from observation, so
+  that they might do as they pleased. The people had much to endure
+  during these forty years, and it was a noble idea to make reparation
+  freely and with elaborate care. No prince had been known, of his own
+  accord and at his own cost, to redress the wrongs inflicted on the
+  people during the reigns of his father and grandfather. This made an
+  immense impression, which lasted for centuries. Blanche's son was
+  not merely a good king, he became the unrivalled sovereign, the
+  impeccable judge, the friend and consoler of his subjects."
+</p>
+<p>
+It is no wonder that so inappeasable a lover of justice should commend
+that virtue above all others to his son. When we read his letters to
+that son who was to be his successor, in the light of Louis' own
+career, we appreciate with what utter <a name="294">{294}</a> sincerity they were
+written. Louis realized that simple justice between men would undo
+more of the world's wrongs than most of the vaunted cures for social
+ills, which are only too often the result of injustice.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Dear son," he writes in his Instruction, "if you come to reign, do
+  that which befits a king, that is, be so just as to deviate in
+  nothing from justice, whatever may befall you. If a poor man goes to
+  law with one who is rich, support the poor rather than the rich man
+  until you know the truth, and when the truth is known, do that which
+  is just. And if it happen that any man has a dispute with yourself,
+  maintain the cause of your adversary before the council so as not to
+  appear partial to your own cause, until the truth is known. Unless
+  you do this, those who are of the council may fear to speak against
+  you, and this ought not to be. &hellip; And if you find that you
+  possess anything unjustly acquired, either in your time or in that
+  of your predecessors, make restitution at once, however great its
+  value, either in land, money, or any other thing. &hellip; If the
+  matter is doubtful and you cannot find out the truth, follow the
+  advice of trusty men, and make such an agreement as may fully
+  deliver your soul and that of your predecessors. If you hear that
+  your predecessors have made restitution of anything, take great
+  trouble to discover if anything more should be restored, and if you
+  find that this is the case, restore it at once so as to deliver your
+  own soul and that of your predecessors."
+<br><br>
+  "The education of his children, their future position and
+  well-being, engrossed the attention of the King as entirely, and
+  were subjects of as keen an interest, as if he had been a father
+  with no other task than the care of his children. After supper they
+  followed him to his apartment, where he made them sit around him for
+  a time whilst he instructed them in their duty; he then sent them to
+  bed. He would direct their attention particularly to the good and
+  bad actions of Princes. He used to visit them in their own apartment
+  when he had any leisure, inquire as to their progress, and like a
+  second Tobias, give them excellent instruction. &hellip; On Maundy
+  Thursday, he and his children used to wash the feet of a dozen poor
+  persons, give them large alms, and afterward wait upon them whilst
+  they dined. The King together with his son-in-law <a name="295">{295}</a> King
+  Thibault, whom he loved and looked upon as his own son, carried the
+  first poor man to the hospital of Compiègne, and his two oldest
+  sons, Louis and Philippe, carried the second. They were accustomed
+  to act with him in all things, showing him great reverence, and he
+  desired that they and Thibault should also obey him implicitly in
+  everything that he commanded."
+</p>
+<p>
+Anyone who still retains any trace of the old-fashioned notion, which
+used to be unfortunately a commonplace among English speaking people,
+that the medieval Monks were unworthy of their great calling, and that
+the monasteries were the homes of lazy, fat-witted men whose only
+object in taking up the life was to secure an easy means of
+livelihood, will be thoroughly undeceived, if he but read with some
+attention the stories of Louis' relations to the monasteries. In all
+his journeys he stopped in them, he always asked to see their
+libraries, he insisted on not being treated better than the community
+and in every way he tried to show his esteem for them. There is a
+story which may or may not be true in the "Little Flowers of St.
+Francis," which comes from almost a contemporary source, however, that
+once on his travels he called on Brother Giles, the famous
+simple-minded companion of St. Francis, of whom so many delightfully
+humorous stories are told. Brother Giles received his affectionate
+greeting but said never a word in return. After the first words the
+King himself said nothing, but both sat and communed in silence for
+some time, and then the King departed apparently well-pleased with his
+visit. Needless to say when Brother Giles told the story of the King
+of France having called on him there was a commotion in the community.
+But by this time the King was far distant on his way.
+</p>
+<p>
+Indeed Louis took so many opportunities to stop in monasteries and
+follow monastic regulations as to prayer and the taking of meals while
+there, that he quite disgusted some of the members of his retinue who
+were most with him. One of the ladies of the court in her impatience
+at him for this, is once said to have remarked under such indiscreet
+circumstances that it was reported to Louis, that she wished they had
+a man and not a monk for King. Louis is said to have asked her very
+<a name="296">{296}</a> gently if she would prefer that he spend most of his time in
+sport and in excesses of various kinds. Even such remarks, however,
+had no effect in turning him from his purpose to live as simply and as
+beneficently for others as possible. His genuine appreciation of the
+monks must be recognized from his wishes with regard to his children.
+On the other hand his readiness to secure their happiness as far as
+possible in the way they wished for themselves shows the tenderness of
+his fatherly heart. A modern biographer has said of him:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "He was very anxious that his three children born in the East during
+  the Crusade&mdash;Jean Tristan, Pierre, and Blanche&mdash;and even his eldest
+  daughter Isabella, should enter the monastic life, which he looked
+  upon as the most likely to insure their salvation; he frequently
+  exhorted them to take this step, writing letters of the greatest
+  tenderness and piety, especially to his daughter Isabella; but, as
+  they did not show any taste for it, he did not attempt to force
+  their inclinations. Thenceforth, he busied himself in making
+  suitable marriages for them, and establishing them according to
+  their rank; at the same time he gave them the most judicious advice
+  as to their conduct and actions in the world upon which they were
+  entering. When he was before Tunis and found that he was sick unto
+  death, he gave the instructions which he had written out in French
+  with his own hand to his eldest son, Philip. They are models of
+  virtue, wisdom and paternal tenderness, worthy of a King and a
+  Christian."
+</p>
+<p>
+Perhaps the most interesting feature of St. Louis' life was his
+treatment of the poor. He used literally to recall the fact that they
+must stand to him in the place of God. "Whatever you do to the least
+of these you do even unto me" was a favorite expression frequently in
+his mouth. He waited on them personally and no matter how revolting
+their appearance would not be deterred from this personal service. It
+is easy to understand that his courtiers did not sympathize with this
+state of mind, though Louis used to encourage them not only by his
+example but by personal persuasion. Every Holy Thursday he used to
+wash the feet of twelve poor people at a public ceremonial, in honor
+of the washing of the feet of the Apostles by Christ.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp296">{opp296}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp296.jpg" border=1><br>
+APOSTLE (LA SAINTE CHAPELLE, PARIS)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It must not be thought moreover, that such a <a name="297">{297}</a> proceeding was
+perhaps less repugnant to the feelings of the men of that time than
+they are to the present generation. It might be considered that the
+general paucity of means for maintaining personal cleanliness in
+medieval times would make the procedure less disgusting. As a proof of
+the contrary of this we have the words of Joinville who tells of the
+following conversation:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Many a time," says Joinville, "I have seen him cut their bread for
+  them, and pour out their drink. One day he asked me if I washed the
+  feet of the poor on Maundy Thursday. "Sire," I answered, "What, the
+  feet of those dirty wretches! No indeed, I shall never wash them."
+  "Truly," replied the King, "you have spoken ill, for you ought not
+  to despise that which God intended for your instruction. I pray you,
+  therefore, first of all for the love of God, and then by your love
+  towards me, that you make a habit of washing their feet."
+</p>
+<p>
+Even more striking than this however, was his attitude toward the
+lepers of the time. These poor creatures were compelled to live apart
+from the population and were not allowed to approach healthy
+individuals. They were of exceeding interest to Louis however, who
+took every opportunity to mitigate the trials and hardships of their
+existence. Whenever he met them on his journeys he insisted on
+abundant alms being given them, and gave orders that every possible
+provision for their welfare, consonant with the care that their
+affection should not be permitted to spread, be made for them. Over
+and over again he greeted them as his brothers and when his retinue
+feared to approach them, would himself go to them, in order to console
+them by his words and his exhibition of personal interest. There is an
+incident told of his having on one occasion, when a muddy stream
+intervened between him and some lepers, forded the stream alone in
+order to get to them, and neither any personal fear of contagion nor
+any natural repugnance was permitted to deter him from this sublime
+work of charity. It is no wonder that his people proclaimed him a
+saint, that is "one who thinks first of others and only second of
+himself," even during his lifetime.
+</p>
+<p>
+The only supposed blot upon Louis' character is the denunciation by
+certain modern writers of what they call the fanaticism, <a name="298">{298}</a> which
+prompted him to go on the Crusades instead of remaining at home
+properly to care for his people. The opinion with regard to the place
+that must be assigned to the Crusades as a factor in history and
+national as well as European development, has changed very much in
+recent years. Formerly it was the custom almost entirely to condemn
+them and to look upon them as a serious mistake. Such ideas however,
+are only entertained by those who do not realize the conditions under
+which they were undertaken or the important results which flowed from
+them. Bishop Stubbs in his lectures on Medieval and Modern History,
+delivered while he was professor of History at Oxford, has been at
+some pains to correct this false notion, and his passage constitutes
+one of the best apologies for Louis' interest in the Crusades which
+could be written. He said:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The Crusades are not, in my mind, either the popular delusions that
+  our cheap literature has determined them to be, nor papal
+  conspiracies against kings and peoples, as they appear to Protestant
+  controversialists; nor the savage outbreak of expiring barbarism,
+  thirsting for blood and plunder, nor volcanic explosions of
+  religious intolerance. I believe them to have been in their deep
+  sources, and in the minds of their best champions, and in the main
+  tendency of their results, capable of ample justification. They were
+  the first great effort of medieval life to go beyond the pursuit of
+  selfish and isolated ambitions; they were the trial-feat of the
+  young world, essaying to use, to the glory of God and the benefit of
+  man, the arms of its new knighthood. That they failed in their
+  direct object is only what may be alleged against almost every great
+  design which the great disposer of events has moulded to help the
+  world's progress; for the world has grown wise from the experience
+  of failure, rather than by the winning of high aims. That the good
+  they did was largely leavened with evil may be said of every war
+  that has ever been waged; that bad men rose by them while good men
+  fell, is and must be true, wherever and whenever the race is to the
+  swift and the battle to the strong. But that in the end they were a
+  benefit to the world no one who reads can doubt; and that in their
+  course they brought out a love for all that is heroic in human
+  nature, the love of freedom, the honor of prowess, sympathy with
+  sorrow, <a name="299">{299}</a> perseverance to the last, the chronicles of the age
+  abundantly prove; proving, moreover, that it was by the experience
+  of these times that the forms of those virtues were realized and
+  presented to posterity."  [Footnote 25]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+    [Footnote 25: Stubbs, "Seventeen Lectures on Medieval and Modern
+    History," p. 180.]
+</p>
+<p>
+With the stigma of supposed imprudence or foolhardiness for having
+gone on the Crusade turned into a new cause for honor, Louis must be
+considered as probably the greatest monarch who ever occupied an
+important throne. Instead of being surprised that such a monarch
+should have come in the heart of the Middle Ages and during a century
+so distant as the Thirteenth, readers must now be ready to appreciate
+to some degree at least the fact, that his environment instead of
+being a hindrance in any sense of the word to the development of
+Louis' greatness, should rather be considered as one of the principal
+sources of it. Louis' character was representative of the men of that
+time and exhibits in their most striking form the qualities that were
+set up as ideals in that period. If the century had produced nothing
+else but Louis, it would have to be considered as a great epoch in
+history, for he was no mere accident but typically a son of his age.
+If this is but properly appreciated the true significance not only of
+Louis' life but the period in which he lived will be better understood
+than would be possible by any other means. Those who want to know the
+men of this wonderful century as they actually were should study
+Louis' life in detail, for we have been only able to hint at its most
+striking characteristics.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i299.jpg" border=1><br>
+DECORATION (QUEEN MARY'S PSALTER, XIII. CENTURY MS.)
+</p>
+
+<a name="300">{300}</a>
+
+<h1>XIX
+<br>
+DANTE THE POET.</h1>
+
+<p>
+It is only too often the custom to talk of Dante as a solitary
+phenomenon in his time. Even Carlyle who knew well and properly
+appreciated many things in medieval life and letters and especially in
+the literary productions of the Thirteenth Century said, that in Dante
+"ten silent centuries found a voice." Anyone who has followed what we
+have had to say with regard to the Thirteenth Century will no longer
+think of Dante as standing alone, but will readily appreciate that he
+is only the fitting culmination of a great literary era. After having
+gone over even as hurriedly as has been necessary in our brief space,
+what was accomplished in every country of Europe in literature that
+was destined to live not only because of the greatness of the
+thoughts, but also for the ultimateness of its expression, we should
+expect some surpassing literary genius at the end of the period. It
+seems almost inevitable indeed that a supreme poet, whose name stands
+above all others but one or two at the most in the whole history of
+the race, should have lived in the Thirteenth Century, and should have
+summed up effectually in himself all the greatness of the century and
+enshrined its thoughts in undying verse for all future generations.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp300">{opp300}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp300.jpg" border=1><br>
+PORTRAIT OF DANTE (GIOTTO, IN THE BARGELLO, FLORENCE)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When Dante himself dares to place his name with those of the men whom
+he considered the five greatest poets of all time, it seems sublimest
+egotism. At first thought many will at once conclude that his reason
+for so doing was, that in the unlettered times his critical faculty
+was not well developed and as he knew that his work far surpassed that
+of his contemporaries, he could scarcely help but conclude that his
+place must be among the great poets. Any such thought however, is
+entirely due to lack of knowledge of the conditions of Dante's life
+and education. He had been in the universities of Italy, and in his
+exile had visited Paris and probably also Oxford. He knew the poets of
+his country well. He appreciated them <a name="301">{301}</a> highly. It was the
+consciousness of genius that made him place himself so high and not
+any faulty comparison with others. Succeeding generations have set him
+even higher than the place chosen by himself and now we breathe his
+name only with those of Homer and Shakespeare, considering that these
+three sublime immortals are so far above all other poets that there is
+scarcely a second to them.
+</p>
+<p>
+Dante is the most universal of poets. He has won recognition from all
+nations, and he has been the favorite reading of the most diverse
+times and conditions of men. From the very beginning he has been
+appreciated, and even before his death men had begun to realize
+something of the supremacy of his greatness. Commentaries on his works
+that have been preserved down to our own day were written almost
+during his lifetime. Only supreme interest could have tempted men to
+multiply these by the hard labor of patient handwriting. Petrarch who
+as a young man, was his contemporary, recognized him as the Prince of
+Italian poets who had composed in their common tongue, and even was
+tempted to say that the subtle and profound conceptions of the
+Commedia could not have been written without the special gift of the
+Holy Ghost. Boccaccio was wont to speak of him as the Divine Poet, and
+tells us that he had learned that Petrarch deliberately held aloof
+from the Commedia, through fear of losing his originality if he came
+under the spell of so great a master.
+</p>
+<p>
+Very few realize how great a poet Dante must be considered even if
+only the effusions of his younger years were to be taken as the
+standard of his poetical ability. Some of his sonnets are as beautiful
+of their kind as are to be found in this form of poetry. His
+description of his lady-love is famous among sonnets of lovers and may
+only be compared with some of the Sonnets from the Portuguese in our
+own day, or with one or two of Camoens' original sonnets in the
+Portuguese, for lofty praise of the beloved in worthy numbers. After
+reading Dante's sonnets it is easy to understand how a half century
+later Petrarch was able to raise the sonnet form to an excellence that
+was never to be surpassed. With a beginning like this it is no wonder
+that the sonnet became so popular in Europe during the next three
+centuries, and that every young poet, <a name="302">{302}</a> down to Shakespeare's
+time, had an attack of sonneteering just as he might have had an
+attack of the measles. The first one of a pair of sonnets that are
+considered supreme in their class deserves a place here as an example
+of Dante's poetic faculty in this form, for which he is so much less
+known than he ought to be.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  He sees completely fullest bliss abound
+    Who among ladies sees my Lady's face;
+  Those that with her do go are surely bound
+    To give God thanks for such exceeding grace.
+  And in her beauty such strange might is found.
+    That envy finds in other hearts no place;
+  So she makes them walk with her, clothed all round
+    With love and faith and courteous gentleness.
+  The sight of her makes all things lowly be;
+    Nor of herself alone she gives delight.
+  But each through her receiveth honor due.
+    And in her acts is such great courtesy,
+  That none can recollect that wondrous sight.
+    Who sighs not for it in Love's sweetness true.
+</pre>
+<p>
+It will be noted that Dante has nothing to say of the personal
+appearance of his beloved. This is true, however, of the whole series
+of poems to and about her. He never seems to have thought for a moment
+of her physical qualities. What he finds worthy to praise is her
+goodness which shines out from her features so that everyone rejoices
+in it, while a sweetness fills the heart as if a heavenly visitor had
+come. For him her supreme quality is that, with all her beauty, envy
+finds no place in others' hearts because she is so clothed around with
+love and faith and courteous gentleness. It has often been said that
+Shakespeare did not describe the physical appearances of his heroines
+because he realized that this meant very little, but then Shakespeare
+had to write for the stage and realized that blondes and brunettes,
+especially in the olden time, could not be made to order and that it
+was better to leave the heroine's physical appearance rather vague. It
+would be expected, however, that Dante, with his Southern temperament,
+would have dwelt on the physical perfections of his fair. The next
+<a name="303">{303}</a> sonnet, however, of the best known group emphasizes his
+abstraction of all physical influence in the matter and insists on her
+goodness and the womanly beauty of her character. It will be found in
+our chapter on Women of the Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+In his earlier years Dante considered himself one of the Troubadours,
+and there can be no doubt that if he had never written the Divine
+Comedy, he still would have been remembered as one of the great poets
+who wrote of love in this Thirteenth Century. Not only does he deserve
+a place among the greatest of the Minnesingers, the Trouvères, and the
+Troubadours, but he is perhaps the greatest of them. That he should
+have sung as he did at the end of the century only shows that he was
+in the stream of literary evolution and not being merely carried idly
+along, but helping to guide it into ever fairer channels. Dante's
+minor poems would have made enduring fame for any poet of less genius
+than himself. His prose works deserve to be read by anyone who wishes
+to know the character of this greatest of poets, and also to
+appreciate what the educational environment of the Thirteenth Century
+succeeded in making out of good intellectual material when presented
+to it. Dante's works are the real treasury of information of the most
+precious kind with regard to the century, since they provide the
+proper standpoint from which to view all that it accomplished.
+</p>
+<p>
+While Dante was a supreme singer among the poets of a great song time,
+it was only natural, in the light of what we know about the literary
+product of the rest of this century, that he should have put into epic
+form the supreme product of his genius. With the great national epics
+in every country of Europe&mdash;the Cid, the Arthur Legends, and the
+Nibelungen, at the beginning of this century, and the epical poems of
+the Meistersingers during its first half, it is not surprising, but on
+the contrary rather what might have been confidently looked for, that
+there should have arisen a great national epic in Italy before the end
+of the century. The Gothic art movement spread through all these
+countries, and so did the wind of the spirit of esthetic
+accomplishment which blew the flame of national literature in each
+country into a mighty blaze, that not only was <a name="304">{304}</a> never to be
+extinguished, but was to be a beacon light in the realm of national
+literatures forever after.
+</p>
+<p>
+We have already said a word of the well-known contemporary admiration
+for the poet but it should be realized that due appreciation of Dante
+continued in Italy during all the time when Italian art and literature
+was at its highest. It dwindled only at periods of decadence and lack
+of taste. Cornelius' law with regard to Dante's influence on art is
+very well known, Italian art according to him, has been strong and
+vigorous just in proportion as it has worked under Dante's influence,
+while it became weak and sensuous as that influence declined. This has
+held true from the very beginning and has been as true for literature
+as for art. When the Italians became interested in trivialities and
+gave themselves up to weak imitations of the classics, or to pastoral
+poetry that was not a real expression of feeling but a passing fancy
+of literary folk, then Dante was for a time in obscurity. Even at the
+height of the Renaissance, however, when Greek was at the acme of its
+interest and the classics occupied so much attention that Dante might
+be expected to be eclipsed, the great thinkers and critics of the time
+still worshipped at the shrine of their great master of Italian verse.
+The best proof of this is to be found in Michael Angelo's famous
+sonnets in praise of Dante, the second of which would seem to exhaust
+all that can be said in praise of a brother poet.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  Into the dark abyss he made his way;
+    Both nether worlds he saw, and in the might
+    Of his great soul beheld God's splendour bright.
+  And gave to us on earth true light of day:
+  Star of supremest worth with its clear ray.
+    Heaven's secrets he revealed to us through our dim sight.
+    And had for guerdon what the base world's spite
+  Oft gives to souls that noblest grace display,
+  Full ill was Dante's life-work understood,
+    His purpose high, by that ungrateful state.
+  That welcomed all with kindness but the good.
+    Would I were such, to bear like evil fate,
+  To taste his exile, share his lofty mood.
+    For this I'd gladly give all earth calls great.
+</pre>
+<a name="305">{305}</a>
+<p>
+In the first of this pair of sonnets, however, Michael Angelo gave if
+possible even higher praise than this. It will be recalled that he
+himself, besides being the greatest of sculptors and one of the
+greatest of painters and architects in a wonderfully productive
+period, was also a very great poet. These sonnets to Dante, the one to
+his crucifix, and one to Vittoria Colonna, are the best proof of this.
+He knew how to chisel thoughts into wonderfully suitable words quite
+as well as marble into the beautiful forms that grew under his hands.
+With all his greatness, and he must have been conscious of it, he
+thinks that he would be perfectly willing to give up all that earth
+calls great, simply to share Dante's lofty mood even in his exile. No
+greater tribute has ever been paid by one poet to another than this,
+and Michael Angelo's genius was above all critical, never
+thoughtlessly laudatory. As emphasizing the highest enlightened taste
+of a great epoch this has seemed to deserve a place here also.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  What should be said of him speech may not tell;
+    His splendor is too great for men's dim sight;
+    And easier 'twere to blame his foes aright
+  Than for his poorest gifts to praise him well.
+  He tracked the path that leads to depths of Hell
+    To teach us wisdom, scaled the eternal height.
+    And heaven with open gates did him invite.
+  Who in his own loved city might not dwell.
+  Ungrateful country step-dame of his fate.
+    To her own loss: full proof we have in this
+  That souls most perfect bear the greatest woe.
+  Of thousand things suffice in this to state:
+    No exile ever was unjust as his,
+  Nor did the world his equal ever know.
+</pre>
+<p>
+In England, in spite of distance of country, race and language, the
+appreciation of Dante began very early. Readers of Chaucer know the
+great Italian as the favorite poet of the Father of English poetry,
+and over and over again he has expressed the feeling of how much
+greater than anything he could hope to do was Dante's accomplishment.
+Readers will remember how Chaucer feels unable to tell the story of
+<a name="306">{306}</a> Ugolino and his starving sons in the Hunger Tower, and refers
+those interested in the conclusion of the tale to Dante. After the
+religious revolt of the early Sixteenth Century Dante was lost sight
+of to a great extent. His temper was too Catholic to be appreciated by
+Puritan England, and the Elizabethans were too much occupied with
+their own creation of a great national literature, to have any time
+for appreciation of a foreigner so different in spirit from their
+times. With the coming of the Oxford Movement, however, Dante at once
+sprang into favor, and a number of important critical appreciations of
+him reintroduced him to a wide reading public in England, most of whom
+were among the most cultured of the island. This renewed interest in
+Dante gave rise to some of the best critical appreciations in any
+language. Dean Church's famous essay is the classic English monograph
+on Dante, and its opening paragraph sounds the keynote of critical
+opinion among English speaking people.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The Divina Commedia is one of the landmarks of history. More than a
+  magnificent poem, more than the beginning of a language and the
+  opening of a national literature, more than the inspirer of art and
+  the glory of a great people, it is one of those rare and solemn
+  monuments of the mind's power which measure and test what it can
+  reach to, which rise up ineffaceably and forever as time goes on,
+  marking out its advance by grander divisions than its centuries, and
+  adopted as epochs by the consent of all who come after. It stands
+  with the Iliad and Shakespeare's Plays, with the writings of
+  Aristotle and Plato, with the Novum Organon and the Principia, with
+  Justinian's Code, with the Parthenon and St. Peter's. It is the
+  first Christian Poem, and it opens European literature as the Iliad
+  did that of Greece and Rome. And, like the Iliad, it has never
+  become out of date; it accompanies in undiminished freshness the
+  literature which it began."
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp306">{opp306}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp306a.jpg" border=1><br>
+TORRE DEL FAME (DANTE, PISA)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp306b.jpg" border=1><br>
+PALAZZO PRETORIO (TODI)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No better introduction to Dante could be obtained than this from Dean
+Church. Those who have found it difficult to get interested in the
+great Florentine poet, and who have been prone to think that perhaps
+the pretended liking for him on the part of many people was an
+affectation rather than a sincere expression of opinion, should read
+this essay and learn <a name="307">{307}</a> something of the wealth of sympathy there
+is in Dante for even the man of these modern times. Our Thirteenth
+Century poet is not easy to read but there is probably no reading in
+all the world that brings with it so much of intellectual
+satisfaction, so much of awakening of the best feelings in man, so
+many glimpses into the depths of his being, as some lines from Dante
+pondered under favorable circumstances. Like one of these Gothic
+cathedrals of the olden times he never grows old, but, on the
+contrary, every favorite passage seems to have a new message for each
+mood of the reader. This is particularly true for the spiritual side
+of man's being as has been pointed out by Dean Church in a well-known
+passage toward the end of his essay.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Those who know the Divina Commedia best will best know how hard it
+  is to be the interpreter of such a mind; but they will sympathize
+  with the wish to call attention to it. They know, and would wish
+  others also to know, not by hearsay, but by experience, the power of
+  that wonderful poem. They know its austere yet submitting beauty;
+  they know what force there is in its free and earnest and solemn
+  verse to strengthen, to tranquillize, to console. It is a small
+  thing that it has the secret of Nature and Man; that a few keen
+  words have opened their eyes to new sights in earth, and sea, and
+  sky; have taught them new mysteries of sound; have made them
+  recognize, in distinct image of thought, fugitive feelings, or their
+  unheeded expression, by look, or gesture, or motion; that it has
+  enriched the public and collective memory of society with new
+  instances, never to be lost, of human feeling and fortune; has
+  charmed mind and ear by the music of its stately march, and the
+  variety and completeness of its plan. But besides this, they know
+  how often its seriousness has put to shame their trifling, its
+  magnanimity their faint-heartedness, its living energy their
+  indolence, its stern and sad grandeur rebuked low thoughts, its
+  thrilling tenderness overcome sullenness and assuaged distress, its
+  strong faith quelled despair, and soothed perplexity, its vast grasp
+  imparted the sense of harmony to the view of clashing truth. They
+  know how often they have found in times of trouble, if not light, at
+  least that deep sense of reality, permanent though unseen, which is
+  more than light can <a name="308">{308}</a> always give&mdash;in the view which it has
+  suggested to them of the judgments and love of God."
+</p>
+<p>
+As might have been expected from the fact of Dante's English
+popularity paralleling the Oxford Movement, both the great English
+Cardinals who were such prominent agents in that movement, looked upon
+him as a favorite author. Both of them have given him precious
+tributes. Newman's lofty compliment was the flattery of imitation when
+he wrote the Dream of Gerontius, that poem for poets which has told
+the men of our generation more about the immediate hereafter than
+anything written in these latter centuries. No poet of the intervening
+period, or of any other time, has so satisfactorily presented the
+after world as these writers so distant in time, so different in
+environment,&mdash;the one an Italian of the Thirteenth, the other an
+Englishman of the Nineteenth Century.
+</p>
+<p>
+Cardinal Manning's tribute was much more formal though not less
+glorious. It occurs in the introduction to Father Bowden's English
+edition of the German critic Hettinger's appreciation of Dante, and
+deserves a place here because it shows how much a representative
+modern churchman thinks of the great Florentine poet.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "There are three works which always seem to me to form a triad of
+  Dogma, of Poetry, and of Devotion,&mdash;The Summa of St. Thomas, The
+  Divina Commedia, and the Paradisus Animae (a manual of devotional
+  exercises by Horstius). All three contain the same outline of Faith.
+  St. Thomas traces it on the intellect, Dante upon the imagination,
+  and the Paradisus Animae upon the heart. The poem unites the book of
+  Dogma and the book of Devotion, clothed in conceptions of intensity
+  and of beauty which have never been surpassed nor equalled. No
+  uninspired hand has ever written thoughts so high in words, so
+  resplendent as the last stanza of the Divina Commedia. It was said
+  of St. Thomas, <i>'Post Summan Thomae nihil restat nisi lumen
+  gloriae</i>'&mdash;After the Summa of Thomas nothing is left except the
+  light of glory. It may be said of Dante, <i>'Post Dantis Paradisum
+  nihil restat nisi visio Dei</i>,'&mdash;After Dante's Paradise nothing is
+  left except the vision of God."
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course John Ruskin had a thorough-going admiration for so great a
+spiritual thinker as Dante and expressed it in no <a name="309">{309}</a> uncertain
+terms. With his wonderful power to point out the significance of
+unexpected manifestations of human genius, Ruskin has even succeeded
+in minimizing one of the great objections urged against Dante, better
+perhaps than could be done by anyone else, for English speaking people
+at least. For many readers Dante is almost unbearable, because of
+certain grotesque elements they find in him. This has been the source
+and cause of more unfavorable criticism than anything else in the
+great Florentine's writings. Ruskin of course saw it but appreciated
+it at its proper significance, and has made clear in a passage that
+every Dante reader needs to go over occasionally, in order to assure
+himself that certain unusual things in Dante's attitude towards life
+are an expression rather of the highest human genius and its outlook
+on life, than some narrow limitation of medievalism. Ruskin said:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "I believe that there is no test of greatness in nations, periods,
+  nor men more sure than the development, among them or in them, of a
+  noble grotesque, and no test of comparative smallness or limitation,
+  of one kind or another, more sure than the absence of grotesque
+  invention or incapability of understanding it. I think that the
+  central man of all the world, as representing in perfect balance the
+  imaginative, moral and intellectual faculties, all at their highest
+  is Dante; and in him the grotesque reaches at once the most distinct
+  and the most noble development to which it was ever brought in the
+  human mind. Of the grotesqueness in our own Shakespeare I need
+  hardly speak, nor of its intolerableness to his French critics; nor
+  of that of AEschylus and Homer, as opposed to the lower Greek
+  writers; and so I believe it will be found, at all periods, in all
+  minds of the first order."
+</p>
+<p>
+Great reverence for Dante might have been expected in Italy but the
+colder Northern nations shared it.
+</p>
+<p>
+In Germany modern admiration for Dante began with that great wave of
+critical appreciation which entered into German literature with the
+end of the Eighteenth and the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. As
+might almost have been expected, Frederick Schlegel was one of the
+first modern German admirers of Dante, though his brother August,
+whose translations of Shakespeare began that series of German studies
+of <a name="310">{310}</a> Shakespeare which has been so fruitful during the past
+century, was also an open admirer of the medieval poet. Since then
+there has practically been no time when Germany has not had some
+distinguished Dante scholar, and when it has not been supplying the
+world with the products of profound study and deep scholarship with
+regard to him. The modern educational world has come to look so
+confidently toward Germany for the note of its critical appreciation,
+that the Dante devotion of the Germans will be the best possible
+encouragement for those who need to have the feeling, that their own
+liking is shared by good authorities, before they are quite satisfied
+with their appreciation. Dean Plumptre has summed up the Dante
+movement in Germany in a compendious paragraph that must find a place
+here.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "In the year 1824, Scartazzini, the great Dante scholar of the
+  Nineteenth Century, recognizes a new starting point. The period of
+  neglect of supercilious criticism comes to an end, and one of
+  reverence, admiration and exhaustive study begins. His account of
+  the labors of German scholars during the sixty years that have
+  followed fills a large part of his volume. Translations of the
+  Commedia by Kopisch, Kannegiesser, Witte, Philalethes (the nom de
+  plume of John, King of Saxony), Josefa Von Hoffinger, of the Minor
+  Poems by Witte and Krafft, endless volumes and articles on all
+  points connected with Dante's life and character, the publications
+  of the Deutsche Dante-Gesellschaft from 1867 to 1877, present a body
+  of literature which has scarcely a parallel in history. It is no
+  exaggeration to say that the Germans have taught Italians to
+  understand and appreciate their own poet, just as they have at least
+  helped to teach Englishmen to understand Shakespeare."
+</p>
+<p>
+Nor must it be thought that only the literary lights of Germany
+thoroughly appreciated the great Florentine. The greater the genius of
+the man the more his admiration for Dante if he but once becomes
+interested in him. A noteworthy example of this is Alexander Von
+Humboldt the distinguished German scientist, who was generally looked
+upon as perhaps the greatest thinker in European science during the
+first quarter of the Nineteenth Century. He is said to have been very
+faithful in his study of Dante and has expressed his admiration in no
+<a name="311">{311}</a> uncertain terms. Curiously enough he found much to admire him
+for in matters scientific, for while it is not generally realized,
+Dante was an acute observer of Nature and has given expression in his
+works to many observations with regard to subjects that would now be
+considered within the scope of natural science, in a way to anticipate
+many supposedly modern bits of information. With regard to this
+Humboldt said in his Cosmos:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+"When the glory of the Aramaic Greek and Roman dominion&mdash;or I might
+almost say, when the ancient world had passed away,&mdash;we find in the
+great and inspired founder of a new era, Dante Alighieri, occasional
+manifestations of the deepest sensibility to the charms of the
+terrestrial life of Nature, whenever he abstracts himself from the
+passionate and subjective control of that despondent mysticism which
+constituted the general circle of his ideas." How little Humboldt
+seems to have realized in his own absorption in external nature, that
+the qualities he blames in Dante are of the very essence of his
+genius, rounding out his humanity to an interest in all man's
+relations, supernatural as well as natural, and that without them he
+would not be the world poet for all time that he is.
+</p>
+<p>
+In America Dante came to his own almost as soon as literature obtained
+her proper place in our new country. The first generation of
+distinctly literary men comprise the group at Cambridge including
+Longfellow, Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Eliot Norton,
+James Russell Lowell, and others of minor importance. It soon became a
+favorite occupation among these men to give certain leisure hours to
+Dante. The Cambridge Dante society added not a little to the world's
+knowledge of the poet. Longfellow's translation and edition of Dante's
+works was a monumental achievement, for which its author is likely to
+be remembered better by future generations than perhaps for any of his
+original work. Future generations are likely to remember James Russell
+Lowell for his essays on Dante and Shakespeare better than for
+anything else. His Dante monograph is as magnificently illuminating as
+that of Dean Church's and perhaps even more satisfying to critical
+readers. That these men should have been content to give so much of
+their time to the study of the Thirteenth <a name="312">{312}</a> Century poet shows in
+what appreciation he must be held by the rest of us if we would give
+him his due place in literature.
+</p>
+<p>
+There are many misunderstandings with regard to Dante which apparently
+only some serious study of the poet serves to remove satisfactorily.
+Most people consider that he was a distant, prophetic, religious
+genius, and that his poetry has in it very little of sympathy for
+humanity. While it is generally conceded that he saw man projected on
+the curtain of eternity, and realized all his relationships to the
+universe and to his Creator better than perhaps any other poet of all
+time, it is usually thought that one must have something of the
+medieval frame of mind in order to read him with interest and
+admiration. Such impressions are largely the result of reading only a
+few lines of Dante, and, finding them difficult of thorough
+comprehension, allowing one's self to be forced to the conclusion that
+he is not of interest to the modern reader. The Inferno being the
+first part of Dante's great poem is the one oftenest read in this
+passing fashion and so many ideas with regard to Dante are derived
+from this portion, which is not only not the masterpiece of the work
+but, if taken alone, sadly misrepresents the genius of the poet. His
+is no morbid sentimentality and does not need the adventitious
+interest of supreme suffering.
+</p>
+<p>
+As a matter of fact the Purgatorio is a much better introduction to
+Dante's real greatness, and is considered by the generality of Dante
+scholars as the more humanly sympathetic if not really the supreme
+expression of his creative faculty. The ascent of the Mount of
+Expiation with its constant note of hope and the gradually increasing
+facility of the ascent as the summit is approached, touches condolent
+cords in the human heart and arouses feelings that are close to what
+is best in human aspiration in spite of its consciousness of defect.
+Over and over again in the Purgatorio one finds evidence of Dante's
+wonderful powers of observation. The poet is first of all according to
+the etymology of the word a creator, one who gives life to the
+figments of his imagination so that we recognize them as vital
+manifestations of human genius, but is also the seer, the man who sees
+deeper into things and sees more of them than anyone else. Ordinarily
+Dante is considered by those who do not know him as not having been an
+observer of things human and around him in life. There are passages in
+his works, however, that entirely refute this.
+</p>
+
+<a name="313">{313}</a>
+
+<p>
+The story that he went about the cities of North Italy during his
+exile, with countenance so gloomy and stare so fixed that men pointed
+to him and spoke of him as one who had visited Hell, and the other
+tradition, however well it may be founded, that the women sometimes
+pointed him out to their children and then used the memory of him as a
+bogy man to scare them into doing unpleasant things afterwards, would
+seem to indicate that he had occupied himself very little with the
+things around him, and that above all he had paid very little
+attention to the ways of childhood. He has shown over and over again,
+especially in the Purgatorio, that the simplest and most natural
+actions of child-life had been engraved upon his heart for he uses
+them with supreme truth in his figures. He knows how
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "An infant seeks his mother's breast<br>
+  When fear or anguish vex his troubled heart,"&mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+but he knows too, how the child who has done wrong, confesses its
+faults.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  "As little children, dumb with shame's keen smart.
+  Will listening stand with eyes upon the ground.
+  Owning their faults with penitential heart,
+  So then stood I."
+</pre>
+<p>
+There is a passage in the Inferno in which he describes so vividly the
+rescue of a child from the flames by its mother that Plumptre has even
+ventured to suggest that Dante himself may have been the actual
+subject of the rescue. Because it helps to an appreciation of Dante's
+intensity of expression and poignancy of vision the passage itself,
+with Plumptre's comment, seems deserving of quotation:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  "Then suddenly my Guide his arms did fling
+  Around me, as a mother, roused by cries,
+  Sees the fierce flames around her gathering
+  And takes her boy, nor ever halts but flies.
+  Caring for him than for herself far more,
+  Though one scant shift her only robe supplies."
+</pre>
+<a name="314">{314}</a>
+<p>
+It must not be thought, however, that Dante's quality as an observer
+was limited to the actions of human beings. His capacity to see many
+other things is amply manifested in his great poem. Even the smallest
+of living things, that would surely be thought beneath his notice,
+became the subject of similies that show how much everything in nature
+interested the spirit of genius. The passage with regard to the ants
+has often been quoted, and is indeed a surprising manifestation of
+nature study at an unexpected time and from an entirely unanticipated
+quarter. Dante saw the souls of those who were so soon to enter into
+the realm of blessedness, and who were already in the last circle of
+purgatory, greeting each other with the kiss of peace and his
+picturesque simile for it is:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  "So oft, within their dusk brown host, proceed
+  This ant and that, till muzzle muzzle meet;
+  Spying their way, or how affairs succeed."
+</pre>
+<p>
+As for the birds his pages are full of references to them and all of
+his bird similies are couched in terms that show how sympathetically
+observant he was of their habits and ways. He knows their different
+methods of flying in groups and singly, he has observed them on their
+nests and knows their wonderful maternal anxiety for their young, and
+describes it with a vividness that would do credit to a naturalist of
+the modern time who had made his home in the woods. Indeed some of his
+figures taken from birds constitute examples of the finest passages of
+poetic description of living nature that have ever been written. The
+domestic animals, moreover, especially the cat and the dog, come in
+for their share of this sympathetic observance, and he is able to add
+greatly to the vividness of the pictures he paints by his references
+to the well-known habits of these animals. It is no wonder that the
+tradition has grown up that he was fond of such pets and possessed
+several of them that were well-known to the early commentators on his
+poems, and the subject of no little erudition.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nothing escaped the attention of this acute observer in the world
+around him, and over and over again one finds surprising bits of
+observation with regard to natural phenomena usually supposed to be
+quite out of the range of the interest of <a name="315">{315}</a> medieval students
+generally, and above all of literary men of this Middle Age. Alexander
+Von Humboldt calls attention in a well-known passage in his Cosmos to
+the wonderful description of the River of Light in the Thirtieth Canto
+of the Paradiso.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  "I saw a glory like a stream flow by.
+    In brightness rushing and on either shore
+  Were banks that with spring's wondrous hues might vie.
+    And from that river living sparks did soar,
+  And sank on all sides in the flow'rets' bloom,
+    Like precious rubies set in golden ore.
+  Then, as if drunk with all the rich perfume,
+    Back to the wondrous torrent did they roll,
+  And as one sank another filled its room."
+</pre>
+<p>
+Humboldt explains this as follows, with a suggestion that deserves to
+be remembered.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "It would almost seem as if this picture had its origin in the
+  poet's recollection of that peculiar and rare phosphorescent
+  condition of the ocean in which luminous points appear to rise from
+  the breaking waves, and, spreading themselves over the surface of
+  the waters, convert the liquid plain into a moving sea of sparkling
+  stars."
+</p>
+<p>
+Probably the best way for a modern to realize how much of interest
+there may be for him in Dante is to consider the great Italian epic
+poet in comparison with our greatest of English epic poets, Milton.
+While any such comparison in the expressive Latin phrase is sure to
+walk lame, it serves to give an excellent idea of the methods of the
+two men in the illustration of their ideas. We venture therefore to
+quote a comparison between these two poets from a distinguished critic
+who knows both of them well, and whose modern training in English
+methods of thought, would seem to make him likely to be partial to the
+more modern poet though as a matter of fact he constantly leans toward
+the great medieval bard.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante as the
+  hieroglyphics of Egypt differ from the picture-writing of Mexico.
+  The images which Dante employs speak for themselves; they stand
+  simply for what they are. Those of Milton have a <a name="316">{316}</a> signification
+  which is often discernible only to the initiated. &hellip; However
+  strange, however grotesque, he never shrinks from describing it. He
+  gives us the shape, the color, the sound, the smell, the taste; he
+  counts the numbers; he measures the size. His similies are the
+  illustrations of a traveler. Unlike those of other poets, and
+  especially of Milton, they are introduced in a plain business-like
+  manner, not for the sake of any of the beauty in the objects from
+  which they are drawn; not for the sake of any ornament they may
+  impart to the poem; but simply in order to make the meaning of the
+  writer as clear to the reader as it is to himself."
+<br><br>
+  "Still more striking is the similarity between Dante and Milton.
+  This may be said to lie rather in the kindred nature of their
+  subjects, and in the parallel development of their minds, than in
+  any mere external resemblance. In both the man was greater than the
+  poet, the souls of both were 'like a star and dwelt apart.' Both
+  were academically trained in the deepest studies of their age; the
+  labour which made Dante lean made Milton blind. The 'Doricke
+  sweetnesse' of the English poet is not absent from the tender pages
+  of the Vita Nuova. The middle life of each was spent in active
+  controversy; each lent his services to the state; each felt the
+  quarrels of his age to be the 'business of posterity,' and left his
+  warnings to ring in the ears of a later time. The lives of both were
+  failures. 'On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues,' they
+  gathered the concentrated experience of their lives into one
+  immortal work, the quintessence of their hopes, their knowledge, and
+  their sufferings. But Dante is something more than this. Milton's
+  voice is grown faint to us&mdash;we have passed into other modes of
+  expression and of thought."
+</p>
+<p>
+The comparison with Vergil is still more striking and more favorable
+to the Italian poet. "Dante's reputation has passed through many
+vicissitudes, and much trouble has been spent by critics in comparing
+him with other poets of established fame. Read and commented upon in
+the Italian universities in the generation immediately succeeding his
+death, his name bcame obscured as the sun of the Renaissance rose
+higher towards its meridian. In the Seventeenth Century he was less
+read than Petrarch, Tasso, or Ariosto; in the Eighteenth he was <a name="317">{317}</a>
+almost universally neglected. His fame is now fully vindicated.
+Translations and commentaries issue from every press in Europe and
+America. Dante Societies are formed to investigate the difficulties of
+his works. He occupies in the lecture-rooms of regenerated Italy a
+place by the side of those great masters whose humble disciple he
+avowed himself to be. The Divine Comedy is indeed as true an epic as
+the AEneid, and Dante is as real a classic as Vergil. His metre is as
+pliable and flexible to every mood of emotion, his diction as
+plaintive and as sonorous. Like him he can immortalize by a simple
+expression, a person, a place, or a phase of nature. Dante is even
+truer in description than Vergil, whether he paints the snow falling
+in the Alps, or the homeward flight of birds, or the swelling of an
+angry torrent. But under this gorgeous pageantry of poetry there lies
+a unity of conception, a power of philosophic grasp, an earnestness of
+religion, which to the Roman poet were entirely unknown."
+</p>
+<p>
+If we would have a very recent opinion as to the position of Dante as
+a literary man and as a great intellectual force, perhaps no better
+can be obtained than from some recent expressions of Mr. Michael
+Rossetti, whose Italian descent, English training, and literary and
+artistic heredity, seem to place him in an ideal position for writing
+this generation's ultimate judgment with regard to the great poet of
+the Thirteenth Century. In his Literature of Italy he said:&mdash;
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "One has to recur time after time, to that astounding protagonist,
+  phenomenon and hero, Dante Alighieri. If one were to say that
+  Italian literature consists of Dante, it would, no doubt, be an
+  exaggeration, and a gross one, and yet it would contain a certain
+  ultimate nucleus of truth."
+<br><br>
+  "Dante fixed the Italian language, and everyone had to tread in his
+  vestiges. He embodied all the learning and thought of his age and
+  transcended them. He went far ahead of all his predecessors,
+  contemporaries, and successors; he wrote the first remarkable book
+  in Italian prose, La Vita Nuova; and a critical exposition of it in
+  the Convito; in Latin, a linguistic treatise, the De Vulgari
+  Eloquio, which upholds the Vulgare Illustre, or speech of the best
+  cultivated classes, markedly in Tuscany and Bologna, against the
+  common dialects; and a <a name="318">{318}</a> political study, De Monarchia, of the
+  most fundamental quality, which even to us moderns continues to be
+  sane and convincing in its essence, though its direct line of
+  argument has collapsed; and finally, and most important by far, he
+  produced in La Commedia Divina the one poem of modern Europe that
+  counter-balances Shakespeare and challenges antiquity. This is the
+  sole book which makes it a real pity for anyone to be ignorant of
+  Italian. Regarded singly, it is much the most astonishing poem in
+  the world, dwarfing all others by its theme, pulverizing most of
+  them by its majesty and sustainment, unique in the force of its
+  paraded personality and the thunderous reverberation of its
+  judgments on the living and the dead."
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i318.jpg" border=1><br>
+ANGEL (RHEIMS)
+</p>
+<a name="319">{319}</a>
+
+<h1>XX
+<br>
+THE WOMEN OF THE CENTURY.</h1>
+
+<p>
+In generations whose men proved so unending in initiative and so
+forceful in accomplishment, so commanding in intelligence, so
+persistent in their purposes, so acute in their searching, so
+successful in their endeavors, the women of the time could not have
+been unworthy of them. Some hints of this have been already given, in
+what has been said about the making of furnishings for the church,
+especially in the matter of needlework and the handpainting of various
+forms of ornaments. There are further intimations in the histories of
+the time, though unfortunately not very definite information, with
+regard to even more ambitious accomplishments by the women of the
+period. There are, for instance, traditions that the designs for some
+of the Cathedrals and certainly for portions of many of them came from
+women's hands. It is in the ethical sphere, however, that women
+accomplished great things during the Thirteenth Century. Their
+influence stood for what was best and highest in the life of the time
+and their example encouraged not only their own generation, but many
+people in many subsequent generations "to look up, not down, to look
+within, not without" for happiness, and to trust that "God's in his
+heaven and all's well with the world."
+</p>
+<p>
+There are a number of women of the time whose names the race will not
+let die. While if the ordinary person were asked to enumerate the
+great women of the Thirteenth Century it would be rare to find one
+able properly to place them, as soon as their names are mentioned, it
+will be recognized that they succeeded in accomplishing work of such
+significance that the world is not likely to let the reputation of it
+perish. Some of these names are household words. The bearers of them
+have been written of at length in quite recent years in English as
+well as in other languages. Their work was of the kind that ordinarily
+stands quite apart from the course of history and <a name="320">{320}</a> so dates are
+usually not attached to it. It is thought of as a portion of the
+precious heritage of mankind rather than as belonging to any
+particular period. Three names occur at once. They are St. Clare of
+Assisi, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and Queen Blanche of Castile, the
+mother of St. Louis. To these should be added Queen Berengaria, the
+sister of Blanche, and the mother of Ferdinand of Castile; Mabel Rich,
+the London tradesman's wife, the mother of St. Edmund of Canterbury;
+and Isabella, the famous Countess of Arundel.
+</p>
+<p>
+The present day interest in St. Francis of Assisi, has brought St.
+Clare under the lime-light of publicity. There is no doubt at all that
+her name is well worthy to be mentioned along with his and that she,
+like him, must be considered one of the strongest and most beautiful
+characters of all time. She was the daughter of a noble family at
+Assisi, who, having heard St. Francis preach, became impressed with
+the idea that she too should have the opportunity to live the simple
+life that St. Francis pictured. Of course her family opposed her in
+any such notion. That a daughter of theirs should take up with a
+wandering preacher, who at that time was looked on not a little
+askance by the regular religious authorities, and whose rags, and
+poverty made him anything but a proper associate for a young lady of
+noble birth, could not but seem an impossible idea. Accordingly Clare
+ran away from home and told Francis that she would never go back and
+that he must help her to live her life in poverty just as he was doing
+himself. He sent her to a neighboring convent to be cared for, and
+also very probably so as to be assured of her vocation.
+</p>
+<p>
+After a time a special convent home for Clare and some other young
+women, who had become enamored with the life of poverty and simplicity
+was established, and to this Clare's sister Agnes came as a postulant.
+By this time apparently the family had become reconciled to Clare's
+absence from home, but they would not stand another daughter following
+such a foolish example. Accordingly Agnes was removed from the convent
+by force after a scene which caused the greatest excitement in the
+little town. It was not long, however, before Agnes returned to the
+convent and within a few years their mother followed them, and became
+one of the most fervent members of the little community.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp320">{opp320}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp320.jpg" border=1><br>
+ST. CLARE'S FAREWELL TO THE DEAD ST. FRANCIS (GIOTTO)
+</p>
+
+<a name="321">{321}</a>
+
+<p>
+The peace and happiness that came with this life of absolute poverty
+soon attracted many other women and Clare was asked to establish
+houses at a distance. Gradually the order of Poor Clares, the second
+order of St. Francis, thus came into existence. When it was necessary
+to draw up constitutions for the order, Clare showed not only the
+breadth of her intelligence, but the depth of her knowledge of human
+nature, and her appreciation of what was absolutely necessary in order
+to keep her order from degeneration. Against the counsels of all the
+ecclesiastics of her time, including many cardinals and even a Pope,
+she insisted on the most absolute poverty as the only basis for the
+preservation of the spirit of her second order of St. Francis. Her
+character was well manifested in this contest from which she came out
+victorious.
+</p>
+<p>
+Her body has been miraculously preserved and may still be seen at
+Assisi. Anyone who has seen the strongly set lips and full firm chin
+of the body in the crypt of San Damiano, can easily understand the
+strength of purpose and of character of this young woman who moulded a
+generation to her will. The story is told of her, that once when the
+Saracens invaded Italy and attacked the convent, she mounted the walls
+with a monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament in her hands, and
+the marauders turned away in consternation from the stern brave figure
+that confronted them, and bothered the nuns no more. After St.
+Francis' death she, more than anyone else, succeeded in maintaining
+the spirit of the Franciscan order in the way in which St. Francis
+would have it go. Long after her death a copy of the original rules
+was found in the fold of her garments and did much to restore the
+Franciscan life to its primitive simplicity and purpose, so that even
+after she was no more on earth, she was still the guardian and
+promoter of St. Francis' work.
+</p>
+<p>
+If one wants to know how much of happiness there came to her in life
+one should read the famous passage which describes her visit to St.
+Francis, and how she and he with sisters and brothers around them
+broke bread together, with a sweetness that was beyond human. The
+passage is to be found in the "Little Flowers of St. Francis of
+Assisi" which was written <a name="322">{322}</a> within a century after the occurrences
+described. It recalls nothing so much as the story of the disciples at
+Emaus and is worthy to be thought of beside the Scripture story.
+[Footnote 26]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 26: When came the day ordained by Francis, Saint Clare
+  with one companion passed forth from out the convent and with the
+  companions of Saint Francis to bear her company came unto Saint Mary
+  of the Angels, and devoutly saluted the Virgin Mary before her
+  altar, where she had been shorn and veiled; so they conducted her to
+  see the house, until such time as the hour for breaking bread was
+  come. And in the meantime Saint Francis let make ready the table on
+  the bare ground, as he was wont to do. And the hour of breaking
+  bread being come, they set themselves down together. Saint Francis
+  and Saint Clare, and one of the companions of Saint Francis with the
+  companion of Saint Clare, and all the other companions took each his
+  place at the table with all humility. And at the first dish, Saint
+  Francis began to speak of God so sweetly, so sublimely and so
+  wondrously, that the fulness of Divine grace came down on them, and
+  they all were wrapt in God. And as they were thus wrapt, with eyes
+  and hands uplift to heaven, the folk of Assisi and Bettona and the
+  country round about, saw that Saint Mary of the Angels, and all the
+  House, and the wood that was just hard by the house, were burning
+  brightly, and it seemed as it were a great fire that filled the
+  church and the House and the whole wood together: for the which
+  cause the folk of Assisi ran thither in great haste to quench the
+  flames, believing of a truth that the whole place was all on fire.
+  But coming closer up to the House and finding no fire at all, they
+  entered within and found Saint Francis and Saint Clare and all their
+  company in contemplation rapt in God and sitting around that humble
+  board. Whereby of a truth they understood that this had been a
+  heavenly flame and no earthly one at all, which God had let appear
+  miraculously, for to show and signify the fire of love divine
+  wherewith the souls of those holy brothers and holy nuns were all
+  aflame; wherefor they got them gone with great consolation in their
+  hearts and with holy edifying. Then after some long space. Saint
+  Francis and Saint Clare, together with all the others, returning to
+  themselves again and feeling of good comfort from the spiritual food
+  took little heed of the food of the body.]
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp322">{opp322}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp322a.jpg" border=1><br>
+CHURCH (DOBERAN, GERMANY)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp322b.jpg" border=1><br>
+SAN DAMIANO (ASSISI)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What Saint Clare accomplished as her life work was the making of a new
+vocation for women. There are always a certain number of women who
+look for peace and quiet rather than the struggle for existence. For
+these the older monasteries did not supply a place unless they were of
+the wealthier class as a rule. Among the Poor Clares women of all
+classes were received. In this way a great practical lesson in
+equality was <a name="323">{323}</a> taught. Women did not have to marry, perhaps
+unsuitable, often even objectionable men, simply in order to have a
+mode of life. They could join one of these communities and though in
+absolute poverty, with many hours each day devoted to meditation and
+prayer, had time to give to beautiful needlework, to painting and book
+illumination, and to other feminine occupations; and might thus pass
+long, happy lives, apart from the bustle of the strenuous time.
+</p>
+<p>
+Italy at this time, it must be recalled, was a seething cauldron of
+political and military strife. Wars were waged, and struggles of all
+kinds engaged in for precedence and power. These women got away from
+this unfortunate state of affairs. Occasionally in times of
+pestilence, when they were specially needed, as happened at least once
+in Saint Clare's life, they took care of the ailing and lent their
+convent as a hospital. Above all they stood in the eyes of their
+generation for chosen people who saw things differently from others.
+They taught the great lesson of not caring too much for the things of
+this world and of not living one's life in order to get admiration
+though usually envy comes, nor idle praise for qualities they either
+do not possess or that are not worthy of notice. They showed people
+the real value of this life by its reflection upon the other. Many a
+man turned aside from ambitious schemes that would have injured
+others, because of the kindly influence of these unselfish women and
+because of the memory of a sister, or an aunt whose sacrificing life
+was thus a rebuke to his foolish selfishness. Other women learned
+something of the vanity of human things by learning to value the
+character of these Poor Clares and realizing how much of happiness
+came to them from the accomplishment of their simple duties. Professor
+Osler said, in his lecture on Science and Immortality, of these
+self-forgetting ones:&mdash;"The serene faith of Socrates with the cup of
+Hemlock at his lips, the heroic devotion of a St. Francis or a St.
+Teresa, but more often for each one of us the beautiful life of some
+good woman whose&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  Eyes are homes of silent prayer,
+    &hellip;
+  Whose loves in higher love endure.
+</pre>
+<p>
+do more to keep alive among the Laodiceans a belief in immortality
+than all the preaching in the land." This is what St. Clare
+accomplished for her own generation and her influence is still a great
+living force in the world.
+</p>
+<a name="324">{324}</a>
+<p>
+What especially should attract the attention of the modern time is the
+perfect basis of equality on which the Franciscan and Dominican orders
+of men and of women were organized. Each community had the opportunity
+to elect its own superiors. The rules were practically the same for
+the first (for men) and the second (for women) order of St. Francis,
+except that while the first order were supposed to live on alms
+collected by begging from door to door, this menial obligation was not
+imposed upon the women, who were expected to be supported by alms
+brought to their convents by the faithful, and by the labor of their
+own hands. This equality of men and women in the monastic
+establishments became widespread after the Thirteenth Century and made
+itself felt in the social order of the time as a factor for feminine
+uplift. Undoubtedly Saint Clare's work in the foundation of the second
+order of St. Francis must be held responsible to no small degree for
+this. Before her death, there were half a dozen scions of royal
+families in various parts of Europe who had become members of her
+order, and literally hundreds of the daughters of the nobility, many
+of them of high rank, had put off their dignity and position in the
+world, to become poor daughters of Saint Clare. They did so for the
+peace and the happiness of the vocation, and the opportunity to seek
+their souls and live their lives in their own quiet way, which her
+convents afforded them.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp325">{opp325}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp325.jpg" border=1><br>
+ST. ELIZABETH'S CATHEDRAL (MARBURG)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After Saint Clare, the best known woman of the Thirteenth Century is
+undoubtedly Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, of whom the world knows some
+pretty legends, while the serious historian recognizes that she was
+the first settlement worker of history. As a child she wandered down
+from the castle walls in which she lived and saw the poor in their
+suffering. She felt so much for them that she stripped herself of most
+of her garments and finally even of her shoes in order to clothe them.
+When she was taken to task for this, she said that she had suffered
+whatever inconvenience there was in it only for a few minutes while
+the poor had suffered all their lives. She became <a name="325">{325}</a> the wife of
+the Duke of Thuringia, and there were three years of ideal happiness
+with her husband and her children. When he went away on the Crusade
+she gave herself up to the care of the poor. When he died, though she
+was only twenty, and according to tradition one of the handsomest
+women of her time, she devoted herself still more to her poor and even
+went to live among them. She tried to teach them, as do the settlement
+workers of the modern time, something of the true significance of
+life, to bring them to realize to some degree at least, that so many
+of the things they so vainly desire are not worth thinking about, but
+that happiness consists in lopping off one's desires rather than
+trying vainly, as it must ever be, to satisfy them. It is no wonder
+that throughout all Germany she came to be called "the dear St.
+Elizabeth." Literally thousands of women since her time have turned to
+read the story of her beautiful devotion to charity, and have been
+incited by her example to do more and more for the poor around them.
+Those who know it only through Kingsley's, "The Saint's Tragedy,"
+though this is disfigured by many failures to understand parts of her
+career and her environment, can scarcely fail to realize that hers was
+one of the world's sublimely beautiful characters. All she attempted
+in the thorny paths of charity was accomplished in such a practical
+way that the amount of good done was almost incalculable. The simple
+recital of what she did as it has often been told, is the story of a
+great individuality that impressed itself deeply upon its generation
+and left the example of a precious life to act as a leaven for good in
+the midst of the social fermentations of succeeding generations.
+</p>
+<p>
+Yet Elizabeth succeeded in accomplishing all this in spite of the fact
+that she was born the daughter of a king and married the reigning
+prince of one of the most important ducal houses in Germany. One would
+expect to find that her life had been long, so many traditions have
+gathered around her name. She was twenty when her husband died, and
+she survived him only four years. Literally she had accomplished a
+long space in a short time and her generation in raising in her honor
+the charming Gothic Cathedral at Marburg, one of the most <a name="326">{326}</a>
+beautiful in Germany, was honoring itself nobly as well as her. It is
+the greatest monument to a woman in all the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+The next great woman of the century also belonged to a reigning family
+and is for obvious historical reasons better known, perhaps, than her
+Saint contemporaries. This was Blanche, daughter of the King of
+Castile, but intimately related to the English royal family. Married
+to Louis VIII of France she is known principally as the mother of
+Louis IX. She ruled France for many years while her boy was a minor
+and when he came to the age, when he might ordinarily assume the reins
+of government, he voluntarily permitted his mother to continue her
+regency for some time longer. France was probably happier under her
+than under any ruler that the country has ever had with the possible
+exception of her son Louis. She succeeded in suppressing to a great
+extent the quarrels so common among the nobility, she strengthened and
+centralized the power of the crown, she began the correction of abuses
+in the administration of justice which her son was to complete so
+well, she organized charity in various ways, and the court was an
+example to the kingdom of simple dignified life, without any abuse of
+power, or wealth, or passion. No wonder that when Louis went on the
+Crusade, he left his mother to reign in his stead confident that all
+would go well. If one needed a demonstration that women can rule well
+there is an excellent example in the life of Blanche.
+</p>
+<p>
+Personally she seems to have had not only an amiable but a deeply
+intellectual character. She encouraged education and beautiful
+book-making and the Gothic architecture which was developing in France
+so wonderfully during her period. Of course she also worshipped her
+boy Louis, but how much her motherly tenderness was tempered with the
+most beautiful Christian feeling can be understood from the famous
+expression attributed to her on good authority, that she "would rather
+see her boy dead at her feet, than have him commit a mortal offense
+against his God or his neighbor." One might almost say that it is no
+wonder that Louis became a saint. As a matter of fact he attributed to
+his mother whatever of goodness there was in himself. There is a touch
+of humanity in the picture, however, a trait that shows, that Blanche
+was a woman, <a name="327">{327}</a> though it is a fault which draws our sympathy to
+her even more surely than if she were the type of perfection she might
+have been without it. She did not get on well with her daughter-in-law
+and one of the trials of Louis' life, as we have said, was to keep the
+scales evenly balanced between his mother and his wife, both of whom
+he loved very dearly. After Blanche's life there could be no doubt
+that a woman, when given the opportunity, can manage men and
+administer government quite as well as any masculine member of the
+race, and the Thirteenth Century had given another example of its
+power to bring out what was best in its fortunate children.
+</p>
+<p>
+One of the most interesting women of the Thirteenth Century was
+neither a Saint nor a member of the nobility, but only the wife of a
+simple London merchant. This was Mabel Rich, the mother of Saint
+Edmund of Canterbury. Edmund is one of the striking men of a supreme
+century. He had been a student at Paris, and later a professor at
+Oxford. Then, he became the treasurer of the Cathedral at Salisbury
+about the time when, not a little through his influence, that
+magnificent edifice was receiving the form which was to make it one of
+the world's great churches for all time. Later he was the Archbishop
+of Canterbury and while defending the rights of his church and his
+people, came under the ban of Henry III, and spent most of the latter
+years of his life in exile on the continent. Edmund insisted that he
+owed more to his mother than to any other single factor in life. With
+her two boys, aged ten and fourteen, Mabel Rich was left to care for
+the worldly concerns of the household as well as for their education.
+When they were twelve and sixteen, with many misgivings she sent them
+off to the University of Paris to get their education. Edmund tells
+how besides packing their linen very carefully she also packed a
+hairshirt for each of them, which they were to wear occasionally
+according to their promise to her, to remind them that they must not
+look for ease and comfort in life, above all must not yield to sensual
+pleasures, but must be ready to suffer many little troubles
+voluntarily, in order that they might be able to resist temptation
+when severer trials came. Mabel Rich believed in discipline, as a
+factor in education, and thought that character was formed by habits
+of fortitude in resisting <a name="328">{328}</a> petty annoyances until, finally, even
+serious troubles were easy to bear.
+</p>
+<p>
+Both of her sons proved worthy of her maternal solicitude. Edmund
+tells how the poor around her home in London blessed her for her
+charity. All during his life the thought of his mother was uppermost
+in his mind, and in the immortality that has been given his name,
+because of the utter forgetfulness of self which characterized his
+life, his mother has been associated. Unfortunately details are
+lacking that would show us something of the manner of living of this
+strong woman of the people, but we know enough to make us realize that
+she was a fine type of the Christian mother, memory of whose goodness
+means more not only for her children but for all those who come in
+contact with her, than all the sermons and pious exhortations that
+they hear, and often, such is the way of human nature, even than the
+divine commandments or the personal conscience of those whom she
+loves.
+</p>
+<p>
+There were noble women among the gentlewomen of England at this time
+too, and though space will not let us dwell on them, at least one must
+be mentioned. This is the famous Isabella, Countess of Arundel, who
+with a dignity which, Matthew Paris says, was more than that of woman,
+reproached Henry III (1252), when he sought to browbeat her. She made
+bold to tell the king, "You govern neither us nor yourself well." On
+this the king, with a sneer and a grin, said with a loud voice, "Ho,
+ho, my lady countess, have the noblemen of England granted you a
+charter and struck a bargain with you to become their spokeswoman
+because of your eloquence?" She answered, "My liege, the nobles have
+made no charter, but you and your father have made a charter, and you
+have sworn to observe it inviolably, and yet many times have you
+extorted money from your subjects and have not kept your word. Where
+are the liberties of England, often reduced to writing, so often
+granted, so often again denied?"  [Footnote 27]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 27: Medieval England, English Feudal Society, from the
+  Norman Conquest to the Middle of the Fourteenth Century, by Mary
+  Bateson.]
+</p>
+<p>
+The question of womanly occupations apart from their household duties
+will be of great interest to our generation.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp328">{opp328}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp328.jpg" border=1><br>
+MARRIAGE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN (GIOTTO, PADUA)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A hint of one form of woman's occupation has already been <a name="329">{329}</a> given
+in discussing the needlework done for the Cathedrals and especially
+the Cope of Ascoli. It must not be forgotten that this was the age not
+alone of Cathedrals but also of monasteries and of convents. In all of
+these convents every effort was made to have whatever was associated
+with the religious ceremonial as beautiful as possible. Hence it was
+that needlework rose to a height of accomplishment such as has never
+been reached since according to the best authorities, and many
+examples of it have come down to us to confirm such an opinion. This
+needlework was done not only for religious purposes, however, but also
+as presents for Kings and Queens and the nobility, and such presents
+proved to be exemplars of artistic beauty that must have helped to
+raise the taste of the time. This was essentially woman's work, and in
+their distant castles the women of the households of the nobility
+occupied themselves with it to much better effect than their sisters
+of the modern time with the grievous burden of their so-called social
+duties.
+</p>
+<p>
+Miss Bateson  [Footnote 28: Ibidem.] has given a pretty, yet piquant
+picture of woman at these occupations. She says:&mdash;"There are not
+wanting Thirteenth Century satires to tell the usual story of female
+levities, and of female devotion to the needle, to German work and
+pierced work, Saracen work and combed work, cutout work and wool-work,
+and a multitude of other "works" to which the clue seems to be now
+wholly lost. Whilst the women are thus engaged, the one who knows most
+reads to them, the others listen attentively, and do not sleep as they
+do at mass, 'pur la prise de vanite dont ont grant leesce (joy).' The
+'opus anglicum' consisted of chain-stitch in circles, with hollows,
+made by a heated iron rod, to represent shadows. A cope of this work
+was made by Rose de Burford at Edward II's order, and sent to Rome.
+One, known as the Syon cope, passed into the possession of the nuns of
+Syon, Isleworth, and can be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum."
+</p>
+<p>
+Another form of woman's work that came to prominence during the
+century was the service in hospitals. While the records of the
+hospitals of the Holy Ghost, which under Innocent Third's fostering
+care spread so widely throughout Europe in this century, are mainly
+occupied with the institutions of <a name="330">{330}</a> the Brothers of the Holy
+Ghost, there were many hospitals under the care of women, and indeed
+there was an almost universally accepted idea, that women patients and
+obstetrical cases should be cared for by women rather than men. It is
+easy to make little of the hospitals of this time but any such thought
+will be the result of ignorance rather than of any serious attempt to
+know what was actually accomplished. The sisters' hospitals soon
+usurped the most prominent place in the life of the time and during
+succeeding centuries gradually replaced those which had been
+originally under the control of men. It was recognized that nursing
+was a much more suitable occupation for the gentler sex and that there
+were many less abuses than when men were employed. The success of
+these hospitals in gradually eradicating leprosy and in keeping down
+the death-rate from St. Anthony's fire, or erysipelas, shows how
+capable they were of accomplishing great humanitarian work.
+</p>
+<p>
+Perhaps the most interesting feature of the story of woman's position
+during the Thirteenth Century is that at the Italian universities at
+least, co-education was not only admitted in principle but also in
+practice, and many women were in attendance at the universities. In
+the West of Europe this feature did not exist. It is a startling
+comment on how comparatively trivial a thing may change the course of
+history, that the lamentable Heloise and Abelard incident at the
+University of Paris during the Twelfth Century, precluded all
+subsequent possibility of the admission of women students to the
+University of Paris. Oxford, it will be remembered, was formed by the
+withdrawal of students from the University of Paris, and the same
+tradition was maintained. Cambridge was a grand-daughter of the
+University of Paris and the French and Spanish universities must all
+be considered as standing in the relation of its direct descendants.
+The unfortunate experience at Paris shaped the policy as to the
+co-education of the sexes for all these. It would have been too much
+to expect that university authorities would take the risks which had
+been so clearly demonstrated even with regard to a distinguished
+professor, and so co-education was excluded.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is not easy to say what proportion of women there were <a name="331">{331}</a> in
+attendance at the university of Bologna during the Thirteenth Century.
+Apparently it should not be difficult to take the lists of the
+matriculates as far as they have been preserved and by a little
+calculation obtain rather exact figures. Italy, like most of the Latin
+countries, differs from the Teutonic regions in not being quite so
+exact in the distribution of names to the different sexes, that the
+first name inevitably determines whether the individual is male or
+female. It is not an unusual thing even at the present day for a man
+to have as a first name in Italy, or France, or Spain, the equivalent
+of our name Mary. On the other hand, not a few girls are called by
+men's names and without the feminine termination which is so
+distinctive among the English speaking peoples. In the olden times
+this was still more the case. Until very recently at least, if not
+now, every child born in Venice was given two names at its
+baptism&mdash;Maria and Giovanni&mdash;in honor of the two great patron saints
+of the city and then the parents might add further names if they so
+desired. A matriculation list of the University of Bologna then, tells
+very little that is absolute with regard to the sex of the
+matriculates.
+</p>
+<p>
+All that we know for sure is that there were women students at the
+University of Bologna apparently from the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century, and that some of them secured the distinction of being made
+Professors. Of one of these there is a pretty legend told, which seems
+to illustrate the fact that charming young women of profound
+intellectual qualities did not lose the characteristic modesty and
+thoughtfulness for others of their sex, because of their elevation to
+university professorship. This young woman, Maria di Novella, when
+only twenty-five became the Professor of mathematics at the University
+of Bologna. According to tradition she was very pretty and as is usual
+in life was not unaware of that happy accident. She feared that her
+good looks might disturb the thoughts of her students during her
+lessons and accordingly she delivered her lectures from behind a
+curtain. The story may, of course, be only a myth. One of the best
+woman educators that I know once said to me, that if the tradition
+with regard to her beauty were true, then she doubted the rest of the
+story, but then women are not always the best judges of the <a name="332">{332}</a>
+actions of other women and especially is this true when there is
+question of a grave and learned elderly woman passing judgment on a
+young and handsome professor of mathematics.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Italians became so much impressed with the advisability of
+permitting women to study at the universities, that a certain amount
+of co-education has existed all down the centuries in Italy and not a
+century has passed since the Thirteenth, which has not chronicled the
+presence of at least one distinguished woman professor at some Italian
+university. Indeed it was doubtless the traditional position of
+tolerance in this matter that made it seem quite natural for women,
+when the Renaissance period came around, to take their places beside
+their brothers and their cousins in the schools where the new learning
+was being taught.
+</p>
+<p>
+It may be rather difficult for some to understand how with this
+opening wedge for the higher education of women well placed, the real
+opportunity for widespread feminine education should only have come in
+our own time. This last idea, however, which would represent ours as
+the only generation which has given women adequate opportunities for
+intellectual development, is one of those self-complacent bits of
+flattery of ourselves and our own period that is so irritatingly
+characteristic of recent times. There have been at least three times
+in the world's history before our own when as many women as wanted
+them, in the class most interested in educational matters, were given
+the opportunities for the higher education. As a matter of fact
+whenever there have been novelties introduced into educational
+systems, women have demanded and quite naturally&mdash;since, "What a good
+woman wants," said a modern saint, "is the will of God"&mdash;have obtained
+the privilege of sharing the educational opportunities of the time.
+This was true in Charlemagne's time when the women of the court
+attended the lectures in the traveling palace school the great Charles
+founded and fostered. It was true four centuries later, as we have
+seen, when a great change in educational methods was introduced with
+the foundation of the universities. It was exemplified again when the
+"New Learning" came in and the study of the classics took the place of
+the long hours spent in scholastic disputation, that had previously
+occupied <a name="333">{333}</a> so much university attention. In our own time it was
+the introduction of the study of the social sciences particularly,
+with the consequent appearance of many novelties in the educational
+curriculum, that once more was the signal for women asking and quite
+naturally obtaining educational privileges.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp333">{opp333}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp333.jpg" border=1><br>
+MOSAIC (ST. MARK'S, VENICE, 1220)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Each of the previous experiences in the matter of feminine education
+has been followed by a considerable period during which there was a
+distinct incuriousness on the part of women in educational matters. Of
+course that is only an analogy and though history is worth studying,
+only because the lessons of the past are the warnings of the future,
+yet this does not foretell a lessening of feminine interest in
+educational matters, after a few generations of experience of its
+vanity to make up to them for the precious special privileges of their
+nature, the proper enjoyment and exercise of which it is so likely to
+hamper. It would be interesting to know just why feminine education,
+after a period of efflorescence during the Thirteenth Century,
+retrograded during the next century. There have been some ungallant
+explanations offered, which we mention merely because of their
+historical interest but without any hint of their having any real
+significance in the matter.
+</p>
+<p>
+A distinguished German educational authority has called attention to
+the fact that a well-known prepared food, for which Bologna is famous,
+is first heard of about the time that the higher education for women
+came into vogue at the Italian universities. Towards the end of the
+same century a special kind of pudding, since bearing the name of its
+native city, Bologna, which might very well have taken the place of an
+ordinary dessert, also began to come into prominence. This German
+writer suggests then, that possibly the serving of meals consisting of
+these forms of prepared food, which did not require much household
+drudgery and did not necessitate the bending over the kitchen range or
+whatever took its place in those days, may have led the men to grumble
+about the effects of the higher education. After all, he adds, though
+the women get whatever they want, when they ask for it seriously, if
+it proves after a time that the men do not want them to have it, then
+women lose interest and care for it no longer. This, of course, must
+be taken with the proverbial grain of salt, though it <a name="334">{334}</a>
+illustrates certain phases of the domestic life of the time as well as
+affording a possible glimpse into the inner circle of the family life.
+</p>
+<p>
+The real story of woman's intellectual position in the century is to
+be found in its literature. How deep was the general culture of the
+women of the Thirteenth Century, in Italy at least, can be judged from
+the Sonnets of Dante and his friends to their loved ones at the end of
+this century. Some of the most beautiful poetry that was ever written
+was inspired by these women and like the law of hydrostatics, it is
+one of the rules of the history of poetry, that inspiration never
+rises higher than its source and that poetry addressed to women is
+always the best index of the estimation in which they are held, the
+reflection of the highest qualities of the objects to which it is
+addressed. Anyone who reads certain of the sonnets of Dante, or of his
+friends Guido Cavalcanti or Gino da Pistoia or Dante da Maiano, will
+find ready assurance of the high state of culture and of intellectual
+refinement that must have existed among the women to whom they were
+dedicated. This same form of reasoning will apply also with regard to
+the women of the South of France to whom the Troubadours addressed
+their poetry; to those of the north of France who were greeted by the
+Trouvères; and those of the south of Germany for whom the Minnesingers
+tuned their lyres and invoked the Muses to enable them to sing their
+praises properly. It would seem sometimes to be forgotten that poetry
+generally is written much more for women than for men. Everyone
+realizes that for one man who has read Tennyson's "Idyls of the King"
+there are probably five women to whom they have been a source of
+delight. When we think of the Thirteenth Century as not affording
+opportunities of intellectual culture for its women, we should ask
+ourselves where then did the Meistersingers and the poets of England,
+Germany and France who told their romantic tales in verse find an
+audience, if it was not among the women. The stories selected by the
+Meistersingers are just those which proved so popular to feminine
+readers of Tennyson in the Nineteenth Century, and the chosen subjects
+of interest in the stories show that men and women have not changed
+much during the intervening centuries. The literature of any <a name="335">{335}</a>
+period reflects the interest of the women in it and, as interest is
+itself an index of intellectual development, Thirteenth Century
+literature must be taken as the vivid reflection of the cultural
+character of the women of the time, and this is of itself the highest
+possible tribute to their intelligence and education.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the other hand the best possible testimony to the estimation of
+women during the Thirteenth Century, is to be found in the attitude of
+the men of the generations towards them, as it is clearly to be seen
+in the literature of the time. In the Holy Graal, the Cid, the
+Minnesingers and the Meistersingers, woman occupies the higher place
+in life and it is recognized that she is the highest incentive to
+good, unfortunately also sometimes to evil, but always the best reward
+that men can have for their exertions in a great cause. The supreme
+tribute to woman comes at the end of the century in Dante's apotheosis
+of her in the Divine Comedy. In this it is a woman who inspires, a
+woman who leads, a woman who is the reward of man's aspirations, and
+though the symbolism may be traced to philosophy, the influence of an
+actual woman in it all is sure beyond all doubt. Nor must it be
+thought that it was merely in this highest flight of his imagination
+that this greatest of poets expressed such lofty sentiments with
+regard to women. Anyone who thinks this does not know Dante's minor
+poems, which contain to women in the flesh and above all to one of
+them, the most wonderful tributes that have ever been paid to woman.
+Take this one of his sonnets for instance.
+</p>
+<pre>
+  So gentle and so fair she seems to be.
+    My Lady, when she others doth salute,
+    That every tongue becomes, all trembling, mute,
+  And every eye is half afraid to see;
+  She goes her way and hears men's praises free.
+    Clothed in a garb of kindness, meek and low.
+    And seems as if from heaven she came, to show
+  Upon the earth a wondrous mystery:
+  To one who looks on her she seems so kind,
+    That through the eye a sweetness fills the heart,
+    Which only he can know who doth it try.
+<a name="336">{336}</a>
+  And through her face there breatheth from her mind
+    A spirit sweet and full of Love's true art,
+  Which to the soul saith, as it cometh, "Sigh."
+</pre>
+<p>
+It will be noted that though this contains the highest possible praise
+of the woman whom he loved, it has not a single reference to any of
+her physical perfections, or indeed to any of those charms that poets
+usually sing. We have already called attention to this, that it is not
+the beauty of her face or her figure that has attracted him, but the
+charm of her character, which all others must admire&mdash;which even women
+do not envy, it is so beautiful&mdash;that constitutes the supreme reason
+for Dante's admiration. Nor must it be thought that this is a unique
+example of Dante's attitude in this matter; on the contrary, it is the
+constant type of his expression of feeling. The succeeding sonnet in
+his collection is probably quite as beautiful as the first quoted, and
+yet is couched in similar terms. It will be found in the chapter on
+Dante the Poet. Need we say more to prove that the women of the
+century were worthy of the men and of the supreme time in which they
+lived; that they were the fit intellectual companions of perhaps the
+greatest generation of men that ever lived?
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i336.jpg" border=1><br>
+STONE CARVING (AMIENS)
+</p>
+
+<a name="337">{337}</a>
+
+<h1>XXI
+<br>
+CITY HOSPITALS&mdash;ORGANIZED CHARITY.</h1>
+
+<p>
+While the Thirteenth Century was engaged in solving the problems of
+the higher education and of technical education for the masses, and
+was occupied so successfully, as we have seen, with the questions of
+the rights of man and the development of law and of liberty, other and
+more directly social and humanitarian works were not neglected. There
+had been hospitals in existence from even before the Christian era,
+but they had been intended rather for the chronic ailments and as the
+name implies, for the furnishing of hospitality to strangers and
+others who had for the time no habitation, than for the care of the
+acutely ill. In the country places there was a larger Christian
+charity which led people to care even for the stranger, and there was
+a sense of human duty that was much more binding than in the modern
+world. The acutely ill were not infrequently taken into the houses of
+even those who did not know them, and cared for with a solicitude
+difficult to understand in this, colder time. This was not so much
+typical of the times, however, as of the social conditions, since we
+have many stories of such events in our colonial days.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the cities, however, which began more and more to be a feature of
+life in the Thirteenth Century, though they counted their inhabitants
+only by a few thousands where ours count them by hundreds of
+thousands, the need of some other method of caring for such cases made
+itself distinctly felt. At the end of the Twelfth and the beginning of
+the Thirteenth centuries this need became demandingly manifest, and
+the consequence was a movement that proved to be of great and
+far-reaching practical benevolence. It is to the first Pope of the
+Thirteenth Century, Innocent III., that we owe the modern city
+hospital as we have it at the present time, with its main purpose to
+care for the acutely ill who may have no one to take care of them
+properly, as well as for those who have been injured or <a name="338">{338}</a> who have
+been picked up on the street and whose friends are not in a position
+to care for them.
+</p>
+<p>
+The deliberateness with which Innocent III. set about the
+establishment of the mother city hospital of the world, is a striking
+characteristic of the genius of the man and an excellent illustration
+of the practical character of the century of which he is so thoroughly
+representative.
+</p>
+<p>
+Pope Innocent recognized the necessity for the existence of a city
+hospital in Rome and by inquiry determined that the model hospital for
+this purpose existed down at Montpelier in connection with the famous
+medical school of the university there. Montpelier had succeeded to
+the heritage of the distinguished reputation in medical matters which
+had been enjoyed by Salernum, not far from Naples, during the Ninth,
+Tenth, and Eleventh centuries. The shores of the Mediterranean have
+always been recognized as possessing a climate especially suitable for
+invalids and with the diminution of the influence of the Salernitan
+school, a transfer of its prestige to Montpelier, where the close
+relationship with Spain had given the medical schools the advantage of
+intimate contact with the medicine of the Arabs, is not a matter of
+surprise. At Montpelier the hospital arrangements made by Guy de
+Montpelier were especially efficient. The hospital of which he had
+charge was under the care of the members of the order of the Holy
+Spirit.
+</p>
+<p>
+Pope Innocent summoned Guy, or Guido as he was known after this, to
+Rome and founded for him the hospital of the Holy Spirit in the Borgo,
+not far from St. Peter's, where it still exists. This was the mother
+and model hospital for the world. Visitors to Rome saw it, and could
+not fail to admire its great humanitarian work. Bishops from all over
+the world on their official visits to the head of the Church, admired
+the policy under which the hospital was conducted, recognized the
+interest of the Pope in it, and went back to their homes to organize
+institutions of the same kind. How many of these were established in
+various parts of Europe is hard to determine. Virchow in his History
+of the Foundations of the German Hospitals, has a list of over one
+hundred towns in Germany in which hospitals of the Holy Spirit, or
+medical institutions modeled on this hospital at Rome were founded.
+<a name="339">{339}</a> Many of these towns were comparatively small. Most of them
+contained at the time less than five thousand inhabitants, so that it
+can be said without hesitation, that practically every town of any
+importance, at least in Germany, came under the influence of this
+great philanthropic hospital movement.
+</p>
+<p>
+With regard to other countries, it is more difficult to determine the
+number of places in which such institutions were established. As both
+France and Italy were, however, much more closely in touch with the
+Holy See at this time, it would be surprising if they had not been
+affected as much as Germany by the Pope's enthusiasm in the matter. We
+do know that in various large cities, as in Florence, Siena, Paris and
+London, there was a development of existing hospitals and the
+establishment of new ones, that points to a distinct community of
+interest in the hospital movement. At Paris, the Hotel Dieu was moved
+from the Petit Pont, where it had been, to its present situation and
+received large extensions in size and in usefulness. It was at this
+time, particularly, that it received donations for endowment purposes
+that would enable it to be self-supporting. A number of bequests of
+property, the rent of which was to be paid to the hospital, were made,
+and the details of some of these bequests have an interest of their
+own. Houses were not numbered at this time but were distinguished by
+various signs, usually figures of different kinds that formed part of
+their facade. The Hotel Dieu acquired the houses with the image of St.
+Louis, with the sign of the golden lion of Flanders, with the image of
+the butterfly, with the group of the three monkeys, with the image of
+the wolf, with the image of the iron lion, with the cross of gold,
+with the chimneys, etc. The Hotel Dieu, indeed, seems to have become
+practically a fully endowed institution during the course of the
+Thirteenth Century, for there are apparently no records of special
+revenues voted by the city or the king, though there are such records
+with regard to other places. For instance the Hospital of St. Louis
+received the right to collect a special tax on all the salt that came
+into the city.
+</p>
+<p>
+In England the hospital movement during the Thirteenth Century is
+evidently quite as active as in Germany, at least as far as the
+records go. These refer mainly to London and show <a name="340">{340}</a> that the
+influence of the work of Innocent III. and his enthusiasm was felt in
+the English capital. The famous St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London
+had been a Priory founded at the beginning of the Twelfth Century,
+which took care of the poor and the ailing, but at the beginning of
+the Thirteenth Century it became more frankly a hospital in the modern
+sense of the word. St. Thomas' Hospital, which remains to the present
+day one of the great medical institutions of London, was founded by
+Richard, Prior of Bermondsey, in 1213. Bethlehem or Bedlam, which
+afterwards became a hospital for the insane, was founded about the
+middle of the Thirteenth Century. The name Bedlam is a corruption of
+Bethlehem, since adopted into the English language to express a place
+where fools do congregate. Bridewell and Christ's Hospital, which were
+the other two of the institutions long known as the five Royal
+Hospitals of London, also seem either to have been founded, or to have
+received a great stimulus and reorganization in the Thirteenth
+Century, but both ceased after some time to be places for the
+reception, of the ailing and became, one of them a prison and the
+other a school.
+</p>
+<p>
+The names of some of these institutions became associated with that of
+Edward VI. about the middle of the Sixteenth Century. For this,
+however, there was no proper justification, since, at most, all that
+was accomplished within the reign of the boy king, was the
+reestablishment of institutions formerly in existence which had been
+confiscated under the laws of Henry VIII., but the necessity for whose
+existence had been made very clear, because of the suffering entailed
+upon the many ailing poor by the fact, that in their absence there was
+nowhere for them to go to be cared for. As Gairdner points out in his
+History of the English Church in the Sixteenth Century, "Edward has
+left a name in connection with charities and education which critical
+scholars find to be little justified by fact." The supposed foundation
+of St. Thomas' Hospital was only the reestablishment of this
+institution, and even when it was granted by him to the citizens of
+London, this was not, as Gairdner says, "without their paying for it."
+</p>
+<p>
+How much all this hospital movement owes to Innocent III. will be best
+appreciated from Virchow's account of the German <a name="341">{341}</a> hospitals, the
+great German Scientist not being one of those at all likely to
+exaggerate, the beneficent influence of the Popes, he says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The main cause decisive in influencing and arousing interest of the
+  people of the time in the hospitals of the Holy Ghost was the Papal
+  enthusiasm in the matter. The beginning of their history is
+  connected with the name of that Pope, who made the boldest and
+  farthest-reaching attempt to gather the sum of human interest into
+  the organization of the Catholic Church. The hospitals of the Holy
+  Ghost were one of the many means by which Innocent III. thought to
+  bind humanity to the Holy See. And surely it was one of the most
+  effective. Was it not calculated to create the most profound
+  impression, to see how the mighty Pope who humbled emperors and
+  deposed kings, who was the unrelenting adversary of the Albigenses,
+  turned his eyes sympathetically upon the poor and sick, sought the
+  helpless and the neglected on the streets, and saved the
+  illegitimate children from death in the waters. There is something
+  conciliating and fascinating in the fact that at the very same time
+  at which the Fourth Crusade was inaugurated through his influence,
+  the thought of founding a great organization of an essentially
+  humane character to extend throughout all Christendom, was also
+  taking form in his soul; and that in the same year (1204) in which
+  the new Latin Empire was founded in Constantinople, the newly
+  erected hospital of the Santo Spirito, by the Old Bridge across the
+  Tiber, was blessed and dedicated as the future center of this
+  universal humanitarian organization."
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp341">{opp341}</a>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp341.jpg" border=1><br>
+HOSPITAL OF THE HOLY GHOST (LÜBECK)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Virchow, of course, considers Innocent's action as due to the entirely
+interested motive of binding the Catholic world to the Holy See.
+Others, however, who have studied Innocent's life even more
+profoundly, have not considered his purpose as due to any such mean
+motive. Hurter who wrote a history of Pope Innocent III., the
+researches for which he began as a Protestant with the idea that in
+the life of this Pope better than anywhere else the pretensions of the
+papacy could be most effectively exposed, but who was so taken by the
+character of the man that before he completed his history he had
+become a Catholic, looks at it in a very different way. Even Virchow
+himself quotes <a name="342">{342}</a> Hurter's opinion, though not without taking some
+exceptions to it. Hurter said with regard to charitable foundations in
+his history of Pope Innocent III.: "All benevolent institutions which
+the human race still enjoys, all care for the deserted and needy
+through every stage of suffering from the first moment of birth to the
+return of the material part to earth, have had their origin in the
+church. Some of them directly, some of them indirectly through the
+sentiments and feelings which she aroused, strengthened and vivified
+into action. The church supplied for them the model and sometimes even
+the resources; that these great humanitarian needs were not neglected
+and their remedies not lacking in any respect is essentially due to
+her influence upon human character."
+</p>
+<p>
+With regard to this Virchow says that hospitals had existed among the
+Arabs and among the Buddhists in the distant East, "nevertheless," he
+adds, "it may be recognized and admitted, that it was reserved for the
+Roman Catholic Church and above all for Innocent III., to establish
+institutions for the care of those suffering from diseases."
+</p>
+<p>
+A corresponding hospital movement that received considerable attention
+within the Thirteenth Century was the erection of Leproseries or
+hospitals for the care of lepers. Leprosy had become quite common in
+Europe during the Middle Ages, and the contact of the West with the
+East during the Crusades had brought about a notable increase of the
+disease. It is not definitely known how much of what was called
+leprosy at that time really belonged to the specific disease now known
+as lepra. There is no doubt that many affections which have since come
+to be considered as quite harmless and non-contagious, were included
+under the designation leprosy by the populace and even by physicians
+incapable as yet of making a proper differential diagnosis. Probably
+severe cases of eczema and other chronic skin diseases, especially
+when complicated by the results of wrongly directed treatment or of
+lack of cleansing, were sometimes pronounced to be leprosy. Certain of
+the severer forms of what is now known as psoriasis&mdash;a non-contagious
+skin disease&mdash;running a very slow course and sometimes extremely
+obstinate to treatment, were almost surely included under the
+diagnosis of leprosy. Personally I have seen <a name="343">{343}</a> in the General
+Hospital in Vienna, a patient who had for many months been compelled
+by the villagers among whom he lived to confine himself to his
+dwelling, sustained by food that was thrown into him at the window by
+the neighbors who were fearful of the contagiousness of his skin
+disease, yet he was suffering from only a very neglected case of
+psoriasis.
+</p>
+<p>
+There is no doubt, however, of the existence of actual leprosy in many
+of the towns of the West from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth centuries,
+and the erection of these special hospitals proved the best possible
+prophylactic against the further spread of the disease. Leprosy is
+contagious, but only mildly so. Years of association with lepers may
+and usually does bring about the communication of the disease to those
+around them, especially if they do not exercise rather carefully
+certain precise precautions as to cleanliness, after personal contact
+or after the handling of things which have previously been in the
+leper's possession. As the result of the existence of these houses of
+segregation, leprosy disappeared during the course of the next three
+centuries and thus a great hygienic triumph was obtained by sanitary
+regulation.
+</p>
+<p>
+This successful hygienic and sanitary work, which brought about
+practically the complete obliteration of leprosy in the Middle Ages,
+furnished the first example of the possibility of eradicating a
+disease that had become a scourge to mankind. That this should have
+been accomplished by a movement that had its greatest source in the
+Thirteenth Century, is all the more surprising, since we are usually
+accustomed to think of the people of those times, as sadly lacking in
+any interest in sanitary matters. The significance of the success of
+the segregation movement was lost upon men down almost to our own
+time. This was, however, because it was considered that most of the
+epidemic diseases were conveyed by the air. They were thought
+infectious and due to a climatic condition rather than to contagion,
+that is conveyed by actual contact with the person having the disease
+or something that had touched him, which is the view now held. With
+the beginning of the crusade against tuberculosis in the latter part
+of the Nineteenth Century, however, the most encouraging factor for
+those engaged in it, was the history of the success of segregation
+methods and careful <a name="344">{344}</a> prevention of the spread of the disease
+which had been pursued against leprosy. In a word the lessons in
+sanitation and prophylaxis of the Thirteenth Century are only now
+bearing fruit, because the intervening centuries did not have
+sufficient knowledge to realize their import and take advantage of
+them.
+</p>
+<p>
+Pope Innocent III. was not the only occupant of the papal throne whose
+name deserves to be remembered with benedictions in connection with
+the hospital movement of the Thirteenth Century. His successors took
+up the work of encouragement where he had left it at his death and did
+much to bring about the successful accomplishment of his intentions in
+even wider spheres. Honorius III. is distinguished by having made into
+an order the Antonine Congregation of Vienna, which was especially
+devoted to the care of patients suffering from the holy fire and from
+various mutilations. The disease known as the holy fire seems to have
+been what is called in modern times erysipelas. During the Middle Ages
+it received various titles such as St. Anthony's fire, St. Francis'
+fire, and the like, the latter part of the designation evidently being
+due to the intense redness which characterizes the disease, and which
+can be compared to nothing better than the erythema consequent upon a
+rather severe burn. This affection was a great deal commoner in the
+Middle Ages than in later times, though it must not be forgotten that
+its disappearance has come mainly in the last twenty-five years.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is now known to be a contagious disease and indeed, as Oliver
+Wendell Holmes pointed out over half a century ago, may readily be
+carried from place to place by the physician in attendance. It does
+not always manifest itself as erysipelas when thus carried, however,
+and the merit of Dr. Holmes' work was in pointing out the fact that
+physicians who attended patients suffering from erysipelas and then
+waited on obstetrical cases, were especially likely to carry the
+infection which manifested itself as puerperal fever. A number of
+cases of this kind were reported and discussed by him, and there is no
+doubt that his warning served to save many precious lives.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course nothing was known of this in the Thirteenth Century, yet the
+encouragement given to this religious order, which devoted itself
+practically exclusively to the care in special <a name="345">{345}</a> hospitals of
+erysipelas, must have had not a little effect in bringing about a
+limitation of the spread of the disease. In such hospitals patients
+were not likely to come in contact with many persons and consequently
+the contagion-radius of the disease was limited. In our own time
+immediate segregation of cases when discovered has practically
+eradicated it, so that many a young physician, even though ten years
+in practise, has never seen a case of it. It was so common in America
+during the Civil War and for half a century prior thereto, that there
+were frequent epidemics of it in hospitals and it was generally
+recognized that the disease was so contagious that when it once gained
+a foothold in a hospital, nearly every patient suffering from an open
+wound was likely to be affected by it.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is interesting then to learn that these people of the Middle Ages
+attempted to control the disease by erecting special hospitals for it,
+though unfortunately we are not in a position to know just how much
+was accomplished by these means. A congregation devoted to the special
+care of the disease had been organized, as we have said, early in the
+Thirteenth Century. At the end of this century this was given the full
+weight of his amplest approval by Pope Boniface VIII., who conferred
+on it the privilege of having priests among its members. It will be
+remembered that Pope Boniface VIII. is said to have issued the Bull
+which forbade the practise of dissection. The decretal in question,
+however, which was not a Bull, only regulated, as I have shown, the
+abuse which had sprung up of dismembering bodies and boiling them in
+order to be able to carry them to a distance for burial, and was in
+itself an excellent hygienic measure.
+</p>
+<p>
+Many orders for the care of special needs of humanity were established
+during the Thirteenth Century. It is from this period that most of the
+religious habits worn by women originate. These used to be considered
+rather cumbersome for such a serious work as the nursing and care of
+the sick, but in recent years quite a different view has been taken.
+The covering of the head, for instance, and the shearing of the hair
+must have been of distinct value in preventing communication of
+certain diseases. There has been a curious assimilation in the last
+few years, of the dress required to be worn by nurses in operating
+<a name="346">{346}</a> rooms to that worn by most of the religious communities. The
+head must be completely covered, and the garments worn are of material
+that can be washed. It will be recalled that the headdresses of
+religious, being as a rule of spotless white, must be renewed
+frequently and therefore must be kept in a condition of what is
+practically surgical cleanliness. While this was not at all the
+intention of those who adopted the particular style of headdress worn
+by religious, yet their choice has proved, in what may well be
+considered a Providential way, to be an excellent protective for the
+patients against certain dangers that would inevitably have been
+present, if their dress had been the ordinary one of the women of
+their class during these many centuries of hospital nursing by
+religious women.
+</p>
+<p>
+The organization of charity is supposed to be a feature of social life
+that was reserved for these modern times. A subsequent chapter on
+Democracy, Christian Socialism and National Patriotism, shows how
+false this notion is from one standpoint; a little additional
+interpretation will show that the generations which organized the
+hospitals, took care of the lepers in such a way as to prevent their
+becoming sources of infection for others, and segregated such severe
+contagious diseases as erysipelas, not only knew how to organize
+charitable efforts, but were able to accomplish their purposes in this
+matter in such a way, that the friction of the charity organization
+itself absorbed as little as possible of the beneficent energy put
+into it, and much less than is the case in our own time. Besides the
+monasteries were really active centers of charity organization of the
+most practical character. They not only gave to the people when their
+necessities required it, but they were active employers of labor and
+in times of scarcity constantly made large sacrifices in order to keep
+their people employed, and even the community itself went on short
+rations in order that the suffering in the neighborhood might not be
+extreme. In times of prosperity there were, no doubt, abuses in
+monasteries, but no one ever accused them of neglecting the poor
+during times of famine.
+</p>
+<p>
+While the Thirteenth Century was so intent upon the relief of the
+social needs consequent upon illness and injury, it did not neglect
+other forms of social endeavor. One of the crying <a name="347">{347}</a> evils of the
+Thirteenth Century was the fact that mariners and merchants, as well
+as pilgrims to the Holy Land, were not infrequently captured by
+corsairs from the northern coast of Africa, and sold into slavery. At
+times, if there was hope of a very large ransom, news of the condition
+of these poor victims might find its way to their homes. As a rule,
+however, they were as much lost to family and friends as if they had
+actually been swallowed up by the sea, which was usually concluded to
+have been their fate. The hardships thus endured and the utter
+helplessness of their conditions made them fitting subjects for
+special social effort. The institution which was to provide relief for
+this sad state of affairs had its rise in a typically Thirteenth
+Century way&mdash;what, doubtless, the modern world would be apt to think
+of as characteristically medieval&mdash;but the result achieved was as
+good an example of practical benevolence as has ever been effected in
+the most matter-of-fact of centuries.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp347">{opp347}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp347.jpg" border=1><br>
+CHARITY (GIOTTO)<br>
+FORTITUDE (GIOTTO)<br>
+HOPE (GIOTTO)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shortly after the beginning of the Thirteenth Century two very
+intelligent men, whose friends honored them very much for the
+saintliness of their lives&mdash;meaning by saintliness not only their
+piety but their thoughtfulness for others before themselves&mdash;had a
+dream in which they saw poor captives held in slavery and asking for
+some one out of Christian charity to come and ransom them. One of
+these men was John of Matha, a distinguished teacher of Theology at
+the University of Paris. The other was Felix of Valois, more
+distinguished for his piety than his learning, but by no means an
+ignorant man. On the same night, though living at a distance from one
+another, they had this identical dream. Having told it next day to
+some friends, it happened that after a time it came to their mutual
+knowledge that the other had had a similar vision. The circumstance
+seemed so striking to them that they applied to the Pope for an
+interpretation of it. The Pope, who was Innocent III., the founder of
+city hospitals, saw in it a magnificent opportunity for the foundation
+of another great Christian charity.
+</p>
+<p>
+Accordingly in interpreting it, he directed their thoughts toward the
+redemption of Christian captives taken by the Saracens. He has as a
+consequence been regarded as the founder of the order of Trinitarians
+(A. D. 1198), and did, in <a name="348">{348}</a> fact, draft its Rule. It was called,
+from its object, Ordo de Redemptione Captivorum, (Order for the
+Redemption of Captives), but its members were more generally known as
+Trinitarians. They wore a white habit, having a red and blue cross on
+the breast. They were well received in France, where they had
+originated, were the recipients of large sums of money to be devoted
+to the objects of the order, and had large accessions to their number,
+among whom were many distinguished by ability and profound learning.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the year 1200 the first company of ransomed captives arrived from
+Morocco, and one may easily imagine their joy on again regaining their
+freedom and beholding once more their friends and native land.
+</p>
+<p>
+The members of this order were sometimes called Mathurins, from the
+title of the first church occupied by them in Paris. They spread
+rapidly in Southern France, through Spain, Italy, England, Saxony, and
+Hungary, and foundations of a similar kind were also opened for women.
+Cerfroid, in the diocese of Meaux, where the first house of the order
+was opened, became the residence of the General (minister generalis).
+There was a fine field for their labors in Spain, where the Moors were
+constantly at war with the Christians. The self-sacrificing spirit of
+these religious, which led them to incur almost any dangers in the
+accomplishment of their purpose, was only equaled by their zeal in
+arousing interest for the poor captives. They became the accredited
+agents for the ransoming of prisoners, and also for their exchange and
+even the Mahometans learned to trust and eventually to reverence them.
+When they could not ransom at once they thus succeeded in ameliorating
+the conditions in which slave prisoners were kept, and proved a great
+source of consolation to them.
+</p>
+<p>
+Another order, having the same object in view but differing somewhat
+in its constitution, was founded in 1218, by Peter of Nolasco, a
+distinguished Frenchman, and Raymond of Pennafort the famous authority
+on canon law. In this, too, medieval supernaturalism evolved the usual
+practical results. In consequence of a vision, the order was placed
+under the special protection of the Blessed Virgin, and called the
+Order of the Blessed Virgin of Mercy (Ordo. B. Mariae de Mercede). Its
+<a name="349">{349}</a> members bound themselves by vow to give their fortunes and to
+serve as soldiers in the cause. Their devotion was so ardent that for
+the accomplishment of their purpose they vowed if necessary to make a
+sacrifice of their very persons, as Peter actually did in Africa, for
+the redemption of Christian captives. Hence their members were divided
+into Knights who wore a white uniform, and Brothers, who took orders
+and provided for the spiritual wants of the community. Gregory IX.,
+admiring the heroic devotion of these intrepid men, approved the
+order. Many thousands of captive Christians who would otherwise have
+dragged out a miserable existence as slaves among the Mahometans of
+North Africa, were thus rescued and restored to their families and a
+life of freedom and happiness in Europe. This was a fine practical
+example of Abolitionism worthy of study and admiration.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i349.jpg" border=1><br>
+HOSPITAL INTERIOR
+</p>
+
+<a name="350">{350}</a>
+
+<h1>XXII
+<br>
+GREAT ORIGINS IN LAW.</h1>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps the most surprising phase of Thirteenth Century history is
+that much of what is most valued and most valuable in our modern laws,
+especially as they concern the fundamental rights of man, is to be
+found clearly expressed in the great lawmaking of the Thirteenth
+Century. It can scarcely fail to astonish those who look upon the
+Middle Ages as hopelessly barren in progress, to find that human
+liberty in its development reached such a pass before the end of the
+Middle Ages, or that any period so long before the Renaissance and the
+reformation so-called, could be picked out as representing a
+distinctive epoch in supremely liberal legislation. After careful
+study, the surprise is apt to be rather that there should have been
+comparatively so little advance since that time, seeing how much the
+generations of this marvelous century were able to accomplish in
+definitely formulating principles of human rights.
+</p>
+<p>
+The first great document in the laws of the Thirteenth Century is, of
+course, Magna Charta, signed in 1215, the foundation of all the
+liberties of English speaking people ever since. Perhaps the highest
+possible tribute to the Great Charter is the fact that it has grown in
+the estimation of intelligent men, rather than lost significance. In
+quite recent years it has become somewhat the custom to belittle its
+import and its influence. But it must not be forgotten that over and
+over again in times of national crises in England, Magna Charta has
+been confidently appealed to as a fundamental law too sacred to be
+altered, as a talisman containing some magic spell capable of averting
+national calamity. Bishop Stubbs said of it, that "the Great Charter
+was the first supreme act of the nation after it had realized its own
+identity."
+</p>
+<p>
+Perhaps in nothing does its supremacy as basic legislation for
+national purposes so shine forth, as from the fact that it is <a name="351">{351}</a>
+not a vague statement of great principles, not a mere declaration of
+human rights, not a documentary rehearsal of fundamental legalities,
+but a carefully collected series of practical declarations for the
+solution of the problems that were then disturbing the peace of the
+kingdom, and leading to charge and countercharge of infringement of
+right on the part of the king and his subjects. As might have been
+expected from the men of the Thirteenth Century&mdash;from the generations
+who more than any other in all human history succeeded in uniting the
+useful with the beautiful in everything from the decoration of their
+churches and other great architectural structures to the ordinary
+objects of everyday life&mdash;it was of eminently practical character.
+While it is the custom to talk much of Magna Charta and to praise its
+wonderful influence there are very few people who have ever actually
+read its provisions. The classics are said to be books that everyone
+praises but no one reads, and Magna Charta and the Constitution of the
+United States are documents that are joined in the same fate. A little
+consideration of some of the chapters of the Charter will give an
+excellent idea of its thoroughly straightforward practicalness, though
+it may serve also to undeceive those who would expect to find in this
+primal document a lofty statement of abstract human rights, such as
+the men of the Thirteenth Century were never conscious of, since their
+thoughts were always in the concrete and their efforts were bent to
+the solution of the problems lying just before them, and not to the
+lifting of all the burdens that human nature has to bear.
+</p>
+<p>
+Before this, of course, there had been some development of legislation
+to furnish the basis for what was to come in the Thirteenth Century.
+The famous Constitutions of Clarendon under Henry II. and the Assizes
+of Clarendon (quite a different matter) and of North Hampton and the
+Forest under Henry II., gave assurances of rights that had only
+existed somewhat shadily before. According to the Constitutions of
+Clarendon sworn men gave their verdict in cases from their own
+knowledge. This was, of course, quite a different matter from the
+giving of a verdict from knowledge obtained through witnesses at a
+trial, but the germ of the jury trial can be seen. It was not,
+however, until the next reign that the men of England <a name="352">{352}</a> did not
+merely wait for the free gifts of legal rights but demanded and
+obtained them. There was a new hitherto undreamt-of spirit abroad in
+the Thirteenth Century, by which men dared to ask for the rights they
+considered should be theirs.
+</p>
+<p>
+The opening chapter of Magna Charta states especially the subjects of
+the rights that are guaranteed by the document. It is not surprising
+then, to find that the first subject is the Church and that the most
+extensive guarantees are made that the English Church liberties shall
+be inviolate. Churchmen had been largely concerned in the movement
+which secured the signing of Magna Charta, and then after all, as must
+never be forgotten, the Church at this time was distinctly felt by all
+to be the spiritual expression of the religious aspirations of the
+people. Over the concluding sentence of this chapter, "the grant of
+the unwritten liberties to all freemen of our kingdom," there has been
+no little discussion. There are some who would consider that it
+applied to all Englishmen above the condition of villeins or serfs,
+while there are others who would limit its application practically to
+those nobly born in the kingdom. Posterity undoubtedly came to
+translate it in the broader sense, so that, whatever the original
+intention, the phrase became as a grant eventually to all free
+Englishmen.
+</p>
+<p>
+Chapter I.: "In the first place we have granted to God, and by this
+our present charter confirmed for us and our heirs for ever, that the
+English Church shall be free, and shall have her rights entire, and
+her liberties inviolate; and we will that it be thus observed; which
+is apparent from this that the freedom of elections, which is reckoned
+most important and very essential to the English Church, we of our
+pure and unconstrained will, did grant, and by our charter confirm and
+did obtain the ratification of the same from our lord, Pope Innocent
+III. before the quarrel arose between us and our barons, and this we
+will observe, and our will is that it be observed in good faith by
+our heirs for ever. We have also granted to all freemen of our
+kingdom, for us and for our heirs for ever, all the underwritten
+liberties, to be had and held by them and their heirs, of us and our
+heirs for ever."
+</p>
+<p>
+Perhaps the most interesting feature of Magna Charta is to <a name="353">{353}</a> be
+found in the fact, that it did actually in most cases come to be
+applied ever so much wider than had apparently been the original
+intention. It was in this sense a vital document as it were, since it
+had within itself the power of developing so as to suit the varying
+circumstances for which recourse was had to it. There is no doubt at
+all of the good faith of the men who appealed to it, nor of their firm
+persuasion that the document actually intended what they claimed to
+find in it. Modern criticism has succeeded in stripping from the
+original expressions many of the added meanings that posterity
+attached to them, but in so doing has really not lessened the
+estimation in which Magna Charta must be held.
+</p>
+<p>
+The position is indeed noteworthily analagous to that of the original
+deposit of faith and the development of doctrine which has taken
+place. Higher criticism has done much to show how little of certain
+modern ideas was apparently contained explicitly in the original
+formulas of Christian faith, and yet by so doing has not lessened our
+beliefs, but has rather tended to make us realize the vitality of the
+original Christian tenets. As everything living in God's creation,
+they have developed by a principle implanted within them to suit the
+evolutionary conditions of man's intelligence and the developing
+problems that they were supposed to offer solutions for. The
+comparison, of course, like all comparisons, must walk a little lame,
+since after all Magna Charta is a human document, and yet the very
+fact that it should have presented itself under so many varying
+conditions, ever with new significance to succeeding generations of
+thinking men, is the best evidence of how nearly man's work at its
+best may approach that of the Creator. It is an exemplification, in a
+word, of the creative genius of the century, a worthy compeer of the
+other accomplishments which have proved so enduring and so capable of
+making their influence felt even upon distant generations.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is of the very essence of the practicality of Magna Charta that
+among the early chapters of the important document&mdash;Chapter VII.&mdash;is
+one that concerns widows and their property rights immediately after
+the death of their husbands. Previous chapters had discussed questions
+of guardianship and inheritance, since it was especially minors who in
+this rude period <a name="354">{354}</a> were likely to suffer from the injustice of the
+crown, of their over-lords in the nobility, and even from their
+guardians. While Magna Charta, then, begins with the principles for
+the regulation of matters of property as regards children, it proceeds
+at once to the next class most liable to injustice because of their
+inability to properly defend themselves by force of arms&mdash;the widows.
+</p>
+<p>
+Chapter VII.: "A widow, after the death of her husband, shall
+forthwith and without difficulty have her marriage portion and
+inheritance; nor shall she give anything for her dower or for her
+marriage portion, or for the inheritance which she and her husband
+held on the day of the death of that husband; and she may remain in
+the house of her husband for forty days after his death, within which
+time her dower shall be assigned to her."
+</p>
+<p>
+Chapter VIII.: "Let no widow be compelled to marry, so long as she
+prefers to live without a husband; provided always that she gives
+security not to marry without our consent, if she holds of us, or
+without the consent of the lord of whom she holds, if she holds of
+another."
+</p>
+<p>
+The first of these provisions serves to show very well how early in
+the history of English jurisprudence a thoroughgoing respect for
+woman's legal rights began to have a place. The beginning Thirteenth
+Century made an excellent start in their favor. For some reason the
+movement for justice thus initiated did not continue, but suffered a
+sad interruption down almost to our own times.
+</p>
+<p>
+The second of these provisions for widows, embodied in Chapter VIII.,
+sounds a little queer to the modern ear. This protection of widows
+from compulsion to marry is apt to seem absolutely unnecessary in
+these modern days. Some of the unmarried are indeed prone to think,
+perhaps, that widows have more than their due opportunity in this
+matter without any necessity for protecting them from compulsion. Of
+course it is to be understood that it was not always so much the
+charms of the lady herself that must be protected from compulsion, as
+those of the property which she inherited and the political and
+martial influence that she might be expected to bring her husband. In
+these troublous times when disputes with <a name="355">{355}</a> appeals to arms were
+extremely frequent, it was important to have the regulation, that
+after the death of a husband there should be no sudden unbalancing of
+political power because of the compelled marriage of the widow of some
+powerful noble.
+</p>
+<p>
+In certain subsequent chapters up to the twelfth there is question
+mainly of the rights of the Jews, as money-lenders, to collect their
+debts with interest after the death of the principal to whom it was
+loaned. For instance, according to Chapter X., the debt shall not bear
+interest while the heir is under age and if the debt fell to the hands
+of the crown, nothing but the principal was to be taken. In Chapter
+XI. if any one died indebted to the Jews his wife should have her
+dower and pay nothing of that debt. For children under age the same
+principle held and they had a right to the provision of necessaries in
+keeping with the condition of their father. This last clause has been
+perpetuated in the practice of our courts, as some consider even to
+the extent of an abuse, so that debtors cannot collect from the income
+of a young man to whom money has been left, if by so doing the income
+should be impaired to such an extent as to make his method of living
+unsuitable to the condition in life to which he was born and brought
+up.
+</p>
+<p>
+Chapter XII. has been the subject of more discussion perhaps than any
+other. McKechnie, the most recent commentator on Magna Charta, says of
+it:  [Footnote 29]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 29: Magna Carta, a Commentary on the Great Charter of King
+  John, with an Historical Introduction by William Sharp McKechnie,
+  M.D., LL.B., D. Phil. Glasgow, James Maclehose and Sons, Publishers
+  to the University, 1905.]
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "This is a famous clause, greatly valued at the time it was framed
+  because of its precise terms and narrow scope (which made evasion
+  difficult), and even more highly valued in after days for exactly
+  opposite reasons. It came indeed to be interpreted in a broad
+  general sense by enthusiasts who, with the fully-developed British
+  constitution before them, read the clause as enunciating the modern
+  doctrine that the Crown can impose no financial burden whatsoever on
+  the people without consent of Parliament."
+</p>
+<p>
+Readers may judge for themselves from the tenor of the <a name="356">{356}</a> chapter,
+how wide a latitude in interpretation it not only permits, but
+invites.
+</p>
+<p>
+Chapter XII.: "No scutage nor aid shall be imposed in our kingdom,
+unless by common counsel of our kingdom, except for ransoming our
+person, for making our eldest son a knight, and for once marrying our
+eldest daughter; and for these there shall not be levied more than a
+reasonable aid. In like manner it shall be done concerning aids from
+the citizens of London."
+</p>
+<p>
+There is no doubt that it is hard to read in this chapter all that has
+been found in it by enthusiastic appellants to Magna Charta at many
+times during the succeeding centuries. As a matter of fact, however,
+within half a century after it had been promulgated, it was appealed
+to confidently as one of the reasons why an English Parliament should
+meet if the King required special levies of money for the purpose of
+carrying on war. It was during the sixth and seventh decades of the
+Thirteenth Century that the great principle of English Legislation:
+"There shall be no taxation without representation"&mdash;which six
+centuries later was to be appealed to by the American Colonies as the
+justification for their war for independence, gradually came to be
+considered as a fundamental principle of the relationship between the
+government and the people. That it had its origin in Magna Charta
+there seems no doubt, and it is only another example of that
+unconscious development of a vital principle which, as we know from
+History, took place so often with regard to chapters of the Great
+Charter.
+</p>
+<p>
+Undoubtedly one of the most important chapters of Magna Charta is the
+very brief one, No. 17, which concerns itself with the holding of a
+Court of Common Pleas. The whole of the chapter is, "Common Pleas
+shall not follow our Court but shall be held in some fixed place."
+This represented a distinct step in advance in the dispensing of
+justice. It is a little bit hard for us to understand, but all
+departments of government were originally centered in the king and his
+household&mdash;the court&mdash;which attended to royal and national business of
+every kind. As pointed out by Mr. McKechnie in his Magna Charta, the
+court united in itself the functions of the modern cabinet of the
+administrative department&mdash;the home office, the foreign office and the
+admiralty, and of the various legal tribunals. It <a name="357">{357}</a> was the parent
+of the Court at St. James and the courts at Westminster. Almost
+needless to say, it is from the fact that the dispensing of justice
+was a function of royalty, that the places of holding trials are still
+called courts.
+</p>
+<p>
+According to this chapter of Magna Charta, thereafter ordinary trials,
+Common Pleas, did not have to follow the Court, that is the royal
+household, in its wanderings through various parts of the kingdom, but
+they were held at an appointed place. In the days of Henry II. the
+entire machinery of royal justice had to follow the monarch as he
+passed, sometimes on the mere impulse of the moment, from one of his
+favorite hunting-seats to another. Crowds thronged after him in hot
+pursuit, since it was difficult to transact business of moment before
+the court without being actually present. This entailed almost
+intolerable delay, extreme annoyance and great expense upon litigants,
+who brought their pleas for the king's decision. There is an account
+of the hardships which this system inflicted upon suitors told of one
+celebrated case. Richard D'Anesty gives a graphic record of his
+journeyings in search of justice throughout a period of five years,
+during which he visited in the king's wake most parts of England,
+Normandy, Aquitaine, and Anjou. Ultimately successful he paid dearly
+for his legal triumph. He had to borrow at a ruinous rate of interest
+in order to meet his enormous expenses, mostly for traveling, and was
+scarcely able to discharge his debts.
+</p>
+<p>
+All litigation then, that did not directly involve the crown or
+criminal procedures, could be tried thereafter by a set of judges who
+sat permanently in some fixed spot, which though not named was
+probably intended from the beginning to be Westminster. Hence it has
+been said by distinguished English jurists that Magna Charta gave
+England a Capital. On the other hand Chapter XXIV. insured justice in
+criminal cases by reserving these pleas to judges appointed by the
+crown. This short chapter reads: "No sheriff, constable, coroner, or
+others of our bailiffs shall hold pleas of our Crown." This last
+expression did not necessarily mean matters concerned with royal
+business as might be thought, but had in King John's time come to
+signify criminal trials of all kinds. It is easy to understand that
+those accused of crime would look confidently for <a name="358">{358}</a> justice to the
+representative of the central government, while they dreaded the
+jurisdiction of the less responsible officials resident in the
+counties, who had a wide-spread reputation for cruelty and oppression,
+and for a venality that it was hard to suppress.
+</p>
+<p>
+It would seem as though these quotations would serve to make even the
+casual reader appreciate how thoroughly Magna Charta deserves the
+reputation which it has borne now for nearly seven centuries, of an
+extremely valuable fundamental document in the history of the
+liberties of the English speaking people. Some of the subsequent
+chapters may be quoted without comment because they show with what
+careful attention to detail the rights of the people were guaranteed
+by the Charter, and how many apparently trivial things were considered
+worthy of mention. We may call attention to the fact that in Chapters
+forty-one and forty-two there are definite expressions of guarantee
+for the rights even of aliens, which represent a great advance over
+the feelings in this respect that had animated the people of a century
+or so before, and foreshadow the development of that international
+comity which is only now coming to be the distinguishing mark of our
+modern civilization.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "A freeman shall not be amerced for a small offence, except in
+  accordance with the degree of the offence; and for a grave offence
+  he shall be amerced in accordance with the gravity of his offence,
+  yet saving always his 'contentment'; and a merchant in the same way,
+  saving his wares; and a villein shall be amerced in the same way,
+  saving his wainage&mdash;if they have fallen into our mercy; and none of
+  the aforesaid amercements shall be imposed except by the oath of
+  honest men of the neighborhood.
+<br><br>
+  "If any freeman shall die intestate, his chattels shall be
+  distributed by the hands of the nearest kinsfolk and friends, under
+  the supervision of the church, saving to everyone the debts which
+  the deceased owed to him.
+<br><br>
+  "No constable or other bailiff of ours shall take corn or other
+  provisions from anyone without immediately tendering money therefor,
+  unless he can have postponement thereof by permission of the seller.
+<br><br>
+  "No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other person shall take <a name="359">{359}</a>
+  the horses or carts of any freeman for transport duty, against the
+  will of the said freeman.
+<br><br>
+  "All kydells for the future shall be removed altogether from the
+  Thames and Medway, and throughout all England, except upon the sea
+  coast.
+<br><br>
+  "Nothing in the future shall be taken or given for a writ of
+  inquisition of life or limbs, but freely it shall be granted, and
+  never denied.
+<br><br>
+  "No bailiff for the future shall put any man to his 'law' upon his
+  own mere word of mouth, without credible witnesses brought for this
+  purpose.
+<br><br>
+  "No freeman shall be arrested or detained in prison, or deprived of
+  his freehold, or outlawed, or banished, or in any way molested, and
+  we will not set forth against him, nor send against him, unless by
+  the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land.
+<br><br>
+  "To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or
+  justice.
+<br><br>
+  "All merchants shall have safe and secure exit from England, and
+  entry to England, with the right to tarry there and to move about as
+  well by land as by water, for buying and selling by the ancient and
+  right customs, quit from all evil tolls, except (in time of war)
+  such merchants as are of the land at war with us. And if such are
+  found in our land at the beginning of the war, they shall be
+  detained without injury to their bodies or goods, until information
+  be received by us, or by our chief justiciar, how the merchants of
+  our land found in the land at war with us are treated and if our men
+  are safe there, the others shall be safe in our land.
+<br><br>
+  "It shall be lawful in future for any one (excepting always those
+  imprisoned or outlawed in accordance with the law of the kingdom,
+  and natives of any country at war with us, and merchants, who shall
+  be treated as is above provided) to leave our kingdom, and to
+  return, safe and secure by land and water, except for a short period
+  in time of war, on grounds of public policy&mdash;reserving always the
+  allegiance due to us.
+<br><br>
+  "We will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs or bailiffs only
+  such as know the law of the realm and mean to observe it well.
+</p>
+<a name="360">{360}</a>
+<p class="cite">
+  "We shall have, moreover, the same respite and the same manner in
+  rendering justice concerning the disafforestation or retention of
+  those forests which Henry our father and Richard our brother
+  afforested and concerning the wardship of lands which are of the
+  fief of another (namely, such wardships as we have hitherto had by
+  reason of a fief, which any one held of us by knight's service) and
+  concerning abbeys founded on other fiefs than our own, in which the
+  lord of the fee claims to have right; and when we have returned, or
+  if we desist from our expedition, we will immediately grant full
+  justice to all who complain of such things.
+<br><br>
+  "All fines made with us unjustly and against the law of this land,
+  and all amercements imposed unjustly and against the law of this
+  land, shall be entirely remitted, or else it shall be done
+  concerning them according to the decision of the five and twenty
+  barons of whom mention is made below, in the clause for securing the
+  peace, or according to the judgment of the majority of the same,
+  along with the aforesaid Stephen Archbishop of Canterbury, if he can
+  be present, and such others as he may wish to bring with him for
+  this purpose, and if he cannot be present the business shall
+  nevertheless proceed without him, provided always that if any one or
+  more of the aforesaid five and twenty barons are in a similar suit,
+  they shall be removed as far as concerns this particular judgment,
+  others being substituted in their places after having been selected
+  by the rest of the same five and twenty for this purpose only, and
+  after having been sworn.
+<br><br>
+  "Moreover, all the aforesaid customs and liberties, the observance
+  of which we have granted in our kingdom as far as pertains to us
+  towards our men, shall be observed by all of our kingdom, as well by
+  clergy as by laymen, as far as pertains to them towards their men.
+<br><br>
+  "And, on this head, we have caused to be made out letters patent of
+  Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry, Archbishop of Dublin, the
+  bishops aforesaid, and Master Pandulf, as evidence of this clause of
+  security and of the aforesaid concessions."
+</p>
+<p>
+These last provisions show how closely the Church was bound up with
+the securing and maintenance of the rights of <a name="361">{361}</a> the English
+people. The clauses we have quoted just before, need no comment to
+show how sturdily the spirit of liberty strode abroad even at the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century, for Magna Charta was signed in
+1215. The rest of the century was to see great advances in liberty and
+human rights, even beyond the guarantees of the Great Charter.
+</p>
+<p>
+Magna Charta, glorious as it was, was only the beginning of that basic
+legislation which was to distinguish the Thirteenth Century in
+England. About the middle of the century Bracton began his collection
+of the laws of the land which has since been the great English classic
+of the Common Law. His work was accomplished while he was the Chief
+Justiciary during the reign of Henry III. For many years before he had
+occupied various judicial positions, as Justice Itinerant of the
+counties of Nottingham and Derby and for seventeen years his name
+appears as one of the justices of the Aula Regis. This experience put
+him in an eminently fitting position to be the mouthpiece of English
+practice and law applications, and his book was at once accepted as an
+authority. It is a most comprehensive and systematic work in five
+volumes, bearing the title De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, and
+was modeled after the Institutes of Justinian.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was during the reign of Edward I., the English Justinian as he has
+been called, that the English Common Law came to its supreme
+expression, and this monarch has rightly been placed among the great
+benefactors of mankind for his magnanimous generosity in securing the
+legal rights of his subjects and framing English liberties for all
+time. Not a little of Edward's greatness as a law-maker and his
+readiness to recognize the rights of his subjects, with his consequent
+willingness to have English law arranged and published, must be
+attributed to his connection during his earlier years as Prince of
+Wales with the famous Simon De Montfort. To this man more than to any
+other the English speaking people owe the development of those
+constitutional rights, which gradually came to be considered
+inalienably theirs during the Thirteenth Century. He is undoubtedly
+one of the very great characters of history and the Thirteenth Century
+is by so much greater for having been the scene of his labors, during
+so many years, for the <a name="362">{362}</a> establishment of constitutional
+limitations to the power of the monarch, and the uplifting of the
+rights of subjects not only among the nobility, but also among the
+lower classes.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was in Edward's time that the English Common Law was fashioned into
+the shape in which it was to exist for many centuries afterwards. How
+true this is may perhaps best be judged by the fact that even the laws
+with regard to real estate have not been changed in essence since that
+time, though medieval titles to land would seem to be so different to
+those of the present day. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica the
+changes which have been made since that time have been mainly due to
+the action of equity and legislation, the latter sometimes interpreted
+by the courts in a manner very different from the intention of
+Parliament. The same authority is responsible for the statement that
+the reign of Edward I., is notable for three leading real estate
+statutes which are still law. One of these was with regard to
+Mortmain, while the important statute known as <i>Quia Emptores</i> (the
+eighteenth of Chapter I. of the Laws of Edward I.) had the practical
+effect of making the transfer of land thenceforward, more of a
+commercial and less of a legal transaction. It is to this same period
+that is owed the writ <i>Elegit</i> which introduced the law practice of a
+creditor's remedy over real estate. How little was accomplished in the
+matter of law-making in subsequent centuries, may be gathered from the
+fact that Mr. James Williams who writes the article on real estate in
+the Encyclopedia Britannica ninth edition, says that from 1290 to the
+reign of Henry VIII., that is down to the Sixteenth Century, there is
+no statute of the first importance dealing with real estate.
+</p>
+<p>
+In a word, then, it may be said that these law-makers of the
+Thirteenth Century anticipated most of the legal difficulties of the
+after-time. Their statutory provisions, as in the case of the chapters
+of Magna Charta, seemed originally only to have a narrow application
+to certain urgent legal questions of the time, but proved eventually
+to contain in themselves the essence of legal principles that could be
+applied in circumstances such as the original law-maker had not even
+imagined. This is indeed the typical triumph of the century in every
+line of endeavor, that while apparently it devoted itself only to the
+<a name="363">{363}</a> narrow problems of its own time, its solutions of them whether
+in art and architecture or decoration, in literary expression or
+poetic effectiveness, in educational methods or social uplift, always
+proved so complete, so thoroughly human in the broadest sense of that
+word and so consonant with development, that their work did not have
+to be done over again. No greater praise than this could be bestowed.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i363.jpg" border=1><br>
+SPIRE OF ST. ELIZABETH'S (MARBURG)
+</p>
+
+<a name="364">{364}</a>
+
+<h1>XXIII
+<br>
+JUSTICE AND LEGAL DEVELOPMENT.</h1>
+
+<p>
+It must not be thought because we have devoted so much time to the
+triumphs of English law-making in the Thirteenth Century that,
+therefore, there is little or nothing to be said about this same
+admirable feature of the time in other countries. As a matter of fact
+every nation in Europe saw the foundation of its modern legal system
+laid, and was responsive witness to the expression of the first
+principles of popular rights and popular liberties. Montalembert in
+his Life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary   [Footnote 30] makes no mention
+in the Introduction which is really a panegyric of the Thirteenth
+Century, of the progress of English law-making, and yet considers that
+he is able to bring together enough evidence to show that legislation
+had its acme of development just at this time. His paragraph on the
+subject will serve as the best possible preface to the scant treatment
+of continental law-making and enforcement of justice in this period,
+that our limited space will allow. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 30: Life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary by the Count De
+  Montalembert, translated by Francis Deming Hoyt, New York,
+  Longman's, Green and Company, 1904.]
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Legislation never, perhaps, had a more illustrious period. On the
+  one hand, the Popes, supreme authorities in matters of law as well
+  as of faith, gave to canon law the fullest development possible to
+  this magnificent security of Christian civilization; sat themselves
+  as judges with exemplary assiduity, published immense collections,
+  and founded numerous schools. On the other hand, that period gave
+  birth to most of the national legislation of the various states of
+  Europe; the great <i>Mirrors</i> of Swabia and Saxony, the first laws
+  published in the German language by Frederick II. at the diet of
+  Mentz, and the code given by him to Sicily; in France, the
+  Institutes of St. Louis, together with the <i>Common Law</i> of Pierre
+  des Fontaines, <a name="365">{365}</a> and the <i>Statutes of Beauvoisis</i> of Philip of
+  Beaumanoir; and lastly the French version of the <i>Assizes of
+  Jerusalem</i>, in which is to be found the most complete résumé now
+  extant of Christian and chivalric law. All these precious monuments
+  of the old Christian organization of the world are preserved in the
+  native languages of the various people, and are distinguished, less
+  even by this fact than by their generous and pious spirit, from that
+  pernicious Roman law, the progress of which was destined soon to
+  change all the principles of the former."
+</p>
+<p>
+Most of Montalembert's paragraph refers to the law-making in France
+with which he is naturally more familiar. He has supplied ample
+material for consultation for those who wish to follow out this
+interesting theme further. Even more significant, however, than the
+law-making in France, were the new ideas with regard to the
+enforcement in law that came in during the reign of Louis IX. We have
+not had to wait until this generation to realize, that as a rule it is
+not the absence of law so much as the lack of enforcement of such laws
+as exist, that gives rise to many of the injustices between men. St.
+Louis made it his business to bring about the enforcement of the laws
+with proper construction of their terms in such a way as to secure the
+rights of all. He himself sat under the famous old oak of Versailles
+as a Court of Appeals, reviewing especially the cases of the poor. It
+soon came to be known, that it would be a sad occasion for any and
+every court official who was found to have given judgment against the
+poor because of partiality or the yielding to unlawful influence. On
+the other hand, in order to keep the right of appeal from being
+abused, punishments were meted out to those who made appeals without
+good reason.
+</p>
+<p>
+Finding that he was unable to hear so many causes as were appealed to
+him, Louis chose Stephen Boileau to act as Chief Justice and committed
+the care of proper legal enforcement with confidence into his hands.
+Boileau had become famous by having condemned some very near
+relatives, under circumstances such that relationship might have been
+expected to weigh down the wrong side of the scales of justice, and in
+a few years he enhanced his reputation by the utter disregard of all
+motives in the settlement of suits at law, except those of <a name="366">{366}</a> the
+strictest justice. How much Louis himself did in order to safeguard
+the rights of the poor can be judged from the famous incident told by
+all his biographers, in which he risked the enmity of the most
+powerful among his barons, in order to secure the punishment of one of
+them who had put two students to death. This was the first time that
+the rights of men, as men, were asserted and it constitutes the best
+possible testimony to the development of law and true liberty in
+France.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Three young nobles of the county of Flanders were surprised,
+  together with the abbot of St. Nicholas, in a wood pertaining to
+  Coucy, with bows and arrows. Although they had neither dogs nor
+  hunting implements, they were found guilty of having gone out to
+  hunt and were hanged. The abbot and several women of their families
+  made complaint to the king, and Enguerrard was arrested and taken to
+  the Louvre. The king summoned him before him; he appeared, having
+  with him the King of Navarre, the King of Burgundy, the counts of
+  Bar, Soissons, Brittany, and Blois, the Archbishop of Rheims, Sire
+  John of Thorote, and nearly all the great men in the kingdom. The
+  accused said that he wished to take counsel, and he retired with
+  most of the seigneurs who had accompanied him, leaving the king
+  alone with his household. When he returned, John of Thorote, in his
+  name, said that he would not submit to this inquiry, since his
+  person, his honour, and his heritage were at stake, but that he was
+  ready to do battle, denying that he had hanged the three young men,
+  or ordered them to be hanged. His only opponents were the abbot and
+  the women, who were there to ask for justice. The king answered that
+  in causes in which the poor, the churches, and persons worthy of
+  pity, took part, it was not fitting to decide them in battle; for it
+  was not easy to find anyone to fight for such sorts of people
+  against the barons of the kingdom. He said that his action against
+  the accused was no new thing, and he alleged the example of his
+  predecessor Philip Augustus. He therefore agreed to the request of
+  the complainants, and caused Enguerrard to be arrested by the
+  sergeants and taken to the Louvre. All prayers were useless; St.
+  Louis refused to hear them, rose from his seat, and the barons went
+  away astonished and confused.
+</p>
+<a name="367">{367}</a>
+<p class="cite">
+  "They did not, however, consider that they were beaten. They again
+  came together; the King of Navarre, the Count of Brittany, and with
+  them the Countess of Flanders, who ought rather to have intervened
+  for the victims. It was as if they had conspired against the king's
+  power and honour; for they were not content to implore Coucy's
+  release, but asserted that he could not be kept in prison. The Count
+  of Brittany maintained that the king had no right to institute
+  inquiries against the barons of his kingdom in matters which
+  concerned their persons, their heritage or their honour. The king
+  replied, 'You did not speak thus in former times when the barons in
+  direct dependence upon you came before me with complaints against
+  yourself, and offered to sustain them in battle. You then said that
+  to do battle was not in the way of justice.' The barons put forward
+  a final argument, namely, that according to the customs of the
+  kingdom, the king could only judge the accused and punish him in
+  person after an inquiry to which he had refused to submit. The king
+  was resolute, and declared that neither the rank of the guilty man
+  nor the power of his friends should prevent him from doing full
+  justice. Coucy's life was, however, spared. The fact that he had not
+  been present at the judgment, nor at the execution, prevailed in his
+  favour. By the advice of his counsellors, the king condemned him to
+  pay 1200 livres parisis, which, considering the difference in the
+  purchasing power of money, may be estimated at considerably more
+  than 400,000 pounds, and he sent this sum to St. John of Acre for
+  the defense of Palestine. The wood in which the young men were
+  hanged was confiscated to the abbey of St. Nicholas. The condemned
+  man was also constrained to found three perpetual chapelries for the
+  souls of his victims, and he forfeited jurisdiction over his woods
+  and fish ponds, so that he was forbidden to imprison or execute for
+  any offense which had to do with them. Since Enguerrard's defender,
+  John of Thorote, had in his anger told the barons that the king
+  would do well to hang them all, the king, who had been told of this,
+  sent for him and said, 'How comes it, John, that you have said I
+  should hang my barons? I certainly will not have them hanged, but I
+  will punish them when they do amiss.' John of Thorote denied that he
+  had said this, and offered to <a name="368">{368}</a> justify himself on the oath of
+  twenty or thirty knights. The king would not carry the matter
+  further, and let him go."
+</p>
+<p>
+One of the best evidences of the development of the spirit of law in
+Germany during this time is the establishment of the famous Fehmic
+Courts, or Vehmgerichte, which achieved their highest importance
+during the Thirteenth Century. As with regard to the universities,
+there is a tradition that carries the origin of these courts back to
+the time of Charlemagne. They are much more likely to have been
+developments out of the relics of the ancient free courts of the old
+Teutonic Tribe. The first definite knowledge of their existence cannot
+be traced much earlier than a decade or two before the Thirteenth
+Century. They had their principal existence in Westphalia. Practically
+the whole country between the Rhine and the Weser was ruled to a
+subordinate degree by these Fehmic courts. During the Thirteenth
+Century they were used only in the most beneficial and liberal spirit,
+supplying a means of redress at a time when the public administration
+of justice was almost completely in abeyance. As a matter of fact,
+before their establishment disregard for authority to the extent of
+utter lawlessness prevailed in this part of Germany.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp368">{opp368}</a>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp368a.jpg" border=1><br>
+CITY GATE (NEUBRANDENBURG)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp368b.jpg" border=1><br>
+RATHHAUS (STRALSUND)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The significance of these courts has sometimes been missed. They
+arose, however, out of the justice loving spirit of the people
+themselves and were meant to supply legal enforcements when the
+regularly constituted authorities were unable to secure them. They
+remind one very much of the vigilance committees, which in our own
+country, in the cities of the distant West, bravely and with the
+admirable prudence of the race, have so often supplied the place of
+regular courts and have brought justice and order out of the chaos of
+lawlessness. The last place most people would expect their prototypes,
+however, would be here in the Germany of the Thirteenth Century. How
+much these Vehmgerichte accomplished during the Thirteenth and
+Fourteenth centuries it would be difficult to say. They represent an
+outgrowth of the spirit of the people themselves, that constitutes
+another striking feature of the practical side of the generations of
+the Thirteenth Century. They had much more to do with bringing about
+the development of the modern acute sense of justice among the
+Teutonic peoples <a name="369">{369}</a> than is usually thought. They are the German
+expression of the same feelings that in England dictated trial by
+jury, and secured for the English speaking people of all time the
+precious privileges of even-handed justice and the right to be judged
+by one's peers.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was not alone in the western countries of Europe that great
+advances were made in liberty. The democratic spirit that was abroad
+made itself felt everywhere and the foundations of rights for the
+people were laid even in central Europe, in countries which ordinarily
+are thought of at this time as scarcely more than emerging from
+barbarism. Hungary may be cited as an example. Andrew II. is usually
+set down by narrow-minded historians as having been entirely too
+visionary in his character, and the fact that he led the fifth
+Crusade, apparently even more fruitless than were most of the others,
+is supposed to be an additional proof of this. Even Duruy in his
+History of the Middle Ages says of him, "he organized a state of
+anarchy by decreeing his Golden Bull, that if the King should violate
+the privileges of the nobility, they should be permitted to resist him
+by force and such resistance should not be treated as rebellion." As a
+matter of fact, his people were thus granted a constitution more
+liberal even than that of Magna Charta, but containing quite similar
+provisions in many respects, and the curious historical analogy is
+heightened when we recall that at the two ends of civilized Europe
+these constitutions were given in the same decade. One cannot help but
+wonder whether the Saxon elements which were in both peoples, for many
+Saxon and Frisian colonists had been induced to settle in certain
+parts of Transylvania just half a century before, did not have much to
+do with this extremely interesting development in Hungary, so like the
+corresponding evolution of the democratic spirit among their western
+kinsfolk.
+</p>
+<p>
+In Poland the development in law came a little later but evidently as
+the result of the same factors that were at work during the Thirteenth
+Century. Casimir the Great, who was born shortly after the close of
+the Thirteenth Century, gave wise laws to Poland which have
+constituted the basis of Polish law ever since. At this time Poland
+was one of the most important countries in Europe. Casimir, besides
+giving laws to <a name="370">{370}</a> his people, also founded a university for them
+and in every way encouraged the development of such progress as would
+make his subjects intelligently realize their own rights and maintain
+them, apparently foreseeing that thus the King would be better able to
+strengthen himself against the many enemies that surrounded him in
+central Europe.
+</p>
+<p>
+How much the great Popes of the century accomplished for the
+foundation and development of law, can only be appreciated by those
+who realize the extent of their contributions to the codification of
+canon law. It was the arrangement of this in definite shape that put
+the civil jurists of the time at work setting their house in order.
+Innocent III., who is deservedly called <i>Pater Juris</i>, devoted a great
+deal of his wonderful energy and genius to the arrangement of canon
+law. This placed for the first time the canon law on an absolutely
+sure footing and filled up many gaps that formerly existed. Gregory
+IX. commissioned his chaplain, the famous Raymond of Pennafort, who
+had been a professor of canon law in the University of Bologna, to
+codify all the decretals since the time of Gratian. This work was
+officially promulgated in 1234, four years of labor having been
+devoted to it. The laws are in the form of decisions pronounced in
+cases submitted to the Pope from all parts of Christendom, including
+many from the distant East and not a few from England and Scotland.
+Gregory's decretals were published in five books; a supplement under
+the name of the sixth book was published under Pope Boniface VIII. in
+1298. In this for the first time abstract rules of law are laid down
+extracted from actual judgments. A compendium of Roman Law was added
+so as to approximate canon and civil procedure.
+</p>
+<p>
+This gives the best possible idea of how deeply the popes and the
+authorities in canon law of the century were laying the foundations of
+canonical practise and procedure for all times. The origins of modern
+law are to be found here, and yet not, as might be anticipated because
+of the distance in time, in such a confused or unmanageable fashion
+that they are not worth while consulting, but on the contrary with
+such clarity and distinctness and with such orderly arrangement, that
+they have been the subjects of study on the part of distinguished
+<a name="371">{371}</a> jurists for most of the centuries ever since, and have never
+lost their interest for the great lawyers and canonists, who prefer to
+know things from the foundation rather than accept them at second
+hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+Some of the commentaries, or glosses as they were called, on canon law
+serve to give an excellent idea of the legal ability as well as the
+intellectual acumen of the canon lawyers of the century. The system of
+teaching was oral, and careful study was devoted to original
+authorities in law. Explanatory notes were added by the professors to
+their copies of the text. When later these texts were given out or
+lent for transcription, the notes were also copied, usually being
+written in the margin. After a time the commentary, however, proved to
+be, for students at least, as important as the text and so was
+transcribed by itself and was called an apparatus, that is a series of
+mechanical helps, as it were, to the understanding of the text.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of the names of some of the most distinguished glossatores the memory
+has been carefully preserved because they produced so much effect on
+legal teaching. The gloss written on Gratian by Joannes Teutonicus
+(John the German), probably during the first decade of the Thirteenth
+Century, was revised and supplemented by Bartholomew of Brescia about
+the middle of the Thirteenth Century. Some ten years later Bernard of
+Parma wrote a commentary on the decretals of Gregory. All of these are
+important fundamental works in canon law, and they were of very great
+influence in bringing out the principles of law and showing the basis
+on which they were founded. It is almost needless to say that they
+aroused additional interest and made the subject much more easy of
+approach than it had been. The fact that all of these magnificent
+contributions to the science and literatures of law should have been
+made during our Thirteenth Century, serves only to emphasize the fact
+that everything that men touched during this period was sure to be
+illuminated by the practical genius of the time, and put into a form
+in which for many centuries it was to be appealed to as a model and an
+authority in its own line. How much of legal commentary writing there
+was besides these, can be readily understood from the fact that these
+represent the activity only of the University of Bologna <a name="372">{372}</a> which
+was, it is true, the greatest of universities in its law department,
+but it must not be forgotten that many other universities throughout
+Europe also had distinguished professors of law at this time.
+</p>
+<p>
+All this would seem to be of little interest for the secular
+law-making of the period, but it must not be forgotten that civil law
+was closely related to canon law at all times and that the development
+of canon law always meant a renewed evolution of the principles, and
+practise, and procedure of the civil law. In such countries as
+Scotland, indeed, the canon law formed the basis of the civil
+jurisprudence and its influence was felt even for centuries after the
+so-called reformation. On the other hand it must not be forgotten that
+the popes and the ecclesiastics helped to fight the battles of the
+middle and lower classes against the king and the nobility in
+practically every country in Europe. A very striking example of this
+is to be found in the life of that much misunderstood Pope Boniface
+VIII., the last pope of the century, who had received his legal
+training at Bologna, and who was one of the great jurists of his time.
+Circumstances differ so much, however, and obscure realities to such a
+degree, that at the present time we need the light of sympathetic
+interpretation to enable us to realize what Boniface accomplished.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp372">{opp372}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp372.jpg" border=1><br>
+PORTRAIT OF POPE BONIFACE VIII. (GIOTTO, ROME)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He did much to complete in his time that arrangement and codification
+of canon law which his predecessors during the Thirteenth Century had
+so efficiently commenced. Like Innocent III. he has been much maligned
+because of his supposed attempt to make the governments of the time
+subservient to the Pope and to make the Church in each nation
+independent of the political government. With regard to the famous
+Bull Clericis Laicos, "thrice unhappy in name and fortune" as it has
+been designated, much more can be said in justification than is
+usually considered to be the case. Indeed the Rev. Dr. Barry, whose
+"Story of the Papal Monarchy" in the Stories of the Nations series has
+furnished the latest discussion of this subject, does not hesitate to
+declare that the Bull far from being subversive of political liberties
+or expressive of too arrogant a spirit on the part of the Church, was
+really an expression of a great principle that was to become very
+prominent in <a name="373">{373}</a> modern history, and the basis of many of the modern
+declarations of rights against the claims of tyranny.
+</p>
+<p>
+He says in part:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Imprudent, headlong, but in its main contention founded on history,
+  this extraordinary state-paper declared that the laity had always
+  been hostile to the clergy, and were so now as much as ever. But
+  they possessed no jurisdiction over the persons, no claims on the
+  property of the church, though they had dared to exact a tenth, nay,
+  even a half, of its income for secular objects, and time-serving
+  prelates had not resisted. Now, on no title whatsoever from
+  henceforth should such taxes be levied without permission of the
+  Holy See. Every layman, though king or emperor, receiving these
+  moneys fell by that very act under anathema; every churchman paying
+  them was deposed from his office; universities guilty of the like
+  offense were struck with interdict.
+<br><br>
+  "Robert of Winchelsea, Langton's successor as primate, shared
+  Langton's views. He was at this moment in Rome, and had doubtless
+  urged Boniface to come to the rescue of a frightened, down-trodden
+  clergy, whom Edward I. would not otherwise regard. In the Parliament
+  at Bury, this very year, the clerics refused to make a grant. Edward
+  sealed up their barns. The archbishop ordered that in every
+  cathedral the pope's interdiction should be read. Hereupon the
+  chief-justice declared the whole clergy outlawed; they might be
+  robbed or murdered without redress. Naturally, not a few gave way; a
+  fifth, and then a fourth, of their revenue was yielded up. But
+  Archbishop Robert alone, with all the prelates except Lincoln
+  against him, and the Dominicans preaching at Paul's cross on behalf
+  of the king, stood out, lost his lands, and was banished to a
+  country parsonage. War broke out in Flanders. It was the saving of
+  the archbishop. At Westminster Edward relented and apologized. He
+  confirmed the two great charters; he did away with illegal judgments
+  that infringed them. Next year the primate excommunicated those
+  royal officers who had seized goods or persons belonging to the
+  clergy, and all who had violated Magna Charta. The Church came out
+  of this conflict exempt, or, more truly a self-governing estate of
+  the realm. It must be considered as <a name="374">{374}</a> having greatly concurred
+  towards the establishment of that fundamental law invoked long after
+  by the thirteen American Colonies, 'No taxation without
+  representation,' which is the corner stone of British freedom."
+</p>
+<p>
+We have so often heard it said that there is nothing new under the
+sun, that finally the expression has come to mean very little, though
+its startling truth sometimes throws vivid light on historical events.
+Certainly the last place in the world that one would expect to find if
+not the origin, for all during the Thirteenth Century this great
+principle had been gradually asserting itself, at least, a wondrous
+confirmation of the principle on which our American revolution
+justified itself, would be in a papal document of the end of the
+Thirteenth Century. Here, however, is a distinguished scholar, who
+insists that the Colonists' contention that there must be no taxes
+levied unless they were allowed representation in some way in the body
+which determined the mode and the amount of taxation, received its
+first formal justification in history at the hands of a Roman Pontiff,
+nearly five centuries before the beginning of the quarrel between the
+Colonies and the Mother Country. The passage serves to suggest how
+much of what is modern had its definite though unsuspected origin, in
+this earlier time.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i374.jpg" border=1><br>
+DECORATION THIRTEENTH CENTURY PSALTER MS.
+</p>
+
+<a name="375">{375}</a>
+
+<h1>XXIV
+<br>
+DEMOCRACY, CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM AND NATIONALITY.</h1>
+
+<p>
+Democracy is a word to conjure with but it is usually considered that
+the thing it represents had its origin in the modern world much later
+than the period with which we are occupied. The idea that the people
+should be ready to realize their own rights, to claim their privileges
+and to ask that they should be allowed to rule themselves, is supposed
+ordinarily to be a product of the last century or two. Perhaps in this
+matter more than any other does the Thirteenth Century need
+interpretation to the modern mind, yet we think that after certain
+democratic factors and developments in the life of this period are
+pointed out and their significance made clear, it will become evident
+that the foundations of our modern democracy were deeply laid in the
+Thirteenth Century, and that the spirit of what was best in the
+aspiration of people to be ruled by themselves, for themselves, and of
+themselves had its birth in this precious seed time of so much that is
+important for our modern life.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lest it should be thought that this idea of the development of
+democracy has been engendered merely in the enthusiastic ardor of
+special admiration for the author's favorite century, it seems well to
+call attention to the fact that historians in recent years have very
+generally emphasized the role that the Thirteenth Century played in
+the development of freedom. A typical example may be quoted from the
+History of Anglo-Saxon Freedom by Professor James K. Hosmer,
+[Footnote 31] who does not hesitate to say that "while in England
+representative government was gradually developing during this
+century, in Germany the cities were beginning to send deputies to the
+Imperial Parliament and the Emperor, Frederick II., was allowing a
+certain amount of representation in the <a name="376">{376}</a> Government of Sicily. In
+Spain, Alfonso the Wise, of Castile, permitted the cities to send
+representatives to the Cortez, and in France this same spirit
+developed to such a degree that a representative parliament met at the
+beginning of the Fourteenth Century." In none of these countries,
+however, unfortunately did the spirit of representative government
+continue to develop as in England and in many of them the privileges
+obtained in the Thirteenth Century were subsequently lost.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 31: Scribners, New York, 1890.]
+</p>
+<p>
+Certain phases of the rise of the democratic spirit have already been
+discussed, and the reader can only be referred to them now with the
+definite idea of recognizing in them the democratic tendencies of the
+time. What we have said about the trade guilds constitutes one
+extremely important element of the movement which will be further
+discussed in this chapter. After this comes the guild merchant in its
+various forms. After all the Hanseatic League was only one
+manifestation of these guilds. Its widespread influence in awakening
+in people's minds the realization that they could do for themselves
+much more, and secure success in their endeavors much better by their
+own united efforts, than by anything that their accepted political
+rulers could do or at least would do for them, will be readily
+appreciated by all who read that chapter.
+</p>
+<p>
+Hansa must have been a great enlightener for the Teutonic peoples. The
+History of the league shows over and over again their political rulers
+rather interfering with than fostering their commercial prosperity.
+These rulers were always more than a little jealous of the wealth
+which the citizens of these growing towns in their realm were able to
+accumulate, and they showed it on more than one occasion. The history
+of the Hansa towns exhibits the citizens doing everything to dissemble
+the feelings of disaffection that inevitably came to them as the
+result of their appreciation of the fact, that they could rule
+themselves so much better than they were being ruled, and that they
+could accomplish so much more for themselves by their commercial
+combination with other cities than had ever been done for them by
+these hereditary princes, who claimed so much yet gave so little in
+their turn.
+</p>
+<p>
+The training in self-government that came with the <a name="377">{377}</a> necessities
+for defense as well as for the protection of commercial visitors from
+other cities in the league, who trustfully came to deal with their
+people, was an education in democracy such as could not fail to bring
+results. The rise of the free cities in Germany represents the growth
+of the democratic spirit down to our own time, better than any other
+single set of manifestations that we have. The international relations
+of these cities did more, as we have said, to broaden men's minds and
+make them realize the brotherhood of man in spite of national
+boundaries than any other factor in human history. Commerce has always
+been a great leveler and such it proved to be in these early days in
+Germany, only it must not be thought that these German cities had but
+faint glimmerings of the great purpose they were engaged in, for
+seldom has the spirit of popular government risen higher than with
+them.
+</p>
+<p>
+How clearly the Teutonic mind had grasped the idea of democracy can be
+best appreciated perhaps from the attitude of the Swiss in this
+matter. These hardy mountaineers whose difficult country and rather
+severe climate separate them effectually from the other nations, soon
+learned the advisability of ruling themselves for their own benefit.
+Before the end of the Thirteenth Century they had formed a defensive
+and offensive union among themselves against the Hapsburgs, and though
+for a time overborne by the influence of this house after its head
+ascended the Imperial throne, immediately on Rudolph's death they
+proceeded to unite themselves still more firmly together. They then
+formed the famous league of 1291 which represents so important a step
+in the democracy of modern times. The formal document which
+constituted this league a federal government deserves to be quoted. It
+is the first great declaration of independence, and its ideas were to
+crop out in many another declaration in the after times. It is an
+original document in the strictest sense of the word. It runs as
+follows:
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  "Know all men that we, the people of the valley of Uri, the
+  community of the valley of Schwiz, and the mountaineers of the lower
+  valley, seeing the malice of the times, have solemnly agreed and
+  bound ourselves by oath to aid and defend each other with all our
+  might and main, with our lives and property, <a name="378">{378}</a> both within and
+  without our boundaries each at his own expense, against every enemy
+  whatever who shall attempt to molest us, either singly or
+  collectively. This is our ancient covenant. Whoever hath a lord let
+  him obey him according to his bounden duty. We have decreed that we
+  shall accept no magistrate in our valleys who shall have obtained
+  his office for a price, or who is not a native or resident among us.
+  Every difference among us shall be decided by our wisest men; and
+  whoever shall reject their award shall be compelled by the other
+  confederates. Whoever shall wilfully commit a murder shall suffer
+  death, and he who shall attempt to screen the murderer from justice
+  shall be banished from our valleys. An incendiary shall lose his
+  privileges as a free member of the community, and whoever harbors
+  him shall make good the damage. Whoever robs or molests another
+  shall make full restitution out of the property he possesses among
+  us. Everyone shall acknowledge the authority of a chief magistrate
+  in either of the valleys. If internal quarrels arise, and one of the
+  parties shall refuse fair satisfaction, the confederates shall
+  support the other party. This covenant for our common weal, shall,
+  God willing, endure forever."
+</p>
+<p>
+In England democracy was fostered in the guilds, which, as we have
+already seen in connection with the cathedrals, proved the sources of
+education and intellectual development in nearly every mode of thought
+and art. The most interesting feature of these guilds was the fact
+that they were not institutions suggested to the workmen and tradesmen
+by those above them, but were the outgrowth of the spirit of self help
+and organization which, came over mankind during this century. At the
+beginning they were scarcely more than simple beneficial associations
+meant to be aids in times of sickness and trial, and to make the
+parting of families and especially the death of the head of the family
+not quite so difficult for the survivors, since affiliated brother
+workmen remained behind who would care for them. During this century,
+however, the spirit of democracy, that is the organized effort of the
+people to take care of themselves, better their conditions, and add to
+their own happiness, led to the development of the guilds in a fashion
+that it is rather difficult for generations of the modern time to
+<a name="379">{379}</a> understand, for our trades' unions do not, as yet at least,
+present anything that quite resembles their work in our times.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was because of the effective social work of these guilds that
+Urbain Gohier, the well-known French socialist and writer on
+sociological subjects, was able to say not long ago in the North
+American Review:
+</p>
+<p>
+"When the workmen of the European Continent demand 'the three
+eights'&mdash;eight hours of work, eight hours of rest and refreshment,
+physical and mental, and eight hours of sleep&mdash;some of them are aware
+of the fact that this reform already exists in the Anglo-Saxon
+countries; but all are ignorant of this other fact that, during the
+Middle Ages, in an immense number of labor corporations and cities, a
+work-day was often only nine, eight and even seven hours long. Nor
+have they ever been told that every Saturday, and on the eve of over
+two dozen holidays, work was stopped everywhere at four o'clock." The
+Saturday half holiday began it may be said even earlier, namely at the
+Vesper Hour which according to medieval church customs was some time
+between two and three p. m. and the same was true on the vigils, as
+the eves of the important church festivals were called.
+</p>
+<p>
+The only possible way to give a reasonably good idea of the spirit of
+the old-time guilds which succeeded in accomplishing such a wonderful
+social revolution, is to quote some of their rules, which serve to
+show their intents and purposes at least, even though they may not
+always have fulfilled their aims. Their rules regard two things
+particularly&mdash;the religious and the social functions of the guild.
+There was a fine for absence from the special religious services held
+for the members but also a fine of equal amount for absence from the
+annual banquet. In this they resemble the rules of the religious
+orders which were coming to be widely known at the end of the Twelfth
+and the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, and according to which
+the members of the religious community were required quite as strictly
+to be present at daily recreation, that is, at the hour of
+conversation after meals, as at daily prayer. An interesting phase of
+the social rules of the guild is that a member was expected to bring
+his wife with him, or if not his wife then his sweetheart. They were
+franker in these matters <a name="380">{380}</a> in this simpler age and doubtless the
+custom encouraged matrimony a little bit more than our modern colder
+customs.
+</p>
+<p>
+As giving a fair idea of the ordinances of the pre-Reformation guilds
+in their original shape the rules of the Guild of St. Luke at Lincoln,
+may be cited. St. Luke had been chosen as patron because according to
+tradition he was an artist as well as an evangelist. The patron saint
+was chosen always so that he might be a model of life as well as a
+protector in Heaven. Its members were the painters, guilders,
+stainers, and alabaster men of the city. The first rule provides that
+on the Sunday next after the feast of St. Luke all the brothers and
+sisters of the Guild shall, with their officers, go in procession from
+an appointed place, carrying a great candle, to the Cathedral Church
+of Lincoln, and there every two of the brethren and sisters shall
+offer one half-penny or more after their devotion, and then shall
+offer the great candle before an image of St. Luke within the church.
+And any who were absent without lawful cause shall forfeit one pound
+of wax to the sustentation of the said great candle.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the same Sunday, "for love and amity and good communication to be
+had for the several weal of the fraternity," the guildmen dined
+together, every brother paying for himself and his wife, or
+sweetheart, the sum of four pence. Absentees were fined one pound of
+wax towards the aforesaid, candle.
+</p>
+<p>
+The third rule provided that four "mornspeeches"&mdash;that its business
+meetings&mdash;should be held each year, "for ordering and good rule to be
+had and made amongst them." Absentees from a mornspeech forfeited one
+pound of wax to St. Luke's candle. Another rule provided that the
+decision of ambiguities or doubts about the forfeitures prescribed
+should be referred to the mayor and four aldermen of the city. Rules 4
+to 11, and also 13, regulate the taking of apprentices and the setting
+up in trade; forbid the employing of strangers; provide for the
+settlement of disputes and the examination of work not sufficiently
+done after the sample. Already the tendency to limit the number of
+workmen that might be employed which was later to prove a stumbling
+block to artistic progress is to be noted. On the other hand the
+effort to keep work up to a certain standard, which was to mean so
+much for artistic <a name="381">{381}</a> accomplishment in the next few generations
+must be noted as a compensatory feature of the Guild regulations.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp381">{opp381}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp381a.jpg" border=1><br>
+DOORWAY (LINCOLN)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp381b.jpg" border=1><br>
+NAVE (DURHAM CATHEDRAL)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp381c.jpg" border=1><br>
+BROKEN ARCH (ST. MARY'S, YORK, CLIMAX OF GOTHIC)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rule 12 directs that "when it shall happen any brother or sister of
+the said fraternity to depart and decease from the world, at his first
+Mass the gracemen and wardens (skyvens) for the time being shall offer
+of the goods and chattels of the said fraternity, two pence; and at
+his eighth day, or thirtieth day, every brother and sister shall give
+to a poor creature a token made by the dean, for which tokens every
+brother and sister shall pay the dean a fixed sum of money, and with
+the money thus raised he shall buy white bread to give to the poor
+creatures" holding the tokens, the bread to be distributed at the
+church of the parish in which the deceased lived.
+</p>
+<p>
+This twelfth rule with regard to the manner of giving charity is
+particularly striking, because it shows a deliberate effort to avoid
+certain dangers, the evil possibilities of which our modern organized
+charity has emphasized. According to this rule of the Guild of St.
+Luke's at Lincoln, all the members were bound to give a certain amount
+in charity, for the benefit of a deceased member. This was not,
+however, by direct alms, but by means of tokens for which they paid a
+fixed price to the Dean, who redeemed the tokens when they were
+presented by the deserving poor. This guaranteed that each member
+would give the fixed sum in charity and at the same time safeguarded
+the almsgiving from any abuses, since the member of the guild himself
+would be likely to know something of the poor person and his
+deservingness, and if not there was always the question of the Dean
+being informed with regard to the needs of the case. All of this was
+accomplished, however, without hurting the feelings of the recipients
+of the charity, since they felt that it was done not for them but for
+the benefit of a deceased member.
+</p>
+<p>
+How much the guilds came to influence the life of the people during
+the next two centuries may be best appreciated from their great
+increase in number and wealth.
+</p>
+<p>
+In England, it is computed that at the beginning of the Sixteenth
+Century there were thirty thousand of these institutions spread over
+the country. The county of Norfolk alone had nine hundred, of which
+number the small town of <a name="382">{382}</a> Wymondham had at least eleven still
+known by names, one&mdash;the Guild of Holy Trinity, Wymondham&mdash;being
+possessed of a guild-hall of its own, whilst it and the other guilds
+of the town are said to have been "well endowed with lands and
+tenements." In Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, there were twenty-three
+guilds; Boston, Lincolnshire, had fourteen, of which the titles and
+other particulars are known, whilst in London their number must have
+been very great. Of the London trade guilds, Stow, the Elizabethan
+antiquary, records the names of sixty of sufficient importance to
+entitle their representatives to places at the civic banquets in the
+reign of Henry VIII. Many of them are still in existence, having been
+spared at the time of the Reformation on the plea that they were
+trading or secular associations. Fifteen of the largest of
+them&mdash;including the merchant tailors, the goldsmiths and the
+stationers&mdash;have at the present time an annual income of over $50,000
+each.
+</p>
+<p>
+The reasons for their popularity can be readily found in the many
+social needs which they cared for. Socialistic cooperation has,
+perhaps, never been carried so far as in these medieval institutions
+which were literally "of the people, by the people, and for the
+people." Often their regulation made provisions for insurance against
+poverty, fire, and sometimes against burglary. Frequently they
+provided schoolmasters for the schools. Their funds they loaned out to
+needy brethren in small sums on easy terms, whilst trade and other
+disputes likely to give rise to ill-feeling and contention were
+constantly referred to the guilds for arbitration. One of the rules of
+the Guild of our Lady at Wymondham thus ordains, that for no manner of
+cause should any of the brothers or sisters of the fraternity go to
+law till the officers of the guild had been informed of the
+circumstances and had done their best to settle the dispute and
+restore "unity and love betwixt the parties." To assist at the burial
+of deceased brethren, and to aid in providing for the celebration of
+obits for the repose of their souls, were duties incumbent on all,
+defaulters without good excuse being subject to fines and censure.
+</p>
+<p>
+It must not be thought that these tendencies to true democracy were
+confined to the trades guilds, however. The historian of the merchant
+guilds has demonstrated that they had the <a name="383">{383}</a> same spirit and this
+was especially true for the great guild merchant. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "To this category of powerful affinities must be added the Gild
+  Merchant. The latter was from the outset a compact body emphatically
+  characterized by fraternal solidarity of interests, a protective
+  union that naturally engendered a consciousness of strength and a
+  spirit of independence. As the same men generally directed the
+  counsels of both the town and the Gild, there would be a gradual,
+  unconscious extension of the unity of the one to the other, the
+  cohesive force of the Gild making itself felt throughout the whole
+  municipal organism. But the influence of the fraternity was material
+  as well as moral. It constituted a bond of union between the
+  heterogeneous sokes (classes of tenants) of a borough; the townsmen
+  might be exclusively amenable to the courts of different lords, but,
+  if engaged in trade within the town, they were all members of one
+  and the same Gild Merchant. The independent regulation of trade also
+  accustomed the burgesses to self-government, and constituted an
+  important step toward autonomy; the town judiciary was always more
+  dependent upon the crown or mesne lord than was the Gild Merchant."
+</p>
+<p>
+Because of the supreme interest in everything connected with
+Shakespeare, the existence of one of the most important guilds in
+Stratford, has led to the illustration of guilds' works there better
+than for any English town during this period. The Guild of the Holy
+Cross was the most important institution of Stratford and enthusiastic
+Shakespeare scholars have applied themselves to find out every detail
+of its history as far as it is now available, in order to make clear
+the conditions&mdash;social and religious&mdash;that existed in the great
+dramatist's birthplace. Halliwell, in his Descriptive Calendar of the
+Records of Stratford on Avon, and Sidney Lee, in his Stratford on Avon
+in the Time of the Shakespeares, have gathered together much of this
+information:&mdash;"The Guild has lasted, wrote its chief officer in 1309,
+for many, many years and its beginning was from time whereunto the
+memory of man reaches not." Bowden, in his volume on the Religion of
+Shakespeare, has a number of the most important details with regard to
+Stratford's Guild. The earliest extant documents with regard to it are
+from the <a name="384">{384}</a> Reign of Henry III., 1216-1272, and include a deed of
+gift by one William Sede, of a tenement to the Guild, and an
+indulgence granted October 7th, 1270, by Giffard, Bishop of Wooster,
+of forty days to all sincere penitents who after having duly confessed
+had conferred benefits on the Guild.
+</p>
+<p>
+By the close of the reign of Edward I., at the beginning of the
+Fourteenth Century, the Guild was wealthy in houses and lands, and the
+foundation was laid of its chapel and almshouses which, with the hall
+of meeting&mdash;the "Rode or Reed Hall"&mdash;stood where the Guild Hall is at
+the present day. Edward III. and Richard II., during the Fourteenth
+Century, confirmed the rights of the Guild and even added to its
+privileges. Though it was a purely local institution, the fame of its
+good works had spread so wide during these next centuries that
+affiliation with it became a distinction, and the nobility were
+attracted to its ranks. George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward,
+with his wife and children, and the Earl of Warwick, and the Lady
+Margaret were counted among its members, and merchants of distant
+towns counted it an honor to belong to it. Later, also, Judge
+Littleton, one of the famous founders of English law, was on its roll
+of membership.
+</p>
+<p>
+The objects of the Guild were many and varied and touched the social
+life of Stratford at every point. The first object was mutual prayer.
+The Guild maintained five priests or chaplains who were to say masses
+daily, hour by hour, from six to ten o'clock for its members, it being
+expected that some of them would be present at each of the masses. Out
+of the fees of the Guild one wax candle was to be kept alight every
+day throughout the year at every mass in the church before the rood,
+or cross, "so that God and our Blessed Virgin and the Venerated Cross
+may keep and guard all the brethren and sisters of the Guilds from
+every ill." The second object was charity, under which was included
+all the various Works of Mercy. The needs of any brother or sister who
+had fallen into poverty or been robbed were to be provided for "as
+long as he bears himself rightly towards the brethren." When a brother
+died all the brethren were bound to follow the body to the church and
+to pray for his soul at its burial. The Guild candle and eight smaller
+ones were to be kept burning by the body from the <a name="385">{385}</a> time of death
+till the funeral. When a poor man died in the town the brethren and
+sisters were, for their soul's health, to find four wax candles, a
+sheet, and a hearse cloth for the corpse. This rule also applied in
+the event of a stranger's death, if the stranger had not the necessary
+means for burial. Nor were the efforts of the Guild at Stratford
+devoted solely to the alleviation of the ills of mankind and the more
+serious purposes of life. Once a year, in Easter Week, a feast of the
+members was held in order to foster peace and true brotherly love
+among them. At this time offerings were made for the poor in order
+that they too might share in the happiness of the festival time. There
+was attendance at church before the feasting and a prayer was offered
+by all the "brethren and sisters that God and our Blessed Virgin and
+the Venerated Cross in whose honor we have come together will keep us
+from all ills and sins." This frequent reference to the Cross will be
+better understood if it is recalled that the Guild at Stratford bore
+the name of the Guild of the Holy Cross, and the figure of the
+crucified One was one of its most respected symbols and was always
+looked upon as a special object of veneration on the part of the
+members.
+</p>
+<p>
+The thoroughly progressive spirit of the Guild at Stratford will
+perhaps be best appreciated by the modern mind from the fact, that to
+it the town owed the foundation of its famous free school. During the
+Thirteenth and Fourteenth centuries the study of grammar, and of the
+various theoretical branches, was not considered the essential part of
+an education. Gradually, however, there had arisen the feeling that
+all the children should be taught the ground-work of the vulgar
+tongue, and that those whose parents wished it should receive
+education in Latin also; hence the establishment of grammar schools,
+that at Stratford being founded for the children of the members of the
+Guild about the middle of the Fifteenth Century. This was only the
+normal development of the earlier spirit of the Guild which enabled it
+to meet the growing social needs of the time. It was at this school,
+as reconstituted under Edward VI., that Shakespeare was educated, and
+the reestablishment by Edward was only in response to the many
+complaints which arose because of the absence of the school after its
+suppression by <a name="386">{386}</a> Henry VIII. The fact that Shakespeare was
+educated at an Edward VI. grammar school, has often given occasion for
+commentators to point out that it was practically the Reformation in
+England which led to the establishment of free schools. Any such
+suggestion, however, can be made only in complete ignorance of the
+preexisting state of affairs in which the people, by organization,
+succeeded in accomplishing so much for themselves.
+</p>
+<p>
+As a matter of fact the Guild at Stratford, as in most of the towns in
+England&mdash;for we have taken this as an example only because it is
+easier to get at the details of its history&mdash;was the most important
+factor in the preservation of social order, in the distribution of
+charity, in the providing of education, and even the maintenance of
+the security of the life and property of its inhabitants. When it was
+dissolved, in 1547, Stratford found itself in a chaotic state and had
+to petition Edward VI. to reconstitute the Guild as a civil
+corporation, which he did by charter in 1553.
+</p>
+<p>
+After this consideration of the guilds and their purpose and success,
+it is no wonder that we should declare that the wind of the spirit of
+democracy was blowing in England and carrying away the old landmarks
+of absolute government. It is to the spirit thus fostered that must be
+attributed the marvelous progress in representative government, the
+steps of which we recall.
+</p>
+<p>
+In 1215, all England united against the odious John Lackland and
+obliged him to grant the Magna Charta&mdash;a declaration of national
+liberty.
+</p>
+<p>
+In 1257, the Provisions of Oxford, under Henry III., established, for
+the moment, the stated recurrence of the great national council of
+Parliament.
+</p>
+<p>
+In 1265, under the same Prince, the earl of Leicester admitted to
+Parliament the knights of the shire and the representatives of the
+townspeople, who formed later the lower house, or House of Commons,
+while those personally summoned to attend by the king from the great
+nobles formed the upper house, or House of Lords.
+</p>
+<p>
+Beginning with the year 1295, in the reign of Edward I., the
+attendance of the county and town members became <a name="387">{387}</a> regular, making
+Parliament really representative of the country.
+</p>
+<p>
+In 1309, in the reign of Edward II., Parliament revealed its possible
+strength by putting conditions on its vote for taxes.
+</p>
+<p>
+There were other factors at work, however, and one of them at least,
+because of its importance, deserves to be recalled here. In the
+chapter on Great Beginnings of Modern Commerce we call attention to
+the fact, that the Crusades were responsible to a great degree for the
+spirit of enterprise which led to the formation of the Lombard league
+of cities, and later to the great Hanseatic League, which seems to
+have taken at least its incentive from the Southern Confederation. In
+the chapter on Louis IX. we point out that the Crusades, and his
+connection with them, far from being blots on Louis's career must
+rather be considered as manifestations of the great heart of the time
+which was awakening to all needs, and had its religious aspirations
+stirred so deeply that men were ready to give up everything in order
+to follow an idea. One thing is certain, the Crusades did more to set
+ferments at work in the social organization of Europe than would have
+been possible by any other movement. These ferments brought about two
+results, one the uplift of the common people, the other the
+centralization of power in the hands of the kings with the gradual
+diminution of the influence of the nobility. While fostering the
+spirit of democracy on the one hand, they gave birth to the spirit of
+nationality and to all that this has accomplished in modern history.
+</p>
+<p>
+Storrs, in his life of St. Bernard, recently issued, has given
+expression to this thought in a very striking fashion. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "It used to be the fashion to regard the Crusades as mere fantastic
+  exhibitions of a temporary turbulent religious fanaticism, aiming at
+  ends wholly visionary, and missing them, wasting the best life of
+  Europe in colossal and bloody undertakings, and leaving effects only
+  of evil for the time which came after. More reasonable views now
+  prevail; and while the impulse in which the vast movement took its
+  rise is recognized as passionate and semi-barbaric, it is seen that
+  many effects followed which were beneficial rather than harmful,
+  which could not perhaps have been at the time in other ways
+  realized. As I have already suggested, properties were to an
+  important <a name="388">{388}</a> extent redistributed in Europe, and the
+  constitutions of states were favorably affected. Lands were sold at
+  low prices by those who were going on the distant expeditions, very
+  probably, as they knew, never to return; and horses and armor, with
+  all martial equipments, were bought at high prices by the Jews, who
+  could not hold land, and the history of whom throughout the Middle
+  Ages is commonly traced in fearful lines of blood and fire, but who
+  increased immeasurably their movable wealth through these transfers
+  of property. Communes bought liberties by large contributions to the
+  needs of their lord; and their liberties, once secured, were
+  naturally confirmed and augmented, as the years went on. The smaller
+  tended to be absorbed in the larger; the larger often to come more
+  strictly under royal control, thus increasing the power of the
+  sovereign&mdash;which meant at the time, general laws, instead of local,
+  a less minutely oppressive administration, the furtherance of the
+  movement toward national unity. It is a noticeable fact that Italy
+  took but a comparatively small part in the Crusades; and the long
+  postponement of organic union between different parts of the
+  magnificent peninsula is not without relation to this. The influence
+  which operated elsewhere in Europe to efface distinction of custom
+  and language in separate communities, to override and extinguish
+  local animosities, to make scattered peoples conscious of kinship,
+  did not operate there; and the persistent severance of sections from
+  each other, favored, of course, by the run of the rivers and the
+  vast separating walls of the Apenines, was the natural consequence
+  of the want of this powerful unifying force."   [Footnote 32]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+    [Footnote 32: Storrs, "Bernard of Chairvaux," New York
+    (Scribners), 1897, pp. 544-45. ]
+</p>
+<p>
+As a matter of fact very few people realize how much was accomplished
+for the spirit of democracy, for liberty, for true progress, as
+regards the rights of men of all classes, and for the feeling of the
+brotherhood of man itself, by the Crusades. A practical money-making
+age may consider them examples of foolish religious fanaticism, but
+those who have studied them most profoundly and with most sympathy,
+who are deeply interested in the social amelioration which they
+brought about, and, above all, those who look at them in the higher
+poetic <a name="389">{389}</a> spirit of what they did to lift man above the sordid
+cares of everyday life, see them in a far different way. Charles
+Kingsley sang in the poem of The Saints Tragedy:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Tell us how our stout crusading fathers<br>
+  Fought and bled for God and not for gold."
+</p>
+<p>
+But quite apart from the poetry of them, from the practical side much
+can be said which even the most matter of fact of men will appreciate.
+Here, for instance, are a series of paragraphs from the history of the
+Middle Ages by George Washington Greene, which he confesses to have
+taken chiefly from the French,   [Footnote 33] which will make clear
+something of the place these great expeditions should be considered as
+holding in the history of democracy and of liberty:
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 33: New York, Appleton, 1867.]
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Christendom had not spent in vain its treasures and its blood in
+  the holy wars. Its immense sacrifices were repaid by immense
+  results, and the evils which these great expeditions necessarily
+  brought with them were more than compensated for by the advantages
+  which they procured for the whole of Europe.
+<br><br>
+  "The Crusades saved Europe from the Mussulman invasion and this was
+  their immediate good. Their influence was felt, too, in a manner
+  less direct, but not less useful. The Crusades had been preached by
+  a religion of equality in a society divided by odious distinctions.
+  All had taken part in them, the weak as well as the strong, the serf
+  and the baron, man and woman, and it was by them that the equality
+  of man and woman, which Christianity taught, was made a social fact.
+  St. Louis declared that he could do nothing without the consent of
+  his queen, his wife. It was from this period that we must date that
+  influence of woman which gave rise to chivalric courtesy, the first
+  step towards refinement of manners and civilization. The poor, too,
+  were the adopted children of the Christian chivalry of the Crusades.
+  The celebrated orders of Palestine were instituted for the
+  protection of poor pilgrims. The Knights of the hospitals called the
+  poor their masters. Surely no lesson was more needed by these proud
+  barons of the Middle Ages than that of charity and humility.
+</p>
+<a name="390">{390}</a>
+<p class="cite">
+  "These ideas were the first to shake the stern despotism of
+  feudality, by opposing to it the generous principles of chivalry
+  which sprang all armed from the Crusades. Bound to the military
+  orders by a solemn vow&mdash;and in the interests of all Christendom&mdash;the
+  knight felt himself free from feudal dependence, and raised above
+  national limits, as the immediate warrior and servant of the united
+  Christendom and of God. Chivalry founded not upon territorial
+  influence, but upon personal distinction, necessarily weakened
+  nobility by rendering it accessible to all, and diminishing the
+  interval which separated the different classes of society. Every
+  warrior who had distinguished himself by his valor could kneel
+  before the king to be dubbed a knight, and rise up the equal, the
+  superior even, of powerful vassals. The poorest knight could sit at
+  the king's table while the noble son of a duke or prince was
+  excluded, unless he had won the golden spurs of knighthood. Another
+  way by which the Crusades contributed to the decay of feudalism was
+  by favoring the enfranchisement of serfs, even without the consent
+  of their masters. Whoever took the cross became free, just as every
+  slave becomes free on touching the soil of England or France.
+<br><br>
+  "The communities whose development is to be referred to the period
+  of the Crusades, multiplied rapidly; the nobility gladly granting
+  charters and privileges in exchange for men and money. With the
+  communities the royal power grew, and that of the aristocracy
+  decreased. The royal domain was enlarged, by the escheating of a
+  great number of fiefs which had been left vacant by the death of
+  their lords. The kings protected the communities, favored their
+  enfranchisement, and employed them usefully against insubordinate
+  vassals. The extension of the royal power favored the organization
+  of the nation, by establishing a principle of unity, for till then,
+  and with that multitude of masters, the nation had been little else
+  than an agglomeration of provinces, strangers to one another, and
+  destitute of any common bond or common interest. The great vassals,
+  themselves, often united under the royal banner, became accustomed
+  during these distant expeditions to submission and discipline, and
+  learned to recognize a legitimate authority; and if they lost by
+  this submission a part of their <a name="391">{391}</a> personal power, they gained in
+  compensation the honorable distinctions of chivalry.
+<br><br>
+  "But it was not the national feeling alone which was fostered by the
+  Crusades. Relations of fraternity, till then wholly unknown, grew up
+  between different nations, and softened the deep-rooted antipathy of
+  races. The knights, whom a common object united in common dangers,
+  became brothers in arms and formally formed permanent ties of
+  friendship. That barbarous law which gave the feudal lord a right to
+  call every man his serf who settled in his domains was softened.
+  Stranger and enemy seemed to be synonymous, and 'the Crusaders,' say
+  the chroniclers of the times, 'although divided by language, seemed
+  to form only one people, by their love for God and their neighbor.'
+  And without coloring the picture too warmly, and making all due
+  allowance for the exaggerations which were so natural to the first
+  recorders of such a movement, we may say that human society was
+  founded and united and Europe began to pass from the painful period
+  of organization, to one of fuller and more rapid development."
+</p>
+<p>
+Here in reality modern democracy had its rise, striking its roots deep
+into the disintegrating soil of the old feudalism whence it was never
+to be plucked, and though at times it languished it was to remain ever
+alive until its luxuriant growth in recent times.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i391.jpg" border=1><br>
+ANIMALS FROM BESTIARIUM, THIRTEENTH CENTURY MS.
+</p>
+
+<a name="392">{392}</a>
+<br>
+
+<h1>XXV
+<br>
+GREAT EXPLORERS AND THE FOUNDATION OF GEOGRAPHY.</h1>
+
+<p>
+Geography is usually considered to be quite a modern subject. The idea
+that great contributions were made to it in the Thirteenth Century
+would ordinarily not be entertained. America was discovered at the end
+of the Fifteenth Century. Knowledge of the East was obtained during
+the Sixteenth Century. Africa was explored in the Nineteenth and a
+detailed knowledge of Asia came to us in such recent years that the
+books are still among the novelties of publication. Our knowledge of
+Persia, of Northern India, of Thibet, and of the interior of China are
+all triumphs of Nineteenth Century enterprise and exploration. As a
+matter of fact, however, all portions of the East were explored, the
+Capital and the dominions of Jenghis Khan described, Lhasa was entered
+and the greater part of China thoroughly explored by travelers of the
+Thirteenth Century, whose books still remain as convincing evidence of
+the great work that they accomplished. This chapter of Thirteenth
+Century accomplishment is, indeed, one of the most interesting and
+surprising in the whole story of the time.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is usually considered that the teaching, supposed to have been more
+or less generally accepted, that the Antipodes did not exist,
+prevented any significant development of geography until comparatively
+modern times. While the question of the existence of antipodes was
+discussed in the schools of the Middle Ages, and especially of the
+Thirteenth Century when men's minds were occupied with practically all
+of the important problems even of physical science, and while many
+intelligent men accepted the idea that there could not be inhabitants
+on the other side of the world because of physical difficulties which
+supposedly made it impossible, it would be a mistake to think that
+this idea was universally accepted. We have already called attention
+to the fact in the chapter on "What was Taught at the <a name="393">{393}</a>
+Universities," that Albertus Magnus, for instance, ridiculed the
+notion that men could not live with their heads down, as was urged
+against the doctrine of the existence of antipodes, by suggesting very
+simply that for those on the other side of the earth what we call down
+was really not down but up. This expresses, of course, the very heart
+of the solution of the supposed difficulty.
+</p>
+<p>
+As a matter of fact it seems clear that many of the great travelers
+and explorers of the later Middle Ages harbored the notion that the
+earth was round. As we shall note a little later in mentioning Sir
+John Mandeville's work, the writer, whomever he was who took that
+pseudonym, believed thoroughly in the rotundity of the earth and did
+not hesitate to use some striking expressions&mdash;which have been often
+quoted&mdash;that he had heard of travelers who by traveling continually to
+the eastward had come back eventually to the point from which they
+started. While in the schools, then, the existence of antipodes may
+have been under discussion, there was a practical acceptance of their
+existence among those who were better informed with regard to
+countries and peoples and all the other topics which form the proper
+subject matter of geography.
+</p>
+<p>
+It must be realized, moreover, that though the existence of the
+Antipodes is an important matter in geography, at this early period it
+was a mere theory, not a condition antecedent to progress. It was
+really a side issue as compared with many other questions relating to
+the earth's surface and its inhabitants with which the medieval mind
+was occupied. To consider that no knowledge of geography could be
+obtained until there was a definite acceptance of the right view of
+the earth's surface, would be to obliterate much precious knowledge.
+The argument as to the existence of antipodes, as it was carried on,
+was entirely outside of geography properly so-called. It never
+influenced in the slightest degree the men who were consciously and
+unconsciously laying deep and broad the foundations of modern
+geography. To consider such a matter as vital to the development of as
+many sided a subject as geography, illustrates very typically the
+narrowness of view of so many modern scholars, who apparently can see
+the value of nothing which does not entirely accord with modern
+knowledge. The really <a name="394">{394}</a> interesting historian of knowledge,
+however, is he who can point out the beginnings of what we now know,
+in unexpected quarters in the medieval mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+As the story of these travels and explorations is really a glorious
+chapter in the history of the encouragement of things intellectual, as
+well as an interesting phase of an important origin whose foundations
+were laid broad and deep in the Thirteenth Century, it must be told
+here in some detail. Our century was the great leader in exploration
+and geography as in so many other matters in which its true place is
+often unrecognized.
+</p>
+<p>
+The people of the time are usually considered to have had such few
+facilities for travel that they did not often go far from home, and
+that what was known about distant countries, therefore, was very
+little and mainly legendary. Nothing could be more false than any such
+impression as this. The Crusades during the previous century had given
+the people not only a deep interest in distant lands, but the
+curiosity to go and see for themselves. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land
+were frequent, ecclesiastics often traveled at least as far as Italy,
+and in general the tide of travel in proportion to the number of
+population must have been not very much less in amount than in our own
+day. After the establishment of the religious orders, missionary
+expeditions to the East became very common and during the Thirteenth
+Century, as we shall see, the Franciscans particularly, established
+themselves in many parts of the Near East, but also of the Far East,
+especially in China. Many of those wrote accounts of their travels,
+and so the literature of travel and exploration during the Thirteenth
+Century is one of the most interesting chapters of the literature of
+these times, while the wonderfully deep foundations that were laid for
+the science of geography, are worthy to be set beside the great
+origins in other sciences and in the arts, for which the century is so
+noteworthy.
+</p>
+<p>
+To most people it will come as a distinct surprise to learn that the
+travelers and explorers of the Thirteenth Century&mdash;merchants,
+ambassadors, and missionaries&mdash;succeeded in solving many of the
+geographical problems that have been of deepest interest to the
+generations of the last half of last century. <a name="395">{395}</a> The eastern part
+of Asia particularly was traveled over and very thoroughly described
+by them. Even the northern part of India, however, was not neglected
+in spite of the difficulties that were encountered, and Thibet was
+explored and Lhasa entered by travelers of the Thirteenth Century. Of
+China as much was written as had been learned by succeeding
+generations down practically to our own time. This may sound like a
+series of fairy-tales instead of serious science, but it is the
+travelers and explorers of the modern time who have thought it worth
+while to comment on the writings of these old-time wanderers of the
+Thirteenth Century, and who have pointed out the significance of their
+work. These men described not only the countries through which they
+passed, but also the characters of the people, their habits and
+customs, their forms of speech, with many marvelous hints as regards
+the relationship of the different languages, and even something about
+the religious practises of these countries and their attitude toward
+the great truths of Christianity when they were presented to them.
+</p>
+<p>
+Undoubtedly one of the greatest travelers and explorers of all times
+was Marco Polo, whose book was for so long considered to be mainly
+made up of imaginary descriptions of things and places never seen, but
+which the development of modern geographical science by travels and
+expeditions has proved to be one of the most valuable contributions to
+this department of knowledge that has ever been made. It took many
+centuries for Marco Polo to come to his own in this respect but the
+Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries have almost more than made up for
+the neglect of their predecessors. Marco Polo suffered the same fate
+as did Herodotus of whom Voltaire sneered "father of history, say,
+rather, father of lies." So long as succeeding generations had no
+knowledge themselves of the things of which both these great writers
+had written, they were distrusted and even treated contemptuously.
+Just as soon, however, as definite knowledge began to come it was seen
+how wonderfully accurate both of them were in their descriptions of
+things they had actually seen, though they admitted certain
+over-wonderful stories on the authority of others. Herodotus has now
+come to be acknowledged as <a name="396">{396}</a> one of the greatest of historians. In
+his lives of celebrated travelers, James Augustus St. John states the
+change of mind with regard to Marco Polo rather forcibly:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "When the travels of Marco Polo first appeared, they were generally
+  regarded as fiction; and as this absurd belief had so far gained
+  ground, that when he lay upon his death bed, his friends and nearest
+  relatives, coming to take their eternal adieu, conjured him as he
+  valued the salvation of his soul, to retract whatever he had
+  advanced in his book, or at least many such passages as every person
+  looked upon as untrue; but the traveler whose conscience was
+  untouched upon that score, declared solemnly, in that awful moment,
+  that far from being guilty of exaggeration, he had not described
+  one-half of the wonderful things which he had beheld. Such was the
+  reception which the discoveries of this extraordinary man
+  experienced when first promulgated. By degrees, however, as
+  enterprise lifted more and more the veil from Central and Eastern
+  Asia the relations of our traveler rose in the estimation of
+  geographers; and now that the world&mdash;though containing many unknown
+  tracts&mdash;has been more successfully explored, we begin to perceive
+  that Marco Polo, like Herodotus, was a man of the most rigid
+  veracity, whose testimony presumptuous ignorance alone can call in
+  question."
+</p>
+<p>
+There is many a fable that clings around the name of Marco Polo, but
+this distinguished traveler needs no fictitious adornments of his tale
+to make him one of the greatest explorers of all time. It is sometimes
+said that he helped to introduce many important inventions into Europe
+and one even finds his name connected with the mariner's compass and
+with gunpowder. There are probably no good grounds for thinking that
+Europe owes any knowledge of either of these great inventions to the
+Venetian traveler. With regard to printing there is more doubt and
+Polo's passage with regard to movable blocks for printing paper money
+as used in China may have proved suggestive.
+</p>
+<p>
+There is no need, however, of surmises in order to increase his fame
+for the simple story of his travels is quite sufficient for his
+reputation for all time. As has been well said most of the modern
+travelers and explorers have only been developing what Polo indicated
+at least in outline, and they have been <a name="397">{397}</a> scarcely more than
+describing with more precision of detail what he first touched upon
+and brought to general notice. When it is remembered that he visited
+such cities in Eastern Turkestan as Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan,
+which have been the subject of much curiosity only satisfied in quite
+recent years, that he had visited Thibet, or at least had traveled
+along its frontier, that to him the medieval world owed some definite
+knowledge of the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia and all that it was to
+know of China for centuries almost, his merits will be readily
+appreciated. As a matter of fact there was scarcely an interesting
+country of the East of which Marco Polo did not have something to
+relate from his personal experiences. He told of Burmah, of Siam, of
+Cochin China, of Japan, of Java, of Sumatra, and of other islands of
+the great Archipelago, of Ceylon, and of India, and all of these not
+in the fabulous dreamland spirit of one who has not been in contact
+with the East but in very definite and precise fashion. Nor was this
+all. He had heard and could tell much, though his geographical lore
+was legendary and rather dim, of the Coast of Zanzibar, of the vast
+and distant Madagascar, and in the remotely opposite direction of
+Siberia, of the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and of the curious customs
+of the inhabitants of these distant countries.
+</p>
+<p>
+How wonderfully acute and yet how thoroughly practical some of Polo's
+observations were can be best appreciated by some quotations from his
+description of products and industries as he saw them on his travels.
+We are apt to think of the use of petroleum as dating from much later
+than the Thirteenth Century, but Marco Polo had not only seen it in
+the Near East on his travels, but evidently had learned much of the
+great rock-oil deposits at Baku which constitute the basis for the
+important Russian petroleum industry in modern times. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "On the north (of Armenia) is found a fountain from which a liquor
+  like oil flows, which, though unprofitable for the seasoning of
+  meat, is good for burning and for anointing camels afflicted with
+  the mange. This oil flows constantly and copiously, so that camels
+  are laden with it."
+</p>
+<p>
+He is quite as definite in the information acquired with regard, to
+the use of coal. He knew and states very confidently that <a name="398">{398}</a> there
+were immense deposits of coal in China, deposits which are so
+extensive that distinguished geologists and mineralogists who have
+learned of them in modern times have predicted that eventually the
+world's great manufacturing industries would be transferred to China.
+We are apt to think that this mineral wealth is not exploited by the
+Chinese, yet even in Marco Polo's time, as one commentator has
+remarked, the rich and poor of that land had learned the value of the
+black stone.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Through the whole Province of Cathay," says Polo, "certain black
+  stones are dug from the mountains, which, put into the fire, burn
+  like wood, and being kindled, preserve fire a long time, and if they
+  be kindled in the evening they keep fire all the night."
+</p>
+<p>
+Another important mineral product which even more than petroleum or
+coal is supposed to be essentially modern in its employment is
+asbestos. Polo had not only seen this but had realized exactly what it
+was, had found out its origin and had recognized its value. Curiously
+enough he attempts to explain the origin of a peculiar usage of the
+word salamander (the salamander having been supposed to be an animal
+which was not injured by fire) by reference to the incombustibility of
+asbestos. The whole passage as it appears in The Romance of Travel and
+Exploration deserves to be quoted. While discoursing about Dsungaria,
+Polo says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "And you must know that in the mountain there is a substance from
+  which Salamander is made. The real truth is that the Salamander is
+  no beast as they allege in our part of the world, but is a substance
+  found in the earth. Everybody can be aware that it can be no
+  animal's nature to live in fire seeing that every animal is composed
+  of all the four elements. Now I, Marco Polo, had a Turkish
+  acquaintance who related that he had lived three years in that
+  region on behalf of the Great Khan, in order to procure these
+  salamanders for him. He said that the way they got them was by
+  digging in that mountain till they found a certain vein. The
+  substance of this vein was taken and crushed, and when so treated it
+  divides, as it were, into fibres of wool, which they set forth to
+  dry. When dry these fibres were pounded in a copper mortar and then
+  washed so as to remove all the earth and to leave only the fibres,
+  like <a name="399">{399}</a> fibres of wool. These were then spun and made into
+  napkins." Needless to say this is an excellent description of
+  asbestos.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is not surprising, then, that the Twentieth Century so interested
+in travel and exploration should be ready to lay its tributes at the
+feet of Marco Polo, and that one of the important book announcements
+of recent years should be that of the publication of an annotated
+edition of Marco Polo from the hands of a modern explorer, who
+considered that there was no better way of putting definitely before
+the public in its true historical aspect the evolution of modern
+geographical knowledge with regard to Eastern countries.
+</p>
+<p>
+It can scarcely fail to be surprising to the modern mind that Polo
+should practically have been forced into print. He had none of the
+itch of the modern traveler for publicity. The story of his travels he
+had often told and because of the wondrous tales he could unfold and
+the large numbers he found it frequently so necessary to use in order
+to give proper ideas of some of his wanderings, had acquired the
+nickname of Marco Millioni. He had never thought, however, of
+committing his story to writing or perhaps he feared the drudgery of
+such literary labor. After his return from his travels, however, he
+bravely accepted a patriot's duty of fighting for his native country
+on board one of her galleys and was captured by the Genoese in a
+famous sea-fight in the Adriatic in 1298. He was taken prisoner and
+remained in captivity in Genoa for nearly a year.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was during this time that one Rusticiano, a writer by profession,
+was attracted to him and tempted him to tell him the complete story of
+his travels in order that they might be put into connected form.
+Rusticiano was a Pisan who had been a compiler of French romances and
+accordingly Polo's story was first told in French prose. It is not
+surprising that Rusticiano should have chosen French since he
+naturally wished his story of Polo's travels to be read by as many
+people as possible and realized that it would be of quite as much
+interest to ordinary folk as to the literary circles of Europe. How
+interesting the story is only those who have read it even with the
+knowledge acquired by all the other explorers since his time, can
+properly appreciate. It lacks entirely the egotistic quality that
+usually characterizes an explorer's account of his travels, and,
+indeed, <a name="400">{400}</a> there can scarcely fail to be something of
+disappointment because of this fact. No doubt a touch more of personal
+adventure would have added to the interest of the book. It was not a
+characteristic of the Thirteenth Century, however, to insist on the
+merely personal and consequently the world has lost a treat it might
+otherwise have had. There is no question, however, or the greatness of
+Polo's work as a traveler, nor of the glory that was shed by it on the
+Thirteenth Century. Like nearly everything else that was done in this
+marvelous century he represents the acme of successful endeavor in his
+special line down even to our own time.
+</p>
+<p>
+It has sometimes been said that Marco Polo's work greatly influenced
+Columbus and encouraged him in his attempt to seek India by sailing
+around the globe. Of this, however, there is considerable doubt. We
+have learned in recent times, that a very definite tradition with
+regard to the possibility of finding land by sailing straight westward
+over the Atlantic existed long before Columbus' time.   [Footnote 34]
+Polo's indirect influence on Columbus by his creation of an interest
+in geographical matters generally is much clearer. There can be no
+doubt of how much his work succeeded in drawing men's minds to
+geographical questions during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 34: My learned friend, Father DeRoo, of Portland, Ore.,
+  who has written two very interesting volumes on the History of
+  America before Columbus, does not hesitate to say that Columbus may
+  even have met in his travels and spoken with sailors who had touched
+  on some portions of the American Continent, and that, of course, the
+  traditions with regard to Greenland were very clear.]
+</p>
+<p>
+After Marco Polo, undoubtedly, the most enterprising explorer and
+interesting writer on Travel in the Thirteenth Century was John of
+Carpini, the author of a wonderful series of descriptions of things
+seen in Northern Asia. Like so many other travelers and explorers at
+this time John was a Franciscan Friar, and seems to have been one of
+the early companions and disciples of St. Francis of Assisi, whom he
+joined when he was only a young man himself. Before going on his
+missionary and ambassadorial expedition he had been one of the most
+prominent men in the order. He had much to do with its <a name="401">{401}</a>
+propagation among the Northern nations of Europe, and occupied
+successively the offices of custos or prior in Saxony and of
+Provincial in Germany. He seems afterwards to have been sent as an
+organizer into Spain and to have gone even as far as the Barbary
+coast.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is not surprising, then, that when, in 1245, Pope Innocent IV.
+(sometime after the Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe and the
+disastrous battle of Legamites which threatened to place European
+civilization and Christianity in the power of the Tartars) resolved to
+send a mission to the Tartar monarch, John of Carpini was selected for
+the dangerous and important mission.
+</p>
+<p>
+At this time Friar John was more than sixty years of age, but such was
+the confidence in his ability and in his executive power that
+everything on the embassy was committed to his discretion. He started
+from Lyons on Easter Day, 1245. He sought the counsel first of his old
+friend Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia, and from that country took with
+him another friar, a Pole, to act as his interpreter. The first stage
+in his journey was to Kiev, and from here, having crossed the Dnieper
+and the Don to the Volga, he traveled to the camp of Batu, at this
+time the senior living member of Jenghis Khan's family. Batu after
+exchanging presents allowed them to proceed to the court of the
+supreme Khan in Mongolia. As Col. Yule says, the stout-hearted old man
+rode on horseback something like three thousand miles in the next
+hundred days. The bodies of himself and companion had to be tightly
+bandaged to enable them to stand the excessive fatigue of this
+enormous ride, which led them across the Ural Mountains and River past
+the northern part of the Caspian, across the Jaxartes, whose name they
+could not find out, along the Dzungarian Lakes till they reached the
+Imperial Camp, called the Yellow Pavilion, near the Orkhon River.
+There had been an interregnum in the empire which was terminated by a
+formal election while the Friars were at the Yellow Pavilion, where
+they had the opportunity to see between three and four thousand envoys
+and deputies from all parts of Asia and Eastern Europe, who brought
+with them tributes and presents for the ruler to be elected.
+</p>
+<a name="402">{402}</a>
+<p>
+It was not for three months after this, in November, that the Emperor
+dismissed them with a letter to the Pope written in Latin, Arabic, and
+Mongolian, but containing only a brief imperious assertion that the
+Khan of the Tartars was the scourge of God for Christianity, and that
+he must fulfill his mission. Then sad at heart, the ambassadors began
+their homeward journey in the midst of the winter. Their sufferings
+can be better imagined than described, but Friar John who does not
+dwell on them much tells enough of them to make their realization
+comparatively easy. They reached Kiev seven months later, in June, and
+were welcomed there by the Slavonic Christians as though arisen from
+the dead. From thence they continued their journey to Lyons where they
+delivered the Khan's letter to the Pope.
+</p>
+<p>
+Friar John embodied the information that he had obtained in this
+journey in a book that has been called Liber Tartarorum (the Book of
+the Tartars or according to another manuscript, History of the Mongols
+whom we call Tartars). Col. Yule notes that like most of the other
+medieval monks' itineraries, it shows an entire absence of that
+characteristic traveler's egotism with which we have become abundantly
+familiar in more recent years, and contains very little personal
+narrative. We know that John was a stout man and this in addition to
+his age when he went on the mission, cannot but make us realize the
+thoroughly unselfish spirit with which he followed the call of Holy
+Obedience, to undertake a work that seemed sure to prove fatal and
+that would inevitably bring in its train suffering of the severest
+kind. Of the critical historical value of his work a good idea can be
+obtained from the fact, that half a century ago an educated Mongol,
+Galsang Gombeyev, in the Historical and Philological Bulletin of the
+Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, reviewed the book and bore
+testimony to the great accuracy of its statements, to the care with
+which its details had been verified, and the evident personal
+character of all its observations.
+</p>
+<p>
+Friar John's book attracted the attention of compilers of information
+with regard to distant countries very soon after it was issued, and an
+abridgment of it is to be found in the Encyclopedia of Vincent of
+Beauvais, which was written shortly <a name="403">{403}</a> after the middle of the
+Thirteenth Century. At the end of the Sixteenth Century Hakluyt
+published portions of the original work, as did Borgeron at the
+beginning of the Seventeenth Century. The Geographical Society of
+Paris published a fine edition of the work about the middle of the
+Nineteenth Century, and at the same time a brief narrative taken down
+from the lips of John's companion. Friar Benedict the Pole, which is
+somewhat more personal in its character and fully substantiates all
+that Friar John had written.
+</p>
+<p>
+As can readily be understood the curiosity of his contemporaries was
+deeply aroused and Friar John had to tell his story many times after
+his return. Hence the necessity he found himself under of committing
+it to paper, so as to save himself from the bother of telling it all
+over again, and in order that his brother Franciscans throughout the
+world might have the opportunity to read it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Col. Yule says "The book must have been prepared immediately after the
+return of the traveler, for the Friar Salimbene, who met him in France
+in the very year of his return (1247) gives us these interesting
+particulars: 'He was a clever and conversable man, well lettered, a
+great discourser, and full of diversity of experience. He wrote a big
+book about the Tartars (sic), and about other marvels that he had seen
+and whenever he felt weary of telling about the Tartars, he would
+cause this book of his to be read, as I have often heard and seen.
+(Chron. Fr. Salembene Parmensis in Monum. Histor. ad Provinceam
+Placent: Pertinentia, Parma 1857).'"
+</p>
+<p>
+Another important traveler of the Thirteenth Century whose work has
+been the theme of praise and extensive annotation in modern times was
+William of Rubruk, usually known under the name of Rubruquis, a
+Franciscan friar, thought, as the result of recent investigations,
+probably to owe his cognomen to his birth in the little town of Rubruk
+in Brabant, who was the author of a remarkable narrative of Asiatic
+travel during the Thirteenth Century, and whose death seems to have
+taken place about 1298. The name Rubruquis has been commonly used to
+designate him because it is found in the Latin original of his work,
+which was printed by Hayluyt in his collection of Voyages at the end
+of the <a name="404">{404}</a> Sixteenth Century. Friar William was sent partly as an
+ambassador and partly as an explorer by Louis IX. of France into
+Tartary. At that time the descendants of Jenghis Khan ruled over an
+immense Empire in the Orient and King Louis was deeply interested in
+introducing Christianity into the East and if possible making their
+rulers Christians. About the middle of the Thirteenth Century a rumor
+spread throughout Europe that one of the nephews of the great Khan had
+embraced Christianity. St. Louis thought this a favorable opportunity
+for getting in touch with the Eastern Potentate and so he dispatched
+at least two missions into Tartary at the head of the second of which
+was William of Rubruk.
+</p>
+<p>
+His accounts of his travels proved most interesting reading to his own
+and to many subsequent generations, perhaps to none more than our own.
+The Encyclopedia Britannica (ninth edition) says that the narrative of
+his journey is everywhere full of life and interest, and some details
+of his travels will show the reasons for this. Rubruk and his party
+landed on the Crimean Coast at Sudak or Soldaia, a port which formed
+the chief seat of communication between the Mediterranean countries
+and what is now Southern Russia. The Friar succeeded in making his way
+from here to the Great Khan's Court which was then held not far from
+Karakorum. This journey was one of several thousand miles. The route
+taken has been worked out by laborious study and the key to it is the
+description given of the country intervening between the basin of the
+Talas and Lake Ala-Kul. This enables the whole geography of the
+region, including the passage of the River Ili, the plain south of the
+Bal Cash, and the Ala-Kul itself, to be identified beyond all
+reasonable doubt.
+</p>
+<p>
+The return journey was made during the summertime, and the route lay
+much farther to the north. The travelers traversed the Jabkan Valley
+and passed north of the River Bal Cash, following a rather direct
+course which led them to the mouth of the Volga. From here they
+traveled south past Derbend and Shamakii to the Uraxes, and on through
+Iconium to the coast of Cilicia, and finally to the port of Ayas,
+where they embarked for Cyprus. All during his travels Friar William
+made observations on men and cities, and rivers and mountains, and
+<a name="405">{405}</a> languages and customs, implements and utensils, and most of
+these modern criticism has accepted as representing the actual state
+of things as they would appear to a medieval sightseer. Occasionally
+during the period intervening between his time and our own, scholars
+who thought that they knew better, have been conceited enough to
+believe themselves in a position to point out glaring errors in
+Rubruquis' accounts of what he saw. Subsequent investigation and
+discovery have, as a rule, proved the accuracy of the earlier
+observations rather than the modern scholar's corrections. An
+excellent example of this is quoted in the Encyclopedia Britannica
+article on Rubruquis already referred to.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp405">{opp405}</a>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp405a.jpg" border=1><br>
+DOORWAY OF GIOTTO'S TOWER (FLORENCE)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp405b.jpg" border=1><br>
+PRINCIPAL DOOR OF BAPTISTERY (PISA, DIOTISALVI)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The writer says: "This sagacious and honest observer is denounced as
+an ignorant and untruthful blunderer by Isaac Jacob Schmidt (a man no
+doubt of useful learning, of a kind rare in his day but narrow and
+long-headed and in natural acumen and candour far inferior to the
+Thirteenth Century friar whom he maligns), simply because the evidence
+of the latter as to the Turkish dialect of the Uigurs traversed a pet
+heresy long since exploded which Schmidt entertained, namely, that the
+Uigurs were by race and language Tibetan."
+</p>
+<p>
+Some of the descriptions of the towns through which the travelers
+passed are interesting because of comparisons with towns of
+corresponding size in Europe. Karakorum, for instance, was described
+as a small city about the same size as the town of St. Denis near
+Paris. In Karakorum the ambassador missionary maintained a public
+disputation with certain pagan priests in the presence of three of the
+secretaries of the Khan. The religion of these umpires is rather
+interesting from its diversity: the first was a Christian, the second
+a Mohammedan, and the third a Buddhist. A very interesting feature of
+the disputation was the fact that the Khan ordered under pain of death
+that none of the disputants should slander, traduce, or abuse his
+adversaries, or endeavor by rumor or insinuations to excite popular
+indignation against them. This would seem to indicate that the great
+Tartar Khan who is usually considered to have been a cruel, ignorant
+despot, whose one quality that gave him supremacy was military valor,
+was really a large, liberal-minded man. His idea seems to have been to
+discover <a name="406">{406}</a> the truth of these different religions and adopt that
+one which was adjudged to have the best groundwork of reason for it.
+It is easy to understand, however, that such a disputation argued
+through interpreters wholly ignorant of the subject and without any
+proper understanding of the nice distinctions of words or any practise
+in conveying their proper significance, could come to no serious
+conclusion. The arguments, therefore, fell flat and a decision was not
+rendered.
+</p>
+<p>
+Friar William's work was not unappreciated by his contemporaries and
+even its scientific value was thoroughly realized. It is not
+surprising, of course, that his great contemporary in the Franciscan
+order, Roger Bacon, should have come to the knowledge of his Brother
+Minorite's book and should have made frequent and copious quotations
+from it in the geographical section of his Opus Majus, which was
+written some time during the seventh decade of the Thirteenth Century.
+Bacon says that Brother William traversed the Oriental and Northern
+regions and the places adjacent to them, and wrote accounts of them
+for the illustrious King of France who sent him on the expedition to
+Tartary. He adds: "I have read his book diligently and have compared
+it with similar accounts." Roger Bacon recognized by a sort of
+scientific intuition of his own, certain passages which have proved to
+be the best in recent times. The description, for instance, of the
+Caspian was the best down to this time, and Friar William corrects the
+error made by Isidore, and which had generally been accepted before
+this, that the Caspian Sea was a gulf. Rubruk, as quoted by Roger
+Bacon, states very explicitly that it nowhere touches the ocean but is
+surrounded on all sides by land. For those who do not think that the
+foundations of scientific geography were laid until recent times, a
+little consultation of Roger Bacon's Opus Majus would undoubtedly be a
+revelation.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is probably with regard to language that one might reasonably
+expect to find least that would be of interest to modern scholars in
+Friar William's book. As might easily have been gathered from previous
+references, however, it is here that the most frequent surprises as to
+the acuity of this medieval traveler await the modern reader.
+Scientific philology is so much a product of the last century, that it
+is difficult to <a name="407">{407}</a> understand how this old-time missionary was able
+to reach so many almost intuitive recognitions of the origin and
+relationships of the languages of the people among whom he traveled.
+He came in contact with the group of nations occupying what is now
+known as the Near East, whose languages, as is well known, have
+constituted a series of the most difficult problems with which
+philology had to deal until its thorough establishment on scientific
+lines enabled it to separate them properly. It is all the more
+surprising then, to find that Friar William should have so much in his
+book that even the modern philologist will read with attention and
+unstinted admiration.
+</p>
+<p>
+With regard to this Colonel Yule, whose personal experience makes him
+a valuable guide in such matters, has written a paragraph which
+contains so much compressed information that we venture to quote it
+entire. It furnishes the grounds for the claim (which might seem
+overstrained if it were not that its author was himself one of the
+greatest of modern explorers) that William was an acute and most
+intelligent observer, keen in the acquisition of knowledge; and the
+author in fact of one of the best narratives of travel in existence.
+Col. Yule says:
+<p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Of his interest and acumen in matters of language we may cite
+  examples. The language of the Pascatir (or Bashkirds) and of the
+  Hungarians is the same, as, he had learned from Dominicans who had
+  been among them. The language of the Ruthenians, Poles, Bohemians,
+  and Slavonians is one, and is the same with that of the Wandals or
+  Wends. In the town of Equinus (immediately beyond the Ili, perhaps
+  Aspara) the people were Mohammedans speaking Persian, though so far
+  remote from Persia. The Yugurs (or Uigurs) of the country about the
+  Cailac had formed a language and character of their own, and in that
+  language and character the Nestorians of that tract used to perform
+  their office and write their books. The Yugurs are those among whom
+  are found the fountain and root of the Turkish and Comanian tongue.
+  Their character has been adopted by the Moghals. In using it they
+  begin writing from the top and write downwards, whilst line follows
+  line from left to right. The Nestorians say their service, and have
+  their holy book in Syriac, but know nothing of the <a name="408">{408}</a> language,
+  just as some of our Monks sing the mass without knowing Latin. The
+  Tibet people write as we do, and their letters have a strong
+  resemblance to ours. The Tangut people write from right to left like
+  the Arabs, and their lines advance upwards."
+</p>
+<p>
+There were other matters besides language and religion on which Friar
+William made observations, and though his book is eminently human
+giving us a very interesting view of his own personality and of his
+difficulties with his dragoman, which many a modern Eastern traveler
+will sympathize with, and a picture that includes the detail that he
+was a very heavy man, <i>valde ponderosus</i>, which makes his travel on
+horseback for some 10,000 miles all the more wonderful; it also
+contains a mass of particulars, marvelously true&mdash;or so near the truth
+as to be almost more interesting&mdash;as to Asiatic nature, ethnography,
+manners, morals, commercial customs, and nearly everything else
+relating to the life of the peoples among whom he traveled. A typical
+example of this is to be found in the following suggestive paragraph:
+</p>
+<p>
+"The current money of Cathay is of cotton paper, a palm in length and
+breath, and on this they print lines like those of Mangu Khan's seal:
+'imprimunt lineas sicut est sigillum Mangu'"&mdash;a remarkable expression.
+"They write with a painter's pencil and combine in one character
+several letters, forming one expression: 'faciunt in una figura plures
+literas comprehendentes unam dictionem'"&mdash;a still more remarkable
+utterance, showing an approximate apprehension of the nature of
+Chinese writing.
+</p>
+<p>
+There are other distinguished travelers whose inspiration came to them
+during the Thirteenth Century though their works were published in the
+early part of the next century. Some of these we know mainly through
+their adaptation and incorporation into his work without due
+recognition, by that first great writer of spurious travels Sir John
+Mandeville. Mandeville's work was probably written some time during
+the early part of the second half of the Fourteenth Century, but he
+used materials gathered from travelers of the end of the Thirteenth
+and the beginning of the next (his own) century. Sir Henry Yule has
+pointed out, that by far the greater part of the supposed <a name="409">{409}</a> more
+distant travels of Sir John Mandeville were appropriated from the
+narrative of Friar Odoric, a monk, who became a member of the
+Franciscan order about the end of the Thirteenth Century, and whose
+travels as a missionary in the East gave him the opportunities to
+collect a precious fund of information which is contained in Odoric's
+famous story of his voyages. Of Odoric himself we shall have something
+to say presently.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the meantime it seems well worth while calling to attention, that
+the accepted narrative of Sir John Mandeville as it is called, and
+which may have been written by a physician of the name of John of
+Burgoigne under an assumed name, contains a number of interesting
+anticipations of facts that were supposed to enter into the domain of
+human knowledge much later in the intellectual development of the
+race. In certain passages, and especially in one which is familiar
+from its being cited by Dr. Johnson in the preface to his dictionary,
+Mandeville, to use the name under which the story is best known, shows
+that he had a correct idea of the form of the earth and of position in
+latitude as it could be ascertained by observation of the Pole Star.
+He knew also, as we noted at the beginning of this article, that there
+are antipodes, and if ships were sent on voyages of discovery they
+might sail around the world. As Col. Yule has pointed out, Mandeville
+tells a curious story which he had heard in his youth of how "a worthy
+man did travel ever eastward until he came to his own country again."
+</p>
+<p>
+Odoric of whom we have already spoken must be considered as the next
+great missionary traveler of this age. He took Franciscan vows when
+scarcely a boy and was encouraged to travel in the East by the example
+of his Holy Father St. Francis, and also by the interest and
+missionary zeal to convert the East which had been aroused by Marco
+Polo's travels. His long journeys will be more readily understood,
+however, if we realize, as is stated in the article on him in the
+Encyclopedia Britannica, an authority that will surely be unsuspected
+of too great partiality for the work of Catholic missionaries, that
+"There had risen also during the latter half of the Thirteenth Century
+an energetic missionary action, extending all over the East on the
+part of both the new orders of Preaching and Minorite (or Dominican
+and Franciscan) Friars which had caused <a name="410">{410}</a> members of these orders,
+of the last especially, to become established in Persia and what is
+now Southern Russia, in Tartary and in China."
+</p>
+<p>
+In the course of his travels in the East Odoric visited Malabar
+touching at Pandarini (twenty miles north of Calicut), at Craganore
+and at Quilon, preceding thence, apparently, to Ceylon and to the
+Shrine of St. Thomas at Mailapur near Madras.
+</p>
+<p>
+Even more interesting than his travels in India, however, are those in
+China. He sailed from the Hindustan Peninsula in a Chinese junk to
+Sumatra, visiting various ports on the northern coast of that island
+and telling something about the inhabitants and the customs of the
+country. According to Sir Henry Yule he then visited Java and it would
+seem also the coast of Borneo, finally reaching Kanton, at that time
+known to Western Asiatics as Chin Kalan or Great China. From there he
+went to the great ports of Fuhkeen and Schwan Chow, where he found two
+houses of his order, thence he proceeded to Fuchau from which place he
+struck across the mountains into Chekaeng and then visited Hang Chow
+at that time renowned under the name of Cansay. Modern authorities in
+exploration have suggested that this might be King Sae, the Chinese
+name for Royal Residence, which was then one of the greatest cities of
+the world. Thence Odoric passed northward by Nanking, and, crossing
+the great Kiang, embarked on the Grand Canal and traveled to Cambaluc
+or Pekin, where he remained for three years and where it is thought
+that he was attached to one of the churches founded by Archbishop John
+of Monte Corvino, who was at this time in extreme old age.
+</p>
+<p>
+The most surprising part of Odoric's travels were still to come. When
+the fever for traveling came upon him again he turned almost directly
+westward to the Great Wall and through Shenshua. From here the
+adventurous traveler (we are still practically quoting Sir Henry Yule)
+entered Thibet and appears to have visited Lhasa. Considering how much
+of interest has been aroused by recent attempts to enter Lhasa and the
+surprising adventures that men have gone through in the effort, the
+success of this medieval monk in such an expedition would seem
+incredible, if it were not substantiated by documents that <a name="411">{411}</a> place
+the matter beyond all doubt even in the minds of the most
+distinguished modern authorities in geography and exploration. How
+Odoric returned home is not definitely known, though certain
+fragmentary notices seem to indicate that he passed through Khorasan
+and probably Tabriz to Europe.
+</p>
+<p>
+It only remains to complete the interest of Odoric's wondrous tale to
+add that during a large portion of these years' long journeys his
+companion was Friar James, an Irishman who had been attracted to Italy
+in order to become a Franciscan. As appears from a record in the
+public books of the town of Udine in Italy, where the monastery of
+which both he and Odoric were members was situated, a present of two
+marks was made by the municipal authorities to the Irish friar shortly
+after Odoric's death. The reason for the gift was stated to be, that
+Friar James had been for the love of God and of Odoric (a typical
+Celtic expression and characteristic) a companion of the blessed
+Odoric in his wanderings. Unfortunately Odoric died within two years
+after his return though not until the story of his travels had been
+taken down in homely Latin by Friar William of Bologna. Shortly after
+his death Odoric became an object of reverence on the part of his
+brother friars and of devotion on the part of the people, who
+recognized the wonderful apostolic spirit that he had displayed in his
+long wanderings, and the patience and good-will with which he had
+borne sufferings and hardships for the sake of winning the souls of
+those outside the Church.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sir Henry Yule summed up his opinion of Odoric in the following
+striking passage which bears forcible testimony also to the healthy
+curiosity of the times with regard to all these original sources of
+information which were recognized as valuable because first hand:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The numerous MSS. of Odoric's narrative that have come down to our
+  time (upwards of forty are known), and chiefly from the Fourteenth
+  Century, show how speedily and widely it acquired popularity. It
+  does not deserve the charge of general mendacity brought up against
+  it by some, though the language of other writers who have spoken of
+  the traveler as a man of learning is still more injudicious. Like
+  most of the medieval travelers, he is indiscriminating in accepting
+  strange tales; but while some of these are the habitual stories of
+  the <a name="412">{412}</a> age, many particulars which he recited attest the genuine
+  character of the narrative, and some of those which Tiraboschi and
+  others have condemned as mendacious interpolations are the very
+  seals of truth."
+</p>
+<p>
+Besides Odoric there is another monkish traveler from whom Mandeville
+has borrowed much, though without giving him any credit. This is the
+well-known Praemonstratensian Monk Hayton, who is said to have been a
+member of a princely Armenian family and who just at the beginning of
+the Fourteenth Century dictated a work on the affairs of the Orient
+and especially the history of the nearer East in his own time, of
+which, from the place of his nativity and bringing up, he had abundant
+information, while he found all round him in France, where he was
+living at the time, the greatest thirst for knowledge with regard to
+this part of the world. His book seems to have been dictated
+originally in French at Poictiers, and to have attracted great
+attention because of its subject, many copies of it being made as well
+as translations into other languages within a few years after its
+original appearance.
+</p>
+<p>
+The story of Odoric is a forcible reminder of how much the
+missionaries accomplished for geography, ethnology, and ethnography in
+the Thirteenth Century, as they did in succeeding centuries. If what
+the missionaries have added to these sciences were to have been lost,
+there would have been enormous gaps in the knowledge with which modern
+scholars began their scientific labors in philology. It may be a
+surprise to most people, moreover, to be thus forcibly reminded of the
+wonderful evangelizing spirit which characterized the later middle
+age. Needless to say these graduates of the Thirteenth Century
+universities who wandered in distant eastern lands, brought with them
+their European culture for the uplifting of the Orientals, and brought
+back to Europe many ideas that were to be fruitful sources of
+suggestions not only for geographical, ethnological, philological, and
+other departments of learning, but also in manufactures and in arts.
+</p>
+<p>
+We mentioned the fact that Odoric in his travels eventually reached
+Cambaluc, or Pekin, where he found Archbishop John of Monte Corvino
+still alive though at an advanced age, and was probably attached for
+the three years of his stay to one of <a name="413">{413}</a> the churches that had been
+founded by this marvelous old Friar, who had been made Archbishop
+because of the wonderful power of organization and administration
+displayed during his earlier career as a missionary. The story of this
+grand old man of the early Franciscan missions is another one of the
+romances of Thirteenth Century travels and exploration which well
+deserves to be studied in detail. Unfortunately the old Archbishop was
+too much occupied with his work as a missionary and an ecclesiastic to
+return to Europe in order to tell of it, or to write any lengthy
+account of his experiences. Like many another great man of the
+Thirteenth Century he was a doer and not a writer, and, but for the
+casual mention of him by others, the records of his deeds would only
+be found in certain ecclesiastical records, and his work would now be
+known to the Master alone, for whom it was so unselfishly done.
+</p>
+<p>
+It will be noted that most of these traveling missionaries were
+Franciscans but it must not be thought that it was only the
+Franciscans who sent out such missionaries. The Dominicans
+(established at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century) also did
+wonderful missionary work and quite as faithfully as even their
+Franciscan brothers. Undoubtedly the Franciscans surpassed them in the
+extent of their labors, but then the Dominicans were founded with the
+idea of preaching and uplifting the people of Europe rather than of
+spreading the good news of the Gospel outside the bounds of
+Christianity as it then existed. From the very earliest traditions of
+their order the Franciscans had their eyes attracted towards the East.
+The story that St. Francis himself went to the Holy Land at the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century in order to convert Saladin, the
+Eastern monarch whose name has been made famous by the stories of the
+Crusade in which Richard Coeur de Lion took part, has been doubted,
+but it seems to be founded on too good contemporary authority to be
+considered as entirely apocryphal. St. Francis' heart went out to
+those in darkness who knew nothing of the Christ whom he had learned
+to love so ardently, and it was a supreme desire of his life that the
+good tidings of Christianity should be spread by his followers all
+over the world. While they did this great work they accomplished
+unwittingly great things in all the series of sciences <a name="414">{414}</a> now
+included under the term geography, and gathered precious information
+as to the races of men, their relations to one another and to the part
+of the earth in which they live. The scientific progress thus made
+will always redound largely to their credit in the story of the
+intellectual development of modern Europe. Most of their work was far
+ahead of the times and was not to be properly appreciated until quite
+recent generations, but this must only emphasize our sympathy for
+those obscure, patient but fruitful workers in a great field of human
+knowledge. As to what should be thought of those who ignorant of their
+work proclaim that the Church did not tolerate geography it is hard to
+say. Our geographical knowledge comes mainly from travelers whose wish
+it is to gain commercial opportunities for themselves or their
+compatriots; that of the Middle Ages was gained by men who wished
+anxiously to spread the light of Christianity throughout the world.
+The geographical societies of these earlier days were the religious
+orders who sent but the explorers and travelers, furnished them on
+their return with an enthusiastic audience to hear their stories, and
+then helped to disseminate their books all over the then civilized
+world.
+</p>
+<p>
+There is probably no better refutation of the expression so often
+heard from those who know nothing about it, with regard to the
+supposed laziness of the Monks of the Middle Ages, than this chapter
+of the story of their exploration and missionary labors during the
+Thirteenth Century. It is usually supposed that if a Monk was fat he
+could not possibly have accomplished any serious work in life. Some of
+these men were <i>valde ponderosi</i>, very weighty, yet they did not
+hesitate to take on themselves these long journeys to the East. Their
+lives are the best illustration of the expression of Montalembert:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Let us then banish into the world of fiction that affirmation so
+  long repeated by foolish credulity which made monasteries an asylum
+  for indolence and incapacity, for misanthropy and pusillanimity, for
+  feeble and melancholic temperaments, and for men who were no longer
+  fit to serve society in the world. It was not the sick souls, but on
+  the contrary the most vigorous and healthful the human race has ever
+  produced who presented themselves in crowds to fill them."
+</p>
+
+<a name="415">{415}</a>
+<br>
+<h1>XXVI
+<br>
+GREAT BEGINNINGS OF MODERN COMMERCE.</h1>
+
+<p>
+For our present eminently commercial age nothing of all the
+accomplishment of the Thirteenth Century will probably possess
+livelier interest than the fact that, in spite of what must have
+seemed insuperable difficulties to a less enterprising generation, the
+men of that time succeeded in making such business combinations and
+municipal affiliations, besides arranging various trade facilities
+among distant, different peoples, that not only was commerce rendered
+possible and even easy, but some of the most modern developments of
+the facilitation of international intercourse were anticipated. The
+story of the rise of this combination of many men of different
+nations, of many cities whose inhabitants were of different races and
+of different languages, of commercial enterprise that carried men
+comparatively much farther than they now go on trade expeditions,
+though we have thought that our age had exhausted the possibilities of
+progress in this matter, cannot fail to have an interest for everyone
+whose attention has been attracted to the people of this time and must
+be taken as a symbol of the all-pervading initiative of the
+generations, which allowed no obstacle to hinder their progress and
+thought no difficulty too great to be surmounted.
+</p>
+<p>
+In beginning the history of the great commercial league which in the
+Thirteenth Century first opened men's minds to the possibilities of
+peace and commerce among the nations and alas! that it should be said,
+did more perhaps than any other agent except Christianity to awaken in
+different races the sense of the brotherhood of man, the English
+historian of the Hanseatic League, Miss Zimmern in the Stories of the
+Nations, said:
+</p>
+<p>
+"There is scarcely a more remarkable chapter in history than that
+which deals with the trading alliance or association known as the
+Hanseatic League. The league has long since <a name="416">{416}</a> passed away having
+served its time and fulfilled its purpose. The needs and circumstances
+of mankind have changed, and new methods and new instruments have been
+devised for carrying on the commerce of the world. Yet, if the league
+has disappeared, the beneficial results of its action survive to
+Europe though they have become so completely a part of our daily life
+that we accept them as matters of course, and do not stop to inquire
+into their origin." This last declaration may seem surprising for
+comparatively few know anything about this medieval commercial league,
+yet the effects claimed for it are only what we have seen to be true
+with regard to most of the important institutions of the period&mdash;they
+were the origins of what is best in our modern life.
+</p>
+<p>
+Like many of the great movements of the Thirteenth Century the origin
+of the Hanseatic League is clouded somewhat by the obscurity of the
+times and the lack of definite historical documents.  [Footnote 35]
+There is no doubt, however, that just before the middle of the century
+it was in flourishing existence, and that by the end of the century it
+had reached that acme of its power and influence which it was to
+maintain for several centuries in spite of the jealousy of the
+nobility, of certain towns that did not have the same privileges, and
+even of the authorities of the various countries who resented more and
+more as time went on the growing freedom and independence of these
+wealthy cities. The impetus for the formation of the League seems to
+have been given during the Crusades. Like so many other of the
+important movements of the time commerce was greatly influenced by
+these expeditions, and the commercial spirit not only aroused but
+shown the possibility of <a name="417">{417}</a> accomplishing hitherto impossible
+results in the matter of transportation and exchange. The returning
+crusaders brought back with them many precious Eastern objects whose
+possession was a source of envy to others and whose value was rated so
+high as to make even distant travel for them well worth while. The
+returning crusaders also knew how cheaply objects considered very
+precious in the West might be purchased in the East, and they told the
+stories of their own acquisition of them to willing listeners, who
+were stimulated to try their fortunes in expeditions that promised
+such rich rewards.
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+  [Footnote 35: Perhaps no better idea of the obscurity of the origin of
+  the Hansa confederation can be given, than is to be derived from the
+  fact that even the derivation of the word Hansa is not very clear.
+  Bishop Ulfilas in his old Gothic translation of the Scriptures used
+  the word "hansa" to designate the mob of soldiers and servants of
+  the High Priest who came to take Christ prisoner in the Garden.
+  Later on the word Hansa was used to mean a tax or a contribution.
+  This term was originally employed to designate the sum of money
+  which each of the cities was compelled to pay on becoming a member
+  of the league, and it is thought to be from this that the terms
+  Hansa and Hanseatic League were eventually derived.]
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp417">{opp417}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp417a.jpg" border=1><br>
+PALAZZO DEI CONSOLI (GUBBIO)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp417b.jpg" border=1><br>
+PALAZZO ZABARELLA (PADUA)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Besides the crusaders on their return through Italy had observed what
+was accomplished by the League of the Lombard cities which had been in
+existence in a more or less imperfect way for more than a century, and
+at the end of the Twelfth and the beginning of the Thirteenth Century
+had begun to provide an example of the strength there is in union, and
+of the power for good there is in properly regulated combinations of
+commercial interests with due regard for civic rights and privileges.
+This League of the Lombard cities was encouraged by the popes
+especially by Innocent III. and his successors who are usually said to
+have given it their approbation for their own purposes, though this is
+to look at but one side of the case. The German Emperors endeavored to
+assert their rights over Italian territory and in so doing came into
+collision with the popes not only in temporal matters but also in
+spiritual things. As we have noted in the short sketch of the popes of
+the century, Innocent III. was the first great Italian patriot and
+original advocate of Italy for the Italians. He constantly opposed the
+influence of the German Emperor in Italian politics, mainly, of
+course, because this interfered with the power of the Church, but to a
+very great degree also because it proved a source of manifold
+political evil for the Italian cities.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Germans then, who in the train of the Emperor went down into Italy
+saw the working of this League of Lombard cities, talked about it on
+their return, and were naturally tempted to essay what might be
+accomplished by the same means on German territory. These two
+elements, the incentive of the crusades and the stimulus of the
+example of the <a name="418">{418}</a> Italians, must be considered as at the basis of
+Hansa, though these were only seeds, and it was the nurture and
+fostering care of the German mind which ever since the days of Tacitus
+had been noted as the freest in Europe, that gave the League its
+wonderful development.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is difficult to tell how many towns belonged to the Hanseatic
+League during the Thirteenth Century but at the end of this period,
+Hansa, as it came to be called, was, as we have said, in its most
+flourishing condition and we know something definite of its numbers a
+little more than half a century later. In 1367 deputies from all the
+towns met in the large council chamber of the famous town hall at
+Cologne to discuss certain injustices that had been committed against
+the members of the League, or as the document set forth "against the
+free German merchants," in order to determine some way of preventing
+further injuries and inflict due punishment. Altogether the deputies
+of 77 towns were present and declared most solemnly "that because of
+the wrongs and the injuries done by the King of Denmark to the common
+German merchant the cities would be his enemies and help one another
+faithfully." The distant and smaller cities were not expected to send
+troops or even naval forces but promised to give contributions in
+money. Such cities as did not take part in this movement were to be
+considered as having forfeited their membership and would no longer be
+permitted to trade with the members of Hansa.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lest it should be thought that the cities were incapable of enforcing
+any such boycott with effect, the story of the town of Lübeck must be
+recalled. Lübeck on one occasion refused to join with the other Hansa
+towns in a boycott of certain places in Flanders which had refused to
+observe the regulations as to trading. One of these was to the effect
+that such vessels as were lost on a coast did not become the property
+of the people of the neighborhood, though they had a right to a due
+share for salvage, but a fair proportion must be returned to the
+citizens of the town that suffered the loss. Lübeck was at the moment
+one of the most powerful commercial cities in Germany, and her
+citizens seemed to think that they could violate the Hansa regulation
+with impunity. For 30 years. <a name="419">{419}</a> however, the Hansa boycott was
+maintained and so little trading was done in the city that according
+to one old writer "the people starved, the markets were deserted,
+grass grew in the street and the inhabitants left in large numbers."
+Such a lesson as this was enough to make the Hanseatic decrees be
+observed with scrupulous care and shows the perfection of the
+organization.
+</p>
+<p>
+The outcome of the war with Denmark demonstrates the power of the
+league. The King of Denmark is said to have scorned their declaration
+of war, and making an untranslatable pun on the word "Hansa" called
+the members of the League "geese who cackled much but need not be
+feared." The fleet of the League, however, succeeded in shutting off
+all the commerce of the coast of Denmark and though there was a truce
+each winter the war was renewed vigorously, and with summer many of
+the Danish cities were ransacked and plundered. At the end of the
+second year Denmark was exhausted and the people so weary of war that
+they pleaded for peace, and Valdemar had to accept the terms which the
+"geese" were willing to offer him. This triumph of the common people
+over a reigning monarch is one of the most striking passages in
+medieval history. It comes about a half century after the close of the
+Thirteenth, and is evidently the direct result of the great practical
+forces that were set in movement during that wonderful period, when
+the mighty heart of humanity was everywhere bestirring men to deeds of
+high purpose and far-reaching significance.
+</p>
+<p>
+As a matter of fact, Hansa became, very early in its career, one of
+the firmest authorities in the midst of these troubled times and meted
+out unfailingly the sternest justice against those who infringed its
+rights if they were outsiders, or broke the rules of the League if
+they were its members. It was ever ready to send its ships against
+offenders and while it soon came to be feared, this fear was mingled
+with respect, and its regulations were seldom infringed. It is a most
+interesting reflection, that as its English Historian says, "never
+once in the whole course of its history did it draw the sword
+aggressively or against its own members." While it was ever on the
+look-out to increase its power by adding new cities to the League,
+cities were not forced to join and when it meted <a name="420">{420}</a> out punishments
+to its members this was not by the levying of war but by fines, the
+refusal to pay these being followed by the "declaration of boycott,"
+which soon brought the offender to terms. War was only declared in all
+cases as a last resort, and the ships of the League were constantly
+spoken of and designated in all documents as "peace ships," and even
+the forts which the League built for the protection of its towns, or
+as places where its members might be sure of protection, were
+described as "Peace Burgs."
+</p>
+<p>
+Unfortunately, the lessons of peace that were thus taught by commerce
+were not to bear fruit abundantly for many centuries after the
+Thirteenth. It is practically only in our own time that they have been
+renewed, and the last generation or two, has rather plumed itself over
+the fact that trade was doing so much to prevent war. Evidently this
+is no guarantee of the perpetuation of such an improvement in national
+or international morals, for the influence of Hansa for peace came to
+be lost entirely, after a few centuries. The cities themselves,
+however, that belonged to the League gradually became more and more
+free, and more independent of their rulers. It was thus, in fact, that
+the free cities of Germany had their origin, and in them much more of
+modern liberty was born than has ever been appreciated, except by
+those whose studies have brought them close to these marvelous
+medieval manifestations of the old spirit of Teutonic freedom.
+</p>
+<p>
+The names of most of the cities that were members of the Hansa League
+are well known, though it is not easy to understand in the decrepitude
+that has come over many of them, how they could have been of so much
+importance as has been claimed for them in the Middle Ages. All the
+cities of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea were united together, and
+while we think of these as German, many of them really belonged to
+Slav people at this time, so that the membership of a number of
+Russian cities is not surprising. While the Rhenish cities were
+important factors in the League, Cologne indeed being one of the most
+important, Bremen and Hamburg and both the Frankforts, and Rostock,
+and Lübeck and Stralsund, and Tangermünde and Warnemunde, were
+important members. Novgorod was founded by Hansa for the purpose of
+trading <a name="421">{421}</a> with the Orientals, and the Volga, the Dnieper, the
+Dwina, and the Oder were extensively used for the purpose of
+transporting goods here and there in central Europe. One of their most
+famous towns, Winetha in German, Julin in Danish, disappeared beneath
+the waters of the Baltic Sea and gave rise to many legends of its
+reappearance. It is hard to realize that it was so important that it
+was called the Venice of the North, and was seriously compared with
+its great southern rival.
+</p>
+<p>
+A good idea of the intimate relations of the Hansa towns to England
+and the English people can be obtained from the article on the subject
+written by Richard Lodge for the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopedia
+Britannica. A single paragraph of this compresses much of the external
+and internal history of the "Rise and Development of Hansa." It was
+rather to be expected that the commercial relations between England
+and the various cities situated along the North Sea, as well as the
+Baltic and up the Rhine, would be active and would have to be
+submitted to careful regulation. Unless the modern mind is actually
+brought directly in touch, however, with the complex yet very
+practical state of affairs, which actually existed, it will utterly
+fail to appreciate how thoroughly progressive and enterprising were
+these medieval peoples. Enterprise and practicalness we are apt to
+think of as the exclusive possession of much more modern generations.
+Least of all would we be apt to consider them as likely to be found in
+the Thirteenth Century, yet here they are, and the commercial
+arrangements which were made are as absolute premonitions of our
+modern thought as were the literature and architecture, the painting,
+even the teachings of science at the same period.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The members of this League (Hanseatic) came to England mostly from
+Cologne, the first German town which obtained great importance both at
+home and abroad. Its citizens possessed at an early date a guild-hall
+of their own (in London), and all Germans who wished to trade with
+England had to join their guild. This soon included merchants from
+Dortmund, Soest and Munster, in Westphalia; from Utrecht, Stavern and
+Groningen, in the Netherlands, and from Bremen and Hamburg on the
+North Sea. But, when at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, the
+rapidly rising town of Lübeck <a name="422">{422}</a> wished to be admitted into the
+guild, every effort was made to keep her out. The intervention of
+Frederick II. was powerless to overcome the dread felt by Cologne
+towards a possible rival to its supremacy. But this obstacle to the
+extension of the League was soon overcome. In 1260 a charter of Henry
+III. assured protection to all German merchants. A few years later
+Hamburg and Lübeck also were allowed to form their own guilds. The
+Hansa of Cologne, which had long been the only guild, now sinks to the
+position of a branch Hansa, and has to endure others with equal
+privileges. Over all the branch Hansas rises the "Hansa Alamanniae,"
+first mentioned in 1282.
+</p>
+<p>
+This article gives additional information with regard to the many and
+varied influences at work at the end of the Thirteenth Century. It
+furnishes in brief, moreover, an excellent picture of the activity of
+mind and power of organization so frequently displayed during this
+period in every branch of life. This is after all the highest quality
+of man. The development of associations of various kinds, especially
+such as are helpfully purposive, are the outcome of that social
+quality in man's mind which is the surest index of his rational
+quality. Succeeding centuries lost for some almost unaccountable
+reason much of this faculty of organization and the result was a
+lamentable retrogression from the advances made by older generations,
+so that it was only in quite recent years that anything like this old
+international comity was reestablished.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp422">{opp422}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp422.jpg" border=1><br>
+RATHHAUS (LÜBECK)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The extent and very natural development of this community of interests
+must ever attract attention. It is the first time in our modern
+history that it occurs and men of some seven different races and
+tongues were at last drawn into it. In this it represents the greatest
+advance of history, for it led to assimilation of laws and of
+liberties, with some of the best features of each nation's old-time
+customs preserved in the new codes. Its extension even to Novgorod, in
+what is now the heart of Russia is a surprising demonstration of
+successful enterprise and spread of influence almost incredible. The
+settling of the trade disputes of this distant Russian City in the
+courts of a North Sea town, is an evidence of advance in commercial
+relations emphasized by the writer in the Britannica, that deserves to
+be well weighed as a manifestation of what is often thought <a name="423">{423}</a> to
+be the exclusively modern recognition of the rights of commerce and
+the claims of justice over even national feelings.
+</p>
+<p>
+"The league between Lübeck and Hamburg was not the only, and possibly
+not the first, league among the German towns. But it gradually
+absorbed all others. Besides the influence of foreign commercial
+interests there were other motives which compelled the towns to union.
+The chief of these were the protection of commercial routes both by
+sea and land, and the vindication of town independence as opposed to
+claims of the landed aristocracy. The first to join the League were
+the Wendish towns to the East, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, etc., which
+had always been intimately connected with Lübeck, and were united by a
+common system of laws known as the 'Lübisches Recht' (Lübeck Laws).
+The Saxon and Westphalian towns had long possessed a league among
+themselves; they also joined themselves to Lübeck. Lübeck now became
+the most important town in Germany. It had already surpassed Cologne
+both in London and Bruges. It soon gained a similar victory over
+Wisby. At a great convention in which twenty-four towns from Cologne
+to Revel took part, it was decided that appeals from Novgorod which
+had hitherto been decided at Wisby should henceforth be brought to
+Lübeck."
+</p>
+<p>
+After much travail and vexation of spirit, after much diplomacy and
+political and parliamentary discussion, after much striving on the
+part of the men in all nations, who have the great cause of universal
+peace for mankind at heart, we have reached a position where at least
+commercial difficulties can be referred to a sort of international
+court for adjudication. The standing of this court is not very clear
+as yet. Special arrangements at least are required, if not special
+treaties in many cases, even for the reference of such merely
+commercial difficulties as debt-collecting to it. In the last quarter
+of the Nineteenth Century special tribunals had to be erected for the
+settlement of such difficulties between nations. In the Twentieth
+Century the outlook is more hopeful and the actual accomplishment is
+indeed encouraging. In the Thirteenth Century with the absence of the
+telegraph and the cable, with the slowness of sailing vessels and the
+distance of towns <a name="424">{424}</a> emphasizing all the difficulties of the
+situation, the Hanseatic League succeeded in obtaining an
+international tribunal, whose judgments with regard to commercial
+difficulties were final and were accepted by men of many different
+races and habits and customs, and to which causes were referred
+without any of the immense machinery apparently required at the
+present time.
+</p>
+<p>
+This is the real triumph of the commercial development of the
+Thirteenth Century. While it may be astonishing to many modern people
+to learn how much was accomplished in this utterly unexpected quarter,
+it will not be a surprise to those who realize the thoroughly
+practical character of the century and the perfectly matter of fact
+way in which it went about settling all the difficulties that
+presented themselves; and how often they succeeded in reaching a very
+practical if not always ideal solution. The sad feature of the case is
+to think that most of this coming together of nations was lost by the
+gradual development of national feeling, much of benefit as there may
+have been in that for the human race, and by the drawing of the
+language lines between nations more closely than they had been before,
+for the next three centuries saw the development of modern tongues
+into the form which they have held ever since.
+</p>
+<p>
+Hansa did more than almost any other institution in northern Europe to
+establish the reign of Law. If it had accomplished no other purpose,
+this would make it eminently worthy of the study of those who are
+interested in sociology and social evolution. Before the time of Hansa
+the merchant by sea or land was liable to all sorts of impositions,
+arbitrary taxes, injustices, and even the loss of life as well of his
+goods. As Hansa gained in power however, these abuses disappeared.
+Perhaps the most noteworthy improvement came with regard to
+navigation. There is a story told of a famous rock in Brittany on
+which many ships were wrecked during the Middle Ages. Even as late as
+the Thirteenth Century sometimes false lights were displayed on this
+rock with the idea of tempting vessels to their destruction on it.
+Everything that was thrown ashore in the neighborhood was considered
+to be the property of the people who gathered it, except that a
+certain portion of its value had to be paid to the Lord of the Manor.
+<a name="425">{425}</a> This worthy representative of the upper classes is said to have
+pointed out the rock to some visiting nobleman friends one day, and
+declared that it was more precious to him than the most precious stone
+in the diadem of any ruling monarch in Europe. This represents the
+state of feeling with regard to such subjects when Hansa started in to
+correct the abuses.
+</p>
+<p>
+It may be looked upon as a serious disgrace to the Thirteenth Century
+that such a low state of ethical feeling should have existed, but it
+is the amelioration of conditions which obliterated such false
+sentiments that constitutes the triumph of the period. On the other
+hand we must not with smug self-complacency think that our generation
+is so much better than those of the past. It is easy to be pharisaical
+while we forget that many a fortune in modern times suffers shipwreck
+on the coasts of business and investment, because the false lights of
+advertising intended to deceive, are displayed very prominently, for
+those who are only anxious as were the mariners of the olden times to
+make their fortunes. Doubtless too the proprietors of many of the
+papers which display such advertisements, and it is nonsense to say
+that they are unconscious of the harm they do, are quite as proud of
+the magnificent revenue that their advertising columns bring to them
+as was the Breton noble of the Thirteenth Century. Man has not changed
+much in the interval.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lest it should be thought that even the present-day initiation into
+secret societies of various kinds is the invention of modern times, it
+seems well to give some of the details of the tests through which
+those seeking to be members of the Hanseatic League were subjected, by
+those who were already initiated. It may possibly seem that some of
+these customs were too barbarous to mention in the same breath with
+the present-day initiations, but if it is recalled that at least once
+a year some serious accident is reported as the result of the
+thoughtless fooling of "frat" students at our universities, this
+opinion may be withdrawn. Miss Helen Zimmern in her story of the Hansa
+Towns already quoted several times, has a paragraph or two of
+descriptions of these that we shall quote. It may be well to remember
+that these tests were not entirely without a serious significance for
+the members of the Hansa. Much <a name="426">{426}</a> was expected of those who
+belonged to the Hansa Guild. A number of precious trade secrets were
+entrusted them, and they alone knew the methods and mysteries of
+Hansa. In order that these might not by any possibility be betrayed,
+the members of Hansa who lived in foreign countries were forbidden to
+marry while abroad and were bound under the severest penalties to live
+a life of celibacy. They were not supposed to be absent from the
+houses assigned to them during the night, and their factories so
+called, or common-places of residence, were guarded by night watchman
+and fierce dogs in order to secure the keeping of these rules.
+</p>
+<p>
+Besides torture was a very common thing in those times and a man who
+belonged to a country that happened to be at war for the moment, might
+very easily be subjected to torture for some reason or another with
+the idea of securing important information from him. If the members of
+Hansa wanted to be reasonably assured that new members would not give
+up their secrets without a brave struggle, they had no better way than
+by these tests, for which there was therefore some excuse. As to the
+brutality of the tests perhaps Miss Zimmern in maidenly way has said
+too much. We commend her paragraphs to the modern committees of
+reception of college secret societies, because here as elsewhere this
+generation may get points from the Thirteenth Century.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp426">{opp426}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp426a.jpg" border=1><br>
+MINSTER (CHORIN, GERMANY)
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp426b.jpg" border=1><br>
+CITY GATE (NEUBRANDENBURG)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"We cannot sully our pages by detailing the thirteen different games
+or modes of martyrdom that were in use at Bergen. Our more civilized
+age could not tolerate the recital. In those days they attracted a
+crowd of eager spectators who applauded the more vociferously the more
+cruel and barbarous the tortures. The most popular were those
+practices known as the smoke, water and flogging games; mad, cruel
+pranks calculated to cause a freshman to lose health and reason. Truly
+Dantesque hell tortures were these initiations into Hansa mysteries.
+Merely to indicate their nature we will mention that for the smoke
+game the victim was pulled up the big chimney of the Schutting while
+there burned beneath him the most filthy materials, sending up a most
+nauseous stench and choking wreaths of smoke. While in this position
+he was asked a number of questions, to which he was forced, under yet
+more terrible penalties, to reply. If <a name="427">{427}</a> he survived his torture he
+was taken out into the yard and plied under the pump with six tons of
+water." (Even the "Water Cure" is not new).
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a variety about the tests at different times and places that
+show no lack of invention on the part of the members of Hansa. With
+regard to other water tests Miss Zimmern has furnished some
+interesting details:
+</p>
+<p>
+"The 'water' game that took place at Whitsuntide consisted in first
+treating the probationer to food, and then taking him out to sea in a
+boat. Here he was stripped thrown into the ocean, ducked three times,
+made to swallow much sea-water, and thereafter mercilessly flogged by
+all the inmates of the boats. The third chief game was no less
+dangerous to life and limb. It took place a few days after, and was a
+rude perversion of the May games. The victims had first to go out into
+the woods to gather the branches with which later they were to be
+birched. Returned to the factory, rough horse play pranks were
+practised upon them. Then followed an ample dinner, which was
+succeeded by mock combats, and ended in the victims being led into the
+so-called Paradise, where twenty-four disguised men whipped them till
+they drew blood, while outside this black hole another party made
+hellish music with pipes, drums and triangles to deafen the screams of
+the tortured. The 'game' as considered ended when the shrieks of the
+victims were sufficiently loud to overcome the pandemonic music." Some
+of the extreme physical cruelties of the initiations our modern
+fraternities have eliminated, but the whole story has a much more
+familiar air than we might have expected.
+</p>
+<p>
+Probably the most interesting feature of the history of the Hanseatic
+League is the fact that this great combination for purposes of trade
+and commerce proved a source of liberty for the citizens of the
+various towns, and enabled them to improve their political status
+better than any other single means at this precious time of
+development of legal and social rights. This is all the more
+interesting because great commercial combinations with similar
+purposes in modern times have usually proved fruitful rather of
+opposite results. A few persons have been very much benefited by them,
+or at least have made much money by them, which is quite another
+thing, though money is <a name="428">{428}</a> supposed to represent power and
+influence, but the great mass of the people have been deprived of
+opportunities to rise and have had taken from them many chances for
+the exercise of initiative that existed before.
+</p>
+<p>
+There is a curious effect of Hansa upon the political fortunes of the
+people of the cities that were members of the League which deserves to
+be carefully studied. As with regard to so many other improvements
+that have come in the history of the race, it was not a question so
+much of the recognition of great principles as of money and revenues
+that proved the origin of amelioration of civic conditions. These
+commercial cities accumulated wealth. Money was necessary for their
+rulers for the maintenance of their power and above all for the waging
+of war. In return for moneys given for such purposes the cities
+claimed for the inhabitants and were granted many privileges. These
+became perpetuated and as time went on were added to as new
+opportunities for the collection of additional revenues occurred,
+until finally an important set of fundamental rights with documentary
+confirmation were in the hands of the city authorities. One would like
+to think that this state of affairs developed as the result of the
+recognition on the part of the ruling sovereign, of the benefits that
+were conferred on his realm by having in it, or associated with it, an
+important trading city whose enterprising citizens gave occupation to
+many hands. This was very rarely the case, however, but as was true of
+the legal rights obtained by England's citizens during the Thirteenth
+Century, it was largely a question of the coordination of taxation and
+legislative representation and the consequent attainment of
+privileges.
+</p>
+<p>
+The most important effect on the life of Europe and the growth of
+civilization that the Hanseatic League exerted, was its success in
+showing that people of many different nations and races, living under
+very different circumstances, might still be united under similar laws
+that would enable them to accomplish certain objects which they had in
+view. Germans, Slavs and English learned to live in one another's
+towns and while observing the customs of these various places
+maintained the privileges of their homes. The mutual influence of
+these people on one another, many of them being the most practical and
+<a name="429">{429}</a> enterprising individuals of the time, could scarcely fail to
+produce noteworthy effects in broadening the minds of those with whom
+they came in contact. It is to this period that we must trace the
+beginnings of international law. Hansa showed the world how much
+commercial relations were facilitated by uniform laws and by just
+treatment of even the citizens of foreign countries. It is to commerce
+that we owe the first recognition of the rights of the people of other
+countries even in time of war. If the Hanseatic League had done
+nothing else but this, it must be considered as an important factor in
+the development of our modern civilization and an element of influence
+great as any other in this wonderful century.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i429.jpg" border=1><br>
+HINGE FROM CATHEDRAL, SCHLESTADT
+</p>
+
+<a name="430">{430}</a>
+
+<h1>APPENDIX I</h1>
+
+
+<h2>SO-CALLED HISTORY.
+<br>
+RULERS.</h2>
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="4" width="70%">
+<col width="70%"><col width="30%">
+<tbody>
+<tr><td colspan="2">EMPERORS OF GERMANY.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Otho IV </td><td>1198-1218</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Frederick II </td><td> 1212-1250</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Conrad IV</td><td> 1250-1254</td></tr>
+<tr><td>William of Holland </td><td> 1254-1256</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Richard Earl of Cornwall </td><td> 1257-1273</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Rudolph of Hapsburg </td><td>1273-1291</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Adolph of Nassau </td><td> 1292-1298</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Albert of Austria </td><td>1298-1308</td></tr>
+<tr><td><br></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">KINGS OF SCOTLAND</td></tr>
+<tr><td>William </td><td> 1175-1214</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Alexander II </td><td>1214-1249</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Alexander III </td><td> 1249-1286</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Margaret </td><td> 1286-1292</td></tr>
+<tr><td>John Balliol </td><td> 1292-1296</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Interregnum </td><td>1296-1306</td></tr>
+<tr><td><br></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">KINGS OF CASTILE AND LEON.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Alfonso IX </td><td> 1188-1214</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Henry I </td><td> 1214-1217</td></tr>
+<tr><td>St. Ferdinand III </td><td> 1217-1252</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Alfonso X </td><td> 1252-1284</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Sancho IV </td><td> 1284-1295</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Ferdinand IV </td><td> 1295-1312</td></tr>
+<tr><td><br></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">KINGS OF ENGLAND.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>John Lackland </td><td> 1199-1216</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Henry III </td><td> 1216-1272</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Edward I </td><td>1272-1307</td></tr>
+<tr><td><br></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">KINGS OF FRANCE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Philip II </td><td>1180-1223</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Louis VIII </td><td> 1223-1226</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Louis IX </td><td> 1226-1270</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Philip III </td><td> 1270-1285</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Louis [Philip] IV</td><td> 1314-1316</td></tr>
+<tr><td><br></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">KINGS OF ARAGON.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Pedro II </td><td> 1196-1213</td></tr>
+<tr><td>James I., the Conqueror </td><td> 1215-1276</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Pedro III </td><td>1276-1285</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Alfonso III </td><td> 1285-1291</td></tr>
+<tr><td>James II </td><td> 1291-1327</td></tr>
+<tr><td><br></td></tr>
+<tr><td colspan="2">KINGS OF NAPLES.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Conrad </td><td>1250-1254</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Conradin </td><td> 1254-1258</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Manfred </td><td> 1258-1266</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Charles of Anjou </td><td> 1266-1285</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Charles </td><td>1285-1309</td></tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+EVENTS.
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="6" width="100%">
+<col width="10%"><col width="90%">
+<tbody>
+<tr><td>1202</td><td>Fourth great crusade under Boniface, marquis of Montferrat.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1204</td><td>The English stripped of Normandy, etc., by Philip Augustus of France.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1206</td><td>Jenghis-Khan: foundation of the great empire of the Moguls.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1212</td><td>Battle of Ubeda: defeat and fall of Almohads of Africa.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1213</td><td>John Lackland acknowledges himself vassal of the pope.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1213</td><td>Battle of Bouvines won by Philip Augustus.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1215</td><td>Magna Charta. The palatinate of the Rhine goes to the house of Wittelsbach.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1217</td><td>Crusade of Andrew II., King of Hungary.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1218</td><td>Extinction of the dukes of Zarringuia: Switzerland becomes an immediate province of the empire.</td></tr>
+<tr><td><a name="431">{431}</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td>1222</td><td>Charter or decree of Andrew II., basis of the Hungarian constitution.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1226</td><td>Renewal of the League of Lombardy to oppose the Emperor Frederick II.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1227</td><td>Battle of Bornhoeved in Holstein: Waldemar II., King of
+Denmark, loses his conquests on the southern coast of the Baltic.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1228</td><td>Crusade of the Emperor Frederick II.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1230</td><td>The Teutonic order establishes itself in Prussia. Conquest of the Balearic islands by the King of Aragon.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1235</td><td>Formation of the Duchy of Brunswick in favor of the house of the Guelphs.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1236</td><td>Conquest of the Kingdoms of Cordova, Murcia and Seville by the Castilians.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1237</td><td>Conquest of Russia by Baton-Khan: origin of the Mogul or Tartar horde of Kaptschak.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1241</td><td>Invasion of Poland, Silesia, and Hungary by the Moguls.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1248</td><td>Crusade of St. Louis, King of France.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1250</td><td>Beginning of the great interregnum in Germany.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1254</td><td>Accessions of the emperors of different houses in Germany. End of
+the dominion of the Agubites in Egypt and Syria; beginning of the empire
+of the Mamelukes.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1256</td><td>Enfranchisement of the serfs at Bologna in Italy.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1261</td><td>Michel Paleologus, emperor of Nice, takes Constantinople; end of the empire of the Latins.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1265</td><td>Accession of the house of Anjou to the throne of the Two Sicilies.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1266</td><td>Admission of the Commons to the Parliament of England.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1268</td><td>Corradino decapitated at Naples; extinction of the house of
+Hohenstaufen. Suabia and Franconia become immediate provinces of the
+empire.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1271</td><td>The county of Toulouse passes to the King of France, and the Venaissin to the Pope.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1273</td><td>Accession of the Emperor Rudolph of Hapsburg to the throne of the empire: first election by the seven electors.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1282</td><td>Conquest of Wales by the King of England.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1282</td><td>The Sicilian Vespers, the kingdom of Sicily passes to the King of
+Aragon. The Emperor Rudolph gives to his sons the duchies of Austria;
+foundation of the house of Hapsburg.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1283</td><td>The Teutonic order completes the conquest of Prussia.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1289</td><td>Extinction of the male line of the old race of Scotch kings. Contest of Baliol and Bruce.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1290</td><td>Decline of the republic of Piza. Aggrandizement of that of Genoa.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1291</td><td>Taking of Ptolemais and Tyre by the Mamelukes. End of the crusades.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1294</td><td>Decline of the Mogul empire at the death of Kublai-Khan.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1298</td><td>Introduction of an hereditary aristocracy at Venice.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>1300</td><td>Foundation of the modern Turkish empire by Ottoman I. First Jubilee proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII.</td></tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+<br>
+<a name="432">{432}</a>
+<br>
+<h1>APPENDIX II.</h1>
+<h2>
+TWENTY-SIX CHAPTERS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.</h2>
+<br>
+<h2>I. AMERICA IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.</h2>
+<p>
+To most people it would seem quite out of the question that a chapter
+on America in the Thirteenth Century might have been written. One of
+the most surprising chapters for most readers in the previous edition
+was that on Great Explorers and the Foundation of Geography, for it
+was a revelation to learn that Thirteenth Century travelers had
+anticipated all of our discoveries in the Far and in the Near East
+seven centuries ago. Certain documents have turned up, however, which
+make it very clear that with the same motives as those which urged
+Eastern travelers, Europeans went just as far towards the West at this
+time. Documents found in the Vatican Archives in 1903 and exhibited at
+St. Louis in 1904, have set at rest finally and absolutely the long
+disputed question of the discovery of America by the Norsemen, and in
+connection with these the story of America in the Thirteenth Century
+might well have been told. There is a letter from Pope Innocent III.,
+dated February 13, 1206, addressed to the Archbishop of Norway, who
+held jurisdiction over Greenland, which shows not only the presence of
+the Norsemen on the American Continent at this time, but also that
+they had been here for a considerable period, and that there were a
+number of churches and pastors and large flocks in whom the Roman See
+had a lively interest. There are Americana from three other Popes of
+the Thirteenth Century. John XXI. wrote, in 1276, Nicholas III. two
+letters, one dated January 31, 1279, and another June 9, 1279, and
+Martin III. wrote 1282. We have inserted on the opposite page a
+reproduction of a portion of the first Papal document extant relating
+to America, the letter of Pope Innocent III., taken from "The Norse
+Discovery of America" (The Norraena Society, N. Y., 1908). The word
+<i>Grenelandie</i>, underscored, indicates the subject. The writing as an
+example of the chirography of the century is of interest.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>II. A REPRESENTATIVE UPPER HOUSE.</h2>
+<p>
+In most historical attempts at government by the people it has been
+recognized that legislation is better balanced if there are two
+chambers in the law-making body, one directly elected by the people,
+the other indirectly chosen and representing important vested
+interests that are likely to make its members conservative. The
+initiative for legislation comes, as a rule, from the direct
+representatives of the people, while the upper chamber represses
+radical law-making or sudden changes in legislative policy, yet does
+not hamper too much the progress of democracy.
+</p>
+
+<a name="433">{433}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i433.jpg" border=1><br>
+PART OF LETTER OF POPE INNOCENT III. MENTIONING GREENLAND.
+</p>
+
+<a name="434">{434}</a>
+<p>
+During the last few years a crisis in English politics has led to a
+very general demand for a modification of the status of the House of
+Lords, while almost similar conditions have led to the beginning at
+least of a similar demand for the modification of our Senate in this
+country. Both these upper chambers have come to represent vested
+interests to too great a degree. The House of Lords has been the
+subject of special deprecation. The remark is sometimes made that it
+is unfortunate that England is weighted down by this political
+incubus, the House of Lords, which is spoken of as a heritage from the
+Middle Ages. The general impression, of course, is that the English
+House of Lords, as at present constituted, comes down from the oldest
+times of constitutional government in England. Nothing could well be
+more untrue than any such idea.
+</p>
+<p>
+The old upper chamber of England, the medieval House of Lords, was an
+eminently representative body. Out of the 625 or more of members of
+the English House of Lords at the present time about five hundred and
+fifty hold their seats by heredity. Only about seventy-five are in
+some sense elective. At least one-half of these elected peers,
+however, must be chosen from the hereditary nobility of Ireland and
+Scotland. Nearly nineteen-twentieths of the membership of the House of
+Lords, as at present constituted, owe their place in national
+legislation entirely to heredity. Until the reformation so-called this
+was not so. More than one-half of the English House of Lords, a good
+working majority, consisted of the Lords spiritual. Besides the
+Bishops and Archbishops there were the Abbots and Priors of
+monasteries, and the masters of religious orders. These men as a rule
+had come up from the people. They had risen to their positions by
+intellectual abilities and by administrative capacity. The abbots and
+other superiors of religious orders had been chosen by their monks as
+a rule because, having shown that they knew how to rule themselves,
+they were deemed most fitting to rule over others.
+</p>
+<p>
+Even in our day, when the Church occupies nothing like the position in
+the hearts of the masses that she held in the ages of faith, our
+Catholic Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops, both here and in England,
+are chosen as members of arbitration boards to settle strikes and
+other social difficulties, because it is felt that the working class
+has full confidence in them, and that they are thoroughly
+representative of the spirit of democracy. In England Cardinal Manning
+served more than once in critical social conditions. In this country
+we have had a series of such examples. From these we can better
+understand what the Lords spiritual represented in the English House
+of Lords. There were abuses, though they were not nearly so frequent
+as were thought, by which unworthy men sometimes reached such
+positions, for men abuse even the best things, but in general these
+clerical members of the House of Lords were the chosen intellectual
+and moral products of the kingdom. Since they were without families
+they had <a name="435">{435}</a> less temptation to serve personal interests and,
+besides, they had received a life-long training in unselfishness, and
+the best might be expected of them. For an ideal second chamber I know
+none that can compare with this old English House of Lords of the
+Middle Ages. How much it was responsible for the foundation of the
+liberties of which the English-speaking people are deservedly so
+proud, and which have been treated in some detail in the chapter on
+Origins in Law, would be interesting to trace.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>III. THE PARISH, AND TRAINING IN CITIZENSHIP.</h2>
+<p>
+Mr. Toulmin Smith, in his book on "The Parish," and Dom Gasquet, in
+his volume on "The Parish Before the Reformation," have shown what a
+magnificent institution for popular self-government was the English
+medieval parish, and how much this contributed to the solution of
+important social problems and to the creation of a true democratic
+spirit. Mr. Toulmin Smith calls particular attention to the fact that
+when local self-government gets out of the hands of the people of a
+neighborhood personal civic energy goes to sleep. The feeling of
+mutual responsibility of the men of the place is lost, to the great
+detriment of their larger citizenship in municipality and nation. In
+the parish, however, forming a separate community, of which the
+members had rights and duties, the primal solid basis for government,
+the parish authorities took charge of the highways, the roads, the
+paths, the health, the police, the constabulary, and the fires of
+their neighborhood. They kept, besides, a registry of births and
+deaths and marriages. When these essentially local concerns are
+controlled in large bodies the liability to abuse at once becomes easy
+and political corruption sets in. He mentions, besides many parochial
+institutions, a parochial friendly society for loans on security,
+parish gilds for insurance, and many other phases of that thoroughly
+organized mutual aid so characteristic of the Middle Ages.
+</p>
+<p>
+These parishes became completely organized, so as to be thoroughly
+democratic and representative of all the possibilities of local
+self-government under King Edward at the end of the Thirteenth and the
+beginning of the Fourteenth Century. Rev. Augustus Jessopp, in "After
+the Great Pillage," tells the story of how the parishes were broken up
+as a consequence of the confiscation of their endowment during the
+so-called reformation. The quotation from him may be found in Appendix
+III. in the section on "How it all stopped."
+</p>
+<p>
+Toulmin Smith is not so emphatic, but he is scarcely less explicit
+than Jessopp. "The attempts of ecclesiastical authority to encroach on
+the civil authorities of the parish have been more successful since
+the reformation." As a matter of fact, at that time all government
+became centralized, and complete contradiction though it may seem to
+be of what is sometimes declared the place of the reformation in the
+history <a name="436">{436}</a> of human liberty, the genuine democratic institutions of
+England were to a great extent impaired by the reform, and an
+autocracy, which later developed into an autocratic aristocracy,
+largely took its place. Out of that England has gradually lifted
+itself during the Nineteenth Century. Even now, however, as pointed
+out in the preceding chapter that might have been, the House of Lords
+is not at all what it was in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
+when the majority of its members were Lords spiritual, men who had
+come up from the masses as a rule.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>IV. THE CHANCE TO RISE.</h2>
+<p>
+We are very prone to think that even though there may have been
+excellent opportunities for the higher education in the Thirteenth
+Century and, in many ways, an ideal education of the masses, still
+there was one great social drawback in those times, the lack of
+opportunity for men of humble birth to rise to higher stations.
+Nothing, however, is less true. There probably never was a time when
+even members of the poorest families might rise more readily or
+rapidly to the highest positions in the land. The sons of village
+merchants and village artisans, nay, the sons and grandsons of farmers
+bound to the soil, could by educational success become clergymen in
+various ranks, and by attaining a bishopric or the position of abbot
+or prior of a monastery, reach a seat in the House of Lords. Most of
+the Lord High Chancellors of England during the Middle Ages&mdash;and some
+of them are famous for their genius as canon and civil lawyers, for
+their diplomatic abilities and their breadth of view and capacity as
+administrators&mdash;were the sons of humble parents.
+</p>
+<p>
+Take the single example of Stratford, the details of whose
+inhabitants' lives, because of the greatness of one of them, have
+attracted more attention than those of any other town of corresponding
+size in England. At the beginning of the Fourteenth Century it is only
+what we would call a village, and it probably did not have 3,000
+inhabitants, if, indeed, the number was not less than 2,000. In his
+book, "Shakespeare the Boy," Mr. Rolfe calls attention to certain
+conditions that interest us in the old village. He tells us of what
+happened as a result of the development of liberty in the Thirteenth
+Century:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Villeinage gradually disappeared in the reign of Edward VII.
+  (1327-1337), and those who had been subject to it became free
+  tenants, paying definite rents for house and land. Three natives of
+  the town, who, after the fashion of the time, took their surnames
+  from the place of their birth, rose to high positions in the Church,
+  one becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, and the others respectively
+  Bishops of London and Chichester. John of Stratford and Robert of
+  Stratford were brothers, and Ralph of Stratford was their nephew.
+  John and Robert were both for a time Chancellors of England, and
+  there is no other instance of two brothers attaining that high
+  office in succession."
+</p>
+<a name="437">{437}</a>
+<p>
+To many people the fact that the avenue to rise was through the Clergy
+more than in any other way will be disappointing. One advantage,
+however, that the old people would insist that they had from their
+system was that these men, having no direct descendants, were less
+likely to pursue selfish aims and more likely to try to secure the
+benefit of the Community than are those who, in our time, rise through
+the legal profession. The Lord High Chancellors of recent time have
+all been lawyers. Would not most of the world confess that the
+advantage was with the medieval peoples?
+</p>
+<p>
+President Woodrow Wilson of Princeton realized sympathetically this
+great element of saving democracy in the Middle Ages, and has paid
+worthy tribute to it. He said: "The only reason why government did not
+suffer dry rot in the Middle Ages under the aristocratic systems which
+then prevailed was that the men who were efficient instruments of
+government were drawn from the church&mdash;from that great church, that
+body which we now distinguish from other church bodies as the Roman
+Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church then, as now, was a great
+democracy. There was no peasant so humble that he might not become a
+priest, and no priest so obscure that he might not become Pope of
+Christendom, and every chancellery in Europe was ruled by those
+learned, trained and accomplished men&mdash;the priesthood of that great
+and then dominant church; and so, what kept government alive in the
+Middle Ages was this constant rise of the sap from the bottom, from
+the rank and file of the great body of the people through the open
+channels of the Roman Catholic priesthood."
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>V. INSURANCE.</h2>
+<p>
+Insurance is usually supposed to be a modern idea representing one of
+those developments of the capitalization of mutual risks of life,
+property, and the like that have come as a consequence of modern
+progress. The insurance system of the Middle Ages, the organization of
+which came in the Thirteenth Century, is therefore extremely
+interesting. It was accomplished, as was every form of co-operation
+and co-ordination of effort, through special gilds or through the
+trade or merchant gilds. Among the objects of the gilds enumerated by
+Toulmin Smith is insurance against loss by fire. This was paid through
+the particular gild to which the merchant belonged, or in the case of
+the artisan through a special gild which he joined for the purpose.
+Provision was made, however, for much more than insurance by fire. Our
+fire insurance companies are probably several centuries old, so also
+are our insurance arrangements against shipwreck. Other features of
+insurance, however, are much more recent. Practically all of these
+were in active existence during the Middle Ages, though they
+disappeared with the so-called reformation, and then <a name="438">{438}</a> did not
+come into existence again for several centuries and, indeed, not until
+our own time.
+</p>
+<p>
+The old gilds, for instance, provided insurance against loss from
+flood, a feature of insurance that has not, so far as I know,
+developed in our time, against loss by robbery (our burglary insurance
+is quite recent), against loss by the fall of a house, by
+imprisonment, and then also insurance against the loss of cattle and
+farm products. All the features of life insurance also were in
+existence. The partial disability clauses of life or accident
+insurance policies are recent developments. In the old days there is
+insurance against the loss of sight, against the loss of a limb, or
+any other form of crippling. The deaf and dumb might be insured so as
+to secure an income for them, and corresponding relief for leprosy
+might be obtained; so that, if one were set apart from the community
+by the law requiring segregation of lepers, there might be provision
+for food and lodging, even though productive work had become
+impossible. In a word, the insurance system of the Middle Ages was
+thoroughly developed. It was not capitalistic. The charges were only
+enough to maintain the system, and not such as to provide large
+percentage returns on invested stock and on bonds, and the
+accumulation of huge surpluses that almost inevitably lead to gross
+abuses. What is best in our modern system of insurance is an imitation
+of the older methods. Certain of the trade insurance companies which
+assume a portion of the risk on mills, factories and the like, are
+typical examples. They know the conditions, enforce proper
+precautions, keep an absolute check on suspicious losses, accumulate
+only a moderate surplus and present very few opportunities for
+insurance abuses. The same thing is true for the fraternal societies
+that conduct life insurance. When properly managed they represent the
+lowest possible cost and the best efficiency with least opportunities
+for fraud and without any temptations to interfere with legislation
+and any allurements for legislators to spend their time making strike
+and graft bills instead of doing legislative work.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>VI. OLD AGE PENSIONS.</h2>
+<p>
+This generation has occupied itself much with the question of old age
+pensions. Probably most people feel that this is the first time in the
+world's history that such arrangements have been made. The movement is
+supposed to represent a recent development of humanitarian purpose,
+and to be a feature of recent philanthropic evolution. It is rather
+interesting, in the light of that idea, to see how well they
+accomplish this same purpose in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth
+Centuries. In our time it has been a government affair, with all the
+possibilities of abuse that there are in a huge pension system, and
+surely no country knows it better than we do here in America. The old
+countries, Germany and France, have established a contributing <a name="439">{439}</a>
+system of pension. This was the model of their system of caring for
+the old and the disabled in the Middle Ages. Toulmin Smith cites a
+rule of one of the gilds which gives us exactly the status of the old
+age disability pension question. After a workman had been seven years
+a member, the gild assured him a livelihood in case of disability from
+any cause.
+</p>
+<p>
+When we recall that employer as well as employee as a rule belonged to
+the gild and this was a real mutual organization in which there was a
+sharing of the various risks of life, we see how eminently well
+adapted to avoid abuses this old system was. Where the pensioners
+appeal to a government pension system, abuses are almost inevitable.
+There is the constant temptation to exploit the system on the part of
+the pensioners, because they have the feeling that if they do not,
+others will. Then the investigation of each particular case is
+difficult, and favoritism and graft of various kinds inevitably finds
+its way in. Where the pension is paid by a small body of fellow
+workmen, the investigation is easy, the temptation to exploit does not
+readily find place, and while abuses are to some extent inevitable,
+these are small in amount, and not likely to be frequent. Friends and
+neighbors know conditions, and men are not pauperized by the system,
+and if, after an injury that seemed at first so disabling as to be
+permanent, the pensioner should improve enough to be able to get back
+to work, or, at least, to do something to support himself, the system
+is elastic enough so that he is not likely to be tempted to continue
+to live on others rather than on his own efforts.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>VII. THE WAYS AND MEANS OF CHARITY&mdash;ORGANIZED CHARITY.</h2>
+<p>
+Most of us would be apt to think that our modern methods of obtaining
+funds for charitable purposes represented definite developments, and
+that at least special features of our collections for charity were our
+own invention. In recent years the value of being able to reach a
+great many people even for small amounts has been particularly
+recognized. "Tag day" is one manifestation of that. Everyone in a
+neighborhood is asked to contribute a small amount for a particular
+charitable purpose, and the whole collection usually runs up to a snug
+sum. Practices very similar to this were quite common in the
+Thirteenth Century. As in our time, it was the women who collected the
+money. A rope, for instance, was stretched across a marketplace, where
+traffic was busy, and everyone who passed was required to pay a toll
+for charity. Occasionally the rope was stretched across a bridge and
+the tolls were collected on a particular day each year. Other forms of
+charitable accumulation resembled ours in many respects.
+Entertainments of various kinds were given for charity, and special
+collections were made during the exhibition of mystery plays <a name="440">{440}</a>
+partly to pay the expenses of the representation, and the surplus to
+go to the charities of the particular gild.
+</p>
+<p>
+Most of the charity, however, was organized. Indeed it is the
+organization of charity during the Thirteenth Century that represents
+the best feature of its fraternalism. The needy were cared for by the
+gilds themselves. There were practically no poorhouses, and if a man
+was willing to work and had already shown this willingness, there were
+definite bureaus that would help him at least to feed his family while
+he was out of work. This system, however, was flexible enough to
+provide also for the ne'er-do-wells, the tramps, the beggars, but they
+were given not money, but tokens which enabled them to obtain the
+necessaries of life without being able to abuse charity. The
+committees of the gilds consulted in various ways among themselves and
+with the church wardens so as to be sure that, while all the needy
+were receiving help, no one was abusing charity by drawing help from a
+number of different quarters. Of course, they did not have the problem
+of large city life that we have, and so their comparatively simple
+organization of charity sufficed for all the needs of the time, and at
+the same time anticipated our methods.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>VIII. SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSITIES.</h2>
+<p>
+In the first edition of this book I called attention to the fact, that
+science, even in our sense of physical science, was, in spite of
+impressions to the contrary, a favorite subject for students and
+teachers in the early universities. What might have been insisted on,
+however, is that these old universities were scientific universities
+resembling our own so closely in their devotion to science as to
+differ from them only in certain unimportant aspects. Because the
+universities for three centuries before the Nineteenth had been
+occupied mainly with classical studies, we are prone to think that
+these were the main subjects of university teaching for all the
+centuries before. Nothing could well be less true. The undergraduate
+studies consisted of the seven liberal arts so-called, though these
+were largely studied from the scientific standpoint. The quotation
+from Prof. Huxley ( <a href="#466Hux">Appendix III., Education</a>) makes this very clear.
+What we would now call the graduate studies consisted of metaphysics,
+in which considerable physics were studied, astronomy, medicine, above
+all, mathematics, and then the ethical sciences, under which were
+studied what we now call ethics, politics and economics. The picture
+of these medieval universities as I have given them in my lecture on
+Medieval Scientific Universities, in "Education, How Old the New,"
+makes this very clear. The interests and studies were very like those
+of our own time, only the names for them being different. Nature-study
+was a favorite subject, and, as I have pointed out in "The Popes and
+Science," Dante must be considered as a great nature student, for he
+was able to draw the most exquisite figures from details of knowledge
+of living things with which few <a name="441">{441}</a> poets are familiar. The books of
+the professors of the Thirteenth Century which have been preserved,
+those of Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Aquinas, Duns Scotus and
+others, make it very clear that scientific teaching was the main
+occupation of the university faculties, while the preservation of
+these huge tomes by the diligent copying of disciples shows how deeply
+interested were their pupils in the science of the time.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>IX. MEDICAL TEACHING AND PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS.</h2>
+<p>
+At all times in the history of education, the standards of scientific
+education, and the institutions of learning, can be best judged from
+the condition of the medical schools. When the medical sciences are
+taken seriously, when thorough preparation is demanded before their
+study may be taken up, when four or five years of attention to
+theoretic and practical medicine are required for graduation, and when
+the professors are writing textbooks that are to attract attention for
+generations afterwards, then, there is always a thoroughly scientific
+temper m the university itself. Medicine is likely to suffer, first,
+whenever there is neglect of science. The studies of the German
+historians, Puschmann, Pagel, Neuberger, and Sudhoff in recent years,
+have made it very clear that the medical schools of the universities
+of the Thirteenth Century were maintaining high standards. The
+republication of old texts, especially in France, has called attention
+to the magnificent publications of their professors, while a review of
+their laws and regulations confirms the idea of the good work that was
+being done. Gurlt, in his history of surgery, "Geschichte der
+Chirurgie" (Berlin, 1898), has reviewed the textbooks of Roger and
+Roland and the Four Masters, of William of Salicet and Lanfranc and of
+many others, in a way to make it very clear that these men were
+excellent teachers.
+</p>
+<p>
+When we discover that three years of preparatory university work was
+required before the study of medicine could be begun, and four years
+of medical studies were required, with a subsequent year of practice
+under a physician's direction, before a license for independent
+practice could be issued, then the scientific character of the medical
+schools and therefore of the universities to which they were attached
+is placed beyond all doubt. These are the terms of the law issued by
+the Emperor Frederick II. for the Two Sicilies. That, in substance, it
+applied to other countries we learn from the fact that the charters of
+medical schools granted by the Popes at this time require proper
+university preliminary studies, and four or five years at medicine
+before the degree of Doctor could be given. We know besides that in
+the cities only those who were graduates of properly recognized
+medical schools were allowed to practice medicine, so that there was
+every encouragement for the maintenance of professional standards.
+Indeed, <a name="442">{442}</a> strange as it may seem to our generation, the standards
+of the Thirteenth Century in medical education were much higher than
+our own, and their medical schools were doing fine work.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>X. MAGNETISM.</h2>
+<p>
+For proper understanding of the Thirteenth Century scholars, it is
+especially important to appreciate their thoroughly scientific temper
+of mind, their powers of observation, and their successful attainments
+in science. I know no more compendious way of reaching the knowledge
+of these qualities in the medieval mind, than a study of the letter of
+Peregrinus, which we would in our time call a monograph on magnetism.
+Brother Potamian, in his chapter in "Makers of Electricity" (Fordham
+University Press, N. Y., 1909) on Peregrinus and Columbus, sums up the
+very interesting contributions of this medieval student of magnetism
+to the subject. The list of chapters alone in Peregrinus' monograph
+(Epistola) makes it very clear how deep were his interests and how
+thoroughly practical his investigations.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i442.jpg" border=1><br>
+THE DOUBLE PIVOTED NEEDLE OF PEREGRINUS.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They are:&mdash;"Part I., Chapter i, purpose of this work; 2,
+qualifications of the experimenter; 3, characteristics of a good
+lodestone; 4, how to distinguish the poles of a lodestone; 5, how to
+tell which pole is north and which is south; 6, how one lodestone
+attracts another; 7, how iron touched by a lodestone turns toward the
+poles of the world; 8, how a lodestone attracts iron; 9, why the north
+pole of one lodestone attracts the south pole of another, and vice
+versa; 10, an inquiry into the natural virtue of the lodestone.
+</p>
+<p>
+"Part II., Chapter 1, construction of an instrument for measuring the
+azimuth of the sun, the moon or any star then in the horizon; 2,
+construction of a better instrument for the same purpose; 3, the art
+of making a wheel of perpetual motion."
+</p>
+<p>
+In order to illustrate what Peregrinus accomplished it has seemed
+worth while to reproduce here the sketches which illustrate his
+epistle. We have the double pivoted needle and the first pivoted
+compass.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the light of certain recent events a passage from the "New Naval
+History or Complete Review of the British Marine" (London, 1757) is of
+special interest. It illustrates perhaps the new confidence that came
+to men in sailing to long distances as the result of the <a name="443">{443}</a>
+realization of the practical value of the magnetic needle during the
+Thirteenth Century.
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i443.jpg" border=1><br>
+FIRST PIVOTED COMPASS (PEREGRINUS, 1269).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+"In the year 1360 it is recorded that a friar of Oxford called
+Nicholas de Linna (of Lynn), being a good astronomer, went in company
+with others to the most northern island, and thence traveled alone,
+and that he went to the North Pole, by means of his skill in magic, or
+the black art; but this magic or black art may probably have been
+nothing more than a knowledge of the magnetic needle or compass, found
+out about sixty years before, though not in common use until many
+years after."
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>XI. BIOLOGICAL THEORIES, EVOLUTION, RECAPITULATION.</h2>
+<p>
+Of course only those who are quite unfamiliar with the history of
+philosophic thought are apt to think that the theory of evolution is
+modern. Serious students of biology are familiar with the long history
+of the theory, and especially its anticipations by the Greeks. Very
+few know, however, that certain phases of evolutionary theory
+attracted not a little attention from the scholastic philosophers. It
+would not be difficult to find expressions in Roger Bacon and Albertus
+Magnus, that would serve to show that they thought not only of the
+possibility of some very intimate relation of species but of
+developmental connections. The great teacher of the time, St. Thomas
+Aquinas, has some striking expressions in the matter, which deserve to
+be quoted, because he is the most important representative of the
+philosophy and science of the century and the one whose works most
+influenced succeeding generations. In the lecture on Medieval
+Scientific Universities, published in "Education, How Old the New"
+(Fordham University Press, N. Y., 1910), I called particular attention
+to this phase of St. Thomas' teaching. Two quotations will serve to
+make it clear here.
+</p>
+<p>
+Prof. Osborne, in "From the Greeks to Darwin," quotes Aquinas'
+commentary on St. Augustine's opinion with regard to the origin of
+things as they are. Augustine declared that the Creator had simply
+<a name="444">{444}</a> brought into life the seeds of things, and given these the power
+to develop. Aquinas, expounding Augustine, says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "As to production of plants, Augustine holds a different view, &hellip;
+  for some say that on the third day plants were actually produced,
+  each in his kind&mdash;a view favored by the superficial reading of
+  Scripture. But Augustine says that the earth is then said to have
+  brought forth grass and trees <i>causaliter</i>; that is, it then
+  received power to produce them." (Quoting Genesis ii:4): "For in
+  those first days, &hellip; God made creation primarily or <i>causaliter</i>,
+  and then rested from His work."
+</p>
+<p>
+Like expressions might be quoted from him, and other writers of the
+Thirteenth Century might well be cited in confirmation of the fact
+that while these great teachers of the Middle Ages thoroughly
+recognize the necessity for creation to begin with and the placing by
+the Creator of some power in living things that enables them to
+develop, they were by no means bound to the thought that all living
+species were due to special creations. They even did not hesitate to
+teach the possibility of the lower order of living beings at least
+coming into existence by spontaneous generation, and would probably
+have found no difficulty in accepting a theory of descent with the
+limitations that most scientific men of our generation are prone to
+demand for it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lest it should be thought that this is a mere accidental agreement
+with modern thought, due much more to a certain looseness of terms
+than to actual similarity of view, it seems well to point out how
+close St. Thomas came to that thought in modern biology, which is
+probably considered to be one of our distinct modern contributions to
+the theory of evolution, though, in recent years, serious doubts have
+been thrown on it. It is expressed by the formula of Herbert Spencer,
+"Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." According to this, the completed
+being repeats in the course of its development the history of the
+race, that is to say, the varying phases of foetal development from
+the single cell in which it originates up to the perfect being of the
+special type as it is born into the world, retrace the history by
+which from the single cell being the creature in question has
+gradually developed.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is very curious to find that St. Thomas Aquinas, in his teaching
+with regard to the origin and development of the human being, says,
+almost exactly, what the most ardent supporters of this so-called
+fundamental biogenetic law proclaimed during the latter half of the
+Nineteenth Century, thinking they were expressing an absolutely new
+thought. He says that "the higher a form is in the scale of being and
+the farther it is removed from mere material form, the more
+intermediate forms must be passed through before the finally perfect
+form is reached. Therefore, in the generation of animal and man&mdash;
+these having the most perfect forms&mdash;there occur many intermediate
+forms in generations, and consequently destruction, because the <a name="445">{445}</a>
+generation of one being is the destruction of another." St. Thomas
+draws the ultimate conclusions from this doctrine without hesitation.
+He proclaims that the human material is first animated by a vegetative
+soul or principle of life, and then by an animal soul, and only
+ultimately when the matter has been properly prepared for it by a
+rational soul. He said: "The vegetative soul, therefore, which is
+first in embryo, while it lives the life of a plant, is destroyed, and
+there succeeds a more perfect soul, which is at once nutrient and
+sentient, and for that time the embryo lives the life of an animal:
+upon the destruction of this there succeeds the rational soul, infused
+from without."
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>XII. THE POPE OF THE CENTURY.</h2>
+<p>
+The absence of a chapter on the Pope of the Century has always seemed
+a lacuna in the previous editions of this book. Pope Innocent III.,
+whose pontificate began just before the century opened, and occupied
+the first fifteen years of it, well deserves a place beside Francis
+the Saint, Thomas the Scholar, Dante the Poet, and Louis the Monarch
+of this great century. More than any other single individual he was
+responsible for the great development of the intellectual life that
+took place, but at the same time his wonderfully broad influence
+enabled him to initiate many of the movements that meant most for
+human uplift and for the alleviation of suffering in this period. It
+was in Councils of the Church summoned by him that the important
+legislation was passed requiring the development of schools, the
+foundation of colleges in every diocese and of universities in
+important metropolitan sees. What he accomplished for hospitals has
+been well told by Virchow, from whom I quote a magnanimous tribute in
+the chapter on the Foundation of City Hospitals. The legislation of
+Innocent III. did much to encourage, and yet to regulate properly the
+religious orders of this time engaged in charitable work. Besides
+doing so much for charity, he was a stern upholder of morals. As more
+than one king of the time realized while Innocent was Pope, there
+could be no trifling with marriage vows.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the other hand, while Innocent was so stern as to the enforcement
+of marriage laws, his wonderfully judicious character and his care for
+the weak and the innocent can be particularly noted in his treatment
+of the children in these cases. While he compelled recalcitrant kings
+to take back the wives they would repudiate, and put away other women
+who had won their affections, he did not hesitate to make due
+provision as far as possible for the illegitimate children. Pirie
+Gordon, in his recent life of Pope Innocent III., notes that he
+invariably legitimated the offspring of these illegal unions of kings,
+and even declared them capable of succession. He would not visit the
+guilt of the parent on the innocent offspring.
+</p>
+<a name="446">{446}</a>
+<p>
+Innocent did more to encourage the idea of international arbitration
+than anyone up to his time. During his period more than once he was
+the arbitrator to whom rival national claims that might have led to
+war were referred. Probably his greatest claim on our admiration in
+the modern time is his attitude toward the Jews. In this he is
+centuries ahead of his time and, indeed, the policy that he laid down
+is far ahead of what is accorded to them by many of the nations even
+at the present time, and it must not be forgotten that it is only
+during the past hundred years that the Jew has come to have any real
+privileges comparable to those accorded to other men. At a time when
+the Jew had no real rights in law, Innocent insisted on according them
+all the rights of men. His famous edict in this regard is well known.
+"Let no Christian by violence compel them to come dissenting or
+unwilling to Baptism. Further let no Christian venture maliciously to
+harm their persons without a judgment of the civil power, to carry off
+their property or change their good customs which they have had
+hitherto in that district which they inhabit." When, in addition to
+all this, it is recalled that he was a distinguished scholar and
+graduate of the University of Paris, looked up to as one of the
+intellectual geniuses of the time, the author of a treatise "On the
+Contempt of the World" at a time when the kings of the earth were
+obeying him, known for his personal piety and for his thorough
+regulation of his own household, something of the greatness of the man
+will be appreciated. No wonder that historians who have taken up the
+special study of his career have always been won over to deep personal
+admiration of him, and though many of them began prejudiced in his
+regard, practically all of them were converted to be his sincere
+admirers.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>XIII. INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION.</h2>
+<p>
+During the Peace Conference in New York in 1908 I was on the programme
+with Mr. William T. Stead of London, the editor of the English <i>Review
+of Reviews</i>, who was very much interested in the volume on the
+Thirteenth Century, and who suggested that one chapter in the book
+should have been devoted to the consideration of what was accomplished
+for peace and for International Arbitration during this century. There
+is no doubt that there developed, as the result of many Papal decrees,
+a greater tendency than has existed ever before or since, to refer
+quarrels between nations that would ordinarily end in war to decision
+by some selected umpire. Usually the Pope, as the head of the
+Christian Church, to which all the nations of the civilized world
+belonged, was selected as the arbitrator. This international
+arbitration, strengthened by the decrees of Pope Innocent III., Pope
+Honorius III. and Pope Alexander III., developed in a way that is well
+worth while studying, and that has deservedly been the subject of
+careful investigation since the present <a name="447">{447}</a> peace movement began.
+Certainly the outlook for the securing of peace by international
+arbitration was better at this time than it has been at any time
+since. What a striking example, for instance, is the choice of King
+Louis of France as the umpire in the dispute between the Barons and
+the King of England, which might have led to war. Louis' position with
+regard to the Empire and the Papacy was to a great extent that of a
+pacificator, and his influence for peace was felt everywhere
+throughout Europe. The spirit of the century was all for arbitration
+and the adjudication of intranational as well as international
+difficulties by peaceful means.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>XIV. BIBLE REVISION.</h2>
+<p>
+Most people will be quite sure that at least the question of Bible
+revision with critical study of text and comparative investigation of
+sources was reserved for our time. The two orders of friars founded in
+the early part of the Thirteenth Century, however, devoted themselves
+to the task of supplying to the people a thoroughly reliable edition
+of the Scriptures. The first systematic revision was made by the
+Dominicans about 1236. After twenty years this revision was set aside
+as containing too many errors, and another Dominican correction
+replaced it. Then came that great scholar, Hugh of St. Cher, known
+later as the Cardinal of Santa Sabina, the author of the first great
+Biblical Concordance. His Bible studies did much to clarify
+obscurities in the text. Sometime about 1240 he organized a commission
+of friars for the revision of what was known as the Paris Exemplar,
+the Bible text that was most in favor at that time. The aim of Hugh of
+St. Cher was to establish the old Vulgate of St. Jerome, the text
+which received this name during this century, but with such revision
+as would make this version correspond as nearly as possible to the
+Hebrew and the Greek.
+</p>
+<p>
+This activity on the part of the Dominicans was rivaled by the
+Franciscans. We might not expect to find the great scientist, Roger
+Bacon, as a Biblical scholar and reviser, but such he was, working
+with Willermus de Mara, to whom, according to Father Denifle, late the
+Librarian of the Vatican Library, must be attributed the title given
+him by Roger Bacon of Sapientissimus Vir. The Dominicans under the
+leadership of Hugh of St. Cher with high ideals had hoped to achieve a
+perfect primitive text. The version made by de Mara, however, with the
+approval and advice of Bacon, was only meant to bring out St. Jerome's
+text as perfectly as possible. These two revisions made in the
+Thirteenth Century are typical of all the efforts that men have made
+since in that same direction. Contrary to usual present day
+impressions, they are characterized by critical scholarship, and
+probably represent as great a contribution to Biblical lore as was
+made by any other century.
+</p>
+<a name="448">{448}</a>
+<br>
+<h2>XV. FICTION OF THE CENTURY.</h2>
+<p>
+Ordinarily it would be presumed that life was taken entirely too
+seriously during the Thirteenth Century for the generation to pay much
+attention to fiction. In a certain sense this is true. In the sense,
+however, that they had no stories worthy of the great literature in
+other departments it would be quite untrue. There is a naiveté about
+their story telling that rather amuses our sophisticated age, yet all
+the elements of our modern fiction are to be found in the stories that
+were popular during the century, and arranged with a dramatic effect
+that must have given them a wide appeal.
+</p>
+<p>
+The most important contribution to the fiction of the century is to be
+found in the collection known as the <i>Cento Novelle Antiche</i> or
+"Hundred Ancient Tales," which contains the earliest prose fiction
+extant in Italian. Many of these come from a period anterior to Dante,
+and it is probable from what Manni, the learned editor of the
+<i>Novelliero</i>, says, that they were written out in the Thirteenth
+Century and collected in the early part of the Fourteenth Century.
+They did not all originate in Italy, and, indeed, Manni considers that
+most of them derived their origin from Provence. They represent the
+interest of the century in fiction and in anecdotal literature.
+</p>
+<p>
+As for the longer fiction, the pure love story of the modern time, we
+have one typical example of it in that curious relic of the Middle
+Ages, "Aucassin and Nicolette." The manuscript which preserved this
+for us comes from the Thirteenth Century. Perhaps, as M. Paris
+suggests, the tale itself is from the preceding century. At least it
+was the interest of the Thirteenth Century in it that saved it for us.
+For those who think that the love romance in any of its features is
+novel, though we call it by that name, or that there has been any
+development of human nature which enables the writer of love stories
+to appeal to other and deeper, or purer and loftier feelings in his
+loved ones now than in the past, all that is needed, as it seems to
+me, is a casual reading of this pretty old song-story.
+</p>
+<p>
+Perhaps the most interesting feature of this oldest specimen of modern
+fiction is the number of precious bits of psychologic analysis or, at
+least, what is called that in the recent time, which occur in the
+course of it. For instance, when Aucassin is grieving because he
+cannot find Nicolette he wanders through the forest on horseback, and
+is torn by trees and brambles, but "he feels it not at all." On the
+other hand, when he finds Nicolette, though he is suffering from a
+dislocated shoulder, he no longer feels any pain in it, because of his
+joy at the meeting, and Nicolette (first aid to the injured) is able
+to replace the dislocated part without difficulty (the trained nurse
+in fiction) because he is so happy as not to notice the pain
+(psychotherapy). The herdsman whom he meets wonders that Aucassin,
+with plenty of money and victuals, should grieve so much over the loss
+of Nicolette, <a name="449">{449}</a> while he has so much more cause to grieve over the
+loss of an ox, which means starvation to him. Toward the end of the
+story we have the scene in which Nicolette, stolen from home when very
+young, and utterly unable to remember anything about her childhood,
+has brought back to her memory by the view of the city of Carthage
+forgotten events of her childhood (subconscious memory). These
+represent naively enough, it is true, the study of the mind under
+varying conditions that has in recent years been given the rather
+ambitious name of psychology in fiction.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>XVI. GREAT ORATORS.</h2>
+<p>
+Without a chapter on the great orators of the period an account of the
+Thirteenth Century is quite incomplete. Great as were the other forms
+of literature, epic, lyric and religious poetry and the prose writing,
+it is probable that the oratory of the time surpassed them all. When
+we recall that the Cid, the Arthur Legends, the Nibelungen, the
+Meistersingers, and the Minnesingers, Reynard the Fox, the Romance of
+the Rose, the Troubadours, and even Dante are included in the other
+term of the comparison thus made, it may seem extravagant, but what we
+know of the effect of the orators of the time fully justifies it. Just
+before the Thirteenth Century, great religious orators swayed the
+hearts and minds of people, to the organization of the Crusades. At
+the beginning of the Thirteenth Century the mendicant orders were
+organized, and their important duties were preaching and teaching. The
+Dominicans were of course the Order of Preachers, and we have
+traditions of their sway over the minds of the people of the time
+which make it very clear that their power was equal to that exerted in
+any other department of human expression. There are traditions
+particularly of the oratory of the Dominicans among the German races,
+which serve to show how even a phlegmatic people can be stirred to the
+very depths of their being by the eloquent spoken word. In France the
+traditions are almost as explicit in this matter, and there are
+remains of religious orations that fully confirm the reputation of the
+orators of the time.
+</p>
+<p>
+Rhetoric and oratory was studied very assiduously. Cicero was the
+favorite reading of the great preachers of the time, and we find the
+court preachers of St. Louis, Étienne de Bourbon, Elinand, Guillaume
+de Perrault and others appealing to his precepts as the infallible
+guide to oratory. Quintilian was not neglected, however, and Symmachus
+and Sidonius Apollinaris were also faithfully studied. If we turn to
+the speeches that are incorporated in the epics, as, for instance, the
+Cid, or in some of the historians, as Villehardouin, we have definite
+evidence of the thorough command of the writers of the time over the
+forms of oratory. M. Paullin Paris, the authority in our time on the
+literature of the Thirteenth Century, quotes a passage from
+Villehardouin in which Canon de Bethune speaks in the <a name="450">{450}</a> name of
+the French chiefs of the Fourth Crusade to the Emperors Isaac and
+Alexis Comnenus. M. Paris does not hesitate to declare that the
+passage is equal to many of the same kind that have been much admired
+in the classic authors. It has the force, the finish and the
+compression of Thucydides.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>XVII. GREAT BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE.</h2>
+<p>
+Only the fact that this work was getting beyond the number of printed
+pages determined for it in the first edition prevented the insertion
+of a chapter especially devoted to the great beginnings of English
+literature in the Thirteenth Century. The most important contributions
+to Early English were made at this period. The Ormulum and Layamon's
+Brut, both written probably during the first decade of the Thirteenth
+Century, have become familiar to all students of Old English. Mr.
+Gollancz goes so far as to say that "The Ormulum is perhaps the most
+valuable document we possess for the history of English sound. Orm was
+a purist in orthography as well as in vocabulary, and may fittingly be
+described as the first of English phoneticians."
+</p>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i450.jpg" border=1><br>
+MANUSCRIPT OF ORMULUM (THIRTEENTH CENTURY)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of Layamon, Garnett said in his "English Literature" (Garnett and
+Gosse): "It would have sufficed for the fame of Layamon had he been no
+more than the first minstrel to celebrate Arthur in English song, but
+his own pretensions as a poet are by no means inconsiderate. He is
+everywhere vigorous and graphic, and improved upon his predecessor,
+Wace, alike by his additions and expansions, and by his more spiritual
+handling of the subjects common to both." Even more important in the
+history of language than these is <i>The Ancren Riwle</i> (The Anchorites'
+Rule). This was probably written by Richard Poore, Bishop of
+Salisbury, for three Cistercian nuns. Its place in English literature
+may be judged from a quotation or two with regard to it. Mr.
+Kington-Oliphant says: "<i>The Ancren Riwle</i> is the forerunner of a
+wondrous change in our speech. More than anything else written outside
+the Danelagh, that piece has influenced our standard <a name="451">{451}</a> English."
+Garnett says: "<i>The Ancren Riwle</i> is a work of great literary merit
+and, in spite of its linguistic innovations, most of which have
+established themselves, well deserves to be described as 'one of the
+most perfect models of simple eloquent prose in our language.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+The religious poetry of the time is not behind the great prose of <i>The
+Ancren Riwle</i>, and one of them, the <i>Luve Ron</i> (Love Song) of Thomas
+de Hales, is very akin to the spirit of that work, and has been well
+described as "a contemplative lyric of the simplest, noblest mold."
+Garnett says: "The reflections are such as are common to all who have
+in all ages pleaded for the higher life under whatsoever form, and
+deplored the frailty and transitoriness of man's earthly estate. Two
+stanzas on the latter theme as expressed in a modernized version might
+almost pass for Villon's:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  "Paris and Helen, where are they,
+    Fairest in beauty, bright to view?
+  Amadas, Tristrem, Ideine, yea
+    Isold, that lived with love so true?
+  And Caesar, rich in power and sway,
+    Hector the strong, with might to do?
+  All glided from earth's realm away,
+    Like shaft that from the bow-string flew.
+
+  "It is as if they ne'er were here.
+    Their wondrous woes have been a' told,
+  That it is sorrow but to hear;
+    How anguish killed them sevenfold,
+  And how with dole their lives were drear;
+    Now is their heat all turned to cold.
+  Thus this world gives false hope, false fear;
+    A fool, who in her strength is bold."
+</pre>
+<br>
+<h2>XVIII. GREAT ORIGINS IN MUSIC.</h2>
+<p>
+In the chapter on the Great Latin Hymns a few words were said about
+one phase of the important musical development in the Thirteenth
+Century, that of plain chant. In that simple mode the musicians of the
+Thirteenth Century succeeded in reaching a climax of expression of
+human feeling in such chants as the <i>Exultet</i> and the <i>Lamentation</i>
+that has never been surpassed. Something was also said about the
+origin of part music, but so little that it might easily be thought
+that in this the century lagged far behind its achievements in other
+departments. M, Pierre Aubry has recently published (1909) <i>Cent
+Motets du XIIIe Siècle</i> in three volumes. His first volume contains a
+photographic reproduction of the manuscript of Bamberg from which the
+hundred musical modes are secured, the second a transcription in
+modern musical notation of the old music, and the third volume studies
+and commentaries on the music and the times. If anything were needed
+to show how utterly ignorant we have been of the interests and
+artistic achievements of the Middle Ages, it is this book of M. Aubry.
+</p>
+<p>
+Victor Hugo said that music dates from the Sixteenth Century, and it
+has been quite the custom, even for people who thought they <a name="452">{452}</a> knew
+something about music, to declare that we had no remains of any music
+before the Sixteenth Century worth while talking about. Ancient music
+is probably lost to us forever, but M. Aubry has shown conclusively
+that we have abundant remains to show us that the musicians of the
+Thirteenth Century devoted themselves to their art with as great
+success as their rivals in the other Gothic arts and, indeed, they
+thought that they had nearly exhausted its possibilities and tried to
+make a science of it. By their supposedly scientific rules they
+succeeded in binding music so firmly as to bring about its obscuration
+in succeeding centuries. This is, however, the old story of what has
+happened in every art whenever genius succeeds in finding a great mode
+of expression. A formula is evolved which often binds expression so
+rigorously as to prevent natural development.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>XIX. A CHAPTER ON MANNERS.</h2>
+<p>
+Whatever the people of the Middle Ages may have been in morals, their
+manners are supposed to have been about as lacking in refinement as
+possible. As for nearly everything else, however, this impression is
+utterly false, and is due to the assumption that because we are
+better-mannered than the generations of a century or two ago,
+therefore we must be almost infinitely in advance, in the same
+respect, of the people of seven centuries ago. There are ups and downs
+in manners, however, as there are in education, and the beginnings of
+the formal setting forth of modern manners are, like everything else
+modern, to be found in the Thirteenth Century. About the year 1215
+Thomasin Zerklaere wrote in German a rather lengthy treatise, <i>Der
+Wälsche Gast</i>, on manners. It contains most of the details of polite
+conduct that have been accepted in later times. Not long afterwards,
+John Garland, an Oxford man who had lived in France for many years,
+wrote a book on manners for English young men. He meant this to be a
+supplement to Dionysius Cato's treatise, written probably in the
+Fourth Century in Latin, which was concerned more with morals than
+manners and had been very popular during the Middle Ages. Garland's
+book was the first of a series of such treatises on manners which
+appeared in England at the close of the Middle Ages. Many of them have
+been recently republished, and are a revelation of the development of
+manners among our English forefathers. The book is usually alluded to
+in literature as Liber Faceti, or as Facet; the full title was, "The
+Book of the Polite Man, Teaching Manners for Men, Especially for Boys,
+as a Supplement to those which were Omitted by the Most Moral Cato."
+The "Romance of the Rose" has, of course, many references to manners
+which show us how courtesy was cultivated in France. In Italy, Dante's
+teacher, Bruneto Latini, published his "Tesoretto," which treats of
+manners, and which was soon followed by a number of similar treatises
+in <a name="453">{453}</a> Italian. In a word, we must look to the Thirteenth Century
+for the origin, or at least the definite acceptance, of most of those
+conventions which make for kindly courtesy among men, and have made
+possible human society and friendly intercourse in our modern sense of
+those words.
+</p>
+<p>
+We are prone to think that refinement in table manners is a matter of
+distinctly modern times. In "The Babees' Book," which is one of the
+oldest books of English manners, the date of which in its present form
+is about the middle of the Fourteenth Century, many of our rules of
+politeness at table are anticipated. This book is usually looked upon
+as a compilation from preceding times, and the original of it is
+supposed to be from the preceding century. A few quotations from it
+will show how closely it resembles our own instructions to children:
+</p>
+<pre>
+  "Thou shalt not laugh nor speak nothing
+  While thy mouth be full of meat or drink;
+  Nor sup thou not with great sounding
+  Neither pottage nor other thing.
+  At meat cleanse not thy teeth, nor pick
+  With knife or straw or wand or stick.
+  While thou holdest meat in mouth, beware
+  To drink; that is an unhonest chare;
+  And also physic forbids it quite.
+  Also eschew, without strife.
+  To foul the board cloth with thy knife.
+
+  Nor blow not on thy drink or meat,
+  Neither for cold, neither for heat.
+  Nor bear with meat thy knife to mouth.
+  Whether thou be set by strong or couth.
+  Lean not on elbow at thy meat,
+  Neither for cold nor for heat.
+  Dip not thy thumb thy drink into;
+  Thou art uncourteous if thou it do.
+  In salt-cellar if thou put
+  Or fish or flesh that men see it,
+  That is a vice, as men me tells;
+  And great wonder it would be else."
+</pre>
+<p>
+The directions, "how to behave thyself in talking with any man," in
+one of these old books, are very minute and specific:&mdash;
+</p>
+<pre>
+  "If a man demand a question of thee.
+  In thine answer making be not too hasty;
+  Weigh well his words, the case understand
+  Ere an answer to make thou take in hand;
+  Else may he judge in thee little wit,
+  To answer to a thing and not hear it.
+  Suffer his tale whole out to be told.
+  Then speak thou mayst, and not be controlled;
+
+  In audible voice thy words do thou utter,
+  Not high nor low, but using a measure.
+  Thy words see that thou pronounce plaine.
+  And that they spoken be not in vain;
+  In uttering whereon keep thou an order,
+  Thy matter thereby thou shalt much forder
+  Which order if thou do not observe.
+  From the purpose needs must thou swerve."
+</pre>
+<br>
+<a name="454">{454}</a>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>XX. TEXTILE WORK OF THE CENTURY.</h2>
+<p>
+A special chapter might easily have been written on the making of fine
+cloths of various kinds, most of which reached their highest
+perfection in the Thirteenth Century. Velvet, for instance, is
+mentioned for the first time in England in 1295, but existed earlier
+on the continent, and cut velvets with elaborate patterns were made in
+Genoa exactly as we know finished velvet now. Baudekin or Baldichin, a
+very costly textile of gold and silk largely used in altar coverings
+and hangings, came to very high perfection in this century also. The
+canopy for the Blessed Sacrament is, because of its manufacture from
+this cloth, still called in Italy a <i>baldichino</i>. Chaucer in the next
+century tells how the streets in royal processions were "hanged with
+cloth of gold and not with serge." Satin also was first manufactured
+very probably in the Thirteenth Century. It is first mentioned in
+England about the middle of the Fourteenth Century, when Bishop
+Grandison made a gift of choice satins to Exeter Cathedral. The word
+satin, however, is derived from the silks of the Mediterranean, called
+by the Italians <i>seta</i> and by the Spanish <i>seda</i>, and the art of
+making it was brought to perfection during the preceding century.
+</p>
+<p>
+The art of making textiles ornamented with elaborate designs of animal
+forms and of floral ornaments reached its highest perfection in the
+Thirteenth Century. In one of the Chronicles we learn that in 1295 St.
+Paul's in London owned a hanging "patterned with wheels and two-headed
+birds." We have accounts of such elaborate textile ornamentation as
+peacocks, lions, griffins and the like. Almeria in Andalusia was a
+rich city in the Thirteenth Century, noted for its manufactures of
+textiles. A historian of the period writes: "Christians of all nations
+came to its port to buy and sell. Then they traveled to other parts of
+the interior of the country, where they loaded their vessels with such
+goods as they wanted. Costly silken robes of the brightest colors are
+manufactured in Almeria." Marco-Polo says of the Persians that, when
+he passed through that country (end of the Thirteenth Century), "there
+are excellent artificers in the city who make wonderful things in
+gold, silk and embroidery. The women make excellent needlework in silk
+with all sorts of creatures very admirably wrought therein." He also
+reports the King of Tartary as wearing on his birthday a most precious
+garment of gold, and tells of the girdles of gold and silver, with
+pearls and ornaments of great price on them.
+</p>
+<p>
+Unfortunately English embroidery fell off very greatly at the time of
+the Wars of the Roses. These wars constitute the main reason why
+nearly every form of intellectual accomplishment and artistic
+achievement went into decadence during the Fourteenth Century, from
+which they were only just emerging when the so-called <a name="455">{455}</a>
+reformation, with its confiscation of monastic property, and its
+destruction of monastic life, came to ruin schools of all kinds, and,
+above all, those in which the arts and crafts had been taught so
+successfully. France at the end of the Thirteenth Century saw a
+similar rise to excellence of textile and embroidery work. In 1299
+there is an allusion to one Clément le Brodeur who furnished a
+magnificent cope for the Count of Artois. In 1316 a beautifully
+decorated set of hangings was made for the Queen by Gautier de
+Poulleigny. There are other references to work done in the early part
+of the Fourteenth Century, which serve to show the height which art
+had reached in this mode during the Thirteenth Century. In Ireland,
+while the finer work had its due place, the making of woolens was the
+specialty, and the dyeing of woolen cloth made the Irish famous and
+brought many travelers from the continent to learn the secret.
+</p>
+<p>
+The work done in England in embroidery attracted the attention of the
+world. English needlework became a proverb. In the body of the book I
+mentioned the cope of Ascoli, but there were many such beautiful
+garments. The Syon cope is, in the opinion of Miss Addison, author of
+"Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages," the most conspicuous example of
+the medieval embroiderers' art. It was made by nuns about the middle
+of the Thirteenth Century, that is, just about the same time as the
+cope of Ascoli, but in a convent near Coventry. According to Miss
+Addison "it is solid stitchery on a canvas ground, wrought about with
+divers colors' on green. The design is laid out in a series of
+interlacing square forms, with rounded and barbed sides and corners.
+In each of these is a figure or a Scriptural scene. The orphreys, or
+straight borders, which go down on both fronts of the cope, are
+decorated with heraldic charges. Much of the embroidery is raised, and
+wrought in the stitch known as Opus Anglicanum. The effect was
+produced by pressing a heated metal knob into the work at such points
+as were to be raised. The real embroidery was executed on a flat
+surface, and then bossed up by this means until it looked like
+bas-relief. The stitches in every part run in zig-zags, the vestments,
+and even the nimbi about the heads, are all executed with the stitches
+slanting in one direction, from the center of the cope outward,
+without consideration of the positions of the figures. Each face is
+worked in circular progression outward from the center, as well. The
+interlaces are of crimson, and look well on the green ground. The
+wheeled cherubim is well developed in the design of this famous cope,
+and is a pleasing decorative bit of archaic ecclesiasticism. In the
+central design of the Crucifixion, the figure of the Lord is rendered
+in silver on a gold ground."
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>XXI. GLASS-MAKING.</h2>
+<p>
+A chapter might well have been devoted to Thirteenth Century
+glass-making quite apart from the stained glass of the cathedral <a name="456">{456}</a>
+windows. All over Europe some of the most wonderful specimens of
+colored glass we possess were made in the Thirteenth Century. Recently
+Mr. Frederick Rolfe has looked up for me Venetian glass, of the three
+centuries, the Twelfth, the Thirteenth and the Fourteenth. He says
+Twelfth Century glass is small in form, simple and ignorant in model,
+excessively rich and brilliant in colors; the artist evidently had no
+ideal, but the Byzantine of jewels and emeralds.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Thirteenth Century glass is absolutely different. The specimens are
+  pretty. The work of the Beroviero family is large and splendid in
+  form, exquisite and sometimes elaborate in model, mostly crystal
+  glass reticently studded with tiny colored gem-like knobs. There are
+  also fragments of two windows pieced together, and missing parts
+  filled with the best which modern Murano can do. These show the
+  celebrated Beroviero Ruby glass (secret lost) of marvelous depth and
+  brilliancy in comparison with which the modern work is merely
+  watery. The ancient is just like a decanter of port-wine.
+<br><br>
+  "Fourteenth Century returns to the wriggling ideal and exiguous form
+  of the Twelfth Century, and fails woefully in brilliance of color.
+  It is small and dull and undistinguished. One may find out what war
+  or pest afflicted Murano at this epoch to explain the singular
+  degradation."
+</p>
+<p>
+This same curious degradation took place in the manufacture of most
+art objects during the Fourteenth Century. One would feel in Mr.
+Rolfe's words like looking for some physical cause for it. The
+decadence is so universal, however, that it seems not unlikely that it
+follows some little known human law, according to which, after man has
+reached a certain perfection of expression in an art or craft, there
+comes, in the striving after originality yet variety, an overbalancing
+of the judgment, a vitiation of the taste in the very luxuriance of
+beauty discovered that leads to decay. It is the very contradiction of
+the supposed progress of mankind through evolution, but it is
+illustrated in many phases of human history and, above all, the
+history of art, letters, education and the arts and crafts.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>XXII. INVENTIONS.</h2>
+<p>
+Most people are sure to think that, at least in the matter of
+inventions, ours is the only time worth considering. The people of the
+Thirteenth Century, however, made many wonderful inventions and
+adaptations of mechanical principles, as well as many ingenious
+appliances. Their faculty of invention was mainly devoted to work in
+other departments besides that of mechanics. They were inventors of
+designs in architecture, in decoration, in furnishings, in textiles,
+and in the beautiful things of life generally. Their inventiveness in
+the arts and crafts was especially admirable and, indeed, has been
+fruitful in our time, since, with the reawakening in this matter, we
+have gone back to imitate their designs. Good authorities declare
+these to be endless in number and variety. Such mechanical inventions
+as were <a name="457">{457}</a> needed for the building of their great cathedrals, their
+municipal buildings, abbeys, castles, piers, bridges and the like were
+admirably worked out. Necessity is the mother of invention, and
+whenever needs asserted themselves, these old generations responded to
+them, very successfully. There are, however, a number of inventions
+that would attract attention even, in the modern time for their
+practical usefulness and ingenuity. With the growth of the
+universities writing became much more common, textbooks were needed,
+and so paper was invented. With the increase of reading, to replace
+teaching by hearing, spectacles were invented. Time became more
+precious, clocks were greatly improved, and we hear of the invention
+of something like an alarm clock, an apparatus which, after a fixed
+number of hours, woke the monk of the abbey whose duty it was to
+arouse the others. Organs for churches were greatly improved, bells
+were perfected, and everything else in connection with the churches so
+well fashioned that we still use them in their Thirteenth Century
+forms. Gunpowder was not invented, but a great many new uses were
+found for it, and Roger Bacon even suggested, as I have said, that
+sometime explosives would enable boats to move by sea without sails or
+oars, or carriages to move on land without horses or men. Roger Bacon
+even suggested the possibility of airships, described how one might be
+made, the wings of which would be worked by a windlass, and thought
+that he could make it. His friend and pupil, Peregrinus, invented the
+double pivoted compass, and, as the first perpetual-motion faddist,
+described how he would set about making a magnetic engine that he
+thought would run forever. When we recall how much they accomplished
+mechanically in the construction of buildings, it becomes evident that
+any mechanical problem that these generations wanted solved they
+succeeded in solving very well. What they have left us as inventions
+are among the most useful appliances that we have. Without paper and
+without spectacles, the intellectual world would be in a sad case,
+indeed. Many of the secrets of their inventions in the arts and crafts
+have been lost, and, in spite of all our study, we have not succeeded
+in rediscovering them.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>XXIII. INDUSTRY AND TRADE.</h2>
+<p>
+We are rather inclined to think that large organizations of industry
+and trade were reserved for comparatively modern times. To think so,
+however, is to forget the place occupied by the monasteries and
+convents in the olden time. We have heard much of the lazy monks, but
+only from those who know nothing at all about them. Idleness in the
+monasteries was one of the accusations made by the commission set to
+furnish evidence to Henry VIII. on which he might suppress the
+monasteries, but every modern historian has rejected the findings of
+that commission as false. Many forms of manufacture were carried on in
+the monasteries and convents. They were <a name="458">{458}</a> the principal bookmakers
+and bookbinders. To a great extent they were the manufacturers of art
+fabrics and arts-and-crafts work intended for church use, but also for
+the decoration of luxurious private apartments. Most of us have known
+something of all this finer work, but not that they had much to do
+with cruder industries also. They were millers, cloth-makers,
+brush- and broom-makers, shoemakers for themselves and their tenantry;
+knitting was done in the convents, and all the finer fancy work. A
+recent meeting of the Institute of Mining Engineers in England brought
+out some discussion of coal mining in connection with the early
+history of the coal mines in England. The records of many of the
+English monasteries show that in early times the monks knew the value
+of coal, and used it rather freely. They also mined it for others. The
+monks at Tynemouth are known to have been mining coal on the Manor of
+Tynemouth in 1269, and shipping it to a distance. At Durham and at
+Finchale Abbey they were doing this also about the same time. It would
+require special study to bring out the interesting details, but there
+is abundant material not alone for a chapter, but for a volume on the
+industries of the Thirteenth Century, which, like the education and
+the literature and the culture of the time, we have thought
+undeveloped, because we knew nothing of them.
+</p>
+<p>
+The relation of the monasteries to trade, domestic and foreign, is
+very well brought out in a paragraph of Mr. Ralph Adams Cram's book on
+"The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain" (New York, The Churchman Co.,
+1905), in which he describes the remains at Beaulieu, which show the
+place of that monastery, not by any means one of the most important in
+England, in trade. For the benefit of their tenantry others had done
+even more.
+<p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Some idea of the power of one of these great monasteries may be
+  gained from traces still existing of the center of trade built up by
+  the monks outside their gates. Here, at the head of tide water, in a
+  most out-of-the-way spot, a great stone quay was constructed, to
+  which came ships from foreign lands. Near by was a great
+  marketplace, now, as then, called Cheapside, though commerce exists
+  there no longer. At the height of monastic glory the religious
+  houses were actually the chief centers of industry and civilization,
+  and around them grew up the eager villages, many of which now exist,
+  even though their impulse and original inspiration have long since
+  departed. Of course, the possessions of the abbey reached far away
+  from the walls in every direction, including many farms even at a
+  great distance, for the abbeys were then the great landowners, and
+  beneficent landlords they were as well, even in their last days, for
+  we have many records of the cruelty and hardships that came to the
+  tenants the moment the stolen lands came into the hands of laymen."
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>XXIV. FAIRS AND MARKETS.</h2>
+<p>
+A chapter might well have been devoted to showing the significance of
+those curious old institutions, the fairs and market days of the <a name="459">{459}</a>
+Middle Ages. The country folk flocked into town, bringing with them
+their produce, and found there gathered from many parts merchants come
+to exchange and barter. The expense of maintaining a store all the
+year around was done away with, and profits did not have to be large.
+Exchanges were direct, and the profits of the middlemen were to a
+great extent eliminated. It was distinctly to the advantage of the
+poor, for the expenses of commerce were limited to the greatest
+possible extent, and every advantage accrued to the customer.
+</p>
+<p>
+Besides, these market days became days of innocent merriment,
+amusement and diversion. Wandering purveyors of amusement followed the
+fairs, and obtained their living from the generosity of the people who
+were amused. These amusements were conducted out of doors, and with
+very few of the objectionable features as regards hygiene and morality
+that are likely to attach themselves to the same things in our day.
+The amusement was what we would call now vaudeville, singing, dancing,
+the exhibition of trained animals, acrobatic feats of various kinds,
+so that we cannot very well say that our people are in advance of
+their medieval forbears in such matters, since their taste is about
+the same. Fairs and market days made country life less monotonous by
+their regular recurrence, and so prevented that emptying of the
+country into the city which we deprecate in our time. They had
+economic, social, even moral advantages, that are worth while
+studying.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>XXV. INTENSIVE FARMING.</h2>
+<p>
+We hear much of intensive farming in the modern time, and it is
+supposed to be a distinctly modern invention mothered by the necessity
+due to great increase of population. One of the most striking features
+of the story of monasticism in the countries of Europe, however,
+during the Middle Ages, and especially during the Thirteenth Century,
+when so many of the greatest abbeys reached a climax of power and
+influence and beauty of construction, is their successful devotion
+paid to agriculture. In the modern time we are gradually learning the
+lesson of growing larger and larger crops on the same area of ground
+by proper selection of seed, and of developing cattle in such a way as
+to make them most valuable as a by-product of farming. This is exactly
+what the old monastic establishments did. At the beginning of the
+Thirteenth Century many of them were situated in rather barren
+regions, sometimes, indeed, surrounded by thick forests, but at the
+end of the century all the great monastic establishments had succeeded
+in making beautiful luxuriant gardens for themselves, and had taught
+their numerous tenantry the great lessons of agricultural improvement
+which made for plenty and happiness.
+</p>
+<p>
+Many monasteries belonged to the same religious order, and the
+traditions of these were carried from one to the other by visiting
+<a name="460">{460}</a> monks or sometimes by the transfer of members of one community
+to another. The monastic establishments were the great farmers of
+Europe, and it was their proud boast that their farming lands, instead
+of being exhausted from year to year, were rather increasing in value.
+They doubtless had many secrets of farming that were lost and had to
+be rediscovered in the modern time, just as in the arts and crafts,
+for their success in farming was as noteworthy. Their knowledge of
+trees must have been excellent, since they surrounded themselves with
+fine forests, at times arranged so as to provide shady walks and
+charming avenues. Their knowledge of simple farming must have been
+thorough, for the farms of the monasteries were always the most
+prosperous, and the tenantry were always the happiest. With the
+traditions that we have especially in English history, this seems
+almost impossible to credit, but these traditions, manufactured for a
+purpose, have now been entirely discredited. We have learned in recent
+years what wonderful scholars, architects, painters, teachers,
+engineers these monks were, and so it is not surprising to find that
+they had magnificently developed agricultural knowledge as well as
+that of every other department in which they were particularly
+interested.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>XXVI. CARTOGRAPHY AND THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY.</h2>
+<p>
+In the chapter on Great Explorers and The Foundation of Geography, in
+the body of the book, much might have been said about maps and
+map-making, for the Thirteenth Century was a great period in this
+matter. Lecoy de la Marche among his studies of the Thirteenth Century
+has included a volume of a collection of the maps of the Thirteenth
+Century. If the purpose had been to make this a work of erudition
+rather than of popular information, much might have been said of the
+cartography of the time even from this work alone (<i>Receuil de Charles
+du XIII e Siècle</i>, Paris, 1878). One of the great maps of the
+Thirteenth Century, that on the Cathedral wall of Hereford, deserves a
+place here. It was made just at the end of the Thirteenth Century. The
+idea of its maker was to convey as much information as possible about
+the earth, and not merely indicate its political divisions and the
+relative size and position of the different parts. It is to a certain
+extent at least a resume of history, of physical geography, and even
+of geographical biology and anthropology, for it has indications as to
+the dwelling-place of animals and curious types of men. It contains,
+besides, references to interesting objects of other kinds. Because of
+its interest I have reproduced the map itself, and the key to it with
+explanations published at Hereford.
+</p>
+<a name="461">{461}</a>
+
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i461.jpg" border=1><br>
+PRESERVED IN HEREFORD CATHEDRAL.
+</p>
+<p class="center">
+<i>Key to the Photograph of the Ancient Map of the World</i>.
+</p>
+
+<a name="opp463"></a>
+<p class="image">
+<img alt="" src="images/i_opp463.jpg" border=1><br>
+MAP OF THE WORLD (HEREFORD CATHEDRAL)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Map is executed on a single sheet of vellum, 54 in. in breadth, by
+63 in. in extreme height, it is fixed on a strong framework of oak. At
+the top (Fig. 1) is a representation of the Last Judgment. Our Saviour
+is represented in glory, and below is the Virgin Mary interceding for
+mankind.
+</p>
+<p>
+For convenience of reference the Key Map is divided into squares
+marked by Roman capitals, with the more prominent objects in figures.
+I.&mdash;Commencing with sq. 1. the circle marked by Fig. 2 represents the
+Garden of Eden, with the four rivers, and Adam and Eve eating the
+forbidden fruit. The remainder of the square, as also in II. and III.,
+is occupied by India. At Fig. 3 is shown the expulsion of Adam and
+Eve, to the right of which is shown a race of Giants, and to the left
+the City of Enoch, and still further the Golden Mountains guarded by
+Dragons. Below these mountains are shown a race of pigmies. In a space
+bounded by two rivers is placed a crocodile, and immediately below a
+female warrior. To the left of the latter are a pair of birds called
+in the Map Alerions. The large <a name="462">{462}</a> river to the left is the Ganges.
+II.&mdash;Shows one of the inhabitants of this part of India, who are said
+to have but one foot, which is sufficiently large to serve as an
+umbrella to shelter themselves from the sun. The city in the center is
+Samarcand. III.&mdash;In which is seen an Elephant, to the left a Parrot. A
+part of the Red Sea is also shown with the Island of Taprobana
+(Ceylon), on which are shown two Dragons. It also bears an inscription
+denoting that dragons and elephants are found there. The small Islands
+shown are Crise, Argire, Ophir, and Frondisia (Aphrodisia).
+IV.&mdash;Contains the Caspian Sea, below which is a figure holding its
+tail in his hand, and which the author calls the Minotaur. To the left
+is shown one of the Albani, who are said to see better at night than
+in the daytime. Below are two warriors in combat with a Griffin (Fig.
+27). V.&mdash;In the upper part are Bokhara and Thrace, in the latter of
+which (Fig. 29) is shown the Pelican feeding its young, to the left a
+singular figure representing the Cicones, and to the right the Camel,
+in Bactria. Below to the left is the Tiger, and on the right an animal
+with a human head and the body of a lion, called the Mantichora. Still
+lower is seen Noah's ark (Fig. 28), in which are shown three human
+figures, with beasts, birds and serpents. In the lower corner, at Fig.
+26, is the Golden Fleece. VI.&mdash;The upper parts contain Babylonia, with
+the City of Babylon (Fig. 4) on the river Euphrates, below which is
+the city of Damascus, which has on its right an unknown animal called
+the Marsok. To the right is Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt
+(Fig. 8). Decapolis and the River Jordan are near the bottom of the
+square. Above the River Euphrates is a figure in a frame representing
+the Patriarch Abraham's residence at Ur of the Chaldees. VII.&mdash;The Red
+Sea (Figs. 5, 5) is the most conspicuous object here. In the fork
+formed by it is shown the giving of the Tables of The Law on Mount
+Sinai. Below, and touching the line (Fig. 6) showing the wanderings of
+the Israelites, is seen the worship of the Golden Calf. The Dead Sea
+and submerged Cities are shown lower down to the left, and between
+this and the Red Sea is the Phoenix. At the bottom is a mythical
+animal with long horns, called the Eale. VIII.&mdash;In the upper part is
+the Monastery of St. Anthony in Ethiopia. The river to the left is the
+Nile, between this and a great interior lake (Figs. 7, 7) is a figure
+of Satyr. Beyond the lake, and extending a distance down the Map
+(Figs. 12, 12, 12), are various singular figures, supposed to
+represent the races dwelling there. In a circular island to the left
+(Meroe) is a man riding a crocodile, and at the bottom left-hand
+corner is a centaur. IX.&mdash;The upper part is Scythia, and shows some
+cannibals, below which (Fig. 25) are two Scythians in combat. Under
+this again is a man leading a horse with a human skin thrown over it,
+and to the right of the latter is placed the ostrich. X.&mdash;Asia Minor
+with the Black Sea (Fig. 24). Many cities are shown prominent, among
+which is Troy (Fig. 21), described as "<i>Troja civitas
+bellicosissima</i>." Near the bottom to the left is Constantinople. The
+lynx is shown near the center. XI.&mdash;Is nearly filled by the Holy Land.
+In the center is Jerusalem (Fig. 23), the supposed center of the
+world, surrounded by a high wall, and above is the Crucifixion. Below
+Jerusalem to the right is Bethlehem with the manger. Near a circular
+place to the right, called <i>"Puteus Juramenti"</i> (well of the oath), is
+an unknown bird, called on the Map Avis Cirenus. XII.&mdash;Egypt with the
+Nile. At the upper part (Fig. 9) are Joseph's granaries, i.e., the
+Pyramids, immediately below which is the Salamander, and to the right
+of that the Mandrake. Fig. 10 denotes the Delta with its cities. <a name="463">{463}</a>
+On the other side of the Nile, and partly in sq. XIII., is the
+Rhinoceros, and below it the Unicorn. XIII.&mdash;Ethiopia. In the upper
+left-hand corner is the Sphinx, and near the bottom the Temple of
+Jupiter Ammon, represented by a singular horse-shoe shaped figure. The
+camp of Alexander the Great is in the bottom left-hand corner,
+immediately above which is the boundary line between Asia and Africa,
+XIV.&mdash;At the top of the left is Norway, in which the author has placed
+the Monkey. The middle is filled by Russia. The small circular islands
+on the left are the Orkneys, immediately below which is an inscription
+relating to the Seven Sleepers, Scotland and part of England are shown
+in the lower part, but the British Isles will be described in sq. XIX.
+The singular triangular figure in the center of this square cannot be
+identified. XV.&mdash;Germany, with part of Greece, in the upper part to
+the right. The Danube and its tributaries are seen in the upper part,
+in the lower is the Rhine. On the bank of the latter the scorpion is
+placed; Venice is shown on the right, XVI.&mdash;Contains Italy and a great
+part of the Mediterranean Sea (Fig. 14). About the center (Fig. 17) is
+Rome, which bears the inscription, "Roma caput mundi tenet orbis frena
+rotundi." In the upper part of the Mediterranean Sea is seen a
+Mermaid, below (Fig. 11) is the Island of Crete, with its famous
+labyrinth, to the left of which is the rock Scylla. Below Crete is
+Sicily (Fig. 15), on which Mount Etna is shown; close to Sicily is the
+whirlpool Charybdis, XVII.&mdash;Part of Africa; in the lower part to the
+left, on a promontory, is seen Carthage; on the right the Leopard is
+shown. XVIII.&mdash;Also part of Africa. The upper part is Fezzan, below is
+shown the basilisk, and still lower some Troglodytes or dwellers in
+caves. XIX.&mdash;On the left hand are the British Isles (Figs. 19, 20,
+22), on the right France. Great Britain (Figs. 19, 22) is very fully
+laid down, but of Ireland the author seemed to know but little. In
+England twenty-six cities and towns are delineated, among which
+Hereford (H'ford) is conspicuous. Twenty rivers are also seen, but the
+only mountains shown are the Clee Hills. In Wales, Snowdon is seen,
+and the towns of Carnarvon, Conway and St. David's. In Ireland four
+towns, Armagh, Bangor, Dublin and Kildare, with two rivers, the Banne,
+which, as shown, divides the island in two, and the Shannon. In
+Scotland there are six towns. In France the City of Paris (Fig. 18) is
+conspicuous. XX.&mdash;The upper part is Provence, the lower Spain. In the
+Mediterranean Sea are laid down, among others, the Islands of Corsica,
+Sardinia, Majorca, and Minorca. At the bottom are (Fig. 16) the
+pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar), which were considered the extreme
+western limits of the world. XXI.&mdash;At the top to the left (Fig. 13) is
+St. Augustine of Hippo, in his pontifical habit. And at the opposite
+corner the Lion, below which are the Agriophagi, a one-eyed people who
+live on the flesh of lions and other beasts. The kingdoms on the shore
+of the Mediterranean are Algiers, Setif, and Tangier.
+</p>
+
+<a name="464">{464}</a>
+
+
+<h1>APPENDIX III.</h1>
+
+<h2>CRITICISMS, COMMENTS, DOCUMENTS.</h2>
+
+
+<h2>HUMAN PROGRESS.</h2>
+<p>
+For most people the impossible would apparently be accomplished if a
+century so far back as the Thirteenth were to be even seriously
+thought of as the greatest of centuries. Evolution has come to be
+accepted so unquestioningly, that of course "we are the heirs of all
+the ages of the foremost files of time," and must be far ahead of our
+forbears, especially of the distant past, in everything. When a man
+talks glibly about great progress in recent times, he usually knows
+only the history of his own time and not very much about that. Men who
+have studied other periods seriously hesitate about the claim of
+progress, and the more anyone knows about any other period, the less
+does he think of his own as surpassing. There are many
+exemplifications of this in recent literature. Because this was a
+cardinal point in many criticisms of the book, it has seemed well to
+illustrate the position here taken as to the absence of progress in
+humanity by quotations from recognized authorities. Just as the first
+edition of this book came from the press, Ambassador Bryce delivered
+his address at Harvard on "What is Progress?" It appeared in the
+<i>Atlantic Monthly</i> for August, 1907. Mr. Bryce is evidently not at all
+persuaded that there is human progress in any real sense of the word.
+Some striking quotations may be made from the address, but to get the
+full impression of Mr. Bryce's reasons for hesitation about accepting
+any progress, the whole article needs to be read. For instance, he
+said:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "It does not seem possible, if we go back to the earliest literature
+  which survives to us from Western Asia and Southeastern Europe, to
+  say that the creative powers of the human mind in such subjects as
+  poetry, philosophy, and historical narrative or portraiture, have
+  either improved or deteriorated. The poetry of the early Hebrews and
+  of the early Greeks has never been surpassed and hardly ever
+  equaled. Neither has the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, nor the
+  speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero. Geniuses like Dante, Chaucer,
+  and Shakespeare appear without our being able to account for them,
+  and for aught we know another may appear at any moment. It is just
+  as difficult, if we look back five centuries, to assert either
+  progress or decline in painting. Sculpture has never again risen to
+  so high a level as it touched in the fifth century, B. C, nor within
+  the last three centuries, to so high a level as it reached at the
+  end of the fifteenth. But we can found no generalizations upon that
+  fact. Music is the most inscrutable of the arts, and whether there
+  is any progress to be expected other <a name="465">{465}</a> than that which may come
+  from a further improvement in instruments constituting an orchestra,
+  I will not attempt to conjecture, any more than I should dare to
+  raise controversy by inquiring whether Beethoven represents progress
+  from Mozart, Wagner progress from Beethoven."
+</p>
+<p>
+Perhaps the most startling evidence on this subject of the absence of
+evolution in humanity is the opinion of Prof. Flinders Petrie, the
+distinguished English authority on Egyptology, who has added nearly a
+millennium to the history of Egypt. His studies have brought him in
+intimate contact with Egypt from 2,000 to 5,000 B. C. He has found no
+reason at all for thinking that our generation is farther advanced in
+any important qualities than men were during this period. In an
+article on "The Romance of Early Civilization" (<i>The Independent</i>,
+Jan. 7, 1909), he said:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "We have now before us a view of the powers of man at the earliest
+  point to which we can trace written history, and what strikes us
+  most is how very little his nature or abilities have changed in
+  seven thousand years; <i>what he admired we admire; what were his
+  limits in fine handiwork also are ours</i>. We may have a wider
+  outlook, a greater understanding of things; our interests may have
+  extended in this interval; but so far as human nature and tastes go,
+  man is essentially unchanged in this interval." &hellip; "This is the
+  practical outcome of extending our view of man three times as far
+  back as we used to look, and it must teach us how little material
+  civilization is likely in the future to change the nature, the
+  weaknesses, or the abilities of our ancestors in ages yet to come."
+</p>
+<p>
+Those who think that man has advanced in practical wisdom during the
+6,000 years of history, forget entirely the lessons of literature.
+Whenever a great genius has written, he has displayed a knowledge of
+human nature as great as any to be found at any other time in the
+world's history. The wisdom of Homer and of Solomon are typical
+examples. Probably the most striking evidence in this matter is to be
+found in what is considered to be the oldest book ever written. This
+is the Instructions of Ptah Hotep to his son. Ptah Hotep was the
+vizier of King Itosi, of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt (about 3650 B.C.).
+There is nothing that a father of the modern time would wish to tell
+his boy as the result of his own experience that is not to be found in
+this wise advice of a father, nearly 6,000 years ago. This was written
+longer before Solomon than Solomon is before us, yet no practical
+knowledge to be gained from intercourse with men has been added to
+what this careful father of the long ago has written out for his son.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>THE CENTURY OF ORIGINS.</h2>
+<p>
+To many readers apparently, it has seemed that the main reason for
+writing of The Thirteenth as the Greatest of Centuries was the fact
+that the Church occupied so large a place in the life of that time,
+and that, therefore, most of what was accomplished must naturally
+revert <a name="466">{466}</a> to her account. It is not only those who are interested
+in the old Church, however, who have written enthusiastically about
+the Thirteenth Century. Since writing this volume, I have found that
+Mr. Frederick Harrison is almost, if not quite, as ardent in his
+praise of it as I have been. There are many others, especially among
+the historians of art and of architecture, who apparently have not
+been able to say all that they would wish in admiration of this
+supreme century. Most of these have not been Catholics; and if we
+place beside Mr. Frederick Harrison, the great Positivist of our
+generation, Mr. John Morley, the great Rationalist, the chorus of
+agreement on the subject of the greatness of the Thirteenth Century
+ought to be considered about complete. Mr. Morley, in his address on
+Popular Culture, delivered as President of the Midland Institute,
+England, October, 1876 (Great Essays. Putnam, New York), said:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "It is the present that really interests us; it is the present that
+  we seek to understand and to explain. I do not in the least want to
+  know what happened in the past, except as it enables me to see my
+  way more clearly through what is happening to-day. I want to know
+  what men thought and did in the Thirteenth Century, not out of any
+  dilettante or idle antiquarian's curiosity, but because the
+  Thirteenth Century is at the root of what men think and do in the
+  nineteenth."
+</p>
+<br>
+ <a name="466Hux"></a>
+<h2>
+EDUCATION.</h2>
+<p>
+Many even of the most benevolent readers of the book have been quite
+sure that it exaggerated the significance of medieval education and,
+above all, claimed too much for the breadth of culture given by the
+early universities. Prof. Huxley is perhaps the last man of recent
+times who would be suspected for a moment of exaggerating the import
+of medieval education. In his Inaugural Address on Universities Actual
+and Ideal, delivered as Rector of Aberdeen University, after
+discussing the subject very thoroughly, he said:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The scholars of the Medieval Universities seem to have studied
+  grammar, logic and rhetoric; arithmetic and geometry; astronomy,
+  theology and music. Thus their work, however imperfect and faulty,
+  judged by modern lights, it may have been, brought them face to face
+  with all the leading aspects of the many-sided mind of man. For
+  these studies did really contain, at any rate in embryo, sometimes
+  it may be in caricature, what we now call philosophy, mathematical
+  and physical science, and art. <i>And I doubt if the curriculum of any
+  modern university shows so clear and generous a comprehension of
+  what is meant by culture, as this old Trivium and Quadrivium does</i>."
+  (Italics ours.)
+</p>
+<p>
+The results of this system of education may be judged best perhaps
+from Dante as an example. In The Popes and Science (Fordham University
+Press, N. Y., 1908) a chapter is devoted to Dante as the typical
+university man of the time, above all in his knowledge of science as
+displayed in his great poem. No poet of the modern time has <a name="467">{467}</a>
+turned with so much confidence to every phase of science for his
+figures as this product of medieval universities. Anyone who thinks
+that the study of science is recent, or that nature study was delayed
+till our day, need only read Dante to be completely undeceived.
+</p>
+<p>
+The fact that the scholars and the professors at the universities were
+almost without exception believers in the possibility of the
+transmutation of metals in the old days, used to be considered by many
+educated people as quite sufficient to stamp them as lacking in
+judgment and as prone to believe all sorts of incredible and even
+impossible things without justification. Such supercilious
+condemnation of the point of view of the medieval scholars in this
+matter, however, has recently received a very serious jolt. Sometime
+ago, Sir William Ramsey, the greatest of living English chemists,
+announced at the meeting of the British Association for the
+Advancement of Science, that he had succeeded in changing copper into
+lithium. This created a sensation at the time, but represented, after
+all, a culmination of effort in this direction that had long been
+expected. More recently, Sir William has reported to the British
+Chemical Society that he has succeeded in obtaining carbon from four
+substances not containing this element&mdash;bismuth, hydro-fluo-silicic
+acid, thorium and zirconium. An American professor of chemistry has
+declared that he would like to remove all traces of silver from a
+quantity of lead ore, and then, after allowing it to stand for some
+years, have the opportunity to re-examine it, since he is confident
+that he would find further traces of silver in it that had developed
+in the meantime. He is sure that the reason why these two metals
+always occur together, as do copper and, gold, is that they are
+products of a developmental process, the precious metals being a step
+farther on in that process than the so-called base metals. It would
+seem, then, that the medieval scholars were not so silly as they used
+to appear before we knew enough about the subject to judge them
+properly. Only their supercilious critics were silly.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is probably with regard to the exact sciences that most even
+educated people are quite sure that the Thirteenth Century does not
+deserve to be thought of as representing great human advance. For them
+the Middle Ages were drowsily speculative, but never exact in
+thinking. Of course, such people know nothing of the intense exactness
+of thought of St. Thomas or Albertus Magnus or Duns Scotus. It would
+be impossible, moreover, to make them realize, from the writings of
+these men, how exact human thought actually was in the Thirteenth
+Century, though the more that modern students devote themselves to
+scholastic philosophy, the more surely do they appreciate and admire
+this very quality in the medieval philosophy. For such people, very
+probably, the only evidence that would have made quite an adequate
+answer to their objection, would be a chapter on the mathematics of
+the Thirteenth Century. <a name="468">{468}</a> That might very easily have been made,
+for Cantor, in his History of Mathematics (Vorlesungen Über Geschichte
+der Mathematik, Leipzig, 1892), devotes nearly 100 pages of his second
+volume to the mathematicians of the Thirteenth Century, two of whom,
+Leonardo of Pisa and Jordanus Nemorarius, did so much in Arithmetic,
+the Theory of Numbers, Algebra and Geometry, as to make a revolution
+in mathematics. Cantor says that they accomplished so much, that their
+contemporaries and successors could scarcely follow them, much less go
+beyond them. They had great disciples, like John of Sacrobusco
+(probably John of Holywood, near Dublin), Joannes Campanus and others.
+Cantor calls attention particularly to the spread of arithmetical
+knowledge among the masses, which is a well-deserved tribute to the
+century, for it was a characteristic of the time that the new thoughts
+and discoveries of scholars were soon made practical and penetrated
+very widely among the people. Brewer, in the Preface to Roger Bacon's
+works, quotes some of Bacon's expressions with regard to the value of
+mathematics. The English Franciscan said: "For without mathematics,
+nothing worth knowing in philosophy can be attained." And again: "For
+he who knows not mathematics cannot know any other science; what is
+more, he cannot discover his own ignorance or find its proper remedy."
+The term mathematics, as used by Bacon, had a much wider application
+then than now, and Brewer notes that the Thirteenth Century scientist
+included therein Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music.
+</p>
+<p>
+With regard to post-graduate education; the best evidence that, far
+from any exaggeration of what was accomplished in the Thirteenth
+Century, there has been a very conservative estimate of it made in the
+book, may be gathered from the legally erected standards of the
+medical schools and the legal status of the medical profession. In the
+Appendix of The Popes and Science, two Bulls are published, issued by
+Pope John XXII. (<i>Circa</i>, 1320), establishing medical schools in
+Perugia, at that time in the Papal States, and in Cahors, the
+birthplace of this pope. These bulls were really the formal charters
+of the medical schools. They require three years of preliminary study
+at the university and four or five years at medicine before the degree
+of doctor may be granted, and in addition emphasized that the
+curricula of the new medical schools must be equal to those of Paris
+and Bologna. These bulls were issued in the early part of the
+fourteenth century, and show the height to which the standards of
+medical education had been raised. There will be found also a law of
+Frederick II., issued 1241, requiring for all physicians who wished to
+practice in the Two Sicilies three years of preliminary study&mdash;four
+years at the medical school and a year of practice with a physician
+before the diploma which constituted a license to practice would be
+issued. This law is also a pure drug law forbidding the sale of impure
+drugs under penalty of confiscation of goods, and the preparation of
+them under penalty of death. Our pure drug law was passed about the
+time of the issue of the first edition of this book.
+</p>
+<a name="469">{469}</a>
+<p>
+Those who ask for the results of this post-graduate training may find
+them in the story of Guy de Chauliac, the Father of Modern Surgery.
+His life formed the basis of a lecture before the Johns Hopkins
+Medical Club that is to be published in the Bulletin of John Hopkins
+Hospital. It is incorporated in Catholic Churchmen in Science, Second
+Series (The Dolphin Press, Phila., 1909). We know Chauliac's work not
+by tradition, but from his great text-book on surgery. This great
+Papal physician of the fourteenth century operated within the skull,
+did not hesitate to open the thorax, sewed up wounds of the
+intestines, and discussed such subjects as hernia, catheterization,
+the treatment of fractures, and manipulative surgery generally with
+wonderful technical ability. His book was the most used text-book for
+the next two centuries, and has won the admiration of everyone who has
+ever read it.
+</p>
+<br>
+
+<h2>TECHNICAL EDUCATION OF THE MASSES.</h2>
+<p>
+Some of my friends courteously but firmly have insisted with me that I
+have greatly exaggerated the technical abilities of the village
+workmen of the Middle Ages. That every town of less than ten thousand
+inhabitants in England was able to supply such workmen as we can
+scarcely obtain in our cities of a million inhabitants, and in that
+scanty population supply them in greater numbers than we can now
+secure them from our teeming populations, seems to many simply
+impossible.
+</p>
+<p>
+What I have been trying to say, however, in the chapters on the Arts
+and Crafts and on Popular Education, has been much better said by an
+authority that will scarcely be questioned by my critics. The Rev.
+Augustus Jessopp, D. D., who has been for twenty years the Rector of
+Searning in England, who is an Honorary Fellow of St. John's College
+and of Worcester College, Oxford, besides being an Honorary Canon in
+the Cathedral of Norwich, has devoted much time and study to this
+question of how the cathedrals were built and finished. Twenty years
+of his life have been spent in the study of the old English parish and
+of parish life. He has studied the old parish registers, and talks,
+therefore, not from distant impressions, but from the actual facts as
+they are recorded. If to his position as an antiquarian authority I
+add the fact that he is not a member of the Roman Catholic Church, to
+the credit of which so much of this popular education and
+accomplishment in the arts and crafts of the century accrues, the
+value of his evidence is placed entirely above suspicion of partisan
+partiality. In his chapter on Parish Life in England, in his book
+"Before the Great Pillage" (Before the Great Pillage with other
+Miscellanies, by Augustus Jessopp, D. D., London. T. Fisher Unwin,
+Paternoster Square, 1901), he says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The evidence is abundant and positive, and is increasing upon us
+  year by year, that the work done upon the fabrics of our churches,
+  and the other work done in the beautifying of the interior of our
+  churches, such as the woodcarving of our screens, the painting of
+  the lovely <a name="470">{470}</a> figures in the panels of those screens, the
+  embroidery of the banners and vestments, the frescoes on the walls,
+  the engraving of the monumental brasses, the stained glass in the
+  windows, and all that vast aggregate of artistic achievements which
+  existed in immense profusion in our village churches till the
+  sixteenth century stripped them bare&mdash;all this was executed by local
+  craftsmen. The evidence for this is accumulating upon us every year,
+  as one antiquary after another succeeds in unearthing fragments of
+  pre-Reformation church-wardens' accounts.
+<br><br>
+  "We have actual contracts for church building and church repairing
+  undertaken by village contractors. We have the cost of a rood screen
+  paid to a village carpenter, of painting executed by local artists.
+  We find the name of an artificer, described as aurifaber, or worker
+  in gold and silver, living in a parish which could never have had
+  five hundred inhabitants; we find the people in another place
+  casting a new bell and making the mould for it themselves; we find
+  the blacksmith of another place forging the iron work for the church
+  door, or we get a payment entered for the carving of the bench ends
+  in a little church five hundred years ago, which bench ends are to
+  be seen in that church at the present moment. And we get fairly
+  bewildered by the astonishing wealth of skill and artistic taste and
+  aesthetic feeling which there must have been in this England of
+  ours, in times which till lately we had assumed to be barbaric
+  times. Bewildered, I say, because we cannot understand how it all
+  came to a dead-stop in a single generation, not knowing that the
+  frightful spoliation of our churches and other parish buildings, and
+  the outrageous plunder of the parish gilds in the reign of Edward
+  the Sixth by the horrible band of robbers that carried on their
+  detestable work, effected such a hideous obliteration, such a clean
+  sweep of the precious treasures that were dispersed in rich
+  profusion over the whole land, that a dull despair of ever replacing
+  what had been ruthlessly pillaged crushed the spirit of the whole
+  nation, and art died out in rural England, and King Whitewash and
+  Queen Ugliness ruled supreme for centuries."
+</p>
+<p>
+My argument is that a century which produced such artist-artisans
+everywhere, had technical schools in great profusion, though they may
+not have been called by any such ambitious name.
+</p>
+<br>
+
+<h2>HOW IT ALL STOPPED.</h2>
+<p>
+To most people it seems impossible to understand how it is that, if
+artistic evolution proceeded to the perfection which it now seems
+clear that it actually attained in the thirteenth and fourteenth
+centuries, we are only just getting back to a proper state of public
+taste and a right degree of artistic skill in many of these same
+accomplishments at the present time. That thought has come to many
+others who, knowing and appreciating medieval progress in art and
+literature, have tried to work out the reasons for the gap that exists
+between medieval art and modern artistic endeavor. Some of these
+explanations, because they serve to make clear why art evolution
+stopped so abruptly and we are retracing our steps and taking models
+from the past rather than doing original work that is an advance, must
+be quoted here. Many people will find in them, I think, the reasons
+for their misunderstanding of the old times.
+</p>
+<a name="471">{471}</a>
+<p>
+Gerhardt Hauptmann, who is very well known, even among
+English-speaking people, as one of the great living German dramatists,
+and whose "Sunken Bell" attracted considerable attention in both its
+German and English versions here in New York, in a recent criticism of
+a new German book, declared that the reason for the gap between modern
+and medieval art was the movement now coming to be known as the
+religious revolt in Germany in the sixteenth century. He said:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "I, as a Protestant, have often had to regret that we purchased our
+  freedom of conscience, our individual liberty, at entirely too high
+  a price. In order to make room for a small, mean little plant of
+  personal life, we destroyed a whole garden of fancy and hewed down a
+  virgin forest of aesthetic ideas. We went even so far in the
+  insanity of our weakness as to throw out of the garden of our souls
+  the fruitful soil that had been accumulating for thousands of years,
+  or else we plowed it under sterile clay.
+<br><br>
+  "We have to-day, then, an intellectual culture that is well
+  protected by a hedge of our personality, but within this hedge we
+  have only delicate dwarf trees and unworthy plants, the poorer
+  progeny of great predecessors. We have telegraph lines, bridges and
+  railroads, but there grow no churches and cathedrals, only sentry
+  boxes and barracks. We need gardeners who will cause the present
+  sterilizing process of the soil to stop, and will enrich the surface
+  by working up into it the rich layers beneath. In my work-room there
+  is ever before me the photograph of Sebaldus' Tomb (model
+  Metropolitan Museum, New York). This rich German symbol rose from
+  the invisible in the most luxuriant developmental period of German
+  art. As a formal product of that art, it is very difficult to
+  appreciate it as it deserves. It seems to me as one of the most
+  wonderful bits of work in the whole field of artistic
+  accomplishment. The soul of all the great medieval period encircles
+  this silver coffin, wrapping it up into a noble unity, and enthrones
+  on the very summit of death. Life as a growing child. Such a work
+  could only have come to its perfection in the protected spaces of
+  the old Mother Church."
+</p>
+<p>
+Rev. Dr. Jessopp, in his book, already cited, "The Great Pillage,"
+does not hesitate to state in unmistakable terms the reason why all
+the beauty and happiness went out of English country life some two
+centuries after the Thirteenth Century, and how it came about that the
+modern generations have had to begin over again from the beginning,
+and not where our Catholic forefathers of the medieval period left us,
+in what used to be the despised Middle Ages. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "When I talk of the great pillage, I mean that horrible and
+  outrageous looting of our churches other than conventual, and the
+  robbing of the people of this country of property in land and
+  movables, which property had actually been inherited by them as
+  members of those organized religious communities known as parishes.
+  It is necessary to emphasize the fact that in the general scramble
+  of the Terror under Henry the Eighth, and of the Anarchy in the days
+  of Edward the Sixth, there was only one class that was permitted to
+  retain any large portion of its endowments. The monasteries were
+  plundered even to their very pots and pans. Almshouses in which old
+  men and women were fed and clothed were robbed to the last pound,
+  the poor alms-folk being turned out into the cold at an hour's
+  warning to beg their bread. <a name="472">{472}</a> Hospitals for the sick and needy,
+  sometimes magnificently provided with nurses and chaplains, whose
+  very raison d'etre was that they were to look after and care for
+  those who were past caring for themselves&mdash;these were stripped of
+  all their belongings, the inmates sent out to hobble into some
+  convenient dry ditch to lie down and die in, or to crawl into some
+  barn or hovel, there to be tended, not without fear of consequences,
+  by some kindly man or woman who could not bear to see a suffering
+  fellow creature drop down and die at their own doorposts.
+<br><br>
+  "We talk with a great deal of indignation of the Tweed ring. The day
+  will come when someone will write the story of two other rings&mdash;the
+  ring of the miscreants who robbed the monasteries in the reign of
+  Henry the Eighth was the first; but the ring of the robbers who
+  robbed the poor and helpless in the reign of Edward the Sixth was
+  ten times worse than the first.
+<br><br>
+  "The Universities only just escaped the general confiscation; the
+  friendly societies and benefit clubs and the gilds did not escape.
+  The accumulated wealth of centuries, their houses and lands, their
+  money, their vessels of silver and their vessels of gold, their
+  ancient cups and goblets and salvers, even to their very chairs and
+  tables, were all set down in inventories and catalogues, and all
+  swept into the great robbers' hoard. Last, but not least, the
+  immense treasures in the churches, the joy and boast of every man
+  and woman and child in England, who day by day and week by week
+  assembled to worship in the old houses of God which they and their
+  fathers had built, and whose every vestment and chalice and
+  candlestick and banner, organs and bells, and picture and image and
+  altar and shrine they looked upon as their own and part of their
+  birthright&mdash;all these were torn away by the rudest spoilers, carted
+  off, they knew not whither, with jeers and scoffs and ribald
+  shoutings, while none dared raise a hand or let his voice be heard
+  above the whisper of a prayer of bitter grief and agony.
+<br><br>
+  "One class was spared. The clergy of this Church of England of ours
+  managed to retain some of their endowments; but if the boy king had
+  lived another three years, there is good reason for believing that
+  these too would have gone."
+</p>
+<p>
+Graft prevailed, and the old order disappeared in a slough of
+selfishness.
+</p>
+<br>
+
+<h2>COMFORT AND POVERTY.</h2>
+<p>
+A number of friendly critics have insisted that <i>of course</i> the
+Thirteenth Century was far behind later times in the comfort of the
+people. Poverty is supposed to have been almost universal. Doubtless
+many of the people were then very poor. Personally, I doubt if there
+was as much poverty, that is, misery due to actual want of necessaries
+of life, as there is at the present time. Certainly it was not
+emphasized by having close to it, constantly rendering the pains of
+poverty poignant by contrast, the luxury of the modern time. They had
+not the large city, and people in the country do not suffer as much as
+people in the city. In recent years, investigations of poverty in
+England have been appalling in the statistics that they have
+presented. Mr. Robert Hunter, in his book Poverty, has furnished us
+with some details that make one feel that our generation should be the
+last to say <a name="473">{473}</a> that the Thirteenth Century was behind in progress,
+because so many of the people were so poor. Ruskin once said that the
+ideal of the great nation is one wherein there must be "as many as
+possible full-breathed, bright-eyed and happy-hearted human
+creatures." I am sure that, tried by this standard, the Thirteenth
+Century in Merrie England is ahead of any other generation and, above
+all, far in advance of our recent generations.
+</p>
+<p>
+By contrast to what we know of the merrie English men and women of the
+Thirteenth Century, I would quote Mr. Hunter's paragraphs on the
+Poverty of the Modern English People. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "A few years ago, England did not know the extent of her own
+  poverty. Economists and writers gave opinions of all kinds. Some
+  said conditions were 'bad,' others said such statements were
+  misleading; and here they were, tilting at each other, backward and
+  forward, in the most ponderous and serious way, until Mr. Booth, a
+  business man, undertook to get at the facts. <i>No one, even the most
+  radical economist, would have dared to have estimated the poverty of
+  London as extending to 30 per cent of the people</i> (as it proved).
+  The extent of poverty&mdash;the number of underfed, underclothed in
+  insanitary houses&mdash;was greater than could reasonably have been
+  estimated."
+</p>
+<p>
+Some of the details of this investigation by Mr. Booth were so
+startling that some explanation had to be found. They could not deny,
+in the face of Mr. Booth's facts, but they set up the claim that the
+conditions in London were exceptional. Then Mr. Rountree made an
+investigation in York with precisely the same results. More than one
+in four of the population was in poverty. To quote Mr. Hunter once
+more:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "As has been said, it was not until Mr. Charles Booth published, in
+  1891, the results of his exhaustive inquiries that the actual
+  conditions of poverty in London became known. About 1,000,000
+  people, or about thirty per cent of the entire population of London,
+  were found to be unable to obtain the necessaries for a sound
+  livelihood. They were in a state of poverty, living in conditions,
+  if not of actual misery, at any rate bordering upon it. In many
+  districts, considerably more than half of the population were either
+  in distress or on the verge of distress. When these results were
+  made public, the more conservative economists gave it as their
+  opinion that the conditions in London were, of course, exceptional,
+  and that it would be unsafe to make any generalizations for the
+  whole of England on the basis of Mr. Booth's figures for London.
+  About ten years later, Mr. B. S. Rountree, incited by the work of
+  Mr. Booth, undertook a similar inquiry in his native town, York, a
+  small provincial city, in most ways typical of the smaller towns of
+  England. In a large volume in which the results are published, it is
+  shown that the poverty in York was only slightly less extensive than
+  that of London. In the summary, Mr. Rountree compares the conditions
+  of London with those of York. His comments are as follows: 'The
+  proportions arrived at for the total populations living in poverty
+  in London and York respectively were as under:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+    London&mdash;30.7 per cent<br>
+    York&mdash;27.84 per cent
+</p>
+<a name="474">{474}</a>
+<p>
+The proportion of the population living in poverty in York may be
+regarded as practically the same as in London, especially when we
+remember that Mr. Booth's information was gathered in 1887-1892, a
+period of only average trade prosperity, whilst the York figures were
+collected in 1899, when trade was unusually prosperous.'"
+</p>
+<p>
+He continues: "We have been accustomed to look upon the poverty in
+London as exceptional, but when the result of careful investigation
+shows that the proportion of poverty in London is practically equalled
+in what may be regarded as a typical provincial town, we are faced by
+the startling probability that from 25 to 30 per cent of the town
+populations of the United Kingdom are living in poverty."
+</p>
+<p>
+Most of us will be inclined to think that Mr. Rountree must
+exaggerate, and what he calls poverty most of us would doubtless be
+inclined to think a modest competency a little below respectability.
+He fixed the standard of twenty-one shillings eight pence ($5.25) a
+week as a necessary one for a family of ordinary size. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "A family living upon the scale allowed for in this estimate, must
+  never spend a penny on railway fare or omnibus. They must never go
+  into the country unless they walk. They must never purchase a
+  half-penny newspaper or spend a penny to buy a ticket for a popular
+  concert. They must write no letters to absent children, for they
+  cannot afford to pay the postage. They must never contribute
+  anything to their church or chapel, nor give any help to a neighbor
+  which costs them money. They cannot save, nor can they join sick
+  club or trade union, because they cannot pay the necessary
+  subscription. The children must have no pocket money for dolls,
+  marbles or sweets. The father must smoke no tobacco nor drink no
+  beer. The mother must never buy any pretty clothes for herself or
+  for her children, the character for the family wardrobe, as for the
+  family diet, being governed by the regulation, 'Nothing must be
+  bought but that which is absolutely necessary for the maintenance of
+  physical health, and that which is bought must be of the plainest
+  and most economical description.' Should a child fall ill, it must
+  be attended by the family parish doctor; should it die, it must be
+  buried by the parish. Finally, the wage-earner must never be absent
+  from his work for a single day."
+<br><br>
+<i>More than one in four of the population living below this scale!</i>
+</p>
+<p>
+Conditions are, if anything, worse on the Continent. In Germany,
+industry is at the best. Conditions in Berlin have been recently
+reported in the Daily Consular Reports by a U. S. Government official.
+Of the somewhat more than two millions of people who live in Berlin,
+1,125,000 have an income. Nearly one-half of the incomes, however, are
+exempt from taxation because they do not amount to the minimum taxable
+income, though that is only $214&mdash;$4 per week. Of the 600,000 who have
+taxable incomes, nearly 550,000 have less than $700 a year; that is,
+get about $2 a day or less. Less than sixty thousand out of the total
+population get more than $2 a day. It is easy to say, but hard to
+understand, that this is a living wage, because things are cheaper in
+Germany. Meat is, however, nearly twice as dear; sugar is twice as
+dear; bread is dearer than it is in this country; coffee is dearer;
+and only rent is somewhat cheaper.
+</p>
+<a name="475">{475}</a>
+<p>
+It is easy to talk about the spread of comfort among the people of our
+generation and the raising of the standard of living, but if one
+compares these wages with the price of things as they are now, it is
+hard to understand on just what basis of fact the claim for betterment
+in our time, meaning more general comfort and happiness, is made.
+</p>
+<p>
+People always refuse to believe that conditions are as bad as they
+really are in these matters. Americans will at once have the feeling,
+on reading Mr. Hunter and Mr. Rountree's words and the account of the
+American Consul at Berlin, that this may be true for England and
+Germany, but that of course it is very different here in America. It
+is extremely doubtful whether it is very different here in America. In
+this matter, Mr. Hunter's opinion deserves weight. He has for years
+devoted himself to gathering information with regard to this subject.
+He seems to be sure that one in seven of our population is in poverty.
+Probably the number is higher than this. Here is his opinion:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "How many people in the country are in poverty? Is the number yearly
+  growing larger? Are there each year more and more of the unskilled
+  classes pursuing hopelessly the elusive phantom of self-support and
+  independence? Are they, as in a dream, working faster, only the more
+  swiftly to move backward? Are there each year more and more hungry
+  children and more and more fathers whose utmost effort may not bring
+  into the home as much energy in food as it takes out in industry?
+  These are not fanciful questions, nor are they sentimental ones. I
+  have not the slightest doubt that there are in the United States ten
+  million persons in precisely these conditions of poverty, but I am
+  largely guessing, and there may be as many as fifteen or twenty
+  millions!"
+</p>
+<p>
+Perhaps Mr. Hunter exaggerates. As a physician, I should be inclined
+to think not; but certainly his words and, above all, the English
+statistics will give any one pause who is sure, on general principles,
+that the great mass of the people are happier now or more comfortable,
+above all, in mind&mdash;the only real happiness&mdash;than they were in the
+Thirteenth Century. After due consideration of this kind, no one will
+insist on the comparative misery and suffering of the poor in old
+times. England had less than 3,000,000 in the Thirteenth Century, and
+probably there was never a time in her history when a greater majority
+of her people fulfilled Ruskin's and Morris' ideals of happy-hearted
+human beings. The two-handed worker got at least what the four-footed
+worker, in Carlyle's words, has always obtained, due food and lodging.
+England was not "a nation with sleek, well-fed English horses, and
+hungry, dissatisfied Englishmen."
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>COMFORT AND HAPPINESS.</h2>
+<p>
+There is another side to the question of comparative happiness that
+may be stated in the words of William Morris, when he says, in "Hopes
+and Fears for Art," that a Greek or a Roman of the luxurious time (and
+of course <i>a fortiori</i> a medieval of the Thirteenth Century) would
+<a name="476">{476}</a> stare astonished could he be brought back again and shown the
+comforts of a well-to-do middle-class house. This expression is often
+re-echoed, and one is prone to wonder how many of those who use it
+realize that it is a quotation, and, above all, appreciate the fact
+that Morris made the statement in order to rebut it. His answer is in
+certain ways so complete that it deserves to be quoted.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "When you hear of the luxuries of the Ancients, you must remember
+  that they were not like our luxuries, they were rather indulgence in
+  pieces of extravagant folly than what we to-day call luxury&mdash;which,
+  perhaps, you would rather call comfort; well, I accept the word, and
+  say that a Greek or a Roman of the luxurious time would stare
+  astonished could he be brought back again and shown the comforts of
+  a well-to-do middle-class house.
+<br><br>
+  "But some, I know, think that the attainment of these very comforts
+  is what makes the difference between civilization and
+  uncivilization&mdash;that they are the essence of civilization. Is it so
+  indeed? Farewell my hope then! I had thought that civilization meant
+  the attainment of peace and order and freedom, of good-will between
+  man and man, of the love of truth and the hatred of injustice, and
+  by consequence the attainment of the good life which these things
+  breed, a life free from craven fear, but full of incident; that was
+  what I thought it meant, not more stuffed chairs and more cushions,
+  and more carpets and gas, and more dainty meat and drink&mdash;and
+  therewithal more and sharper differences between class and class.
+<br><br>
+  "If that be what it is, I for my part wish I were well out of it and
+  living in a tent in the Persian desert, or a turf hut on the Iceland
+  hillside. But, however it be, and I think my view is the true view,
+  I tell you that art abhors that side of civilization; she cannot
+  breath in the houses that lie under its stuffy slavery.
+<br><br>
+  "Believe me, if we want art to begin at home, as it must, we must
+  clear our houses of troublesome superfluities that are forever in
+  our way, conventional comforts that are no real comforts, and do but
+  make work for servants and doctors. If you want a golden rule that
+  will fit everybody, this is it: 'Have nothing in your houses that
+  you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.'"
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>COMFORT AND HEALTH.</h2>
+<p>
+A comment on William Morris's significant paragraphs may be summed up
+in some reflections on the scornful expression of a friend who asked,
+how is it possible to talk of happiness at a time when there were no
+glass in windows and no heating apparatus except the open fireplace in
+the great hall of the larger houses, or in the kitchen of the dwelling
+houses. To this there is the ready answer that, in the modern time, we
+have gone so far to the opposite extreme as to work serious harm to
+health. When a city dweller develops tuberculosis, his physician now
+sends him out to the mountains, asks him to sleep with his window wide
+open, and requires him to spend just as much of his time as possible
+in the open air, even with the temperature below zero. In our
+hospitals, the fad for making patients comfortable by artificial heat
+is passing, and that of stimulating them by cold, fresh air is gaining
+ground. We know that, for all the fevers and all the respiratory <a name="477">{477}</a>
+diseases this brings about a notable reduction in the mortality.
+Surely, what is good for the ailing must be even better to keep them
+well from disease. Many a physician now arranges to sleep out of doors
+all winter. Certainly all the respiratory diseases are rendered much
+more fatal and modern liability to them greatly increased by our
+shut-up houses. The medieval people were less comfortable, from a
+sensual standpoint, but the healthy glow and reaction after cold
+probably made them enjoy life better than we do in our steam-heated
+houses. They secured bodily warmth by an active circulation of their
+blood. We secure it by the circulation of hot water or steam in our
+houses. Ours may be the better way, but the question is not yet
+absolutely decided. A physician friend points to the great reduction
+in the death-rate in modern times, and insists that this, of course,
+means definite progress. Even this is not quite so sure as is often
+thought. We are saving a great many lives that heretofore, in the
+course of nature, under conditions requiring a more vigorous life,
+passed out of existence early. It is doubtful, however, whether this
+is an advantage for the race, since our insane asylums, our hospitals
+for incurables and our homes of various kinds now have inmates in much
+greater proportion to the population than ever before in history.
+These are mainly individuals of lower resistive vitality, who would
+have been allowed to get out of existence early, save themselves and
+their friends from useless suffering, and whose presence in life does
+not add greatly if at all to the possibilities of human
+accomplishment. Our reduced death-rate is, because of comfort seeking,
+more than counterbalanced by a reduced birth-rate, so that no
+advantage is reaped for the race in the end. These reflections, of
+course, are only meant to suggest how important it is to view such
+questions from all sides before being sure that they represent
+definite progress for humanity. Progress is much more elusive than is
+ordinarily thought, and is never the simple, unmistakable movement of
+advance it is often thought.
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>HYGIENE.</h2>
+<p>
+The objection that medical friends have had to the claims of The
+Thirteenth as the Greatest of Centuries is that it failed to pay any
+attention to hygiene. Here, once more, we have a presumption that is
+not founded on real knowledge of the time. It is rather easy to show
+that these generations were anticipating many of our solutions of
+hygienic problems quite as well as our solutions of other social and
+intellectual difficulties. In the sketch of Pope John XXI., the
+physician who became Pope during the second half of the Thirteenth
+Century, which was published in Ophthalmology, a quarterly review of
+eye diseases (Jan., 1909), because Pope John wrote a little book on
+this subject which has many valuable anticipations of modern
+knowledge, I called attention to the fact that, while a physician and
+professor of <a name="478">{478}</a> medicine at the medical school of the University of
+Sienna, this Pope, then known as Peter of Spain, had made some
+contributions to sanitary science. Later he was appointed Archiater,
+that is, Physician in charge of the City of Rome. As pointed out in
+the sketch of him as enlarged for the volume containing a second
+series of Catholic Churchmen in Science (The Dolphin Press, Phila.,
+1909), he seems to have been particularly interested in popular
+health, for we have a little book, Thesaurus Pauperum&mdash;The Treasure of
+the Poor&mdash;which contains many directions for the maintenance of health
+and the treatment of disease by those who are too poor to secure
+physicians' advice. The fact that the head of the Bureau of Health in
+Rome should have been made Pope in the Thirteenth Century, itself
+speaks volumes for the awakening of the educated classes at least to
+the value of hygiene and sanitation.
+</p>
+<p>
+Their attention to hygiene can be best shown by a consideration of the
+hospitals. Ordinarily it is assumed that the hospitals provided a roof
+for the sick and the injured, but scarcely more. Most physicians will
+probably be quite sure that they were rather hot-beds of disease than
+real blessings to the ailing. That is not what we find when we study
+them carefully. These generations gave us a precious lesson by
+eradicating leprosy, which was quite as general as tuberculosis is
+now, and they made special hospitals for erysipelas, which materially
+lessened the diffusion of that disease. In rewriting the chapter on
+The Foundation of City Hospitals for my book, The Popes and Science
+(Fordham University Press, N. Y., 1908), I incorporated into it a
+description of the hospital erected at Tanierre, in France, in 1293,
+by Marguerite of Bourgogne, the sister of St. Louis. Of this hospital
+Mr. Arthur Dillon, from the standpoint of the modern architect, says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "It was an admirable hospital in every way, and it is doubtful if we
+  to-day surpass it. It was isolated, the ward was separated from the
+  other buildings; it had the advantage we often lose, of being but
+  one story high, and more space was given to each patient than we now
+  afford.
+<br><br>
+  "The ventilation by the great windows and ventilators in the ceiling
+  was excellent; it was cheerfully lighted, and the arrangement of the
+  gallery shielded the patients from dazzling light and from draughts
+  from the windows, and afforded an easy means of supervision, while
+  the division by the roofless, low partitions isolated the sick and
+  obviated the depression that comes from the sight of others in pain.
+<br><br>
+  "It was, moreover, in great contrast to the cheerless white wards of
+  to-day. The vaulted ceiling was very beautiful; the woodwork was
+  richly carved, and the great windows over the altars were filled
+  with colored glass. Altogether, it was one of the best examples of
+  the best period of Gothic architecture."
+</p>
+<p>
+In their individual Hygiene there was, of course, much to be desired
+among the people of the Thirteenth Century, and it has been declared
+that the history of Europe from the fifth to the fifteenth century
+might, from the hygienic standpoint, he summed up as a thousand years
+without a bath. The more we know about this period, however, the less
+of <a name="479">{479}</a> point do we find in the epigram. Mr. Cram, in the Ruined
+Abbeys of Great Britain (Pott & Co., N. Y., 1907), has described
+wonderful arrangements within the monasteries (!) for the conduction
+of water from long distances for all toilet purposes. There was much
+more attention to sanitary details than we have been prone to think.
+Mr. Cram, in describing what was by no means one of the greatest of
+the English abbeys of the Thirteenth Century, says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Here at Beaulieu the water was brought by an underground conduit
+  from an unfailing spring a mile away, and this served for drinking,
+  washing and bathing, the supply of the fish ponds, and for a
+  constant flushing of the elaborate system of drainage. In sanitary
+  matters, the monks were as far in advance of the rest of society as
+  they were in learning and agriculture."
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>WAGES AND THE CONDITION OP WORKING PEOPLE.</h2>
+<p>
+What every reader of the Thirteenth Century seems to be perfectly sure
+of is that, whatever else there may have been in this precious time,
+at least the workmen were not well paid and men worked practically for
+nothing. It is confessed that, of course, working as they did on their
+cathedrals, they had a right to work for very little if they wished,
+but at least there has been a decided step upward in evolution in the
+gradual raising of wages, until at last the workman is beginning to be
+paid some adequate compensation. There is probably no phase of the
+life of the Middle Ages with regard to which people are more mistaken
+than this supposition that the workmen of this early time were paid
+inadequately. I have already called attention to the fact that the
+workmen of this period claimed and obtained "the three eights"&mdash;eight
+hours of work, eight hours of sleep and eight hours for recreation and
+bodily necessities. They obtained the Saturday half-holiday, and also
+release from work on the vigils of all feast days, and there were
+nearly forty of these in the year. After the vesper hour, that is,
+three in Summer and two in Winter, there was no work on the Eves of
+Holy-days of Obligation. With regard to wages, there is just one way
+to get at the subject, and that is, to present the legal table of
+wages enacted by Parliament, placing beside it the legal maximum price
+of necessities of life, as also determined by Parliamentary enactment.
+</p>
+<p>
+An Act of Edward III. fixes the wages, without food, as follows. There
+are many other things mentioned, but the following will be enough for
+our purpose:
+</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" width="100%">
+<tbody>
+<tr><td>Work</td><td>Shillings</td><td>Pence</td></tr>
+<tr><td>A woman hay-making, or weeding corn for the day</td><td>0 </td><td>1</td></tr>
+<tr><td>A man filling dung-cart</td><td>0</td><td> 3-1/2</td></tr>
+<tr><td>A reaper</td><td>0</td><td> 4</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Mowing an acre of grass</td><td>0</td><td> 4</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Threshing a quarter of wheat</td><td>0</td><td> 4</td></tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+
+<a name="480">{480}</a>
+<p>
+The price of shoes, cloth and provisions, throughout the time that
+this law continued in force, was as follows:
+</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" width="100%">
+<tbody>
+<tr><td>Item </td><td colspan="3">Price</td></tr>
+<tr><td></td><td>Pounds</td><td>Shillings</td><td>Pence</td></tr>
+<tr><td>A pair of shoes</td><td>0</td><td> 0</td><td>4</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Russet broadcloth, the yard</td><td>0 </td><td>1</td><td> 1</td></tr>
+<tr><td>A stall fed ox</td><td>1 </td><td>4 </td><td> 0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>A grass fed ox</td><td>0 </td><td>16 </td><td> 0</td></tr>
+<tr><td>A fat sheep unshorn</td><td>0</td><td> 1</td><td> 8</td></tr>
+<tr><td>A fat sheep shorn</td><td>0</td><td> 1</td><td> 2</td></tr>
+<tr><td>A fat hog two years old</td><td>0 </td><td>3</td><td> 4</td></tr>
+<tr><td>A fat goose</td><td>0 </td><td> 0 </td><td>2-1/2.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Ale, the gallon, by proclamation</td><td>0 </td><td> 0 </td><td>1</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Wheat, the quarter</td><td>0</td><td> 3 </td><td> 4</td></tr>
+<tr><td>White wine, the gallon</td><td>0</td><td> 0</td><td> 6</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Red wine</td><td>0</td><td> 0 </td><td> 4</td></tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+<p>
+An Act of Parliament of the fourteenth century, in fixing the price of
+meat, names the four sorts of meat&mdash;beef, pork, mutton and veal, and
+sets forth in its preamble the words, "these being the food of the
+poorer sort." The poor in England do not eat these kinds of meat now,
+and the investigators of the poverty of the country declare that most
+of the poor live almost exclusively on bread. The fact of the matter
+is, that large city populations are likely to harbor many very
+miserable people, while the rural population of England in the Middle
+Ages, containing the bulk of the people, were happy-hearted and merry.
+When we recall this in connection with what I have given in the text
+with regard to the trades-unions and their care for the people, the
+foolish notion, founded on a mere assumption and due to that
+Aristophanic joke, our complacent self-sufficiency, which makes us so
+ready to believe that our generation <i>must</i> be better off than others
+were, vanishes completely.
+</p>
+<p>
+It is easy to understand that beef, pork, mutton, veal and even
+poultry were the food of the poor, when a workman could earn the price
+of a sheep in less than four days or buy nearly two fat geese for his
+day's wages. A day laborer will work from forty to fifty days now to
+earn the price of an ox on the hoof, and it was about the same at the
+close of the Thirteenth Century. When a fat hog costs less than a
+dollar, a man's wages, at eight cents a day, are not too low. When a
+gallon of good ale can be obtained for two cents, no workman is likely
+to go dry. When a gallon of red wine can be obtained for a day's
+wages, it is hard to see any difference between a workman of the olden
+time and the present in this regard. Two yards of cloth made a coat
+for a gentleman and cost only a little over two shillings. The making
+of it brought the price of it up to two shilling and six pence. These
+prices are taken from the Preciosum of Bishop Fleetwood, who took them
+from the accounts kept by the bursars of convents. Fleetwood's book is
+accepted very generally as an excellent authority in the history of
+economics.
+</p>
+<a name="481">{481}</a>
+<p>
+Cobbett, in his History of the Protestant Reformation, has made an
+exhaustive study of just this question of the material and economic
+condition of the people of England before and since the reformation.
+He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "These things prove, beyond all dispute, that England was, in
+  Catholic times, a real wealthy country; that wealth was generally
+  diffused; that every part of the country abounded in men of solid
+  property; and that, of course, there were always great resources at
+  hand in cases of emergency." &hellip; "In short, everything shows that
+  England was then a country abounding in men of real wealth."
+</p>
+<p>
+Fortesque, the Lord High Chancellor of England under Henry VI., king a
+century after the Thirteenth, has this to say with regard to the legal
+and economic conditions in England in his time. Some people may think
+the picture he gives an exaggeration, but it was written by a great
+lawyer with the definite idea of giving a picture of the times, and,
+under ordinary circumstances, we would say that there could be no
+better authority.
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The King of England cannot alter the laws, or make new ones,
+  without the express consent of the whole kingdom in Parliament
+  assembled. Every inhabitant is at his liberty fully to use and enjoy
+  whatever his farm produceth, the fruits of the earth, the increase
+  of his flock and the like&mdash;all the improvements he makes, whether by
+  his own proper industry or of those he retains in his service, are
+  his own, to use and enjoy, without the let, interruption or denial
+  of any. If he be in any wise injured or oppressed, he shall have his
+  amends and satisfactions against the party offending. Hence it is
+  that the inhabitants are rich in gold, silver, and in all the
+  necessaries and conveniences of life. They drink no water unless at
+  certain times, upon a religious score, and by way of doing penance.
+  They are fed in great abundance, with all sorts of flesh and fish,
+  of which they have plenty everywhere; they are clothed throughout in
+  good woollens, their bedding and other furniture in the house are of
+  wool, and that in great store. They are also well provided with all
+  sorts of household goods and necessary implements for husbandry.
+  Every one, according to his rank, hath all things which conduce to
+  make mind and life easy and happy."
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>INTEREST AND LOANS.</h2>
+<p>
+A number of commercial friends have been interested in the wonderful
+story of business organizations traced in the chapter on Great
+Beginnings of Modern Commerce. They have all been sure, however, that
+it is quite idle to talk of great commercial possibilities at a time
+when ecclesiastical regulations forbade the taking of interest. This
+would seem to make it quite impossible that great commercial
+transactions could be carried on, yet somehow these people succeeded
+in accomplishing them. A number of writers on economics in recent
+years have suggested that possibly one solution of the danger to
+government and popular rights from the accumulation of large fortunes
+might be avoided by a return to the system of prohibition of interest
+taking. There is <a name="482">{482}</a> much more in that proposition than might
+possibly be thought by those who are unfamiliar with it from serious
+consideration. They did succeed in getting on without it in the
+Thirteenth Century, and at the same time they solved the other problem
+of providing loans, not alone for business people, but for all those
+who might need them. We are solving the "loan shark" evil at the
+present time in nearly the same way that they solved it seven
+centuries ago. Abbot Gasquet, in his "Parish Life in England Before
+the Reformation," describes the methods of the early days as follows:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "The parish wardens had their duties towards the poorer members of
+  the district. In more than one instance they were guardians of the
+  common chest, out of which temporary loans could be obtained by
+  needy parishioners, to tide over persons in difficulties. These
+  loans were secured by pledges and the additional security of other
+  parishioners. No interest was charged for the use of the money, and
+  in case the pledge had to be sold, everything over and above the sum
+  lent was returned to the borrower."
+</p>
+<br>
+<h2>THE EIGHTEENTH<br> LOWEST OF CENTURIES.</h2>
+<p>
+There is no doubt that the nineteenth century, and especially the
+latter half of it, saw some very satisfactory progress over
+immediately preceding times. With the recognition of this fact, that
+the last century so far surpassed its predecessor there has been a
+tendency to assume, because evolution occupies men's minds, that the
+eighteenth must have quite as far surpassed the seventeenth, and the
+seventeenth the sixteenth, and so on, so that of course we are far
+ahead in everything of the despised Middle Ages. In recent years,
+indeed, we have dropped the attitude of blaming the earlier ages, for
+one of complacent pity that they were not born soon enough, and,
+therefore, could not enjoy our advantages. Unfortunately for any such
+conclusion as this, the term of comparison nearest to us, the
+eighteenth century is without doubt the lowest hundred years in human
+accomplishment, at least during the past seven centuries.
+</p>
+<p>
+This is true for every form of human endeavor and every phase of human
+existence. Prof. Goodyear, of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and
+Science, the well-known author of a series of books on art and
+history, in one of the chapters of his Handbook on Renaissance and
+Modern Art (New York, The McMillan Co.), in describing the Greek
+revival of the latter part of the eighteenth century says: "According
+to our accounts so far throughout this whole book, either of
+architecture, painting, or sculpture, it will appear that the earlier
+nineteenth century represents the foot of a hill, whose gradual
+descent began about 1530." As a matter of fact, in every department of
+artistic expression the taste of the eighteenth century was almost the
+worst possible. The monuments that we have from that time, in the
+shape of churches and municipal buildings, are few, but such as they
+are, they are the least <a name="483">{483}</a> worthy of imitation, and the art ideas
+they represent are most to be deprecated of any in the whole history
+of modern art.
+</p>
+<p>
+Perhaps the most awful arraignment of the eighteenth and early
+nineteenth century that was ever made is that of Mr. Cram, in the
+Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain, from which I have already quoted. He
+calls attention to the fact that, during this century, some of the
+most beautiful sculptured work that ever came from the hand of man was
+torn out of the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, York, to serve no better
+purpose than to make lime. His description of the sculpture of the
+Abbey will give some idea of its beauty and render all the more
+poignant the loss that was thus inflicted on art. He says:
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "Most wonderful of all amongst a horde of smaller statues, a
+  mutilated fragment of a statue of Our Lady and the Holy Child, so
+  consummate in its faultless art that it deserves a place with the
+  masterpieces of sculpture of every age and race. Here in this dim
+  and scanty undercraft is an epitome of the English art of four
+  centuries, precious and beautiful beyond the power of words to
+  describe.
+<br><br>
+  "York Abbey was a national monument, the aesthetic and historic
+  value of which was beyond computation. It is with feelings of horror
+  and unutterable dismay that, as we stand beside the few existing
+  fragments, realizing the irreparable loss they make so clear, we
+  call into mind Henry's sacrilege in the sixteenth century, and his
+  silly palace doomed to instant destruction, and the crass ignorance
+  and stolidity of the eighteenth century with its grants of building
+  material, and the mercenary savagery of the nineteenth century when,
+  from smoking lime kilns rose into the air the vanishing ghosts of
+  the noblest creations that owed their existence to man.
+<br><br>
+  "Nothing is sadder to realize than the failure of appreciation for
+  art of the early nineteenth and the eighteenth century. Men had
+  lost, apparently, all proper realization of the value of artistic
+  effort and achievement. It was an era of travel and commerce and,
+  unfortunately, of industrial development. As a consequence, in many
+  parts of Europe, and especially of England, art remains of
+  inestimable value suffered at the hands of utilitarians who found
+  them of use in their enterprises. We are accustomed to rail against
+  the barbarians and the Turks for their failure to appreciate the
+  remains of Latin and Greek art and for their wanton destruction of
+  them, but what shall we say of modern Englishmen, who quite as
+  ruthlessly destroyed objects of art of equal value at least with
+  Roman and Greek, while the great body of the nation made no
+  complaint, and no protest was heard anywhere in the kingdom."
+</p>
+<p>
+What is so true of the arts is, as might be reasonably expected, quite
+as true of other phases of intellectual development. Education, for
+instance, is at the lowest ebb that it has reached since the
+foundation of the Universities at the end of the twelfth century. In
+Germany, there was only one university, that of Göttingen, in which
+there was a professorship of Greek. When Winckelmann introduced the
+study of Greek into his school at Seehausen, no school-books for this
+language were available, and he was obliged to write out texts for his
+students. What was the case in Germany was also true, to a great <a name="484">{484}</a>
+degree, of the rest of Europe. Leading French critics ridiculed the
+Greek authors. Homer was considered a ballad singer and compared to
+the street singers of Paris. Voltaire thought that the AEneid of
+Virgil was superior to all that the Greek writers had ever done. No
+edition of Plato had been published in Europe since the end of the
+sixteenth century. Other Greek authors were almost as much neglected,
+and of true scholarship there was very little. When Cardinal Newman,
+in his Idea of a University, wants to find the lowest possible term of
+comparison for the intellectual life of the university, he takes the
+English universities of the middle of the eighteenth century.
+</p>
+<p>
+With this neglect of education, and above all of the influence that
+Greek has always had in chastening and perfecting taste, it is not
+surprising that literature was in every country of Europe at a very
+low ebb. It was not so feeble as art, but the two are interdependent,
+much more than is usually thought. Only France has anything to show in
+literature that has had an enduring influence in the subsequent
+centuries. When we compare the French literature of the eighteenth
+with that of the seventeenth century, however, it is easy to see how
+much of a descent there has been from Corneille, Racine, Moliêre,
+Boileau, La Fontaine, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Fénelon to Voltaire,
+Marivaux, Lesage, Diderot, and Bernardin de St. Pierre. This same
+decadence of literature can be noted even more strikingly in England,
+in Spain, and in Italy. The seventeenth, especially the first half of
+it, saw the origin of some of the greatest works of modern literature.
+The eighteenth century produced practically nothing that was to live
+and be a vital force in aftertimes.
+</p>
+<p>
+What is true in art, letters and education is, above all, true in what
+men did for liberty and for their fellow-men. Hospital organization
+and the care of the ailing was at its lowest ebb during the eighteenth
+century.  Jacobson, the German historian of the hospitals, says:
+[Footnote 36]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+    [Footnote 36: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Krankencomforts.
+    Deutsche Krankenpflege Zeitung, 1898, in 4 parts.]
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "It is a remarkable fact that attention to the well-being of the
+  sick, improvements in hospitals and institutions generally and to
+  details of nursing care, had a period of complete and lasting
+  stagnation after the middle of the seventeenth century, or from the
+  close of the Thirty Years' War. Neither officials nor physicians
+  took any interest in the elevation of nursing or improving the
+  conditions of hospitals. During the first two-thirds of the
+  eighteenth century, nothing was done to bring either construction or
+  nursing to a better state. Solely among the religious orders did
+  nursing remain an interest, and some remnants of technique survive.
+  The result was that, in this period, the general level of nursing
+  fell far below that of earlier periods. The hospitals of cities were
+  like prisons, with bare, undecorated walls and little dark rooms,
+  small windows where no sun could enter, and dismal wards where fifty
+  or one hundred patients were crowded together, deprived of all
+  comforts and even of necessaries. In the municipal and state
+  institutions of this period, the beautiful gardens, roomy halls, and
+  <a name="485">{485}</a> springs of water of the old cloister hospital of the Middle
+  Ages were not heard of, still less the comforts of their friendly
+  interiors."
+</p>
+<p>
+As might be expected, with the hospitals so badly organized, the art
+of nursing was in a decay that is almost unutterable. Miss Nutting, of
+Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Superintendent of Nurses, and Miss Dock,
+the Secretary of the International Council of Nurses, have in their
+History of Nursing a chapter on the Dark Period of Nursing, in which
+the decadence of the eighteenth century, in what regards the training
+of nurses for the intelligent care of the sick, is brought out very
+clearly. They say:   [Footnote 37]
+</p>
+<p class="footnote">
+    [Footnote 37: A History of Nursing, by M. Adelaide Nutting and
+    Lavinia L. Dock, in two volumes, illustrated. G. P. Putnam's Sons,
+    New York, 1907.]
+</p>
+<p class="cite">
+  "It is commonly agreed that the darkest known period in the history
+  of nursing was that from the latter part of the seventeenth up to
+  the middle of the nineteenth century. During the time, the condition
+  of the nursing art, the well-being of the patient, and the status of
+  the nurse, all sank to an indescribable level of degradation."
+</p>
+<p>
+Taine, in his History of the Old Regimé of France, has told the awful
+story of the attitude of the so-called better classes toward the poor.
+While conditions were at their worst in France, every country in
+Europe saw something of the same thing. In certain parts of Germany
+conditions were, if possible, worse. It is no wonder that the French
+Revolution came at the end of the eighteenth century, and that a
+series of further revolutions during the nineteenth century were
+required to win back some of the rights which men had gained for
+themselves in earlier centuries and then lost, sinking into a state of
+decadence out of which we are only emerging, though in most countries
+we have not reached quite the level of human liberty and, above all,
+of Christian democracy that our forefathers had secured seven
+centuries ago.
+</p>
+<p>
+With these considerations in mind, it is easier to understand how men
+in the later nineteenth century and beginning twentieth century are
+prone to think of their periods as representing an acme in the course
+of progress. There is no doubt that we are far above the eighteenth
+century. That, however, was a deep valley in human accomplishment,
+indeed, a veritable slough of despond, out of which we climbed; and,
+looking back, are prone to think how fortunate we are in having
+ascended so high, though beyond our vision on the other side of the
+valley the hills rise much higher into the clouds of human aspiration
+and artistic excellence than anything that we have attained as yet.
+Indeed, whenever we try to do serious work at the present time, we
+confessedly go back from four to seven centuries for the models that
+we must follow. With Renaissance art and Gothic architecture and the
+literature before the end of the sixteenth century cut out of our
+purview, we would have nothing to look to for models. This phase of
+history needs to be recalled by all those who would approach with
+equanimity the consideration of The Thirteenth as the Greatest of
+Centuries.
+</p>
+<a name="486">{486}</a>
+
+<h1>INDEX</h1>
+
+<pre>
+A.
+
+Abbey schools, <a href="#26">26</a>;
+  of St. Victor, <a href="#150">150</a>
+Aberration of light, <a href="#44">44</a>
+Abingdon,  Edmund of, <a href="#327">327</a>
+Adam of St. Victor, <a href="#204">204</a>
+Age of Students, <a href="#25">25-63</a>
+Albertus Magnus, <a href="#46">46</a>
+Alchemies, <a href="#93">93</a>
+Alfonso the Wise, <a href="#2">2</a>
+Aliens' rights, <a href="#358">358</a>
+Allbutt,  Prof., <a href="#83">83</a>
+Amiens, <a href="#105">105</a>
+Andrew II,  Golden Bull, <a href="#369">369</a>
+Angel Choir, <a href="#13">13</a>, <a href="#108">108</a>
+Angelo on Dante, <a href="#305">305</a>
+Anselm, <a href="#80">80</a>
+Antipodes, <a href="#50">50</a>, <a href="#392">392</a>
+Ants in Dante, <a href="#314">314</a>
+Appreciation of art, <a href="#146">146</a>
+Aquinas, <a href="#38">38</a>;
+  and Albertus, <a href="#271">271</a>;
+  appreciation of, <a href="#283">283</a>;
+  capacity for work, <a href="#286">286</a>;
+  education, <a href="#270">270</a>;
+  on Existence of God, <a href="#276">276</a>;
+  on liberty and society, <a href="#279">279</a>;
+  at Paris, <a href="#272">272</a>;
+  as a poet, <a href="#287">287</a>;
+  and Pope Leo XIII, <a href="#374">374</a>;
+  on Resurrection, <a href="#278">278</a>;
+  tributes to, <a href="#281">281</a>
+
+Arbitration, <a href="#382">382</a>
+Arena Padua, <a href="#144">144</a>
+Arezzo, <a href="#23">23</a>
+Arnaud,  Daniel, <a href="#189">189</a>
+Arnaud de Marveil, <a href="#189">189</a>
+Arnold,  Matthew,  and Francis, <a href="#256">256</a>
+Art and the Friars, <a href="#139">139</a>
+Artemus Ward, <a href="#52">52</a>
+Arts and Crafts, <a href="#124">124</a>
+Arthur Legends, <a href="#10">10</a>, <a href="#173">173</a>
+Arundel,  Countess of, <a href="#320">320</a>
+Asbestos, <a href="#398">398</a>
+Ascoli,  Cope, <a href="#14">14</a>, <a href="#134">134</a>
+Assisi, <a href="#144">144</a>
+Assizes of Clarendon, <a href="#351">351</a>;
+  of Jerusalem, <a href="#365">365</a>
+Avignon, <a href="#24">24</a>
+
+
+B.
+
+Bacon, <a href="#41">41</a>
+Barbarossa, <a href="#1">1</a>
+Barbizon School, <a href="#145">145</a>
+Basil Valentine, <a href="#94">94</a>
+Bateson,  Miss, <a href="#328">328</a>
+Beau Dieu, <a href="#13">13</a>
+Beautiful God, <a href="#105">105</a>
+Beauty and usefulness, <a href="#113">113</a>
+Beauvoisis,  Statutes of, <a href="#365">365</a>
+Bell-making, <a href="#133">133</a>
+Beowulf, <a href="#180">180</a>
+Berrengaria,  Queen, <a href="#320">320</a>
+Bernardo del Carpio, <a href="#170">170</a>
+Bernart de Ventadorn, <a href="#183">183</a>
+Bernard of Cluny,  or Morlaix, <a href="#205">205</a>
+Bertrand de Born, <a href="#191">191</a>
+Bestiarium, <a href="#164">164</a>
+Bible study, <a href="#234">234</a>, <a href="#252">252</a>
+Blanche of Castile, <a href="#289">289</a>, <a href="#320">320</a>;
+  as a mother, <a href="#326">326</a>;
+  as a ruler, <a href="#326">326</a>
+Blessed work, <a href="#125">125</a>
+Boileau,  Stephen, <a href="#365">365</a>
+Boniface VII and American Revolution, <a href="#374">374</a>
+Books,  beautiful, <a href="#150">150</a>;
+  bequests, <a href="#155">155</a>;
+  collecting, <a href="#154">154</a>, <a href="#157">157</a>;
+  great stone, <a href="#115">115</a>
+Booklovers, <a href="#155">155</a>
+Book-learning, <a href="#129">129</a>
+Book of Arts,  Deeds,  Words, <a href="#5">5</a>
+Borgo Allegri, <a href="#141">141</a>
+Botany, <a href="#149">149</a>
+Bracton, <a href="#361">361</a>
+Bracton's digest, <a href="#15">15</a>, <a href="#82">82</a>
+Bremen, <a href="#420">420</a>
+Brook farm, <a href="#264">264</a>
+
+
+C.
+
+Cahors, <a href="#34">34</a>
+Calendar, <a href="#43">43</a>
+Calvi,  College of, <a href="#26">26</a>
+Capital,  English,  created, <a href="#357">357</a>
+Canon law,  codified, <a href="#370">370</a>
+Canticle of Sun, <a href="#258">258</a>
+Carlyle,
+  Minnesong, <a href="#183">183</a>;
+  Nibelungen, <a href="#178">178</a>
+Case histories, <a href="#84">84</a>
+Casimir the Great, <a href="#369">369</a>
+Caspian not a gulf, <a href="#406">406</a>
+Castles and armories, <a href="#120">120</a>
+Catalogues of libraries, <a href="#151">151</a>
+Cathedral Symbolism, <a href="#118">118</a>
+Cavalcanti, <a href="#10">10</a>
+Celano, <a href="#197">197</a>
+Chalices, <a href="#113">113</a>
+Charity organizations, <a href="#27">27</a>, <a href="#345">345</a>
+Chartres,  glass, <a href="#14">14</a>;
+  windows, <a href="#111">111</a>
+Chauliac, <a href="#92">92</a>
+Chemistry, <a href="#46">46</a>;
+  not forbidden, <a href="#93">93</a>
+Chester cycle, <a href="#240">240</a>, <a href="#242">242</a>
+Chrestien de Troyes, <a href="#175">175</a>
+Chronicles, <a href="#224">224</a>
+Cid,  El, <a href="#9">9</a>
+Cimabue, <a href="#2">2</a>, <a href="#12">12</a>, <a href="#140">140</a>
+Cino da Pistoia, <a href="#10">10</a>
+Circulating libraries, <a href="#149">149</a>
+Clare,  St.,  and St. Francis, <a href="#322">322</a>
+Clare,  St., <a href="#320">320</a>;
+  character, <a href="#321">321</a>;
+  happiness, <a href="#322">322</a>;
+  life, <a href="#320">320</a>
+Clarendon assizes, <a href="#351">351</a>;
+  constitutions, <a href="#351">351</a>
+Clerics at the universities, <a href="#71">71</a>
+Cloisters,  Lateran, <a href="#121">121</a>;
+  St. Paul's,  Rome, <a href="#121">121</a>
+Coal, <a href="#397">397</a>
+Code of Hammurabi, <a href="#3">3</a>
+Coeducation, <a href="#330">330</a>
+Colleges,  Origin of, <a href="#29">29</a>
+Cologne, <a href="#420">420</a>
+Common Law, <a href="#361">361</a>
+Commentaries on Law, <a href="#371">371</a>
+Common pleas, <a href="#35">35</a>
+Comparative university attendance, <a href="#61">61</a>
+Compayré, <a href="#67">67</a>
+Complaints of books, <a href="#158">158</a>
+Composition of matter, <a href="#38">38</a>
+Condorcet, <a href="#34">34</a>
+Conrad of Kirchberg, <a href="#188">188</a>
+Conservation of energy, <a href="#39">39</a>
+Cope of Ascoli, <a href="#115">115</a>
+Corrections,  Optical, <a href="#131">131</a>
+
+<a name="487">{487}</a>
+
+Cost of books, <a href="#156">156</a>
+Crusades and democracy, <a href="#389">389</a>;
+  Greene,  on, <a href="#389">389</a>;
+  Storrs on, <a href="#388">388</a>;
+  Stubbs on, <a href="#298">298</a>
+Curtain lectures, <a href="#331">331</a>
+
+
+D.
+
+Dante da Maiano, <a href="#10">10</a>
+Dante and children, <a href="#313">313</a>;
+  and Milton, <a href="#315">315</a>;
+  and Virgil, <a href="#316">316</a>;
+  education, <a href="#300">300</a>;
+  in America, <a href="#311">311</a>;
+  in England, <a href="#305">305</a>;
+  in Germany, <a href="#309">309</a>;
+  in Italy, <a href="#304">304</a>;
+  not alone, <a href="#300">300</a>;
+  power of observation, <a href="#313">313</a>;
+  present estimation, <a href="#317">317</a>;
+  sonnets, <a href="#302">302</a>;
+  troubadour, <a href="#303">303</a>;
+  universality, <a href="#301">301</a>
+
+Dante-Gesellschaft, <a href="#310">310</a>
+Dean Church's Dante, <a href="#306">306</a>
+Decay of Philosophy, <a href="#282">282</a>
+Declaration of Independence,  Swiss, <a href="#377">377</a>
+Degrees, <a href="#36">36</a>
+De Maistre, <a href="#66">66</a>
+Democracy and the Crusades, <a href="#388">388</a>;
+  guilds, <a href="#378">378</a>
+Denifle, <a href="#35">35</a>
+De Roo on pre-Columbian America, <a href="#400">400</a>
+Dialectics, <a href="#33">33</a>
+Dies Irae,  Admirers of, <a href="#199">199</a>;
+  supreme, <a href="#197">197</a>
+Dietmar von Eist, <a href="#186">186</a>
+Digest of common law, <a href="#361">361</a>
+Discipline at universities, <a href="#73">73</a>;
+  and democracy, <a href="#76">76</a>
+Disease segregation, <a href="#343">343</a>
+Dissection not forbidden, <a href="#91">91</a>
+Dominicans and art, <a href="#139">139</a>;
+  and books, <a href="#156">156</a>
+St. Dominic, <a href="#266">266</a>;
+  and St. Francis, <a href="#267">267</a>
+Donatus,  Deposition for ignorance of, <a href="#30">30</a>
+Drama and St. Francis, <a href="#238">238</a>
+Durandus, <a href="#117">117</a>, <a href="#234">234</a>
+
+
+E.
+
+Education,  classes, <a href="#7">7</a>;
+  masses, <a href="#8">8</a>;
+  popular, <a href="#129">129</a>;
+  of women,  four periods, <a href="#331">331</a>
+Edward I, <a href="#2">2</a>, <a href="#361">361</a>
+Edward VI and charity, <a href="#340">340</a>;
+  education, <a href="#386">386</a>
+El Cid, <a href="#169">169</a>;
+  battle scene, <a href="#170">170</a>;
+  daughters' innocence, <a href="#172">172</a>;
+  marriage, <a href="#171">171</a>;
+  single author, <a href="#169">169</a>
+Emulation of workers, <a href="#125">125</a>
+Encyclopedia, <a href="#231">231</a>
+Enforcement of law, <a href="#366">366</a>
+English democracy, <a href="#378">378</a>
+Enterprise,  commercial, <a href="#421">421</a>
+Epic poetry, <a href="#167">167</a>
+Equality of women, <a href="#324">324</a>, <a href="#389">389</a>
+Erysipelas segregated, <a href="#344">344</a>
+Evelyn's diary, <a href="#131">131</a>
+Evolution and man, <a href="#3">3</a>
+Experiment, <a href="#44">44</a>
+Explosives, <a href="#42">42</a>
+Exultet, <a href="#207">207</a>
+
+
+F.
+
+Fehmic Courts, <a href="#368">368</a>
+Felix of Valois, <a href="#347">347</a>
+Feminine education, <a href="#330">330</a>;
+  four periods, <a href="#331">331</a>
+  reasons for decline, <a href="#333">333</a>
+Ferguson, <a href="#97">97</a>
+Francis,  St.,  great disciples, <a href="#263">263</a>;
+  in drama, <a href="#239">239</a>;
+  influence still, <a href="#266">266</a>;
+  life, <a href="#259">259</a>;
+  literary man, <a href="#255">255</a>;
+  modern interest in, <a href="#261">261</a>;
+  Ruskin on, <a href="#260">260</a>;
+  second order, <a href="#265">265</a>;
+  third order, <a href="#265">265</a>;
+  troubadour, <a href="#255">255</a>
+Franciscans and Art, <a href="#139">139</a>;
+  explorers, <a href="#394">394</a>
+Fraternal insurance, <a href="#382">382</a>
+Fraternity,  initiations, <a href="#425">425</a>
+Frederick II, <a href="#2">2</a>
+Freedom,  development of, <a href="#375">375</a>
+Free cities, <a href="#377">377</a>;
+  schools, <a href="#385">385</a>
+Freemen's rights, <a href="#358">358</a>
+Friars, <a href="#267">267</a>;
+  Green's tribute to, <a href="#268">268</a>;
+  explorers, <a href="#409">409</a>
+Froude, <a href="#97">97</a>;
+  on Reynard, <a href="#211">211</a>
+Furniture, <a href="#122">122</a>
+Finsen anticipated, <a href="#89">89</a>
+Five Sisters,  York, <a href="#14">14</a>, <a href="#110">110</a>
+Founder of Hospitals, <a href="#337">337</a>
+
+
+G.
+
+Gaddi, <a href="#2">2</a>, <a href="#142">142</a>
+Galsang Gombeyev, <a href="#402">402</a>
+Geography, <a href="#50">50</a>
+German Guild-hall,  London, <a href="#421">421</a>
+Gerontius' dream, <a href="#308">308</a>
+Gild merchant, <a href="#383">383</a>
+Giotto, <a href="#2">2</a>, <a href="#12">12</a>, <a href="#142">142</a>;
+  appreciation of, <a href="#145">145</a>;
+  immense work, <a href="#146">146</a>
+Giotto's tower, <a href="#122">122</a>
+Gladstone and Richard de Bury, <a href="#160">160</a>
+Glosses,  Law, <a href="#371">371</a>
+Goethe's Reynard, <a href="#213">213</a>
+Goerres, <a href="#255">255</a>
+Gohier,  Urbain, <a href="#379">379</a>
+Golden Bull, <a href="#369">369</a>
+Golden Legend, <a href="#213">213</a>
+Goodyear, <a href="#131">131</a>
+Gothic,  development, <a href="#102">102</a>;
+  English, <a href="#100">100</a>;
+  French,  North German, <a href="#167">167</a>;
+  Sculpture, <a href="#105">105-107</a>;
+  Spanish, <a href="#100">100</a>;
+  varieties, <a href="#12">12</a>, <a href="#100">100</a>, <a href="#167">167</a>
+Grail Legends, <a href="#174">174</a>
+Gratian, <a href="#81">81</a>
+Gray, <a href="#32">32</a>
+Green on Matthew Paris, <a href="#229">229</a>
+Greatness of an epoch, <a href="#6">6</a>
+Gregorian chant, <a href="#207">207</a>
+Grotesque in Dante, <a href="#309">309</a>
+Grounds of ignorance, <a href="#41">41</a>
+Guido de Montpelier, <a href="#338">338</a>
+Guido, <a href="#142">142</a>
+Guilds, <a href="#132">132</a>;
+  and the drama, <a href="#136">136</a>;
+  and democracy, <a href="#378">378</a>;
+  Boston, <a href="#382">382</a>;
+  London, <a href="#382">382</a>;
+  number, <a href="#381">381</a>;
+  rules, <a href="#38">38</a>;
+  list of, <a href="#245">245</a>
+
+
+H.
+
+Hamburg, <a href="#420">420</a>
+Hamilton, <a href="#34">34</a>
+Hammurabi, <a href="#4">4</a>
+Hansa Alamanniae, <a href="#422">422</a>;
+  and Denmark, <a href="#419">419</a>;
+  geese cackle, <a href="#419">419</a>;
+  obscurity of origin, <a href="#416">416</a>
+Harper, <a href="#52">52</a>
+Hartman von Aue, <a href="#186">186</a>
+Hayton, <a href="#412">412</a>
+Healing by first intention, <a href="#85">85</a>
+Herodotus and Marco Polo, <a href="#396">396</a>
+History,  so-called, <a href="#127">127</a>,  appendix
+Hollandus, <a href="#94">94</a>
+
+<a name="488">{488}</a>
+
+Homer, <a href="#3">3</a>
+Hospitals,  earliest, <a href="#337">337</a>;
+  England, <a href="#339">339</a>
+Hotel Dieu, <a href="#339">339</a>;
+  endowment, <a href="#339">339</a>
+Human life,  value, <a href="#367">367</a>
+Human rights, <a href="#366">366</a>
+Humboldt on Dante, <a href="#311">311-315</a>
+Humboldt, <a href="#47">47</a>
+Humor in mystery plays, <a href="#241">241</a>
+Humphreys, <a href="#162">162</a>
+Huysmans, <a href="#120">120</a>
+Hymns often heard, <a href="#195">195</a>;
+  and languages, <a href="#203">203</a>;
+  seven greatest, <a href="#199">199</a>
+
+
+I.
+
+Ignorance and servitude, <a href="#127">127</a>
+Illuminated books, <a href="#162">162</a>
+Indestructibility of matter, <a href="#39">39</a>
+International court, <a href="#424">424</a>;
+  comity, <a href="#428">428</a>;
+  fraternity, <a href="#391">391</a>
+Irnerius, <a href="#18">18</a>, <a href="#81">81</a>
+Iron work, <a href="#114">114</a>
+
+
+J.
+
+Jenghis Khan, <a href="#2">2</a>
+Jerusalem the Golden, <a href="#205">205</a>
+Jessopp,  Rev. Augustus, <a href="#133">133</a>
+Job, <a href="#3">3</a>
+Jocelyn of Brakelond, <a href="#226">226</a>;
+  and Boswell, <a href="#227">227</a>;
+  selection, <a href="#227">227</a>
+John of Carpini, <a href="#400">400</a>
+John of Matha, <a href="#347">347</a>
+John of Monte Corvino, <a href="#410">410-412</a>
+Joinville and the poor, <a href="#297">297</a>;
+  selection, <a href="#228">228</a>
+Journeymen, <a href="#135">135</a>
+Justinian,  English, <a href="#363">363</a>
+
+
+K.
+
+Kenilworth, <a href="#121">121</a>
+Kidney disease, <a href="#84">84</a>
+
+
+L.
+
+Lafenestre, <a href="#138">138-144</a>
+Lamentations, <a href="#207">207</a>
+Lanfranc, <a href="#37">37</a>, <a href="#83">83</a>
+Lancelot, <a href="#175">175</a>
+Lateran,  Council of, <a href="#28">28</a>
+Laurie, <a href="#59">59</a>, <a href="#63">63</a>, <a href="#65">65</a>, <a href="#76">76</a>
+Law,  Canon, <a href="#370">370</a>;
+  French, <a href="#364">364</a>;
+  German, <a href="#368">368</a>;
+  Glosses, <a href="#371">371</a>;
+  Hungarian, <a href="#369">369</a>;
+  Polish, <a href="#369">369</a>;
+  Spanish, <a href="#15">15</a>
+
+Lea,  Henry C, <a href="#60">60</a>
+League,  Lombard, <a href="#417">417</a>
+Legenda Aurea, <a href="#213">213</a>
+Lending of books, <a href="#152">152</a>
+Lending of professors, <a href="#56">56</a>
+Leo XIII, <a href="#81">81</a>
+Lepers,  Louis IX and, <a href="#297">297</a>
+Leprosy eradicated, <a href="#343">343</a>
+Lerida, <a href="#24">24</a>
+Lhasa entered, <a href="#410">410</a>
+Liberties and customs, <a href="#360">360</a>;
+  English, <a href="#358">358</a>;
+  Hungary and Poland, <a href="#369">369</a>
+Library of La Ste. Chapelle, <a href="#152">152</a>;
+  circulating, <a href="#152">152</a>, <a href="#165">165</a>;
+  of Hotel Dieu, <a href="#153">153</a>;
+  of the Sorbonne, <a href="#153">153</a>
+Lincoln, <a href="#96">96</a>
+Lingard, <a href="#61">61</a>
+Literature for women, <a href="#334">334</a>
+Lodge,  Sir Oliver, <a href="#40">40</a>
+Longfellow, <a href="#209">209</a>;
+  Dante, <a href="#311">311</a>
+Louis IX, <a href="#289">289</a>;
+  books, <a href="#164">164</a>;
+  charity, <a href="#296">296</a>;
+  crusades, <a href="#298">298</a>;
+  education, <a href="#291">291</a>;
+  father, <a href="#290">290-294</a>;
+  husband, <a href="#289">289</a>;
+  justice, <a href="#293">293</a>, <a href="#294">294</a>;
+  law, <a href="#365">365</a>;
+  monks, <a href="#295">295</a>;
+  son, <a href="#289">289</a>
+
+Lowell on Dante, <a href="#311">311</a>
+Lübeck punished, <a href="#418">418</a>;
+  laws, <a href="#422">422</a>
+Lully, <a href="#57">57</a>
+Lunar rainbows, <a href="#48">48</a>
+
+
+M.
+
+Mabel Rich, <a href="#327">327</a>
+MacCarthy, <a href="#201">201</a>
+Magna Charta, <a href="#1">1</a>, <a href="#350">350</a>;
+  development of, <a href="#353">353</a>;
+  excerpts, <a href="#352">352</a>,  et seq.
+Malory, <a href="#175">175</a>
+Mandeville, <a href="#408">408</a>
+Manning on Dante, <a href="#308">308</a>
+Map or Mapes,  Walter, <a href="#174">174-176</a>
+March on Latin Hymns, <a href="#195">195</a>
+Marco Millioni, <a href="#396">396</a>
+Maria di Novella, <a href="#331">331</a>
+Masterpieces, <a href="#135">135</a>
+Matter and form, <a href="#40">40</a>;
+  constitution of, <a href="#40">40</a>
+Matthew Paris, <a href="#229">229</a>;
+  Green's tribute, <a href="#229">229</a>
+Meaning of Cathedral, <a href="#118">118</a>
+Meistersingers, <a href="#10">10</a>
+Merchants' privileges, <a href="#359">359</a>
+Merrie England, <a href="#126">126</a>
+Metaphysical speculations, <a href="#33">33-37</a>
+Method of study, <a href="#53">53</a>
+Meyer, <a href="#49">49</a>
+Middle Ages,  place of, <a href="#5">5</a>
+Middle class students, <a href="#72">72</a>
+Mill, <a href="#34">34</a>
+Millet, <a href="#145">145</a>
+Minnesingers, <a href="#10">10</a>
+Modern war correspondents anticipated, <a href="#225">225</a>, <a href="#228">228</a>
+Mondino, <a href="#93">93</a>
+Money and privileges, <a href="#426">426</a>
+Money grabbers, <a href="#217">217</a>
+Monks,  Idle, <a href="#414">414</a>;
+  explorers, <a href="#413">413</a>
+Monroe, <a href="#55">55</a>
+Montalembert,  monks, <a href="#414">414</a>;
+  laws, <a href="#364">364</a>
+Montpelier, <a href="#23">23</a>
+Morley,  Henry, <a href="#42">42</a>, <a href="#157">157</a>, <a href="#173">173</a>, <a href="#244">244</a>
+Most read books. Ten, <a href="#209">209</a>
+Motor cars, <a href="#43">43</a>
+Music,  Church, <a href="#206">206</a>;
+  part, <a href="#207">207</a>
+Mutual Aid, <a href="#379">379</a>
+Mystery plays,  players, <a href="#247">247</a>, <a href="#250">250</a>;
+  bible study, <a href="#251">251</a>;
+  influence, <a href="#252">252</a>
+
+
+N.
+
+Names,  Medieval, <a href="#331">331</a>
+Nations, <a href="#76">76</a>
+Neale, <a href="#206">206</a>
+Needlework, <a href="#14">14</a>
+Nerve suture, <a href="#86">86</a>
+Newman's tribute to Dante, <a href="#306">306</a>
+New York Times Building, <a href="#123">123</a>
+Nibelungen, <a href="#177">177</a>
+Noah and wife, <a href="#242">242</a>
+Nolasco,  Peter, <a href="#348">348</a>
+Notebook,  The elegant, <a href="#54">54</a>
+Novgorod founded, <a href="#421">421</a>
+Numbers of students, <a href="#63">63</a>,  et seq
+Nurses' habits, <a href="#345">345</a>
+
+
+O.
+
+Odoric, <a href="#409">409</a>
+One thing a day, <a href="#54">54</a>
+Optics, <a href="#44">44</a>
+
+<a name="489">{489}</a>
+
+Optical corrections, <a href="#131">131</a>
+Opus Majus, <a href="#45">45</a>
+Organized charity, <a href="#381">381</a>
+Osler, <a href="#108">108</a>, <a href="#323">323</a>
+Oxford, <a href="#22">22</a>
+
+
+P.
+
+Padua, <a href="#23">23</a>
+Pagel, <a href="#90">90</a>;
+  on Vincent of Beauvais,  <a href="#233">233</a>
+Palencia, <a href="#24">24</a>
+Pange Lingua, <a href="#199">199</a>
+Papal Court and academy, <a href="#31">31</a>
+Parliament,  First English, <a href="#14">14</a>
+Parzifal, <a href="#188">188</a>
+Peace Burgs, <a href="#420">420</a>
+Pennell,  Elizabeth Robbins, <a href="#98">98</a>
+Peregrinus, <a href="#37">37-44</a>
+Perugia, <a href="#23">23</a>
+Petroleum, <a href="#397">397</a>
+Peyrols, <a href="#192">192</a>
+Philobiblon, <a href="#157">157</a>
+Philosophic writers, <a href="#222">222</a>
+Phosphorescence in Dante, <a href="#315">315</a>
+Physical geography, <a href="#47">47</a>
+Place of women, <a href="#319">319</a>
+Plain Chant, <a href="#207">207</a>
+Plumptre's Dante, <a href="#310">310</a>
+Polo,  Marco, <a href="#396">396</a>
+Poor students, <a href="#72">72</a>
+Poor,  Washing feet of, <a href="#297">297</a>
+Popes and Laws, <a href="#370">370</a>
+Pope Alexander IV, <a href="#31">31</a>;
+  Boniface VIII, <a href="#2">2</a>;
+  Gregory IX, <a href="#2">2</a>, <a href="#30">30</a>;
+  Honorius IV, <a href="#2">2</a>, <a href="#30">30</a>;
+  Innocent III, <a href="#2">2</a>, <a href="#30">30</a>, <a href="#337">337</a>
+Population of England, <a href="#61">61</a>
+Potamian,  Brother, <a href="#37">37</a>
+Piacenza, <a href="#23">23</a>
+Practical knowledge, <a href="#41">41</a>
+Preparatory schools, <a href="#26">26</a>
+Pre-renaissance, <a href="#5">5</a>, <a href="#254">254</a>
+Professors' publications, <a href="#79">79</a>
+Progress of liberty, <a href="#386">386</a>
+
+
+Q.
+
+Queen Berengaria, <a href="#320">320</a>
+Queen Blanche of Castile, <a href="#320">320</a>
+
+
+R.
+
+Ransom of prisoners, <a href="#347">347</a>
+Raymond of Pennafort, <a href="#348">348</a>
+Real Estate Law, <a href="#362">362</a>
+Redemption of captives, <a href="#348">348</a>
+Red-light therapy, <a href="#89">89</a>
+Religious order for erysipelas, <a href="#345">345</a>;
+  for slaves, <a href="#347">347</a>
+Reinach, <a href="#103">103</a>, <a href="#116">116</a>, <a href="#128">128</a>
+Representative government, <a href="#372">372</a>, <a href="#386">386</a>
+Renaissance, <a href="#5">5</a>
+Reynard the Fox, <a href="#210">210</a>;
+  original, <a href="#212">212</a>
+Rheims, <a href="#105">105</a>, <a href="#107">107</a>
+Rhenish cities, <a href="#420">420</a>
+Rhymed Latin, <a href="#104">104</a>
+Rhyme,  origin, <a href="#199">199</a>
+Richard Coeur de Lion, <a href="#1">1</a>
+Richard de Bury, <a href="#157">157</a>;
+  as a churchman, <a href="#161">161</a>;
+  chaplains, <a href="#160">160</a>;
+  charity, <a href="#161">161</a>;
+  place in history, <a href="#159">159</a>
+
+Rich,  Mabel, <a href="#327">327</a>;
+  and her sons, <a href="#327">327</a>
+Robinson,  Fr. Paschal, <a href="#257">257</a>, <a href="#261">261</a>
+Rod in school, <a href="#185">185</a>
+Roland, <a href="#181">181</a>
+Romance of Rose, <a href="#215">215</a>;
+  charge of dullness, <a href="#216">216</a>;
+  poor happy, <a href="#219">219</a>;
+  misers miserable, <a href="#218">218</a>;
+  satire on money grabbers, <a href="#217">217</a>
+Rossetti on Dante, <a href="#317">317</a>
+Rubruquis, <a href="#403">403</a>;
+  on customs, <a href="#408">408</a>;
+  on languages, <a href="#405">405</a>, <a href="#407">407</a>
+Rucellai Madonna, <a href="#141">141</a>
+Rudolph of Hapsburg, <a href="#2">2</a>,  appendix
+Ruskin, <a href="#6">6</a>, <a href="#123">123</a>, <a href="#260">260</a>, <a href="#309">309</a>
+Rusticiano, <a href="#399">399</a>
+
+
+S.
+
+Sadness absent in Gothic art, <a href="#147">147</a>
+Saintsbury, <a href="#34">34</a>, <a href="#36">36</a>, <a href="#175">175</a>, <a href="#180">180</a>, <a href="#197">197</a>, <a href="#223">223</a>, <a href="#226">226</a>
+Saladin, <a href="#1">1</a>
+Salamanca, <a href="#24">24</a>
+Salamander,  asbestos, <a href="#398">398</a>
+Salicet, <a href="#83">83</a>
+Salimbene,  Friar, <a href="#403">403</a>
+Salisbury, <a href="#129">129</a>
+Saturday,  half-holiday, <a href="#379">379</a>
+Schaff, <a href="#198">198</a>, <a href="#205">205</a>
+Scholasticism and style, <a href="#223">223</a>
+Sculpture,  Amiens, <a href="#13">13</a>, <a href="#105">105</a>;
+  Rheims, <a href="#105">105</a>
+  St. Denis, <a href="#13">13</a>
+Settlement work, <a href="#325">325</a>;
+  Seneca, <a href="#53">53</a>
+Siena, <a href="#23">23</a>
+Sigbart, <a href="#47">47</a>
+Simon de Montfort, <a href="#361">361</a>
+Social unrest, <a href="#124">124</a>
+Sorbonne,  Robert, <a href="#53">53</a>
+Sordello, <a href="#10">10</a>
+St. Bonaventure, <a href="#2">2</a>, <a href="#203">203</a>;
+  Clare, <a href="#2">2</a>, <a href="#320">320</a>;
+  Dominic, <a href="#267">267</a>;
+  Edmund, <a href="#72">72</a>, <a href="#327">327</a>;
+  Elizabeth, <a href="#320">320</a>, <a href="#325">325</a>;
+  Ferdinand, <a href="#15">15</a>;
+  Hugh, <a href="#2">2</a>, <a href="#96">96</a>;
+  Thomas, <a href="#203">203</a>
+
+St. Gall, <a href="#69">69</a>
+St. John,  Lateran, <a href="#121">121</a>
+St. Mary's Abbey, <a href="#121">121</a>
+St. Paul's,  Rome, <a href="#121">121</a>
+St. Victor,  Adam and Hugh of, <a href="#204">204</a>
+Stabat Mater, <a href="#200">200</a>;
+  translations, <a href="#201">201</a>
+Stained Glass, <a href="#14">14</a>;
+  Lincoln, <a href="#109">109</a>;
+  York, <a href="#110">110</a>
+Stevenson,  R. M., <a href="#99">99</a>
+Storrs on Crusades, <a href="#388">388</a>
+Stubbs on Crusades, <a href="#298">298</a>
+Students,  Support of, <a href="#65">65</a>
+Studies, <a href="#33">33</a>
+Studium generale, <a href="#21">21</a>
+Symbolism, <a href="#117">117</a>
+Systematizing thought, <a href="#80">80</a>
+
+
+T.
+
+Tarragona, <a href="#101">101</a>
+Tartars,  Book of, <a href="#402">402</a>
+Tasso and Nibelungen, <a href="#179">179</a>
+Taste,  Popular, <a href="#112">112</a>
+Tate, <a href="#52">52</a>
+Taxation and representation, <a href="#336">336</a>;
+  no,  without representation, <a href="#374">374</a>
+"The Three Eights, "<a href="#379">379</a>
+Thibet, <a href="#410">410</a>
+Thomas,  St.,  See Aquinas
+Thule, <a href="#51">51</a>
+Toledo, <a href="#101">101</a>
+Toulouse, <a href="#24">24</a>
+Towns and cathedrals, <a href="#9">9</a>
+Trade facilities, <a href="#415">415</a>
+Travel,  medieval, <a href="#394">394</a>
+Troubadours, <a href="#190">190</a>
+Trouvères, <a href="#10">10</a>
+Turner, <a href="#35">35</a>, <a href="#145">145</a>
+Training intellect
+
+<a name="490">{490}</a>
+
+U.
+
+Ungreek,  only thing, <a href="#99">99</a>
+Universitas, <a href="#21">21</a>
+University,  Bologna, <a href="#19">19</a>, <a href="#58">58</a>;
+  foundation, <a href="#18">18</a>;
+  Orleans, <a href="#19">19</a>;
+  Oxford, <a href="#58">58</a>;
+  Paris, <a href="#18">18</a>, <a href="#58">58</a>;
+  Salernum, <a href="#20">20</a>;
+  roughness, <a href="#73">73</a>
+
+
+V.
+
+Vehmgerichte, <a href="#368">368</a>
+Vercelli, <a href="#23">23</a>
+Vicenza, <a href="#23">23</a>
+Vienna Cathedral, <a href="#168">168</a>
+Vigilance committees, <a href="#368">368</a>
+Vigils,  holidays, <a href="#379">379</a>
+Villehardouin, <a href="#224">224</a>;
+  and Xenophon, <a href="#225">225</a>
+Vincent of Beauvais, <a href="#231">231</a>;
+  and historical writers, <a href="#231">231</a>;
+  methods, <a href="#232">232</a>;
+  style, <a href="#233">233</a>
+Virchow and evolution, <a href="#3">3</a>;
+  on hospitals, <a href="#338">338</a>;
+  on Pope Innocent, <a href="#342">342</a>
+Vocation for women, <a href="#322">322</a>
+Vogelweide, <a href="#185">185</a>
+Voragine,  Jacobus de, <a href="#213">213</a>
+
+
+W.
+
+Wandering students, <a href="#57">57</a>
+Wanderjahre, <a href="#135">135</a>
+Water cure, <a href="#427">427</a>
+Wernher, <a href="#187">187</a>
+Whewell, <a href="#45">45</a>
+Widows,  Magna Charta, <a href="#354">354</a>
+William of Rubruk, <a href="#403">403</a>
+William of Salicet, <a href="#83">83</a>
+William of St. Gregory, <a href="#192">192</a>
+Wolfram von Eschenbach, <a href="#187">187</a>
+Women,  in hospitals, <a href="#328">328</a>;
+  in literature, <a href="#335">335</a>;
+  occupations, <a href="#329">329</a>;
+  position, <a href="#334">334</a>
+Working students, <a href="#60">60</a>
+Wounds of neck, <a href="#86">86</a>
+
+
+X.
+
+Xenophon,  and Villehardouin, <a href="#225">225</a>
+
+
+Y.
+
+Yeats, <a href="#113">113</a>
+Yule,  Colonel, <a href="#401">401</a>;
+  on Odoric, <a href="#411">411</a>;
+  on Rubruquis, <a href="#407">407</a>
+
+
+Z.
+
+Zimmern,  Miss,  on Hansa, <a href="#415">415</a>;
+  on medieval initiations, <a href="#425">425</a>
+
+</pre>
+
+<p>
+[End text; advertisements]
+</p>
+
+<h2>Books by Dr. Walsh</h2>
+<hr>
+<p>
+Dear Dr. Walsh:
+<br><br>
+I beg to thank you for your interesting letter enclosing syllabus
+of Advent Lectures and circular of your latest work. The highest
+value attaches to historical research on the lines you so ably indicate,
+especially at the present time,  when the enemies of Holy
+Church are making renewed efforts to show her antagonism to
+science and human progress generally. I shall have much pleasure
+in perusing your work entitled "The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries."
+</p>
+<p>
+Wishing you every blessing,  I am,  Yours sincerely in Xt.,
+Rome,  January 18th,  1908. R. Card. MERRY DEL VAL.
+</p>
+<hr>
+
+<h2><i>Fordham University Press Series</i>
+<br><br>
+MAKERS OF MODERN MEDICINE</h2>
+<p class="cite">
+  A series of Biographies
+of the men to whom we owe the important advances
+in the development of modern medicine. By
+James J. Walsh,  M. D.,  Ph. D.,  LL.D.,  Dean and Professor
+of the History of Medicine at Fordham University
+School of Medicine,  N. Y. Third Edition,
+1914,  442 pp. Price,  $3.00 net.
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>The London Lancet</i> said: "The list is well chosen,  and we
+have to express gratitude for so convenient and agreeable a collection
+of biographies,  for which we might otherwise have to search
+through many scattered books. The sketches are pleasantly written,
+interesting,  and well adapted to convey the thoughtful members
+of our profession just the amount of historical knowledge
+that they would wish to obtain. We hope that the book will find
+many readers."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>The New York Times</i>: "The book is intended primarily for
+students of medicine,  but laymen will find it not a little interesting."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>Il Morgagni</i> (Italy): "Professor Walsh narrates important
+lives in modern medicine with an easy style that makes his book
+delightful reading. It certainly will give the young physician an
+excellent idea of who made our modern medicine."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>The Church Standard</i> (Protestant Episcopal): "There is
+perhaps no profession in which the lives of its leaders would make
+more fascinating reading than that of medicine,  and Dr. Walsh by
+his clever style and sympathetic treatment by no means mars the
+interest which we might thus expect."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>The New York Medical Journal</i>: "We welcome works of this
+kind; they are evidence of the growth of culture within the medical
+profession,  which betokens that the time has come when our
+teachers have the leisure to look backward to what has been
+accomplished."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>Science</i>: "The sketches are extremely entertaining and useful.
+Perhaps the most striking thing is that everyone of the men
+described was of the Catholic faith,  and the dominant idea is that
+great scientific work is not incompatible with devout adherence to
+the tenets of the Catholic religion."
+</p>
+
+<br>
+<h2>MAKERS OF ELECTRICITY</h2>
+<p class="cite">
+  By Brother Potamian,  F. S. C,  Sc. D. (London),  Professor
+  of Physics in Manhattan College,  and James J. Walsh,  M.
+  D.,  Ph. D.,  Litt. D.,  Dean and Professor of the History of
+  Medicine and of Nervous Diseases at Fordham University
+  School of Medicine,  New York. Fordham University Press,
+  110 West 74th Street. Illustrated Price,  $2.50 net.
+  Postage,  15 Cents Extra.
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>The Scientific American</i>: "One will find in this book very
+good sketches of the lives of the great pioneers in Electricity,  with a
+clear presentation of how it was that these men came to make their
+fundamental experiments,  and how we now reach conclusions in
+Science that would have been impossible until their work of revealing
+was done. The biographies are those of Peregrinus,  Columbus,
+Norman and Gilbert,  Franklin and some contemporaries,  Galvini,
+Volta,  Coulomb,  Oersted,  Ampere,  Ohm,  Faraday,  Clerk Maxwell,
+and Kelvin."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>The Boston Globe</i>: "The book is of surpassing interest."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>The New York Sun</i>: "The researches of Brother Potamian
+among the pioneers in antiquity and the Middle Ages are perhaps
+more interesting than Dr. Walsh's admirable summaries of the
+accomplishment of the heroes of modern science. The book testifies
+to the excellence of Catholic scholarship."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>The Evening Post</i>: "It is a matter of importance that the work
+and lives of men like Gilbert,  Franklin,  Galvini,  Volta,  Ampere and
+others should be made known to the students of Electricity,  and this
+office has been well fulfilled by the present authors. The book is no
+mere compilation,  but brings out many interesting and obscure facts,
+especially about the earlier men."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>The Philadelphia Record</i>: "It is a glance at the whole field of
+Electricity by men who are noted for the thoroughness of their
+research,  and it should be made accessible to every reader capable
+of taking a serious interest in the wonderful phenomena of nature."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>Electrical World</i>: "Aside from the intrinsic interest of its
+matter,  the book is delightful to read owing to the graceful literary
+style common to both authors. One not having the slightest
+acquaintance with electrical science will find the book of absorbing
+interest as treating in a human way and with literary art the life
+work of some of the greatest men of modern times; and,  moreover,
+in the course of his reading he will incidentally obtain a sound
+knowledge of the main principles upon which almost all present-day
+electrical development is based. It is a shining example of how
+science can be popularized without the slightest twisting of facts or
+distortion of perspective. Electrical readers will find the book also
+a scholarly treatise on the evolution of electrical science,  and a
+most refreshing change from the "Engineering English" of the
+typical technical writer."
+</p>
+
+<br>
+<h2>EDUCATION,  HOW OLD THE NEW</h2>
+<p class="cite">
+  A Series of Lectures and Addresses on Phases of Education in the
+  Past Which Anticipate Most of Our Modern Advances,  by James J.
+  Walsh,  M. D.,  Ph. D.,  Litt. D.,  K. C. St. G. Dean and Professor of
+  the History of Medicine and of Nervous Diseases at Fordham
+  University School of Medicine. Fordham University Press,  1910. 470
+  pp. Price,  $2.50 net. Postage,  15 Cents Extra.
+
+</p>
+<p>
+Cardinal Moran (Sydney,  Australia): "I have to thank you for the
+excellent volume Education How Old the New. The lectures are
+admirable,  just the sort of reading we want for English readers of the
+present day."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>New York Sun</i>: "It is all bright and witty and based on deep
+erudition."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>The North American</i> (Phila.): "Wide historical research,  clear
+graphic statement are salient elements of this interesting and
+suggestive addition to the modern welter of educational literature."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>Detroit Free Press</i>: "Full of interesting facts and parallels drawn
+from them that afford much material for reflection."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>Chicago Inter-Ocean</i>: "Incidentally it does away with a number of
+popular misconceptions as to education in the Middle Ages and as to
+education in the Latin-American countries at a somewhat later time.
+The book is written in a straight unpretentious and interesting
+style."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>Wilkes-Barre Record</i>: "The volume is most interesting and shows deep
+research bearing the marks of the indefatigable student."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>Pittsburg Post</i>: "There is no bitterness of controversy and one of
+the first things to strike the reader is that the dean of Fordham
+quotes from nearly everybody worth while,  Protestant or Catholic,
+poetry,  biography,  history,  science or what not."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>The Wall Street News</i> (N. Y.): "The book is calculated to cause a
+healthy reduction in the conceit which each generation enjoys at the
+expense of that which preceded it."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>Rochester Post Express</i>: "The book is well worth reading."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>The New Orleans Democrat</i>: "The book makes very interesting reading,
+but there is a succession of shocks in store in it for the complacent
+New Englander or Bostonian and for the orthodox or perfunctory reader
+of American literature."
+</p>
+<br>
+
+<h2>OLD TIME MAKERS OF MEDICINE</h2>
+<p class="cite">
+  The Story of the Medical Sciences during the Middle Ages. By James
+  J. Walsh,  K. C. St,  G.,  M. D.,  Ph. D. Dean and Professor of the
+  History of Medicine and of Nervous Diseases at Fordham University
+  School of Medicine. Fordham University Press,  1911. Price,  $2.50
+  net. Postage,  15 cents.
+</p>
+<p>
+What we now know of art,  architecture,  literature,  the arts and crafts
+in the Middle Ages has almost won for them the name of the Bright Ages
+instead of the Dark Ages. There seems just one dark spot&mdash;the neglect
+of science. This book removes that. It tells the story of medieval
+medical education with higher standards than ours,  of medieval surgery
+with anaesthesia and antisepsis,  with beautiful hospitals and fine
+nursing,  and of medieval dentistry with gold fillings and bridgework.
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>The Lancet</i> (London): "We have said enough to whet the appetite of
+all interested in the history of the early makers of medicine. We
+cordially commend the perusal of this fascinating volume,  which shows
+how much was accomplished in every department of intellectual effort
+in what is usually regarded as the unprogressive,  stagnant,  dark
+period of the Middle Ages."
+</p>
+<p>
+<i>The New York World</i> said: "As in Dr. Walsh's 'Thirteenth The Greatest
+of Centuries' he carries amazement with his revelations of how old are
+many things we call new."
+</p>
+<br>
+
+<h2>MODERN PROGRESS AND HISTORY:</h2>
+<p class="cite">
+  Lectures on various academic occasions by James J. Walsh,  M. D.,  Ph.
+  D.,  K. C. St. G.,  Litt,  D.,  Sc. D. Dean and Professor of The History
+  of Medicine and of Functional Nervous Diseases at Fordham University
+  School of Medicine,  Fordham University Press,  1912. Pp. 450 Twelve
+  illustrations. Price,  $2.50 net. Postage,  15 cents.
+</p>
+<p>
+Though delivered on various occasions,  these lectures are all on the
+theme that our modern progress is but a repetition of previous phases
+of human accomplishment and that whenever men faced certain problems
+they solved them as well at any time in history as they do now.
+Educational problems are shown to have been the same in Greece and
+Rome as in our own time. Old time prescriptions in medicine are
+strangely like many that we have now. Old time dentists filled teeth
+with gold and tin,  did fine bridgework,  invented movable dentures,
+transplanted teeth successfully and anticipated our dental progress.
+Pronunciation,  Old and New,  shows that the Irish brogue is
+Shakespeare's pronunciation while The Women of Two Republics
+demonstrates how old are our political problems,  even suffragettism.
+"The book is disillusioning,  but marvelously illuminating."
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Thirteenth, by James J. Walsh
+
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+</body>
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+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,21877 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Thirteenth, by James J. Walsh
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Thirteenth
+       Greatest of Centuries
+
+Author: James J. Walsh
+
+Release Date: January 27, 2012 [EBook #38680]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THIRTEENTH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Kostuch
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's notes]
+  This is derived from these copies on the Internet Archive:
+   http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029759630  (1920)
+   http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014712875  (1907)
+  The two editions are combined because of missing pages in
+  one and missing images in the other.
+
+  Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly
+  braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred
+  in the original book.
+
+  Obvious spelling errors have been corrected but "inventive" and
+  inconsistent spelling is left unchanged.
+
+[End Transcriber's notes]
+
+
+
+
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+
+
+FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS SERIES
+
+MAKERS OF MODERN MEDICINE
+Lives of the men to whom nineteenth century medical science owes most.
+Second Edition. New York, 1910. $3.00 net.
+
+THE POPES AND SCIENCE
+The story of Papal patronage of the sciences and especially
+medicine. 45th thousand. New York, 1911. $3.00 net.
+
+MAKERS OF ELECTRICITY
+Lives of the men to whom important advances in electricity are due. In
+collaboration with Brother Potamian, F. S. C, Sc.D. (London),
+Professor of Physics at Manhattan College. New York, 1909. $2.50 net.
+
+EDUCATION, HOW OLD THE NEW
+Addresses in the history of education on various occasions.
+3rd thousand. New York, 1911. $2.50 net.
+
+OLD-TIME MAKERS OF MEDICINE
+The story of the students and teachers of the sciences related to
+medicine during the Middle Ages. New York, 1911, $2.50 net.
+
+MODERN PROGRESS AND HISTORY.
+Academic addresses on how old the new is in Education, Medicine,
+Dentistry, Politics, etc. New York, 1912. $2.50 act.
+
+THE CENTURY OF COLUMBUS
+The story of the Renaissance $3.50 net.
+
+
+THE DOLPHIN PRESS SERIES
+
+CATHOLIC CHURCHMEN IN SCIENCE
+First, second and third series, each $1.00 net.
+
+
+PSYCHOTHERAPY
+
+Lectures on The Influence of the Mind on the Body delivered at Fordham
+University School of Medicine. Appletons, New York, 1912. $6.50 net.
+
+{i}
+
+{ii}
+
+[Illustration]
+LE BEAU DIEU (AMIENS)
+
+{iii}
+
+THE THIRTEENTH
+
+Greatest of Centuries
+
+
+
+BY
+
+JAMES J. WALSH, K.C.St.G., M.D., Ph.D., LL.D,
+
+LITT. D. (Georgetown), Sc.D. (Notre Dame)
+
+MEDICAL DIRECTOR, SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY;
+PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY AT CATHEDRAL COLLEGE,
+NEW YORK; LECTURER IN PSYCHOLOGY, MARYWOOD COLLEGE,
+SCRANTON AND ST. MARY'S COLLEGE, PLAINFIELD;
+TRUSTEE OF THE CATHOLIC SUMMER SCHOOL OF AMERICA;
+MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE, OF THE GERMAN
+AND FRENCH AND ITALIAN SOCIETIES OF THE HISTORY OF
+MEDICINE, A.M.A., A.A.A.S., ETC.
+
+
+
+_Popular Edition_
+
+_ (Sixtieth Thousand)_
+
+
+
+CATHOLIC SUMMER SCHOOL PRESS
+New York, 1920
+
+{iv}
+
+_ Copyright 1907_
+James J. Walsh
+
+
+
+Set up and stereotyped 1907 (first edition 2,000)
+
+Reprinted with Appendix 1909
+
+Georgetown edition enlarged and extra illustrated 1910
+
+Fourth edition reprinted with additions (6th thousand) 1912
+
+Fifth edition, Knights of Columbus, 50,000, 1912-1913.
+
+
+
+Made by
+
+THE SUPERIOR PRINTING CO
+
+AKRON, OHIO
+
+{v}
+
+To Right Rev. Monsignor M. J. Lavelle,
+
+Rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, sometime President of the
+Catholic Summer School, to whose fatherly patronage this book is
+largely due, and without whose constant encouragement it would not
+have been completed, it is respectfully and affectionately dedicated
+by the author.
+
+{vi}
+
+PROEM.
+
+(EPIMETHEUS.)
+
+  WAKE again, Teutonic Father-ages,
+    Speak again, beloved primeval creeds;
+  Flash ancestral spirit from your pages,
+    Wake the greedy age to noble deeds.
+
+.....
+
+  Ye who built the churches where we worship,
+    Ye who framed the laws by which we move,
+  Fathers, long belied, and long forsaken,
+    Oh, forgive the children of your love!
+
+(PEOMETHEUS.)
+
+  There will we find laws which shall interpret,
+    Through the simpler past, existing life;
+  Delving up from mines and fairy caverns
+    Charmed blades to cut the age's strife.
+
+  _--Rev. Charles Kingsley.--The Saints' Tragedy._
+
+
+{vii}
+
+PREFACE.
+
+"Why take the style of these heroic times? For nature brings not back
+the mastodon--Nor we those times; and why should any man Remodel
+models?"
+
+
+What Tennyson thus said of his own first essay in the Idyls of the
+King, in the introduction to the Morte D'Arthur, occurs as probably
+the aptest expression of most men's immediate thought with regard to
+such a subject as The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries. Though
+Tennyson was confessedly only remodeling the thoughts of the
+Thirteenth Century, we would not be willing to concede--
+
+  "That nothing new was said, or else.
+  Something so said, 'twas nothing,"
+
+for the loss of the Idyls would make a large lacuna in the literature
+of the Nineteenth Century, "if it is allowed to compare little things
+with great," a similar intent to that of the Laureate has seemed
+sufficient justification for the paradox the author has tried to set
+forth in this volume. It may prove "nothing worth, mere chaff and
+draff much better burnt," but many friends have insisted they found it
+interesting. Authors usually blame friends for their inflictions upon
+the public, and I fear that I can find no better excuse, though the
+book has been patiently labored at, with the idea that it should
+represent some of the serious work that is being done by the Catholic
+Summer School on Lake Champlain, {viii} now completing nearly a decade
+and a half of its existence. This volume is, it is hoped, but the
+first of a series that will bring to a wider audience some of the
+thoughts that have been gathered for Summer School friends by many
+workers, and will put in more permanent form contributions that made
+summer leisure respond to the Greek term for school.
+
+The object of the book is to interpret, in terms that will be readily
+intelligible to this generation, the life and concerns of the people
+of a century who, to the author's mind, have done more for human
+progress than those of any like period in human history. There are few
+whose eyes are now holden as they used to be, as to the surpassing
+place in the history of culture of the last three centuries of the
+Middle Ages. Personally the author is convinced, however, that only a
+beginning of proper appreciation has come as yet, and he feels that
+the solution of many problems that are vexing the modern world,
+especially in the social order, are to be found in these much
+misunderstood ages, and above all in that culmination of medieval
+progress--the period from 1200 to 1300.
+
+The subject was originally taken up as a series of lectures in the
+extension course of the Catholic Summer School, as given each year in
+Lent and Advent at the Catholic Club, New York City. Portions of the
+material were subsequently used in lectures in many cities in this
+country from Portland, Me., to Portland, Ore., St. Paul, Minn., to New
+Orleans, La. The subject was treated _in extenso_ for the Brooklyn
+Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1906, after which publication was
+suggested.
+
+The author does not flatter himself that the book adequately
+represents the great period which it claims to present. The subject
+has been the central idea of studies in leisure moments for a dozen
+years, and during many wanderings in Europe but there will doubtless
+prove to be errors in detail, for which the author would crave the
+indulgence of more serious students {ix} of history. The original form
+in which the material was cast has influenced the style to some
+extent, and has made the book more wordy than it would otherwise have
+been, and has been the cause of certain repetitions that appear more
+striking in print than they seemed in manuscript. There were what
+seemed good reasons for not delaying publication, however, and leisure
+for further work at it, instead of growing, was becoming more scant.
+It is intrusted to the tender mercies of critics, then, and the
+benevolent reader, if he still may be appealed to, for the sake of the
+ideas it contains, in spite of their inadequate expression.
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+(GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY EDITION).
+
+This third edition is published under the patronage of Georgetown
+University as a slight token of appreciation for the degree of Doctor
+of Letters, conferred on the author for this work at the last
+Commencement. This issue has been enlarged by the addition of many
+illustrations selected to bring out the fact that all the various
+parts of Europe shared in the achievements of the time and by an
+appendix containing in compendium Twenty-Six Chapters that Might Have
+Been. Each of these brief sketches could easily have been extended to
+the average length of the original chapters. It was impossible to use
+all the material that was gathered. These hints of further sources are
+now appended so as to afford suggestions for study to those who may
+care to follow up the idea of the Thirteenth as The Greatest of
+Centuries, that is, of that period in human existence when man's
+thoughts on all the important human interests were profoundly valuable
+for future generations and their accomplishments models for all the
+after time.
+
+{x}
+
+PREFACE.
+(FOURTH EDITION).
+
+Many of the now rather numerous readers and hearers of this book, for
+it has been read in the refectories of over 200 religious communities,
+have said that the title seemed almost deterring at first because of
+the high claim that is set up for a medieval century. To mitigate the
+possible initial deterrent effect of the paradox of the Thirteenth as
+the Greatest of Centuries, it has seemed worth while in this edition
+then to premise a series of quotations from some of the most
+distinguished historical writers in English of our own time which
+amply justify the claim here set up. Frederic Harrison, Macaulay,
+Freeman, and Fiske are sufficiently different in themselves to make
+their agreement in supreme admiration for the Thirteenth Century very
+striking. In spite of their lack of sympathy with many things in the
+period, all of them emphatically declare that it is the source of most
+that is great and good since, and that while we have added details, we
+have failed to surpass its artistic and intellectual achievement in
+all the 700 years that have elapsed.
+
+August 15, 1912.
+
+
+PREFACE.
+(FIFTH EDITION).
+
+After the success of the Knights of Columbus edition of the Popes and
+Science of which 40,000 were issued it gives me great pleasure to
+accede to the request of the Supreme Officers of the Order to permit
+them to issue a correspondingly large edition of the present volume.
+The good work which the Knights of Columbus have thus done in
+diffusing a knowledge of the true relations of the Church to
+science,--generous patronage and encouragement, instead of supposed
+opposition,--will, I think, be greatly furthered by the wide
+distribution of the information contained in this volume with regard
+to the supremely helpful attitude of the Church towards art and
+architecture, literature, education and above all the important social
+problems, which is so well illustrated during the great period of the
+Thirteenth Century. I sincerely hope that brother Knights of Columbus
+will find in the book some of that renewal of devotion to Mother
+Church that came as the result of my own studies of this glorious
+period of her history, when her action was untrammelled by political
+considerations and when she was free to express herself in every great
+movement for the benefit of humanity.
+
+Feast of the Immaculate Conception, 1912.
+
+{xi}
+
+  FREDERIC HARRISON, MACAULAY,
+  FREEMAN, AND FISKE
+
+ON
+
+THE PLACE OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY IN HISTORY
+
+
+Of all the epochs of effort after a new life, that of the age of
+Aquinas, Roger Bacon, St. Francis, St. Louis, Giotto, and Dante is the
+most purely spiritual, the most really constructive, and indeed the
+most truly philosophic. . . . The whole thirteenth century is crowded
+with creative forces in philosophy, art, poetry, and statesmanship as
+rich as those of the humanist _Renaissance_. And if we are accustomed
+to look on them as so much more limited and rude it is because we
+forget how very few and poor were their resources and their
+instruments. In creative genius Giotto is the peer, if not the
+superior of Raphael. Dante had all the qualities of his three chief
+successors and very much more besides. It is a tenable view that in
+inventive fertility and in imaginative range, those vast composite
+creations--the Cathedrals of the Thirteenth Century, in all their
+wealth of architectural statuary, painted glass, enamels,
+embroideries, and inexhaustible decorative work may be set beside the
+entire painting of the sixteenth century. Albert and Aquinas, in
+philosophic range, had no peer until we come down to Descartes, nor
+was Roger Bacon surpassed in versatile audacity of genius and in true
+encyclopaedic grasp by any thinker between him and his namesake the
+Chancellor. In statesmanship and all the qualities of the born leader
+of men we can only match the great chiefs of the Thirteenth Century by
+comparing them with the greatest names three or even four centuries
+later.
+
+Now this great century, the last of the true Middle Ages, which as it
+drew to its own end gave birth to Modern Society, has a special
+character of its own, a character that gives it an abiding and
+enchanting interest. We find in it a harmony of power, a universality
+of endowment, a glow, an aspiring ambition and confidence such as we
+never find in later centuries, at least so generally and so
+permanently diffused. . . .
+
+The Thirteenth Century was an era of no special character. It was in
+nothing one-sided and in nothing discordant. It had great thinkers,
+great rulers, great teachers, great poets, {xii} great artists, great
+moralists, and great workmen. It could not be called the material age,
+the devotional age, the political age, or the poetic age in any
+special degree. It was equally poetic, political, industrial,
+artistic, practical, intellectual, and devotional. And these qualities
+acted in harmony on a uniform conception of life with a real symmetry
+of purpose.
+
+There was one common creed, one ritual, one worship, one sacred
+language, one Church, a single code of manners, a uniform scheme of
+society, a common system of education, an accepted type of beauty, a
+universal art, something like a recognized standard of the Good, the
+Beautiful, and the True. One-half of the world was not occupied in
+ridiculing or combating what the other half was doing. Nor were men
+absorbed in ideals of their own, while treating the ideals of their
+neighbors as matters of indifference and waste of power. Men as
+utterly different from each other, as were Stephen Langton, St.
+Francis, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Dante, Giotto, St. Louis, Edward
+I--all profoundly accepted one common order of ideas, equally applying
+to things of the intellect, of moral duty, of action, and of the
+soul--to public and private life at once--and they could all feel that
+they were all together working out the same task. It may be doubted if
+that has happened in Europe ever since.--Frederic Harrison, _A Survey
+of the Thirteenth Century in the Meaning of History and Other
+Historical Pieces_. Macmillan, 1908.
+
+* * *
+
+The sources of the noblest rivers which spread fertility over
+continents, and bear richly laden fleets to the sea, are to be sought
+in wild and barren mountain tracts, incorrectly laid down in maps, and
+rarely explored by travellers. To such a tract the history of our
+country during the Thirteenth Century may not unaptly be compared.
+Sterile and obscure as is that portion of our annals, it is there that
+we must seek for the origin of our freedom, our prosperity, and our
+glory. Then it was that the great English people was formed, that the
+national character began to exhibit those peculiarities which it has
+ever since retained, and that our fathers became emphatically
+islanders, islanders not merely in geographical position, but in their
+politics, their feelings, and their manners. Then first appeared with
+distinctness that constitution which has ever since, through all
+changes, preserved its identity; that constitution of which all the
+other free constitutions in the world are copies, and which, in spite
+of some defects, deserves to be regarded as the best under which any
+great {xiii} society has ever yet existed during many ages. Then it
+was that the House of Commons, the archetype of all the representative
+assemblies which now meet, either in the old or in the new world, held
+its first sittings. Then it was that the common law rose to the
+dignity of a science, and rapidly became a not unworthy rival of the
+imperial jurisprudence. Then it was that the courage of those sailors
+who manned the rude barks of the Cinque Ports first made the flag of
+England terrible on the seas. Then it was that the most ancient
+colleges which still exist at both the great national seats of
+learning were founded. Then was formed that language, less musical
+indeed than the languages of the south, but in force, in richness, in
+aptitude for all the highest purposes of the poet, the philosopher,
+and the orator, inferior to the tongue of Greece alone. Then too
+appeared the first faint dawn of that noble literature, the most
+splendid and the most durable of the many glories of
+England.--Macaulay.
+
+* * *
+
+This time of fusion during which all direct traces of foreign conquest
+were got rid of, was naturally the time during which the political and
+social institutions of the country gradually took on that form which
+distinguishes modern England, the England of the last 600 years from
+the older England of the first 600 years of English history. ... By
+the time of Edward I, though the English tongue had not yet finally
+displaced French, it had assumed the main characters which
+distinguished its modern from its ancient form. In architecture a
+great change had taken place, by which the Romanesque style gave way
+to the so-called Gothic. The subordinate arts had taken prodigious
+strides. The sculpture of the thirteenth century is parted from that
+of the twelfth by a wider gap than any that parts these centuries, in
+law or language. _And in the root of the matter in our law and
+constitution itself those changes have been made which wrought the
+body politic of England into a shape which has left future ages
+nothing to do but to improve in detail_. (Italics ours.)
+
+In short the great destructive and creative age of Europe and
+civilized Asia passed over England as it passed over other lands. The
+age which saw the Eastern Empire fall beneath the arms of the Frank
+and the Eastern Caliphate before the arms of the Mogul--the age which
+saw the true power and glory of the Western Empire buried in the grave
+of the Wonder of the World--the age which ruled that the warriors of
+the Cross should work their will in Spain and in Prussia {xiv} and
+should not work their Will in the Holy Land itself--the age which made
+Venice mistress of the Eastern seas, and bade Florence stand forth as
+the new type of democratic freedom--the age which changed the nominal
+kingship of the Lord of Paris and Orleans into the mighty realm of
+Philip Augustus and Philip the Fair--this age of wonders did its work
+of wonder in England also.--Freeman, _The Norman Conquest_, Vol. V,
+page 606. Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1876.
+
+* * *
+
+The moment when this interaction might have seemed on the point of
+reaching a complete and harmonious result was the glorious thirteenth
+century, the culminating moment of the Holy Roman Empire. Then, as in
+the times of Caesar or Trajan, there might have seemed to be a union
+among civilized men, in which the separate life of individuals and
+localities was not submerged. In that golden age, alike of feudal
+system of empire and of Church, there were to be seen the greatest
+monarchs, in fullest sympathy with their peoples, that Christendom has
+ever known--an Edward I, a St. Louis, a Frederick II. Then when in the
+Pontificates of Innocent III and his successors the Roman Church
+reached its apogee, the religious yearning of men sought expressions
+in the sublimest architecture the world has seen. Then Aquinas summed
+up in his profound speculations the substance of Catholic theology,
+and while the morning twilight of modern science might be discerned in
+the treatises of Roger Bacon, while wandering minstrelsy revealed the
+treasures of modern speech, soon to be wrought under the hands of
+Dante and Chaucer into forms of exquisite beauty, the sacred fervor of
+the apostolic ages found itself renewed in the tender and mystic piety
+of St. Francis of Assisi. It was a wonderful time, but after all less
+memorable as the culmination of medieval empire and medieval church
+than as the dawning of the new era in which we live to-day.
+
+* * *
+
+While wave after wave of Germanic colonization poured over Romanized
+Europe, breaking down old boundary lines and working sudden and
+astonishing changes on the map, setting up in every quarter baronies,
+dukedoms, and kingdoms fermenting with vigorous political life; while
+for twenty generations this salutary but wild and dangerous work was
+going on, there was never a moment when the imperial sway of {xv} Rome
+was quite set aside and forgotten, there was never a time when union
+of some sort was not maintained through the dominion which the Church
+had established over the European mind. When we duly consider this
+great fact in its relations to what went before and what came after,
+it is hard to find words fit to express the debt of gratitude which
+modern civilization owes to the Roman Catholic Church. When we think
+of all the work, big with promise of the future, that went on in those
+centuries which modern writers in their ignorance used once to set
+apart and stigmatize as the "Dark Ages"; when we consider how the
+seeds of what is noblest in modern life were then painfully sown upon
+the soil which Imperial Rome had prepared; when we think of the
+various work of a Gregory, a Benedict, a Boniface, an Alfred, a
+Charlemagne, we feel that there is a sense in which the most brilliant
+achievements of pagan antiquity are dwarfed in comparison with these.
+Until quite lately, indeed, the student of history has had his
+attention too narrowly confined to the ages that have been pre-eminent
+for literature and art--the so-called classical ages--and thus his
+sense of historical perspective has been impaired.--Fiske, _The
+Beginnings of New England, or The Puritan Theocracy in its Relations
+to Civil and Religions Liberty_.
+
+{xvi}
+
+{xvii}
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTION, THE THIRTEENTH, GREATEST OF CENTURIES.   1
+
+Deeds and men of a marvellous period. Evolution and man. No
+intellectual development in historical period. The wonderful medieval
+pre-renaissance. Our Gothic ancestors. Education for the classes and
+masses. Universities, cathedrals, arts, and crafts. Origins in art.
+Supreme literature in every language. Origins in law and liberty.
+Beginnings of modern democracy.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+UNIVERSITIES AND PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.    18
+
+Origins of universities. Triumph of invention. Character unchanged
+ever since. University evolution, Salerno, Bologna, Paris, Oxford,
+Cambridge, Italian, French and Spanish Universities. Origin of
+preparatory schools. Cathedral colleges. Decree of the Council of
+Lateran, every cathedral to have a school and metropolitan churches to
+have colleges. Attendance at these preparatory schools.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WHAT AND HOW THEY STUDIED AT THE UNIVERSITIES.   33
+
+Education of the Middle Ages usually ridiculed. Ignorance of critics.
+Scholastics laughed at by those only who know them, but at second
+hand. "Logic, ethics and metaphysics owe to scholasticism a precision,
+unknown to the ancients themselves" (Condorcet.) Teaching methods.
+Scholarly interests quite as in our own day. Magnetism in literature.
+A magnetic engine. Aquinas and the indestructibility of matter and the
+conservation of energy. Roger Bacon's four grounds of human ignorance.
+Prophecy of explosives for motor purposes. Correction of the calendar.
+Contributions to optics. Experiment as the basis of scientific
+knowledge. Whewell's appreciation. Albertus Magnus and the natural
+sciences Humboldt's praise for his physical geography. Contributions
+to botany. Declaration with regard to foolish popular notions. The
+{xviii} great group of scientific men at the University of Paris.
+Robert of Sorbonne's directions how to study. Education of the heart
+as well as the head.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS AND DISCIPLINE.   58
+
+Largest universities of all time. More students to the population than
+at any time since. Discussion as to the numbers in attendance.
+Comparative average ages of students. How such numbers were supported.
+Working their way through college. Some reasons for false impressions,
+as to university attendance. M. Compayre's paragraph on education in
+the Middle Ages. Supposed ignorance. The monks at the universities.
+How many students clerical. College abuses and discipline. The
+"nations," the under-graduate committee on discipline. Teaching
+practical democracy.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+POST-GRADUATE WORK AT THE UNIVERSITIES.   78
+
+Medieval universities and additions to knowledge. Original work done,
+their best apology. Extensive writings of professors. Enthusiasm of
+students who copied their books. Post-graduate work in theology and in
+philosophy. Period of the scholastics. Graduates in law and
+collections and digests. Post-graduate work in medicine most
+important. Teaching by case histories. The significance of dropsy,
+suture of divided nerves, healing by first intention. William of
+Salicet and his pupil Lanfranc. The danger of the separation of
+surgery from medicine. Red light and smallpox. Mondaville and Arnold
+of Villanova. The republication of old texts. The supposed bull
+forbidding anatomy. The supposed bull forbidding chemistry. The
+encouragement of science in the medieval universities.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE BOOK OF THE ARTS AND POPULAR EDUCATION.   96
+
+The Gothic Cathedrals, the stone books of medieval arts. St. Hugh of
+Lincoln. Wealth of meaning in the Cathedrals. Their power to please.
+Gothic architecture everywhere, but no slavish imitation. English,
+French, German, and Italian Gothic. Spanish Gothic. Gothic ideas in
+modern architecture. Beauty of details. Sculpture. Gothic Statuary,
+not stiff, nor ugly. Most affinity with Greek sculpture (Reinach). The
+Angel Choir at Lincoln. {xix} The marvellous stained glass of the
+period,--Lincoln, York, Chartres, Bourges. Storied windows and their
+teachings. Beauty and utility in the arts. Magnificent needlework, the
+Cope of Ascoli. The Cathedral as an educator. The Great Stone Book,
+which he who ran must read. Symbolism of the Cathedrals. The great
+abbeys, the monasteries, municipal and domestic architecture of the
+century. Furniture and decorations. Ruskin on Giotto's tower.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ARTS AND CRAFTS--GREAT TECHNICAL SCHOOLS.   124
+
+Solution of problems of social unrest. Blessed is the man who has
+found his work. Merrie England. The workman's pleasure in his work.
+Influence of the Church in the arts and crafts movement. Rivalry in
+building the Cathedrals. Organization of technical instruction.
+Correction of optical illusions. The village blacksmith and carpenter.
+Comparative perfection of the work done then and now. The trade guilds
+and the training of workmen. The system of instruction, apprentice,
+journeyman, master. The masterpiece. Social co-operation and
+fraternity. Mystery plays and social education.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+GREAT ORIGINS IN PAINTING.   138
+
+Rise of painting. Franciscans and Dominicans, patrons of art. St.
+Francis' return to nature, the incentive of art. Cimabue's Madonna.
+Gaddi. Guido, Ugolino and Duccio of Siena. Berlinghieri of Lucca,
+Giunta of Pisa. Giotto the master. His work at Assisi, Verona, Naples,
+Rome. Marvellous universal appreciation of art. Contrast with other
+times. False notions with regard to Gothic art. Sadness not a
+characteristic. The beauty of the human form divine.
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+LIBRARIES AND BOOKMEN.  149
+
+Monastic regulations for collecting and lending books. Library rules.
+Circulating libraries. The Abbey of St. Victor, the Sorbonne, St.
+Germain des Pres, and Notre Dame. Fines for misuse of books. Library
+catalogues. Library of La Ste. Chapelle. First medical library at the
+Hotel Dieu. How books were collected. Exchange of books. Special
+revenue for the libraries in the monasteries. Book collecting and
+bequests by ecclesiastics. Cost of books. Franciscan and Dominican
+libraries. Richard De Bury's {xx} Philobiblon. How books were valued.
+Richard a typical bookman. His place in history. Illuminated books.
+The most interesting and original of all time (Humphreys). St. Louis'
+beautiful books.
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE CID, THE HOLY GRAIL, THE NIBELUNGEN.   166
+
+Literature equal to accomplishment in other lines. Architecture and
+literature, and the expression of national feelings. National epics of
+three western-most nations informed within the same half century. The
+Cid, its unity of authorship and action. Martial interest and spirited
+style. Tender domestic scenes. Psychological analysis. Walter Mapes,
+and the Arthur Legends. Authorship and place in literature. Launcelot
+one of the greatest heroes ever invented. Unity of authorship of
+Nibelungen. Place in literature. Modern interest. Influence of these
+epics on national poetry.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MEISTERSINGERS, MINNESINGERS, TROUVERES, TROUBADOURS.   182
+
+A great century of song. The high character of women, as represented
+in these songs. Nature-poetry, and love. Walter Von der Vogelweide,
+Hartman Von Aue, Wolfram Von Eschenbach, Conrad Von Kirchberg. The
+Troubadours and their love songs. Selections from Arnaud de Marveil,
+Arnaud Daniel, Bertrand de Born, William of St. Gregory, and Peyrols.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+GREAT LATIN HYMNS.  194
+
+Greatest poetic bequest of the period. Place of rhyme in Latin. Latin
+hymns the first native poetry in the language. Influence of their
+charm of rhyme and rhythm on the developing languages of Europe.
+Supremacy of the Dies Irae, its many admirers. Other surpassing Latin
+Hymns. Celtic origin of rhyme. The Stabat Mater, some translations.
+Critical faculty in hymn selection. Jerusalem the Golden, its place in
+Christian song. Aquinas' hymn, the Pange Lingua, its popularity.
+Musical expression of feeling and plain chant. The best examples from
+this period. Invention of part music, its adaptation and development
+in popular music.
+
+{xxi}
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE THREE MOST READ BOOKS.  209
+
+A generation and the books it reads. Reynard the Fox, the Golden
+Legend, and the Romance of the Rose. "Reynard the most profoundly
+humorous book ever written." Powers of the author as observer. Besides
+Gulliver's Travels, Don Quixote and Pilgrim's Progress. Its relations
+to Uncle Remus and many other animal stories. The place of the Golden
+Legend in literature. Longfellow's use of it. The Romance of the Rose
+for three centuries the most read book in Europe. The answer to the
+charge of dullness. The Rose as a commentary on the morning paper. The
+abuse of wealth as the poet saw it in the Thirteenth Century. Praise
+of "poverty light heart and gay."
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+SOME THIRTEENTH CENTURY PROSE.   221
+
+Prose of the century as great as the poetry. Medieval Latin
+unappreciated but eminently expressive. The prose style, simple,
+direct and nicely accurate. Saintsbury's opinion as to the influence
+on modern literature of the scholastic philosophers' style. The
+chroniclers and the modern war correspondent. Villehardouin, Jocelyn
+of Brakelond, Joinville, Matthew of Paris. Vincent of Beauvais and the
+first encyclopedia. Pagel's opinion of Vincent's style. Durandus'
+famous work on symbolism. Examples of his style. The Scriptures as the
+basis of style.
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ORIGIN OF DRAMA.   238
+
+St. Francis and the first nativity play. Earlier mystery plays.
+Chester cycle. Humorous passages introduced. Complete bible story
+represented. Actors' wages and costumes. Innocent diversion and
+educational influence. Popular interest. Everyman in our own day.
+Comparison with the passion play at Oberammergau. The drama as an
+important factor in popular education. Active as well as passive
+participation in great poetry. Anticipation of a movement only just
+beginning again.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+FRANCIS, THE SAINT--THE FATHER OF THE RENAISSANCE.   254
+
+The Renaissance, so-called. Before the Renaissance. Gothic
+architecture and art. Francis the father of the real Renaissance.
+{xxii} Matthew Arnold and "the poor little man of God." St. Francis as
+a literary man. The canticle of the Sun. St. Francis' career. The
+simple life. Ruskin on Francis' poverty. St. Francis in the last ten
+years. The disciples who gathered around him. A century of
+Franciscans. The third order of St. Francis. Kings and queens, nobles
+and scholars hail St. Francis as father. What the religious orders
+accomplished. St. Clare and the second order.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+AQUINAS, THE SCHOLAR.   270
+
+The nobility and education. Studies at Cologne and Paris. The
+distinguished faculty of Paris in his time. _Summa Contra Gentiles_.
+Pope Leo XIII. and Aquinas' teaching. Foundations of Christian
+apologetics. Characteristic passages from Aquinas. Necessity for
+revelation of God's existence. Explanation of Resurrection. Liberty in
+Aquinas' writings. Greatness of Aquinas and his contemporaries and the
+subsequent decadence of scholasticism. Contemporary appreciation of
+St. Thomas. His capacity for work. His sacred poetry.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+LOUIS, THE MONARCH.   289
+
+The greatest of rulers. His relations as a son, as a husband, as a
+father. His passion for justice. Interest in education, in books, in
+the encyclopedia. Tribute of Voltaire. Guizot's praise. The righting
+of wrongs. Letters to his son. Affection for his children. Regard for
+monks. Would have his children enter monasteries. Treatment of the
+poor. Attitude towards lepers. One of nature's noblemen. Louis and the
+crusades. Bishop Stubbs, on the real meaning of the crusades. Louis'
+interest in the crusades not a stigma, but an added reason for praise.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+DANTE, THE POET.   300
+
+Dante not a solitary phenomenon. A Troubadour. His minor poems and
+prose works. His wonderful Sonnets. The growth of appreciation for
+him. Italian art, great as it kept nearer to Dante. Tributes from
+Italy's' greatest literary men. Michael Angelo's sonnets to him. A
+world poet. English admiration old and new. Tributes of the two great
+English Cardinals. Dean Church's Essay. Ruskin on the Grotesque on
+{xxiii} Dante. German critical appreciation. Humboldt's tribute.
+America's burden of praise. Dante and the modern thinker. His
+wonderful powers of observation. Comparison with Milton. His place as
+one of the supreme poets of all times. A type of the century.
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE WOMEN OF THE CENTURY.  319
+
+Women of the century worthy of the great period. St. Clare of Assisi's
+place in history. Happiness. The supper at the Portiuncula. Peace, in
+the cloister and woman's influence. Equality of sexes in the religious
+orders. St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the first settlement worker. "Dear
+St. Elizabeth's" influence on women since her time. Blanche of Castile
+as Queen and mother. Her influence as a ruler. Difficulties with her
+daughter-in-law. Mabel Rich, the London tradesman's wife, and her
+sons. Isabella Countess of Arundel and courageous womanly dignity.
+Women's work in the century. Service of the sick. Co-education in
+Italy. Reason for absence in France and England. Women professors at
+Italian universities. Feminine education four times in history.
+Reasons for decline. Women in the literature of the century. The high
+place accorded them by the poets of every country. Dante's tribute to
+their charm without a hint of the physical.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+CITY HOSPITALS--ORGANIZED CHARITY.  337
+
+Charity occupied a co-ordinate place to education. Pope Innocent III.
+organized both. His foundations of the City hospitals of the world,
+the Santo Spirito at Rome the model. Rise of hospitals in every
+country, Virchow's tribute to Innocent III. Care for lepers in special
+hospitals and eradication of this disease. The meaning of this for the
+modern time and tuberculosis. Special institutions for erysipelas
+which prevented the spread of this disease. The organization of
+charity. The monasteries and the people. The freeing of prisoners held
+in slavery. Two famous orders for this purpose.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+GREAT ORIGINS IN LAW.   350
+
+Legal origins most surprising feature of the century. Significance of
+Magna Charta. Excerpts that show its character. The church, widows and
+orphans, common pleas, international law, no {xxiv} tax without
+consent, rights of freemen. Development of meaning as time and
+progress demanded it. Bracton's digest of the common law. Edward I.
+the English Justinian. Simon de Montfort. Real estate laws.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+JUSTICE AND LEGAL DEVELOPMENT.  364
+
+Legal origins in other countries besides England. Montalembert and
+France. St. Louis and the enforcement of law. Fehmic courts of Germany
+and our vigilance committees. Andrew II., and the "Golden Bull, that
+legalized anarchy" in Hungary. Laws of Poland. The Popes and legal
+codification; Innocent III, Gregory IX. Commentaries on law at the
+universities. Pope Boniface VIII, the canonist. Origin of "no taxation
+without representation."
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+DEMOCRACY, CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM AND NATIONALITY.   375
+
+Origins in popular self-government. Representation in the governing
+body. German free cities. Swiss declaration of independence. Christian
+socialism and "the three eights." Saturday half-holiday, and the
+vigils of holy-days. Christian fraternity and the guilds. Organization
+of charity. The guild merchant and fraternal solidarity. The guild of
+the Holy Cross, Stratford, and its place in town government and
+education. Progress of democracy. How the crusades strengthened the
+democratic spirit. Their place in the history of human liberty and of
+nationality.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+GREAT EXPLORERS AND THE FOUNDATION OF GEOGRAPHY.  392
+
+Geography's wonderful development. Modern problems, Thibet explored,
+Lhasa entered. This perhaps the greatest triumph of the century. Marco
+Polo's travels. Former mistrust now unstinted admiration. Striking
+observations of Polo. John of Carpini's travels in the Near East.
+Colonel Yule on the Book of the Tartars. Friar William of Rubruquis'
+travels in Tartary. Anticipations of modern opinions as to language.
+Some details of description. Friar Odoric and his Irish companion. The
+Praemonstratensian Hayton. Franciscan missionary zeal supplied for our
+geographical societies. Idle monks.
+
+{xxv}
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+GREAT BEGINNINGS OF MODERN COMMERCE.  415
+
+This is the most interesting phase for our generation. Hanseatic
+League and obscurity of its origin. League of Lombard cities and
+effect of crusades. Importance of Hansa. Enforcement of its decrees.
+Confederation of cities from England to Central Russia. Surprising
+greatness of the cities. Beginnings of international law. Commerce and
+peace. Origins of coast regulation. Fraternal initiations and their
+equivalents in the aftertime. Origins in hazing. Commerce and liberty.
+Fostering of democracy. International comity.
+
+
+APPENDIX I
+
+So-called history.  430
+
+APPENDIX II
+
+TWENTY-SIX CHAPTERS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.  432
+
+I. America in the Thirteenth Century--Papal documents.
+II. A representative upper house.
+III. The parish, and training in citizenship.
+IV. The chance to rise.
+V. Insurance--fire, marine, robbery, against injustice.
+VI. Old age pensions, disability wages.
+VII. Ways and means of charity--organized charity.
+VIII. Scientific universities, investigation, writing.
+IX. Medical education and high professional status.
+X. Magnetism--first perpetual motion inventor--the North Pole.
+XI. Biological theories--evolution, recapitulation.
+XII. The Pope of the century--Innocent III.
+XIII. International arbitration.
+XIV. Bible revision.
+XV. Fiction of the century.
+XVI. Great orators.
+XVII. Great beginnings of English literature.
+XVIII. Origins of music.
+XIX. Refinement and table manners.
+XX. Textiles, satins, brocades, laces, needlework.
+XXI. Glass-making.
+XXII. Inventions.
+XXIII. Industry and trade.
+XXIV. Fairs and markets.
+XXV. Intensive farming.
+XXVI. Cartography and the teaching of geography--Hereford Map of the World.
+
+
+APPENDIX III
+
+CRITICISMS, COMMENTS, DOCUMENTS.  464
+
+Human progress. The century of origins. Education. Technical education
+of the masses. How it all stopped. Comfort and poverty. Comfort and
+happiness. Comfort and health. Hygiene. Wages and the condition of
+working people. Interest and loans. The eighteenth lowest of
+centuries.
+
+{xxvi}
+
+{xxvii}
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+1. Le Beau Dieu (Amiens)--Frontispiece  (ii)
+
+2. Virgin with the Divine Child (Mosaic, St. Mark's, Venice)--Opposite page 5
+
+3. Pulpit (N. Pisano, Siena)--Opposite page  8
+
+4. Archangel Michael (Giovanni Pisano, Pisa)--Opposite page 13
+
+5. Christ (Andrea Pisano, Florence)--Opposite page 13
+
+6. Sta. Reparata (Andrea Pisano, Florence)--Opposite page 13
+
+7. Paschal Candlestick (Baptistery, Florence)--Opposite page 15
+
+8. Reliquary (Cathedral Orvieto, Ugolino di Vieri)--Opposite page 15
+
+9. The Church in Symbol (Paris)--On page 17
+
+10. Adoration of Magi (Pulpit, Siena, Nic. Pisano)--Opposite page  22
+
+11. Cathedral (Lincoln)--Opposite page 28
+
+12. Cathedral (York)--Opposite page 28
+
+13. Cloister of St. John Lateran (Rome)--Opposite page 32
+
+14. Jacques Coeur's House (Bourges)--On page 32
+
+15. Rathhaus (Tangermuende)--Opposite page 42
+
+16. Cathedral (Hereford)--Opposite page 44
+
+17. Cathedral (York, East)--Opposite page 44
+
+18. Single Flying Buttress--On page 57
+
+19. Christ Driving Out Money Changers (Giotto)--Opposite page 64
+
+20. Bride from Marriage of Cana (Giotto)--Opposite page 64
+
+21. Head (Mosaic, St. Mark's, Venice)--Opposite page 64
+
+22. Head of Blessed Virgin Annunciation--Opposite page 64
+
+23. Petrarch Portraits by Benozzo Gozzoli--Opposite page  71
+
+24. Dante  Portraits by Benozzo Gozzoli--Opposite page 71
+
+25. Giotto Portraits by Benozzo Gozzoli--Opposite page 71
+
+26. Screen (Hereford)--Opposite page 87
+
+27. Doorway of Sacristy (Bourges)--Opposite page 87
+
+28. Double Flying Buttress--On page 95
+
+29. Angel Choir (Lincoln)--Opposite page  96
+
+30. Cathedral (Amiens)--Opposite page 105
+
+31. Cathedral (Rheims)--Opposite page 107
+
+32. Cloister of St. Paul's (without the walls, Rome)--Opposite page 112
+
+33. Cathedral (Bourges)--Opposite page 116
+
+34. Cathedral (Chartres)--Opposite page 116
+
+35. Durham Castle and Cathedral--Opposite page 120
+
+36. King John's Castle (Limerick)--Opposite page 120
+
+37. Giotto's Tower (Florence)--Opposite page 122
+
+38. Palazzo Vecchio (Florence) Campanile (Giotto)--Opposite page 122
+
+{xxviii}
+
+39. Fountain (Perugia) [Town Pump]--Opposite page  126
+
+40. Lavatoio (Todi) [Public Wash-House]--Opposite page  126
+
+41. Reliquary (Limoges Museo, Florence)--Opposite page  133
+
+42. Crucifix (Duomo, Siena)--Opposite page 133
+
+43. Madonna, Cimabue (Rucellai Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence)--
+     Opposite page  136
+
+44. St. Francis' Marriage with Poverty (Giotto, Assisi)--Opposite page 144
+
+45. Espousal of St. Catherine (Gaddi, XIII. Century pupil, Perugia)--
+     Opposite page  147
+
+46. Group from Visitation (Rheims)--On page 148
+
+47. Monument of Cardinal de Bray (Arnolfo)--Opposite page  156
+
+48. Decoration (XIII. Cent. Psalter MSS.)--On page 165
+
+49. Santa Maria Sopra Minerva (Rome's Gothic Cathedral)--Opposite page 168
+
+50. Crozier (obverse and reverse)--On page 181
+
+51. Tower of Scaligers--On page 193
+
+52. St. Francis Prophesies the Death of Celano
+     (Giotto, Upper Ch., Assisi)--Opposite page  197
+
+53. Virgin and Child (Pisa, Campo Santo, Giov. Pisano)--Opposite page 200
+
+54. Entombment of Blessed Virgin--On page 208
+
+55. St. Christopher (alto relievo, Venice)--Opposite page 214
+
+56. Madonna and Child (Giov. Pisano, Padua)--Opposite page 214
+
+57. Tower (Lincoln)--On page 220
+
+58. Porta Romana Gate, Florence (N. Pisano)--Opposite page 226
+
+59. Ponte Alle Grazie (Lapo)--Opposite page 226
+
+60. Church and Cloisters, San Antonio (Padua)--Opposite page 232
+
+61. St. Catherine's (Luebeck)--Opposite page  232
+
+62. Stone Carving (Paris)--On page 237
+
+63. The First Nativity Play (Giotto, Upper Church of Assisi)--Opposite page 240
+
+64. Palazzo Buondelmonti (Florence)--Opposite page 248
+
+65. Palazzo Tolomei (Siena)--Opposite page 248
+
+66. Capital (Lincoln)--On page 253
+
+67. The Glorification of St. Francis (Giotto, Lower Church of Assisi)--
+     Opposite page 256
+
+68. St. Francis (Church of the Frari, Venice, Nic. Pisano)--Opposite page 261
+
+69. St. Clare--Three Franciscans (Giotto)--Opposite page 264
+
+70. St. Louis--Three Franciscans (Giotto)--Opposite page 264
+
+71. St. Elizabeth--Three Franciscans (Giotto)--Opposite page 264
+
+72. Side Capital (Lincoln)--On page 269
+
+73. Notre Dame (Paris)--Opposite page 290
+
+74. La Sainte Chapelle (Paris)--Opposite page 294 [missing]
+
+75. Cathedral (Orvieto)--Opposite page 294 [missing]
+
+{xxix}
+
+76. Apostle (la Sainte Chapelle, Paris)--Opposite page 296
+
+77. Decoration (Queen Mary's Psalter, XIII. Century MS.)--On page 299
+
+78. Portrait of Dante (Giotto, in the Bargello, Florence)--Opposite page 300
+
+79. Torre del Fame (Dante, Pisa)--Opposite page 306
+
+80. Palazzo Pretorio (Todi)--Opposite page 306
+
+81. Angel (Rheims)--On page 318
+
+82. St. Clare Bids the Dead St. Francis Good-bye
+    (Giotto, Up. Ch. Assisi)--Opposite page 320
+
+83. Church (Doberan, Germany)--Opposite page 322
+
+84. San Damiano (Assisi)--Opposite page 322
+
+85. St. Elizabeth's Cathedral (Marburg)--Opposite page 325
+
+86. Marriage of the Blessed Virgin (Giotto, Padua)--Opposite page 328
+
+87. Mosaic (St. Mark's, Venice, 1220)--Opposite page 333
+
+88. Stone Carving (Amiens)--On page 336
+
+89. Hospital of the Holy Ghost (Luebeck)--Opposite page 341
+
+90. Charity (Giotto)--Opposite page 347
+
+91. Fortitude (Giotto)--Opposite page 347
+
+92. Hope (Giotto)--Opposite page 347
+
+93. Hospital Interior--On page 349
+
+94. Tower (Marburg)--On page 363
+
+95. City Gate (Neubrandenburg)--Opposite page 368
+
+96. Rathhaus (Stralsund)--Opposite page 368
+
+97. Portrait of Pope Boniface VIII. (Giotto, Rome)--Opposite page 372
+
+98. Decoration (XIII. Cent. Psalter)--On page 374
+
+99. Doorway (Lincoln)--Opposite page 381
+
+100. Nave (Durham)--Opposite page 381
+
+101. Broken Arch (St. Mary's, York, Climax of Gothic)--Opposite page 381
+
+102. Animals from Bestiarium (XIII. Cent. MS.)--On page 391
+
+103. Door of Giotto's Tower (Florence)--Opposite page 405
+
+104. Principal Door of Baptistery (Pisa)--Opposite page 405
+
+105. Palazzo dei Consoli (Gubbio)--Opposite page 417
+
+106. Palazzo Zabarella (Padua)--Opposite page 417
+
+107. Rathhaus (Luebeck)--Opposite page 422
+
+108. City Gate (Neubrandenburg)--Opposite page 426
+
+109. Minster (Chorin, Germany)--Opposite page 426
+
+110. Hinge from Schlestadt--On page 429
+
+111. Portion of Letter of Innocent III., Mentioning Greenland--On page 433
+
+112. Double Pivoted Compass Needle--On page 441
+
+113. Peregrinus' Compass--On page 442
+
+114. Portion of MS. of Ormulum--On page 450
+
+115. Key of Map of World (Hereford)--On page 461
+
+116. Map of World (Hereford)--Opposite page 463
+
+{xxx}
+
+{1}
+
+I
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+THE THIRTEENTH, THE GREATEST OF CENTURIES
+
+It cannot but seem a paradox to say that the Thirteenth was the
+greatest of centuries. To most people the idea will appear at once so
+preposterous that they may not even care to consider it. A certain
+number, of course, will have their curiosity piqued by the thought
+that anyone should evolve so curious a notion. Either of these
+attitudes of mind will yield at once to a more properly receptive mood
+if it is recalled that the Thirteenth is the century of the Gothic
+cathedrals, of the foundation of the university, of the signing of
+Magna Charta, and of the origin of representative government with
+something like constitutional guarantees throughout the west of
+Europe. The cathedrals represent a development in the arts that has
+probably never been equaled either before or since. The university was
+a definite creation of these generations that has lived and maintained
+its usefulness practically in the same form in which it was then cast
+for the seven centuries ever since. The foundation stones of modern
+liberties are to be found in the documents which for the first time
+declared the rights of man during this precious period.
+
+A little consideration of the men who, at this period, lived lives of
+undying influence on mankind, will still further attract the attention
+of those who have not usually grouped these great characters together.
+Just before the century opened, three great rulers died at the height
+of their influence. They are still and will always be the subject of
+men's thoughts and of literature. They were Frederick Barbarossa,
+Saladin, and Richard Coeur De Lion. They formed but a suggestive
+prelude of what was to come in the following century, when such {2}
+great monarchs as St. Louis of France, St. Ferdinand of Spain, Alfonso
+the Wise of Castile, Frederick II of Germany, Edward I, the English
+Justinian, Rudolph of Hapsburg, whose descendants still rule in
+Austria, and Robert Bruce, occupied the thrones of Europe. Was it by
+chance or Providence that the same century saw the rise of and the
+beginning of the fall of that great Eastern monarchy which had been
+created by the genius for conquest of Jenghiz Khan, the Tartar warrior,
+who ruled over all the Eastern world from beyond what are now the
+western confines of Russia, Poland, and Hungary, into and including
+what we now call China.
+
+But the thrones of Europe and of Asia did not monopolize the great men
+of the time. The Thirteenth Century claims such wonderful churchmen as
+St. Francis and St. Dominic, and while it has only the influence of
+St. Hugh of Lincoln, who died just as it began, it can be proud of St.
+Edmund of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, and Robert Grosseteste, all men
+whose place in history is due to what they did for their people, and
+such magnificent women as Queen Blanche of Castile, St. Clare of
+Assisi, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. The century opened with one of
+the greatest of the Popes on the throne, Innocent III, and it closed
+with the most misunderstood of Popes, who is in spite of this one of
+the worthiest successors of Peter, Boniface VIII. During the century
+there had been such men as Honorius IV, the Patron of Learning,
+Gregory IX, to whom Canon Law owes so much, and John XXI, who had been
+famous as a scientist before becoming Pope. There are such scholars as
+St. Thomas of Aquin, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, St. Bonaventure,
+Duns Scotus, Raymond Lully, Vincent of Beauvais, and Alexander of
+Hales, and such patrons of learning as Robert of Sorbonne, and the
+founders of nearly twenty universities. There were such artists as
+Gaddi, Cimabue, and above all Giotto, and such literary men as the
+authors of the Arthur Legends and the Nibelungen, the Meistersingers,
+the Minnesingers, the Troubadours, and Trouveres, and above all Dante,
+who is universally considered now to be one of the greatest literary
+men of all times, but who was not, as is so often thought and said, a
+solitary phenomenon in the period, but only the culmination of a great
+literary movement that had to have {3} some such supreme expression of
+itself as this in order to properly round out the cycle of its
+existence.
+
+If in addition it be said that this century saw the birth of the
+democratic spirit in many different ways in the various countries of
+Europe, but always in such form that it was never quite to die out
+again, the reasons for talking of it as possibly the greatest of
+centuries will be readily appreciated even by those whose reading has
+not given them any preliminary basis of information with regard to
+this period, which has unfortunately been shrouded from the eyes of
+most people by the fact, that its place in the midst of the Middle
+Ages would seem to preclude all possibility of the idea that it could
+represent a great phase of the development of the human intellect and
+its esthetic possibilities.
+
+There would seem to be one more or less insuperable objection to the
+consideration of the Thirteenth as the greatest of centuries, and that
+arises from the fact that the idea of evolution has consciously and
+unconsciously tinged the thoughts of our generation to such a degree,
+that it seems almost impossible to think of a period so far in the
+distant past as having produced results comparable with those that
+naturally flow from the heightened development of a long subsequent
+epoch. Whatever of truth there may be in the great theory of
+evolution, however, it must not be forgotten that no added evidence
+for its acceptance can be obtained from the intellectual history of
+the human race. We may be "the heirs of all the ages in the foremost
+files of time," but one thing is certain, that we can scarcely hope to
+equal, and do not at all think of surpassing, some of the great
+literary achievements of long past ages.
+
+In the things of the spirit apparently there is very little, if any,
+evolution. Homer wrote nearly three thousand years ago as supreme an
+expression of human life in absolute literary values as the world has
+ever known, or, with all reverence for the future be it said, is ever
+likely to know. The great dramatic poem Job emanated from a Hebrew
+poet in those earlier times, and yet, if judged from the standpoint of
+mere literature, is as surpassing an expression of human intelligence
+in the presence of the mystery of evil as has ever come from the mind
+of man. We are no nearer the solution of the problem of {4} evil in
+life, though thousands of years have passed and man has been much
+occupied with the thoughts that disturbed the mind of the ruler of
+Moab. The Code of Hammurabi, recently discovered, has shown very
+definitely, that men could make laws nearly five thousand years ago as
+well calculated to correct human abuses as those our legislators spend
+so much time over at present, and the olden time laws were probably
+quite as effective as ours can hope to be, for all our well
+intentioned purpose and praiseworthy efforts at reform.
+
+It used to be a favorite expression of Virchow, the great German
+pathologist, who was, besides, however, the greatest of living
+anthropologists, that from the history of the human race the theory of
+evolution receives no confirmation of any kind. His favorite subject,
+the study of skulls, and their conformation in the five thousand years
+through which such remains could be traced, showed him absolutely no
+change. For him there had been also no development in the intellectual
+order in human life during the long period of human history. Of course
+this is comparatively brief if the long aeons of geological times be
+considered, yet some development might be expected to manifest itself
+in the more than two hundred generations that have come and gone since
+the beginning of human memory. Perhaps, then, the prejudice with
+regard to evolution and its supposed effectiveness in making the men
+of more recent times superior to those of the past, may be considered
+to have very little weight as an _a priori_ objection to the
+consideration of the Thirteenth Century as representing the highest
+stage in human accomplishment. So far as scientific anthropology goes
+there is utter indifference as to the period that may be selected as
+representing man at his best.
+
+To most people the greater portion of surprise with regard to the
+assertion of the Thirteenth as the greatest of centuries will be the
+fact that the period thus picked out is almost in the heart of the
+Middle Ages. It would be not so amazing if the fifth century before
+Christ, which produced such marvelous accomplishments in letters and
+art and philosophy among the Greeks, was chosen as the greatest of
+human epochs. There might not even be so much of unpreparedness of
+mind if that supreme century of Roman History, from fifty years before
+Christ to fifty years after, were picked out for such signal notice.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+VIRGIN WITH THE DIVINE CHILD (MOSAIC, ST. MARK'S, VENICE)
+
+
+{5}
+
+We have grown accustomed, however, to think of the Middle Ages as
+hopelessly backward in the opportunities they afforded men for the
+expression of their intellectual and artistic faculties, and above all
+for any development of that human liberty which means so much for the
+happiness of the race and must constitute the basis of any real
+advance worth while talking about in human affairs. It is this that
+would make the Thirteenth Century seem out of place in any comparative
+study for the purpose of determining proportionate epochal greatness.
+The spirit breathes where it will, however, and there was a mighty
+wind of the spirit of human progress abroad in that Thirteenth
+Century, whose effects usually miss proper recognition in history,
+because people fail to group together in their minds all the
+influences in our modern life that come to us from that precious
+period. All this present volume pretends to do is to gather these
+scattered details of influence in order to make the age in which they
+all coincided so wonderfully, be properly appreciated.
+
+If we accept the usual historical division which places the Middle
+Ages during the thousand years between the fall of the Roman Empire,
+in the Fifth Century and the fall of the Grecian Empire of
+Constantinople, about the middle of the Fifteenth, the Thirteenth
+Century must be considered the culmination of that middle age. It is
+three centuries before the Renaissance, and to most minds that magical
+word represents the beginning of all that is modern, and therefore all
+that is best, in the world. Most people forget entirely how much of
+progress had been made before the so-called Renaissance, and how many
+great writers and artists had been fostering the taste and developing
+the intelligence of the people of Italy long before the fall of
+Constantinople. The Renaissance, after all, means only the re-birth of
+Greek ideas and ideals, of Greek letters and arts, into the modern
+world. If this new birth of Greek esthetics had not found the soil
+thoroughly prepared by the fruitful labor of three centuries before,
+history would not have seen any such outburst of artistic and literary
+accomplishments as actually came at the end of the Fifteenth and
+during the Sixteenth centuries.
+
+{6}
+
+In taking up the thesis, The Thirteenth the Greatest of Centuries, it
+seems absolutely necessary to define just what is meant by the term
+great, in its application to a period. An historical epoch, most
+people would concede at once, is really great just in proportion to
+the happiness which it provides for the largest possible number of
+humanity. That period is greatest that has done most to make men
+happy. Happiness consists in the opportunity to express whatever is
+best in us, and above all to find utterance for whatever is
+individual. An essential element in it is the opportunity to develop
+and apply the intellectual faculties, whether this be of purely
+artistic or of thoroughly practical character. For such happiness the
+opportunity to rise above one's original station is one of the
+necessary requisites. Out of these opportunities there comes such
+contentment as is possible to man in the imperfect existence that is
+his under present conditions.
+
+Almost as important a quality in any epoch that is to be considered
+supremely great, is the difference between the condition of men at the
+beginning of it and at its conclusion. The period that represents most
+progress, even though at the end uplift should not have reached a
+degree equal to subsequent periods, must be considered as having best
+accomplished its duty to the race. For purposes of comparison it is
+the amount of ground actually covered in a definite time, rather than
+the comparative position at the end of it, that deserves to be taken
+into account. This would seem to be a sort of hedging, as if the terms
+of the comparison of the Thirteenth with other centuries were to be
+made more favorable by the establishment of different standards. There
+is, however, no need of any such makeshift in order to establish the
+actual supremacy of the Thirteenth Century, since it can well afford
+to be estimated on its own merits alone, and without any allowances
+because of the stage of cultural development at which it occurred.
+
+John Ruskin once said that a proper estimation of the accomplishments
+of a period in human history can only be obtained by careful study of
+three books--The Book of the Deeds, The Book of the Arts, and the Book
+of the Words, of the given epoch. The Thirteenth Century may be
+promptly ready for this judgment of what it accomplished for men, of
+{7} what it wrote for subsequent generations, and of the artistic
+qualities to be found in its art remains. In the Book of the Deeds of
+the century what is especially important is what was accomplished for
+men, that is, what the period did for the education of the people, not
+alone the classes but the masses, and what a precious heritage of
+liberty and of social coordination it left behind. To most people it
+will appear at once that if the most important chapter of Thirteenth
+Century accomplishment is to be found in the Book of its Deeds and the
+deeds are to be judged according to the standard just given of
+education and liberty, then there will be no need to seek further,
+since these are words for which it is supposed that there is no actual
+equivalent in human life and history for at least several centuries
+after the close of the Thirteenth.
+
+As a matter of fact, however, it is in this very chapter that the
+Thirteenth Century will be found strongest in its claim to true
+greatness. The Thirteenth Century saw the foundation of the
+universities and their gradual development into the institutions of
+learning which we have at the present time. Those scholars of the
+Thirteenth Century recognized that, for its own development and for
+practical purposes, the human intellect can best be trained along
+certain lines. For its preliminary training, it seemed to them to need
+what has since come to be called the liberal arts, that is, a
+knowledge of certain languages and of logic, as well as a thorough
+consideration of the great problems of the relation of man to his
+Creator, to his fellow-men, and to the universe around him. Grammar, a
+much wider subject than we now include under the term, and philosophy
+constituted the undergraduate studies of the universities of the
+Thirteenth Century. For the practical purposes of life, a division of
+post-graduate study had to be made so as to suit the life design of
+each individual, and accordingly the faculties of theology, for the
+training of divines; of medicine, for the training of physicians; and
+of law, for the training of advocates, came into existence.
+
+We shall consider this subject in more detail in a subsequent chapter,
+but it will be clear at once that the university, as organized by
+these wise generations of the Thirteenth Century, has come down
+unchanged to us in the modern time. We {8} still have practically the
+same methods of preliminary training and the same division of
+post-graduate studies. We specialize to a greater degree than they
+did, but it must not be forgotten that specialism was not unknown by
+any means in the Thirteenth Century, though there were fewer
+opportunities for its practical application to the things of life. If
+this century had done nothing else but create the instrument by which
+the human mind has ever since been trained, it must be considered as
+deserving a place of the very highest rank in the periods of human
+history.
+
+It is, however, much more for what it accomplished for the education
+of the masses than for the institutions it succeeded in developing for
+the training of the classes, that the Thirteenth Century merits a
+place in the roll of fame. This declaration will doubtless seem
+utterly paradoxical to the ordinary reader of history. We are very
+prone to consider that it is only in our time that anything like
+popular education has come into existence. As a matter of fact,
+however, the education afforded to the people in the little towns of
+the Middle Ages, represents an ideal of educational uplift for the
+masses such as has never been even distantly approached in succeeding
+centuries. The Thirteenth Century developed the greatest set of
+technical schools that the world has ever known. The technical school
+is supposed to be a creation of the last half century at the outside.
+These medieval towns, however, during the course of the building of
+their cathedrals, of their public buildings and various magnificent
+edifices of royalty and for the nobility, succeeded in accomplishing
+such artistic results that the world has ever since held them in
+admiration, and that this admiration has increased rather than
+diminished with the development of taste in very recent years.
+
+Nearly every one of the most important towns of England during the
+Thirteenth Century was erecting a cathedral. Altogether some twenty
+cathedrals remain as the subject of loving veneration and of frequent
+visitation for the modern generation. There was intense rivalry
+between these various towns. Each tried to surpass the other in the
+grandeur of its cathedral and auxiliary buildings. Instead of lending
+workmen to one another there was a civic pride in accomplishing for
+one's native town whatever was best.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+PULPIT (PISANO, SIENA)
+
+
+{9}
+
+Each of these towns, then, none of which had more than twenty thousand
+inhabitants except London, and even that scarcely more, had to develop
+its own artist-artisans for itself. That they succeeded in doing so
+demonstrates a great educational influence at work in arts and crafts
+in each of these towns. We scarcely succeed in obtaining such trained
+workmen in proportionately much fewer numbers even with the aid of our
+technical schools, and while these Thirteenth Century people did not
+think of such a term, it is evident that they had the reality and that
+they were able to develop artistic handicraftsmen--the best the world
+has ever known.
+
+With all this of education abroad in the lands, it is not surprising
+that great results should have flowed from human efforts and that
+these should prove enduring even down to our own time. Accomplishments
+of the highest significance were necessarily bound up with
+opportunities for self-expression, so tempting and so complete, as
+those provided for the generations of the Thirteenth Century. The
+books of the Words as well as of the Arts of the Thirteenth Century
+will be found eminently interesting, and no period has ever furnished
+so many examples of wondrous initiative, followed almost immediately
+by just as marvelous progress and eventual approach to as near
+perfection as it is perhaps possible to come in things human.
+Ordinarily literary origins are not known with sufficient certainty as
+to dates for any but the professional scholar to realize the scope of
+the century's literature. Only a very little consideration, however,
+is needed to demonstrate how thoroughly representative of what is most
+enduring in literary expression in modern times, are the works in
+every country that had origin in this century.
+
+There was not a single country in civilized Europe which did not
+contribute its quota and that of great significance to the literary
+movement of the time. In Spain there came the Cid and certain
+accompanying products of ballad poetry which form the basis of the
+national literature and are still read not only by scholars and
+amateurs, but even by the people generally, because of the supreme
+human interest in them. In England, the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century saw the putting {10} into shape of the Arthur Legends in the
+form in which they were to appeal most nearly to subsequent
+generations. Walter Map's work in these was, as we shall see, one of
+the great literary accomplishments of all time. Subsequent treatments
+of the same subject are only slight modifications of the theme which
+he elaborated, and Mallory's and Spenser's and even our own Tennyson's
+work derive their interest from the humanly sympathetic story, written
+so close to the heart of nature in the Thirteenth Century that it will
+always prove attractive.
+
+In Germany, just at the same time, the Nibelungen-Lied was receiving
+the form in which it was to live as the great National epic. The
+Meistersingers also were accomplishing their supreme work of
+Christianizing and modernizing the old German and Christian legends
+which were to prove such a precious heritage of interest for
+posterity. In the South of Germany the Minnesingers sang their tuneful
+strains and showed how possible it was to take the cruder language of
+the North, and pour forth as melodious hymns of praise to nature and
+to their beloved ones as in the more fluent Southern tongues. Most of
+this was done in the old Suabian high German dialect, and the basis of
+the modern German language was thus laid. The low German was to prove
+the vehicle for the original form of the animal epic or stories with
+regard to Reynard, the Fox, which were to prove so popular throughout
+all of Europe for all time thereafter.
+
+In North France the Trouveres were accomplishing a similar work to
+that of the Minnesingers in South Germany, but doing it with an
+original genius, a refinement of style characteristic of their nation,
+and a finish of form that was to impress itself upon French literature
+for all subsequent time. Here also Jean de Meun and Guillaume de
+Lorris wrote the Romance of the Rose, which was to remain the most
+popular book in Europe down to the age of printing and for some time
+thereafter. At the South of France the work of the Troubadours,
+similar to that of the Trouveres and yet with, a spirit and character
+all its own, was creating a type of love songs that the world recurs
+to with pleasure whenever the lyrical aspect of poetry becomes
+fashionable. The influence of the Troubadours was to be felt in Italy,
+and before the end of the {11} Thirteenth Century there were many
+writers of short poems that deserve a place in what is best in
+literature. Men like Sordello, Guido Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia, and
+Dante da Maiano, deserve mention in any historical review of
+literature, quite apart from the influence which they had on their
+great successor, the Prince of Italian poets and one of the immortal
+trio of the world's supreme creative singers--Dante Alighieri. With
+what must have seemed the limit of conceit he placed himself among the
+six greatest poets, but posterity breathes his name only with those of
+Homer and Shakespeare.
+
+Dante, in spite of his giant personality and sublime poetic genius, is
+not an exception nor a solitary phenomenon in the course of the
+century, but only a worthy culmination of the literary movement which,
+beginning in the distant West in Spain and England, gradually worked
+eastward quite contrary to the usual trend of human development and
+inspired its greatest work in the musical Tuscan dialect after having
+helped in the foundation of all the other modern languages. Dante is
+the supreme type of the Thirteenth Century, the child of his age, but
+the great master whom medieval influences have made all that he is.
+That he belongs to the century there can be no doubt, and of himself
+alone he would be quite sufficient to lift any period out of obscurity
+and place it among the favorite epochs, in which the human mind found
+one of those opportune moments for the expression of what is sublimest
+in human thought.
+
+It is, however, the bock of the Arts of the Thirteenth Century that
+deserves most to be thumbed by the modern reader intent on learning
+something of this marvelous period of human existence. There is not a
+single branch of art in which the men of this generation did not
+accomplish excelling things that have been favorite subjects for study
+and loving imitation ever since. Perhaps the most marvelous quality of
+the grand old Gothic cathedrals, erected during the Thirteenth
+Century, is not their impressiveness as a whole so much as their
+wonderful finish in detail. It matters not what element of
+construction or decoration be taken into consideration, always there
+is an approach to perfection in accomplishment in some one of the
+cathedrals that shows with what thoroughness the men of the {12} time
+comprehended what was best in art, and how finally their strivings
+after perfection were rewarded as bountifully as perhaps it has ever
+been given to men to realize.
+
+Of the major arts--architecture itself, sculpture and painting--only a
+word will be said here since they will be treated more fully in
+subsequent chapters. No more perfect effort at worthy worship of the
+Most High has ever been accomplished than is to be seen in the Gothic
+cathedrals in every country in Europe as they exist to the present
+day. While the movement began in North France, and gradually spread to
+other countries, there was never any question of mere slavish
+imitation, but on the contrary in each country Gothic architecture
+took on a national character and developed into a charming expression
+of the special characteristics of the people for whom and by whom it
+was made. English Gothic is, of course, quite different to that of
+France; Spanish Gothic has a character all its own; the German Gothic
+cathedrals partake of the heavier characteristics of the Northern
+people, while Italian Gothic adds certain airy decorative qualities to
+the French model that give renewed interest and inevitably indicate
+the origin of the structures.
+
+In painting, Cimabue's work, so wonderfully appreciated by the people
+of Florence that spontaneously they flocked in procession to do honor
+to his great picture, was the beginning of modern art. How much was
+accomplished before the end of the century will be best appreciated
+when the name of Giotto is mentioned as the culmination of the art
+movement of the century. As we shall see, the work done by him,
+especially at Assisi, has been a source of inspiration for artists
+down even to our own time, and there are certain qualities of his art,
+especially his faculty for producing the feeling of solidity in his
+paintings, in which very probably he has never been surpassed. Gothic
+cathedrals in other countries did not lend themselves so well as
+subjects of inspiration for decorative art, but in every country the
+sacred books in use in the cathedral were adorned, at the command of
+the artistic impulse of the period, in a way that has made the
+illuminated missals and office books of the Thirteenth Century perhaps
+the most precious that there are in the history of book-making.
+
+{opp13}
+
+[Illustration]
+ARCHANGEL MICHAEL (GIOVANNI PISANO, PISA)
+
+[Illustration]
+CHRIST (ANDREA PISANO, FLORENCE)
+
+[Illustration]
+STA. REPARATA (ANDREA PISANO, FLORENCE)
+
+{13}
+
+It might be thought that in sculpture, at least, these
+Thirteenth-Century generations would prove to be below the level of
+that perfection and artistic expression which came so assuredly in
+other lines. It is true that most of the sculptures of the period have
+defects that make them unworthy of imitation, though it is in the
+matter of technique that they fail rather than in honest effort to
+express feelings appropriately within the domain of chiseled work. On
+the other hand there are some supreme examples of what is best in
+sculpture to be found among the adornments of the cathedrals of the
+period. No more simply dignified rendition of the God Man has ever
+been made in stone than the statue of Christ, which with such charming
+appropriateness the people of Amiens have called _le Beau Dieu_, their
+beautiful God, and that visitors to their great cathedral can never
+admire sufficiently, admirably set off, as it is, in its beautiful
+situation above the main door of the great cathedral. Other examples
+are not lacking, as for instance some of the Thirteenth-Century
+effigies of the French kings and queens at St. Denis, and some of the
+wonderful sculptures at Rheims. In its place as a subsidiary art to
+architecture for decorative purposes, sculpture was even more
+eminently successful. The best example of this is the famous Angel
+Choir of Lincoln, one of the most beautiful things that ever came from
+the hand of man and whose designation indicates the belief of the
+centuries that only the angels could have made it.
+
+In the handicrafts most nearly allied to the arts, the Thirteenth
+Century reigns supreme with a splendor unapproached by what has been
+accomplished in any other century. The iron work of their gates and
+railings, even of their hinges and latches and locks, has been admired
+and imitated by many generations since. When a piece of it is no
+longer of use, or loosens from the crumbling woodwork to which it was
+attached, it is straightway transported to some museum, there to be
+displayed not alone for its antiquarian interest, but also as a model
+and a suggestion to the modern designer. This same thing is true of
+the precious metal work of the times also, at least as regards the
+utensils and ornaments employed in the sacred services. The chalices
+and other sacred {14} vessels were made on severely simple lines and
+according to models which have since become the types of such sacred
+utensils for all times.
+
+The vestments used in the sacred ceremonials partook of this same
+character of eminently appropriate handiwork united to the chastest of
+designs, executed with supreme taste. The famous cope of Ascoli which
+the recent Pierpont Morgan incident brought into prominence a year or
+so ago, is a sample of the needlework of the times that illustrates
+its perfection. It is said by those who are authorities in the matter
+that Thirteenth-Century needlework represents what is best in this
+line. It is not the most elaborate, nor the most showy, but it is in
+accordance with the best taste, supremely suitable to the objects of
+which it formed a part. It is, after all, only an almost inevitable
+appendix to the beautiful work done in the illumination of the sacred
+books, that the sacred vestments should have been quite as supremely
+artistic and just as much triumphs of art.
+
+As a matter of fact, every minutest detail of cathedral construction
+and ornamentation shared in this artistic triumph. Even the
+inscriptions, done in brass upon the gravestones that formed part of
+the cathedral pavements, are models of their kind, and rubbings from
+them are frequently taken because of their marvelous effectiveness as
+designs in Gothic tracery.
+
+Their bells were made with such care and such perfection that, down to
+the present time, nothing better has been accomplished in this
+handicraft, and their marvelous retention of tone shows how thorough
+was the work of these early bell-makers.
+
+The triumph of artistic decoration in the cathedrals, however, and the
+most marvelous page in the book of the Arts of the century, remains to
+be spoken of in their magnificent stained-glass windows. Where they
+learned their secret of glass-making we know not. Artists of the
+modern time, who have spent years in trying to perfect their own work
+in this line, would give anything to have some of the secrets of the
+glass-makers of the Thirteenth Century. Such windows as the Five
+Sisters at York, or the wonderful Jesse window of Chartres with some
+of its companions, are the despair of the modern {15} artists in
+stained glass. The fact that their glass-making was not done at one,
+or even a few, common centers, but was apparently executed in each of
+these small medieval towns that were the site of a cathedral, only
+adds to the marvel of how the workmen of the time succeeded so well in
+accomplishing their purpose of solving the difficult problems of
+stained glasswork.
+
+{opp15}
+
+[Illustration ]
+PASCHAL CANDLESTICK (BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE)
+
+[Illustration:]
+RELIQUARY (CATHEDRAL ORVIETO, UGOLINO DI VIERI)
+
+
+If, to crown all that has been said about the Thirteenth Century, we
+now add a brief account of what was accomplished for men in the matter
+of liberty and the establishment of legal rights, we shall have a
+reasonably adequate introduction to this great subject. Liberty is
+thought to be a word whose true significance is of much more recent
+origin than the end of the Middle Ages. The rights of men are usually
+supposed to have received serious acknowledgment only in comparatively
+recent centuries. The recalling of a few facts, however, will dispel
+this illusion and show how these men of the later middle age laid the
+foundation of most of the rights and privileges that we are so proud
+to consider our birthright in this modern time. The first great fact
+in the history of modern liberty is the signing of Magna Charta which
+took place only a little after the middle of the first quarter of the
+Thirteenth Century. The movement that led up to it had arisen amongst
+the guildsmen as well as the churchmen and the nobles of the preceding
+century. When the document was signed, however, these men did not
+consider that their work was finished. They kept themselves ready to
+take further advantage of the necessities of their rulers and it was
+not long before they had secured political as well as legal rights.
+
+Shortly after the middle of the Thirteenth Century the first English
+parliament met, and in the latter part of that half century it became
+a formal institution with regularly appointed times of meeting and
+definite duties and privileges. Then began the era of law in its
+modern sense for the English people. The English common law took form
+and its great principles were enunciated practically in the terms in
+which they are stated down to the present day. Bracton made his famous
+digest of the English common law for the use of judges and lawyers and
+it became a standard work of reference. Such it {16} has remained down
+to our own time. At the end of the century, during the reign of Edward
+I, the English Justinian, the laws of the land were formulated,
+lacunae in legislation filled up, rights and privileges fully
+determined, real-estate laws put on a modern basis, and the most
+important portions of English law became realities that were to be
+modified but not essentially changed in all the after time.
+
+This history of liberty and of law-making, so familiar with regard to
+England, must be repeated almost literally with regard to the
+continental nations. In France, the foundation of the laws of the
+kingdom were laid during the reign of Louis IX, and French authorities
+in the history of law, point with pride, to how deeply and broadly the
+foundations of French jurisprudence were laid. Under Louis's cousin,
+Ferdinand III of Castile, who, like the French monarch, has received
+the title of Saint, because of the uprightness of his character and
+all that he did for his people, forgetful of himself, the foundations
+of Spanish law were laid, and it is to that time that Spanish jurists
+trace the origin of nearly all the rights and privileges of their
+people. In Germany there is a corresponding story. In Saxony there was
+the issue of a famous book of laws, which represented all the grants
+of the sovereigns, and all the claims of subjects that had been
+admitted by monarchs up to that time. In a word, everywhere there was
+a codification of laws and a laying of foundations in jurisprudence,
+upon which the modern superstructure of law was to rise.
+
+This is probably the most surprising part of the Thirteenth Century.
+When it began men below the rank of nobles were practically slaves.
+Whatever rights they had were uncertain, liable to frequent violation
+because of their indefinite character, and any generation might, under
+the tyranny of some consciousless monarch, have lost even the few
+privileges they had enjoyed before. At the close of the Thirteenth
+Century this was no longer possible. The laws had been written down
+and monarchs were bound by them as well as their subjects. Individual
+caprice might no longer deprive them arbitrarily of their rights and
+hard won privileges, though tyranny might still assert itself and a
+submissive generation might, for a time, {17} allow themselves to be
+governed by measures beyond the domain of legal justification. Any
+subsequent generation might, however, begin anew its assertion of its
+rights from the old-time laws, rather than from the position to which
+their forbears had been reduced by a tyrant's whim.
+
+Is it any wonder, then, that we should call the generations that gave
+us the cathedrals, the universities, the great technical schools that
+were organized by the trades guilds, the great national literatures
+that lie at the basis of all our modern literature, the beginnings of
+sculpture and of art carried to such heights that artistic principles
+were revealed for all time, and, finally, the great men and women of
+this century--for more than any other it glories in names that were
+born not to die--is it at all surprising that we should claim for the
+period which, in addition to all this, saw the foundation of modern
+law and liberty, the right to be hailed--the greatest of human
+history?
+
+[Illustration]
+THE CHURCH [SYMBOLIZED] (PARIS)
+
+
+{18}
+
+II
+
+UNIVERSITIES AND PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.
+
+
+To see, at once, how well the Thirteenth deserves the name of the
+greatest of centuries, it is necessary, only, to open the book of her
+deeds and read therein what was accomplished during this period for
+the education of the men of the time. It is, after all, what a
+generation accomplishes for intellectual development and social uplift
+that must be counted as its greatest triumph. If life is larger in its
+opportunities, if men appreciate its significance better, if the
+development of the human mind has been rendered easier, if that
+precious thing, whose name, education, has been so much abused, is
+made readier of attainment, then the generation stamps itself as
+having written down in its book of deeds, things worthy for all
+subsequent generations to read. Though anything like proper
+appreciation of it has come only in very recent times, there is
+absolutely no period of equal length in the history of mankind in
+which so much was not only attempted, but successfully accomplished
+for education, in every sense of the word, as during the Thirteenth
+Century. This included, not only the education of the classes but also
+the education of the masses.
+
+For the moment, we shall concern ourselves only with the education
+offered to, and taken advantage of by so many, in the universities of
+the time. It was just at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century that
+the great universities came into being as schools, in which all the
+ordinary forms of learning were taught. During the Twelfth Century,
+Bologna had had a famous school of law which attracted students from
+all over Europe. Under Irnerius, canon and civil law secured a
+popularity as subjects of study such as they never had before. The
+study of the old Roman Law brought back with it an interest in the
+Latin classics, and the beginning of the true new birth--the real
+renaissance--of modern education must be traced from here. At Paris
+there was a theological school attached to {19} the cathedral which
+gradually became noted for its devotion to philosophy as the basis of
+theology, and, about the middle of the Twelfth Century, attracted
+students from every part of the civilized world. As was the case at
+Bologna, interest after a time was not limited to philosophy and
+theology; other branches of study were admitted to the curriculum and
+a university in the modern sense came into existence.
+
+During the first quarter of the Thirteenth Century both of these
+schools developed faculties for the teaching of all the known branches
+of knowledge. At Bologna faculties of arts, of philosophy and
+theology, and finally of medicine, were gradually added, and students
+flocked in ever increasing numbers to take advantage of these
+additional opportunities. At Paris, the school of medicine was
+established early in the Thirteenth Century, and there were graduates
+in medicine before the year 1220. Law came later, but was limited to
+Canon law to a great extent, Orleans having a monopoly of civil law
+for more than a century. These two universities, Bologna and Paris,
+were, in every sense of the word, early in the century, real
+universities, differing in no essential from our modern institutions
+that bear the same name.
+
+If the Thirteenth Century had done nothing else but put into shape
+this great instrument for the training of the human mind, which has
+maintained its effectiveness during seven centuries, it must be
+accorded a place among the epoch-making periods of history. With all
+our advances in modern education we have not found it necessary, or
+even advisable, to change, in any essential way, this mold in which
+the human intellect has been cast for all these years. If a man wants
+knowledge for its own sake, or for some practical purpose in life,
+then here are the faculties which will enable him to make a good
+beginning on the road he wishes to travel. If he wants knowledge of
+the liberal arts, or the consideration of man's duties to himself, to
+his fellow-man and to his Creator, he will find in the faculties of
+arts and philosophy and theology the great sources of knowledge in
+these subjects. If, on the other hand, he wishes to apply his mind
+either to the disputes of men about property, or to their injustices
+toward one another and the correction of abuses, then the faculty of
+law will {20} supply his wants, and finally the medical school enables
+him, if he wishes, to learn all that can be known at a given time with
+regard to man's ills and their healing. We have admitted the
+practical-work subjects into university life, though not without
+protest, but architecture, engineering, bridge-building and the like,
+in which the men of the Thirteenth Century accomplished such wonders,
+were relegated to the guilds whose technical schools, though they did
+not call them by that name, were quite as effective practical
+educators as even the most vaunted of our modern university mechanical
+departments.
+
+It is rather interesting to trace the course of the development of
+schools in our modern sense of the term, because their evolution
+recapitulates, to some degree at least, the history of the
+individual's interest in life. The first school which acquired a
+European reputation was that of Salernum, a little town not far from
+Naples, which possessed a famous medical school as early as the ninth
+century, perhaps earlier. This never became a university, though its
+reputation as a great medical school was maintained for several
+centuries. This first educational opportunity to attract a large body
+of students from all over the world concerned mainly the needs of the
+body. The next set of interests which man, in the course of evolution
+develops, has to do with the acquisition and retention of property and
+the maintenance of his rights as an individual. It is not surprising,
+then, to find that the next school of world-wide reputation was that
+of law at Bologna which became the nucleus of a great university. It
+is only after man has looked out for his bodily needs and his property
+rights, that he comes to think of his duties toward himself, his
+fellow-men, and his Creator, and so the third of these great medieval
+schools, in time, was that of philosophy and theology, at Paris.
+
+It is sometimes thought that the word university applied to these
+institutions after the aggregation of other faculties, was due to the
+fact that there was a universality of studies, that all branches of
+knowledge might be followed in them. The word university, however, was
+not originally applied to the school itself, which, if it had all the
+faculties of the modern university, was, in the Thirteenth Century,
+called a _studium generale_. The Latin word universitas had quite a
+different {21} usage at that time. Whenever letters were formally
+addressed to the combined faculties of a _studium generale_ by
+reigning sovereigns, or by the Pope, or by other high ecclesiastical
+authorities, they always began with the designation, Universitas
+Vestra, implying that the greeting was to all of the faculty,
+universally and without exception. Gradually, because of this word
+constantly occurring at the beginning of letters to the faculty, the
+term universitas came to be applied to the institution. [Footnote 1]
+
+  [Footnote 1: Certain other terms that occur in these letters of
+  greeting to university officials have a more than passing interest.
+  The rector of the university, for instance, was always formally
+  addressed as Amplitudo Vestra, that is, Your Ampleness. Considering
+  the fact that not a few of the rectors of the old time universities,
+  all of whom were necessarily ecclesiastics, must have had the
+  ampleness of girth so characteristic of their order under certain
+  circumstances, there is an appropriateness about this formal
+  designation which perhaps appeals more to the risibilities of the
+  modern mind than to those of medieval time.]
+
+While the universities, as is typically exemplified by the histories
+of Bologna and Paris, and even to a noteworthy degree of Oxford, grew
+up around the cathedrals, they cannot be considered in any sense the
+deliberate creation, much less the formal invention, of any particular
+set of men. The idea of a university was not born into the world in
+full panoply as Minerva from the brain of Jove. No one set about
+consciously organizing for the establishment of complete institutions
+of learning. Like everything destined to mean much in the world the
+universities were a natural growth from the favoring soil in which
+living seeds were planted. They sprang from the wonderful inquiring
+spirit of the time and the marvelous desire for knowledge and for the
+higher intellectual life that came over the people of Europe during
+the Thirteenth Century. The school at Paris became famous, and
+attracted pupils during the Twelfth Century, because of the new-born
+interest in scholastic philosophy. After the pupils had gathered in
+large numbers their enthusiasm led to the establishment of further
+courses of study. The same thing was true at Bologna, where the study
+of Law first attracted a crowd of earnest students, and then the
+demand for broader education led to the establishment of other
+faculties.
+
+{22}
+
+Above all, there was no conscious attempt on the part of any supposed
+better class to stoop down and uplift those presumably below it. As we
+shall see, the students of the university came mainly from the middle
+class of the population. They became ardently devoted to their
+teachers. As in all really educational work, it was the man and not
+the institution that counted for much. In case of disagreement of one
+of these with the university authorities, not infrequently there was a
+sacrifice of personal advantage for the moment on the part of the
+students in order to follow a favorite teacher. Paris had examples of
+this several times before the Thirteenth Century, and notably in the
+case of Abelard had seen thousands of students follow him into the
+distant desert where he had retired. Later on, when abuses on the part
+of the authorities of Paris limited the University's privileges, led
+to the withdrawal of students and the foundation of Oxford, there was
+a community of interest on the part of certain members of the faculty
+and thousands of students. This movement was, however, distinctly of a
+popular character, in the sense that it was not guided by political or
+other leaders. Nearly all of the features of university life during
+the Thirteenth Century, emphasize the democracy of feeling of the
+students, and make it clear that the blowing of the wind of the spirit
+of human liberty and intellectual enthusiasm influencing the minds of
+the generation, rather than any formal attempt on the part of any
+class of men deliberately to provide educational opportunities, is the
+underlying feature of university foundation and development.
+
+While the great universities of Paris, Bologna, and Oxford were, by
+far, the most important, they must not be considered as the only
+educational institutions deserving the name of universities, even in
+our modern sense, that took definite form during the Thirteenth
+Century. In Italy, mainly under the fostering care of ecclesiastics,
+encouraged by such Popes as Innocent III, Gregory IX, and Honorius IV,
+nearly a dozen other towns and cities saw the rise of Studia Generalia
+eventually destined, and that within a few decades after their
+foundation, to have the complete set of faculties, and such a number
+of teachers and of students as merited for them the name of
+University.
+
+{opp23}
+
+[Illustration]
+ADORATION OF MAGI (PULPIT, SIENA, NIC. PISANO).
+
+{23}
+
+Very early in the century Vicenza, Reggio, and Arezzo became
+university towns. Before the first quarter of the century was finished
+there were universities at Padua, at Naples, and at Vercelli. In spite
+of the troublous times and the great reduction in the population of
+Rome there was a university founded in connection with the Roman
+Curia, that is the Papal Court, before the middle of the century, and
+Siena and Piacenza had founded rival university institutions. Perugia
+had a famous school which became a complete university early in the
+Fourteenth Century.
+
+Nor were other countries much behind Italy in this enthusiastic
+movement. Montpelier had, for over a century before the beginning of
+the thirteenth, rejoiced in a medical school which was the most
+important rival of that at Salernum. At the beginning this reflected
+largely the Moorish element in educational affairs in Europe at this
+time. During the course of the Thirteenth Century Montpelier developed
+into a full-fledged university though the medical school still
+continued to be the most important faculty. Medical students from all
+over the world flocked to the salubrious town to which patients from
+all over were attracted, and its teachers and writers of medicine have
+been famous in medical history ever since. How thorough was the
+organization of clinical medical work at Montpelier may perhaps best
+be appreciated from the fact, noted in the chapter on City
+Hospitals--Organized Charity, that when Pope Innocent III. wished to
+establish a model hospital at Rome with the idea that it would form an
+exemplar for other European cities, he sent down to Montpelier and
+summoned Guy, the head of the Hospital of the Holy Ghost in that city,
+to the Papal Capital to establish the Roman Hospital of the Holy Ghost
+and, in connection with it, a large number of hospitals all over
+Europe.
+
+A corresponding state of affairs to that of Montpelier is to be noted
+at Orleans, only here the central school, around which the university
+gradually grouped itself, was the Faculty of Civil Law. Canon law was
+taught at Paris in connection with the theological course, but there
+had always been objection to the admission of civil law as a faculty
+on a basis of equality with the other faculties. There was indeed {24}
+at this time some rivalry between the civil and the canon law and so
+the study of civil law was relegated to other universities. Even early
+in the Twelfth Century Orleans was famous for its school of civil law
+in which the exposition of the principles of the old Roman law
+constituted the basis of the university course. During the Thirteenth
+Century the remaining departments of the university gradually
+developed, so that by the close of the century, there seem to be
+conservative claims for over one thousand students. Besides these
+three, French universities were also established at Angers, at
+Toulouse, and the beginnings of institutions to become universities
+early in the next century are recorded at Avignon and Cahors.
+
+Spain felt the impetus of the university movement early in the
+Thirteenth Century and a university was founded at Palencia about the
+end of the first decade. This was founded by Alfonso XII. and was
+greatly encouraged by him. It is sometimes said that this university
+was transferred to Salamanca about 1230, but this is denied by
+Denifle, whose authority in matters of university history is
+unquestionable. It seems not unlikely that Salamanca drew a number of
+students from Palencia but that the latter continued still to attract
+many students. About the middle of the Thirteenth Century the
+university of Valladolid was founded. Before the end of the century a
+fourth university, that of Lerida, had been established in the Spanish
+peninsula. Spain was to see the greatest development of universities
+during the Fourteenth Century. It was not long after the end of the
+Thirteenth Century before Coimbra, in Portugal, began to assume
+importance as an educational institution, though it was not to have
+sufficient faculty and students to deserve the more ambitious title of
+university for half a century.
+
+While most people who know anything about the history of education
+realize the important position occupied by the universities during the
+Thirteenth Century and appreciate the estimation in which they were
+held and the numbers that attended them, very few seem to know
+anything of the preparatory schools of the time, and are prone to
+think that all the educational effort of these generations was
+exhausted in connection {25} with the university. It is often said, as
+we shall see, that one reason for the large number of students
+reported as in attendance at the universities during the Thirteenth
+Century is to be found in the fact that these institutions practically
+combined the preparatory school and the academy of our time with the
+university. The universities are supposed to have been the only
+centers of education worthy of mention. There is no doubt that a
+number of quite young students were in attendance at the universities,
+that is, boys from 12 to 15 who would in our time be only in the
+preparatory school. We shall explain, however, in the chapter on the
+Numbers in Attendance at the Universities that students went to
+college much younger in the past and graduated much earlier than they
+do in our day, yet apparently, without any injury to the efficacy of
+their educational training.
+
+In the universities of Southern Europe it is still the custom for boys
+to graduate with the degree of A. B. at the age of 15 to 16, which
+supposes attendance at the university, or its equivalent in
+under-graduate courses, at the age of 12 or even less. There is no
+need, however, to appeal to the precociousness of the southern nations
+in explanation of this, since there are some good examples of it in
+comparatively recent times here in America. Most of the colleges in
+this country, in the early part of the nineteenth century and the end
+of the eighteenth, graduated young men of 16 and 17 and thought that
+they were accomplishing a good purpose, in allowing them to get at
+their life work in early manhood. Many of the distinguished divines
+who made names in educational work are famous for their early
+graduations. Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia, whom the medical
+profession of this country hails as the Father of American Medicine,
+graduated at Princeton at 15. He must have begun his college course,
+therefore, about the age of 12. This may be considered inadvisable in
+our generation, but, it must be remembered that there are many even in
+our day, who think that our college men are allowed to get at their
+life-work somewhat too late for their own good.
+
+It must be emphasized, moreover, that in many of the university towns
+there were also preparatory schools. Courses {26} were not regularly
+organized until well on in the Thirteenth Century, but younger
+brothers and friends of students as well as of professors would not
+infrequently be placed under their care and thus be enabled to receive
+their preparation for university work. At Paris, Robert Sorbonne
+founded a preparatory school for that institution under the name of
+the College of Calvi. Other colleges of this kind also existed in
+Paris. This custom of having a preparatory school in association with
+the university has not been abandoned even in our own day, and it has
+some decided advantages from an educational standpoint, though perhaps
+these are not enough to balance certain ethical disadvantages almost
+sure to attach to such a system, disadvantages which ultimately led in
+the Middle Ages to the prohibition that young students should be taken
+at the universities under any pretext.
+
+The presence of these young students in university towns probably did
+add considerably to the numbers reported as in attendance. It must not
+be thought, however, that there were no formal preparatory schools
+quite apart from university influence. This thought has been the root
+of more misunderstanding of the medieval system of education than
+almost any other. As a matter of fact there were preliminary and
+preparatory schools, what we would now call academies and colleges, in
+connection with all of the important monasteries and with every
+cathedral. Schools of less importance were required by a decree of a
+council held at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century to be
+maintained in connection with every bishop's church. During the
+Thirteenth Century there were some twenty cathedrals in various parts
+of England; each one had its cathedral school. Besides these there
+were at least as many important abbeys, nearly a dozen of them immense
+institutions, in which there were fine libraries, large writing rooms,
+in which copies of books were being constantly made, many of the
+members of the communities of which were university men, and around
+which, therefore, there clung an atmosphere of bookishness and
+educational influence that made them preparatory schools of a high
+type. The buildings themselves were of the highest type of
+architecture; the community life was well calculated to bring out what
+was best in the {27} intellectuality of members of the community, and,
+then, there was a rivalry between the various religious orders which
+made them prepare their men well in order that they might do honor to
+the order when they had the opportunity later, as most of those who
+had the ability and the taste actually did have, to go to one or other
+of the universities.
+
+This system of preparatory schools need not be accepted on the mere
+assumption that the monasteries and churches must surely have set
+about such work, because there is abundant evidence of the actual
+establishment and maintenance of such schools. With regard to the
+monasteries there can be no doubt, because it was the members of the
+religious orders who particularly distinguished themselves at the
+universities, and the histories of Oxford, Cambridge, and Paris are
+full of their accomplishments. They succeeded in obtaining the right
+to have their own houses at the universities and to have their own
+examinations count in university work, in order that they might
+maintain their influence over the members of the orders during the
+precious formative period of their intellectual life. With regard to
+the church schools there is convincing evidence of another kind.
+
+In the chapter on the foundation of City Hospitals we have detailed on
+the authority of Virchow all that Innocent III. accomplished for the
+hospital system of Europe. This chapter was published originally in
+the form of a lecture from the historical department of the Medical
+School of Fordham University and a reprint of it was sent to a
+distinguished American educator well known for his condemnation of
+supposed church intolerance in the matter of education and scientific
+development. He said that he was glad to have it because it confirmed
+and even broadened the idea that he had long cherished, that the
+Church had done more for Charity during the despised Middle Ages than
+national governments had ever been able to accomplish since, though it
+was all the more surprising to him that it should not have under the
+circumstances, done more for education, since this might have
+prevented some of the ills that charity had afterward to relieve. This
+expression very probably represents the state of mind of very many
+scholars with regard to this period. The Church is supposed to have
+interested herself {28} in charity almost to the exclusion of
+educational influence. Charity is of course admitted to be her special
+work, yet these scholars cannot help but regret that more was not done
+in social prophylaxis by the encouragement of education.
+
+In the light of this almost universal expression it is all the more
+interesting to find that such opinions are founded entirely on a lack
+of knowledge of what was done in education, since the same Pope, in
+practically the same way and by the exertion of the same prestige and
+ecclesiastical authority, did for education just what he did for
+charity in the matter of the hospitals and the ailing poor. Virchow,
+as we shall see, declared that to Innocent III. is due the foundation
+of practically all the city hospitals in Europe. If the effect of
+certain of the decrees issued in his papacy be carefully followed, it
+will be found that practically as many schools as hospitals owe their
+origin to his beneficent wisdom and his paternal desire to spread the
+advantages of Christianity all over the civilized world. This policy
+with regard to the hospitals led to the foundation before the end of
+the century of at least one hospital in every diocese of all the
+countries which were more closely allied with the Holy See. There is
+extant a decree issued by the famous council of Lateran, in 1215, a
+council in which Innocent's authority was dominant, requiring the
+establishment of a Chair of Grammar in connection with every cathedral
+in the Christian world. This Chair of Grammar included at least three
+of the so-called liberal arts and provided for what would now be
+called, the education of a school preparatory to a university.
+
+Before this, Innocent III,  [Footnote 2] who had himself received the
+benefit of the best education of the time, having spent some years at
+Rome and later at Paris and at Bologna, had encouraged the sending of
+students to these universities in every way.
+
+  [Footnote 2: Most of the details of what was accomplished for
+  education by Pope Innocent III, and all the references needed to
+  supply further information, can be found in the _Hestoire
+  Litteratire de la France_, recent volumes of which were issued by
+  the French Institute, though the magnificent work itself was begun
+  by Benedictines of St. Maur, who completed some fifteen volumes. The
+  sixteenth volume, most of which is written by Daunou, is especially
+  valuable for this period. Du Boulay, in his History of the
+  University of Paris, will furnish additional information with regard
+  to Pope Innocent's relations to education throughout Europe,
+  especially, of course, in what regards the University of Paris.]
+
+
+[Illustration]
+CATHEDRAL (YORK)
+
+
+[Illustration]
+CATHEDRAL (LINCOLN)
+
+
+{29}
+
+Bishops who came to Rome were sure to hear inculcated the advisability
+of a taste for letters in clergymen, hear it said often enough that
+such a taste would surely increase the usefulness of all churchmen.
+Schools had been encouraged before the issuance of the decree. This
+only came as a confirmatory document calculated to perpetuate the
+policy that had already been so prominently in vogue in the church for
+over fifteen years of the Pope's reign. It was meant, too, to make
+clear to hesitant and tardy bishops, who might have thought that the
+papal interest in education was merely personal, that the policy of
+the church was concerned in it and recalled them to a sense of duty in
+the matter, since the ordinary enthusiasm for letters, even with the
+added encouragement of the Pope, did not suffice to make them realize
+the necessity for educational establishments.
+
+The institution of the schools of grammar in connection with
+cathedrals was well adapted to bring about a definite increase in the
+opportunities for book learning for those who desired it. In
+connection with the cathedrals there was always a band of canons whose
+duty it was to take part in the singing of the daily office. Their
+ceremonial and ritual duties did not, however, occupy them more than a
+few hours each day. During the rest of the time they were free to
+devote themselves to any subject in which they might be interested and
+had ample time for teaching. The requirement that there should be at
+least a school of grammar in connection with every cathedral afforded
+definite opportunity to such of these ecclesiastics as had
+intellectual tastes to devote themselves to the spread of knowledge
+and of culture, and this reacted, as can be readily understood, to
+make the whole band of canons more interested in the things of the
+mind, and to make the cathedral even more the intellectual center of
+the district than might otherwise have been the case.
+
+For the metropolitan churches a more far-reaching regulation was made
+by this same council of Lateran under the inspiration of the Pope
+himself. These important Archiepiscopal cathedrals were required to
+maintain professors of three chairs. One of these was to teach
+grammar, a second philosophy, and a third canon law. Under these
+designations there was practically included much of what is now
+studied not only in preparatory {30} schools but also at the beginning
+of University courses. The regulation was evidently intended to lead
+eventually to the formation of many more universities than were then
+in existence, because already it had become clear that the traveling
+of students to long distances and their gathering in such large
+numbers in towns away from home influences, led to many abuses that
+might be obviated if they could stay in their native cities, or at
+least did not have to leave their native provinces. This was a
+far-seeing regulation that, like so many other decrees of the century,
+manifests the very practical policy of the Pope in matters of
+education as well as charity. As a matter of fact this decree did lead
+to the gradual development of about twenty universities during the
+Thirteenth Century, and to the establishment of a number of other
+schools so important in scope and attendance that their evolution into
+universities during the Fourteenth Century became comparatively easy.
+This formal church law, moreover, imposed upon ecclesiastical
+authorities the necessity for providing for even higher education in
+their dioceses and made them realize that it was entirely in sympathy
+with the church's spirit and in accord with the wish of the Father of
+Christendom, that they should make as ample provision for education as
+they did for charity, though this last was supposed to be their
+special task as pastors of the Christian flock.
+
+All this important work for the foundation of preparatory schools in
+every diocese and of the preliminary organization of teaching
+institutions that might easily develop into universities, as they
+actually did in a score of cases in metropolitan cities, was
+accomplished under the first Pope of the Thirteenth Century, Innocent
+III. His successors kept up this good work. Pope Honorius III., his
+immediate successor, went so far in this matter as to depose a bishop
+who had not read Donatus, the popular grammarian of the time. The
+bishop evidently was considered unfit, as far as his mental training
+went, to occupy the important post of head of a diocese. Pope Gregory
+IX., the nephew of Innocent III., was one of the most important
+patrons of the study of law in this period (see Legal Origins in Other
+Countries), and encouraged the collection of the decrees of former
+Popes so as to make them available for purposes of study as well as
+for court use. He is famous for {31} having protected the University
+of Paris during some of the serious trouble with the municipal
+authorities, when the large increase of the number of students in
+attendance at the University had unfortunately brought about strained
+relations between town and gown.
+
+Pope Innocent IV. by several decrees encouraged the development of the
+University of Paris, increased its rights and conferred new
+privileges. He also did much to develop the University of Toulouse,
+and especially to raise its standard and make it equal to that of
+Paris as far as possible. The patronage of Toulouse on the part of the
+Pope is all the more striking because the study of civil law was here
+a special feature and the ecclesiastical authorities were often said
+to have looked askance at the rising prominence of civil law, since it
+threatened to diminish the importance of canon law; and the
+cultivation of it, only too frequently, seemed to give rise to
+friction between civil and ecclesiastical authorities. While the
+pontifical court of Innocent IV. was maintained at Lyons it seemed,
+according to the Literary History of France,  [Footnote 3] more like
+an academy of theology and of canon law than the court of a great
+monarch whose power was acknowledged throughout the world, or a great
+ecclesiastic who might be expected to be occupied with details of
+Church government.
+
+  [Footnote 3: Histoire Litteratire de la France, Vol. XVI,
+  Introductory Discourse.]
+
+Succeeding Popes of the century were not less prominent in their
+patronage of education. Pope Alexander IV. supported the cause of the
+Mendicant Friars against the University of Paris, but this was
+evidently with the best of intentions. The mendicants came to claim
+the privilege of having houses in association with the university in
+which they might have lectures for the members of their orders, and
+asked for due allowance in the matter of degrees for courses thus
+taken. The faculty of the University did not want to grant this
+privilege, though it was acknowledged that some of the best professors
+in the University were members of the Mendicant orders, and we need
+only mention such names as Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas from
+the Dominicans, and St. Bonaventure, Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus from
+the Franciscans, to show the truth of this assertion. To give such a
+privilege {32} seemed a derogation of the faculty rights and the
+University refused. Then the Holy See interfered to insist that the
+University must give degrees for work done, rather than merely for
+regulation attendance. The best possible proof that Pope Alexander
+cannot be considered as wishing to injure or even diminish the
+prestige of the University in any way, is to be found in the fact that
+he afterwards sent two of his nephews to Paris to attend at the
+University.
+
+All these Popes, so far mentioned, were not Frenchmen and therefore
+could have no national feeling in the matter of the University of
+Paris or of the French universities in general. It is not surprising
+to find that Pope Urban IV., who was a Frenchman and an alumnus of the
+University of Paris, elevated many French scholars, and especially his
+fellow alumni of Paris, to Church dignitaries of various kinds. After
+Urban IV., Nicholas IV. who succeeded him, though once more an
+Italian, founded chairs in the University of Montpelier, and also a
+professorship in a school that it was hoped would develop into a
+university at Gray in Franche Comte. In a word, looked at from every
+point of view, it must be admitted that the Church and ecclesiastical
+authorities were quite as much interested in education as in charity
+during this century, and it is to them that must be traced the
+foundation of the preparatory schools, as well as the universities,
+and the origin and development of the great educational movement that
+stamps this century as the greatest in human history.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+JACQUES COEUR'S HOUSE (BOURGES)
+
+[Illustration]
+CLOISTER OF ST. JOHN LATERAN (ROME)
+
+
+{33}
+
+III
+
+WHAT AND HOW THEY STUDIED AT THE UNIVERSITIES.
+
+
+It is usually the custom for text books of education to dismiss the
+teaching at the universities of the Middle Ages with some such
+expression as: "The teachers were mainly engaged in metaphysical
+speculations and the students were occupied with exercises in logic
+and in dialectics, learning in long drawn out disputations how to use
+the intellectual instruments they possessed but never actually
+applying them. All knowledge was supposed to be amenable to increase
+through dialectical discussion and all truth was supposed, to be
+obtainable as the conclusion of a regular syllogism." Great fun
+especially is made of the long-winded disputations, the time-taking
+public exercises in dialectics, the fine hair-drawn distinctions
+presumably with but the scantiest basis of truth behind them and in
+general the placing of words for realities in the investigation of
+truth and the conveyance of information. The sublime ignorance of
+educators who talk thus about the century that saw the rise of the
+universities in connection with the erection of the great Cathedrals,
+is only equaled by their assumption of knowledge.
+
+It is very easy to make fun of a past generation and often rather
+difficult to enter into and appreciate its spirit. Ridicule comes
+natural to human nature, alas! but sympathy requires serious mental
+application for understanding's sake. Fortunately there has come in
+recent years a very different feeling in the minds of many mature and
+faithful students of this period, as regards the Middle Ages and its
+education. Dialectics may seem to be a waste of time to those who
+consider the training of the human mind as of little value in
+comparison with the stocking of it with information. Dialectical
+training will probably not often enable men to earn more money than
+might have otherwise been the case. This will be {34} eminently true
+if the dialectician is to devote himself to commercial enterprises in
+his future life. If he is to take up one of the professions, however,
+there may be some doubt as to whether even his practical effectiveness
+will not be increased by a good course of logic. There is, however,
+another point of view from which this matter of the study of
+dialectics may be viewed, and which has been taken very well by Prof.
+Saintsbury of the University of Edinburgh in a recent volume on the
+Thirteenth Century.
+
+He insists in a passage which we quote at length in the chapter on the
+Prose of the Century, that if this training in logic had not been
+obtained at this time in European development, the results might have
+been serious for our modern languages and modern education. He says:
+"If at the outset of the career of the modern languages, men had
+thought with the looseness of modern thought, had indulged in the
+haphazard slovenliness of modern logic, had popularized theology and
+vulgarized rhetoric, as we have seen both popularized and vulgarized
+since, we should indeed have been in evil case." He maintains that
+"the far-reaching educative influence in mere language, in mere system
+of arrangement and expression, must be considered as one of the great
+benefits of Scholasticism." This is, after all, only a similar opinion
+to that evidently entertained by Mr. John Stuart Mill, who, as Prof.
+Saintsbury says, was not often a scholastically-minded philosopher,
+for he quotes in the preface of his logic two very striking opinions
+from very different sources, the Scotch philosopher, Hamilton, and the
+French philosophical writer, Condorcet. Hamilton said, "It is to the
+schoolmen that the vulgar languages are indebted for what precision
+and analytical subtlety they possess." Condorcet went even further
+than this, and used expressions that doubless will be a great source
+of surprise to those who do not realize how much of admiration is
+always engendered in those who really study the schoolmen seriously
+and do not take opinions of them from the chance reading of a few
+scattered passages, or depend for the data of their judgment on some
+second-hand authority, who thought it clever to abuse these old-time
+thinkers. Condorcet thought them far in advance of the old Greek
+philosophers for, he said, "Logic, ethics, and metaphysics {35}
+itself, owe to scholasticism a precision unknown to the ancients
+themselves."
+
+With regard to the methods and contents of the teaching in the
+undergraduate department of the university, that is, in what we would
+now call the arts department, there is naturally no little interest at
+the present time. Besides the standards set up and the tests required
+can scarcely fail to attract attention. Professor Turner, in his
+History of Philosophy, has summed up much of what we know in this
+matter in a paragraph so full of information that we quote it in order
+to give our readers the best possible idea in a compendious form of
+these details of the old-time education.
+
+  "By statutes issued at various times during the Thirteenth Century
+  it was provided that the professor should read, that is expound, the
+  text of certain standard authors in philosophy and theology. In a
+  document published by Denifle, (the distinguished authority on
+  medieval universities) and by him referred to the year 1232, we find
+  the following works among those prescribed for the Faculty of Arts:
+  Logica Vetus (the old Boethian text of a portion of the Organon,
+  probably accompanied by Porphyry's Isagoge); Logica Nova (the new
+  translation of the Organon); Gilbert's Liber Sex Principorium; and
+  Donatus's Barbarismus. A few years later (1255), the following works
+  are prescribed: Aristotle's Physics, Metaphysics, De Anima, De
+  Animalibus, De Caelo et Mundo, Meteorica, the minor psychological
+  treatises and some Arabian or Jewish works, such as the Liber de
+  Causis and De Differentia Spirititus et Animae."
+
+  "The first degree for which the student of arts presented himself
+  was that of bachelor. The candidate for this degree, after a
+  preliminary test called responsiones (this regulation went into
+  effect not later than 1275), presented himself for the determination
+  which was a public defense of a certain number of theses against
+  opponents chosen from the audience. At the end of the disputation,
+  the defender summed up, or determined, his conclusions. After
+  determining, the bachelor resumed his studies for the licentiate,
+  assuming also the task of cursorily explaining to junior students
+  some portion of the Organon. The test for the degree of licentiate
+  consisted {36} in a _collatio_, or exposition of several texts,
+  after the manner of the masters. The student was now a licensed
+  teacher; he did not, however, become magister, or master of arts,
+  until he had delivered what was called the _inceptio_, or inaugural
+  lecture, and was actually installed (_birrettatio_). If he continued
+  to teach he was called _magisier actu regens_; if he departed from
+  the university or took up other work, he was called _magister non
+  regens_. It may be said that, as a general rule, the course of
+  reading was: (1) for the bachelor's degree, grammar, logic, and
+  psychology; (2) for the licentiate, natural philosophy; (3) for the
+  master's degree, ethics, and the completion of the course of natural
+  philosophy."
+
+Quite apart from the value of its methods, however, scholasticism in
+certain of its features had a value in the material which it discussed
+and developed that modern generations only too frequently fail to
+realize. With regard to this the same distinguished authority whom we
+quoted with regard to dialectics, Prof. Saintsbury, does not hesitate
+to use expressions which will seem little short of rankly heretical to
+those who swear by modern science, and yet may serve to inject some
+eminently suggestive ideas into a sadly misunderstood subject.
+
+  "Yet there has always in generous souls who have some tincture of
+  philosophy, subsisted a curious kind of sympathy and yearning over
+  the work of these generations of mainly disinterested scholars, who,
+  whatever they were, were thorough, and whatever they could not do,
+  could think. _And there, have even, in these latter days, been some
+  graceless ones who have asked whether the Science of the nineteenth
+  century, after an equal interval, will be of any more positive
+  value--whether it will not have even less comparative interest than
+  that which appertains to the Scholasticism of the Thirteenth."_
+
+In the light of this it has seemed well to try to show in terms of
+present-day science some of the important reflections with regard to
+such problems of natural history, as magnetism, the composition of
+matter, and the relation of things physical to one another, which we
+now include under the name science, some of the thoughts that these
+scholars of the Thirteenth Century were thinking and were developing
+for the benefit of the {37} enthusiastic students who flocked to the
+universities. We will find in such a review though it must necessarily
+be brief many more anticipations of modern science than would be
+thought possible.
+
+To take the example for the moment of magnetism which is usually
+considered to be a subject entirely of modern attention, a good idea
+of the intense interest of this century in things scientific, can be
+obtained from the following short paragraph in which Brother Potamian
+in his sketch of Petrus Peregrinus, condenses the references to
+magnetic phenomena that are found in the literature of the time. Most
+of the writers he mentions were not scientists in the ordinary sense
+of the word but were literary men, and the fact that these references
+occur shows very clearly that there must have been wide-spread
+interest in such scientific phenomena, since they had attracted the
+attention of literary writers, who would not have spoken of them
+doubtless, but that they knew that in this they would be satisfying as
+well as exciting public interest.
+
+  "Abbot Neckam, the Augustinian (1157-1217), distinguished between
+  the properties of the two ends of the lodestone, and gives in his De
+  Utensilibus, what is perhaps the earliest reference to the mariner's
+  compass that we have. Albertus Magnus, the Dominican (1193-1280), in
+  his treatise De Mineralibus, enumerates different kinds of natural
+  magnets and states some of the properties commonly attributed to
+  them; the minstrel, Guyot de Provins, in a famous satirical poem,
+  written about 1208, refers to the directive quality of the lodestone
+  and its use in navigation, as do also Cardinal de Vitry in his
+  Historia Orientialis (1215-1220), Brunetto Latini, poet, orator and
+  philosopher (the teacher of Dante), in his Tresor des Sciences, a
+  veritable library, written in Paris in 1260; Raymond Lully, the
+  enlightened Doctor, in his treatise, De Contemplatione, begun in
+  1272, and Guido Guinicelli, the poet-priest of Bologna, who died in
+  1276."   [Footnote 4]
+
+    [Footnote 4: The letter of Petrus Peregrinus on the Magnet, A. D.
+    1269, translated by Bro. Arnold, M. Sc., with an Introductory Note
+    by Bro. Potamian, N. Y., 1904.]
+
+{38}
+
+The metaphysics of the medieval universities have come in for quite as
+much animadversion, not to say ridicule, as the dialectics. None of
+its departments is spared in the condemnation, though most fun is made
+of the gropings of the medieval mind after truth in the physical
+sciences. The cosmology, the science of matter as it appealed to the
+medieval mind, is usually considered to have been so entirely
+speculative as to deserve no further attention. We have presumably,
+learned so much by experimental demonstration and original observation
+in the physical sciences, that any thinking of the medieval mind along
+these lines may, in the opinion of those who know nothing of what they
+speak, be set aside as preposterous, or at best nugatory. It will
+surely be a source of surprise, then, to find that in the
+consideration of the composition of matter and of the problem of the
+forces connected with it, the minds of the medieval schoolmen were
+occupied with just the same questions that have been most interesting
+to the Nineteenth Century and that curiously enough the conclusions
+they reached, though by very different methods of investigation, were
+almost exactly the same as those to which modern physical scientists
+have attained by their refined methods of investigation.
+
+One or two examples will suffice, I think, to show very clearly that
+the students of the Thirteenth Century had presented to them
+practically the same problems with regard to matter, its origin and
+composition, as occupy the students of the present generation. For
+instance Thomas Aquinas usually known as St. Thomas, in a series of
+lectures given at the University of Paris toward the end of the third
+quarter of the Thirteenth Century, stated as the most important
+conclusion with regard to matter, that _"Nihil omnino in nihilum
+redigetur_,"' "Nothing at all will ever be reduced to nothingness." By
+this it was very evident from the context that he meant that matter
+would never be annihilated and could never be destroyed. It might be
+changed in various ways but it could never go back into the
+nothingness from which it had been taken by the creative act.
+Annihilation was pronounced as not being a part of the scheme of
+things as far as the human mind could hope to fathom its meaning.
+
+In this sentence, then, Thomas of Aquin was proclaiming the {39}
+doctrine of the indestructibility of matter. It was not until well on
+in the nineteenth century that the chemists and physicists of modern
+times realized the truth of this great principle. The chemists had
+seen matter change its form in many ways, had seen it disappear
+apparently in the smoke of fire or evaporate under the influence of
+heat, but investigation proved that if care were taken in the
+collection of the gases that came off under these circumstances, of
+the ashes of combustion and of the residue of evaporation, all the
+original material that had been contained in the supposedly
+disappearing substance could be recovered or at least completely
+accounted for. The physicists on their part had realized this same
+truth and finally there came the definite enunciation of the absolute
+indestructibility of matter. St. Thomas' conclusion "Nothing at all
+will ever be reduced to nothingness" had anticipated this doctrine by
+nearly seven centuries. What happened in the Nineteenth Century was
+that there came an experimental demonstration of the truth of the
+principle. The principle itself, however, had been reached long before
+by the human mind by speculative processes quite as inerrable in their
+way as the more modern method of investigation.
+
+When St. Thomas used the aphorism "Nothing at all will ever be reduced
+to nothingness" there was another signification that he attached to
+the words quite as clearly as that by which they expressed the
+indestructibility of matter. For him _Nihil_ or nothing meant neither
+_matter_ nor _form_, that is, neither the material substance nor the
+energy which is contained in it. He meant then, that no energy would
+ever be destroyed as well as no matter would ever be annihilated. He
+was teaching the conservation of energy as well as the
+indestructibility of matter. Here once more the experimental
+demonstration of the doctrine was delayed for over six centuries and a
+half. The truth itself, however, had been reached by this medieval
+master-mind and was the subject of his teaching to the university
+students in Paris in the Thirteenth Century. These examples should, I
+think, serve to illustrate that the minds of medieval students were
+occupied with practically the same questions as those which are now
+taught to the university students of our day. There are, however, some
+even {40} more striking anticipations of modern teaching that will
+serve to demonstrate this community of educational interests in spite
+of seven centuries of time separation.
+
+In recent years we have come to realize that matter is not the
+manifold material we were accustomed to think it when we accepted the
+hypothesis that there were some seventy odd different kinds of atoms,
+each one absolutely independent of any other and representing an
+ultimate term in science. The atomic theory from this standpoint has
+proved to be only a working hypothesis that was useful for a time, but
+that our physicists are now agreed must not be considered as something
+absolute. Radium has been observed changing into helium and the
+relations of atoms to one another as they are now known, make it
+almost certain that all of them have an underlying sub-stratum the
+same in all, but differentiated by the dynamic energies with which
+matter in its different forms is gifted. Sir Oliver Lodge has stated
+this theory of the constitution of matter very clearly in recent
+years, and in doing so has only been voicing the practically universal
+sentiment of those who have been following the latest developments in
+the physical sciences. Strange as it may appear, this was exactly the
+teaching of Aquinas and the schoolmen with regard to the constitution
+of matter. They said that the two constituting principles of matter
+were prime matter and form. By prime matter they meant the material
+sub-stratum the same in all material things. By form they meant the
+special dynamic energy which, entering into prime matter, causes it to
+act differently from other kinds and gives it all the particular
+qualities by which we recognize it. This theory was not original with
+them, having been adopted from Aristotle, but it was very clearly set
+forth, profoundly discussed, and amply illustrated by the schoolmen.
+In its development this theory was made to be of the greatest help in
+the explanation of many other difficulties with regard to living as
+well as non-living things in their hands. The theory has its
+difficulties, but they are less than those of any other theory of the
+constitution of matter, and it has been accepted by more philosophic
+thinkers since the Thirteenth Century than any other doctrine of
+similar nature. It may be said that it was reached only by deduction
+and not by experimental observation. Such an expression, {41} however,
+instead of being really an objection is rather a demonstration of the
+fact that great truths may be reached by deduction yet only
+demonstrated by inductive methods many centuries later.
+
+Of course it may well be said even after all these communities of
+interest between the medieval and the modern teaching of the general
+principles of science has been pointed out, that the universities of
+the Middle Ages did not present the subjects under discussion in a
+practical way, and their teaching was not likely to lead to directly
+beneficial results in applied science. It might well he responded to
+this, that it is not the function of a university to teach
+applications of science but only the great principles, the broad
+generalizations that underlie scientific thinking, leaving details to
+be filled in in whatever form of practical work the man may take up.
+Very few of those, however, who talk about the purely speculative
+character of medieval teaching have manifestly ever made it their
+business to know anything about the actual facts of old-time
+university teaching by definite knowledge, but have rather allowed
+themselves to be guided by speculation and by inadequate second-hand
+authorities, whose dicta they have never taken the trouble to
+substantiate by a glance at contemporary authorities on medieval
+matters.
+
+It will be interesting to quote for the information of such men, the
+opinion of the greatest of medieval scientists with regard to the
+reason why men do not obtain real knowledge more rapidly than would
+seem ought to be the case, from the amount of work which they have
+devoted to obtaining it. Roger Bacon, summing up for Pope Clement the
+body of doctrine that he was teaching at the University of Oxford in
+the Thirteenth Century, starts out with the principle that there are
+four grounds of human ignorance. "These are first, trust in inadequate
+authority; second, the force of custom which leads men to accept too
+unquestioningly what has been accepted before their time; third, the
+placing of confidence in the opinion of the inexperienced; and fourth,
+the hiding of one's own ignorance with the parade of a superficial
+wisdom." Surely no one will ever be able to improve on these four
+grounds for human ignorance, and they continue to be as {42} important
+in the twentieth century as they were in the Thirteenth. They could
+only have emanated from an eminently practical mind, accustomed to
+test by observation and by careful searching of authorities, every
+proposition that came to him. Professor Henry Morley, Professor of
+English Literature at University College, London, says of these
+grounds for ignorance of Roger Bacon, in his English Writers, Volume
+III, page 321: "No part of that ground has yet been cut away from
+beneath the feet of students, although six centuries ago the Oxford
+friar clearly pointed out its character. We still make sheep walks of
+second, third, and fourth and fiftieth-hand references to authority;
+still we are the slaves of habit; still we are found following too
+frequently the untaught crowd; still we flinch from the righteous and
+wholesome phrase, 'I do not know'; and acquiesce actively in the
+opinion of others that we know what we appear to know. Substitute
+honest research, original and independent thought, strict truth in the
+comparison of only what we really know with what is really known by
+others, and the strong redoubt of ignorance has fallen."
+
+The number of things which Roger Bacon succeeded in discovering by the
+application of the principle of testing everything by personal
+observation, is almost incredible to a modern student of science and
+of education who has known nothing before of the progress in science
+made by this wonderful man. He has been sometimes declared to be the
+discoverer of gunpowder, but this is a mistake since it was known many
+years before by the Arabs and by them introduced into Europe. He did
+study explosives very deeply, however, and besides learning many
+things about them realized how much might be accomplished by their use
+in the after-time. He declares in his Opus Magnum: "That one may cause
+to burst forth from bronze, thunderbolts more formidable than those
+produced by nature. A small quantity of prepared matter occasions a
+terrible explosion accompanied by a brilliant light. One may multiply
+this phenomenon so far as to destroy a city or an army." Considering
+how little was known about gunpowder at this time, this was of itself
+a marvelous anticipation of what might be accomplished by it.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+RATHHAUS (TANGERMUeNDE)
+
+
+Bacon prophesied, however, much more than merely {43} destructive
+effects from the use of high explosives, and indeed it is almost
+amusing to see how closely he anticipated some of the most modern
+usages of high explosives for motor purposes. He seems to have
+concluded that some time the apparently uncontrollable forces of
+explosion would come under the control of man and be harnessed by him
+for his own purposes. He realized that one of the great applications
+of such a force would be for transportation. Accordingly he said: "Art
+can construct instruments of navigation such that the largest vessels
+governed by a single man will traverse rivers and seas more rapidly
+than if they were filled with oarsmen. One may also make carriages
+which without the aid of any animal will run with remarkable
+swiftness."   [Footnote 5] When we recall that the very latest thing
+in transportation are motor-boats and automobiles driven by gasoline,
+a high explosive, Roger Bacon's prophesy becomes one of these weird
+anticipations of human progress which seem almost more than human.
+
+  [Footnote 5: These quotations are taken from Ozanam's Dante and
+  Catholic Philosophy, published by the Cathedral Library Association,
+  New York, 1897. ]
+
+It was not with regard to explosives alone, however, that Roger Bacon
+was to make great advances and still more marvelous anticipations in
+physical science. He was not, as is sometimes claimed for him, either
+the inventor of the telescope or of the theory of lenses. He did more,
+however, than perhaps anyone else to make the principles of lenses
+clear and to establish them on a mathematical basis. His traditional
+connection with the telescope can probably be traced to the fact that
+he was very much interested in astronomy and the relations of the
+heavens to the earth. He pointed out very clearly the errors which had
+crept into the Julian calendar, calculated exactly how much of a
+correction was needed in order to restore the year to its proper
+place, and suggested the method by which future errors of this kind
+could be avoided. His ideas were too far beyond his century to be
+applied in a practical way, but they were not to be without their
+effect and it is said that they formed the basis of the subsequent
+correction of the calendar in the time of Pope Gregory XIII three
+centuries later.
+
+{44}
+
+It is rather surprising to find how much besides the theory of lenses
+Friar Bacon had succeeded in finding out in the department of optics.
+He taught, for instance, the principle of the aberration of light,
+and, still more marvelous to consider, taught that light did not
+travel instantaneously but had a definite rate of motion, though this
+was extremely rapid. It is rather difficult to understand how he
+reached this conclusion since light travels so fast that as far as
+regards any observation that can be made upon earth, the diffusion is
+practically instantaneous. It was not for over three centuries later
+that Roemer, the German astronomer, demonstrated the motion of light
+and its rate, by his observations upon the moons of Jupiter at
+different phases of the earth's orbit, which showed that the light of
+these moons took a definite and quite appreciable time to reach the
+earth after their eclipse by the planet was over.
+
+We are not surprised to find that Bacon should praise those of his
+contemporaries who devoted themselves to mathematics and to
+experimental observations in science. Of one of his correspondents who
+even from distant Italy sent him his observations in order that he
+might have the great Franciscan's precious comments on them. Bacon has
+given quite a panegyric. The reasons for his praise, however, are so
+different from those which are ordinarily proclaimed to have been the
+sources of laudation in distant medieval scientific circles, that we
+prefer to quote Bacon's own words from the Opus Tertium. Bacon is
+talking of Petrus Peregrinus and says: "I know of only one person who
+deserves praise for his work in experimental philosophy, for he does
+not care for the discourses of men and their wordy warfare, but
+quietly and diligently pursues the works of wisdom. Therefore, what
+others grope after blindly, as bats in the evening twilight, this man
+contemplates in all their brilliancy because he is a master of
+experiment. Hence, he knows all natural science whether pertaining to
+medicine and alchemy, or to matters celestial and terrestrial.
+
+  "He has worked diligently in the smelting of ores as also in the
+  working of minerals; he is thoroughly acquainted with all sorts of
+  arms and implements used in military service and in hunting, besides
+  which he is skilled in agriculture and in the measurement of lands.
+  {45} It is impossible to write a useful or correct treatise in
+  experimental philosophy without mentioning this man's name.
+  Moreover, he pursues knowledge for its own sake; for if he wished to
+  obtain royal favor, he could easily find sovereigns who would honor
+  and enrich him."
+
+
+[Illustration]
+CATHEDRAL (YORK)
+
+[Illustration]
+CATHEDRAL (HEREFORD)
+
+
+Lest it should be thought that these expressions of laudatory
+appreciation of the great Thirteenth Century scientist are dictated
+more by the desire to magnify his work and to bring out the influence
+in science of the Churchmen of the period, it seems well to quote an
+expression of opinion from the modern historian of the inductive
+sciences, whose praise is scarcely if any less outspoken than that of
+others whom we have quoted and who might be supposed to be somewhat
+partial in their judgment. This opinion will fortify the doubters who
+must have authority and at the same time sums up very excellently the
+position which Roger Bacon occupies in the History of Science.
+
+Dr. Whewell says that Roger Bacon's Opus Majus is "the encyclopedia
+and Novam Organon of the Thirteenth Century, a work equally wonderful
+with regard to its general scheme and to the special treatises with
+which the outlines of the plans are filled up. The professed object of
+the work is to urge the necessity of a reform in the mode of
+philosophizing, to set forth the reasons why knowledge had not made a
+greater progress, to draw back attention to the sources of knowledge
+which had been unwisely neglected, to discover other sources which
+were yet almost untouched, and to animate men in the undertaking by a
+prospect of the vast advantages which it offered. In the development
+of this plan all the leading portions of science are expanded in the
+most complete shape which they had at that time assumed; and
+improvements of a very wide and striking kind are proposed in some of
+the principal branches of study. Even if the work had no leading
+purposes it would have been highly valuable as a treasure of the most
+solid knowledge and soundest speculations of the time; even if it had
+contained no such details it would have been a work most remarkable
+for its general views and scope."
+
+It is only what might have been expected, however, from {46} Roger
+Bacon's training that he should have made great progress in the
+physical sciences. At the University of Paris his favorite teacher was
+Albertus Magnus, who was himself deeply interested in all the physical
+sciences, though he was more concerned with the study of chemical
+problems than of the practical questions which were to occupy his
+greatest pupil. There is no doubt at all that Albertus Magnus
+accomplished a great amount of experimental work in chemistry and had
+made a large series of actual observations. He was a theologian as
+well as a philosopher and a scientist. Some idea of the immense
+industry of the man can be obtained from the fact that his complete
+works as published consist of some twenty large folio volumes, each
+one of which contains on the average at least 500,000 words.
+
+Among these works are many treatises relating to chemistry. The titles
+of some of them will serve to show how explicit was Albert in his
+consideration of various chemical subjects. He has treatises
+concerning Metals and Minerals; concerning Alchemy; A Treatise on the
+Secret of Chemistry; A Concordance, that is a Collection of
+observations from many sources with regard to the Philosopher's Stone;
+A Brief Compend on the Origin of the Metals; A Treatise on Compounds;
+most of these are to be found in his works under the general heading
+"Theatrum Chemicum."
+
+It is not surprising for those who know of Albert's work, to find that
+his pupil Roger Bacon defined the limits of chemistry very accurately
+and showed that he understood exactly what the subject and methods of
+investigation must be, in order that advance should be made in it. Of
+chemistry he speaks in his "Opus Tertium" in the following words:
+"There is a science which treats of the generation of things from
+their elements and of all inanimate things, as of the elements and
+liquids, simple and compound, common stones, gems and marble, gold and
+other metals, sulphur, salts, pigments, lapis lazuli, minium and other
+colors, oils, bitumen, and infinite more of which we find nothing in
+the books of Aristotle; nor are the natural philosophers nor any of
+the Latins acquainted with these things."
+
+In physics Albertus Magnus was, if possible, more advanced {47} and
+progressive even than in chemistry. His knowledge in the physical
+sciences was not merely speculative, but partook to a great degree of
+the nature of what we now call applied science. Humboldt, the
+distinguished German natural philosopher of the beginning of the
+Nineteenth Century, who was undoubtedly the most important leader in
+scientific thought in his time and whose own work was great enough to
+have an enduring influence in spite of the immense progress of the
+Nineteenth Century, has summed up Albert's work and given the headings
+under which his scientific research must be considered. He says:
+
+  "Albertus Magnus was equally active and influential in promoting the
+  study of natural science and of the Aristotelian philosophy. His
+  works contain some exceedingly acute remarks on the organic
+  structure and physiology of plants. One of his works bearing the
+  title of 'Liber Cosmographicus de Natura Locorum,' is a species of
+  physical geography. I have found in it considerations on the
+  dependence of temperature concurrently on latitude and elevation,
+  and on the effect of different angles of incidence of the sun's rays
+  in heating the ground, _which have excited my surprise_."
+
+To take up some of Humboldt's headings in their order and illustrate
+them by quotations from Albert himself and from condensed accounts as
+they appear in his biographer Sighart and in Christian Schools and
+Scholars   [Footnote 6], will serve to show at once the extent of
+Albert's knowledge and the presumptuous ignorance of those who make
+little of the science of the medieval period. When we have catalogued,
+for instance, the many facts with regard to astronomy and the physics
+of light that are supposed to have come to human ken much later, yet
+may be seen to have been clearly within the range of Albert's
+knowledge, and evidently formed the subject of his teaching at various
+times at both Paris and Cologne, for they are found in his authentic
+works, we can scarcely help but be amused at the pretentious
+misconception that has relegated their author to a place in education
+so trivial as is that which is represented in many minds by the term
+scholastic.
+
+  [Footnote 6: Christian Schools and Scholars. Drane.]
+
+
+  "He decides that the Milky Way is nothing but a vast {48} assemblage
+  of stars, but supposes naturally enough that they occupy the orbit
+  which receives the light of the sun. The figures visible on the
+  moon's disc are not, he says, as hitherto has been supposed,
+  reflections of the seas and mountains of the earth, but
+  configurations of her own surface. He notices, in order to correct
+  it, the assertion of Aristotle that lunar rainbows appear only twice
+  in fifty years; 'I myself,' he says have observed two in a single
+  year.' He has something to say on the refraction of a solar ray,
+  notices certain crystals which have a power of refraction, and
+  remarks that none of the ancients and few moderns were acquainted
+  with the properties of mirrors."
+
+Albert's great pupil Roger Bacon is rightly looked upon as the true
+father of inductive science, an honor that history has unfortunately
+taken from him to confer it undeservedly on his namesake of four
+centuries later, but the teaching out of which Roger Bacon was to
+develop the principles of experimental science can be found in many
+places in his master's writings. In Albert's tenth book, wherein he
+catalogues and describes all the trees, plants, and herbs known in his
+time, he observes: "All that is here set down is the result of our own
+experience, or has been borrowed from authors whom we know to have
+written what their personal experience has confirmed: for in these
+matters experience alone can give certainty" (_experimentum solum
+certificat in talibus_). "Such an expression," says his biographer,
+"which might have proceeded from the pen of (Francis) Bacon, argues in
+itself a prodigious scientific progress, and shows that the medieval
+friar was on the track so successfully pursued by modern natural
+philosophy. He had fairly shaken off the shackles which had hitherto
+tied up discovery, and was the slave neither of Pliny nor of
+Aristotle."
+
+Botany is supposed to be a very modern science and to most people
+Humboldt's expression that he found in Albertus Magnus's writings some
+"exceedingly acute remarks on the organic structure and physiology of
+plants" will come as a supreme surprise. A few details with regard to
+Albert's botanical knowledge, however, will serve to heighten that
+surprise and to show, that the foolish tirades of modern sciolists,
+{49} who have often expressed their wonder that with all the beauties
+of nature around them, these scholars of the Middle Ages did not
+devote themselves to nature study, are absurd, because if the critics
+but knew it there was profound interest in nature and all her
+manifestations and a series of discoveries that anticipated not a
+little of what we consider most important in our modern science. The
+story of Albert's botanical knowledge has been told in a single very
+full paragraph by his biographer. Sighart also quotes an appreciative
+opinion from a modern German botanist which will serve to dispel any
+doubts with regard to Albert's position in botany that modern students
+might perhaps continue to harbor, unless they had good authority to
+support their opinion, though of course it will be remembered that the
+main difference between the medieval and the modern mind is only too
+often said to be, that the medieval required an authority while the
+modern makes its opinion for itself. Even the most skeptical of modern
+minds however, will probably be satisfied by the following paragraph.
+
+  "He was acquainted with the sleep of plants, with the periodical
+  opening and closing of blossoms, with the diminution of sap through
+  evaporation from the cuticle of the leaves, and with the influence
+  of the distribution of the bundles of vessels on the folial
+  indentations. His minute observations on the forms and variety of
+  plants intimate an exquisite sense of floral beauty. He
+  distinguished the star from the bell-floral, tells us that a red
+  rose will turn white when submitted to the vapor of sulphur and
+  makes some very sagacious observations on the subject of
+  germination. . . . The extraordinary erudition and originality of this
+  treatise (his tenth book) has drawn from M. Meyer the following
+  comment: 'No Botanist who lived before Albert can be compared to
+  him, unless Theophrastus, with whom he was not acquainted; and after
+  him none has painted nature in such living colors or studied it so
+  profoundly until the time of Conrad Gesner and Cesalpino.' All
+  honor, then, to the man who made such astonishing progress in the
+  science of nature as to find no one, I will not say to surpass, but
+  even to equal him for the space of three centuries."
+
+{50}
+
+We point out in the chapter on Geography and Exploration how much this
+wonderful Thirteenth Century added to the knowledge of geographical
+science. Even before the great explorers of this time, however, had
+accomplished their work, this particular branch of science had made
+such great progress as would bring it quite within the domain of what
+we call the science of geography at the present time. When we remember
+how much has been said about the ignorance of the men of the later
+Middle Ages as regards the shape of the earth and its inhabitants, and
+how many foolish notions they are supposed to have accepted with
+regard to the limitation of possible residents of the world and the
+queer ideas as to the antipodes, the following passages taken from
+Albert's biographer will serve better than anything else to show how
+absurdly the traditional notions with regard to this time and its
+knowledge, have been permitted by educators to tinge what are supposed
+to be serious opinions with regard to the subject matters of education
+in that early university period:
+
+  "He treats as fabulous the commonly-received idea, in which Bede had
+  acquiesced, that the region of the earth south of the equator was
+  uninhabitable, and considers, that from the equator to the South
+  Pole, the earth was not only habitable, but in all probability
+  actually inhabited, except directly at the poles, where he imagines
+  the cold to be excessive. If there be any animals there, he says,
+  they must have very thick skins to defend them from the rigor of the
+  climate, and they are probably of a white color. The intensity of
+  cold, is however, tempered by the action of the sea. He describes
+  the antipodes and the countries they comprise, and divides the
+  climate of the earth into seven zones. He smiles with a scholar's
+  freedom at the simplicity of those who suppose that persons living
+  at the opposite region of the earth must fall off, an opinion that
+  can only rise out of the grossest ignorance, 'for when we speak of
+  the lower hemisphere, this must be understood merely as relatively
+  to ourselves.' It is as a geographer that Albert's superiority to
+  the writers of his own time chiefly appears. Bearing in mind the
+  astonishing ignorance which then prevailed on this subject, it is
+  truly admirable to find him correctly tracing the chief mountain
+  chains of Europe, with the rivers which take {51} their source in
+  each; remarking on portions of coast which have in later times been
+  submerged by the ocean, and islands which have been raised by
+  volcanic action above the level of the sea; noticing the
+  modification of climate caused by mountains, seas and forests, and
+  the division of the human race whose differences he ascribes to the
+  effect upon them of the countries they inhabit! In speaking of the
+  British Isles he alludes to the commonly-received idea that another
+  distant island called Tile or Thule, existed far in the Western
+  Ocean, uninhabitable by reason of its frightful climate, but which,
+  he says, has perhaps not yet been visited by man."
+
+Nothing will so seriously disturb the complacency of modern minds as
+to the wonderful advances that have been made in the last century in
+all branches of physical science as to read Albertus Magnus' writings.
+Nothing can be more wholesomely chastening of present day conceit than
+to get a proper appreciation of the extent of the knowledge of the
+Schoolmen.
+
+Albertus Magnus' other great pupil besides Roger Bacon was St. Thomas
+Aquinas. If any suspicion were still left that Thomas did not
+appreciate just what the significance of his teachings in physics was,
+when he announced that neither matter nor force could ever be reduced
+to nothingness, it would surely be removed by the consideration that
+he had been for many years in intimate relations with Albert and that
+he had probably also been close to Roger Bacon. After association with
+such men as these, any knowledge he displays with regard to physical
+science can scarcely be presumed to have been stumbled upon unawares.
+St. Thomas himself has left three treatises on chemical subjects and
+it is said that the first occurrence of the word amalgam can be traced
+to one of these treatises. Everybody was as much interested then, as
+we are at the present time, in the transformation of metals and
+mercury with its silvery sheen, its facility to enter into metallic
+combinations of all kinds, and its elusive ways, naturally made it the
+center of scientific interest quite as radium is at the present
+moment. Further material with regard to St. Thomas and also to the
+subject of education will be found in the chapter, Aquinas the
+Scholar.
+
+After this brief review of only a few of the things that they taught
+in science at the Thirteenth Century universities, most {52} people
+will scarcely fail to wonder how such peculiar erroneous impressions
+with regard to the uselessness of university teaching and training
+have come to be so generally accepted. The fault lies, of course, with
+those who thought they knew something about university teaching, and
+who, because they found a few things that now look ridiculous, as
+certain supposed facts of one generation always will to succeeding
+generations who know more about them, thought they could conclude from
+these as to the character of the whole content of medieval education.
+It is only another example of what Artemus Ward pointed out so
+effectively when he said that "there is nothing that makes men so
+ridiculous as the knowing so many things that aint so." We have been
+accepting without question ever so many things that simply are not so
+with regard to these wonderful generations, who not only organized the
+universities but organized the teaching in them on lines not very
+different from those which occupy people seven centuries later.
+
+What would be the most amusing feature, if it were not unfortunately
+so serious an arraignment of the literature that has grown up around
+these peculiar baseless notions with regard to scholastic philosophy,
+is the number of men of science who have permitted themselves to make
+fun of certain supposed lucubrations of the great medieval
+philosophers. It is not so very long ago that, as pointed out by
+Harper in the Metaphysics of the School, Professor Tate in a lecture
+on Some Recent Advances in Physical Science repeated the old slander
+that even Aquinas occupied the attention of his students with such
+inane questions as: "How many angels could dance on the point of a
+needle?" Modern science very proudly insists that it occupies itself
+with observations and concerns itself little with authority. Prof.
+Tate in this unhappy quotation, shows not only that he has made no
+personal studies in medieval philosophy but that he has accepted a
+very inadequate authority for the statements which he makes with as
+much confidence as if they had been the result of prolonged research
+in this field. Many other modern scientists (?) have fallen into like
+blunders. (For Huxley's opinion see Appendix.)
+
+The modern student, as well as the teacher, is prone to wonder what
+were the methods of study and the habits of life {53} of the students
+of the Thirteenth Century, and fortunately we have a short sketch,
+written by Robert of Sorbonne, the famous founder of the Sorbonne, in
+which he gives advice to attendants at that institution as to how they
+should spend their time, so that at least we are able to get a hint of
+the ideals that were set before the student. Robert, whose long
+experience of university life made him thoroughly competent to advise,
+said:
+
+  "The student who wishes to make progress ought to observe six
+  essential rules.
+
+  "First: He ought to consecrate a certain hour every day to the study
+  of a determined subject, as St. Bernard counselled his monks in his
+  letter to the Brothers of the Mont Dieu.
+
+  "Second: He ought to concentrate his attention upon what he reads
+  and ought not to let it pass lightly. There is between reading and
+  study, as St. Bernard says, the same difference as between a host
+  and a guest, between a passing salutation exchanged in the street
+  and an embrace prompted by an unalterable affection.
+
+  "Third: He ought to extract from the daily study one thought, some
+  truth or other, and engrave it deeply upon his memory with special
+  care. Seneca said _'Cum multa percurreris in die, unum tibi elige
+  quod illa die excoquas'_--When you have run over many things in a
+  day select one for yourself which you should digest well on that
+  day.
+
+  "Fourth: Write a resume of it, for words which are not confided to
+  writing fly as does the dust before the wind.
+
+  "Fifth: Talk the matter over with your fellow-students, either in
+  the regular recitation or in your familiar conversation. This
+  exercise is even more profitable than study for it has as its result
+  the clarifying of all doubts and the removing of all the obscurity
+  that study may have left. Nothing is perfectly known unless it has
+  been tried by the tooth of disputation.
+
+  "Sixth: Pray, for this is indeed one of the best ways of learning.
+  St. Bernard teaches that study ought to touch the heart and that one
+  should profit by it always by elevating the heart to God, _without,
+  however, interrupting the study_."
+
+Sorbonne proceeds in a tone that vividly recalls the modern university
+professor who has seen generation after generation {54} of students
+and has learned to realize how many of them waste their time.
+
+  "Certain students act like fools; they display great subtility over
+  nonsensical subjects and exhibit themselves devoid of intelligence
+  with regard to their most important studies. So as not to seem to
+  have lost their time they gather together many sheets of parchment,
+  make thick volumes of note books out of them, with many a blank
+  interval, and cover them with elegant binding in red letters. Then
+  they return to the paternal domicile with their little sack filled
+  up with knowledge which can be stolen from them by any thief that
+  comes along, or may be eaten by rats or by worms or destroyed by
+  fire or water.
+
+  "In order to acquire instruction the student must abstain from
+  pleasure and not allow himself to be hampered by material cares.
+  There was at Paris not long since two teachers who were great
+  friends. One of them had seen much, had read much and used to remain
+  night and day bent over his books. He scarcely took the time to say
+  an 'Our Father.' Nevertheless he had but four students. His
+  colleague possessed a much less complete library, was less devoted
+  to study and heard mass every morning before delivering his lecture.
+  In spite of this, his classroom was full. 'How do you do it?' asked
+  his friend. 'It is very simple,' said his friend smiling. 'God
+  studies for me. I go to mass and when I come back I know by heart
+  all that I have to teach.'"
+
+  "Meditation," so Sorbonne continues, "is suitable not only for the
+  master, but the good student ought also to go and take his promenade
+  along the banks of the Seine, not to play there, but in order to
+  repeat his lesson and meditate upon it."
+
+These instructions for students are not very different from those that
+would be issued by an interested head of a university department to
+the freshmen of the present day. His insistence, especially on the
+difference between reading and study, might very well be taken to
+heart at the present time, when there seems to be some idea that
+reading of itself is sufficient to enable one to obtain an education.
+The lesson of learning one thing a day and learning that well, might
+have been selected as a motto for students for all succeeding
+generations with manifest advantage to the success of college study.
+
+{55}
+
+In other things Sorbonne departs further from our modern ideas in the
+matter of education, but still there are many even at the present time
+who will read with profound sympathy his emphatic advice to the
+University students that they must educate their hearts as well as
+their intellects, and make their education subserve the purpose of
+bringing them closer to God.
+
+A word about certain customs that prevailed more or less generally in
+the universities at this time, and that after having been much
+misunderstood will now be looked at more sympathetically in the light
+of recent educational developments will not be out of place here.
+
+One of the advantages of modern German university education has often
+been acclaimed to be the fact that students are tempted to make
+portions of their studies in various cities, since all the courses are
+equalized in certain ways, so that the time spent at any one of them
+will be counted properly for their degrees. It has long been
+recognized that travel makes the best possible complement to a
+university course, and even when the English universities in the
+Eighteenth Century sank to be little more than pleasant abiding places
+where young men of the upper classes "ate their terms," the fact that
+it was the custom "to make the grand tour" of continental travel,
+supplied for much that was lacking in the serious side of their
+education. Little as this might be anticipated as a feature of the
+ruder times of the Thirteenth Century, when travel was so difficult,
+it must be counted as one of the great advantages for the inquiring
+spirits of the time. Dante, besides attending the universities in
+Italy, and he certainly was at several of them, was also at Paris at
+one time and probably also at Oxford. Professor Monroe in his text
+book in the History of Education has stated this custom very
+distinctly.
+
+  "With the founding of the universities and the establishment of the
+  nations in practically every university, it became quite customary
+  for students to travel from university to university, finding in
+  each a home in their appropriate nation. Many, however, willing to
+  accept the privileges of the clergy and the students without
+  undertaking their obligations, adopted this wandering life as a
+  permanent one. Being a privileged order, they readily found a
+  living, or made it by begging. A monk of {56} the early university
+  period writes: 'The scholars are accustomed to wander throughout the
+  whole world and visit all the cities, and their many studies bring
+  them understanding. For in Paris they seek a knowledge of the
+  liberal arts; of the ancient writers at Orleans; of medicine at
+  Salernum; of the black art at Toledo; and in no place decent
+  manners.'"
+
+With regard to the old monk's criticism it must be remembered that old
+age is always rather depreciative in criticism of the present and
+over-appreciative of what happened in the past _se pueris_. Abuses
+always seem to be creeping in that are going to ruin the force of
+education, yet somehow the next generation succeeds in obtaining its
+intellectual development in rather good shape. Besides as we must
+always remember in educational questions, evils are ever exaggerated
+and the memory of them is prone to live longer and to loom up larger
+than that of the good with which they were associated and to which
+indeed, as anyone of reasonable experience in educational circles
+knows, they may constitute by comparison only a very small amount.
+Undoubtedly the wanderings of students brought with it many abuses,
+and if we were to listen to some of the stories of foreign student
+life in Paris in our own time, we might think that much of evil and
+nothing of good was accomplished by such wandering, but inasmuch as we
+do so we invite serious error of judgment.
+
+Another striking feature of university life which constituted a
+distinct anticipation of something very modern in our educational
+system, was the lending of professors of different nationalities among
+the universities. It is only at the beginning of the Twentieth Century
+that we have reestablished this custom. In the Thirteenth Century,
+however, Albertus Magnus taught for a time at Cologne and then later
+at Paris and apparently also at Rome. St. Thomas of Aquin, after
+having taught for a time at Paris, lectured in various Italian
+universities and then finally at the University of Rome to which he
+was tempted by the Popes. Duns Scotus, besides teaching in Oxford,
+taught also at Paris. Alexander of Hales before him seems to have done
+the same thing. Roger Bacon, after studying at the University of
+Paris, seems to have commenced teaching there, though most of his
+professional work was {57} accomplished at the University of Oxford.
+Raymond Lully probably had professional experiences at several Spanish
+Universities besides at Paris. In a word, if a man were a
+distinguished genius he was almost sure to be given the opportunity to
+influence his generation at a number of centers of educational life,
+and not be confined as has been the case in the centuries since to but
+one or at most, and that more by accident than intent, to perhaps two.
+In a word there is not a distinctive feature of modern university life
+that was not anticipated in the Thirteenth Century.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+FLYING BUTTRESS (AMIENS)
+
+
+{58}
+
+IV
+
+THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS AND DISCIPLINE.
+
+
+For most people the surprise of finding that the subjects with which
+the students were occupied at the universities of the Thirteenth
+Century were very much the same as those which claim the attention of
+modern students, will probably be somewhat mitigated by the thought
+that after all there were only few in attendance at the universities,
+and as a consequence only a small proportion of the population shared
+in that illumination, which has become so universal in the spread of
+opportunities for the higher education in these later times. While
+such an impression is cherished by many even of those who think that
+they know the history of education, and unfortunately are considered
+_by others_ to be authorities on the subject, it is the falsest
+possible idea that could be conceived of this medieval time with which
+we are concerned. We may say at once that it is a matter of
+comparatively easy collation of statistics to show, that in proportion
+to the population of the various countries, there were actually more
+students taking advantage of the opportunity to acquire university
+education in the Thirteenth Century, than there were at any time in
+the Nineteenth Century, or even in the midst of this era of widespread
+educational opportunities in the Twentieth Century.
+
+Most people know the traditions which declare that there were between
+twenty and thirty thousand students at the University of Paris toward
+the end of the Thirteenth Century. At the same time there were said to
+have been between fifteen and twenty thousand students at the
+University of Bologna. Correspondingly large numbers have been
+reported for the University of Oxford and many thousands were supposed
+to be in attendance at the University of Cambridge. It is usually
+considered, however, that these figures are gross exaggerations. It is
+easy to assert this but rather difficult to prove. As a matter of fact
+the nearer one comes to the actual times in the {59} history of
+education, the more definitely do writers speak of these large numbers
+of students in attendance. For instance Gascoigne, who says that there
+were thirty thousand students at the University of Oxford at the end
+of the Thirteenth Century, lived himself within a hundred years of the
+events of which he talks, and he even goes so far as to declare that
+he saw the rolls of the University containing this many names. There
+is no doubt at all about his evidence in the matter and there is no
+mistake possible with regard to his figures. They were written out in
+Latin, not expressed in Arabic or Roman numerals, the copying of which
+might so easily give opportunities for error to creep in.
+
+In spite of such evidence it is generally conceded that to accept
+these large numbers would be almost surely a mistake. There were
+without any doubt many thousands of students at the Thirteenth Century
+universities. There were certainly more students at the University of
+Paris in the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century than there were at
+any time during the Nineteenth Century. This of itself is enough to
+startle modern complacency out of most of its ridiculous
+self-sufficiency. There can be scarcely a doubt that the University of
+Bologna at the time of its largest attendance had more students than
+any university of modern times, proud as we may be (and deservedly) of
+our immense institutions of learning. With regard to the English
+universities the presence of very large numbers is much more doubtful.
+Making every allowance, however, there can be no hesitation in saying
+that Oxford had during the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century a
+larger number than ever afterwards within her walls and that
+Cambridge, though never so numerous as her rival, had a like good
+fortune. Professor Laurie of Edinburgh, a very conservative authority
+and one not likely to concede too much to the Middle Ages in anything,
+would allow, as we shall see, some ten thousand students to Oxford.
+Others have claimed more than half that number for Cambridge as the
+lowest possible estimate. Even if it be conceded, as has sometimes
+been urged, that all those in service in the universities were also
+counted as students, these numbers would not be reduced very
+materially and it must not be {60} forgotten that, in those days of
+enthusiastic striving after education, young men were perfectly
+willing to take up even the onerous duties of personal services to
+others, in order to have the opportunity to be closely in touch with a
+great educational institution and to receive even a moderate amount of
+benefit from its educational system. In our own time there are many
+students who are working their way through the universities, and in
+the Thirteenth Century when the spirit of independence was much less
+developed, and when any stigma that attached to personal service was
+much less felt than it is at the present time, there were many more
+examples of this earnest striving for intellectual development.
+
+If we discuss the situation in English-speaking countries as regards
+the comparative attendance at the universities in the Thirteenth
+Century and in our own time, we shall be able to get a reasonably good
+idea of what must be thought in this matter. The authorities are
+neither difficult of consultation nor distant, and comparatively much
+more is known about the population of England at this time than about
+most of the continental countries. England was under a single ruler,
+while the geographical divisions that we now know by the name of
+France, Spain, Italy and Germany were the seats of several rulers at
+least and sometimes of many, a circumstance which does not favor our
+obtaining an adequate idea of the populations.
+
+That but two universities provided all the opportunities for whatever
+higher education there was in England at this time, would of itself
+seem to stamp the era as backward in educational matters. A little
+consideration of the comparative number of students with reference to
+the population of the country who were thus given the opportunity for
+higher education--and took advantage of it--at that time and the
+present, will show the unreasonableness of such an opinion. It is not
+so easy as might be imagined to determine just what was the population
+even of England in the Thirteenth Century. During Elizabeth's reign
+there were, according to the census, an estimate made about the time
+of the great Armada, altogether some four millions of people. Froude,
+accepts this estimate as representing very well the actual number of
+the population. Certainly there were not more {61} than five millions
+at the end of the Sixteenth Century. Lingard, who for this purpose
+must be considered as a thoroughly conservative authority, estimates
+that there were not much more than two millions of people in England
+at the end of the Twelfth Century. This is probably not an
+underestimate. At the end of the Thirteenth Century there were not
+many more than two millions and a half of people in the country. At
+the very outside there were, let us say, three millions. Out of this
+meagre population, ten thousand students were, on the most
+conservative estimate, taking advantage of the opportunities for the
+higher education that were provided for them at the universities.
+
+At the present moment, though we pride ourselves on the numbers in
+attendance at our universities, and though the world's population is
+so much more numerous and the means of transportation so much more
+easy, we have very few universities as large as these of the
+Thirteenth Century. No American university at the present moment has
+as large a number of students as had Oxford at the end of the
+Thirteenth Century, and of course none of them compares at all with
+Paris or Bologna in this respect. Even the European universities, as
+we have suggested, fall behind their former glory from this
+standpoint. In the attendance to the number of population the
+comparison is even more startling for those who have not thought at
+all of the Middle Ages as a time of wonderful educational facilities
+and opportunities. In the greater City of New York as we begin the
+Twentieth Century there are perhaps fifteen thousand students in
+attendance at educational institutions which have university
+privileges. I may say that this is a very liberal allowance. At
+universities in the ordinary sense of the word there are not more than
+ten thousand students and the remainder is added in order surely to
+include all those who may be considered as doing undergraduate work in
+colleges and schools of various kinds. Of these fifteen thousand at
+least one-fourth come from outside of the greater city, and there are
+some who think that even one-third would not be too large a number to
+calculate as not being drawn directly from our own population.
+Connecticut and New Jersey furnish large numbers of students and then,
+besides, the post-graduate schools {62} of the universities have very
+large numbers in attendance even from distant states and foreign
+countries.
+
+It will be within the bounds of truth, then, to say, that there are
+between ten and twelve thousand students, out of our population of
+more than four millions in Greater New York taking advantage of the
+opportunities for the higher education provided by our universities
+and colleges. At the end of the Thirteenth Century in England there
+were at least ten thousand students out of a population of not more
+and very probably less than three millions, who were glad to avail
+themselves of similar opportunities. This seems to be perfectly fair
+comparison and we have tried to be as conservative as possible in
+every way in order to bring out the truth in the matter.
+
+It can scarcely fail to be a matter of supreme surprise to find that a
+century so distant as the Thirteenth, should thus equal our own
+vaunted Twentieth Century in the matter of opportunities for the
+higher education afforded and taken advantage of. It has always been
+presumed that the Middle Ages, while a little better than the Dark
+Ages, were typical periods in which there was little, if any desire
+for higher education and even fewer opportunities. It was thought that
+there was constant repression of the desire for knowledge which
+springs so eternally in the human heart and that the Church, or at
+least the ecclesiastical authorities of the time, set themselves
+firmly against widespread education, because it would set people to
+thinking for themselves. As a matter of fact, however, every Cathedral
+and every monastery became a center of educational influence, and even
+the poorest, who showed special signs of talent, obtained the
+opportunity to secure knowledge to the degree that they wished. It is
+beyond doubt or cavil, that at no time in the world's history have so
+many opportunities for the higher education been open to all classes
+as during the Thirteenth Century.
+
+In order to show how thoroughly conservative are the numbers in
+attendance at the universities that I have taken, I shall quote two
+good recent authorities, one of them Professor Laurie, the Professor
+of the Institutes and History of Education in the University of
+Edinburgh, and the other Thomas Davidson, a well-known American
+authority on educational {63} subjects. Each of their works from which
+I shall quote has been published or revised within the last few years.
+Professor Laurie in "The Rise and Early Constitution of the University
+with a Survey of the Medieval Education," which formed one of the
+International Educational Series, edited by Commissioner Harris and
+published by Appleton, said:
+
+  "When one hears of the large number of students who attended the
+  earliest universities--ten thousand and even twenty thousand at
+  Bologna, an equal, and at one time a greater, number at Paris, and
+  thirty thousand at Oxford--one cannot help thinking that the numbers
+  have been exaggerated. There is certainly evidence that the Oxford
+  attendance was never so great as has been alleged (see Anstey's 'Mon
+  Acad.'); but when we consider that attendants, servitors, college
+  cooks, etc., were regarded as members of the university community,
+  and that the universities provided for a time the sole recognized
+  training grounds for those wishing to enter the ecclesiastical or
+  legal or teaching professions, I see no reason to doubt the
+  substantial accuracy of the tradition as to attendance--especially
+  when we remember that at Paris and Oxford a large number were mere
+  boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age."
+
+As to the inclusion of servitors, we have already said that many,
+probably, indeed, most of them, were actual students working their way
+through the university in these enthusiastic days. Professor Laurie's
+authority for the assertion that a large number of the students at
+Paris and Oxford were mere boys, is a regulation known to have existed
+at one of these universities requiring that students should not be
+less than twelve years of age. Anyone who has studied medieval
+university life, however, will have been impressed with the idea, that
+the students were on the average older at the medieval universities
+rather than younger than they are at the present time. The rough
+hazing methods employed, almost equal to those of our own day! would
+seem to indicate this. Besides, as Professor Laurie confesses in the
+next paragraph, many of the students were actually much older than at
+present. Our university courses are arranged for young men between 17
+and 22, but that is, to fall back on Herbert Spencer, presumably
+because the period of infancy is {64} lengthening with the evolution
+of the race. There are many who consider that at the present time
+students are too long delayed in the opportunity to get at the
+professional studies, and that it is partly the consequence of this
+that the practical branches are so much more taken up under the
+elective system. As we said in the chapter on Universities and
+Preparatory Schools, in Italy and in other southern countries, it is
+not a surprising thing to have a young man graduate at the age of 16
+or 17 with his degree of A. B., after a thoroughly creditable
+scholastic career. This means that he began his university work proper
+under 13 years of age; so that we must judge the medieval universities
+to some extent at least with this thought in mind.
+
+Mr. Thomas Davidson in his "History of Education,"   [Footnote 7] in
+the chapter on The Medieval University has a paragraph in which he
+discusses the attendance, especially during the Thirteenth Century,
+and admits that the numbers, while perhaps not so large as have been
+reported, were very large in comparison to modern institutions of the
+same kind, and frankly concedes that education rose during these
+centuries which are often supposed to have been so unfavorable to
+educational development, to an amazing height scarcely ever surpassed.
+He says:
+
+  [Footnote 7: A History of Education, by Thomas Davidson, author of
+  Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideas. New York: Scribners, 1900.]
+
+  "The number of students reported as having attended some of the
+  universities in those early days almost passes belief; _e. g._
+  Oxford is said to have had thirty thousand about the year 1300, and
+  half that number even as early as 1224. The numbers attending the
+  University of Paris were still greater. These numbers become less
+  surprising when we remember with what poor accommodations--a bare
+  room and an armful of straw--the students of those days were
+  content, and what numbers of them even a single teacher like Abelard
+  could, long before draw into lonely retreats. That in the Twelfth
+  and following centuries there was no lack of enthusiasm for study,
+  notwithstanding the troubled condition of the times, is very clear.
+  The instruction given at the universities, moreover, reacted upon
+  the lower schools, raising their standard and supplying them with
+  competent teachers. Thus, in the Thirteenth and {65} Fourteenth
+  centuries, education rose in many European states to a height which
+  it had not attained since the days of Seneca and Quintilian."
+
+{opp64}
+
+[Illustration]
+CHRIST DRIVING OUT MONEY CHANGERS (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+HEAD FROM ANNUNCIATION (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+BRIDE MARRIAGE AT CANA (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+SAINT'S HEAD (MOSAIC, ST. MARK'S VENICE)
+
+
+A very serious objection that would seem to have so much weight as to
+preclude all possibility of accepting as true the large numbers
+mentioned, is the fact that it is very hard to understand how such an
+immense number of students could have been supported in any town of
+the Middle Ages. This objection has carried so much weight to some
+minds as to make them give up the thought of large numbers at the
+medieval universities. Professor Laurie has answered it very
+effectively, however, and in his plausible explanation gives a number
+of points which emphasize the intense ardor of these students of the
+Middle Ages in their search for knowledge, and shows how ready they
+were to bear serious trials and inconveniences, not to say absolute
+sufferings and hardships, in order that they might have opportunities
+for the higher education. The objection then redounds rather to the
+glory of the medieval universities than lessens their prestige, either
+as regards numbers or the enthusiasm of their students.
+
+  "The chief objection to accepting the tradition (of large numbers at
+  the universities) lies in the difficulty of seeing how in those
+  days, so large a number of the young men of Europe could afford the
+  expense of residence away from their homes. This difficulty,
+  however, is partly removed when we know that many of the students
+  were well to do, that a considerable number were matured men,
+  already monks and canons, and that the endowments of Cathedral
+  schools also were frequently used to enable promising scholars to
+  attend foreign universities. Monasteries also regularly sent boys of
+  thirteen and fourteen to university seats. A papal instruction of
+  1335 required every Benedictine and Augustinian community to send
+  boys to the universities in the proportion of one in twenty of their
+  residents. Then, state authorities ordered free passages for all who
+  were wending their way through the country to and from the seat of
+  learning. In the houses of country priests--not to speak of the
+  monastery hospitals--traveling scholars were always accommodated
+  gratuitously, and even local subscriptions were frequently made to
+  help them on their way. {66} Poor traveling scholars were, in fact,
+  a medieval institution, and it was considered no disgrace for a
+  student to beg and receive alms for his support."
+
+After reading these authoritative opinions, it would be rather
+difficult to understand the false impressions which have obtained so
+commonly for the last three centuries with regard to education in the
+Middle Ages, if we did not realize that history, especially for
+English-speaking people, has for several centuries been written from a
+very narrow standpoint and with a very definite purpose. About a
+century ago the Comte de Maistre said in his Soirees de St.
+Petersburg, that history for the three hundred years before his time
+"had been a conspiracy against the truth." Curiously enough the
+editors of the Cambridge Modern History in their first volume on the
+Renaissance, re-echoed this sentiment of the French historical writer
+and philosopher. They even use the very words "history has been a
+conspiracy against the truth" and proclaim that if we are to get at
+truth in this generation, we must go behind all the classical
+historians, and look up contemporary documents and evidence and
+authorities once more for ourselves. It is the maintenance of a
+tradition that nothing good could possibly have come out of the
+Nazareth of the times before the Reformation, that has led to this
+serious misapprehension of the true position of those extremely
+important centuries in modern education--the Thirteenth and the
+Fourteenth.
+
+To those who know even a little of what was accomplished in these
+centuries, it is supremely amusing to read the childish treatment
+accorded them and the trivial remarks that even accredited historians
+of education make with regard to them. Occasionally, however, the
+feeling of the reader who knows something of the subject is not one of
+amusement, but far from it. There are times when one cannot help but
+feel that it is not ignorance, but a deliberate purpose to minimize
+the importance of these times in culture and education, that is at the
+basis of some of the utterly mistaken remarks that are made. We shall
+take occasion only to give one example of this, but that will afford
+ample evidence of the intolerant spirit that characterizes the work of
+some even of the supposedly most enlightened historians of education.
+The quotation will be from Compayre's {67} "History of Pedagogy" which
+is, I understand, in use in nearly every Normal School in this country
+and is among the books required in many Normal School examinations.
+
+M. Compayre in an infamous paragraph which bears the title "The
+Intellectual Feebleness of the Middle Age," furnishes an excellent
+example of how utterly misunderstood, if not deliberately
+misrepresented, has been the whole spirit and content and the real
+progressiveness of education in this wonderful period. After some
+belittling expressions as to the influence of Christianity on
+education--expressions utterly unjustified by the facts--he has this
+to say with regard to the Thirteenth Century, which is all the more
+surprising because it is the only place where he calls any attention
+to it. He says:
+
+  "In 1291, of all the monks in the convent of St. Gall, there was not
+  one who could read and write. It was so difficult to find notaries
+  public, that acts had to be passed verbally. The barons took pride
+  in their ignorance. Even after the efforts of the Twelfth Century,
+  instruction remained a luxury for the common people; it was the
+  privilege of the ecclesiastics and even they did not carry it very
+  far. The Benedictines confess that the mathematics were studied only
+  for the purpose of calculating the date of Easter."
+
+This whole paragraph of M. Compayre (the rest must be read to be
+appreciated), whose history of education was considered to be of such
+value that it was deemed worthy of translation by the President of a
+State Normal School and that it has been adopted as a work of
+reference, in some cases of required study, in many of the Normal
+Schools throughout the country, is a most wonderful concoction of
+ingredients, all of which are meant to dissolve every possible idea
+that people might have of the existence of any tincture of education
+during the Middle Ages. There is only one fact which deeply concerns
+us because it refers to the Thirteenth Century. M. Compayre says that
+in 1291 of all the monks of the Convent of Saint Gall there was not
+one who could read and write. This single fact is meant to sum up the
+education of the century for the reader. Especially it is meant to
+show the student of pedagogy how deeply sunk in ignorance were the
+monks and all the ecclesiastics of this period.
+
+{68}
+
+Before attempting to say anything further it may be as well to call
+attention to the fact that in the original French edition the writer
+did not say that there was not a single monk. He said, "There was but
+one monk, who could read and write." Possibly it seemed to the
+translator to make the story more complete to leave out this one poor
+monk and perhaps one monk more or less, especially a medieval monk,
+may not count for very much to modern students of education. There are
+those of us, however, who consider it too bad to obliterate even a
+single monk in this crude way and we ask that he shall be put back.
+There _was one_ who could read and write and carry on the affairs of
+the monastery. Let us have him at least, by all means.
+
+In the year 1291 when M. Compayre says that there was but a single
+monk at the monastery of St. Gall who could read and write, he, a
+professor himself at a French Normal School, must have known very well
+that there were over twenty thousand students at the University of
+Paris, almost as many at the University of Bologna, and over five
+thousand, some authorities say many more than this (Professor Laurie
+would admit more than ten thousand), at the University of Oxford,
+though all Christian Europe at this time did not have a population of
+more than 15,000,000 people. He must have known, too, or be hopelessly
+ignorant in educational matters, that many of the students at these
+universities belonged to the Franciscans and Dominicans, and that
+indeed many of the greatest teachers at the universities were members
+of these monastic orders. Of this he says nothing, however. All that
+he says is "Education was the privilege of the ecclesiastics and they
+did not carry it very far." This is one way of writing a history of
+education. It is a very effective way of poisoning the wells of
+information and securing the persistence of the tradition that there
+was no education until after the beginning of the Sixteenth Century.
+
+Meantime one can scarcely help but admire the ingenuity of deliberate
+purpose that uses the condition of the monastery of St. Gall to
+confirm his statement. St. Gall had been founded by Irish monks
+probably about the beginning of the Eighth Century. It had been for at
+least three centuries a center of education, civilization and culture,
+as well as of religion, for the {69} barbarians who had settled in the
+Swiss country after the trans-migration of nations. The Irish had
+originally obtained their culture from Christian Missionaries, and now
+as Christian Missionaries they brought it back to Europe and
+accomplished their work with wonderful effectiveness. St. Gall was for
+centuries a lasting monument to their efforts. After the Tenth
+Century, however, the monastery began to degenerate. It was almost
+directly in the path of armies which so frequently went down to Italy
+because of the German interest in the Italian peninsula and the claims
+of the German emperor. After a time according to tradition, the
+emperor insisted that certain of the veterans of his army should be
+received and cared for in their old age at St. Gall. Gradually this
+feature of the institution became more and more prominent until in the
+Thirteenth Century it had become little more than a home for old
+soldiers. In order to live on the benefices of the monastery these men
+had to submit to ecclesiastical regulations and wear the habit. They
+were, it is true, a sort of monk, that is, they were willing, for the
+sake of the peace and ease which it brought, to accept the living thus
+provided for them and obey to some degree at least the rules of the
+monastery. It is not surprising that among these there should have
+been only one who could read and write. The soldiers of the time
+despised the men of letters and prided themselves on not being able to
+write. That a historian of pedagogy, however, should take this one
+fact in order to give students an idea of the depth of ignorance of
+the Middle Ages, is an exhibition of some qualities in our modern
+educated men, that one does not like to think of as compatible with
+the capacity to read and write. It would indeed be better not to be
+able to read and write than thus to read and write one's own
+prejudices into history, and above all the history of education.
+
+Compayre's discussion of the "Causes of the Ignorance" of the Middle
+Ages in the next paragraph, is one of the most curious bits of special
+pleading by a man who holds a brief for one side of the question, that
+I think has ever been seen in what was to be considered serious
+history. He first makes it clear how much opposed the Christian Church
+was to education, then he admits that she did some things which cannot
+be denied, but minimizes their significance. Then he concludes that it
+was not {70} the fault of the Church, but in this there is a precious
+bit of damning by faint praise. It would be impossible for any
+ordinary person who had only Compayre for authority to feel anything
+after reading the paragraph, but that Christianity was a serious
+detriment and surely not a help to the cause of progress in education.
+I quote part of the paragraph:
+
+"What were the permanent causes of that situation which lasted for ten
+centuries? The Catholic Church has sometimes been held responsible for
+this. Doubtless the Christian doctors did not always profess a very
+warm sympathy for intellectual culture. Saint Augustine has said: It
+is the ignorant who gain possession of heaven (indocti coelum
+rapiunt.) Saint Gregory the Great, a Pope of the Sixth Century,
+declared that he would blush to have the holy word conform to the
+rules of grammar. Too many Christians, in a word, confounded ignorance
+with holiness. Doubtless, towards the Seventh Century, the darkness
+still hung thick over the Christian Church. Barbarians invaded the
+Episcopate, and carried with them their rude manners. Doubtless, also,
+during the feudal period the priest often became a soldier, and
+remained ignorant. It would, however, be unjust to bring a
+constructive charge against the Church of the Middle Age, and to
+represent it as systematically hostile to instruction. Directly to the
+contrary, it is the clergy who, in the midst of the general barbarism,
+preserved some vestiges of the ancient culture. The only schools of
+that period are the Episcopal and claustral schools, the first annexed
+to the Bishops' palaces, the second to the monasteries. The religious
+orders voluntarily associated manual labor with mental labor. As far
+back as 530, St. Benedict founded the Convent of Monte Cassino, and
+drew up statutes which made reading and intellectual labor a part of
+the daily life of the monks." When this damning by faint praise is
+taken in connection with the paragraph in which only a single monk at
+the Monastery of St. Gall is declared to have been able to read and
+write, the utterly false impression that is sure to result, can be
+readily understood even by those who are not sympathetic students of
+the Middle Ages. This is how our histories of education have been
+written as a rule, and as a consequence the most precious period in
+modern education, its great origin, has been ignored even by
+professional scholars, to the great detriment not only of historical
+knowledge but also of any proper appreciation of the evolution of
+education.
+
+
+Portraits
+Bennozo Gozzoli
+
+[Illustration]
+PETRARCA OMNIUM VIRTUTUM
+MONARCA
+
+[Illustration]
+GIOTTO, PICTOR EXIMIUS
+
+[Illustration]
+DANTE THEOLOGUS NULLIUS
+DOGMATIS EXPERS
+
+
+{71}
+
+It will be said by those who do not appreciate the conditions that
+existed in the Middle Ages, that these numbers at the universities
+seeking the higher education, mean very little for the culture of the
+people, since practically all of those in attendance at the
+universities belonged to the clerical order. There is no doubt that
+most students were clerics in the Thirteenth Century. This did not
+mean, however, that they had taken major orders or had in any way
+bound themselves irrevocably to continue in the clerical vocation. The
+most surprising thing about the spread of culture and the desire for
+the higher education during the Thirteenth Century, is that they
+developed in spite of the fact that the rulers of the time were all
+during the century, embroiled in war either with their neighbors or
+with the nobility. Anyone who wanted to live a quiet, intellectual
+life turned naturally to the clerical state, which enabled him to
+escape military duties and gave him opportunities for study, as well
+as protection from many exactions that might otherwise be levied upon
+him. The church not only encouraged education, but supplied the
+peaceful asylums in which it might be cultivated to the heart's
+content of the student.
+
+While this clerical state was a necessity during the whole time of
+residence at the university, it was not necessarily maintained
+afterward. Many of the clerics did not even have minor orders--orders
+which it is well understood carry with them no absolute obligation of
+continuing in the clerical state. Sextons and their assistants were
+clerics. When the word canon originally came into use it meant nothing
+more than that the man was entered on the rolls of a church and
+received some form of wages therefrom. Students at the universities
+were by ecclesiastical courtesy then, clerics (from which comes the
+word clerk, one who can read and write) though not in orders, and it
+was because of this that the university was able to maintain the
+rights of students. It was well understood that after graduation men
+might take up the secular life and indeed most of them did. In
+succeeding chapters we shall see examples of this and discuss the
+question further. Professors at the {72} universities had to maintain
+their clerical condition so that even professors of law and of
+medicine were not allowed to marry. This law continued long beyond the
+Thirteenth Century, however. Professors of medicine were the first to
+be freed from the obligation of celibacy, but not until the middle of
+the Fifteenth Century at Paris, while other professors were bound thus
+for a full century later. Certain minor teaching positions at Oxford
+are still under this law, which evidently has seemed to have some
+advantage or it would not have been maintained.
+
+It might perhaps be thought that only the wealthier class, the sons of
+the nobility and of the wealthy merchants of the cities had
+opportunities at the universities. As a matter of fact, however, the
+vast majority of the students was drawn from the great middle class.
+The nobility were nearly always too occupied with their pleasures and
+their martial duties to have time for the higher education. The
+tradition that a nobleman should be an educated gentleman had not yet
+come in. Indeed many of the nobility during the Thirteenth Century
+rather prided themselves on the fact that they not only had no higher
+education, but that they did not know even how to read and write. When
+we reflect, then, on the large numbers who went to the universities,
+it adds to our surprise to realize that they were drawn from the
+burgher class. It is evident that many of the sons even of the poor
+were afforded opportunities in different ways at the universities of
+the time.
+
+Tradition shows that from the earliest time there were foundations on
+which poor students could live, and various arrangements were made by
+which, aside from these, they might make their living while continuing
+their studies. Working one's way through the university was more
+common in the Thirteenth Century than it is at the present day, though
+we are proud of the large numbers who now succeed in the double task
+of supporting and educating themselves, with excellent success in both
+enterprises. There are many stories of poor students who found
+themselves about to be obliged to give up their studies, encountering
+patrons of various kinds who enabled them to go on with their
+education.
+
+There is a very pretty set of legends with regard to St. Edmund of
+Canterbury in this matter. He bears this name {73} because he was
+afterward the sainted primate of England. For many years he taught at
+the University of Oxford. The story is told of a clerical friend
+sending him up a student to Oxford and asking that his bills be sent
+to him. St. Edmund's answer was that he would not be robbed of an
+opportunity of doing good like this, and he took upon himself the
+burden of caring for the student. At the time there were many others
+dependent on his bounty and his reputation was such that he was
+enabled to help a great many through the benefactions of friends, who
+found no higher pleasure in life than being able to come generously to
+Edmund's assistance in his charities.
+
+Those who know the difficulty of managing very large bodies of
+students will wonder inevitably, how the medieval universities, with
+their less formal and less complete organizations, succeeded in
+maintaining discipline for all these thousands of students. Most
+people will remember at once all the stories of roughness, of horse
+play, of drinking and gaming or worse that they have heard of the
+medieval students and will be apt to conclude that they are not to be
+wondered at after all, since it must have been practically impossible
+for the faculties of universities to keep order among such vast
+numbers. As a matter of fact, however, the story of the origin and
+maintenance of discipline in these universities is one of the most
+interesting features of university life. The process of discipline
+became in itself a very precious part of education, as it should be of
+course in any well regulated institution of learning. The very fact,
+moreover, that in spite of these large numbers and other factors that
+we shall call attention to in a moment, comparatively so few
+disgraceful stories of university life have come down to us, and the
+other and still more important fact that the universities could be
+kept so constantly at the attainment of their great purpose for such
+numbers, is itself a magnificent tribute to those who succeeded in
+doing it, and to the system which was gradually evolved, not by the
+faculty alone but by teachers and students for university government.
+
+With regard to the discipline of the medieval universities not much is
+known and considerable of what has been written on this obscure
+subject wears an unfavorable tinge, because it is unfortunately true
+that "the good men do is oft interred with {74} their bones" while the
+evil has an immortality all its own. The student escapades of the
+universities, the quarrels between town and gown, the stories of the
+evils apparently inevitable, where many young men are congregated--the
+hazing, the rough horse play, the carousing, the immoralities--have
+all come down to us, while it is easy to miss the supreme significance
+of the enthusiasm for learning that in these difficult times gathered
+so many students together from distant parts of the world, when
+traveling was so difficult and dangerous, and kept them at the
+universities for long years in spite of the hardships and
+inconveniences of the life. With regard to our modern universities the
+same thing is true, and the outside world knows much more of the
+escapades of the few, the little scandals of college life, that
+scarcely make a ripple but are so easily exaggerated, and so
+frequently repeated and lose nothing by repetition, the waste of time
+in athletics, in gambling, in social things, than of the earnest work
+and the successful intellectual progress and interests of the many.
+This should be quite enough to make the modern university man very
+slow to accept the supposed pictures of medieval student life, which
+are founded mainly on the worse side of it. Goodness is proverbially
+uninteresting, a happy people has no history and the ordinary life of
+the university student needs a patient sympathetic chronicler; and
+such the medieval universities have not found as yet. But they do not
+need many allowances, if it will only be remembered under what
+discouragements they labored and how much they accomplished.
+
+
+
+The reputation of the medieval universities has suffered from this
+very human tendency to be interested in what is evil and to neglect
+the good. Even as it is, however, a good deal with regard to the
+discipline of the universities in the early times is known and does
+not lose in interest from the fact, that the main factor in it was a
+committee of the students themselves working in conjunction with the
+faculty, and thus anticipating what is most modern in the development
+of the disciplinary regime of our up-to-date universities. At first
+apparently, in the schools from which the universities originated
+there was no thought of the necessity for discipline. The desire for
+education was considered to be sufficient to keep men occupied in {75}
+such a way that further discipline would not be necessary. It can
+readily be understood that the crowds that flocked to hear Abelard in
+Paris, and who were sufficiently interested to follow him out to the
+Desert of the Paraclete when he was no longer allowed to continue his
+lectures in connection with the school at Paris, would have quite
+enough of ruling from the internal forum of their supreme interest,
+not to need any discipline in the external forum.
+
+In the course of time, however, with the coming of even greater
+numbers to the University of Paris, and especially when the attendance
+ran up into many thousands, some form of school discipline became an
+absolute necessity. This developed of itself and in a very practical
+way. The masters seem to have had very little to do with it at the
+beginning since they occupied themselves entirely with their teaching
+and preparation for lectures. What was to become later one of the
+principal instruments of discipline was at first scarcely more than a
+social organization among the students. Those who came from different
+countries were naturally attracted to one another, and were more ready
+to help each other. When students first came they were welcomed by
+their compatriots who took care to keep them from being imposed upon,
+enabled them to secure suitable quarters and introduced them to
+university customs generally, so that they might be able to take
+advantage, as soon as possible, of the educational opportunities.
+
+The friendships thus fostered gradually grew into formal
+organizations, the so-called "nations." These began to take form just
+before the beginning of the Thirteenth Century. They made it their
+duty to find lodgings for their student compatriots, and evidently
+also to supply food on some cooperative plan for at least the poorer
+students. Whenever students of a particular nationality were injured
+in any way, their "nation" as a formal organization took up their
+cause and maintained their rights, even to the extent of an appeal to
+formal process of law before the magistrates, if necessary. The
+nations were organized before the faculties in the universities were
+formally recognized as independent divisions of the institution, and
+they acted as intermediaries between the university head and the
+students, making themselves responsible for discipline to no slight
+{76} degree. At the beginning of the Thirteenth Century in Paris all
+the students belonged to one or other of four nations, the Picard, the
+Norman, the French, which embraced Italians, Spaniards, Greeks and
+Orientals, and the English which embraced the English, Irish, Germans,
+Poles (heterogeneous collection we would consider it in these modern
+days) and in addition all other students from the North of Europe.
+
+Professor Laurie, of the University of Edinburgh, in his Rise and
+Early Constitution of Universities in the International Educational
+Series   [Footnote 8] says:
+
+  [Footnote 8: The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities, with a
+  survey of Medieval Education, by S. S. Laurie, LL.D., Professor of
+  the Institutes and History of Education in the University of
+  Edinburgh. New York, D. Appleton & Company, 1901.]
+
+"The subdivisions of the nations were determined by the localities
+from which the students and masters came. Each subdivision elected its
+own dean and kept its own matriculation-book and money-chest. The
+whole "nation" was represented, it is true, by the elected
+procurators; but the deans of the subdivisions were regarded as
+important officials, and were frequently, if not always, assessors of
+the procurators. The procurators, four in number, were elected, not by
+the students as in Bologna and Padua, but by the students and masters.
+Each nation with its procurator and deans was an independent body,
+passing its own statutes and rules, and exercising supervision over
+the lodging-houses of the students. They had each a seal as
+distinguished from the university seal, and each procurator stood to
+his "nation" in the same relation as the Rector did to the whole
+university. The Rector, again, was elected by the procurators, who sat
+as his assessors, and together they constituted the governing body;
+but this for purposes of discipline, protection and defense of
+privileges chiefly, the _consortium magistrorum_ regulating the
+schools. But so independent were the nations that the question whether
+each had power to make statutes that overrode those of the
+_universitas_, was still a question so late as the beginning of the
+Seventeenth Century."
+
+It is typical of the times that the governing system should thus have
+grown up of itself and from amongst the students, rather than that it
+should have been organized by the teachers {77} and imposed upon the
+university. The nations represented the rise of that democratic
+spirit, which was to make itself felt in the claims for the
+recognition of rights for all the people in most of the countries
+during the Thirteenth Century, and undoubtedly the character of the
+government of the student body at the universities fostered this
+spirit and is therefore to a noteworthy degree, responsible for the
+advances in the direction of liberty which are chronicled during this
+great century. This was a form of unconscious education but none the
+less significant for that, and eminently practical in its results. At
+this time in Europe there was no place where the members of the
+community who flocked in largest numbers to the universities, the sons
+of the middle classes, could have any opportunities to share in
+government or learn the precious lessons of such participation, except
+at the universities. There gradually came an effort on the part of the
+faculties to lessen many of the rights of the nations of the
+universities, but the very struggle to maintain these on the part of
+the student body, was of itself a precious training against the
+usurpation of privileges that was to be of great service later in the
+larger arena of national politics, and the effects of which can be
+noted in every country in Europe, nowhere more than in England, where
+the development of law and liberty was to give rise to a supreme
+heritage of democratic jurisprudence for the English speaking peoples
+of all succeeding generations.
+
+{78}
+
+V
+
+POST-GRADUATE WORK AT THE UNIVERSITIES.
+
+
+In modern times it has often been said that no university can be
+considered to be doing its proper work unless, besides teaching, it is
+also adding to the existing body of knowledge by original research.
+Because of unfortunate educational traditions, probably the last thing
+in the world that would enter into the minds of most people to
+conceive as likely to be found in the history of the universities of
+the Thirteenth Century, would be original research in any form. In
+spite of this almost universal false impression, original work of the
+most valuable kind, for much of which workers would be considered as
+amply deserving of their doctorates in the various faculties of the
+post-graduate departments of the most up-to-date of modern
+universities, was constantly being accomplished during this wonderful
+century. It is, as a matter of fact, with this phase of university
+activity that the modern educator is sure to have more sympathy than
+with any other, once the significant details of the work become clear.
+
+All surprise that surpassing original work was accomplished will cease
+when it is recalled that, besides creating the universities
+themselves, this century gave us the great Cathedrals--a well-spring
+of originality, and a literature in every civilized country of Europe
+that has been an inspiration to many subsequent generations. At last
+men had the time to devote to the things of the mind. During what are
+called the Dark Ages, a term that must ever be used with the
+realization that there are many bright points of light in them, men
+had been occupied with wars and civic and political dissensions of all
+kinds, and had been gradually climbing back to the heights of interest
+in intellectual matters which had been theirs before the invasion of
+the barbarians and the migration of nations. With the rebirth of
+intellectual interests there came an intense curiosity to know
+everything and to investigate every manifestation. {79} Everything
+that men touched was novel, and the wonderful advances they made can
+only be realized from actual consultation of their works, while the
+reader puts himself as far as possible at the same mental point of
+view from which they surveyed the world and their relations to it.
+
+The modern university prides itself on the number of volumes written
+by its professors and makes it a special feature of its announcements
+to call attention to its at least supposed additions to knowledge in
+this mode. It must have been immensely more difficult to preserve the
+writings of the professors of the medieval universities for they had
+to be copied out laboriously by hand, yet we have an enormous number
+of large volumes of their works, on nearly every intellectual topic,
+that have been carefully preserved. There are some twenty closely
+printed large folio volumes of the writings of Albertus Magnus that
+have come down to us. For two centuries, until the time of printing,
+ardent students must have been satisfied to spend much time in
+preserving these. While mainly devoted to theology, they treat of
+nearly everything else, and at least one of the folio volumes is taken
+up almost exclusively with physical science. St. Thomas Aquinas has as
+many volumes to his credit and his work is even of more importance.
+Duns Scotus died at a very early age, scarcely more than forty, yet
+his writings are voluminously extensive and have been carefully
+preserved, for few men had as enthusiastic students as he. Alas! that
+his name should be preserved for most people only in the familiar
+satiric appellation 'dunce.' The modern educator will most rejoice at
+the fact that the students of the time must have indeed been devoted
+to their masters to set themselves to the task of copying out their
+work so faithfully for, as Cardinal Newman has pointed out, it is the
+personal influence of the master, rather than the greatness of the
+institution, that makes education effective.
+
+First with regard to philosophy, the mistress of all studies, whose
+throne has been shaken but not shattered in these ultimate times.
+After all it must not be forgotten that this was the great century of
+the development of scholastic philosophy. While this scholastic
+philosophy is supposed by many students of modern philosophy to be a
+thing of the past, it still continues {80} to be the basis of the
+philosophical teaching in the Catholic seminaries and universities
+throughout the world. Catholic philosophers are well known as
+conservative thinkers and writers, and yet are perfectly free to
+confess that they consider themselves the nearer to truth the nearer
+they are to the great scholastic thinkers of the Thirteenth Century.
+Even in the circle of students of philosophy who are outside the
+influence of scholasticism, there is no doubt that in recent years an
+opinion much more favorable to the Schoolmen has gradually arisen.
+This has been due to a study of scholastic sources. Only those despise
+and talk slightingly of scholasticism who either do not know it at all
+or know it only at second hand. With regard to the system of thought,
+as such, ever is it true, that the more close the acquaintanceship the
+more respect there is for it.
+
+With regard to theology the case is even stronger than with regard to
+philosophy. Practically all of the great authorities in theology
+belong to the Thirteenth Century. It is true that men like Saint
+Anselm lived before this time and were leaders in the great movement
+that culminated in our century. Saint Anselm's book, _Cur Deus Homo_,
+is indeed one of the best examples of the combination of scholastic
+philosophy and theology that could well be cited. It is a triumph of
+logical reasoning, applied to religious belief. Besides, it is a great
+classic and any one who can read it unmoved by admiration for the
+thinker who, so many centuries ago, could so trenchantly lay down his
+thesis and develop it, must be lacking in some of the qualities of
+human admiration. The writers of the Thirteenth Century in theology
+are beyond even Anselm in their marvelous powers of systematizing
+thought. One need only mention such names as Albertus Magnus, Thomas
+Aquinas, Bonaventure. Duns Scotus, and Raymond Lully to make those who
+are at all acquainted with the history of the time realize, that this
+is not an idle expression of the enthusiasm of a special votary of the
+Thirteenth Century.
+
+As we shall see in discussing the career of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the
+Catholic Church still continues to teach scholastic theology on
+exactly the same lines as were laid down by this great doctor of the
+church in his teaching at the University of Paris. Amid the crumbling
+of many Christian systems of {81} thought, as upheld by the various
+protestant sects, there has been a very general realization that the
+Catholic Church has built up the only edifice of Christian
+apologetics, which will stand the storms of time and the development
+of human knowledge. Confessedly this edifice is founded on Thirteenth
+Century scholasticism. Pope Leo XIII., than whom, even in the
+estimation of those who are least sympathetic toward his high office,
+there was no man of more supremely practical intelligence in our
+generation, insisted that St. Thomas Aquinas must in general principle
+at least, be the groundwork of the teaching of philosophy and theology
+as they are to form the minds of future Catholic apologists.
+
+The scholastic theology and philosophy of the Thirteenth Century have
+come to us in absolute purity. The huge tomes which represent the
+indefatigable labors of these ardent scholars were well preserved by
+the subsequent generation which thought so much of them, and in spite
+of the absence of printing have come down to us in perfectly clear
+texts. It is easy to neglect them and to say that a study of them is
+not worth while. They represent, however, the post-graduate work and
+the research in the department of philosophy and theology of these
+days, and any university of modern time would consider itself honored
+by having their authors among its professors and alumni. Any one who
+does not think so need only turn to the volumes themselves and read
+them with understanding and sympathy, and there will be another
+convert to the ranks of that growing multitude of scholars, who have
+learned to appreciate the marvelous works of our university colleagues
+of the Thirteenth Century.
+
+With regard to law, not much need be said here, since it is well
+understood that the foundations of our modern jurisprudence (see
+chapters on Legal Origins), as well as the methods of teaching law,
+were laid in the Thirteenth Century and the universities were the most
+active factors, direct and indirect, in this work. The University of
+Bologna developed from a law school. Toward the end of the Twelfth
+Century Irnerius revived the study of the old Roman law and put the
+curriculum of modern Civil Law on a firm basis. A little later Gratian
+made his famous collection of decretals, which are the basis of Canon
+{82} Law. Great popes, during the Thirteenth Century, beginning with
+Innocent III., and continuing through such worthy emulators as Gregory
+IX. and Boniface VIII., made it the special glory of their
+pontificates to collect the decrees of their predecessors and arrange
+and publish them, so that they might be readily available for
+consultation.
+
+French law assumed its modern form, and the basis of French
+jurisprudence was laid, under Louis IX., who called to his assistance,
+in this matter, the Professors of Law at the University of Paris, with
+many of whom he was on the most intimate terms. His cousin, Ferdinand
+of Castile, laid the foundation of the Spanish law about the same time
+under almost similar circumstances, and with corresponding help. The
+study of law in the English universities helped to the formulation of
+the principles of the English Common Law in such simple connected form
+as made them readily accessible for consultation. Just before the
+beginning of the last quarter of the Thirteenth Century, Bracton, of
+whose work much more will be said in a subsequent chapter, drew up the
+digest of the English Common Law, which has been the basis of English
+jurisprudence ever since. It took just about a century for these
+countries, previously without proper codification of the principles of
+their laws, to complete the fundamental work to such a degree, that it
+is still the firm substructure on which rests all our modern laws.
+Legal origins, in our modern sense, came not long before the
+Thirteenth Century; at its end the work was finished, to all intents
+and purposes. Of the influence of the universities and of the
+university law departments, in all this there can be no doubt. The
+incentive, undoubtedly, came from their teachings. The men who did so
+much for legal origins of such far-reaching importance, were mainly
+students of the universities of the time, whose enthusiasm for work
+had not subsided with the obtaining of their degrees.
+
+It is in medicine, however, much more than in law or theology, that
+the eminently practical character of university teaching during the
+Thirteenth Century can be seen, at least in the form in which it will
+appeal to a scientific generation. We are so accustomed to think that
+anything like real progress in medicine, and especially in surgery,
+has only come in very {83} recent years, that it is a source of great
+surprise to find how much these earnest students of a long distant
+century anticipated the answers to problems, the solutions of which
+are usually supposed to be among the most modern advances. Professor
+Allbutt, the Regius professor of Physic in the University of
+Cambridge, a position, the occupant of which is always a leader in
+English medical thought, the present professor being one of the
+world's best authorities in the history of medicine, recently pointed
+out some of these marvels of old-time medicine and surgery. In an
+address On the Historical Relations of Medicine and Surgery to the end
+of the Sixteenth Century, delivered at the Congress of Arts and
+Sciences at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, he (Prof. Allbutt) spoke
+with regard to one of the great university medical teachers of the
+Thirteenth Century as follows:
+
+  "Both for his own great merits, as an original and independent
+  observer, and as the master of Lanfranc, William Salicet (Guglielmo
+  Salicetti of Piacenza, in Latin G. Placentinus de Saliceto--now
+  Cadeo), was eminent among the great Italian physicians of the latter
+  half of the Thirteenth Century. Now these great Italians were as
+  distinguished in surgery as in medicine, and William was one of the
+  protestants of the period against the division of surgery from inner
+  medicine; a division which he regarded as a separation of medicine
+  from intimate touch with nature. Like Lanfranc and the other great
+  surgeons of the Italian tradition, and unlike Franco and Ambroise
+  Pare, he had the advantage of the liberal university education of
+  Italy; but, like Pare and Wurtz, he had large practical experience
+  in hospital and on the battlefield. He practised first at Bologna,
+  afterward in Verona. William fully recognised that surgery cannot be
+  learned from books only. His Surgery contains many case histories,
+  for he rightly opined that good notes of cases are the soundest
+  foundation of good practice; and in this opinion and method Lanfranc
+  followed him. William discovered that dropsy may be due to a
+  '_durities renum_'; he substituted the knife for the Arabist abuse
+  of the cautery; he investigated the causes of the failure of healing
+  by first intention; he described the danger of wounds of the neck;
+  he sutured divided nerves; he forwarded the diagnosis of {84}
+  suppurative disease of the hip, and he referred chancre and
+  phagedaena to their real causes."
+
+This paragraph sets forth some almost incredible anticipations of what
+are usually considered among the most modern phases of medicine and
+surgery. Perhaps the most surprising thing is the simple statement
+that Salicet recognized that surgery cannot be learned from books
+alone. His case histories are instructive even to the modern surgeon
+who reads them. His insistence on his students making careful notes of
+their cases as the soundest foundation of progress in surgery, is a
+direct contradiction of nearly everything that has been said in recent
+years about medieval medicine and especially the teaching of medicine.
+(See Appendix.)
+
+William's great pupil, Lanfranc, followed him in this, and Lanfranc
+encouraged the practise at the University of Paris. There is a
+note-book of a student at the University of Paris, made toward the end
+of the Thirteenth Century, carefully preserved in the Museum of the
+University of Berlin. This notebook was kept during Lanfranc's
+teaching and contains some sketches of dissections, as well as some
+illustrations of operative procedures, as studied with that celebrated
+surgeon. The tradition of case histories continued at the University
+of Paris down to the beginning of modern surgery.
+
+Some of the doctrines in medicine that William of Salicet stated so
+clearly, sound surprisingly modern. The connection, for instance,
+between dropsy and _durities renum_ (hardening of the kidneys) shows
+how wonderfully observant the old master was. At the present time we
+know very little more about the dropsical condition associated with
+chronic Bright's disease than the fact that it constantly occurs where
+there is a sclerosis or contraction of the kidney. Bright in his study
+of albuminuria and contracted kidney practically taught us no more
+than this, except that he added the further symptom of the presence of
+albumin in the urine. It must have been only as the result of many
+carefully studied cases, followed by autopsies, that any such doctrine
+could have come into existence. There is a dropsy that occurs with
+heart disease; there is also a dropsy in connection with certain
+affections of the liver, and yet the most frequent cause is just this
+hardening of the kidneys {85} spoken of by this
+middle-of-the-Thirteenth Century Italian professor of medicine, who,
+if we would believe so many of the historians of medicine, was not
+supposed to occupy himself at all with ante and post-mortem studies of
+patients, but with the old-time medical authorities.
+
+Almost more surprising than the question of dropsy is the
+investigation as to the causes of the failure of healing by first
+intention. The modern surgeon is very apt to think that he is the only
+one who ever occupied himself with the thought, that wounds might be
+made to heal by first intention and without the occurrence of
+suppuration or granulation. Certainly no one would suspect any
+interest in the matter as far back as the Thirteenth Century. William
+of Salicet, however, and Lanfranc, both of them occupied themselves
+much with this question and evidently looked at it from a very
+practical standpoint. Many careful observations must have been made
+and many sources of observational error eliminated to enable these men
+to realize the possibilities of primary union, especially, knowing as
+they did, nothing at all about the external causes of suppuration and
+considering, as did surgeons for nearly seven centuries afterward,
+that it was because of something within the patient's tissues that the
+cases of suppuration had their rise.
+
+Unfortunately, the pioneer work done by William and his great disciple
+did not have that effect upon succeeding generations which it should
+have had. There was a question in men's minds as to whether nature
+worked better by primary union or by means of the suppurative process.
+In the next century surgeons took the wrong horn of the dilemma and
+even so distinguished a surgeon as Guy de Chauliac, who has been
+called, not without good cause, the father of surgery, came to the
+conclusion that suppuration was practically a necessary process in the
+healing of large wounds at least, and that it must be encouraged
+rather than discouraged. This doctrine did not have its first set-back
+until the famous incident in Ambroise Pare's career, when one morning
+after a battle, coming to his patients expecting to find many of them
+very severely ill, he found them on the contrary in better condition
+than the others for whom he had no forebodings. In accord with old
+custom {86} he poured boiling oil into the wounds of all patients, but
+the great surgeon's supply of oil had failed the day before and he
+used plain water to cleanse the wounds of a number, fearing the worst
+for them, however, because of the poison that must necessarily stay in
+their wounds and then had the agreeable disappointment of finding
+these patients in much better condition than those whom he had treated
+with all the rules of his art, as they then were. Even this incident,
+however, did not serve to correct entirely the old idea as to the
+value of suppuration and down to Lister's time, that is almost the
+last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, there is still question of the
+value of suppuration in expediting the healing of wounds, and we hear
+of laudable pus and of the proper inflammatory reaction that is
+expected to bring about wound repair.
+
+The danger of wounds of the neck is, of course, not a modern doctrine,
+and yet very few people would think for a moment that it could be
+traced back to the middle of the Thirteenth Century and to a practical
+teacher of surgery in a medieval Italian university. Here once more
+there is evidence of the work of a careful observer who has seen
+patients expire in a few minutes as the result of some serious
+incident during the course of operations upon the neck. He did not
+realize that the danger was due, in many cases, to the sucking in of
+air into the large veins, but even at the present time this question
+is not wholly settled and the problem as to the danger of the presence
+of air is still the subject of investigation.
+
+As to the suture of divided nerves, it would ordinarily and as a
+matter of course be claimed by most modern historians of surgery and
+by practically all surgeons, as an affair entirely of the last half
+century. William of Salicet, however, neglected none of the ordinary
+surgical procedures that could be undertaken under the discouraging
+surgical circumstances in which he lived. The limitations of
+anesthesia, though there was much more of this aid than there has
+commonly been any idea of, and the frequent occurrence of suppuration
+must have been constant sources of disheartenment. His insistence on
+the use of the knife rather than on the cautery shows how much he
+appreciated the value of proper healing. It is from such a man that we
+might expect the advance by careful {87} investigation as to just what
+tissues had been injured, with the idea of bringing them together in
+such juxtaposition as would prevent loss of function and encourage
+rapid and perfect union.
+
+{opp87}
+[Illustration]
+SCREEN (HEREFORD)
+
+[Illustration]
+DOORWAY OF SACRISTY (BOURGES)
+
+Perhaps to the ordinary individual William's reference of certain
+known venereal affections to their proper cause, will be the most
+astonishing in this marvelous list of anticipations of what is
+supposed to be very modern. The whole subject of venereal disease in
+anything like a scientific treatment of it is supposed to date from
+the early part of the Sixteenth Century. There is even question in
+certain minds as to whether the venereal diseases did not come into
+existence, or at least were not introduced from America or from some
+other distant country that the Europeans had been exploring about this
+time. William's studies in this subject, however, serve to show that
+nothing escaped his watchful eye and that he was in the best sense of
+the word a careful observer and must have been an eminently suggestive
+and helpful teacher.
+
+What has thus been learned about him will serve of itself and without
+more ado, to stamp all that has been said about the unpractical
+character of the medical teaching of the medieval universities as
+utterly unfounded. Because men have not taken the trouble to look up
+the teaching of these times, and because their works were until recent
+years buried in old folios, difficult to obtain and still more
+difficult to read when obtained, it has been easy to ignore their
+merit and even to impugn the value of their teaching completely.
+William of Salicet was destined, moreover, to be surpassed in some
+ways by his most distinguished pupil, Lanfranc, who taught at the
+University of Paris at the end of the Thirteenth Century. Of Lanfranc,
+in the address already quoted from, Professor Allbutt has one very
+striking paragraph that shows how progressive was the work of this
+great French surgeon, and how fruitful had been the suggestive
+teaching of his great master. He says:
+
+  "Lanfranc's 'Chirurgia Magna' was a great work, written by a
+  reverent but independent follower of Salicet. He distinguished
+  between venous and arterial hemorrhage, and used styptics (rabbit's
+  fur, aloes, and white of egg was a popular styptic in elder
+  surgery), digital compression for an hour, or in severe cases
+  ligature. His chapter on injuries of the head {88} is one of the
+  classics of medieval surgery. Clerk (cleric) as he was, Lanfranc
+  nevertheless saw but the more clearly the danger of separating
+  surgery from medicine."
+
+Certain assertions in this paragraph deserve, as in the case of
+Lanfranc's master, to be discussed, because of their anticipations of
+what is sometimes thought to be very modern in surgery. The older
+surgeons are supposed to have feared hemorrhage very much. It is often
+asserted that they knew little or nothing about the ligature and that
+their control of hemorrhage was very inadequate. As a matter of fact,
+however, it was not primary hemorrhage that the old surgeons feared,
+but secondary hemorrhage. Suppuration often led to the opening of an
+important artery, and this accident, as can well be understood, was
+very much dreaded. Surgeons would lose their patients before they
+could come to their relief. How thoroughly Lanfranc knew how to
+control primary hemorrhage can be appreciated from the quotation just
+made from Dr. Allbutt's address. The ligature is sometimes said to
+have been an invention of Ambroise Pare, but, as a matter of fact, it
+had been in use for at least three centuries before his time, and
+perhaps even longer.
+
+Usually it is considered that the difficult chapter of head injuries,
+with all the problems that it involves in diagnosis and treatment, is
+a product of the Nineteenth Century. Hence do we read, with all the
+more interest, Allbutt's declaration that Lanfranc wrote what is
+practically a classical monograph, on the subject. It is not so
+surprising, then, to find that the great French surgeon was far ahead
+of his generation in other matters, or that he should even have
+realized the danger of separating surgery from medicine. Both the
+Regius professors of medicine at the two great English universities,
+Cambridge and Oxford, have, since the beginning of the Twentieth
+Century, made public expression of their opinion that the physician
+should see more of the work of the surgeon, and should not depend on
+the autopsy room for his knowledge of the results of internal disease.
+Professor Osler, particularly, has emphasized his colleague, Professor
+Allbutt's opinion in this matter. That a surgical professor at the
+University of Paris, in the Thirteenth Century, should have
+anticipated these two leaders {89} of medical thought in the Twentieth
+Century, would not be so surprising, only that unfortunately the
+history of medieval teaching has, because of prejudice and a
+lamentable tradition, not been read aright.
+
+Occasionally one finds a startling bit of anticipation of what is most
+modern, in medicine as well as in surgery. For instance, toward the
+end of the Thirteenth Century, a distinguished English professor of
+medicine, known as Gilbert, the Englishman, was teaching at
+Montpelier, and among other things, was insisting that the rooms of
+patients suffering from smallpox should be hung entirely with red
+curtains, and that the doors and the windows should be covered with
+heavy red hangings. He claimed that this made the disease run a
+lighter course, with lessened mortality, and with very much less
+disfigurement. Smallpox was an extremely common disease in the
+Thirteenth Century, and he probably had many chances for observation.
+It is interesting to realize that one of the most important
+observations made at the end of the Nineteenth Century by Dr. Finsen,
+the Danish investigator whose studies in light and its employment in
+therapeutics, drew to him the attention of the world, and eventually
+the Nobel prize of $40,000 for the greatest advance in medicine was,
+that the admission of only red light to the room of smallpox patients
+modified the disease very materially, shortened its course, often
+prevented the secondary fever, and almost did away completely with the
+subsequent disfigurement.
+
+It is evident that these men were searching and investigating for
+themselves, and not following blindly in the footsteps of any master.
+It has often been said that during the Middle Ages it was a heresy to
+depart, ever so little, from the teaching of Galen. Usually it is
+customary to add that the first writer to break away from Galen,
+effectually, was Vesalius, in his De Fabrica Corporis Humani,
+published toward the end of the second quarter of the Sixteenth
+Century. It may be said, in passing, that, as a matter of fact,
+Vesalius, though he accomplished much by original investigation, did
+not break so effectually with Galen as would have been for the best in
+his own work, and, especially, for its influence on his successors. He
+certainly did not set an example of independent research {90} and
+personal observation, any more fully, than did the medical teachers of
+the Thirteenth Century already mentioned, and some others, like
+Mondaville and Arnold of Villanova, whose names well deserve to be
+associated with them.
+
+One reason why it is such a surprise to find how thoroughly practical
+was the teaching of the Thirteenth Century university medical schools,
+is because it has somehow come to be a very general impression that
+medicine was taught mainly by disputations, and by the consultation of
+authorities, and that it was always more important to have a passage
+of Galen to support a medical notion, than, to have an original
+observation. This false impression is due to the fact that the writers
+of the history of medical education have, until recent years, drawn
+largely on their imaginations, and have not consulted the old-time
+medical books. In spite of the fact that printing was not discovered
+for more than two centuries later, there are many treatises on
+medicine that have come down to us from this early time, and the
+historians of medicine now have the opportunity, and are taking the
+trouble, to read them with a consequent alteration of old-time views,
+as to the lack of encouragement for original observation, in the later
+Middle Ages. These old tomes are not easy reading, but nothing daunts
+a German investigator bound to get to the bottom of his subject, and
+such men as Pagel and Puschmann have done much to rediscover for us
+medieval medicine. The French medical historians have not been behind
+their German colleagues and magnificent work has been accomplished,
+especially by the republication of old texts. William of Salicet's
+surgery was republished by Pifteau at Toulouse in 1898. Mondaville's
+Surgery was republished under the auspices of the Society for the
+Publication of old French Texts in 1897 and 1898. These republications
+have made the works of the old-time surgeons readily available for
+study by all interested in our great predecessors in medicine, all
+over the world. Before this, it has always been necessary to get to
+some of the libraries in which the old texts were preserved, and this,
+of course, made it extremely difficult for the ordinary teacher of the
+history of medicine to know anything about them. Besides, old texts
+are such difficult reading that few, except the most earnest of
+students, {91} have patience for them, and they are so time-taking as
+to be practically impossible for modern, hurried students.
+
+Unfortunately, writers of the history of medicine filled up this gap
+in their knowledge, only too frequently, either out of their
+imaginations, or out of their inadequate authorities, with the
+consequence of inveterating the old-time false impression with regard
+to the absence of anything of medical or surgical interest, even in
+the later Middle Ages.
+
+Another and much more serious reason for the false impression with
+regard to the supposed blankness of the middle age in medical
+progress, was the notion, quite generally accepted, and even yet not
+entirely rejected, by many, that the Church was opposed to scientific
+advance in the centuries before the reformation so-called, and that
+even the sciences allied to medicine, fell under her ban. For
+instance, there is not a history of medicine, so far as I know,
+published in the English language, which does not assert that Pope
+Boniface VIII., by a Bull promulgated at the end of the Thirteenth
+Century, forbade the practise of dissection. To most people, it will,
+at once, seem a natural conclusion, that if the feeling against the
+study of the human body by dissection had reached such a pass as to
+call forth a papal decree in the matter, at the end of the century,
+all during the previous hundred years, there must have been enough
+ecclesiastical hampering of anatomical work to prevent anything like
+true progress, and to preclude the idea of any genuinely progressive
+teaching of anatomy.
+
+There is not the slightest basis for this bit of false history except
+an unfortunate, it is to be hoped not intentional, misapprehension on
+the part of historical writers as to the meaning of a papal decree
+issued by Boniface VIII. in the year 1300. He forbade, under pain of
+excommunication, the boiling of bodies and their dismemberment in
+order that thus piecemeal they might be transported to long distances
+for burial purposes. It is now well known that the Bull was aimed at
+certain practises which had crept in, especially among the Crusaders
+in the East. When a member of the nobility fell a victim to wounds or
+to disease, his companions not infrequently dismembered the body,
+boiled it so as to prevent putrefaction, or at least delay decay, and
+then transported it long distances to his home, in {92} order that he
+might have Christian burial in some favorite graveyard, and that his
+friends might have the consolation of knowing where his remains
+rested. The body of the Emperor Frederick Barbarosa, who died in the
+East, is said to have been thus treated. Boniface was one of the most
+broadly educated men of his time, who had been a great professor of
+canon and civil law at Paris when younger, and realized the dangers
+involved in such a proceeding from a sanitary standpoint, and he
+forbade it, requiring that the bodies should be buried where the
+persons had died. He evidently considered that the ancient custom of
+consecrating a portion of earth for the purpose of burial in order
+that the full Christian rites might be performed, was quite sufficient
+for noble as for common soldier.
+
+For this very commendable sanitary regulation Boniface has been set
+down by historians of medicine as striking a death blow at the
+development of anatomy for the next two centuries. As a matter of
+fact, however, anatomy continued to be studied in the universities
+after this Bull as it had been before, and it is evident that never by
+any misapprehension as to its meaning was the practise of dissection
+lessened. Curiously enough the history of human dissection can only be
+traced with absolute certainty from the time immediately after this
+Bull. It is during the next twenty-five years at the University of
+Bologna, which was always closely in touch with the ecclesiastical
+authorities in Italy and especially with the Pope, that the
+foundations of dissection, as the most important practical department
+of medical teaching, were laid by Mondino, whose book on dissection
+continued to be the text book used in most of the medical schools for
+the next two centuries. Guy de Chauliac who studied there during the
+first half of the Fourteenth Century says he saw many dissections made
+there. It was at Montpellier, about the middle of the century, when
+the Popes were at Avignon not far away, that Guy de Chauliac himself
+made attendance at dissections obligatory for every student, and
+obtained permission to use the bodies of criminals for dissection
+purposes. At the time Chauliac occupied the post of chamberlain to the
+Popes. All during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries constant
+progress was making in anatomy, especially in Italy, and some of it
+was accomplished at Rome {93} by distinguished teachers of anatomy who
+had been summoned by the popes to their capital in order to add
+distinction to the teaching staff at the famous Papal School of
+Science, the Sapienza, to which were attached during the next two
+centuries many of the distinguished scientific professors of the time.
+
+This story with regard to the papal prohibition of dissection has no
+foundation in the history of the times. It has had not a little to do,
+however, with making these times very much misunderstood and one still
+continues to see printed references to the misfortune, which is more
+usually called a crime, that prevented the development of a great
+humanitarian science because of ecclesiastical prejudice. This story
+with regard to anatomy, however, is not a whit worse than that which
+is told of chemistry in almost the same terms. At the beginning of the
+Fourteenth Century Pope John XXII. is said to have issued a Bull
+forbidding chemistry under pain of excommunication, which according to
+some writers in the matter is said to have included the death penalty.
+It has been felt in the same way as with regard to anatomy, that this
+was only the culmination of a feeling in ecclesiastical circles
+against chemistry which must have hampered its progress all during the
+Thirteenth Century.
+
+An examination of the so-called Bull with regard to chemistry, it is
+really only a decree, shows even less reason for the slander of Pope
+John XXII. than of Boniface VIII. John had been scarcely a year on the
+papal throne when he issued this decree forbidding "alchemies" and
+inflicting a punishment upon those who practised them. The first
+sentence of the title of the document is: "Alchemies are here
+prohibited and those who practise them or procure their being done are
+punished." This is evidently all of the decree that those who quoted
+it as a prohibition of chemistry seem ever to have read. Under the
+name "alchemies," Pope John, as is clear from the rest of the
+document, meant a particular kind of much-advertised chemical
+manipulations. He forbade the supposed manufacture of gold and silver.
+The first sentence of his decree shows how thoroughly he recognized
+the falsity of the pretensions of the alchemists in this matter. "Poor
+themselves," he says, "the alchemists promise riches which are not
+forthcoming." He then forbids them further to impose upon the poor
+people {94} whose confidence they abuse and whose good money they take
+to return them only base-metal or none at all.
+
+The only punishment inflicted for the doing of these "alchemies" on
+those who might transgress the decree was not death or imprisonment,
+but that the pretended makers of gold and silver should be required to
+turn into the public treasury as much gold and silver as had been paid
+them for their alchemies, the money thus paid in to go to the poor. As
+in the case of the Bull with regard to anatomy, it is very clear that
+by no possible misunderstanding at the time was the development of the
+science of chemistry hindered by this papal document. Chemistry had to
+a certain extent been cultivated at the University of Paris, mainly by
+ecclesiastics. Both Aquinas and his master Albertus wrote treatises on
+chemical subjects. Roger Bacon devoted much time to it as is well
+known, and for the next three centuries the history of chemistry has a
+number of names of men who were not only unhampered by the
+ecclesiastical authorities, but who were themselves usually either
+ecclesiastics, or high in favor with the churchmen of their time and
+place. This is true of Hollandus, of Arnold of Villanova, of Basil
+Valentine, and finally of the many abbots and bishops to whom
+Paracelsus in his time acknowledged his obligations for aid in his
+chemical studies.
+
+Almost needless to say it has been impossible, in a brief sketch of
+this kind limited to a single chapter, to give anything like an
+adequate idea of what the enthusiastic graduate students and
+professors of the Thirteenth Century succeeded in accomplishing. It is
+probably this department of University life, however, that has been
+least understood, or rather we should say most persistently
+misunderstood. The education of the time is usually supposed to be
+eminently unpractical, and great advances in the departments of
+knowledge that had important bearings on human life and its relations
+were not therefore thought possible. It is just here, however, that
+sympathetic interpretation and the pointing out of the coordination of
+intellectual work often considered to be quite distinct from
+university influences were needed. It is hoped then that this short
+sketch will prove sufficient to call the attention of modern educators
+to a field that has been neglected, or at least has {95} received very
+little cultivation compared to its importance, but which must be
+sedulously worked, if our generation is to understand with any degree
+of thoroughness the spirit manifested and the results attained by the
+medieval universities.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+DOUBLE FLYING BUTTRESS (RHEIMS)
+
+
+{96}
+
+VI
+
+THE BOOK OF THE ARTS AND POPULAR EDUCATION.
+
+
+The most important portion of the history of the Thirteenth Century
+and beyond all doubt the most significant chapter in the book of its
+arts, is to be found in the great Gothic Cathedrals, so many of which
+were erected at this time and whose greatest perfection of finish in
+design and in detail came just at the beginning of this wonderful
+period. We are not concerned here with the gradual development of
+Gothic out of the older Romanesque architectural forms, nor with the
+Oriental elements that may have helped this great evolution. All that
+especially concerns us is the fact that the generations of the
+Thirteenth Century took the Gothic ideas in architecture and applied
+them so marvelously, that thereafter it could be felt that no problem
+of structural work had been left unsolved and no feature of ornament
+or decoration left untried or at least unsuggested. The great center
+of Gothic influence was the North of France, but it spread from here
+to every country in Europe, and owing to the intimate relations
+existing between England and France because of the presence of the
+Normans in both countries, developed almost as rapidly and with as
+much beauty, and effectiveness as in the mother country.
+
+It is in fact in England just before the Thirteenth Century, that the
+spirit which gave rise to the Cathedrals can be best observed at work
+and its purposes most thoroughly appreciated. The great Cathedral at
+Lincoln had some of its most important features before the beginning
+of the Thirteenth Century and this was doubtless due to the famous St.
+Hugh of Lincoln, who was a Frenchman by birth and whose experience in
+Normandy in early life enabled him successfully to set about the
+creation of a Gothic Cathedral in the country that had become his by
+adoption.
+
+{opp96}
+
+[Illustration]
+ANGEL CHOIR (LINCOLN)
+
+{97}
+
+Hugh himself was so great of soul, so deeply interested in his people
+and their welfare, so ready to make every sacrifice for them even to
+the extent of incurring the enmity of his King (even Froude usually so
+unsympathetic to medieval men and things has included him among his
+Short Studies of Great Subjects), that one cannot help but think that
+when he devoted himself to the erection of the magnificent Cathedral,
+he realized very well that it would become a center of influence, not
+only religious but eminently educational, in its effects upon the
+people of his diocese. The work was begun then with a consciousness of
+the results to be attained and the influence of the Cathedral must not
+be looked upon as accidental. He must have appreciated that the
+creating of a work of beauty in which the people themselves shared,
+which they looked on as their own property, to which they came nearly
+every second day during the year for religious services, would be a
+telling book out of which they would receive more education than could
+come to them in any other way.
+
+Of course we cannot hope in a short chapter or two to convey any
+adequate impression of the work that was done in and for the
+Cathedrals, nor the even more important reactionary influence they had
+in educating the people. Ferguson says:   [Footnote 9 ]
+
+  [Footnote 9: Ferguson--History of Architecture. N. Y., Dodd, Mead &
+  Co.]
+
+  "The subject of the cathedrals, their architecture and decoration
+  is, in fact, practicably inexhaustible. . . . Priests and laymen
+  worked with masons, painters, and sculptors, and all were bent on
+  producing the best possible building, and improving every part and
+  every detail, till the amount of thought and contrivance accumulated
+  in any single structure is almost incomprehensible. If any one man
+  were to devote a lifetime to the study of one of our great
+  cathedrals--assuming it to be complete in all its medieval
+  arrangements--it is questionable whether he would master all its
+  details, and fathom all the reasonings and experiments which led to
+  the glorious result before him. And when we consider that not in the
+  great cities alone, but in every convent and in every parish,
+  thoughtful professional men were trying to excel what had been done
+  and was doing, by their predecessors and their fellows, we shall
+  {98} understand what an amount of thought is built into the walls of
+  our churches, castles, colleges, and dwelling houses. If any one
+  thinks he can master and reproduce all this, he can hardly fail to
+  be mistaken. My own impression is that not one tenth part of it has
+  been reproduced in all the works written on the subject up to this
+  day, and much of it is probably lost and never again to be recovered
+  for the instruction and delight of future ages."
+
+This profound significance and charming quality of the cathedrals is
+usually unrecognized by those who see them only once or twice, and
+who, though they are very much interested in them for the moment, have
+no idea of the wealth of artistic suggestion and of thoughtful design
+so solicitously yet happily put into them by their builders. People
+who have seen them many times, however, who have lived in close touch
+with them, who have been away from them for a time and have come back
+to them, find the wondrous charm that is in these buildings.
+Architects and workmen put their very souls into them and they will
+always be of interest. It is for this reason, that the casual visitor
+at all times and in all moods finds them ever a source of constantly
+renewed pleasure, no matter how many times they may be seen.
+
+Elizabeth Robbins Pennell has expressed this power of Cathedrals to
+please at all times, even after they have been often seen and are very
+well known, in a recent number of the _Century_, in describing the
+great Cathedral of Notre Dame, "Often as I have seen Notre Dame," she
+says, "the marvel of it never grows less. I go to Paris with no
+thought of time for it, busy about many other things and then on my
+way over one of the bridges across the river perhaps, I see it again
+on its island, the beautiful towers high above the houses and palaces
+and the view now so familiar strikes me afresh with all the wonder of
+my first impression."
+
+This is we think the experience of everyone who has the opportunity to
+see much of Notre Dame. The present writer during the course of his
+medical studies spent many months in daily view of the Cathedral and
+did a good deal of work at the old Morgue, situated behind the
+Cathedral. Even at the end of his stay he was constantly finding new
+beauties in {99} the grand old structure and learning to appreciate it
+more and more as the changing seasons of a Paris fall and winter and
+spring, threw varying lights and shadows over it. It was like a work
+of nature, never growing old, but constantly displaying some new phase
+of beauty to the passers-by. Mrs. Pennell resents only the
+restorations that have been made. Generations down even to our time
+have considered that they could rebuild as beautifully as the
+Thirteenth Century constructors; some of them even have thought that
+they could do better, doubtless, yet their work has in the opinion of
+good critics served only to spoil or at least to detract from the
+finer beauty of the original plan. No wonder that R. M. Stevenson, who
+knew and loved the old Cathedral so well, said: "Notre Dame is the
+only un-Greek thing that unites majesty, elegance, and awfulness."
+Inasmuch as it does so it is a typical product of this wonderful
+Thirteenth Century, the only serious rival the Greeks have ever had.
+But of course it does not stand alone. There are other Cathedrals
+built at the same time at least as handsome and as full of
+suggestions. Indeed in the opinion of many critics it is inferior in
+certain respects to some three or four of the greatest Gothic
+Cathedrals.
+
+It cannot be possible that these generations builded so much better
+than they knew, that it is only by a sort of happy accident that their
+edifices still continue to be the subject of such profound admiration,
+and such endless sources of pleasure after seven centuries of
+experience. If so we would certainly be glad to have some such happy
+accident occur in our generation, for we are building nothing at the
+present time with regard to which we have any such high hopes. Of
+course the generations of Cathedral builders knew and appreciated
+their own work. The triumph of the Thirteenth Century is therefore all
+the more marked and must be considered as directly due to the
+environment and the education of its people. We have then in the study
+of their Cathedrals the keynote for the modern appreciation of the
+character and the development of their builders.
+
+It will be readily understood, how inevitably fragmentary must be our
+consideration of the Cathedrals, yet there is the consolation that
+they are the best known feature of Thirteenth {100} Century
+achievement and that consequently all that will be necessary will be
+to point out the significance of their construction as the basis of
+the great movement of education and uplift in the century. Perhaps
+first a word is needed with regard to the varieties of Gothic in the
+different countries of Europe and what they meant in the period.
+
+Probably, the most interesting feature of the history of Gothic
+architecture, at this period, is to be found in the circumstance that,
+while all of the countries erected Gothic structures along the general
+lines which had been laid down by its great inventors in the North and
+Center of France, none of the architects and builders of the century,
+in other countries, slavishly followed the French models. English
+Gothic is quite distinct from its French ancestor, and while it has
+defects it has beauties, that are all its own, and a simplicity and
+grandeur, well suited to the more rugged character of the people among
+whom it developed. Italian Gothic has less merits, perhaps, than any
+of the other forms of the art that developed in the different nations.
+In Italy, with its bright sunlight, there was less crying need for the
+window space, for the provision of which, in the darker northern
+countries, Gothic was invented, but, even here the possibilities of
+decorated architecture along certain lines were exhausted more fully
+than anywhere else, as might have been expected from the esthetic
+spirit of the Italians. German Gothic has less refinement than any of
+the other national forms, yet it is not lacking in a certain
+straightforward strength and simplicity of appearance, which
+recommends it. The Germans often violated the French canons of
+architecture, yet did not spoil the ultimate effect. St. Stephen's in
+Vienna has many defects, yet as a good architectural authority has
+declared it is the work of a poet, and looks it.
+
+A recent paragraph with regard to Spanish Gothic in an article on
+Spain, by Havelock Ellis, illustrates the national qualities of this
+style very well. As much less is generally known about the special
+development of Gothic architecture in the Spanish peninsula, it has
+seemed worth while to quote it at some length:
+
+  "Moreover, there is no type of architecture which so {101} admirably
+  embodies the romantic spirit as Spanish Gothic. Such a statement
+  implies no heresy against the supremacy of French Gothic. But the
+  very qualities of harmony and balance of finely tempered reason,
+  which make French Gothic so exquisitely satisfying, softened the
+  combination of mysteriously grandiose splendor with detailed
+  realism, in which lies the essence of Gothic as the manifestation of
+  the romantic spirit. Spanish Gothic at once by its massiveness and
+  extravagance and by its realistic naturalness, far more potently
+  embodies the spirit of medieval life. It is less esthetically
+  beautiful but it is more romantic. In Leon Cathedral, Spain
+  possesses one of the very noblest and purest examples of French
+  Gothic--a church which may almost be said to be the supreme type of
+  the Gothic ideal, of a delicate house of glass finely poised between
+  buttresses; but there is nothing Spanish about it. For the typical
+  Gothic of Spain we must go to Toledo and Burgos, to Tarragona and
+  Barcelona. Here we find the elements of stupendous size, of
+  mysterious gloom, of grotesque and yet realistic energy, which are
+  the dominant characters, alike of Spanish architecture and of
+  medieval romance."
+
+Those who think that the Gothic architecture came to a perfection all
+its own by a sort of wonderful manifestation of genius in a single
+generation, and then stayed there, are sadly mistaken. There was a
+constant development to be noted all during the Thirteenth Century.
+This development was always in the line of true improvement, while
+just after the century closed degeneration began, decoration became
+too important a consideration, parts were over-loaded with ornament,
+and the decadence of taste in Gothic architecture cannot escape the
+eye even of the most untutored. All during the Thirteenth Century the
+tendency was always to greater lightness and elegance. One is apt to
+think of these immense structures as manifestations of the power of
+man to overcome great engineering difficulties and to solve immense
+structural problems, rather than as representing opportunities for the
+expression of what was most beautiful and poetic in the intellectual
+aspirations of the generations. But this is what they were, and their
+architects were poets, for in the best sense of the {102} etymology of
+the word they were creators. That their raw material was stone and
+mortar rather than words was only an accident of their environment.
+Each of the architects succeeded in expressing himself with wonderful
+individuality in his own work in each Cathedral.
+
+The improvements introduced by the Thirteenth Century people into the
+architecture that came to them, were all of a very practical kind, and
+were never suggested for the sake of merely adding to opportunities
+for ornamentation. In this matter, skillful combinations of line and
+form were thought out and executed with wonderful success. At the
+beginning of the century, delicate shafts of marble, highly polished,
+were employed rather freely, but as these seldom carried weight, and
+were mainly ornamental in character, they were gradually eliminated,
+yet, without sacrificing any of the beauty of structure since
+combinations of light and shade were secured by the composition of
+various forms, and the use of delicately rounded mouldings alternated
+with hollows, so as to produce forcible effects in high light and deep
+shadow. In a word, these architects and builders, of the Thirteenth
+Century, set themselves the problem of building effectively, making
+every portion count in the building itself, and yet, securing
+ornamental effects out of actual structure such as no other set of
+architects have ever been able to surpass, and, probably, only the
+Greek architects of the Periclean period ever equaled. Needless to
+say, this is the very acme of success in architectural work, and it is
+for this reason that the generations of the after time have all gone
+back so lovingly to study the work of this period.
+
+It might be thought, that while Gothic architecture was a great
+invention in its time and extremely suitable for ecclesiastical or
+even educational edifices of various kinds, its time of usefulness has
+passed and that men's widening experience in structural work, ever
+since, has carried him far away from it. As a matter of fact, most of
+our ecclesiastical buildings are still built on purely Gothic lines,
+and a definite effort is made, as a rule, to have the completed
+religious edifice combine a number of the best features of Thirteenth
+Century Gothic. With what {103} success this has been accomplished can
+best be appreciated from the fact, that none of the modern structures
+attract anything like the attention of the old, and the Cathedrals of
+this early time still continue to be the best asset of the towns in
+which they are situated, because of the number of visitors they
+attract. Far from considering Gothic architecture outlived, architects
+still apply themselves to it with devotion because of the practical
+suggestions which it contains, and there are those of wide experience,
+who still continue to think it the most wonderful example of
+architectural development that has ever come, and even do not hesitate
+to foretell a great future for it.
+
+Reinach, in his Story of Art Throughout the Ages,   [Footnote 10] has
+been so enthusiastic in this matter that a paragraph of his opinion
+must find a place here. Reinach, it may be said, is an excellent
+authority, a member of the Institute of France, who has made special
+studies in comparative architecture, and has written works that carry
+more weight than almost any others of our generation:
+
+  [Footnote 10: Scribners, New York, 1905.]
+
+  "If the aim of architecture, considered as an art, should be to free
+  itself as much as possible from subjection to its materials, it may
+  be said that no buildings have more successfully realized this ideal
+  than the Gothic churches. And there is more to be said in this
+  connection. Its light and airy system of construction, the freedom
+  and slenderness of its supporting skeleton, afford, as it were, a
+  presage of an art that began to develop in the Nineteenth Century,
+  that of metallic architecture. With the help of metal, and of cement
+  reinforced by metal bars, the moderns might equal the most daring
+  feats of the Gothic architects. It would even be easy for them to
+  surpass them, without endangering the solidity of the structure, as
+  did the audacities of Gothic art. In the conflicts that obtain
+  between the two elements of construction, solidity and open space,
+  everything seems to show that the principle of free spaces will
+  prevail, that the palaces and houses of the future will be flooded
+  with air and light, that the formula popularized by Gothic
+  architecture has a great future before it, and that following the
+  revival of the Graeco-Roman style from {104} the Sixteenth Century,
+  to our own day, we shall see a yet more enduring renaissance of the
+  Gothic style applied to novel materials."
+
+It would be a mistake, however, to think that the Gothic Cathedrals
+were impressive only because of their grandeur and immense size. It
+would be still more a mistake to consider them only as examples of a
+great development in architecture. They are much more than this; they
+are the compendious expression of the art impulses of a glorious
+century. Every single detail of the Gothic Cathedrals is not only
+worthy of study but deserving of admiration, if not for itself, then
+always for the inadequate means by which it was secured, and most of
+these details have been found worthy of imitation by subsequent
+generations. It is only by considering the separate details of the art
+work of these Cathedrals that the full lesson of what these wonderful
+people accomplished can be learned. There have been many centuries
+since, in which they would be entirely unappreciated. Fortunately, our
+own time has come back to a recognition of the greatness of the art
+impulse that was at work, perfecting even what might be considered
+trivial portions of the cathedrals, and the brightest hope for the
+future of our own accomplishment is founded on this belated
+appreciation of old-time work.
+
+It has been said that the medieval workman was a lively symbol of the
+Creator Himself, in the way in which he did his work. It mattered not
+how obscure the portion of the cathedral at which he was set, he
+decorated it as beautifully as he knew how, without a thought that his
+work would be appreciated only by the very few that might see it.
+Trivial details were finished with the perfection of important parts.
+Microscopic studies in recent years have revealed beautiful designs on
+pollen grains and diatoms which are far beneath the possibilities of
+human vision, and have only been discovered by lens combinations of
+very high powers of the compound microscope. Always these beauties
+have been there though hidden away from any eye. It was as if the
+Creator's hand could not touch anything without leaving it beautiful
+as well as useful.
+
+{opp105}
+
+[Illustration]
+CATHEDRAL (AMIENS)
+
+
+{105}
+
+To as great extent as it is possible perhaps for man to secure such a
+desideratum, the Thirteenth Century workman succeeded in this same
+purpose. It is for this reason more than even for the magnificent
+grandeur of the design and the skilful execution with inadequate
+means, that makes the Gothic Cathedral such a source of admiration and
+wonder.
+
+To take first the example of sculpture. It is usually considered that
+the Thirteenth Century represented a time entirely too early in the
+history of plastic art for there to have been any fine examples of the
+sculptor's chisel left us from it. Any such impression, however, will
+soon be corrected if one but examines carefully the specimens of this
+form of art in certain Cathedrals. As we have said, probably no more
+charmingly dignified presentation of the human form divine in stone
+has ever been made than the figure of Christ above the main door of
+the cathedral of Amiens, which the Amiennois so lovingly call their
+"beautiful God." There are some other examples of statuary in the same
+cathedral that are wonderful specimens of the sculptor's art, lending
+itself for decorative purposes to architecture. This is true for a
+number of the Cathedrals. The statues in themselves are not so
+beautiful, but as portions of a definite piece of structural work such
+as a doorway or a facade, they are wonderful models of how all the
+different arts became subservient to the general effect to be
+produced. It was at Rheims, however, that sculpture reached its acme
+of accomplishment, and architects have been always unstinted in their
+praise of this feature of what may be called the Capitol church of
+France.
+
+Those who have any doubts as to the place of Gothic art itself in art
+history and who need an authority always to bolster up the opinion
+that they may hold, will find ample support in the enthusiastic
+opinion of an authority whom we have quoted already. The most
+interesting and significant feature of his ardent expression of
+enthusiasm is his comparison of Romanesque with Gothic art in this
+respect. The amount of ground covered from one artistic mode to the
+other is greater than any other advance in art that has ever been
+made. After all, the real value of the work of the period must be
+judged, rather by the amount of progress that has {106} been made than
+by the stage of advance actually reached, since it is development
+rather than accomplishment that counts in the evolution of the race.
+On the other hand it will be found that Reinach's opinion of the
+actual attainments of Gothic art are far beyond anything that used to
+be thought on the subject a half century ago, and much higher than any
+but a few of the modern art critics hold in the matter. He says:
+
+  "In contrast to this Romanesque art, as yet in bondage to
+  convention, ignorant or disdainful of nature, the mature Gothic art
+  of the Thirteenth Century appeared as a brilliant revival or
+  realism. The great sculptors who adorned the Cathedrals of Paris,
+  Amiens, Rheims, and Chartres with their works, were realists in the
+  highest sense of the word. They sought in Nature not only their
+  knowledge of human forms, and of the draperies that cover them, but
+  also that of the principles of decoration. Save in the gargoyles of
+  cathedrals and in certain minor sculptures, we no longer find in the
+  Thirteenth Century those unreal figures of animals, nor those
+  ornaments, complicated as nightmares, which load the capitals of
+  Romanesque churches; the flora of the country, studied with loving
+  attention, is the sole, or almost the sole source from which
+  decorators take their motives. It is in this charming profusion of
+  flowers and foliage that the genius of Gothic architecture is most
+  freely displayed. One of the most admirable of its creations is the
+  famous Capital of the Vintage in Notre Dame at Rheims, carved about
+  the year 1250. Since the first century of the Roman Empire art had
+  never imitated Nature so perfectly, nor has it ever since done so
+  with a like grace and sentiment."
+
+Reinach defends Gothic Art from another and more serious objection
+which is constantly urged against it by those who know only certain
+examples of it, but have not had the advantage of the wide study of
+the whole field of artistic endeavor in the Thirteenth Century, which
+this distinguished member of the Institute of France has succeeded in
+obtaining. It is curious what unfounded opinions have come to be
+prevalent in art circles because, only too often, writers with regard
+to the Cathedrals have spent their time mainly in the large cities, or
+along the principal arteries of travel, and have not realized {107}
+that some of the smaller towns contained work better fitted to
+illustrate Gothic Art principles than those on which they depended for
+their information. If only particular phases of the art of any one
+time, no matter how important, were to be considered in forming a
+judgment of it, that judgment would almost surely be unfavorable in
+many ways because of the lack of completeness of view. This is what
+has happened unfortunately with regard to Gothic art, but a better
+spirit is coming in this matter, with the more careful study of
+periods of art and the return of reverence for the grand old Middle
+Ages.
+
+{opp107}
+
+[Illustration]
+CATHEDRAL (RHEIMS)
+
+
+Reinach says: "There are certain prejudices against this admirable,
+though incomplete, art which it is difficult to combat. It is often
+said, for instance, that all Gothic figures are stiff and emaciated.
+To convince ourselves of the contrary we need only study the marvelous
+sculpture of the meeting between Abraham and Melchisedech, in Rheims
+Cathedral; or again in the same Cathedral, the Visitation, the seated
+Prophet, and the standing Angel, or the exquisite Magdalen of Bordeaux
+Cathedral. What can we see in these that is stiff, sickly, and puny?
+The art that has most affinity with perfect Gothic is neither
+Romanesque nor Byzantine, but the Greek art of from 500 to 450 B. C.
+By a strange coincidence, the Gothic artists even reproduce the
+somewhat stereotyped smile of their forerunners." Usually it is said
+that the Renaissance brought the supreme qualities of Greek plastic
+art back to life, but here is a thoroughly competent critic who finds
+them exhibited long before the Fifteenth Century, as a manifestation
+of what the self-sufficient generations of the Renaissance would have
+called Gothic, meaning thereby, barbarous art.
+
+What has been said of sculpture, however, can be repeated with even
+more force perhaps with regard to every detail of construction and
+decoration. Builders and architects did make mistakes at times, but,
+even their mistakes always reveal an artist's soul struggling for
+expression through inadequate media. Many things had to be done
+experimentally, most things were being done for the first time.
+Everything had an originality of its own that made its execution
+something more than merely a secure accomplishment after previous
+careful {108} tests. In spite of this state of affairs, which might be
+expected sadly to interfere with artistic execution, the Cathedrals,
+in the main, are full of admirable details not only worthy of
+imitation, but that our designers are actually imitating or at least
+finding eminently suggestive at the present time.
+
+To begin with a well known example of decorative effect which is found
+in the earliest of the English Cathedrals, that of Lincoln. The nave
+and choir of this was finished just at the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century. The choir is so beautiful in its conception, so wonderful in
+its construction, so charming in its finish, so satisfactory in all
+its detail, though there is very little of what would be called
+striving after effect in it, that it is still called the Angel Choir.
+
+The name was originally given it because it was considered to be so
+beautiful even during the Thirteenth Century, that visitors could
+scarcely believe that it was constructed by human hands and so the
+legend became current that it was the work of angels. If the critics
+of the Thirteenth Century, who had the opportunity to see work of
+nearly the same kind being constructed in many parts of England,
+judged thus highly of it, it is not surprising that modern visitors
+should be unstinted in their praise. It is interesting to note as
+representative of the feeling of a cultured modern scientific mind
+that Dr. Osler said not long ago, in one of his medical addresses,
+that probably nothing more beautiful had ever come from the hands of
+man than this Angel Choir at Lincoln. As to who were the designers,
+who conceived it, or the workmen who executed it, we have no records.
+It is not unlikely that the famous Hugh of Lincoln, the great Bishop
+to whom the Cathedral owes its foundation and much of its splendor,
+was responsible to no little extent for this beautiful feature of his
+Cathedral church. The workmen who made it were artist-artisans in the
+best sense of the word and it is not surprising that other beautiful
+architectural features should have flourished in a country where such
+workmen could be found.
+
+Almost as impressive as the Angel Choir was the stained glass work at
+Lincoln. The rose windows are among the most beautiful ever made and
+one of them is indeed considered a gem of its kind. The beautiful
+colors and wonderful {109} effectiveness of the stained glass of these
+old time Cathedrals cannot be appreciated unless the windows
+themselves are actually seen. At Lincoln there is a very impressive
+contrast that one can scarcely help calling to attention and that has
+been very frequently the subject of comment by visitors. During the
+Parliamentary time, unfortunately, the stained glass at Lincoln fell
+under the ban of the Puritans. The lower windows were almost
+completely destroyed by the soldiers of Cromwell's army. Only the rose
+windows owing to their height were preserved from the destroyer. There
+was an old sexton at the Cathedral, however, for whom the stained
+glass had become as the apple of his eye. As boy and man he had lived
+in its beautiful colors as they broke the light of the rising and the
+setting sun and they were too precious to be neglected even when lying
+upon the pavement of the Cathedral in fragments. He gathered the
+shattered pieces into bags and hid them away in a dark corner of the
+crypt, saving them at least from the desecration of being trampled to
+dust.
+
+Long afterwards, indeed almost in our own time, they were found here
+and were seen to be so beautiful that regardless of the fact that they
+could not be fitted together in anything like their former places,
+they were pieced into windows and made to serve their original purpose
+once more. It so happened that new stained glass windows for the
+Cathedral of Lincoln were ordered during the Nineteenth Century. These
+were made at an unfortunate time in stained glass making and are as
+nearly absolutely unattractive, to say nothing worse, as it is
+possible to make stained glass. The contrast with the antique windows,
+fragmentary as they are, made up of the broken pieces of Thirteenth
+Century glass is most striking. The old time colors are so rich that
+when the sun shines directly on them they look like jewels. No one
+pays the slightest attention, unless perhaps the doubtful compliment
+of a smile be given, to the modern windows which were, however, very
+costly and the best that could be obtained at that time.
+
+More of the stained glass of the Thirteenth Century is preserved at
+York where, because of the friendship of General Ireton, the town and
+the Cathedral were spared the worst ravages of the Parliamentarians.
+As a consequence York still {110} possesses some of the best of its
+old time windows. It is probable that there is nothing more beautiful
+or wonderful in its effectiveness than the glass in the Five Sisters
+window at York. This is only an ordinary lancet window of five
+compartments--hence the name--in the west front of the Cathedral.
+There are no figures on the window, it is only a mass of beautiful
+greyish green tints which marvelously subdues the western setting sun
+at the vesper hour and produces the most beautiful effects in the
+interior of the Cathedral. Here if anywhere one can realize the
+meaning of the expression dim religious light. In recent years,
+however, it has become the custom for so many people to rave over the
+Five Sisters that we are spared the necessity of more than mentioning
+it. Its tints far from being injured by time have probably been
+enriched. There can be no doubt at all, however, of the artistic
+tastes and esthetic genius of the man who designed it. The other
+windows of the Cathedral were not unworthy of this triumph of art. How
+truly the Cathedral was a Technical School can be appreciated from the
+fact that it was able to inspire such workmen to produce these
+wondrous effects.
+
+Experts in stained glass work have often called attention to the fact
+that the windows constructed in the Thirteenth Century were not only
+of greater artistic value but were also more solidly put together.
+Many of the windows made in the century still maintain their places,
+in spite of the passage of time, though later windows are sometimes
+dropping to pieces. It might be thought that this was due to the fact
+that later stained glass workers were more delicate in the
+construction of their windows in order not to injure the effect of the
+stained glass. To some extent this is true, but the stained glass
+workers of the Thirteenth Century preserve the effectiveness of their
+artistic pictures in glass, though making the frame work very
+substantial. This is only another example of their ability to combine
+the useful with the beautiful so characteristic of the century,
+stamping practically every phase of its accomplishment and making
+their work more admirable because its usefulness does not suffer on
+account of any strained efforts after supposed beauties.
+
+Though it is somewhat out of place here we cannot refrain {111} from
+pointing out the educational value of this stained glass work.
+
+Some of the stories on these windows gave details of many passages
+from the Bible, that must have impressed them upon the people much
+more than any sermon or reading of the text could possibly have
+accomplished. They were literally sermons in glass that he who walked
+by had to read whether he would or not. When we remember that the
+common people in the Middle Ages had no papers to distract them, and
+no books to turn to for information, such illustrations as were
+provided by the stained glass windows, by the painting and the
+statuary decorations of the Cathedrals, must have been studied with
+fondest devotion even apart from religious sentiment and out of mere
+inquisitiveness. The famous "prodigal" window at Chartres is a good
+example of this. Every detail of the story is here pictorially
+displayed in colors, from the time when the young man demands his
+patrimony through all the various temptations he met with in being
+helped to spend it, there being a naive richness of detail in the
+matter of the temptations that is quite medieval, from the boon
+companions who first led him astray to the depths of degradation which
+he finally reached before he returned to his father,--even the picture
+of the fatted calf is not lacking.
+
+On others of these windows there are the stories of the Patron Saints
+of certain crafts. The life of St. Crispin the shoemaker is given in
+rather full detail. The same is true of St. Romain the hunter who was
+the patron of the furriers. The most ordinary experiences of life are
+pictured and the methods by which these were turned to account in
+making the craftsman a saint, must have been in many ways an ideally
+uplifting example for fellow craftsmen whenever they viewed the
+window. This sort of teaching could not be without its effect upon the
+poor. It taught them that there was something else in life besides
+money getting and that happiness and contentment might be theirs in a
+chosen occupation and the reward of Heaven at the end of it all, for
+at the top of these windows the hand of the Almighty is introduced
+reaching down from Heaven to reward his faithful servants. It is just
+by such presentation of ideals even to the poor, that {112} the
+Thirteenth Century differs from the modern time in which even the
+teaching in the schools seems only to emphasize the fact that men must
+get money, honestly if they can, but must get money, if they would
+have what is called success in life.
+
+Another very interesting feature of these windows is the fact that
+they were usually the gifts of the various Guilds and so represented
+much more of interest, for the members. It is true that in France,
+particularly, the monarchs frequently presented stained glass windows
+and in St. Louis time this was so common that scarcely a French
+Cathedral was without one or more testimonials of this kind to his
+generosity; but most of the windows were given by various societies
+among the people themselves. How much the construction of such a
+window when it was well done, would make for the education in taste of
+those who contributed to the expense of its erection, can scarcely be
+over-estimated. There was besides a friendly rivalry in this matter in
+the Thirteenth Century, which served to bring out the talents of local
+artists and by the inevitably suggested comparisons eventually served
+to educate the taste of the people.
+
+It must not be thought, however, that it was only in stained glass and
+painting and sculpture--the major arts--that these workmen attained
+their triumphs. Practically every detail of Cathedral construction is
+a monument to the artistic genius of the century, to the wonderful
+inspiration afforded the workmen and to the education provided by the
+Guilds which really maintained, as we shall see, a kind of Technical
+School with the approbation and the fostering care of the
+ecclesiastics connected with the Cathedrals. An excellent example of a
+very different class of work may be noted in the hinges of the
+Cloister door of the Cathedral at York. Personally I have seen three
+art designers sketching these at the same time only one of whom was an
+Englishman, another coming from the continent and the third from
+America. The hinge still swings the heavy oak door of the Thirteenth
+Century. The arborization of the metal as it spreads out from the main
+shaft of the hinge is beautifully decorative in effect.
+
+{opp112}
+
+[Illustration]
+CLOISTER OF ST. PAUL'S (WITHOUT THE WALLS, ROME)
+
+A little study of the hinge seems to show that these branching
+portions were so arranged as to make the mechanical {113} moment of
+the swinging door less of a dead weight than it would have been if the
+hinge were a solid bar of iron. Besides the spreading of the branches
+over a wide surface serves to hold the woodwork of the door thoroughly
+in place. While the hinge was beautiful, then it was eminently useful
+from a good many standpoints, and trivial though it might be
+considered to be, it was in reality a type of all the work
+accomplished in connection with these Thirteenth Century Cathedrals.
+According to the old Latin proverb "_omne tulit punctum qui miscuit
+utile dulci_," he scores every point who mingles the useful with the
+beautiful, and certainly the Thirteenth Century workman succeeded in
+accomplishing the desideratum to an eminent degree. This mingling of
+the useful and the beautiful is of itself a supreme difference between
+the Thirteenth Century generations and our own. Mr. Yeats, the well
+known Irish poet, in bidding farewell to America some years ago said
+to a party of friends, that no country could consider itself to be
+making real progress in culture until the very utensils in the kitchen
+were beautiful as well as useful. Anything that is merely useful is
+hideous, and anyone who can handle such things with impunity has not
+true culture. In the Thirteenth Century they never by any chance made
+anything that was merely useful, especially not if it was to be
+associated with their beloved Cathedral.
+
+An excellent example of this can be found in their Chalices and other
+ceremonial utensils which were meant for Divine Service. As we have
+said elsewhere The Craftsman, the journal of the Arts and Crafts
+Movement in this country not long since compared a Chalice of the
+Thirteenth Century with the prize cups which are offered for yacht
+races and other competitions in this country. We may say at once that
+the form which the Chalice received during the Thirteenth Century is
+that which constitutes to a great extent the model for this sacred
+vessel ever since and the comparison with the modern design is
+therefore all the more interesting. In spite of the fact that money is
+no object as a rule in the construction of many of the modern prize
+cups, they compare unfavorably according to the writer in The
+Craftsman with the old time chalices. There is a tendency to over
+ornamentation which {114} spoils the effectiveness of the lines of the
+metal work in many cases and there is also only too often, an attempt
+to introduce forms of plastic art which do not lend themselves well to
+this class of work. It is in design particularly that the older
+workman excels his modern colleague though usually there are
+suggestions from several sources for present day work. In a word the
+Thirteenth Century Chalice was much more admirable than the modern
+piece of metal work, because the lines were simpler, the combination
+of beauty with utility more readily recognizable and the obtrusiveness
+of the ornamentation much less marked.
+
+This same thing is true for other even coarser forms of metal work in
+connection with the Cathedrals, and anyone who has seen some of the
+beautiful iron screens built for Cathedral choirs in the olden times
+will realize that even the worker in iron must have been an artist as
+well as a blacksmith. The effect produced, especially in the dim light
+of the Cathedral, is often that of delicate lace work. To appreciate
+the strength of the screen one must actually test it with the hands.
+This of itself represents a very charming adaptation of what might be
+expected to be rough work meant for protective purposes into a
+suitable ornament. Some of the gates of the old churchyards are very
+beautiful in their designs and have often been imitated in quite
+recent years, for the gates of country places, for our modern
+millionaires. The Reverend Augustus Jessopp who has written much with
+regard to the times before the Reformation, says that he has found in
+his investigations, that not infrequently such gates were made by the
+village blacksmiths. Most of the old parish records are lost because
+of the suppression of the parishes as well as the monasteries in Henry
+the Eighth's time. Some of the original documents are, however,
+preserved and among them are receipts from the village blacksmith, for
+what we now admire as specimens of artistic ironwork and corresponding
+receipts from the village carpenter, for woodwork that we now consider
+of equally high order. There were carved bench ends and choir stalls
+which seem to have been produced in this way. Just how these
+generations of the Thirteenth Century, in little towns of less than
+ten thousand inhabitants, {115} succeeded in raising up artisans in
+numbers, capable of doing such fine work, and yet content to make
+their living at such ordinary occupations, is indeed hard to
+understand. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that though there was
+not much furniture during the Thirteenth Century what little there
+was, was as a rule very carefully and artistically made. Thirteenth
+Century benches and tables are famous. Cathedrals and castles worked
+together in inspiring and giving occupation to these wonderful
+workmen.
+
+It was not only the workmen engaged in the construction of the
+edifices proper who made the beautiful things and created marvelously
+artistic treasures during this century. All the adornments of the
+Cathedrals and especially everything associated in any intimate way
+with the religious service was sure to be executed with the most
+delicate taste. The vestments of the time are some of the most
+beautiful that have ever been made. The historians of needlework tell
+us that this period represents the most flourishing era of artistic
+accomplishment with the needle of all modern history. One example of
+this has secured a large share of notoriety in quite recent years. An
+American millionaire bought the famous piece of needlework known as
+the Cope of Ascoli. This is an example of the large garment worn over
+the shoulders in religious processions and at benediction. The price
+paid for the garment is said to have been $60,000. This was not
+considered extortionate or enforced, as the Cope was declared by
+experts to be one of the finest pieces of needlework in the world. The
+jewels which originally adorned it had been removed so that the money
+was paid for the needlework itself. After a time it became clear that
+the Cope had been stolen before being sold, and accordingly it was
+returned to the Italian government who presented the American
+millionaire with a medal for his honesty.
+
+We have spoken of the Cathedrals as great stone books, in which he who
+ran, might read, even though he were not able to read in the technical
+sense of the term. This has been an old-time expression with regard to
+the Cathedrals, but not even its inventor perhaps, and certainly not
+most of those who have repeated it have realized how literally true
+was the saying. I {116} have elsewhere quoted from Reinach's Story of
+Art Throughout the Ages as an authority on the subject. His
+re-statement of the intellectual significance for the people of the
+Cathedrals of their towns, in which it must be remembered that they
+had a personal interest because in a sense they were really theirs,
+and they felt their ownership quite as much as a modern member of a
+parish feels with regard to his church, emphasizes and illuminates
+this subject to a wonderful degree. The realization that the
+information of the time was deliberately woven into these great stone
+structures, mainly of course for decorative purposes, but partly also
+with the idea of educating the people, is a startling confirmation of
+the idea that education was the most important and significant work of
+this great century.
+
+  "The Gothic Cathedral is a perfect encyclopedia of human knowledge.
+  It contains scenes from the Scriptures and the legends of saints;
+  motives from the animal and vegetable kingdom; representations of
+  the seasons of agricultural labor, of' the arts and sciences and
+  crafts, and finally moral allegories, as, for instance, ingenious
+  personifications of the virtues and the vices. In the Thirteenth
+  Century a learned Dominican, Vincent of Beauvais, was employed by
+  St. Louis to write a great work which was to be an epitome of all
+  the knowledge of his times. This compilation, called The Mirror of
+  the World, is divided into four parts: The Mirror of Nature, The
+  Mirror of Science, the Moral Mirror, and the Historical Mirror. A
+  contemporary archaeologist, M. E. Male, has shown that the works of
+  art of our great cathedrals are a translation into stone of the
+  Mirror of Vincent of Beauvais, setting aside the episodes from Greek
+  and Roman History, which would have been out of place. It was not
+  that the imagers had read Vincent's work; but that, like him, they
+  sought to epitomise all the knowledge of their contemporaries. The
+  first aim of their art is not to please, but to teach; they offer an
+  encyclopedia for the use of those who cannot read, translated by
+  sculptor or glass-painter into a clear and precise language, under
+  the lofty direction of the Church which left nothing to chance. It
+  was present always and everywhere, advising and superintending the
+  artist, leaving him to his own devices only when he {117} modelled
+  the fantastic animals of the gargoyles, or borrowed decorative
+  motives from the vegetable kingdom."   [Footnote 11]
+
+  [Footnote 11: Reinach--The Story of Art Throughout the Ages.
+  Scribner's, 1904.]
+
+
+[Illustration]
+CATHEDRAL (BOURGES)
+
+[Illustration: ]
+CATHEDRAL (CHARTRES)
+
+
+As to how much the cathedrals held of meaning for those who built them
+and worshiped in them, only a careful study of the symbolism of the
+time will enable the present-day admirer to understand. Modern
+generations have lost most of their appreciation of the significance
+of symbolism. The occupation of mind with the trivial things that are
+usually read in our day, leaves little or no room for the study of the
+profounder thought an artist may care to put into his work, and so the
+modern artist tells his story as far as possible without any of this
+deeper significance, since it would only be lost. In the Thirteenth
+Century, however, everything artistic had a secondary meaning.
+Literature was full of allegories, even the Arthur Legends were
+considered to be the expression of the battle of a soul with worldly
+influences as well as a poetic presentation of the story of the old
+time British King. The Gothic Cathedrals were a mass of symbolism.
+This will perhaps be best understood from the following explanation of
+Cathedral symbolism, which we take from the translation of Durandus's
+work on the meaning of the Divine Offices, a further account of which
+will be found in the chapter on The Prose of the Century.
+
+  "Far away and long ere we can catch the first view of the city
+  itself, the three spires of its Cathedral, rising high above its din
+  and turmoil, preach to us of the Most High and Undivided Trinity. As
+  we approach, the Transepts, striking out crosswise, tell of the
+  Atonement. The Communion of Saints is set forth by the chapels
+  clustering around Choir and Nave: the mystical weathercock bids us
+  to watch and pray and endure hardness; the hideous forms that are
+  seen hurrying from the eaves speak the misery of those who are cast
+  out of the church; spire, pinnacle, and finial, the upward curl of
+  the sculptured foliage, the upward spring of the flying buttress,
+  the sharp rise of the window arch, the high thrown pitch of the
+  roof, all these, overpowering the horizontal tendency of string
+  course and parapet, teach us, that vanquishing earthly desires, we
+  also should ascend in heart and mind. Lessons of holy {118} wisdom
+  are written in the delicate tracery of the windows; the unity of
+  many members is shadowed forth by the multiplex arcade; the duty of
+  letting our light shine before men, by the pierced and flowered
+  parapet that crowns the whole.
+
+  "We enter. The triple breadth of Nave and Aisles, the triple height
+  of Pier arch, Triforium, and Clerestory, the triple length of Choir,
+  Transepts, and Nave, again set forth the HOLY TRINITY. And what
+  besides is there that does not tell of our Blessed SAVIOUR? that
+  does not point out "HIM First" in the two-fold western door; "HIM
+  Last" in the distant altar; "HIM Midst," in the great Rood; "HIM
+  Without End," in the monogram carved on boss and corbel, in the Holy
+  Lamb, in the Lion of the tribe of Judah, in the Mystic Fish? Close
+  by us is the font; for by regeneration we enter the Church; it is
+  deep and capacious; for we are buried in Baptism with CHRIST; it is
+  of stone, for HE is the Rock; and its spiry cover teaches us, if we
+  be indeed risen from its waters with HIM, to seek those things which
+  are above. Before us in long-drawn vista are the massy piers, which
+  are the Apostles and Prophets--they are each of many members, for
+  many are the Graces in every Saint, there is beautifully delicate
+  foliage round the head of all; for all were plentiful in good works.
+  Beneath our feet are the badges of worldly pomp and glory, the
+  graves of Kings and Nobles and Knights; all in the Presence of God
+  as dross and worthlessness. Over us swells the vast valley of the
+  high pitched roof; from the crossing and interlacing of its curious
+  rafters hang fadeless flowers and fruits which are not of earth;
+  from its hammer-beams project wreaths and stars such as adorn
+  heavenly beings; in its center stands the LAMB as it has been slain;
+  from around HIM the celestial Host, Cherubim and Seraphim, Thrones,
+  Principalities, and Powers, look down peacefully on the worshipers
+  below. Harpers there are among them harping with their harps; for
+  one is the song of the Church in earth and in Heaven. Through the
+  walls wind the narrow cloister galleries; emblems of the path by
+  which holy hermits and anchorets whose conflicts were known only to
+  their GOD, have reached their Home. And we are compassed about with
+  a mighty cloud of witnesses; the rich deep glass of the windows
+  teems {119} with saintly forms, each in its own fair niche, all
+  invested with the same holy repose; there is the glorious company of
+  the Apostles; the goodly fellowship of the Prophets; the noble army
+  of Martyrs; the shining band of Confessors; the jubilant chorus of
+  the Virgins; there are Kings, who have long since changed an earthly
+  for an heavenly crown; and Bishops who have given in a glad account
+  to the Shepherd and Bishop of souls. But on none of these things do
+  we rest; piers, arch behind arch, windows, light behind light,
+  arcades, shaft behind shaft, the roof, bay behind bay, the Saints
+  around us, the Heavenly Hierarchy above with dignity of preeminence
+  still increasing eastward, each and all, lead on eye and soul and
+  thought to the Image of the Crucified Saviour as displayed on the
+  great East window. Gazing steadfastly on that we pass up the Nave,
+  that is through the Church Militant, till we reach the Rood Screen,
+  the barrier between it and the Church Triumphant, and therein
+  shadowing forth the death of the Faithful. High above it hangs on
+  His Triumphant Cross the image of Him who by His death hath overcome
+  death; on it are portrayed Saints and Martyrs, His warriors who,
+  fighting under their LORD have entered into rest and inherit a
+  tearless eternity. They are to be our examples, and the seven lamps
+  above them typify those graces of the SPIRIT, by Whom alone we can
+  tread in their steps. The screen itself glows with gold and crimson;
+  with gold, for they have on their heads golden crowns; with crimson,
+  for they passed the Red Sea of Martyrdom, to obtain them. And
+  through the delicate network, and the unfolding Holy Doors, we catch
+  faint glimpses of the Chancel beyond. There are the massy stalls;
+  for in Heaven is everlasting rest; there are the Sedilia, emblems of
+  the seats of' the Elders round the Throne; there is the Piscina; for
+  they have washed their robes and made them white; and there heart
+  and soul and life of all, the Altar with its unquenched lights, and
+  golden carvings, and mystic steps, and sparkling jewels; even CHRIST
+  Himself, by Whose only Merits we find admission to our Heavenly
+  Inheritance. Verily, as we think on the oneness of its design, we
+  may say: Jerusalem edificatur ut civitas cujus participatio ejus in
+  idipsum."
+
+{120}
+
+It is because of all this wealth of meaning embodied in them, that the
+Cathedrals of this old time continue to be so interesting and so
+unfailingly attractive even to our distant and so differently
+constituted generation.  [Footnote 12]
+
+  [Footnote 12: Those who care to realize to some degree all the
+  Wonderful symbolic meaning of the ornamentation of some of these
+  cathedrals, should read M. Huysman's book La Cathedrale, which has,
+  we believe, been translated into English. Needless to say it has
+  been often in our hands in compiling this chapter, and the death of
+  its author as this chapter is going through the press poignantly
+  recalls all the beauty of his work.]
+
+We cannot close this chapter on the Book of the Arts leaving the
+impression that only the Church Architecture of the time deserves to
+be considered in the category of, great art influences. There were
+many municipal buildings, some stately castles, and a large number of
+impressively magnificent Abbeys and Monasteries, besides educational
+and charitable institutions built at this same time. The town halls of
+some of the great Hansa towns, that is, the German free cities that
+were members of the Hanseatic League, present some very striking
+examples of the civil architecture of the period. It has the same
+characteristics that we have discussed in treating of the Cathedrals.
+While wonderfully impressive, it was eminently suitable for the
+purpose for which it was intended and the decorations always forming
+integral parts of the structure, sounded the note of the combination
+of beauty with utility which is so characteristic of every phase of
+the art accomplishment of the century.
+
+Some of the castles would deserve special description  by themselves
+but unfortunately space forbids more than a passing mention. Certain
+castellated fortresses still standing in England and Ireland come from
+the time of King John, and are excellent examples of the stability and
+forceful character of this form of architecture in the Thirteenth
+Century. It is interesting to find that when we come to build in the
+Twentieth Century in America, the armories which are to be used for
+the training of our militia and the storage of arms and ammunition,
+many of the ideas used in their construction are borrowed from this
+olden time.
+
+{opp120}
+
+[Illustration]
+DURHAM CASTLE AND CATHEDRAL
+
+[Illustration]
+KING JOHN'S CASTLE (LIMERICK)
+
+
+There is a famous castle in Limerick, Ireland, built in John's time
+which constituted an {121} excellent example of this and which has
+doubtlessly often been studied and more or less imitated.
+
+One portion of Kenilworth Castle in England dates from the Thirteenth
+Century and has been often the subject of careful study by modern
+architects. The same thing might be said of many others.
+
+With regard to the English Abbeys too much cannot be said in praise of
+their architecture and it has been the model for large educational and
+municipal buildings ever since. St. Mary's Abbey at York, though only
+a few scattered fragments of its beauties are to be seen and very
+little, of its walls still stand, is almost as interesting as
+Yorkminster, the great Cathedral itself. There were many such abbeys
+as this built in England during the Thirteenth Century--more than a
+dozen of them at least and probably a full score. All of them are as
+distinguished in the history of architecture as the English
+Cathedrals. It will be remembered that what is now called Westminster
+Abbey was not a Cathedral church, but only a monastery church attached
+to the Abbey of Westminster and this, the only well preserved example
+of its class furnishes an excellent idea of what these religious
+institutions signify in the Thirteenth Century. They meant as much for
+the art impulse as the Cathedrals themselves.
+
+One feature of these monastic establishments deserves special mention.
+The cloisters were usually constructed so beautifully as to make them
+veritable gems of the art of the period. These cloisters were the
+porticos usually surrounding a garden of the monastery within which
+the Monks could walk, shaded from the sun, and protected from the rain
+and the snow. They might very easily have been hideously useful
+porches, especially as they were quite concealed from the outer world
+as a rule, and those not belonging to the order were not admitted to
+them except on very special occasions. The name cloister signifies an
+enclosed place and lay persons were not ordinarily admitted to them.
+Those who know anything about them will recall what beautiful
+constructive work was put into them. Certain examples as that of St.
+John Lateran in Rome and the Cloister of St. Paul's without the walls
+some five miles from Rome, constructed during the {122} Thirteenth
+Century and under the influence of the same great art movement as gave
+the Cathedrals, are the most beautiful specimens that now remain. The
+only thing that they can be compared with is the famous Angel Choir at
+Lincoln which indeed they recall in many ways.
+
+The pictures of these two Cloisters which we present will give some
+idea of their beauty. To be thoroughly appreciated, however, they must
+be seen, for there is a delicacy of finish about every detail that
+makes them an unending source of admiration and brings people back
+again and again to see them, yet always to find something new and
+apparently unnoticed before. It might be thought that the studied
+variety in the columns so that no two are of exactly the same form,
+would produce a bizarre effect. The lack of symmetry that might
+result, from this same feature could be expected to spoil their
+essential beauty. Neither of these effects has been produced, however.
+The Cloisters were, moreover, not purple patches on monasteries, but
+ever worthy portions of very beautiful buildings.
+
+All of these buildings were furnished as regards their metal work,
+their wood work, and the portions that lent themselves to decoration,
+in the same spirit as the Cathedrals themselves. The magnificent
+tables and benches of the Thirteenth Century are still considered to
+be the best models of simplicity of line with beauty of form and
+eminent durability in the history of furniture making. The fashion for
+Colonial furniture in our own time has brought us nearer to such
+Thirteenth Century furniture making than has been true at any other
+time in history. Here once more there was one of these delightful
+combinations of beauty and utility which is so characteristic of the
+century. Even the kitchen utensils were beautiful as well as useful
+and the Irish poet might have been satisfied to his heart's content.
+
+{opp122}
+
+[Illustration]
+PALAZZO VECCHIO (ARNULFO, FLORENCE)
+CAMPANILE (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+GIOTTO'S TOWER (FLORENCE)
+
+
+Certain other architectural forms were wonderfully developed during
+the Thirteenth Century and the opening years of the Fourteenth Century
+while men trained during the former period were still at work.
+Giotto's tower, for instance, must be considered a Thirteenth Century
+product since its architect was well past thirty-five years of age
+before the Thirteenth {123} Century closed and all his artistic
+character had been formed under its precious inspiration. It is a
+curious reflection on modern architecture, that some of the modern
+high business buildings are saved from being hideous just in as much
+as they approach the character of some of these tower-like structures
+of the Thirteenth Century. The first of New York's skyscrapers which
+is said to have escaped the stigma of being utterly ugly, as most of
+them are, because of their appeal to mere utility, was the New York
+Times Building which is just Giotto's tower on a large scale set down
+on Broadway at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Seen from a
+mile away the effect is exactly that of the great Florentine
+architect's beautiful structure and this was of course the deliberate
+intention of the modern architect. Anyone who would think, however,
+that our modern business building with its plain walls recalls in any
+adequate sense its great pattern, should read what Mr. Ruskin has said
+with regard to the wealth of meaning that is to be found in Giotto's
+tower. Into such structures just as into the Cathedrals, the
+architects and builders of the time succeeded in putting a whole
+burden of suggestion, which to the generations of the time in which
+they were built, accustomed to the symbolism of every art feature in
+life around them, had a precious wealth of significance that we can
+only appreciate after deep study and long contemplation. We have felt
+that only the quotation from Mr. Ruskin himself can fully illustrate
+what we wish to convey in this matter.
+
+  "Of these representations of human art under heavenly guidance, the
+  series of basreliefs which stud the base of this tower of Giotto's
+  must be held certainly the chief in Europe. At first you may be
+  surprised at the smallness of their scale in proportion to their
+  masonry; but this smallness of scale enabled the master workmen of
+  the tower to execute them with their own hands; and for the rest, in
+  the very finest architecture, the decoration of most precious kind
+  is usually thought of as a jewel, and set with space round it--as
+  the jewels of a crown, or the clasp of a girdle."
+
+
+{124}
+
+VII
+ARTS AND CRAFTS--GREAT TECHNICAL SCHOOLS
+
+
+The most interesting social movement in our time is undoubtedly that
+of the arts and crafts. Its central idea is to lift the workmen up
+above the mere machine that he is likely to become, as the result of
+the monotonous occupation at some trade, that requires him only to do
+a constantly repeated series of acts, or direct, one little portion of
+machinery and so kills the soul in him. Of course, the other idea that
+a generation of workmen shall be created, who will be able to make
+beautiful things, for the use of the household as well as the
+adornment of the house is another principal purpose. Too many people
+have mistaken this entirely secondary aim of the movement for its
+primary end. It is because of the effect upon the workman himself of
+the effort to use his intellect in the designing, his taste in the
+arrangement, and his artisan skill for the execution of beautiful
+things, that the arts and crafts movement has its appeal to the
+generality of mankind.
+
+The success of the movement promises, to do more, to solve social
+problems than all the socialistic agitation that is at present causing
+so much dismay in some quarters and raising so many hopes that are
+destined to be disappointed in the hearts of the laboring classes. The
+solution of the problem of social unrest is to be found, not in
+creating new wants for people and giving them additional wages that
+will still further stimulate their desire to have many things that
+will continue to be in spite of increased wages beyond their means,
+but rather to give them such an interest in their life work that their
+principal source of pleasure is to be found in their occupation.
+Unfortunately work has come to be looked upon as a drudgery and as men
+must spend the greater portion of their lives, at least the vast
+majority of them must, in doing something that will enable them to
+make a living, it is clear that unhappiness {125} and discontent will
+still continue. Blessed is the man who has found his work, blessed is
+the man to whom his work appeals with so much interest that he goes
+from it with a longing to be able to finish what he has been at, and
+comes back to it with a prospect that now he shall be able to
+accomplish what time and perhaps fatigue would not allow him to
+proceed with the day before.
+
+This is the best feature of the promises held out by the arts and
+crafts movement, that men shall be interested in the work they do.
+This may seem to some people an unrealizable idea and a poetic
+aspiration rather than a possible actuality. A little study of what
+was accomplished in this line during the Thirteenth Century, will
+surely prove even to the most skeptical how much of success is capable
+of being realized in this matter. The men who worked around the
+Cathedrals were given opportunities to express themselves and the best
+that was in them as no class of workmen before or since have ever had
+the opportunity. Every single portion of the Cathedral was to be made
+as beautiful as the mind of man could conceive, his taste could plan
+and his hands could achieve. As a consequence the carpenter had the
+chance to express himself in the woodwork, the village blacksmith the
+opportunity to display his skill in such small ironwork as the hinges
+or the latch for the door and every workman felt called upon to do the
+best that was in him.
+
+It is easy to understand under these circumstances with what interest
+the men must have applied themselves to their tasks. They were, as a
+rule, the designers as well as the executors of the work assigned
+them. They planned and executed in the rough and tried, then modified
+and adapted, until finally as we know of most of the Cathedrals, their
+finished product was as nearly perfect in most particulars as it is
+ordinarily given to man to achieve. Their aim above all was to make
+such a combination of utility with beauty of line yet simplicity of
+finish, as would make their work worthy counterparts of all the other
+portions of the Cathedral. The sense of competition must have stirred
+men to the very depths of their souls and yet it was not the heartless
+rivalry that crushes when it succeeds, but the inspiring emulation
+that makes one do as well as or better than others, though not
+necessarily in such a way as to {126} belittle others' efforts by
+contrast or humble them by triumph.
+
+{opp126}
+
+[Illustration]
+FOUNTAIN (PERUGIA) [TOWN PUMP]
+
+[Illustration]
+LAVATOIO (TODI) [PUBLIC WASH-HOUSE]
+
+
+In these old medieval days England used to be called Merrie England
+and it is easy to understand that workmen would be profoundly merry at
+heart, when they had the consciousness of accomplishing such good
+work. Men must have almost tardily quitted their labor in the evening
+while they hoped and strove to accomplish something that would be
+worthy of the magnificent building in which so many of their fellow
+workmen were achieving triumphs of handicraftsmanship. Each went home
+to rest for the night, but also to dream over what he might be able to
+do and awoke in the morning with the thought that possibly to-day
+would see some noteworthy result. This represents the ideal of the
+workman's life. He has an interest quite apart from the mere making of
+money. The picture of the modern workman by contrast looks vain and
+sordid. The vast majority of our workmen labor merely because they
+must make enough money to-day, in order that they may be able to buy
+food enough so as to get strength to work to-morrow. Of interest there
+is very little. Day after day there is the task of providing for self
+and others. Only this and nothing more. Is it any wonder that there
+should be social unrest and discontentment? How can workmen be merry
+unless with the artificial stimulus of strong drink, when there is
+nothing for them to look forward to except days and weeks and years of
+labor succeeding one another remorselessly, and with no surcease until
+Nature puts in her effective demand for rest, or the inevitable end
+comes.
+
+It would be idle to say that these men who knew how to make the
+beautiful things for these cathedrals were not conscious of the
+perfection of the work that they were accomplishing. The very fact
+that each in his own line was achieving such beautiful results must
+have stamped him as thoroughly capable of appreciating the work of
+others. The source of pleasure that there must have been therefore, in
+some twenty towns in England alone, to see their Cathedral approaching
+completion, must have been of itself a joy far beyond anything we can
+imagine as possible for the workmen of the present day. The interest
+in it was supreme and was only heightened by the fact that it was
+being done by relatives and friends and brother workmen, even {127}
+though they might be rivals, and that whatever was done was redounding
+first to the glory of the Lord to whom they turned with so much
+confidence in these ages of faith, and secondly, and there was
+scarcely less satisfaction in the thought, to the reputation of their
+native town and their fellow-townsmen.
+
+This is the feature of the life of the lower classes in the Thirteenth
+Century which most deserves to be studied in our time. We hear much of
+people being kept in ignorance and in servitude. Men who talk this way
+know nothing at all of the lives of the towns of the Middle Ages and
+are able to appreciate not even in the slightest degree the wonderful
+system of education, that made life so much fuller of possibilities
+for intellectual development for all classes and for happiness in
+life, than any other period of which we know. This phase of the
+Thirteenth Century is at once the most interesting, the most
+significant for future generations, and the most important in its
+lessons for all time.
+
+We have been following up thus far the exemplification in the
+Thirteenth Century of John Ruskin's saying, that if you wish to get at
+the real significance of the achievements of a period in history, you
+must read the book of its deeds, the book of its arts and the book of
+its words. We have been turning over a few of the pages of the book of
+the deeds of the Thirteenth Century in studying the history of the
+establishment of the universities and of the method and content of
+university teaching. After all the only deeds that ought to count in
+the history of mankind are those that are done for men--that have
+accomplished something for the uplift of mankind. History is
+unfortunately occupied with deeds of many other kinds, and it is
+perhaps the saddest blot on our modern education, that it is mainly
+the history of deeds that have been destructive of man, of human
+happiness and in only too many cases of human rights and human
+liberties, that are supposed to be most worthy of the study of the
+rising generation. History as written for schools is to a great extent
+a satire on efforts for social progress.
+
+We shall continue the study of the book of the deeds of the Thirteenth
+Century and its most interesting and important chapter, that of the
+education of the masses. We shall find in what was accomplished in
+educating the people of the {128} Thirteenth Century, the model of the
+form of education which in spite of our self-complacency does not
+exist, but must come in our time, if our education is to fulfill its
+real purpose. Perhaps the most interesting phase of this question of
+the education of the masses will be the fact that in studying this
+book of the deeds, we shall have also to study once more the book of
+the arts of the Thirteenth Century. All their best accomplishment was
+linked with achievement and progress in art. Yet it was from the
+masses that the large number of artist-artisans of workmen with the
+true artistic spirit came, who in this time in nearly every part of
+Europe, created masterpieces of art in every department which have
+since been the admiration of the world.
+
+We may say at once that the opportunity for the education of the
+masses was furnished in connection with the Cathedrals. In the light
+of what we read in these great stone books, it is a constant source of
+surprise that the Church should be said to have been opposed to
+education. Reinach in his Story of Art throughout the Ages says:
+
+  "The Church was not only rich and powerful in the Middle Ages; it
+  dominated and directed all the manifestations of human activity.
+  There was practically no art but the art it encouraged, the art it
+  needed to construct and adorn its buildings, carve its ivories and
+  its reliquaries, and paint its glass and its missals. Foremost among
+  the arts it fostered was architecture, which never played so
+  important a part in any other society. Even now, when we enter a
+  Romanesque or Gothic church, we are impressed by the might of that
+  vast force of which it is the manifestation, a force which shaped
+  the destinies of Europe for a thousand years."
+
+It was as the result of this demand for art that the technical schools
+naturally developed around the Cathedrals. To take the example of
+England alone, during the Thirteenth Century some twenty cathedrals
+were erected in various parts of the country. Most of these were built
+in what we would now call small towns, indeed some of them would be
+considered scarcely more than villages. There were no large cities, in
+praise be it spoken, during the Thirteenth Century, and it must not be
+forgotten that the whole population of England at the beginning {129}
+of the century was scarcely more than two millions of people and did
+not reach three millions even at the end of it. Every rood of ground
+did not perhaps maintain its man, but every part of England had its
+quota of population so that there could not be many crowded centers.
+Even London probably at no time during the century had more than
+twenty-five thousand inhabitants and Oxford during the palmiest days
+of the University was perhaps the most populous place in the land.
+
+There was a rivalry in the building of Cathedrals, and as the main
+portion of the buildings were erected in the short space of a single
+century, a feeling of intense competition was rife so that there was
+very little possibility of procuring workmen from other towns. Each
+town had to create not only its cathedral but the workmen who would
+finish it in all its details. When we consider that a Cathedral like
+Salisbury was practically completed in the short space of about
+twenty-five years, it becomes extremely difficult to understand just
+how this little town succeeded in apparently accomplishing the
+impossible. It has often been said that artists cannot be obtained
+merely because of a demand for them and that they are the slow
+creation of rather capricious nature. It is only another way of saying
+that the artist is born, not made. Nature then must have been in a
+particularly fruitful mood and tense during the Thirteenth Century,
+for there is no doubt at all of the wonderful artistic beauty of the
+details of these Gothic cathedrals. While nature's beneficence meant
+much, however, the training of the century probably meant even more
+and the special form of popular education which developed well
+deserves the attention of all other generations.
+
+It may be said at once that education in our sense of teaching
+everybody to read and write there was none. There were more students
+at the universities to the number of the population than in the
+Twentieth Century as we have seen, but people who were not to devote
+themselves in after life to book learning, were not burdened with
+acquisitions of doubtful benefit, which might provide stores of
+useless information for them, or enable them to while away hours of
+precious time reading trash, or make them conceited with the thought
+that because they had absorbed some of the opinions of others on
+things in general, {130} they had a right to judge of most things
+under the sun and a few other things besides. The circulation of our
+newspapers and the records of the books in demand at our libraries,
+show how much a knowledge of reading means for most of our population.
+Popular education of this kind may, and does benefit a few, but it
+works harm to a great many.
+
+Of education in the sense of training the faculties so that the
+individual might express whatever was in him and especially that he
+might bring out what was best in him, there was much. Take again the
+example of England. There was considerably less in population than
+there is in Greater New York at the present time, yet there was some
+twenty places altogether in which they were building Cathedrals during
+this century, that would be monuments of artistic impulse and
+accomplishment for all future time. Any city in this country would be
+proud to have any one of these English cathedrals of the Thirteenth
+Century as the expression of its taste and power to execute. We have
+tried to imitate them more or less in many places. In order to
+accomplish our purpose in this matter, though, we deliberately did
+everything on a much smaller and less ambitious scale than the people
+of the small English towns of seven centuries ago, and our results do
+not bear comparison for a moment with theirs, we had to appeal to
+other parts of the country and even to Europe for architects and
+designers, and even had to secure the finished products of art from
+distant places. This too, in spite of the fact that we are seven
+centuries later and that our education is supposed to be developed to
+a high extent. If there were twenty places of instruction in Greater
+New York where architects and artist workers in iron and glass, and
+metal of all kinds, and wood and stone, were being trained to become
+such finished artisans as were to be found in twenty different little
+towns of England in the Thirteenth Century, we should be sure that our
+manual training schools and our architectural departments of
+universities and schools of design were wonderfully successful.
+
+When we find this to be true of the England of the Thirteenth Century
+we can conclude that somehow better opportunities for art education
+must have been supplied in those times than in our own, and though we
+do not find the mention or {131} records of formal schools, we must
+look patiently for the methods of instruction that enabled these
+generations to accomplish so much. Needless to say such attainments do
+not come spontaneously in a large number of people, but must be
+carefully fostered and are the result of that greatest factor in
+education, environment. It will not be hard to find where the
+ambitious youth of England even of the workman class found
+opportunities for technical education of the highest character in
+these little towns. This was never merely theoretic, though, it was
+sufficiently grounded in principle to enable men to solve problems in
+architecture and engineering, in decoration and artistic arrangement,
+such as are still sources of anxiety for modern students of these
+questions.
+
+To take but a single example, it will be readily appreciated that the
+consideration of the guilds of builders of the Cathedrals as
+constituting a great technical school, is marvelously emphasized by
+certain recent observations with regard to architects' and builders'
+methods in the Cathedrals. There is a passage in Evelyn's Diary in
+which he describes certain corrections that were introduced into Old
+St. Paul's Cathedral, London (the Gothic edifice predecessor of the
+present classical structure), in order to remove appearances of
+dissymmetry and certain seeming mistakes of construction. This passage
+was always so misunderstood that editors usually considered it to be
+defective in some way and as the classical critics always fall back on
+an imperfect text for insoluble difficulties, so somehow Evelyn was
+considered as either not having understood what he intended to say, or
+else the printer failed to put in all the words that he wrote. It was
+the modern readers, however, not Evelyn nor his printer who were
+mistaken. Mr. Goodyear of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences
+has proved by a series of photographs and carefully made observations,
+that many of the old Gothic Cathedrals have incorporated into them by
+their builders, optical corrections which correspond to those made by
+the Greeks in their building in the classical period, which have been
+the subject of so much admiration to the moderns.
+
+The medieval architects and builders knew nothing of these classical
+architectural refinements. They learned for themselves by actual
+experience the necessity for making such optical {132} corrections and
+then introduced them so carefully, that it is not until the last
+decade or so that their presence has been realized. It is only by an
+educational tradition of the greatest value that the use of such a
+refinement could become as general as Professor Goodyear has found it
+to be. Besides the practical work then, and the actual exercise of
+craftsmanship and of design which the apprentices obtained from the
+guild, there was evidently a body of very definite technical
+information conveyed to them, or at least to certain chosen spirits
+among them, which carried on precious traditions from place to place.
+This same state of affairs must of course have existed with regard to
+stained glass work, the making of bells and especially the finer work
+in the precious metals. Practical metallurgy must have been studied
+quite as faithfully as in any modern technical school, at least so far
+as its practical purposes and application were concerned. Here we have
+the secret of the technical schools revealed.
+
+It is extremely interesting to study the details of the very practical
+organization by which this great educational movement in the arts and
+crafts was brought about. It was due entirely to the trades' and
+merchants' guilds of the time. In the cathedral towns the trades'
+guilds preponderated in influence. There gathered around each of these
+cathedrals during the years when work was most active, numbers of
+workmen engaged at various occupations requiring mechanical skill and
+long practice at their trade. These workmen were all affiliated with
+one another and they were gradually organized into trades' unions that
+had a certain independent existence. There was the guild of the stone
+workers; the guild of the metal workers--in some places divided into a
+guild of iron workers and a guild of gold workers, or workers in
+precious metals; there was the guild of the wood workers and then of
+the various other forms of occupation connected with the supplying of
+finished or unfinished materials for the cathedral. In association
+with these were established guilds of tailors, bakers, butchers, all
+affiliated in a merchants' guild which maintained the rights of its
+members as well as the artisans' guilds. Some idea of the number and
+variety of these can be obtained from the list given in the chapter on
+the Origin of the Drama.
+
+{opp133}
+[Illustration]
+RELIQUARY (LIMOGES MUSEO, FLORENCE)
+
+[Illustration]
+CRUCIFIX (DUOMO, SIENA)
+
+{133}
+
+These were the workmen who not only accomplished such brilliant
+results in art work, but also succeeded in training other workmen so
+admirably for every line of artistic endeavor.
+
+It is somewhat difficult to understand just how a village carpenter
+did wood-carving of so exquisite a design and such artistic finish of
+detail that it has remained a subject of admiration for centuries. It
+is quite as difficult to understand how one of the village blacksmiths
+of the time made a handsome gate, that has been the constant
+admiration of posterity ever since, or designed huge hinges for doors
+that artists delight to copy, or locks and latches and bolts that are
+transported to our museums to be looked at with interest, not only
+because they are antiques, but for the wonderful combination of the
+beautiful and the useful which they illustrate. We are assured,
+however, by the Rev. Augustus Jessopp, that he has seen in the
+archives of the old English parishes, some of the receipts for the
+bills of these village workmen as we would term them, for the making
+of these beautiful specimens of arts and crafts.
+
+The surprise grows greater when we realize that these beautiful
+objects were made not alone in one place or even in a few places, but
+in nearly every town of any size in England and France and Italy and
+Germany and Spain at various times during the Thirteenth Century, and
+that at any time a town of considerably less than ten thousand
+inhabitants seemed to be able to obtain among its own inhabitants, men
+who could make such works of art not as copies nor in servile
+imitation of others, but with original ideas of their own, and make
+them in such perfection that in many cases they have remained the
+models for future workmen for many centuries. Even the bells for the
+cathedrals seem to have been cast in practically all cases in the
+little town in which they were to be used. It may be added that these
+bells of the Thirteenth Century represent the highest advances in bell
+making that have ever been attained and that their form and
+composition have simply been imitated over and over again since that
+time. Even the finer precious metal work such as chalices and the
+various sacred vessels and objects used in the church services, were
+not obtained from a distance but were made at home.
+
+An article that appeared a few years ago in The Craftsman {134}
+(Syracuse, N. Y.), a magazine published in the interests of the Arts
+and Crafts movement, called attention to how much more beautifully the
+Thirteenth Century workman in the precious metals accomplished his
+artistic purpose than does the corresponding workman of the present
+day. A definite comparison, was made between some typical chalices of
+the Thirteenth Century and some prize cups which were made without
+regard to cost, as rewards for yachting and other competitions in the
+Twentieth Century. The artist workman of the olden time knew how to
+combine the beautiful with the useful, to use decoration just enough
+not to offend good taste, to make the lines of his work eminently
+artistic and in general to turn out a fine work of art. The modern
+prize cup is usually made by one of the large firms engaged in such
+work who employ special designers for the purpose, such designs
+ordinarily passing through the trained hands of a series of critics
+before being accepted, and only after this are turned over to the
+modern skilled workmen to be executed in metal. All this ought to
+assure the more artistic results; that they do not according to the
+writer in The Craftsman, demonstrates how much such success is a
+matter of men and of individual taste rather than of method. We have
+already called attention to the fact that in needlework and in other
+arts connected with the provision of church ornaments and garments,
+the success of the Thirteenth Century workers was quite as great. The
+Cope of Ascoli considered by experts to be one of the most beautiful
+bits of needlework ever made is an example of this. Many other
+examples are to be found in the treasuries of churches and
+monasteries, in spite of the ravages of time and only too often of
+intolerant and unfortunate destruction by so-called reformers, who
+could see no beauty in even the most beautiful things if they ran
+counter to certain of their religious prejudices.
+
+The training necessary for the production of such beautiful objects of
+handicraftsmanship was obtained through the guilds themselves. The boy
+in the small town who thought that he had a liking for a certain trade
+or craft was received as an apprentice in it. If during the course of
+a year or more he demonstrated his aptness for his chosen craft, he
+was allowed to {135} continue his labor of assisting the workmen in
+various ways, and indeed very early in the history of the guilds was
+bound over to some particular workman, who usually supplied him with
+board and clothing, though with no other remuneration during his years
+of apprenticeship. After four or five years, always, however, with the
+understanding that he had shown a definite talent for his chosen
+trade, he was accepted among the workmen of the lowest grade, the
+journeymen, who usually went traveling in order to perfect their
+knowledge of the various methods by which their craft maintained
+itself and the standard of its workmanship in the different parts of
+the country.
+
+During these three years of "journeying" a striking development was
+likely to take place in the mind of the ambitious young workman. His
+_wanderjahre_ came just at the most susceptible period, sometime
+between 17 and 25, they continued for three years or more, and the
+young workman if at all ambitious was likely to see many men and
+methods and know much of the cities and towns of his country before he
+returned to his native place. Sometimes these craft-wanderings took
+him even into France, where he learned methods and secrets so
+different to those at home.
+
+After these years if he wished to settle down in his native town or in
+some other, having brought evidence of the accomplishment of his
+apprenticeship and then of his years as a journeyman, he became an
+applicant for full membership in the guild to which his years of
+training had been devoted. He was not admitted, however, until he had
+presented to the officials of the organization a piece of work showing
+his skill. This might be only a hinge, or a lock for a door, but on
+the other hand it might be a design for an important window or a
+delicate piece of wood or stone-carving. If it was considered worthy
+of the standard of workmanship of the guild it was declared to be a
+masterpiece. This is where the fine old English word masterpiece comes
+from. The workman was then admitted as a master workman and became a
+full member of the guild.
+
+This membership carried with it a number of other rights besides that
+of permission to work as a master-workman at full wages whenever the
+guild was employed. Guilds had certain privileges conferred on them by
+the towns in which they lived, {136} by the nobles for whom they
+worked and the ecclesiastical authorities on whose various church
+structures they were employed. At the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century at least, feudal ideas prevailed to such an extent that no one
+was supposed to enjoy any rights or privileges except those which had
+been conferred on him by some authority. Besides the workmen of the
+same guild were bound together by ties, so that any injury inflicted
+on one of them was considered to be done to the whole body. When human
+rights were much less recognized than has come to be the case since,
+this constituted an important source of protection against many forms
+of injury and infringement of rights.
+
+Besides the privileges, however, the guild possessed certain other
+decided advantages which made membership desirable, even though it
+involved the fulfilment of certain duties. In the various towns in
+England, after the introduction during the Thirteenth Century of the
+practice of having mystery plays in the various towns, the guild
+claimed and obtained the privilege of giving these at various times
+during the year. The guild of the goldsmiths would give the
+performance of one portion of the Old Testament; the guild of the
+tailors another; the guild of the butchers and so on for each of the
+trades and crafts still another, so that during the year a whole cycle
+of the mysteries of the Christian religion in type and in reality were
+exhibited to the people of each region. Almost needless to say, on
+such festive occasions, for the plays were given on important feast
+days, the people from the countryside flocked in to see them and the
+influence was widespread. What was most important, however, was the
+influence on those who took part in the plays, of such intimate
+contact for a prolonged period with the simplicity of style, the
+sublimity of thought, the concentration of purpose and the
+effectiveness of expression of the Scriptures and the Scripture
+narratives even in their dramatized form.
+
+The fact of actually taking part in these performances meant ever so
+much more than merely viewing them as an outsider. It is doubtless to
+this intimate relationship with the great truths of Christianity that
+the profound devotion so characteristic of the accomplishments of the
+arts and crafts, during the Thirteenth Century, must be to no little
+extent attributed.
+
+{opp136}
+
+[Illustration ]
+MADONNA, CIMABUE
+(RUCELLAI CHAPEL, SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE)
+
+{137}
+
+Their beautiful work could only have come from men of profoundest
+faith, but also it could not have come from those who were ignorant of
+the basis of what they accepted on faith. In other words, there was a
+mental training with regard to some of the sublimest truths of life
+and its significance, the creation of a Christian philosophy of life,
+that made the workman see clearly the great truths of religion and so
+be able to illustrate them by his handiwork. Education of a higher
+order than this has never been conceived of, and the very lack of
+tedious formality in it only made it all the more effectual in action.
+
+Other duties were involved in membership in the guild. All the members
+were bound to attend church services regularly and to perform what is
+known as their religious duties at periodic intervals, that is, the
+rule of the guild required them to go to mass on Sundays and holy
+days, to abstain from manual labor on such days unless there was
+absolute necessity for it, and to go to confession and communion
+several times a year. Besides they were bound to contribute to the
+support of such of their fellow-members as were sick and unable to
+work or as had been injured. A very interesting phase of this duty
+toward sick members existed at least in some parts of the country. A
+workman was supposed to pass one night at certain intervals on his
+turn, in helping to nurse a fellow-workman who was seriously hurt or
+who was very ill. It was considered that the family were quite worn
+out enough with the care of the sick man during the day, and so one of
+his brother guildsmen came to relieve them of this duty at night. It
+is a custom that is still maintained in certain country places but
+which of course has passed out of use entirely in our unsympathetic
+city life. In a word, there was a thorough education not only in the
+life work that made for wages and family support, but also in those
+precious social duties that make for happiness and contentment in
+life.
+
+
+{138}
+
+VIII
+
+GREAT ORIGINS IN PAINTING.   [Footnote 13]
+
+  [Footnote 13: Most of this chapter is taken from the work on Italian
+  painting (La Peinture Italienne depuis les origines jusqu'a la fin
+  du xv Siecle, par Georges Lafenestre, Paris Ancienne Maison Quantin
+  Libraries-Imprimeries Reunies, May & Motteroz, Directeurs, rue
+  Saint-Benoit. Nouvelle Edition), which forms one of the series of
+  text books for instruction in art at L'Ecole Des Beaux-Arts--the
+  famous French Government Art School in Paris. It may be said that
+  this collection of art manuals is recognized as an authority on all
+  matters treated of, having been crowned by the Academie Des
+  Beaux-Arts with the prize Bordin. There is no better source of
+  information with regard to the development of the arts and none
+  which can be more readily consulted nor with more assurance as to
+  the facts and opinions exposed.]
+
+At the commencement of the Thirteenth Century the movement of
+emancipation in every phase of thought and life in Italy went on apace
+with an extraordinary ardor. After a very serious struggle the Italian
+republics were on the point of forcing the German Empire to recognize
+them. Everywhere in the first enthusiasm of their independence which
+had been achieved by valiant deeds and aspirations after liberty as
+lofty as any in modern times, the cities, though united in
+confederations they were acting as independent rivals, brought to all
+enterprises, lay or religious foundations, commercial or educational
+institutions, a wonderful youthful activity and enterprise. The papacy
+allied with them favored this movement in its political as well as its
+educational aspects and strengthened the art movement of the time.
+Christianity under their guidance, by the powerful religious
+exaltation which it inspired in the hearts of all men, became a potent
+factor in all forms of art. From Pope Innocent III to Boniface VIII
+probably no other series of Popes have been so misunderstood and so
+misrepresented by subsequent generations, as certainly the Popes of no
+other century did so much to awaken the enthusiasm of Christians for
+all modes of religious development, and be it said though credit for
+this is {139} only too often refused them, also for educational,
+charitable and social betterment.
+
+The two great church institutions of the time that were destined to
+act upon the people more than any others were the Franciscan and
+Dominican orders--the preachers and the friars minor, who were within
+a short time after their formation to have such deep and widespread
+influence on all strata of society. Both of these orders from their
+very birth showed themselves not only ready but anxious to employ the
+arts as a means of religious education and for the encouragement of
+piety. Their position in this matter had an enormous influence on art
+and on the painters of the time. The Dominicans, as became their more
+ambitious intellectual training and their purpose as preachers of the
+word, demanded encyclopedic and learned compositions; the Franciscans
+asked for loving familiar scenes such as would touch the hearts of the
+common people. Both aided greatly in helping the artist to break away
+from the old fashioned formalism which was no longer sufficient to
+satisfy the new ardors of men's souls. In this way they prepared the
+Italian imagination for the double revolution which was to come.
+
+It was the great body of legends which grew up about St. Francis
+particularly, all of them bound up with supreme charity for one's
+neighbor, with love for all living creatures even the lowliest, with
+the tenderest feelings for every aspect of external nature, which
+appealed to the painters as a veritable light in the darkness of the
+times. It was especially in the churches founded by the disciples of
+"the poor little man of Assisi," that the world saw burst forth before
+the end of the century, the first grand flowers of that renewal of art
+which was to prove the beginning of modern art history. It is hard to
+understand what would have happened to the painters of the time
+without the spirit that was brought into the world by St. Francis'
+beautifully simple love for all and every phase of nature around him.
+This it was above all that encouraged the return to nature that soon
+supplanted Oriental formalism. It was but due compensation that the
+greatest works of the early modern painters should have been done in
+St. Francis' honor. Besides this the most important factor in art was
+the revival of the thirst for knowledge, which arose among the more
+intellectual portions of the {140} communities and developed an
+enthusiasm for antiquity which was only a little later to become a
+veritable passion.
+
+The most important phase of Italian art during the Thirteenth Century
+is that which developed at Florence. It is with this that the world is
+most familiar. It began with Cimabue, who commenced painter, in the
+quaint old English phrase, not long before the middle of the century
+and whose great work occupies the second half of it. There are not
+wanting some interesting traditions of certain other Florentine
+painters before his time as Marchisello, of the early part of the
+century, Lapo who painted, in 1261, the facade of the Cathedral at
+Pistoia, and Fino di Tibaldi who painted a vast picture on the walls
+of the Municipal Palace about the middle of the century, but they are
+so much in the shadow of the later masters' work as to be scarcely
+known. Everywhere Nature began to reassert herself. The workers in
+Mosaic even, who were occupied in the famous baptistry at Florence
+about the middle of the century, though they followed the Byzantine
+rules of their art, introduced certain innovations which brought the
+composition and the subjects closer to nature. These are enough to
+show that there was a school of painting and decoration at Florence
+quite sufficient to account for Cimabue's development, without the
+necessity of appealing to the influence over him of wandering Greek
+artists as has sometimes been done.
+
+Though he was not the absolute inventor of all the new art modes as he
+is sometimes supposed to be, Cimabue was undoubtedly a great original
+genius. Like so many others who have been acclaimed as the very first
+in a particular line of thought or effort, his was only the
+culminating intelligence which grasped all that had been done before,
+assimilated it and made it his own. As a distinct exception to the
+usual history of such great initiators, this father of Italian
+painting was rich, born of a noble family, but of a character that was
+eager for work and with ambition to succeed in his chosen art as the
+mainspring of life. At his death, as the result of his influence,
+artists had acquired a much better social position than had been
+theirs before, and one that it was comparatively easy for his
+successors to maintain. His famous Madonna which was subsequently
+borne in triumph from his studio to the Church of {141} Santa Maria
+Novella, placed the seal of popular approval on the new art, and the
+enthusiasm it evoked raised the artist for all time from the plane of
+a mere worker in colors to that of a member of a liberal profession.
+Even before this triumph his great picture had been deemed worthy of a
+visit by Charles of Anjou, the French King, who was on a visit to
+Florence and according to tradition ever afterwards the portion of the
+city in which it had been painted and through which it was carried in
+procession, bore by reason of these happy events the name Borgo
+Allegri--Ward of Joy.
+
+This picture is still in its place in the Rucellai chapel and is of
+course the subject of devoted attention on the part of visitors.
+Lafenestre says of it, that this monument of Florentine art quite
+justifies the enthusiasm of contemporaries if we compare it with the
+expressionless Madonnas that preceded it. There is an air of
+beneficent dignity on the features quite unlike the rigidity of
+preceding art, and there is besides an attractive suppleness about the
+attitude of the body which is far better proportioned than those of
+its predecessors. Above all there is a certain roseate freshness about
+the colors of the flesh which are pleasant substitutes for the pale
+and greenish tints of the Byzantines. It did not require more than
+this to exalt the imaginations of the people delivered from their
+old-time conventional painting. It was only a ray of the dawn after a
+dark night, but it announced a glorious sunrise of art and the
+confident anticipations of the wondrous day to come, aroused the
+depths of feeling in the peoples' hearts. Life and nature went back
+into art once more; no wonder their re-apparition was saluted with so
+much delight.
+
+Two other Madonnas painted by him, one at Florence in the Academy, the
+other in Paris in the Louvre, besides his great Mosaic in the apse of
+the Cathedral at Pisa, serve to show with what prudence Cimabue
+introduced naturalistic qualities into art, while always respecting
+the tradition of the older art and preserving the solemn graces and
+the majestic style of monumental painting. The old frescoes of the
+upper church at Assisi which represent episodes in the life of St.
+Francis have also been attributed to Cimabue, but evidently were done
+by a number of artists probably under his direction. It is easy to
+{142} see from them what an important role the Florentine artist
+played in directing the gropings of his assistant artists.
+
+After Cimabue the most important name at Florentine in the Thirteenth
+Century is that of his friend, Gaddo Gaddi, whose years of life
+correspond almost exactly with those of his great contemporary. His
+famous Coronation of the Virgin at Santa Maria de Fiore in Florence
+shows that he was greatly influenced by the new ideas that had come
+into art. Greater than either of these well-known predecessors
+however, was Giotto the friend of Dante, whose work is still
+considered worthy of study by artists because of certain qualities in
+which it never has been surpassed nor quite outgrown. From Giotto,
+however, we shall turn aside for a moment to say something of the
+development of art in other cities of Italy, for it must not be
+thought that Florence was the only one to take up the new art methods
+which developed so marvelously during the Thirteenth Century.
+
+Even before the phenomenal rise of modern art in Florence, at Pisa, at
+Lucca and especially at Siena, the new wind of the spirit was felt
+blowing and some fine inspirations were realized in spite of hampering
+difficulties of all kinds. The Madonna of Guido in the Church of St.
+Dominic at Siena is the proof of his emancipation. Besides him
+Ugolino, Segna and Duccio make up the Siena school and enable this
+other Tuscan city to dispute even with Florence the priority of the
+new influence in art. At Lucca Bonaventure Berlinghieri flourished and
+there is a famous St. Francis by him only recently found, which proves
+his right to a place among the great founders of modern art. Giunta of
+Pisa was one of those called to Assisi to paint some of the frescoes
+in the upper church. He is noted as having striven to make his figures
+more exact and his colors more natural. He did much to help his
+generation away from the conventional expressions of the preceding
+time and he must for this reason be counted among the great original
+geniuses in the history of art.
+
+The greatest name in the art of the Thirteenth Century is of course
+that of Giotto. What Dante did for poetry and Villani for history,
+their compatriot and friend did for painting. Ambrogio de Bondone
+familiarly called Ambrogiotto (and with the abbreviating habit that
+the Italians have always had for the names of all those of whom they
+thought much shortened to {143} Giotto, as indeed Dante's name had
+been shortened from Durante) was born just at the beginning of the
+last quarter of the Thirteenth Century. According to a well-known
+legend he was guarding the sheep of his father one day and passing his
+time sketching a lamb upon a smooth stone with a soft pebble when
+Cimabue happened to be passing. The painter struck by the signs of
+genius in the work took the boy with him to Florence, where he made
+rapid progress in art and soon surpassed even his master. The
+wonderful precocity of his genius may be best realized from the fact
+that at the age of twenty he was given the commission of finishing the
+decorations of the upper Church at Assisi, and in fulfilling it broke
+so completely with the Byzantine formalism of the preceding
+millennium, that he must be considered the liberator of art and its
+deliverer from the chains of conventionalism into the freedom of
+nature.
+
+It is no wonder that critics and literary men have been so unstinted
+in his praise. Here is an example:
+
+  "In the Decamerone it is said of him 'that he was so great a genius
+  that there was nothing in nature he had not so reproduced that it
+  was not only like the thing, but seemed to be the thing itself.'
+  Eulogies of this tenor on works of art are, it is quite true, common
+  to all periods alike, to the most accomplished of classical
+  antiquity as well as to the most primitive of the Middle Age; and
+  they must only be accepted relatively, according to the notion
+  entertained by each period of what constitutes truth and
+  naturalness. And from the point of view of his age, Giotto's advance
+  towards nature, considered relatively to his predecessors, was in
+  truth enormous. What he sought was not merely the external truth of
+  sense, but also the inward truth of the spirit. Instead of solemn
+  images of devotion, he painted pictures in which the spectator
+  beheld the likeness of human beings in the exercise of activity and
+  intelligence. His merit lies, as has been well said, in 'an entirely
+  new conception of character and facts.'"   [Footnote 14]
+
+    [Footnote 14: History of Ancient, Early Christian and Medieval
+    Painting from the German of the late Dr. Alfred Woltmann,
+    Professor at the Imperial University of Strasburg, and Karl
+    Woertmann, Professor at the Royal Academy of Arts, Dusselford.
+    Edited by Sidney Colvin, M. A., Dodd, Mead & Co., N. Y., 1894.]
+
+
+{144}
+
+Lafenestre, in his history of Italian painting for the Beaux-Arts of
+Paris already referred to, says that what has survived of Giotto's
+work justifies the enthusiasm of his contemporaries. None of his
+predecessors accomplished anything like the revolution that he worked.
+He fixed the destinies of art in Italy at the moment when Dante fixed
+those of literature. The stiff, confused figures of the mosaics and
+manuscripts grew supple under his fingers and the confusion
+disappeared. He simplified the gestures, varied the expression,
+rectified the proportions. Perhaps the best example of his work is
+that of the upper Church of Assisi, all accomplished before he was
+thirty. What he had to represent were scenes of life almost
+contemporary yet already raised to the realm of poetry by popular
+admiration. He interpreted the beautiful legend of the life of the
+Saint preserved by St. Bonaventure, and like the subject of his
+sketches turned to nature at every step of his work. If his figures
+are compared with those of the artists of the preceding generations,
+their truth to life and natural expressions easily explain the
+surprise and the rapture of his contemporaries.
+
+Beautiful as are the pictures of the Upper Church, however, ten years
+after their completion Giotto's genius can be seen to have taken a
+still higher flight by the study of the pictures on the vast ceilings
+of the Lower Church. The four compartments contain the Triumph of
+Chastity, the Triumph of Poverty, the Triumph of Obedience, and the
+Glorification of St. Francis. The ideal and the real figures in these
+compositions are mingled and grouped with admirable clearness and
+inventive force. To be appreciated properly they must be seen and
+studied _in situ_. Many an artist has made the pilgrimage to Assisi
+and none has come away disappointed. Never before had an artist dared
+to introduce so many and such numerous figures, yet all were done with
+a variety and an ease of movement that is eminently pleasing and even
+now are thoroughly satisfying to the artistic mind. After his work at
+Assisi some of the best of Giotto's pictures are to be found in the
+Chapel of the Arena at Padua. Here there was a magnificent opportunity
+and Giotto took full advantage of it. The whole story of Christ's life
+is told in the fourteen episodes of the life of his Mother which were
+painted here by Giotto. For their sake Padua as well as {145} Assisi
+has been a favorite place of pilgrimage for artists ever since and
+never more so than in our own time.
+
+{opp144}
+
+[Illustration]
+ST. FRANCIS' MARRIAGE WITH POVERTY (GIOTTO, ASSISI)
+
+No greater tribute to the century in which he lived could possibly be
+given than to say that his genius was recognized at once, and he was
+sought from one end of Italy to another by Popes and Kings, Republics
+and Princes, Convents and Municipalities, all of which competed for
+the privilege of having this genius work for them with ever increasing
+enthusiasm. It is easy to think and to say that it is no wonder that
+such a transcendent genius was recognized and appreciated and received
+his due reward. Such has not usually been the case in history,
+however. On the contrary, the more imposing the genius of an artist,
+or a scientist, or any other great innovator in things human, the more
+surely has he been the subject of neglect and even of misunderstanding
+and persecution. The very fact that Giotto lifted art out of the
+routine of formalism in which it was sunk might seem to be enough to
+assure failure of appreciation. Men do not suddenly turn round to like
+even great innovations, when they have long been satisfied with
+something less and when their principles of criticism have been formed
+by their experience with the old.
+
+We need not go farther back than our own supposedly illuminated
+Nineteenth Century to find some striking examples of this. Turner, the
+great English landscapist, failed of appreciation for long years and
+had to wait till the end of his life to obtain even a small meed of
+reward. The famous Barbizon School of French Painters is a still more
+striking example. They went back to nature from the classic formalism
+of the early Nineteenth Century painters just as Giotto went back to
+nature from Byzantine conventionalism. The immediate rewards in the
+two cases were very different and the attitude of contemporaries
+strikingly contrasted. Poor Millet did his magnificent work in spite
+of the fact that his family nearly starved. Only that Madame Millet
+was satisfied to take more than a fair share of hardships for herself
+and the family in order that her husband might have the opportunity to
+develop his genius after his own way, we might not have had the
+magnificent pictures which Millet sold for a few paltry francs that
+barely kept {146} the wolf from the door, and for which the next
+generation has been paying almost fabulous sums.
+
+All through the Thirteenth Century this characteristic will be found
+that genius did not as a rule lack appreciation. The greater the
+revolution a genuinely progressive thinker and worker tried to
+accomplish in human progress, the more sure was he to obtain not only
+a ready audience, but an enthusiastic and encouraging following. This
+is the greatest compliment that could be paid to the enlightenment of
+the age. Men's minds were open and they were ready and willing to see
+things differently from what they had been accustomed to before. This
+constitutes after all the best possible guarantee of progress. It is,
+however, very probably the last thing that we would think of
+attributing to these generations of the Thirteenth Century, who are
+usually said very frankly to have been wrapped up in their own
+notions, to have been only too ready to accept things on authority
+rather than by their own powers of observation and judgment, and to
+have been clingers to the past rather than lookers to the present and
+the future. Giotto's life shows better than any other how much this
+prejudiced view of the Thirteenth Century and perforce of the Middle
+Age needs to be corrected.
+
+During forty years Giotto responded to every demand, and made himself
+suffice for every call, worked in nearly every important city of
+Italy, enkindling everywhere he went the new light of art. Before the
+end of the century he completed a cartoon for the famous picture of
+the Boat of Peter which was to adorn the Facade of St. Peter's. He was
+in Rome in 1300, the first jubilee year, arranging the decorations at
+St. John Lateran. The next year he was at Florence, working in the
+Palace of the Podesta. And so it went for full two score years. He was
+at Pisa, at Lucca, at Arezzo, at Padua, at Milan, then he went South
+to Urbino, to Rome and then even to Naples. Unfortunately the strain
+of all this work proved too much for him and he was carried away at
+the comparatively early age of sixty in the midst of his artistic
+vigor and glory.
+
+{opp147}
+[Illustration]
+ESPOUSAL OF ST. CATHERINE
+(GADDI, XIII. CENTURY PUPIL, PERUGIA)
+
+
+The art of the Middle Ages and especially at the time of the
+beginnings of modern art in the Thirteenth Century, is commonly
+supposed to be inextricably bound up with certain {147} influences
+which place it beyond the pale of imitation for modern life. It has
+frequently been said, that this art besides being too deeply mystical
+and pietistic, is so remote from ordinary human feelings as to
+preclude a proper understanding of it by the men of our time and
+certainly prevent any deep sympathy. The pagan element in art which
+entered at the time of the Renaissance and which emphasized the joy of
+life itself and the pleasure of mere living for its own sake, is
+supposed to have modified this sadder aspect of things in the earlier
+art, so that now no one would care to go back to the pre-Renaissance
+day. There has been so much writing of this kind that has carried
+weight, that it is no wonder that the impression has been deeply made.
+It is founded almost entirely on a misunderstanding, however. Reinach
+whom we have quoted before completely overturns this false notion in
+some paragraphs which bring out better than any others that we know
+something of the true significance of the Thirteenth Century art in
+this particular.
+
+Those who think that Gothic art was mainly gloomy in character, or if
+not absolutely sad at heart that it always expressed the sadder
+portion of religious feelings, who consider that the ascetic side of
+life was always in the ascendant and the brighter side of things
+seldom chosen, for pictorial purposes, should recall that the Gothic
+Cathedrals themselves are the most cheery and lightsome buildings,
+that indeed they owe their character as creations of a new idea in
+architecture to the determined purpose of their builders to get
+admission for all possible light in the dreary Northern climates. The
+contradiction of the idea that Gothic art in its essence was gloomy
+will at once be manifest from this. Quite apart from this, however, if
+Gothic art be studied for itself and in its subjects, that of the
+Thirteenth Century particularly will be found far distant from,
+anything that would justify the criticism of over sadness. Reinach (in
+his Story of Art Throughout the Middle Ages) has stated this so
+clearly that we prefer simply to quote the passage which is at once
+authoritative and informing:
+
+  "It has also been said that Gothic art bears the impress of ardent
+  piety and emotional mysticism, that it dwells on the suffering of
+  Jesus, of the Virgin, and of the martyrs with harrowing persistency.
+  Those who believe this have never studied {148} Gothic art. It is so
+  far from the truth that, as a fact, the Gothic art of the best
+  period, the Thirteenth Century, never represented any sufferings
+  save those of the damned. The Virgins are smiling and gracious,
+  never grief stricken. There is not a single Gothic rendering of the
+  Virgin weeping at the foot of the cross. The words and music of the
+  Stabat Mater, which are sometimes instanced as the highest
+  expression of the religion of the Middle Ages, date from the end of
+  the Thirteenth Century at the very earliest, and did not become
+  popular till the Fifteenth Century. Jesus himself is not represented
+  as suffering, but with a serene and majestic expression. The famous
+  statue known as the Beau Dieu d'Amiens may be instanced as typical."
+
+
+[Illustration]
+GROUP FROM VISITATION (RHEIMS)
+
+
+{149}
+
+IX
+
+LIBRARIES AND BOOKMEN.
+
+
+As the Thirteenth Century begins some 250 years before the art of
+printing was introduced, it would seem idle to talk of libraries and
+especially of circulating libraries during this period and quite as
+futile to talk of bookmen and book collectors. Any such false
+impression, however, is founded entirely upon a lack of knowledge of
+the true state of affairs during this wonderful period. A diocesan
+council held in Paris in the year 1212, with other words of advice to
+religious, recalled to them the duty that they had to lend such books
+as they might possess, with proper guarantee for their return, of
+course, to those who might make good use of them. The council, indeed,
+formally declared that the lending of books was one of the works of
+mercy. The Cathedral chapter of Notre Dame at Paris was one of the
+leaders in this matter and there are records of their having lent many
+books during the Thirteenth Century. At most of the abbeys around
+Paris there were considerable libraries and in them also the lending
+custom obtained. This is especially true of the Abbey of St. Victor of
+which the rule and records are extant.
+
+Of course it will be realized that the number of books was not large,
+but on the other hand it must not be forgotten that many of them were
+works of art in every particular, and some of them that have come down
+to us continue to be even to the present day among the most precious
+bibliophilic treasures of great state and city libraries. Their value
+depends not alone on their antiquity but on their perfection as works
+of art. In general it may be said that the missals and office books,
+and the prayer books made for royal personages and the nobility at
+this time, are yet counted among the best examples of bookmaking the
+world has ever seen. It is not surprising that such should be the case
+since these books were mainly meant for use in the Cathedrals and the
+chapels, and these edifices were so beautiful in every detail that the
+generations that erected them {150} could not think of making books
+for use in them, that would be unworthy of the artistic environment
+for which they were intended. With the candlesticks, the vessels, and
+implements used in the ceremonial surpassing works of art, with every
+form of decoration so nearly perfect as to be a source of unending
+admiration, with the vestments and altar linens specimens of the most
+exquisite handiwork of their kind that had ever been made, the books
+associated with them had to be excellent in execution, expressive of
+the most refined taste and finished with an attention utterly careless
+of the time and labor that might be required, since the sole object
+was to make everything as absolutely beautiful as possible. Hence
+there is no dearth of wonderful examples of the beautiful bookmaking
+of this century in all the great libraries of the world.
+
+The libraries themselves, moreover, are of surpassing interest because
+of their rules and management, for little as it might be expected this
+wonderful century anticipated in these matters most of our very modern
+library regulations. The bookmen of the time not only made beautiful
+books, but they made every provision to secure their free circulation
+and to make them available to as many people as was consonant with
+proper care of the books and the true purposes of libraries. This is a
+chapter of Thirteenth Century history more ignored perhaps than any
+other, but which deserves to be known and will appeal to our century
+more perhaps than to any intervening period.
+
+The constitutions of the Abbey St. Victor of Paris give us an
+excellent idea at once of the solicitude with which the books were
+guarded, yet also of the careful effort that was made to render them
+useful to as many persons as possible. One of the most important rules
+at St. Victor was that the librarian should know the contents of every
+volume in the library, in order to be able to direct those who might
+wish to consult the books in their selection, and while thus sparing
+the books unnecessary handling also save the readers precious time. We
+are apt to think that it is only in very modern times that this
+training of librarians to know their books so as to be of help to the
+readers was insisted on. Here, however, we find it in full force seven
+centuries ago. It would be much more difficult in the present day to
+know all the books confided to his care, but some of the {151}
+librarians at St. Victor were noted for the perfection of their
+knowledge in this regard and were often consulted by those who were
+interested in various subjects.
+
+In his book on the Thirteenth Century   [Footnote 15 ] M. A. Lecoy de
+la Marche says that in France, at least, circulating libraries were
+quite common. As might be expected of the people of so practical a
+century, it was they who first established the rule that a book might
+be taken out provided its value were deposited by the borrower. Such
+lending libraries were to be found at the Sorbonne, at St. Germain des
+Pres, as well as at Notre Dame. There was also a famous library at
+this time at Corbie but practically every one of the large abbeys had
+a library from which books could be obtained. Certain of the castles
+of the nobility, as for instance that of La Ferte en Ponthieu, had
+libraries, with regard to which there is a record, that the librarian
+had the custom of lending certain volumes, provided the person was
+known to him and assumed responsibility for the book.
+
+  [Footnote 15: Le Treizieme Siecle Litteraire et Scientifique, Lille,
+  1857.]
+
+Some of the regulations of the libraries of the century have an
+interest all their own from the exact care that was required with
+regard to the books. The Sorbonne for instance by rule inflicted a
+fine upon anyone who neglected to close large volumes after he had
+been making use of them. Many a librarian of the modern times would be
+glad to put into effect such a regulation as this. A severe fine was
+inflicted upon any library assistant who allowed a stranger to go into
+the library alone, and another for anyone who did not take care to
+close the doors. It seems not unlikely that these regulations, as M.
+Lecoy de la Marche says, were in vigor in many of the ecclesiastical
+and secular libraries of the time.
+
+Some of the regulations of St. Victor are quite as interesting and
+show the liberal spirit of the time as well as indicate how completely
+what is most modern in library management was anticipated. The
+librarian had the charge of all the books of the community, was
+required to have a detailed list of them and each year to have them in
+his possession at least three times. On him was placed the obligation
+to see that the books were not destroyed in any way, either by
+parasites of any kind or by {152} dampness. The librarian was required
+to arrange the books in such a manner as to make the finding of them
+prompt and easy. No book was allowed to be borrowed unless some pledge
+for its safe return were left with the librarian. This was emphasized
+particularly for strangers who must give a pledge equal to the value
+of the book. In all cases, however, the name of the borrower had to be
+taken, also the title of the book borrowed, and the kind of pledge
+left. The larger and more precious books could not be borrowed without
+the special permission of the superior.
+
+The origin of the various libraries in Paris is very interesting as
+proof that the mode of accumulating books was nearly the same as that
+which enriches university and other such libraries at the present
+time. The library of La St. Chapelle was founded by Louis IX, and
+being continuously enriched by the deposit therein of the archives of
+the kingdom soon became of first importance. Many precious volumes
+that were given as presents to St. Louis found their way into this
+library and made it during his lifetime the most valuable collection
+of books in Paris. Louis, moreover, devoted much time and money to
+adding to the library. He made it a point whenever on his journeys he
+stopped, at abbeys or other ecclesiastical institutions, to find out
+what books were in their library that were not at La Saint Chapelle
+and had copies of these made. His intimate friendship with Robert of
+Sorbonne, with St. Thomas of Aquin, with Saint Bonaventure, and above
+all with Vincent of Beauvais, the famous encyclopedist of the century,
+widened his interest in books and must have made him an excellent
+judge of what he ought to procure to complete the library. It was, as
+we shall see, Louis' munificent patronage that enabled Vincent to
+accumulate that precious store of medieval knowledge, which was to
+prove a mine of information for so many subsequent generations.
+
+From the earliest times certain books, mainly on medicine, were
+collected at the Hotel Dieu, the great hospital of Paris, and this
+collection was added to from time to time by the bequests of
+physicians in attendance there. This was doubtless the first regular
+hospital library, though probably medical books had also been
+collected at Salernum. The principal colleges of the universities also
+made collections of books, some of them {153} very valuable, though as
+a rule, it would seem as if no attempt was made to procure any other
+books than those which were absolutely needed for consultation by the
+students. The best working library at Paris was undoubtedly that of
+the Sorbonne, of which indeed its books were for a long time its only
+treasures. For at first the Sorbonne was nothing but a teaching
+institution which only required rooms for its lectures, and usually
+obtained these either from the university authorities or from the
+Canons of the Cathedral and possessed no property except its library.
+From the very beginning the professors bequeathed whatever books they
+had collected to its library and this became a custom. It is easy to
+understand that within a very short time the library became one of the
+very best in Europe. While most of the other libraries were devoted
+mainly to sacred literature, the Sorbonne came to possess a large
+number of works of profane literature. Interesting details with regard
+to this library of the Sorbonne and its precious treasures have been
+given by M. Leopold Delisle, in the second volume of Le Cabinet des
+Manuserits, describing the MSS. of the Bibliotheque Nationale at
+Paris. According to M. Lecoy de la Marche, this gives an excellent
+idea of the persevering efforts which must have been required, to
+bring together so many bibliographic treasures at a time when books
+were such a rarity, and consequently enables us better almost than
+anything else, to appreciate the enthusiasm of the scholars of these
+early times and their wonderful efforts to make the acquisition of
+knowledge easier, not only for their own but for succeeding
+generations. When we recall that the library of the Sorbonne was,
+during the Thirteenth Century, open not only to the professors and
+students of the Sorbonne itself, but also to those interested in books
+and in literature who might come from elsewhere, provided they were
+properly accredited, we can realize to the full the thorough
+liberality of spirit of these early scholars. Usually we are prone to
+consider that this liberality of spirit, even in educational matters,
+came much later into the world.
+
+In spite of the regulations demanding the greatest care, it is easy to
+understand that after a time even books written on vellum or parchment
+would become disfigured and worn under the ardent fingers of
+enthusiastic students, when comparatively so {154} few copies were
+available for general use. In order to replace these worn-out copies
+every abbey had its own scriptorium or writing room, where especially
+the younger monks who were gifted with plain handwriting were required
+to devote certain hours every day to the copying of manuscripts.
+Manuscripts were borrowed from neighboring libraries and copied, or as
+in our modern day exchanges of duplicate copies were made, so as to
+avoid the risk that precious manuscripts might be subject to on the
+journeys from one abbey to another. How much the duty of transcription
+was valued may be appreciated from the fact, that in some abbeys every
+novice was expected to bring on the day of his profession as a
+religious, a volume of considerable size which had been carefully
+copied by his own hands.
+
+Besides these methods of increasing the number of books in the
+library, a special sum of money was set aside in most of the abbeys
+for the procuring of additional volumes for the library by purchase.
+Usually this took the form of an ecclesiastical regulation requiring
+that a certain percentage of the revenues should be spent on the
+libraries. Scholars closely associated with monasteries frequently
+bequeathed their books and besides left money or incomes to be
+especially devoted to the improvement of the library. It is easy to
+understand that with all these sources of enrichment many abbeys
+possessed noteworthy libraries. To quote only those of France,
+important collections of books were to be found at Cluny, Luxeuil,
+Fleury, Saint-Martial, Moissac, Mortemer, Savigny, Fourcarmont, Saint
+Pere de Chartres, Saint Denis, Saint-Maur-des-Fosses, Saint Corneille
+de Compiegne, Corbie, Saint-Amand, Saint-Martin de Tournai, where
+Vincent de Beauvais said that he found the greatest collections of
+manuscripts that existed in his time, and then especially the great
+Parisian abbeys already referred to, Saint-Germain-des-Pres, Saint
+Victor, Saint-Martin-des-Champs, the precious treasures of which are
+well known to all those who are familiar with the Bibliotheque
+Nationale of Paris, of whose manuscript department their relics
+constitute the most valuable nucleus.
+
+Some of the bequests of books that were made to libraries at this time
+are interesting, because they show the spirit of the {155} testators
+and at the same time furnish valuable hints as to the consideration in
+which books were held and the reverent care of their possessors for
+them. Peter of Nemours, the Bishop of Paris, when setting out on the
+crusades with Louis IX. bequeathed to the famous Abbey of St. Victor,
+his Bible in 22 volumes, which was considered one of the finest copies
+of the scriptures at that time in existence. To the Abbey of Olivet he
+gave his Psalter with Glosses, besides the Epistles of St. Paul and
+his Book of Sentences, by which is evidently intended the well-known
+work with that title by the famous Peter Lombard. Finally he gave to
+the Cathedral of Paris all the rest of his books. Besides these he had
+very little to leave. It is typical of the reputation of Paris in that
+century and the devotion of her churchmen to learning and culture,
+that practically all of the revenues that he considered due him for
+his personal services had been invested in books, which he then
+disposed of in such a way as would secure their doing the greatest
+possible good to the largest number of people. His Bible was evidently
+given to the abbey of St. Victor because it was the sort of work that
+should be kept for the occasional reference of the learned rather than
+the frequent consultation of students, who might very well find all
+that they desired in other and less valuable copies. His practical
+intention with regard to his books can be best judged from his gift to
+Notre Dame, which, as we have noted already possessed a very valuable
+library that was allowed to circulate among properly accredited
+scholars in Paris.
+
+According to the will of Peter Ameil, Archbishop of Narbonne, which is
+dated 1238, he gave his books for the use of the scholars whom he had
+supported at the University of Paris and they were to be deposited in
+the Library at Notre Dame, but on condition that they were not to be
+scattered for any reason nor any of them sold or abused. The effort of
+the booklover to keep his books together is characteristic of all the
+centuries since, only most people will be surprised to find it
+manifesting itself so early in bibliophilic history. The Archbishop
+reserved from his books, however, his Bible for his own church. Before
+his death he had given the Dominicans in his diocese many books from
+his library. This churchman of the first half of the {156} Thirteenth
+Century seems evidently to deserve a prominent place among the bookmen
+of all times.
+
+There are records of many others who bequeathed libraries and gave
+books during their lifetime to various institutions, as may be found
+in the Literary History of France,   [Footnote 16] already mentioned,
+as well as in the various histories of the University of Paris. Many
+of these gifts were made on condition that they should not be sold and
+the constantly recurring condition made by these booklovers is that
+their collections should be kept together. The libraries of Paris were
+also in the market for books, however, and there is proof that the
+Sorbonne purchased a number of volumes because the cost price of them
+was noted inside the cover quite as libraries do in our own days. When
+we realize the forbidding cost of them, it is surprising that there
+should be so much to say about them and so many of them constantly
+changing hands. An ordinary folio volume probably cost from 400 to 500
+francs in our values, that is between $80 and $100.
+
+  [Footnote 16: Histoire Litteraire de la France, by the Benedictines
+  of St. Maur.]
+
+While the older abbeys of the Benedictines and other earlier religious
+orders possessed magnificent collections of books, the newer orders of
+the Thirteenth Century, the Mendicants, though as their name indicates
+they were bound to live by alms given them by the faithful, within a
+short time after their foundation began to take a prominent part in
+the library movement. It was in the southern part of France that the
+Dominicans were strongest and so there is record of regulations for
+libraries made at Toulouse in the early part of the Thirteenth
+Century. In Paris, in 1239, considerable time and discussion was
+devoted in one of the chapters of the order to the question of how
+books should be kept, and how the library should be increased. With
+regard to the Franciscans, though their poverty was, if possible,
+stricter, the same thing is known before the end of the century. In
+both orders arrangements were made for the copying of important works
+and it is, of course, to the zeal and enthusiasm of the younger
+members of these orders for this copying work, that we owe the
+preservation by means of a large number of manuscript copies, of the
+{157} voluminous writings of such men as Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas,
+Duns Scotus and others.
+
+
+{opp156}
+[Illustration]
+MONUMENT OF CARDINAL DE BRAY (ARNOLFO)
+
+
+While the existence of libraries of various kinds, and even
+circulating libraries, in the Thirteenth Century may seem definitely
+settled, it will appear to most people that to speak of book
+collecting at this time must be out of place. That fad is usually
+presumed to be of much later origin and indeed to be comparatively
+recent in its manifestations. We have said enough already, however, of
+the various collections of books in libraries especially in France to
+show that the book collector was abroad, but there is much more direct
+evidence of this available from an English writer. Richard de Bury's
+Philobiblon is very well known to all who are interested in books for
+their own sake, but few people realize that this book practically had
+its origin in the Thirteenth Century. The writer was born about the
+beginning of the last quarter of that century, had completed his
+education before its close, and it is only reasonable to attribute to
+the formative influences at work in his intellectual development as a
+young man, the germs of thought from which were to come in later life
+the interesting book on bibliophily, the first of its kind, which was
+to be a treasure for book-lovers ever afterwards.
+
+Philobiblon tells us, among other things, of Richard's visits to the
+continent on an Embassy to the Holy See and on subsequent occasions to
+the Court of France, and the delight which he experienced in handling
+many books which he had never seen before, in buying such of them as
+his purse would allow, or his enthusiasm could tempt from their owners
+and in conversing with those who could tell him about books and their
+contents. Such men were the chosen comrades of his journeys, sat with
+him at table, as Mr. Henry Morley tells us in his English Writers
+(volume IV, page 51), and were in almost constant fellowship with him.
+It was at Paris particularly that Richard's heart was satisfied for a
+time because of the great treasures he found in the magnificent
+libraries of that city. He was interested, of course, in the
+University and the opportunity for intellectual employment afforded by
+Academic proceedings, but above all he found delight in books, which
+monks and monarchs and professors and churchmen of all kinds and
+scholars {158} and students had gathered into this great intellectual
+capital of Europe at that time. Anyone who thinks the books were not
+valued quite as highly in the Thirteenth Century as at the present
+time should read the Philobiblon. He is apt to rise from the reading
+of it with the thought that it is the modern generations who do not
+properly appreciate books.
+
+One of the early chapters of Philobiblon argues that books ought
+always to be bought whatever they cost, provided there are means to
+pay for them, except in two cases, "when they are knavishly
+overcharged, or when a better time for buying is expected." "That sun
+of men, Solomon," Richard says, "bids us buy books readily and sell
+them unwillingly, for one of his proverbs runs, 'Buy the truth and
+sell it not, also wisdom and instruction and understanding.'" Richard
+in his own quaint way thought that most other interests in life were
+only temptations to-draw men away from books. In one famous paragraph
+he has naively personified books as complaining with regard to the
+lack of attention men now display for them and the unworthy objects,
+in Richard's eyes at least, upon which they fasten their affections
+instead, and which take them away from the only great life interest
+that is really worth while--books.
+
+"Yet," complain books, "in these evil times we are cast out of our
+place in the inner chamber, turned out of doors, and our place taken
+by dogs, birds, and the two-legged beast called woman. But that beast
+has always been our rival, and when she spies us in a corner, with no
+better protection than the web of a dead spider, she drags us out with
+a frown and violent speech, laughing us to scorn as useless, and soon
+counsels us to be changed into costly head-gear, fine linen, silk and
+scarlet double dyed, dresses and divers trimmings, linens and woolens.
+And so," complain the books still, "we are turned out of our homes,
+our coats are torn from our backs, our backs and sides ache, we lie
+about disabled, our natural whiteness turns to yellow--without doubt
+we have the jaundice. Some of us are gouty, witness our twisted
+extremities. Our bellies are griped and wrenched and are consumed by
+worms; on each side the dirt cleaves to us, nobody binds up our
+wounds, we lie ragged and weep in dark corners, or meet with Job upon
+a dunghill, or, as seems hardly fit to be said, we are hidden in
+abysses of the {159} sewers. We are sold also like slaves, and lie as
+unredeemed pledges in taverns. We are thrust into cruel butteries, to
+be cut up like sheep and cattle; committed to Jews, Saracens, heretics
+and Pagans, whom we always dread as the plague, and by whom some of
+our forefathers are known to have been poisoned."
+
+Richard De Bury must not be thought to have been some mere wandering
+scholar of the beginning of the Fourteenth Century, however, for he
+was, perhaps, the most important historical personage, not even
+excepting royalty or nobility, of this era and one of the striking
+examples of how high a mere scholar might rise in this period quite
+apart from any achievement in arms, though this is usually supposed to
+be almost the only basis of distinguished reputation and the reason
+for advancement at this time. While he was only the son of a Norman
+knight, Aungervyle by name, born at Bury St. Edmund's, he became the
+steward of the palace and treasurer of the royal wardrobe, then Lord
+Treasurer of England and finally Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. While
+on a mission to the Pope he so commended himself to the Holy See that
+it was resolved to make him the next English bishop. Accordingly he
+was made Bishop of Durham shortly after and on the occasion of his
+installation there was a great banquet at which the young King and
+Queen, the Queen Mother Isabelle, the King of Scotland, two
+Archbishops, five bishops, and most of the great English lords were
+present. At this time the Scots and the English were actually engaged
+in war with one another and a special truce was declared, in order to
+allow them to join in the celebration of the consecration of so
+distinguished an individual to the See of Durham near the frontier.
+
+Before he was consecrated Bishop, Richard De Bury had been for some
+time the treasurer of the kingdom. Before the end of the year in which
+he was consecrated he became Lord Chancellor, at a time when the
+affairs of the kingdom needed a master hand and when the French and
+the Scots were seriously disturbing English peace and prosperity. He
+resigned his office of Chancellor, as Henry Morley states, only to go
+abroad in the royal service as ambassador that he might exercise his
+own trusted sagacity in carrying out the peaceful policy he had {160}
+advised. During this diplomatic mission to the continent he visited
+the courts of Paris, of Flanders, of Hainault and of Germany. He
+succeeded in making terms of peace between the English king and the
+Counts of Hainault and Namur, the Marquis of Juliers and the Dukes of
+Brabant and Guelders. This would seem to indicate that he must be
+considered as one of the most prominent men of Europe at this time.
+
+His attitude toward books is then all the more noteworthy. Many people
+were surprised that a great statesman like Gladstone in the Nineteenth
+Century, should have been interested in so many phases of thought and
+of literature and should himself have been able to find the time to
+contribute important works to English letters. Richard De Bury was at
+least as important a man in his time as Gladstone in ours, and
+occupied himself as much with books as the great English commoner.
+This is what will be the greatest source of surprise to those who in
+our time have been accustomed to think, that the great scholars deeply
+interested in books who were yet men of practical worth in helping
+their generation in its great problems, are limited to modern times
+and are least of all likely to be found in the heart of the Middle
+Ages. In spite of his occupations as a politician and a bookman,
+Richard De Bury was noted for his faithfulness in the fulfilment of
+his duties as a churchman and a bishop. It is worthy of note that many
+of the important clergymen of England, who were to find the highest
+church preferment afterwards, were among the members of his household
+at various times and that the post of secretary to the bishop,
+particularly, was filled at various times by some of the best scholars
+of the period, men who were devoted friends to the bishop, who
+dedicated their works to him and generally added to the reputation
+that stamped him as the greatest scholar of England and one of the
+leading lights of European culture of his time.
+
+This is not so surprising when we realize that to be a member of
+Richard's household was to have access to the best library in England,
+and that many scholars were naturally ambitious to have such an
+opportunity, and as the results showed many took advantage of it.
+Among Richard of Durham's chaplains were Thomas Bradwardine who
+afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Fitzraufe,
+subsequently Archbishop of {161} Armagh, Walter Seagrave, afterwards
+Bishop of Chichester, and Richard Bentworth, who afterwards became
+Bishop of London Among the distinguished scholars who occupied the
+post were Robert Holcot, John Manduit, the astronomer of the
+Fourteenth Century, Richard Kilmington, a distinguished English
+theologian, and Walter Burley, a great commentator on Aristotle, who
+dedicated to the bishop, who had provided him with so many
+opportunities for study, his Commentaries upon the Politics and Ethics
+of the ancient Greek philosopher.
+
+That Richard's love for books and the time he had necessarily devoted
+to politics did not dry up the fountains of charity in his heart, nor
+cause him to neglect his important duties as the pastor of the people
+and especially of the poor, we know very well from certain traditions
+with regard to his charitable donations. According to a standing rule
+in his household eight quarters of wheat were regularly every week
+made into bread and given to the poor. In his alms giving Richard was
+as careful and as discriminating as in his collection of books, and he
+used a number of the regularly organized channels in his diocese to
+make sure that his bounty should be really helpful and should not
+encourage lack of thrift. This is a feature of charitable work that is
+supposed to be modern, but the personal service of the charitably
+inclined in the Thirteenth Century, far surpassed in securing this
+even the elaborate organization of charity in modern times. Whenever
+the bishop traveled generous alms were distributed to the poor people
+along the way. Whenever he made the journey between Durham and New
+Castle eight pounds sterling were set aside for this purpose; five
+pounds for each journey between Durham and Stockton or Middleham, and
+five marks between Durham and Auckland. Money had at that time at
+least ten times the purchasing power which it has at present, so that
+it will be easy to appreciate the good bishop's eminent liberality.
+
+That Richard was justified in his admiration of the books of the time
+we know from those that remain, for it must not be thought for a
+moment that because the making of books was such a time-taking task in
+the Thirteenth Century, they were not therefore made beautiful. On the
+contrary, as we shall see {162} shortly, no more beautiful books have
+ever been made than at this time. This of itself would show how
+precious in the eyes of the collectors of the time their books were,
+since they wanted to have them so beautifully made and were satisfied
+to pay the high prices that had to be demanded for such works of art.
+Very few books of any size cost less than the equivalent of $100 in
+our time and illuminated books cost much higher than this, yet seem
+never to have been a drug on the market. Indeed, considering the
+number of them that are still in existence to this day, in spite of
+the accidents of fire, and water, and war, and neglect, and
+carelessness, and ignorance, there must have been an immense number of
+very handsome books made by the generations of the Thirteenth Century.
+
+While illumination was not an invention of the Thirteenth Century, as
+indeed were very few of the great art features of the century, during
+this time book decoration was carried to great perfection and reached
+that development which artists of the next century were to improve on
+in certain extrinsic features, though the intrinsic qualities were to
+remain those which had been determined as the essential
+characteristics of this branch of art in the earlier time. The
+Thirteenth Century, for instance, saw the introduction of the
+miniature as a principal feature and also the drawing out of initials
+in such a way as to make an illuminated border for the whole side of
+the page. After the development thus given to the art in the
+Thirteenth Century further evolution could only come in certain less
+important details. In this the Thirteenth Century generations were
+accomplishing what they had done in practically everything else that
+they touched, laying foundations broad and deep and giving the
+superstructure the commanding form which future generations were only
+able to modify to slight degree and not always with absolute good
+grace.
+
+Humphreys in his magnificent volume on The Illuminated Books of the
+Middle Ages, which according to its title contains an account of the
+development and progress of the art of illumination as a distinct
+branch of pictorial ornamentation from the Fourth to the Seventeenth
+centuries,  [Footnote 17] has some very striking words of praise for
+Thirteenth Century illuminations and the artists who made them. He
+says:
+
+    [Footnote 17: The Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, by Henry
+    Noel Humphreys Longman. Green, Brown and Longmans, London, 1848.]
+
+{163}
+
+  "Different epochs of the art of illumination present widely
+  different and distinct styles; the most showy and the best known,
+  though the least pure and inventive in design, being that of the
+  middle and end of the Fifteenth Century; whilst the period perhaps
+  the least generally known, that of the Thirteenth Century, may be
+  considered as the most interesting and original, many of the best
+  works of that period displaying an astonishing variety and profusion
+  of invention. The manuscript, of which two pages form the opposite
+  plate, may be ranked among the most elaborate and profusely
+  ornamented of the fine books of that era; every page being
+  sufficient to make the fortune of the modern decorator by the quaint
+  and unexpected novelties of inventions which it displays at every
+  turn of its intricate design."
+
+The illuminations of the century then are worthy of the time and also
+typical of the general work of the century. It is known by experts for
+its originality and for the wealth of invention displayed in the
+designs. Men did not fear that they might exhaust their inventive
+faculty, nor display their originality sparingly, in order that they
+might have enough to complete other work. As the workmen of the
+Cathedrals, the artist illuminators devoted their very best efforts to
+each piece of work that came to their hands, and the results are
+masterpieces of art in this as in every other department of the
+period. The details are beautifully wrought, showing the power of the
+artist to accomplish such a work and yet his designs are never
+overloaded, at least in the best examples of the century, with details
+of ornamentation that obscure and minimize the effect of the original
+design. This fault was to be the error of his most sophisticated
+successors two centuries later.
+
+Nor must it be thought the high opinion of the century is derived from
+the fact that only a very few examples of its illumination and
+bookmaking are now extant, and that these being the chosen specimens
+give the illumination of the century a higher place than it might
+otherwise have. Many examples {164} have been preserved and some of
+them are the most beautiful books that were made. Paris was
+particularly the home of this form of art in the Thirteenth Century,
+and indeed the school established there influenced all the modes of
+illumination everywhere, so much so that Dante speaks of the art with
+the epithet "Parisian," as if it were exclusively done there. The
+incentive to the development of this form of art came from St. Louis
+who, as we have said, was very much interested in books. His taste as
+exhibited in La Sainte Chapelle was such as to demand artistic
+excellence of high grade in this department of art, which has many
+more relations with the architecture of the period, and especially
+with the stained glass, than might possibly be thought at the present
+time, for most of the decoration of books partook of the character of
+the architectural types of the moment.
+
+Among the most precious treasures from the century are three books
+which belonged to St. Louis himself. One of these is the Hours or
+Office Book; a second, is his Psalter, which contains some extremely
+beautiful initials; a third, which is in the Library of the Arsenal at
+Paris, is sometimes known as the Prayer Book of St. Louis himself,
+though a better name for it would be the Prayer Book of Queen Blanche,
+for it was made at Louis' orders for his mother, the famous Blanche of
+Castile, and is a worthy testimonial of the affectionate relations
+which existed between mother and son.
+
+Outside of Paris there are preserved many books of great value that
+come from this century. One of them, a Bestiarum or Book of Beasts, is
+in the Ashmoleam Museum at Oxford. This is said to be a very beautiful
+example of the illumination of the Thirteenth Century, but it is even
+more interesting because it shows the efforts of the artists of the
+time to copy nature in the pictures of animals as they are presented.
+There is said to be an acuity of observation and a vigor of
+representation displayed in the book which is highly complimentary to
+the powers of the Thirteenth Century artists.
+
+Even these brief notes of the books and libraries of the Thirteenth
+Century, will serve to make clear how enthusiastic was the interest of
+the generations of this time in beautiful books and in collections of
+them that were meant for show as {165} well as for practical
+usefulness. There is perhaps nothing more amusing in the attitude of
+modern generations with regard to the Middle Ages, than the assumption
+that all the methods of education and of the distribution of knowledge
+worth while talking about, are the inventions of comparatively modern
+times. The fact that libraries were also a creation of that time and
+that most of the regulations which are supposed to be the first fruit
+of quite recent science in the circulation of books had been adopted
+by these earlier generations, is commonly ignored utterly, though it
+is a precious bit of knowledge that cannot help but increase our
+sympathy with those bookmen of the olden times, who thought so much of
+their books, yet wished to share the privilege of their use with all
+those who would employ them properly, and who, in their great
+practical way succeeded in working out the scheme by which many people
+could have the opportunity of consulting the treasures they thought so
+much of, without risk of their loss or destruction, even though use
+might bring some deterioration of their value.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+DECORATION (XIII. CENT. PSALTER MSS.)
+
+
+{166}
+
+X
+
+THE CID, THE HOLY GRAIL, THE NIBELUNGEN.
+
+
+Anyone who has studied even perfunctorily the Books of the Arts and of
+the Deeds of the Thirteenth Century, who has realized its
+accomplishments in enduring artistic creations, sublime and exemplary
+models and inspirations for all after time, who has appreciated what
+it succeeded in doing for the education of the classes and of the
+masses, the higher education being provided for at least as large a
+proportion of the people as in our present century, while the creation
+of what were practically great technical schools that culled out of
+the masses the latent geniuses who could accomplish supreme artistic
+results in the arts and crafts and did more and better for the masses
+than any subsequent generation, can scarcely help but turn with
+interest to read the Book of the Words of the period and to find out
+what forms of literature interested this surprising people. One is
+almost sure to think at the first moment of consideration that the
+literature will not be found worthy of the other achievements of the
+times. In most men's minds the Thirteenth Century does not readily
+call up the idea of a series of great works in literature, whose
+influence has been at all as profound and enduring as that of the
+universities in the educational order, or of the Cathedrals in the
+artistic order.
+
+This false impression, however, is due only to the fact that the
+literary creations of the Thirteenth Century are so diverse in subject
+and in origin, that they are very seldom associated with each other,
+unless there has been actual recognition of their contemporaneousness
+from deliberate calling to mind of the dates at which certain basic
+works in our modern literatures were composed. It is not the least
+surprise that comes to the student of the Thirteenth Century, to find
+that the great origins of what well deserves the name of classic
+modern literature, comprising a series of immortal works in prose and
+poetry, were initiated by the contemporaries of the makers of the
+{167} universities and the builders of the Cathedrals. If we stop to
+think for a moment it must be realized, that generations who succeeded
+in expressing themselves so effectively in other departments of
+esthetics could scarcely be expected to fail in literature alone, and
+they did not. From the Cid in Spain, through the Arthur Legends in
+England, the Nibelungen in Germany, the Minnesingers and the
+Meistersingers in the southern part of what is now the German Empire,
+the Trouveres in North France, the Troubadours in South France and in
+Italy, down to Dante, who was 35 before the century closed, there has
+never been such a mass of undying literature written within a little
+more than a single hundred years, as came during the period from
+shortly before 1200 down to 1300. Great as was the Fifth Century
+before Christ in this matter it did not surpass the Thirteenth Century
+after Christ in its influence on subsequent generations.
+
+We have already pointed out in discussing the Cathedrals that one of
+the most characteristic features of the Gothic architecture was the
+marvelous ease with which it lent itself to the expression of national
+peculiarities. Norman Gothic is something quite distinct from German
+Gothic which arose in almost contiguous provinces, but so it is also
+from English Gothic; these two were very closely related in origin and
+undoubtedly the English Cathedrals owe much to the Norman influence so
+prevalent in England at the end of the Twelfth Century, and the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century. Italian Gothic has the principal
+characteristic peculiarities of the architectural style which passes
+under the name developed to a remarkable degree, and yet its finished
+product is far distant from any of the three other national forms that
+have been mentioned, yet is not lacking in a similar interest. Spanish
+Gothic has an identity of its own that has always had a special appeal
+for the traveler. Any one who has ever visited the shores of the
+Baltic sea and has seen what was accomplished in such places as
+Stralsund, Greifswald, Luebeck, and others of the old Hansa towns, will
+appreciate still more the power of Gothic to lend itself to the
+feelings of the people and to the materials that they had at hand.
+Here in the distant North they were far away from any sources of the
+stone that would ordinarily be deemed absolutely {168} necessary for
+Gothic construction. How effectively they used brick for
+ecclesiastical edifices can only be realized by those who have seen
+the remains of the Gothic monuments of this portion of Europe.
+
+The distinguishing mark of all these different styles is the eminent
+opportunity for the expression of nationality which, they afford. It
+might be expected that since they were all Gothic, most of them would
+be little better than servile copies, or at best scarce more than good
+imitations of the great originals of the North of France. As a matter
+of fact, the assertion of national characteristics, far from
+destroying the effectiveness of Gothic, rather added new beauties to
+this style of architecture. This was true even occasionally when
+mistakes were made by architects and designers. As Ferguson has said
+in his History of Architecture, St. Stephen's at Vienna is full of
+architectural errors and yet the attractiveness of the Cathedral
+remains. It was a poet who designed it and something of his poetic
+soul gleams out of the material structure after the lapse of
+centuries.
+
+In nearly this same way the literatures of the different countries
+during the Thirteenth Century are eminently national and mirror with
+quite wonderful appropriateness the characteristics of the various
+people. This is true even when similar subjects, as for instance the
+Graal stories, are treated from nearly the same standpoint by the two
+Teutonic nations, the Germans and the English. Parsifal and Galahad
+are national as well as poetic heroes with a distinction of character
+all their own. As we shall see, practically every nation finds in this
+century some fundamental expression of its national feeling that has
+been among its most cherished classics ever since.
+
+{opp168}
+[Illustration]
+SANTA MARIA SOPRA MINERVA (ROME'S GOTHIC CATHEDRAL)
+
+The first of these in time is the Cid, which was written in Spain
+during the latter half of the Twelfth Century, but probably took its
+definite form just about the beginning of the Thirteenth. It might
+well be considered that this old-fashioned Spanish ballad would have
+very little of interest for modern readers, and yet there are very few
+scholars of the past century who have not been interested in this
+literary treasure. Critics of all nations have been unstinted in their
+praise of it. Since the Schlegels recalled world attention to Spanish
+{169} literature, it has been considered almost as unpardonable for
+anyone who pretended to literary culture not to have read the Cid, as
+it would be not to have read Don Quixote.
+
+As is true of all the national epics founded upon a series of ballads
+which had been collecting in the mouth of the people for several
+centuries before a great poetic genius came to give them their supreme
+expression, there has been some doubt expressed as to the single
+authorship of Cid. We shall find the same problem to be considered
+when we come to discuss the Nibelungen Lied. A half a century ago or
+more the fashion of the critics for insisting on the divided
+authorship of such poems was much more prevalent than it is at
+present. At that time a great many scholars, following the initiative
+of Wolf and the German separatist critics, declared even that the
+Homeric poems were due to more than one mind. There are still some who
+cling to this idea with regard to many of these primal national epics,
+but at the present time most literary men are quite content to accept
+the idea of a single authorship. With regard to the Cid in this matter
+Mr. Fitzmaurice Kelly, in his Short History of Spanish Literature in
+the Literatures of the World Series, says very simply:
+
+  "There is a unity of conception and of language which forbids our
+  accepting the Poema (del Cid) as the work of several hands; and the
+  division of the poem into several cantares is managed with a
+  discretion which argues a single artistic intelligence. The first
+  part closes with the marriage of the hero's daughters; the second
+  with the shame of the Infantes de Carrion, and the proud
+  announcement that the Kings of Spain are sprung from the Cid's
+  loins. In both the singer rises to the level of his subject, but his
+  chiefest gust is in the recital of some brilliant deed of arms."
+
+The Spanish ballad epic is a characteristic example of the epics
+formed by the earliest poetic genius of a country, on the basis of the
+patriotic stories of national origin that had been accumulating for
+centuries. Of course the Cid had to be the Christian hero who did most
+in his time against the Moslem in Spain. So interesting has his story
+been made, and so glorious have been his deeds as recorded by the
+poets, that there has been even some doubt of his existence expressed,
+but that he {170} was a genuine historical character seems to be
+clear. Many people will recall the Canons' argument in the forty-ninth
+chapter of Don Quixote in which Cervantes, evidently speaking for
+himself, says: "That there was a Cid no one will deny and likewise a
+Bernardo Del Carpio, but that they performed all the exploits ascribed
+to them, I believe there is good reason to doubt." The Cid derives his
+name from the Arabic Seid which means Lord and owes his usual epithet.
+El Campeador (champion), to the fact that he was the actual champion
+of the Christians against the Moors at the end of the Eleventh
+Century. How gloriously his warlike exploits have been described may
+be best appreciated from the following description of his charge at
+Alcocer:
+
+  "With bucklers braced before their breasts, with lances pointing low.
+  With stooping crests and heads bent down above the saddle-bow.
+  All firm of hand and high of heart they roll upon the foe.
+  And he that in good hour was born, his clarion voice rings out,
+  And clear above the clang of arms is heard his battle-shout,
+  'Among them, gentlemen! Strike home for the love of charity!
+  The Champion of Bivar is here--Ruy Diaz--I am he!'
+  Then bearing where Bermuez still maintains unequal fight.
+  Three hundred lances down they come, their pennons flickering white;
+  Down go three hundred Moors to earth, a man to every blow;
+  And, when they wheel, three hundred more, as charging back they go.
+  It was a sight to see the lances rise and fall that day;
+  The shivered shields and riven mail, to see how thick they lay;
+  The pennons that went in snow-white come out a gory red;
+  The horses running riderless, the riders lying dead;
+  While Moors call on Muhamed, and 'St. James!' the Christians cry."
+
+While the martial interest of such early poems would be generally
+conceded, it would usually be considered that they would be little
+likely to have significant domestic, and even {171} what might be
+called romantic, interests. The Cid's marriage is the result of not
+what would exactly be called a romance nowadays, though in ruder times
+there may have been a certain sense of sentimental reparation in it at
+least. He had killed in fair fight the father of a young woman, who
+being thus left without a protector appealed to the king to appoint
+one for her. In the troublous Middle Ages an heiress was as likely to
+be snapped up by some unsuitable suitor, more literally but with quite
+as much haste, as in a more cultured epoch. The king knew no one whom
+he could trust so well with the guardianship of the rich and fair
+young orphan than the Cid, of whose bravery and honor he had had many
+proofs. Accordingly he suggested him as a protector and the Cid
+himself generously realizing how much the fair Jimena had lost by the
+death of her father consented, and in a famous passage of the poem, a
+little shocking to modern ideas, it must be confessed, frankly states
+his feelings in the matter:
+
+  "And now before the altar the bride and bridegroom stand,
+  And when to fair Jimena the Cid stretched forth his hand,
+  He spake in great confusion: 'Thy father have I slain
+  Not treacherously, but face to face, my just revenge to gain
+  For cruel wrong; a man I slew, a man I give to thee;
+  In place of thy dead father, a husband find in me.'
+  And all who heard well liked the man, approving what he said;
+  Thus Rodrigo the Castilian his stately bride did wed."
+
+There are tender domestic scenes between the Cid and his wife and his
+daughters, which serve to show how sincere was his affection and with
+what sympathetic humanity a great poet knew how to depict the tender
+natural relations which have an interest for all times. Some of these
+domestic scenes are not unworthy to be placed beside Homer's picture
+of the parting of Hector and Andromache, though there is more naive
+self-consciousness in the work of the Spanish bard, than in that of
+his more artistic colleague of the Grecian olden times. There is
+particularly a famous picture of the duties of noble ladies in Spain
+of this time and of the tender solicitude of a father for his
+daughters' innocence, that is quite beyond expectation at {172} the
+hands of a poet whose forte was evidently war and its alarms, rather
+than the expression of the ethical qualities of home life. The
+following passage, descriptive of the Cid's parting from his wife,
+will give some idea of these qualities better than could be conveyed
+in any other way:
+
+  "Thou knowest well, senora, he said before he went,
+  To parting from each other our love doth not consent;
+  But love and joyance never may stand in duty's way,
+  And when the king commandeth the noble must obey.
+  Now let discretion guide thee, thou art of worthy name;
+  While I am parted from thee, let none in thee find blame.
+  Employ thy hours full wisely, and tend thy household well,
+  Be never slothful, woe and death with idleness do dwell.
+  Lay by thy costly dresses until I come again.
+  For in the husband's absence let wives in dress be plain;
+  And look well to thy daughters, nor let them be aware.
+  _Lest they comprehend the danger because they see thy care,
+  And lose unconscious innocence. At home they must abide,
+  For the safety of the daughter is at the mother's side_.
+  Be serious with thy servants, with strangers on thy guard,
+  With friends be kind and friendly, and well thy household ward,
+  To no one show my letters, thy best friends may not see.
+  Lest reading them they also may guess of thine to me.
+  And if good news they bring thee, and woman-like dost seek
+  The sympathy of others, with thy daughters only speak.
+
+* * *
+
+  Farewell, farewell, Jimena, the trumpet's call I hear!
+  One last embrace, and then he mounts the steed without a peer."
+
+The touch of paternal solicitude and prudence in the passage we have
+put in italics is so apparently modern, that it can scarcely fail to
+be a source of surprise, coming as it does from that crude period at
+the end of the Twelfth Century when such minute psychological
+observation as to young folks' ways would be little expected, and
+least of all in the rough warrior {173} hero or his poet creator,
+whose notions of right and wrong are, to judge from many passages of
+the poem, so much coarser than those of our time.
+
+After the Cid in point of time, the next enduring poetic work that was
+destined to have an influence on all succeeding generations, was the
+series of the Arthur Legends as completed in England. As in the case
+of the Cid these stories of King Arthur's Court, his Knights and his
+Round Table, had been for a long time the favorite subject of ballad
+poets among the English people. Just where they originated is not very
+clear, though it seems most likely that the original inspiration came
+from Celtic sources. These old ballads, however, had very little of
+literary form and it was not until the end of the Twelfth and the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century that they were cast in their
+present mold, after having passed through the alembic of the mind of a
+great poetic and literary genius, which refined away the dross and
+left only the pure gold of supremely sympathetic human stories. To
+whom we owe this transformation is not known with absolute certainty,
+though the literary and historical criticism of the last quarter of a
+century seems to have made it clear that the work must be attributed
+to Walter Map or Mapes, an English clergyman who died during the first
+decade of the Thirteenth Century.
+
+His claims to the authorship of the Graal legend in its artistic
+completeness and to the invention of the character of Lancelot, which
+is one of the great triumphs of the Arthur legends as they were told
+at this time, have been much discussed by French and English critics.
+This discussion has perhaps been best summarized by Mr. Henry Morley,
+the late Professor of Literature at the University of London, whose
+third volume of English writers contains an immense amount of valuable
+information with regard to the literary history, not alone of England
+at this time but practically of all the countries of Europe. Mr.
+Morley's plan was conceived with a breath of view that makes his work
+a very interesting and authoritative guide in the literary matters of
+the time. His summation of the position of critical opinion with
+regard to the authorship of the Arthur Legends deserves to be quoted
+in its entirety:
+
+  "The Arthurian Romances were, according to this opinion. {174} all
+  perfectly detached tales, till in the Twelfth Century Robert de
+  Borron (let us add, at Map's suggestion) translated the first
+  Romance of the St. Graal as an introduction to the series, and
+  shortly afterwards Walter Map added his Quest of the Graal,
+  Lancelot, and Mort Artus. The way for such work had been prepared by
+  Geoffrey of Monmouth's bold setting forward of King Arthur as a
+  personage of history, in a book that was much sought and discussed,
+  and that made the Arthurian Romances a fresh subject of interest to
+  educated men.
+
+  "But M. Paulin Paris, whose opinions, founded upon a wide
+  acquaintance with the contents of old MSS. I am now sketching, and
+  in part adopting, looked upon Walter Map as the soul of this work of
+  Christian spiritualisation. Was the romance of the St. Graal Latin,
+  before it was French? He does not doubt that it was. He sees in it
+  the mysticism of the subtlest theologian. It was not a knight or a
+  jongleur who was so well read in the apocryphal gospels, the legends
+  of the first Christian centuries, rabbinical fancies, and old Greek
+  mythology; and there is all this in the St. Graal. There is a
+  theory, too, of the sacrifice of the mass, an explanation of the
+  Saviour's presence in the Eucharist, that is the work, he says, of
+  the loftiest and the most brilliant imagination. These were not
+  matters that a knight of the Twelfth Century would dare to touch.
+  They came from an ecclesiastic and a man of genius. But if so, why
+  should we refuse credit to the assertion, repeated in every MS. that
+  they were first written in Latin? The earliest MSS. are of a date
+  not long subsequent to the death of Walter Map, Latinist,
+  theologian, wit, and Chaplain to King Henry II., who himself took
+  the liveliest interest in Breton legends. King Henry, M. Paris
+  supposes, wished them to be collected, but how? Some would prefer
+  one method, some another; Map reconciled all. He satisfied the
+  clergy, pleased the scholar, filled the chasms in the popular tales,
+  reconciled contradictions, or rejected inconsistencies, and by him
+  also the introductory tale of the Graal was first written in Latin
+  for Robert de Borron to translate into French."
+
+The best literary appreciation of Map's genius, apart, of course, from
+the fact that all generations ever since have acknowledged the supreme
+human interest and eminently {175} sympathetic quality of his work, is
+perhaps to be found in certain remarks of the modern critics who have
+made special studies in these earlier literary periods. Prof. George
+Saintsbury, of the University of Edinburgh, for instance, in the
+second volume of Periods of English Literature,   [Footnote 18] has
+been quite unstinted in his praise of this early English writer. He
+has not hesitated even to say in a striking passage that Map, or at
+least the original author of the Launcelot story, was one of the
+greatest of literary men and deserves a place only next to Dante in
+this century so preciously full of artistic initiative.
+
+  [Footnote 18: The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory, by
+  George Saintsbury, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in
+  the University of Edinburgh (New York, Charles Scribner & Sons,
+  1897).]
+
+  "Whether it was Walter Map, or Chrestien de Troyes, or both, or
+  neither to whom the glory of at once completing and exalting the
+  story is due, I at least have no pretension to decide. Whoever did
+  it, if he did it by himself, was a great man indeed--a man second to
+  Dante among the men of the Middle Age. Even if it was done by an
+  irregular company of men, each patching and piecing the other's
+  efforts, the result shows a marvelous 'wind of the spirit' abroad
+  and blowing on that company."
+
+Prof. Saintsbury then proceeds to show how much even readers of
+Mallory miss of the greatness and especially of the sympathetic
+humanity of the original poem, and in a further passage states his
+firm conviction that the man who created Lancelot was one of the
+greatest literary inventors and sympathetic geniuses of all times, and
+that his work is destined, because the wellsprings of its action are
+so deep down in the human heart, to be of interest to generations of
+men for as long as our present form of civilization lasts.
+
+  "Perhaps the great artistic stroke in the whole legend, and one of
+  the greatest in all literature, is the concoction of a hero who
+  should be not only
+
+      'Like Paris handsome, and like Hector brave,'
+
+  but more heroic than Paris and more interesting than Hector--not
+  only a 'greatest knight,' but at once the sinful lover of his queen
+  and the champion who should himself all but achieve and in the
+  person of his son actually achieve, the sacred {176} adventure of
+  the Holy Graal. If, as there seems no valid reason to disbelieve,
+  the hitting upon this idea, and the invention or adoption of
+  Lancelot to carry it out, be the work of Walter Mapes (or Map), then
+  Walter Mapes is one of the great novelists of the world, and one of
+  the greatest of them. If it was some unknown person (it could hardly
+  be Chrestien, for in Chrestien's form the Graal interest belongs to
+  Percevale, not to Lancelot or Galahad), then the same compliment
+  must be paid to that person unknown. Meanwhile the conception and
+  execution of Lancelot, to whomsoever they may be due, are things
+  most happy. Entirely free from the faultlessness which is the curse
+  of the classical hero; his unequaled valor not seldom rewarded only
+  by reverses; his merits redeemed from mawkishness by his one great
+  fault, yet including all virtues that are themselves most amiable,
+  and deformed by no vice that is actually loathsome; the soul of
+  goodness in him always warring with his human frailty--Sir Lancelot
+  fully deserves the noble funeral eulogy pronounced over his grave,
+  felt by all the elect to be, in both senses, one of the first of all
+  extant pieces of perfect English prose."
+
+To appreciate fully how much Walter Map accomplished by his series of
+stories with regard to King Arthur's Court, it should be remembered
+that poets and painters have in many generations ever since found
+subjects for their inspiration within the bounds of the work which he
+created. After all, the main interest of succeeding poets who have put
+the legends into later forms, has centered more in the depth of
+humanity that there is in the stories, than in the poetic details for
+which they themselves have been responsible. In succeeding generations
+poets have often felt that these stories were so beautiful that they
+deserved to be retold in terms readily comprehensible to their own
+generation. Hence Malory wrote his Morte D'Arthur for the Fifteenth
+Century, Spenser used certain portions of the old myths for the
+Sixteenth, and the late Poet-laureate set himself once more to retell
+the Idyls of the King for the Nineteenth Century. Each of these was
+adding little but new literary form, to a work that genius had drawn
+from sources so close to the heart of human nature, that the stories
+were always to remain of enduring interest.
+
+{177}
+
+For the treasure of poesy with which humanity was enriched when he
+conceived the idea of setting the old ballads of King Arthur into
+literary form, more must be considered as due to the literary original
+writer than to any of his great successors. This is precisely the
+merit of Walter Map. Of some of his less ambitious literary work we
+have many examples that show us how thoroughly interested he was in
+all the details of human existence, even the most trivial. He had his
+likes and dislikes, he seems to have had some disappointed ambition
+that made him rather bitter towards ecclesiastics, he seems to have
+had some unfortunate experiences, especially with the Cistercians,
+though how much of this is assumed rather than genuine, is hard to
+determine at this modern day. Many of the extremely bitter things he
+says with regard to the Cistercians might well be considered as
+examples of that exaggeration, which in certain minds constitutes one
+modality of humor, rather than as serious expressions of actual
+thought. It is hard, for instance, to take such an expression as the
+following as more than an example of this form of jesting by
+exaggeration. Map heard that a Cistercian had become a Jew. His
+comment was: "If he wanted to get far from the Cistercians why didn't
+he become a Christian."
+
+From England the transition to Germany is easy. Exactly contemporary
+with the rise of the Arthur Legends in England to that standard of
+literary excellence that was to give them their enduring poetic value,
+there came also the definite arrangement and literary transformation
+of the old ballads of the German people, into that form in which they
+were to exert a lasting influence upon the German language and
+national feeling. The date of the Nibelungen Lied has been set down
+somewhat indefinitely as between 1190 and 1220. Most of the work was
+undoubtedly accomplished after the beginning of the Thirteenth Century
+and in the form in which we have it at present, there seems to be no
+doubt that much was done after the famous meeting of the
+Meistersingers on the Wartburg--the subject of song and story and
+music drama ever since, which took place very probably in the year
+1207. With regard to the Nibelungen Lied, as in the case of the other
+great literary arrangements of folk-ballads, there has been question
+as to the {178} singleness of authorship. Here, however, as with
+regard to Homer and the Cid, the trend of modern criticism has all
+been towards the attribution of the poem to one writer, and the
+internal evidence of similarity of expression constantly maintained, a
+certain simplicity of feeling and naivete of repetition seems to leave
+no doubt in the matter.
+
+As regards the merits of the Nibelungen Lied as a great work of
+literature, there has been very little doubt in the English-speaking
+world at least, because of the enthusiastic recognition accorded it by
+German critics and the influence of German criticism in all branches
+of literature over the whole Teutonic race during the Nineteenth
+Century. English admiration for the poem began after Carlyle's
+introduction of it to the English reading public in his essays. Since
+this time it has come to be very well known and yet, notwithstanding
+all that has been said about it no English critic has expressed more
+fully the place of the great German poem in world literature, than did
+this enthusiastic pro-German of the first half of the Nineteenth
+Century.
+
+For those for whom Carlyle's Essays are a sealed book because of loss
+of interest in him with the passage of time, the citation of some of
+his appreciative critical expressions may be necessary.
+
+  "Here in the old Frankish (Oberdeutsch) dialect of the Nibelungen,
+  we have a clear decisive utterance, and in a real system of verse,
+  not without essential regularity, great liveliness and now and then
+  even harmony of rhythm. Doubtless we must often call it a diffuse
+  diluted utterance; at the same time it is genuine, with a certain
+  antique garrulous heartiness, and has a rhythm in the thoughts as
+  well as the words. The simplicity is never silly; even in that
+  perpetual recurrence of epithets, sometimes of rhymes, as where two
+  words, for instance lip (body), lif (leib) and wip (woman), weib
+  (wife) are indissolubly wedded together, and the one never shows
+  itself without the other following--there is something which reminds
+  us not so much of poverty, as of trustfulness and childlike
+  innocence. Indeed a strange charm lies in those old tones, where, in
+  gay dancing melodies, the sternest tidings are sung to us; and deep
+  floods of sadness and strife play lightly in little {179} purling
+  billows, like seas in summer. It is as a meek smile, in whose still,
+  thoughtful depths a whole infinitude of patience, and love, and
+  heroic strength lie revealed. But in other cases too, we have seen
+  this outward sport and inward earnestness offer grateful contrasts,
+  and cunning excitement; for example, in Tasso; of whom, though
+  otherwise different enough, this old Northern Singer has more than
+  once reminded us. There too, as here, we have a dark solemn meaning
+  in light guise; deeds of high temper, harsh self-denial, daring and
+  death, stand embodied in that soft, quick-flowing joyfully-modulated
+  verse. Nay farther, as if the implement, much more than we might
+  fancy, had influenced the work done, these two poems, could we trust
+  our individual feeling, have in one respect the same poetical result
+  for us; in the Nibelungen as in the Gerusalemme, the persons and
+  their story are indeed brought vividly before us, yet not near and
+  palpably present; it is rather as if we looked on that scene through
+  an inverted telescope, whereby the whole was carried far away into
+  the distance, the life-large figures compressed into brilliant
+  miniatures, so clear, so real, yet tiny, elf-like and beautiful as
+  well as lessened, their colors being now closer and brighter, the
+  shadows and trivial features no longer visible. This, as we partly
+  apprehend, comes of singing epic poems; most part of which only
+  pretend to be sung. Tasso's rich melody still lives among the
+  Italian people; the Nibelungen also is what it professes to be, a
+  song."
+
+The story of the Nibelungen would ordinarily be supposed to be so
+distant from the interests of modern life, as scarcely to hold the
+attention of a reader unless he were interested in it from a scholarly
+or more or less antiquarian standpoint. For those who think thus,
+however, there is only one thing that will correct such a false
+impression and that is to read the Nibelungen itself. It has a depth
+of simplicity and a sympathetic human interest all its own but that
+reminds one more of Homer than of anything else in literature, and
+Homer has faults but lack of interest is not one of them. From the
+very beginning the story of the young man who does not think he will
+marry, and whose mother does not think that any one is good enough for
+him, and of the young woman who is sure that no one will come that
+will attract enough of her attention so as to compel {180} her to
+subject herself to the yoke of marriage, are types of what is so
+permanent in humanity, that the readers' attention is at once caught.
+After this the fighting parts of the story become the center of
+interest and hold the attention in spite of the refining influences
+that later centuries are supposed to have brought to humanity.
+
+Hence it is that Prof. Saintsbury in the second volume of his Periods
+of European Literature, already quoted from, is able to say much of
+the modern interest in the story. "There may be," as he says, "too
+many episodic personages--Deitrich of Bern, for instance, has
+extremely little to do in this galley. But the strength, thoroughness,
+and in its own savage way, charm of Kriemhild's character, and the
+incomparable series of battles between the Burgundian princes and
+Etzel's men in the later cantos--cantos which contain the very best
+poetical fighting in the history of the world--far more than redeem
+this. The Nibelungen Lied is a very great poem; and with Beowulf (the
+oldest but the least interesting on the whole), Roland (the most
+artistically finished in form), and the poem of the Cid (the
+cheerfullest and perhaps the fullest of character), composes a
+quartette of epics with which the literary story of the great European
+literary nations most appropriately begins. In bulk, dramatic
+completeness, and a certain furia, the Nibelungen Lied, though the
+youngest and probably the least original is the greatest of the four."
+
+Less need be said of the Nibelungen than of the Cid or Walter Map's
+work because it is much more familiar, and even ordinary readers of
+literature have been brought more closely in touch with it because of
+its relation to the Wagnerian operas. Even those who know the fine old
+German poems only passingly, will yet realize the supreme genius of
+their author, and those who need to have the opinions of distinguished
+critics to back them before they form an estimate for themselves, will
+not need to seek far in our modern literature to find lofty praises of
+the old German epic.
+
+With even this brief treatment no reader will doubt that there is in
+these three epics, typical products of the literary spirit of three
+great European nations whose literatures rising high above these deep
+firm substructures, were to be of the greatest {181} influence in the
+development of the human mind, and yet were to remain practically
+always within the limits of thought and feeling that had been traced
+by these old founders of literature of the early Thirteenth Century,
+whose work, like that of their contemporaries in every other form of
+artistic expression, was to be the model and the source of inspiration
+for future generations.
+
+[Illustration]
+CROZIER (OBVERSE AND REVERSE)
+
+
+{182}
+
+XI
+
+MEISTERSINGERS, MINNESINGERS, TROUVERES, TROUBADOURS.
+
+
+It would be a supreme mistake to think because the idea of literature
+in the Thirteenth Century is usually associated with the Arthur
+Legends, the Nibelungen and Dante, that all of the literary content of
+the century was inevitably serious in character or always epical in
+form. As a matter of fact the soul of wit and humor had entered into
+the body social, as we shall see in subsequent chapters, and the
+spirit of gaiety and the light-hearted admiration for nature found as
+frequent expression as at any time in history. With these as always in
+literary history there came outbursts of love in lyric strains that
+were not destined to die. While the poets of South Germany and of
+Italy sang of love that was of the loftiest description, never mingled
+with anything of the merely sensual, their tuneful trifles are quite
+as satisfying to the modern ear in both sense and sound as any of the
+more elaborate _vers de societe_ of the modern times. The German poets
+particularly did not hesitate to emphasize the fact that sensuality
+had no part in Minne--their pretty term for love--and yet they sang
+with all the natural grace and fervid rapture of the Grecian poets of
+the old pagan times, worshiping at the shrines of fleshly goddesses,
+or singing to the frail beauties of an unmoral period. Nothing in the
+history of literature is better proof that ideal love can, unmixed
+with anything sensual, inspire lyric outbursts of supreme and enduring
+beauty, than the poems of the Minnesingers and of some of the French
+and Italian Troubadours of this period. It is easier to understand
+Dante's position in this matter after reading the poems of his
+predecessors in the Thirteenth Century.
+
+For this feeling of the lofty character of the love they sang was not,
+in spite of what is sometimes said, confined only to the Germans,
+though as is well known from time immemorial the {183} Teutonic
+feeling towards woman was by racial influence of higher character than
+that of the southern Nations. As Mr. H. J. Chaytor says in the
+introduction to his Troubadours of Dante, there came a gradual change
+over the mind of the Troubadour about the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century and "seeing that love was the inspiring force to good deeds,"
+the later Troubadours gradually dissociated their love from the object
+which had aroused it. Among them, "as among the Minnesingers, love is
+no longer sexual passion, it is rather the motive to great works, to
+self-surrender, to the winning an honorable name as Courtier and
+Poet." Mr. Chaytor then quotes the well known lines from Bernart de
+Ventadorn, one of the Troubadours to whom Dante refers, and whose
+works Dante seems to have read with special attention since their
+poems contain similar errors of mythology.
+
+    "for indeed I know
+  Of no more subtle passion under heaven
+  Than is the maiden passion for a maid.
+  Not only to keep down the base in man.
+  But teach high thought and amiable words.
+  And courtliness and the desire of fame.
+  And love of truth and all that makes a man."
+
+A sentiment surely that will be considered as true now as it ever was,
+be the time the Thirteenth Century or earlier or later, and that
+represents the best solution of social problems that has ever been put
+forward--nature's own panacea for ills that other remedies at best
+only palliate.
+
+In the early Nineteenth Century Carlyle said of this period what we
+may well repeat here:
+
+  "We shall suppose that this Literary Period is partially known to
+  all readers. Let each recall whatever he has learned or figures
+  regarding it; represent to himself that brave young heyday of
+  Chivalry and Minstrelsy when a stern Barbarossa, a stern Lion-heart,
+  sang sirventes, and with the hand that could wield the sword and
+  sceptre twanged the melodious strings, when knights-errant tilted,
+  and ladies' eyes rained bright influences; and suddenly, as at
+  sunrise, the whole earth had grown {184} vocal and musical. Then
+  truly was the time of singing come; for princes and prelates,
+  emperors and squires, the wise and the simple, men, women and
+  children, all sang and rhymed, or delighted in hearing it done. It
+  was a universal noise of Song; as if the Spring of Manhood had
+  arrived, and warblings from every spray, not, indeed, without
+  infinite twitterings also, which, except their gladness, had no
+  music, were bidding it welcome."
+
+This is the keynote of the Century--song, blithesome and gay as the
+birds, solemn and harmonious as the organ tones that accord so well
+with the great Latin hymns--everywhere song.
+
+"Believers," says Tieck, the great collector of Thirteenth Century
+poetry, "sang of Faith; Lovers of Love; Knights described knightly
+actions and battles; and loving, believing knights were their chief
+audience. The Spring, Beauty, Gaiety, were objects that could never
+tire; great duels and deeds of arms carried away every hearer, the
+more surely the stronger they were painted; and as the pillars and
+dome of the Church encircled the flock, so did Religion, as the
+Highest, encircle Poetry and Reality; and every heart, in equal love,
+humbled itself before her."
+
+The names of the Meistersingers are well-known to musical lovers at
+least, because of the music drama of that name and the famous war of
+the Wartburg. The most familiar of all of them is doubtless Walter von
+der Vogelweide who, when he was asked where he found the tuneful
+melodies for his songs, said that he learned them from the birds.
+Those who recall Longfellow's pretty ballad with regard to Walter and
+his leaving all his substance to feed the birds over his grave near
+Nuremberg's minster towers, will not find it surprising that this
+Meistersinger's poetry breathes the deepest love of Nature, and that
+there is in it a lyric quality of joy in the things of Nature that we
+are apt to think of as modern, until we find over and over again in
+these bards, that the spirit of the woods and of the fields and of the
+spring time, meant as much for them as for any follower of the
+Wordsworth school of poetry in the more conscious after-time. This
+from Walter with regard to the May will serve to illustrate very well
+this phase of his work.
+
+{185}
+
+  Gentle May, thou showerest fairly
+    Gifts afar and near;
+  Clothest all the woods so rarely,
+    And the meadows here;
+  O'er the heath new colors glow;
+  Flowers and clover on the plain.
+  Merry rivals, strive amain
+  Which can fastest grow.
+
+  Lady! part me from my sadness.
+    Love me while 'tis May;
+  Mine is but a borrowed gladness
+    If thou frown alway;
+  Look around and smile anew!
+  All the world is glad and free;
+  Let a little joy from thee
+  Fall to my lot too!
+
+Walter could be on occasion, however, as serious as any of the
+Meistersingers and is especially known for his religious poems. It is
+not surprising that any one who set woman on so high a pedestal as did
+Walter, should have written beautiful poems to the Blessed Virgin. He
+was the first, so it is said, to express the sentiment: "Woman, God
+bless her, by that name, for it is a far nobler name than lady."
+Occasionally he can be seriously didactic and he has not hesitated
+even to express some sentiments with regard to methods of education.
+Among other things he discusses the question as to whether children
+should be whipped or not in the process of education and curiously
+enough takes the very modern view that whipping is always a mistake.
+In this, of course, he disagrees with all the practical educators of
+his time, who considered the rod the most effective instrument for the
+education of children and strictly followed the scriptural injunction
+about sparing the rod and spoiling the child. Walter's opinion is for
+that reason all the more interesting:
+
+  "Children with rod ruling--
+  'Tis the worst of schooling.
+  Who is honor made to know.
+  Him a word seems as a blow."
+
+{186}
+
+The birds were always a favorite subject for poetic inspiration on the
+part of the Minnesingers. Bird music rapt poetic souls into ecstasies
+in which the passage of time was utterly unnoticed. It is from the
+Thirteenth Century that comes the beautiful legend with regard to the
+monk who, having wondered how time could be kept from dragging in
+Heaven, was permitted to listen to the song of a bird one day in the
+forest and when he awoke from his rapture and went back to his convent
+found that a hundred years had passed, that all of the monks of his
+acquaintance were dead, and while his name was found on the rolls of
+the monastery, after it there was a note that he had disappeared one
+day and had never been heard of afterwards. Almost in the same tenor
+as this is a pretty song from Dietmar von Eist, written at the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century, and which was a type of the
+charming songs that were to be so characteristic of the times:
+
+  There sat upon the linden-tree
+    A bird, and sung its strain;
+  So sweet it sung that as I heard
+    My heart went back again.
+  It went to one remember'd spot,
+    It saw the rose-tree grow.
+  And thought again the thoughts of love,
+    There cherished long ago.
+
+  A thousand years to me it seems
+    Since by my fair I sate;
+  Yet thus to be a stranger long
+    Is not my choice, but fate;
+  Since then I have not seen the flowers,
+    Nor heard the birds' sweet song;
+  My joys have all too briefly past.
+    My griefs been all too long.
+
+Hartman von Aue was a contemporary of Walter's and is best known for
+his romantic stories. It is rather curiously interesting to find that
+one of the old chroniclers considers it a great mark of distinction
+that, though Hartman was a knight, he was able to read and write
+whatever he found written in {187} books. It must not be forgotten,
+however, that not all of these poets could read and write, and that
+indeed so distinguished a literary man as Wolfram von Eschenbach, the
+author of Percival, the story on which Wagner founded his opera of
+Parsifal, could neither read nor write. He had developed a very
+wonderful memory and was able to store faithfully his poems in the
+course of their composition so that he was above the need of pen and
+paper. Hartman is most famous for having written the story of Poor
+Henry, which Longfellow has chosen so effectively for his Golden
+Legend. Hartman's appreciation of women can be judged from the
+following lines, which accord her an equal share in her lord's glory
+because of her sufferings in prayer at home.
+
+  Glory be unto her whose word
+    Sends her dear lord to bitter fight;
+  Although he conquer by his sword.
+    She to the praise has equal right;
+  He with the sword in battle, she at home with prayer.
+    Both win the victory, and both the glory share.
+
+Occasionally one finds, as we have said, among the little songs of the
+Minnesingers of the time such tuneful trifles as could be included
+very appropriately in a modern collection of _vers de societe_, or as
+might even serve as a love message on a modern valentine or a
+Christmas card. The surprise of finding such things at such a time
+will justify the quotation of one of them from Brother Wernher, who
+owes his title of brother not to his membership in any religious
+order, very probably, but to the fact that he belonged to the
+brotherhood of the poets of the time.
+
+  Since creation I was thine;
+  Now forever thou art mine.
+  I have shut thee fast
+  In my heart at last.
+  I have dropped the key
+  In an unknown sea.
+  Forever must thou my prisoner be!
+
+{188}
+
+Wolfram von Eschenbach was the chief of a group of poets who at the
+close of the Twelfth and beginning of the Thirteenth centuries
+gathered about the Landgraf Hermann of Thuringen in his court on the
+Wartburg, at the foot of which lies Eisenach, in the present Grand
+Duchy of Saxe-Weimar. They shaped tales of knightly adventure, blended
+with reflection, spiritual suggestion, and a grace of verse that
+represented the best culture of the court, and did not address itself
+immediately to the people. Wolfram was a younger son of one of the
+lower noble Bavarian families settled at Eschenbach, nine miles from
+Ausbach, in Middle Franconia. He had a poor little home of his own,
+Wildenberg, but went abroad to seek adventures as a knight, and tell
+adventures as a poet welcome to great lords, and most welcome to the
+lavish friend of poets, Hermann of Thuringen, at whose court on the
+Wartburg he remained twenty years, from 1195 to 1215, in which latter
+year his "Parzival" was finished. From some passages in his poem it
+may safely be inferred that he was happily married, and had children.
+The Landgraf Hermann died in 1216, and, was succeeded by Ludwig,
+husband of St. Elizabeth.
+
+We cannot ascribe to English writers alone the spiritualizing of the
+Grail Legends, when there is Wolfram's "Parzival" drawing from the
+same cycle of myths a noble poem of the striving to bind earthly
+knighthood to the ever-living God. While Gawain, type of the earthly
+knight wins great praise in love and chivalry,
+Parzival--Percival--finds his way on from childhood up, through humble
+searchings of the spirit, till he is ruler in the kingdom of the soul,
+where he designs that Lohengrin, his eldest son, shall be his
+successor, while Kardeiss, his younger son, has rule over his earthly
+possessions.
+
+How beautifully the Minnesingers could enter into the spirit of nature
+and at the same time how much the spirit of Spring has always been
+prone to appeal to poetic sensibilities may be judged from the
+following song of Conrad of Kirchberg, which is translated very
+closely and in the same meter as the original old high German poem. It
+is very evident that none of the spirit of Spring was lost on this
+poet of the olden time, nor on the other hand that any possibility of
+poetic expression was missed by him. There is a music in the lilt of
+the verselets, {189} eminently suggestive of the lyric effect that the
+new birth of things had on the poet himself and that he wished to
+convey to his readers. Of this, however, every one must judge for
+himself and so we give the poem as it may be found in Roscoe's edition
+of Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe.
+
+  May, sweet May, again is come;
+  May, that frees the land from gloom.
+  Up, then, children, we will go
+  Where the blooming roses grow.
+  In a joyful company
+  We the bursting flowers will see;
+  Up! your festal dress prepare!
+  Where gay hearts are meeting, there
+  May hath pleasures most inviting
+  Heart, and sight, and ear delighting:
+  Listen to the bird's sweet song.
+  Hark! how soft it floats along!
+  Courtly dames our pleasures share.
+  Never saw I May so fair;
+  Therefore, dancing will we go:
+  Youths rejoice, the flowrets blow;
+      Sing ye! join the chorus gay!
+      Hail this merry, merry May!
+
+At least as beautiful in their tributes to their lady loves and their
+lyric descriptions of the beauties of Spring, were the Troubadours
+whose tuneful trifles, sometimes deserving of much more serious
+consideration than the application of such a term to them would seem
+to demand, have come down to us though the centuries. One of the best
+known of these is Arnaud de Marveil, who was born in very humble
+circumstances but who succeeded in raising himself by his poetic
+genius to be the companion of ruling princes and the friend of the
+high nobility. Among the provencals he has been called the great
+Master of Love, though this is a name which Petrarch reserves
+especially for Arnaud Daniel, while he calls Marveil the less famous
+of the Arnauds. An example of his work as the Poet of Love, that is
+typical of what is usually considered to have {190} been the favorite
+mode of the Troubadour poets runs as follows:
+
+  All I behold recalls the memory
+  Of her I love. The freshness of the hour
+  Th' enamell'd fields, the many coloured flower,
+  Speaking of her, move me to melody.
+  Had not the poets, with their courtly phrase,
+    Saluted many a fair of meaner worth,
+  I could not now have render'd thee the praise
+    So justly due, of "Fairest of the Earth."
+  To name thee thus had been to speak thy name,
+  And waken, o'er thy cheek, the blush of modest shame.
+
+An example of the love of nature which characterizes some of Arnaud de
+Marveil's work will serve to show how thoroughly he entered into the
+spirit of the spring-time and how much all the sights and sounds of
+nature found an echo in his poetic spirit. The translation of this as
+of the preceding specimen from Arnaud is taken from the English
+edition of the Historical View of the Literature of the South of
+Europe by Sismondi, and this translation we owe to Thomas Roscoe, the
+well known author of the life of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who
+considering that Sismondi does not furnish enough of specimens of this
+Troubadour poet, inserts the following verses, for the translation of
+which he acknowledges himself indebted to the kindness of friends, a
+modest concealment doubtless of his own work:
+
+  Oh! how sweet the breeze of April,
+    Breathing soft as May draws near!
+  While, through nights of tranquil beauty,
+    Songs of gladness meet the ear:
+  Every bird his well-known language
+    Uttering in the morning's pride,
+  Revelling in joy and gladness
+    By his happy partner's side.
+
+  When, around me, all is smiling,
+    When to life the young birds spring,
+  Thoughts of love, I cannot hinder,
+    Come, my heart inspiriting--
+  Nature, habit, both incline me
+    In such joy to bear my part:
+  With such sounds of bliss around me
+    Could I wear a sadden'd heart?
+
+{191}
+
+His description of his lady love is another example of his worship of
+nature in a different strain, which serves to show that a lover's
+exaggeration of the qualities of his lady is not a modern development
+of _la belle passion_.
+
+  Fairer than the far-famed Helen,
+    Lovelier than the flow'rets gay.
+  Snow-white teeth, and lips truth-telling,
+    Heart as open as the day;
+  Golden hair, and fresh bright roses--
+    Heaven, who formed a thing so fair.
+  Knows that never yet another
+    Lived, who can with thee compare.
+
+A single stanza from a love-song by Bertrand De Born will show better
+than any amount of critical appreciation how beautifully he can treat
+the more serious side of love. While the Troubadours are usually said
+to have sung their love strains in less serious vein than their German
+brother poets of the North, this has the ring of tenderness and truth
+about it and yet is not in these qualities very different from others
+of his songs that are well known. The translation we have chosen is
+that made by Roscoe who has rendered a number of the songs of the
+Troubadours into English verse that presents an excellent equivalent
+of the original. Bertrand is insisting with his lady-love that she
+must not listen to the rumors she may hear from others with regard to
+his faithfulness.
+
+  I cannot hide from thee how much I fear
+  The whispers breathed by flatterers in thine ear
+    Against my faith. But turn not, oh, I pray!
+  That heart so true, so faithful, so sincere.
+  So humble and so frank, to me so dear.
+    Oh, lady! turn it not from me away.
+
+{192}
+
+At times one is surprised to find pretty tributes to nature even in
+the midst of songs that are devoted to war. The two things that were
+nearest the hearts of these Troubadour poets were war and their
+lady-loves, but the beauties of nature became mixed up not only with
+their love songs but also with their battle hymns, or at least with
+their ardent descriptions of military preparations and the glories of
+war. An excellent example of this is to be found in the following
+stanza written by William of Saint Gregory, a Troubadour who is best
+known for his songs of war rather than of tenderness.
+
+  The beautiful spring delights me well.
+    When flowers and leaves are growing;
+  And it pleases my heart to hear the swell
+    Of the birds' sweet chorus flowing
+      In the echoing wood;
+  And I love to see all scattered around
+  Pavilions and tents on martial ground;
+      And my spirit finds it good
+  To see on the level plains beyond
+  Gay knights and steeds caparison'd.
+
+Occasionally the Troubadours indulge in religious poetry though
+usually not of a mystical or profoundly devotional character. Even the
+famous Peyrols, who is so well known for his love songs, sometimes
+wandered into religious poetry that was not unworthy to be placed
+beside his lyric effusions on other topics. Peyrols is best known
+perhaps for his lamentations over King Richard the Lion Heart's fate,
+for he had been with that monarch on the crusade, and like most of the
+Troubadours who went with the army, drank in deep admiration for the
+poetic king. After his visit to the Holy Land on this occasion one
+stanza of his song in memory of that visit runs as follows:  [Footnote
+19: Translated by Roscoe.]
+
+{193}
+
+  I have seen the Jordan river,
+    I have seen the holy grave.
+  Lord! to thee my thanks I render
+    For the joys thy goodness gave,
+  Showing to my raptured sight
+  The spot whereon thou saw'st the light.
+
+  Vessel good and favoring breezes,
+    Pilot, trusty, soon shall we
+  Once more see the towers of Marseilles
+    Rising o'er the briny sea.
+  Farewell, Acre, farewell, all.
+  Of Temple or of Hospital:
+
+  Now, alas! the world's decaying.
+    When shall we once more behold
+  Kings like lion-hearted Richard,
+    France's monarch, stout and bold?
+
+
+[Illustration]
+TOWER OF SCALIGERS (VERONA)
+
+
+{194}
+
+XII
+
+GREAT LATIN HYMNS AND CHURCH MUSIC.
+
+
+One of the most precious bequests of the Thirteenth Century to all the
+succeeding centuries is undoubtedly the great Latin hymns. These
+sublime religious poems, comparable only to the Hebrew psalms for
+their wondrous expression of the awe and devotion of religious
+feeling, present the beginnings of rhymed poetry, yet they have been
+acclaimed by competent modern critics as among the greatest poems that
+ever came from the mind of man. They come to us from this period and
+were composed, most of them at least, during the Thirteenth Century
+itself, a few, shortly before it, though all of them received during
+this century the stamp of ecclesiastical and popular approval, which
+made them for many centuries afterward the principal medium of the
+expression of congregational devotion and the exemplar and incentive
+for vernacular poetry. It is from these latter standpoints that they
+deserve the attention of all students of literature quite apart from
+their significance as great expressions of the mind of these wondrous
+generations.
+
+These Latin hymns have sometimes been spoken of with perhaps a certain
+degree of contempt as "rhymed Latin poetry," as if the use of rhyme in
+conjunction with Latin somehow lowered the dignity of the grand old
+tongue in which Cicero wrote his graceful periods and Horace sang his
+tuneful odes. As a matter of fact, far from detracting from the
+beauties of Latin expression, these hymns have added new laurels to
+the glory of the language and have shown the wonderful possibilities
+of the Roman speech in the hands of generations long after the
+classical period. If they served no other purpose than to demonstrate
+beyond cavil how profoundly the scholars of this generation succeeded
+in possessing themselves of the genius of the Latin language, they
+would serve to contradict the foolish critics who talk of the
+education of the period as superficial, or as negligent of everything
+but scholastic philosophy and theology.
+
+{195}
+
+At least one distinguished philologist, Professor F. A. March, who has
+now for the better part of half a century occupied the chair of
+comparative philology at Lafayette College, does not hesitate to say
+that the Latin hymns represent an expression of the genius of the
+Latin people and language, more characteristic than the classical
+poetry even of the golden or silver ages. "These hymns," he says,
+"were the first original poetry of the people in the Latin language,
+unless perhaps those Latin critics may be right who think they find in
+Livy a prose rendering of earlier ballads. The so-called classic
+poetry was an echo of Greece, both in substance and in form. The
+matter and meters were both imitated and the poems were composed for
+the lovers of Grecian art in the Roman Court. It did not spring from
+the people, but the Christian hymns were proper folk poetry, the Bible
+of the people--their Homeric poems. Their making was not so much
+speech as action. They were in substance festive prayers, the simplest
+rhythmic offering of thanks and praise to the Giver of Light and of
+rest both natural and spiritual, at morning and evening and at other
+seasons, suited to the remembrance and rhythmical rehearsal of the
+truths of the Bible." Prof. March's opinion has been echoed by many
+another enthusiastic student of these wonderful hymns. It is only
+those who do not know them who fail to grow enthusiastic about them.
+
+This of itself would stamp these great poems as worthy of careful
+study. There is, however, an additional reason for modern interest in
+them. These hymns were sung by the whole congregation at the many
+services that they attended in the medieval period. In this regard it
+seems well to recall, that it was the custom to go to church much
+oftener then than at present. Besides the Sundays there were many holy
+days of obligation, that is, religious festivals on which attendance
+at Church was obligatory, and in addition a certain number of days of
+devotion on which, because of special reverence for some particular
+saint, or in celebration of some event in the life of the Lord or his
+saints, the people of special parts of the country found themselves
+drawn to attendance on church services. It seems probable that instead
+of the sixty or so times a year that is now obligatory, people went to
+Church during the Thirteenth {196} Century more than a hundred times
+in the year. Twice a week then, at least, there was the uplifting
+cultural influence of this congregational singing of wonderful hymns
+that are among the greatest poems ever written and that belong to
+literature of the very highest order. The educational value of such
+intimate contact with what is best in literary expression could
+scarcely fail to have a distinct effect upon the people. It is idle to
+say that the hymns being in Latin they were not understood, since the
+language of them was close akin to the spoken tongues, the subjects
+were eminently familiar mysteries of religion and constant repetition
+and frequent explanation must have led to a very general comprehension
+even by the least educated classes. For anyone with any pretension to
+education they must have been easy to understand, since Latin was
+practically a universal language.
+
+It is not always realized by the students whose interests have been
+mainly confined to modern literature, in what estimation these Latin
+hymns have been held by those who are in the best position to be able
+to judge critically of their value as poetry. Take for example the
+Dies Irae, confessedly the greatest of them, and it will be found that
+many of the great poets and literary men of the Nineteenth Century
+have counted it among their favorite poems. Such men as Goethe,
+Friedrich and August Schlegel, Scott, Milman and Archbishop Trench
+were enthusiastic in its praise. While such geniuses as Dryden,
+Johnson and Jeremy Taylor, and the musicians Mozart and Hayden, avowed
+supreme admiration for it. Herder, Fichte and August Schlegel besides
+Crashaw, Drummond, Roscommon, Trench and Macaulay gave the proof of
+their appreciation of the great Thirteenth Century hymn by devoting
+themselves to making translations of it, and Goethe's use of it in
+Faust and Scott's in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, show how much
+poets, whose sympathies were not involved in its religious aspects,
+were caught by its literary and esthetic merit.
+
+In very recent times the Latin hymns have been coming more to their
+own again and such distinguished critics as Prof. Henry Morley, and
+Prof. George Saintsbury, have not hesitated to express their critical
+appreciation of these hymns as great {197} literature. Prof.
+Saintsbury says in his volume of the Thirteenth Century literature:
+[Footnote 20]
+
+  [Footnote 20: The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory,
+  Volume II. of Periods of European Literature, Edited by George
+  Saintsbury, New York, Scribners, 1899.]
+
+
+{opp197}
+[Illustration]
+ST. FRANCIS PROPHESIES THE DEATH OF CELANO (GIOTTO, UPPER CH., ASSISI)
+
+
+  "It will be more convenient to postpone to a later chapter of this
+  volume a consideration of the exact way in which Latin sacred poetry
+  affected the prosody of the vernacular; but it is well here to point
+  out that almost all the finest and most famous examples of the
+  medieval hymns, with perhaps the sole exception of the Veni Sancte
+  Spiritus, date from the Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries. Ours (that
+  is, from this period) are the stately rhythms of Adam of St. Victor,
+  and the softer ones of St. Bernard the Greater. It was at this time
+  that Jacopone da Todi, in the intervals of his eccentric vernacular
+  exercises, was inspired to write the Stabat Mater. From this time
+  comes that glorious descant of Bernard of Morlaix, in which, the
+  more its famous and very elegant English paraphrase is read beside
+  it (Jerusalem the Golden), the more does the greatness and the
+  beauty of the original appear.
+
+  "And from this time comes the greatest of all hymns, and one of the
+  greatest of all poems, the Dies Irae. There have been attempts--more
+  than one of them--to make out that the Dies Irae is no such
+  wonderful thing after all; attempts which are, perhaps, the extreme
+  examples of that cheap and despicable paradox which thinks to escape
+  the charge of blind docility by the affectation of heterodox
+  independence. The judgment of the greatest (and not always of the
+  most pious) men of letters of modern times may confirm those who are
+  uncomfortable without authority in a different opinion. Fortunately
+  there is not likely ever to be lack of those who, authority or no
+  authority, in youth and in age, after much reading or without much,
+  in all time of their tribulation and in all time of their wealth,
+  will hold these wonderful triplets, be they Thomas of Celano's or
+  another's, as nearly or quite the most perfect wedding of sound to
+  sense that they know."
+
+This seems almost the limit of praise but Prof. Saintsbury can say
+even more than this: "It would be possible, indeed, to {198}
+illustrate a complete dissertation on the methods of expression in
+serious poetry from the fifty-one lines of the Dies Irae. Rhyme,
+alliteration, cadence, and adjustment of vowel and consonant
+values--all these things receive perfect expression in it, or, at
+least, in the first thirteen stanzas, for the last four are a little
+inferior. It is quite astonishing to reflect upon the careful art or
+the felicitous accident of such a line as:
+
+  Tuba mirum spargens sonum,
+
+with the thud of the trochee falling in each instance in a different
+vowel; and still more on the continuous sequence of five stanzas, from
+_Judex ergo_ to _non sit cassus_, in which not a word could be
+displaced or replaced by another without loss. The climax of verbal
+harmony, corresponding to and expressing religious passion and
+religious awe, is reached in the last--
+
+  Quaerens me sedisti lassus,
+  Redemisti crucem passus:
+  Tantus labor non sit cassus!
+
+where the sudden change from the dominant _e_ sounds (except
+in the rhyme foot) of the first two lines to the _a's_ of the last
+is simply miraculous and miraculously assisted by what may
+be called the internal sub-rhyme of _sedisti_ and _redemisti_. This
+latter effect can rarely be attempted without a jingle: there is
+no jingle here, only an ineffable melody. After the Dies Irae,
+no poet could say that any effect of poetry was, as far as sound
+goes, unattainable, though few could have hoped to equal it,
+and perhaps no one except Dante and Shakespeare has fully
+done so."
+
+Higher praise than this could scarcely be given and it comes from an
+acknowledged authority, whose interests are moreover in secular rather
+than religious literature, and whose enthusiastic praise is therefore
+all the more striking. Here in America, Schaff, whose critical
+judgment in religious literature is unquestionable and whose
+sympathies with the old church and her hymns were not as deep as if he
+had been a Roman Catholic, has been quite as unstinted in laudation.
+
+  "This marvelous hymn is the acknowledged masterpiece of Latin
+  poetry, and the most sublime of all uninspired hymns. {199} ... The
+  secret of its irresistible power lies in the awful grandeur of the
+  theme, the intense earnestness and pathos of the poet, the simple
+  majesty and solemn music of its language, the stately meter, the
+  triple rhyme, and the vowel assonances, chosen in striking
+  adaptation to the sense--all combining to produce an overwhelming
+  effect, as if we heard the final crash of the universe, the
+  commotion of the opening graves, the trumpet of the archangel
+  summoning the quick and the dead, and saw the 'king of tremendous
+  majesty' seated on the throne of justice and of mercy, and ready to
+  dispense everlasting life and everlasting woe."
+
+Neale says of Thomas Aquinas' great hymn the Pange Lingua: "This hymn
+contests the second place among those of the Western Church, with the
+'Vexilla Regis,' the 'Stabat Mater,' the 'Jesu Dulcis Memoria,' the
+'Ad Regias Agni Dapes,' the 'Ad Supernam,' and one or two others,
+leaving the 'Dies Irae' in its unapproachable glory," thus furnishing
+another supreme testimony to the hymn we have been discussing, which
+indeed only needs to be read to be appreciated, since it will
+inevitably tempt to successive readings and these bring with them ever
+and ever increasing admiration, showing in this more than in any other
+way that it is a work of sublime genius.
+
+With regard to rhyme particularly the triumph of art and the influence
+of the Latin hymns is undoubted. This latest beauty of poetry reached
+its perfection of expression in the Latin hymns. It is rather curious
+to trace its gradual development. It constitutes the only feature of
+literature which apparently did not come to us from the East. The
+earlier specimens of poetry of which we know anything among the
+Oriental nations other than the Hebrews, are beautiful examples of the
+possibilities of rhythm and the beginnings of meter. As poetry goes
+westward meter becomes as important as rhythm in poetry and these two
+qualities differentiated it from prose. Both of these literary modes,
+however, are eastern in origin. Rhyme comes from the distant West and
+seems to have originated in the alliteration invented by the Celtic
+bards. The vowel assonance was after a time completed by the addition
+of consonantal assonance and then the invention of rhyme was
+completed. The first fully rhymed hymns seem to have been written by
+the {200} Irish monks and carried over to the Continent by them on
+their Christianizing expeditions, after the irruption of the
+barbarians had obliterated the civilization of Europe. During the
+Tenth and Eleventh centuries rhyme developed mainly in connection with
+ecclesiastical poetry. During the Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries it
+reached an acme of evolution which has never been surpassed during all
+the succeeding generations.
+
+It must not be thought that, because so much attention is given to the
+Dies Irae, this constitutes the only supremely great hymn of the
+Thirteenth Century. There are at least five or six others that well
+deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. One of them, the famous
+Stabat Mater of Jacopone da Todi, has been considered by some critics
+as quite as beautiful as the Dies Irae in poetic expression, though
+below it as poetry because of the lesser sublimity of its subject.
+Certainly no more marvelously poetic expression of all that is saddest
+in human sorrow has ever been put into words, than that which is to be
+found in these stanzas of the Franciscan Monk who had himself known
+all the depths of human sorrow and trial. Most people know the opening
+stanzas of it well enough to scarce need their presentation and yet it
+is from the poem itself, and not from any critical appreciation of it,
+that its greatness must be judged.
+
+{opp200}
+
+[Illustration]
+VIRGIN AND CHILD (PISA, CAMPO SANTO, GIOV. PISANO)
+
+
+  Stabat mater dolorosa
+  Juxta crucem lacrymosa,
+    Dum pendebat filius,
+  Cuius animan gementem,
+  Contristantem at dolentem
+    Pertransivit gladius.
+
+  O quam tristis et afflicta
+  Fuit illa benedicta
+    Mater unigeniti.
+  Quae moerebat et dolebat
+  Et tremebat, dum videbat
+    Nati poenas inclyti.
+
+  Quis est homo, qui non fleret,
+  Matrem Christi si videret,
+    In tanto supplicio?
+
+  Quis non posset contristari,
+  Piam matrem contemplari
+    Dolentem cum filio!
+
+{201}
+
+As in the case of the Dies Irae there have been many translations of
+the Stabat Mater, most of them done by poets whose hearts were in
+their work and who were accomplishing their purpose as labors of love.
+While we realize how many beautiful translations there are, it is
+almost pitiful to think what poor English versions are sometimes used
+in the devotional exercises of the present day. One of the most
+beautiful translations is undoubtedly that by Denis Florence
+MacCarthy, who has been hailed as probably the best translator into
+English of foreign poetry that our generation has known, and whose
+translations of Calderon present the greatest of Spanish poets, in a
+dress as worthy of the original as it is possible for a poet to have
+in a foreign tongue. MacCarthy has succeeded in following the
+intricate rhyme plan of the Stabat with a perfection that would be
+deemed almost impossible in our harsher English, which does not
+readily yield itself to double rhymes and which permits frequency of
+rhyme as a rule only at the sacrifice of vigor of expression. The
+first three stanzas, however, of the Stabat Mater will serve to show
+how well MacCarthy accomplished his difficult task:
+
+  By the cross, on which suspended.
+  With his bleeding hands extended,
+    Hung that Son she so adored,
+  Stood the mournful Mother weeping.
+  She whose heart, its silence keeping.
+    Grief had cleft as with a sword.
+  O, that Mother's sad affliction--
+  Mother of all benediction--
+    Of the sole-begotten One;
+  Oh, the grieving, sense-bereaving,
+  Of her heaving breast, perceiving
+    The dread sufferings of her Son.
+  What man is there so unfeeling.
+  Who, his heart to pity steeling.
+    Could behold that sight unmoved?
+  Could Christ's Mother see there weeping,
+  See the pious Mother keeping
+    Vigil by the Son she loved?
+
+{202}
+
+A very beautiful translation in the meter of the original was also
+made by the distinguished Irish poet, Aubrey de Vere. The last two
+stanzas of this translation have been considered as perhaps the most
+charmingly effective equivalent in English for Jacopone's wonderfully
+devotional termination that has ever been written.
+
+  May his wounds both wound and heal me;
+  His blood enkindle, cleanse, anneal me;
+    Be his cross my hope and stay:
+  Virgin, when the mountains quiver,
+  From that flame which burns for ever,
+    Shield me on the judgment-day.
+
+  Christ, when he that shaped me calls me,
+  When advancing death appalls me.
+    Through her prayer the storm make calm:
+  When to dust my dust returneth
+  Save a soul to thee that yearneth;
+    Grant it thou the crown and palm.
+
+Even distinguished professors of philosophy and theology occasionally
+indulged themselves in the privilege of writing these Latin hymns and,
+what is more surprising, succeeded in making poetry of a very high
+order. At least two of the most distinguished professors in these
+branches at the University of Paris in the latter half of the
+Thirteenth Century, must be acknowledged as having written hymns that
+are confessedly immortal, not because of any canonical usage that
+keeps them alive, but because they express in very different ways, in
+wondrously beautiful language some of the sublimest religious thoughts
+of their time. These two are St. Bonaventure, the Franciscan, and St.
+Thomas of Aquin, the Dominican. St. Bonaventure's hymns on the Passion
+and Cross of Christ represent what has been most beautifully sung on
+these subjects in all the ages. St. Thomas' poetic work centers around
+the Blessed Sacrament in whose honor he was so ardent and so devoted
+{203} that the composition of the office for its feast was confided to
+him by the Pope. The hymns he wrote, far from being the series of
+prosy theological formulas that might have been expected perhaps under
+such circumstances, are great contributions to a form of literature
+which contains more gems of purest ray in its collection than almost
+any other. St. Thomas' poetic jewels shine with no borrowed radiance,
+and their effulgence is not cast into shadow even by the greatest of
+their companion pieces among the Latin hymns of a wonderfully
+productive century. Neale's tribute to one of them has already been
+quoted in an earlier part of this chapter.
+
+It has indeed been considered almost miraculous, that this profoundest
+of thinkers should have been able to attain within the bounds of rhyme
+and rhythm, the accurate expression of some of the most intricate
+theological thoughts that have ever been expressed, and yet should
+have accomplished his purpose with a clarity of language, a simplicity
+and directness of words, a poetic sympathy of feeling, and an utter
+devotion, that make his hymns great literature in the best sense of
+the word. One of them at least, the Pange Lingua Gloriosi, has been in
+constant use in the church ever since his time, and its two last
+stanzas beginning with Tantum Ergo Sacramentum, are perhaps the most
+familiar of all the Latin hymns. Few of those most familiar with it
+realize its place in literature, the greatness of its author, or its
+own marvelous poetic merits.
+
+It must not be forgotten that at the very time when these hymns were
+most popular the modern languages were just assuming shape. Even at
+the end of the Thirteenth Century none of them had reached anything
+like the form that it was to continue to hold, except perhaps the
+Italian and to some extent the Spanish. When Dante wrote his Divine
+Comedy at the beginning of the Fourteenth Century, he was tempted to
+use the Latin language, the common language of all the scholars of his
+day, and the language ordinarily used for any ambitious literary
+project for nearly a century later. It will not be forgotten that when
+Petrarch in the Fourteenth Century wrote his epic, Africa, on which he
+expected his fame as a poet to rest, he preferred to use the Latin
+language. Fortunately Dante was large enough of mind to realize, that
+the vulgar {204} tongue of the Italians would prove the best
+instrument for the expression of the thoughts he wished to
+communicate, and so he cast the Italian language into the mold in
+which it has practically ever since remained.
+
+His very hesitation, however, shows how incomplete as yet were these
+modern languages considered by the scholars who used them. It was at
+this very formative period, however, that the people on whose use of
+the nascent modern languages their future character depended, were
+having dinned into their ears in the numerous church services, the
+great Latin hymns with their wonderful finish of expression.
+Undoubtedly one of the most effective factors of whatever of sweetness
+there is in the modern tongues, must be attributed to this influence
+exerted all unconsciously upon the minds of the people. The rhythm and
+the expressiveness of these magnificent poems could scarcely fail to
+stamp itself to some degree upon the language, crude though it might
+be, of the people who had become so familiar with them. It is, then,
+to no small extent because of the influence of these Latin hymns that
+our modern languages possess a rhythmic melodiousness that in time
+enabled them to become the instruments for poetic diction in such a
+way as to satisfy all the requirements of the modern ear in rhyme, and
+rhythm, and meter. A striking corresponding effect upon the exactness
+of expression in the modern languages, it will be noticed, is pointed
+out in the chapter on the Prose of the Century as representing,
+according to Professor Saintsbury, the greatest benefit that was
+derived from the exaggerated practise of dialectic disputation in the
+curriculum of the medieval Universities.
+
+Those who would think that the Thirteenth Century was happy in
+creative genius but lacking in the critical faculty that would enable
+it to select the best, not only of the hymns presented by its own
+generations but also of those which came from the preceding centuries,
+should make themselves acquainted with the history of these Latin
+hymns. Just before the Thirteenth Century the monks of the famous
+Abbey of St. Victor took up the writing of hymns with wonderful
+success and two of them, Adam and Hugh, became not only the favorites
+of their own but of succeeding generations. The Thirteenth {205}
+Century received the work of these men and gave them a vogue which has
+continued down to our own time. Some of the hymns that were thus
+acclaimed and made popular are among the greatest contributions to
+this form of literature, and while they have had periods of eclipse
+owing to bad taste in the times that followed, the reputation secured
+during the Thirteenth Century has always been sufficient to recall
+them to memory and bring men again to a realization of their beauty
+when a more esthetic generation came into existence.
+
+One of the hymns of the immediately preceding time, which attained
+great popularity during the Thirteenth Century--a popularity that
+reflects credit on those among whom it is noted as well as upon the
+great hymn itself--was Bernard of Cluny's or Bernard of Morlaix's
+hymn, concerning the contempt of the world, many of the ideas of which
+were to be used freely in the book bearing this title written by the
+first Pope of the century, Innocent III, whose name is usually, though
+gratuitously associated with quite other ideas than those of contempt
+for worldly grandeur. The description of the New Jerusalem to come,
+which is found at the beginning of this great poem, is the basis of
+all the modern religious poems on this subject. Few hymns have been
+more praised. Schaff, in his Christ in Song says: "This glowing
+description is the sweetest of all the new Jerusalem Hymns of Heavenly
+Homesickness which have taken their inspiration from the last two
+chapters of Revelation." The extreme difficulty of the meter which its
+author selected and which would seem almost to preclude the
+possibility of expressing great connected thought, especially in so
+long a poem, became under the master hand of this poetic genius, whose
+command of the Latin language is unrivaled, the source of new beauties
+for his poem. Besides maintaining the meter of the old Latin
+hexameters he added double rhymes in each line and yet had every
+alternate line also end in a rhyme. To appreciate the difficulty this
+must be read.
+
+{206}
+
+  Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, vigilemus,
+  Ecce minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus
+  Imminet, imminet ut mala terminet, aequa coronet.
+  Recta remuneret, anxia liberet, aethera donet,
+  Auferat aspera duraque pondera mentis onustae,
+  Sobria muniat, improba puniat, utraque juste.
+
+  Hic breve vivitur, hic breve plangitur, hic breve fletur;
+  Non breve vivere, non breve plangere retribuetur;
+  O retributio! stat brevis actio, vita perennis;
+  O retributio! coelica mansio stat lue plenis;
+  Quid datur et quibus? aether egentibus et cruce dignis,
+  Sidera vermibus, optima sontibus, astra malignis.
+
+There are many versions, but few translators have dared to attempt a
+close imitation of the original meter. Its beauty is so great,
+however, that even the labor required for this has not deterred some
+enthusiastic admirers. Our English tongue, however, does not lend
+itself readily to the production of hexameters, though in these lines
+the rhyme and rhythm has been caught to some extent:
+
+  "These are the latter times, these are not better times;
+      Let us stand waiting;
+  Lo! how with, awfulness, He, first in lawfulness,
+      Comes arbitrating."
+
+Even from this it may be realized that Doctor Neale is justified in
+his enthusiastic opinion that "it is the most lovely, in the same way
+that the Dies Irae is the most sublime, and the Stabat Mater the most
+pathetic, of medieval poems."
+
+While it scarcely has a place here properly, a word must be said with
+regard to the music of the Thirteenth Century. It might possibly be
+thought that these wondrous rhymes had been spoiled in their
+effectiveness by the crude music to which they were set. To harbor any
+such notion, however, would only be another exhibition of that
+intellectual snobbery which concludes that generations so distant
+could not have anything worth the consideration of our more developed
+time. The music of the Thirteenth Century is as great a triumph as any
+other feature of its accomplishment. It would be clearly absurd to
+suppose, that the people who created the Cathedrals and made every
+element associated with the church ceremonial so beautiful as to
+attract the attention of all generations since, could have failed to
+develop a music suitable to these {207} magnificent fanes. As a matter
+of fact no more suitable music for congregational singing than the
+Gregorian Chant, which reached the acme of its development in the
+Thirteenth Century, has been invented, and the fact that the Catholic
+Church, after having tried modern music, is now going back to this
+medieval musical mode for devotional expression, is only a further
+noteworthy tribute to the enduring character of another phase of
+Thirteenth Century accomplishment.
+
+Rockstro, who wrote the article on Plain Chant for Grove's Dictionary
+of Music and for the Encyclopedia Britannica, declared that no more
+wonderful succession of single notes, had even been strung into
+melodies so harmoniously adapted to the expression of the words with
+which they were to be sung, than some of these Plain Chants of the
+Middle Ages and especially of the Thirteenth Century. No more
+sublimely beautiful musical expression of all the depths there are in
+sadness has ever found its way into music, than what is so simply
+expressed in the Lamentations as they are sung in the office called
+Tenebrae during Holy Week. Even more beautiful in its joyousness is
+the marvelous melody of the Exultet which is sung in the Office of
+Holy Saturday. This latter is said to be the sublimest expression of
+joyful sound that has ever come from the human heart and mind. In a
+word, in music as in every other artistic department, the men of the
+Thirteenth Century reached a standard that has never been excelled and
+that remains to the present day as a source of pleasure and admiration
+for intellectual men, and will continue to be so for numberless
+generations yet unborn.
+
+Nor must it be thought that the Thirteenth Century men and women were
+satisfied with Church music alone. About the middle of the century
+part singing came into use in the churches at the less formal
+ceremonials, and soon spread to secular uses. As the Mystery Plays
+gave rise to the modern drama, so church music gave birth to the
+popular music of the time. In England, particularly, about the middle
+of the century, various glee songs were sung, portions of which have
+come down to us, and a great movement of folk music was begun. Before
+the end of the century the interaction of church and secular music had
+given rise to many of the modes of modern musical {208} development,
+and the musical movement was as substantially begun as were any of the
+other great artistic and intellectual movements which this century so
+marvelously initiated. This subject, of course, is of the kind that
+needs to be studied in special works if any satisfactory amount of
+information is to be obtained, but even the passing hint of it which
+we have been able to give will enable the reader to realize the
+important place of the Thirteenth Century in the development of modern
+music.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+ENTOMBMENT OF BLESSED VIRGIN (NOTRE DAME, PARIS)
+
+
+{209}
+
+XIII
+
+THREE MOST READ BOOKS OF THE CENTURY.
+
+
+Three books were more read than any others during the Thirteenth
+Century, that is, of course, apart from Holy Scriptures, which
+contrary to the usually accepted notion in this matter, were
+frequently the subject of study and of almost daily contact in one way
+or another by all classes of people. These three books were, Reynard
+the Fox, that is the series of stories of the animals in which they
+are used as a cloak for a satire upon man and his ways, called often
+the Animal Epic; the Golden Legend, which impressed Longfellow so much
+that he spent many years making what he hoped might prove for the
+modern world a bit of the self-revelation that this wonderful old
+medieval book has been for its own and subsequent generations; and,
+finally, the Romance of the Rose, probably the most read book during
+the Thirteenth and Fourteenth and most of the Fifteenth centuries in
+all the countries of Europe. Its popularity can be well appreciated
+from the fact that, though Chaucer was much read, there are more than
+three times as many manuscript copies of The Romance of the Rose in
+existence as of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and it was one of the
+earliest books to see the light in print.   [Footnote 21]
+
+  [Footnote 21: It was a favorite occupation some few years ago to pick
+  out what were considered the ten best books. Sir John Lubbock first
+  suggested, that it would be an interesting thing to pick out the ten
+  books which, if one were to be confined for life, should be thought
+  the most likely to be of enduring interest. If this favorite game
+  were to be played with the selection limited to the authors of a
+  single century, it is reasonably sure that most educated people
+  would pick out the thirteenth century group of ten for their
+  exclusive reading for the rest of life, rather than any other. An
+  experimental list of ten books selected from the thirteenth century
+  writers would include the Cid, the Legends of King Arthur, the
+  Nibelungen Lied, the Romance of the Rose, Reynard the Fox, the
+  Golden Legend, the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, Parsifal or Perceval
+  by Wolfram von Eschenbach, Durandus's Symbolism and Dante. As will
+  readily be appreciated by anyone who knows literature well, these
+  are eminently books of enduring interest. When it is considered that
+  in making this list no call is made upon Icelandic Literature nor
+  Provencal Literature, both of which are of supreme interest, and
+  both reached their maturity at this time, the abounding literary
+  wealth of the century will be understood.]
+
+
+{210}
+
+It has become the fashion in recent years, to take the pains from time
+to time to find out which are the most read books. The criterion of
+worth thus set up is not very valuable, for unfortunately for the
+increase in readers, there has not come a corresponding demand for the
+best books nor for solid literature. The fact that a book has been the
+best seller, or the most read for a time, usually stamps it at once as
+trivial or at most as being of quite momentary interest and not at all
+likely to endure. It is all the more interesting to find then, that
+these three most read books of the Thirteenth Century, have not only
+more than merely academic interest at the present time, but that they
+are literature in the best sense of the word. They have always been
+not only a means of helping people to pass the time, the sad office to
+which the generality of books has been reduced in our time, but a
+source of inspiration for literary men in many generations since they
+first became popular. The story of Reynard the Fox is one of the most
+profoundly humorous books that was ever written. Its satire was aimed
+at its own time yet it is never for a moment antiquated for the modern
+reader. At a time when, owing to the imperfect development of personal
+rights, it would have been extremely dangerous to satirize as the
+author does very freely, the rulers, the judges, the nobility, the
+ecclesiastical authorities and churchmen, and practically all classes
+of society, the writer, whose name has, unfortunately for the
+completeness of literary history, not come down to us, succeeded in
+painting all the foibles of men and pointing out all the differences
+there are between men's pretensions and their actual accomplishments.
+All the methods by which the cunning scoundrel could escape justice
+are exploited. The various modes of escaping punishment by direct and
+indirect bribery, by pretended repentance and reformation, by cunning
+appeal to the selfishness of judges, are revealed with the fidelity to
+detail of a modern muckraker; yet, all of it with a humanly humorous
+quality which, while it takes away nothing from the completeness of
+the exposure, removes most of the bitterness that probably would have
+made the satire fail of its purpose. While every class in the
+community of the time comes in for satirical allusions, that give us a
+better idea of how closely the men and the women {211} of the time
+resembled those of our own, than is to be found in any other single
+literary work that has been preserved for us from this century, or,
+indeed, any other, the series of stories seemed to be scarcely more
+than a collection of fables for children, and probably was read quite
+unsuspectingly by those who are so unmercifully satirized in it,
+though doubtless, as is usually noted in such cases, each one may have
+applied the satire of the story as he saw it to his neighbor and not
+to himself.
+
+A recent editor has said very well of Reynard the Fox that it is one
+of the most universal of books in its interest for all classes.
+Critics have at all times been ready to praise and few if any have
+found fault. It is one of the books that answers well to what Cardinal
+Newman declared to be at least the accidental definition of a classic;
+it pleases in childhood, in youth, in middle age and even in declining
+years. It is because of the eternal verity of the humanity in the
+book, that with so much truth Froude writing of Reynard can say: "It
+is not addressed to a passing mode of folly or of profligacy, but it
+touches the perennial nature of mankind, laying bare our own
+sympathies, and tastes, and weaknesses, with as keen and true an edge
+as when the living world of the old Suabian poet winced under its
+earliest utterance."
+
+The writer who traced the portraits must be counted one of the great
+observers of all time. As is the case with so many creative artists of
+the Thirteenth Century, though this is truer elsewhere than in
+literature, the author is not known. Perhaps he thought it safer to
+shroud his identity in friendly obscurity, rather than expose himself
+to the risks the finding of supposed keys to his satire might
+occasion. Too much credit must not be given to this explanation,
+however, though some writers have made material out of it to exploit
+Church intolerance, which the conditions do not justify. We are not
+sure who wrote the Arthur Legends, we do not know the author of the
+Cid, even all-pervasive German scholarship has not settled the problem
+of the writer of the Nibelungen, and the authorship of the Dies Irae
+is in doubt, though all of these would be sources of honor and praise
+rather than danger. Authors had evidently not as yet become
+sophisticated to the extent of {212} seeking immortality for their
+works. They even seem to have been indifferent as to whether their
+names were associated with them or not. Enough for them apparently to
+have had the satisfaction of doing, all else seemed futile.
+
+The original of Reynard the Fox was probably written in the
+Netherlands, though it may be somewhat difficult for the modern mind
+to associate so much of wit and humor with the Dutchmen of the Middle
+Ages. It arose there about the time that the Cid came into vogue in
+Spain, the Arthur Legends were being put into shape in England, and
+the Nibelungen reaching its ultimate form in Germany. Reynard thus
+fills up the geographical chart of contemporary literary effort for
+the Thirteenth Century, since France and Italy come in for their share
+in other forms of literature, and no country is missing from the story
+of successful, enduring accomplishment in letters. It was written from
+so close to the heart of Nature, that it makes a most interesting gift
+book even for the Twentieth Century child, and yet will be read with
+probably even more pleasure by the parents. With good reason another
+recent editor has thus summed up the catholicity of its appeal to all
+generations:
+
+"This book belongs to the rare class which is equally delightful to
+children and to their elders. In this regard it may be compared to
+'Gulliver's Travels,' 'Don Quixote' and 'Pilgrim's Progress.' For wit
+and shrewd satire and for pure drollery both in situations and
+descriptions, it is unsurpassed. The animals are not men dressed up in
+the skin of beasts, but are throughout true to their characters, and
+are not only strongly realized but consistently drawn, albeit in so
+simple and captivating a way that the subtle art of the narrator is
+quite hidden, and one is aware only of reading an absorbingly
+interesting and witty tale." To have a place beside Gulliver, the old
+Spanish Knight and Christian, shows the estimation in which the book
+is held by those who are best acquainted with it.
+
+The work is probably best known through the version of it which has
+come to us from the greatest of German poets, Goethe, whose Reineke
+Fuchs has perhaps had more sympathetic readers and a wider audience
+than any other of Goethe's {213} works. The very fact that so deeply
+intellectual a literary man should have considered it worth his while
+to devote his time to making a modern version of it, shows not only
+the estimation in which he held it, but also affords excellent
+testimony to its worth as literature, for Goethe, unlike most poets,
+was a fine literary critic, and one who above all knew the reasons for
+the esthetic faith that was in him. Animal stories in every age,
+however, have been imitations of it much more than is usually
+imagined. While the author probably obtained the hint for his work
+from some of the old-time fables as they came to him by tradition,
+though we have no reason to think that AEsop was familiar to him and
+many for thinking the Greek fabulist was not, he added so much to this
+simple literary mode, transformed it so thoroughly from child's
+literature to world literature, that the main merit of modern animal
+stories must be attributed to him. Uncle Remus and the many
+compilations of this kind that have been popular in our own
+generation, owe much more to the animal Epic than might be thought
+possible by one not familiar with the original Thirteenth Century
+work.
+
+Every language has a translation of the Animal Epic and most of the
+generations since have been interested and amused by the quaint
+conceits, which enable the author to picture so undisguisedly, men and
+women under animal garb. It discloses better than any other specimen
+of the literature of the time that men and women do not change even in
+the course of centuries, and that in the heart of the Middle Ages a
+wise observer could see the foibles of humanity just as they exist at
+the present time. Any one who thinks that evolution after seven
+centuries should have changed men somewhat in their ethical aspects,
+at least, made their aspirations higher and their tendencies less
+commonplace, not to say less degenerative, should read one of the old
+versions of Reynard the Fox and be convinced that men and women in the
+Thirteenth Century were quite the same as we are familiar with them at
+the present moment.
+
+The second of the most read books of the century is the famous Legenda
+Aurea or, as it has been called in English, the Golden Legend, written
+by Jacobus de Voragine, the distinguished Dominican preacher and
+writer (born during the first half of the Thirteenth Century, died
+just at its close), who, {214} after rising to the higher grades in
+his own order, became the Archbishop of Genoa. His work at once sprang
+into popular favor and continued to be perhaps the most widely read
+book, with the exception of the Holy Scriptures, during the Fourteenth
+and Fifteenth centuries. It was one of the earliest books printed in
+Italy, the first edition appearing about 1570, and it is evident that
+it was considered that its widespread popularity would not only
+reimburse the publisher, but would help the nascent art of printing by
+bringing it to the attention of a great many people. Its subject is
+very different from that of the modern most read books; librarians do
+not often have to supply lives of Saints nowadays, though some
+similarities of material with that of books now much in demand help to
+account for its vogue.
+
+Jacobus de Voragine's work consisted of the lives of the greater
+Saints of the Church since the time of Christ, and detailed especially
+the wonderful things that happened in their lives, some of which of
+course were mythical and all of them containing marvelous stories.
+This gave prominence to many legends that have continued to maintain
+their hold upon the popular imagination ever since. With all this
+adventitious interest, however, the book contained a solid fund of
+information with regard to the lives of the Saints, and besides it
+taught the precious lessons of unselfishness and the care for others
+of the men who had come to be greeted by the title of Saint. The work
+must have done not a little to stir up the faith, enliven the charity,
+and build up the characters of the people of the time, and certainly
+has fewer objections than most popular reading at any period of the
+world's history. For young folks the wonderful legends afforded
+excellent and absolutely innocuous exercise of the functions of the
+imagination quite as well as our own modern wonder books or fairy
+tales, while the stories themselves presented many descriptive
+portions out of which subjects for decorative purposes could readily
+be obtained. It must be set down as another typical distinction of the
+Thirteenth Century and an addition to its greatness, that it should
+have made the Golden Legend popular and thus preserved it for future
+generations, who became {215} deeply interested in it, as in most of
+the other precious heritages they received from this great original
+century.
+
+{opp214}
+[Illustration]
+MADONNA AND CHILD (GIOV. PISANO, PADUA)
+
+[Illustration]
+ST. CHRISTOPHER (ALTO RELIEVO, VENICE)
+
+
+The third of the most read books of the century, The Romance of the
+Rose, is not so well known except by scholars as is the Animal Epic or
+perhaps even the Golden Legend. Anyone who wants to understand the
+burden of the time, however, and who wishes to put himself in the mood
+and the tense to comprehend not only the other literature of the era,
+and in this must be included even Dante, but also the social,
+educational, and even scientific movements of the period, must become
+familiar with it. It has been well said that a knowledge and study of
+the three most read books of the century, those which we have named,
+will afford a far clearer insight into the daily life and the spirit
+working within the people for whom they were written, than the annals
+of the wars or political struggles that were waged during the same
+period between kings and nobles. For this clearer insight a knowledge
+of the Romance of the Rose is more important than of the others. It
+provides a better introduction to the customs and habits, the manners
+of thought and of action, the literary and educational interests of
+the people of the Thirteenth Century, than any mere history, however
+detailed, could. In this respect it resembles Homer who, as Froude
+declares, has given us a better idea of Greek life than a whole
+encyclopedia of classified information would have done. The intimate
+life stories of no other periods in history are so well illustrated,
+nor so readily to be comprehended, as those of Homer and the authors
+of the medieval Romaunt.
+
+The Romance of the Rose continued to be for more than two centuries
+the most read book in Europe. Every one with any pretense to
+scholarship or to literary taste in any European country considered it
+necessary to be familiar with it, and without exaggeration what Lowell
+once declared with regard to Don Quixote, that it would be considered
+a mark of lack of culture to miss a reference to it in any country in
+Europe, might well have been repeated during the Fourteenth and
+Fifteenth centuries of the Romance of the Rose. It has in recent years
+been put into very suitable English dress by Mr. F. S. Ellis and
+published among the Temple Classics, thus placing it {216} within easy
+reach of English readers. Mr. Ellis must certainly be considered a
+suitable judge of the interest there is in the work. He spent several
+years in translating its two and twenty thousand six hundred and eight
+lines and yet considers that few books deserve as much attention as
+this typical Thirteenth Century allegory. He says:
+
+  "The charge of dulness once made against this highly imaginative and
+  brilliant book, successive English writers, until quite recent times
+  have been content to accept the verdict, though Professor Morley and
+  others have of late ably repelled the charge. If further testimony
+  were necessary as to the falsity of the accusation, and the opinion
+  of one who has found a grateful pastime in translating it might be
+  considered of any weight, he would not hesitate to traverse the
+  attribution of dulness, and to assert that it is a poem of extreme
+  interest, written as to the first part with delicate fancy, sweet
+  appreciation of natural beauty, clear insight, and skilful
+  invention, while J. de Meun's continuation is distinguished by
+  vigor, brilliant invention, and close observation of human nature.
+  The Thirteenth Century lives before us."
+
+The Rose is written on a lofty plane of literary value, and the fact
+that it was so popular, speaks well for the taste of the times and for
+the enthusiasm of the people for the more serious forms of literature.
+Not that the Romance of the Rose is a very serious book itself, but if
+we compare it with the popular publications which barely touch the
+realities of life in the modern time, it will seem eminently serious.
+In spite of the years that have elapsed since its original publication
+it has not lost all its interest, even for a casual reader, and
+especially for one whose principal study is mankind in its varying
+environment down the ages, for it presents a very interesting picture
+of men and their ways in this wonderful century. Here, as in the
+stories of Reynard the Fox, one is brought face to face with the fact
+that men and women have not changed and that the peccadillos of our
+own generation have their history in the Middle Ages also. Take, for
+instance, the question of the too great love of money which is now the
+subject of so much writing and sermonizing. One might think that at
+least this was {217} modern. Here, however, is what the author of the
+Romance of the Rose has to say about it:
+
+  Three cruel vengeances pursue
+  These miserable wretches who
+  Hoard up their worthless wealth: great toil
+  Is theirs to win it; then their spoil
+  They fear to lose; and lastly, grieve
+  Most bitterly that they must leave
+  Their hoards behind them. Cursed they die
+  Who living, lived but wretchedly;
+  For no man, if he lack of love.
+  Hath peace below or joy above.
+  If those who heap up wealth would show
+  Fair love to others, they would go
+  Through life beloved, and thus would reign
+  Sweet happy days. If they were fain,
+  Who hold so much of good to shower around
+  Their bounty unto those they found
+  In need thereof, and nobly lent
+  Their money, free from measurement
+  Of usury (yet gave it not
+  To idle gangrel men), I wot
+  That then throughout the land were seen
+  No pauper carl or starveling quean.
+  But lust of wealth doth so abase
+  Man's heart, that even love's sweet grace
+  Bows down before it; men but love
+  Their neighbors that their love may prove
+  A profit, and both bought and sold
+  Are friendships at the price of gold.
+  Nay, shameless women set to hire
+  Their bodies, heedless of hell-fire;
+
+It is after reading a passage like this in a book written in the
+Thirteenth Century that one feels the full truth of that expression of
+the greatest of American critics, James Russell Lowell, which so often
+comes back to mind with regard to the works of this century, that to
+read a classic is like reading a commentary on the morning paper. When
+this principle is {218} applied the other way, I suppose it may be
+said, that when a book written in the long ago sounds as if it were
+the utterance of some one aroused by the evils round him in our modern
+life, then it springs from so close to the heart of nature that it is
+destined to live and have an influence far beyond its own time. The
+Romance of the Rose, written seven centuries ago, now promises to have
+renewed youth in the awakening of interest in our Gothic ancestors and
+their accomplishments, before the over-praised renaissance came to
+trouble the stream of thought and writing.
+
+Other passages serve to show how completely the old-time poet realized
+all the abuses of the desire for wealth, and how much it makes men
+waste their lives over unessentials, instead of trying to make
+existence worth while for themselves and others. Here is an
+arraignment of the strenuous life of business every line of which is
+as true for us as it was for the poet's generation:
+
+  'Tis truth (though some 'twill little please)
+  To hear the trader knows no ease;
+  For ever in his soul a prey
+  To anxious care of how he may
+  Amass more wealth: this mad desire
+  Doth all his thought and actions fire.
+  Devising means whereby to stuff
+  His barns and coffers, for 'enough'
+  He ne'er can have, but hungreth yet
+  His neighbors' goods and gold to get.
+  It is as though for thirst he fain
+  Would quaff the volume of the Seine
+  At one full draught, and yet should fail
+  To find its waters of avail
+  To quench his longing. What distress,
+  What anguish, wrath, and bitterness
+  Devour the wretch! fell rage and spite
+  Possess his spirit day and night.
+  And tear his heart; the fear of want
+  Pursues him like a spectre gaunt.
+  The more he hath, a wider mouth
+  He opes, no draught can quench his drouth.
+
+{219}
+
+The old poet pictures the happiness of the poor man by contrast, and
+can in conclusion depict even more pitilessly the real poverty of
+spirit of the man who "having, struggleth still to get" and never
+stops to enjoy life itself by helping his fellows:
+
+  Light-heart and gay
+  Goes many a beggar by the way,
+  But little heeding though his back
+  Be bent beneath a charcoal sack.
+  They labor patiently and sing.
+  And dance, and laugh at whatso thing
+  Befalls, for havings care they nought.
+  But feed on scraps and chitlings bought
+  Beside St. Marcel's, and dispend
+  Their gains for wassail, then, straight wend
+  Once more to work, not grumblingly.
+  But light of heart as bird on tree
+  Winning their bread without desire
+  To fleece their neighbors. Nought they tire
+  Of this their round, but week by week
+  In mirth and work contentment seek;
+  Returning when their work is done
+  Once more to swill the jovial tun.
+  And he who what he holds esteems
+  Enough, is rich beyond the dreams
+  Of many a dreary usurer,
+  And lives his life-days happier far;
+  For nought it signifies what gains
+  The wretched usurer makes, the pains
+  Of poverty afflict him yet
+  Who having, struggleth still to get.
+
+The pictures are as true to life at the beginning of the Twentieth
+Century as they were in the latter half of the Thirteenth. There are
+little touches of realism in both the pictures, which show at once how
+acute an observer, how full of humor his appreciation, and yet how
+sympathetic a writer the author of the Romance was, and at the same
+time reveal something of the sociological value of his work. It
+discloses what is so easily concealed under the mask of formal
+historical writing and {220} tells us of the people rather than of the
+few great ones among them, or those whom time and chance had made
+leaders of men. It seems long to read but as a recent translator has
+said, it represents only the file of a newspaper for eighteen months,
+and while it talks of quite as trivial things as the modern newspaper,
+the information is of a kind that is likely to do more good, and prove
+of more satisfaction, than the passing crimes and scandals that now
+occupy over-anxious readers.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+CENTRAL TOWER (LINCOLN)
+
+{221}
+
+
+XIV
+
+SOME THIRTEENTH CENTURY PROSE.
+
+
+It would be unpardonable to allow the notion to be entertained that it
+was only in poetry that the writers of the Thirteenth Century
+succeeded in creating works of enduring influence. Some of the prose
+writings of the time are deeply interesting for many reasons. Modern
+prose was in its formative period, and the evolution of style, as of
+other things in the making, is proverbially worthy of more serious
+study than even the developed result. The prose writings of the
+Thirteenth Century were mainly done in Latin, but that was not for
+lack of command over the vernacular tongues, as we shall see, but
+because this was practically a universal language. This century had
+among other advantages that subsequent ages have striven for
+unsuccessfully, our own most of all, a common medium of expression for
+all scholars at least. There are, however, the beginnings of Prose in
+all the modern languages and it is easy to understand that the Latin
+of the time had a great influence on the vernacular and that the modes
+of expression which had become familiar in the learned tongue, were
+naturally transferred to the vulgar speech, as it was called, whenever
+accuracy of thought and nicety of expression invited such
+transmutation.
+
+With regard to the Latin of the period it is the custom of many
+presumably well-educated men to sniff a little and say deprecatingly,
+that after all much cannot be expected from the writers of the time,
+since they were dependent on medieval or scholastic Latin for the
+expression of their ideas. This criticism is supposed to do away with
+any idea of the possibility of there having been a praiseworthy prose
+style, at this time in the Middle Ages. In the chapter on the Latin
+Hymns, we call attention to the fact that this same mode of criticism
+was supposed to preclude all possibility of rhymed Latin, as worthy to
+occupy a prominent place in literature. The widespread {222}
+encouragement of this false impression has, as a matter of fact, led
+to a neglect of these wonderful poems, though they may in the opinion
+of competent critics, even be considered as representing the true
+genius of the Latin language and its powers of poetic expression
+better than the Greek poetic modes, which were adopted by the Romans,
+but which, with the possible exception of their two greatest poets,
+never seem to have acquired that spontaneity that would characterize a
+native outburst of lingual vitality.
+
+As for the philosophic writers of the century that great period holds
+in this, as in other departments, the position of the palmiest time of
+the Middle Ages. To it belongs Alexander Hales, the Doctor
+Irrefragabilis who disputes with Aquinas the prize for the best
+example of the Summa Theologiae; Bonaventure the Mystic, and writer of
+beautiful hymns; Roger Bacon, the natural philosopher; Vincent of
+Beauvais, the encyclopedist. While of the four, greatest of all,
+Albertus Magnus, the "Dumb Ox of Cologne," was born seven years before
+its opening, his life lasted over four-fifths of it; that of Aquinas
+covered its second and third quarters; Occam himself, though his main
+exertions lie beyond this century, was probably born before Aquinas
+died; while John Duns Scotus hardly outlived the century's close by a
+decade. Raymond Lully, one of the most characteristic figures of
+Scholasticism and of the medieval period (with his "great art" of
+automatic philosophy), who died in 1315, was born as early as 1235.
+Peter the Spaniard, Pope and author of the Summulae Logicales, the
+grammar of formal logic for ages as well of several medieval treatises
+that have attracted renewed attention in our day, died in 1277.
+
+With regard to what was accomplished in philosophic and theologic
+prose, examples will be found in the chapter on St. Thomas Aquinas,
+which prove beyond all doubt the utter simplicity, the directness, and
+the power of the prose of the Thirteenth Century. In the medical works
+of the time there was less directness, but always a simplicity that
+made them commendable. In general, university writers were influenced
+by the scholastic methods and we find it reflected constantly in their
+works. In the minds of many people this would be {223} enough at once
+to condemn it. It will usually be found, however, as we have noted
+before, that those who are readiest to condemn scholastic writing know
+nothing about it, or so little that their opinion is not worth
+considering. Usually they have whatever knowledge they think they
+possess, at second hand. Sometimes all that they have read of
+scholastic philosophy are some particularly obscure passages on
+abstruse subjects, selected by some prejudiced historian, in order to
+show how impossible was the philosophic writing of these centuries of
+the later Middle Ages.
+
+There are other opinions, however, that are of quite different
+significance and value. We shall quote but one of them, written by
+Professor Saintsbury of the University of Edinburgh, who in his volume
+on the Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (the Twelfth
+and Thirteenth centuries) of his Periods of European Literature, has
+shown how sympathetically the prose writing of the Thirteenth Century
+may appeal even to a scholarly modern, whose main interests have been
+all his life in literature. Far from thinking that prose was spoiled
+by scholasticism. Prof. Saintsbury considers that scholasticism was
+the fortunate training school in which all the possibilities of modern
+prose were brought out and naturally introduced into the budding
+languages of the time. He says:
+
+  "However this may be" (whether the science of the Nineteenth Century
+  after an equal interval will be of any more positive value, whether
+  it will not have even less comparative interest than that which
+  appertains to the scholasticism of the Thirteenth Century) "the
+  claim modest, and even meager as it may seem to some, which has been
+  here once more put forward for this scholasticism--the claim of a
+  far-reaching educative influence in mere language, in mere system of
+  arrangement and expression, will remain valid. If at the outset of
+  the career of modern languages, men had thought with the looseness
+  of modern thought, had indulged in the haphazard slovenliness of
+  modern logic, had popularized theology and vulgarized rhetoric, as
+  we have seen both popularized and vulgarized since, we should indeed
+  have been in evil case. It used to be thought clever to moralize and
+  to felicitate mankind over the rejection of the stays, the fetters,
+  the prison in which its {224} thought was medievally kept. The
+  justice or the injustice, the taste or the vulgarity of these
+  moralizings, of these felicitations, may not concern us here. But in
+  expression, as distinguished from thought, the value of the
+  discipline to which these youthful languages was subjected is not
+  likely now to be denied by any scholar who has paid attention to the
+  subject. It would have been perhaps a pity if thought had not gone
+  through other phases; it would certainly have been a pity if the
+  tongues had been subjected to the fullest influence of Latin
+  constraint. But that the more lawless of them benefited by that
+  constraint there can be no doubt whatever. The influence of form
+  which the best Latin hymns of the Middle Ages exercised in poetry,
+  the influence in vocabulary and in logical arrangement which
+  scholasticism exercised in prose are beyond dispute: and even those
+  who will not pardon literature, whatever its historic and educative
+  importance be, for being something less than masterly in itself,
+  will find it difficult to maintain the exclusion of the Cur Deus
+  Homo, and impossible to refuse admission to the Dies Irae."
+
+Besides this philosophic and scientific prose, there were two forms of
+writing of which this century presents a copious number of examples.
+These are the chronicles and biographies of the time and the stories
+of travelers and explorers. These latter we have treated in a separate
+chapter. The chronicles of the time deserve to be studied with patient
+attention by anyone who wishes to know the prose writers of the
+century and the character of the men of that time and their outlook on
+life. It is usually considered that chroniclers are rather tiresome
+old fogies who talk much and say very little, who accept all sorts of
+legends on insufficient authority and who like to fill up their pages
+with wonderful things regardless of their truth. In this regard it
+must not be forgotten that in times almost within the memory of men
+still alive, Herodotus now looked upon deservedly as the Father of
+History and one of the great historical writers of all time, was
+considered to have a place among these chroniclers, and his works were
+ranked scarcely higher, except for the purity of their Greek style.
+
+The first of the great chroniclers in a modern tongue was the famous
+Geoffrey de Villehardouin, who was not only a writer {225} of, but an
+actor in the scenes which he describes. He was enrolled among the
+elite of French Chivalry, in that Crusade at the beginning of the
+Thirteenth Century, which resulted in the foundation of the
+Greco-Latin Empire. His book entitled "The Conquest of
+Constantinople," includes the story of the expedition during the years
+from 1198 to 1207. Modern war correspondents have seldom succeeded in
+giving a more vivid picture of the events of which they were witnesses
+than this first French chronicler of the Thirteenth Century. It is
+evident that the work was composed with the idea that it should be
+recited, as had been the old poetic Chansons de Geste, in the castles
+of the nobles and before assemblages of the people, perhaps on fair
+days and other times when they were gathered together. The consequence
+is that it is written in a lively straightforward style with direct
+appeals to its auditors.
+
+It contains not a few passages of highly poetic description which show
+that the chronicler was himself a literary man of no mean order and
+probably well versed in the effusions of the old poets of this
+country. His description of the fleet of the Crusaders as it was about
+to set sail for the East and then his description of its arrival
+before the imposing walls of the Imperial City, are the best examples
+of this, and have not been surpassed even by modern writers on similar
+topics.
+
+Though the French writer was beyond all doubt not familiar with the
+Grecian writers and knew nothing of Xenophon, there is a constant
+reminder of the Greek historian in his work. Xenophon's simple
+directness, his thorough-going sincerity, the impression he produces
+of absolute good faith and confidence in the completeness of the
+picture, so that one feels that one has been present almost at many of
+the scenes described, are all to be encountered in his medieval
+successor. Villehardouin went far ahead of his predecessors, the
+chroniclers of foregoing centuries, in his careful devotion to truth.
+A French writer has declared that to Villehardouin must be ascribed
+the foundation of historical probity. None of his facts, stated as
+such, has ever been impugned, and though his long speeches must
+necessarily have been his own composition, there seems no doubt that
+they contain the ideas which had been expressed on various occasions,
+and besides were composed with due reference to {226} the character of
+the speaker and convey something of his special style of expression.
+
+Prof. Saintsbury in his article in the Encyclopedia Britannica on
+Villehardouin, sums up very strikingly the place that this first great
+vernacular historian's book must occupy.
+
+He says: "It is not impertinent, and at the same time an excuse for
+what has been already said, to repeat that Villehardouin's book, brief
+as it is, is in reality one of the capital books of literature, not
+merely for its merit, but because it is the most authentic and the
+most striking embodiment in the contemporary literature of the
+sentiments which determined the action of a great and important period
+of history. There are but very few books which hold this position, and
+Villehardouin's is one of them. If every other contemporary record of
+the crusades perished, we should still be able by aid of this to
+understand and realize what the mental attitude of crusaders, of
+Teutonic Knights, and the rest was, and without this we should lack
+the earliest, the most undoubtedly genuine, and the most
+characteristic of all such records. The very inconsistency with which
+Villehardouin is chargeable, the absence of compunction with which he
+relates the changing of a sacred religious pilgrimage into something
+by no means unlike a mere filibustering raid on a great scale, add a
+charm to the book. For, religious as it is, it is entirely free from
+the very slightest touch of hypocrisy or, indeed, of
+self-consciousness of any kind. The famous description of the
+Crusades, _gesta Dei per Francos_, was evidently to Villehardouin a
+plain matter-of-fact description and it no more occurred to him to
+doubt the divine favor being extended to the expeditions against
+Alexius or Theodore than to doubt that it was shown to expeditions
+against Saracens and Turks."
+
+{opp226}
+
+[Illustration]
+PONTE ALLE GRAZIE (FLORENCE, LAPO)
+
+[Illustration]
+PORTA ROMANA GATE, (FLORENCE, N. PISANO)
+
+
+It was especially in the exploitation of biographical material that
+the Thirteenth Century chroniclers were at their best. Any one who
+recalls Carlyle's unstinted admiration of Jocelyn of Brakelonds' life
+of Abbot Sampson in his essays Past and Present, will be sure that at
+least one writer in England had succeeded in pleasing so difficult a
+critic in this rather thorny mode of literary expression. It is easy
+to say too much or too little about the virtues and the vices of a man
+whose biography one has chosen to write. Jocelyn's simple,
+straightforward story {227} would seem to fulfill the best canons of
+modern criticism in this respect. Probably no more vivid picture of a
+man and his ways was ever given until Boswell's Johnson. Nor was the
+English chronicler alone in this respect. The Sieur de Joinville's
+biographical studies of the life of Louis IX. furnish another example
+of this literary mode at its best, and modern writers of biography
+could not do better than go back to read these intimate pictures of
+the life of a great king, which are not flattered nor overdrawn but
+give us the man as he actually was.
+
+The English biographic chronicler of the olden time could picture
+exciting scenes without any waste of words. A specimen of his work
+will serve to show the merit of his style. After reading it one is not
+likely to be surprised that Carlyle should have so taken the
+Chronicler to heart nor been so enthusiastic in his praise. It is the
+very type of that impressionism in style that has once more in the
+course of time become the fad of our own day.
+
+  "The abbot was informed that the church of Woolpit was vacant,
+  Walter of Coutances being chosen to the bishopric of Lincoln. He
+  presently convened the prior and great part of the convent, and
+  taking up his story thus began: 'You well know what trouble I had in
+  respect of the church of Woolpit; and in order that it should be
+  obtained for your exclusive use I journeyed to Rome at your
+  instance, in the time of the schism between Pope Alexander and
+  Octavian. I passed through Italy at that time when all clerks
+  bearing letters of our lord the Pope Alexander were taken. Some were
+  imprisoned, some hanged, and some, with nose and lips cut off, sent
+  forward to the pope, to his shame and confusion. I, however,
+  pretended to be Scotch; and putting on the garb of a Scotchman, and
+  the gesture of one, I often brandished my staff, in the way they use
+  that weapon called, a gaveloc, at those who mocked me, using
+  threatening language, after the manner of the Scotch. To those that
+  met and questioned me as to who I was, I answered nothing, but,
+  "Ride ride Rome, turne Cantwereberei." This did I to conceal myself
+  and my errand, and that I should get to Rome safer in the guise of a
+  Scotchman.
+
+  "'Having obtained letters from the pope, even as I wished, on my
+  return I passed by a certain castle, as my way led me {228} from the
+  city; and behold the officers thereof came about me, laying hold
+  upon me, and saying, "This vagabond who makes himself out to be a
+  Scotchman is either a spy or bears letters from the false pope
+  Alexander." And while they examined my ragged clothes, and my boots,
+  and my breeches, and even the old shoes which I carried over my
+  shoulders, after the fashion of the Scotch, I thrust my hand into
+  the little wallet which I carried, wherein was contained the letter
+  of our lord the pope, placed under a little cup I had for drinking.
+  The Lord God and St. Edmund so permitting, I drew out both the
+  letter and the cup together, so that, extending my arm aloft, I held
+  the letter underneath the cup. They could see the cup plain enough,
+  but they did not see the letter; and so I got clear out of their
+  hands, in the name of the Lord. Whatever money I had about me they
+  took away; therefore I had to beg from door to door, without any
+  payment, until I arrived in England.'"
+
+Another excellent example of the biographic prose of the century,
+though this is the vernacular, is Joinville's life of St. Louis,
+without doubt one of the precious biographical treasures of all times.
+It contains a vivid portrait of Louis IX., made by a man who knew him
+well personally, took part with him in some of the important actions
+of the book, and in general was an active personage in the affairs of
+the time. Those who think that rapid picturesque description such as
+vividly recalls deeds of battle was reserved for the modern war
+correspondent, should read certain portions of Joinville's book. As an
+example we have ventured to quote the page on which the seneschal
+historian himself recounts the role which he played in the famous
+battle of Mansourah, at which, with the Count de Soissons and Pierre
+de Neuville, he defended a small bridge against the enemy under a hail
+of arrows.
+
+He says: "Before us there were two sergeants of the king, one of whom
+was named William de Boon and the other John of Gamaches. Against
+these the Turks who had placed themselves between the river and the
+little tributary, led a whole mob of villains on foot, who hurled at
+them clods of turf or whatever came to hand. Never could they make
+them recoil upon us, however. As a last resort the Turks sent forward
+a foot soldier {229} who three times launched Greek fire at them. Once
+William de Boon received the pot of green fire upon his buckler. If
+the fire had touched anything on him he would have been entirely
+burned up. We at the rear were all covered by arrows which had missed
+the Sergeants. It happened that I found a waistcoat which had been
+stuffed by one of the Saracens. I turned the open side of it towards
+me and made a shield out of the vest which rendered me great service,
+for I was wounded by their arrows in only five places though my horse
+was wounded in fifteen. One of my own men brought me a banner with my
+arms and a lance. Every time then that we saw that they were pressing
+the Royal Sergeants we charged upon them and they fled. The good Count
+Soissons, from the point at which we were, joked with me and said
+'Senechal, let us hoot out this rabble, for by the headdress of God
+(this was his favorite oath) we shall talk over this day you and I
+many a time in our ladies' halls.'"
+
+We have said that the writing of the Thirteenth Century must have been
+done to a great extent for the sake of the women of the time, and that
+its very existence was a proof that the women possessed a degree of
+culture, that might not be realized from the few details that have
+been preserved to us of their education and habits of life. In this
+last passage of Joinville we have the proof of this, since evidently
+the telling of the stories of these days of battle was done mainly in
+order that the women folks might have their share in the excitement of
+the campaign, and might be enabled vividly to appreciate what the
+dangers had been and how gloriously their lords had triumphed. At
+every period of the world's history it was true that literature was
+mainly made for women and that some of the best portions of it always
+concerned them very closely.
+
+We have purposely left till last, the greatest of the chroniclers of
+the Thirteenth Century, Matthew Paris, the Author of the Historia
+Major, who owes his surname doubtless to the fact that he was educated
+at the University of Paris. Instead of trying to tell anything about
+him from our own slight personal knowledge, we prefer to quote the
+passage from Green's History of the English People, in which one of
+the greatest of our modern English historians pays such a magnificent
+tribute to his colleague of the earlier times:
+
+{230}
+
+  "The story of this period of misrule has been preserved for us by an
+  annalist whose pages glow with the new outburst of patriotic feeling
+  which this common expression of the people and the clergy had
+  produced. Matthew Paris is the greatest, as he is in reality the
+  last of our monastic historians. The school of St. Albans survived
+  indeed till a far later time, but the writers dwindle into mere
+  annalists whose view is bounded by the Abbey precincts, and whose
+  work is as colorless as it is jejune. In Matthew the breadth and
+  precision of the narrative, the copiousness of his information on
+  topics whether national or European, the general fairness and
+  justice of his comments, are only surpassed by the patriotic fire
+  and enthusiasm of the whole. He had succeeded Roger of Wendover as
+  Chronicler of St. Albans; and the Greater Chronicle, with the
+  abridgement of it which has long passed under the name of Matthew of
+  Westminster, a "History of the English," and the "Lives of the
+  Earlier Abbots," were only a few among the voluminous works which
+  attest his prodigious industry. He was an eminent artist as well as
+  a historian, and many of the manuscripts which are preserved are
+  illustrated by his own hand. A large circle of
+  correspondents--bishops like Grosseteste, ministers like Hubert de
+  Burgh, officials like Alexander de Swinford--furnished him with
+  minute accounts of political and ecclesiastical proceedings.
+  Pilgrims from the East and Papal agents brought news of foreign
+  events to his scriptorium at St. Albans. He had access to and quotes
+  largely from state documents, charters, and exchequer rolls. The
+  frequency of the royal visits to the abbey brought him a store of
+  political intelligence and Henry himself contributed to the great
+  chronicle which has preserved with so terrible a faithfulness the
+  memory of his weakness and misgovernment. On one solemn feast-day
+  the King recognized Matthew, and bidding him sit on the middle step
+  between the floor and the throne, begged him to write the story of
+  the day's proceedings. While on a visit to St. Albans he invited him
+  to his table and chamber, and enumerated by name two hundred and
+  fifty of the English barons for his information. But all this royal
+  patronage has left little mark on his work. "_The case,_" as he
+  says, "_of historical writers is hard, for if they tell the truth
+  they provoke men, and if they write what is false they offend God._"
+  {231} With all the fullness of the school of court historians, such
+  as Benedict or Hoveden, Matthew Paris combines an independence and
+  patriotism which is strange to their pages. He denounces with the
+  same unsparing energy the oppression of the Papacy and the King. His
+  point of view is neither that of a courtier nor of a Churchman, but
+  of an Englishman, and the new national tone of his chronicle is but
+  an echo of the national sentiment which at last bound nobles and
+  yeomen and Churchmen together into an English people."
+
+We of the Twentieth Century are a people of information and
+encyclopedias rather than of literature, so that we shall surely
+appreciate one important specimen of the prose writing of the
+Thirteenth Century since it comprises the first modern encyclopedia.
+Its author was the famous Vincent of Beauvais. Vincent consulted all
+the authors, sacred and profane, that he could possibly lay hands on,
+and the number of them was indeed prodigious. It has often been said
+by men supposed to be authorities in history, that the historians of
+the Middle Ages had at their disposition only a small number of books,
+and that above all they were not familiar with the older historians.
+While this was true as regards the Greek, it was not for the Latin
+historical writers. Vincent of Beauvais has quotations from Caesar's
+De Bello Gallico, from Sallust's Catiline and Jugurtha, from Quintus
+Curtius, from Suetonius and from Valerius Maximus and finally from
+Justin's Abridgement of Trogus Pompeius.
+
+Vincent had the advantage of having at his disposition the numerous
+libraries of the monasteries throughout France, the extent of which,
+usually unrealized in modern times, will be appreciated from our
+special chapter on the subject. Besides he consulted the documents in
+the chapter houses of the Cathedrals especially those of Paris, of
+Rouen, of Laon, of Beauvais and of Bayeux, which were particularly
+rich in collections of documents. It might be thought that these
+libraries and archives would be closely guarded. Far from being closed
+to writers from the outer world they were accessible to all to such an
+extent, indeed, that a number of them are mentioned by Vincent as
+public institutions.
+
+{232}
+
+His method of collecting his information is interesting, because it
+shows the system employed by him is practically that which has
+obtained down to our own day. He made use for his immense
+investigation of a whole army of young assistants, most of whom were
+furnished him by his own order, the Dominicans. He makes special
+mention in a number of places of quotations due to their
+collaboration. The costliness of maintaining such a system would have
+made the completion of the work absolutely impossible were it not for
+the liberality of King Louis IX., who generously offered to defray the
+expenses of the composition. Vincent has acknowledged this by
+declaring in his prefatorial letter to the King that, "you have always
+liberally given assistance even to the work of gathering the
+materials."
+
+
+{opp232}
+
+[Illustration]
+ST. CATHERINE'S (LUeBECK)
+
+[Illustration]
+CHURCH AND CLOISTERS, SAN ANTONIO (PADUA)
+
+
+Vincent's method of writing is quite as interesting as his method of
+compilation of facts. The great Dominican was not satisfied with being
+merely a source of information. The philosophy of history has received
+its greatest Christian contribution from St. Augustine's City of God.
+In this an attempt was made to trace the meaning and causal sequence
+of events as well as their mere external connection and place in time.
+In a lesser medieval way Vincent tried deliberately to imitate this
+and besides writing history attempted to trace the philosophy of it.
+For him, as for the great French philosophic historian Bossuet in his
+Universal History five centuries later, everything runs its provided
+race from the creation to the redemption and then on toward the
+consummation of the world. He describes at first the commencements of
+the Church from the time of Abel, through its progress under the
+Patriarchs, the Prophets, Judges, Kings, and leaders of the people,
+down to the Birth of Christ. He traces the history of the Apostles and
+of the first Disciples, though he makes it a point to find place for
+the famous deeds of the great men of Pagan antiquity. He notes the
+commencement of Empires and Kingdoms, their glory, their decadence,
+their ruin, and the Sovereigns who made them illustrious in peace and
+war. There was much that was defective in the details of history as
+they were traced by Vincent, much that was lacking in completeness,
+but the intention was evidently the best, and patience and labor were
+devoted to the {233} sources of history at his command. Perhaps never
+more than at the present moment have we been in a position to realize
+that history at its best can be so full of defects even after further
+centuries of consultation of documents and printed materials, that we
+are not likely to be in the mood to blame this first modern historian
+very much. As for the other portions of his encyclopedia, biographic,
+literary and scientific, they were not only freely consulted by his
+contemporaries and successors, but we find traces of their influence
+in the writings and also in the decorative work of the next two
+centuries. We have already spoken of the use of his book in the
+provision of subjects for the ornamentation of Cathedrals and the same
+thing might be said of edifices of other kinds.
+
+Nor must it be thought that Vincent has only a historic or
+ecclesiastical interest. Dr. Julius Pagel, in his Chapter on Medicine
+in the Middle Ages in Puschmann's Hand-Book of the History of
+Medicine,  [Footnote 22] says, "that there were three writers whose
+works were even more popular than those of Albertus Magnus. These
+three were Bartholomew, the Englishman; Thomas, of Cantimprato, and
+Vincent, of Beauvais, the last of whom must be considered as one of
+the most important contributors to the generalization of scientific
+knowledge, not alone in the Thirteenth but in the immediately
+succeeding centuries. His most important work was really an
+encyclopedia of the knowledge of his time. It was called the Greater
+Triple Mirror and there is no doubt that it reflected the knowledge of
+his period. He had the true scientific spirit and constantly cites the
+authorities from whom his information was derived. He cites hundreds
+of authors and there is scarcely a subject that he does not touch on.
+One book of his work is concerned with human anatomy, and the
+concluding portion of it is an abbreviation of history carried down to
+the year 1250."
+
+  [Footnote 22: Puschmann. Hand-Buch der Geschichte der Medizin, Jena,
+  Fischer, 1902.]
+
+It might be considered that such a compend of information would be
+very dry-as-dust reading and that it would be fragmentary in character
+and little likely to be attractive except to a serious student. Dr.
+Pagel's opinion does not agree with this _a priori_ impression. He
+says with regard to it: {234} "The language is clear, readily
+intelligible, and the information is conveyed usually in an excellent,
+simple style. Through the introduction of interesting similes the
+contents do not lack a certain taking quality, so that the reading of
+the work easily becomes absorbing." This is, I suppose, almost the
+last thing that might be expected of a scientific teacher in the
+Thirteenth Century, because, after all, Vincent of Beauvais must be
+considered as one of the schoolmen, and they are supposed to be
+eminently arid, but evidently, if we are to trust this testimony of a
+modern German physician, only by those who have not taken the trouble
+to read them.
+
+One of the most important works of Thirteenth Century prose is the
+well-known Rationale Divinorum Officiorum (Significance of the Divine
+Offices) written by William Durandus, the Bishop of Mende, in France,
+whose tomb and its inscription in the handsome old Gothic Cathedral of
+Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, in Rome, shares with the body of St.
+Catherine of Sienna the honor of attracting so many visitors. The book
+has been translated into English under the title. The Symbolism of
+Churches and Church Ornaments, and has been very widely read. It was
+very popular in the Thirteenth Century, and the best possible idea of
+its subsequent reputation can be gathered from the fact, that the
+Rationale was the first work from the pen of an uninspired writer to
+be accorded the privilege of being printed. The Editio Princeps, a
+real first edition of supreme value, appeared from the press of John
+Fust in 1459. The only other books that had been printed at that time
+were the Psalters of 1457 and 1459. This edition is, of course, of the
+most extreme rarity. According to the English translators of Durandus
+the beauty of the typography has seldom been exceeded.
+
+The style of Durandus has been praised very much by the critics of
+succeeding centuries for its straightforwardness, simplicity and
+brevity. Most of these qualities it evidently owes to the hours spent
+by its author in the reading of Holy Scriptures. Durandus fashioned
+his style so much on the sacred writings that most of his book
+possesses something of the impressive character of the Bible itself.
+The impression derived from it is that of reading a book on a
+religious subject written {235} in an eminently suitable tone and
+spirit. Most of this impression must be attributed without doubt to
+the fact, that Durandus has not only formed his style on the
+Scriptures, but has actually incorporated Scriptural expressions in
+his writings to such an extent as to make them mostly a scriptural
+composition. This, far from being a fault, appears quite appropriate
+in his book because of its subject and the method of treatment. A
+quotation from the proeme (as it is in the quaint spelling of the
+English translation) will give the best idea of this.
+
+  "All things, as pertain to offices and matters ecclesiastical, be
+  full of divine significations and mysterious, and overflow with
+  celestial sweetness; if so be that a man be diligent in his study of
+  them, and know how to draw HONEY FROM THE ROCK, AND OIL FROM THE
+  HARDEST STONE. But who KNOWETH THE ORDINANCES OF HEAVEN, OR CAN FIX
+  THE REASONS THEREOF UPON THE EARTH? for he that prieth into their
+  majesty, is overwhelmed by the glory of them. Of a truth THE WELL IS
+  DEEP, AND I HAVE NOTHING TO DRAW WITH: unless he giveth it unto me
+  WHO GIVETH TO ALL MEN LIBERALLY, AND UPBRAIDETH NOT: so that WHILE I
+  JOURNEY THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS I may DRAW WATER WITH JOY OUT OF THE
+  WELLS OF SALVATION. Wherefore albeit of the things handed down from
+  our forefathers, capable we are not to explain all, yet if among
+  them there be any thing which is done without reason it should be
+  forthwith put away. Wherefore, I, WILLIAM, by the alone tender mercy
+  of God, Bishop of the Holy Church which is in Mende, will knock
+  diligently at the door, if so be that THE KEY OF DAVID will open
+  unto me: that the King may BRING ME INTO HIS TREASURE? and shew unto
+  me the heavenly pattern which was shewed unto Moses in the mount: so
+  that I may learn those things which pertain to Rites Ecclesiastical
+  whereof they teach and what they signify: and that I may be able
+  plainly to reveal and make manifest the reasons of them, by HIS
+  help, WHO HATH ORDAINED STRENGTH OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES AND
+  SUCKLINGS: WHOSE SPIRITS BLOWETH WHERE IT {236} LISTETH: DIVIDING TO
+  EACH SEVERALLY AS IT WILL to the praise and glory of the Trinity."
+
+This passage alone of Durandus would serve as an excellent refutation
+of the old-time Protestant tradition, fortunately now dying out though
+not as yet entirely eradicated, which stated so emphatically that the
+Bible was not allowed to be read before Luther's time.
+
+Those who wish to obtain a good idea of Durandus' style and the way he
+presents his material, can obtain it very well from his chapter on
+Bells, the first two paragraphs of which we venture to quote. They
+will be found quite as full of interesting information in their way as
+any modern writer might have brought together, and have the dignity
+and simplicity of the best modern prose.
+
+  "Bells are brazen vessels, and were first invented in Nola, a city
+  of Campania. Wherefore the larger bells are called Campanae, from
+  Campania the district, and the smaller Nolae, from Nola the town.
+
+  "You must know that bells, by the sound of which the people
+  assembleth together to the church to hear, and the Clergy to preach,
+  IN THE MORNING THE MERCY OF GOD AND HIS POWER BY NIGHT do signify
+  the silver trumpets, by which under the Old Law the people was
+  called together unto sacrifice. (Of these trumpets we shall speak in
+  our Sixth Book.) For just as the watchmen in a camp rouse one
+  another by trumpets, so do the Ministers of the Church excite each
+  other by the sound of bells to watch the livelong night against the
+  plots of the Devil. Wherefore our brazen bells are more sonorous
+  than the trumpets of the Old Law, because then GOD was known in
+  Judea only, but now in the whole earth. They be also more durable:
+  For they signify that the teaching of the New Testament will be more
+  lasting than the trumpets and sacrifices of the Old Law, namely,
+  even unto the end of the world.
+
+  "Again bells do signify preachers, who ought after the likeness of a
+  bell to exhort the faithful unto faith: the which was typified in
+  that the LORD commanded Moses to make a vestment for the High Priest
+  who entered into the Holy of Holies. Also the cavity of the bell
+  denoteth the mouth of the preacher, {237} according to the saying of
+  the Apostle, I AM BECOME AS SOUNDING BRASS ON A TINKLING CYMBAL."
+
+Of course there are what we would be apt to consider exaggerations of
+symbolic meanings and far-fetched explanations and references, but
+this was of the taste of the time and has not in subsequent centuries
+been so beyond the canons of good taste as at present. Durandus goes
+on to tell that the hardness of the metal of the bell signifies
+fortitude in the mind of the preacher, that the wood of the frame on
+which the bell hangeth doth signify the wood of our Lord's Cross, that
+the rope by which the bell is strung is humility and also showeth the
+measure of life, that the ring in the length of the rope is the crown
+of reward for perseverance unto the end, and then proceeds to show why
+and how often the bells are rung and what the significance of each
+ringing is. He explains why the bells are silent for three days before
+Easter and also during times of interdict, and gives as the
+justification for this last the quotation from the Prophet "I WILL
+MAKE THY TONGUE CLEAVE TO THE ROOF OF THY MOUTH FOR THEY ARE A
+REBELLIOUS HOUSE."
+
+Even these few specimens of the prose of the Thirteenth Century, will
+serve to show that the writers of the period could express themselves
+with a vigor and directness which have made their books interesting
+reading for generations long after their time, and which stamp their
+authors as worthy of a period that found enduring and adequate modes
+of expression for every form of thought and feeling.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+STONE CARVING (PARIS)
+
+
+{238}
+
+XV
+
+ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA.
+
+
+The last place in the world, perhaps, that one would look for a great
+impulse to the development of the modern drama, which is entirely a
+new invention, an outgrowth of Christian culture and has practically
+no connection with the classic drama, would be in the life of St.
+Francis of Assisi. His utter simplicity, his thorough-going and
+cordial poverty, his sincere endeavor all during his life to make
+little of himself, might seem quite enough to forbid any thought of
+him as the father of a literary movement of this kind. "The poor
+little man of God," however, as he liked to call himself, in his
+supreme effort to get back to nature and out of the ways of the
+conventional world, succeeded in accomplishing a number of utterly
+unexpected results. His love for nature led to his wonderful
+expression of his feelings in his favorite hymn, one of the first
+great lyrical outbursts in modern poetry, a religious poem which as we
+shall see in the chapter on the Father of the Renaissance, Renan
+declares can only be appreciated properly by comparing it with the old
+Hebrew psalms, beside which it is worthy to be placed.
+
+Those who know the life of St. Francis best will easily appreciate how
+dramatic, though unconsciously so, were all the actions of his life.
+After all, his utter renunciation of all things, his taking of holy
+poverty to be his bride, his address to the birds, his sisters, his
+famous question of the butcher as to why he killed his brothers, the
+sheep, his personification of the sun and the moon and even of the
+death of the body as his brothers and sisters, are all eminently
+dramatic moments. His life is full of incidents that lent themselves,
+because of their dramatic quality, to the painters of succeeding
+centuries as the subjects of their striking pictures. Before the end
+of the century Giotto had picked out some of the most interesting of
+these for the decorative illustration of the upper church at {239}
+Assisi. During the succeeding century, the author of the Little
+Flowers of St. Francis, embodied many of these beautiful scenes in his
+little work, where they have been the favorite reading of poets for
+many centuries since.
+
+It should not be such a surprise as it might otherwise be, then, to
+find that St. Francis may be considered in one sense as the father of
+the modern drama. The story is a very pretty one and has an additional
+value because it has been illustrated by no less a brush than that of
+Giotto. One Christmas Eve just at the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century, St. Francis gathered round him some of the poor people living
+outside of the town of Assisi, in order to recall vividly to them the
+great event which had taken place on that night so many centuries
+before. A little figure of a child, dressed in swaddling clothes, was
+laid on some straw in a manger with the breath of the nearby animals
+to warm it. To this manger throne of the Child King of Bethlehem,
+there came in adoration, after the hymns that recalled the angels'
+visit, first some of the shepherds from the surrounding country and
+then some of the country people who represented the kings from the
+East with their retinues, bringing with them their royal gifts. After
+this little scene, probably one of the first Nativity plays that had
+ever been given, St. Francis, according to the old legend, took the
+little image in his arms and in an excess of devotion pressed it to
+his heart. According to the old-time story, the infant came to life in
+his embrace and putting its little arms around his neck embraced him
+in return. Of course our modern generation is entirely too devoted to
+"common sense" to accept any such pretty, pious story as this as more
+than a beautiful poetic legend. The legend has provided a subject for
+poet and painter many a time in subsequent centuries. Perhaps never
+has it been used with better effect than by Giotto, whose
+representation is one of the favorite pictures on the wall of the
+upper church of Assisi. Whether the little baby figure of the play
+actually came to life in his arms or not we do not know, but one thing
+is certain, that infant modern dramatic literature did come to life at
+the moment and that before the end of the Thirteenth Century it was to
+have a vigor and an influence that made it {240} one of the great
+factors in the social life of the period. The Franciscans were soon
+spread over the world. With filial reverence they took with them all
+the customs of their loved Father of Assisi, and especially such as
+appealed to the masses and brought home to them in a vivid way the
+great truths of religion. By the middle of the century many of the
+towns had cycles of mystery plays given at various times during the
+year, associated with the different feasts and illustrating and
+enforcing the lessons of the liturgy for the people in a manner so
+effective that it has probably never been equaled before or since.
+
+While the most potent factor in the dissemination of the early
+religious drama can be traced to Francis and the Franciscans, they
+were but promoters of a movement already well begun. Mystery plays
+were attempted before the Thirteenth Century in England and in North
+France. There is a well-known story from Matthew Paris, who wrote
+about the middle of the Thirteenth Century, of one Geoffrey who
+afterwards became Abbot of St. Albans. While yet a secular he borrowed
+certain precious religious vestments to be used in some sort of a
+miracle play in honor of St. Catherine. During the performance of the
+play, these vestments were destroyed by fire and Geogory was so much
+afflicted by the misfortune that in a spirit of reparation he became a
+religious in the Abbey of St. Albans. This must have been about the
+beginning of the Twelfth Century. Towards the end of this century
+mystery plays were not infrequent, though not in anything like the
+developed form nor popular character which they acquired during the
+Thirteenth Century. Fitz Stephen, writing the life of St. Thomas a
+Becket, towards the end of the Twelfth Century, contrasts the holier
+plays of London in his days with the theatrical spectacles of ancient
+Rome. The plays he mentioned were, however, scarcely more than slight
+developments of Church ceremonial with almost literal employment of
+scripture and liturgical language.
+
+{opp240}
+[Illustration]
+ST. FRANCIS' NATIVITY PLAY (GIOTTO)
+
+
+The first cycle of mystery plays of which there is definite mention is
+that of Chester. According to the proclamation of the Chester plays,
+the representation of this cycle dates in some form from the mayoralty
+of John Arneway, who was the {241} Mayor of Chester, between 1268 and
+1276. Of the series of plays as given in the Thirteenth Century there
+are few remains. It is probable, even, that at this early date they
+were not acted in English but in French. English plays were probably
+first given in some of the Cathedral towns along the east coast of
+England, and perhaps York should have the credit of this innovation.
+It is easy to understand how the simpler dramatic additions to the
+ritual of the Church would inevitably develop in the earnest and very
+full religious life of the people which came with the building of the
+cathedrals, the evolution of Church ceremonial and the social life
+fostered by the trade-guilds of the time. While we have none of the
+remains of the actual plays of the Thirteenth Century, there is no
+doubt that an excellent idea of their form and content can be gathered
+from the English mystery plays, that have recently been edited in
+modern form and which serve to show the characteristics of the various
+cycles.
+
+It might perhaps be thought that these mystery plays would not furnish
+any great amount of entertainment for the populace, especially after
+they had seen them a certain number of times. The yearly repetition
+might naturally be expected to bring with it before long a satiety
+that would lead to inattention. As is well known, however, there is an
+enduring interest about these old religious stories that makes them of
+much greater attractiveness than most ordinary historical traditions.
+Many a faithful reader of the Bible finds constantly renewed interest
+in the old Biblical stories in spite of frequent repetition. Their
+significance to the eye of faith in the Middle Ages gave them, beyond
+any doubt, that quality which in any literary work will exemplify and
+fulfill Horace's dictum, _decies repetita placebit_. Besides, it must
+not be forgotten that the men and women of the Thirteenth Century had
+not the superficial facilities of the printing press to cloy their
+intellectual curiosity, and by trivial titillation make them
+constantly crave novelty.
+
+It must not be thought, in spite of the fact that these were religious
+plays, that they were always so serious as to be merely instructive
+without being amusing. A large fund of amusement was injected into the
+old biblical stories by the {242} writers of the different cycles and
+undoubtedly the actors themselves added certain personal elements in
+this matter, which still further enhanced some of the comical aspects
+of the solemn stories. Nearly always the incidents of the Scriptural
+narrative though followed more or less literally, were treated with a
+large humanity that could scarcely fail to introduce elements of humor
+into the dramatic performances. Such liberties, however, were taken
+only with characters not mentioned by the Bible--the inventions of the
+writers. A series of quotations from the Chester Cycle of Plays will
+best illustrate this. We give them in the quaint spelling of the
+oldest version extant. The scene we quote is from the play dealing
+with Noah's flood and pictures Noah's wife as a veritable shrew.
+
+NOYE--
+  Wyffe, in this vessel we shall be kepte:
+  My children and thou, I woulde in ye lepte.
+
+Noye's Wiffe--
+  In fayth, Noye, I hade as leffe thou slepte!
+    For all thy frynishe fare,
+  I will not doe after thy reade.
+
+Noye--
+  Good wyffe, doe nowe as I thee bydde.
+
+Noye's Wiffe--
+  Be Christe! not or I see more neede,
+    Though thou stande all the daye and stare.
+
+Noye--
+  Lorde, that wemen be crabbed aye,
+  And non are meke, I dare well saye.
+  This is well seene by me to daye,
+    In witnesse of you ichone (each one).
+  Goodwiffe, lett be all this beare,
+  That thou maiste in this place heare;
+  For all the wene that thou arte maister,
+    And so thou arte, by Sante John!
+
+All Noah's artful concession of his wife's mastery in the household
+does not avail to move her and so he tries objurgation.
+
+Noye--
+  Wiffe, come in: why standes thou their?
+  Thou arte ever frowarde, I dare well sweare;
+  Come in, one Godes halfe! tyme yt were,
+    For feare leste that we drowne.
+
+{243}
+
+Noye's Wiffe--
+  Yes, sir, sette up youer saile,
+  And rowe fourth with evill haile,
+  For withouten (anye) fayle
+    I will not oute of this towne;
+  But I have my gossippes everyechone,
+  One foote further I will not gone:
+  The shall not drowne, by Sainte John!
+    And I may save ther life.
+  The loven me full well, by Christe!
+  But thou lett them into thy cheiste, (ark)
+  Elles rowe nowe wher thee leiste,
+    And gette thee a newe wiffe.
+
+It is evident that he will not succeed so Noah, wise doubtless with
+the wisdom of experience, forbears to urge but appeals to her sons to
+bring her.
+
+NOYE--
+  Seme, sonne, loe! thy mother is wrawe:
+  Forsooth, such another I doe not knowe.
+
+Sem--
+  Father, I shall fetch her in, I trowe,
+    Withoutten anye fayle.--
+  Mother, my father after thee sends.
+  And byddes thee into yeinder shippe wende.
+  Loke up and see the wynde.
+    For we bene readye to sayle.
+
+Noye's Wiffe--
+  Seme, goe againe to hym, I saie;
+  I will not come theirin to daye.
+
+Noye--
+  Come in, wiffe, in twentye devilles waye!
+    Or elles stand there without.
+
+Ham--
+  Shall we all feche her in?
+
+Noye--
+  Yea, sonnes, in Christe blessinge and myne!
+  I woulde you hied you be-tyme.
+    For of this flude I am in doubte.
+
+Jeffatte--
+  Mother, we praye you all together.
+  For we are heare, youer owne childer.
+  Come into the shippe for feare of the weither,
+    For his love that you boughte!
+
+{244}
+
+Noye's Wiffe--
+  That will not I, for all youer call,
+  But I have my gossippes all.
+
+Sem--
+  In faith, mother, yett you shalle,
+  Wheither thou wylte or (nought).
+
+_(Her sons bring her in; as she steps aboard she is greeted by Noah.)_
+
+Noye--
+  Welckome, wiffe, into this botte.
+
+Noye's Wiffe--
+  Have thou that for thy note!
+  (_Giving her husband a cuff on the head_).
+
+Noye--
+  Ha, ha! Marye, this is hotte!
+    It is good for to be still.
+  Ha! children, me thinkes my botte remeves,
+  Our tarryinge heare highlye me greves,
+  Over the lande the watter spreades;
+    God doe as he will.
+
+This quotation will give a good idea of the human interest of these
+Mystery Plays and serve to show that they did not fail in dramatic
+power for any lack of humor or acute observation. It would be easy to
+illustrate this much more amply. The opportunities to enjoy these
+plays were abundant. We have said that the Chester Cycle is the one of
+which there is earliest mention. The method of its presentation has
+been described by Mr. Henry Morley in the fourth volume of his English
+Writers. He says:
+
+  "There were scaffolds erected for spectators in those places to
+  which the successive pageants would be drawn; and a citizen who on
+  the first day saw in any place the first pageant (that of the Fall
+  of Lucifer), if he kept his place and returned to it in good time on
+  each successive morning, would see the Scripture story, as thus
+  told, pass in its right order before him. Each pageant was drawn on
+  four or six wheels, and had a room in which the actors and
+  properties were concealed, under the upper room or stage on which
+  they played."
+
+Mr. Morley then describes the action of the various parts of the
+cycle, showing how clearly the lessons of the Old Testament history
+and its symbolic and typical meaning were pointed out so that the
+spectators could not miss them.
+
+{245}
+
+How completely the story of the Bible was told may be judged from the
+order of the Pageants of the Play of Corpus Christi, in the time of
+the mayoralty of William Alne, in the third year of the reign of King
+Henry V., compiled by Roger Burton, town clerk.
+
+1. Tanners.
+
+  God the Father Almighty creating and forming the heavens, angels and
+  archangels, Lucifer and the angels that fell with him to hell.
+
+2. Plasterers.
+
+  God the Father, in his own substance, creating the earth and all
+  which is therein, in the space of five days.
+
+3. Cardmakers.
+
+  God the Father creating Adam of the clay of the earth and making Eve
+  of Adam's rib, and inspiring them with the breath of life.
+
+4. Fullers.
+
+  God forbidding Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of life.
+
+5. Coopers.
+
+  Adam and Eve and a tree betwixt them; the serpent deceiving them
+  with apples; God speaking to them and cursing the serpent, and with
+  a sword driving them out of paradise.
+
+6. Armourers.
+
+  Adam and Eve, an angel with a spade and distaff assigning them work.
+
+7. Gaunters (Glovers).
+
+  Abel and Cain offering victims in sacrifice.
+
+8. Shipwrights.
+
+  God warning Noah to make an Ark of floatable wood,
+
+9. Pessoners (Fishmongers) and Mariners.
+
+  Noah in the Ark, with his wife; the three sons of Noah with their
+  wives; with divers animals.
+
+10. Parchment-makers, Bookbinders.
+
+  Abraham sacrificing his son, Isaac, on an altar, a boy with wood and
+  an angel.
+
+11. Hosiers.
+
+  Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness; King Pharaoh; eight
+  Jews wondering and expecting.
+
+12. Spicers.
+
+  A Doctor declaring the sayings of the prophets of the future birth
+  of Christ. Mary; an angel saluting her; Mary saluting Elizabeth.
+
+13. Pewterers, Founders.
+
+  Mary, Joseph wishing to put her away; an angel speaking to them that
+  they go to Bethlehem.
+
+{246}
+
+14. Tylers.
+
+  Mary, Joseph, a midwife; the Child born, lying in a manger betwixt
+  an ox and an ass, and an angel speaking to the shepherds, and to the
+  players in the next pageant.
+
+15. Chandlers.
+
+  The shepherds talking together, the star in the East; an angel
+  giving the shepherds the good tidings of the Child's birth.
+
+16, 17. Orfevers (Goldsmiths), Goldbeaters, Moneymakers.
+
+  The three kings coming from the East, Herod asking them about the
+  child Jesus; the son of Herod, two counsellors, and a messenger.
+  Mary with the Child, a star above, and the three kings offering
+  gifts.
+
+How completely the people of each town were engaged in the
+presentation of the plays, can be judged from the following
+supplementary list of the other trade guilds that took parts. Many of
+them bear quaint names, which are now obsolete. They included the
+girdellers, makers of girdles; nailers, sawyers, lorymers (bridle
+makers), the spurriers (makers of spurs), the fevers or smiths, the
+curriers, the plumbers, the pattern-makers, the bottlers, the
+cap-makers, the skinners, the bladesmiths, the scalers, the
+buckle-makers, the cordwainers, the bowyers (makers of bows), the
+fletchers (arrow-featherers), the tilemakers, the hayresters (workers
+in horse hair), the boilers (bowl-makers), the tunners, the sellers or
+saddlers; the fuystours (makers of saddle tree), the verrours
+(glaziers), the broggours (brokers), the dubbers (refurbishers of
+clothes), the luminers or illuminators, the scriveners, the drapers,
+the potters, the weavers, the hostlers and mercers. The men of no
+occupation, however menial it may seem to us, were barred. Each of
+these companies had a special pageant with a portion of the Old or New
+Testament to represent and in each succeeding year spent much of their
+spare time in preparing for their dramatic performance, studying and
+practising their parts and making everything ready for competition
+with their brother craftsmen in the other pageants. Only those who
+know the supreme educative value of dramatic representations for those
+actively interested in them, will appreciate all that these plays
+meant for popular education in the best sense of the word, but all can
+readily understand how much they stood for in popular occupation of
+mind with high thoughts and how {247} much they must have acted as a
+preventive of debasing dissipations.
+
+It is extremely interesting to follow out some of the details of the
+management of these Mystery Plays. We shall find in even the meagre
+accounts that we have of them, sufficient to show us that men were not
+expected to work for nothing, nor even to be satisfied with what
+compensation there might be in the honor of being chosen for certain
+parts, nor in the special banquets that were provided for the actors
+after the performances. A definite salary was paid to each of the
+actors according to the importance of the part he took. Not only this,
+but the loans of garments for costume purposes, or of furniture or
+other material for stage properties, was repaid by definite sums of
+money. These are not large, but, considering the buying power of money
+at that time and the wages paid workmen, which enabled them to live at
+least as well, comparatively, as modern workmen, the compensation is
+ample. Mr. Morley, in the fourth volume of his "English Writers," has
+given us some of these details and as they have a special social
+interest and the old documents rejoice in a comic literalness of
+statement, they deserve citation.
+
+When about to set up a play, each guild chose for itself a competent
+manager, to whom it gave the rule of the pageant, and voted a fixed
+sum for its expenses. The play-book and the standing wardrobe and
+other properties were handed over to him, and he was accountable, of
+course, for their return after the close of the performances. The
+manager had to appoint his actors, to give them their several parts
+written out for them (perhaps by the prompter, who was a regular
+official), and to see to the rehearsals, of which there would be two
+for an old play and at least five for a new one.
+
+At rehearsal time, as well as during the great performance the actors
+ate and drank at the cost of the guild, ending all with a supper, at
+which they had roast beef and roast goose, with wine for the chiefs,
+and beer for the rest. The actors were paid, of course, according to
+the length of their parts and quantity of business in them, not their
+dignity. Thus in a play setting forth the Trial and Crucifixion of our
+Lord, the actors of Herod and Caiaphas received each 3s. 4d.; {248}
+the representative of Annas, 2s. 2d.; and of Christ 2s.; which was
+also the sum paid to each actor in the parts of His executioners, and
+6d. more than was paid for acting the Devil or Judas. In the united
+plays of the "Descent into Hell" and the "Ascension," the payment was
+to the actor who represented Christ, 1s. 6d.; and 1s. 4d. to him who
+played the Devil. In one play we find this gradation of the scale of
+payment to performers:--"Paid, for playing of Peter, xvid.; to two
+damsels, xiid.; to the demon, vid.; to Fawston for hanging Judas,
+ivd.; paid to Fawston for cock-crowing, ivd."
+
+
+{opp248}
+
+[Illustration]
+PALAZZO BUONDELMONTE (FLORENCE)
+
+[Illustration]
+PALAZZO TOLOMEI (SIENA)
+
+
+Of the costume of the actors, and of the stage furniture a tolerably
+clear notion is also to be drawn from the Coventry account-books, of
+which Mr. Sharp printed all that bears upon such questions. They
+record, of course, chiefly repairs and renewals of stage properties
+and wardrobe. "In one year Pilate has a new green cloak, in another a
+new hat. Pilate's wife was Dame Procula, and we have such entries as,
+'For mending of Dame Procula's garments, viid.' 'To reward to Mrs.
+Grimsby for lending of her gear for Pilate's wife, xiid.' 'For a quart
+of wine for hiring Porcula's gown, iid.' No actor had naked hands.
+Those not in masks had their faces prepared by a painter. The costume
+of each part was traditional, varied little in the course of years,
+and much of it was originally designed after the pictures and painted
+sculpture in the churches. As in those medieval decorations, gilding
+was used freely; the performer of Christ wore a gilt peruke and beard,
+so did Peter, and probably all the Apostles or saints who would be
+represented on church walls with a gilt nimbus." Christ's coat was of
+white sheep-skin, painted and gilded, with a girdle and red sandals.
+The part of the High Priests Caiaphas and Annas were often played in
+ecclesiastical robes hired from a church, a practice (one sad result
+of which because of fire has already been noted) that was eventually
+condemned as likely to lead to disrespect for sacred objects. Herod,
+who wore a mask, was set up as a sceptred royal warrior in a gilt and
+silvered helmet, in armour and gown of blue satin, with such Saracen
+details of dress as the Crusaders connected with the worship of
+Mahomet, including the crooked faulchion, which was gilt. The
+tormentors of Christ wore jackets of black {249} buckram with nails
+and dice upon them. The Virgin Mary was crowned, as in her images. The
+angels wore white surplices and wings. The devil also had wings, and
+was played in an appropriate mask and leather dress trimmed with
+feathers and hair. He was, as the Prologue to the Chester Plays
+describes him, "the devil in his feathers all ragged and rent," or, as
+the Coventry account-books show, carried three pounds of hair upon his
+hose.
+
+There was probably no greater impulse for social uplift and for real
+education of the masses than these mystery and morality plays, in
+which the people took part themselves and in which, as a consequence
+of the presence of friends in the various roles, the spectators had a
+livelier interest than would have been otherwise the case under even
+the most favorable circumstances, or with elaborate presentation. In
+recent years there has come the realization that the drama may thus be
+made a real educational influence. Unfortunately at the present time,
+whatever of influence it has is exerted almost exclusively upon the
+better-to-do classes, who have so many other opportunities for
+educational uplift. These plays during the Thirteenth Century brought
+the people intimately into contact with the great characters of Old
+Testament and New Testament history, and besides giving them precious
+religious information, which of itself, however, might mean very
+little for true education, helped them to an insight into character
+and to a right appreciation of human actions and a sympathy with what
+was right even though it entailed suffering, such as could not have
+otherwise been obtained.
+
+Of course it is easy to say that such dramas constantly repeated, the
+subjects always the same and only the cast varying from year to year,
+would become intolerably familiar and might after a time degenerate
+into the merely contemptible. As a matter of fact, however, they did
+not. These old stories of religious heroes were written so close to
+the heart of nature, involved so intimately all the problems of life
+that they are of undying interest. Their repetition was only from year
+to year and this did not give the opportunity for the familiarity
+which breeds contempt. Besides, though the plays in the various cycles
+existed in definite forms there seems no doubt that {250} certain
+changes were made by the players themselves and by the managers of the
+plays from time to time, and indeed such changes of the text of a play
+as we know from present-day experience, are almost inevitable.
+
+It might be urged, too, that the people themselves would scarcely be
+possessed of the histrionic talent necessary to make the plays
+effective. Ordinarily, however, as we know from our modern city life,
+much less of the actor's art is needed than of interest in the action,
+to secure the attention of the gallery. It must not be assumed too
+readily, however, that the guilds which were able to supply men for
+the great artistic decoration of the cathedrals of the Thirteenth
+Century, could not supply actors who would so enter into the artistic
+expression of a part as to represent it to the life. The actor is more
+born than made, in spite of the number of schools of acting that are
+supposed to be turning out successful rivals of Roscius, on recurring
+graduation days. It must not be forgotten that the only example of
+these mystery plays which is still left to us is the Passion Play at
+Oberammergau, and that is one of the world's greatest spectacles. On
+the last occasion when it was given about half a million of people
+from all over the world, many of them even from distant America and
+Australia, found their way into the Tyrolese Mountains in order to be
+present at it. It is only the old, old, old story of the Passion and
+death of the Lord. It is represented by villagers chosen from among
+the inhabitants of a little village of fourteen hundred inhabitants,
+who while they have a distinct taste for the artistic and produce some
+of the best wood-carving done anywhere in Europe, thus approximating
+very interestingly the Thirteenth Century peoples, are not
+particularly noted for their education, nor for their dramatic
+ability. No one who went up to see the Passion Play came away
+dissatisfied either with the interest of the play or with its manner
+of representation. It is distinctly an example of how well men and
+women do things when they are thoroughly interested in them, and when
+they are under the influence of an old-time tradition according to
+which they must have the ability to accomplish what is expected of
+them. Such a tradition actually existed during the Thirteenth and
+Fourteenth centuries, leading to a gradual development of {251}
+dramatic power both in writers and actors, that eventually was to
+result in the magnificent outburst of dramatic genius during the
+Elizabethan period. For it must not be forgotten, that mystery and
+morality plays continued to hold the stage down almost, if not quite,
+to the time of Shakespeare's early manhood, and he probably saw the
+Coventry Cycle of plays acted.
+
+While we have a certain number of these old-time plays, most of them,
+of course, have disappeared by time's attrition during the centuries
+before the invention of printing, when they were handed round only in
+manuscript form. Of some of these plays we shall have something to say
+after a moment, stopping only to call attention to the fact that in
+this literary mode of the mystery and morality plays, dramatic
+literature in English reached a height of development which has been
+equaled only by our greatest dramatic geniuses.
+
+Within the last few years most of the large cities of the
+English-speaking world, besides the more important universities, have
+been given the opportunity to hear one of the great products of this
+form of literary activity. "Everyman" is probably as great a play as
+there is in English and comparable with the best work of Shakespeare,
+Marlowe and Jonson. Its author only took the four last things to be
+remembered--Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell--the things which must
+come to every man, and wrote his story around them, yet he did it with
+such artistic effectiveness as to make his drama a triumph of literary
+execution.
+
+The Mystery Plays were as interesting in their way to the medieval
+generations as "Everyman" to us. As may be seen from the list quoted
+from Mr. Morley, practically all the significant parts of the Bible
+story were acted by these craftsmen. Too much can scarcely be said of
+the educational value of such dramatic exercises; the Bible itself
+with its deep religious teachings, with its simple but sublime style,
+with its beautiful poetry, entered for a time into the very lives of
+these people. No wonder that our English speech during these centuries
+became saturated with biblical thoughts and words. Anyone who has ever
+had any experience with amateur theatricals when a really great play
+was given, will be able to realize how much more thoroughly every
+quality, dramatic, literary, poetic, even lyric {252} and historical,
+that there might be in the drama, entered into the hearts and minds of
+those who took part. It is this feature that is especially deserving
+of attention with regard to these mystery plays which began in the
+Thirteenth Century. The people's interest in them, lifted them out of
+themselves and their trivial round of life into the higher life of
+this great religious poetry. On the other hand the teachings of the
+Bible came down from the distant plane on which they might otherwise
+have been set and entered into the very life of the people. Their
+familiarity with scripture made it a something not to be discussed
+merely, but to be applied in their everyday affairs.
+
+Besides this, the organization of the company to give the play and the
+necessity for the display and exercise of taste in the costumes and of
+ingenuity in the stage settings, were of themselves of great educative
+value. The rivalry that naturally existed between the various
+companies chosen from the different guilds only added to the zest with
+which rehearsals were taken up, and made the play more fully occupy
+the minds of those actively engaged in its preparation. For several
+dull winter months before Easter time there was an intense
+preoccupation of mind with great thoughts and beautiful words, instead
+of with the paltry round of daily duties, which would otherwise form
+the burden of conversation. Gossip and scandal mongering had fewer
+opportunities since people's minds were taken up by so much worthier
+affairs. The towns in which the plays were given never had more than a
+few thousand inhabitants and most of them must have been personally
+interested in some way in the play. The Jesuits, whose acumen for
+managing students is proverbial, have always considered it of great
+importance to have their students prepare plays several times a year.
+Their reason is the occupation of mind which it affords as well as the
+intellectual and elocutionary training that comes with the work. What
+they do with premeditation, the old guilds did unconsciously but even
+more effectively, and their success must be considered as one of the
+social triumphs of this wonderful Thirteenth Century.
+
+Only in recent years has the idea succeeded in making way in
+government circles on the continent, that the giving of free dramatic
+entertainments for the poor would form an excellent {253} addition to
+other educational procedures. Such performances have new been given
+for nearly a score of years in Berlin. After all, the subvention
+allowed by government to the great theaters and opera houses in Europe
+is part of this same policy, though unfortunately they are calculated
+to affect only the upper classes, who need the help and the stimulus
+of great dramatic art and great music less than the lower classes, who
+have so little of variety or of anything that makes for uplift in
+their lives. In the Thirteenth Century this very modern notion was
+anticipated in such a way as to benefit the very poorest of the
+population, and that not only passively, that is by the hearing of
+dramatic performances, but also actively, by taking parts in them and
+so having all the details of the action and the words impressed upon
+them.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+CAPITAL (LINCOLN)
+
+
+{254}
+
+XVI
+
+FRANCIS THE SAINT--THE FATHER OF THE RENAISSANCE.
+
+
+The Renaissance is often thought of as a movement which originated
+about the middle of the Fifteenth Century. Careful students sometimes
+trace its origin back somewhat further. In recent years it has come to
+be realized, however, that the great intellectual development which
+came during the century after the fall of Constantinople in Italy, and
+gradually spread to all the civilized countries of Europe, had been
+preparing for at least two centuries and a half. While the period from
+the middle of the Fifteenth to the end of the Sixteenth Centuries well
+deserves the name of Renaissance, because one of the most important
+fructifying principles of the movement was the rebirth of Greek ideas
+into the modern world after the dispersion of Greek scholars by the
+Turkish advance into the Byzantine Empire, the term must not be
+allowed to carry with it the mistaken notion which only too often has
+been plausibly accepted, that there was a new birth of poetic,
+literary and esthetic ideas at this time, just as if there had been
+nothing worth considering in these lines before. Any such notion as
+this would be the height of absurdity in the light of the history of
+the previous centuries in Italy. It was a cherished notion of the
+people of the Renaissance themselves that they were the first to do
+artistic and literary work, hence they invented the term Gothic,
+meaning thereby barbarous, for the art of the preceding time, but in
+this they were only exercising that amusing, self-complacency which
+each generation deems its right. Succeeding generations adopting their
+depreciative term have turned it into one of glory so that Gothic art
+is now in highest honor.
+
+Fortunately in recent years there has come, as we have said, a growing
+recognition of the fact that the real beginning of modern art lies
+much farther back in history, and that the real {255} father of the
+Italian Renaissance is a man whom very few people in the last three
+centuries have appreciated at his true worth. Undoubtedly the leader
+in that great return to nature, which constitutes the true basis of
+modern poetic and artistic ideas of all kinds, was St. Francis of
+Assisi. "The poor little man of God," as in his humility he loved to
+call himself, would surely be the last one to suspect that he should
+ever come to be thought of as the initiator of a great movement in
+literature and art. Such he was, however, in the highest sense of the
+term and because of the modern appreciation of him in this regard,
+publications concerning him have been more frequent during the last
+ten years than with regard to almost any other single individual. We
+have under our hand at the present moment what by no means claims to
+be a complete bibliography of St. Francis' life and work, yet we can
+count no less than thirty different works in various languages (not
+reckoning translations separate from the originals) which have issued
+from the press during the last ten years alone. This gives some idea
+of present day interest in St. Francis.
+
+It must not be thought, however, that it is only in our time that
+these significant tributes have been paid him. Much of his influence
+in literature and art, as well as in life, was recognized by the
+southern nations all during the centuries since his death. That it is
+only during the last century that other nations have come to
+appreciate him better, and especially have realized his literary
+significance, has been their loss and that of their literatures. At
+the beginning of the Nineteenth Century Goerres, the German historian
+who was so sympathetic towards the Middle Ages, wrote of St. Francis
+as one of the Troubadours, and even did not hesitate to add that
+without St. Francis at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century there
+would have been no Dante at the end. Renan, the well-known French
+rationalist historian and literateur, did not hesitate to proclaim St.
+Francis one of the great religious poets of all time and his famous
+Canticle of the Sun as the greatest religious poem since the Hebrew
+Psalms were written. It was from Renan that Matthew Arnold received
+his introduction to St. Francis as a literary man, and his own studies
+led him to write the famous passages in the Essays in Criticism, which
+are usually so much a source of {256} surprise to those who think of
+Mr. Arnold as the rationalizing critic, rather than the sympathetic
+admirer of a medieval saint.
+
+  "In the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, when the clouds and
+  storms had come, when the gay sensuous pagan life was gone, when men
+  were not living by the senses and understanding, when they were
+  looking for the speedy coming of Antichrist, there appeared in
+  Italy, to the north of Rome, in the beautiful Umbrian country at the
+  foot of the Appennines, a figure of the most magical power and
+  charm, St. Francis. His century is, I think, the most interesting in
+  the history of Christianity after its primitive age; more
+  interesting than even the century of the Reformation; and one of the
+  chief figures, perhaps the very chief, to which this interest
+  attaches itself, is St. Francis. And why? Because of the profound
+  popular instinct which enabled him, more than any man since the
+  primitive age, to fit religion for popular use. He brought religion
+  to the people. He founded the most popular body of ministers of
+  religion that has ever existed in the Church. He transformed
+  monachism by uprooting the stationary monk, delivering him from the
+  bondage of property, and sending him, as a mendicant friar, to be a
+  stranger and sojourner, not in the wilderness, but in the most
+  crowded haunts of men, to console them and to do them good. This
+  popular instinct of his is at the bottom of his famous marriage with
+  poverty. Poverty and suffering are the condition of the people, the
+  multitude, the immense majority of mankind; and it was towards this
+  people that his soul yearned. "He listens," it was said of him, "to
+  those to whom God himself will not listen."
+
+Matthew Arnold has thus surprisingly summed up Francis' age and his
+work. With a sympathy that could scarcely be expected from the man for
+whom the Deity had become merely "a stream of tendency that makes for
+righteousness," he realized the influence that this supreme lover of a
+personal God had over his generation, and his brother poet soul flew
+to its affinity in spite of the apparently insurmountable obstacle of'
+extreme aloofness of spiritual temperament.
+
+{opp256}
+[Illustration: ]
+THE GLORIFICATION OF ST. FRANCIS (GIOTTO, LOWER CHURCH OF ASSISI)
+
+
+Matthew Arnold proceeds:
+
+  "So in return, as no other man, St. Francis was listened to. When an
+  Umbrian town or village heard of his approach, the {257} whole
+  population went out in joyful procession to meet him, with green
+  boughs, flags, music, and songs of gladness. The master, who began
+  with two disciples, could in his own lifetime (and he died at
+  forty-five) collect to keep Whitsuntide with him, in presence of an
+  immense multitude, five thousand of his Minorites. He found
+  fulfilment to his prophetic cry: "I hear in my ears the sound of the
+  tongues of all the nations who shall come unto us; Frenchmen,
+  Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen. The Lord will make of us a great
+  people, even unto the ends of the earth."
+
+When we reach the next paragraph the secret of this surprising
+paradoxical sympathy is out. It is the literary and esthetic side of
+St. Francis that has appealed to him, and like Renan he does not
+hesitate to give "the poor little man of God" a place among the great
+original geniuses of all time, associating his name with that of
+Dante.
+
+  "Prose could not satisfy this ardent soul, and he made poetry. Latin
+  was too learned for this simple, popular nature, and he composed in
+  his mother tongue, in Italian. The beginnings of the mundane poetry
+  of the Italians are in Sicily, at the court of kings; the beginnings
+  of their religious poetry are in Umbria, with St. Francis. His are
+  the humble upper waters of a mighty stream: at the beginning of the
+  Thirteenth Century, it is St. Francis, at the end, Dante. Now it
+  happens that St. Francis, too, like the Alexandrian songstress, has
+  his hymn for the sun, for Adonis; Canticle of the Sun, Canticle of
+  the Creatures, the poem goes by both names. Like the Alexandrian
+  hymn, it is designed for popular use, but not for use by King
+  Ptolemy's people; artless in language, irregular in rhythm, it
+  matches with the childlike genius that produced it, and the simple
+  natures that loved and repeated it."
+
+Probably the most satisfactory translation for those who may not be
+able to appreciate the original of this sublime hymn that has evoked
+so many tributes, is the following literal rendering into English in
+which a quite successful attempt to give the naif rhythm of the
+original Italian, which necessarily disappears in any formal rhymed
+translation, has been made by Father Paschal Robinson of the Order of
+St. Francis for his recent edition of the writings of St. Francis.
+[Footnote 23]
+
+   [Footnote 23: Philadelphia, The Dolphin Press, 1906.]
+
+
+{258}
+
+"Here begin the praises of the Creatures which the Blessed Francis
+made to the praise and honor of God while he was ill at St. Damian's:
+
+  Most high, omnipotent, good Lord,
+  Praise, glory and honor and benediction all, are Thine.
+  To Thee alone do they belong, most High,
+  And there is no man fit to mention Thee.
+  Praise be to Thee, my Lord, with all Thy creatures.
+  Especially to my worshipful brother sun,
+  The which lights up the day, and through him dost Thou brightness give;
+  And beautiful is he and radiant with splendor great;
+  Of Thee, Most High, signification gives.
+  Praised be my Lord, for sister moon and for the stars,
+  In heaven Thou hast formed them clear and precious and fair.
+  Praised be my Lord for brother wind
+  And for the air and clouds and fair and every kind of weather.
+  By the which Thou givest to Thy creatures nourishment.
+  Praised be my Lord for sister water,
+  The which is greatly helpful and humble and precious and pure.
+  Praised be my Lord for brother fire,
+  By the which Thou lightest up the dark.
+  And fair is he and gay and mighty and strong.
+  Praised be my Lord for our sister, mother earth.
+  The which sustains and keeps us
+  And brings forth diverse fruits with grass and flowers bright.
+  Praised be my Lord for those who for Thy love forgive
+  And weakness bear and tribulation.
+  Blessed those who shall in peace endure,
+  For by Thee, Most High, shall they be crowned.
+  Praised be my Lord for our sister, the bodily death.
+  From the which no living man can flee.
+
+{259}
+
+  Woe to them who die in mortal sin;
+  Blessed those who shall find themselves in Thy most holy will,
+  For the second death shall do them no ill.
+  Praise ye and bless ye my Lord, and give Him thanks,
+  And be subject unto Him with great humility."
+
+Except for his place in literature and art, the lives of few men would
+seem to be of so little interest to the modern time as that of St.
+Francis of Assisi, yet it is for the man himself that so many now turn
+to him. His spirit is entirely opposed to the sordid principles that
+have been accepted as the basis of success in modern life. His idea
+was that happiness consisted in being free from unsatisfied desires
+rather than seeking to secure the satisfaction of his wishes. Duty was
+self-denial, not self-seeking under any pretext. He stripped himself
+literally of everything and his mystic marriage to the Lady Poverty
+was, so far as he was concerned, as absolute a reality, as if the
+union had been actual instead of imaginary. The commonplace details of
+his early years seem all the more interesting from these later
+developments, and have been the subject of much sympathetic study in
+recent years.
+
+St. Francis' father was a cloth merchant and St. Francis had been
+brought up and educated as became the son of a man whose commercial
+journeys often took him to France. It was indeed while his father was
+absent on one of these business expeditions that Francis was born and
+on his father's return received from him the name of Francisco--the
+Frenchman--in joyful commemoration of his birth.
+
+As he grew up he did not differ from the ordinary young man of his
+time, but seems to have taken the world and its pleasures quite as he
+found them and after the fashion of those around him. At the age of
+twenty-five he fell seriously ill and then, for the first time, there
+came to him the realization of the true significance of life. As Dean
+Stanley said shortly before his death, "life seemed different when
+viewed from the horizontal position." Life lived for its own sake was
+not worth while. To Francis there came the realization that when God
+Himself became man he lived his life for others. Francis {260} set
+about literally imitating him. Enthusiastic students of his life
+consider him the great type of genuine Christian, the most real
+disciple of Christ who ever lived. Some money and goods that came into
+his hands having been disposed of for the poor, Francis' father made
+serious objection and Francis was brought before the ecclesiastical
+authorities. It was at this moment that he stripped himself of
+everything that he had, the Bishop even having to provide a cloak to
+cover his nakedness, and became the wonderful apostle to the poor that
+he remained during all the rest of his life. Curious as it must ever
+seem, it was not long before he had many who wished to imitate him and
+who insisted on becoming his disciples and followers. St. Francis had
+had no idea how infectious his example was to prove. Before his death
+his disciples could be numbered by the thousands and the great order
+of the Franciscans, that for centuries was to do so much work, had
+come into existence not by any conscious planning, but by the mere
+force of the great Christian principles that were the guiding factors
+in St. Francis' own life.
+
+Ruskin in his Mornings in Florence in discussing Giotto's famous
+picture of St. Francis' renunciation of his inheritance, and his
+incurrence thereby of his father's anger, has a characteristic passage
+that sounds the very keynote of the Saint's life and goes to the heart
+of things. In it he explains the meaning of this apparently
+contradictory incident in St. Francis' life, since Francis' great
+virtue was obedience, yet here, apparently as a beginning of his more
+perfect Christian life, is an act of disobedience. After Ruskin's
+explanation, however, it is all the more difficult to understand the
+present generation's revival of interest in Francis unless it be
+attributed to a liking for contrast.
+
+  "That is the meaning of St. Francis' renouncing his inheritance; and
+  it is the beginning of Giotto's gospel of Works. Unless this hardest
+  of deeds be done first--this inheritance of mammon and the world
+  cast away,--all other deeds are useless. You cannot serve, cannot
+  obey, God and mammon. No charities, no obedience, no self-denials,
+  are of any use while you are still at heart in conformity with the
+  world. You go to church, because the world goes. You keep Sunday,
+  because your {261} neighbor keeps it. But you dress ridiculously
+  because your neighbors ask it; and you dare not do a rough piece of
+  work, because your neighbors despise it. You must renounce your
+  neighbor, in his riches and pride, and remember him in his distress.
+  That is St. Francis' 'disobedience.'"
+
+{opp261}
+[Illustration]
+ST. FRANCIS (CHURCH OF THE FRARI, VENICE, NIC. PISANO)
+
+
+In spite of Ruskin's charming explanation of St. Francis' place in
+history, and his elucidation of the hard passages in his life, most
+people will only find it more difficult, after these explanations, to
+understand the modern acute reawakening of interest in St. Francis.
+Our generation in its ardent devotion to the things of this world does
+not seem a promising field for the evangel, "Give up all thou hast and
+follow me." The mystery of St. Francis' attraction only deepens the
+more we know of him. An American Franciscan has tried to solve the
+problem and his words are worth quoting. Father Paschal Robinson, O.
+S. M., in his "The True St. Francis" says:--
+
+  "What is the cause of the present widespread homage to St. Francis?
+  It is, of course, far too wide a question to allow the present
+  writer to do more than make a few suggestions. First and foremost,
+  we must ever reckon with the perennial charm of the Saint's
+  personality, which seems to wield an ineffable influence over the
+  hearts of men--drawing and holding those of the most different
+  habits of mind, with a sense of personal sympathy. Perhaps no other
+  man, unless it be St. Paul, ever had such wide reaching,
+  all-embracing sympathy: and it may have been wider than St. Paul's,
+  for we find no evidence in the great apostle of a love for nature
+  and of animals. This exquisite Franciscan spirit, as it is called,
+  which is the very perfume of religion--this spirit at once so
+  humble, so tender, so devout, so akin to 'the good odor of
+  Christ'--passed out into the whole world and has become a permanent
+  source of inspiration. A character at once so exhalted and so
+  purified as St. Francis was sure to keep alive an ideal; and so he
+  does. From this one can easily understand St. Francis' dominance
+  among a small but earnest band of enthusiasts now pointing the world
+  back to the reign of the spirit. It was this same gentle idealism of
+  St. Francis which inspired the art of the Umbrian people; it was
+  this which was translated into the paintings of the greatest
+  artists. No school of painting has ever been penetrated with {262}
+  such pure idealism as the Umbrian; and this inspiration, at once
+  religious and artistic, came from the tomb of the _poverello_ above
+  which Giotto had painted his mystical frescoes. The earnest
+  quasi-religious study of the medieval beginnings of western art has
+  therefore rightly been set down as another cause for some of the
+  latter-day pilgrimages to Assisi. In like manner, the scientific
+  treatment of the Romance literature leads naturally to St. Francis
+  as to the humble upper waters of a mighty stream; at the beginning
+  of the Thirteenth Century is St. Francis, at the end is Dante. It
+  was Matthew Arnold, we believe, who first held up the poor man of
+  Assisi as a literary type--a type as distinct and formal as the
+  author of the _Divine Comedy_. 'Prose,' he says, 'could not easily
+  satisfy the saint's ardent soul, and so he made poetry.' 'It was,'
+  writes Ozanam, 'the first cry of a nascent poetry which has grown
+  and made itself heard through the world.'"
+
+Considering how thoroughly impractical Francis seemed to be in his
+life, it can scarcely help but be a source of ever increasing wonder
+that he succeeded in influencing, his generation so widely and so
+thoroughly. It is evident that there were many men of the time tired
+of the more or less strenuous life, which chained them either to the
+cares of business or tempted them for the sake of the bubble
+reputation into a military career. To these St. Francis' method of
+life came with an especially strong appeal. The example of his neglect
+of worldly things and of his so thoroughly maintained resolve not to
+be harassed by the ordinary cares of life, and especially not to take
+too much thought of the future, penetrated into all classes. While it
+made the rich realize how much of their lives they were living merely
+for the sake of others, it helped the poor to be satisfied, since here
+was a sublime and complete recognition of the fact that an existence
+without cares was better than one with many cares, such as were sure
+to come to those who wrought ever and anon increase of the goods of
+this world. Such ideas may seen to be essentially modern, but anyone
+who will turn to the chapter on The Three Most Read Books of the
+Century and read the passages from the "Romance of the Rose" on wealth
+and poverty, will know better than to think them anything but
+perennial.
+
+{263}
+
+Men gathered around St. Francis then and pleaded to be allowed to
+follow his mode of life. Some of the men who thus came to him were the
+choice spirits of the times. Thomas of Celano, who was to be one of
+the Master's favorite disciples and subsequently to be his most
+authoritative biographer, was one of the great literary geniuses of
+all times, the author of the sublime Dies Irae. While most of his
+first companions were men of such extreme simplicity of mind that the
+world has been rather in an amused than admiring attitude with regard
+to them, there can be no doubt that this simplicity was of itself an
+index not only of their genuine sincerity of heart, but of a greatness
+of mind that set them above the ordinary run of mankind and made them
+live poetry when they did not write it. The institute established by
+St. Francis was destined, in the course of the century, to attract to
+it some of the great men of every country. Besides Thomas of Celano
+there was, in Italy, Anthony of Padua, almost as famous as his master
+for the beauty of his saintly life; Jacopone Da Todi, the well-known
+author of the Stabat Mater, a hymn that rivals in poetic genius, the
+Dies Irae; Bonaventure, the great teacher of philosophy and theology
+at the University of Paris, and the writer of some of the sublimest
+treatises of mystical theology that were to be text books for the
+members of the Franciscan order, and of many other religious bodies
+for centuries after his death, indeed down to even our own times.
+There was Roger Bacon, in England, the famous teacher of science at
+Paris and at Oxford; and that Subtle Doctor, Duns Scotus, whose
+influence in philosophical speculation was destined never quite to
+disappear, and many others, the pick of the generations in which they
+lived, all proud to look up to Francis of Assisi as their father; all
+glad of the opportunity that the order gave them, to pass their lives
+in peace, far from the madding crowd with its strifes and competition,
+providing them constantly with opportunities to live their own lives,
+to find their own souls, to cultivate their own individualities
+untrammelled by worldly cares.
+
+Francis' success in this matter and the propaganda of his influence
+will not be so surprising to Americans of this generation, if they
+will only recall what is still a precious memory in {264} the minds of
+men who are yet alive, that efforts to found a community not unlike
+that of the Franciscans in certain ways, attracted widespread
+attention even in our own country half a century ago. After all, the
+men who gathered at Brook Farm had ideas and ideals not so distant
+from those cherished by St. Francis and the early members of the
+Franciscan Order. Their main effort was also to get away from worldly
+cares and have the opportunity to work out their philosophy of life
+far from the disturbing influence of city life, in the peaceful
+pursuit of only such agricultural efforts as might be necessary to
+ensure them simple sustenance, yet at the same time enforce from them
+such exercise in the open air as would guarantee the preservation of
+health. The men of Brook Farm were, in the eyes of their generation,
+quite as far from practical ideas as were the early Franciscans. It
+must not be forgotten, however, that these men who thus attempted in
+the Nineteenth Century what St. Francis succeeded in accomplishing in
+the Thirteenth, in their subsequent careers succeeded in impressing
+themselves very strongly upon the life of the American people. Much of
+what is best in our Nineteenth Century life would be lost if the Brook
+farmers and what they accomplished were to be removed from it. Men of
+ideals are usually also men of working ideas, as these two experiences
+in history would seem to show.
+
+{opp264}
+
+[Illustration]
+ST. ELIZABETH--THREE FRANCISCANS (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+ST. LOUIS--THREE FRANCISCANS (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+ST. CLARE--THREE FRANCISCANS (GIOTTO)
+
+
+It was not alone for the men of his generation, however, that Francis
+was destined to furnish a refuge from worldly care and a place of
+peace and thoughtful life. We have already said that it was by chance,
+certainly without any conscious intention on Francis' part that the
+Franciscan order for men which is usually spoken of as the First Order
+came into existence. The last thing in the world very probably that
+would ever have entered into the mind of Francis when he began to lead
+the simple life of a poor little man of God, was the founding of a
+religious order for women. We tell elsewhere the story, of St. Clare's
+interest in St. Francis' mode of life and of the trials that she
+underwent in order to obtain permission and opportunity to fashion her
+own life in the same way. The problem was even more serious for women
+than for men. St. Francis considered that they should not be {265}
+allowed to follow the Franciscan custom of going out to seek alms and
+yet required that they should live in absolute poverty, possessing
+nothing and supporting themselves only by the contributions of the
+faithful and the work of their hands. St. Clare attempted the
+apparently impossible and solved the problem of a new career for the
+women of her time.
+
+It was not very long before St. Clare's example proved as infective as
+that of St. Francis himself. While in the beginning the members of her
+family had been the most strenuous objectors against her taking up
+such an unwonted mode of existence it was not long before she was
+joined in the monastery of St. Damian where her little community was
+living, by her sister who was to become almost as famous as herself
+under the name of St. Agnes, and by her mother and other near
+relatives, from Assisi and the neighborhood. This Second Order of St.
+Francis to which only women were admitted proved to have in it the
+germ of as active life as that of the first order. Before the end of
+the Thirteenth Century there were women Franciscans in every country
+in Europe. These convents furnished for women a refuge from the
+worried, hurried, over-busy life around them that proved quite as
+attractive as the similar opportunity for the men. For many hundreds
+of years down even to our own time, women were to find in the quiet
+obscurity of such Franciscan convents a peaceful, happy life in which
+they occupied themselves with simple conventual duties, with manual
+labor in their monastery gardens, with the making of needle work in
+which they became the most expert in the world, with the illuminating
+of missals and office books of such artistic beauty that they have
+become the most precious treasures of our great libraries, and with
+the long hours of prayer by which they hoped to accomplish as much in
+making the world better as if they devoted themselves to ardent
+efforts of reform which, of course, the circumstances of the time
+would not have permitted.
+
+Finally there was the Third Order of St. Francis, which was to gather
+to itself so many of the distinguished people of the century whose
+occupations and obligations would not permit them to live the
+conventual life, but who yet felt that they must be attached by some
+bond to this beautiful sanctity that was {266} entering into all the
+better life of the century. The Third Order was established so as to
+permit all the world to become Franciscans to whatever degree it
+considered possible, and to share in the sublime Christianity of the
+founder whom they all admired so much, even if they were not able to
+imitate his sublimer virtues. Into this Third Order of St. Francis
+most of the finer spirits of the time entered with enthusiasm. We need
+only recall that Louis IX. of France, the greatest Monarch of the
+century, considered it a special privilege to be a follower of the
+humble Francis, and that St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the daughter of a
+king, the wife and mother of a ruling prince, gave another example of
+the far-reachingness of Francis' work. Dante was another of the great
+members of the Third Order and was buried in the habit of St. Francis,
+glorying in the thought of the brotherhood this gave him with the
+saint he loved so much.
+
+All down the centuries since, other distinguished men in many
+countries of Europe were proud to claim the same distinction. Modern
+science is supposed to be unorthodox in its tendencies and electricity
+is the most recent of the sciences in development. Three of the great
+founders in electricity, Volta, Galvani and Ampere, were members of
+the Third Order of St. Francis and at least one of them, Galvani,
+insisted on being buried in the habit of the order six centuries after
+the death of his father Francis in order to show how much he
+appreciated the privilege. There is no man who lived in the Thirteenth
+Century who influenced the better side of men more in all the
+succeeding ages down to and including our own time, than the poor
+little man of God of Assisi. He is just coming into a further precious
+heritage of uplift for the men of our time, that is surprising for
+those who are so buried in the merely material that they fail to
+realize how much the ideal still rules the minds of thinking men, but
+that seems only natural and inevitable to those who appreciate all the
+attractiveness there is in a simple life lived without the bootless
+hurry, the unattaining bustle and the over-strained excitement of the
+strenuous existence.
+
+What St. Francis and his order accomplished in Italy another great
+Saint, Dominic, was achieving in the West. The {267} fact that another
+order similar to that of St. Francis in many respects, yet differing
+from it in a number of essential particulars, should have arisen
+almost at the same time shows how profoundly the spirit of
+organization of effort had penetrated into the minds of these
+generations of the Thirteenth Century. While poverty was to be the
+badge of St. Dominic's followers as well as those of St. Francis,
+learning was to replace the simplicity which St. Francis desired for
+his sons. The order of preachers began at once to give many eminent
+scholars to the Church, and for three centuries there was not a single
+generation that did not see as Dominicans some of the most
+intellectual men of Europe. Leaders they were in philosophy, in the
+development of thought, in education, and in every phase of
+ecclesiastical life. The watch dogs of the Lord, (Domini Canes) they
+were called, punning on their name because everwhere, they were in the
+van of defense against the enemies of Christianity. That the
+Thirteenth Century should have given rise to two such great religious
+orders stamps it as a wonderfully fruitful period for religion as well
+as for every other phrase of human development.
+
+In order to understand what these great founders tried to do, the work
+of these two orders must be considered together. They have never
+ceased, during all the intervening seven centuries, to be the source
+of great influence in the religious world. They have proven refuges
+for many gentle spirits at all times and have been the homes of
+learning, as well as of piety. While occasionally their privileges
+have been abused, and men have taken advantage of the opportunities to
+be idle and luxurious, this has happened much seldomer than the world
+imagines. Not a single century has failed to show men among them whom
+the world honors as Saints, and whose lives have been examples of what
+can be accomplished by human nature at its best. They have been
+literally schools of unselfishness, and men have learned to think less
+of themselves and more of their labor by the contemplation of the
+lives of these begging friars. What they did for England, the Rev.
+Augustus Jessopp, a non-conformist clergyman in England, has recently
+told very well, and the more one studies their history, the higher the
+estimation of them; and the more one knows of {268} them, the less
+does one talk of their vices. Green in his "History of the English
+People" has paid them a tribute that it is well to remember:--
+
+  "To bring the world back again within the pale of the Church was the
+  aim of two religious orders which sprang suddenly to life at the
+  opening of the Thirteenth Century. The zeal of the Spaniard Dominic
+  was aroused at the sight of the lordly prelates who sought by fire
+  and sword to win the Albigensian heretics to the faith. 'Zeal,' he
+  cried, 'must be met by zeal, lowliness by lowliness, false sanctity
+  by real sanctity, preaching lies by preaching truth.' His fiery
+  ardor and rigid orthodoxy were seconded by the mystical piety, the
+  imaginative enthusiasm of Francis of Assisi. The life of Francis
+  falls like a stream of tender light across the darkness of the time.
+  In the frescoes of Giotto or the verse of Dante we see him take
+  Poverty for his bride. He strips himself of all: he flings his very
+  clothes at his father's feet, that he may be one with Nature and
+  God. His passionate verse claims the moon for his sister and the sun
+  for his brother; he calls on his brother the Wind, and his sister
+  the Water. His last faint cry was a 'Welcome, Sister Death.'
+  Strangely as the two men differed from each other, their aim was the
+  same, to convert the heathen, to extirpate heresy, to reconcile
+  knowledge with orthodoxy, to carry the Gospel to the poor. The work
+  was to be done by the entire reversal of the older monasticism, by
+  seeking personal salvation in effort for the salvation of their
+  fellow-men, by exchanging the solitary of the cloister for the
+  preacher, the monk for a friar. To force the new 'brethren' into
+  entire dependence on those among whom they labored the vow of
+  Poverty was turned into a stern reality; the 'Begging Friars' were
+  to subsist on the alms of the poor, they might possess neither money
+  nor lands, the very houses in which they lived were to be held in
+  trust for them by others. The tide of popular enthusiasm which
+  welcomed their appearance swept before it the reluctance of Rome,
+  the jealousy of the older orders, the opposition of the parochial
+  priesthood. Thousands of brethren gathered in a few years around
+  Francis and Dominic, and the begging preachers, clad in their coarse
+  frock of serge, with the girdle of rope around their waist, wandered
+  barefooted as {269} missionaries over Asia, battled with heresy in
+  Italy and Gaul, lectured in the Universities, and preached and
+  toiled among the poor."
+
+
+[Illustration]
+SIDE CAPITAL (LINCOLN)
+
+
+{270}
+
+XVII
+
+AQUINAS THE SCHOLAR.
+
+
+No one of all the sons of the Thirteenth Century, not even Dante
+himself, so typifies the greatness of the mentality of the period as
+does Thomas, called from his birthplace Aquinas, or of Aquin, on whom
+his own and immediately succeeding generations because of what they
+considered his almost more than human intellectual acumen, bestowed
+the title of Angelical Doctor, while the Church for the supremely
+unselfish character of his life, formally conferred the title of
+Saint. The life of Aquinas is of special interest, because it serves
+to clarify many questions as to the education of the Thirteenth
+Century and to correct many false impressions that are only too
+prevalent with regard to the intellectual life of the period. Though
+Aquinas came of a noble family which was related to many of the Royal
+houses of Europe and was the son of the Count of Aquino, then one of
+the most important of the non-reigning noble houses of Italy, his
+education was begun in his early years and was continued in the midst
+of such opportunities as even the modern student might well envy.
+
+It is often said that the nobility at this time, paid very little
+attention to the things of the intellect and indeed rather prided
+themselves on their ignorance of even such ordinary attainments as
+reading and writing. While this was doubtless true for not a few of
+them, Aquinas's life stands in open contradiction with the impression
+that any such state of mind was at all general, or that there were not
+so many exceptions as to nullify any such supposed rule. Evidently
+those who wished could and did take advantage of educational
+opportunities quite as in our day. Aquinas's early education was
+received at the famous monastery of Monte Cassino in Southern Italy,
+where the Benedictines for more than six centuries had been providing
+magnificent opportunities for the studious youth of Italy and for
+serious-minded students from all over Europe. {271} When he was
+scarcely more than a boy he proceeded to the University of Naples,
+which at that time, under the patronage of the Emperor Frederick II.,
+was being encouraged not only to take the place so long held by
+Salernum in the educational world of Europe, but also to rival the
+renowned Universities of Paris and Bologna. Here he remained until he
+was seventeen years of age when he resolved to enter the Dominican
+Order, which had been founded only a short time before by St. Dominic,
+yet had already begun to make itself felt throughout the religious and
+educational world of the time.
+
+Just as it is the custom to declare that as a rule, the nobility cared
+little for education, so it is more or less usual to proclaim that
+practically only the clergy had any opportunities for the higher
+education during the Thirteenth Century. Thomas had evidently been
+given his early educational opportunities, however, without any
+thought of the possibility of his becoming a clergyman. His mother was
+very much opposed to his entrance among the Dominicans, and every
+effort was made to picture to him the pleasures and advantages that
+would accrue to him because of his noble connections, in a life in the
+world. Thomas insisted, however, and his firm purpose in the matter
+finally conquered even the serious obstacles that a noble family can
+place in the way of a boy of seventeen, as regards the disposition of
+his life in a way opposed to their wishes.
+
+The Dominicans realized the surpassing intelligence of the youth whom
+they had received and accordingly he was sent to be trained under the
+greatest teacher of their order, the famous Albert the Great, who was
+then lecturing at Cologne. Thomas was not the most brilliant of
+scholars as a young man and seems even to have been the butt of his
+more successful fellow-students. They are said to have called him the
+dumb one, or sometimes because of his bulkiness even as a youth, the
+dumb ox. Albert himself, however, was not deceived in his estimation
+of the intellectual capacity of his young student, and according to
+tradition declared, that the bellowings of this ox would yet be heard
+throughout all Christendom. After a few years spent at Cologne, Thomas
+when he was in his early twenties, accompanied Albert who had been
+called to {272} Paris. It was at Paris that Thomas received his
+bachelor's degree and also took out his license to teach--the doctor's
+degree of our time. After this some years further were spent at
+Cologne and then the greatness of the man began to dawn on his
+generation. He was called back to Paris and became one of the most
+popular of the Professors at that great University in the height of
+her fame, at a time when no greater group of men has perhaps ever been
+gathered together, than shared with him the honors of the professors'
+chairs at that institution.
+
+  "Albert the Great, Roger Bacon, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas
+  Aquinas, form among themselves, so to speak, a complete
+  representation of all the intellectual powers: they are the four
+  doctors who uphold the chair of philosophy in the temple of the
+  Middle Ages. Their mission was truly the reestablishment of the
+  sciences, but not their final consummation. They were not exempt
+  from the ignorances and erroneous opinions of their day, yet they
+  did much to overcome them and succeeded better than is usually
+  acknowledged in introducing the era of modern thought. Often, the
+  majesty, I may even say the grace of their conceptions, disappears
+  under the veil of the expressions in which they are clothed; but
+  these imperfections are amply atoned for by superabundant merits.
+  Those Christian philosophers did not admit within themselves the
+  divorce, since their day become so frequent, between the intellect
+  and the will; their lives were uniformly a laborious application of
+  their doctrines. They realized in its plenitude the practical wisdom
+  so often dreamed of by the ancients--the abstinence of the disciples
+  of Pythagoras, the constancy of the stoics, together with humility
+  and charity, virtues unknown to the antique world. Albert the Great
+  and St. Thomas left the castles of their noble ancestors to seek
+  obscurity in the cloisters of St. Dominic: the former abdicated, and
+  the latter declined, the honors of the Church. It was with the cord
+  of St. Francis that Roger Bacon and St. Bonaventure girded their
+  loins; when the last named was sought that the Roman purple might be
+  placed upon his shoulders, he begged the envoys to wait until he
+  finished washing the dishes of the convent. Thus they did not
+  withdraw themselves {273} within the exclusive mysteries of an
+  esoteric teaching; they opened the doors of their schools to the
+  sons of shepherds and artisans, and, like their Master, Christ, they
+  said: "Come all!" After having broken the bread of the word, they
+  were seen distributing the bread of alms. The poor knew them and
+  blessed their names. Even yet, after the lapse of six hundred years,
+  the dwellers in Paris kneel round the altar of the Angel of the
+  School, and the workmen of Lyons deem it an honor once a year to
+  bear upon their brawny shoulders the triumphant remains of the
+  'Seraphic Doctor.'"
+
+For most modern students and even scholars educated in secular
+universities the name of Aquinas is scarcely more than a type, the
+greatest of them, it is true, of the schoolmen who were so much
+occupied with distant, impractical and, to say the least, merely
+theoretic metaphysical problems, in the later Middle Ages. It is true
+that the renewed interest in Dante in recent years in English speaking
+countries, has brought about a revival of attention in Aquinas's work
+because to Dante, the Angelical Doctor, as he was already called,
+meant so much, and because the Divine Comedy has been declared often
+and often, by competent critics, to be the Summa Theologiae of St.
+Thomas of Aquin in verse. Even this adventitious literary interest,
+however, has not served to lift the obscurity in which Aquinas is
+veiled for the great majority of scholarly people, whose education has
+been conducted according to modern methods and present-day ideas.
+
+As showing a hopeful tendency to recognize the greatness of these
+thinkers of the Middle Ages it is interesting to note that about five
+years ago one of St. Thomas's great works--the Summa Contra
+Gentiles--was placed on the list of subjects which a candidate may at
+his option offer in the final honor school of the _litterae
+humaniores_ at Oxford. There has come a definite appreciation of the
+fact that this old time philosopher represents a phase of intellectual
+development that must not be neglected, and that stands for such
+educational influence as may well be taken advantage of even in our
+day of information rather than mental discipline. For the purposes of
+this course Father Rickaby, S. J., has prepared an annotated
+translation of the great philosophic work under the title, {274} "Of
+God and His Creatures," which was published by Burns and Oates of
+London, 1905. This will enable those for whom the Latin of St. Thomas
+was a stumbling block, to read the thoughts of the great scholastic,
+in translation at least, and it is to be hoped that we shall hear no
+more of the trifling judgments which have so disgraced our English
+philosophical literature.
+
+The fact that Pope Leo XIII., by a famous papal bull, insisted that
+St. Thomas should be the standard of teaching in philosophy and
+theology in all the Catholic institutions of learning throughout the
+world, aroused many thinkers to a realization of the fact that far
+from being a thing of the dead and distant past, Thomas's voice was
+still a great living force in the world of thought. To most people Leo
+XIII. appealed as an intensely practical and thoroughly modern ruler,
+whose judgment could be depended on even with regard to teaching
+problems in philosophy and theology. There was about him none of the
+qualities that would stamp him as a far-away mystic whose thoughts
+were still limited by medieval barriers. The fact that in making his
+declaration the Pope was only formulating as a rule, what had
+spontaneously become the almost constant practice and tradition of
+Catholic schools and universities, of itself served to show how great
+and how enduring was St. Thomas's influence.
+
+In the drawing together of Christian sects that has inevitably come as
+a result of the attacks made upon Christianity by modern materialists,
+and then later by those who would in their ardor for the higher
+criticism do away with practically all that is divine in Christianity,
+there has come a very general realization even on the part of those
+outside of her fold, that the Roman Catholic Church occupies a
+position more solidly founded on consistent logical premises and
+conclusions than any of the denominations. Without her aid Christian
+apologetics would indeed be in sad case. Pope Leo's declaration only
+emphasizes the fact, then, that the foundation stone of Christian
+apologetics was laid by the great work of St. Thomas, and that to him
+more than any other is due that wonderful coordination of secular and
+religious knowledge, which appoints for each of these branches of
+knowledge its {275} proper place, and satisfies the human mind better
+than any other system of philosophic thought. This is the real
+panegyric of St. Thomas, and it only adds to the sublimity of it that
+it should come nearly six centuries and a half after his death. To
+only a bare handful of men in the history of the human race, is it
+given thus to influence the minds of subsequent generations for so
+long and to have laid down the principles of thought that are to
+satisfy men for so many generations. This is why, in any attempt at
+even inadequate treatment of the greatness of the Thirteenth Century,
+Thomas Aquinas, who was its greatest scholar, must have a prominent
+place. The present generation has had sufficient interest in him
+aroused, however, amply to justify such a giving of space.
+
+When Leo XIII. made his recommendation of St. Thomas it was not as one
+who had merely heard of the works of the great medieval thinker, or
+knew them only by tradition, or had slightly dipped into them as a
+dilettante, but as one who had been long familiar with them, who had
+studied the Angelical Doctor in youth, who had pondered his wisdom in
+middle age, and resorted again and again to him for guidance in the
+difficulties of doctrine in maturer years, and the difficulties of
+morals such as presented themselves in his practical life as a
+churchman. It was out of the depths of his knowledge of him, that the
+great Pope, whom all the modern world came to honor so reverently
+before his death, drew his supreme admiration for St. Thomas and his
+recognition of the fact that no safer guide in the thorny path of
+modern Christian apologetics could be followed, than this wonderful
+genius who first systematized human thought as far as the relations of
+Creator to creature are considered, in the heyday of medieval
+scholarship and university teaching.
+
+Those who have their knowledge of scholastic philosophy at second
+hand, from men who proclaim this period of human development as
+occupied entirely with fruitless discussion of metaphysical theories,
+will surely think that they could find nothing of interest for them in
+St. Thomas's writings. It is true the casual reader may not penetrate
+far enough into his writing to realize its significance and to
+appreciate its depth of knowledge, but the serious student finds
+constant {276} details of supreme interest because of their
+applications to the most up-to-date problems. We venture to quote an
+example that will show this more or less perfectly according to the
+special philosophic interest of readers. It is St. Thomas's discussion
+of the necessity there was for the revelation of the truth of the
+existence of God. His statement of the reasons why men, occupied with
+the ordinary affairs of life, would not ordinarily come to this truth
+unless it were revealed to them, though they actually have the mental
+capacity to reach it by reason alone, will show how sympathetically
+the Saint appreciated human conditions as they are.
+
+  "If a truth of this nature were left to the sole inquiry of reason,
+  three disadvantages would follow. One is that the knowledge of God
+  would be confined to few. The discovery of truth is the fruit of
+  studious inquiry. From this very many are hindered. Some are
+  hindered by a constitutional unfitness, their natures being
+  ill-disposed to the acquisition of knowledge. They could never
+  arrive by study at the highest grade of human knowledge, which
+  consists in the knowledge of God. Others are hindered by the claims
+  of business and the ties of the management of property. There must
+  be in human society some men devoted to temporal affairs. These
+  could not possibly spend time enough in the learned lessons of
+  speculative inquiry to arrive at the highest point of human inquiry,
+  the knowledge of God. Some again are hindered by sloth. The
+  knowledge of the truths that reason can investigate concerning God
+  presupposes much previous knowledge; indeed almost the entire study
+  of philosophy is directed to the knowledge of God. Hence, of all
+  parts of philosophy that part stands over to be learned last, which
+  consists of metaphysics dealing with (divine things). Thus only with
+  great labour of study is it possible to arrive at the searching out
+  of the aforesaid truth; and this labour few are willing to undergo
+  for sheer love of knowledge.
+
+  "Another disadvantage is that such as did arrive at the knowledge or
+  discovery of the aforesaid truth would take a long time over it on
+  account of the profundity of such truth, and the many prerequisites
+  to the study, and also because in youth and early manhood the soul,
+  tossed to and fro on the {277} waves of passion, is not fit for the
+  study of such high truth; only in settled age does the soul become
+  prudent and scientific, as the philosopher says. Thus if the only
+  way open to the knowledge of God were the way of reason, the human
+  race would (remain) in thick darkness of ignorance: as the knowledge
+  of God, the best instrument for making men perfect and good, would
+  accrue only to a few after a considerable lapse of time.
+
+  "A third disadvantage is that, owing to the infirmity of our
+  judgment and the perturbing force of imagination, there is some
+  admixture of error in most of the investigations of human reason.
+  This would be a reason to many for continuing to doubt even of the
+  most accurate demonstrations, not perceiving the force of the
+  demonstration, and seeing the divers judgments, of divers persons
+  who have the name of being wise men. Besides, in the midst of much
+  demonstrated truth there is sometimes an element of error, not
+  demonstrated but asserted on the strength of some plausible and
+  sophistic reasoning that is taken for a demonstration. And therefore
+  it was necessary for the real truth concerning divine things to be
+  presented to men with fixed certainty by way of faith. Wholesome,
+  therefore, is the arrangement of divine clemency, whereby things
+  even that reason can investigate are commanded to be held on faith,
+  so that all might be easily partakers of the knowledge of God, and
+  that without doubt and error (Book I. cix)."
+
+A still more striking example of Thomas's eminently sympathetic
+discussion of a most difficult problem, is to be found in his
+treatment of the question of the Resurrection of the Body. The
+doctrine that men will rise again on the last day with the same bodies
+that they had while here on earth, has been a stumbling block for the
+faith of a great many persons from the beginning of Christianity. In
+recent times the discovery of the indestructibility of matter, far
+from lessening the skeptical elements in this problem as might have
+been anticipated, has rather emphasized them. While the material of
+which man's body was composed is never destroyed, it is broken up
+largely into its original elements and is used over and over again in
+many natural processes, and even enters into the composition of other
+men's bodies during the long succeeding generations. Here is a problem
+upon which it would {278} ordinarily be presumed at once, that a
+philosophic writer of the Thirteenth Century could throw no possible
+light. We venture to say, however, that the following passage which we
+quote from an article on St. Thomas in a recent copy of the Dublin
+_Review_, represents the best possible solution of the problem, even
+in the face of all our modern advance in science.
+
+  "What does not bar numerical unity in a man while he lives on
+  uninterruptedly (writes St. Thomas), clearly can be no bar to the
+  identity of the arisen man with the man that was. In a man's body,
+  while he lives, there are not always the same parts in respect of
+  matter but only in respect of species. In respect of matter there is
+  a flux and reflux of parts. Still that fact does not bar the man's
+  numerical unity from the beginning to the end of his life. The form
+  and species of the several parts continue throughout life, but the
+  matter of the parts is dissolved by the natural heat, and new matter
+  accrues through nourishment. Yet the man is not numerically
+  different by the difference of his component parts at different
+  ages, although it is true that the material composition of the man
+  at one stage of his life is not his material composition at another.
+  Addition is made from without to the stature of a boy without
+  prejudice to his identity, for the boy and the adult are numerically
+  the same man."
+
+In a word, Aquinas says that we recognize that the body of the boy and
+of the man are the same though they are composed of quite different
+material. With this in mind the problem of the Resurrection takes on
+quite a new aspect from what it held before. What we would call
+attention to, however, is not so much the matter of the argument as
+the mode of it. It is essentially modern in every respect. Not only
+does Thomas know that the body changes completely during the course of
+years, but he knows that the agent by which the matter of the parts is
+dissolved is "the natural heat," while "new matter accrues through
+nourishment." The passage contains a marvelous anticipation of
+present-day physiology as well as a distinct contribution to Christian
+apologetics. This coordination of science and theology, though usually
+thought to be lacking among scholastic philosophers, is constantly
+typical of their mode of thought and discussion, and this example, far
+from {279} being exceptional, is genuinely representative of them, as
+all serious students of scholasticism know.
+
+Perhaps the last thing for which the ordinary person would expect to
+find a great modern teacher recommending the reading of St. Thomas
+would be to find therein the proper doctrine with regard to liberty
+and the remedies for our modern social evils. Those who will recall,
+however, how well the generations of the Thirteenth Century faced
+social problems even more serious than ours--for the common people had
+no rights at all  [at] the beginning of the century, yet secured them with
+such satisfaction as to lay the foundation of the modern history of
+liberty--will realize that the intellectual men of the time must have
+had a much better grasp of the principles underlying such problems,
+than would otherwise be imagined. As a matter of fact, St. Thomas's
+treatment of Society, its rights and duties, and the mutual
+relationship between it and the individual, is one of the triumphs of
+his wonderful work in ethics. It is no wonder, then, that the great
+Pope of the end of the Nineteenth Century, whose encyclicals showed
+that he understood very thoroughly these social evils of our time,
+recognized their tendencies and appreciated their danger, recommended
+as a remedy for them the reading of St. Thomas. Pope Leo said:
+
+  "Domestic and civil society, even, which, as all see, is exposed to
+  great danger from the plague of perverse opinions, would certainly
+  enjoy a far more peaceful and a securer existence if more wholesome
+  doctrine were taught in the academies and schools--one more in
+  conformity with the teaching of the Church, such as is contained in
+  the works of Thomas Aquinas.
+
+  "For the teachings of Thomas on the true meaning of liberty--which
+  at this time is running into license--on the divine origin of all
+  authority, on laws and their force, on the paternal and just rule of
+  princes, on obedience to the higher powers, on mutual charity one
+  towards another--on all of these and kindred subjects, have very
+  great and invincible force to overturn those principles of the new
+  order which are well known to be dangerous to the peaceful order of
+  things and to public safety."
+
+{280}
+
+For this great Pope, however, there was no greater teacher of any of
+the serious philosophical, ethical and theological problems than this
+Saint of the Thirteenth Century. His position in the matter would only
+seem exaggerated to those who do not appreciate Pope Leo's marvelous
+practical intelligence, and Saint Thomas's exhaustive treatment of
+most of the questions that have always been uppermost in the minds of
+men. While, with characteristic humility, he considered himself
+scarcely more than a commentator on Aristotle, his natural genius was
+eminently original and he added much more of his own than what he took
+from his master. There can be no doubt that his was one of the most
+gifted minds in all humanity's history and that for profundity of
+intelligence he deserves to be classed with Plato and Aristotle, as
+his great disciple Dante is placed between Homer and Shakespeare.
+Those who know St. Thomas the best, and have spent their lives in the
+study of him, not only cordially welcomed but ardently applauded Pope
+Leo's commendation of him, and considered that lofty as was his praise
+there was not a word they would have changed even in such a laudatory
+passage as the following:
+
+  "While, therefore, we hold that every word of wisdom, every useful
+  thing by whomsoever discovered or planned, ought to be received with
+  a willing and grateful mind. We exhort you, Venerable Brethren, in
+  all earnestness to restore the golden wisdom of St. Thomas, and to
+  spread it far and wide for the defense and beauty of the Catholic
+  faith, for the good of society, and for the advantage of all the
+  sciences. The wisdom of St. Thomas, We say--for if anything is taken
+  up with too great subtlety by the scholastic doctors, or too
+  carelessly stated--if there is anything that ill agrees with the
+  discoveries of a later age, or, in a word, improbable in whatever
+  way, it does not enter Our mind, to propose that for imitation to
+  Our age. Let carefully selected teachers endeavor to implant the
+  doctrines of Thomas Aquinas in the minds of students, and set forth
+  clearly his solidity and excellence over others. Let the academies
+  already founded or to be founded by you illustrate and defend this
+  doctrine, and use it for refutation of prevailing errors. But, lest
+  the false for the true or the corrupt for the pure be drunk in, be
+  watchful that the doctrine of Thomas {281} be drawn from his own
+  fountains, or at least from those rivulets which derived from the
+  very fount, have thus far flowed, according to the established
+  agreement of learned men, pure and clear; be careful to guard the
+  minds of youth from those which are said to flow thence, but in
+  reality are gathered from strange and unwholesome streams."
+
+Tributes quite as laudatory are not lacking from modern secular
+writers and while there have been many derogatory remarks, these have
+always come from men who either knew Aquinas only at second hand, or
+who confess that they had been unable to read him understandingly. The
+praise all comes from men who have spent years in the study of his
+writings.
+
+A recent writer in the Dublin _Review_ (January, 1906) sums up his
+appreciation of one of St. Thomas's works, his masterly book in
+philosophy, as follows:
+
+  "The _Summa contra Gentiles_ is an historical monument of the first
+  importance for the history of philosophy. In the variety of its
+  contents, it is a perfect encyclopedia of the learning of the day.
+  By it we can fix the high-water mark of Thirteenth Century thought,
+  for it contains the lectures of a doctor second to none in the great
+  school of thought then flourishing--the University of Paris. It is
+  by the study of such books that one enters into the mental life of
+  the period at which they were written; not by the hasty perusal of
+  histories of philosophy. No student of the Contra Gentiles is likely
+  to acquiesce in the statement that the Middle Ages were a time when
+  mankind seemed to have lost the power of thinking for themselves.
+  Medieval people thought for themselves, thoughts curiously different
+  from ours and profitable to study."
+
+Here is a similar high tribute for Aquinas's great work on Theology
+from his modern biographer, Father Vaughan:
+
+  "The 'Summa Theologica' is a mighty synthesis, thrown into technical
+  and scientific form, of the Catholic traditions of East and West, of
+  the infallible dicta of the Sacred Page, and of the most enlightened
+  conclusions of human reason, gathered from the soaring intuitions of
+  the Academy, and the rigid severity of the Lyceum.
+
+  "Its author was a man endowed with the characteristic notes of the
+  three great Fathers of Greek Philosophy: he possessed {282} the
+  intellectual honesty and precision of Socrates, the analytical
+  keenness of Aristotle, and that yearning after wisdom and light
+  which was the distinguishing mark of 'Plato the divine,' and which
+  has ever been one of the essential conditions of the highest
+  intuitions of religion."
+
+As a matter of fact it was the very greatness of Thomas Aquinas, and
+the great group of contemporaries who were so close to him, that
+produced an unfortunate effect on subsequent thinking and teaching in
+Europe. These men were so surpassing in their grasp of the whole round
+of human thought, that their works came to be worshiped more or less
+as fetishes, and men did not think for themselves but appealed to them
+as authorities. It is a great but an unfortunate tribute to the
+scholastics of the Thirteenth Century that subsequent generations for
+many hundred years not only did not think that they could improve on
+them, but even hesitated to entertain the notion that they could equal
+them. Turner in his History of Philosophy has pointed out this fact
+clearly and has attributed to it, to a great extent, the decadence of
+scholastic philosophy.
+
+  "The causes of the decay of scholastic philosophy were both internal
+  and external. The internal causes are to be found in the condition
+  of Scholastic philosophy at the beginning of the Fourteenth Century.
+  The great work of Christian syncretism had been completed by the
+  masters of the preceding period; revelation and science had been
+  harmonized; contribution had been levied on the pagan philosophies
+  of Greece and Arabia, and whatever truth these philosophies had
+  possessed had been utilized to form the basis of a rational
+  exposition of Christian revelation. The efforts of Roger Bacon and
+  of Alfred the Great to reform scientific method had failed; the
+  sciences were not cultivated. There was, therefore, no source of
+  development, and nothing was left for the later Scholastics except
+  to dispute as to the meaning of principles, to comment on the text
+  of this master or of that, and to subtilize to such an extent that
+  Scholasticism soon became a synonym for captious quibbling. The
+  great Thomistic principle that in philosophy the argument from
+  authority is the weakest of all arguments was forgotten; Aristotle,
+  St. Thomas, or Scotus became the criterion of truth, and as Solomon,
+  whose youthful wisdom had {283} astonished the world, profaned his
+  old age by the worship of idols, the philosophy of the schools, in
+  the days of its decadence, turned from the service of truth to
+  prostrate itself before the shrine of a master. Dialectic, which in
+  the Thirteenth Century had been regarded as the instrument of
+  knowledge, now became an object of study for the sake of display;
+  and to this fault of method was added a fault of style--an
+  uncouthness and barbarity of terminology which bewilder the modern
+  reader."
+
+The appreciation of St. Thomas in his own time is the greatest tribute
+to the critical faculty of the century that could be made. "Genius is
+praised but starves," in the words of the old Roman poet. Certainly
+most of the geniuses of the world have met with anything but their
+proper meed of appreciation in their own time. This is not true,
+however, during our Thirteenth Century. We have already shown how the
+artists, and especially Giotto, (at the end of the Thirteenth Century
+Giotto was only twenty-four years old) were appreciated, and how much
+attention Dante began to attract from his contemporaries, and we may
+add that all the great scholars of the period had a following that
+insured the wide publication of their works, at a time when this had
+to be accomplished by slow and patient hand-labor. The appreciation
+for Thomas, indeed, came near proving inimical to his completion of
+his important works in philosophy and theology. Many places in Europe
+wanted to have the opportunity to hear him. We have only reintroduced
+the practise of exchanging university professors in very recent years.
+This was quite a common practise in the Thirteenth Century, however,
+and so St. Thomas, after having been professor at Paris and later at
+Rome, taught for a while at Naples and then at a number of the Italian
+universities.
+
+Everywhere he went he was noted for the kindliness of his disposition
+and for his power to make friends. Looked upon as the greatest thinker
+of his time it would be easy to expect that there should be some signs
+of consciousness of this, and as a consequence some of that unpleasant
+self-assertion which so often makes great intellectual geniuses
+unpopular. Thomas, however, never seems to have had any
+over-appreciation of his own talents, but, realizing how little he
+knew compared to {284} the whole round of knowledge, and how
+superficial his thinking was compared to the depth of the mysteries he
+was trying, not to solve but to treat satisfactorily, it must be
+admitted that there was no question of conceit having a place in his
+life. This must account for the universal friendship of all who came
+in contact with him. The popes insisted on having him as a professor
+at the Roman university in which they were so much interested, and
+which they wished to make one of the greatest universities of the
+time. Here Thomas was brought in contact with ecclesiastics from all
+over the world and helped to form the mind of the time. Those who
+think the popes of the Middle Ages opposed to education should study
+the records of this Roman university.
+
+Thomas became the great friend of successive popes, some of whom had
+been brought in contact with him during his years of studying and
+teaching at Rome and Paris. This gave him many privileges and abundant
+encouragement, but finally came near ruining his career as a
+philosophic writer and teacher, since his papal friends wished to
+raise him to high ecclesiastical dignities. Urban IV. seems first to
+have thought of this but his successor Clement IV., one of the noblest
+churchmen of the period, who had himself wished to decline the papacy,
+actually made out the Bull, creating Thomas Archbishop of Naples. When
+this document was in due course presented to Aquinas, far from giving
+him any pleasure it proved a source of grief and pain. He saw the
+chance to do his life-work slipping from him. This was so evident to
+his friend the Pope that he withdrew the Bull and St. Thomas was left
+in peace during the rest of his career, and allowed to prosecute that
+one great object to which he had dedicated his mighty intellect. This
+was the summing up of all human knowledge in a work that would show
+the relation of the Creator to the creature, and apply the great
+principles of Greek philosophy to the sublime truths of Christianity.
+Had Thomas consented to accept the Archbishopric of Naples in all
+human probability, as Thomas's great English biographer remarks, the
+Summa Theologica would never have been written. It seems not unlikely
+that the dignity was pressed upon him by the Pope partly at the
+solicitation of powerful members of {285} his family, who hoped in
+this to have some compensation for their relative's having abandoned
+his opportunities for military and worldly glory. It is fortunate that
+their efforts failed, and it is only one of the many examples in
+history of the short-sightedness there may be in considerations that
+seem founded on the highest human prudence.
+
+Thomas was left free then to go on with his great work, and during the
+next five years he applied every spare moment to the completion of his
+Summa. More students have pronounced this the greatest work ever
+written than is true for any other text-book that has ever been used
+in schools. That it should be the basis of modern theological teaching
+after seven centuries is of itself quite sufficient to proclaim its
+merit. The men who are most enthusiastic about it are those who have
+used it the longest and who know it the best.
+
+St. Thomas's English biographer, the Very Rev. Roger Bede Vaughan, who
+is a worthy member of that distinguished Vaughan family who have given
+so many zealous ecclesiastics to the English Church and so many
+scholars to support the cause of Christianity, can scarcely say enough
+of this great work, nor of its place in the realm of theology. When it
+is recalled that Father Vaughan was not a member of St. Thomas's own
+order, the Dominicans, but of the Benedictines, it will be seen that
+it was not because of any _esprit de corps_, but out of the depths of
+his great admiration for the saint, that his words of praise were
+written:
+
+  "It has been shown abundantly that no writer before the Angelical's
+  day could have created a synthesis of all knowledge. The greatest of
+  the classic Fathers have been treated of, and the reasons of their
+  inability are evident. As for the scholastics who more immediately
+  preceded the Angelical, their minds were not ripe for so great and
+  complete a work: the fullness of time had not yet come. Very
+  possibly had not Albert the Great and Alexander (of Hales) preceded
+  him, St. Thomas would not have been prepared to write his
+  master-work; just as, most probably, Newton would never have
+  discovered the law of gravitation had it not been for the previous
+  labors of Galileo and of Kepler. But just as the English astronomer
+  stands solitary in his greatness, though surrounded and {286}
+  succeeded by men of extraordinary eminence, so also the Angelical
+  stands by himself alone, although Albertus Magnus was a genius,
+  Alexander was a theological king, and Bonaventure a seraphic doctor.
+  Just as the Principia is a work unique, unreachable, so, too, is the
+  'Summa Theologica' of the great Angelical. Just as Dante stands
+  alone among the poets, so stands St. Thomas in the schools."
+
+Probably the most marvelous thing about the life of St. Thomas is his
+capacity for work. His written books fill up some twenty folios in
+their most complete edition. This of itself would seem to be enough to
+occupy a lifetime without anything more. His written works, however,
+represent apparently only the products of his hours at leisure. He was
+only a little more than fifty when he died and he had been a
+university professor at Cologne, at Bologna, at Paris, at Rome, and at
+Naples. In spite of the amount of work that he was thus asked to do,
+his order, the Dominican, constantly called on him to busy himself
+with certain of its internal affairs. On one occasion at least he
+visited England in order to attend a Dominican Chapter at Oxford, and
+the better part of several years at Paris was occupied with his labors
+to secure for his brethren a proper place in the university, so that
+they might act as teachers and yet have suitable opportunities for the
+education and the discipline of the members of the Order.
+
+Verily it would seem as though his days must have been at least twice
+as long as those of the ordinary scholar and student to accomplish so
+much; yet he is only a type of the monks of the Middle Ages, of whom
+so many people seem to think that their principal traits were to be
+fat and lazy. Thomas was fat, as we know from the picture of him which
+shows him before a desk from which a special segment has been removed
+to accommodate more conveniently a rather abnormal abdominal
+development, but as to laziness, surely the last thing that would
+occur to anyone who knows anything about him, would be to accuse him
+of it. Clearly those who accept the ancient notion of monkish laziness
+will never understand the Middle Ages. The great educational progress
+of the Thirteenth Century was due almost entirely to monks.
+
+{287}
+
+There is another extremely interesting side to the intellectual
+character of Thomas Aquinas which is usually not realized by the
+ordinary student of philosophy and theology, and still less perhaps by
+those who are interested in him from an educational standpoint. This
+is his poetical faculty. For Thomas as for many of the great
+intellectual geniuses of the modern time, the sacrament of the Holy
+Eucharist was one of the most wondrously satisfying devotional
+mysteries of Christianity and the subject of special devotion. In our
+own time the great Cardinal Newman manifested this same attitude of
+mind. Thomas because of his well-known devotion to the Blessed
+Sacrament, was asked by the Pope to write the office for the then
+recently established feast of Corpus Christi. There are always certain
+hymns incorporated in the offices of the different Feast days. It
+might ordinarily have been expected that a scholar like Aquinas would
+write the prose portions of the office, leaving the hymns for some
+other hand, or selecting hymns from some older sacred poetry. Thomas,
+however, wrote both hymns and prose, and, surprising as it may be, his
+hymns are some of the most beautiful that have ever been composed and
+remain the admiration of posterity.
+
+It must not be forgotten in this regard that Thomas's career occurred
+during the period when Latin hymn writing was at its apogee. The Dies
+Irae and the Stabat Mater were both written during the Thirteenth
+Century, and the most precious Latin hymns of all times were composed
+during the century and a half from 1150 to 1300. Aquinas's hymns do
+not fail to challenge comparison even with the greatest of these.
+While he had an eminently devotional subject, it must not be forgotten
+that certain supremely difficult theological problems were involved in
+the expression of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. In spite of the
+difficulties, Thomas succeeded in making not only good theology but
+great poetry. A portion of one of his hymns, the Tantum Ergo, has been
+perhaps more used in church services than any other, with the possible
+exception of the Dies Irae. Another one of his beautiful hymns that
+especially deserves to be admired, is less well known and so I have
+ventured to quote three selected stanzas of it, as an illustration
+{288} of Thomas's command over rhyme and rhythm in the Latin tongue.
+[Footnote 24]
+
+  Adoro te devote, latens Deitas,
+  Quae sub his figuris vere latitas.
+  Tibi se cor meum totum subjicit,
+  Quia te contemplans totum deficit.
+
+  Visus, tactus, gustus, in te fallitur,
+  Sed auditu solo tute creditur:
+  Credo quidquid dixit Dei filius
+  Nihil veritatis verbo verius.
+
+And the less musical but wonderfully significative fourth, stanza--
+
+  Plagas sicut Thomas non intueor,
+  Deum tamen meum te confiteor,
+  Fac me tibi semper magis credere,
+  In te spem habere, te diligere.
+
+Only the ardent study of many years will give anything like an
+adequate idea of the great schoolman's universal genius. I am content
+if I have conveyed a few hints that will help to a beginning of an
+acquaintance with one of the half dozen supreme minds of our race.
+
+  [Footnote 24: The following translation made by Justice O'Hagan
+  renders sense and sound into English as adequately perhaps as is
+  possible:
+
+    Hidden God, devoutly I adore thee,
+      Truly present underneath these veils:
+    All my heart subdues itself before thee.
+      Since it all before thee faints and fails.
+
+    Not to sight, or taste, or touch be credit.
+      Hearing only do we trust secure;
+    I believe, for God the Son hath said it--
+      Word of truth that ever shall endure.
+
+    ...
+
+    Though I look not on thy wounds with Thomas,
+      Thee, my Lord, and thee, my God, I call:
+    Make me more and more believe thy promise,
+      Hope in thee, and love thee over all.
+  ]
+
+
+{289}
+
+XVIII
+
+ST. LOUIS THE MONARCH.
+
+
+If large numbers of men are to be ruled by one of their number, as
+seems more or less inevitable in the ordinary course of things, then,
+without doubt, the best model of what such a monarch's life should be,
+is to be found in that of Louis IX., who for nearly half a century was
+the ruler of France during our period. Of all the rulers of men of
+whom we have record in history he probably took his duties most
+seriously, with most regard for others, and least for himself and for
+his family. There is not a single relation of life in which he is not
+distinguished and in which his career is not worth studying, as an
+example of what can be done by a simple, earnest, self-forgetful man,
+to make life better and happier for all those who come in contact with
+him.
+
+His relations with his mother are those of an affectionate son in whom
+indeed, from his easy compliance with her wishes in his younger years
+one might suspect some weakness, but whose strength of character is
+displayed at every turn once he himself assumed the reins of
+government. After many years of ruling however, when his departure on
+the Crusade compelled him to be absent from the kingdom it was to her
+he turned again to act as his representative and the wisdom of the
+choice no one can question. As a husband Louis' life was a model, and
+though he could not accomplish the impossible, and was not able to
+keep the relations of his mother and his wife as cordial as he would
+have liked them to be, judging from human experience generally it is
+hard to think this constitutes any serious blot on his fair name. As a
+father, few men have ever thought less of material advantages for
+their children, or more of the necessity for having them realize that
+happiness in life does not consist in the possession of many things,
+but rather in the accomplishment of duty and in the recognition of the
+fact that the giving of happiness to others {290} constitutes the best
+source of felicity for one's self. His letters and instructions to his
+children, as preserved for us by Joinville and other contemporaries,
+give us perhaps the most taking picture of the man that we have, and
+round out a personality, which, while it has in the telling French
+phrase "the defects of its virtues," is surely one of the most
+beautiful characters that has ever been seen upon earth, in a man who
+took an active and extremely important part in the great events of the
+world of his time.
+
+The salient points of his character are his devotion to the three
+great needs of humanity as they present themselves in his time. He
+made it the aim of his life that men should have justice, and
+education, and when for any misfortune they needed it,--charity; and
+every portion of his career is taken up with successful achievement in
+these great departments of social action. It is well known that when
+he became conscious that the judges sometimes abused their power and
+gave sentences for partial reasons, the monarch himself took up the
+onerous duty of hearing appeals and succeeded in making the judges of
+his kingdom realize, that only the strictest justice would save them
+from the king's displeasure, and condign punishment. For an unjust
+judge there was short shrift. The old tree at Versailles, under which
+he used to hear the causes of the poor who appealed to him, stood for
+many centuries as a reminder of Louis' precious effort to make the
+dispensing of justice equal to all men. When the duty of hearing
+appeals took up too much of his time it was transferred to worthy
+shoulders, and so the important phase of jurisprudence in France
+relating to appeals, came to be thoroughly established as a part of
+the organic law of the kingdom.
+
+
+{opp290}
+
+[Illustration]
+NOTRE DAME (PARIS)
+
+
+As regards education, too much can not be said of Louis' influence. It
+is to him more than to anybody else that the University of Paris owes
+the success it achieved as a great institution of learning at the end
+of the Thirteenth Century. Had the monarch been opposed to the spread
+of education with any idea that it might possibly undermine his
+authority, had he even been indifferent to it, Paris would not have
+come to be the educational center of the world. As it was, Louis not
+only encouraged it in every way, but also acted as the patron of great
+{291} subsidiary institutions which were to add to its prestige and
+enhance its facilities. Among the most noteworthy is the Sorbonne. La
+Sainte Chapelle deserves to be mentioned, however, and the library
+attached to it, which owed its foundation and development to Louis,
+were important factors in attracting students to Paris and in
+furnishing them interestingly suggestive material for thought and the
+development of taste during their residence there. His patronage of
+Vincent of Beauvais, the encyclopedist, was but a further
+manifestation of his interest in everything educational. His
+benefactions to the Hotel Dieu must be considered rather under the
+head of charity, and yet they also serve to represent his
+encouragement of medical education and of the proper care for the poor
+in educated hands.
+
+Voltaire, to whom Louis' character as a supreme believer in revealed
+religion must have been so utterly unsympathetic, and whose position
+as the historical symbol of all that Voltaire most held in antipathy
+in medievalism, might have been expected to make the French
+philosopher avoid mention of him since he could not condemn, has been
+forced into some striking utterances in praise of Louis, one of which
+we quote:
+
+  "Louis IX appeared to be a prince destined to reform Europe, if she
+  could have been reformed, to render France triumphant and civilized,
+  and to be in all things a pattern for men. His piety which was that
+  of an anchorite, did not deprive him of any kingly virtue. A wise
+  economy took nothing from his liberality. A profound policy was
+  combined with strict justice and he is perhaps the only sovereign
+  who is entitled to this praise; prudent and firm in counsel,
+  intrepid without rashness in his wars, he was as compassionate as if
+  he had always been unhappy. No man could have carried virtue
+  further."
+
+Guizot, the French statesman and historian, whose unbending Calvinism
+made the men and institutions of the Middle Ages almost
+incomprehensible to him from their Catholic aspects, has much of good
+to say of Louis, though there is not wanting rather definite evidence
+of the reluctance of his admiration:
+
+  "The world has seen more profound politicians on the throne, greater
+  generals, men of more mighty and brilliant intellect, princes who
+  have exercised a more powerful influence {292} over later
+  generations and events subsequent to their own times; but it has
+  never seen such a king as this St. Louis, never seen a man
+  possessing sovereign power and yet not contracting the vices and
+  passions which attend it, displaying upon the throne in such a high
+  degree every human virtue purified and ennobled by Christian faith.
+  St. Louis did not give any new or personal impulse to his age; he
+  did not strongly influence the nature or the development of
+  civilization in France; whilst he endeavored to reform the gravest
+  abuses of the feudal system by the introduction of justice and
+  public order, he did not endeavor to abolish it either by the
+  substitution of a pure monarchy, or by setting class against class
+  in order to raise the royal authority high above all. He was neither
+  an egotist nor a scheming diplomatist; he was, in all sincerity, in
+  harmony with his age and sympathetic alike with the faith, the
+  institutions, the customs, and the tastes of France in the
+  Thirteenth Century. And yet, both in the Thirteenth Century and in
+  later times St. Louis stands apart as a man of profoundly original
+  character, an isolated figure without any peer among his
+  contemporaries or his successors. As far as it was possible in the
+  Middle Ages, he was an ideal man, king, and Christian."
+
+Guizot goes even further than this when he says, "It is reported that
+in the Seventeenth Century, during the brilliant reign of Louis XIV.,
+Montecuculli, on learning of the death of his illustrious rival,
+Turenne, said to his officers, 'A man has died to-day who did honor to
+mankind.' St. Louis did honor to France, to royalty, to humanity, and
+to Christianity. This was the feeling of his contemporaries, and after
+six centuries it is still confirmed by the judgment of the historian."
+
+Of Louis' wonderful influence for good as a ruler all historians are
+agreed in talking in the highest terms. His private life however, is
+even more admirable for our purpose of bringing out the greatness of
+the Thirteenth Century. Of course many legends and myths have gathered
+around his name, but still enough remains of absolutely trustworthy
+tradition and even documentary evidence, to make it very clear that he
+was a man among men, a nobleman of nature's making, who in any
+position of life would have acquitted himself with a perfection sure
+to make his life worthy of admiration. One of the most {293} striking
+traits of his character is his love of justice, his insatiable desire
+to render to all men what was rightly theirs. A biographer has told
+the story that gives the most telling proof of this in relating the
+solicitude with which he tried to right all the wrongs not only of his
+own reign, but of those of his predecessors, before he set out on the
+Crusade. He wished to have the absolute satisfaction that he, nor his,
+owed any man any reparation, as the most precious treasure he could
+take with him on his perilous expedition. He wished even to undo any
+wrongs that might have been done in his name though he was entirely
+unconscious of them.
+
+  "As he wished to be in a state of grace at the moment of departure,
+  and to take with him to the Holy Land a quiet conscience by leaving
+  the kingdom in as happy a condition as possible, he resolved to
+  carry out one of the noblest measures ever undertaken by a king. By
+  his order, inquisitors were sent into all the provinces annexed to
+  the royal dominion since the accession of Philip Augustus. All those
+  who had been maltreated or despoiled by the bailiffs, seneschals,
+  provosts, sergeants, and other representatives of the royal
+  authority, came to declare their wrongs to these newly appointed
+  judges, and to demand the reparation which was due to them; the
+  number was great, since for forty years there had been much
+  suffering in the country districts and even in the towns .... The
+  royal officers had too often acted as if they were in a conquered
+  country; they believed themselves to be safe from observation, so
+  that they might do as they pleased. The people had much to endure
+  during these forty years, and it was a noble idea to make reparation
+  freely and with elaborate care. No prince had been known, of his own
+  accord and at his own cost, to redress the wrongs inflicted on the
+  people during the reigns of his father and grandfather. This made an
+  immense impression, which lasted for centuries. Blanche's son was
+  not merely a good king, he became the unrivalled sovereign, the
+  impeccable judge, the friend and consoler of his subjects."
+
+It is no wonder that so inappeasable a lover of justice should commend
+that virtue above all others to his son. When we read his letters to
+that son who was to be his successor, in the light of Louis' own
+career, we appreciate with what utter {294} sincerity they were
+written. Louis realized that simple justice between men would undo
+more of the world's wrongs than most of the vaunted cures for social
+ills, which are only too often the result of injustice.
+
+  "Dear son," he writes in his Instruction, "if you come to reign, do
+  that which befits a king, that is, be so just as to deviate in
+  nothing from justice, whatever may befall you. If a poor man goes to
+  law with one who is rich, support the poor rather than the rich man
+  until you know the truth, and when the truth is known, do that which
+  is just. And if it happen that any man has a dispute with yourself,
+  maintain the cause of your adversary before the council so as not to
+  appear partial to your own cause, until the truth is known. Unless
+  you do this, those who are of the council may fear to speak against
+  you, and this ought not to be. . . . And if you find that you
+  possess anything unjustly acquired, either in your time or in that
+  of your predecessors, make restitution at once, however great its
+  value, either in land, money, or any other thing. . . . If the
+  matter is doubtful and you cannot find out the truth, follow the
+  advice of trusty men, and make such an agreement as may fully
+  deliver your soul and that of your predecessors. If you hear that
+  your predecessors have made restitution of anything, take great
+  trouble to discover if anything more should be restored, and if you
+  find that this is the case, restore it at once so as to deliver your
+  own soul and that of your predecessors."
+
+  "The education of his children, their future position and
+  well-being, engrossed the attention of the King as entirely, and
+  were subjects of as keen an interest, as if he had been a father
+  with no other task than the care of his children. After supper they
+  followed him to his apartment, where he made them sit around him for
+  a time whilst he instructed them in their duty; he then sent them to
+  bed. He would direct their attention particularly to the good and
+  bad actions of Princes. He used to visit them in their own apartment
+  when he had any leisure, inquire as to their progress, and like a
+  second Tobias, give them excellent instruction .... On Maundy
+  Thursday, he and his children used to wash the feet of a dozen poor
+  persons, give them large alms, and afterward wait upon them whilst
+  they dined. The King together with his son-in-law {295} King
+  Thibault, whom he loved and looked upon as his own son, carried the
+  first poor man to the hospital of Compiegne, and his two oldest
+  sons, Louis and Philippe, carried the second. They were accustomed
+  to act with him in all things, showing him great reverence, and he
+  desired that they and Thibault should also obey him implicitly in
+  everything that he commanded."
+
+Anyone who still retains any trace of the old-fashioned notion, which
+used to be unfortunately a commonplace among English speaking people,
+that the medieval Monks were unworthy of their great calling, and that
+the monasteries were the homes of lazy, fat-witted men whose only
+object in taking up the life was to secure an easy means of
+livelihood, will be thoroughly undeceived, if he but read with some
+attention the stories of Louis' relations to the monasteries. In all
+his journeys he stopped in them, he always asked to see their
+libraries, he insisted on not being treated better than the community
+and in every way he tried to show his esteem for them. There is a
+story which may or may not be true in the "Little Flowers of St.
+Francis," which comes from almost a contemporary source, however, that
+once on his travels he called on Brother Giles, the famous
+simple-minded companion of St. Francis, of whom so many delightfully
+humorous stories are told. Brother Giles received his affectionate
+greeting but said never a word in return. After the first words the
+King himself said nothing, but both sat and communed in silence for
+some time, and then the King departed apparently well-pleased with his
+visit. Needless to say when Brother Giles told the story of the King
+of France having called on him there was a commotion in the community.
+But by this time the King was far distant on his way.
+
+Indeed Louis took so many opportunities to stop in monasteries and
+follow monastic regulations as to prayer and the taking of meals while
+there, that he quite disgusted some of the members of his retinue who
+were most with him. One of the ladies of the court in her impatience
+at him for this, is once said to have remarked under such indiscreet
+circumstances that it was reported to Louis, that she wished they had
+a man and not a monk for King. Louis is said to have asked her very
+{296} gently if she would prefer that he spend most of his time in
+sport and in excesses of various kinds. Even such remarks, however,
+had no effect in turning him from his purpose to live as simply and as
+beneficently for others as possible. His genuine appreciation of the
+monks must be recognized from his wishes with regard to his children.
+On the other hand his readiness to secure their happiness as far as
+possible in the way they wished for themselves shows the tenderness of
+his fatherly heart. A modern biographer has said of him:--
+
+  "He was very anxious that his three children born in the East during
+  the Crusade--Jean Tristan, Pierre, and Blanche--and even his eldest
+  daughter Isabella, should enter the monastic life, which he looked
+  upon as the most likely to insure their salvation; he frequently
+  exhorted them to take this step, writing letters of the greatest
+  tenderness and piety, especially to his daughter Isabella; but, as
+  they did not show any taste for it, he did not attempt to force
+  their inclinations. Thenceforth, he busied himself in making
+  suitable marriages for them, and establishing them according to
+  their rank; at the same time he gave them the most judicious advice
+  as to their conduct and actions in the world upon which they were
+  entering. When he was before Tunis and found that he was sick unto
+  death, he gave the instructions which he had written out in French
+  with his own hand to his eldest son, Philip. They are models of
+  virtue, wisdom and paternal tenderness, worthy of a King and a
+  Christian."
+
+Perhaps the most interesting feature of St. Louis' life was his
+treatment of the poor. He used literally to recall the fact that they
+must stand to him in the place of God. "Whatever you do to the least
+of these you do even unto me" was a favorite expression frequently in
+his mouth. He waited on them personally and no matter how revolting
+their appearance would not be deterred from this personal service. It
+is easy to understand that his courtiers did not sympathize with this
+state of mind, though Louis used to encourage them not only by his
+example but by personal persuasion. Every Holy Thursday he used to
+wash the feet of twelve poor people at a public ceremonial, in honor
+of the washing of the feet of the Apostles by Christ.
+
+{opp296}
+[Illustration]
+APOSTLE (LA SAINTE CHAPELLE, PARIS)
+
+
+It must not be thought moreover, that such a {297} proceeding was
+perhaps less repugnant to the feelings of the men of that time than
+they are to the present generation. It might be considered that the
+general paucity of means for maintaining personal cleanliness in
+medieval times would make the procedure less disgusting. As a proof of
+the contrary of this we have the words of Joinville who tells of the
+following conversation:--
+
+  "Many a time," says Joinville, "I have seen him cut their bread for
+  them, and pour out their drink. One day he asked me if I washed the
+  feet of the poor on Maundy Thursday. "Sire," I answered, "What, the
+  feet of those dirty wretches! No indeed, I shall never wash them."
+  "Truly," replied the King, "you have spoken ill, for you ought not
+  to despise that which God intended for your instruction. I pray you,
+  therefore, first of all for the love of God, and then by your love
+  towards me, that you make a habit of washing their feet."
+
+Even more striking than this however, was his attitude toward the
+lepers of the time. These poor creatures were compelled to live apart
+from the population and were not allowed to approach healthy
+individuals. They were of exceeding interest to Louis however, who
+took every opportunity to mitigate the trials and hardships of their
+existence. Whenever he met them on his journeys he insisted on
+abundant alms being given them, and gave orders that every possible
+provision for their welfare, consonant with the care that their
+affection should not be permitted to spread, be made for them. Over
+and over again he greeted them as his brothers and when his retinue
+feared to approach them, would himself go to them, in order to console
+them by his words and his exhibition of personal interest. There is an
+incident told of his having on one occasion, when a muddy stream
+intervened between him and some lepers, forded the stream alone in
+order to get to them, and neither any personal fear of contagion nor
+any natural repugnance was permitted to deter him from this sublime
+work of charity. It is no wonder that his people proclaimed him a
+saint, that is "one who thinks first of others and only second of
+himself," even during his lifetime.
+
+The only supposed blot upon Louis' character is the denunciation by
+certain modern writers of what they call the fanaticism, {298} which
+prompted him to go on the Crusades instead of remaining at home
+properly to care for his people. The opinion with regard to the place
+that must be assigned to the Crusades as a factor in history and
+national as well as European development, has changed very much in
+recent years. Formerly it was the custom almost entirely to condemn
+them and to look upon them as a serious mistake. Such ideas however,
+are only entertained by those who do not realize the conditions under
+which they were undertaken or the important results which flowed from
+them. Bishop Stubbs in his lectures on Medieval and Modern History,
+delivered while he was professor of History at Oxford, has been at
+some pains to correct this false notion, and his passage constitutes
+one of the best apologies for Louis' interest in the Crusades which
+could be written. He said:--
+
+  "The Crusades are not, in my mind, either the popular delusions that
+  our cheap literature has determined them to be, nor papal
+  conspiracies against kings and peoples, as they appear to Protestant
+  controversialists; nor the savage outbreak of expiring barbarism,
+  thirsting for blood and plunder, nor volcanic explosions of
+  religious intolerance. I believe them to have been in their deep
+  sources, and in the minds of their best champions, and in the main
+  tendency of their results, capable of ample justification. They were
+  the first great effort of medieval life to go beyond the pursuit of
+  selfish and isolated ambitions; they were the trial-feat of the
+  young world, essaying to use, to the glory of God and the benefit of
+  man, the arms of its new knighthood. That they failed in their
+  direct object is only what may be alleged against almost every great
+  design which the great disposer of events has moulded to help the
+  world's progress; for the world has grown wise from the experience
+  of failure, rather than by the winning of high aims. That the good
+  they did was largely leavened with evil may be said of every war
+  that has ever been waged; that bad men rose by them while good men
+  fell, is and must be true, wherever and whenever the race is to the
+  swift and the battle to the strong. But that in the end they were a
+  benefit to the world no one who reads can doubt; and that in their
+  course they brought out a love for all that is heroic in human
+  nature, the love of freedom, the honor of prowess, sympathy with
+  sorrow, {299} perseverance to the last, the chronicles of the age
+  abundantly prove; proving, moreover, that it was by the experience
+  of these times that the forms of those virtues were realized and
+  presented to posterity."  [Footnote 25]
+
+    [Footnote 25: Stubbs, "Seventeen Lectures on Medieval and Modern
+    History," p. 180.]
+
+With the stigma of supposed imprudence or foolhardiness for having
+gone on the Crusade turned into a new cause for honor, Louis must be
+considered as probably the greatest monarch who ever occupied an
+important throne. Instead of being surprised that such a monarch
+should have come in the heart of the Middle Ages and during a century
+so distant as the Thirteenth, readers must now be ready to appreciate
+to some degree at least the fact, that his environment instead of
+being a hindrance in any sense of the word to the development of
+Louis' greatness, should rather be considered as one of the principal
+sources of it. Louis' character was representative of the men of that
+time and exhibits in their most striking form the qualities that were
+set up as ideals in that period. If the century had produced nothing
+else but Louis, it would have to be considered as a great epoch in
+history, for he was no mere accident but typically a son of his age.
+If this is but properly appreciated the true significance not only of
+Louis' life but the period in which he lived will be better understood
+than would be possible by any other means. Those who want to know the
+men of this wonderful century as they actually were should study
+Louis' life in detail, for we have been only able to hint at its most
+striking characteristics.
+
+{opp300}
+
+[Illustration]
+DECORATION (QUEEN MARY'S PSALTER, XIII. CENTURY MS.)
+
+
+{300}
+
+XIX
+
+DANTE THE POET.
+
+
+It is only too often the custom to talk of Dante as a solitary
+phenomenon in his time. Even Carlyle who knew well and properly
+appreciated many things in medieval life and letters and especially in
+the literary productions of the Thirteenth Century said, that in Dante
+"ten silent centuries found a voice." Anyone who has followed what we
+have had to say with regard to the Thirteenth Century will no longer
+think of Dante as standing alone, but will readily appreciate that he
+is only the fitting culmination of a great literary era. After having
+gone over even as hurriedly as has been necessary in our brief space,
+what was accomplished in every country of Europe in literature that
+was destined to live not only because of the greatness of the
+thoughts, but also for the ultimateness of its expression, we should
+expect some surpassing literary genius at the end of the period. It
+seems almost inevitable indeed that a supreme poet, whose name stands
+above all others but one or two at the most in the whole history of
+the race, should have lived in the Thirteenth Century, and should have
+summed up effectually in himself all the greatness of the century and
+enshrined its thoughts in undying verse for all future generations.
+
+
+{opp300}
+[Illustration]
+PORTRAIT OF DANTE (GIOTTO, IN THE BARGELLO, FLORENCE)
+
+
+When Dante himself dares to place his name with those of the men whom
+he considered the five greatest poets of all time, it seems sublimest
+egotism. At first thought many will at once conclude that his reason
+for so doing was, that in the unlettered times his critical faculty
+was not well developed and as he knew that his work far surpassed that
+of his contemporaries, he could scarcely help but conclude that his
+place must be among the great poets. Any such thought however, is
+entirely due to lack of knowledge of the conditions of Dante's life
+and education. He had been in the universities of Italy, and in his
+exile had visited Paris and probably also Oxford. He knew the poets of
+his country well. He appreciated them {301} highly. It was the
+consciousness of genius that made him place himself so high and not
+any faulty comparison with others. Succeeding generations have set him
+even higher than the place chosen by himself and now we breathe his
+name only with those of Homer and Shakespeare, considering that these
+three sublime immortals are so far above all other poets that there is
+scarcely a second to them.
+
+Dante is the most universal of poets. He has won recognition from all
+nations, and he has been the favorite reading of the most diverse
+times and conditions of men. From the very beginning he has been
+appreciated, and even before his death men had begun to realize
+something of the supremacy of his greatness. Commentaries on his works
+that have been preserved down to our own day were written almost
+during his lifetime. Only supreme interest could have tempted men to
+multiply these by the hard labor of patient handwriting. Petrarch who
+as a young man, was his contemporary, recognized him as the Prince of
+Italian poets who had composed in their common tongue, and even was
+tempted to say that the subtle and profound conceptions of the
+Commedia could not have been written without the special gift of the
+Holy Ghost. Boccaccio was wont to speak of him as the Divine Poet, and
+tells us that he had learned that Petrarch deliberately held aloof
+from the Commedia, through fear of losing his originality if he came
+under the spell of so great a master.
+
+Very few realize how great a poet Dante must be considered even if
+only the effusions of his younger years were to be taken as the
+standard of his poetical ability. Some of his sonnets are as beautiful
+of their kind as are to be found in this form of poetry. His
+description of his lady-love is famous among sonnets of lovers and may
+only be compared with some of the Sonnets from the Portuguese in our
+own day, or with one or two of Camoens' original sonnets in the
+Portuguese, for lofty praise of the beloved in worthy numbers. After
+reading Dante's sonnets it is easy to understand how a half century
+later Petrarch was able to raise the sonnet form to an excellence that
+was never to be surpassed. With a beginning like this it is no wonder
+that the sonnet became so popular in Europe during the next three
+centuries, and that every young poet, {302} down to Shakespeare's
+time, had an attack of sonneteering just as he might have had an
+attack of the measles. The first one of a pair of sonnets that are
+considered supreme in their class deserves a place here as an example
+of Dante's poetic faculty in this form, for which he is so much less
+known than he ought to be.
+
+  He sees completely fullest bliss abound
+    Who among ladies sees my Lady's face;
+  Those that with her do go are surely bound
+    To give God thanks for such exceeding grace.
+  And in her beauty such strange might is found.
+    That envy finds in other hearts no place;
+  So she makes them walk with her, clothed all round
+    With love and faith and courteous gentleness.
+  The sight of her makes all things lowly be;
+    Nor of herself alone she gives delight.
+  But each through her receiveth honor due.
+    And in her acts is such great courtesy,
+  That none can recollect that wondrous sight.
+    Who sighs not for it in Love's sweetness true.
+
+It will be noted that Dante has nothing to say of the personal
+appearance of his beloved. This is true, however, of the whole series
+of poems to and about her. He never seems to have thought for a moment
+of her physical qualities. What he finds worthy to praise is her
+goodness which shines out from her features so that everyone rejoices
+in it, while a sweetness fills the heart as if a heavenly visitor had
+come. For him her supreme quality is that, with all her beauty, envy
+finds no place in others' hearts because she is so clothed around with
+love and faith and courteous gentleness. It has often been said that
+Shakespeare did not describe the physical appearances of his heroines
+because he realized that this meant very little, but then Shakespeare
+had to write for the stage and realized that blondes and brunettes,
+especially in the olden time, could not be made to order and that it
+was better to leave the heroine's physical appearance rather vague. It
+would be expected, however, that Dante, with his Southern temperament,
+would have dwelt on the physical perfections of his fair. The next
+{303} sonnet, however, of the best known group emphasizes his
+abstraction of all physical influence in the matter and insists on her
+goodness and the womanly beauty of her character. It will be found in
+our chapter on Women of the Century.
+
+In his earlier years Dante considered himself one of the Troubadours,
+and there can be no doubt that if he had never written the Divine
+Comedy, he still would have been remembered as one of the great poets
+who wrote of love in this Thirteenth Century. Not only does he deserve
+a place among the greatest of the Minnesingers, the Trouveres, and the
+Troubadours, but he is perhaps the greatest of them. That he should
+have sung as he did at the end of the century only shows that he was
+in the stream of literary evolution and not being merely carried idly
+along, but helping to guide it into ever fairer channels. Dante's
+minor poems would have made enduring fame for any poet of less genius
+than himself. His prose works deserve to be read by anyone who wishes
+to know the character of this greatest of poets, and also to
+appreciate what the educational environment of the Thirteenth Century
+succeeded in making out of good intellectual material when presented
+to it. Dante's works are the real treasury of information of the most
+precious kind with regard to the century, since they provide the
+proper standpoint from which to view all that it accomplished.
+
+While Dante was a supreme singer among the poets of a great song time,
+it was only natural, in the light of what we know about the literary
+product of the rest of this century, that he should have put into epic
+form the supreme product of his genius. With the great national epics
+in every country of Europe--the Cid, the Arthur Legends, and the
+Nibelungen, at the beginning of this century, and the epical poems of
+the Meistersingers during its first half, it is not surprising, but on
+the contrary rather what might have been confidently looked for, that
+there should have arisen a great national epic in Italy before the end
+of the century. The Gothic art movement spread through all these
+countries, and so did the wind of the spirit of esthetic
+accomplishment which blew the flame of national literature in each
+country into a mighty blaze, that not only was {304} never to be
+extinguished, but was to be a beacon light in the realm of national
+literatures forever after.
+
+We have already said a word of the well-known contemporary admiration
+for the poet but it should be realized that due appreciation of Dante
+continued in Italy during all the time when Italian art and literature
+was at its highest. It dwindled only at periods of decadence and lack
+of taste. Cornelius' law with regard to Dante's influence on art is
+very well known, Italian art according to him, has been strong and
+vigorous just in proportion as it has worked under Dante's influence,
+while it became weak and sensuous as that influence declined. This has
+held true from the very beginning and has been as true for literature
+as for art. When the Italians became interested in trivialities and
+gave themselves up to weak imitations of the classics, or to pastoral
+poetry that was not a real expression of feeling but a passing fancy
+of literary folk, then Dante was for a time in obscurity. Even at the
+height of the Renaissance, however, when Greek was at the acme of its
+interest and the classics occupied so much attention that Dante might
+be expected to be eclipsed, the great thinkers and critics of the time
+still worshipped at the shrine of their great master of Italian verse.
+The best proof of this is to be found in Michael Angelo's famous
+sonnets in praise of Dante, the second of which would seem to exhaust
+all that can be said in praise of a brother poet.
+
+  Into the dark abyss he made his way;
+    Both nether worlds he saw, and in the might
+    Of his great soul beheld God's splendour bright.
+  And gave to us on earth true light of day:
+  Star of supremest worth with its clear ray.
+    Heaven's secrets he revealed to us through our dim sight.
+    And had for guerdon what the base world's spite
+  Oft gives to souls that noblest grace display,
+  Full ill was Dante's life-work understood,
+    His purpose high, by that ungrateful state.
+  That welcomed all with kindness but the good.
+    Would I were such, to bear like evil fate,
+  To taste his exile, share his lofty mood.
+    For this I'd gladly give all earth calls great.
+
+{305}
+
+In the first of this pair of sonnets, however, Michael Angelo gave if
+possible even higher praise than this. It will be recalled that he
+himself, besides being the greatest of sculptors and one of the
+greatest of painters and architects in a wonderfully productive
+period, was also a very great poet. These sonnets to Dante, the one to
+his crucifix, and one to Vittoria Colonna, are the best proof of this.
+He knew how to chisel thoughts into wonderfully suitable words quite
+as well as marble into the beautiful forms that grew under his hands.
+With all his greatness, and he must have been conscious of it, he
+thinks that he would be perfectly willing to give up all that earth
+calls great, simply to share Dante's lofty mood even in his exile. No
+greater tribute has ever been paid by one poet to another than this,
+and Michael Angelo's genius was above all critical, never
+thoughtlessly laudatory. As emphasizing the highest enlightened taste
+of a great epoch this has seemed to deserve a place here also.
+
+  What should be said of him speech may not tell;
+    His splendor is too great for men's dim sight;
+    And easier 'twere to blame his foes aright
+  Than for his poorest gifts to praise him well.
+  He tracked the path that leads to depths of Hell
+    To teach us wisdom, scaled the eternal height.
+    And heaven with open gates did him invite.
+  Who in his own loved city might not dwell.
+  Ungrateful country step-dame of his fate.
+    To her own loss: full proof we have in this
+  That souls most perfect bear the greatest woe.
+  Of thousand things suffice in this to state:
+    No exile ever was unjust as his,
+  Nor did the world his equal ever know.
+
+In England, in spite of distance of country, race and language, the
+appreciation of Dante began very early. Readers of Chaucer know the
+great Italian as the favorite poet of the Father of English poetry,
+and over and over again he has expressed the feeling of how much
+greater than anything he could hope to do was Dante's accomplishment.
+Readers will remember how Chaucer feels unable to tell the story of
+{306} Ugolino and his starving sons in the Hunger Tower, and refers
+those interested in the conclusion of the tale to Dante. After the
+religious revolt of the early Sixteenth Century Dante was lost sight
+of to a great extent. His temper was too Catholic to be appreciated by
+Puritan England, and the Elizabethans were too much occupied with
+their own creation of a great national literature, to have any time
+for appreciation of a foreigner so different in spirit from their
+times. With the coming of the Oxford Movement, however, Dante at once
+sprang into favor, and a number of important critical appreciations of
+him reintroduced him to a wide reading public in England, most of whom
+were among the most cultured of the island. This renewed interest in
+Dante gave rise to some of the best critical appreciations in any
+language. Dean Church's famous essay is the classic English monograph
+on Dante, and its opening paragraph sounds the keynote of critical
+opinion among English speaking people.
+
+  "The Divina Commedia is one of the landmarks of history. More than a
+  magnificent poem, more than the beginning of a language and the
+  opening of a national literature, more than the inspirer of art and
+  the glory of a great people, it is one of those rare and solemn
+  monuments of the mind's power which measure and test what it can
+  reach to, which rise up ineffaceably and forever as time goes on,
+  marking out its advance by grander divisions than its centuries, and
+  adopted as epochs by the consent of all who come after. It stands
+  with the Iliad and Shakespeare's Plays, with the writings of
+  Aristotle and Plato, with the Novum Organon and the Principia, with
+  Justinian's Code, with the Parthenon and St. Peter's. It is the
+  first Christian Poem, and it opens European literature as the Iliad
+  did that of Greece and Rome. And, like the Iliad, it has never
+  become out of date; it accompanies in undiminished freshness the
+  literature which it began."
+
+
+{opp306}
+
+[Illustration]
+TORRE DEL FAME (DANTE, PISA)
+
+[Illustration]
+PALAZZO PRETORIO (TODI)
+
+
+No better introduction to Dante could be obtained than this from Dean
+Church. Those who have found it difficult to get interested in the
+great Florentine poet, and who have been prone to think that perhaps
+the pretended liking for him on the part of many people was an
+affectation rather than a sincere expression of opinion, should read
+this essay and learn {307} something of the wealth of sympathy there
+is in Dante for even the man of these modern times. Our Thirteenth
+Century poet is not easy to read but there is probably no reading in
+all the world that brings with it so much of intellectual
+satisfaction, so much of awakening of the best feelings in man, so
+many glimpses into the depths of his being, as some lines from Dante
+pondered under favorable circumstances. Like one of these Gothic
+cathedrals of the olden times he never grows old, but, on the
+contrary, every favorite passage seems to have a new message for each
+mood of the reader. This is particularly true for the spiritual side
+of man's being as has been pointed out by Dean Church in a well-known
+passage toward the end of his essay.
+
+  "Those who know the Divina Commedia best will best know how hard it
+  is to be the interpreter of such a mind; but they will sympathize
+  with the wish to call attention to it. They know, and would wish
+  others also to know, not by hearsay, but by experience, the power of
+  that wonderful poem. They know its austere yet submitting beauty;
+  they know what force there is in its free and earnest and solemn
+  verse to strengthen, to tranquillize, to console. It is a small
+  thing that it has the secret of Nature and Man; that a few keen
+  words have opened their eyes to new sights in earth, and sea, and
+  sky; have taught them new mysteries of sound; have made them
+  recognize, in distinct image of thought, fugitive feelings, or their
+  unheeded expression, by look, or gesture, or motion; that it has
+  enriched the public and collective memory of society with new
+  instances, never to be lost, of human feeling and fortune; has
+  charmed mind and ear by the music of its stately march, and the
+  variety and completeness of its plan. But besides this, they know
+  how often its seriousness has put to shame their trifling, its
+  magnanimity their faint-heartedness, its living energy their
+  indolence, its stern and sad grandeur rebuked low thoughts, its
+  thrilling tenderness overcome sullenness and assuaged distress, its
+  strong faith quelled despair, and soothed perplexity, its vast grasp
+  imparted the sense of harmony to the view of clashing truth. They
+  know how often they have found in times of trouble, if not light, at
+  least that deep sense of reality, permanent though unseen, which is
+  more than light can {308} always give--in the view which it has
+  suggested to them of the judgments and love of God."
+
+As might have been expected from the fact of Dante's English
+popularity paralleling the Oxford Movement, both the great English
+Cardinals who were such prominent agents in that movement, looked upon
+him as a favorite author. Both of them have given him precious
+tributes. Newman's lofty compliment was the flattery of imitation when
+he wrote the Dream of Gerontius, that poem for poets which has told
+the men of our generation more about the immediate hereafter than
+anything written in these latter centuries. No poet of the intervening
+period, or of any other time, has so satisfactorily presented the
+after world as these writers so distant in time, so different in
+environment,--the one an Italian of the Thirteenth, the other an
+Englishman of the Nineteenth Century.
+
+Cardinal Manning's tribute was much more formal though not less
+glorious. It occurs in the introduction to Father Bowden's English
+edition of the German critic Hettinger's appreciation of Dante, and
+deserves a place here because it shows how much a representative
+modern churchman thinks of the great Florentine poet.
+
+  "There are three works which always seem to me to form a triad of
+  Dogma, of Poetry, and of Devotion,--The Summa of St. Thomas, The
+  Divina Commedia, and the Paradisus Animae (a manual of devotional
+  exercises by Horstius). All three contain the same outline of Faith.
+  St. Thomas traces it on the intellect, Dante upon the imagination,
+  and the Paradisus Animae upon the heart. The poem unites the book of
+  Dogma and the book of Devotion, clothed in conceptions of intensity
+  and of beauty which have never been surpassed nor equalled. No
+  uninspired hand has ever written thoughts so high in words, so
+  resplendent as the last stanza of the Divina Commedia. It was said
+  of St. Thomas, _'Post Summan Thomae nihil restat nisi lumen
+  gloriae_'--After the Summa of Thomas nothing is left except the
+  light of glory. It may be said of Dante, _'Post Dantis Paradisum
+  nihil restat nisi visio Dei_,'--After Dante's Paradise nothing is
+  left except the vision of God."
+
+Of course John Ruskin had a thorough-going admiration for so great a
+spiritual thinker as Dante and expressed it in no {309} uncertain
+terms. With his wonderful power to point out the significance of
+unexpected manifestations of human genius, Ruskin has even succeeded
+in minimizing one of the great objections urged against Dante, better
+perhaps than could be done by anyone else, for English speaking people
+at least. For many readers Dante is almost unbearable, because of
+certain grotesque elements they find in him. This has been the source
+and cause of more unfavorable criticism than anything else in the
+great Florentine's writings. Ruskin of course saw it but appreciated
+it at its proper significance, and has made clear in a passage that
+every Dante reader needs to go over occasionally, in order to assure
+himself that certain unusual things in Dante's attitude towards life
+are an expression rather of the highest human genius and its outlook
+on life, than some narrow limitation of medievalism. Ruskin said:--
+
+  "I believe that there is no test of greatness in nations, periods,
+  nor men more sure than the development, among them or in them, of a
+  noble grotesque, and no test of comparative smallness or limitation,
+  of one kind or another, more sure than the absence of grotesque
+  invention or incapability of understanding it. I think that the
+  central man of all the world, as representing in perfect balance the
+  imaginative, moral and intellectual faculties, all at their highest
+  is Dante; and in him the grotesque reaches at once the most distinct
+  and the most noble development to which it was ever brought in the
+  human mind. Of the grotesqueness in our own Shakespeare I need
+  hardly speak, nor of its intolerableness to his French critics; nor
+  of that of AEschylus and Homer, as opposed to the lower Greek
+  writers; and so I believe it will be found, at all periods, in all
+  minds of the first order."
+
+Great reverence for Dante might have been expected in Italy but the
+colder Northern nations shared it.
+
+In Germany modern admiration for Dante began with that great wave of
+critical appreciation which entered into German literature with the
+end of the Eighteenth and the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. As
+might almost have been expected, Frederick Schlegel was one of the
+first modern German admirers of Dante, though his brother August,
+whose translations of Shakespeare began that series of German studies
+of {310} Shakespeare which has been so fruitful during the past
+century, was also an open admirer of the medieval poet. Since then
+there has practically been no time when Germany has not had some
+distinguished Dante scholar, and when it has not been supplying the
+world with the products of profound study and deep scholarship with
+regard to him. The modern educational world has come to look so
+confidently toward Germany for the note of its critical appreciation,
+that the Dante devotion of the Germans will be the best possible
+encouragement for those who need to have the feeling, that their own
+liking is shared by good authorities, before they are quite satisfied
+with their appreciation. Dean Plumptre has summed up the Dante
+movement in Germany in a compendious paragraph that must find a place
+here.
+
+  "In the year 1824, Scartazzini, the great Dante scholar of the
+  Nineteenth Century, recognizes a new starting point. The period of
+  neglect of supercilious criticism comes to an end, and one of
+  reverence, admiration and exhaustive study begins. His account of
+  the labors of German scholars during the sixty years that have
+  followed fills a large part of his volume. Translations of the
+  Commedia by Kopisch, Kannegiesser, Witte, Philalethes (the nom de
+  plume of John, King of Saxony), Josefa Von Hoffinger, of the Minor
+  Poems by Witte and Krafft, endless volumes and articles on all
+  points connected with Dante's life and character, the publications
+  of the Deutsche Dante-Gesellschaft from 1867 to 1877, present a body
+  of literature which has scarcely a parallel in history. It is no
+  exaggeration to say that the Germans have taught Italians to
+  understand and appreciate their own poet, just as they have at least
+  helped to teach Englishmen to understand Shakespeare."
+
+Nor must it be thought that only the literary lights of Germany
+thoroughly appreciated the great Florentine. The greater the genius of
+the man the more his admiration for Dante if he but once becomes
+interested in him. A noteworthy example of this is Alexander Von
+Humboldt the distinguished German scientist, who was generally looked
+upon as perhaps the greatest thinker in European science during the
+first quarter of the Nineteenth Century. He is said to have been very
+faithful in his study of Dante and has expressed his admiration in no
+{311} uncertain terms. Curiously enough he found much to admire him
+for in matters scientific, for while it is not generally realized,
+Dante was an acute observer of Nature and has given expression in his
+works to many observations with regard to subjects that would now be
+considered within the scope of natural science, in a way to anticipate
+many supposedly modern bits of information. With regard to this
+Humboldt said in his Cosmos:--
+
+"When the glory of the Aramaic Greek and Roman dominion--or I might
+almost say, when the ancient world had passed away,--we find in the
+great and inspired founder of a new era, Dante Alighieri, occasional
+manifestations of the deepest sensibility to the charms of the
+terrestrial life of Nature, whenever he abstracts himself from the
+passionate and subjective control of that despondent mysticism which
+constituted the general circle of his ideas." How little Humboldt
+seems to have realized in his own absorption in external nature, that
+the qualities he blames in Dante are of the very essence of his
+genius, rounding out his humanity to an interest in all man's
+relations, supernatural as well as natural, and that without them he
+would not be the world poet for all time that he is.
+
+In America Dante came to his own almost as soon as literature obtained
+her proper place in our new country. The first generation of
+distinctly literary men comprise the group at Cambridge including
+Longfellow, Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Eliot Norton,
+James Russell Lowell, and others of minor importance. It soon became a
+favorite occupation among these men to give certain leisure hours to
+Dante. The Cambridge Dante society added not a little to the world's
+knowledge of the poet. Longfellow's translation and edition of Dante's
+works was a monumental achievement, for which its author is likely to
+be remembered better by future generations than perhaps for any of his
+original work. Future generations are likely to remember James Russell
+Lowell for his essays on Dante and Shakespeare better than for
+anything else. His Dante monograph is as magnificently illuminating as
+that of Dean Church's and perhaps even more satisfying to critical
+readers. That these men should have been content to give so much of
+their time to the study of the Thirteenth {312} Century poet shows in
+what appreciation he must be held by the rest of us if we would give
+him his due place in literature.
+
+There are many misunderstandings with regard to Dante which apparently
+only some serious study of the poet serves to remove satisfactorily.
+Most people consider that he was a distant, prophetic, religious
+genius, and that his poetry has in it very little of sympathy for
+humanity. While it is generally conceded that he saw man projected on
+the curtain of eternity, and realized all his relationships to the
+universe and to his Creator better than perhaps any other poet of all
+time, it is usually thought that one must have something of the
+medieval frame of mind in order to read him with interest and
+admiration. Such impressions are largely the result of reading only a
+few lines of Dante, and, finding them difficult of thorough
+comprehension, allowing one's self to be forced to the conclusion that
+he is not of interest to the modern reader. The Inferno being the
+first part of Dante's great poem is the one oftenest read in this
+passing fashion and so many ideas with regard to Dante are derived
+from this portion, which is not only not the masterpiece of the work
+but, if taken alone, sadly misrepresents the genius of the poet. His
+is no morbid sentimentality and does not need the adventitious
+interest of supreme suffering.
+
+As a matter of fact the Purgatorio is a much better introduction to
+Dante's real greatness, and is considered by the generality of Dante
+scholars as the more humanly sympathetic if not really the supreme
+expression of his creative faculty. The ascent of the Mount of
+Expiation with its constant note of hope and the gradually increasing
+facility of the ascent as the summit is approached, touches condolent
+cords in the human heart and arouses feelings that are close to what
+is best in human aspiration in spite of its consciousness of defect.
+Over and over again in the Purgatorio one finds evidence of Dante's
+wonderful powers of observation. The poet is first of all according to
+the etymology of the word a creator, one who gives life to the
+figments of his imagination so that we recognize them as vital
+manifestations of human genius, but is also the seer, the man who sees
+deeper into things and sees more of them than anyone else. Ordinarily
+Dante is considered by those who do not know him as not having been an
+observer of things human and around him in life. There are passages in
+his works, however, that entirely refute this.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+ANGEL (RHEIMS)
+
+
+{313}
+
+The story that he went about the cities of North Italy during his
+exile, with countenance so gloomy and stare so fixed that men pointed
+to him and spoke of him as one who had visited Hell, and the other
+tradition, however well it may be founded, that the women sometimes
+pointed him out to their children and then used the memory of him as a
+bogy man to scare them into doing unpleasant things afterwards, would
+seem to indicate that he had occupied himself very little with the
+things around him, and that above all he had paid very little
+attention to the ways of childhood. He has shown over and over again,
+especially in the Purgatorio, that the simplest and most natural
+actions of child-life had been engraved upon his heart for he uses
+them with supreme truth in his figures. He knows how
+
+  "An infant seeks his mother's breast
+  When fear or anguish vex his troubled heart,"--
+
+but he knows too, how the child who has done wrong, confesses its
+faults.
+
+  "As little children, dumb with shame's keen smart.
+  Will listening stand with eyes upon the ground.
+  Owning their faults with penitential heart,
+  So then stood I."
+
+There is a passage in the Inferno in which he describes so vividly the
+rescue of a child from the flames by its mother that Plumptre has even
+ventured to suggest that Dante himself may have been the actual
+subject of the rescue. Because it helps to an appreciation of Dante's
+intensity of expression and poignancy of vision the passage itself,
+with Plumptre's comment, seems deserving of quotation:
+
+  "Then suddenly my Guide his arms did fling
+  Around me, as a mother, roused by cries,
+  Sees the fierce flames around her gathering
+  And takes her boy, nor ever halts but flies.
+  Caring for him than for herself far more,
+  Though one scant shift her only robe supplies."
+
+{314}
+
+It must not be thought, however, that Dante's quality as an observer
+was limited to the actions of human beings. His capacity to see many
+other things is amply manifested in his great poem. Even the smallest
+of living things, that would surely be thought beneath his notice,
+became the subject of similies that show how much everything in nature
+interested the spirit of genius. The passage with regard to the ants
+has often been quoted, and is indeed a surprising manifestation of
+nature study at an unexpected time and from an entirely unanticipated
+quarter. Dante saw the souls of those who were so soon to enter into
+the realm of blessedness, and who were already in the last circle of
+purgatory, greeting each other with the kiss of peace and his
+picturesque simile for it is:--
+
+  "So oft, within their dusk brown host, proceed
+  This ant and that, till muzzle muzzle meet;
+  Spying their way, or how affairs succeed."
+
+As for the birds his pages are full of references to them and all of
+his bird similies are couched in terms that show how sympathetically
+observant he was of their habits and ways. He knows their different
+methods of flying in groups and singly, he has observed them on their
+nests and knows their wonderful maternal anxiety for their young, and
+describes it with a vividness that would do credit to a naturalist of
+the modern time who had made his home in the woods. Indeed some of his
+figures taken from birds constitute examples of the finest passages of
+poetic description of living nature that have ever been written. The
+domestic animals, moreover, especially the cat and the dog, come in
+for their share of this sympathetic observance, and he is able to add
+greatly to the vividness of the pictures he paints by his references
+to the well-known habits of these animals. It is no wonder that the
+tradition has grown up that he was fond of such pets and possessed
+several of them that were well-known to the early commentators on his
+poems, and the subject of no little erudition.
+
+Nothing escaped the attention of this acute observer in the world
+around him, and over and over again one finds surprising bits of
+observation with regard to natural phenomena usually supposed to be
+quite out of the range of the interest of {315} medieval students
+generally, and above all of literary men of this Middle Age. Alexander
+Von Humboldt calls attention in a well-known passage in his Cosmos to
+the wonderful description of the River of Light in the Thirtieth Canto
+of the Paradiso.
+
+  "I saw a glory like a stream flow by.
+    In brightness rushing and on either shore
+  Were banks that with spring's wondrous hues might vie.
+    And from that river living sparks did soar,
+  And sank on all sides in the flow'rets' bloom,
+    Like precious rubies set in golden ore.
+  Then, as if drunk with all the rich perfume,
+    Back to the wondrous torrent did they roll,
+  And as one sank another filled its room."
+
+Humboldt explains this as follows, with a suggestion that deserves to
+be remembered.
+
+  "It would almost seem as if this picture had its origin in the
+  poet's recollection of that peculiar and rare phosphorescent
+  condition of the ocean in which luminous points appear to rise from
+  the breaking waves, and, spreading themselves over the surface of
+  the waters, convert the liquid plain into a moving sea of sparkling
+  stars."
+
+Probably the best way for a modern to realize how much of interest
+there may be for him in Dante is to consider the great Italian epic
+poet in comparison with our greatest of English epic poets, Milton.
+While any such comparison in the expressive Latin phrase is sure to
+walk lame, it serves to give an excellent idea of the methods of the
+two men in the illustration of their ideas. We venture therefore to
+quote a comparison between these two poets from a distinguished critic
+who knows both of them well, and whose modern training in English
+methods of thought, would seem to make him likely to be partial to the
+more modern poet though as a matter of fact he constantly leans toward
+the great medieval bard.
+
+  "The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante as the
+  hieroglyphics of Egypt differ from the picture-writing of Mexico.
+  The images which Dante employs speak for themselves; they stand
+  simply for what they are. Those of Milton have a {316} signification
+  which is often discernible only to the initiated. . . . However
+  strange, however grotesque, he never shrinks from describing it. He
+  gives us the shape, the color, the sound, the smell, the taste; he
+  counts the numbers; he measures the size. His similies are the
+  illustrations of a traveler. Unlike those of other poets, and
+  especially of Milton, they are introduced in a plain business-like
+  manner, not for the sake of any of the beauty in the objects from
+  which they are drawn; not for the sake of any ornament they may
+  impart to the poem; but simply in order to make the meaning of the
+  writer as clear to the reader as it is to himself."
+
+  "Still more striking is the similarity between Dante and Milton.
+  This may be said to lie rather in the kindred nature of their
+  subjects, and in the parallel development of their minds, than in
+  any mere external resemblance. In both the man was greater than the
+  poet, the souls of both were 'like a star and dwelt apart.' Both
+  were academically trained in the deepest studies of their age; the
+  labour which made Dante lean made Milton blind. The 'Doricke
+  sweetnesse' of the English poet is not absent from the tender pages
+  of the Vita Nuova. The middle life of each was spent in active
+  controversy; each lent his services to the state; each felt the
+  quarrels of his age to be the 'business of posterity,' and left his
+  warnings to ring in the ears of a later time. The lives of both were
+  failures. 'On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues,' they
+  gathered the concentrated experience of their lives into one
+  immortal work, the quintessence of their hopes, their knowledge, and
+  their sufferings. But Dante is something more than this. Milton's
+  voice is grown faint to us--we have passed into other modes of
+  expression and of thought."
+
+The comparison with Vergil is still more striking and more favorable
+to the Italian poet. "Dante's reputation has passed through many
+vicissitudes, and much trouble has been spent by critics in comparing
+him with other poets of established fame. Read and commented upon in
+the Italian universities in the generation immediately succeeding his
+death, his name bcame obscured as the sun of the Renaissance rose
+higher towards its meridian. In the Seventeenth Century he was less
+read than Petrarch, Tasso, or Ariosto; in the Eighteenth he was {317}
+almost universally neglected. His fame is now fully vindicated.
+Translations and commentaries issue from every press in Europe and
+America. Dante Societies are formed to investigate the difficulties of
+his works. He occupies in the lecture-rooms of regenerated Italy a
+place by the side of those great masters whose humble disciple he
+avowed himself to be. The Divine Comedy is indeed as true an epic as
+the AEneid, and Dante is as real a classic as Vergil. His metre is as
+pliable and flexible to every mood of emotion, his diction as
+plaintive and as sonorous. Like him he can immortalize by a simple
+expression, a person, a place, or a phase of nature. Dante is even
+truer in description than Vergil, whether he paints the snow falling
+in the Alps, or the homeward flight of birds, or the swelling of an
+angry torrent. But under this gorgeous pageantry of poetry there lies
+a unity of conception, a power of philosophic grasp, an earnestness of
+religion, which to the Roman poet were entirely unknown."
+
+If we would have a very recent opinion as to the position of Dante as
+a literary man and as a great intellectual force, perhaps no better
+can be obtained than from some recent expressions of Mr. Michael
+Rossetti, whose Italian descent, English training, and literary and
+artistic heredity, seem to place him in an ideal position for writing
+this generation's ultimate judgment with regard to the great poet of
+the Thirteenth Century. In his Literature of Italy he said:--
+
+  "One has to recur time after time, to that astounding protagonist,
+  phenomenon and hero, Dante Alighieri. If one were to say that
+  Italian literature consists of Dante, it would, no doubt, be an
+  exaggeration, and a gross one, and yet it would contain a certain
+  ultimate nucleus of truth."
+
+  "Dante fixed the Italian language, and everyone had to tread in his
+  vestiges. He embodied all the learning and thought of his age and
+  transcended them. He went far ahead of all his predecessors,
+  contemporaries, and successors; he wrote the first remarkable book
+  in Italian prose, La Vita Nuova; and a critical exposition of it in
+  the Convito; in Latin, a linguistic treatise, the De Vulgari
+  Eloquio, which upholds the Vulgare Illustre, or speech of the best
+  cultivated classes, markedly in Tuscany and Bologna, against the
+  common dialects; and a {318} political study, De Monarchia, of the
+  most fundamental quality, which even to us moderns continues to be
+  sane and convincing in its essence, though its direct line of
+  argument has collapsed; and finally, and most important by far, he
+  produced in La Commedia Divina the one poem of modern Europe that
+  counter-balances Shakespeare and challenges antiquity. This is the
+  sole book which makes it a real pity for anyone to be ignorant of
+  Italian. Regarded singly, it is much the most astonishing poem in
+  the world, dwarfing all others by its theme, pulverizing most of
+  them by its majesty and sustainment, unique in the force of its
+  paraded personality and the thunderous reverberation of its
+  judgments on the living and the dead."
+
+
+{319}
+
+XX
+
+THE WOMEN OF THE CENTURY.
+
+
+In generations whose men proved so unending in initiative and so
+forceful in accomplishment, so commanding in intelligence, so
+persistent in their purposes, so acute in their searching, so
+successful in their endeavors, the women of the time could not have
+been unworthy of them. Some hints of this have been already given, in
+what has been said about the making of furnishings for the church,
+especially in the matter of needlework and the handpainting of various
+forms of ornaments. There are further intimations in the histories of
+the time, though unfortunately not very definite information, with
+regard to even more ambitious accomplishments by the women of the
+period. There are, for instance, traditions that the designs for some
+of the Cathedrals and certainly for portions of many of them came from
+women's hands. It is in the ethical sphere, however, that women
+accomplished great things during the Thirteenth Century. Their
+influence stood for what was best and highest in the life of the time
+and their example encouraged not only their own generation, but many
+people in many subsequent generations "to look up, not down, to look
+within, not without" for happiness, and to trust that "God's in his
+heaven and all's well with the world."
+
+There are a number of women of the time whose names the race will not
+let die. While if the ordinary person were asked to enumerate the
+great women of the Thirteenth Century it would be rare to find one
+able properly to place them, as soon as their names are mentioned, it
+will be recognized that they succeeded in accomplishing work of such
+significance that the world is not likely to let the reputation of it
+perish. Some of these names are household words. The bearers of them
+have been written of at length in quite recent years in English as
+well as in other languages. Their work was of the kind that ordinarily
+stands quite apart from the course of history and {320} so dates are
+usually not attached to it. It is thought of as a portion of the
+precious heritage of mankind rather than as belonging to any
+particular period. Three names occur at once. They are St. Clare of
+Assisi, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and Queen Blanche of Castile, the
+mother of St. Louis. To these should be added Queen Berengaria, the
+sister of Blanche, and the mother of Ferdinand of Castile; Mabel Rich,
+the London tradesman's wife, the mother of St. Edmund of Canterbury;
+and Isabella, the famous Countess of Arundel.
+
+The present day interest in St. Francis of Assisi, has brought St.
+Clare under the lime-light of publicity. There is no doubt at all that
+her name is well worthy to be mentioned along with his and that she,
+like him, must be considered one of the strongest and most beautiful
+characters of all time. She was the daughter of a noble family at
+Assisi, who, having heard St. Francis preach, became impressed with
+the idea that she too should have the opportunity to live the simple
+life that St. Francis pictured. Of course her family opposed her in
+any such notion. That a daughter of theirs should take up with a
+wandering preacher, who at that time was looked on not a little
+askance by the regular religious authorities, and whose rags, and
+poverty made him anything but a proper associate for a young lady of
+noble birth, could not but seem an impossible idea. Accordingly Clare
+ran away from home and told Francis that she would never go back and
+that he must help her to live her life in poverty just as he was doing
+himself. He sent her to a neighboring convent to be cared for, and
+also very probably so as to be assured of her vocation.
+
+After a time a special convent home for Clare and some other young
+women, who had become enamored with the life of poverty and simplicity
+was established, and to this Clare's sister Agnes came as a postulant.
+By this time apparently the family had become reconciled to Clare's
+absence from home, but they would not stand another daughter following
+such a foolish example. Accordingly Agnes was removed from the convent
+by force after a scene which caused the greatest excitement in the
+little town. It was not long, however, before Agnes returned to the
+convent and within a few years their mother followed them, and became
+one of the most fervent members of the little community.
+
+
+{opp320}
+[Illustration]
+ST. CLARE'S FAREWELL TO THE DEAD ST. FRANCIS (GIOTTO)
+
+
+{321}
+
+The peace and happiness that came with this life of absolute poverty
+soon attracted many other women and Clare was asked to establish
+houses at a distance. Gradually the order of Poor Clares, the second
+order of St. Francis, thus came into existence. When it was necessary
+to draw up constitutions for the order, Clare showed not only the
+breadth of her intelligence, but the depth of her knowledge of human
+nature, and her appreciation of what was absolutely necessary in order
+to keep her order from degeneration. Against the counsels of all the
+ecclesiastics of her time, including many cardinals and even a Pope,
+she insisted on the most absolute poverty as the only basis for the
+preservation of the spirit of her second order of St. Francis. Her
+character was well manifested in this contest from which she came out
+victorious.
+
+Her body has been miraculously preserved and may still be seen at
+Assisi. Anyone who has seen the strongly set lips and full firm chin
+of the body in the crypt of San Damiano, can easily understand the
+strength of purpose and of character of this young woman who moulded a
+generation to her will. The story is told of her, that once when the
+Saracens invaded Italy and attacked the convent, she mounted the walls
+with a monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament in her hands, and
+the marauders turned away in consternation from the stern brave figure
+that confronted them, and bothered the nuns no more. After St.
+Francis' death she, more than anyone else, succeeded in maintaining
+the spirit of the Franciscan order in the way in which St. Francis
+would have it go. Long after her death a copy of the original rules
+was found in the fold of her garments and did much to restore the
+Franciscan life to its primitive simplicity and purpose, so that even
+after she was no more on earth, she was still the guardian and
+promoter of St. Francis' work.
+
+If one wants to know how much of happiness there came to her in life
+one should read the famous passage which describes her visit to St.
+Francis, and how she and he with sisters and brothers around them
+broke bread together, with a sweetness that was beyond human. The
+passage is to be found in the "Little Flowers of St. Francis of
+Assisi" which was written {322} within a century after the occurrences
+described. It recalls nothing so much as the story of the disciples at
+Emaus and is worthy to be thought of beside the Scripture story.
+[Footnote 26]
+
+  [Footnote 26: When came the day ordained by Francis, Saint Clare
+  with one companion passed forth from out the convent and with the
+  companions of Saint Francis to bear her company came unto Saint Mary
+  of the Angels, and devoutly saluted the Virgin Mary before her
+  altar, where she had been shorn and veiled; so they conducted her to
+  see the house, until such time as the hour for breaking bread was
+  come. And in the meantime Saint Francis let make ready the table on
+  the bare ground, as he was wont to do. And the hour of breaking
+  bread being come, they set themselves down together. Saint Francis
+  and Saint Clare, and one of the companions of Saint Francis with the
+  companion of Saint Clare, and all the other companions took each his
+  place at the table with all humility. And at the first dish, Saint
+  Francis began to speak of God so sweetly, so sublimely and so
+  wondrously, that the fulness of Divine grace came down on them, and
+  they all were wrapt in God. And as they were thus wrapt, with eyes
+  and hands uplift to heaven, the folk of Assisi and Bettona and the
+  country round about, saw that Saint Mary of the Angels, and all the
+  House, and the wood that was just hard by the house, were burning
+  brightly, and it seemed as it were a great fire that filled the
+  church and the House and the whole wood together: for the which
+  cause the folk of Assisi ran thither in great haste to quench the
+  flames, believing of a truth that the whole place was all on fire.
+  But coming closer up to the House and finding no fire at all, they
+  entered within and found Saint Francis and Saint Clare and all their
+  company in contemplation rapt in God and sitting around that humble
+  board. Whereby of a truth they understood that this had been a
+  heavenly flame and no earthly one at all, which God had let appear
+  miraculously, for to show and signify the fire of love divine
+  wherewith the souls of those holy brothers and holy nuns were all
+  aflame; wherefor they got them gone with great consolation in their
+  hearts and with holy edifying. Then after some long space. Saint
+  Francis and Saint Clare, together with all the others, returning to
+  themselves again and feeling of good comfort from the spiritual food
+  took little heed of the food of the body.]
+
+
+{opp322}
+
+[Illustration]
+CHURCH (DOBERAN, GERMANY)
+
+[Illustration]
+SAN DAMIANO (ASSISI)
+
+
+What Saint Clare accomplished as her life work was the making of a new
+vocation for women. There are always a certain number of women who
+look for peace and quiet rather than the struggle for existence. For
+these the older monasteries did not supply a place unless they were of
+the wealthier class as a rule. Among the Poor Clares women of all
+classes were received. In this way a great practical lesson in
+equality was {323} taught. Women did not have to marry, perhaps
+unsuitable, often even objectionable men, simply in order to have a
+mode of life. They could join one of these communities and though in
+absolute poverty, with many hours each day devoted to meditation and
+prayer, had time to give to beautiful needlework, to painting and book
+illumination, and to other feminine occupations; and might thus pass
+long, happy lives, apart from the bustle of the strenuous time.
+
+Italy at this time, it must be recalled, was a seething cauldron of
+political and military strife. Wars were waged, and struggles of all
+kinds engaged in for precedence and power. These women got away from
+this unfortunate state of affairs. Occasionally in times of
+pestilence, when they were specially needed, as happened at least once
+in Saint Clare's life, they took care of the ailing and lent their
+convent as a hospital. Above all they stood in the eyes of their
+generation for chosen people who saw things differently from others.
+They taught the great lesson of not caring too much for the things of
+this world and of not living one's life in order to get admiration
+though usually envy comes, nor idle praise for qualities they either
+do not possess or that are not worthy of notice. They showed people
+the real value of this life by its reflection upon the other. Many a
+man turned aside from ambitious schemes that would have injured
+others, because of the kindly influence of these unselfish women and
+because of the memory of a sister, or an aunt whose sacrificing life
+was thus a rebuke to his foolish selfishness. Other women learned
+something of the vanity of human things by learning to value the
+character of these Poor Clares and realizing how much of happiness
+came to them from the accomplishment of their simple duties. Professor
+Osler said, in his lecture on Science and Immortality, of these
+self-forgetting ones:--"The serene faith of Socrates with the cup of
+Hemlock at his lips, the heroic devotion of a St. Francis or a St.
+Teresa, but more often for each one of us the beautiful life of some
+good woman whose--
+
+  Eyes are homes of silent prayer,
+    . . .
+  Whose loves in higher love endure.
+
+{324}
+
+do more to keep alive among the Laodiceans a belief in immortality
+than all the preaching in the land." This is what St. Clare
+accomplished for her own generation and her influence is still a great
+living force in the world.
+
+What especially should attract the attention of the modern time is the
+perfect basis of equality on which the Franciscan and Dominican orders
+of men and of women were organized. Each community had the opportunity
+to elect its own superiors. The rules were practically the same for
+the first (for men) and the second (for women) order of St. Francis,
+except that while the first order were supposed to live on alms
+collected by begging from door to door, this menial obligation was not
+imposed upon the women, who were expected to be supported by alms
+brought to their convents by the faithful, and by the labor of their
+own hands. This equality of men and women in the monastic
+establishments became widespread after the Thirteenth Century and made
+itself felt in the social order of the time as a factor for feminine
+uplift. Undoubtedly Saint Clare's work in the foundation of the second
+order of St. Francis must be held responsible to no small degree for
+this. Before her death, there were half a dozen scions of royal
+families in various parts of Europe who had become members of her
+order, and literally hundreds of the daughters of the nobility, many
+of them of high rank, had put off their dignity and position in the
+world, to become poor daughters of Saint Clare. They did so for the
+peace and the happiness of the vocation, and the opportunity to seek
+their souls and live their lives in their own quiet way, which her
+convents afforded them.
+
+{opp325}
+[Illustration]
+ST. ELIZABETH'S CATHEDRAL (MARBURG)
+
+After Saint Clare, the best known woman of the Thirteenth Century is
+undoubtedly Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, of whom the world knows some
+pretty legends, while the serious historian recognizes that she was
+the first settlement worker of history. As a child she wandered down
+from the castle walls in which she lived and saw the poor in their
+suffering. She felt so much for them that she stripped herself of most
+of her garments and finally even of her shoes in order to clothe them.
+When she was taken to task for this, she said that she had suffered
+whatever inconvenience there was in it only for a few minutes while
+the poor had suffered all their lives. She became {325} the wife of
+the Duke of Thuringia, and there were three years of ideal happiness
+with her husband and her children. When he went away on the Crusade
+she gave herself up to the care of the poor. When he died, though she
+was only twenty, and according to tradition one of the handsomest
+women of her time, she devoted herself still more to her poor and even
+went to live among them. She tried to teach them, as do the settlement
+workers of the modern time, something of the true significance of
+life, to bring them to realize to some degree at least, that so many
+of the things they so vainly desire are not worth thinking about, but
+that happiness consists in lopping off one's desires rather than
+trying vainly, as it must ever be, to satisfy them. It is no wonder
+that throughout all Germany she came to be called "the dear St.
+Elizabeth." Literally thousands of women since her time have turned to
+read the story of her beautiful devotion to charity, and have been
+incited by her example to do more and more for the poor around them.
+Those who know it only through Kingsley's, "The Saint's Tragedy,"
+though this is disfigured by many failures to understand parts of her
+career and her environment, can scarcely fail to realize that hers was
+one of the world's sublimely beautiful characters. All she attempted
+in the thorny paths of charity was accomplished in such a practical
+way that the amount of good done was almost incalculable. The simple
+recital of what she did as it has often been told, is the story of a
+great individuality that impressed itself deeply upon its generation
+and left the example of a precious life to act as a leaven for good in
+the midst of the social fermentations of succeeding generations.
+
+Yet Elizabeth succeeded in accomplishing all this in spite of the fact
+that she was born the daughter of a king and married the reigning
+prince of one of the most important ducal houses in Germany. One would
+expect to find that her life had been long, so many traditions have
+gathered around her name. She was twenty when her husband died, and
+she survived him only four years. Literally she had accomplished a
+long space in a short time and her generation in raising in her honor
+the charming Gothic Cathedral at Marburg, one of the most {326}
+beautiful in Germany, was honoring itself nobly as well as her. It is
+the greatest monument to a woman in all the world.
+
+The next great woman of the century also belonged to a reigning family
+and is for obvious historical reasons better known, perhaps, than her
+Saint contemporaries. This was Blanche, daughter of the King of
+Castile, but intimately related to the English royal family. Married
+to Louis VIII of France she is known principally as the mother of
+Louis IX. She ruled France for many years while her boy was a minor
+and when he came to the age, when he might ordinarily assume the reins
+of government, he voluntarily permitted his mother to continue her
+regency for some time longer. France was probably happier under her
+than under any ruler that the country has ever had with the possible
+exception of her son Louis. She succeeded in suppressing to a great
+extent the quarrels so common among the nobility, she strengthened and
+centralized the power of the crown, she began the correction of abuses
+in the administration of justice which her son was to complete so
+well, she organized charity in various ways, and the court was an
+example to the kingdom of simple dignified life, without any abuse of
+power, or wealth, or passion. No wonder that when Louis went on the
+Crusade, he left his mother to reign in his stead confident that all
+would go well. If one needed a demonstration that women can rule well
+there is an excellent example in the life of Blanche.
+
+Personally she seems to have had not only an amiable but a deeply
+intellectual character. She encouraged education and beautiful
+book-making and the Gothic architecture which was developing in France
+so wonderfully during her period. Of course she also worshipped her
+boy Louis, but how much her motherly tenderness was tempered with the
+most beautiful Christian feeling can be understood from the famous
+expression attributed to her on good authority, that she "would rather
+see her boy dead at her feet, than have him commit a mortal offense
+against his God or his neighbor." One might almost say that it is no
+wonder that Louis became a saint. As a matter of fact he attributed to
+his mother whatever of goodness there was in himself. There is a touch
+of humanity in the picture, however, a trait that shows, that Blanche
+was a woman, {327} though it is a fault which draws our sympathy to
+her even more surely than if she were the type of perfection she might
+have been without it. She did not get on well with her daughter-in-law
+and one of the trials of Louis' life, as we have said, was to keep the
+scales evenly balanced between his mother and his wife, both of whom
+he loved very dearly. After Blanche's life there could be no doubt
+that a woman, when given the opportunity, can manage men and
+administer government quite as well as any masculine member of the
+race, and the Thirteenth Century had given another example of its
+power to bring out what was best in its fortunate children.
+
+One of the most interesting women of the Thirteenth Century was
+neither a Saint nor a member of the nobility, but only the wife of a
+simple London merchant. This was Mabel Rich, the mother of Saint
+Edmund of Canterbury. Edmund is one of the striking men of a supreme
+century. He had been a student at Paris, and later a professor at
+Oxford. Then, he became the treasurer of the Cathedral at Salisbury
+about the time when, not a little through his influence, that
+magnificent edifice was receiving the form which was to make it one of
+the world's great churches for all time. Later he was the Archbishop
+of Canterbury and while defending the rights of his church and his
+people, came under the ban of Henry III, and spent most of the latter
+years of his life in exile on the continent. Edmund insisted that he
+owed more to his mother than to any other single factor in life. With
+her two boys, aged ten and fourteen, Mabel Rich was left to care for
+the worldly concerns of the household as well as for their education.
+When they were twelve and sixteen, with many misgivings she sent them
+off to the University of Paris to get their education. Edmund tells
+how besides packing their linen very carefully she also packed a
+hairshirt for each of them, which they were to wear occasionally
+according to their promise to her, to remind them that they must not
+look for ease and comfort in life, above all must not yield to sensual
+pleasures, but must be ready to suffer many little troubles
+voluntarily, in order that they might be able to resist temptation
+when severer trials came. Mabel Rich believed in discipline, as a
+factor in education, and thought that character was formed by habits
+of fortitude in resisting {328} petty annoyances until, finally, even
+serious troubles were easy to bear.
+
+Both of her sons proved worthy of her maternal solicitude. Edmund
+tells how the poor around her home in London blessed her for her
+charity. All during his life the thought of his mother was uppermost
+in his mind, and in the immortality that has been given his name,
+because of the utter forgetfulness of self which characterized his
+life, his mother has been associated. Unfortunately details are
+lacking that would show us something of the manner of living of this
+strong woman of the people, but we know enough to make us realize that
+she was a fine type of the Christian mother, memory of whose goodness
+means more not only for her children but for all those who come in
+contact with her, than all the sermons and pious exhortations that
+they hear, and often, such is the way of human nature, even than the
+divine commandments or the personal conscience of those whom she
+loves.
+
+There were noble women among the gentlewomen of England at this time
+too, and though space will not let us dwell on them, at least one must
+be mentioned. This is the famous Isabella, Countess of Arundel, who
+with a dignity which, Matthew Paris says, was more than that of woman,
+reproached Henry III (1252), when he sought to browbeat her. She made
+bold to tell the king, "You govern neither us nor yourself well." On
+this the king, with a sneer and a grin, said with a loud voice, "Ho,
+ho, my lady countess, have the noblemen of England granted you a
+charter and struck a bargain with you to become their spokeswoman
+because of your eloquence?" She answered, "My liege, the nobles have
+made no charter, but you and your father have made a charter, and you
+have sworn to observe it inviolably, and yet many times have you
+extorted money from your subjects and have not kept your word. Where
+are the liberties of England, often reduced to writing, so often
+granted, so often again denied?"  [Footnote 27]
+
+  [Footnote 27: Medieval England, English Feudal Society, from the
+  Norman Conquest to the Middle of the Fourteenth Century, by Mary
+  Bateson.]
+
+The question of womanly occupations apart from their household duties
+will be of great interest to our generation.
+
+{opp328}
+[Illustration]
+MARRIAGE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN (GIOTTO, PADUA)
+
+
+A hint of one form of woman's occupation has already been {329} given
+in discussing the needlework done for the Cathedrals and especially
+the Cope of Ascoli. It must not be forgotten that this was the age not
+alone of Cathedrals but also of monasteries and of convents. In all of
+these convents every effort was made to have whatever was associated
+with the religious ceremonial as beautiful as possible. Hence it was
+that needlework rose to a height of accomplishment such as has never
+been reached since according to the best authorities, and many
+examples of it have come down to us to confirm such an opinion. This
+needlework was done not only for religious purposes, however, but also
+as presents for Kings and Queens and the nobility, and such presents
+proved to be exemplars of artistic beauty that must have helped to
+raise the taste of the time. This was essentially woman's work, and in
+their distant castles the women of the households of the nobility
+occupied themselves with it to much better effect than their sisters
+of the modern time with the grievous burden of their so-called social
+duties.
+
+Miss Bateson  [Footnote 28: Ibidem.] has given a pretty, yet piquant
+picture of woman at these occupations. She says:--"There are not
+wanting Thirteenth Century satires to tell the usual story of female
+levities, and of female devotion to the needle, to German work and
+pierced work, Saracen work and combed work, cutout work and wool-work,
+and a multitude of other "works" to which the clue seems to be now
+wholly lost. Whilst the women are thus engaged, the one who knows most
+reads to them, the others listen attentively, and do not sleep as they
+do at mass, 'pur la prise de vanite dont ont grant leesce (joy).' The
+'opus anglicum' consisted of chain-stitch in circles, with hollows,
+made by a heated iron rod, to represent shadows. A cope of this work
+was made by Rose de Burford at Edward II's order, and sent to Rome.
+One, known as the Syon cope, passed into the possession of the nuns of
+Syon, Isleworth, and can be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum."
+
+Another form of woman's work that came to prominence during the
+century was the service in hospitals. While the records of the
+hospitals of the Holy Ghost, which under Innocent Third's fostering
+care spread so widely throughout Europe in this century, are mainly
+occupied with the institutions of {330} the Brothers of the Holy
+Ghost, there were many hospitals under the care of women, and indeed
+there was an almost universally accepted idea, that women patients and
+obstetrical cases should be cared for by women rather than men. It is
+easy to make little of the hospitals of this time but any such thought
+will be the result of ignorance rather than of any serious attempt to
+know what was actually accomplished. The sisters' hospitals soon
+usurped the most prominent place in the life of the time and during
+succeeding centuries gradually replaced those which had been
+originally under the control of men. It was recognized that nursing
+was a much more suitable occupation for the gentler sex and that there
+were many less abuses than when men were employed. The success of
+these hospitals in gradually eradicating leprosy and in keeping down
+the death-rate from St. Anthony's fire, or erysipelas, shows how
+capable they were of accomplishing great humanitarian work.
+
+Perhaps the most interesting feature of the story of woman's position
+during the Thirteenth Century is that at the Italian universities at
+least, co-education was not only admitted in principle but also in
+practice, and many women were in attendance at the universities. In
+the West of Europe this feature did not exist. It is a startling
+comment on how comparatively trivial a thing may change the course of
+history, that the lamentable Heloise and Abelard incident at the
+University of Paris during the Twelfth Century, precluded all
+subsequent possibility of the admission of women students to the
+University of Paris. Oxford, it will be remembered, was formed by the
+withdrawal of students from the University of Paris, and the same
+tradition was maintained. Cambridge was a grand-daughter of the
+University of Paris and the French and Spanish universities must all
+be considered as standing in the relation of its direct descendants.
+The unfortunate experience at Paris shaped the policy as to the
+co-education of the sexes for all these. It would have been too much
+to expect that university authorities would take the risks which had
+been so clearly demonstrated even with regard to a distinguished
+professor, and so co-education was excluded.
+
+It is not easy to say what proportion of women there were {331} in
+attendance at the university of Bologna during the Thirteenth Century.
+Apparently it should not be difficult to take the lists of the
+matriculates as far as they have been preserved and by a little
+calculation obtain rather exact figures. Italy, like most of the Latin
+countries, differs from the Teutonic regions in not being quite so
+exact in the distribution of names to the different sexes, that the
+first name inevitably determines whether the individual is male or
+female. It is not an unusual thing even at the present day for a man
+to have as a first name in Italy, or France, or Spain, the equivalent
+of our name Mary. On the other hand, not a few girls are called by
+men's names and without the feminine termination which is so
+distinctive among the English speaking peoples. In the olden times
+this was still more the case. Until very recently at least, if not
+now, every child born in Venice was given two names at its
+baptism--Maria and Giovanni--in honor of the two great patron saints
+of the city and then the parents might add further names if they so
+desired. A matriculation list of the University of Bologna then, tells
+very little that is absolute with regard to the sex of the
+matriculates.
+
+All that we know for sure is that there were women students at the
+University of Bologna apparently from the beginning of the Thirteenth
+Century, and that some of them secured the distinction of being made
+Professors. Of one of these there is a pretty legend told, which seems
+to illustrate the fact that charming young women of profound
+intellectual qualities did not lose the characteristic modesty and
+thoughtfulness for others of their sex, because of their elevation to
+university professorship. This young woman, Maria di Novella, when
+only twenty-five became the Professor of mathematics at the University
+of Bologna. According to tradition she was very pretty and as is usual
+in life was not unaware of that happy accident. She feared that her
+good looks might disturb the thoughts of her students during her
+lessons and accordingly she delivered her lectures from behind a
+curtain. The story may, of course, be only a myth. One of the best
+woman educators that I know once said to me, that if the tradition
+with regard to her beauty were true, then she doubted the rest of the
+story, but then women are not always the best judges of the {332}
+actions of other women and especially is this true when there is
+question of a grave and learned elderly woman passing judgment on a
+young and handsome professor of mathematics.
+
+The Italians became so much impressed with the advisability of
+permitting women to study at the universities, that a certain amount
+of co-education has existed all down the centuries in Italy and not a
+century has passed since the Thirteenth, which has not chronicled the
+presence of at least one distinguished woman professor at some Italian
+university. Indeed it was doubtless the traditional position of
+tolerance in this matter that made it seem quite natural for women,
+when the Renaissance period came around, to take their places beside
+their brothers and their cousins in the schools where the new learning
+was being taught.
+
+It may be rather difficult for some to understand how with this
+opening wedge for the higher education of women well placed, the real
+opportunity for widespread feminine education should only have come in
+our own time. This last idea, however, which would represent ours as
+the only generation which has given women adequate opportunities for
+intellectual development, is one of those self-complacent bits of
+flattery of ourselves and our own period that is so irritatingly
+characteristic of recent times. There have been at least three times
+in the world's history before our own when as many women as wanted
+them, in the class most interested in educational matters, were given
+the opportunities for the higher education. As a matter of fact
+whenever there have been novelties introduced into educational
+systems, women have demanded and quite naturally--since, "What a good
+woman wants," said a modern saint, "is the will of God"--have obtained
+the privilege of sharing the educational opportunities of the time.
+This was true in Charlemagne's time when the women of the court
+attended the lectures in the traveling palace school the great Charles
+founded and fostered. It was true four centuries later, as we have
+seen, when a great change in educational methods was introduced with
+the foundation of the universities. It was exemplified again when the
+"New Learning" came in and the study of the classics took the place of
+the long hours spent in scholastic disputation, that had previously
+occupied {333} so much university attention. In our own time it was
+the introduction of the study of the social sciences particularly,
+with the consequent appearance of many novelties in the educational
+curriculum, that once more was the signal for women asking and quite
+naturally obtaining educational privileges.
+
+
+{opp333}
+[Illustration]
+MOSAIC (ST. MARK'S, VENICE, 1220)
+
+
+Each of the previous experiences in the matter of feminine education
+has been followed by a considerable period during which there was a
+distinct incuriousness on the part of women in educational matters. Of
+course that is only an analogy and though history is worth studying,
+only because the lessons of the past are the warnings of the future,
+yet this does not foretell a lessening of feminine interest in
+educational matters, after a few generations of experience of its
+vanity to make up to them for the precious special privileges of their
+nature, the proper enjoyment and exercise of which it is so likely to
+hamper. It would be interesting to know just why feminine education,
+after a period of efflorescence during the Thirteenth Century,
+retrograded during the next century. There have been some ungallant
+explanations offered, which we mention merely because of their
+historical interest but without any hint of their having any real
+significance in the matter.
+
+A distinguished German educational authority has called attention to
+the fact that a well-known prepared food, for which Bologna is famous,
+is first heard of about the time that the higher education for women
+came into vogue at the Italian universities. Towards the end of the
+same century a special kind of pudding, since bearing the name of its
+native city, Bologna, which might very well have taken the place of an
+ordinary dessert, also began to come into prominence. This German
+writer suggests then, that possibly the serving of meals consisting of
+these forms of prepared food, which did not require much household
+drudgery and did not necessitate the bending over the kitchen range or
+whatever took its place in those days, may have led the men to grumble
+about the effects of the higher education. After all, he adds, though
+the women get whatever they want, when they ask for it seriously, if
+it proves after a time that the men do not want them to have it, then
+women lose interest and care for it no longer. This, of course, must
+be taken with the proverbial grain of salt, though it {334}
+illustrates certain phases of the domestic life of the time as well as
+affording a possible glimpse into the inner circle of the family life.
+
+The real story of woman's intellectual position in the century is to
+be found in its literature. How deep was the general culture of the
+women of the Thirteenth Century, in Italy at least, can be judged from
+the Sonnets of Dante and his friends to their loved ones at the end of
+this century. Some of the most beautiful poetry that was ever written
+was inspired by these women and like the law of hydrostatics, it is
+one of the rules of the history of poetry, that inspiration never
+rises higher than its source and that poetry addressed to women is
+always the best index of the estimation in which they are held, the
+reflection of the highest qualities of the objects to which it is
+addressed. Anyone who reads certain of the sonnets of Dante, or of his
+friends Guido Cavalcanti or Gino da Pistoia or Dante da Maiano, will
+find ready assurance of the high state of culture and of intellectual
+refinement that must have existed among the women to whom they were
+dedicated. This same form of reasoning will apply also with regard to
+the women of the South of France to whom the Troubadours addressed
+their poetry; to those of the north of France who were greeted by the
+Trouveres; and those of the south of Germany for whom the Minnesingers
+tuned their lyres and invoked the Muses to enable them to sing their
+praises properly. It would seem sometimes to be forgotten that poetry
+generally is written much more for women than for men. Everyone
+realizes that for one man who has read Tennyson's "Idyls of the King"
+there are probably five women to whom they have been a source of
+delight. When we think of the Thirteenth Century as not affording
+opportunities of intellectual culture for its women, we should ask
+ourselves where then did the Meistersingers and the poets of England,
+Germany and France who told their romantic tales in verse find an
+audience, if it was not among the women. The stories selected by the
+Meistersingers are just those which proved so popular to feminine
+readers of Tennyson in the Nineteenth Century, and the chosen subjects
+of interest in the stories show that men and women have not changed
+much during the intervening centuries. The literature of any {335}
+period reflects the interest of the women in it and, as interest is
+itself an index of intellectual development, Thirteenth Century
+literature must be taken as the vivid reflection of the cultural
+character of the women of the time, and this is of itself the highest
+possible tribute to their intelligence and education.
+
+On the other hand the best possible testimony to the estimation of
+women during the Thirteenth Century, is to be found in the attitude of
+the men of the generations towards them, as it is clearly to be seen
+in the literature of the time. In the Holy Graal, the Cid, the
+Minnesingers and the Meistersingers, woman occupies the higher place
+in life and it is recognized that she is the highest incentive to
+good, unfortunately also sometimes to evil, but always the best reward
+that men can have for their exertions in a great cause. The supreme
+tribute to woman comes at the end of the century in Dante's apotheosis
+of her in the Divine Comedy. In this it is a woman who inspires, a
+woman who leads, a woman who is the reward of man's aspirations, and
+though the symbolism may be traced to philosophy, the influence of an
+actual woman in it all is sure beyond all doubt. Nor must it be
+thought that it was merely in this highest flight of his imagination
+that this greatest of poets expressed such lofty sentiments with
+regard to women. Anyone who thinks this does not know Dante's minor
+poems, which contain to women in the flesh and above all to one of
+them, the most wonderful tributes that have ever been paid to woman.
+Take this one of his sonnets for instance.
+
+  So gentle and so fair she seems to be.
+    My Lady, when she others doth salute,
+    That every tongue becomes, all trembling, mute,
+  And every eye is half afraid to see;
+  She goes her way and hears men's praises free.
+    Clothed in a garb of kindness, meek and low.
+    And seems as if from heaven she came, to show
+  Upon the earth a wondrous mystery:
+  To one who looks on her she seems so kind,
+    That through the eye a sweetness fills the heart,
+    Which only he can know who doth it try.
+{336}
+  And through her face there breatheth from her mind
+    A spirit sweet and full of Love's true art,
+  Which to the soul saith, as it cometh, "Sigh."
+
+
+It will be noted that though this contains the highest possible praise
+of the woman whom he loved, it has not a single reference to any of
+her physical perfections, or indeed to any of those charms that poets
+usually sing. We have already called attention to this, that it is not
+the beauty of her face or her figure that has attracted him, but the
+charm of her character, which all others must admire--which even women
+do not envy, it is so beautiful--that constitutes the supreme reason
+for Dante's admiration. Nor must it be thought that this is a unique
+example of Dante's attitude in this matter; on the contrary, it is the
+constant type of his expression of feeling. The succeeding sonnet in
+his collection is probably quite as beautiful as the first quoted, and
+yet is couched in similar terms. It will be found in the chapter on
+Dante the Poet. Need we say more to prove that the women of the
+century were worthy of the men and of the supreme time in which they
+lived; that they were the fit intellectual companions of perhaps the
+greatest generation of men that ever lived?
+
+
+[Illustration]
+STONE CARVING (AMIENS)
+
+
+{337}
+
+XXI
+
+CITY HOSPITALS--ORGANIZED CHARITY.
+
+
+While the Thirteenth Century was engaged in solving the problems of
+the higher education and of technical education for the masses, and
+was occupied so successfully, as we have seen, with the questions of
+the rights of man and the development of law and of liberty, other and
+more directly social and humanitarian works were not neglected. There
+had been hospitals in existence from even before the Christian era,
+but they had been intended rather for the chronic ailments and as the
+name implies, for the furnishing of hospitality to strangers and
+others who had for the time no habitation, than for the care of the
+acutely ill. In the country places there was a larger Christian
+charity which led people to care even for the stranger, and there was
+a sense of human duty that was much more binding than in the modern
+world. The acutely ill were not infrequently taken into the houses of
+even those who did not know them, and cared for with a solicitude
+difficult to understand in this, colder time. This was not so much
+typical of the times, however, as of the social conditions, since we
+have many stories of such events in our colonial days.
+
+In the cities, however, which began more and more to be a feature of
+life in the Thirteenth Century, though they counted their inhabitants
+only by a few thousands where ours count them by hundreds of
+thousands, the need of some other method of caring for such cases made
+itself distinctly felt. At the end of the Twelfth and the beginning of
+the Thirteenth centuries this need became demandingly manifest, and
+the consequence was a movement that proved to be of great and
+far-reaching practical benevolence. It is to the first Pope of the
+Thirteenth Century, Innocent III., that we owe the modern city
+hospital as we have it at the present time, with its main purpose to
+care for the acutely ill who may have no one to take care of them
+properly, as well as for those who have been injured or {338} who have
+been picked up on the street and whose friends are not in a position
+to care for them.
+
+The deliberateness with which Innocent III. set about the
+establishment of the mother city hospital of the world, is a striking
+characteristic of the genius of the man and an excellent illustration
+of the practical character of the century of which he is so thoroughly
+representative.
+
+Pope Innocent recognized the necessity for the existence of a city
+hospital in Rome and by inquiry determined that the model hospital for
+this purpose existed down at Montpelier in connection with the famous
+medical school of the university there. Montpelier had succeeded to
+the heritage of the distinguished reputation in medical matters which
+had been enjoyed by Salernum, not far from Naples, during the Ninth,
+Tenth, and Eleventh centuries. The shores of the Mediterranean have
+always been recognized as possessing a climate especially suitable for
+invalids and with the diminution of the influence of the Salernitan
+school, a transfer of its prestige to Montpelier, where the close
+relationship with Spain had given the medical schools the advantage of
+intimate contact with the medicine of the Arabs, is not a matter of
+surprise. At Montpelier the hospital arrangements made by Guy de
+Montpelier were especially efficient. The hospital of which he had
+charge was under the care of the members of the order of the Holy
+Spirit.
+
+Pope Innocent summoned Guy, or Guido as he was known after this, to
+Rome and founded for him the hospital of the Holy Spirit in the Borgo,
+not far from St. Peter's, where it still exists. This was the mother
+and model hospital for the world. Visitors to Rome saw it, and could
+not fail to admire its great humanitarian work. Bishops from all over
+the world on their official visits to the head of the Church, admired
+the policy under which the hospital was conducted, recognized the
+interest of the Pope in it, and went back to their homes to organize
+institutions of the same kind. How many of these were established in
+various parts of Europe is hard to determine. Virchow in his History
+of the Foundations of the German Hospitals, has a list of over one
+hundred towns in Germany in which hospitals of the Holy Spirit, or
+medical institutions modeled on this hospital at Rome were founded.
+{339} Many of these towns were comparatively small. Most of them
+contained at the time less than five thousand inhabitants, so that it
+can be said without hesitation, that practically every town of any
+importance, at least in Germany, came under the influence of this
+great philanthropic hospital movement.
+
+With regard to other countries, it is more difficult to determine the
+number of places in which such institutions were established. As both
+France and Italy were, however, much more closely in touch with the
+Holy See at this time, it would be surprising if they had not been
+affected as much as Germany by the Pope's enthusiasm in the matter. We
+do know that in various large cities, as in Florence, Siena, Paris and
+London, there was a development of existing hospitals and the
+establishment of new ones, that points to a distinct community of
+interest in the hospital movement. At Paris, the Hotel Dieu was moved
+from the Petit Pont, where it had been, to its present situation and
+received large extensions in size and in usefulness. It was at this
+time, particularly, that it received donations for endowment purposes
+that would enable it to be self-supporting. A number of bequests of
+property, the rent of which was to be paid to the hospital, were made,
+and the details of some of these bequests have an interest of their
+own. Houses were not numbered at this time but were distinguished by
+various signs, usually figures of different kinds that formed part of
+their facade. The Hotel Dieu acquired the houses with the image of St.
+Louis, with the sign of the golden lion of Flanders, with the image of
+the butterfly, with the group of the three monkeys, with the image of
+the wolf, with the image of the iron lion, with the cross of gold,
+with the chimneys, etc. The Hotel Dieu, indeed, seems to have become
+practically a fully endowed institution during the course of the
+Thirteenth Century, for there are apparently no records of special
+revenues voted by the city or the king, though there are such records
+with regard to other places. For instance the Hospital of St. Louis
+received the right to collect a special tax on all the salt that came
+into the city.
+
+In England the hospital movement during the Thirteenth Century is
+evidently quite as active as in Germany, at least as far as the
+records go. These refer mainly to London and show {340} that the
+influence of the work of Innocent III. and his enthusiasm was felt in
+the English capital. The famous St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London
+had been a Priory founded at the beginning of the Twelfth Century,
+which took care of the poor and the ailing, but at the beginning of
+the Thirteenth Century it became more frankly a hospital in the modern
+sense of the word. St. Thomas' Hospital, which remains to the present
+day one of the great medical institutions of London, was founded by
+Richard, Prior of Bermondsey, in 1213. Bethlehem or Bedlam, which
+afterwards became a hospital for the insane, was founded about the
+middle of the Thirteenth Century. The name Bedlam is a corruption of
+Bethlehem, since adopted into the English language to express a place
+where fools do congregate. Bridewell and Christ's Hospital, which were
+the other two of the institutions long known as the five Royal
+Hospitals of London, also seem either to have been founded, or to have
+received a great stimulus and reorganization in the Thirteenth
+Century, but both ceased after some time to be places for the
+reception, of the ailing and became, one of them a prison and the
+other a school.
+
+The names of some of these institutions became associated with that of
+Edward VI. about the middle of the Sixteenth Century. For this,
+however, there was no proper justification, since, at most, all that
+was accomplished within the reign of the boy king, was the
+reestablishment of institutions formerly in existence which had been
+confiscated under the laws of Henry VIII., but the necessity for whose
+existence had been made very clear, because of the suffering entailed
+upon the many ailing poor by the fact, that in their absence there was
+nowhere for them to go to be cared for. As Gairdner points out in his
+History of the English Church in the Sixteenth Century, "Edward has
+left a name in connection with charities and education which critical
+scholars find to be little justified by fact." The supposed foundation
+of St. Thomas' Hospital was only the reestablishment of this
+institution, and even when it was granted by him to the citizens of
+London, this was not, as Gairdner says, "without their paying for it."
+
+How much all this hospital movement owes to Innocent III. will be best
+appreciated from Virchow's account of the German {341} hospitals, the
+great German Scientist not being one of those at all likely to
+exaggerate, the beneficent influence of the Popes, he says:
+
+  "The main cause decisive in influencing and arousing interest of the
+  people of the time in the hospitals of the Holy Ghost was the Papal
+  enthusiasm in the matter. The beginning of their history is
+  connected with the name of that Pope, who made the boldest and
+  farthest-reaching attempt to gather the sum of human interest into
+  the organization of the Catholic Church. The hospitals of the Holy
+  Ghost were one of the many means by which Innocent III. thought to
+  bind humanity to the Holy See. And surely it was one of the most
+  effective. Was it not calculated to create the most profound
+  impression, to see how the mighty Pope who humbled emperors and
+  deposed kings, who was the unrelenting adversary of the Albigenses,
+  turned his eyes sympathetically upon the poor and sick, sought the
+  helpless and the neglected on the streets, and saved the
+  illegitimate children from death in the waters. There is something
+  conciliating and fascinating in the fact that at the very same time
+  at which the Fourth Crusade was inaugurated through his influence,
+  the thought of founding a great organization of an essentially
+  humane character to extend throughout all Christendom, was also
+  taking form in his soul; and that in the same year (1204) in which
+  the new Latin Empire was founded in Constantinople, the newly
+  erected hospital of the Santo Spirito, by the Old Bridge across the
+  Tiber, was blessed and dedicated as the future center of this
+  universal humanitarian organization."
+
+
+{opp341}
+[Illustration]
+HOSPITAL OF THE HOLY GHOST (LUeBECK)
+
+
+Virchow, of course, considers Innocent's action as due to the entirely
+interested motive of binding the Catholic world to the Holy See.
+Others, however, who have studied Innocent's life even more
+profoundly, have not considered his purpose as due to any such mean
+motive. Hurter who wrote a history of Pope Innocent III., the
+researches for which he began as a Protestant with the idea that in
+the life of this Pope better than anywhere else the pretensions of the
+papacy could be most effectively exposed, but who was so taken by the
+character of the man that before he completed his history he had
+become a Catholic, looks at it in a very different way. Even Virchow
+himself quotes {342} Hurter's opinion, though not without taking some
+exceptions to it. Hurter said with regard to charitable foundations in
+his history of Pope Innocent III.: "All benevolent institutions which
+the human race still enjoys, all care for the deserted and needy
+through every stage of suffering from the first moment of birth to the
+return of the material part to earth, have had their origin in the
+church. Some of them directly, some of them indirectly through the
+sentiments and feelings which she aroused, strengthened and vivified
+into action. The church supplied for them the model and sometimes even
+the resources; that these great humanitarian needs were not neglected
+and their remedies not lacking in any respect is essentially due to
+her influence upon human character."
+
+With regard to this Virchow says that hospitals had existed among the
+Arabs and among the Buddhists in the distant East, "nevertheless," he
+adds, "it may be recognized and admitted, that it was reserved for the
+Roman Catholic Church and above all for Innocent III., to establish
+institutions for the care of those suffering from diseases."
+
+A corresponding hospital movement that received considerable attention
+within the Thirteenth Century was the erection of Leproseries or
+hospitals for the care of lepers. Leprosy had become quite common in
+Europe during the Middle Ages, and the contact of the West with the
+East during the Crusades had brought about a notable increase of the
+disease. It is not definitely known how much of what was called
+leprosy at that time really belonged to the specific disease now known
+as lepra. There is no doubt that many affections which have since come
+to be considered as quite harmless and non-contagious, were included
+under the designation leprosy by the populace and even by physicians
+incapable as yet of making a proper differential diagnosis. Probably
+severe cases of eczema and other chronic skin diseases, especially
+when complicated by the results of wrongly directed treatment or of
+lack of cleansing, were sometimes pronounced to be leprosy. Certain of
+the severer forms of what is now known as psoriasis--a non-contagious
+skin disease--running a very slow course and sometimes extremely
+obstinate to treatment, were almost surely included under the
+diagnosis of leprosy. Personally I have seen {343} in the General
+Hospital in Vienna, a patient who had for many months been compelled
+by the villagers among whom he lived to confine himself to his
+dwelling, sustained by food that was thrown into him at the window by
+the neighbors who were fearful of the contagiousness of his skin
+disease, yet he was suffering from only a very neglected case of
+psoriasis.
+
+There is no doubt, however, of the existence of actual leprosy in many
+of the towns of the West from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth centuries,
+and the erection of these special hospitals proved the best possible
+prophylactic against the further spread of the disease. Leprosy is
+contagious, but only mildly so. Years of association with lepers may
+and usually does bring about the communication of the disease to those
+around them, especially if they do not exercise rather carefully
+certain precise precautions as to cleanliness, after personal contact
+or after the handling of things which have previously been in the
+leper's possession. As the result of the existence of these houses of
+segregation, leprosy disappeared during the course of the next three
+centuries and thus a great hygienic triumph was obtained by sanitary
+regulation.
+
+This successful hygienic and sanitary work, which brought about
+practically the complete obliteration of leprosy in the Middle Ages,
+furnished the first example of the possibility of eradicating a
+disease that had become a scourge to mankind. That this should have
+been accomplished by a movement that had its greatest source in the
+Thirteenth Century, is all the more surprising, since we are usually
+accustomed to think of the people of those times, as sadly lacking in
+any interest in sanitary matters. The significance of the success of
+the segregation movement was lost upon men down almost to our own
+time. This was, however, because it was considered that most of the
+epidemic diseases were conveyed by the air. They were thought
+infectious and due to a climatic condition rather than to contagion,
+that is conveyed by actual contact with the person having the disease
+or something that had touched him, which is the view now held. With
+the beginning of the crusade against tuberculosis in the latter part
+of the Nineteenth Century, however, the most encouraging factor for
+those engaged in it, was the history of the success of segregation
+methods and careful {344} prevention of the spread of the disease
+which had been pursued against leprosy. In a word the lessons in
+sanitation and prophylaxis of the Thirteenth Century are only now
+bearing fruit, because the intervening centuries did not have
+sufficient knowledge to realize their import and take advantage of
+them.
+
+Pope Innocent III. was not the only occupant of the papal throne whose
+name deserves to be remembered with benedictions in connection with
+the hospital movement of the Thirteenth Century. His successors took
+up the work of encouragement where he had left it at his death and did
+much to bring about the successful accomplishment of his intentions in
+even wider spheres. Honorius III. is distinguished by having made into
+an order the Antonine Congregation of Vienna, which was especially
+devoted to the care of patients suffering from the holy fire and from
+various mutilations. The disease known as the holy fire seems to have
+been what is called in modern times erysipelas. During the Middle Ages
+it received various titles such as St. Anthony's fire, St. Francis'
+fire, and the like, the latter part of the designation evidently being
+due to the intense redness which characterizes the disease, and which
+can be compared to nothing better than the erythema consequent upon a
+rather severe burn. This affection was a great deal commoner in the
+Middle Ages than in later times, though it must not be forgotten that
+its disappearance has come mainly in the last twenty-five years.
+
+It is now known to be a contagious disease and indeed, as Oliver
+Wendell Holmes pointed out over half a century ago, may readily be
+carried from place to place by the physician in attendance. It does
+not always manifest itself as erysipelas when thus carried, however,
+and the merit of Dr. Holmes' work was in pointing out the fact that
+physicians who attended patients suffering from erysipelas and then
+waited on obstetrical cases, were especially likely to carry the
+infection which manifested itself as puerperal fever. A number of
+cases of this kind were reported and discussed by him, and there is no
+doubt that his warning served to save many precious lives.
+
+Of course nothing was known of this in the Thirteenth Century, yet the
+encouragement given to this religious order, which devoted itself
+practically exclusively to the care in special {345} hospitals of
+erysipelas, must have had not a little effect in bringing about a
+limitation of the spread of the disease. In such hospitals patients
+were not likely to come in contact with many persons and consequently
+the contagion-radius of the disease was limited. In our own time
+immediate segregation of cases when discovered has practically
+eradicated it, so that many a young physician, even though ten years
+in practise, has never seen a case of it. It was so common in America
+during the Civil War and for half a century prior thereto, that there
+were frequent epidemics of it in hospitals and it was generally
+recognized that the disease was so contagious that when it once gained
+a foothold in a hospital, nearly every patient suffering from an open
+wound was likely to be affected by it.
+
+It is interesting then to learn that these people of the Middle Ages
+attempted to control the disease by erecting special hospitals for it,
+though unfortunately we are not in a position to know just how much
+was accomplished by these means. A congregation devoted to the special
+care of the disease had been organized, as we have said, early in the
+Thirteenth Century. At the end of this century this was given the full
+weight of his amplest approval by Pope Boniface VIII., who conferred
+on it the privilege of having priests among its members. It will be
+remembered that Pope Boniface VIII. is said to have issued the Bull
+which forbade the practise of dissection. The decretal in question,
+however, which was not a Bull, only regulated, as I have shown, the
+abuse which had sprung up of dismembering bodies and boiling them in
+order to be able to carry them to a distance for burial, and was in
+itself an excellent hygienic measure.
+
+Many orders for the care of special needs of humanity were established
+during the Thirteenth Century. It is from this period that most of the
+religious habits worn by women originate. These used to be considered
+rather cumbersome for such a serious work as the nursing and care of
+the sick, but in recent years quite a different view has been taken.
+The covering of the head, for instance, and the shearing of the hair
+must have been of distinct value in preventing communication of
+certain diseases. There has been a curious assimilation in the last
+few years, of the dress required to be worn by nurses in operating
+{346} rooms to that worn by most of the religious communities. The
+head must be completely covered, and the garments worn are of material
+that can be washed. It will be recalled that the headdresses of
+religious, being as a rule of spotless white, must be renewed
+frequently and therefore must be kept in a condition of what is
+practically surgical cleanliness. While this was not at all the
+intention of those who adopted the particular style of headdress worn
+by religious, yet their choice has proved, in what may well be
+considered a Providential way, to be an excellent protective for the
+patients against certain dangers that would inevitably have been
+present, if their dress had been the ordinary one of the women of
+their class during these many centuries of hospital nursing by
+religious women.
+
+The organization of charity is supposed to be a feature of social life
+that was reserved for these modern times. A subsequent chapter on
+Democracy, Christian Socialism and National Patriotism, shows how
+false this notion is from one standpoint; a little additional
+interpretation will show that the generations which organized the
+hospitals, took care of the lepers in such a way as to prevent their
+becoming sources of infection for others, and segregated such severe
+contagious diseases as erysipelas, not only knew how to organize
+charitable efforts, but were able to accomplish their purposes in this
+matter in such a way, that the friction of the charity organization
+itself absorbed as little as possible of the beneficent energy put
+into it, and much less than is the case in our own time. Besides the
+monasteries were really active centers of charity organization of the
+most practical character. They not only gave to the people when their
+necessities required it, but they were active employers of labor and
+in times of scarcity constantly made large sacrifices in order to keep
+their people employed, and even the community itself went on short
+rations in order that the suffering in the neighborhood might not be
+extreme. In times of prosperity there were, no doubt, abuses in
+monasteries, but no one ever accused them of neglecting the poor
+during times of famine.
+
+While the Thirteenth Century was so intent upon the relief of the
+social needs consequent upon illness and injury, it did not neglect
+other forms of social endeavor. One of the crying {347} evils of the
+Thirteenth Century was the fact that mariners and merchants, as well
+as pilgrims to the Holy Land, were not infrequently captured by
+corsairs from the northern coast of Africa, and sold into slavery. At
+times, if there was hope of a very large ransom, news of the condition
+of these poor victims might find its way to their homes. As a rule,
+however, they were as much lost to family and friends as if they had
+actually been swallowed up by the sea, which was usually concluded to
+have been their fate. The hardships thus endured and the utter
+helplessness of their conditions made them fitting subjects for
+special social effort. The institution which was to provide relief for
+this sad state of affairs had its rise in a typically Thirteenth
+Century way--what, doubtless, the modern world would be apt to think
+of as characteristically medieval--but the result achieved was as
+good an example of practical benevolence as has ever been effected in
+the most matter-of-fact of centuries.
+
+
+{opp347}
+[Illustration]
+CHARITY (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+FORTITUDE (GIOTTO)
+
+[Illustration]
+HOPE (GIOTTO)
+
+
+Shortly after the beginning of the Thirteenth Century two very
+intelligent men, whose friends honored them very much for the
+saintliness of their lives--meaning by saintliness not only their
+piety but their thoughtfulness for others before themselves--had a
+dream in which they saw poor captives held in slavery and asking for
+some one out of Christian charity to come and ransom them. One of
+these men was John of Matha, a distinguished teacher of Theology at
+the University of Paris. The other was Felix of Valois, more
+distinguished for his piety than his learning, but by no means an
+ignorant man. On the same night, though living at a distance from one
+another, they had this identical dream. Having told it next day to
+some friends, it happened that after a time it came to their mutual
+knowledge that the other had had a similar vision. The circumstance
+seemed so striking to them that they applied to the Pope for an
+interpretation of it. The Pope, who was Innocent III., the founder of
+city hospitals, saw in it a magnificent opportunity for the foundation
+of another great Christian charity.
+
+Accordingly in interpreting it, he directed their thoughts toward the
+redemption of Christian captives taken by the Saracens. He has as a
+consequence been regarded as the founder of the order of Trinitarians
+(A. D. 1198), and did, in {348} fact, draft its Rule. It was called,
+from its object, Ordo de Redemptione Captivorum, (Order for the
+Redemption of Captives), but its members were more generally known as
+Trinitarians. They wore a white habit, having a red and blue cross on
+the breast. They were well received in France, where they had
+originated, were the recipients of large sums of money to be devoted
+to the objects of the order, and had large accessions to their number,
+among whom were many distinguished by ability and profound learning.
+
+In the year 1200 the first company of ransomed captives arrived from
+Morocco, and one may easily imagine their joy on again regaining their
+freedom and beholding once more their friends and native land.
+
+The members of this order were sometimes called Mathurins, from the
+title of the first church occupied by them in Paris. They spread
+rapidly in Southern France, through Spain, Italy, England, Saxony, and
+Hungary, and foundations of a similar kind were also opened for women.
+Cerfroid, in the diocese of Meaux, where the first house of the order
+was opened, became the residence of the General (minister generalis).
+There was a fine field for their labors in Spain, where the Moors were
+constantly at war with the Christians. The self-sacrificing spirit of
+these religious, which led them to incur almost any dangers in the
+accomplishment of their purpose, was only equaled by their zeal in
+arousing interest for the poor captives. They became the accredited
+agents for the ransoming of prisoners, and also for their exchange and
+even the Mahometans learned to trust and eventually to reverence them.
+When they could not ransom at once they thus succeeded in ameliorating
+the conditions in which slave prisoners were kept, and proved a great
+source of consolation to them.
+
+Another order, having the same object in view but differing somewhat
+in its constitution, was founded in 1218, by Peter of Nolasco, a
+distinguished Frenchman, and Raymond of Pennafort the famous authority
+on canon law. In this, too, medieval supernaturalism evolved the usual
+practical results. In consequence of a vision, the order was placed
+under the special protection of the Blessed Virgin, and called the
+Order of the Blessed Virgin of Mercy (Ordo. B. Mariae de Mercede). Its
+{349} members bound themselves by vow to give their fortunes and to
+serve as soldiers in the cause. Their devotion was so ardent that for
+the accomplishment of their purpose they vowed if necessary to make a
+sacrifice of their very persons, as Peter actually did in Africa, for
+the redemption of Christian captives. Hence their members were divided
+into Knights who wore a white uniform, and Brothers, who took orders
+and provided for the spiritual wants of the community. Gregory IX.,
+admiring the heroic devotion of these intrepid men, approved the
+order. Many thousands of captive Christians who would otherwise have
+dragged out a miserable existence as slaves among the Mahometans of
+North Africa, were thus rescued and restored to their families and a
+life of freedom and happiness in Europe. This was a fine practical
+example of Abolitionism worthy of study and admiration.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+HOSPITAL INTERIOR
+
+
+{350}
+
+XXII
+
+GREAT ORIGINS IN LAW.
+
+
+Perhaps the most surprising phase of Thirteenth Century history is
+that much of what is most valued and most valuable in our modern laws,
+especially as they concern the fundamental rights of man, is to be
+found clearly expressed in the great lawmaking of the Thirteenth
+Century. It can scarcely fail to astonish those who look upon the
+Middle Ages as hopelessly barren in progress, to find that human
+liberty in its development reached such a pass before the end of the
+Middle Ages, or that any period so long before the Renaissance and the
+reformation so-called, could be picked out as representing a
+distinctive epoch in supremely liberal legislation. After careful
+study, the surprise is apt to be rather that there should have been
+comparatively so little advance since that time, seeing how much the
+generations of this marvelous century were able to accomplish in
+definitely formulating principles of human rights.
+
+The first great document in the laws of the Thirteenth Century is, of
+course, Magna Charta, signed in 1215, the foundation of all the
+liberties of English speaking people ever since. Perhaps the highest
+possible tribute to the Great Charter is the fact that it has grown in
+the estimation of intelligent men, rather than lost significance. In
+quite recent years it has become somewhat the custom to belittle its
+import and its influence. But it must not be forgotten that over and
+over again in times of national crises in England, Magna Charta has
+been confidently appealed to as a fundamental law too sacred to be
+altered, as a talisman containing some magic spell capable of averting
+national calamity. Bishop Stubbs said of it, that "the Great Charter
+was the first supreme act of the nation after it had realized its own
+identity."
+
+Perhaps in nothing does its supremacy as basic legislation for
+national purposes so shine forth, as from the fact that it is {351}
+not a vague statement of great principles, not a mere declaration of
+human rights, not a documentary rehearsal of fundamental legalities,
+but a carefully collected series of practical declarations for the
+solution of the problems that were then disturbing the peace of the
+kingdom, and leading to charge and countercharge of infringement of
+right on the part of the king and his subjects. As might have been
+expected from the men of the Thirteenth Century--from the generations
+who more than any other in all human history succeeded in uniting the
+useful with the beautiful in everything from the decoration of their
+churches and other great architectural structures to the ordinary
+objects of everyday life--it was of eminently practical character.
+While it is the custom to talk much of Magna Charta and to praise its
+wonderful influence there are very few people who have ever actually
+read its provisions. The classics are said to be books that everyone
+praises but no one reads, and Magna Charta and the Constitution of the
+United States are documents that are joined in the same fate. A little
+consideration of some of the chapters of the Charter will give an
+excellent idea of its thoroughly straightforward practicalness, though
+it may serve also to undeceive those who would expect to find in this
+primal document a lofty statement of abstract human rights, such as
+the men of the Thirteenth Century were never conscious of, since their
+thoughts were always in the concrete and their efforts were bent to
+the solution of the problems lying just before them, and not to the
+lifting of all the burdens that human nature has to bear.
+
+Before this, of course, there had been some development of legislation
+to furnish the basis for what was to come in the Thirteenth Century.
+The famous Constitutions of Clarendon under Henry II. and the Assizes
+of Clarendon (quite a different matter) and of North Hampton and the
+Forest under Henry II., gave assurances of rights that had only
+existed somewhat shadily before. According to the Constitutions of
+Clarendon sworn men gave their verdict in cases from their own
+knowledge. This was, of course, quite a different matter from the
+giving of a verdict from knowledge obtained through witnesses at a
+trial, but the germ of the jury trial can be seen. It was not,
+however, until the next reign that the men of England {352} did not
+merely wait for the free gifts of legal rights but demanded and
+obtained them. There was a new hitherto undreamt-of spirit abroad in
+the Thirteenth Century, by which men dared to ask for the rights they
+considered should be theirs.
+
+The opening chapter of Magna Charta states especially the subjects of
+the rights that are guaranteed by the document. It is not surprising
+then, to find that the first subject is the Church and that the most
+extensive guarantees are made that the English Church liberties shall
+be inviolate. Churchmen had been largely concerned in the movement
+which secured the signing of Magna Charta, and then after all, as must
+never be forgotten, the Church at this time was distinctly felt by all
+to be the spiritual expression of the religious aspirations of the
+people. Over the concluding sentence of this chapter, "the grant of
+the unwritten liberties to all freemen of our kingdom," there has been
+no little discussion. There are some who would consider that it
+applied to all Englishmen above the condition of villeins or serfs,
+while there are others who would limit its application practically to
+those nobly born in the kingdom. Posterity undoubtedly came to
+translate it in the broader sense, so that, whatever the original
+intention, the phrase became as a grant eventually to all free
+Englishmen.
+
+Chapter I.: "In the first place we have granted to God, and by this
+our present charter confirmed for us and our heirs for ever, that the
+English Church shall be free, and shall have her rights entire, and
+her liberties inviolate; and we will that it be thus observed; which
+is apparent from this that the freedom of elections, which is reckoned
+most important and very essential to the English Church, we of our
+pure and unconstrained will, did grant, and by our charter confirm and
+did obtain the ratification of the same from our lord, Pope Innocent
+III. before the quarrel arose between us and our barons, and this we
+will observe, and our will is that it be observed in good faith by
+our heirs for ever. We have also granted to all freemen of our
+kingdom, for us and for our heirs for ever, all the underwritten
+liberties, to be had and held by them and their heirs, of us and our
+heirs for ever."
+
+Perhaps the most interesting feature of Magna Charta is to {353} be
+found in the fact, that it did actually in most cases come to be
+applied ever so much wider than had apparently been the original
+intention. It was in this sense a vital document as it were, since it
+had within itself the power of developing so as to suit the varying
+circumstances for which recourse was had to it. There is no doubt at
+all of the good faith of the men who appealed to it, nor of their firm
+persuasion that the document actually intended what they claimed to
+find in it. Modern criticism has succeeded in stripping from the
+original expressions many of the added meanings that posterity
+attached to them, but in so doing has really not lessened the
+estimation in which Magna Charta must be held.
+
+The position is indeed noteworthily analagous to that of the original
+deposit of faith and the development of doctrine which has taken
+place. Higher criticism has done much to show how little of certain
+modern ideas was apparently contained explicitly in the original
+formulas of Christian faith, and yet by so doing has not lessened our
+beliefs, but has rather tended to make us realize the vitality of the
+original Christian tenets. As everything living in God's creation,
+they have developed by a principle implanted within them to suit the
+evolutionary conditions of man's intelligence and the developing
+problems that they were supposed to offer solutions for. The
+comparison, of course, like all comparisons, must walk a little lame,
+since after all Magna Charta is a human document, and yet the very
+fact that it should have presented itself under so many varying
+conditions, ever with new significance to succeeding generations of
+thinking men, is the best evidence of how nearly man's work at its
+best may approach that of the Creator. It is an exemplification, in a
+word, of the creative genius of the century, a worthy compeer of the
+other accomplishments which have proved so enduring and so capable of
+making their influence felt even upon distant generations.
+
+It is of the very essence of the practicality of Magna Charta that
+among the early chapters of the important document--Chapter VII.--is
+one that concerns widows and their property rights immediately after
+the death of their husbands. Previous chapters had discussed questions
+of guardianship and inheritance, since it was especially minors who in
+this rude period {354} were likely to suffer from the injustice of the
+crown, of their over-lords in the nobility, and even from their
+guardians. While Magna Charta, then, begins with the principles for
+the regulation of matters of property as regards children, it proceeds
+at once to the next class most liable to injustice because of their
+inability to properly defend themselves by force of arms--the widows.
+
+Chapter VII.: "A widow, after the death of her husband, shall
+forthwith and without difficulty have her marriage portion and
+inheritance; nor shall she give anything for her dower or for her
+marriage portion, or for the inheritance which she and her husband
+held on the day of the death of that husband; and she may remain in
+the house of her husband for forty days after his death, within which
+time her dower shall be assigned to her."
+
+Chapter VIII.: "Let no widow be compelled to marry, so long as she
+prefers to live without a husband; provided always that she gives
+security not to marry without our consent, if she holds of us, or
+without the consent of the lord of whom she holds, if she holds of
+another."
+
+The first of these provisions serves to show very well how early in
+the history of English jurisprudence a thoroughgoing respect for
+woman's legal rights began to have a place. The beginning Thirteenth
+Century made an excellent start in their favor. For some reason the
+movement for justice thus initiated did not continue, but suffered a
+sad interruption down almost to our own times.
+
+The second of these provisions for widows, embodied in Chapter VIII.,
+sounds a little queer to the modern ear. This protection of widows
+from compulsion to marry is apt to seem absolutely unnecessary in
+these modern days. Some of the unmarried are indeed prone to think,
+perhaps, that widows have more than their due opportunity in this
+matter without any necessity for protecting them from compulsion. Of
+course it is to be understood that it was not always so much the
+charms of the lady herself that must be protected from compulsion, as
+those of the property which she inherited and the political and
+martial influence that she might be expected to bring her husband. In
+these troublous times when disputes with {355} appeals to arms were
+extremely frequent, it was important to have the regulation, that
+after the death of a husband there should be no sudden unbalancing of
+political power because of the compelled marriage of the widow of some
+powerful noble.
+
+In certain subsequent chapters up to the twelfth there is question
+mainly of the rights of the Jews, as money-lenders, to collect their
+debts with interest after the death of the principal to whom it was
+loaned. For instance, according to Chapter X., the debt shall not bear
+interest while the heir is under age and if the debt fell to the hands
+of the crown, nothing but the principal was to be taken. In Chapter
+XI. if any one died indebted to the Jews his wife should have her
+dower and pay nothing of that debt. For children under age the same
+principle held and they had a right to the provision of necessaries in
+keeping with the condition of their father. This last clause has been
+perpetuated in the practice of our courts, as some consider even to
+the extent of an abuse, so that debtors cannot collect from the income
+of a young man to whom money has been left, if by so doing the income
+should be impaired to such an extent as to make his method of living
+unsuitable to the condition in life to which he was born and brought
+up.
+
+Chapter XII. has been the subject of more discussion perhaps than any
+other. McKechnie, the most recent commentator on Magna Charta, says of
+it:  [Footnote 29]
+
+  [Footnote 29: Magna Carta, a Commentary on the Great Charter of King
+  John, with an Historical Introduction by William Sharp McKechnie,
+  M.D., LL.B., D. Phil. Glasgow, James Maclehose and Sons, Publishers
+  to the University, 1905.]
+
+  "This is a famous clause, greatly valued at the time it was framed
+  because of its precise terms and narrow scope (which made evasion
+  difficult), and even more highly valued in after days for exactly
+  opposite reasons. It came indeed to be interpreted in a broad
+  general sense by enthusiasts who, with the fully-developed British
+  constitution before them, read the clause as enunciating the modern
+  doctrine that the Crown can impose no financial burden whatsoever on
+  the people without consent of Parliament."
+
+Readers may judge for themselves from the tenor of the {356} chapter,
+how wide a latitude in interpretation it not only permits, but
+invites.
+
+Chapter XII.: "No scutage nor aid shall be imposed in our kingdom,
+unless by common counsel of our kingdom, except for ransoming our
+person, for making our eldest son a knight, and for once marrying our
+eldest daughter; and for these there shall not be levied more than a
+reasonable aid. In like manner it shall be done concerning aids from
+the citizens of London."
+
+There is no doubt that it is hard to read in this chapter all that has
+been found in it by enthusiastic appellants to Magna Charta at many
+times during the succeeding centuries. As a matter of fact, however,
+within half a century after it had been promulgated, it was appealed
+to confidently as one of the reasons why an English Parliament should
+meet if the King required special levies of money for the purpose of
+carrying on war. It was during the sixth and seventh decades of the
+Thirteenth Century that the great principle of English Legislation:
+"There shall be no taxation without representation"--which six
+centuries later was to be appealed to by the American Colonies as the
+justification for their war for independence, gradually came to be
+considered as a fundamental principle of the relationship between the
+government and the people. That it had its origin in Magna Charta
+there seems no doubt, and it is only another example of that
+unconscious development of a vital principle which, as we know from
+History, took place so often with regard to chapters of the Great
+Charter.
+
+Undoubtedly one of the most important chapters of Magna Charta is the
+very brief one, No. 17, which concerns itself with the holding of a
+Court of Common Pleas. The whole of the chapter is, "Common Pleas
+shall not follow our Court but shall be held in some fixed place."
+This represented a distinct step in advance in the dispensing of
+justice. It is a little bit hard for us to understand, but all
+departments of government were originally centered in the king and his
+household--the court--which attended to royal and national business of
+every kind. As pointed out by Mr. McKechnie in his Magna Charta, the
+court united in itself the functions of the modern cabinet of the
+administrative department--the home office, the foreign office and the
+admiralty, and of the various legal tribunals. It {357} was the parent
+of the Court at St. James and the courts at Westminster. Almost
+needless to say, it is from the fact that the dispensing of justice
+was a function of royalty, that the places of holding trials are still
+called courts.
+
+According to this chapter of Magna Charta, thereafter ordinary trials,
+Common Pleas, did not have to follow the Court, that is the royal
+household, in its wanderings through various parts of the kingdom, but
+they were held at an appointed place. In the days of Henry II. the
+entire machinery of royal justice had to follow the monarch as he
+passed, sometimes on the mere impulse of the moment, from one of his
+favorite hunting-seats to another. Crowds thronged after him in hot
+pursuit, since it was difficult to transact business of moment before
+the court without being actually present. This entailed almost
+intolerable delay, extreme annoyance and great expense upon litigants,
+who brought their pleas for the king's decision. There is an account
+of the hardships which this system inflicted upon suitors told of one
+celebrated case. Richard D'Anesty gives a graphic record of his
+journeyings in search of justice throughout a period of five years,
+during which he visited in the king's wake most parts of England,
+Normandy, Aquitaine, and Anjou. Ultimately successful he paid dearly
+for his legal triumph. He had to borrow at a ruinous rate of interest
+in order to meet his enormous expenses, mostly for traveling, and was
+scarcely able to discharge his debts.
+
+All litigation then, that did not directly involve the crown or
+criminal procedures, could be tried thereafter by a set of judges who
+sat permanently in some fixed spot, which though not named was
+probably intended from the beginning to be Westminster. Hence it has
+been said by distinguished English jurists that Magna Charta gave
+England a Capital. On the other hand Chapter XXIV. insured justice in
+criminal cases by reserving these pleas to judges appointed by the
+crown. This short chapter reads: "No sheriff, constable, coroner, or
+others of our bailiffs shall hold pleas of our Crown." This last
+expression did not necessarily mean matters concerned with royal
+business as might be thought, but had in King John's time come to
+signify criminal trials of all kinds. It is easy to understand that
+those accused of crime would look confidently for {358} justice to the
+representative of the central government, while they dreaded the
+jurisdiction of the less responsible officials resident in the
+counties, who had a wide-spread reputation for cruelty and oppression,
+and for a venality that it was hard to suppress.
+
+It would seem as though these quotations would serve to make even the
+casual reader appreciate how thoroughly Magna Charta deserves the
+reputation which it has borne now for nearly seven centuries, of an
+extremely valuable fundamental document in the history of the
+liberties of the English speaking people. Some of the subsequent
+chapters may be quoted without comment because they show with what
+careful attention to detail the rights of the people were guaranteed
+by the Charter, and how many apparently trivial things were considered
+worthy of mention. We may call attention to the fact that in Chapters
+forty-one and forty-two there are definite expressions of guarantee
+for the rights even of aliens, which represent a great advance over
+the feelings in this respect that had animated the people of a century
+or so before, and foreshadow the development of that international
+comity which is only now coming to be the distinguishing mark of our
+modern civilization.
+
+  "A freeman shall not be amerced for a small offence, except in
+  accordance with the degree of the offence; and for a grave offence
+  he shall be amerced in accordance with the gravity of his offence,
+  yet saving always his 'contentment'; and a merchant in the same way,
+  saving his wares; and a villein shall be amerced in the same way,
+  saving his wainage--if they have fallen into our mercy; and none of
+  the aforesaid amercements shall be imposed except by the oath of
+  honest men of the neighborhood.
+
+  "If any freeman shall die intestate, his chattels shall be
+  distributed by the hands of the nearest kinsfolk and friends, under
+  the supervision of the church, saving to everyone the debts which
+  the deceased owed to him.
+
+  "No constable or other bailiff of ours shall take corn or other
+  provisions from anyone without immediately tendering money therefor,
+  unless he can have postponement thereof by permission of the seller.
+
+  "No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other person shall take {359}
+  the horses or carts of any freeman for transport duty, against the
+  will of the said freeman.
+
+  "All kydells for the future shall be removed altogether from the
+  Thames and Medway, and throughout all England, except upon the sea
+  coast.
+
+  "Nothing in the future shall be taken or given for a writ of
+  inquisition of life or limbs, but freely it shall be granted, and
+  never denied.
+
+  "No bailiff for the future shall put any man to his 'law' upon his
+  own mere word of mouth, without credible witnesses brought for this
+  purpose.
+
+  "No freeman shall be arrested or detained in prison, or deprived of
+  his freehold, or outlawed, or banished, or in any way molested, and
+  we will not set forth against him, nor send against him, unless by
+  the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land.
+
+  "To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or
+  justice.
+
+  "All merchants shall have safe and secure exit from England, and
+  entry to England, with the right to tarry there and to move about as
+  well by land as by water, for buying and selling by the ancient and
+  right customs, quit from all evil tolls, except (in time of war)
+  such merchants as are of the land at war with us. And if such are
+  found in our land at the beginning of the war, they shall be
+  detained without injury to their bodies or goods, until information
+  be received by us, or by our chief justiciar, how the merchants of
+  our land found in the land at war with us are treated and if our men
+  are safe there, the others shall be safe in our land.
+
+  "It shall be lawful in future for any one (excepting always those
+  imprisoned or outlawed in accordance with the law of the kingdom,
+  and natives of any country at war with us, and merchants, who shall
+  be treated as is above provided) to leave our kingdom, and to
+  return, safe and secure by land and water, except for a short period
+  in time of war, on grounds of public policy--reserving always the
+  allegiance due to us.
+
+  "We will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs or bailiffs only
+  such as know the law of the realm and mean to observe it well.
+
+{360}
+
+  "We shall have, moreover, the same respite and the same manner in
+  rendering justice concerning the disafforestation or retention of
+  those forests which Henry our father and Richard our brother
+  afforested and concerning the wardship of lands which are of the
+  fief of another (namely, such wardships as we have hitherto had by
+  reason of a fief, which any one held of us by knight's service) and
+  concerning abbeys founded on other fiefs than our own, in which the
+  lord of the fee claims to have right; and when we have returned, or
+  if we desist from our expedition, we will immediately grant full
+  justice to all who complain of such things.
+
+  "All fines made with us unjustly and against the law of this land,
+  and all amercements imposed unjustly and against the law of this
+  land, shall be entirely remitted, or else it shall be done
+  concerning them according to the decision of the five and twenty
+  barons of whom mention is made below, in the clause for securing the
+  peace, or according to the judgment of the majority of the same,
+  along with the aforesaid Stephen Archbishop of Canterbury, if he can
+  be present, and such others as he may wish to bring with him for
+  this purpose, and if he cannot be present the business shall
+  nevertheless proceed without him, provided always that if any one or
+  more of the aforesaid five and twenty barons are in a similar suit,
+  they shall be removed as far as concerns this particular judgment,
+  others being substituted in their places after having been selected
+  by the rest of the same five and twenty for this purpose only, and
+  after having been sworn.
+
+  "Moreover, all the aforesaid customs and liberties, the observance
+  of which we have granted in our kingdom as far as pertains to us
+  towards our men, shall be observed by all of our kingdom, as well by
+  clergy as by laymen, as far as pertains to them towards their men.
+
+  "And, on this head, we have caused to be made out letters patent of
+  Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry, Archbishop of Dublin, the
+  bishops aforesaid, and Master Pandulf, as evidence of this clause of
+  security and of the aforesaid concessions."
+
+These last provisions show how closely the Church was bound up with
+the securing and maintenance of the rights of {361} the English
+people. The clauses we have quoted just before, need no comment to
+show how sturdily the spirit of liberty strode abroad even at the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century, for Magna Charta was signed in
+1215. The rest of the century was to see great advances in liberty and
+human rights, even beyond the guarantees of the Great Charter.
+
+Magna Charta, glorious as it was, was only the beginning of that basic
+legislation which was to distinguish the Thirteenth Century in
+England. About the middle of the century Bracton began his collection
+of the laws of the land which has since been the great English classic
+of the Common Law. His work was accomplished while he was the Chief
+Justiciary during the reign of Henry III. For many years before he had
+occupied various judicial positions, as Justice Itinerant of the
+counties of Nottingham and Derby and for seventeen years his name
+appears as one of the justices of the Aula Regis. This experience put
+him in an eminently fitting position to be the mouthpiece of English
+practice and law applications, and his book was at once accepted as an
+authority. It is a most comprehensive and systematic work in five
+volumes, bearing the title De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae, and
+was modeled after the Institutes of Justinian.
+
+It was during the reign of Edward I., the English Justinian as he has
+been called, that the English Common Law came to its supreme
+expression, and this monarch has rightly been placed among the great
+benefactors of mankind for his magnanimous generosity in securing the
+legal rights of his subjects and framing English liberties for all
+time. Not a little of Edward's greatness as a law-maker and his
+readiness to recognize the rights of his subjects, with his consequent
+willingness to have English law arranged and published, must be
+attributed to his connection during his earlier years as Prince of
+Wales with the famous Simon De Montfort. To this man more than to any
+other the English speaking people owe the development of those
+constitutional rights, which gradually came to be considered
+inalienably theirs during the Thirteenth Century. He is undoubtedly
+one of the very great characters of history and the Thirteenth Century
+is by so much greater for having been the scene of his labors, during
+so many years, for the {362} establishment of constitutional
+limitations to the power of the monarch, and the uplifting of the
+rights of subjects not only among the nobility, but also among the
+lower classes.
+
+It was in Edward's time that the English Common Law was fashioned into
+the shape in which it was to exist for many centuries afterwards. How
+true this is may perhaps best be judged by the fact that even the laws
+with regard to real estate have not been changed in essence since that
+time, though medieval titles to land would seem to be so different to
+those of the present day. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica the
+changes which have been made since that time have been mainly due to
+the action of equity and legislation, the latter sometimes interpreted
+by the courts in a manner very different from the intention of
+Parliament. The same authority is responsible for the statement that
+the reign of Edward I., is notable for three leading real estate
+statutes which are still law. One of these was with regard to
+Mortmain, while the important statute known as _Quia Emptores_ (the
+eighteenth of Chapter I. of the Laws of Edward I.) had the practical
+effect of making the transfer of land thenceforward, more of a
+commercial and less of a legal transaction. It is to this same period
+that is owed the writ _Elegit_ which introduced the law practice of a
+creditor's remedy over real estate. How little was accomplished in the
+matter of law-making in subsequent centuries, may be gathered from the
+fact that Mr. James Williams who writes the article on real estate in
+the Encyclopedia Britannica ninth edition, says that from 1290 to the
+reign of Henry VIII., that is down to the Sixteenth Century, there is
+no statute of the first importance dealing with real estate.
+
+In a word, then, it may be said that these law-makers of the
+Thirteenth Century anticipated most of the legal difficulties of the
+after-time. Their statutory provisions, as in the case of the chapters
+of Magna Charta, seemed originally only to have a narrow application
+to certain urgent legal questions of the time, but proved eventually
+to contain in themselves the essence of legal principles that could be
+applied in circumstances such as the original law-maker had not even
+imagined. This is indeed the typical triumph of the century in every
+line of endeavor, that while apparently it devoted itself only to the
+{363} narrow problems of its own time, its solutions of them whether
+in art and architecture or decoration, in literary expression or
+poetic effectiveness, in educational methods or social uplift, always
+proved so complete, so thoroughly human in the broadest sense of that
+word and so consonant with development, that their work did not have
+to be done over again. No greater praise than this could be bestowed.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+SPIRE OF ST. ELIZABETH'S (MARBURG)
+
+
+{364}
+
+XXIII
+
+JUSTICE AND LEGAL DEVELOPMENT.
+
+
+It must not be thought because we have devoted so much time to the
+triumphs of English law-making in the Thirteenth Century that,
+therefore, there is little or nothing to be said about this same
+admirable feature of the time in other countries. As a matter of fact
+every nation in Europe saw the foundation of its modern legal system
+laid, and was responsive witness to the expression of the first
+principles of popular rights and popular liberties. Montalembert in
+his Life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary   [Footnote 30] makes no mention
+in the Introduction which is really a panegyric of the Thirteenth
+Century, of the progress of English law-making, and yet considers that
+he is able to bring together enough evidence to show that legislation
+had its acme of development just at this time. His paragraph on the
+subject will serve as the best possible preface to the scant treatment
+of continental law-making and enforcement of justice in this period,
+that our limited space will allow. He says:
+
+  [Footnote 30: Life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary by the Count De
+  Montalembert, translated by Francis Deming Hoyt, New York,
+  Longman's, Green and Company, 1904.]
+
+  "Legislation never, perhaps, had a more illustrious period. On the
+  one hand, the Popes, supreme authorities in matters of law as well
+  as of faith, gave to canon law the fullest development possible to
+  this magnificent security of Christian civilization; sat themselves
+  as judges with exemplary assiduity, published immense collections,
+  and founded numerous schools. On the other hand, that period gave
+  birth to most of the national legislation of the various states of
+  Europe; the great _Mirrors_ of Swabia and Saxony, the first laws
+  published in the German language by Frederick II. at the diet of
+  Mentz, and the code given by him to Sicily; in France, the
+  Institutes of St. Louis, together with the _Common Law_ of Pierre
+  des Fontaines, {365} and the _Statutes of Beauvoisis_ of Philip of
+  Beaumanoir; and lastly the French version of the _Assizes of
+  Jerusalem_, in which is to be found the most complete resume now
+  extant of Christian and chivalric law. All these precious monuments
+  of the old Christian organization of the world are preserved in the
+  native languages of the various people, and are distinguished, less
+  even by this fact than by their generous and pious spirit, from that
+  pernicious Roman law, the progress of which was destined soon to
+  change all the principles of the former."
+
+Most of Montalembert's paragraph refers to the law-making in France
+with which he is naturally more familiar. He has supplied ample
+material for consultation for those who wish to follow out this
+interesting theme further. Even more significant, however, than the
+law-making in France, were the new ideas with regard to the
+enforcement in law that came in during the reign of Louis IX. We have
+not had to wait until this generation to realize, that as a rule it is
+not the absence of law so much as the lack of enforcement of such laws
+as exist, that gives rise to many of the injustices between men. St.
+Louis made it his business to bring about the enforcement of the laws
+with proper construction of their terms in such a way as to secure the
+rights of all. He himself sat under the famous old oak of Versailles
+as a Court of Appeals, reviewing especially the cases of the poor. It
+soon came to be known, that it would be a sad occasion for any and
+every court official who was found to have given judgment against the
+poor because of partiality or the yielding to unlawful influence. On
+the other hand, in order to keep the right of appeal from being
+abused, punishments were meted out to those who made appeals without
+good reason.
+
+Finding that he was unable to hear so many causes as were appealed to
+him, Louis chose Stephen Boileau to act as Chief Justice and committed
+the care of proper legal enforcement with confidence into his hands.
+Boileau had become famous by having condemned some very near
+relatives, under circumstances such that relationship might have been
+expected to weigh down the wrong side of the scales of justice, and in
+a few years he enhanced his reputation by the utter disregard of all
+motives in the settlement of suits at law, except those of {366} the
+strictest justice. How much Louis himself did in order to safeguard
+the rights of the poor can be judged from the famous incident told by
+all his biographers, in which he risked the enmity of the most
+powerful among his barons, in order to secure the punishment of one of
+them who had put two students to death. This was the first time that
+the rights of men, as men, were asserted and it constitutes the best
+possible testimony to the development of law and true liberty in
+France.
+
+  "Three young nobles of the county of Flanders were surprised,
+  together with the abbot of St. Nicholas, in a wood pertaining to
+  Coucy, with bows and arrows. Although they had neither dogs nor
+  hunting implements, they were found guilty of having gone out to
+  hunt and were hanged. The abbot and several women of their families
+  made complaint to the king, and Enguerrard was arrested and taken to
+  the Louvre. The king summoned him before him; he appeared, having
+  with him the King of Navarre, the King of Burgundy, the counts of
+  Bar, Soissons, Brittany, and Blois, the Archbishop of Rheims, Sire
+  John of Thorote, and nearly all the great men in the kingdom. The
+  accused said that he wished to take counsel, and he retired with
+  most of the seigneurs who had accompanied him, leaving the king
+  alone with his household. When he returned, John of Thorote, in his
+  name, said that he would not submit to this inquiry, since his
+  person, his honour, and his heritage were at stake, but that he was
+  ready to do battle, denying that he had hanged the three young men,
+  or ordered them to be hanged. His only opponents were the abbot and
+  the women, who were there to ask for justice. The king answered that
+  in causes in which the poor, the churches, and persons worthy of
+  pity, took part, it was not fitting to decide them in battle; for it
+  was not easy to find anyone to fight for such sorts of people
+  against the barons of the kingdom. He said that his action against
+  the accused was no new thing, and he alleged the example of his
+  predecessor Philip Augustus. He therefore agreed to the request of
+  the complainants, and caused Enguerrard to be arrested by the
+  sergeants and taken to the Louvre. All prayers were useless; St.
+  Louis refused to hear them, rose from his seat, and the barons went
+  away astonished and confused.
+
+{367}
+
+  "They did not, however, consider that they were beaten. They again
+  came together; the King of Navarre, the Count of Brittany, and with
+  them the Countess of Flanders, who ought rather to have intervened
+  for the victims. It was as if they had conspired against the king's
+  power and honour; for they were not content to implore Coucy's
+  release, but asserted that he could not be kept in prison. The Count
+  of Brittany maintained that the king had no right to institute
+  inquiries against the barons of his kingdom in matters which
+  concerned their persons, their heritage or their honour. The king
+  replied, 'You did not speak thus in former times when the barons in
+  direct dependence upon you came before me with complaints against
+  yourself, and offered to sustain them in battle. You then said that
+  to do battle was not in the way of justice.' The barons put forward
+  a final argument, namely, that according to the customs of the
+  kingdom, the king could only judge the accused and punish him in
+  person after an inquiry to which he had refused to submit. The king
+  was resolute, and declared that neither the rank of the guilty man
+  nor the power of his friends should prevent him from doing full
+  justice. Coucy's life was, however, spared. The fact that he had not
+  been present at the judgment, nor at the execution, prevailed in his
+  favour. By the advice of his counsellors, the king condemned him to
+  pay 1200 livres parisis, which, considering the difference in the
+  purchasing power of money, may be estimated at considerably more
+  than 400,000 pounds, and he sent this sum to St. John of Acre for
+  the defense of Palestine. The wood in which the young men were
+  hanged was confiscated to the abbey of St. Nicholas. The condemned
+  man was also constrained to found three perpetual chapelries for the
+  souls of his victims, and he forfeited jurisdiction over his woods
+  and fish ponds, so that he was forbidden to imprison or execute for
+  any offense which had to do with them. Since Enguerrard's defender,
+  John of Thorote, had in his anger told the barons that the king
+  would do well to hang them all, the king, who had been told of this,
+  sent for him and said, 'How comes it, John, that you have said I
+  should hang my barons? I certainly will not have them hanged, but I
+  will punish them when they do amiss.' John of Thorote denied that he
+  had said this, and offered to {368} justify himself on the oath of
+  twenty or thirty knights. The king would not carry the matter
+  further, and let him go."
+
+One of the best evidences of the development of the spirit of law in
+Germany during this time is the establishment of the famous Fehmic
+Courts, or Vehmgerichte, which achieved their highest importance
+during the Thirteenth Century. As with regard to the universities,
+there is a tradition that carries the origin of these courts back to
+the time of Charlemagne. They are much more likely to have been
+developments out of the relics of the ancient free courts of the old
+Teutonic Tribe. The first definite knowledge of their existence cannot
+be traced much earlier than a decade or two before the Thirteenth
+Century. They had their principal existence in Westphalia. Practically
+the whole country between the Rhine and the Weser was ruled to a
+subordinate degree by these Fehmic courts. During the Thirteenth
+Century they were used only in the most beneficial and liberal spirit,
+supplying a means of redress at a time when the public administration
+of justice was almost completely in abeyance. As a matter of fact,
+before their establishment disregard for authority to the extent of
+utter lawlessness prevailed in this part of Germany.
+
+
+{opp368}
+[Illustration]
+CITY GATE (NEUBRANDENBURG)
+
+[Illustration]
+RATHHAUS (STRALSUND)
+
+
+The significance of these courts has sometimes been missed. They
+arose, however, out of the justice loving spirit of the people
+themselves and were meant to supply legal enforcements when the
+regularly constituted authorities were unable to secure them. They
+remind one very much of the vigilance committees, which in our own
+country, in the cities of the distant West, bravely and with the
+admirable prudence of the race, have so often supplied the place of
+regular courts and have brought justice and order out of the chaos of
+lawlessness. The last place most people would expect their prototypes,
+however, would be here in the Germany of the Thirteenth Century. How
+much these Vehmgerichte accomplished during the Thirteenth and
+Fourteenth centuries it would be difficult to say. They represent an
+outgrowth of the spirit of the people themselves, that constitutes
+another striking feature of the practical side of the generations of
+the Thirteenth Century. They had much more to do with bringing about
+the development of the modern acute sense of justice among the
+Teutonic peoples {369} than is usually thought. They are the German
+expression of the same feelings that in England dictated trial by
+jury, and secured for the English speaking people of all time the
+precious privileges of even-handed justice and the right to be judged
+by one's peers.
+
+It was not alone in the western countries of Europe that great
+advances were made in liberty. The democratic spirit that was abroad
+made itself felt everywhere and the foundations of rights for the
+people were laid even in central Europe, in countries which ordinarily
+are thought of at this time as scarcely more than emerging from
+barbarism. Hungary may be cited as an example. Andrew II. is usually
+set down by narrow-minded historians as having been entirely too
+visionary in his character, and the fact that he led the fifth
+Crusade, apparently even more fruitless than were most of the others,
+is supposed to be an additional proof of this. Even Duruy in his
+History of the Middle Ages says of him, "he organized a state of
+anarchy by decreeing his Golden Bull, that if the King should violate
+the privileges of the nobility, they should be permitted to resist him
+by force and such resistance should not be treated as rebellion." As a
+matter of fact, his people were thus granted a constitution more
+liberal even than that of Magna Charta, but containing quite similar
+provisions in many respects, and the curious historical analogy is
+heightened when we recall that at the two ends of civilized Europe
+these constitutions were given in the same decade. One cannot help but
+wonder whether the Saxon elements which were in both peoples, for many
+Saxon and Frisian colonists had been induced to settle in certain
+parts of Transylvania just half a century before, did not have much to
+do with this extremely interesting development in Hungary, so like the
+corresponding evolution of the democratic spirit among their western
+kinsfolk.
+
+In Poland the development in law came a little later but evidently as
+the result of the same factors that were at work during the Thirteenth
+Century. Casimir the Great, who was born shortly after the close of
+the Thirteenth Century, gave wise laws to Poland which have
+constituted the basis of Polish law ever since. At this time Poland
+was one of the most important countries in Europe. Casimir, besides
+giving laws to {370} his people, also founded a university for them
+and in every way encouraged the development of such progress as would
+make his subjects intelligently realize their own rights and maintain
+them, apparently foreseeing that thus the King would be better able to
+strengthen himself against the many enemies that surrounded him in
+central Europe.
+
+How much the great Popes of the century accomplished for the
+foundation and development of law, can only be appreciated by those
+who realize the extent of their contributions to the codification of
+canon law. It was the arrangement of this in definite shape that put
+the civil jurists of the time at work setting their house in order.
+Innocent III., who is deservedly called _Pater Juris_, devoted a great
+deal of his wonderful energy and genius to the arrangement of canon
+law. This placed for the first time the canon law on an absolutely
+sure footing and filled up many gaps that formerly existed. Gregory
+IX. commissioned his chaplain, the famous Raymond of Pennafort, who
+had been a professor of canon law in the University of Bologna, to
+codify all the decretals since the time of Gratian. This work was
+officially promulgated in 1234, four years of labor having been
+devoted to it. The laws are in the form of decisions pronounced in
+cases submitted to the Pope from all parts of Christendom, including
+many from the distant East and not a few from England and Scotland.
+Gregory's decretals were published in five books; a supplement under
+the name of the sixth book was published under Pope Boniface VIII. in
+1298. In this for the first time abstract rules of law are laid down
+extracted from actual judgments. A compendium of Roman Law was added
+so as to approximate canon and civil procedure.
+
+This gives the best possible idea of how deeply the popes and the
+authorities in canon law of the century were laying the foundations of
+canonical practise and procedure for all times. The origins of modern
+law are to be found here, and yet not, as might be anticipated because
+of the distance in time, in such a confused or unmanageable fashion
+that they are not worth while consulting, but on the contrary with
+such clarity and distinctness and with such orderly arrangement, that
+they have been the subjects of study on the part of distinguished
+{371} jurists for most of the centuries ever since, and have never
+lost their interest for the great lawyers and canonists, who prefer to
+know things from the foundation rather than accept them at second
+hand.
+
+Some of the commentaries, or glosses as they were called, on canon law
+serve to give an excellent idea of the legal ability as well as the
+intellectual acumen of the canon lawyers of the century. The system of
+teaching was oral, and careful study was devoted to original
+authorities in law. Explanatory notes were added by the professors to
+their copies of the text. When later these texts were given out or
+lent for transcription, the notes were also copied, usually being
+written in the margin. After a time the commentary, however, proved to
+be, for students at least, as important as the text and so was
+transcribed by itself and was called an apparatus, that is a series of
+mechanical helps, as it were, to the understanding of the text.
+
+Of the names of some of the most distinguished glossatores the memory
+has been carefully preserved because they produced so much effect on
+legal teaching. The gloss written on Gratian by Joannes Teutonicus
+(John the German), probably during the first decade of the Thirteenth
+Century, was revised and supplemented by Bartholomew of Brescia about
+the middle of the Thirteenth Century. Some ten years later Bernard of
+Parma wrote a commentary on the decretals of Gregory. All of these are
+important fundamental works in canon law, and they were of very great
+influence in bringing out the principles of law and showing the basis
+on which they were founded. It is almost needless to say that they
+aroused additional interest and made the subject much more easy of
+approach than it had been. The fact that all of these magnificent
+contributions to the science and literatures of law should have been
+made during our Thirteenth Century, serves only to emphasize the fact
+that everything that men touched during this period was sure to be
+illuminated by the practical genius of the time, and put into a form
+in which for many centuries it was to be appealed to as a model and an
+authority in its own line. How much of legal commentary writing there
+was besides these, can be readily understood from the fact that these
+represent the activity only of the University of Bologna {372} which
+was, it is true, the greatest of universities in its law department,
+but it must not be forgotten that many other universities throughout
+Europe also had distinguished professors of law at this time.
+
+All this would seem to be of little interest for the secular
+law-making of the period, but it must not be forgotten that civil law
+was closely related to canon law at all times and that the development
+of canon law always meant a renewed evolution of the principles, and
+practise, and procedure of the civil law. In such countries as
+Scotland, indeed, the canon law formed the basis of the civil
+jurisprudence and its influence was felt even for centuries after the
+so-called reformation. On the other hand it must not be forgotten that
+the popes and the ecclesiastics helped to fight the battles of the
+middle and lower classes against the king and the nobility in
+practically every country in Europe. A very striking example of this
+is to be found in the life of that much misunderstood Pope Boniface
+VIII., the last pope of the century, who had received his legal
+training at Bologna, and who was one of the great jurists of his time.
+Circumstances differ so much, however, and obscure realities to such a
+degree, that at the present time we need the light of sympathetic
+interpretation to enable us to realize what Boniface accomplished.
+
+
+
+{opp372}
+[Illustration]
+PORTRAIT OF POPE BONIFACE VIII. (GIOTTO, ROME)
+
+
+He did much to complete in his time that arrangement and codification
+of canon law which his predecessors during the Thirteenth Century had
+so efficiently commenced. Like Innocent III. he has been much maligned
+because of his supposed attempt to make the governments of the time
+subservient to the Pope and to make the Church in each nation
+independent of the political government. With regard to the famous
+Bull Clericis Laicos, "thrice unhappy in name and fortune" as it has
+been designated, much more can be said in justification than is
+usually considered to be the case. Indeed the Rev. Dr. Barry, whose
+"Story of the Papal Monarchy" in the Stories of the Nations series has
+furnished the latest discussion of this subject, does not hesitate to
+declare that the Bull far from being subversive of political liberties
+or expressive of too arrogant a spirit on the part of the Church, was
+really an expression of a great principle that was to become very
+prominent in {373} modern history, and the basis of many of the modern
+declarations of rights against the claims of tyranny.
+
+He says in part:
+
+  "Imprudent, headlong, but in its main contention founded on history,
+  this extraordinary state-paper declared that the laity had always
+  been hostile to the clergy, and were so now as much as ever. But
+  they possessed no jurisdiction over the persons, no claims on the
+  property of the church, though they had dared to exact a tenth, nay,
+  even a half, of its income for secular objects, and time-serving
+  prelates had not resisted. Now, on no title whatsoever from
+  henceforth should such taxes be levied without permission of the
+  Holy See. Every layman, though king or emperor, receiving these
+  moneys fell by that very act under anathema; every churchman paying
+  them was deposed from his office; universities guilty of the like
+  offense were struck with interdict.
+
+  "Robert of Winchelsea, Langton's successor as primate, shared
+  Langton's views. He was at this moment in Rome, and had doubtless
+  urged Boniface to come to the rescue of a frightened, down-trodden
+  clergy, whom Edward I. would not otherwise regard. In the Parliament
+  at Bury, this very year, the clerics refused to make a grant. Edward
+  sealed up their barns. The archbishop ordered that in every
+  cathedral the pope's interdiction should be read. Hereupon the
+  chief-justice declared the whole clergy outlawed; they might be
+  robbed or murdered without redress. Naturally, not a few gave way; a
+  fifth, and then a fourth, of their revenue was yielded up. But
+  Archbishop Robert alone, with all the prelates except Lincoln
+  against him, and the Dominicans preaching at Paul's cross on behalf
+  of the king, stood out, lost his lands, and was banished to a
+  country parsonage. War broke out in Flanders. It was the saving of
+  the archbishop. At Westminster Edward relented and apologized. He
+  confirmed the two great charters; he did away with illegal judgments
+  that infringed them. Next year the primate excommunicated those
+  royal officers who had seized goods or persons belonging to the
+  clergy, and all who had violated Magna Charta. The Church came out
+  of this conflict exempt, or, more truly a self-governing estate of
+  the realm. It must be considered as {374} having greatly concurred
+  towards the establishment of that fundamental law invoked long after
+  by the thirteen American Colonies, 'No taxation without
+  representation,' which is the corner stone of British freedom."
+
+We have so often heard it said that there is nothing new under the
+sun, that finally the expression has come to mean very little, though
+its startling truth sometimes throws vivid light on historical events.
+Certainly the last place in the world that one would expect to find if
+not the origin, for all during the Thirteenth Century this great
+principle had been gradually asserting itself, at least, a wondrous
+confirmation of the principle on which our American revolution
+justified itself, would be in a papal document of the end of the
+Thirteenth Century. Here, however, is a distinguished scholar, who
+insists that the Colonists' contention that there must be no taxes
+levied unless they were allowed representation in some way in the body
+which determined the mode and the amount of taxation, received its
+first formal justification in history at the hands of a Roman Pontiff,
+nearly five centuries before the beginning of the quarrel between the
+Colonies and the Mother Country. The passage serves to suggest how
+much of what is modern had its definite though unsuspected origin, in
+this earlier time.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+DECORATION THIRTEENTH CENTURY PSALTER MS.
+
+
+{375}
+
+XXIV
+
+DEMOCRACY, CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM AND NATIONALITY.
+
+
+Democracy is a word to conjure with but it is usually considered that
+the thing it represents had its origin in the modern world much later
+than the period with which we are occupied. The idea that the people
+should be ready to realize their own rights, to claim their privileges
+and to ask that they should be allowed to rule themselves, is supposed
+ordinarily to be a product of the last century or two. Perhaps in this
+matter more than any other does the Thirteenth Century need
+interpretation to the modern mind, yet we think that after certain
+democratic factors and developments in the life of this period are
+pointed out and their significance made clear, it will become evident
+that the foundations of our modern democracy were deeply laid in the
+Thirteenth Century, and that the spirit of what was best in the
+aspiration of people to be ruled by themselves, for themselves, and of
+themselves had its birth in this precious seed time of so much that is
+important for our modern life.
+
+Lest it should be thought that this idea of the development of
+democracy has been engendered merely in the enthusiastic ardor of
+special admiration for the author's favorite century, it seems well to
+call attention to the fact that historians in recent years have very
+generally emphasized the role that the Thirteenth Century played in
+the development of freedom. A typical example may be quoted from the
+History of Anglo-Saxon Freedom by Professor James K. Hosmer,
+[Footnote 31] who does not hesitate to say that "while in England
+representative government was gradually developing during this
+century, in Germany the cities were beginning to send deputies to the
+Imperial Parliament and the Emperor, Frederick II., was allowing a
+certain amount of representation in the {376} Government of Sicily. In
+Spain, Alfonso the Wise, of Castile, permitted the cities to send
+representatives to the Cortez, and in France this same spirit
+developed to such a degree that a representative parliament met at the
+beginning of the Fourteenth Century." In none of these countries,
+however, unfortunately did the spirit of representative government
+continue to develop as in England and in many of them the privileges
+obtained in the Thirteenth Century were subsequently lost.
+
+  [Footnote 31: Scribners, New York, 1890.]
+
+Certain phases of the rise of the democratic spirit have already been
+discussed, and the reader can only be referred to them now with the
+definite idea of recognizing in them the democratic tendencies of the
+time. What we have said about the trade guilds constitutes one
+extremely important element of the movement which will be further
+discussed in this chapter. After this comes the guild merchant in its
+various forms. After all the Hanseatic League was only one
+manifestation of these guilds. Its widespread influence in awakening
+in people's minds the realization that they could do for themselves
+much more, and secure success in their endeavors much better by their
+own united efforts, than by anything that their accepted political
+rulers could do or at least would do for them, will be readily
+appreciated by all who read that chapter.
+
+Hansa must have been a great enlightener for the Teutonic peoples. The
+History of the league shows over and over again their political rulers
+rather interfering with than fostering their commercial prosperity.
+These rulers were always more than a little jealous of the wealth
+which the citizens of these growing towns in their realm were able to
+accumulate, and they showed it on more than one occasion. The history
+of the Hansa towns exhibits the citizens doing everything to dissemble
+the feelings of disaffection that inevitably came to them as the
+result of their appreciation of the fact, that they could rule
+themselves so much better than they were being ruled, and that they
+could accomplish so much more for themselves by their commercial
+combination with other cities than had ever been done for them by
+these hereditary princes, who claimed so much yet gave so little in
+their turn.
+
+The training in self-government that came with the {377} necessities
+for defense as well as for the protection of commercial visitors from
+other cities in the league, who trustfully came to deal with their
+people, was an education in democracy such as could not fail to bring
+results. The rise of the free cities in Germany represents the growth
+of the democratic spirit down to our own time, better than any other
+single set of manifestations that we have. The international relations
+of these cities did more, as we have said, to broaden men's minds and
+make them realize the brotherhood of man in spite of national
+boundaries than any other factor in human history. Commerce has always
+been a great leveler and such it proved to be in these early days in
+Germany, only it must not be thought that these German cities had but
+faint glimmerings of the great purpose they were engaged in, for
+seldom has the spirit of popular government risen higher than with
+them.
+
+How clearly the Teutonic mind had grasped the idea of democracy can be
+best appreciated perhaps from the attitude of the Swiss in this
+matter. These hardy mountaineers whose difficult country and rather
+severe climate separate them effectually from the other nations, soon
+learned the advisability of ruling themselves for their own benefit.
+Before the end of the Thirteenth Century they had formed a defensive
+and offensive union among themselves against the Hapsburgs, and though
+for a time overborne by the influence of this house after its head
+ascended the Imperial throne, immediately on Rudolph's death they
+proceeded to unite themselves still more firmly together. They then
+formed the famous league of 1291 which represents so important a step
+in the democracy of modern times. The formal document which
+constituted this league a federal government deserves to be quoted. It
+is the first great declaration of independence, and its ideas were to
+crop out in many another declaration in the after times. It is an
+original document in the strictest sense of the word. It runs as
+follows:
+
+  "Know all men that we, the people of the valley of Uri, the
+  community of the valley of Schwiz, and the mountaineers of the lower
+  valley, seeing the malice of the times, have solemnly agreed and
+  bound ourselves by oath to aid and defend each other with all our
+  might and main, with our lives and property, {378} both within and
+  without our boundaries each at his own expense, against every enemy
+  whatever who shall attempt to molest us, either singly or
+  collectively. This is our ancient covenant. Whoever hath a lord let
+  him obey him according to his bounden duty. We have decreed that we
+  shall accept no magistrate in our valleys who shall have obtained
+  his office for a price, or who is not a native or resident among us.
+  Every difference among us shall be decided by our wisest men; and
+  whoever shall reject their award shall be compelled by the other
+  confederates. Whoever shall wilfully commit a murder shall suffer
+  death, and he who shall attempt to screen the murderer from justice
+  shall be banished from our valleys. An incendiary shall lose his
+  privileges as a free member of the community, and whoever harbors
+  him shall make good the damage. Whoever robs or molests another
+  shall make full restitution out of the property he possesses among
+  us. Everyone shall acknowledge the authority of a chief magistrate
+  in either of the valleys. If internal quarrels arise, and one of the
+  parties shall refuse fair satisfaction, the confederates shall
+  support the other party. This covenant for our common weal, shall,
+  God willing, endure forever."
+
+In England democracy was fostered in the guilds, which, as we have
+already seen in connection with the cathedrals, proved the sources of
+education and intellectual development in nearly every mode of thought
+and art. The most interesting feature of these guilds was the fact
+that they were not institutions suggested to the workmen and tradesmen
+by those above them, but were the outgrowth of the spirit of self help
+and organization which, came over mankind during this century. At the
+beginning they were scarcely more than simple beneficial associations
+meant to be aids in times of sickness and trial, and to make the
+parting of families and especially the death of the head of the family
+not quite so difficult for the survivors, since affiliated brother
+workmen remained behind who would care for them. During this century,
+however, the spirit of democracy, that is the organized effort of the
+people to take care of themselves, better their conditions, and add to
+their own happiness, led to the development of the guilds in a fashion
+that it is rather difficult for generations of the modern time to
+{379} understand, for our trades' unions do not, as yet at least,
+present anything that quite resembles their work in our times.
+
+It was because of the effective social work of these guilds that
+Urbain Gohier, the well-known French socialist and writer on
+sociological subjects, was able to say not long ago in the North
+American Review:
+
+"When the workmen of the European Continent demand 'the three
+eights'--eight hours of work, eight hours of rest and refreshment,
+physical and mental, and eight hours of sleep--some of them are aware
+of the fact that this reform already exists in the Anglo-Saxon
+countries; but all are ignorant of this other fact that, during the
+Middle Ages, in an immense number of labor corporations and cities, a
+work-day was often only nine, eight and even seven hours long. Nor
+have they ever been told that every Saturday, and on the eve of over
+two dozen holidays, work was stopped everywhere at four o'clock." The
+Saturday half holiday began it may be said even earlier, namely at the
+Vesper Hour which according to medieval church customs was some time
+between two and three p. m. and the same was true on the vigils, as
+the eves of the important church festivals were called.
+
+The only possible way to give a reasonably good idea of the spirit of
+the old-time guilds which succeeded in accomplishing such a wonderful
+social revolution, is to quote some of their rules, which serve to
+show their intents and purposes at least, even though they may not
+always have fulfilled their aims. Their rules regard two things
+particularly--the religious and the social functions of the guild.
+There was a fine for absence from the special religious services held
+for the members but also a fine of equal amount for absence from the
+annual banquet. In this they resemble the rules of the religious
+orders which were coming to be widely known at the end of the Twelfth
+and the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, and according to which
+the members of the religious community were required quite as strictly
+to be present at daily recreation, that is, at the hour of
+conversation after meals, as at daily prayer. An interesting phase of
+the social rules of the guild is that a member was expected to bring
+his wife with him, or if not his wife then his sweetheart. They were
+franker in these matters {380} in this simpler age and doubtless the
+custom encouraged matrimony a little bit more than our modern colder
+customs.
+
+As giving a fair idea of the ordinances of the pre-Reformation guilds
+in their original shape the rules of the Guild of St. Luke at Lincoln,
+may be cited. St. Luke had been chosen as patron because according to
+tradition he was an artist as well as an evangelist. The patron saint
+was chosen always so that he might be a model of life as well as a
+protector in Heaven. Its members were the painters, guilders,
+stainers, and alabaster men of the city. The first rule provides that
+on the Sunday next after the feast of St. Luke all the brothers and
+sisters of the Guild shall, with their officers, go in procession from
+an appointed place, carrying a great candle, to the Cathedral Church
+of Lincoln, and there every two of the brethren and sisters shall
+offer one half-penny or more after their devotion, and then shall
+offer the great candle before an image of St. Luke within the church.
+And any who were absent without lawful cause shall forfeit one pound
+of wax to the sustentation of the said great candle.
+
+On the same Sunday, "for love and amity and good communication to be
+had for the several weal of the fraternity," the guildmen dined
+together, every brother paying for himself and his wife, or
+sweetheart, the sum of four pence. Absentees were fined one pound of
+wax towards the aforesaid, candle.
+
+The third rule provided that four "mornspeeches"--that its business
+meetings--should be held each year, "for ordering and good rule to be
+had and made amongst them." Absentees from a mornspeech forfeited one
+pound of wax to St. Luke's candle. Another rule provided that the
+decision of ambiguities or doubts about the forfeitures prescribed
+should be referred to the mayor and four aldermen of the city. Rules 4
+to 11, and also 13, regulate the taking of apprentices and the setting
+up in trade; forbid the employing of strangers; provide for the
+settlement of disputes and the examination of work not sufficiently
+done after the sample. Already the tendency to limit the number of
+workmen that might be employed which was later to prove a stumbling
+block to artistic progress is to be noted. On the other hand the
+effort to keep work up to a certain standard, which was to mean so
+much for artistic {381} accomplishment in the next few generations
+must be noted as a compensatory feature of the Guild regulations.
+
+{opp381}
+[Illustration]
+DOORWAY (LINCOLN)
+
+[Illustration]
+NAVE (DURHAM CATHEDRAL)
+
+[Illustration]
+BROKEN ARCH (ST. MARY'S, YORK, CLIMAX OF GOTHIC)
+
+
+Rule 12 directs that "when it shall happen any brother or sister of
+the said fraternity to depart and decease from the world, at his first
+Mass the gracemen and wardens (skyvens) for the time being shall offer
+of the goods and chattels of the said fraternity, two pence; and at
+his eighth day, or thirtieth day, every brother and sister shall give
+to a poor creature a token made by the dean, for which tokens every
+brother and sister shall pay the dean a fixed sum of money, and with
+the money thus raised he shall buy white bread to give to the poor
+creatures" holding the tokens, the bread to be distributed at the
+church of the parish in which the deceased lived.
+
+This twelfth rule with regard to the manner of giving charity is
+particularly striking, because it shows a deliberate effort to avoid
+certain dangers, the evil possibilities of which our modern organized
+charity has emphasized. According to this rule of the Guild of St.
+Luke's at Lincoln, all the members were bound to give a certain amount
+in charity, for the benefit of a deceased member. This was not,
+however, by direct alms, but by means of tokens for which they paid a
+fixed price to the Dean, who redeemed the tokens when they were
+presented by the deserving poor. This guaranteed that each member
+would give the fixed sum in charity and at the same time safeguarded
+the almsgiving from any abuses, since the member of the guild himself
+would be likely to know something of the poor person and his
+deservingness, and if not there was always the question of the Dean
+being informed with regard to the needs of the case. All of this was
+accomplished, however, without hurting the feelings of the recipients
+of the charity, since they felt that it was done not for them but for
+the benefit of a deceased member.
+
+How much the guilds came to influence the life of the people during
+the next two centuries may be best appreciated from their great
+increase in number and wealth.
+
+In England, it is computed that at the beginning of the Sixteenth
+Century there were thirty thousand of these institutions spread over
+the country. The county of Norfolk alone had nine hundred, of which
+number the small town of {382} Wymondham had at least eleven still
+known by names, one--the Guild of Holy Trinity, Wymondham--being
+possessed of a guild-hall of its own, whilst it and the other guilds
+of the town are said to have been "well endowed with lands and
+tenements." In Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, there were twenty-three
+guilds; Boston, Lincolnshire, had fourteen, of which the titles and
+other particulars are known, whilst in London their number must have
+been very great. Of the London trade guilds, Stow, the Elizabethan
+antiquary, records the names of sixty of sufficient importance to
+entitle their representatives to places at the civic banquets in the
+reign of Henry VIII. Many of them are still in existence, having been
+spared at the time of the Reformation on the plea that they were
+trading or secular associations. Fifteen of the largest of
+them--including the merchant tailors, the goldsmiths and the
+stationers--have at the present time an annual income of over $50,000
+each.
+
+The reasons for their popularity can be readily found in the many
+social needs which they cared for. Socialistic cooperation has,
+perhaps, never been carried so far as in these medieval institutions
+which were literally "of the people, by the people, and for the
+people." Often their regulation made provisions for insurance against
+poverty, fire, and sometimes against burglary. Frequently they
+provided schoolmasters for the schools. Their funds they loaned out to
+needy brethren in small sums on easy terms, whilst trade and other
+disputes likely to give rise to ill-feeling and contention were
+constantly referred to the guilds for arbitration. One of the rules of
+the Guild of our Lady at Wymondham thus ordains, that for no manner of
+cause should any of the brothers or sisters of the fraternity go to
+law till the officers of the guild had been informed of the
+circumstances and had done their best to settle the dispute and
+restore "unity and love betwixt the parties." To assist at the burial
+of deceased brethren, and to aid in providing for the celebration of
+obits for the repose of their souls, were duties incumbent on all,
+defaulters without good excuse being subject to fines and censure.
+
+It must not be thought that these tendencies to true democracy were
+confined to the trades guilds, however. The historian of the merchant
+guilds has demonstrated that they had the {383} same spirit and this
+was especially true for the great guild merchant. He says:
+
+  "To this category of powerful affinities must be added the Gild
+  Merchant. The latter was from the outset a compact body emphatically
+  characterized by fraternal solidarity of interests, a protective
+  union that naturally engendered a consciousness of strength and a
+  spirit of independence. As the same men generally directed the
+  counsels of both the town and the Gild, there would be a gradual,
+  unconscious extension of the unity of the one to the other, the
+  cohesive force of the Gild making itself felt throughout the whole
+  municipal organism. But the influence of the fraternity was material
+  as well as moral. It constituted a bond of union between the
+  heterogeneous sokes (classes of tenants) of a borough; the townsmen
+  might be exclusively amenable to the courts of different lords, but,
+  if engaged in trade within the town, they were all members of one
+  and the same Gild Merchant. The independent regulation of trade also
+  accustomed the burgesses to self-government, and constituted an
+  important step toward autonomy; the town judiciary was always more
+  dependent upon the crown or mesne lord than was the Gild Merchant."
+
+Because of the supreme interest in everything connected with
+Shakespeare, the existence of one of the most important guilds in
+Stratford, has led to the illustration of guilds' works there better
+than for any English town during this period. The Guild of the Holy
+Cross was the most important institution of Stratford and enthusiastic
+Shakespeare scholars have applied themselves to find out every detail
+of its history as far as it is now available, in order to make clear
+the conditions--social and religious--that existed in the great
+dramatist's birthplace. Halliwell, in his Descriptive Calendar of the
+Records of Stratford on Avon, and Sidney Lee, in his Stratford on Avon
+in the Time of the Shakespeares, have gathered together much of this
+information:--"The Guild has lasted, wrote its chief officer in 1309,
+for many, many years and its beginning was from time whereunto the
+memory of man reaches not." Bowden, in his volume on the Religion of
+Shakespeare, has a number of the most important details with regard to
+Stratford's Guild. The earliest extant documents with regard to it are
+from the {384} Reign of Henry III., 1216-1272, and include a deed of
+gift by one William Sede, of a tenement to the Guild, and an
+indulgence granted October 7th, 1270, by Giffard, Bishop of Wooster,
+of forty days to all sincere penitents who after having duly confessed
+had conferred benefits on the Guild.
+
+By the close of the reign of Edward I., at the beginning of the
+Fourteenth Century, the Guild was wealthy in houses and lands, and the
+foundation was laid of its chapel and almshouses which, with the hall
+of meeting--the "Rode or Reed Hall"--stood where the Guild Hall is at
+the present day. Edward III. and Richard II., during the Fourteenth
+Century, confirmed the rights of the Guild and even added to its
+privileges. Though it was a purely local institution, the fame of its
+good works had spread so wide during these next centuries that
+affiliation with it became a distinction, and the nobility were
+attracted to its ranks. George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward,
+with his wife and children, and the Earl of Warwick, and the Lady
+Margaret were counted among its members, and merchants of distant
+towns counted it an honor to belong to it. Later, also, Judge
+Littleton, one of the famous founders of English law, was on its roll
+of membership.
+
+The objects of the Guild were many and varied and touched the social
+life of Stratford at every point. The first object was mutual prayer.
+The Guild maintained five priests or chaplains who were to say masses
+daily, hour by hour, from six to ten o'clock for its members, it being
+expected that some of them would be present at each of the masses. Out
+of the fees of the Guild one wax candle was to be kept alight every
+day throughout the year at every mass in the church before the rood,
+or cross, "so that God and our Blessed Virgin and the Venerated Cross
+may keep and guard all the brethren and sisters of the Guilds from
+every ill." The second object was charity, under which was included
+all the various Works of Mercy. The needs of any brother or sister who
+had fallen into poverty or been robbed were to be provided for "as
+long as he bears himself rightly towards the brethren." When a brother
+died all the brethren were bound to follow the body to the church and
+to pray for his soul at its burial. The Guild candle and eight smaller
+ones were to be kept burning by the body from the {385} time of death
+till the funeral. When a poor man died in the town the brethren and
+sisters were, for their soul's health, to find four wax candles, a
+sheet, and a hearse cloth for the corpse. This rule also applied in
+the event of a stranger's death, if the stranger had not the necessary
+means for burial. Nor were the efforts of the Guild at Stratford
+devoted solely to the alleviation of the ills of mankind and the more
+serious purposes of life. Once a year, in Easter Week, a feast of the
+members was held in order to foster peace and true brotherly love
+among them. At this time offerings were made for the poor in order
+that they too might share in the happiness of the festival time. There
+was attendance at church before the feasting and a prayer was offered
+by all the "brethren and sisters that God and our Blessed Virgin and
+the Venerated Cross in whose honor we have come together will keep us
+from all ills and sins." This frequent reference to the Cross will be
+better understood if it is recalled that the Guild at Stratford bore
+the name of the Guild of the Holy Cross, and the figure of the
+crucified One was one of its most respected symbols and was always
+looked upon as a special object of veneration on the part of the
+members.
+
+The thoroughly progressive spirit of the Guild at Stratford will
+perhaps be best appreciated by the modern mind from the fact, that to
+it the town owed the foundation of its famous free school. During the
+Thirteenth and Fourteenth centuries the study of grammar, and of the
+various theoretical branches, was not considered the essential part of
+an education. Gradually, however, there had arisen the feeling that
+all the children should be taught the ground-work of the vulgar
+tongue, and that those whose parents wished it should receive
+education in Latin also; hence the establishment of grammar schools,
+that at Stratford being founded for the children of the members of the
+Guild about the middle of the Fifteenth Century. This was only the
+normal development of the earlier spirit of the Guild which enabled it
+to meet the growing social needs of the time. It was at this school,
+as reconstituted under Edward VI., that Shakespeare was educated, and
+the reestablishment by Edward was only in response to the many
+complaints which arose because of the absence of the school after its
+suppression by {386} Henry VIII. The fact that Shakespeare was
+educated at an Edward VI. grammar school, has often given occasion for
+commentators to point out that it was practically the Reformation in
+England which led to the establishment of free schools. Any such
+suggestion, however, can be made only in complete ignorance of the
+preexisting state of affairs in which the people, by organization,
+succeeded in accomplishing so much for themselves.
+
+As a matter of fact the Guild at Stratford, as in most of the towns in
+England--for we have taken this as an example only because it is
+easier to get at the details of its history--was the most important
+factor in the preservation of social order, in the distribution of
+charity, in the providing of education, and even the maintenance of
+the security of the life and property of its inhabitants. When it was
+dissolved, in 1547, Stratford found itself in a chaotic state and had
+to petition Edward VI. to reconstitute the Guild as a civil
+corporation, which he did by charter in 1553.
+
+After this consideration of the guilds and their purpose and success,
+it is no wonder that we should declare that the wind of the spirit of
+democracy was blowing in England and carrying away the old landmarks
+of absolute government. It is to the spirit thus fostered that must be
+attributed the marvelous progress in representative government, the
+steps of which we recall.
+
+In 1215, all England united against the odious John Lackland and
+obliged him to grant the Magna Charta--a declaration of national
+liberty.
+
+In 1257, the Provisions of Oxford, under Henry III., established, for
+the moment, the stated recurrence of the great national council of
+Parliament.
+
+In 1265, under the same Prince, the earl of Leicester admitted to
+Parliament the knights of the shire and the representatives of the
+townspeople, who formed later the lower house, or House of Commons,
+while those personally summoned to attend by the king from the great
+nobles formed the upper house, or House of Lords.
+
+Beginning with the year 1295, in the reign of Edward I., the
+attendance of the county and town members became {387} regular, making
+Parliament really representative of the country.
+
+In 1309, in the reign of Edward II., Parliament revealed its possible
+strength by putting conditions on its vote for taxes.
+
+There were other factors at work, however, and one of them at least,
+because of its importance, deserves to be recalled here. In the
+chapter on Great Beginnings of Modern Commerce we call attention to
+the fact, that the Crusades were responsible to a great degree for the
+spirit of enterprise which led to the formation of the Lombard league
+of cities, and later to the great Hanseatic League, which seems to
+have taken at least its incentive from the Southern Confederation. In
+the chapter on Louis IX. we point out that the Crusades, and his
+connection with them, far from being blots on Louis's career must
+rather be considered as manifestations of the great heart of the time
+which was awakening to all needs, and had its religious aspirations
+stirred so deeply that men were ready to give up everything in order
+to follow an idea. One thing is certain, the Crusades did more to set
+ferments at work in the social organization of Europe than would have
+been possible by any other movement. These ferments brought about two
+results, one the uplift of the common people, the other the
+centralization of power in the hands of the kings with the gradual
+diminution of the influence of the nobility. While fostering the
+spirit of democracy on the one hand, they gave birth to the spirit of
+nationality and to all that this has accomplished in modern history.
+
+Storrs, in his life of St. Bernard, recently issued, has given
+expression to this thought in a very striking fashion. He says:
+
+  "It used to be the fashion to regard the Crusades as mere fantastic
+  exhibitions of a temporary turbulent religious fanaticism, aiming at
+  ends wholly visionary, and missing them, wasting the best life of
+  Europe in colossal and bloody undertakings, and leaving effects only
+  of evil for the time which came after. More reasonable views now
+  prevail; and while the impulse in which the vast movement took its
+  rise is recognized as passionate and semi-barbaric, it is seen that
+  many effects followed which were beneficial rather than harmful,
+  which could not perhaps have been at the time in other ways
+  realized. As I have already suggested, properties were to an
+  important {388} extent redistributed in Europe, and the
+  constitutions of states were favorably affected. Lands were sold at
+  low prices by those who were going on the distant expeditions, very
+  probably, as they knew, never to return; and horses and armor, with
+  all martial equipments, were bought at high prices by the Jews, who
+  could not hold land, and the history of whom throughout the Middle
+  Ages is commonly traced in fearful lines of blood and fire, but who
+  increased immeasurably their movable wealth through these transfers
+  of property. Communes bought liberties by large contributions to the
+  needs of their lord; and their liberties, once secured, were
+  naturally confirmed and augmented, as the years went on. The smaller
+  tended to be absorbed in the larger; the larger often to come more
+  strictly under royal control, thus increasing the power of the
+  sovereign--which meant at the time, general laws, instead of local,
+  a less minutely oppressive administration, the furtherance of the
+  movement toward national unity. It is a noticeable fact that Italy
+  took but a comparatively small part in the Crusades; and the long
+  postponement of organic union between different parts of the
+  magnificent peninsula is not without relation to this. The influence
+  which operated elsewhere in Europe to efface distinction of custom
+  and language in separate communities, to override and extinguish
+  local animosities, to make scattered peoples conscious of kinship,
+  did not operate there; and the persistent severance of sections from
+  each other, favored, of course, by the run of the rivers and the
+  vast separating walls of the Apenines, was the natural consequence
+  of the want of this powerful unifying force."   [Footnote 32]
+
+    [Footnote 32: Storrs, "Bernard of Chairvaux," New York
+    (Scribners), 1897, pp. 544-45. ]
+
+As a matter of fact very few people realize how much was accomplished
+for the spirit of democracy, for liberty, for true progress, as
+regards the rights of men of all classes, and for the feeling of the
+brotherhood of man itself, by the Crusades. A practical money-making
+age may consider them examples of foolish religious fanaticism, but
+those who have studied them most profoundly and with most sympathy,
+who are deeply interested in the social amelioration which they
+brought about, and, above all, those who look at them in the higher
+poetic {389} spirit of what they did to lift man above the sordid
+cares of everyday life, see them in a far different way. Charles
+Kingsley sang in the poem of The Saints Tragedy:
+
+  "Tell us how our stout crusading fathers
+  Fought and bled for God and not for gold."
+
+But quite apart from the poetry of them, from the practical side much
+can be said which even the most matter of fact of men will appreciate.
+Here, for instance, are a series of paragraphs from the history of the
+Middle Ages by George Washington Greene, which he confesses to have
+taken chiefly from the French,   [Footnote 33] which will make clear
+something of the place these great expeditions should be considered as
+holding in the history of democracy and of liberty:
+
+  [Footnote 33: New York, Appleton, 1867.]
+
+  "Christendom had not spent in vain its treasures and its blood in
+  the holy wars. Its immense sacrifices were repaid by immense
+  results, and the evils which these great expeditions necessarily
+  brought with them were more than compensated for by the advantages
+  which they procured for the whole of Europe.
+
+  "The Crusades saved Europe from the Mussulman invasion and this was
+  their immediate good. Their influence was felt, too, in a manner
+  less direct, but not less useful. The Crusades had been preached by
+  a religion of equality in a society divided by odious distinctions.
+  All had taken part in them, the weak as well as the strong, the serf
+  and the baron, man and woman, and it was by them that the equality
+  of man and woman, which Christianity taught, was made a social fact.
+  St. Louis declared that he could do nothing without the consent of
+  his queen, his wife. It was from this period that we must date that
+  influence of woman which gave rise to chivalric courtesy, the first
+  step towards refinement of manners and civilization. The poor, too,
+  were the adopted children of the Christian chivalry of the Crusades.
+  The celebrated orders of Palestine were instituted for the
+  protection of poor pilgrims. The Knights of the hospitals called the
+  poor their masters. Surely no lesson was more needed by these proud
+  barons of the Middle Ages than that of charity and humility.
+
+{390}
+
+  "These ideas were the first to shake the stern despotism of
+  feudality, by opposing to it the generous principles of chivalry
+  which sprang all armed from the Crusades. Bound to the military
+  orders by a solemn vow--and in the interests of all Christendom--the
+  knight felt himself free from feudal dependence, and raised above
+  national limits, as the immediate warrior and servant of the united
+  Christendom and of God. Chivalry founded not upon territorial
+  influence, but upon personal distinction, necessarily weakened
+  nobility by rendering it accessible to all, and diminishing the
+  interval which separated the different classes of society. Every
+  warrior who had distinguished himself by his valor could kneel
+  before the king to be dubbed a knight, and rise up the equal, the
+  superior even, of powerful vassals. The poorest knight could sit at
+  the king's table while the noble son of a duke or prince was
+  excluded, unless he had won the golden spurs of knighthood. Another
+  way by which the Crusades contributed to the decay of feudalism was
+  by favoring the enfranchisement of serfs, even without the consent
+  of their masters. Whoever took the cross became free, just as every
+  slave becomes free on touching the soil of England or France.
+
+  "The communities whose development is to be referred to the period
+  of the Crusades, multiplied rapidly; the nobility gladly granting
+  charters and privileges in exchange for men and money. With the
+  communities the royal power grew, and that of the aristocracy
+  decreased. The royal domain was enlarged, by the escheating of a
+  great number of fiefs which had been left vacant by the death of
+  their lords. The kings protected the communities, favored their
+  enfranchisement, and employed them usefully against insubordinate
+  vassals. The extension of the royal power favored the organization
+  of the nation, by establishing a principle of unity, for till then,
+  and with that multitude of masters, the nation had been little else
+  than an agglomeration of provinces, strangers to one another, and
+  destitute of any common bond or common interest. The great vassals,
+  themselves, often united under the royal banner, became accustomed
+  during these distant expeditions to submission and discipline, and
+  learned to recognize a legitimate authority; and if they lost by
+  this submission a part of their {391} personal power, they gained in
+  compensation the honorable distinctions of chivalry.
+
+  "But it was not the national feeling alone which was fostered by the
+  Crusades. Relations of fraternity, till then wholly unknown, grew up
+  between different nations, and softened the deep-rooted antipathy of
+  races. The knights, whom a common object united in common dangers,
+  became brothers in arms and formally formed permanent ties of
+  friendship. That barbarous law which gave the feudal lord a right to
+  call every man his serf who settled in his domains was softened.
+  Stranger and enemy seemed to be synonymous, and 'the Crusaders,' say
+  the chroniclers of the times, 'although divided by language, seemed
+  to form only one people, by their love for God and their neighbor.'
+  And without coloring the picture too warmly, and making all due
+  allowance for the exaggerations which were so natural to the first
+  recorders of such a movement, we may say that human society was
+  founded and united and Europe began to pass from the painful period
+  of organization, to one of fuller and more rapid development."
+
+Here in reality modern democracy had its rise, striking its roots deep
+into the disintegrating soil of the old feudalism whence it was never
+to be plucked, and though at times it languished it was to remain ever
+alive until its luxuriant growth in recent times.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+ANIMALS FROM BESTIARIUM, THIRTEENTH CENTURY MS.
+
+
+{392}
+
+XXV
+
+GREAT EXPLORERS AND THE FOUNDATION OF GEOGRAPHY.
+
+
+Geography is usually considered to be quite a modern subject. The idea
+that great contributions were made to it in the Thirteenth Century
+would ordinarily not be entertained. America was discovered at the end
+of the Fifteenth Century. Knowledge of the East was obtained during
+the Sixteenth Century. Africa was explored in the Nineteenth and a
+detailed knowledge of Asia came to us in such recent years that the
+books are still among the novelties of publication. Our knowledge of
+Persia, of Northern India, of Thibet, and of the interior of China are
+all triumphs of Nineteenth Century enterprise and exploration. As a
+matter of fact, however, all portions of the East were explored, the
+Capital and the dominions of Jenghis Khan described, Lhasa was entered
+and the greater part of China thoroughly explored by travelers of the
+Thirteenth Century, whose books still remain as convincing evidence of
+the great work that they accomplished. This chapter of Thirteenth
+Century accomplishment is, indeed, one of the most interesting and
+surprising in the whole story of the time.
+
+It is usually considered that the teaching, supposed to have been more
+or less generally accepted, that the Antipodes did not exist,
+prevented any significant development of geography until comparatively
+modern times. While the question of the existence of antipodes was
+discussed in the schools of the Middle Ages, and especially of the
+Thirteenth Century when men's minds were occupied with practically all
+of the important problems even of physical science, and while many
+intelligent men accepted the idea that there could not be inhabitants
+on the other side of the world because of physical difficulties which
+supposedly made it impossible, it would be a mistake to think that
+this idea was universally accepted. We have already called attention
+to the fact in the chapter on "What was Taught at the {393}
+Universities," that Albertus Magnus, for instance, ridiculed the
+notion that men could not live with their heads down, as was urged
+against the doctrine of the existence of antipodes, by suggesting very
+simply that for those on the other side of the earth what we call down
+was really not down but up. This expresses, of course, the very heart
+of the solution of the supposed difficulty.
+
+As a matter of fact it seems clear that many of the great travelers
+and explorers of the later Middle Ages harbored the notion that the
+earth was round. As we shall note a little later in mentioning Sir
+John Mandeville's work, the writer, whomever he was who took that
+pseudonym, believed thoroughly in the rotundity of the earth and did
+not hesitate to use some striking expressions--which have been often
+quoted--that he had heard of travelers who by traveling continually to
+the eastward had come back eventually to the point from which they
+started. While in the schools, then, the existence of antipodes may
+have been under discussion, there was a practical acceptance of their
+existence among those who were better informed with regard to
+countries and peoples and all the other topics which form the proper
+subject matter of geography.
+
+It must be realized, moreover, that though the existence of the
+Antipodes is an important matter in geography, at this early period it
+was a mere theory, not a condition antecedent to progress. It was
+really a side issue as compared with many other questions relating to
+the earth's surface and its inhabitants with which the medieval mind
+was occupied. To consider that no knowledge of geography could be
+obtained until there was a definite acceptance of the right view of
+the earth's surface, would be to obliterate much precious knowledge.
+The argument as to the existence of antipodes, as it was carried on,
+was entirely outside of geography properly so-called. It never
+influenced in the slightest degree the men who were consciously and
+unconsciously laying deep and broad the foundations of modern
+geography. To consider such a matter as vital to the development of as
+many sided a subject as geography, illustrates very typically the
+narrowness of view of so many modern scholars, who apparently can see
+the value of nothing which does not entirely accord with modern
+knowledge. The really {394} interesting historian of knowledge,
+however, is he who can point out the beginnings of what we now know,
+in unexpected quarters in the medieval mind.
+
+As the story of these travels and explorations is really a glorious
+chapter in the history of the encouragement of things intellectual, as
+well as an interesting phase of an important origin whose foundations
+were laid broad and deep in the Thirteenth Century, it must be told
+here in some detail. Our century was the great leader in exploration
+and geography as in so many other matters in which its true place is
+often unrecognized.
+
+The people of the time are usually considered to have had such few
+facilities for travel that they did not often go far from home, and
+that what was known about distant countries, therefore, was very
+little and mainly legendary. Nothing could be more false than any such
+impression as this. The Crusades during the previous century had given
+the people not only a deep interest in distant lands, but the
+curiosity to go and see for themselves. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land
+were frequent, ecclesiastics often traveled at least as far as Italy,
+and in general the tide of travel in proportion to the number of
+population must have been not very much less in amount than in our own
+day. After the establishment of the religious orders, missionary
+expeditions to the East became very common and during the Thirteenth
+Century, as we shall see, the Franciscans particularly, established
+themselves in many parts of the Near East, but also of the Far East,
+especially in China. Many of those wrote accounts of their travels,
+and so the literature of travel and exploration during the Thirteenth
+Century is one of the most interesting chapters of the literature of
+these times, while the wonderfully deep foundations that were laid for
+the science of geography, are worthy to be set beside the great
+origins in other sciences and in the arts, for which the century is so
+noteworthy.
+
+To most people it will come as a distinct surprise to learn that the
+travelers and explorers of the Thirteenth Century--merchants,
+ambassadors, and missionaries--succeeded in solving many of the
+geographical problems that have been of deepest interest to the
+generations of the last half of last century. {395} The eastern part
+of Asia particularly was traveled over and very thoroughly described
+by them. Even the northern part of India, however, was not neglected
+in spite of the difficulties that were encountered, and Thibet was
+explored and Lhasa entered by travelers of the Thirteenth Century. Of
+China as much was written as had been learned by succeeding
+generations down practically to our own time. This may sound like a
+series of fairy-tales instead of serious science, but it is the
+travelers and explorers of the modern time who have thought it worth
+while to comment on the writings of these old-time wanderers of the
+Thirteenth Century, and who have pointed out the significance of their
+work. These men described not only the countries through which they
+passed, but also the characters of the people, their habits and
+customs, their forms of speech, with many marvelous hints as regards
+the relationship of the different languages, and even something about
+the religious practises of these countries and their attitude toward
+the great truths of Christianity when they were presented to them.
+
+Undoubtedly one of the greatest travelers and explorers of all times
+was Marco Polo, whose book was for so long considered to be mainly
+made up of imaginary descriptions of things and places never seen, but
+which the development of modern geographical science by travels and
+expeditions has proved to be one of the most valuable contributions to
+this department of knowledge that has ever been made. It took many
+centuries for Marco Polo to come to his own in this respect but the
+Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries have almost more than made up for
+the neglect of their predecessors. Marco Polo suffered the same fate
+as did Herodotus of whom Voltaire sneered "father of history, say,
+rather, father of lies." So long as succeeding generations had no
+knowledge themselves of the things of which both these great writers
+had written, they were distrusted and even treated contemptuously.
+Just as soon, however, as definite knowledge began to come it was seen
+how wonderfully accurate both of them were in their descriptions of
+things they had actually seen, though they admitted certain
+over-wonderful stories on the authority of others. Herodotus has now
+come to be acknowledged as {396} one of the greatest of historians. In
+his lives of celebrated travelers, James Augustus St. John states the
+change of mind with regard to Marco Polo rather forcibly:
+
+  "When the travels of Marco Polo first appeared, they were generally
+  regarded as fiction; and as this absurd belief had so far gained
+  ground, that when he lay upon his death bed, his friends and nearest
+  relatives, coming to take their eternal adieu, conjured him as he
+  valued the salvation of his soul, to retract whatever he had
+  advanced in his book, or at least many such passages as every person
+  looked upon as untrue; but the traveler whose conscience was
+  untouched upon that score, declared solemnly, in that awful moment,
+  that far from being guilty of exaggeration, he had not described
+  one-half of the wonderful things which he had beheld. Such was the
+  reception which the discoveries of this extraordinary man
+  experienced when first promulgated. By degrees, however, as
+  enterprise lifted more and more the veil from Central and Eastern
+  Asia the relations of our traveler rose in the estimation of
+  geographers; and now that the world--though containing many unknown
+  tracts--has been more successfully explored, we begin to perceive
+  that Marco Polo, like Herodotus, was a man of the most rigid
+  veracity, whose testimony presumptuous ignorance alone can call in
+  question."
+
+There is many a fable that clings around the name of Marco Polo, but
+this distinguished traveler needs no fictitious adornments of his tale
+to make him one of the greatest explorers of all time. It is sometimes
+said that he helped to introduce many important inventions into Europe
+and one even finds his name connected with the mariner's compass and
+with gunpowder. There are probably no good grounds for thinking that
+Europe owes any knowledge of either of these great inventions to the
+Venetian traveler. With regard to printing there is more doubt and
+Polo's passage with regard to movable blocks for printing paper money
+as used in China may have proved suggestive.
+
+There is no need, however, of surmises in order to increase his fame
+for the simple story of his travels is quite sufficient for his
+reputation for all time. As has been well said most of the modern
+travelers and explorers have only been developing what Polo indicated
+at least in outline, and they have been {397} scarcely more than
+describing with more precision of detail what he first touched upon
+and brought to general notice. When it is remembered that he visited
+such cities in Eastern Turkestan as Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan,
+which have been the subject of much curiosity only satisfied in quite
+recent years, that he had visited Thibet, or at least had traveled
+along its frontier, that to him the medieval world owed some definite
+knowledge of the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia and all that it was to
+know of China for centuries almost, his merits will be readily
+appreciated. As a matter of fact there was scarcely an interesting
+country of the East of which Marco Polo did not have something to
+relate from his personal experiences. He told of Burmah, of Siam, of
+Cochin China, of Japan, of Java, of Sumatra, and of other islands of
+the great Archipelago, of Ceylon, and of India, and all of these not
+in the fabulous dreamland spirit of one who has not been in contact
+with the East but in very definite and precise fashion. Nor was this
+all. He had heard and could tell much, though his geographical lore
+was legendary and rather dim, of the Coast of Zanzibar, of the vast
+and distant Madagascar, and in the remotely opposite direction of
+Siberia, of the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and of the curious customs
+of the inhabitants of these distant countries.
+
+How wonderfully acute and yet how thoroughly practical some of Polo's
+observations were can be best appreciated by some quotations from his
+description of products and industries as he saw them on his travels.
+We are apt to think of the use of petroleum as dating from much later
+than the Thirteenth Century, but Marco Polo had not only seen it in
+the Near East on his travels, but evidently had learned much of the
+great rock-oil deposits at Baku which constitute the basis for the
+important Russian petroleum industry in modern times. He says:
+
+  "On the north (of Armenia) is found a fountain from which a liquor
+  like oil flows, which, though unprofitable for the seasoning of
+  meat, is good for burning and for anointing camels afflicted with
+  the mange. This oil flows constantly and copiously, so that camels
+  are laden with it."
+
+He is quite as definite in the information acquired with regard, to
+the use of coal. He knew and states very confidently that {398} there
+were immense deposits of coal in China, deposits which are so
+extensive that distinguished geologists and mineralogists who have
+learned of them in modern times have predicted that eventually the
+world's great manufacturing industries would be transferred to China.
+We are apt to think that this mineral wealth is not exploited by the
+Chinese, yet even in Marco Polo's time, as one commentator has
+remarked, the rich and poor of that land had learned the value of the
+black stone.
+
+  "Through the whole Province of Cathay," says Polo, "certain black
+  stones are dug from the mountains, which, put into the fire, burn
+  like wood, and being kindled, preserve fire a long time, and if they
+  be kindled in the evening they keep fire all the night."
+
+Another important mineral product which even more than petroleum or
+coal is supposed to be essentially modern in its employment is
+asbestos. Polo had not only seen this but had realized exactly what it
+was, had found out its origin and had recognized its value. Curiously
+enough he attempts to explain the origin of a peculiar usage of the
+word salamander (the salamander having been supposed to be an animal
+which was not injured by fire) by reference to the incombustibility of
+asbestos. The whole passage as it appears in The Romance of Travel and
+Exploration deserves to be quoted. While discoursing about Dsungaria,
+Polo says:
+
+  "And you must know that in the mountain there is a substance from
+  which Salamander is made. The real truth is that the Salamander is
+  no beast as they allege in our part of the world, but is a substance
+  found in the earth. Everybody can be aware that it can be no
+  animal's nature to live in fire seeing that every animal is composed
+  of all the four elements. Now I, Marco Polo, had a Turkish
+  acquaintance who related that he had lived three years in that
+  region on behalf of the Great Khan, in order to procure these
+  salamanders for him. He said that the way they got them was by
+  digging in that mountain till they found a certain vein. The
+  substance of this vein was taken and crushed, and when so treated it
+  divides, as it were, into fibres of wool, which they set forth to
+  dry. When dry these fibres were pounded in a copper mortar and then
+  washed so as to remove all the earth and to leave only the fibres,
+  like {399} fibres of wool. These were then spun and made into
+  napkins." Needless to say this is an excellent description of
+  asbestos.
+
+It is not surprising, then, that the Twentieth Century so interested
+in travel and exploration should be ready to lay its tributes at the
+feet of Marco Polo, and that one of the important book announcements
+of recent years should be that of the publication of an annotated
+edition of Marco Polo from the hands of a modern explorer, who
+considered that there was no better way of putting definitely before
+the public in its true historical aspect the evolution of modern
+geographical knowledge with regard to Eastern countries.
+
+It can scarcely fail to be surprising to the modern mind that Polo
+should practically have been forced into print. He had none of the
+itch of the modern traveler for publicity. The story of his travels he
+had often told and because of the wondrous tales he could unfold and
+the large numbers he found it frequently so necessary to use in order
+to give proper ideas of some of his wanderings, had acquired the
+nickname of Marco Millioni. He had never thought, however, of
+committing his story to writing or perhaps he feared the drudgery of
+such literary labor. After his return from his travels, however, he
+bravely accepted a patriot's duty of fighting for his native country
+on board one of her galleys and was captured by the Genoese in a
+famous sea-fight in the Adriatic in 1298. He was taken prisoner and
+remained in captivity in Genoa for nearly a year.
+
+It was during this time that one Rusticiano, a writer by profession,
+was attracted to him and tempted him to tell him the complete story of
+his travels in order that they might be put into connected form.
+Rusticiano was a Pisan who had been a compiler of French romances and
+accordingly Polo's story was first told in French prose. It is not
+surprising that Rusticiano should have chosen French since he
+naturally wished his story of Polo's travels to be read by as many
+people as possible and realized that it would be of quite as much
+interest to ordinary folk as to the literary circles of Europe. How
+interesting the story is only those who have read it even with the
+knowledge acquired by all the other explorers since his time, can
+properly appreciate. It lacks entirely the egotistic quality that
+usually characterizes an explorer's account of his travels, and,
+indeed, {400} there can scarcely fail to be something of
+disappointment because of this fact. No doubt a touch more of personal
+adventure would have added to the interest of the book. It was not a
+characteristic of the Thirteenth Century, however, to insist on the
+merely personal and consequently the world has lost a treat it might
+otherwise have had. There is no question, however, or the greatness of
+Polo's work as a traveler, nor of the glory that was shed by it on the
+Thirteenth Century. Like nearly everything else that was done in this
+marvelous century he represents the acme of successful endeavor in his
+special line down even to our own time.
+
+It has sometimes been said that Marco Polo's work greatly influenced
+Columbus and encouraged him in his attempt to seek India by sailing
+around the globe. Of this, however, there is considerable doubt. We
+have learned in recent times, that a very definite tradition with
+regard to the possibility of finding land by sailing straight westward
+over the Atlantic existed long before Columbus' time.   [Footnote 34]
+Polo's indirect influence on Columbus by his creation of an interest
+in geographical matters generally is much clearer. There can be no
+doubt of how much his work succeeded in drawing men's minds to
+geographical questions during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries.
+
+  [Footnote 34: My learned friend, Father DeRoo, of Portland, Ore.,
+  who has written two very interesting volumes on the History of
+  America before Columbus, does not hesitate to say that Columbus may
+  even have met in his travels and spoken with sailors who had touched
+  on some portions of the American Continent, and that, of course, the
+  traditions with regard to Greenland were very clear.]
+
+After Marco Polo, undoubtedly, the most enterprising explorer and
+interesting writer on Travel in the Thirteenth Century was John of
+Carpini, the author of a wonderful series of descriptions of things
+seen in Northern Asia. Like so many other travelers and explorers at
+this time John was a Franciscan Friar, and seems to have been one of
+the early companions and disciples of St. Francis of Assisi, whom he
+joined when he was only a young man himself. Before going on his
+missionary and ambassadorial expedition he had been one of the most
+prominent men in the order. He had much to do with its {401}
+propagation among the Northern nations of Europe, and occupied
+successively the offices of custos or prior in Saxony and of
+Provincial in Germany. He seems afterwards to have been sent as an
+organizer into Spain and to have gone even as far as the Barbary
+coast.
+
+It is not surprising, then, that when, in 1245, Pope Innocent IV.
+(sometime after the Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe and the
+disastrous battle of Legamites which threatened to place European
+civilization and Christianity in the power of the Tartars) resolved to
+send a mission to the Tartar monarch, John of Carpini was selected for
+the dangerous and important mission.
+
+At this time Friar John was more than sixty years of age, but such was
+the confidence in his ability and in his executive power that
+everything on the embassy was committed to his discretion. He started
+from Lyons on Easter Day, 1245. He sought the counsel first of his old
+friend Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia, and from that country took with
+him another friar, a Pole, to act as his interpreter. The first stage
+in his journey was to Kiev, and from here, having crossed the Dnieper
+and the Don to the Volga, he traveled to the camp of Batu, at this
+time the senior living member of Jenghis Khan's family. Batu after
+exchanging presents allowed them to proceed to the court of the
+supreme Khan in Mongolia. As Col. Yule says, the stout-hearted old man
+rode on horseback something like three thousand miles in the next
+hundred days. The bodies of himself and companion had to be tightly
+bandaged to enable them to stand the excessive fatigue of this
+enormous ride, which led them across the Ural Mountains and River past
+the northern part of the Caspian, across the Jaxartes, whose name they
+could not find out, along the Dzungarian Lakes till they reached the
+Imperial Camp, called the Yellow Pavilion, near the Orkhon River.
+There had been an interregnum in the empire which was terminated by a
+formal election while the Friars were at the Yellow Pavilion, where
+they had the opportunity to see between three and four thousand envoys
+and deputies from all parts of Asia and Eastern Europe, who brought
+with them tributes and presents for the ruler to be elected.
+
+{402}
+
+It was not for three months after this, in November, that the Emperor
+dismissed them with a letter to the Pope written in Latin, Arabic, and
+Mongolian, but containing only a brief imperious assertion that the
+Khan of the Tartars was the scourge of God for Christianity, and that
+he must fulfill his mission. Then sad at heart, the ambassadors began
+their homeward journey in the midst of the winter. Their sufferings
+can be better imagined than described, but Friar John who does not
+dwell on them much tells enough of them to make their realization
+comparatively easy. They reached Kiev seven months later, in June, and
+were welcomed there by the Slavonic Christians as though arisen from
+the dead. From thence they continued their journey to Lyons where they
+delivered the Khan's letter to the Pope.
+
+Friar John embodied the information that he had obtained in this
+journey in a book that has been called Liber Tartarorum (the Book of
+the Tartars or according to another manuscript, History of the Mongols
+whom we call Tartars). Col. Yule notes that like most of the other
+medieval monks' itineraries, it shows an entire absence of that
+characteristic traveler's egotism with which we have become abundantly
+familiar in more recent years, and contains very little personal
+narrative. We know that John was a stout man and this in addition to
+his age when he went on the mission, cannot but make us realize the
+thoroughly unselfish spirit with which he followed the call of Holy
+Obedience, to undertake a work that seemed sure to prove fatal and
+that would inevitably bring in its train suffering of the severest
+kind. Of the critical historical value of his work a good idea can be
+obtained from the fact, that half a century ago an educated Mongol,
+Galsang Gombeyev, in the Historical and Philological Bulletin of the
+Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, reviewed the book and bore
+testimony to the great accuracy of its statements, to the care with
+which its details had been verified, and the evident personal
+character of all its observations.
+
+Friar John's book attracted the attention of compilers of information
+with regard to distant countries very soon after it was issued, and an
+abridgment of it is to be found in the Encyclopedia of Vincent of
+Beauvais, which was written shortly {403} after the middle of the
+Thirteenth Century. At the end of the Sixteenth Century Hakluyt
+published portions of the original work, as did Borgeron at the
+beginning of the Seventeenth Century. The Geographical Society of
+Paris published a fine edition of the work about the middle of the
+Nineteenth Century, and at the same time a brief narrative taken down
+from the lips of John's companion. Friar Benedict the Pole, which is
+somewhat more personal in its character and fully substantiates all
+that Friar John had written.
+
+As can readily be understood the curiosity of his contemporaries was
+deeply aroused and Friar John had to tell his story many times after
+his return. Hence the necessity he found himself under of committing
+it to paper, so as to save himself from the bother of telling it all
+over again, and in order that his brother Franciscans throughout the
+world might have the opportunity to read it.
+
+Col. Yule says "The book must have been prepared immediately after the
+return of the traveler, for the Friar Salimbene, who met him in France
+in the very year of his return (1247) gives us these interesting
+particulars: 'He was a clever and conversable man, well lettered, a
+great discourser, and full of diversity of experience. He wrote a big
+book about the Tartars (sic), and about other marvels that he had seen
+and whenever he felt weary of telling about the Tartars, he would
+cause this book of his to be read, as I have often heard and seen.
+(Chron. Fr. Salembene Parmensis in Monum. Histor. ad Provinceam
+Placent: Pertinentia, Parma 1857).'"
+
+Another important traveler of the Thirteenth Century whose work has
+been the theme of praise and extensive annotation in modern times was
+William of Rubruk, usually known under the name of Rubruquis, a
+Franciscan friar, thought, as the result of recent investigations,
+probably to owe his cognomen to his birth in the little town of Rubruk
+in Brabant, who was the author of a remarkable narrative of Asiatic
+travel during the Thirteenth Century, and whose death seems to have
+taken place about 1298. The name Rubruquis has been commonly used to
+designate him because it is found in the Latin original of his work,
+which was printed by Hayluyt in his collection of Voyages at the end
+of the {404} Sixteenth Century. Friar William was sent partly as an
+ambassador and partly as an explorer by Louis IX. of France into
+Tartary. At that time the descendants of Jenghis Khan ruled over an
+immense Empire in the Orient and King Louis was deeply interested in
+introducing Christianity into the East and if possible making their
+rulers Christians. About the middle of the Thirteenth Century a rumor
+spread throughout Europe that one of the nephews of the great Khan had
+embraced Christianity. St. Louis thought this a favorable opportunity
+for getting in touch with the Eastern Potentate and so he dispatched
+at least two missions into Tartary at the head of the second of which
+was William of Rubruk.
+
+His accounts of his travels proved most interesting reading to his own
+and to many subsequent generations, perhaps to none more than our own.
+The Encyclopedia Britannica (ninth edition) says that the narrative of
+his journey is everywhere full of life and interest, and some details
+of his travels will show the reasons for this. Rubruk and his party
+landed on the Crimean Coast at Sudak or Soldaia, a port which formed
+the chief seat of communication between the Mediterranean countries
+and what is now Southern Russia. The Friar succeeded in making his way
+from here to the Great Khan's Court which was then held not far from
+Karakorum. This journey was one of several thousand miles. The route
+taken has been worked out by laborious study and the key to it is the
+description given of the country intervening between the basin of the
+Talas and Lake Ala-Kul. This enables the whole geography of the
+region, including the passage of the River Ili, the plain south of the
+Bal Cash, and the Ala-Kul itself, to be identified beyond all
+reasonable doubt.
+
+The return journey was made during the summertime, and the route lay
+much farther to the north. The travelers traversed the Jabkan Valley
+and passed north of the River Bal Cash, following a rather direct
+course which led them to the mouth of the Volga. From here they
+traveled south past Derbend and Shamakii to the Uraxes, and on through
+Iconium to the coast of Cilicia, and finally to the port of Ayas,
+where they embarked for Cyprus. All during his travels Friar William
+made observations on men and cities, and rivers and mountains, and
+{405} languages and customs, implements and utensils, and most of
+these modern criticism has accepted as representing the actual state
+of things as they would appear to a medieval sightseer. Occasionally
+during the period intervening between his time and our own, scholars
+who thought that they knew better, have been conceited enough to
+believe themselves in a position to point out glaring errors in
+Rubruquis' accounts of what he saw. Subsequent investigation and
+discovery have, as a rule, proved the accuracy of the earlier
+observations rather than the modern scholar's corrections. An
+excellent example of this is quoted in the Encyclopedia Britannica
+article on Rubruquis already referred to.
+
+
+{opp405}
+[Illustration]
+DOORWAY OF GIOTTO'S TOWER (FLORENCE)
+
+[Illustration]
+PRINCIPAL DOOR OF BAPTISTERY (PISA, DIOTISALVI)
+
+
+The writer says: "This sagacious and honest observer is denounced as
+an ignorant and untruthful blunderer by Isaac Jacob Schmidt (a man no
+doubt of useful learning, of a kind rare in his day but narrow and
+long-headed and in natural acumen and candour far inferior to the
+Thirteenth Century friar whom he maligns), simply because the evidence
+of the latter as to the Turkish dialect of the Uigurs traversed a pet
+heresy long since exploded which Schmidt entertained, namely, that the
+Uigurs were by race and language Tibetan."
+
+Some of the descriptions of the towns through which the travelers
+passed are interesting because of comparisons with towns of
+corresponding size in Europe. Karakorum, for instance, was described
+as a small city about the same size as the town of St. Denis near
+Paris. In Karakorum the ambassador missionary maintained a public
+disputation with certain pagan priests in the presence of three of the
+secretaries of the Khan. The religion of these umpires is rather
+interesting from its diversity: the first was a Christian, the second
+a Mohammedan, and the third a Buddhist. A very interesting feature of
+the disputation was the fact that the Khan ordered under pain of death
+that none of the disputants should slander, traduce, or abuse his
+adversaries, or endeavor by rumor or insinuations to excite popular
+indignation against them. This would seem to indicate that the great
+Tartar Khan who is usually considered to have been a cruel, ignorant
+despot, whose one quality that gave him supremacy was military valor,
+was really a large, liberal-minded man. His idea seems to have been to
+discover {406} the truth of these different religions and adopt that
+one which was adjudged to have the best groundwork of reason for it.
+It is easy to understand, however, that such a disputation argued
+through interpreters wholly ignorant of the subject and without any
+proper understanding of the nice distinctions of words or any practise
+in conveying their proper significance, could come to no serious
+conclusion. The arguments, therefore, fell flat and a decision was not
+rendered.
+
+Friar William's work was not unappreciated by his contemporaries and
+even its scientific value was thoroughly realized. It is not
+surprising, of course, that his great contemporary in the Franciscan
+order, Roger Bacon, should have come to the knowledge of his Brother
+Minorite's book and should have made frequent and copious quotations
+from it in the geographical section of his Opus Majus, which was
+written some time during the seventh decade of the Thirteenth Century.
+Bacon says that Brother William traversed the Oriental and Northern
+regions and the places adjacent to them, and wrote accounts of them
+for the illustrious King of France who sent him on the expedition to
+Tartary. He adds: "I have read his book diligently and have compared
+it with similar accounts." Roger Bacon recognized by a sort of
+scientific intuition of his own, certain passages which have proved to
+be the best in recent times. The description, for instance, of the
+Caspian was the best down to this time, and Friar William corrects the
+error made by Isidore, and which had generally been accepted before
+this, that the Caspian Sea was a gulf. Rubruk, as quoted by Roger
+Bacon, states very explicitly that it nowhere touches the ocean but is
+surrounded on all sides by land. For those who do not think that the
+foundations of scientific geography were laid until recent times, a
+little consultation of Roger Bacon's Opus Majus would undoubtedly be a
+revelation.
+
+It is probably with regard to language that one might reasonably
+expect to find least that would be of interest to modern scholars in
+Friar William's book. As might easily have been gathered from previous
+references, however, it is here that the most frequent surprises as to
+the acuity of this medieval traveler await the modern reader.
+Scientific philology is so much a product of the last century, that it
+is difficult to {407} understand how this old-time missionary was able
+to reach so many almost intuitive recognitions of the origin and
+relationships of the languages of the people among whom he traveled.
+He came in contact with the group of nations occupying what is now
+known as the Near East, whose languages, as is well known, have
+constituted a series of the most difficult problems with which
+philology had to deal until its thorough establishment on scientific
+lines enabled it to separate them properly. It is all the more
+surprising then, to find that Friar William should have so much in his
+book that even the modern philologist will read with attention and
+unstinted admiration.
+
+With regard to this Colonel Yule, whose personal experience makes him
+a valuable guide in such matters, has written a paragraph which
+contains so much compressed information that we venture to quote it
+entire. It furnishes the grounds for the claim (which might seem
+overstrained if it were not that its author was himself one of the
+greatest of modern explorers) that William was an acute and most
+intelligent observer, keen in the acquisition of knowledge; and the
+author in fact of one of the best narratives of travel in existence.
+Col. Yule says:
+
+  "Of his interest and acumen in matters of language we may cite
+  examples. The language of the Pascatir (or Bashkirds) and of the
+  Hungarians is the same, as, he had learned from Dominicans who had
+  been among them. The language of the Ruthenians, Poles, Bohemians,
+  and Slavonians is one, and is the same with that of the Wandals or
+  Wends. In the town of Equinus (immediately beyond the Ili, perhaps
+  Aspara) the people were Mohammedans speaking Persian, though so far
+  remote from Persia. The Yugurs (or Uigurs) of the country about the
+  Cailac had formed a language and character of their own, and in that
+  language and character the Nestorians of that tract used to perform
+  their office and write their books. The Yugurs are those among whom
+  are found the fountain and root of the Turkish and Comanian tongue.
+  Their character has been adopted by the Moghals. In using it they
+  begin writing from the top and write downwards, whilst line follows
+  line from left to right. The Nestorians say their service, and have
+  their holy book in Syriac, but know nothing of the {408} language,
+  just as some of our Monks sing the mass without knowing Latin. The
+  Tibet people write as we do, and their letters have a strong
+  resemblance to ours. The Tangut people write from right to left like
+  the Arabs, and their lines advance upwards."
+
+There were other matters besides language and religion on which Friar
+William made observations, and though his book is eminently human
+giving us a very interesting view of his own personality and of his
+difficulties with his dragoman, which many a modern Eastern traveler
+will sympathize with, and a picture that includes the detail that he
+was a very heavy man, _valde ponderosus_, which makes his travel on
+horseback for some 10,000 miles all the more wonderful; it also
+contains a mass of particulars, marvelously true--or so near the truth
+as to be almost more interesting--as to Asiatic nature, ethnography,
+manners, morals, commercial customs, and nearly everything else
+relating to the life of the peoples among whom he traveled. A typical
+example of this is to be found in the following suggestive paragraph:
+
+"The current money of Cathay is of cotton paper, a palm in length and
+breath, and on this they print lines like those of Mangu Khan's seal:
+'imprimunt lineas sicut est sigillum Mangu'"--a remarkable expression.
+"They write with a painter's pencil and combine in one character
+several letters, forming one expression: 'faciunt in una figura plures
+literas comprehendentes unam dictionem'"--a still more remarkable
+utterance, showing an approximate apprehension of the nature of
+Chinese writing.
+
+There are other distinguished travelers whose inspiration came to them
+during the Thirteenth Century though their works were published in the
+early part of the next century. Some of these we know mainly through
+their adaptation and incorporation into his work without due
+recognition, by that first great writer of spurious travels Sir John
+Mandeville. Mandeville's work was probably written some time during
+the early part of the second half of the Fourteenth Century, but he
+used materials gathered from travelers of the end of the Thirteenth
+and the beginning of the next (his own) century. Sir Henry Yule has
+pointed out, that by far the greater part of the supposed {409} more
+distant travels of Sir John Mandeville were appropriated from the
+narrative of Friar Odoric, a monk, who became a member of the
+Franciscan order about the end of the Thirteenth Century, and whose
+travels as a missionary in the East gave him the opportunities to
+collect a precious fund of information which is contained in Odoric's
+famous story of his voyages. Of Odoric himself we shall have something
+to say presently.
+
+In the meantime it seems well worth while calling to attention, that
+the accepted narrative of Sir John Mandeville as it is called, and
+which may have been written by a physician of the name of John of
+Burgoigne under an assumed name, contains a number of interesting
+anticipations of facts that were supposed to enter into the domain of
+human knowledge much later in the intellectual development of the
+race. In certain passages, and especially in one which is familiar
+from its being cited by Dr. Johnson in the preface to his dictionary,
+Mandeville, to use the name under which the story is best known, shows
+that he had a correct idea of the form of the earth and of position in
+latitude as it could be ascertained by observation of the Pole Star.
+He knew also, as we noted at the beginning of this article, that there
+are antipodes, and if ships were sent on voyages of discovery they
+might sail around the world. As Col. Yule has pointed out, Mandeville
+tells a curious story which he had heard in his youth of how "a worthy
+man did travel ever eastward until he came to his own country again."
+
+Odoric of whom we have already spoken must be considered as the next
+great missionary traveler of this age. He took Franciscan vows when
+scarcely a boy and was encouraged to travel in the East by the example
+of his Holy Father St. Francis, and also by the interest and
+missionary zeal to convert the East which had been aroused by Marco
+Polo's travels. His long journeys will be more readily understood,
+however, if we realize, as is stated in the article on him in the
+Encyclopedia Britannica, an authority that will surely be unsuspected
+of too great partiality for the work of Catholic missionaries, that
+"There had risen also during the latter half of the Thirteenth Century
+an energetic missionary action, extending all over the East on the
+part of both the new orders of Preaching and Minorite (or Dominican
+and Franciscan) Friars which had caused {410} members of these orders,
+of the last especially, to become established in Persia and what is
+now Southern Russia, in Tartary and in China."
+
+In the course of his travels in the East Odoric visited Malabar
+touching at Pandarini (twenty miles north of Calicut), at Craganore
+and at Quilon, preceding thence, apparently, to Ceylon and to the
+Shrine of St. Thomas at Mailapur near Madras.
+
+Even more interesting than his travels in India, however, are those in
+China. He sailed from the Hindustan Peninsula in a Chinese junk to
+Sumatra, visiting various ports on the northern coast of that island
+and telling something about the inhabitants and the customs of the
+country. According to Sir Henry Yule he then visited Java and it would
+seem also the coast of Borneo, finally reaching Kanton, at that time
+known to Western Asiatics as Chin Kalan or Great China. From there he
+went to the great ports of Fuhkeen and Schwan Chow, where he found two
+houses of his order, thence he proceeded to Fuchau from which place he
+struck across the mountains into Chekaeng and then visited Hang Chow
+at that time renowned under the name of Cansay. Modern authorities in
+exploration have suggested that this might be King Sae, the Chinese
+name for Royal Residence, which was then one of the greatest cities of
+the world. Thence Odoric passed northward by Nanking, and, crossing
+the great Kiang, embarked on the Grand Canal and traveled to Cambaluc
+or Pekin, where he remained for three years and where it is thought
+that he was attached to one of the churches founded by Archbishop John
+of Monte Corvino, who was at this time in extreme old age.
+
+The most surprising part of Odoric's travels were still to come. When
+the fever for traveling came upon him again he turned almost directly
+westward to the Great Wall and through Shenshua. From here the
+adventurous traveler (we are still practically quoting Sir Henry Yule)
+entered Thibet and appears to have visited Lhasa. Considering how much
+of interest has been aroused by recent attempts to enter Lhasa and the
+surprising adventures that men have gone through in the effort, the
+success of this medieval monk in such an expedition would seem
+incredible, if it were not substantiated by documents that {411} place
+the matter beyond all doubt even in the minds of the most
+distinguished modern authorities in geography and exploration. How
+Odoric returned home is not definitely known, though certain
+fragmentary notices seem to indicate that he passed through Khorasan
+and probably Tabriz to Europe.
+
+It only remains to complete the interest of Odoric's wondrous tale to
+add that during a large portion of these years' long journeys his
+companion was Friar James, an Irishman who had been attracted to Italy
+in order to become a Franciscan. As appears from a record in the
+public books of the town of Udine in Italy, where the monastery of
+which both he and Odoric were members was situated, a present of two
+marks was made by the municipal authorities to the Irish friar shortly
+after Odoric's death. The reason for the gift was stated to be, that
+Friar James had been for the love of God and of Odoric (a typical
+Celtic expression and characteristic) a companion of the blessed
+Odoric in his wanderings. Unfortunately Odoric died within two years
+after his return though not until the story of his travels had been
+taken down in homely Latin by Friar William of Bologna. Shortly after
+his death Odoric became an object of reverence on the part of his
+brother friars and of devotion on the part of the people, who
+recognized the wonderful apostolic spirit that he had displayed in his
+long wanderings, and the patience and good-will with which he had
+borne sufferings and hardships for the sake of winning the souls of
+those outside the Church.
+
+Sir Henry Yule summed up his opinion of Odoric in the following
+striking passage which bears forcible testimony also to the healthy
+curiosity of the times with regard to all these original sources of
+information which were recognized as valuable because first hand:
+
+  "The numerous MSS. of Odoric's narrative that have come down to our
+  time (upwards of forty are known), and chiefly from the Fourteenth
+  Century, show how speedily and widely it acquired popularity. It
+  does not deserve the charge of general mendacity brought up against
+  it by some, though the language of other writers who have spoken of
+  the traveler as a man of learning is still more injudicious. Like
+  most of the medieval travelers, he is indiscriminating in accepting
+  strange tales; but while some of these are the habitual stories of
+  the {412} age, many particulars which he recited attest the genuine
+  character of the narrative, and some of those which Tiraboschi and
+  others have condemned as mendacious interpolations are the very
+  seals of truth."
+
+Besides Odoric there is another monkish traveler from whom Mandeville
+has borrowed much, though without giving him any credit. This is the
+well-known Praemonstratensian Monk Hayton, who is said to have been a
+member of a princely Armenian family and who just at the beginning of
+the Fourteenth Century dictated a work on the affairs of the Orient
+and especially the history of the nearer East in his own time, of
+which, from the place of his nativity and bringing up, he had abundant
+information, while he found all round him in France, where he was
+living at the time, the greatest thirst for knowledge with regard to
+this part of the world. His book seems to have been dictated
+originally in French at Poictiers, and to have attracted great
+attention because of its subject, many copies of it being made as well
+as translations into other languages within a few years after its
+original appearance.
+
+The story of Odoric is a forcible reminder of how much the
+missionaries accomplished for geography, ethnology, and ethnography in
+the Thirteenth Century, as they did in succeeding centuries. If what
+the missionaries have added to these sciences were to have been lost,
+there would have been enormous gaps in the knowledge with which modern
+scholars began their scientific labors in philology. It may be a
+surprise to most people, moreover, to be thus forcibly reminded of the
+wonderful evangelizing spirit which characterized the later middle
+age. Needless to say these graduates of the Thirteenth Century
+universities who wandered in distant eastern lands, brought with them
+their European culture for the uplifting of the Orientals, and brought
+back to Europe many ideas that were to be fruitful sources of
+suggestions not only for geographical, ethnological, philological, and
+other departments of learning, but also in manufactures and in arts.
+
+We mentioned the fact that Odoric in his travels eventually reached
+Cambaluc, or Pekin, where he found Archbishop John of Monte Corvino
+still alive though at an advanced age, and was probably attached for
+the three years of his stay to one of {413} the churches that had been
+founded by this marvelous old Friar, who had been made Archbishop
+because of the wonderful power of organization and administration
+displayed during his earlier career as a missionary. The story of this
+grand old man of the early Franciscan missions is another one of the
+romances of Thirteenth Century travels and exploration which well
+deserves to be studied in detail. Unfortunately the old Archbishop was
+too much occupied with his work as a missionary and an ecclesiastic to
+return to Europe in order to tell of it, or to write any lengthy
+account of his experiences. Like many another great man of the
+Thirteenth Century he was a doer and not a writer, and, but for the
+casual mention of him by others, the records of his deeds would only
+be found in certain ecclesiastical records, and his work would now be
+known to the Master alone, for whom it was so unselfishly done.
+
+It will be noted that most of these traveling missionaries were
+Franciscans but it must not be thought that it was only the
+Franciscans who sent out such missionaries. The Dominicans
+(established at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century) also did
+wonderful missionary work and quite as faithfully as even their
+Franciscan brothers. Undoubtedly the Franciscans surpassed them in the
+extent of their labors, but then the Dominicans were founded with the
+idea of preaching and uplifting the people of Europe rather than of
+spreading the good news of the Gospel outside the bounds of
+Christianity as it then existed. From the very earliest traditions of
+their order the Franciscans had their eyes attracted towards the East.
+The story that St. Francis himself went to the Holy Land at the
+beginning of the Thirteenth Century in order to convert Saladin, the
+Eastern monarch whose name has been made famous by the stories of the
+Crusade in which Richard Coeur de Lion took part, has been doubted,
+but it seems to be founded on too good contemporary authority to be
+considered as entirely apocryphal. St. Francis' heart went out to
+those in darkness who knew nothing of the Christ whom he had learned
+to love so ardently, and it was a supreme desire of his life that the
+good tidings of Christianity should be spread by his followers all
+over the world. While they did this great work they accomplished
+unwittingly great things in all the series of sciences {414} now
+included under the term geography, and gathered precious information
+as to the races of men, their relations to one another and to the part
+of the earth in which they live. The scientific progress thus made
+will always redound largely to their credit in the story of the
+intellectual development of modern Europe. Most of their work was far
+ahead of the times and was not to be properly appreciated until quite
+recent generations, but this must only emphasize our sympathy for
+those obscure, patient but fruitful workers in a great field of human
+knowledge. As to what should be thought of those who ignorant of their
+work proclaim that the Church did not tolerate geography it is hard to
+say. Our geographical knowledge comes mainly from travelers whose wish
+it is to gain commercial opportunities for themselves or their
+compatriots; that of the Middle Ages was gained by men who wished
+anxiously to spread the light of Christianity throughout the world.
+The geographical societies of these earlier days were the religious
+orders who sent but the explorers and travelers, furnished them on
+their return with an enthusiastic audience to hear their stories, and
+then helped to disseminate their books all over the then civilized
+world.
+
+There is probably no better refutation of the expression so often
+heard from those who know nothing about it, with regard to the
+supposed laziness of the Monks of the Middle Ages, than this chapter
+of the story of their exploration and missionary labors during the
+Thirteenth Century. It is usually supposed that if a Monk was fat he
+could not possibly have accomplished any serious work in life. Some of
+these men were _valde ponderosi_, very weighty, yet they did not
+hesitate to take on themselves these long journeys to the East. Their
+lives are the best illustration of the expression of Montalembert:
+
+  "Let us then banish into the world of fiction that affirmation so
+  long repeated by foolish credulity which made monasteries an asylum
+  for indolence and incapacity, for misanthropy and pusillanimity, for
+  feeble and melancholic temperaments, and for men who were no longer
+  fit to serve society in the world. It was not the sick souls, but on
+  the contrary the most vigorous and healthful the human race has ever
+  produced who presented themselves in crowds to fill them."
+
+
+{415}
+
+XXVI
+
+GREAT BEGINNINGS OF MODERN COMMERCE.
+
+
+For our present eminently commercial age nothing of all the
+accomplishment of the Thirteenth Century will probably possess
+livelier interest than the fact that, in spite of what must have
+seemed insuperable difficulties to a less enterprising generation, the
+men of that time succeeded in making such business combinations and
+municipal affiliations, besides arranging various trade facilities
+among distant, different peoples, that not only was commerce rendered
+possible and even easy, but some of the most modern developments of
+the facilitation of international intercourse were anticipated. The
+story of the rise of this combination of many men of different
+nations, of many cities whose inhabitants were of different races and
+of different languages, of commercial enterprise that carried men
+comparatively much farther than they now go on trade expeditions,
+though we have thought that our age had exhausted the possibilities of
+progress in this matter, cannot fail to have an interest for everyone
+whose attention has been attracted to the people of this time and must
+be taken as a symbol of the all-pervading initiative of the
+generations, which allowed no obstacle to hinder their progress and
+thought no difficulty too great to be surmounted.
+
+In beginning the history of the great commercial league which in the
+Thirteenth Century first opened men's minds to the possibilities of
+peace and commerce among the nations and alas! that it should be said,
+did more perhaps than any other agent except Christianity to awaken in
+different races the sense of the brotherhood of man, the English
+historian of the Hanseatic League, Miss Zimmern in the Stories of the
+Nations, said:
+
+"There is scarcely a more remarkable chapter in history than that
+which deals with the trading alliance or association known as the
+Hanseatic League. The league has long since {416} passed away having
+served its time and fulfilled its purpose. The needs and circumstances
+of mankind have changed, and new methods and new instruments have been
+devised for carrying on the commerce of the world. Yet, if the league
+has disappeared, the beneficial results of its action survive to
+Europe though they have become so completely a part of our daily life
+that we accept them as matters of course, and do not stop to inquire
+into their origin." This last declaration may seem surprising for
+comparatively few know anything about this medieval commercial league,
+yet the effects claimed for it are only what we have seen to be true
+with regard to most of the important institutions of the period--they
+were the origins of what is best in our modern life.
+
+Like many of the great movements of the Thirteenth Century the origin
+of the Hanseatic League is clouded somewhat by the obscurity of the
+times and the lack of definite historical documents.  [Footnote 35]
+There is no doubt, however, that just before the middle of the century
+it was in flourishing existence, and that by the end of the century it
+had reached that acme of its power and influence which it was to
+maintain for several centuries in spite of the jealousy of the
+nobility, of certain towns that did not have the same privileges, and
+even of the authorities of the various countries who resented more and
+more as time went on the growing freedom and independence of these
+wealthy cities. The impetus for the formation of the League seems to
+have been given during the Crusades. Like so many other of the
+important movements of the time commerce was greatly influenced by
+these expeditions, and the commercial spirit not only aroused but
+shown the possibility of {417} accomplishing hitherto impossible
+results in the matter of transportation and exchange. The returning
+crusaders brought back with them many precious Eastern objects whose
+possession was a source of envy to others and whose value was rated so
+high as to make even distant travel for them well worth while. The
+returning crusaders also knew how cheaply objects considered very
+precious in the West might be purchased in the East, and they told the
+stories of their own acquisition of them to willing listeners, who
+were stimulated to try their fortunes in expeditions that promised
+such rich rewards.
+
+  [Footnote 35: Perhaps no better idea of the obscurity of the origin of
+  the Hansa confederation can be given, than is to be derived from the
+  fact that even the derivation of the word Hansa is not very clear.
+  Bishop Ulfilas in his old Gothic translation of the Scriptures used
+  the word "hansa" to designate the mob of soldiers and servants of
+  the High Priest who came to take Christ prisoner in the Garden.
+  Later on the word Hansa was used to mean a tax or a contribution.
+  This term was originally employed to designate the sum of money
+  which each of the cities was compelled to pay on becoming a member
+  of the league, and it is thought to be from this that the terms
+  Hansa and Hanseatic League were eventually derived.]
+
+
+{opp417}
+[Illustration]
+PALAZZO DEI CONSOLI (GUBBIO)
+
+[Illustration]
+PALAZZO ZABARELLA (PADUA)
+
+
+Besides the crusaders on their return through Italy had observed what
+was accomplished by the League of the Lombard cities which had been in
+existence in a more or less imperfect way for more than a century, and
+at the end of the Twelfth and the beginning of the Thirteenth Century
+had begun to provide an example of the strength there is in union, and
+of the power for good there is in properly regulated combinations of
+commercial interests with due regard for civic rights and privileges.
+This League of the Lombard cities was encouraged by the popes
+especially by Innocent III. and his successors who are usually said to
+have given it their approbation for their own purposes, though this is
+to look at but one side of the case. The German Emperors endeavored to
+assert their rights over Italian territory and in so doing came into
+collision with the popes not only in temporal matters but also in
+spiritual things. As we have noted in the short sketch of the popes of
+the century, Innocent III. was the first great Italian patriot and
+original advocate of Italy for the Italians. He constantly opposed the
+influence of the German Emperor in Italian politics, mainly, of
+course, because this interfered with the power of the Church, but to a
+very great degree also because it proved a source of manifold
+political evil for the Italian cities.
+
+The Germans then, who in the train of the Emperor went down into Italy
+saw the working of this League of Lombard cities, talked about it on
+their return, and were naturally tempted to essay what might be
+accomplished by the same means on German territory. These two
+elements, the incentive of the crusades and the stimulus of the
+example of the {418} Italians, must be considered as at the basis of
+Hansa, though these were only seeds, and it was the nurture and
+fostering care of the German mind which ever since the days of Tacitus
+had been noted as the freest in Europe, that gave the League its
+wonderful development.
+
+It is difficult to tell how many towns belonged to the Hanseatic
+League during the Thirteenth Century but at the end of this period,
+Hansa, as it came to be called, was, as we have said, in its most
+flourishing condition and we know something definite of its numbers a
+little more than half a century later. In 1367 deputies from all the
+towns met in the large council chamber of the famous town hall at
+Cologne to discuss certain injustices that had been committed against
+the members of the League, or as the document set forth "against the
+free German merchants," in order to determine some way of preventing
+further injuries and inflict due punishment. Altogether the deputies
+of 77 towns were present and declared most solemnly "that because of
+the wrongs and the injuries done by the King of Denmark to the common
+German merchant the cities would be his enemies and help one another
+faithfully." The distant and smaller cities were not expected to send
+troops or even naval forces but promised to give contributions in
+money. Such cities as did not take part in this movement were to be
+considered as having forfeited their membership and would no longer be
+permitted to trade with the members of Hansa.
+
+Lest it should be thought that the cities were incapable of enforcing
+any such boycott with effect, the story of the town of Luebeck must be
+recalled. Luebeck on one occasion refused to join with the other Hansa
+towns in a boycott of certain places in Flanders which had refused to
+observe the regulations as to trading. One of these was to the effect
+that such vessels as were lost on a coast did not become the property
+of the people of the neighborhood, though they had a right to a due
+share for salvage, but a fair proportion must be returned to the
+citizens of the town that suffered the loss. Luebeck was at the moment
+one of the most powerful commercial cities in Germany, and her
+citizens seemed to think that they could violate the Hansa regulation
+with impunity. For 30 years. {419} however, the Hansa boycott was
+maintained and so little trading was done in the city that according
+to one old writer "the people starved, the markets were deserted,
+grass grew in the street and the inhabitants left in large numbers."
+Such a lesson as this was enough to make the Hanseatic decrees be
+observed with scrupulous care and shows the perfection of the
+organization.
+
+The outcome of the war with Denmark demonstrates the power of the
+league. The King of Denmark is said to have scorned their declaration
+of war, and making an untranslatable pun on the word "Hansa" called
+the members of the League "geese who cackled much but need not be
+feared." The fleet of the League, however, succeeded in shutting off
+all the commerce of the coast of Denmark and though there was a truce
+each winter the war was renewed vigorously, and with summer many of
+the Danish cities were ransacked and plundered. At the end of the
+second year Denmark was exhausted and the people so weary of war that
+they pleaded for peace, and Valdemar had to accept the terms which the
+"geese" were willing to offer him. This triumph of the common people
+over a reigning monarch is one of the most striking passages in
+medieval history. It comes about a half century after the close of the
+Thirteenth, and is evidently the direct result of the great practical
+forces that were set in movement during that wonderful period, when
+the mighty heart of humanity was everywhere bestirring men to deeds of
+high purpose and far-reaching significance.
+
+As a matter of fact, Hansa became, very early in its career, one of
+the firmest authorities in the midst of these troubled times and meted
+out unfailingly the sternest justice against those who infringed its
+rights if they were outsiders, or broke the rules of the League if
+they were its members. It was ever ready to send its ships against
+offenders and while it soon came to be feared, this fear was mingled
+with respect, and its regulations were seldom infringed. It is a most
+interesting reflection, that as its English Historian says, "never
+once in the whole course of its history did it draw the sword
+aggressively or against its own members." While it was ever on the
+look-out to increase its power by adding new cities to the League,
+cities were not forced to join and when it meted {420} out punishments
+to its members this was not by the levying of war but by fines, the
+refusal to pay these being followed by the "declaration of boycott,"
+which soon brought the offender to terms. War was only declared in all
+cases as a last resort, and the ships of the League were constantly
+spoken of and designated in all documents as "peace ships," and even
+the forts which the League built for the protection of its towns, or
+as places where its members might be sure of protection, were
+described as "Peace Burgs."
+
+Unfortunately, the lessons of peace that were thus taught by commerce
+were not to bear fruit abundantly for many centuries after the
+Thirteenth. It is practically only in our own time that they have been
+renewed, and the last generation or two, has rather plumed itself over
+the fact that trade was doing so much to prevent war. Evidently this
+is no guarantee of the perpetuation of such an improvement in national
+or international morals, for the influence of Hansa for peace came to
+be lost entirely, after a few centuries. The cities themselves,
+however, that belonged to the League gradually became more and more
+free, and more independent of their rulers. It was thus, in fact, that
+the free cities of Germany had their origin, and in them much more of
+modern liberty was born than has ever been appreciated, except by
+those whose studies have brought them close to these marvelous
+medieval manifestations of the old spirit of Teutonic freedom.
+
+The names of most of the cities that were members of the Hansa League
+are well known, though it is not easy to understand in the decrepitude
+that has come over many of them, how they could have been of so much
+importance as has been claimed for them in the Middle Ages. All the
+cities of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea were united together, and
+while we think of these as German, many of them really belonged to
+Slav people at this time, so that the membership of a number of
+Russian cities is not surprising. While the Rhenish cities were
+important factors in the League, Cologne indeed being one of the most
+important, Bremen and Hamburg and both the Frankforts, and Rostock,
+and Luebeck and Stralsund, and Tangermuende and Warnemunde, were
+important members. Novgorod was founded by Hansa for the purpose of
+trading {421} with the Orientals, and the Volga, the Dnieper, the
+Dwina, and the Oder were extensively used for the purpose of
+transporting goods here and there in central Europe. One of their most
+famous towns, Winetha in German, Julin in Danish, disappeared beneath
+the waters of the Baltic Sea and gave rise to many legends of its
+reappearance. It is hard to realize that it was so important that it
+was called the Venice of the North, and was seriously compared with
+its great southern rival.
+
+A good idea of the intimate relations of the Hansa towns to England
+and the English people can be obtained from the article on the subject
+written by Richard Lodge for the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopedia
+Britannica. A single paragraph of this compresses much of the external
+and internal history of the "Rise and Development of Hansa." It was
+rather to be expected that the commercial relations between England
+and the various cities situated along the North Sea, as well as the
+Baltic and up the Rhine, would be active and would have to be
+submitted to careful regulation. Unless the modern mind is actually
+brought directly in touch, however, with the complex yet very
+practical state of affairs, which actually existed, it will utterly
+fail to appreciate how thoroughly progressive and enterprising were
+these medieval peoples. Enterprise and practicalness we are apt to
+think of as the exclusive possession of much more modern generations.
+Least of all would we be apt to consider them as likely to be found in
+the Thirteenth Century, yet here they are, and the commercial
+arrangements which were made are as absolute premonitions of our
+modern thought as were the literature and architecture, the painting,
+even the teachings of science at the same period.
+
+"The members of this League (Hanseatic) came to England mostly from
+Cologne, the first German town which obtained great importance both at
+home and abroad. Its citizens possessed at an early date a guild-hall
+of their own (in London), and all Germans who wished to trade with
+England had to join their guild. This soon included merchants from
+Dortmund, Soest and Munster, in Westphalia; from Utrecht, Stavern and
+Groningen, in the Netherlands, and from Bremen and Hamburg on the
+North Sea. But, when at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, the
+rapidly rising town of Luebeck {422} wished to be admitted into the
+guild, every effort was made to keep her out. The intervention of
+Frederick II. was powerless to overcome the dread felt by Cologne
+towards a possible rival to its supremacy. But this obstacle to the
+extension of the League was soon overcome. In 1260 a charter of Henry
+III. assured protection to all German merchants. A few years later
+Hamburg and Luebeck also were allowed to form their own guilds. The
+Hansa of Cologne, which had long been the only guild, now sinks to the
+position of a branch Hansa, and has to endure others with equal
+privileges. Over all the branch Hansas rises the "Hansa Alamanniae,"
+first mentioned in 1282.
+
+This article gives additional information with regard to the many and
+varied influences at work at the end of the Thirteenth Century. It
+furnishes in brief, moreover, an excellent picture of the activity of
+mind and power of organization so frequently displayed during this
+period in every branch of life. This is after all the highest quality
+of man. The development of associations of various kinds, especially
+such as are helpfully purposive, are the outcome of that social
+quality in man's mind which is the surest index of his rational
+quality. Succeeding centuries lost for some almost unaccountable
+reason much of this faculty of organization and the result was a
+lamentable retrogression from the advances made by older generations,
+so that it was only in quite recent years that anything like this old
+international comity was reestablished.
+
+
+{opp422}
+[Illustration]
+RATHHAUS (LUeBECK)
+
+
+The extent and very natural development of this community of interests
+must ever attract attention. It is the first time in our modern
+history that it occurs and men of some seven different races and
+tongues were at last drawn into it. In this it represents the greatest
+advance of history, for it led to assimilation of laws and of
+liberties, with some of the best features of each nation's old-time
+customs preserved in the new codes. Its extension even to Novgorod, in
+what is now the heart of Russia is a surprising demonstration of
+successful enterprise and spread of influence almost incredible. The
+settling of the trade disputes of this distant Russian City in the
+courts of a North Sea town, is an evidence of advance in commercial
+relations emphasized by the writer in the Britannica, that deserves to
+be well weighed as a manifestation of what is often thought {423} to
+be the exclusively modern recognition of the rights of commerce and
+the claims of justice over even national feelings.
+
+"The league between Luebeck and Hamburg was not the only, and possibly
+not the first, league among the German towns. But it gradually
+absorbed all others. Besides the influence of foreign commercial
+interests there were other motives which compelled the towns to union.
+The chief of these were the protection of commercial routes both by
+sea and land, and the vindication of town independence as opposed to
+claims of the landed aristocracy. The first to join the League were
+the Wendish towns to the East, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, etc., which
+had always been intimately connected with Luebeck, and were united by a
+common system of laws known as the 'Luebisches Recht' (Luebeck Laws).
+The Saxon and Westphalian towns had long possessed a league among
+themselves; they also joined themselves to Luebeck. Luebeck now became
+the most important town in Germany. It had already surpassed Cologne
+both in London and Bruges. It soon gained a similar victory over
+Wisby. At a great convention in which twenty-four towns from Cologne
+to Revel took part, it was decided that appeals from Novgorod which
+had hitherto been decided at Wisby should henceforth be brought to
+Luebeck."
+
+After much travail and vexation of spirit, after much diplomacy and
+political and parliamentary discussion, after much striving on the
+part of the men in all nations, who have the great cause of universal
+peace for mankind at heart, we have reached a position where at least
+commercial difficulties can be referred to a sort of international
+court for adjudication. The standing of this court is not very clear
+as yet. Special arrangements at least are required, if not special
+treaties in many cases, even for the reference of such merely
+commercial difficulties as debt-collecting to it. In the last quarter
+of the Nineteenth Century special tribunals had to be erected for the
+settlement of such difficulties between nations. In the Twentieth
+Century the outlook is more hopeful and the actual accomplishment is
+indeed encouraging. In the Thirteenth Century with the absence of the
+telegraph and the cable, with the slowness of sailing vessels and the
+distance of towns {424} emphasizing all the difficulties of the
+situation, the Hanseatic League succeeded in obtaining an
+international tribunal, whose judgments with regard to commercial
+difficulties were final and were accepted by men of many different
+races and habits and customs, and to which causes were referred
+without any of the immense machinery apparently required at the
+present time.
+
+This is the real triumph of the commercial development of the
+Thirteenth Century. While it may be astonishing to many modern people
+to learn how much was accomplished in this utterly unexpected quarter,
+it will not be a surprise to those who realize the thoroughly
+practical character of the century and the perfectly matter of fact
+way in which it went about settling all the difficulties that
+presented themselves; and how often they succeeded in reaching a very
+practical if not always ideal solution. The sad feature of the case is
+to think that most of this coming together of nations was lost by the
+gradual development of national feeling, much of benefit as there may
+have been in that for the human race, and by the drawing of the
+language lines between nations more closely than they had been before,
+for the next three centuries saw the development of modern tongues
+into the form which they have held ever since.
+
+Hansa did more than almost any other institution in northern Europe to
+establish the reign of Law. If it had accomplished no other purpose,
+this would make it eminently worthy of the study of those who are
+interested in sociology and social evolution. Before the time of Hansa
+the merchant by sea or land was liable to all sorts of impositions,
+arbitrary taxes, injustices, and even the loss of life as well of his
+goods. As Hansa gained in power however, these abuses disappeared.
+Perhaps the most noteworthy improvement came with regard to
+navigation. There is a story told of a famous rock in Brittany on
+which many ships were wrecked during the Middle Ages. Even as late as
+the Thirteenth Century sometimes false lights were displayed on this
+rock with the idea of tempting vessels to their destruction on it.
+Everything that was thrown ashore in the neighborhood was considered
+to be the property of the people who gathered it, except that a
+certain portion of its value had to be paid to the Lord of the Manor.
+{425} This worthy representative of the upper classes is said to have
+pointed out the rock to some visiting nobleman friends one day, and
+declared that it was more precious to him than the most precious stone
+in the diadem of any ruling monarch in Europe. This represents the
+state of feeling with regard to such subjects when Hansa started in to
+correct the abuses.
+
+It may be looked upon as a serious disgrace to the Thirteenth Century
+that such a low state of ethical feeling should have existed, but it
+is the amelioration of conditions which obliterated such false
+sentiments that constitutes the triumph of the period. On the other
+hand we must not with smug self-complacency think that our generation
+is so much better than those of the past. It is easy to be pharisaical
+while we forget that many a fortune in modern times suffers shipwreck
+on the coasts of business and investment, because the false lights of
+advertising intended to deceive, are displayed very prominently, for
+those who are only anxious as were the mariners of the olden times to
+make their fortunes. Doubtless too the proprietors of many of the
+papers which display such advertisements, and it is nonsense to say
+that they are unconscious of the harm they do, are quite as proud of
+the magnificent revenue that their advertising columns bring to them
+as was the Breton noble of the Thirteenth Century. Man has not changed
+much in the interval.
+
+Lest it should be thought that even the present-day initiation into
+secret societies of various kinds is the invention of modern times, it
+seems well to give some of the details of the tests through which
+those seeking to be members of the Hanseatic League were subjected, by
+those who were already initiated. It may possibly seem that some of
+these customs were too barbarous to mention in the same breath with
+the present-day initiations, but if it is recalled that at least once
+a year some serious accident is reported as the result of the
+thoughtless fooling of "frat" students at our universities, this
+opinion may be withdrawn. Miss Helen Zimmern in her story of the Hansa
+Towns already quoted several times, has a paragraph or two of
+descriptions of these that we shall quote. It may be well to remember
+that these tests were not entirely without a serious significance for
+the members of the Hansa. Much {426} was expected of those who
+belonged to the Hansa Guild. A number of precious trade secrets were
+entrusted them, and they alone knew the methods and mysteries of
+Hansa. In order that these might not by any possibility be betrayed,
+the members of Hansa who lived in foreign countries were forbidden to
+marry while abroad and were bound under the severest penalties to live
+a life of celibacy. They were not supposed to be absent from the
+houses assigned to them during the night, and their factories so
+called, or common-places of residence, were guarded by night watchman
+and fierce dogs in order to secure the keeping of these rules.
+
+Besides torture was a very common thing in those times and a man who
+belonged to a country that happened to be at war for the moment, might
+very easily be subjected to torture for some reason or another with
+the idea of securing important information from him. If the members of
+Hansa wanted to be reasonably assured that new members would not give
+up their secrets without a brave struggle, they had no better way than
+by these tests, for which there was therefore some excuse. As to the
+brutality of the tests perhaps Miss Zimmern in maidenly way has said
+too much. We commend her paragraphs to the modern committees of
+reception of college secret societies, because here as elsewhere this
+generation may get points from the Thirteenth Century.
+
+
+{opp426}
+[Illustration]
+MINSTER (CHORIN, GERMANY)
+
+[Illustration]
+CITY GATE (NEUBRANDENBURG)
+
+
+"We cannot sully our pages by detailing the thirteen different games
+or modes of martyrdom that were in use at Bergen. Our more civilized
+age could not tolerate the recital. In those days they attracted a
+crowd of eager spectators who applauded the more vociferously the more
+cruel and barbarous the tortures. The most popular were those
+practices known as the smoke, water and flogging games; mad, cruel
+pranks calculated to cause a freshman to lose health and reason. Truly
+Dantesque hell tortures were these initiations into Hansa mysteries.
+Merely to indicate their nature we will mention that for the smoke
+game the victim was pulled up the big chimney of the Schutting while
+there burned beneath him the most filthy materials, sending up a most
+nauseous stench and choking wreaths of smoke. While in this position
+he was asked a number of questions, to which he was forced, under yet
+more terrible penalties, to reply. If {427} he survived his torture he
+was taken out into the yard and plied under the pump with six tons of
+water." (Even the "Water Cure" is not new).
+
+There was a variety about the tests at different times and places that
+show no lack of invention on the part of the members of Hansa. With
+regard to other water tests Miss Zimmern has furnished some
+interesting details:
+
+"The 'water' game that took place at Whitsuntide consisted in first
+treating the probationer to food, and then taking him out to sea in a
+boat. Here he was stripped thrown into the ocean, ducked three times,
+made to swallow much sea-water, and thereafter mercilessly flogged by
+all the inmates of the boats. The third chief game was no less
+dangerous to life and limb. It took place a few days after, and was a
+rude perversion of the May games. The victims had first to go out into
+the woods to gather the branches with which later they were to be
+birched. Returned to the factory, rough horse play pranks were
+practised upon them. Then followed an ample dinner, which was
+succeeded by mock combats, and ended in the victims being led into the
+so-called Paradise, where twenty-four disguised men whipped them till
+they drew blood, while outside this black hole another party made
+hellish music with pipes, drums and triangles to deafen the screams of
+the tortured. The 'game' as considered ended when the shrieks of the
+victims were sufficiently loud to overcome the pandemonic music." Some
+of the extreme physical cruelties of the initiations our modern
+fraternities have eliminated, but the whole story has a much more
+familiar air than we might have expected.
+
+Probably the most interesting feature of the history of the Hanseatic
+League is the fact that this great combination for purposes of trade
+and commerce proved a source of liberty for the citizens of the
+various towns, and enabled them to improve their political status
+better than any other single means at this precious time of
+development of legal and social rights. This is all the more
+interesting because great commercial combinations with similar
+purposes in modern times have usually proved fruitful rather of
+opposite results. A few persons have been very much benefited by them,
+or at least have made much money by them, which is quite another
+thing, though money is {428} supposed to represent power and
+influence, but the great mass of the people have been deprived of
+opportunities to rise and have had taken from them many chances for
+the exercise of initiative that existed before.
+
+There is a curious effect of Hansa upon the political fortunes of the
+people of the cities that were members of the League which deserves to
+be carefully studied. As with regard to so many other improvements
+that have come in the history of the race, it was not a question so
+much of the recognition of great principles as of money and revenues
+that proved the origin of amelioration of civic conditions. These
+commercial cities accumulated wealth. Money was necessary for their
+rulers for the maintenance of their power and above all for the waging
+of war. In return for moneys given for such purposes the cities
+claimed for the inhabitants and were granted many privileges. These
+became perpetuated and as time went on were added to as new
+opportunities for the collection of additional revenues occurred,
+until finally an important set of fundamental rights with documentary
+confirmation were in the hands of the city authorities. One would like
+to think that this state of affairs developed as the result of the
+recognition on the part of the ruling sovereign, of the benefits that
+were conferred on his realm by having in it, or associated with it, an
+important trading city whose enterprising citizens gave occupation to
+many hands. This was very rarely the case, however, but as was true of
+the legal rights obtained by England's citizens during the Thirteenth
+Century, it was largely a question of the coordination of taxation and
+legislative representation and the consequent attainment of
+privileges.
+
+The most important effect on the life of Europe and the growth of
+civilization that the Hanseatic League exerted, was its success in
+showing that people of many different nations and races, living under
+very different circumstances, might still be united under similar laws
+that would enable them to accomplish certain objects which they had in
+view. Germans, Slavs and English learned to live in one another's
+towns and while observing the customs of these various places
+maintained the privileges of their homes. The mutual influence of
+these people on one another, many of them being the most practical and
+{429} enterprising individuals of the time, could scarcely fail to
+produce noteworthy effects in broadening the minds of those with whom
+they came in contact. It is to this period that we must trace the
+beginnings of international law. Hansa showed the world how much
+commercial relations were facilitated by uniform laws and by just
+treatment of even the citizens of foreign countries. It is to commerce
+that we owe the first recognition of the rights of the people of other
+countries even in time of war. If the Hanseatic League had done
+nothing else but this, it must be considered as an important factor in
+the development of our modern civilization and an element of influence
+great as any other in this wonderful century.
+
+[Illustration]
+HINGE FROM CATHEDRAL, SCHLESTADT
+
+{430}
+
+APPENDIX I
+
+
+SO-CALLED HISTORY.
+
+RULERS.
+
+
+EMPERORS OF GERMANY.
+
+  Otho IV  1198-1218
+  Frederick II  1212-1250
+  Conrad IV  1250-1254
+  William of Holland  1254-1256
+  Richard Earl of Cornwall   1257-1273
+  Rudolph of Hapsburg   1273-1291
+  Adolph of Nassau   1292-1298
+  Albert of Austria   1298-1308
+
+
+KINGS OF SCOTLAND..
+
+  William   1175-1214
+  Alexander II  1214-1249
+  Alexander III   1249-1286
+  Margaret   1286-1292
+  John Balliol   1292-1296
+  Interregnum   1296-1306
+
+
+KINGS OF CASTILE AND LEON.
+
+  Alfonso IX   1188-1214
+  Henry I   1214-1217
+  St. Ferdinand III   1217-1252
+  Alfonso X   1252-1284
+  Sancho IV   1284-1295
+  Ferdinand IV   1295-1312
+
+
+KINGS OF ENGLAND.
+
+  John Lackland   1199-1216
+  Henry III   1216-1272
+  Edward I   1272-1307
+
+
+KINGS OF FRANCE.
+
+  Philip II   1180-1223
+  Louis VIII   1223-1226
+  Louis IX   1226-1270
+  Philip III   1270-1285
+  Louis [Philip] IV   1314-1316
+
+
+KINGS OF ARAGON.
+
+  Pedro II   1196-1213
+  James I., the Conqueror   1215-1276
+  Pedro III   1276-1285
+  Alfonso III   1285-1291
+  James II   1291-1327
+
+
+KINGS OF NAPLES.
+
+  Conrad  1250-1254
+  Conradin   1254-1258
+  Manfred   1258-1266
+  Charles of Anjou   1266-1285
+  Charles   1285-1309
+
+
+EVENTS.
+
+1202.--Fourth great crusade under Boniface, marquis of Montferrat.
+
+1204.--The English stripped of Normandy, etc.,
+          by Philip Augustus of France.
+
+1206.--Jenghis-Khan: foundation of the great empire of the Moguls.
+
+1212.--Battle of Ubeda: defeat and fall of Almohads of  Africa.
+
+1213.--John Lackland acknowledges himself vassal of the pope.
+
+1213.--Battle of Bouvines won by Philip Augustus.
+
+1215.--Magna Charta.
+         The palatinate of the Rhine goes to the house of Wittelsbach.
+
+1217.--Crusade of Andrew II., King of Hungary.
+
+1218.--Extinction of the dukes of Zarringuia:
+      Switzerland becomes an immediate province of the empire.
+
+{431}
+
+1222.--Charter or decree of Andrew II.,
+          basis of the Hungarian constitution.
+
+1226.--Renewal of the League of Lombardy
+           to oppose the Emperor Frederick II.
+
+1227.--Battle of Bornhoeved in Holstein: Waldemar II., King of
+   Denmark, loses his conquests on the southern coast of the Baltic.
+
+1228.--Crusade of the Emperor Frederick II.
+
+1230.--The Teutonic order establishes itself in Prussia.
+Conquest of the Balearic islands by the King of Aragon.
+
+1235.--Formation of the Duchy of Brunswick in favor
+of the house of the Guelphs.
+
+1236.--Conquest of the Kingdoms of Cordova, Murcia and
+Seville by the Castilians.
+
+1237.--Conquest of Russia by Baton-Khan: origin of the
+Mogul or Tartar horde of Kaptschak.
+
+1241.--Invasion of Poland, Silesia, and Hungary by the Moguls.
+
+1248.--Crusade of St. Louis, King of France.
+
+1250.--Beginning of the great interregnum in Germany.
+
+1254.--Accessions of the emperors of different houses in
+Germany. End of the dominion of the Agubites in Egypt and
+Syria; beginning of the empire of the Mamelukes.
+
+1256.--Enfranchisement of the serfs at Bologna in Italy.
+
+1261.--Michel Paleologus, emperor of Nice,
+takes Constantinople; end of the empire of the Latins.
+
+1265.--Accession of the house of Anjou to the throne of the
+Two Sicilies.
+
+1266.--Admission of the Commons to the Parliament of England.
+
+1268.--Corradino decapitated at Naples; extinction of the house of
+     Hohenstaufen. Suabia and Franconia become immediate
+     provinces of the empire.
+
+1271.--The county of Toulouse passes to the King of
+France, and the Venaissin to the Pope.
+
+1273.--Accession of the Emperor Rudolph of Hapsburg to
+the throne of the empire: first election by the seven electors.
+
+1282.--Conquest of Wales by the King of England.
+
+1282.--The Sicilian Vespers, the kingdom of Sicily passes to
+the King of Aragon. The Emperor Rudolph gives to his sons the
+duchies of Austria; foundation of the house of Hapsburg.
+
+1283.--The Teutonic order completes the conquest of Prussia.
+
+1289.--Extinction of the male line of the old race of Scotch
+kings. Contest of Baliol and Bruce.
+
+1290.--Decline of the republic of Piza. Aggrandizement of that of Genoa.
+
+1291.--Taking of Ptolemais and Tyre by the Mamelukes.
+End of the crusades.
+
+1294.--Decline of the Mogul empire at the death of Kublai-Khan.
+
+1298.--Introduction of an hereditary aristocracy at Venice.
+
+1300.--Foundation of the modern Turkish empire by
+Ottoman I. First Jubilee proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII.
+
+
+{432}
+
+
+APPENDIX II.
+
+TWENTY-SIX CHAPTERS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.
+
+I. AMERICA IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+To most people it would seem quite out of the question that a chapter
+on America in the Thirteenth Century might have been written. One of
+the most surprising chapters for most readers in the previous edition
+was that on Great Explorers and the Foundation of Geography, for it
+was a revelation to learn that Thirteenth Century travelers had
+anticipated all of our discoveries in the Far and in the Near East
+seven centuries ago. Certain documents have turned up, however, which
+make it very clear that with the same motives as those which urged
+Eastern travelers, Europeans went just as far towards the West at this
+time. Documents found in the Vatican Archives in 1903 and exhibited at
+St. Louis in 1904, have set at rest finally and absolutely the long
+disputed question of the discovery of America by the Norsemen, and in
+connection with these the story of America in the Thirteenth Century
+might well have been told. There is a letter from Pope Innocent III.,
+dated February 13, 1206, addressed to the Archbishop of Norway, who
+held jurisdiction over Greenland, which shows not only the presence of
+the Norsemen on the American Continent at this time, but also that
+they had been here for a considerable period, and that there were a
+number of churches and pastors and large flocks in whom the Roman See
+had a lively interest. There are Americana from three other Popes of
+the Thirteenth Century. John XXI. wrote, in 1276, Nicholas III. two
+letters, one dated January 31, 1279, and another June 9, 1279, and
+Martin III. wrote 1282. We have inserted on the opposite page a
+reproduction of a portion of the first Papal document extant relating
+to America, the letter of Pope Innocent III., taken from "The Norse
+Discovery of America" (The Norraena Society, N. Y., 1908). The word
+_Grenelandie_, underscored, indicates the subject. The writing as an
+example of the chirography of the century is of interest.
+
+
+II. A REPRESENTATIVE UPPER HOUSE.
+
+In most historical attempts at government by the people it has been
+recognized that legislation is better balanced if there are two
+chambers in the law-making body, one directly elected by the people,
+the other indirectly chosen and representing important vested
+interests that are likely to make its members conservative. The
+initiative for legislation comes, as a rule, from the direct
+representatives of the people, while the upper chamber represses
+radical law-making or sudden changes in legislative policy, yet does
+not hamper too much the progress of democracy.
+
+ {433}
+
+[Illustration]
+PART OF LETTER OF POPE INNOCENT III. MENTIONING GREENLAND.
+
+
+{434}
+
+During the last few years a crisis in English politics has led to a
+very general demand for a modification of the status of the House of
+Lords, while almost similar conditions have led to the beginning at
+least of a similar demand for the modification of our Senate in this
+country. Both these upper chambers have come to represent vested
+interests to too great a degree. The House of Lords has been the
+subject of special deprecation. The remark is sometimes made that it
+is unfortunate that England is weighted down by this political
+incubus, the House of Lords, which is spoken of as a heritage from the
+Middle Ages. The general impression, of course, is that the English
+House of Lords, as at present constituted, comes down from the oldest
+times of constitutional government in England. Nothing could well be
+more untrue than any such idea.
+
+The old upper chamber of England, the medieval House of Lords, was an
+eminently representative body. Out of the 625 or more of members of
+the English House of Lords at the present time about five hundred and
+fifty hold their seats by heredity. Only about seventy-five are in
+some sense elective. At least one-half of these elected peers,
+however, must be chosen from the hereditary nobility of Ireland and
+Scotland. Nearly nineteen-twentieths of the membership of the House of
+Lords, as at present constituted, owe their place in national
+legislation entirely to heredity. Until the reformation so-called this
+was not so. More than one-half of the English House of Lords, a good
+working majority, consisted of the Lords spiritual. Besides the
+Bishops and Archbishops there were the Abbots and Priors of
+monasteries, and the masters of religious orders. These men as a rule
+had come up from the people. They had risen to their positions by
+intellectual abilities and by administrative capacity. The abbots and
+other superiors of religious orders had been chosen by their monks as
+a rule because, having shown that they knew how to rule themselves,
+they were deemed most fitting to rule over others.
+
+Even in our day, when the Church occupies nothing like the position in
+the hearts of the masses that she held in the ages of faith, our
+Catholic Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops, both here and in England,
+are chosen as members of arbitration boards to settle strikes and
+other social difficulties, because it is felt that the working class
+has full confidence in them, and that they are thoroughly
+representative of the spirit of democracy. In England Cardinal Manning
+served more than once in critical social conditions. In this country
+we have had a series of such examples. From these we can better
+understand what the Lords spiritual represented in the English House
+of Lords. There were abuses, though they were not nearly so frequent
+as were thought, by which unworthy men sometimes reached such
+positions, for men abuse even the best things, but in general these
+clerical members of the House of Lords were the chosen intellectual
+and moral products of the kingdom. Since they were without families
+they had {435} less temptation to serve personal interests and,
+besides, they had received a life-long training in unselfishness, and
+the best might be expected of them. For an ideal second chamber I know
+none that can compare with this old English House of Lords of the
+Middle Ages. How much it was responsible for the foundation of the
+liberties of which the English-speaking people are deservedly so
+proud, and which have been treated in some detail in the chapter on
+Origins in Law, would be interesting to trace.
+
+
+III. THE PARISH, AND TRAINING IN CITIZENSHIP.
+
+Mr. Toulmin Smith, in his book on "The Parish," and Dom Gasquet, in
+his volume on "The Parish Before the Reformation," have shown what a
+magnificent institution for popular self-government was the English
+medieval parish, and how much this contributed to the solution of
+important social problems and to the creation of a true democratic
+spirit. Mr. Toulmin Smith calls particular attention to the fact that
+when local self-government gets out of the hands of the people of a
+neighborhood personal civic energy goes to sleep. The feeling of
+mutual responsibility of the men of the place is lost, to the great
+detriment of their larger citizenship in municipality and nation. In
+the parish, however, forming a separate community, of which the
+members had rights and duties, the primal solid basis for government,
+the parish authorities took charge of the highways, the roads, the
+paths, the health, the police, the constabulary, and the fires of
+their neighborhood. They kept, besides, a registry of births and
+deaths and marriages. When these essentially local concerns are
+controlled in large bodies the liability to abuse at once becomes easy
+and political corruption sets in. He mentions, besides many parochial
+institutions, a parochial friendly society for loans on security,
+parish gilds for insurance, and many other phases of that thoroughly
+organized mutual aid so characteristic of the Middle Ages.
+
+These parishes became completely organized, so as to be thoroughly
+democratic and representative of all the possibilities of local
+self-government under King Edward at the end of the Thirteenth and the
+beginning of the Fourteenth Century. Rev. Augustus Jessopp, in "After
+the Great Pillage," tells the story of how the parishes were broken up
+as a consequence of the confiscation of their endowment during the
+so-called reformation. The quotation from him may be found in Appendix
+III. in the section on "How it all stopped."
+
+Toulmin Smith is not so emphatic, but he is scarcely less explicit
+than Jessopp. "The attempts of ecclesiastical authority to encroach on
+the civil authorities of the parish have been more successful since
+the reformation." As a matter of fact, at that time all government
+became centralized, and complete contradiction though it may seem to
+be of what is sometimes declared the place of the reformation in the
+history {436} of human liberty, the genuine democratic institutions of
+England were to a great extent impaired by the reform, and an
+autocracy, which later developed into an autocratic aristocracy,
+largely took its place. Out of that England has gradually lifted
+itself during the Nineteenth Century. Even now, however, as pointed
+out in the preceding chapter that might have been, the House of Lords
+is not at all what it was in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries
+when the majority of its members were Lords spiritual, men who had
+come up from the masses as a rule.
+
+
+IV. THE CHANCE TO RISE.
+
+We are very prone to think that even though there may have been
+excellent opportunities for the higher education in the Thirteenth
+Century and, in many ways, an ideal education of the masses, still
+there was one great social drawback in those times, the lack of
+opportunity for men of humble birth to rise to higher stations.
+Nothing, however, is less true. There probably never was a time when
+even members of the poorest families might rise more readily or
+rapidly to the highest positions in the land. The sons of village
+merchants and village artisans, nay, the sons and grandsons of farmers
+bound to the soil, could by educational success become clergymen in
+various ranks, and by attaining a bishopric or the position of abbot
+or prior of a monastery, reach a seat in the House of Lords. Most of
+the Lord High Chancellors of England during the Middle Ages--and some
+of them are famous for their genius as canon and civil lawyers, for
+their diplomatic abilities and their breadth of view and capacity as
+administrators--were the sons of humble parents.
+
+Take the single example of Stratford, the details of whose
+inhabitants' lives, because of the greatness of one of them, have
+attracted more attention than those of any other town of corresponding
+size in England. At the beginning of the Fourteenth Century it is only
+what we would call a village, and it probably did not have 3,000
+inhabitants, if, indeed, the number was not less than 2,000. In his
+book, "Shakespeare the Boy," Mr. Rolfe calls attention to certain
+conditions that interest us in the old village. He tells us of what
+happened as a result of the development of liberty in the Thirteenth
+Century:
+
+  "Villeinage gradually disappeared in the reign of Edward VII.
+  (1327-1337), and those who had been subject to it became free
+  tenants, paying definite rents for house and land. Three natives of
+  the town, who, after the fashion of the time, took their surnames
+  from the place of their birth, rose to high positions in the Church,
+  one becoming Archbishop of Canterbury, and the others respectively
+  Bishops of London and Chichester. John of Stratford and Robert of
+  Stratford were brothers, and Ralph of Stratford was their nephew.
+  John and Robert were both for a time Chancellors of England, and
+  there is no other instance of two brothers attaining that high
+  office in succession."
+
+{437}
+
+To many people the fact that the avenue to rise was through the Clergy
+more than in any other way will be disappointing. One advantage,
+however, that the old people would insist that they had from their
+system was that these men, having no direct descendants, were less
+likely to pursue selfish aims and more likely to try to secure the
+benefit of the Community than are those who, in our time, rise through
+the legal profession. The Lord High Chancellors of recent time have
+all been lawyers. Would not most of the world confess that the
+advantage was with the medieval peoples?
+
+President Woodrow Wilson of Princeton realized sympathetically this
+great element of saving democracy in the Middle Ages, and has paid
+worthy tribute to it. He said: "The only reason why government did not
+suffer dry rot in the Middle Ages under the aristocratic systems which
+then prevailed was that the men who were efficient instruments of
+government were drawn from the church--from that great church, that
+body which we now distinguish from other church bodies as the Roman
+Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church then, as now, was a great
+democracy. There was no peasant so humble that he might not become a
+priest, and no priest so obscure that he might not become Pope of
+Christendom, and every chancellery in Europe was ruled by those
+learned, trained and accomplished men--the priesthood of that great
+and then dominant church; and so, what kept government alive in the
+Middle Ages was this constant rise of the sap from the bottom, from
+the rank and file of the great body of the people through the open
+channels of the Roman Catholic priesthood."
+
+
+V. INSURANCE.
+
+Insurance is usually supposed to be a modern idea representing one of
+those developments of the capitalization of mutual risks of life,
+property, and the like that have come as a consequence of modern
+progress. The insurance system of the Middle Ages, the organization of
+which came in the Thirteenth Century, is therefore extremely
+interesting. It was accomplished, as was every form of co-operation
+and co-ordination of effort, through special gilds or through the
+trade or merchant gilds. Among the objects of the gilds enumerated by
+Toulmin Smith is insurance against loss by fire. This was paid through
+the particular gild to which the merchant belonged, or in the case of
+the artisan through a special gild which he joined for the purpose.
+Provision was made, however, for much more than insurance by fire. Our
+fire insurance companies are probably several centuries old, so also
+are our insurance arrangements against shipwreck. Other features of
+insurance, however, are much more recent. Practically all of these
+were in active existence during the Middle Ages, though they
+disappeared with the so-called reformation, and then {438} did not
+come into existence again for several centuries and, indeed, not until
+our own time.
+
+The old gilds, for instance, provided insurance against loss from
+flood, a feature of insurance that has not, so far as I know,
+developed in our time, against loss by robbery (our burglary insurance
+is quite recent), against loss by the fall of a house, by
+imprisonment, and then also insurance against the loss of cattle and
+farm products. All the features of life insurance also were in
+existence. The partial disability clauses of life or accident
+insurance policies are recent developments. In the old days there is
+insurance against the loss of sight, against the loss of a limb, or
+any other form of crippling. The deaf and dumb might be insured so as
+to secure an income for them, and corresponding relief for leprosy
+might be obtained; so that, if one were set apart from the community
+by the law requiring segregation of lepers, there might be provision
+for food and lodging, even though productive work had become
+impossible. In a word, the insurance system of the Middle Ages was
+thoroughly developed. It was not capitalistic. The charges were only
+enough to maintain the system, and not such as to provide large
+percentage returns on invested stock and on bonds, and the
+accumulation of huge surpluses that almost inevitably lead to gross
+abuses. What is best in our modern system of insurance is an imitation
+of the older methods. Certain of the trade insurance companies which
+assume a portion of the risk on mills, factories and the like, are
+typical examples. They know the conditions, enforce proper
+precautions, keep an absolute check on suspicious losses, accumulate
+only a moderate surplus and present very few opportunities for
+insurance abuses. The same thing is true for the fraternal societies
+that conduct life insurance. When properly managed they represent the
+lowest possible cost and the best efficiency with least opportunities
+for fraud and without any temptations to interfere with legislation
+and any allurements for legislators to spend their time making strike
+and graft bills instead of doing legislative work.
+
+
+VI. OLD AGE PENSIONS.
+
+This generation has occupied itself much with the question of old age
+pensions. Probably most people feel that this is the first time in the
+world's history that such arrangements have been made. The movement is
+supposed to represent a recent development of humanitarian purpose,
+and to be a feature of recent philanthropic evolution. It is rather
+interesting, in the light of that idea, to see how well they
+accomplish this same purpose in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth
+Centuries. In our time it has been a government affair, with all the
+possibilities of abuse that there are in a huge pension system, and
+surely no country knows it better than we do here in America. The old
+countries, Germany and France, have established a contributing {439}
+system of pension. This was the model of their system of caring for
+the old and the disabled in the Middle Ages. Toulmin Smith cites a
+rule of one of the gilds which gives us exactly the status of the old
+age disability pension question. After a workman had been seven years
+a member, the gild assured him a livelihood in case of disability from
+any cause.
+
+When we recall that employer as well as employee as a rule belonged to
+the gild and this was a real mutual organization in which there was a
+sharing of the various risks of life, we see how eminently well
+adapted to avoid abuses this old system was. Where the pensioners
+appeal to a government pension system, abuses are almost inevitable.
+There is the constant temptation to exploit the system on the part of
+the pensioners, because they have the feeling that if they do not,
+others will. Then the investigation of each particular case is
+difficult, and favoritism and graft of various kinds inevitably finds
+its way in. Where the pension is paid by a small body of fellow
+workmen, the investigation is easy, the temptation to exploit does not
+readily find place, and while abuses are to some extent inevitable,
+these are small in amount, and not likely to be frequent. Friends and
+neighbors know conditions, and men are not pauperized by the system,
+and if, after an injury that seemed at first so disabling as to be
+permanent, the pensioner should improve enough to be able to get back
+to work, or, at least, to do something to support himself, the system
+is elastic enough so that he is not likely to be tempted to continue
+to live on others rather than on his own efforts.
+
+
+VII. THE WAYS AND MEANS OF CHARITY--ORGANIZED CHARITY.
+
+Most of us would be apt to think that our modern methods of obtaining
+funds for charitable purposes represented definite developments, and
+that at least special features of our collections for charity were our
+own invention. In recent years the value of being able to reach a
+great many people even for small amounts has been particularly
+recognized. "Tag day" is one manifestation of that. Everyone in a
+neighborhood is asked to contribute a small amount for a particular
+charitable purpose, and the whole collection usually runs up to a snug
+sum. Practices very similar to this were quite common in the
+Thirteenth Century. As in our time, it was the women who collected the
+money. A rope, for instance, was stretched across a marketplace, where
+traffic was busy, and everyone who passed was required to pay a toll
+for charity. Occasionally the rope was stretched across a bridge and
+the tolls were collected on a particular day each year. Other forms of
+charitable accumulation resembled ours in many respects.
+Entertainments of various kinds were given for charity, and special
+collections were made during the exhibition of mystery plays {440}
+partly to pay the expenses of the representation, and the surplus to
+go to the charities of the particular gild.
+
+Most of the charity, however, was organized. Indeed it is the
+organization of charity during the Thirteenth Century that represents
+the best feature of its fraternalism. The needy were cared for by the
+gilds themselves. There were practically no poorhouses, and if a man
+was willing to work and had already shown this willingness, there were
+definite bureaus that would help him at least to feed his family while
+he was out of work. This system, however, was flexible enough to
+provide also for the ne'er-do-wells, the tramps, the beggars, but they
+were given not money, but tokens which enabled them to obtain the
+necessaries of life without being able to abuse charity. The
+committees of the gilds consulted in various ways among themselves and
+with the church wardens so as to be sure that, while all the needy
+were receiving help, no one was abusing charity by drawing help from a
+number of different quarters. Of course, they did not have the problem
+of large city life that we have, and so their comparatively simple
+organization of charity sufficed for all the needs of the time, and at
+the same time anticipated our methods.
+
+
+VIII. SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSITIES.
+
+In the first edition of this book I called attention to the fact, that
+science, even in our sense of physical science, was, in spite of
+impressions to the contrary, a favorite subject for students and
+teachers in the early universities. What might have been insisted on,
+however, is that these old universities were scientific universities
+resembling our own so closely in their devotion to science as to
+differ from them only in certain unimportant aspects. Because the
+universities for three centuries before the Nineteenth had been
+occupied mainly with classical studies, we are prone to think that
+these were the main subjects of university teaching for all the
+centuries before. Nothing could well be less true. The undergraduate
+studies consisted of the seven liberal arts so-called, though these
+were largely studied from the scientific standpoint. The quotation
+from Prof. Huxley (Appendix III., Education) makes this very clear.
+What we would now call the graduate studies consisted of metaphysics,
+in which considerable physics were studied, astronomy, medicine, above
+all, mathematics, and then the ethical sciences, under which were
+studied what we now call ethics, politics and economics. The picture
+of these medieval universities as I have given them in my lecture on
+Medieval Scientific Universities, in "Education, How Old the New,"
+makes this very clear. The interests and studies were very like those
+of our own time, only the names for them being different. Nature-study
+was a favorite subject, and, as I have pointed out in "The Popes and
+Science," Dante must be considered as a great nature student, for he
+was able to draw the most exquisite figures from details of knowledge
+of living things with which few {441} poets are familiar. The books of
+the professors of the Thirteenth Century which have been preserved,
+those of Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Aquinas, Duns Scotus and
+others, make it very clear that scientific teaching was the main
+occupation of the university faculties, while the preservation of
+these huge tomes by the diligent copying of disciples shows how deeply
+interested were their pupils in the science of the time.
+
+
+IX. MEDICAL TEACHING AND PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS.
+
+At all times in the history of education, the standards of scientific
+education, and the institutions of learning, can be best judged from
+the condition of the medical schools. When the medical sciences are
+taken seriously, when thorough preparation is demanded before their
+study may be taken up, when four or five years of attention to
+theoretic and practical medicine are required for graduation, and when
+the professors are writing textbooks that are to attract attention for
+generations afterwards, then, there is always a thoroughly scientific
+temper m the university itself. Medicine is likely to suffer, first,
+whenever there is neglect of science. The studies of the German
+historians, Puschmann, Pagel, Neuberger, and Sudhoff in recent years,
+have made it very clear that the medical schools of the universities
+of the Thirteenth Century were maintaining high standards. The
+republication of old texts, especially in France, has called attention
+to the magnificent publications of their professors, while a review of
+their laws and regulations confirms the idea of the good work that was
+being done. Gurlt, in his history of surgery, "Geschichte der
+Chirurgie" (Berlin, 1898), has reviewed the textbooks of Roger and
+Roland and the Four Masters, of William of Salicet and Lanfranc and of
+many others, in a way to make it very clear that these men were
+excellent teachers.
+
+When we discover that three years of preparatory university work was
+required before the study of medicine could be begun, and four years
+of medical studies were required, with a subsequent year of practice
+under a physician's direction, before a license for independent
+practice could be issued, then the scientific character of the medical
+schools and therefore of the universities to which they were attached
+is placed beyond all doubt. These are the terms of the law issued by
+the Emperor Frederick II. for the Two Sicilies. That, in substance, it
+applied to other countries we learn from the fact that the charters of
+medical schools granted by the Popes at this time require proper
+university preliminary studies, and four or five years at medicine
+before the degree of Doctor could be given. We know besides that in
+the cities only those who were graduates of properly recognized
+medical schools were allowed to practice medicine, so that there was
+every encouragement for the maintenance of professional standards.
+Indeed, {442} strange as it may seem to our generation, the standards
+of the Thirteenth Century in medical education were much higher than
+our own, and their medical schools were doing fine work.
+
+
+X. MAGNETISM.
+
+For proper understanding of the Thirteenth Century scholars, it is
+especially important to appreciate their thoroughly scientific temper
+of mind, their powers of observation, and their successful attainments
+in science. I know no more compendious way of reaching the knowledge
+of these qualities in the medieval mind, than a study of the letter of
+Peregrinus, which we would in our time call a monograph on magnetism.
+Brother Potamian, in his chapter in "Makers of Electricity" (Fordham
+University Press, N. Y., 1909) on Peregrinus and Columbus, sums up the
+very interesting contributions of this medieval student of magnetism
+to the subject. The list of chapters alone in Peregrinus' monograph
+(Epistola) makes it very clear how deep were his interests and how
+thoroughly practical his investigations.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+THE DOUBLE PIVOTED NEEDLE OF PEREGRINUS.
+
+
+They are:--"Part I., Chapter i, purpose of this work; 2,
+qualifications of the experimenter; 3, characteristics of a good
+lodestone; 4, how to distinguish the poles of a lodestone; 5, how to
+tell which pole is north and which is south; 6, how one lodestone
+attracts another; 7, how iron touched by a lodestone turns toward the
+poles of the world; 8, how a lodestone attracts iron; 9, why the north
+pole of one lodestone attracts the south pole of another, and vice
+versa; 10, an inquiry into the natural virtue of the lodestone.
+
+"Part II., Chapter 1, construction of an instrument for measuring the
+azimuth of the sun, the moon or any star then in the horizon; 2,
+construction of a better instrument for the same purpose; 3, the art
+of making a wheel of perpetual motion."
+
+In order to illustrate what Peregrinus accomplished it has seemed
+worth while to reproduce here the sketches which illustrate his
+epistle. We have the double pivoted needle and the first pivoted
+compass.
+
+In the light of certain recent events a passage from the "New Naval
+History or Complete Review of the British Marine" (London, 1757) is of
+special interest. It illustrates perhaps the new confidence that came
+to men in sailing to long distances as the result of the {443}
+realization of the practical value of the magnetic needle during the
+Thirteenth Century.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+FIRST PIVOTED COMPASS (PEREGRINUS, 1269).
+
+
+"In the year 1360 it is recorded that a friar of Oxford called
+Nicholas de Linna (of Lynn), being a good astronomer, went in company
+with others to the most northern island, and thence traveled alone,
+and that he went to the North Pole, by means of his skill in magic, or
+the black art; but this magic or black art may probably have been
+nothing more than a knowledge of the magnetic needle or compass, found
+out about sixty years before, though not in common use until many
+years after."
+
+
+XI. BIOLOGICAL THEORIES, EVOLUTION, RECAPITULATION.
+
+Of course only those who are quite unfamiliar with the history of
+philosophic thought are apt to think that the theory of evolution is
+modern. Serious students of biology are familiar with the long history
+of the theory, and especially its anticipations by the Greeks. Very
+few know, however, that certain phases of evolutionary theory
+attracted not a little attention from the scholastic philosophers. It
+would not be difficult to find expressions in Roger Bacon and Albertus
+Magnus, that would serve to show that they thought not only of the
+possibility of some very intimate relation of species but of
+developmental connections. The great teacher of the time, St. Thomas
+Aquinas, has some striking expressions in the matter, which deserve to
+be quoted, because he is the most important representative of the
+philosophy and science of the century and the one whose works most
+influenced succeeding generations. In the lecture on Medieval
+Scientific Universities, published in "Education, How Old the New"
+(Fordham University Press, N. Y., 1910), I called particular attention
+to this phase of St. Thomas' teaching. Two quotations will serve to
+make it clear here.
+
+Prof. Osborne, in "From the Greeks to Darwin," quotes Aquinas'
+commentary on St. Augustine's opinion with regard to the origin of
+things as they are. Augustine declared that the Creator had simply
+{444} brought into life the seeds of things, and given these the power
+to develop. Aquinas, expounding Augustine, says:
+
+  "As to production of plants, Augustine holds a different view, . . .
+  for some say that on the third day plants were actually produced,
+  each in his kind--a view favored by the superficial reading of
+  Scripture. But Augustine says that the earth is then said to have
+  brought forth grass and trees _causaliter_; that is, it then
+  received power to produce them." (Quoting Genesis ii:4): "For in
+  those first days, . . . God made creation primarily or _causaliter_,
+  and then rested from His work."
+
+Like expressions might be quoted from him, and other writers of the
+Thirteenth Century might well be cited in confirmation of the fact
+that while these great teachers of the Middle Ages thoroughly
+recognize the necessity for creation to begin with and the placing by
+the Creator of some power in living things that enables them to
+develop, they were by no means bound to the thought that all living
+species were due to special creations. They even did not hesitate to
+teach the possibility of the lower order of living beings at least
+coming into existence by spontaneous generation, and would probably
+have found no difficulty in accepting a theory of descent with the
+limitations that most scientific men of our generation are prone to
+demand for it.
+
+Lest it should be thought that this is a mere accidental agreement
+with modern thought, due much more to a certain looseness of terms
+than to actual similarity of view, it seems well to point out how
+close St. Thomas came to that thought in modern biology, which is
+probably considered to be one of our distinct modern contributions to
+the theory of evolution, though, in recent years, serious doubts have
+been thrown on it. It is expressed by the formula of Herbert Spencer,
+"Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." According to this, the completed
+being repeats in the course of its development the history of the
+race, that is to say, the varying phases of foetal development from
+the single cell in which it originates up to the perfect being of the
+special type as it is born into the world, retrace the history by
+which from the single cell being the creature in question has
+gradually developed.
+
+It is very curious to find that St. Thomas Aquinas, in his teaching
+with regard to the origin and development of the human being, says,
+almost exactly, what the most ardent supporters of this so-called
+fundamental biogenetic law proclaimed during the latter half of the
+Nineteenth Century, thinking they were expressing an absolutely new
+thought. He says that "the higher a form is in the scale of being and
+the farther it is removed from mere material form, the more
+intermediate forms must be passed through before the finally perfect
+form is reached. Therefore, in the generation of animal and man--
+these having the most perfect forms--there occur many intermediate
+forms in generations, and consequently destruction, because the {445}
+generation of one being is the destruction of another." St. Thomas
+draws the ultimate conclusions from this doctrine without hesitation.
+He proclaims that the human material is first animated by a vegetative
+soul or principle of life, and then by an animal soul, and only
+ultimately when the matter has been properly prepared for it by a
+rational soul. He said: "The vegetative soul, therefore, which is
+first in embryo, while it lives the life of a plant, is destroyed, and
+there succeeds a more perfect soul, which is at once nutrient and
+sentient, and for that time the embryo lives the life of an animal:
+upon the destruction of this there succeeds the rational soul, infused
+from without."
+
+
+XII. THE POPE OF THE CENTURY.
+
+The absence of a chapter on the Pope of the Century has always seemed
+a lacuna in the previous editions of this book. Pope Innocent III.,
+whose pontificate began just before the century opened, and occupied
+the first fifteen years of it, well deserves a place beside Francis
+the Saint, Thomas the Scholar, Dante the Poet, and Louis the Monarch
+of this great century. More than any other single individual he was
+responsible for the great development of the intellectual life that
+took place, but at the same time his wonderfully broad influence
+enabled him to initiate many of the movements that meant most for
+human uplift and for the alleviation of suffering in this period. It
+was in Councils of the Church summoned by him that the important
+legislation was passed requiring the development of schools, the
+foundation of colleges in every diocese and of universities in
+important metropolitan sees. What he accomplished for hospitals has
+been well told by Virchow, from whom I quote a magnanimous tribute in
+the chapter on the Foundation of City Hospitals. The legislation of
+Innocent III. did much to encourage, and yet to regulate properly the
+religious orders of this time engaged in charitable work. Besides
+doing so much for charity, he was a stern upholder of morals. As more
+than one king of the time realized while Innocent was Pope, there
+could be no trifling with marriage vows.
+
+On the other hand, while Innocent was so stern as to the enforcement
+of marriage laws, his wonderfully judicious character and his care for
+the weak and the innocent can be particularly noted in his treatment
+of the children in these cases. While he compelled recalcitrant kings
+to take back the wives they would repudiate, and put away other women
+who had won their affections, he did not hesitate to make due
+provision as far as possible for the illegitimate children. Pirie
+Gordon, in his recent life of Pope Innocent III., notes that he
+invariably legitimated the offspring of these illegal unions of kings,
+and even declared them capable of succession. He would not visit the
+guilt of the parent on the innocent offspring.
+
+{446}
+
+Innocent did more to encourage the idea of international arbitration
+than anyone up to his time. During his period more than once he was
+the arbitrator to whom rival national claims that might have led to
+war were referred. Probably his greatest claim on our admiration in
+the modern time is his attitude toward the Jews. In this he is
+centuries ahead of his time and, indeed, the policy that he laid down
+is far ahead of what is accorded to them by many of the nations even
+at the present time, and it must not be forgotten that it is only
+during the past hundred years that the Jew has come to have any real
+privileges comparable to those accorded to other men. At a time when
+the Jew had no real rights in law, Innocent insisted on according them
+all the rights of men. His famous edict in this regard is well known.
+"Let no Christian by violence compel them to come dissenting or
+unwilling to Baptism. Further let no Christian venture maliciously to
+harm their persons without a judgment of the civil power, to carry off
+their property or change their good customs which they have had
+hitherto in that district which they inhabit." When, in addition to
+all this, it is recalled that he was a distinguished scholar and
+graduate of the University of Paris, looked up to as one of the
+intellectual geniuses of the time, the author of a treatise "On the
+Contempt of the World" at a time when the kings of the earth were
+obeying him, known for his personal piety and for his thorough
+regulation of his own household, something of the greatness of the man
+will be appreciated. No wonder that historians who have taken up the
+special study of his career have always been won over to deep personal
+admiration of him, and though many of them began prejudiced in his
+regard, practically all of them were converted to be his sincere
+admirers.
+
+
+XIII. INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION.
+
+During the Peace Conference in New York in 1908 I was on the programme
+with Mr. William T. Stead of London, the editor of the English _Review
+of Reviews_, who was very much interested in the volume on the
+Thirteenth Century, and who suggested that one chapter in the book
+should have been devoted to the consideration of what was accomplished
+for peace and for International Arbitration during this century. There
+is no doubt that there developed, as the result of many Papal decrees,
+a greater tendency than has existed ever before or since, to refer
+quarrels between nations that would ordinarily end in war to decision
+by some selected umpire. Usually the Pope, as the head of the
+Christian Church, to which all the nations of the civilized world
+belonged, was selected as the arbitrator. This international
+arbitration, strengthened by the decrees of Pope Innocent III., Pope
+Honorius III. and Pope Alexander III., developed in a way that is well
+worth while studying, and that has deservedly been the subject of
+careful investigation since the present {447} peace movement began.
+Certainly the outlook for the securing of peace by international
+arbitration was better at this time than it has been at any time
+since. What a striking example, for instance, is the choice of King
+Louis of France as the umpire in the dispute between the Barons and
+the King of England, which might have led to war. Louis' position with
+regard to the Empire and the Papacy was to a great extent that of a
+pacificator, and his influence for peace was felt everywhere
+throughout Europe. The spirit of the century was all for arbitration
+and the adjudication of intranational as well as international
+difficulties by peaceful means.
+
+
+XIV. BIBLE REVISION.
+
+Most people will be quite sure that at least the question of Bible
+revision with critical study of text and comparative investigation of
+sources was reserved for our time. The two orders of friars founded in
+the early part of the Thirteenth Century, however, devoted themselves
+to the task of supplying to the people a thoroughly reliable edition
+of the Scriptures. The first systematic revision was made by the
+Dominicans about 1236. After twenty years this revision was set aside
+as containing too many errors, and another Dominican correction
+replaced it. Then came that great scholar, Hugh of St. Cher, known
+later as the Cardinal of Santa Sabina, the author of the first great
+Biblical Concordance. His Bible studies did much to clarify
+obscurities in the text. Sometime about 1240 he organized a commission
+of friars for the revision of what was known as the Paris Exemplar,
+the Bible text that was most in favor at that time. The aim of Hugh of
+St. Cher was to establish the old Vulgate of St. Jerome, the text
+which received this name during this century, but with such revision
+as would make this version correspond as nearly as possible to the
+Hebrew and the Greek.
+
+This activity on the part of the Dominicans was rivaled by the
+Franciscans. We might not expect to find the great scientist, Roger
+Bacon, as a Biblical scholar and reviser, but such he was, working
+with Willermus de Mara, to whom, according to Father Denifle, late the
+Librarian of the Vatican Library, must be attributed the title given
+him by Roger Bacon of Sapientissimus Vir. The Dominicans under the
+leadership of Hugh of St. Cher with high ideals had hoped to achieve a
+perfect primitive text. The version made by de Mara, however, with the
+approval and advice of Bacon, was only meant to bring out St. Jerome's
+text as perfectly as possible. These two revisions made in the
+Thirteenth Century are typical of all the efforts that men have made
+since in that same direction. Contrary to usual present day
+impressions, they are characterized by critical scholarship, and
+probably represent as great a contribution to Biblical lore as was
+made by any other century.
+
+{448}
+
+XV. FICTION OF THE CENTURY.
+
+Ordinarily it would be presumed that life was taken entirely too
+seriously during the Thirteenth Century for the generation to pay much
+attention to fiction. In a certain sense this is true. In the sense,
+however, that they had no stories worthy of the great literature in
+other departments it would be quite untrue. There is a naivete about
+their story telling that rather amuses our sophisticated age, yet all
+the elements of our modern fiction are to be found in the stories that
+were popular during the century, and arranged with a dramatic effect
+that must have given them a wide appeal.
+
+The most important contribution to the fiction of the century is to be
+found in the collection known as the _Cento Novelle Antiche_ or
+"Hundred Ancient Tales," which contains the earliest prose fiction
+extant in Italian. Many of these come from a period anterior to Dante,
+and it is probable from what Manni, the learned editor of the
+_Novelliero_, says, that they were written out in the Thirteenth
+Century and collected in the early part of the Fourteenth Century.
+They did not all originate in Italy, and, indeed, Manni considers that
+most of them derived their origin from Provence. They represent the
+interest of the century in fiction and in anecdotal literature.
+
+As for the longer fiction, the pure love story of the modern time, we
+have one typical example of it in that curious relic of the Middle
+Ages, "Aucassin and Nicolette." The manuscript which preserved this
+for us comes from the Thirteenth Century. Perhaps, as M. Paris
+suggests, the tale itself is from the preceding century. At least it
+was the interest of the Thirteenth Century in it that saved it for us.
+For those who think that the love romance in any of its features is
+novel, though we call it by that name, or that there has been any
+development of human nature which enables the writer of love stories
+to appeal to other and deeper, or purer and loftier feelings in his
+loved ones now than in the past, all that is needed, as it seems to
+me, is a casual reading of this pretty old song-story.
+
+Perhaps the most interesting feature of this oldest specimen of modern
+fiction is the number of precious bits of psychologic analysis or, at
+least, what is called that in the recent time, which occur in the
+course of it. For instance, when Aucassin is grieving because he
+cannot find Nicolette he wanders through the forest on horseback, and
+is torn by trees and brambles, but "he feels it not at all." On the
+other hand, when he finds Nicolette, though he is suffering from a
+dislocated shoulder, he no longer feels any pain in it, because of his
+joy at the meeting, and Nicolette (first aid to the injured) is able
+to replace the dislocated part without difficulty (the trained nurse
+in fiction) because he is so happy as not to notice the pain
+(psychotherapy). The herdsman whom he meets wonders that Aucassin,
+with plenty of money and victuals, should grieve so much over the loss
+of Nicolette, {449} while he has so much more cause to grieve over the
+loss of an ox, which means starvation to him. Toward the end of the
+story we have the scene in which Nicolette, stolen from home when very
+young, and utterly unable to remember anything about her childhood,
+has brought back to her memory by the view of the city of Carthage
+forgotten events of her childhood (subconscious memory). These
+represent naively enough, it is true, the study of the mind under
+varying conditions that has in recent years been given the rather
+ambitious name of psychology in fiction.
+
+
+XVI. GREAT ORATORS.
+
+Without a chapter on the great orators of the period an account of the
+Thirteenth Century is quite incomplete. Great as were the other forms
+of literature, epic, lyric and religious poetry and the prose writing,
+it is probable that the oratory of the time surpassed them all. When
+we recall that the Cid, the Arthur Legends, the Nibelungen, the
+Meistersingers, and the Minnesingers, Reynard the Fox, the Romance of
+the Rose, the Troubadours, and even Dante are included in the other
+term of the comparison thus made, it may seem extravagant, but what we
+know of the effect of the orators of the time fully justifies it. Just
+before the Thirteenth Century, great religious orators swayed the
+hearts and minds of people, to the organization of the Crusades. At
+the beginning of the Thirteenth Century the mendicant orders were
+organized, and their important duties were preaching and teaching. The
+Dominicans were of course the Order of Preachers, and we have
+traditions of their sway over the minds of the people of the time
+which make it very clear that their power was equal to that exerted in
+any other department of human expression. There are traditions
+particularly of the oratory of the Dominicans among the German races,
+which serve to show how even a phlegmatic people can be stirred to the
+very depths of their being by the eloquent spoken word. In France the
+traditions are almost as explicit in this matter, and there are
+remains of religious orations that fully confirm the reputation of the
+orators of the time.
+
+Rhetoric and oratory was studied very assiduously. Cicero was the
+favorite reading of the great preachers of the time, and we find the
+court preachers of St. Louis, Etienne de Bourbon, Elinand, Guillaume
+de Perrault and others appealing to his precepts as the infallible
+guide to oratory. Quintilian was not neglected, however, and Symmachus
+and Sidonius Apollinaris were also faithfully studied. If we turn to
+the speeches that are incorporated in the epics, as, for instance, the
+Cid, or in some of the historians, as Villehardouin, we have definite
+evidence of the thorough command of the writers of the time over the
+forms of oratory. M. Paullin Paris, the authority in our time on the
+literature of the Thirteenth Century, quotes a passage from
+Villehardouin in which Canon de Bethune speaks in the {450} name of
+the French chiefs of the Fourth Crusade to the Emperors Isaac and
+Alexis Comnenus. M. Paris does not hesitate to declare that the
+passage is equal to many of the same kind that have been much admired
+in the classic authors. It has the force, the finish and the
+compression of Thucydides.
+
+
+XVII. GREAT BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE.
+
+Only the fact that this work was getting beyond the number of printed
+pages determined for it in the first edition prevented the insertion
+of a chapter especially devoted to the great beginnings of English
+literature in the Thirteenth Century. The most important contributions
+to Early English were made at this period. The Ormulum and Layamon's
+Brut, both written probably during the first decade of the Thirteenth
+Century, have become familiar to all students of Old English. Mr.
+Gollancz goes so far as to say that "The Ormulum is perhaps the most
+valuable document we possess for the history of English sound. Orm was
+a purist in orthography as well as in vocabulary, and may fittingly be
+described as the first of English phoneticians."
+
+
+[Illustration]
+MANUSCRIPT OF ORMULUM (THIRTEENTH CENTURY)
+
+
+Of Layamon, Garnett said in his "English Literature" (Garnett and
+Gosse): "It would have sufficed for the fame of Layamon had he been no
+more than the first minstrel to celebrate Arthur in English song, but
+his own pretensions as a poet are by no means inconsiderate. He is
+everywhere vigorous and graphic, and improved upon his predecessor,
+Wace, alike by his additions and expansions, and by his more spiritual
+handling of the subjects common to both." Even more important in the
+history of language than these is _The Ancren Riwle_ (The Anchorites'
+Rule). This was probably written by Richard Poore, Bishop of
+Salisbury, for three Cistercian nuns. Its place in English literature
+may be judged from a quotation or two with regard to it. Mr.
+Kington-Oliphant says: "_The Ancren Riwle_ is the forerunner of a
+wondrous change in our speech. More than anything else written outside
+the Danelagh, that piece has influenced our standard {451} English."
+Garnett says: "_The Ancren Riwle_ is a work of great literary merit
+and, in spite of its linguistic innovations, most of which have
+established themselves, well deserves to be described as 'one of the
+most perfect models of simple eloquent prose in our language.'"
+
+The religious poetry of the time is not behind the great prose of _The
+Ancren Riwle_, and one of them, the _Luve Ron_ (Love Song) of Thomas
+de Hales, is very akin to the spirit of that work, and has been well
+described as "a contemplative lyric of the simplest, noblest mold."
+Garnett says: "The reflections are such as are common to all who have
+in all ages pleaded for the higher life under whatsoever form, and
+deplored the frailty and transitoriness of man's earthly estate. Two
+stanzas on the latter theme as expressed in a modernized version might
+almost pass for Villon's:--
+
+  "Paris and Helen, where are they,
+    Fairest in beauty, bright to view?
+  Amadas, Tristrem, Ideine, yea
+    Isold, that lived with love so true?
+  And Caesar, rich in power and sway,
+    Hector the strong, with might to do?
+  All glided from earth's realm away,
+    Like shaft that from the bow-string flew.
+
+  "It is as if they ne'er were here.
+    Their wondrous woes have been a' told,
+  That it is sorrow but to hear;
+    How anguish killed them sevenfold,
+  And how with dole their lives were drear;
+    Now is their heat all turned to cold.
+  Thus this world gives false hope, false fear;
+    A fool, who in her strength is bold."
+
+
+XVIII. GREAT ORIGINS IN MUSIC.
+
+In the chapter on the Great Latin Hymns a few words were said about
+one phase of the important musical development in the Thirteenth
+Century, that of plain chant. In that simple mode the musicians of the
+Thirteenth Century succeeded in reaching a climax of expression of
+human feeling in such chants as the _Exultet_ and the _Lamentation_
+that has never been surpassed. Something was also said about the
+origin of part music, but so little that it might easily be thought
+that in this the century lagged far behind its achievements in other
+departments. M, Pierre Aubry has recently published (1909) _Cent
+Motets du XIIIe Siecle_ in three volumes. His first volume contains a
+photographic reproduction of the manuscript of Bamberg from which the
+hundred musical modes are secured, the second a transcription in
+modern musical notation of the old music, and the third volume studies
+and commentaries on the music and the times. If anything were needed
+to show how utterly ignorant we have been of the interests and
+artistic achievements of the Middle Ages, it is this book of M. Aubry.
+
+Victor Hugo said that music dates from the Sixteenth Century, and it
+has been quite the custom, even for people who thought they {452} knew
+something about music, to declare that we had no remains of any music
+before the Sixteenth Century worth while talking about. Ancient music
+is probably lost to us forever, but M. Aubry has shown conclusively
+that we have abundant remains to show us that the musicians of the
+Thirteenth Century devoted themselves to their art with as great
+success as their rivals in the other Gothic arts and, indeed, they
+thought that they had nearly exhausted its possibilities and tried to
+make a science of it. By their supposedly scientific rules they
+succeeded in binding music so firmly as to bring about its obscuration
+in succeeding centuries. This is, however, the old story of what has
+happened in every art whenever genius succeeds in finding a great mode
+of expression. A formula is evolved which often binds expression so
+rigorously as to prevent natural development.
+
+
+XIX. A CHAPTER ON MANNERS.
+
+Whatever the people of the Middle Ages may have been in morals, their
+manners are supposed to have been about as lacking in refinement as
+possible. As for nearly everything else, however, this impression is
+utterly false, and is due to the assumption that because we are
+better-mannered than the generations of a century or two ago,
+therefore we must be almost infinitely in advance, in the same
+respect, of the people of seven centuries ago. There are ups and downs
+in manners, however, as there are in education, and the beginnings of
+the formal setting forth of modern manners are, like everything else
+modern, to be found in the Thirteenth Century. About the year 1215
+Thomasin Zerklaere wrote in German a rather lengthy treatise, _Der
+Waelsche Gast_, on manners. It contains most of the details of polite
+conduct that have been accepted in later times. Not long afterwards,
+John Garland, an Oxford man who had lived in France for many years,
+wrote a book on manners for English young men. He meant this to be a
+supplement to Dionysius Cato's treatise, written probably in the
+Fourth Century in Latin, which was concerned more with morals than
+manners and had been very popular during the Middle Ages. Garland's
+book was the first of a series of such treatises on manners which
+appeared in England at the close of the Middle Ages. Many of them have
+been recently republished, and are a revelation of the development of
+manners among our English forefathers. The book is usually alluded to
+in literature as Liber Faceti, or as Facet; the full title was, "The
+Book of the Polite Man, Teaching Manners for Men, Especially for Boys,
+as a Supplement to those which were Omitted by the Most Moral Cato."
+The "Romance of the Rose" has, of course, many references to manners
+which show us how courtesy was cultivated in France. In Italy, Dante's
+teacher, Bruneto Latini, published his "Tesoretto," which treats of
+manners, and which was soon followed by a number of similar treatises
+in {453} Italian. In a word, we must look to the Thirteenth Century
+for the origin, or at least the definite acceptance, of most of those
+conventions which make for kindly courtesy among men, and have made
+possible human society and friendly intercourse in our modern sense of
+those words.
+
+We are prone to think that refinement in table manners is a matter of
+distinctly modern times. In "The Babees' Book," which is one of the
+oldest books of English manners, the date of which in its present form
+is about the middle of the Fourteenth Century, many of our rules of
+politeness at table are anticipated. This book is usually looked upon
+as a compilation from preceding times, and the original of it is
+supposed to be from the preceding century. A few quotations from it
+will show how closely it resembles our own instructions to children:
+
+  "Thou shalt not laugh nor speak nothing
+  While thy mouth be full of meat or drink;
+  Nor sup thou not with great sounding
+  Neither pottage nor other thing.
+  At meat cleanse not thy teeth, nor pick
+  With knife or straw or wand or stick.
+  While thou holdest meat in mouth, beware
+  To drink; that is an unhonest chare;
+  And also physic forbids it quite.
+  Also eschew, without strife.
+  To foul the board cloth with thy knife.
+
+  Nor blow not on thy drink or meat,
+  Neither for cold, neither for heat.
+  Nor bear with meat thy knife to mouth.
+  Whether thou be set by strong or couth.
+  Lean not on elbow at thy meat,
+  Neither for cold nor for heat.
+  Dip not thy thumb thy drink into;
+  Thou art uncourteous if thou it do.
+  In salt-cellar if thou put
+  Or fish or flesh that men see it,
+  That is a vice, as men me tells;
+  And great wonder it would be else."
+
+The directions, "how to behave thyself in talking with any man," in
+one of these old books, are very minute and specific:--
+
+  "If a man demand a question of thee.
+  In thine answer making be not too hasty;
+  Weigh well his words, the case understand
+  Ere an answer to make thou take in hand;
+  Else may he judge in thee little wit,
+  To answer to a thing and not hear it.
+  Suffer his tale whole out to be told.
+  Then speak thou mayst, and not be controlled;
+
+  In audible voice thy words do thou utter,
+  Not high nor low, but using a measure.
+  Thy words see that thou pronounce plaine.
+  And that they spoken be not in vain;
+  In uttering whereon keep thou an order,
+  Thy matter thereby thou shalt much forder
+  Which order if thou do not observe.
+  From the purpose needs must thou swerve."
+
+
+{454}
+
+
+XX. TEXTILE WORK OF THE CENTURY.
+
+A special chapter might easily have been written on the making of fine
+cloths of various kinds, most of which reached their highest
+perfection in the Thirteenth Century. Velvet, for instance, is
+mentioned for the first time in England in 1295, but existed earlier
+on the continent, and cut velvets with elaborate patterns were made in
+Genoa exactly as we know finished velvet now. Baudekin or Baldichin, a
+very costly textile of gold and silk largely used in altar coverings
+and hangings, came to very high perfection in this century also. The
+canopy for the Blessed Sacrament is, because of its manufacture from
+this cloth, still called in Italy a _baldichino_. Chaucer in the next
+century tells how the streets in royal processions were "hanged with
+cloth of gold and not with serge." Satin also was first manufactured
+very probably in the Thirteenth Century. It is first mentioned in
+England about the middle of the Fourteenth Century, when Bishop
+Grandison made a gift of choice satins to Exeter Cathedral. The word
+satin, however, is derived from the silks of the Mediterranean, called
+by the Italians _seta_ and by the Spanish _seda_, and the art of
+making it was brought to perfection during the preceding century.
+
+The art of making textiles ornamented with elaborate designs of animal
+forms and of floral ornaments reached its highest perfection in the
+Thirteenth Century. In one of the Chronicles we learn that in 1295 St.
+Paul's in London owned a hanging "patterned with wheels and two-headed
+birds." We have accounts of such elaborate textile ornamentation as
+peacocks, lions, griffins and the like. Almeria in Andalusia was a
+rich city in the Thirteenth Century, noted for its manufactures of
+textiles. A historian of the period writes: "Christians of all nations
+came to its port to buy and sell. Then they traveled to other parts of
+the interior of the country, where they loaded their vessels with such
+goods as they wanted. Costly silken robes of the brightest colors are
+manufactured in Almeria." Marco-Polo says of the Persians that, when
+he passed through that country (end of the Thirteenth Century), "there
+are excellent artificers in the city who make wonderful things in
+gold, silk and embroidery. The women make excellent needlework in silk
+with all sorts of creatures very admirably wrought therein." He also
+reports the King of Tartary as wearing on his birthday a most precious
+garment of gold, and tells of the girdles of gold and silver, with
+pearls and ornaments of great price on them.
+
+Unfortunately English embroidery fell off very greatly at the time of
+the Wars of the Roses. These wars constitute the main reason why
+nearly every form of intellectual accomplishment and artistic
+achievement went into decadence during the Fourteenth Century, from
+which they were only just emerging when the so-called {455}
+reformation, with its confiscation of monastic property, and its
+destruction of monastic life, came to ruin schools of all kinds, and,
+above all, those in which the arts and crafts had been taught so
+successfully. France at the end of the Thirteenth Century saw a
+similar rise to excellence of textile and embroidery work. In 1299
+there is an allusion to one Clement le Brodeur who furnished a
+magnificent cope for the Count of Artois. In 1316 a beautifully
+decorated set of hangings was made for the Queen by Gautier de
+Poulleigny. There are other references to work done in the early part
+of the Fourteenth Century, which serve to show the height which art
+had reached in this mode during the Thirteenth Century. In Ireland,
+while the finer work had its due place, the making of woolens was the
+specialty, and the dyeing of woolen cloth made the Irish famous and
+brought many travelers from the continent to learn the secret.
+
+The work done in England in embroidery attracted the attention of the
+world. English needlework became a proverb. In the body of the book I
+mentioned the cope of Ascoli, but there were many such beautiful
+garments. The Syon cope is, in the opinion of Miss Addison, author of
+"Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages," the most conspicuous example of
+the medieval embroiderers' art. It was made by nuns about the middle
+of the Thirteenth Century, that is, just about the same time as the
+cope of Ascoli, but in a convent near Coventry. According to Miss
+Addison "it is solid stitchery on a canvas ground, wrought about with
+divers colors' on green. The design is laid out in a series of
+interlacing square forms, with rounded and barbed sides and corners.
+In each of these is a figure or a Scriptural scene. The orphreys, or
+straight borders, which go down on both fronts of the cope, are
+decorated with heraldic charges. Much of the embroidery is raised, and
+wrought in the stitch known as Opus Anglicanum. The effect was
+produced by pressing a heated metal knob into the work at such points
+as were to be raised. The real embroidery was executed on a flat
+surface, and then bossed up by this means until it looked like
+bas-relief. The stitches in every part run in zig-zags, the vestments,
+and even the nimbi about the heads, are all executed with the stitches
+slanting in one direction, from the center of the cope outward,
+without consideration of the positions of the figures. Each face is
+worked in circular progression outward from the center, as well. The
+interlaces are of crimson, and look well on the green ground. The
+wheeled cherubim is well developed in the design of this famous cope,
+and is a pleasing decorative bit of archaic ecclesiasticism. In the
+central design of the Crucifixion, the figure of the Lord is rendered
+in silver on a gold ground."
+
+
+XXI. GLASS-MAKING.
+
+A chapter might well have been devoted to Thirteenth Century
+glass-making quite apart from the stained glass of the cathedral {456}
+windows. All over Europe some of the most wonderful specimens of
+colored glass we possess were made in the Thirteenth Century. Recently
+Mr. Frederick Rolfe has looked up for me Venetian glass, of the three
+centuries, the Twelfth, the Thirteenth and the Fourteenth. He says
+Twelfth Century glass is small in form, simple and ignorant in model,
+excessively rich and brilliant in colors; the artist evidently had no
+ideal, but the Byzantine of jewels and emeralds.
+
+  "Thirteenth Century glass is absolutely different. The specimens are
+  pretty. The work of the Beroviero family is large and splendid in
+  form, exquisite and sometimes elaborate in model, mostly crystal
+  glass reticently studded with tiny colored gem-like knobs. There are
+  also fragments of two windows pieced together, and missing parts
+  filled with the best which modern Murano can do. These show the
+  celebrated Beroviero Ruby glass (secret lost) of marvelous depth and
+  brilliancy in comparison with which the modern work is merely
+  watery. The ancient is just like a decanter of port-wine.
+
+  "Fourteenth Century returns to the wriggling ideal and exiguous form
+  of the Twelfth Century, and fails woefully in brilliance of color.
+  It is small and dull and undistinguished. One may find out what war
+  or pest afflicted Murano at this epoch to explain the singular
+  degradation."
+
+This same curious degradation took place in the manufacture of most
+art objects during the Fourteenth Century. One would feel in Mr.
+Rolfe's words like looking for some physical cause for it. The
+decadence is so universal, however, that it seems not unlikely that it
+follows some little known human law, according to which, after man has
+reached a certain perfection of expression in an art or craft, there
+comes, in the striving after originality yet variety, an overbalancing
+of the judgment, a vitiation of the taste in the very luxuriance of
+beauty discovered that leads to decay. It is the very contradiction of
+the supposed progress of mankind through evolution, but it is
+illustrated in many phases of human history and, above all, the
+history of art, letters, education and the arts and crafts.
+
+
+XXII. INVENTIONS.
+
+Most people are sure to think that, at least in the matter of
+inventions, ours is the only time worth considering. The people of the
+Thirteenth Century, however, made many wonderful inventions and
+adaptations of mechanical principles, as well as many ingenious
+appliances. Their faculty of invention was mainly devoted to work in
+other departments besides that of mechanics. They were inventors of
+designs in architecture, in decoration, in furnishings, in textiles,
+and in the beautiful things of life generally. Their inventiveness in
+the arts and crafts was especially admirable and, indeed, has been
+fruitful in our time, since, with the reawakening in this matter, we
+have gone back to imitate their designs. Good authorities declare
+these to be endless in number and variety. Such mechanical inventions
+as were {457} needed for the building of their great cathedrals, their
+municipal buildings, abbeys, castles, piers, bridges and the like were
+admirably worked out. Necessity is the mother of invention, and
+whenever needs asserted themselves, these old generations responded to
+them, very successfully. There are, however, a number of inventions
+that would attract attention even, in the modern time for their
+practical usefulness and ingenuity. With the growth of the
+universities writing became much more common, textbooks were needed,
+and so paper was invented. With the increase of reading, to replace
+teaching by hearing, spectacles were invented. Time became more
+precious, clocks were greatly improved, and we hear of the invention
+of something like an alarm clock, an apparatus which, after a fixed
+number of hours, woke the monk of the abbey whose duty it was to
+arouse the others. Organs for churches were greatly improved, bells
+were perfected, and everything else in connection with the churches so
+well fashioned that we still use them in their Thirteenth Century
+forms. Gunpowder was not invented, but a great many new uses were
+found for it, and Roger Bacon even suggested, as I have said, that
+sometime explosives would enable boats to move by sea without sails or
+oars, or carriages to move on land without horses or men. Roger Bacon
+even suggested the possibility of airships, described how one might be
+made, the wings of which would be worked by a windlass, and thought
+that he could make it. His friend and pupil, Peregrinus, invented the
+double pivoted compass, and, as the first perpetual-motion faddist,
+described how he would set about making a magnetic engine that he
+thought would run forever. When we recall how much they accomplished
+mechanically in the construction of buildings, it becomes evident that
+any mechanical problem that these generations wanted solved they
+succeeded in solving very well. What they have left us as inventions
+are among the most useful appliances that we have. Without paper and
+without spectacles, the intellectual world would be in a sad case,
+indeed. Many of the secrets of their inventions in the arts and crafts
+have been lost, and, in spite of all our study, we have not succeeded
+in rediscovering them.
+
+
+XXIII. INDUSTRY AND TRADE.
+
+We are rather inclined to think that large organizations of industry
+and trade were reserved for comparatively modern times. To think so,
+however, is to forget the place occupied by the monasteries and
+convents in the olden time. We have heard much of the lazy monks, but
+only from those who know nothing at all about them. Idleness in the
+monasteries was one of the accusations made by the commission set to
+furnish evidence to Henry VIII. on which he might suppress the
+monasteries, but every modern historian has rejected the findings of
+that commission as false. Many forms of manufacture were carried on in
+the monasteries and convents. They were {458} the principal bookmakers
+and bookbinders. To a great extent they were the manufacturers of art
+fabrics and arts-and-crafts work intended for church use, but also for
+the decoration of luxurious private apartments. Most of us have known
+something of all this finer work, but not that they had much to do
+with cruder industries also. They were millers, cloth-makers,
+brush- and broom-makers, shoemakers for themselves and their tenantry;
+knitting was done in the convents, and all the finer fancy work. A
+recent meeting of the Institute of Mining Engineers in England brought
+out some discussion of coal mining in connection with the early
+history of the coal mines in England. The records of many of the
+English monasteries show that in early times the monks knew the value
+of coal, and used it rather freely. They also mined it for others. The
+monks at Tynemouth are known to have been mining coal on the Manor of
+Tynemouth in 1269, and shipping it to a distance. At Durham and at
+Finchale Abbey they were doing this also about the same time. It would
+require special study to bring out the interesting details, but there
+is abundant material not alone for a chapter, but for a volume on the
+industries of the Thirteenth Century, which, like the education and
+the literature and the culture of the time, we have thought
+undeveloped, because we knew nothing of them.
+
+The relation of the monasteries to trade, domestic and foreign, is
+very well brought out in a paragraph of Mr. Ralph Adams Cram's book on
+"The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain" (New York, The Churchman Co.,
+1905), in which he describes the remains at Beaulieu, which show the
+place of that monastery, not by any means one of the most important in
+England, in trade. For the benefit of their tenantry others had done
+even more.
+
+  "Some idea of the power of one of these great monasteries may be
+  gained from traces still existing of the center of trade built up by
+  the monks outside their gates. Here, at the head of tide water, in a
+  most out-of-the-way spot, a great stone quay was constructed, to
+  which came ships from foreign lands. Near by was a great
+  marketplace, now, as then, called Cheapside, though commerce exists
+  there no longer. At the height of monastic glory the religious
+  houses were actually the chief centers of industry and civilization,
+  and around them grew up the eager villages, many of which now exist,
+  even though their impulse and original inspiration have long since
+  departed. Of course, the possessions of the abbey reached far away
+  from the walls in every direction, including many farms even at a
+  great distance, for the abbeys were then the great landowners, and
+  beneficent landlords they were as well, even in their last days, for
+  we have many records of the cruelty and hardships that came to the
+  tenants the moment the stolen lands came into the hands of laymen."
+
+
+XXIV. FAIRS AND MARKETS.
+
+A chapter might well have been devoted to showing the significance of
+those curious old institutions, the fairs and market days of the {459}
+Middle Ages. The country folk flocked into town, bringing with them
+their produce, and found there gathered from many parts merchants come
+to exchange and barter. The expense of maintaining a store all the
+year around was done away with, and profits did not have to be large.
+Exchanges were direct, and the profits of the middlemen were to a
+great extent eliminated. It was distinctly to the advantage of the
+poor, for the expenses of commerce were limited to the greatest
+possible extent, and every advantage accrued to the customer.
+
+Besides, these market days became days of innocent merriment,
+amusement and diversion. Wandering purveyors of amusement followed the
+fairs, and obtained their living from the generosity of the people who
+were amused. These amusements were conducted out of doors, and with
+very few of the objectionable features as regards hygiene and morality
+that are likely to attach themselves to the same things in our day.
+The amusement was what we would call now vaudeville, singing, dancing,
+the exhibition of trained animals, acrobatic feats of various kinds,
+so that we cannot very well say that our people are in advance of
+their medieval forbears in such matters, since their taste is about
+the same. Fairs and market days made country life less monotonous by
+their regular recurrence, and so prevented that emptying of the
+country into the city which we deprecate in our time. They had
+economic, social, even moral advantages, that are worth while
+studying.
+
+
+XXV. INTENSIVE FARMING.
+
+We hear much of intensive farming in the modern time, and it is
+supposed to be a distinctly modern invention mothered by the necessity
+due to great increase of population. One of the most striking features
+of the story of monasticism in the countries of Europe, however,
+during the Middle Ages, and especially during the Thirteenth Century,
+when so many of the greatest abbeys reached a climax of power and
+influence and beauty of construction, is their successful devotion
+paid to agriculture. In the modern time we are gradually learning the
+lesson of growing larger and larger crops on the same area of ground
+by proper selection of seed, and of developing cattle in such a way as
+to make them most valuable as a by-product of farming. This is exactly
+what the old monastic establishments did. At the beginning of the
+Thirteenth Century many of them were situated in rather barren
+regions, sometimes, indeed, surrounded by thick forests, but at the
+end of the century all the great monastic establishments had succeeded
+in making beautiful luxuriant gardens for themselves, and had taught
+their numerous tenantry the great lessons of agricultural improvement
+which made for plenty and happiness.
+
+Many monasteries belonged to the same religious order, and the
+traditions of these were carried from one to the other by visiting
+{460} monks or sometimes by the transfer of members of one community
+to another. The monastic establishments were the great farmers of
+Europe, and it was their proud boast that their farming lands, instead
+of being exhausted from year to year, were rather increasing in value.
+They doubtless had many secrets of farming that were lost and had to
+be rediscovered in the modern time, just as in the arts and crafts,
+for their success in farming was as noteworthy. Their knowledge of
+trees must have been excellent, since they surrounded themselves with
+fine forests, at times arranged so as to provide shady walks and
+charming avenues. Their knowledge of simple farming must have been
+thorough, for the farms of the monasteries were always the most
+prosperous, and the tenantry were always the happiest. With the
+traditions that we have especially in English history, this seems
+almost impossible to credit, but these traditions, manufactured for a
+purpose, have now been entirely discredited. We have learned in recent
+years what wonderful scholars, architects, painters, teachers,
+engineers these monks were, and so it is not surprising to find that
+they had magnificently developed agricultural knowledge as well as
+that of every other department in which they were particularly
+interested.
+
+
+XXVI. CARTOGRAPHY AND THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY.
+
+In the chapter on Great Explorers and The Foundation of Geography, in
+the body of the book, much might have been said about maps and
+map-making, for the Thirteenth Century was a great period in this
+matter. Lecoy de la Marche among his studies of the Thirteenth Century
+has included a volume of a collection of the maps of the Thirteenth
+Century. If the purpose had been to make this a work of erudition
+rather than of popular information, much might have been said of the
+cartography of the time even from this work alone (_Receuil de Charles
+du XIII e Siecle_, Paris, 1878). One of the great maps of the
+Thirteenth Century, that on the Cathedral wall of Hereford, deserves a
+place here. It was made just at the end of the Thirteenth Century. The
+idea of its maker was to convey as much information as possible about
+the earth, and not merely indicate its political divisions and the
+relative size and position of the different parts. It is to a certain
+extent at least a resume of history, of physical geography, and even
+of geographical biology and anthropology, for it has indications as to
+the dwelling-place of animals and curious types of men. It contains,
+besides, references to interesting objects of other kinds. Because of
+its interest I have reproduced the map itself, and the key to it with
+explanations published at Hereford.
+
+{461}
+
+  [Illustration]
+  _Key to the Photograph of the Ancient Map of the World_.
+  PRESERVED IN HEREFORD CATHEDRAL.
+
+  [Illustration]
+  MAP OF THE WORLD (HEREFORD CATHEDRAL)
+
+The Map is executed on a single sheet of vellum, 54 in. in breadth, by
+63 in. in extreme height, it is fixed on a strong framework of oak. At
+the top (Fig. 1) is a representation of the Last Judgment. Our Saviour
+is represented in glory, and below is the Virgin Mary interceding for
+mankind.
+
+For convenience of reference the Key Map is divided into squares
+marked by Roman capitals, with the more prominent objects in figures.
+I.--Commencing with sq. 1. the circle marked by Fig. 2 represents the
+Garden of Eden, with the four rivers, and Adam and Eve eating the
+forbidden fruit. The remainder of the square, as also in II. and III.,
+is occupied by India. At Fig. 3 is shown the expulsion of Adam and
+Eve, to the right of which is shown a race of Giants, and to the left
+the City of Enoch, and still further the Golden Mountains guarded by
+Dragons. Below these mountains are shown a race of pigmies. In a space
+bounded by two rivers is placed a crocodile, and immediately below a
+female warrior. To the left of the latter are a pair of birds called
+in the Map Alerions. The large {462} river to the left is the Ganges.
+II.--Shows one of the inhabitants of this part of India, who are said
+to have but one foot, which is sufficiently large to serve as an
+umbrella to shelter themselves from the sun. The city in the center is
+Samarcand. III.--In which is seen an Elephant, to the left a Parrot. A
+part of the Red Sea is also shown with the Island of Taprobana
+(Ceylon), on which are shown two Dragons. It also bears an inscription
+denoting that dragons and elephants are found there. The small Islands
+shown are Crise, Argire, Ophir, and Frondisia (Aphrodisia).
+IV.--Contains the Caspian Sea, below which is a figure holding its
+tail in his hand, and which the author calls the Minotaur. To the left
+is shown one of the Albani, who are said to see better at night than
+in the daytime. Below are two warriors in combat with a Griffin (Fig.
+27). V.--In the upper part are Bokhara and Thrace, in the latter of
+which (Fig. 29) is shown the Pelican feeding its young, to the left a
+singular figure representing the Cicones, and to the right the Camel,
+in Bactria. Below to the left is the Tiger, and on the right an animal
+with a human head and the body of a lion, called the Mantichora. Still
+lower is seen Noah's ark (Fig. 28), in which are shown three human
+figures, with beasts, birds and serpents. In the lower corner, at Fig.
+26, is the Golden Fleece. VI.--The upper parts contain Babylonia, with
+the City of Babylon (Fig. 4) on the river Euphrates, below which is
+the city of Damascus, which has on its right an unknown animal called
+the Marsok. To the right is Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt
+(Fig. 8). Decapolis and the River Jordan are near the bottom of the
+square. Above the River Euphrates is a figure in a frame representing
+the Patriarch Abraham's residence at Ur of the Chaldees. VII.--The Red
+Sea (Figs. 5, 5) is the most conspicuous object here. In the fork
+formed by it is shown the giving of the Tables of The Law on Mount
+Sinai. Below, and touching the line (Fig. 6) showing the wanderings of
+the Israelites, is seen the worship of the Golden Calf. The Dead Sea
+and submerged Cities are shown lower down to the left, and between
+this and the Red Sea is the Phoenix. At the bottom is a mythical
+animal with long horns, called the Eale. VIII.--In the upper part is
+the Monastery of St. Anthony in Ethiopia. The river to the left is the
+Nile, between this and a great interior lake (Figs. 7, 7) is a figure
+of Satyr. Beyond the lake, and extending a distance down the Map
+(Figs. 12, 12, 12), are various singular figures, supposed to
+represent the races dwelling there. In a circular island to the left
+(Meroe) is a man riding a crocodile, and at the bottom left-hand
+corner is a centaur. IX.--The upper part is Scythia, and shows some
+cannibals, below which (Fig. 25) are two Scythians in combat. Under
+this again is a man leading a horse with a human skin thrown over it,
+and to the right of the latter is placed the ostrich. X.--Asia Minor
+with the Black Sea (Fig. 24). Many cities are shown prominent, among
+which is Troy (Fig. 21), described as "_Troja civitas
+bellicosissima_." Near the bottom to the left is Constantinople. The
+lynx is shown near the center. XI.--Is nearly filled by the Holy Land.
+In the center is Jerusalem (Fig. 23), the supposed center of the
+world, surrounded by a high wall, and above is the Crucifixion. Below
+Jerusalem to the right is Bethlehem with the manger. Near a circular
+place to the right, called _"Puteus Juramenti"_ (well of the oath), is
+an unknown bird, called on the Map Avis Cirenus. XII.--Egypt with the
+Nile. At the upper part (Fig. 9) are Joseph's granaries, i.e., the
+Pyramids, immediately below which is the Salamander, and to the right
+of that the Mandrake. Fig. 10 denotes the Delta with its cities. {463}
+On the other side of the Nile, and partly in sq. XIII., is the
+Rhinoceros, and below it the Unicorn. XIII.--Ethiopia. In the upper
+left-hand corner is the Sphinx, and near the bottom the Temple of
+Jupiter Ammon, represented by a singular horse-shoe shaped figure. The
+camp of Alexander the Great is in the bottom left-hand corner,
+immediately above which is the boundary line between Asia and Africa,
+XIV.--At the top of the left is Norway, in which the author has placed
+the Monkey. The middle is filled by Russia. The small circular islands
+on the left are the Orkneys, immediately below which is an inscription
+relating to the Seven Sleepers, Scotland and part of England are shown
+in the lower part, but the British Isles will be described in sq. XIX.
+The singular triangular figure in the center of this square cannot be
+identified. XV.--Germany, with part of Greece, in the upper part to
+the right. The Danube and its tributaries are seen in the upper part,
+in the lower is the Rhine. On the bank of the latter the scorpion is
+placed; Venice is shown on the right, XVI.--Contains Italy and a great
+part of the Mediterranean Sea (Fig. 14). About the center (Fig. 17) is
+Rome, which bears the inscription, "Roma caput mundi tenet orbis frena
+rotundi." In the upper part of the Mediterranean Sea is seen a
+Mermaid, below (Fig. 11) is the Island of Crete, with its famous
+labyrinth, to the left of which is the rock Scylla. Below Crete is
+Sicily (Fig. 15), on which Mount Etna is shown; close to Sicily is the
+whirlpool Charybdis, XVII.--Part of Africa; in the lower part to the
+left, on a promontory, is seen Carthage; on the right the Leopard is
+shown. XVIII.--Also part of Africa. The upper part is Fezzan, below is
+shown the basilisk, and still lower some Troglodytes or dwellers in
+caves. XIX.--On the left hand are the British Isles (Figs. 19, 20,
+22), on the right France. Great Britain (Figs. 19, 22) is very fully
+laid down, but of Ireland the author seemed to know but little. In
+England twenty-six cities and towns are delineated, among which
+Hereford (H'ford) is conspicuous. Twenty rivers are also seen, but the
+only mountains shown are the Clee Hills. In Wales, Snowdon is seen,
+and the towns of Carnarvon, Conway and St. David's. In Ireland four
+towns, Armagh, Bangor, Dublin and Kildare, with two rivers, the Banne,
+which, as shown, divides the island in two, and the Shannon. In
+Scotland there are six towns. In France the City of Paris (Fig. 18) is
+conspicuous. XX.--The upper part is Provence, the lower Spain. In the
+Mediterranean Sea are laid down, among others, the Islands of Corsica,
+Sardinia, Majorca, and Minorca. At the bottom are (Fig. 16) the
+pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar), which were considered the extreme
+western limits of the world. XXI.--At the top to the left (Fig. 13) is
+St. Augustine of Hippo, in his pontifical habit. And at the opposite
+corner the Lion, below which are the Agriophagi, a one-eyed people who
+live on the flesh of lions and other beasts. The kingdoms on the shore
+of the Mediterranean are Algiers, Setif, and Tangier.
+
+
+{464}
+
+
+APPENDIX III.
+
+CRITICISMS, COMMENTS, DOCUMENTS.
+
+
+HUMAN PROGRESS.
+
+For most people the impossible would apparently be accomplished if a
+century so far back as the Thirteenth were to be even seriously
+thought of as the greatest of centuries. Evolution has come to be
+accepted so unquestioningly, that of course "we are the heirs of all
+the ages of the foremost files of time," and must be far ahead of our
+forbears, especially of the distant past, in everything. When a man
+talks glibly about great progress in recent times, he usually knows
+only the history of his own time and not very much about that. Men who
+have studied other periods seriously hesitate about the claim of
+progress, and the more anyone knows about any other period, the less
+does he think of his own as surpassing. There are many
+exemplifications of this in recent literature. Because this was a
+cardinal point in many criticisms of the book, it has seemed well to
+illustrate the position here taken as to the absence of progress in
+humanity by quotations from recognized authorities. Just as the first
+edition of this book came from the press, Ambassador Bryce delivered
+his address at Harvard on "What is Progress?" It appeared in the
+_Atlantic Monthly_ for August, 1907. Mr. Bryce is evidently not at all
+persuaded that there is human progress in any real sense of the word.
+Some striking quotations may be made from the address, but to get the
+full impression of Mr. Bryce's reasons for hesitation about accepting
+any progress, the whole article needs to be read. For instance, he
+said:
+
+  "It does not seem possible, if we go back to the earliest literature
+  which survives to us from Western Asia and Southeastern Europe, to
+  say that the creative powers of the human mind in such subjects as
+  poetry, philosophy, and historical narrative or portraiture, have
+  either improved or deteriorated. The poetry of the early Hebrews and
+  of the early Greeks has never been surpassed and hardly ever
+  equaled. Neither has the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, nor the
+  speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero. Geniuses like Dante, Chaucer,
+  and Shakespeare appear without our being able to account for them,
+  and for aught we know another may appear at any moment. It is just
+  as difficult, if we look back five centuries, to assert either
+  progress or decline in painting. Sculpture has never again risen to
+  so high a level as it touched in the fifth century, B. C, nor within
+  the last three centuries, to so high a level as it reached at the
+  end of the fifteenth. But we can found no generalizations upon that
+  fact. Music is the most inscrutable of the arts, and whether there
+  is any progress to be expected other {465} than that which may come
+  from a further improvement in instruments constituting an orchestra,
+  I will not attempt to conjecture, any more than I should dare to
+  raise controversy by inquiring whether Beethoven represents progress
+  from Mozart, Wagner progress from Beethoven."
+
+Perhaps the most startling evidence on this subject of the absence of
+evolution in humanity is the opinion of Prof. Flinders Petrie, the
+distinguished English authority on Egyptology, who has added nearly a
+millennium to the history of Egypt. His studies have brought him in
+intimate contact with Egypt from 2,000 to 5,000 B. C. He has found no
+reason at all for thinking that our generation is farther advanced in
+any important qualities than men were during this period. In an
+article on "The Romance of Early Civilization" (_The Independent_,
+Jan. 7, 1909), he said:
+
+  "We have now before us a view of the powers of man at the earliest
+  point to which we can trace written history, and what strikes us
+  most is how very little his nature or abilities have changed in
+  seven thousand years; _what he admired we admire; what were his
+  limits in fine handiwork also are ours_. We may have a wider
+  outlook, a greater understanding of things; our interests may have
+  extended in this interval; but so far as human nature and tastes go,
+  man is essentially unchanged in this interval." . . . "This is the
+  practical outcome of extending our view of man three times as far
+  back as we used to look, and it must teach us how little material
+  civilization is likely in the future to change the nature, the
+  weaknesses, or the abilities of our ancestors in ages yet to come."
+
+Those who think that man has advanced in practical wisdom during the
+6,000 years of history, forget entirely the lessons of literature.
+Whenever a great genius has written, he has displayed a knowledge of
+human nature as great as any to be found at any other time in the
+world's history. The wisdom of Homer and of Solomon are typical
+examples. Probably the most striking evidence in this matter is to be
+found in what is considered to be the oldest book ever written. This
+is the Instructions of Ptah Hotep to his son. Ptah Hotep was the
+vizier of King Itosi, of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt (about 3650 B.C.).
+There is nothing that a father of the modern time would wish to tell
+his boy as the result of his own experience that is not to be found in
+this wise advice of a father, nearly 6,000 years ago. This was written
+longer before Solomon than Solomon is before us, yet no practical
+knowledge to be gained from intercourse with men has been added to
+what this careful father of the long ago has written out for his son.
+
+
+THE CENTURY OF ORIGINS.
+
+To many readers apparently, it has seemed that the main reason for
+writing of The Thirteenth as the Greatest of Centuries was the fact
+that the Church occupied so large a place in the life of that time,
+and that, therefore, most of what was accomplished must naturally
+revert {466} to her account. It is not only those who are interested
+in the old Church, however, who have written enthusiastically about
+the Thirteenth Century. Since writing this volume, I have found that
+Mr. Frederick Harrison is almost, if not quite, as ardent in his
+praise of it as I have been. There are many others, especially among
+the historians of art and of architecture, who apparently have not
+been able to say all that they would wish in admiration of this
+supreme century. Most of these have not been Catholics; and if we
+place beside Mr. Frederick Harrison, the great Positivist of our
+generation, Mr. John Morley, the great Rationalist, the chorus of
+agreement on the subject of the greatness of the Thirteenth Century
+ought to be considered about complete. Mr. Morley, in his address on
+Popular Culture, delivered as President of the Midland Institute,
+England, October, 1876 (Great Essays. Putnam, New York), said:
+
+  "It is the present that really interests us; it is the present that
+  we seek to understand and to explain. I do not in the least want to
+  know what happened in the past, except as it enables me to see my
+  way more clearly through what is happening to-day. I want to know
+  what men thought and did in the Thirteenth Century, not out of any
+  dilettante or idle antiquarian's curiosity, but because the
+  Thirteenth Century is at the root of what men think and do in the
+  nineteenth."
+
+
+EDUCATION.
+
+Many even of the most benevolent readers of the book have been quite
+sure that it exaggerated the significance of medieval education and,
+above all, claimed too much for the breadth of culture given by the
+early universities. Prof. Huxley is perhaps the last man of recent
+times who would be suspected for a moment of exaggerating the import
+of medieval education. In his Inaugural Address on Universities Actual
+and Ideal, delivered as Rector of Aberdeen University, after
+discussing the subject very thoroughly, he said:
+
+  "The scholars of the Medieval Universities seem to have studied
+  grammar, logic and rhetoric; arithmetic and geometry; astronomy,
+  theology and music. Thus their work, however imperfect and faulty,
+  judged by modern lights, it may have been, brought them face to face
+  with all the leading aspects of the many-sided mind of man. For
+  these studies did really contain, at any rate in embryo, sometimes
+  it may be in caricature, what we now call philosophy, mathematical
+  and physical science, and art. _And I doubt if the curriculum of any
+  modern university shows so clear and generous a comprehension of
+  what is meant by culture, as this old Trivium and Quadrivium does_."
+  (Italics ours.)
+
+The results of this system of education may be judged best perhaps
+from Dante as an example. In The Popes and Science (Fordham University
+Press, N. Y., 1908) a chapter is devoted to Dante as the typical
+university man of the time, above all in his knowledge of science as
+displayed in his great poem. No poet of the modern time has {467}
+turned with so much confidence to every phase of science for his
+figures as this product of medieval universities. Anyone who thinks
+that the study of science is recent, or that nature study was delayed
+till our day, need only read Dante to be completely undeceived.
+
+The fact that the scholars and the professors at the universities were
+almost without exception believers in the possibility of the
+transmutation of metals in the old days, used to be considered by many
+educated people as quite sufficient to stamp them as lacking in
+judgment and as prone to believe all sorts of incredible and even
+impossible things without justification. Such supercilious
+condemnation of the point of view of the medieval scholars in this
+matter, however, has recently received a very serious jolt. Sometime
+ago, Sir William Ramsey, the greatest of living English chemists,
+announced at the meeting of the British Association for the
+Advancement of Science, that he had succeeded in changing copper into
+lithium. This created a sensation at the time, but represented, after
+all, a culmination of effort in this direction that had long been
+expected. More recently, Sir William has reported to the British
+Chemical Society that he has succeeded in obtaining carbon from four
+substances not containing this element--bismuth, hydro-fluo-silicic
+acid, thorium and zirconium. An American professor of chemistry has
+declared that he would like to remove all traces of silver from a
+quantity of lead ore, and then, after allowing it to stand for some
+years, have the opportunity to re-examine it, since he is confident
+that he would find further traces of silver in it that had developed
+in the meantime. He is sure that the reason why these two metals
+always occur together, as do copper and, gold, is that they are
+products of a developmental process, the precious metals being a step
+farther on in that process than the so-called base metals. It would
+seem, then, that the medieval scholars were not so silly as they used
+to appear before we knew enough about the subject to judge them
+properly. Only their supercilious critics were silly.
+
+It is probably with regard to the exact sciences that most even
+educated people are quite sure that the Thirteenth Century does not
+deserve to be thought of as representing great human advance. For them
+the Middle Ages were drowsily speculative, but never exact in
+thinking. Of course, such people know nothing of the intense exactness
+of thought of St. Thomas or Albertus Magnus or Duns Scotus. It would
+be impossible, moreover, to make them realize, from the writings of
+these men, how exact human thought actually was in the Thirteenth
+Century, though the more that modern students devote themselves to
+scholastic philosophy, the more surely do they appreciate and admire
+this very quality in the medieval philosophy. For such people, very
+probably, the only evidence that would have made quite an adequate
+answer to their objection, would be a chapter on the mathematics of
+the Thirteenth Century. {468} That might very easily have been made,
+for Cantor, in his History of Mathematics (Vorlesungen Ueber Geschichte
+der Mathematik, Leipzig, 1892), devotes nearly 100 pages of his second
+volume to the mathematicians of the Thirteenth Century, two of whom,
+Leonardo of Pisa and Jordanus Nemorarius, did so much in Arithmetic,
+the Theory of Numbers, Algebra and Geometry, as to make a revolution
+in mathematics. Cantor says that they accomplished so much, that their
+contemporaries and successors could scarcely follow them, much less go
+beyond them. They had great disciples, like John of Sacrobusco
+(probably John of Holywood, near Dublin), Joannes Campanus and others.
+Cantor calls attention particularly to the spread of arithmetical
+knowledge among the masses, which is a well-deserved tribute to the
+century, for it was a characteristic of the time that the new thoughts
+and discoveries of scholars were soon made practical and penetrated
+very widely among the people. Brewer, in the Preface to Roger Bacon's
+works, quotes some of Bacon's expressions with regard to the value of
+mathematics. The English Franciscan said: "For without mathematics,
+nothing worth knowing in philosophy can be attained." And again: "For
+he who knows not mathematics cannot know any other science; what is
+more, he cannot discover his own ignorance or find its proper remedy."
+The term mathematics, as used by Bacon, had a much wider application
+then than now, and Brewer notes that the Thirteenth Century scientist
+included therein Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music.
+
+With regard to post-graduate education; the best evidence that, far
+from any exaggeration of what was accomplished in the Thirteenth
+Century, there has been a very conservative estimate of it made in the
+book, may be gathered from the legally erected standards of the
+medical schools and the legal status of the medical profession. In the
+Appendix of The Popes and Science, two Bulls are published, issued by
+Pope John XXII. (_Circa_, 1320), establishing medical schools in
+Perugia, at that time in the Papal States, and in Cahors, the
+birthplace of this pope. These bulls were really the formal charters
+of the medical schools. They require three years of preliminary study
+at the university and four or five years at medicine before the degree
+of doctor may be granted, and in addition emphasized that the
+curricula of the new medical schools must be equal to those of Paris
+and Bologna. These bulls were issued in the early part of the
+fourteenth century, and show the height to which the standards of
+medical education had been raised. There will be found also a law of
+Frederick II., issued 1241, requiring for all physicians who wished to
+practice in the Two Sicilies three years of preliminary study--four
+years at the medical school and a year of practice with a physician
+before the diploma which constituted a license to practice would be
+issued. This law is also a pure drug law forbidding the sale of impure
+drugs under penalty of confiscation of goods, and the preparation of
+them under penalty of death. Our pure drug law was passed about the
+time of the issue of the first edition of this book.
+
+{469}
+
+Those who ask for the results of this post-graduate training may find
+them in the story of Guy de Chauliac, the Father of Modern Surgery.
+His life formed the basis of a lecture before the Johns Hopkins
+Medical Club that is to be published in the Bulletin of John Hopkins
+Hospital. It is incorporated in Catholic Churchmen in Science, Second
+Series (The Dolphin Press, Phila., 1909). We know Chauliac's work not
+by tradition, but from his great text-book on surgery. This great
+Papal physician of the fourteenth century operated within the skull,
+did not hesitate to open the thorax, sewed up wounds of the
+intestines, and discussed such subjects as hernia, catheterization,
+the treatment of fractures, and manipulative surgery generally with
+wonderful technical ability. His book was the most used text-book for
+the next two centuries, and has won the admiration of everyone who has
+ever read it.
+
+
+
+TECHNICAL EDUCATION OF THE MASSES.
+
+Some of my friends courteously but firmly have insisted with me that I
+have greatly exaggerated the technical abilities of the village
+workmen of the Middle Ages. That every town of less than ten thousand
+inhabitants in England was able to supply such workmen as we can
+scarcely obtain in our cities of a million inhabitants, and in that
+scanty population supply them in greater numbers than we can now
+secure them from our teeming populations, seems to many simply
+impossible.
+
+What I have been trying to say, however, in the chapters on the Arts
+and Crafts and on Popular Education, has been much better said by an
+authority that will scarcely be questioned by my critics. The Rev.
+Augustus Jessopp, D. D., who has been for twenty years the Rector of
+Searning in England, who is an Honorary Fellow of St. John's College
+and of Worcester College, Oxford, besides being an Honorary Canon in
+the Cathedral of Norwich, has devoted much time and study to this
+question of how the cathedrals were built and finished. Twenty years
+of his life have been spent in the study of the old English parish and
+of parish life. He has studied the old parish registers, and talks,
+therefore, not from distant impressions, but from the actual facts as
+they are recorded. If to his position as an antiquarian authority I
+add the fact that he is not a member of the Roman Catholic Church, to
+the credit of which so much of this popular education and
+accomplishment in the arts and crafts of the century accrues, the
+value of his evidence is placed entirely above suspicion of partisan
+partiality. In his chapter on Parish Life in England, in his book
+"Before the Great Pillage" (Before the Great Pillage with other
+Miscellanies, by Augustus Jessopp, D. D., London. T. Fisher Unwin,
+Paternoster Square, 1901), he says:
+
+  "The evidence is abundant and positive, and is increasing upon us
+  year by year, that the work done upon the fabrics of our churches,
+  and the other work done in the beautifying of the interior of our
+  churches, such as the woodcarving of our screens, the painting of
+  the lovely {470} figures in the panels of those screens, the
+  embroidery of the banners and vestments, the frescoes on the walls,
+  the engraving of the monumental brasses, the stained glass in the
+  windows, and all that vast aggregate of artistic achievements which
+  existed in immense profusion in our village churches till the
+  sixteenth century stripped them bare--all this was executed by local
+  craftsmen. The evidence for this is accumulating upon us every year,
+  as one antiquary after another succeeds in unearthing fragments of
+  pre-Reformation church-wardens' accounts.
+
+  "We have actual contracts for church building and church repairing
+  undertaken by village contractors. We have the cost of a rood screen
+  paid to a village carpenter, of painting executed by local artists.
+  We find the name of an artificer, described as aurifaber, or worker
+  in gold and silver, living in a parish which could never have had
+  five hundred inhabitants; we find the people in another place
+  casting a new bell and making the mould for it themselves; we find
+  the blacksmith of another place forging the iron work for the church
+  door, or we get a payment entered for the carving of the bench ends
+  in a little church five hundred years ago, which bench ends are to
+  be seen in that church at the present moment. And we get fairly
+  bewildered by the astonishing wealth of skill and artistic taste and
+  aesthetic feeling which there must have been in this England of
+  ours, in times which till lately we had assumed to be barbaric
+  times. Bewildered, I say, because we cannot understand how it all
+  came to a dead-stop in a single generation, not knowing that the
+  frightful spoliation of our churches and other parish buildings, and
+  the outrageous plunder of the parish gilds in the reign of Edward
+  the Sixth by the horrible band of robbers that carried on their
+  detestable work, effected such a hideous obliteration, such a clean
+  sweep of the precious treasures that were dispersed in rich
+  profusion over the whole land, that a dull despair of ever replacing
+  what had been ruthlessly pillaged crushed the spirit of the whole
+  nation, and art died out in rural England, and King Whitewash and
+  Queen Ugliness ruled supreme for centuries."
+
+My argument is that a century which produced such artist-artisans
+everywhere, had technical schools in great profusion, though they may
+not have been called by any such ambitious name.
+
+
+HOW IT ALL STOPPED.
+
+To most people it seems impossible to understand how it is that, if
+artistic evolution proceeded to the perfection which it now seems
+clear that it actually attained in the thirteenth and fourteenth
+centuries, we are only just getting back to a proper state of public
+taste and a right degree of artistic skill in many of these same
+accomplishments at the present time. That thought has come to many
+others who, knowing and appreciating medieval progress in art and
+literature, have tried to work out the reasons for the gap that exists
+between medieval art and modern artistic endeavor. Some of these
+explanations, because they serve to make clear why art evolution
+stopped so abruptly and we are retracing our steps and taking models
+from the past rather than doing original work that is an advance, must
+be quoted here. Many people will find in them, I think, the reasons
+for their misunderstanding of the old times.
+
+{471}
+
+Gerhardt Hauptmann, who is very well known, even among
+English-speaking people, as one of the great living German dramatists,
+and whose "Sunken Bell" attracted considerable attention in both its
+German and English versions here in New York, in a recent criticism of
+a new German book, declared that the reason for the gap between modern
+and medieval art was the movement now coming to be known as the
+religious revolt in Germany in the sixteenth century. He said:
+
+  "I, as a Protestant, have often had to regret that we purchased our
+  freedom of conscience, our individual liberty, at entirely too high
+  a price. In order to make room for a small, mean little plant of
+  personal life, we destroyed a whole garden of fancy and hewed down a
+  virgin forest of aesthetic ideas. We went even so far in the
+  insanity of our weakness as to throw out of the garden of our souls
+  the fruitful soil that had been accumulating for thousands of years,
+  or else we plowed it under sterile clay.
+
+  "We have to-day, then, an intellectual culture that is well
+  protected by a hedge of our personality, but within this hedge we
+  have only delicate dwarf trees and unworthy plants, the poorer
+  progeny of great predecessors. We have telegraph lines, bridges and
+  railroads, but there grow no churches and cathedrals, only sentry
+  boxes and barracks. We need gardeners who will cause the present
+  sterilizing process of the soil to stop, and will enrich the surface
+  by working up into it the rich layers beneath. In my work-room there
+  is ever before me the photograph of Sebaldus' Tomb (model
+  Metropolitan Museum, New York). This rich German symbol rose from
+  the invisible in the most luxuriant developmental period of German
+  art. As a formal product of that art, it is very difficult to
+  appreciate it as it deserves. It seems to me as one of the most
+  wonderful bits of work in the whole field of artistic
+  accomplishment. The soul of all the great medieval period encircles
+  this silver coffin, wrapping it up into a noble unity, and enthrones
+  on the very summit of death. Life as a growing child. Such a work
+  could only have come to its perfection in the protected spaces of
+  the old Mother Church."
+
+Rev. Dr. Jessopp, in his book, already cited, "The Great Pillage,"
+does not hesitate to state in unmistakable terms the reason why all
+the beauty and happiness went out of English country life some two
+centuries after the Thirteenth Century, and how it came about that the
+modern generations have had to begin over again from the beginning,
+and not where our Catholic forefathers of the medieval period left us,
+in what used to be the despised Middle Ages. He says:
+
+  "When I talk of the great pillage, I mean that horrible and
+  outrageous looting of our churches other than conventual, and the
+  robbing of the people of this country of property in land and
+  movables, which property had actually been inherited by them as
+  members of those organized religious communities known as parishes.
+  It is necessary to emphasize the fact that in the general scramble
+  of the Terror under Henry the Eighth, and of the Anarchy in the days
+  of Edward the Sixth, there was only one class that was permitted to
+  retain any large portion of its endowments. The monasteries were
+  plundered even to their very pots and pans. Almshouses in which old
+  men and women were fed and clothed were robbed to the last pound,
+  the poor alms-folk being turned out into the cold at an hour's
+  warning to beg their bread. {472} Hospitals for the sick and needy,
+  sometimes magnificently provided with nurses and chaplains, whose
+  very raison d'etre was that they were to look after and care for
+  those who were past caring for themselves--these were stripped of
+  all their belongings, the inmates sent out to hobble into some
+  convenient dry ditch to lie down and die in, or to crawl into some
+  barn or hovel, there to be tended, not without fear of consequences,
+  by some kindly man or woman who could not bear to see a suffering
+  fellow creature drop down and die at their own doorposts.
+
+  "We talk with a great deal of indignation of the Tweed ring. The day
+  will come when someone will write the story of two other rings--the
+  ring of the miscreants who robbed the monasteries in the reign of
+  Henry the Eighth was the first; but the ring of the robbers who
+  robbed the poor and helpless in the reign of Edward the Sixth was
+  ten times worse than the first.
+
+  "The Universities only just escaped the general confiscation; the
+  friendly societies and benefit clubs and the gilds did not escape.
+  The accumulated wealth of centuries, their houses and lands, their
+  money, their vessels of silver and their vessels of gold, their
+  ancient cups and goblets and salvers, even to their very chairs and
+  tables, were all set down in inventories and catalogues, and all
+  swept into the great robbers' hoard. Last, but not least, the
+  immense treasures in the churches, the joy and boast of every man
+  and woman and child in England, who day by day and week by week
+  assembled to worship in the old houses of God which they and their
+  fathers had built, and whose every vestment and chalice and
+  candlestick and banner, organs and bells, and picture and image and
+  altar and shrine they looked upon as their own and part of their
+  birthright--all these were torn away by the rudest spoilers, carted
+  off, they knew not whither, with jeers and scoffs and ribald
+  shoutings, while none dared raise a hand or let his voice be heard
+  above the whisper of a prayer of bitter grief and agony.
+
+  "One class was spared. The clergy of this Church of England of ours
+  managed to retain some of their endowments; but if the boy king had
+  lived another three years, there is good reason for believing that
+  these too would have gone."
+
+Graft prevailed, and the old order disappeared in a slough of
+selfishness.
+
+
+COMFORT AND POVERTY.
+
+A number of friendly critics have insisted that _of course_ the
+Thirteenth Century was far behind later times in the comfort of the
+people. Poverty is supposed to have been almost universal. Doubtless
+many of the people were then very poor. Personally, I doubt if there
+was as much poverty, that is, misery due to actual want of necessaries
+of life, as there is at the present time. Certainly it was not
+emphasized by having close to it, constantly rendering the pains of
+poverty poignant by contrast, the luxury of the modern time. They had
+not the large city, and people in the country do not suffer as much as
+people in the city. In recent years, investigations of poverty in
+England have been appalling in the statistics that they have
+presented. Mr. Robert Hunter, in his book Poverty, has furnished us
+with some details that make one feel that our generation should be the
+last to say {473} that the Thirteenth Century was behind in progress,
+because so many of the people were so poor. Ruskin once said that the
+ideal of the great nation is one wherein there must be "as many as
+possible full-breathed, bright-eyed and happy-hearted human
+creatures." I am sure that, tried by this standard, the Thirteenth
+Century in Merrie England is ahead of any other generation and, above
+all, far in advance of our recent generations.
+
+By contrast to what we know of the merrie English men and women of the
+Thirteenth Century, I would quote Mr. Hunter's paragraphs on the
+Poverty of the Modern English People. He says:
+
+  "A few years ago, England did not know the extent of her own
+  poverty. Economists and writers gave opinions of all kinds. Some
+  said conditions were 'bad,' others said such statements were
+  misleading; and here they were, tilting at each other, backward and
+  forward, in the most ponderous and serious way, until Mr. Booth, a
+  business man, undertook to get at the facts. _No one, even the most
+  radical economist, would have dared to have estimated the poverty of
+  London as extending to 30 per cent of the people_ (as it proved).
+  The extent of poverty--the number of underfed, underclothed in
+  insanitary houses--was greater than could reasonably have been
+  estimated."
+
+Some of the details of this investigation by Mr. Booth were so
+startling that some explanation had to be found. They could not deny,
+in the face of Mr. Booth's facts, but they set up the claim that the
+conditions in London were exceptional. Then Mr. Rountree made an
+investigation in York with precisely the same results. More than one
+in four of the population was in poverty. To quote Mr. Hunter once
+more:
+
+  "As has been said, it was not until Mr. Charles Booth published, in
+  1891, the results of his exhaustive inquiries that the actual
+  conditions of poverty in London became known. About 1,000,000
+  people, or about thirty per cent of the entire population of London,
+  were found to be unable to obtain the necessaries for a sound
+  livelihood. They were in a state of poverty, living in conditions,
+  if not of actual misery, at any rate bordering upon it. In many
+  districts, considerably more than half of the population were either
+  in distress or on the verge of distress. When these results were
+  made public, the more conservative economists gave it as their
+  opinion that the conditions in London were, of course, exceptional,
+  and that it would be unsafe to make any generalizations for the
+  whole of England on the basis of Mr. Booth's figures for London.
+  About ten years later, Mr. B. S. Rountree, incited by the work of
+  Mr. Booth, undertook a similar inquiry in his native town, York, a
+  small provincial city, in most ways typical of the smaller towns of
+  England. In a large volume in which the results are published, it is
+  shown that the poverty in York was only slightly less extensive than
+  that of London. In the summary, Mr. Rountree compares the conditions
+  of London with those of York. His comments are as follows: 'The
+  proportions arrived at for the total populations living in poverty
+  in London and York respectively were as under:
+
+    London--30.7 per cent
+    York--27.84 per cent
+
+{474}
+
+The proportion of the population living in poverty in York may be
+regarded as practically the same as in London, especially when we
+remember that Mr. Booth's information was gathered in 1887-1892, a
+period of only average trade prosperity, whilst the York figures were
+collected in 1899, when trade was unusually prosperous.'"
+
+He continues: "We have been accustomed to look upon the poverty in
+London as exceptional, but when the result of careful investigation
+shows that the proportion of poverty in London is practically equalled
+in what may be regarded as a typical provincial town, we are faced by
+the startling probability that from 25 to 30 per cent of the town
+populations of the United Kingdom are living in poverty."
+
+Most of us will be inclined to think that Mr. Rountree must
+exaggerate, and what he calls poverty most of us would doubtless be
+inclined to think a modest competency a little below respectability.
+He fixed the standard of twenty-one shillings eight pence ($5.25) a
+week as a necessary one for a family of ordinary size. He says:
+
+  "A family living upon the scale allowed for in this estimate, must
+  never spend a penny on railway fare or omnibus. They must never go
+  into the country unless they walk. They must never purchase a
+  half-penny newspaper or spend a penny to buy a ticket for a popular
+  concert. They must write no letters to absent children, for they
+  cannot afford to pay the postage. They must never contribute
+  anything to their church or chapel, nor give any help to a neighbor
+  which costs them money. They cannot save, nor can they join sick
+  club or trade union, because they cannot pay the necessary
+  subscription. The children must have no pocket money for dolls,
+  marbles or sweets. The father must smoke no tobacco nor drink no
+  beer. The mother must never buy any pretty clothes for herself or
+  for her children, the character for the family wardrobe, as for the
+  family diet, being governed by the regulation, 'Nothing must be
+  bought but that which is absolutely necessary for the maintenance of
+  physical health, and that which is bought must be of the plainest
+  and most economical description.' Should a child fall ill, it must
+  be attended by the family parish doctor; should it die, it must be
+  buried by the parish. Finally, the wage-earner must never be absent
+  from his work for a single day."
+
+_More than one in four of the population living below this scale!_
+
+Conditions are, if anything, worse on the Continent. In Germany,
+industry is at the best. Conditions in Berlin have been recently
+reported in the Daily Consular Reports by a U. S. Government official.
+Of the somewhat more than two millions of people who live in Berlin,
+1,125,000 have an income. Nearly one-half of the incomes, however, are
+exempt from taxation because they do not amount to the minimum taxable
+income, though that is only $214--$4 per week. Of the 600,000 who have
+taxable incomes, nearly 550,000 have less than $700 a year; that is,
+get about $2 a day or less. Less than sixty thousand out of the total
+population get more than $2 a day. It is easy to say, but hard to
+understand, that this is a living wage, because things are cheaper in
+Germany. Meat is, however, nearly twice as dear; sugar is twice as
+dear; bread is dearer than it is in this country; coffee is dearer;
+and only rent is somewhat cheaper.
+
+{475}
+
+It is easy to talk about the spread of comfort among the people of our
+generation and the raising of the standard of living, but if one
+compares these wages with the price of things as they are now, it is
+hard to understand on just what basis of fact the claim for betterment
+in our time, meaning more general comfort and happiness, is made.
+
+People always refuse to believe that conditions are as bad as they
+really are in these matters. Americans will at once have the feeling,
+on reading Mr. Hunter and Mr. Rountree's words and the account of the
+American Consul at Berlin, that this may be true for England and
+Germany, but that of course it is very different here in America. It
+is extremely doubtful whether it is very different here in America. In
+this matter, Mr. Hunter's opinion deserves weight. He has for years
+devoted himself to gathering information with regard to this subject.
+He seems to be sure that one in seven of our population is in poverty.
+Probably the number is higher than this. Here is his opinion:
+
+  "How many people in the country are in poverty? Is the number yearly
+  growing larger? Are there each year more and more of the unskilled
+  classes pursuing hopelessly the elusive phantom of self-support and
+  independence? Are they, as in a dream, working faster, only the more
+  swiftly to move backward? Are there each year more and more hungry
+  children and more and more fathers whose utmost effort may not bring
+  into the home as much energy in food as it takes out in industry?
+  These are not fanciful questions, nor are they sentimental ones. I
+  have not the slightest doubt that there are in the United States ten
+  million persons in precisely these conditions of poverty, but I am
+  largely guessing, and there may be as many as fifteen or twenty
+  millions!"
+
+Perhaps Mr. Hunter exaggerates. As a physician, I should be inclined
+to think not; but certainly his words and, above all, the English
+statistics will give any one pause who is sure, on general principles,
+that the great mass of the people are happier now or more comfortable,
+above all, in mind--the only real happiness--than they were in the
+Thirteenth Century. After due consideration of this kind, no one will
+insist on the comparative misery and suffering of the poor in old
+times. England had less than 3,000,000 in the Thirteenth Century, and
+probably there was never a time in her history when a greater majority
+of her people fulfilled Ruskin's and Morris' ideals of happy-hearted
+human beings. The two-handed worker got at least what the four-footed
+worker, in Carlyle's words, has always obtained, due food and lodging.
+England was not "a nation with sleek, well-fed English horses, and
+hungry, dissatisfied Englishmen."
+
+
+COMFORT AND HAPPINESS.
+
+There is another side to the question of comparative happiness that
+may be stated in the words of William Morris, when he says, in "Hopes
+and Fears for Art," that a Greek or a Roman of the luxurious time (and
+of course _a fortiori_ a medieval of the Thirteenth Century) would
+{476} stare astonished could he be brought back again and shown the
+comforts of a well-to-do middle-class house. This expression is often
+re-echoed, and one is prone to wonder how many of those who use it
+realize that it is a quotation, and, above all, appreciate the fact
+that Morris made the statement in order to rebut it. His answer is in
+certain ways so complete that it deserves to be quoted.
+
+  "When you hear of the luxuries of the Ancients, you must remember
+  that they were not like our luxuries, they were rather indulgence in
+  pieces of extravagant folly than what we to-day call luxury--which,
+  perhaps, you would rather call comfort; well, I accept the word, and
+  say that a Greek or a Roman of the luxurious time would stare
+  astonished could he be brought back again and shown the comforts of
+  a well-to-do middle-class house.
+
+  "But some, I know, think that the attainment of these very comforts
+  is what makes the difference between civilization and
+  uncivilization--that they are the essence of civilization. Is it so
+  indeed? Farewell my hope then! I had thought that civilization meant
+  the attainment of peace and order and freedom, of good-will between
+  man and man, of the love of truth and the hatred of injustice, and
+  by consequence the attainment of the good life which these things
+  breed, a life free from craven fear, but full of incident; that was
+  what I thought it meant, not more stuffed chairs and more cushions,
+  and more carpets and gas, and more dainty meat and drink--and
+  therewithal more and sharper differences between class and class.
+
+  "If that be what it is, I for my part wish I were well out of it and
+  living in a tent in the Persian desert, or a turf hut on the Iceland
+  hillside. But, however it be, and I think my view is the true view,
+  I tell you that art abhors that side of civilization; she cannot
+  breath in the houses that lie under its stuffy slavery.
+
+  "Believe me, if we want art to begin at home, as it must, we must
+  clear our houses of troublesome superfluities that are forever in
+  our way, conventional comforts that are no real comforts, and do but
+  make work for servants and doctors. If you want a golden rule that
+  will fit everybody, this is it: 'Have nothing in your houses that
+  you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.'"
+
+
+COMFORT AND HEALTH.
+
+A comment on William Morris's significant paragraphs may be summed up
+in some reflections on the scornful expression of a friend who asked,
+how is it possible to talk of happiness at a time when there were no
+glass in windows and no heating apparatus except the open fireplace in
+the great hall of the larger houses, or in the kitchen of the dwelling
+houses. To this there is the ready answer that, in the modern time, we
+have gone so far to the opposite extreme as to work serious harm to
+health. When a city dweller develops tuberculosis, his physician now
+sends him out to the mountains, asks him to sleep with his window wide
+open, and requires him to spend just as much of his time as possible
+in the open air, even with the temperature below zero. In our
+hospitals, the fad for making patients comfortable by artificial heat
+is passing, and that of stimulating them by cold, fresh air is gaining
+ground. We know that, for all the fevers and all the respiratory {477}
+diseases this brings about a notable reduction in the mortality.
+Surely, what is good for the ailing must be even better to keep them
+well from disease. Many a physician now arranges to sleep out of doors
+all winter. Certainly all the respiratory diseases are rendered much
+more fatal and modern liability to them greatly increased by our
+shut-up houses. The medieval people were less comfortable, from a
+sensual standpoint, but the healthy glow and reaction after cold
+probably made them enjoy life better than we do in our steam-heated
+houses. They secured bodily warmth by an active circulation of their
+blood. We secure it by the circulation of hot water or steam in our
+houses. Ours may be the better way, but the question is not yet
+absolutely decided. A physician friend points to the great reduction
+in the death-rate in modern times, and insists that this, of course,
+means definite progress. Even this is not quite so sure as is often
+thought. We are saving a great many lives that heretofore, in the
+course of nature, under conditions requiring a more vigorous life,
+passed out of existence early. It is doubtful, however, whether this
+is an advantage for the race, since our insane asylums, our hospitals
+for incurables and our homes of various kinds now have inmates in much
+greater proportion to the population than ever before in history.
+These are mainly individuals of lower resistive vitality, who would
+have been allowed to get out of existence early, save themselves and
+their friends from useless suffering, and whose presence in life does
+not add greatly if at all to the possibilities of human
+accomplishment. Our reduced death-rate is, because of comfort seeking,
+more than counterbalanced by a reduced birth-rate, so that no
+advantage is reaped for the race in the end. These reflections, of
+course, are only meant to suggest how important it is to view such
+questions from all sides before being sure that they represent
+definite progress for humanity. Progress is much more elusive than is
+ordinarily thought, and is never the simple, unmistakable movement of
+advance it is often thought.
+
+
+HYGIENE.
+
+The objection that medical friends have had to the claims of The
+Thirteenth as the Greatest of Centuries is that it failed to pay any
+attention to hygiene. Here, once more, we have a presumption that is
+not founded on real knowledge of the time. It is rather easy to show
+that these generations were anticipating many of our solutions of
+hygienic problems quite as well as our solutions of other social and
+intellectual difficulties. In the sketch of Pope John XXI., the
+physician who became Pope during the second half of the Thirteenth
+Century, which was published in Ophthalmology, a quarterly review of
+eye diseases (Jan., 1909), because Pope John wrote a little book on
+this subject which has many valuable anticipations of modern
+knowledge, I called attention to the fact that, while a physician and
+professor of {478} medicine at the medical school of the University of
+Sienna, this Pope, then known as Peter of Spain, had made some
+contributions to sanitary science. Later he was appointed Archiater,
+that is, Physician in charge of the City of Rome. As pointed out in
+the sketch of him as enlarged for the volume containing a second
+series of Catholic Churchmen in Science (The Dolphin Press, Phila.,
+1909), he seems to have been particularly interested in popular
+health, for we have a little book, Thesaurus Pauperum--The Treasure of
+the Poor--which contains many directions for the maintenance of health
+and the treatment of disease by those who are too poor to secure
+physicians' advice. The fact that the head of the Bureau of Health in
+Rome should have been made Pope in the Thirteenth Century, itself
+speaks volumes for the awakening of the educated classes at least to
+the value of hygiene and sanitation.
+
+Their attention to hygiene can be best shown by a consideration of the
+hospitals. Ordinarily it is assumed that the hospitals provided a roof
+for the sick and the injured, but scarcely more. Most physicians will
+probably be quite sure that they were rather hot-beds of disease than
+real blessings to the ailing. That is not what we find when we study
+them carefully. These generations gave us a precious lesson by
+eradicating leprosy, which was quite as general as tuberculosis is
+now, and they made special hospitals for erysipelas, which materially
+lessened the diffusion of that disease. In rewriting the chapter on
+The Foundation of City Hospitals for my book, The Popes and Science
+(Fordham University Press, N. Y., 1908), I incorporated into it a
+description of the hospital erected at Tanierre, in France, in 1293,
+by Marguerite of Bourgogne, the sister of St. Louis. Of this hospital
+Mr. Arthur Dillon, from the standpoint of the modern architect, says:
+
+  "It was an admirable hospital in every way, and it is doubtful if we
+  to-day surpass it. It was isolated, the ward was separated from the
+  other buildings; it had the advantage we often lose, of being but
+  one story high, and more space was given to each patient than we now
+  afford.
+
+  "The ventilation by the great windows and ventilators in the ceiling
+  was excellent; it was cheerfully lighted, and the arrangement of the
+  gallery shielded the patients from dazzling light and from draughts
+  from the windows, and afforded an easy means of supervision, while
+  the division by the roofless, low partitions isolated the sick and
+  obviated the depression that comes from the sight of others in pain.
+
+  "It was, moreover, in great contrast to the cheerless white wards of
+  to-day. The vaulted ceiling was very beautiful; the woodwork was
+  richly carved, and the great windows over the altars were filled
+  with colored glass. Altogether, it was one of the best examples of
+  the best period of Gothic architecture."
+
+In their individual Hygiene there was, of course, much to be desired
+among the people of the Thirteenth Century, and it has been declared
+that the history of Europe from the fifth to the fifteenth century
+might, from the hygienic standpoint, he summed up as a thousand years
+without a bath. The more we know about this period, however, the less
+of {479} point do we find in the epigram. Mr. Cram, in the Ruined
+Abbeys of Great Britain (Pott & Co., N. Y., 1907), has described
+wonderful arrangements within the monasteries (!) for the conduction
+of water from long distances for all toilet purposes. There was much
+more attention to sanitary details than we have been prone to think.
+Mr. Cram, in describing what was by no means one of the greatest of
+the English abbeys of the Thirteenth Century, says:
+
+  "Here at Beaulieu the water was brought by an underground conduit
+  from an unfailing spring a mile away, and this served for drinking,
+  washing and bathing, the supply of the fish ponds, and for a
+  constant flushing of the elaborate system of drainage. In sanitary
+  matters, the monks were as far in advance of the rest of society as
+  they were in learning and agriculture."
+
+
+WAGES AND THE CONDITION OP WORKING PEOPLE.
+
+What every reader of the Thirteenth Century seems to be perfectly sure
+of is that, whatever else there may have been in this precious time,
+at least the workmen were not well paid and men worked practically for
+nothing. It is confessed that, of course, working as they did on their
+cathedrals, they had a right to work for very little if they wished,
+but at least there has been a decided step upward in evolution in the
+gradual raising of wages, until at last the workman is beginning to be
+paid some adequate compensation. There is probably no phase of the
+life of the Middle Ages with regard to which people are more mistaken
+than this supposition that the workmen of this early time were paid
+inadequately. I have already called attention to the fact that the
+workmen of this period claimed and obtained "the three eights"--eight
+hours of work, eight hours of sleep and eight hours for recreation and
+bodily necessities. They obtained the Saturday half-holiday, and also
+release from work on the vigils of all feast days, and there were
+nearly forty of these in the year. After the vesper hour, that is,
+three in Summer and two in Winter, there was no work on the Eves of
+Holy-days of Obligation. With regard to wages, there is just one way
+to get at the subject, and that is, to present the legal table of
+wages enacted by Parliament, placing beside it the legal maximum price
+of necessities of life, as also determined by Parliamentary enactment.
+
+An Act of Edward III. fixes the wages, without food, as follows. There
+are many other things mentioned, but the following will be enough for
+our purpose:
+
+[Price in Shillings and Pence; s. d.]  s.  d.
+
+A woman hay-making, or weeding corn for the day--0 1
+
+A man filling dung-cart--0  3-1/2
+
+A reaper--0 4
+
+Mowing an acre of grass--0 4
+
+Threshing a quarter of wheat--0 4
+
+{480}
+
+The price of shoes, cloth and provisions, throughout the time that
+this law continued in force, was as follows:
+
+[Price in Pounds, Shillings and Pence; s. d.] L. s. d.
+
+A pair of shoes--0  0 4
+
+Russet broadcloth, the yard--0 1 1
+
+A stall fed ox--1 4  0
+
+A grass fed ox--0 16  0
+
+A fat sheep unshorn--0 1 8
+
+A fat sheep shorn--0 1 2
+
+A fat hog two years old--0 3 4
+
+A fat goose--0  0  2-1/2.
+
+Ale, the gallon, by proclamation--0  0  1
+
+Wheat, the quarter--0  3  4
+
+White wine, the gallon--0  0  6
+
+Red wine--0  0  4
+
+An Act of Parliament of the fourteenth century, in fixing the price of
+meat, names the four sorts of meat--beef, pork, mutton and veal, and
+sets forth in its preamble the words, "these being the food of the
+poorer sort." The poor in England do not eat these kinds of meat now,
+and the investigators of the poverty of the country declare that most
+of the poor live almost exclusively on bread. The fact of the matter
+is, that large city populations are likely to harbor many very
+miserable people, while the rural population of England in the Middle
+Ages, containing the bulk of the people, were happy-hearted and merry.
+When we recall this in connection with what I have given in the text
+with regard to the trades-unions and their care for the people, the
+foolish notion, founded on a mere assumption and due to that
+Aristophanic joke, our complacent self-sufficiency, which makes us so
+ready to believe that our generation _must_ be better off than others
+were, vanishes completely.
+
+It is easy to understand that beef, pork, mutton, veal and even
+poultry were the food of the poor, when a workman could earn the price
+of a sheep in less than four days or buy nearly two fat geese for his
+day's wages. A day laborer will work from forty to fifty days now to
+earn the price of an ox on the hoof, and it was about the same at the
+close of the Thirteenth Century. When a fat hog costs less than a
+dollar, a man's wages, at eight cents a day, are not too low. When a
+gallon of good ale can be obtained for two cents, no workman is likely
+to go dry. When a gallon of red wine can be obtained for a day's
+wages, it is hard to see any difference between a workman of the olden
+time and the present in this regard. Two yards of cloth made a coat
+for a gentleman and cost only a little over two shillings. The making
+of it brought the price of it up to two shilling and six pence. These
+prices are taken from the Preciosum of Bishop Fleetwood, who took them
+from the accounts kept by the bursars of convents. Fleetwood's book is
+accepted very generally as an excellent authority in the history of
+economics.
+
+{481}
+
+Cobbett, in his History of the Protestant Reformation, has made an
+exhaustive study of just this question of the material and economic
+condition of the people of England before and since the reformation.
+He says:
+
+  "These things prove, beyond all dispute, that England was, in
+  Catholic times, a real wealthy country; that wealth was generally
+  diffused; that every part of the country abounded in men of solid
+  property; and that, of course, there were always great resources at
+  hand in cases of emergency." ... "In short, everything shows that
+  England was then a country abounding in men of real wealth."
+
+Fortesque, the Lord High Chancellor of England under Henry VI., king a
+century after the Thirteenth, has this to say with regard to the legal
+and economic conditions in England in his time. Some people may think
+the picture he gives an exaggeration, but it was written by a great
+lawyer with the definite idea of giving a picture of the times, and,
+under ordinary circumstances, we would say that there could be no
+better authority.
+
+  "The King of England cannot alter the laws, or make new ones,
+  without the express consent of the whole kingdom in Parliament
+  assembled. Every inhabitant is at his liberty fully to use and enjoy
+  whatever his farm produceth, the fruits of the earth, the increase
+  of his flock and the like--all the improvements he makes, whether by
+  his own proper industry or of those he retains in his service, are
+  his own, to use and enjoy, without the let, interruption or denial
+  of any. If he be in any wise injured or oppressed, he shall have his
+  amends and satisfactions against the party offending. Hence it is
+  that the inhabitants are rich in gold, silver, and in all the
+  necessaries and conveniences of life. They drink no water unless at
+  certain times, upon a religious score, and by way of doing penance.
+  They are fed in great abundance, with all sorts of flesh and fish,
+  of which they have plenty everywhere; they are clothed throughout in
+  good woollens, their bedding and other furniture in the house are of
+  wool, and that in great store. They are also well provided with all
+  sorts of household goods and necessary implements for husbandry.
+  Every one, according to his rank, hath all things which conduce to
+  make mind and life easy and happy."
+
+
+INTEREST AND LOANS.
+
+A number of commercial friends have been interested in the wonderful
+story of business organizations traced in the chapter on Great
+Beginnings of Modern Commerce. They have all been sure, however, that
+it is quite idle to talk of great commercial possibilities at a time
+when ecclesiastical regulations forbade the taking of interest. This
+would seem to make it quite impossible that great commercial
+transactions could be carried on, yet somehow these people succeeded
+in accomplishing them. A number of writers on economics in recent
+years have suggested that possibly one solution of the danger to
+government and popular rights from the accumulation of large fortunes
+might be avoided by a return to the system of prohibition of interest
+taking. There is {482} much more in that proposition than might
+possibly be thought by those who are unfamiliar with it from serious
+consideration. They did succeed in getting on without it in the
+Thirteenth Century, and at the same time they solved the other problem
+of providing loans, not alone for business people, but for all those
+who might need them. We are solving the "loan shark" evil at the
+present time in nearly the same way that they solved it seven
+centuries ago. Abbot Gasquet, in his "Parish Life in England Before
+the Reformation," describes the methods of the early days as follows:
+
+  "The parish wardens had their duties towards the poorer members of
+  the district. In more than one instance they were guardians of the
+  common chest, out of which temporary loans could be obtained by
+  needy parishioners, to tide over persons in difficulties. These
+  loans were secured by pledges and the additional security of other
+  parishioners. No interest was charged for the use of the money, and
+  in case the pledge had to be sold, everything over and above the sum
+  lent was returned to the borrower."
+
+
+THE EIGHTEENTH
+LOWEST OF CENTURIES.
+
+There is no doubt that the nineteenth century, and especially the
+latter half of it, saw some very satisfactory progress over
+immediately preceding times. With the recognition of this fact, that
+the last century so far surpassed its predecessor there has been a
+tendency to assume, because evolution occupies men's minds, that the
+eighteenth must have quite as far surpassed the seventeenth, and the
+seventeenth the sixteenth, and so on, so that of course we are far
+ahead in everything of the despised Middle Ages. In recent years,
+indeed, we have dropped the attitude of blaming the earlier ages, for
+one of complacent pity that they were not born soon enough, and,
+therefore, could not enjoy our advantages. Unfortunately for any such
+conclusion as this, the term of comparison nearest to us, the
+eighteenth century is without doubt the lowest hundred years in human
+accomplishment, at least during the past seven centuries.
+
+This is true for every form of human endeavor and every phase of human
+existence. Prof. Goodyear, of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and
+Science, the well-known author of a series of books on art and
+history, in one of the chapters of his Handbook on Renaissance and
+Modern Art (New York, The McMillan Co.), in describing the Greek
+revival of the latter part of the eighteenth century says: "According
+to our accounts so far throughout this whole book, either of
+architecture, painting, or sculpture, it will appear that the earlier
+nineteenth century represents the foot of a hill, whose gradual
+descent began about 1530." As a matter of fact, in every department of
+artistic expression the taste of the eighteenth century was almost the
+worst possible. The monuments that we have from that time, in the
+shape of churches and municipal buildings, are few, but such as they
+are, they are the least {483} worthy of imitation, and the art ideas
+they represent are most to be deprecated of any in the whole history
+of modern art.
+
+Perhaps the most awful arraignment of the eighteenth and early
+nineteenth century that was ever made is that of Mr. Cram, in the
+Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain, from which I have already quoted. He
+calls attention to the fact that, during this century, some of the
+most beautiful sculptured work that ever came from the hand of man was
+torn out of the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, York, to serve no better
+purpose than to make lime. His description of the sculpture of the
+Abbey will give some idea of its beauty and render all the more
+poignant the loss that was thus inflicted on art. He says:
+
+  "Most wonderful of all amongst a horde of smaller statues, a
+  mutilated fragment of a statue of Our Lady and the Holy Child, so
+  consummate in its faultless art that it deserves a place with the
+  masterpieces of sculpture of every age and race. Here in this dim
+  and scanty undercraft is an epitome of the English art of four
+  centuries, precious and beautiful beyond the power of words to
+  describe.
+
+  "York Abbey was a national monument, the aesthetic and historic
+  value of which was beyond computation. It is with feelings of horror
+  and unutterable dismay that, as we stand beside the few existing
+  fragments, realizing the irreparable loss they make so clear, we
+  call into mind Henry's sacrilege in the sixteenth century, and his
+  silly palace doomed to instant destruction, and the crass ignorance
+  and stolidity of the eighteenth century with its grants of building
+  material, and the mercenary savagery of the nineteenth century when,
+  from smoking lime kilns rose into the air the vanishing ghosts of
+  the noblest creations that owed their existence to man.
+
+  "Nothing is sadder to realize than the failure of appreciation for
+  art of the early nineteenth and the eighteenth century. Men had
+  lost, apparently, all proper realization of the value of artistic
+  effort and achievement. It was an era of travel and commerce and,
+  unfortunately, of industrial development. As a consequence, in many
+  parts of Europe, and especially of England, art remains of
+  inestimable value suffered at the hands of utilitarians who found
+  them of use in their enterprises. We are accustomed to rail against
+  the barbarians and the Turks for their failure to appreciate the
+  remains of Latin and Greek art and for their wanton destruction of
+  them, but what shall we say of modern Englishmen, who quite as
+  ruthlessly destroyed objects of art of equal value at least with
+  Roman and Greek, while the great body of the nation made no
+  complaint, and no protest was heard anywhere in the kingdom."
+
+What is so true of the arts is, as might be reasonably expected, quite
+as true of other phases of intellectual development. Education, for
+instance, is at the lowest ebb that it has reached since the
+foundation of the Universities at the end of the twelfth century. In
+Germany, there was only one university, that of Goettingen, in which
+there was a professorship of Greek. When Winckelmann introduced the
+study of Greek into his school at Seehausen, no school-books for this
+language were available, and he was obliged to write out texts for his
+students. What was the case in Germany was also true, to a great {484}
+degree, of the rest of Europe. Leading French critics ridiculed the
+Greek authors. Homer was considered a ballad singer and compared to
+the street singers of Paris. Voltaire thought that the AEneid of
+Virgil was superior to all that the Greek writers had ever done. No
+edition of Plato had been published in Europe since the end of the
+sixteenth century. Other Greek authors were almost as much neglected,
+and of true scholarship there was very little. When Cardinal Newman,
+in his Idea of a University, wants to find the lowest possible term of
+comparison for the intellectual life of the university, he takes the
+English universities of the middle of the eighteenth century.
+
+With this neglect of education, and above all of the influence that
+Greek has always had in chastening and perfecting taste, it is not
+surprising that literature was in every country of Europe at a very
+low ebb. It was not so feeble as art, but the two are interdependent,
+much more than is usually thought. Only France has anything to show in
+literature that has had an enduring influence in the subsequent
+centuries. When we compare the French literature of the eighteenth
+with that of the seventeenth century, however, it is easy to see how
+much of a descent there has been from Corneille, Racine, Moliere,
+Boileau, La Fontaine, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Fenelon to Voltaire,
+Marivaux, Lesage, Diderot, and Bernardin de St. Pierre. This same
+decadence of literature can be noted even more strikingly in England,
+in Spain, and in Italy. The seventeenth, especially the first half of
+it, saw the origin of some of the greatest works of modern literature.
+The eighteenth century produced practically nothing that was to live
+and be a vital force in aftertimes.
+
+What is true in art, letters and education is, above all, true in what
+men did for liberty and for their fellow-men. Hospital organization
+and the care of the ailing was at its lowest ebb during the eighteenth
+century.  Jacobson, the German historian of the hospitals, says:
+[Footnote 36]
+
+    [Footnote 36: Beitraege zur Geschichte des Krankencomforts.
+    Deutsche Krankenpflege Zeitung, 1898, in 4 parts.]
+
+  "It is a remarkable fact that attention to the well-being of the
+  sick, improvements in hospitals and institutions generally and to
+  details of nursing care, had a period of complete and lasting
+  stagnation after the middle of the seventeenth century, or from the
+  close of the Thirty Years' War. Neither officials nor physicians
+  took any interest in the elevation of nursing or improving the
+  conditions of hospitals. During the first two-thirds of the
+  eighteenth century, nothing was done to bring either construction or
+  nursing to a better state. Solely among the religious orders did
+  nursing remain an interest, and some remnants of technique survive.
+  The result was that, in this period, the general level of nursing
+  fell far below that of earlier periods. The hospitals of cities were
+  like prisons, with bare, undecorated walls and little dark rooms,
+  small windows where no sun could enter, and dismal wards where fifty
+  or one hundred patients were crowded together, deprived of all
+  comforts and even of necessaries. In the municipal and state
+  institutions of this period, the beautiful gardens, roomy halls, and
+  {485} springs of water of the old cloister hospital of the Middle
+  Ages were not heard of, still less the comforts of their friendly
+  interiors."
+
+As might be expected, with the hospitals so badly organized, the art
+of nursing was in a decay that is almost unutterable. Miss Nutting, of
+Johns Hopkins Hospital, the Superintendent of Nurses, and Miss Dock,
+the Secretary of the International Council of Nurses, have in their
+History of Nursing a chapter on the Dark Period of Nursing, in which
+the decadence of the eighteenth century, in what regards the training
+of nurses for the intelligent care of the sick, is brought out very
+clearly. They say:   [Footnote 37]
+
+    [Footnote 37: A History of Nursing, by M. Adelaide Nutting and
+    Lavinia L. Dock, in two volumes, illustrated. G. P. Putnam's Sons,
+    New York, 1907.]
+
+  "It is commonly agreed that the darkest known period in the history
+  of nursing was that from the latter part of the seventeenth up to
+  the middle of the nineteenth century. During the time, the condition
+  of the nursing art, the well-being of the patient, and the status of
+  the nurse, all sank to an indescribable level of degradation."
+
+Taine, in his History of the Old Regime of France, has told the awful
+story of the attitude of the so-called better classes toward the poor.
+While conditions were at their worst in France, every country in
+Europe saw something of the same thing. In certain parts of Germany
+conditions were, if possible, worse. It is no wonder that the French
+Revolution came at the end of the eighteenth century, and that a
+series of further revolutions during the nineteenth century were
+required to win back some of the rights which men had gained for
+themselves in earlier centuries and then lost, sinking into a state of
+decadence out of which we are only emerging, though in most countries
+we have not reached quite the level of human liberty and, above all,
+of Christian democracy that our forefathers had secured seven
+centuries ago.
+
+With these considerations in mind, it is easier to understand how men
+in the later nineteenth century and beginning twentieth century are
+prone to think of their periods as representing an acme in the course
+of progress. There is no doubt that we are far above the eighteenth
+century. That, however, was a deep valley in human accomplishment,
+indeed, a veritable slough of despond, out of which we climbed; and,
+looking back, are prone to think how fortunate we are in having
+ascended so high, though beyond our vision on the other side of the
+valley the hills rise much higher into the clouds of human aspiration
+and artistic excellence than anything that we have attained as yet.
+Indeed, whenever we try to do serious work at the present time, we
+confessedly go back from four to seven centuries for the models that
+we must follow. With Renaissance art and Gothic architecture and the
+literature before the end of the sixteenth century cut out of our
+purview, we would have nothing to look to for models. This phase of
+history needs to be recalled by all those who would approach with
+equanimity the consideration of The Thirteenth as the Greatest of
+Centuries.
+
+{486}
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+A.
+
+Abbey schools, 26;
+  of St. Victor, 150
+Aberration of light, 44
+Abingdon, Edmund of, 327
+Adam of St. Victor, 204
+Age of Students, 25-63
+Albertus Magnus, 46
+Alchemies, 93
+Alfonso the Wise, 2
+Aliens' rights, 358
+Allbutt, Prof., 83
+Amiens, 105
+Andrew II, Golden Bull, 369
+Angel Choir, 13, 108
+Angelo on Dante, 305
+Anselm, 80
+Antipodes, 50, 392
+Ants in Dante, 314
+Appreciation of art, 146
+Aquinas, 38;
+  and Albertus, 271;
+  appreciation of, 283;
+  capacity for work, 286;
+  education, 270;
+  on Existence of God, 276;
+  on liberty and society, 279;
+  at Paris, 272;
+  as a poet, 287;
+  and Pope Leo XIII, 374;
+  on Resurrection, 278;
+  tributes to, 281
+
+Arbitration, 382
+Arena Padua, 144
+Arezzo, 23
+Arnaud, Daniel, 189
+Arnaud de Marveil, 189
+Arnold, Matthew, and Francis, 256
+Art and the Friars, 139
+Artemus Ward, 52
+Arts and Crafts, 124
+Arthur Legends, 10, 173
+Arundel, Countess of, 320
+Asbestos, 398
+Ascoli, Cope, 14, 134
+Assisi, 144
+Assizes of Clarendon, 351;
+  of Jerusalem, 365
+Avignon, 24
+
+
+B.
+
+Bacon, 41
+Barbarossa, 1
+Barbizon School, 145
+Basil Valentine, 94
+Bateson, Miss, 328
+Beau Dieu, 13
+Beautiful God, 105
+Beauty and usefulness, 113
+Beauvoisis, Statutes of, 365
+Bell-making, 133
+Beowulf, 180
+Berrengaria, Queen, 320
+Bernardo del Carpio, 170
+Bernart de Ventadorn, 183
+Bernard of Cluny, or Morlaix, 205
+Bertrand de Born, 191
+Bestiarium, 164
+Bible study, 234, 252
+Blanche of Castile, 289, 320;
+  as a mother, 326;
+  as a ruler, 326
+Blessed work, 125
+Boileau, Stephen, 365
+Boniface VII and American Revolution, 374
+Books, beautiful, 150;
+  bequests, 155;
+  collecting, 154, 157;
+  great stone, 115
+Booklovers, 155
+Book-learning, 129
+Book of Arts, Deeds, Words, 5
+Borgo Allegri, 141
+Botany, 149
+Bracton, 361
+Bracton's digest, 15, 82
+Bremen, 420
+Brook farm, 264
+
+
+C.
+
+Cahors, 34
+Calendar, 43
+Calvi, College of, 26
+Capital, English, created, 357
+Canon law, codified, 370
+Canticle of Sun, 258
+Carlyle,
+  Minnesong, 183;
+  Nibelungen, 178
+Case histories, 84
+Casimir the Great, 369
+Caspian not a gulf, 406
+Castles and armories, 120
+Catalogues of libraries, 151
+Cathedral Symbolism, 118
+Cavalcanti, 10
+Celano, 197
+Chalices, 113
+Charity organizations, 27, 345
+Chartres, glass, 14;
+  windows, 111
+Chauliac, 92
+Chemistry, 46;
+  not forbidden, 93
+Chester cycle, 240, 242
+Chrestien de Troyes, 175
+Chronicles, 224
+Cid, El, 9
+Cimabue, 2, 12, 140
+Cino da Pistoia, 10
+Circulating libraries, 149
+Clare, St., and St. Francis, 322
+Clare, St., 320;
+  character, 321;
+  happiness, 322;
+  life, 320
+Clarendon assizes, 351;
+  constitutions, 351
+Clerics at the universities, 71
+Cloisters, Lateran, 121;
+  St. Paul's, Rome, 121
+Coal, 397
+Code of Hammurabi, 3
+Coeducation, 330
+Colleges, Origin of, 29
+Cologne, 420
+Common Law, 361
+Commentaries on Law, 371
+Common pleas, 35
+Comparative university attendance, 61
+Compayre, 67
+Complaints of books, 158
+Composition of matter, 38
+Condorcet, 34
+Conrad of Kirchberg, 188
+Conservation of energy, 39
+Cope of Ascoli, 115
+Corrections, Optical, 131
+
+{487}
+
+Cost of books, 156
+Crusades and democracy, 389;
+  Greene, on, 389;
+  Storrs on, 388;
+  Stubbs on, 298
+Curtain lectures, 331
+
+
+D.
+
+Dante da Maiano, 10
+Dante and children, 313;
+  and Milton, 315;
+  and Virgil, 316;
+  education, 300;
+  in America, 311;
+  in England, 305;
+  in Germany, 309;
+  in Italy, 304;
+  not alone, 300;
+  power of observation, 313;
+  present estimation, 317;
+  sonnets, 302;
+  troubadour, 303;
+  universality, 301
+
+Dante-Gesellschaft, 310
+Dean Church's Dante, 306
+Decay of Philosophy, 282
+Declaration of Independence, Swiss, 377
+Degrees, 36
+De Maistre, 66
+Democracy and the Crusades, 388;
+  guilds, 378
+Denifle, 35
+De Roo on pre-Columbian America, 400
+Dialectics, 33
+Dies Irae, Admirers of, 199;
+  supreme, 197
+Dietmar von Eist, 186
+Digest of common law, 361
+Discipline at universities, 73;
+  and democracy, 76
+Disease segregation, 343
+Dissection not forbidden, 91
+Dominicans and art, 139;
+  and books, 156
+St. Dominic, 266;
+  and St. Francis, 267
+Donatus, Deposition for ignorance of, 30
+Drama and St. Francis, 238
+Durandus, 117, 234
+
+
+E.
+
+Education, classes, 7;
+  masses, 8;
+  popular, 129;
+  of women, four periods, 331
+Edward I, 2, 361
+Edward VI and charity, 340;
+  education, 386
+El Cid, 169;
+  battle scene, 170;
+  daughters' innocence, 172;
+  marriage, 171;
+  single author, 169
+Emulation of workers, 125
+Encyclopedia, 231
+Enforcement of law, 366
+English democracy, 378
+Enterprise, commercial, 421
+Epic poetry, 167
+Equality of women, 324, 389
+Erysipelas segregated, 344
+Evelyn's diary, 131
+Evolution and man, 3
+Experiment, 44
+Explosives, 42
+Exultet, 207
+
+
+F.
+
+Fehmic Courts, 368
+Felix of Valois, 347
+Feminine education, 330;
+  four periods, 331
+  reasons for decline, 333
+Ferguson, 97
+Francis, St., great disciples, 263;
+  in drama, 239;
+  influence still, 266;
+  life, 259;
+  literary man, 255;
+  modern interest in, 261;
+  Ruskin on, 260;
+  second order, 265;
+  third order, 265;
+  troubadour, 255
+Franciscans and Art, 139;
+  explorers, 394
+Fraternal insurance, 382
+Fraternity, initiations, 425
+Frederick II, 2
+Freedom, development of, 375
+Free cities, 377;
+  schools, 385
+Freemen's rights, 358
+Friars, 267;
+  Green's tribute to, 268;
+  explorers, 409
+Froude, 97;
+  on Reynard, 211
+Furniture, 122
+Finsen anticipated, 89
+Five Sisters, York, 14, 110
+Founder of Hospitals, 337
+
+
+G.
+
+Gaddi, 2, 142
+Galsang Gombeyev, 402
+Geography, 50
+German Guild-hall, London, 421
+Gerontius' dream, 308
+Gild merchant, 383
+Giotto, 2, 12, 142;
+  appreciation of, 145;
+  immense work, 146
+Giotto's tower, 122
+Gladstone and Richard de Bury, 160
+Glosses, Law, 371
+Goethe's Reynard, 213
+Goerres, 255
+Gohier, Urbain, 379
+Golden Bull, 369
+Golden Legend, 213
+Goodyear, 131
+Gothic, development, 102;
+  English, 100;
+  French, North German, 167;
+  Sculpture, 105-107;
+  Spanish, 100;
+  varieties, 12, 100, 167
+Grail Legends, 174
+Gratian, 81
+Gray, 32
+Green on Matthew Paris, 229
+Greatness of an epoch, 6
+Gregorian chant, 207
+Grotesque in Dante, 309
+Grounds of ignorance, 41
+Guido de Montpelier, 338
+Guido, 142
+Guilds, 132;
+  and the drama, 136;
+  and democracy, 378;
+  Boston, 382;
+  London, 382;
+  number, 381;
+  rules, 38;
+  list of, 245
+
+
+H.
+
+Hamburg, 420
+Hamilton, 34
+Hammurabi, 4
+Hansa Alamanniae, 422;
+  and Denmark, 419;
+  geese cackle, 419;
+  obscurity of origin, 416
+Harper, 52
+Hartman von Aue, 186
+Hayton, 412
+Healing by first intention, 85
+Herodotus and Marco Polo, 396
+History, so-called, 127, appendix
+Hollandus, 94
+
+{488}
+
+Homer, 3
+Hospitals, earliest, 337;
+  England, 339
+Hotel Dieu, 339;
+  endowment, 339
+Human life, value, 367
+Human rights, 366
+Humboldt on Dante, 311-315
+Humboldt, 47
+Humor in mystery plays, 241
+Humphreys, 162
+Huysmans, 120
+Hymns often heard, 195;
+  and languages, 203;
+  seven greatest, 199
+
+
+I.
+
+Ignorance and servitude, 127
+Illuminated books, 162
+Indestructibility of matter, 39
+International court, 424;
+  comity, 428;
+  fraternity, 391
+Irnerius, 18, 81
+Iron work, 114
+
+
+J.
+
+Jenghis Khan, 2
+Jerusalem the Golden, 205
+Jessopp, Rev. Augustus, 133
+Job, 3
+Jocelyn of Brakelond, 226;
+  and Boswell, 227;
+  selection, 227
+John of Carpini, 400
+John of Matha, 347
+John of Monte Corvino, 410-412
+Joinville and the poor, 297;
+  selection, 228
+Journeymen, 135
+Justinian, English, 363
+
+
+K.
+
+Kenilworth, 121
+Kidney disease, 84
+
+
+L.
+
+Lafenestre, 138-144
+Lamentations, 207
+Lanfranc, 37, 83
+Lancelot, 175
+Lateran, Council of, 28
+Laurie, 59, 63, 65, 76
+Law, Canon, 370;
+  French, 364;
+  German, 368;
+  Glosses, 371;
+  Hungarian, 369;
+  Polish, 369;
+  Spanish, 15
+
+Lea, Henry C, 60
+League, Lombard, 417
+Legenda Aurea, 213
+Lending of books, 152
+Lending of professors, 56
+Leo XIII, 81
+Lepers, Louis IX and, 297
+Leprosy eradicated, 343
+Lerida, 24
+Lhasa entered, 410
+Liberties and customs, 360;
+  English, 358;
+  Hungary and Poland, 369
+Library of La Ste. Chapelle, 152;
+  circulating, 152, 165;
+  of Hotel Dieu, 153;
+  of the Sorbonne, 153
+Lincoln, 96
+Lingard, 61
+Literature for women, 334
+Lodge, Sir Oliver, 40
+Longfellow, 209;
+  Dante, 311
+Louis IX, 289;
+  books, 164;
+  charity, 296;
+  crusades, 298;
+  education, 291;
+  father, 290-294;
+  husband, 289;
+  justice, 293, 294;
+  law, 365;
+  monks, 295;
+  son, 289
+
+Lowell on Dante, 311
+Luebeck punished, 418;
+  laws, 422
+Lully, 57
+Lunar rainbows, 48
+
+
+M.
+
+Mabel Rich, 327
+MacCarthy, 201
+Magna Charta, 1, 350;
+  development of, 353;
+  excerpts, 352, et seq.
+Malory, 175
+Mandeville, 408
+Manning on Dante, 308
+Map or Mapes, Walter, 174-176
+March on Latin Hymns, 195
+Marco Millioni, 396
+Maria di Novella, 331
+Masterpieces, 135
+Matter and form, 40;
+  constitution of, 40
+Matthew Paris, 229;
+  Green's tribute, 229
+Meaning of Cathedral, 118
+Meistersingers, 10
+Merchants' privileges, 359
+Merrie England, 126
+Metaphysical speculations, 33-37
+Method of study, 53
+Meyer, 49
+Middle Ages, place of, 5
+Middle class students, 72
+Mill, 34
+Millet, 145
+Minnesingers, 10
+Modern war correspondents anticipated, 225, 228
+Mondino, 93
+Money and privileges, 426
+Money grabbers, 217
+Monks, Idle, 414;
+  explorers, 413
+Monroe, 55
+Montalembert, monks, 414;
+  laws, 364
+Montpelier, 23
+Morley, Henry, 42, 157, 173, 244
+Most read books. Ten, 209
+Motor cars, 43
+Music, Church, 206;
+  part, 207
+Mutual Aid, 379
+Mystery plays, players, 247, 250;
+  bible study, 251;
+  influence, 252
+
+
+N.
+
+Names, Medieval, 331
+Nations, 76
+Neale, 206
+Needlework, 14
+Nerve suture, 86
+Newman's tribute to Dante, 306
+New York Times Building, 123
+Nibelungen, 177
+Noah and wife, 242
+Nolasco, Peter, 348
+Notebook, The elegant, 54
+Novgorod founded, 421
+Numbers of students, 63, et seq
+Nurses' habits, 345
+
+
+O.
+
+Odoric, 409
+One thing a day, 54
+Optics, 44
+
+{489}
+
+Optical corrections, 131
+Opus Majus, 45
+Organized charity, 381
+Osler, 108, 323
+Oxford, 22
+
+
+P.
+
+Padua, 23
+Pagel, 90;
+  on Vincent of Beauvais,  233
+Palencia, 24
+Pange Lingua, 199
+Papal Court and academy, 31
+Parliament, First English, 14
+Parzifal, 188
+Peace Burgs, 420
+Pennell, Elizabeth Robbins, 98
+Peregrinus, 37-44
+Perugia, 23
+Petroleum, 397
+Peyrols, 192
+Philobiblon, 157
+Philosophic writers, 222
+Phosphorescence in Dante, 315
+Physical geography, 47
+Place of women, 319
+Plain Chant, 207
+Plumptre's Dante, 310
+Polo, Marco, 396
+Poor students, 72
+Poor, Washing feet of, 297
+Popes and Laws, 370
+Pope Alexander IV, 31;
+  Boniface VIII, 2;
+  Gregory IX, 2, 30;
+  Honorius IV, 2, 30;
+  Innocent III, 2, 30, 337
+Population of England, 61
+Potamian, Brother, 37
+Piacenza, 23
+Practical knowledge, 41
+Preparatory schools, 26
+Pre-renaissance, 5, 254
+Professors' publications, 79
+Progress of liberty, 386
+
+
+Q.
+
+Queen Berengaria, 320
+Queen Blanche of Castile, 320
+
+
+R.
+
+Ransom of prisoners, 347
+Raymond of Pennafort, 348
+Real Estate Law, 362
+Redemption of captives, 348
+Red-light therapy, 89
+Religious order for erysipelas, 345;
+  for slaves, 347
+Reinach, 103, 116, 128
+Representative government, 372, 386
+Renaissance, 5
+Reynard the Fox, 210;
+  original, 212
+Rheims, 105, 107
+Rhenish cities, 420
+Rhymed Latin, 104
+Rhyme, origin, 199
+Richard Coeur de Lion, 1
+Richard de Bury, 157;
+  as a churchman, 161;
+  chaplains, 160;
+  charity, 161;
+  place in history, 159
+
+Rich, Mabel, 327;
+  and her sons, 327
+Robinson, Fr. Paschal, 257, 261
+Rod in school, 185
+Roland, 181
+Romance of Rose, 215;
+  charge of dullness, 216;
+  poor happy, 219;
+  misers miserable, 218;
+  satire on money grabbers, 217
+Rossetti on Dante, 317
+Rubruquis, 403;
+  on customs, 408;
+  on languages, 405, 407
+Rucellai Madonna, 141
+Rudolph of Hapsburg, 2, appendix
+Ruskin, 6, 123, 260, 309
+Rusticiano, 399
+
+
+S.
+
+Sadness absent in Gothic art, 147
+Saintsbury, 34, 36, 175, 180, 197, 223, 226
+Saladin, 1
+Salamanca, 24
+Salamander, asbestos, 398
+Salicet, 83
+Salimbene, Friar, 403
+Salisbury, 129
+Saturday, half-holiday, 379
+Schaff, 198, 205
+Scholasticism and style, 223
+Sculpture, Amiens, 13, 105;
+  Rheims, 105
+  St. Denis, 13
+Settlement work, 325;
+  Seneca, 53
+Siena, 23
+Sigbart, 47
+Simon de Montfort, 361
+Social unrest, 124
+Sorbonne, Robert, 53
+Sordello, 10
+St. Bonaventure, 2, 203;
+  Clare, 2, 320;
+  Dominic, 267;
+  Edmund, 72, 327;
+  Elizabeth, 320, 325;
+  Ferdinand, 15;
+  Hugh, 2, 96;
+  Thomas, 203
+
+St. Gall, 69
+St. John, Lateran, 121
+St. Mary's Abbey, 121
+St. Paul's, Rome, 121
+St. Victor, Adam and Hugh of, 204
+Stabat Mater, 200;
+  translations, 201
+Stained Glass, 14;
+  Lincoln, 109;
+  York, 110
+Stevenson, R. M., 99
+Storrs on Crusades, 388
+Stubbs on Crusades, 298
+Students, Support of, 65
+Studies, 33
+Studium generale, 21
+Symbolism, 117
+Systematizing thought, 80
+
+
+T.
+
+Tarragona, 101
+Tartars, Book of, 402
+Tasso and Nibelungen, 179
+Taste, Popular, 112
+Tate, 52
+Taxation and representation, 336;
+  no, without representation, 374
+"The Three Eights," 379
+Thibet, 410
+Thomas, St., See Aquinas
+Thule, 51
+Toledo, 101
+Toulouse, 24
+Towns and cathedrals, 9
+Trade facilities, 415
+Travel, medieval, 394
+Troubadours, 190
+Trouveres, 10
+Turner, 35, 145
+Training intellect
+
+{490}
+
+U.
+
+Ungreek, only thing, 99
+Universitas, 21
+University, Bologna, 19, 58;
+  foundation, 18;
+  Orleans, 19;
+  Oxford, 58;
+  Paris, 18, 58;
+  Salernum, 20;
+  roughness, 73
+
+
+V.
+
+Vehmgerichte, 368
+Vercelli, 23
+Vicenza, 23
+Vienna Cathedral, 168
+Vigilance committees, 368
+Vigils, holidays, 379
+Villehardouin, 224;
+  and Xenophon, 225
+Vincent of Beauvais, 231;
+  and historical writers, 231;
+  methods, 232;
+  style, 233
+Virchow and evolution, 3;
+  on hospitals, 338;
+  on Pope Innocent, 342
+Vocation for women, 322
+Vogelweide, 185
+Voragine, Jacobus de, 213
+
+
+W.
+
+Wandering students, 57
+Wanderjahre, 135
+Water cure, 427
+Wernher, 187
+Whewell, 45
+Widows, Magna Charta, 354
+William of Rubruk, 403
+William of Salicet, 83
+William of St. Gregory, 192
+Wolfram von Eschenbach, 187
+Women, in hospitals, 328;
+  in literature, 335;
+  occupations, 329;
+  position, 334
+Working students, 60
+Wounds of neck, 86
+
+
+X.
+
+Xenophon, and Villehardouin, 225
+
+
+Y.
+
+Yeats, 113
+Yule, Colonel, 401;
+  on Odoric, 411;
+  on Rubruquis, 407
+
+
+Z.
+
+Zimmern, Miss, on Hansa, 415;
+  on medieval initiations, 425
+
+
+[End text; advertisements]
+
+Books by Dr. Walsh
+---------------------------
+Dear Dr. Walsh:
+
+I beg to thank you for your interesting letter enclosing syllabus
+of Advent Lectures and circular of your latest work. The highest
+value attaches to historical research on the lines you so ably indicate,
+especially at the present time, when the enemies of Holy
+Church are making renewed efforts to show her antagonism to
+science and human progress generally. I shall have much pleasure
+in perusing your work entitled "The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries."
+
+Wishing you every blessing, I am, Yours sincerely in Xt.,
+Rome, January 18th, 1908. R. Card. MERRY DEL VAL.
+
+----------------------
+
+_Fordham University Press Series_
+
+MAKERS OF MODERN MEDICINE
+
+  A series of Biographies of the men to whom we owe the important
+  advances in the development of modern medicine. By James J. Walsh,
+  M. D., Ph. D., LL.D., Dean and Professor of the History of Medicine
+  at Fordham University School of Medicine, N. Y. Third Edition, 1914,
+  442 pp. Price, $3.00 net.
+
+_The London Lancet_ said: "The list is well chosen, and we
+have to express gratitude for so convenient and agreeable a collection
+of biographies, for which we might otherwise have to search
+through many scattered books. The sketches are pleasantly written,
+interesting, and well adapted to convey the thoughtful members
+of our profession just the amount of historical knowledge
+that they would wish to obtain. We hope that the book will find
+many readers."
+
+_The New York Times_: "The book is intended primarily for
+students of medicine, but laymen will find it not a little interesting."
+
+_Il Morgagni_ (Italy): "Professor Walsh narrates important
+lives in modern medicine with an easy style that makes his book
+delightful reading. It certainly will give the young physician an
+excellent idea of who made our modern medicine."
+
+_The Church Standard_ (Protestant Episcopal): "There is
+perhaps no profession in which the lives of its leaders would make
+more fascinating reading than that of medicine, and Dr. Walsh by
+his clever style and sympathetic treatment by no means mars the
+interest which we might thus expect."
+
+_The New York Medical Journal_: "We welcome works of this
+kind; they are evidence of the growth of culture within the medical
+profession, which betokens that the time has come when our
+teachers have the leisure to look backward to what has been
+accomplished."
+
+_Science_: "The sketches are extremely entertaining and useful.
+Perhaps the most striking thing is that everyone of the men
+described was of the Catholic faith, and the dominant idea is that
+great scientific work is not incompatible with devout adherence to
+the tenets of the Catholic religion."
+
+
+
+MAKERS OF ELECTRICITY
+
+  By Brother Potamian, F. S. C, Sc. D. (London), Professor of Physics
+  in Manhattan College, and James J. Walsh, M. D., Ph. D., Litt. D.,
+  Dean and Professor of the History of Medicine and of Nervous
+  Diseases at Fordham University School of Medicine, New York. Fordham
+  University Press, 110 West 74th Street. Illustrated Price, $2.50
+  net. Postage, 15 Cents Extra.
+
+_The Scientific American_: "One will find in this book very
+good sketches of the lives of the great pioneers in Electricity, with a
+clear presentation of how it was that these men came to make their
+fundamental experiments, and how we now reach conclusions in
+Science that would have been impossible until their work of revealing
+was done. The biographies are those of Peregrinus, Columbus,
+Norman and Gilbert, Franklin and some contemporaries, Galvini,
+Volta, Coulomb, Oersted, Ampere, Ohm, Faraday, Clerk Maxwell,
+and Kelvin."
+
+_The Boston Globe_: "The book is of surpassing interest."
+
+_The New York Sun_: "The researches of Brother Potamian
+among the pioneers in antiquity and the Middle Ages are perhaps
+more interesting than Dr. Walsh's admirable summaries of the
+accomplishment of the heroes of modern science. The book testifies
+to the excellence of Catholic scholarship."
+
+_The Evening Post_: "It is a matter of importance that the work
+and lives of men like Gilbert, Franklin, Galvini, Volta, Ampere and
+others should be made known to the students of Electricity, and this
+office has been well fulfilled by the present authors. The book is no
+mere compilation, but brings out many interesting and obscure facts,
+especially about the earlier men."
+
+_The Philadelphia Record_: "It is a glance at the whole field of
+Electricity by men who are noted for the thoroughness of their
+research, and it should be made accessible to every reader capable
+of taking a serious interest in the wonderful phenomena of nature."
+
+_Electrical World_: "Aside from the intrinsic interest of its
+matter, the book is delightful to read owing to the graceful literary
+style common to both authors. One not having the slightest
+acquaintance with electrical science will find the book of absorbing
+interest as treating in a human way and with literary art the life
+work of some of the greatest men of modern times; and, moreover,
+in the course of his reading he will incidentally obtain a sound
+knowledge of the main principles upon which almost all present-day
+electrical development is based. It is a shining example of how
+science can be popularized without the slightest twisting of facts or
+distortion of perspective. Electrical readers will find the book also
+a scholarly treatise on the evolution of electrical science, and a
+most refreshing change from the "Engineering English" of the
+typical technical writer."
+
+
+
+EDUCATION, HOW OLD THE NEW
+
+  A Series of Lectures and Addresses on Phases of Education in the
+  Past Which Anticipate Most of Our Modern Advances, by James J.
+  Walsh, M. D., Ph. D., Litt. D., K. C. St. G. Dean and Professor of
+  the History of Medicine and of Nervous Diseases at Fordham
+  University School of Medicine. Fordham University Press, 1910. 470
+  pp. Price, $2.50 net. Postage, 15 Cents Extra.
+
+
+Cardinal Moran (Sydney, Australia): "I have to thank you for the
+excellent volume Education How Old the New. The lectures are
+admirable, just the sort of reading we want for English readers of the
+present day."
+
+_New York Sun_: "It is all bright and witty and based on deep
+erudition."
+
+_The North American_ (Phila.): "Wide historical research, clear
+graphic statement are salient elements of this interesting and
+suggestive addition to the modern welter of educational literature."
+
+_Detroit Free Press_: "Full of interesting facts and parallels drawn
+from them that afford much material for reflection."
+
+_Chicago Inter-Ocean_: "Incidentally it does away with a number of
+popular misconceptions as to education in the Middle Ages and as to
+education in the Latin-American countries at a somewhat later time.
+The book is written in a straight unpretentious and interesting
+style."
+
+_Wilkes-Barre Record_: "The volume is most interesting and shows deep
+research bearing the marks of the indefatigable student."
+
+_Pittsburg Post_: "There is no bitterness of controversy and one of
+the first things to strike the reader is that the dean of Fordham
+quotes from nearly everybody worth while, Protestant or Catholic,
+poetry, biography, history, science or what not."
+
+_The Wall Street News_ (N. Y.): "The book is calculated to cause a
+healthy reduction in the conceit which each generation enjoys at the
+expense of that which preceded it."
+
+_Rochester Post Express_: "The book is well worth reading."
+
+_The New Orleans Democrat_: "The book makes very interesting reading,
+but there is a succession of shocks in store in it for the complacent
+New Englander or Bostonian and for the orthodox or perfunctory reader
+of American literature."
+
+
+
+OLD TIME MAKERS OF MEDICINE
+
+  The Story of the Medical Sciences during the Middle Ages. By James
+  J. Walsh, K. C. St, G., M. D., Ph. D. Dean and Professor of the
+  History of Medicine and of Nervous Diseases at Fordham University
+  School of Medicine. Fordham University Press, 1911. Price, $2.50
+  net. Postage, 15 cents.
+
+
+What we now know of art, architecture, literature, the arts and crafts
+in the Middle Ages has almost won for them the name of the Bright Ages
+instead of the Dark Ages. There seems just one dark spot--the neglect
+of science. This book removes that. It tells the story of medieval
+medical education with higher standards than ours, of medieval surgery
+with anaesthesia and antisepsis, with beautiful hospitals and fine
+nursing, and of medieval dentistry with gold fillings and bridgework.
+
+_The Lancet_ (London): "We have said enough to whet the appetite of
+all interested in the history of the early makers of medicine. We
+cordially commend the perusal of this fascinating volume, which shows
+how much was accomplished in every department of intellectual effort
+in what is usually regarded as the unprogressive, stagnant, dark
+period of the Middle Ages."
+
+_The New York World_ said: "As in Dr. Walsh's 'Thirteenth The Greatest
+of Centuries' he carries amazement with his revelations of how old are
+many things we call new."
+
+
+
+MODERN PROGRESS AND HISTORY:
+
+  Lectures on various academic occasions by James J. Walsh, M. D., Ph.
+  D., K. C. St. G., Litt, D., Sc. D. Dean and Professor of The History
+  of Medicine and of Functional Nervous Diseases at Fordham University
+  School of Medicine, Fordham University Press, 1912. Pp. 450 Twelve
+  illustrations. Price, $2.50 net. Postage, 15 cents.
+
+
+Though delivered on various occasions, these lectures are all on the
+theme that our modern progress is but a repetition of previous phases
+of human accomplishment and that whenever men faced certain problems
+they solved them as well at any time in history as they do now.
+Educational problems are shown to have been the same in Greece and
+Rome as in our own time. Old time prescriptions in medicine are
+strangely like many that we have now. Old time dentists filled teeth
+with gold and tin, did fine bridgework, invented movable dentures,
+transplanted teeth successfully and anticipated our dental progress.
+Pronunciation, Old and New, shows that the Irish brogue is
+Shakespeare's pronunciation while The Women of Two Republics
+demonstrates how old are our political problems, even suffragettism.
+"The book is disillusioning, but marvelously illuminating."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Thirteenth, by James J. Walsh
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THIRTEENTH ***
+
+***** This file should be named 38680.txt or 38680.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/6/8/38680/
+
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