Difference between the earlier and later ideals of chivalry.
The chivalry depicted in theSong of Rolandand the more serious poems of northern France is of a severe type, in which the service of the Church, especially against the infidel, and the obligations to the feudal suzerain have the predominant place. On the other hand, in the Arthurian legends, and, above all, in the songs of the troubadours, the ideal conduct of a polished and valorous gentleman, especially toward the lady of his choice, finds expression. The later romances of chivalry (in the thirteenth and following centuries) deal very largely with knighthood in the latter sense of the word. No one, indeed, any longer thought of fighting the infidel; for the Crusades were over and the knight was forced to seek adventures nearer home.[167]
General ignorance of the past.
101.So long as all books had to be copied by hand, there were, of course, but few of them compared with modern times. The literature of which we have been speaking was not in general read, but was listened to, as it was sung or recited by those who made it their profession. Wherever the wandering jongleur appeared he was sure of a delighted audience for his songs and stories, both serious and light. Those unfamiliar with Latin could, however, learn little of the past; there were no translations of the great classics of Greece and Rome, of Homer, Plato, Cicero, or Livy. All that they could know of ancient history was derived from the fantastic romances referred to above, which had for their theme the quite preposterous deeds ascribed to Alexander the Great, Æneas, and Cæsar. As for their own history, the epics relating to the earlier course of events in France and the rest of Europe were hopelessly confused.The writers attributed a great part of the acts of the Frankish kings, from Clovis to Pippin, to Charlemagne. The first real history written in French is Villehardouin's account of the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders (in 1204), which he witnessed.
Mediæval popular science.
What we should call scientific literature was practically wanting. It is true that there was a kind of encyclopedia in verse which gave a great deal of misinformation about things in general. Every one believed in strange animals like the unicorn, the dragon, and the phoenix, and in still stranger habits of real animals. A single example will suffice to show what passed for zoölogy in the thirteenth century.
"There is a little beast made like a lizard and such is its nature that it will extinguish fire should it fall into it. The beast is so cold and of such a quality that fire is not able to burn it, nor will trouble happen in the place where it shall be." This beast signifies the holy man who lives by faith, who "will never have hurt from fire nor will hell burn him.... This beast we name also by another name,—it is called salamander, as you find written,—it is accustomed to mount into apple-trees, poisons the apples, and in a well where it shall fall it will poison the water."
It will be noticed that the habits of the animals were supposed to have some spiritual meaning and carry with them a lesson for mankind. It may be added that this and similar stories were centuries old. The most improbable things were repeated from generation to generation without its occurring to any one to inquire if there was any truth in them. Even the most learned men of the time believed in astrology and in the miraculous virtues of herbs and gems. For instance, Albertus Magnus, one of the most distinguished scientists of the thirteenth century, agrees that a sapphire will drive away boils and that the diamond can be softened in the blood of astag, which will work best if the stag has been fed on wine and parsley.[168]
102.It is not only in the literature of the Middle Ages that we find the thought and life of the people reflected, but in the art as well, for painters, sculptors, and builders were at work in every country of western Europe.
Illuminations done by the monks.
In religious works.
The paintings were altogether different from those of to-day, and consisted chiefly of illustrations in the books, calledilluminations. Just as the books had all to be laboriously written out by hand, so each picture was painted on the parchment page with tiny brushes and usually in brilliant colors with a generous use of gold. And as the monks wrote out the books, so it was, in general, the monks who painted the pictures. The books that they adorned were chiefly those used in the church services, especially the breviary, the psalter, and the book of hours. Naturally these pictures usually dealt with religious subjects and illustrated the lives of the saints or the events of biblical history. Virtue was encouraged by representations of the joys of heaven and also stimulated by spirited portrayals of the devil and his fiends, and of the sufferings of the lost.
In secular books.
Secular works, too, were sometimes provided with pictures drawn from a wide variety of subjects. We find in their pages such homely and familiar figures as the farmer with his plow, the butcher at his block, the glass blower at his furnace; then, again, we are transported to an imaginary world, peopled with strange and uncouth beasts and adorned with fantastic architecture.
The artist governed by fixed rules.
The mediæval love of symbols and of fixed rules for doing things is strikingly illustrated in these illuminations. Each color had its especial significance. There were certain established attitudes and ways of depicting various characters and emotions which were adhered to by generation after generationof artists and left comparatively little opportunity for individual talent or lifelike presentation. On the other hand, these little pictures—for of course they were always small[169]—were often executed with exquisite care and skill and sometimes in the smaller details with great truth to nature.
Beside the pictures of which we have been speaking, it was a common practice to adorn the books with gay illuminated initials or page borders, which were sometimes very beautiful in both design and color. In these rather more freedom was allowed to the caprice of the individual artist, and they were frequently enlivened with very charming and lifelike flowers, birds, squirrels, and other small animals.
A Romanesque ChurchA Romanesque Church
Sculpture subservient to architecture.
The art of sculpture was more widely and successfully cultivated during the Middle Ages than painting. Mediæval sculpture did not, however, concern itself chiefly with the representation of the human figure, but with what we may calldecorative carving; it was almost wholly subservient to the dominant art of the Middle Ages, namely, architecture.
Architecture the dominant art of the Middle Ages.
It is in the great cathedrals and other churches scattered throughout England, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, and Germany, that we find the noblest and most lasting achievements of mediæval art, which all the resources of modern skill havebeen unable to equal. Everybody belonged to the Church, but the Church, too, belonged to each individual. The building and beautifying of a new church was a matter of interest to the whole community,—to men of every rank. It gratified at once their religious sentiments, their local pride, and their artistic cravings. All the arts and crafts ministered to the construction and adornment of the new edifice, and, in addition to its religious significance, it took the place of our modern art museum.
Durham Cathedral (Romanesque)Durham Cathedral (Romanesque)
The Romanesque style.
Up to the beginning of the thirteenth century the churches were built in the Romanesque style.[170]They were, generally speaking, in the form of a cross, with a main aisle, and two side aisles which were both narrower and lower than the main aisle. The aisles were divided from each other by massive round pillars which supported the round vaulting of the roof and were connected by round arches. The round-arched windows were usually small for the size of the building, so that the interior was not very light. The whole effect was one of massive simplicity. There was, however,especially in the later churches of this style, a profusion of carved ornament, usually in geometric designs.
Introduction of the Gothic style.
The pointed arch.
Flying buttresses.
Thepointedform of arch was used occasionally in windows during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But about the beginning of the thirteenth century[171]it began to be employed much more extensively, and in an incredibly short time practically superseded the round arch and became the characteristic feature of a new style, calledGothic. The adoption of the pointed arch had very important results. It enabled the builder to make arches of the same height but various widths, and of varying height and the same width. A round arch of a given span can be only half as high as it is wide, but the pointed arch may have a great diversity of proportions. The development of the Gothic style was greatly forwarded by the invention of the "flying buttress." By means of this graceful outside prop it became possible to lighten the masonry of the hitherto massive walls and pierce them with great windows which let a flood of light into the hitherto dark churches.[172]
Round and Pointed ArchesRound and Pointed Arches
FAÇADE OF RHEIMS CATHEDRALFAÇADE OF RHEIMS CATHEDRAL
Stained glass.
The light from all these great windows might even have been too glaring had it not been for the wonderful stained glass set in exquisite stone tracery with which they were filled. The stained glass of the mediæval cathedral, especially in France, where the glass workers brought their art to the greatest perfection, was one of its chief glories. By far the greater part of this old glass has of course been destroyed, but it is still so highly prized that every bit of it is now carefully preserved, for it has never since been equaled. A window set with odd bits of it pieced together like crazy patch-work is more beautiful, in its rich and jewel-like coloring, than the finest modern work.
Flying Buttresses of Notre Dame, ParisFlying Buttresses of Notre Dame, Paris
Sculptured ornament.
As the Gothic style developed and the builders grew all the time more skillful and daring, the churches became marvels of lightness and delicacy of detail and finish, while still retaining their dignity and beauty of proportion. Sculptors enriched them with the most beautiful creations of their art. Moldings and capitals, pulpits, altars, and choir screens, the wooden seats for the clergy and choristers, are sometimes literally covered with carving representing graceful leaf and flower forms, familiar animals or grotesque monsters, biblical incidents or homely scenes from everyday life. In the cathedral of Wells,in England, one capital shows us among its vines and leaves a boy whose face is screwed up with pain from the thorn he is extracting from his foot; another depicts a whole story of sin found out, thieves stealing grapes pursued by an angry farmer with a pitchfork. One characteristic of the mediæval imagination is its fondness for the grotesque. It loved queer beasts, half eagle, half lion, hideous batlike creatures, monsters like nothing on land or sea. They lurk among the foliage on choir screens, leer at you from wall or column, or squat upon the gutters high on roof and steeple.
Window in the Cathedral of Sens, FranceWindow in the Cathedral of Sens, France
Gothic sculpture.
A striking peculiarity of the Gothic structure is the great number of statues of apostles, saints, and rulers which adorn the façades and especially the main portal of the churches. These figures are cut from the same kind of stone of which the building is made and appear to be almost a part of it. While, compared with later sculpture, they seem somewhat stiff and unlifelike, they harmonize wonderfully with the whole building, and the best of them are full of charm and dignity.
INTERIOR OF EXETER CATHEDRALINTERIOR OF EXETER CATHEDRAL
Secular buildings.
So far we have spoken only of the church architecture, and that was by far the most important during the period with which we have been dealing. Later, in the fourteenth century, many beautiful secular buildings were constructed in the Gothic style. The most striking and important of these were the guildhalls built by the rich merchant guilds, and the townhalls of some of the important cities. But the Gothic style has always been especially dedicated to, and seems peculiarly fitted for, ecclesiastical architecture. Its lofty aisles and open floor spaces, its soaring arches leading the eye toward heaven, and its glowing windows suggesting the glories of paradise, may well have fostered the ardent faith of the mediæval Christian.
Figures (gargoyles) on Notre Dame, ParisFigures (gargoyles) on Notre Dame, Paris
The mediæval castle.
We have already touched upon some of the characteristics of domestic architecture in referring to the mediæval castle. This was rather a stronghold than a home,—strength and inaccessibility were its main requirements. The walls were many feet thick and the tiny windows, often hardly more than slits in the massive walls, the stone floors, the great bare halls warmed only by large fireplaces, suggest nothing of the comfort of a modern household. At the same time they imply a simplicity of taste and manners and a hardihood of body which we may well envy.
The schools before the eleventh century.
103.On turning from the language and books of the people and the art of the period to the occupations of the learned class, who carried on their studies and discussions in Latin, we naturally inquire where such persons obtained their education. During the long centuries which elapsed between the time when Justinian closed the government schools and the advent of Frederick Barbarossa, there appears to have been nothingin western Europe, outside of Italy and Spain, corresponding to our universities and colleges. Some of the schools which the bishops and abbots had established in accordance with Charlemagne's commands were, it is true, maintained all through the dark and disorderly times which followed his death. But the little that we know of the instruction offered in them would indicate that it was very elementary, although there were sometimes noted men at their head.
Abelard, d. 1142.
About the year 1100 an ardent young man named Abelard started out from his home in Brittany to visit all the places where he might hope to receive instruction in logic and philosophy, in which, like all his learned contemporaries, he was especially interested. He reports that he found teachers in several of the French towns, particularly in Paris, who were attracting large numbers of students to listen to their lectures upon logic, rhetoric, and theology. Abelard soon showed his superiority to his teachers by defeating them several times in debate. Before long he began lecturing on his own account, and such was his success that thousands of students flocked to hear him.
Abelard'sYea and Nay.
He prepared a remarkable little text-book, calledYea and Nay, containing seemingly contradictory opinions of the church fathers upon particular questions. The student was left to reconcile the contradictions, if he could, by careful reasoning; for Abelard held that a constant questioning was the only path to real knowledge. His free way of dealing with the authorities upon which men based their religious beliefs seemed wicked to many of his contemporaries, especially to St. Bernard, who made him a great deal of trouble. Nevertheless it soon became the fashion to discuss the various doctrines of Christianity with great freedom and to try to make a well-reasoned system of theology by following the rules of Aristotle's logic. It was just after Abelard's death (1142) that Peter Lombard published hisSentences, already described.
Abelard did not found the University of Paris, as has sometimes been supposed, but he did a great deal to make the discussions of theological problems popular, and by his attractive method of teaching he greatly increased the number of those who wished to learn. The sad story of his life, which he wrote when he was worn out with the calamities that had overtaken him, is the best and almost the only account which exists of the remarkable interest in learning which explains the origin of the University of Paris.[173]
Origin of the University of Paris.
Before the end of the twelfth century the teachers had become so numerous in Paris that they formed a union, or guild, for the advancement of their interests. This union of professors was called by the usual name for corporations in the Middle Ages,universitas; hence our word "university." The king and pope both favored the university and granted the teachers and students many of the privileges of the clergy, a class to which they were regarded as belonging, because learning had for so many centuries been confined to the clergy.
Study of the Roman and canon law in Bologna.
TheDecretumof Gratian.
About the time that we find the beginnings of a university or guild of professors at Paris, a great institution of learning was growing up at Bologna. Here the chief attention was given, not to theology, as at Paris, but to the study of the law, both Roman and canon. Very early in the twelfth century a new interest in the Roman law became apparent in Italy, where the old jurisprudence of Rome had never been completely forgotten. Then, in 1142 or thereabouts, a monk, Gratian, published a great work in which he aimed to reconcile all the conflicting legislation of the councils and popes and to provide a convenient text-book for the study of the church or canon law. Students then began to stream to Bologna in greater numbers than ever before. In order to protect themselves in a town where they were regarded as strangers, they organized themselves into associations, which became sopowerful that they were able to force the professors to obey the rules which they laid down.
Other universities founded.
The University of Oxford was founded in the time of Henry II, probably by English students and masters who had become discontented at Paris for some reason. The University of Cambridge, as well as numerous universities in France, Italy, and Spain, appeared in the thirteenth century. The German universities, which are still so famous, were established somewhat later, most of them in the latter half of the fourteenth and in the fifteenth centuries. The northern institutions generally took the great mother university on the Seine as their model, while those in southern Europe usually adopted the habits of Bologna.
The academic degree.
When, after some years of study, a student was examined by the professors, he was, if successful, admitted to the corporation of teachers and became a master himself. What we call a degree to-day was originally, in the mediæval universities, nothing more than the qualification to teach. But in the thirteenth century many began to desire the honorable title of master or doctor (which is only the Latin word forteacher) who did not care to become professors in our sense of the word.[174]
Simple methods of instruction.
The students in the mediæval universities were of all ages, from thirteen to forty, and even older. There were no university buildings, and in Paris the lectures were given in the Latin quarter, in Straw Street, so called from the straw strewn on the floors of the hired rooms where the lecturer explained the text-book, with the students squatting on the floor before him. Therewere no laboratories, for there was no experimentation. All that was required was a copy of the text-book,—Gratian'sDecretum, theSentences, a treatise of Aristotle, or a medical book. This the lecturer explained sentence by sentence, and the students listened and sometimes took notes.
The universities could move freely from one town to another.
The fact that the masters and students were not bound to any particular spot by buildings and apparatus left them free to wander about. If they believed themselves ill-treated in one town they moved to another, greatly to the disgust of the tradespeople of the place which they deserted, who of course profited by the presence of the university. The universities of Oxford and of Leipsic, among others, were founded by professors and students who had deserted their former home.
Course of study.
The course in arts, which corresponded to our college course and led to the degree of Master of Arts, occupied six years at Paris. The studies were logic, various sciences,—physics, astronomy, etc.,—studied in Aristotle's treatises, and some philosophy and ethics. There was no history, no Greek. Latin had to be learned in order to carry on the work at all, but little attention was given to the Roman classics. The new modern languages were considered entirely unworthy of the learned. It must of course be remembered that none of the books which we consider the great classics in English, French, Italian, or Spanish had as yet been written.
Aristotle's works become known in the West.
104.The most striking peculiarity of the instruction in the mediæval university was the supreme deference paid to Aristotle. Most of the courses of lectures were devoted to the explanation of some one of his numerous treatises,—hisPhysics, hisMetaphysics, his various treatises on logic, hisEthics, his minor works upon the soul, heaven and earth, etc. Only hisLogichad been known to Abelard, as all his other works had been forgotten. But early in the thirteenth century all his comprehensive contributions to science reached the West, either from Constantinople or through the Arabs who had broughtthem to Spain. The Latin translations were bad and obscure, and the lecturer had enough to do to give some meaning to them, to explain what the Arab philosophers had said of them, and, finally, to reconcile them to the teachings of Christianity.
Veneration for Aristotle.
Aristotle was, of course, a pagan. He was uncertain whether the soul continued to exist after death; he had never heard of the Bible and knew nothing of the salvation of man through Christ. One would have supposed that he would have been promptly rejected with horror by those who never questioned the doctrines of Christianity. But the teachers of the thirteenth century were fascinated by his logic and astonished at his learning. The great theologians of the time, Albertus Magnus (d. 1280) and Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), did not hesitate to prepare elaborate commentaries upon all his works. He was called "The Philosopher"; and so fully were scholars convinced that it had pleased God to permit Aristotle to say the last word upon each and every branch of knowledge that they humbly accepted him, along with the Bible, the church fathers, and the canon and Roman law, as one of the unquestioned authorities which together formed a complete guide for humanity in conduct and in every branch of science.
Scholasticism.
The termscholasticismis commonly given to the philosophy, theology, and method of discussion of the mediæval professors. To those who later outgrew the fondness for logic and the supreme respect for Aristotle, scholasticism, with its neglect of Greek and Roman literature, came to seem an arid and profitless plan of education. Yet if we turn over the pages of the wonderful works of Thomas Aquinas, we see that the scholastic philosopher might be a person of extraordinary insight and erudition, ready to recognize all the objections to his position, and able to express himself with great clearness and cogency.[175]The training in logic, if it did not increase thesum of human knowledge, accustomed the student to make careful distinctions and present his material in an orderly way.
Roger Bacon's attack on scholasticism.
Even in the thirteenth century there were a few scholars who criticised the habit of relying upon Aristotle for all knowledge. The most distinguished fault-finder was Roger Bacon, an English Franciscan monk (d. about 1290), who declared that even if Aristotle were very wise he had only planted the tree of knowledge and that this had "not as yet put forth all its branches nor produced all its fruits." "If we could continue to live for endless centuries we mortals could never hope to reach full and complete knowledge of all the things which are to be known. No one knows enough of nature completely to describe the peculiarities of a single fly and give the reason for its color and why it has just so many feet, no more and no less." Bacon held that truth could be reached a hundred thousand times better by experiments with real things than by poring over the bad Latin translations of Aristotle. "If I had my way," he declared, "I should burn all the books of Aristotle, for the study of them can only lead to a loss of time, produce error and increase ignorance."
So we find that even when scholasticism was most popular in the universities, there were keen-sighted scientists who recommended the modern scientific method of discovering truth. This does not consist in discussing, according to the rules of logic, what a Greek philosopher said hundreds of years ago, but in the patient observation of things about us.
Review of the great changes between the break-up of the Roman Empire in the west and the end of the thirteenth century.
We have now traversed somewhat over one half of the long period of fifteen hundred years which separates Europe of to-day from the disintegrating Roman Empire of the fifth century. The eight hundred years which lie between the century of Alaric, Attila, Leo the Great, and Clovis, and that of Innocent III, St. Louis, and Edward I, witnessed momentous changes, quite as important as any that have occurred since.
The 'dark ages.'
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 twelfth and thirteenth centuries a period of rapid advance.
The Middle Ages may therefore be divided into two fairly 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 upduring 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.
The national states begin to deprive the Church of its governmental powers.
(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 or third estate.
(3) A new social class had come into prominence alongside the clergy and the knightly aristocracy. The emancipation 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.
Books begin to be written in the language of the people.
(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.
The clergy lose the monopoly of learning.
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.
Study of law, theology, and philosophy.
The universities.
(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.
Beginnings of experimental science.
(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.
Artistic progress.
(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 mediæval literature is perhaps that ofSaintsbury,The Flourishing of Romance(Charles Scribner's Sons, $1.50). For chivalry, seeCornish,Chivalry(The Macmillan Company, $1.75). For Gothic architecture, seeC.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).
General Reading.—The most convenient and readable account of mediæval literature is perhaps that ofSaintsbury,The Flourishing of Romance(Charles Scribner's Sons, $1.50). For chivalry, seeCornish,Chivalry(The Macmillan Company, $1.75). For Gothic architecture, seeC.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).
Plan of the following four chapters.
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.
Extent of the king of England's realms before Edward I (1272–1307).
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 Englishkings as their feudal superiors. Edward I, however, succeeded in conquering Wales permanently and Scotland temporarily.
THE BRITISH ISLESTHE BRITISH ISLES
The Welsh and their bards.
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.[176]
Edward I conquers Wales.
The title of 'Prince of Wales.'
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.
Scotland before Edward I.
The Highlands and Lowlands.
The conquest of Scotland proved a far more difficult matter than that of Wales. The early history of the kingdom ofScotland is a complicated one. When the Angles and Saxons landed in Britain, a great part of the mountainous region north of the Firth of Forth was inhabited by a Celtic tribe, the Picts. There was, however, on the west coast a little kingdom of the Irish Celts, who were then called Scots. By the opening of the tenth century the Picts had accepted the king of the Scots as their ruler, and the annalists begin to refer to the highland region as the land of the Scots. As time went on the English kings found it to their advantage to grant to the Scottish rulers certain border districts, including the Lowlands, between the river Tweed and the Firth of Forth. This region was English in race and speech, while the Celts in the Highlands spoke, and still speak, Gaelic.
Character of the inhabitants of the Lowlands.
It was very important in the history of Scotland that its kings chose to dwell in the Lowlands rather than in the Highlands, and made Edinburgh, with its fortress, their chief town. With the coming of William the Conqueror many Englishmen, and also a number of discontented Norman nobles, fled across the border to the Lowlands of Scotland, and founded some of the great families, like those of Balliol and Bruce, who later fought for Scottish liberty. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the country, especially in the south, developed rapidly under the influence of the neighboring Anglo-Norman civilization, and the towns increased in size and importance.
Edward intervenes in Scotch affairs.
Alliance between Scotland and France.
It was not until the time of Edward I that the long series of troubles between England and Scotland began. The death of the last representative of the old line of Scotch kings in 1290 was followed by the appearance of a number of claimants to the crown. In order to avoid civil war, Edward was asked to decide who should be king. He agreed to make the decision on condition that the one whom he selected should hold Scotland as a fief from the English king. This arrangement was adopted, and the crown was given to Robert Balliol. But Edward unwisely made demands upon the Scots which arousedtheir anger, and their king renounced his homage to the king of England. The Scotch, moreover, formed an alliance with Edward's enemy, Philip the Fair of France; thenceforth, in all the difficulties between England and France, the English kings had always to reckon with the disaffected Scotch, who were glad to aid England's enemies.
Edward attempts to incorporate Scotland with England.
Edward marched in person against the Scotch (1296) and speedily put down what he regarded as a rebellion. He declared that Balliol had forfeited his fief through treason, and that consequently the English king had become the immediate lord of the Scotch nobles, whom he forced to do him homage. He emphasized his claim by carrying off the famous Stone of Scone, upon which the kings of Scotland had been crowned for ages. Continued resistance led Edward to attempt to incorporate Scotland with England in the same way that he had treated Wales. This was the beginning of three hundred years of intermittent war between England and Scotland, which ended only when a Scotch king, James VI, succeeded to the English throne in 1603 as James I.