The 'dark ages.'

The twelfth and thir

ries a period of rapid

advance.

It is true that it seemed at first as if the barbarous Goths, Franks, Vandals, and Burgundians were bringing nothing but turmoil and distraction. Even the strong hand of Charlemagne curbed the unruly elements for only a moment; then the discord of his grandsons and the incursions of Northmen, Hungarians, Slavs, and Saracens plunged western Europe once more into the same anarchy and ignorance through which it had passed in the seventh and eighth centuries.

Two hundred years and more elapsed after Charlemagne's death before we can begin once more to note signs of progress. While we know little of the eleventh century, and while even its most distinguished writers are forgotten by all save the student of the period, it was undoubtedly a time of preparation for the brilliant twelfth century—for Abelard and St. Bernard, for the lawyers, poets, architects, and philosophers who seem to come suddenly upon the scene.

The Middle Ages may therefore be divided into two fairly teenth centu- distinct and quite different periods. The centuries prior to the age of Gregory VII and of William the Conqueror may, on account of their disorder and ignorance, be properly called the "dark ages," although they beheld some important stages. in the transformation of Europe. The later Middle Ages, on the contrary, were a time of rapid and unmistakable progress in almost every line of human endeavor. Indeed by the end of the thirteenth century a great part of those changes were well under way which serve to make modern Europe so different from the condition of western Europe under the Roman Empire. The most striking of these are the following.

Appearance of national states.

(1) A group of national states in which a distinct feeling of nationality was developing had taken the place of the Roman Empire, which made no allowance in its government for the differences between Italians, Gauls, Germans, and Britons. The makeshift feudal government which had grown up

during the dark ages was yielding to the kingly power (except in Germany and Italy) and there was no hope of ever reuniting western Europe into a single empire.

(2) The Church had, in a way, taken the place of the Roman Empire by holding the various peoples of western Europe together under the headship of the pope and by assuming the powers of government during the period when the feudal lords were too weak to secure order and justice. Organized like an absolute monarchy, the Church was in a certain sense far the most powerful state of the Middle Ages. But it attained the zenith of its political influence under Innocent III, at the opening of the thirteenth century; before its close the national states had so grown in strength that it was clear that they would gradually reassume the powers of government temporarily exercised by the Church and confine the pope and clergy more and more to their strictly religious functions.

Appearance of

the commons

estate.

(3) A new social class had come into prominence alongside the clergy and the knightly aristocracy. The emancipation or third of the serfs, the founding of towns, and the growth of commerce made it possible for merchants and successful artisans to rise to importance and become influential through their wealth. From these beginnings the great intelligent and educated public of modern times has sprung.

(4) The various modern languages began to be used in writing books. For five or six hundred years after the invasions of the Germans, Latin was used by all writers, but in the eleventh and following centuries the language of the people began to replace the ancient tongue. This enabled the laymen who had not mastered the intricacies of the old Roman speech to enjoy the stories and poems which were being composed in French, Provençal, German, English, and Spanish, and, somewhat later, in Italian.

Books begin in the lan

to be written

guage of the

people.

The clergy lose the monopoly of learning.

Study of law, theology, and philosophy. The universities.

Beginnings

of experimental science.

Artistic progress.

Although the clergy still directed education, laymen were beginning to write books as well as to read them, and gradually the churchmen ceased to enjoy the monopoly of learning which they had possessed during the early Middle Ages.

(5) Scholars began as early as the year 1100 to gather eagerly about masters who lectured upon the Roman and canon law or upon logic, philosophy, or theology. The works of Aristotle, the most learned of the ancients, were sought out, and students followed him enthusiastically into all fields of knowledge. The universities grew up which are now so conspicuous a feature of our modern civilization.

(6) Scholars could not satisfy themselves permanently with the works of Aristotle but began themselves to add to the fund of human knowledge. In Roger Bacon and his sympathizers we find a group of scientific investigators who were preparing the way for the unprecedented achievements in natural science which are the glory of recent times.

(7) The developing appreciation of the beautiful is attested. by the skill and taste expressed in the magnificent churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which were not a revival of any ancient style but the original production of the architects and sculptors of the period.

General Reading. The most convenient and readable account of medieval literature is perhaps that of SAINTSBURY, The Flourishing of Romance (Charles Scribner's Sons, $1.50). For chivalry, see Cornish, Chivalry (The Macmillan Company, $1.75). For Gothic architecture, see C. H. MOORE, Development and Character of Gothic Architecture (The Macmillan Company, $4.50). For the art in general, LÜBKE, Outlines of the History of Art (Dodd, Mead & Co., 2 vols., $7.50). For the universities, RASHDALL, History of the Universities of the Middle Ages (Clarendon Press, 3 vols., $14.00).

CHAPTER XX

THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR

105. In dealing with the history of Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the following order has been adopted. (1) England and France are treated together, since the claims of the English kings to the French crown, and the long Hundred Years' War between the two countries, bring them into the same tale of disorder and final reorganization. (2) Next the history of the papal power and the remarkable efforts to better the Church at the great Council of Constance (1414) are considered. (3) Then the progress of enlightenment is taken up, particularly in the Italian towns, which were the leaders in culture during this period. This leads to an account of the invention of printing and the extraordinary geographical discoveries of the latter part of the fifteenth century. (4) In a fourth chapter the situation of western Europe at the opening of the sixteenth century is described, in order that the reader may be prepared to understand the great revolt against the Church under the leadership of Martin Luther.

We turn first to England. The English kings who preceded Edward I had ruled over only a portion of the island of Great Britain. To the west of their kingdom lay the mountainous district of Wales, inhabited by that remnant of the original Britons which the German invaders had been unable to conquer. To the north of England was the kingdom of Scotland, which was quite independent except for an occasional vague recognition on the part of its rulers of the English

The Welsh and their bards.

Edward I conquers Wales.

The title of 'Prince of Wales.'

Scotland before

Edward I.

kings as their feudal superiors. Edward I, however, succeeded in conquering Wales permanently and Scotland temporarily.

For centuries a border warfare had been carried on between the English and the Welsh. William the Conqueror had found it necessary to establish a chain of earldoms on the Welsh frontier, and Chester, Shrewsbury, and Monmouth became the outposts of the Normans. While the raids of the Welsh constantly provoked the English kings to invade Wales, no permanent conquest was possible, for the enemy retreated into the mountains about Snowdon and the English soldiers were left to starve in the wild regions into which they had ventured. The long and successful resistance which the Welsh made against the English must be attributed not only to their inaccessible retreats but also to the patriotic inspiration of their bards. These fondly believed that their people would sometime reconquer the whole of England, which they had possessed before the coming of the Angles and Saxons.1

When Edward I came to the throne he demanded that Llewelyn, Prince of Wales, as the head of the Welsh clans was called, should do him homage. Llewelyn, who was a man of ability and energy, refused the king's summons, and Edward marched into Wales. Two campaigns were necessary before the Welsh finally succumbed. Llewelyn was killed (1282), and with him expired the independence of the Welsh people. Edward divided the country into shires and introduced English laws and customs, and his policy of conciliation was so successful that there was but a single rising in the country for a whole century. He later presented his son to the Welsh as their prince, and from that time down to the present the title of "Prince of Wales" has usually been conferred upon the heir to the English throne.

The conquest of Scotland proved a far more difficult matter than that of Wales. The early history of the kingdom of

1 Reference, Green, Short History of the English People, pp. 161–169.