REYNARD THE FOX

No account of medieval literature ought to omit a reference to Reynard the Fox. This is a long poem, first written in Latin, and then turned into the chief languages of Europe. The characters are animals: Reynard, cunning and audacious, who outwits all his foes; Chanticleer the cock; Bruin the Bear; Isengrim the Wolf; and many others. But they are animals in name only. We see them worship like Christians, go to Mass, ride on horseback, debate in councils, and amuse themselves with hawking and hunting. Satire often creeps in, as when the villainous Fox confesses his sins to the Badger or vows that he will go to the Holy Land on a pilgrimage. The special interest of this work lies in the fact that it expressed the feelings of the common people, groaning under the oppression of feudal lords.

THE ROBIN HOOD BALLADS

The same democratic spirit breathes in the old English ballads of the outlaw Robin Hood. According to some accounts he flourished in the second half of the twelfth century, when Henry II and Richard the Lion-hearted reigned over England. Robin Hood, with his merry men, leads an adventurous life in Sherwood Forest, engaging in feats of strength and hunting the king's tall deer. Bishops, sheriffs, and gamekeepers are his only enemies. For the common people he has the greatest pity, and robs the rich to endow the poor. Courtesy, generosity, and love of fair play are some of the characteristics which made him a popular hero. If King Arthur was the ideal knight, Robin Hood was the ideal yeoman. The ballads about him were sung by country folk for hundreds of years.

202. ROMANESQUE AND GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE; THE CATHEDRALS

TWO ARCHITECTURAL STYLES

The genius of the Middle Ages found its highest expression, not in books, but in buildings. For several hundred years after the barbarian invasions architecture had made little progress in western Europe, outside of Italy, which was subject to Byzantine influence, [8] and Spain, which was a center of Mohammedan culture. [9] Beginning about 800 A.D. came a revival, and the adoption of an architectural style called Romanesque, because it went back to Roman principles of construction. Romanesque architecture arose in northern Italy and southern France and gradually spread to other European countries. It was followed about 1100 A D. by the Gothic style of architecture, which prevailed during the next four centuries.



THE ROMANESQUE CHURCH

The church of the early Christians seems to have been modeled upon the Roman basilica, with its arrangement of nave and aisles, its circular arched recess (apse) at one end, and its flat, wooden ceiling supported by columns. [10] The Romanesque church departed from the basilican plan by the introduction of transepts, thus giving the building the form of a Latin cross. A dome, which might be covered by a pointed roof, was generally raised over the junction of the nave and transepts. At the same time the apse was enlarged so as to form the choir, a place reserved for the clergy.



VAULTING AND THE ROUND ARCH

The Romanesque church also differed from a basilica in the use of vaulting to take the place of a flat ceiling. The old Romans had constructed their vaulted roofs and domes in concrete, which forms a rigid mass and rests securely upon the walls like the lid of a box. [11] Medieval architects, however, built in stone, which exerts an outward thrust and tends to force the walls apart. Consequently they found it necessary to make the walls very thick and to strengthen them by piers, or buttresses, on the outside of the edifice. It was also necessary to reduce the width of the vaulted spaces. The vaulting, windows, and doorways had the form of the round arch, that is, a semicircle, as in the ancient Roman monuments. [12]

THE GOTHIC STYLE

Gothic architecture arose in France in the country around Paris, at a time when the French kingdom was taking the lead in European affairs. Later it spread to England, Germany, the Netherlands, and even to southern Europe. As an old chronicler wrote, "It was as if the whole world had thrown off the rags of its ancient time, and had arrayed itself in the white robes of the churches." The term Gothic was applied contemptuously to this architectural style by writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who regarded everything non-classical as barbarous. They believed it to be an invention of the barbarian Goths, and so they called it Gothic. The name has stuck, as bad names have a habit of doing, but nowadays every one recognizes the greatness of this medieval art. The most beautiful buildings of the Middle Ages are of Gothic architecture.

RIBBED VAULTING AND THE FLYING BUTTRESS

The Gothic style formed a natural development of the Romanesque style. The architects of a Gothic church wished to retain the vaulted ceiling but at the same time to do away with thick, solid walls, which had so little window space as to leave the interior of the building dark gloomy. They solved this problem, in the first place, by using a great number of stone ribs, which gathered up the weight of the ceiling and rested on pillars. Ribbed vaulting made possible higher ceilings, spanning wider areas, than in Romanesque churches. [13] In the second place, the pillars supporting the ribs were themselves connected by means of flying buttresses with stout piers of masonry outside the walls of the church. [14] These walls, relieved from the pressure of the ceiling, now became a mere screen to keep out the weather. They could be built of light materials and opened up with high, wide windows.

THE POINTED ARCH

Ribbed vaulting and the flying buttress are the distinctive features of Gothic architecture. A third feature, noteworthy but not so important, is the use of the pointed arch. It was not Christian in origin, for it had long been known to the Arabs in the East and the Moslem conquerors of Sicily. [15] The semicircular or round arch can be only half as high as it is wide, but the pointed arch may vary greatly in its proportions. The use of this device enabled the Gothic builder to bridge over different widths at any required height. It is also lighter and more graceful than the round arch. [16]



GOTHIC ORNAMENT

The labors of the Gothic architect were admirably seconded by those of other artists. The sculptor cut figures of men, animals, and plants in the utmost profusion. The painter covered vacant wall spaces with brilliant mosaics and frescoes. The wood-carver made exquisite choir stalls, pulpits, altars, and screens. Master workmen filled the stone tracery of the windows with stained glass unequaled in coloring by the finest modern work. Some rigorous churchmen like St. Bernard condemned the expense of these magnificent cathedrals, but most men found in their beauty an additional reason to praise God.



THE CATHEDRAL AS A RELIGIOUS EDIFICE

The Gothic cathedral, in fact, perfectly expressed the religious spirit of the Middle Ages. For its erection kings and nobles offered costly gifts. The common people, when they had no money to give, contributed their labor, each man doing what he could to carry upward the walls and towers and to perfect every part of God's dwelling. The interior of such a cathedral, with its vast nave rising in swelling arches to the vaulted roof, its clustered columns, its glowing windows, and infinite variety of ornamentation, forms the most awe-inspiring sanctuary ever raised by man. It is a prayer, a hymn, a sermon in stone.

THE SECULAR GOTHIC

Gothic architecture, though at first confined to churches, came to be used for other buildings. Among the monuments of the secular Gothic are beautiful town halls, guild halls, markets, and charming private houses. [17] But the cathedral remained the best expression of the Gothic style.

203. EDUCATION; THE UNIVERSITIES

COMMON SCHOOLS

Not less important than the Gothic cathedrals for the understanding of medieval civilization were the universities. They grew out of the monastic and cathedral schools where boys were trained to become monks or priests. Such schools had been created or restored by Charlemagne. [18] The teaching, which lay entirely in the hands of the clergy, was elementary in character. Pupils learned enough Latin grammar to read religious books, if not always to understand them, and enough music to follow the services of the Church. They also studied arithmetic by means of the awkward Roman notation, received a smattering of astronomy, and sometimes gained a little knowledge of such subjects as geography, law, and philosophy. Besides these monastic and cathedral schools, others were maintained by the guilds. Boys who had no regular schooling often received instruction from the parish priest of the village or town. Illiteracy was common enough in medieval times, but the mass of the people were by no means entirely uneducated.

RISE OF UNIVERSITIES

Between 1150 and 1500 A.D. at least eighty universities were established in western Europe. Some speedily became extinct, but there are still about fifty European institutions of learning which started in the Middle Ages. The earliest universities did not look to the state or to some princely benefactor for their foundation. They arose, as it were, spontaneously. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries Europe felt the thrill of a great intellectual revival. It was stimulated by intercourse with the highly cultivated Arabs in Spain, Sicily, and the East, and with the Greek scholars of Constantinople during the crusades. The desire for instruction became so general that the common schools could not satisfy it. Other schools were then opened in the cities and to them flocked eager learners from every quarter.

PETER ABELARD 1079-1142 A.D.

How easily a university might grow up about the personality of some eminent teacher is shown by the career of Abelard. The eldest son of a noble family in Brittany, Abelard would naturally have entered upon a military career, but he chose instead the life of a scholar and the contests of debate. When still a young man he came to Paris and attended the lectures given by a master of the cathedral school of Notre Dame. Before long he had overcome his instructor in discussion, thus establishing his own reputation. At the early age of twenty-two Abelard himself set up as a lecturer. Few teachers have ever attracted so large and so devoted a following. His lecture room under the shadow of the great cathedral was filled with a crowd of youths and men drawn from all countries.

UNIVERSITY OF PARIS

The fame of Abelard led to an increase of masters and students at Paris and so paved the way for the establishment of the university there, later in the twelfth century. Paris soon became such a center of learning, particularly in theology and philosophy, that a medieval writer referred to it as "the mill where the world's corn is ground, and the hearth where its bread is baked." The university of Paris, in the time of its greatest prosperity, had over five thousand students. It furnished the model for the English university of Oxford, as well as for the learned institutions of Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany.

UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA

The institutions of learning in southern Europe were modeled, more or less, upon the university of Bologna. At this Italian city, in the middle of the twelfth century, a celebrated teacher named Irnerius gathered about him thousands of pupils for the study of the Justinian code. [19] The university developed out of his law school. Bologna was the center from which the Roman system of jurisprudence made its way into France, Germany, and other Continental countries. From Bologna, also, came the monk Gratian, who drew up the accepted text-book of canon law, as followed in all Church courts. [20] What Roman law was to the Empire canon law was to the Papacy.

UNIVERSITY ORGANIZATION

The word "university" [21] meant at first simply a union or association. In the Middle Ages all artisans were organized in guilds, [22] and when masters and pupils associated themselves for teaching and study they naturally copied the guild form. This was the more necessary since the student body included so many foreigners, who found protection against annoyances only as members of a guild.

DEGREES

Like a craft guild a university consisted of masters (the professors), who had the right to teach, and students, both elementary and advanced, who corresponded to apprentices and journeymen. After several years of study a student who had passed part of his examination became a "bachelor of arts" and might teach certain elementary subjects to those beneath him. Upon the completion of the full course—usually six years in length—the bachelor took his final examinations and, if he passed them, received the coveted degree of "master of arts." But as is the case to-day, many who attended the universities never took a degree at all.

THE TEACHERS

A university of the Middle Ages did not need an expensive collection of libraries, laboratories, and museums. Its only necessary equipment consisted in lecture rooms for the professors. Not even benches or chairs were required. Students often sat on the straw-strewn floors. The high price of manuscripts compelled professors to give all instruction by lectures. This method of teaching has been retained in modern universities, since even the printed book is a poor substitute for a scholar's inspiring words.

THE STUDENTS

The universities being under the protection of the Church, it was natural that those who attended them should possess some of the privileges of clergymen. Students were not required to pay taxes or to serve in the army. They also enjoyed the right of trial in their own courts. This was an especially valuable privilege, for medieval students were constantly getting into trouble with the city authorities. The sober annals of many a university are relieved by tales of truly Homeric conflicts between Town and Gown. When the students were dissatisfied with their treatment in one place, it was always easy for them to go to another university. Sometimes masters and scholars made off in a body. Oxford appears to have owed its existence to a large migration of English students from Paris, Cambridge arose as the result of a migration from Oxford, and the German university of Leipzig sprang from that of Prague in Bohemia.



COLLEGES

The members of a university usually lived in a number of colleges. These seem to have been at first little more than lodging-houses, where poor students were cared for at the expense of some benefactor. In time, however, as the colleges increased in wealth, through the gifts made to them, they became centers of instruction under the direction of masters. At Oxford and Cambridge, where the collegiate system has been retained to the present time, each college has its separate buildings and enjoys the privilege of self-government.

FACULTIES

The studies in a medieval university were grouped under the four faculties of arts, theology, law, and medicine. The first-named faculty taught the "seven liberal arts," that is, grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. They formed a legacy from old Roman education. Theology, law, and medicine then, as now, were professional studies, taken up after the completion of the Arts course. Owing to the constant movement of students from one university to another, each institution tended to specialize in one or more subjects. Thus, Paris came to be noted for theology, Montpellier, Padua, and Salerno for medicine, and Orleans, Bologna, and Salamanca for law.



204. SCHOLASTICISM

THEOLOGICAL STUDY

Theology formed the chief subject of instruction in most medieval universities. Nearly all the celebrated scholars of the age were theologians. They sought to arrange the doctrines of the Church in systematic and reasonable form, in order to answer those great questions concerning the nature of God and of the soul which have always occupied the human mind. For this purpose it was necessary to call in the aid of philosophy. The union of theology and philosophy produced what is known as scholasticism. [23]



ABELARD AND FREEDOM OF THOUGHT

The scholastics were loyal children of the Church and did not presume to question her teaching in matters of religion. They held that faith precedes reason. "The Christian," it was said, "ought to advance to knowledge through faith, not come to faith through knowledge." The brilliant Abelard, with his keenly critical mind, found what he considered a flaw in this position: on many subjects the authorities themselves disagreed. To show this he wrote a little book called Sic et Non ("Yes and No"), setting forth the conflicting opinions of the Church Fathers on one hundred and fifty-eight points of theology. In such cases how could truth be reached unless one reasoned it out for oneself? "Constant questioning," he declared, "is the key to wisdom.... Through doubting we come to inquiry and through inquiry we perceive the truth." But this reliance on the unaided human reason as a means of obtaining knowledge did not meet with approval, and Abelard's views were condemned as unsound. Abelard, indeed, was a man in advance of his age. Freedom of thought had to wait many centuries before its rights should be acknowledged.

STUDY OF ARISTOTLE

The philosophy on which the scholastics relied was chiefly that of Aristotle. [24] Christian Europe read him at first in Latin translations from the Arabic, but versions were later made from Greek copies found in Constantinople and elsewhere in the East. This revival of Aristotle, though it broadened men's minds by acquainting them with the ideas of the greatest of Greek thinkers, had serious drawbacks. It discouraged rather than favored the search for fresh truth. Many scholastics were satisfied to appeal to Aristotle's authority, rather than take the trouble of finding out things for themselves. The story is told of a medieval student who, having detected spots in the sun, announced his discovery to a learned man. "My son," said the latter, "I have read Aristotle many times, and I assure you there is nothing of the kind mentioned by him. Be certain that the spots which you have seen are in your eyes and not in the sun."

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, 1227-1274 A.D.

There were many famous scholastics, or "schoolmen," but easily the foremost among them was the Italian monk, Thomas Aquinas. He taught at Paris, Cologne, Rome, and Bologna, and became so celebrated for learning as to be known as the "Angelic Doctor." Though Aquinas died at an early age, he left behind him no less than eighteen folio volumes. His Summa Theologiae ("Compendium of Theology"), as the name indicates, gathered up all that the Middle Ages believed of the relations between God and man. The Roman Church has placed him among her saints and still recommends the study of his writings as the foundation of all sound theology.

THE SCHOLASTIC METHOD

Enough has been said to show that the method of study in medieval universities was not that which generally obtains to-day. There was almost no original research. Law students memorized the Justinian code. Medical students learned anatomy and physiology from old Greek books, instead of in the dissecting room. Theologians and philosophers went to the Bible, the Church Fathers, or Aristotle for the solution of all problems. They often debated the most subtle questions, for instance, "Can God ever know more than He knows that He knows?" Mental gymnastics of this sort furnished a good training in logic, but added nothing to the sum of human knowledge. Scholasticism, accordingly, fell into disrepute, in proportion as men began to substitute scientific observation and experiment for speculation.

205. SCIENCE AND MAGIC

SCIENTIFIC INVENTIONS

Not all medieval learning took the form of scholasticism. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were marked by a healthy interest in science. Long encyclopedias, written in Latin, collected all available information about the natural world. The study of physics made conspicuous progress, partly as a result of Arab influence. Various scientific inventions, including magnifying glasses and clocks, were worked out. The mariner's compass, perhaps derived from the Arabs, also came into general use. [25]

ROGER BACON, ABOUT 1214-1294 A.D.

As representative of this scientific interest we may take the Englishman, Roger Bacon. He studied at Paris, where his attainments secured for him the title of the "Wonderful Doctor," and lectured at Oxford. At a period when Aristotle's influence was unbounded, Bacon turned away from scholastic philosophy to mathematics and the sciences. No great discoveries were made by him, but it is interesting to read a passage in one of his works where some modern inventions are distinctly foreseen. In time, he wrote, ships will be moved without rowers, and carriages will be propelled without animals to draw them. Machines for flying will also be constructed, "wherein a man sits revolving some engine by which artificial wings are made to beat the air like a flying bird." Even in Bacon's day it would appear that men were trying to make steamboats, automobiles, and aeroplanes.



GUNPOWDER

The discovery of gunpowder, a compound of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulphur, has often been attributed to Bacon, probably incorrectly. Bacon and other men of his time seem to have been familiar with the composition of gunpowder, but they regarded it as merely a sort of firework, producing a sudden and brilliant flame. They little suspected that in a confined space the expansive power of its gases could be used to hurl projectiles. Gunpowder was occasionally manufactured during the fourteenth century, but for a long time it made more noise than it did harm. Small brass cannon, throwing stone balls, began at length to displace the medieval siege weapons, and still later muskets took the place of the bow, the cross-bow, and the pike. The revolution in the art of warfare introduced by gunpowder had vast importance. It destroyed the usefulness of the castle and enabled the peasant to fight the mailed knight on equal terms. Gunpowder, accordingly, must be included among the forces which brought about the downfall of feudalism.

CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMY

The study of chemistry also engaged the attention of medieval investigators. It was, however, much mixed up with alchemy, a false science which the Middle Ages had received from the Greeks, and they, in turn, from the Egyptians. The alchemists believed that minerals possessed a real life of their own and that they were continually developing in the ground toward the state of gold, the perfect metal. It was necessary, therefore, to discover the "philosopher's stone," which would turn all metals into gold. The alchemists never found it, but they learned a good deal about the various metals and discovered a number of compounds and colors. In this way alchemy contributed to the advance of chemistry.

ASTRONOMY AND ASTROLOGY

Astronomy in the Middle Ages was the most advanced of any natural science, though the telescope and the Copernican theory [26] were as yet in the future. Astronomy, the wise mother, had a foolish daughter, astrology, the origin of which can be traced back to Babylonia. [27] Medieval students no longer regarded the stars as divine, but they believed that the natural world and the life of men were controlled by celestial influences. Hence astrologers professed to predict the fate of a person from the position of the planets at the time of his birth. Astrological rules were also drawn from the signs of the zodiac. A child born under the sign of the Lion will be courageous; one born under the Crab will not go forward well in life; one born under the Waterman will probably be drowned, and so forth. Such fancies seem absurd enough, but in the Middle Ages educated people entertained them.

MEDIEVAL CREDULITY

Alchemy and astrology were not the only instances of medieval credulity. The most improbable stories found ready acceptance. Roger Bacon, for instance, thought that "flying dragons" still existed in Europe and that eating their flesh lengthened human life. Works on natural history soberly described the lizard-like salamander, which dwelt in fire, and the phoenix, a bird which, after living for five hundred years, burned itself to death and then rose again full grown from the ashes. Another fabulous creature was the unicorn, with the head and body of a horse, the hind legs of an antelope, the beard of a goat, and a long, sharp horn set in the middle of the forehead. Various plants and minerals were also credited with marvelous powers. Thus, the nasturtium, used as a liniment, would keep one's hair from falling out, and the sapphire, when powdered and mixed with milk, would heal ulcers and cure headache. Such quaint beliefs linger to-day among uneducated people, even in civilized lands.



MAGICIANS

Magicians of every sort flourished in the Middle Ages. Oneiromancers [28] took omens from dreams. Palmists read fortunes in the lines and irregularities of the hand. Necromancers [29] professed to reveal the future by pretended communications with departed spirits. Other magicians made talismans or lucky objects to be worn on the person, mirrors in which the images of the dead or the absent were reflected, and various powders which, when mixed with food or drink, would inspire hatred or affection in the one consuming them. Indeed, it would be easy to draw up a long list of the devices by which practitioners of magic made a living at the expense of the ignorant and the superstitious.

206. POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS

FOLK TALES

Many medieval superstitions are preserved in folk tales, or "fairy stories." Every child now reads these tales in books, but until the nineteenth century very few of them had been collected and written down. [30] They lived on the lips of the people, being told by mothers and nurses to children and by young and old about the firesides during the long winter evenings. Story-telling formed one of the chief amusements of the Middle Ages.

FAIRIES

The fairies who appear so commonly in folk tales are known by different names. They are bogies, brownies, goblins, pixies, kobolds (in Germany), trolls (in Denmark), and so on. The Celts, especially, had a lively faith in fairies, and it was from Wales, Scotland, and Ireland that many stories about them became current in Europe after the tenth century. Some students have explained the belief in fairies as due to memories of an ancient pygmy people dwelling in underground homes. But most of these supernatural beings seem to be the descendants of the spirits and demons which in savage fancy haunt the world.

CHARACTERISTICS OF FAIRIES

A comparison of European folk tales shows that fairies have certain characteristics in common. They live in palaces underneath the ground, from which they emerge at twilight to dance in mystic circles. They are ruled by kings and queens and are possessed of great wealth. Though usually invisible, they may sometimes be seen, especially by people who have the faculty of perceiving spirits. To mortals the fairies are generally hostile, leading wanderers astray, often blighting crops and cattle, and shooting arrows which carry disease and death. They are constantly on the watch to carry off human beings to their realm. A prisoner must be released at the end of a certain time, unless he tastes fairy food, in which event he can never return. Children in cradles are frequently snatched away by the fairies, who leave, instead, imps of their own called "changelings." A changeling may always be recognized by its peevishness and backwardness in learning to walk and speak. If well treated, the fairies will sometimes show their gratitude by bestowing on their favorites health, wealth, and long life. Lucky the child who can count on a "fairy god-mother."

GIANTS AND OGRES

Stories of giants are common in folk tales. Giants are often represented as not only big but also stupid, and as easily overcome by keen-witted human foes like "Jack the Giant-killer." It may be that traditions of pre- historic peoples have sometimes given birth to legends of giants. Another source of stories concerning them has been the discovery of huge fossil bones, such as those of the mammoth or mastodon, which were formerly supposed to be bones of gigantic men. The ogres, who sometimes figure in folk tales, are giants with a taste for human flesh. They recall the cannibals of the savage world.

WEREWOLVES

Werewolves were persons who, by natural gift or magic art, were thought to have the power of turning themselves for a time into wild beasts (generally wolves or bears). In this animal shape they ravaged flocks and devoured young children. A werewolf was said to sleep only two nights in the month and to spend the rest of the time roaming the woods and fields. Trials of persons accused of being werewolves were held in France as late as the end of the sixteenth century. Even now the belief is found in out- of-the-way parts of Europe.

THE EVIL EYE

Another medieval superstition was that of the evil eye. According to this belief, certain persons could bewitch, injure, and kill by a glance. Children and domestic animals were thought to be particularly susceptible to the effects of "fascination." In order to guard against it charms of various sorts, including texts from the Bible, were carried about. The belief in the evil eye came into Europe from pagan antiquity. It survived the Middle Ages and lingers yet among uneducated people.

WITCHCRAFT

The superstitions relating to werewolves and the evil eye are particular forms of the belief in witchcraft, or "black magic." The Middle Ages could not escape this delusion, which was firmly held by the Greeks and Romans and other ancient peoples. Witchcraft had, indeed, a prehistoric origin and the belief in it still prevails in savage society.



FEATURES OF EUROPEAN WITCHCRAFT

Witches and wizards were supposed to have sold themselves to the Devil, receiving in return the power to work magic. They could change themselves or others into animals, they had charms against the hurt of weapons, they could raise storms and destroy crops, and they could convey thorns, pins, and other objects into their victims' bodies, thus causing sickness and death. At night they rode on broomsticks through the air and assembled in some lonely place for feasts, dances, and wild revels. At these "Witches' Sabbaths," as they were called, the Devil himself attended and taught his followers their diabolic arts. There were various tests for the discovery of witches and wizards, the most usual being the ordeal by water. [31]

WITCHCRAFT PERSECUTIONS

The numerous trials and executions for witchcraft form a dark page in history. Thousands of harmless old men and women were put to death on the charge of being leagued with the Devil. Even the most intelligent and humane people believed in the reality of witchcraft and found a justification for its punishment in the Scriptural command, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." [32] The witch epidemic which broke out in America during the seventeenth century, reaching its height at Salem, Massachusetts, was simply a reflection of the European fear and hatred of witches.

UNLUCKY DAYS

The Middle Ages inherited from antiquity the observance of unlucky days. They went under the name of "Egyptian days," so called because it was held that on one of them the plagues had been sent to devastate the land of Egypt and on another Pharaoh and his host had been swallowed up in the Red Sea. At least twenty-four days in the year were regarded as very unlucky. At such times one ought not to buy and sell, to build a house, to plant a field, to travel or, in fact, to undertake anything at all important. After the sixteenth century the belief in unlucky days declined, but there still exists a prejudice against fishermen starting out to fish, or seamen to take a voyage, or landsmen a journey, or domestic servants to enter a new place, on a Friday.

207. POPULAR AMUSEMENTS AND FESTIVALS

INDOOR GAMES

It is pleasant to turn from the superstitions of the Middle Ages to the games, sports, and festivals which helped to make life agreeable alike for rich and poor, for nobles and peasants. Some indoor games are of eastern origin. Thus chess, with which European peoples seem to have become acquainted as early as the tenth century [33] arose in India as a war game. On each side a king and his general, with chariots, cavalry, elephants, and infantry, met in battle array. These survive in the rooks, knights, bishops, and pawns of the modern game. Checkers is a sort of simplified chess, in which the pieces are all pawns, till they get across the board and become kings. Playing cards are another Oriental invention. They were introduced into Europe in the fourteenth century, either by the Arabs or the gypsies. Their first use seems to have been for telling fortunes.



OUTDOOR GAMES

Many outdoor games are derived from those played in medieval times. How one kind of game may become the parent of many others is seen in the case of the ball-play. The ancients tossed and caught balls as children do now. They also had a game in which each side tried to secure the ball and throw it over the adversary's goal line. This game lasted on into the Middle Ages, and from it football has descended. The ancients seem never to have used a stick or bat in their ball-play. The Persians, however, began to play ball on horseback, using a long mallet for the purpose, and introduced their new sport throughout Asia. Under the Tibetan name of pulu ("ball") it found its way into Europe. When once the mallet had been invented for use on horseback, it could be easily used on foot, and so polo gave rise to the various games in which balls are hit with bats, including tennis, hockey, golf, cricket, and croquet.

BAITING

The difference between our ideas of what constitutes "sport" and those of our ancestors is shown by the popularity of baiting. In the twelfth century bulls, bears, and even horses were baited. Cock-fighting formed another common amusement. It was not till the nineteenth century that an English society for the prevention of cruelty to animals succeeded in getting a law passed which forbade these cruel sports. Most other European countries have now followed England's example.

FESTIVALS

No account of life in the Middle Ages can well omit some reference to the celebration of festivals. For the peasant and artisan they provided relief from physical exertion, and for all classes of society the pageants, processions, sports, feasts, and merry-makings which accompanied them furnished welcome diversion. Medieval festivals included not only those of the Christian Year, [34] but also others which had come down from pre- Christian times.



SEASONAL FESTIVALS

Many festivals not of Christian origin were derived from the ceremonies with which the heathen peoples of Europe had been accustomed to mark the changes of the seasons. Thus, April Fool's Day formed a relic of festivities held at the vernal equinox. May Day, another festival of spring, honored the spirits of trees and of all budding vegetation. The persons who acted as May kings and May queens represented these spirits. According to the original custom a new May tree was cut down in the forest every year, but later a permanent May pole was set up on the village common. On Midsummer Eve (June 23), which marked the summer solstice, came the fire festival, when people built bonfires and leaped over them, walked in procession with torches round the fields, and rolled burning wheels down the hillsides. These curious rites may have been once connected with sun worship. Hallow Eve, so called from being the eve of All Saints' Day (November 1), also seems to have been a survival of a heathen celebration. On this night witches and fairies were supposed to assemble. Hallow Eve does not appear to have been a season for pranks and jokes, as is its present degenerate form. Even the festival of Christmas, coming at the winter solstice, kept some heathen features, such as the use of mistletoe with which Celtic priests once decked the altars of their gods. The Christmas tree, however, is not a relic of heathenism. It seems to have come into use as late as the seventeenth century.

THE MORRIS DANCE

Young and old took part in the dances which accompanied village festivals. Very popular in medieval England was the Morris dance. The name, a corruption of Moorish, refers to its origin in Spain. The Morris dance was especially associated with May Day and was danced round a May pole to a lively and capering step. The performers represented Robin Hood, Maid Marian, his wife, Tom the Piper, and other traditional characters. On their garments they wore bells tuned to different notes, so as to sound in harmony.

MUMMING

Mumming had a particular association with Christmas. Mummers were bands of men and women who disguised themselves in masks and skins of animals and then serenaded people outside their houses. Oftentimes the mummers acted out little plays in which Father Christmas, Old King Cole, and St. George were familiar figures.



MIRACLE PLAYS

Besides these village amusements, many plays of a religious character came into vogue during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The earliest were the miracle plays. They presented in dramatic form scenes from the Bible and stories of the saints or martyrs. The actors at first were priests, and the stage was the church itself or the churchyard. This religious setting did not prevent the introduction of clowns and buffoons. After a time the miracle play passed from the clergy to the guilds. All the guilds of a town usually gave an exhibition once a year. Each guild presented a single scene in the story. An exhibition might last for several days and have as many as fifty scenes, beginning at Creation and ending with Doomsday. [35]



MORALITY PLAYS

The miracle plays were followed by the "moralities." They dealt with the struggle between good and evil, rather than with theology. Characters such as Charity, Faith, Prudence, Riches, Confession, and Death appeared and enacted a story intended to teach moral lessons. [36] Out of the rude "morality" and its predecessor, the miracle play, has grown the drama of modern times.

208. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

DWELLINGS

A previous chapter (Chapter XVIII.) described some features of domestic life in castle and village during the age of feudalism. In England, where the Norman kings discouraged castle building, the manor house formed the ordinary residence of the nobility. Even in Continental Europe many castles were gradually made over into manor houses after the cessation of feudal warfare. A manor house, however, was only less bare and inconvenient than a castle. It was still poorly lighted, ill-ventilated, and in winter scarcely warmed by the open wood fires. Among the improvements of the fourteenth century were the building of a fireplace at one or both ends of the manor hall, instead of in the center, and the substitution of glass windows for wooden shutters or oiled paper.



FURNITURE

People in the Middle Ages, even the well-to-do, got along with little furniture. The great hall of a manor house contained a long dining table, with benches used at meals, and a few stools. The family beds often occupied curtained recesses in the walls, but guests might have to sleep on the floor of the manor hall. Servants often slept in the stables. Few persons could afford rugs to cover the floor; the poor had to put up with rushes. Utensils were not numerous, and articles of glass and silver were practically unknown, except in the houses of the rich. Entries in wills show the high value set upon a single spoon.



COSTUME

The pictures in old manuscripts give us a good idea of medieval dress. Naturally it varied with time and place, and according to the social position of the wearer. Sometimes laws were passed, without much result, to regulate the quality, shape, and cost of the costumes to be worn by different orders of society. The moralists of the age were shocked, then as now, when tightly fitting garments, which showed the outlines of the body, became fashionable. The inconvenience of putting them on led to the use of buttons and buttonholes. Women's headdresses were often of extraordinary height and shape. Not less remarkable were the pointed shoes worn by men. The points finally got so long that they hindered walking, unless tied by a ribbon to the knees.



BEARDS

The medieval noble of the twelfth century as a rule went clean shaven. To wear a beard was regarded as a sign of effeminacy in a man. The Bayeux Tapestry, [37] for instance, shows the Normans mostly clean-shaven, while the English wear only moustaches. The introduction of long beards seems to have been due to contact with the East during the crusading period.

BATHS AND BATHING

Regular bathing was not by any means neglected during the later Middle Ages. In the country districts river, lake, or pool met the needs of people used to outdoor life. The hot air and vapor baths of the Byzantines were adopted by the Moslems and later, through the Moors and crusaders, were made known to western Europe. After the beginning of the thirteenth century few large cities lacked public bathing places.

FOOD

Medieval cookbooks show that people of means had all sorts of elaborate and expensive dishes. Dinner at a nobleman's house might include as many as ten or twelve courses, mostly meats and game. Such things as hedgehogs, peacocks, sparrows, and porpoises, which would hardly tempt the modern palate, were relished. Much use was made of spices in preparing meats and gravies, and also for flavoring wines. Over-eating was a common vice in the Middle Ages, but the open-air life and constant exercise enabled men and women to digest the huge quantities of food they consumed.

TABLE ETIQUETTE

People in medieval times had no knives or forks and consequently ate with their fingers. Daggers also were employed to convey food to the mouth. Forks date from the end of the thirteenth century, but were adopted only slowly. As late as the sixteenth century German preachers condemned their use, for, said they, the Lord would not have given us fingers if he had wanted us to rely on forks. Napkins were another table convenience unknown in the Middle Ages.

DRINKING

In the absence of tea and coffee, ale and beer formed the drink of the common people. The upper classes regaled themselves on costly wines. Drunkenness was as common and as little reprobated as gluttony. The monotony of life in medieval Europe, when the nobles had little to do but hunt and fight, may partly account for the prevailing inebriety. But doubtless in large measure it was a Teutonic characteristic. The Northmen were hard drinkers, and of the ancient Germans a Roman writer states that "to pass an entire day and night in drinking disgraces no one." [38] This habit of intoxication survived in medieval Germany, and the Anglo-Saxons and Danes introduced it into England.

CENTRAL PERIOD OF THE MIDDLE AGES

Our survey of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries has now shown us that these two hundred years deserve to be called the central period of the Middle Ages. When the Arabs had brought the culture of the Orient to Spain and Sicily, when the Northmen after their wonderful expansion had settled down in Normandy, England, and other countries, and when the peoples of western Europe, whether as peaceful pilgrims or as warlike crusaders, had visited Constantinople and the Holy Land, men's minds received a wonderful stimulus. The intellectual life of Europe was "speeded up," and the way was prepared for the even more rapid advance of knowledge in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as the Middle Ages passed into modern times.

STUDIES

1. Look up on the map between pages 358-359 the following places where Gothic cathedrals are found: Canterbury, York, Salisbury, Reims, Amiens, Chartres, Cologne, Strassburg, Burgos, Toledo, and Milan.

2. Look up on the map facing page 654 the location of the following medieval universities: Oxford, Montpellier, Paris, Orleans, Cologne, Leipzig, Prague, Naples, and Salamanca.

3. Explain the following terms: scholasticism; canon law; alchemy; troubadours; Provencal language; transept; choir; flying buttress; werewolf; and mumming.

4. Who were St. Thomas Aquinas, Abelard, Gratian, Irnerius, and Roger Bacon?

5. Show how Latin served as an international language in the Middle Ages. Name two artificial languages which have been invented as a substitute for Latin.

6. What is meant by saying that "French is a mere patois of Latin"?

7. In what parts of the world is English now the prevailing speech?

8. Why has Siegfried, the hero of the Nibelungenlied, been called the "Achilles of Teutonic legend"?

9. What productions of medieval literature reflect aristocratic and democratic ideals, respectively?

10. Distinguish between the Romanesque and Gothic styles of architecture. What is the origin of each term?

11. Compare the ground plans of a Greek temple (page 291), a Roman basilica (page 284), and a Gothic cathedral (page 562).

12. Contrast a Gothic cathedral with a Greek temple, particularly in regard to size, height, support of the roof, windows, and decorative features.

13. Why is there some excuse for describing a Gothic building as "a wall of glass with a roof of stone"?

14. Do you see any resemblance in structural features between a Gothic cathedral and a modern "sky-scraper"?

15. Mention some likenesses between medieval and modern universities.

16. Mention some important subjects of instruction in modern universities which were not treated in those of the Middle Ages.

17. Why has scholasticism been called "a sort of Aristotelian Christianity"?

18. Look up the original meaning of the words "jovial," "saturnine," "mercurial," "disastrous," "contemplate," and "consider."

19. Show the indebtedness of chemistry to alchemy and of astronomy to astrology.

20. Mention some common folk tales which illustrate medieval superstitions.

21. Why was Friday regarded as a specially unlucky day?

22. Enumerate the most important contributions to civilization made during the Middle Ages.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Webster, Readings in Medieval and Modern History, chapter xvii, "Medieval Tales"; chapter xviii, "Three Medieval Epics."

[2] See pages 203, 322.

[3] The language spoken by the natives of Flanders. The country is now divided between France, Belgium, and Holland. See page 549.

[4] Icelandic is the oldest and purest form of Scandinavian. Danish and Norwegian are practically the same, in fact, their literary or book- language is one.

[5] Two names for rivers—Avon and Ex—which in one form or another are found in every part of England, are Celtic words meaning "water."

[6] See page 518.

[7] See page 309, note 1.

[8] See page 336.

[9] See page 386.

[10] See pages 284, 344.

[11] See page 283.

[12] The cathedral, baptistery, and campanile of Pisa form an interesting example of Romanesque architecture. See the illustration, page 544.

[13] The interior of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, shows the ribs and the beautiful tracery of the ceiling of a Gothic building. See the plate facin page 570.

[14] The flying buttress is well shown in the view of Canterbury Cathedral (page 324).

[15] See page 386.

[16] For the pointed arch see the view of Melrose Abbey (page 660).

[17] See the illustrations, pages 550, 551.

[18] See page 310.

[19] See pages 207, 331.

[20] See page 444.

[21] Latin universitas.

[22] See page 536.

[23] The method of the school (Latin schola).

[24] See pages 275 and 383.

[25] See page 618.

[26] See pages 133 and 608.

[27] See page 53.

[28] Greek oneiros, "dream."

[29] Greek nekros, "corpse."

[30] Charles Perrault's Tales of Passed Times appeared at Paris in 1697 A.D. It included the now-familiar stories of "Bluebeard," "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty," and "Little Red Riding Hood." In 1812 A.D. the brothers Grimm published their Household Tales, a collection of stories current in Germany.

[31] See page 420.

[32] Exodus, xxii, 18.

[33] See page 428.

[34] See page 346.

[35] The great Passion Play at Ober Ammergau in Germany is the modern survival and representative of this medieval religious drama.

[36] Everyman, one of the best of the morality plays, has recently been revived before large audiences.

[37] See the illustration, page 408.

[38] Tacitus, Germania, 22.



CHAPTER XXV

THE RENAISSANCE [1]

209. MEANING OF THE RENAISSANCE

LATER PERIOD OF THE MIDDLE AGES

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, covering the later period of the Middle Ages, are commonly known as those of the Renaissance. This French word means Rebirth or Revival. It is a convenient term for all the changes in society, law, and government, in science, philosophy, and religion, in literature and art which gradually transformed medieval civilization into that of modern times.

LIMITS OF THE RENAISSANCE

The Renaissance, just because of its transitional character, cannot be exactly dated. Some Renaissance movements started before 1300 A.D. For instance, the study of Roman law, as a substitute for Germanic customs, began toward the close of the eleventh century. The rise of European cities, with all that they meant for industry and commerce, belonged to about the same time. Other Renaissance movements, again, extended beyond 1500 A.D. Among these were the expansion of geographical knowledge, resulting from the discovery of the New World, and the revolt against the Papacy, known as the Protestant Reformation. The Middle Ages, in fact, came to an end at different times in different fields of human activity.

ORIGINAL HOME OF THE RENAISSANCE

The name Renaissance applied, at first, only to the rebirth or revival of men's interest in the literature and art of classical antiquity. Italy was the original home of this Renaissance. There it first appeared, there it found widest acceptance, and there it reached its highest development. From Italy the Renaissance gradually spread beyond the Alps, until it had made the round of western Europe.

ITALIAN CITIES OF THE RENAISSANCE

Italy, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, was a land particularly favorable to the growth of learning and the arts. In northern Italy the great cities of Milan, Pisa, Genoa, Florence, Venice, and many others had early succeeded in throwing off their feudal burdens and had become independent, self-governing communities. Democracy flourished in them, as in the old Greek city-states. Noble birth counted for little; a man of ability and ambition might rise to any place. The fierce party conflicts within their walls stimulated mental activity and helped to make life full, varied, and intense. Their widespread trade and thriving manufactures made them prosperous. Wealth brought leisure, bred a taste for luxury and the refinements of life, and gave means for the gratification of that taste. People wanted to have about them beautiful pictures, statuary, furniture, palaces, and churches; and they rewarded richly the artists who could produce such things. It is not without significance that the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance was democratic, industrial, and wealthy Florence. [2]

INFLUENCE OF THE CLASSIC TRADITION

Italy enjoyed another advantage over the other European countries in its nearness to Rome. Admiration for the ancient Roman civilization, as expressed in literature, art, and law, was felt by all Italians. Wherever they looked, they were reminded of the great past which once had been theirs. Nor was the inheritance of Greece wholly lost. Greek traders and the descendants of Greek colonists in Italy still used their ancient language; all through the medieval centuries there were Italians who studied Greek. The classic tradition thus survived in Italy and defied oblivion.

BYZANTINE, ARABIC, AND NORMAN INFLUENCE

In the Middle Ages Italy formed a meeting place of several civilizations. Byzantine influence was felt both in the north and in the south. The conquest of Sicily by the Arabs made the Italians familiar with the science, art, and poetry of this cultivated people. After the Normans had established themselves in southern Italy and Sicily, they in turn developed a brilliant civilization. [3] From all these sources flowed streams of cultural influence which united in the Renaissance.



210. REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN ITALY

THE CLASSICS IN THE MIDDLE AGES

The literature of Greece and Rome did not entirely disappear in western Europe after the Germanic invasions. The monastery and cathedral schools of the Middle Ages had nourished devoted students of ancient books. The Benedictine monks labored zealously in copying the works of pagan as well as Christian authors. The rise of universities made it possible for the student to pursue a fairly extended course in Latin literature at more than one institution of learning. Greek literature, however, was little known in the West. The poems of Homer were read only in a brief Latin summary, and even Aristotle's writings were studied in Latin translations.

DANTE ALIGHIERI 1265-1321 A.D.

Reverence for the classics finds constant expression in the writings of the Italian poet Dante. He was a native of Florence, but passed much of his life in exile. Dante's most famous work, the Divine Comedy, describes an imaginary visit to the other world. Vergil guides him through the realms of Hell and Purgatory until he meets his lady Beatrice, the personification of love and purity, who conducts him through Paradise. The Divine Comedy gives in artistic verse an epitome of all that medieval men knew and hoped and felt: it is a mirror of the Middle Ages. At the same time it drew much of its inspiration from Graeco-Roman sources. Athens, for Dante, is the "hearth from which all knowledge glows"; Homer is the "loftiest of poets", and Aristotle is the "master of those who know." This feeling for classical antiquity entitles Dante to rank as a prophet of the Renaissance.



DANTE AND THE ITALIAN LEAGUE

Dante exerted a noteworthy influence on the Italian language. He wrote the Divine Comedy, not in Latin, but in the vernacular Italian as spoken in Florence. The popularity of this work helped to give currency to the Florentine dialect, and in time it became the literary language of Italy. Italian was the first of the Romance tongues to assume a national character.

PETRARCH, 1304-1374 A.D.

Petrarch, a younger contemporary of Dante, and like him a native of Florence, has been called the first modern scholar and man of letters. He devoted himself with tireless energy to classical studies. Writing to a friend, Petrarch declares that he has read Vergil, Horace, Livy, and Cicero, "not once, but a thousand times, not cursorily but studiously and intently, bringing to them the best powers of my mind. I tasted in the morning and digested at night. I quaffed as a boy, to ruminate as an old man. These works have become so familiar to me that they cling not to my memory merely, but to the very marrow of my bones."



PETRARCH AS A LATIN REVIVALIST

Petrarch himself composed many Latin works and did much to spread a knowledge of Latin authors. He traveled widely in Italy, France, and other countries, searching everywhere for ancient manuscripts. When he found in one place two lost orations of Cicero and in another place a collection of Cicero's letters, he was transported with delight. He kept copyists in his house, at times as many as four, busily making transcripts of the manuscripts that he had discovered or borrowed. Petrarch knew almost no Greek. His copy of Homer, it is said, he often kissed, though he could not read it.

BOCCACCIO, 1313-1375 A.D.

Petrarch's friend and disciple, Boccaccio, was the first to bring to Italy manuscripts of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Having learned some Greek, he wrote out a translation of those epic poems. But Boccaccio's fame to- day rests on the Decameron. It is a collection of one hundred stories written in Italian. They are supposed to be told by a merry company of men and women, who, during a plague at Florence, have retired to a villa in the country. The Decameron is the first important work in Italian prose. Many English writers, notably Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales [4] have gone to it for ideas and plots. The modern short story may be said to date from Boccaccio.

STUDY OF GREEK IN ITALY

The renewed interest in Latin literature, due to Petrarch, Boccaccio, and others, was followed in the fifteenth century by the revival of Greek literature. In 1396 A.D. Chrysoloras, a scholar from Constantinople, began to lecture on Greek in the university of Florence. He afterwards taught in other Italian cities and further aided the growth of Hellenic studies by preparing a Greek grammar—the first book of its kind. From this time, and especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 A.D., many learned Greeks came to Italy, thus transplanting in the West the culture of the East. "Greece had not perished, but had emigrated to Italy."

HUMANISM

To the scholars of the fifteenth century the classics opened up a new world of thought and fancy. They were delighted by the fresh, original, and human ideas which they discovered in the pages of Homer, Plato, Cicero, Horace, and Tacitus. Their new enthusiasm for the classics came to be known as humanism, [5] or culture. The Greek and Latin languages and literatures were henceforth the "humanities," as distinguished from the old scholastic philosophy and theology.

SPREAD OF HUMANISM IN ITALY

From Florence, as from a second Athens, humanism spread throughout Italy. At Milan and Venice, at Rome and Naples, men fell to poring over the classics. A special feature of the age was the recovery of ancient manuscripts from monasteries and cathedrals, where they had often lain neglected and blackened with the dust of ages. Nearly all the Latin works now extant were brought to light by the middle of the fifteenth century. But it was not enough to recover the manuscripts: they had to be safely stored and made accessible to students. So libraries were established, professorships of the ancient languages were endowed, and scholars were given opportunities to pursue their researches. Even the popes shared in this zeal for humanism. One of them founded the Vatican Library at Rome, which has the most valuable collection of manuscripts in the world. At Florence the wealthy family of the Medici vied with the popes in the patronage of the new learning.

211. PAPER AND PRINTING

PRINTED BOOKS

The revival of learning was greatly hastened when printed books took the place of manuscripts laboriously copied by hand. Printing is a complicated process, and many centuries were required to bring it to perfection. Both paper and movable type had to be invented.

INTRODUCTION OF PAPER

The Chinese at a remote period made paper from some fibrous material. The Arabs seem to have been the first to make linen paper out of flax and rags. The manufacture of paper in Europe was first established by the Moors in Spain. The Arab occupation of Sicily introduced the art into Italy. Paper found a ready sale in Europe, because papyrus and parchment, which the ancients had used as writing materials, were both expensive and heavy. Men now had a material moderate in price, durable, and one that would easily receive the impression of movable type.

DEVELOPMENT OF MOVABLE TYPE

The first step in the development of printing was the use of engraved blocks. Single letters, separate words, and sometimes entire pages of text were cut in hard wood or copper. When inked and applied to writing material, they left a clear impression. The second step was to cast the letters in separate pieces of metal, all of the same height and thickness. These could then be arranged in any desired way for printing.

GUTENBERG

Movable type had been used for centuries by the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans in the East, and in Europe several printers have been credited with their invention. A German, Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, set up the first printing press with movable type about 1450 A.D., and from it issued the first printed book. This was a Latin translation of the Bible.



ALDUS AND CAXTON

The new art quickly spread throughout Christian Europe. It met an especially warm welcome in Italy, where people felt so keen a desire for reading and instruction. By the end of the fifteenth century Venice alone had more than two hundred printing presses. Here Aldus Manutius maintained a famous establishment for printing Greek and Latin classics. In 1476 A.D. the English printer, William Caxton, set up his wooden presses within the precincts of Westminster Abbey. To him we owe editions of Chaucer's poems, Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, [6] Aesop's Fables, and many other works.

INCUNABULA

The books printed in the fifteenth century go by the name of incunabula. [7] Of the seven or eight million volumes which appeared before 1500 A.D., about thirty thousand are believed to be still in existence. Many of these earliest books were printed in heavy, "black letter" type, an imitation of the characters used in monkish manuscripts. It is still retained for most books printed in Germany. The clearer and neater "Roman" characters, resembling the letters employed for ancient Roman inscriptions, came into use in southern Europe and England. The Aldine press at Venice also devised "italic" type, said to be modeled after Petrarch's handwriting, to enable the publisher to crowd more words on a page.



IMPORTANCE OF PRINTING

The invention of printing has been called the greatest event in history. The statement is hardly too strong. It is easy to see that printing immensely increased the supply of books. A hardworking copyist might produce, at the most, only a few volumes a year; a printing press could strike them off by the thousands. Not only more books, but also more accurate books, could be produced by printing. The old-time copyist, however skilful, was sure to make mistakes, sometimes of a serious character. No two copies of any manuscript were exactly alike. When, however, an entire edition was printed from the same type, mistakes in the different copies might be entirely eliminated. Furthermore, the invention of printing destroyed the monopoly of learning possessed by the universities and people of wealth. Books were now the possession of the many, not the luxury of the few. Anyone who could read had opened to him the gateway of knowledge; he became a citizen, henceforth, of the republic of letters. Printing, which made possible popular education, public libraries, and ultimately cheap newspapers, ranks with gunpowder [8] as an emancipating force.

212. REVIVAL OF ART IN ITALY

ARCHITECTURE

Gothic architecture, with its pointed arches, flying buttresses, and traceried windows, never struck deep roots in Italy. The architects of the Renaissance went back to Greek temples and Roman domed buildings for their models, just as the humanists went back to Greek and Latin literature. Long rows of Ionic or Corinthian columns, spanned by round arches, became again the prevailing architectural style. Perhaps the most important accomplishment of Renaissance builders was the adoption of the dome, instead of the vault, for the roofs of churches. The majestic cupola of St. Peter's at Rome, [9] which is modeled after the Pantheon, [10] has become the parent of many domed structures in the Old and New World. [11] Architects, however, did not limit themselves to churches. The magnificent palaces of Florence, as well as some of those in Venice, are among the monuments of the Renaissance era. Henceforth architecture became more and more a secular art.

SCULPTURE

The development of architecture naturally stimulated the other arts. Italian sculptors began to copy the ancient bas-reliefs and statues preserved in Rome and other cities. At this time glazed terra cotta came to be used by sculptors. Another Renaissance art was the casting of bronze doors, with panels which represented scenes from the Bible. The beautiful doors of the baptistery of Florence were described as "worthy of being placed at the entrance of Paradise."

MICHELANGELO, 1475-1564 A.D.

The greatest of Renaissance sculptors was Michelangelo. Though a Florentine by birth, he lived in Rome and made that city a center of Italian art. A colossal statue of David, who looks like a Greek athlete, and another of Moses, seated and holding the table of the law, are among his best-known works. Michelangelo also won fame in architecture and painting. The dome of St. Peter's was finished after his designs. Having been commissioned by one of the popes to decorate the ceiling of the Sistine chapel [12] in the Vatican, he painted a series of scenes which presented the Biblical story from the Creation to the Flood. These frescoes are unequaled for sublimity and power. On the end wall of the same chapel Michelangelo produced his fresco of the "Last Judgment," one of the most famous paintings in the world.

RISE OF ITALIAN PAINTING

The early Italian painters contented themselves, at first, with imitating Byzantine mosaics and enamels. [13] Their work exhibited little knowledge of human anatomy: faces might be lifelike, but bodies were too slender and out of proportion. The figures of men and women were posed in stiff and conventional attitudes. The perspective also was false: objects which the painter wished to represent in the background were as near as those which he wished to represent in the foreground. In the fourteenth century, however, Italian painting abandoned the Byzantine style; achieved beauty of form, design, and color to an extent hitherto unknown; and became at length the supreme art of the Renaissance.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ITALIAN PAINTING

Italian painting began in the service of the Church and always remained religious in character. Artists usually chose subjects from the Bible or the lives of the saints. They did not trouble themselves to secure correctness of costume, but represented ancient Jews, Greeks, and Romans in the garb of Italian gentlemen. Many of their pictures were frescoes, that is, the colors were mixed with water and applied to the plaster walls of churches and palaces. After the process of mixing oils with the colors was discovered, pictures on wood or canvas (easel paintings) became common. Renaissance painters excelled in portraiture. They were less successful with landscapes.

THE "OLD MASTERS"

Among the "old masters" of Italian painting four, besides Michelangelo, stand out with special prominence. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519 A.D.) was architect, sculptor, musician, and engineer, as well as painter. His finest work, the "Last Supper," a fresco painting at Milan, is much damaged, but fortunately good copies of it exist. Paris has the best of his easel pictures—the "Monna Lisa." Leonardo spent four years on it and then declared that he could not finish it to his satisfaction. Leonardo's contemporary, Raphael (1483-1520 A.D.), died before he was forty, but not before he had produced the "Sistine Madonna," now at Dresden, the "Transfiguration," in the Vatican Gallery at Rome, and many other famous compositions. In Raphael Italian painting reached its zenith. All his works are masterpieces. Another artist, the Venetian Titian (1477?-1576 A.D.), painted portraits unsurpassed for glowing color. His "Assumption of the Virgin" ranks among the greatest pictures in the world. Lastly must be noted the exquisite paintings of Correggio (1494-1534 A.D.), among them the "Holy Night" and the "Marriage of St. Catherine."



MUSIC

Another modern art, that of music, arose in Italy during the Renaissance. In the sixteenth century the three-stringed rebeck received a fourth string and became the violin, the most expressive of all musical instruments. A forerunner of the pianoforte also appeared in the harpsichord. A papal organist and choir-master, Palestrina (1526-1594 A.D.), was the first of the great composers. He gave music its fitting place in worship by composing melodious hymns and masses still sung in Roman Catholic churches. The oratorio, a religious drama set to music but without action, scenery, or costume, had its beginning at this time. The opera, however, was little developed until the eighteenth century.

213. REVIVAL OF LEARNING AND ART BEYOND ITALY

SPREAD OF HUMANISM IN EUROPE

About the middle of the fifteenth century fire from the Italian altar was carried across the Alps, and a revival of learning began in northern lands. Italy had led the way by recovering the long-buried treasures of the classics and by providing means for their study. Scholars in Germany, France, and England, who now had the aid of the printing press, continued the intellectual movement and gave it widespread currency.

DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 1466(?)-1536 A.D.

The foremost humanist of the age was Desiderius Erasmus. Though a native of Rotterdam in Holland, he lived for a time in Germany, France, England, and Italy, and died at Basel in Switzerland. His travels and extensive correspondence brought him in contact with most of the leading scholars of the day. Erasmus wrote in Latin many works which were read and enjoyed by educated men. He might be called the first really popular author in Europe. Like Petrarch, he did much to encourage the humanistic movement by his precepts and his example. "When I have money," said this devotee of the classics, "I will first buy Greek books and then clothes."

GREEK TESTAMENT OF ERASMUS

Erasmus performed his most important service as a Biblical critic. In 1516 A.D. he published the New Testament in the original Greek, with a Latin translation and a dedication to the pope. Up to this time the only accessible edition of the New Testament was the old Latin version known as the Vulgate, which St. Jerome had made near the close of the fourth century. By preparing a new and more accurate translation, Erasmus revealed the fact that the Vulgate contained many errors. By printing the Greek text, together with notes which helped to make the meaning clear, Erasmus enabled scholars to discover for themselves just what the New Testament writers had actually said. [14]

HUMANISM AND THE REFORMATION

Erasmus as a student of the New Testament carried humanism over into the religious field. His friends and associates, especially in Germany, continued his work. "We are all learning Greek now," said Luther, "in order to understand the Bible." Humanism, by becoming the handmaid of religion, thus passed insensibly into the Reformation.



THE ARTISTIC REVIVAL IN EUROPE

Italian architects found a cordial reception in France, Spain, the Netherlands, and other countries, where they introduced Renaissance styles of building and ornamentation. The celebrated palace of the Louvre in Paris, which is used to-day as an art gallery and museum, dates from the sixteenth century. At this time the French nobles began to replace their somber feudal dwellings by elegant country houses. Renaissance sculpture also spread beyond Italy throughout Europe. Painters in northern countries at first followed Italian models, but afterwards produced masterpieces of their own. [15]

214. THE RENAISSANCE IN LITERATURE

HUMANISM AND THE VERNACULAR

The renewed interest in classical studies for a time retarded the development of national languages and literatures in Europe. To the humanists only Latin and Greek seemed worthy of notice. Petrarch, for instance, composed in Italian beautiful sonnets which are still much admired, but he himself expected to gain literary immortality through his Latin works. Another Italian humanist went so far as to call Dante "a poet for bakers and cobblers," and the Divine Comedy was indeed translated into Latin a few years after the author's death.

THE VERNACULAR REVIVAL

But a return to the vernacular was bound to come. The common people understood little Latin, and Greek not at all. Yet they had learned to read and they now had the printing press. Before long many books composed in Italian, Spanish, French, English, and other national languages made their appearance. This revival of the vernacular meant that henceforth European literature would be more creative and original than was possible when writers merely imitated or translated the classics. The models provided by Greece and Rome still continued, however, to furnish inspiration to men of letters.

MACHIAVELLI, 1469-1527 A.D.

The Florentine historian and diplomat, Machiavelli, by his book, The Prince, did much to found the modern science of politics. Machiavelli, as a patriotic Italian, felt infinite distress at the divided condition of Italy, where numerous petty states were constantly at war. In The Prince he tried to show how a strong, despotic ruler might set up a national state in the peninsula. He thought that such a ruler ought not to be bound by the ordinary rules of morality. He must often act "against faith, against charity, against humanity, and against religion." The end would justify the means. Success was everything; morality, nothing. This dangerous doctrine has received the name of "Machiavellism"; it is not yet dead in European statecraft.

CERVANTES, 1547-1616 A.D.

Spain during the sixteenth century gave to the world in Cervantes the only Spanish writer who has achieved a great reputation outside his own country. Cervantes's masterpiece, Don Quixote, seems to have been intended as a burlesque upon the romances of chivalry once so popular in Europe. The hero, Don Quixote, attended by his shrewd and faithful squire, Sancho Panza, rides forth to perform deeds of knight-errantry, but meets, instead, the most absurd adventures. The work is a vivid picture of Spanish life. Nobles, priests, monks, traders, farmers, innkeepers, muleteers, barbers, beggars—all these pass before our eyes as in a panorama. Don Quixote immediately became popular, and it is even more read to-day than it was three centuries ago.



FROISSART, 1397(?)-1410 A.D.

The Flemish writer, Froissart, deserves notice as a historian and as one of the founders of French prose. His Chronicles present an account of the fourteenth century, when the age of feudalism was fast drawing to an end. He admired chivalry and painted it in glowing colors. He liked to describe tournaments, battles, sieges, and feats of arms. Kings and nobles, knights and squires, are the actors on his stage. Froissart traveled in many countries and got much of his information at first hand from those who had made history. Out of what he learned he composed a picturesque and romantic story, which still captivates the imagination.

MONTAIGNE, 1533-1593 A.D.

A very different sort of writer was the Frenchman, Montaigne. He lives to- day as the author of one hundred and seven essays, very delightful in style and full of wit and wisdom. Montaigne really invented the essay, a form of literature in which he has had many imitators.

CHAUCER, 1340(?)-1400 A.D.

Geoffrey Chaucer, who has been called the "morning star" of the English Renaissance, was a story-teller in verse. His Canterbury Tales are supposed to be told by a company of pilgrims, as they journey from London to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. [16] Chaucer describes freshly and with unfailing good spirits the life of the middle and upper classes. He does not reveal, any more than his contemporary Froissart, the labor and sorrows of the down-trodden peasantry. But Chaucer was a true poet, and his name stands high in England's long roll of men of letters.

SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616 A.D.

This survey of the national authors of the Renaissance may fitly close with William Shakespeare, whose genius transcended national boundaries and made him a citizen of all the world. His life is known to us only in barest outline. Born at Stratford-on-Avon, of humble parentage, he attended the village grammar school, where he learned "small Latin and less Greek", went to London as a youth, and became an actor and a playwright. He prospered, made money both from his acting and the sale of his plays, and at the age of forty-four retired to Stratford for the rest of his life. Here he died eight years later, and here his grave may still be seen in the village church. [17] During his residence in London he wrote, in whole or in part, thirty-six or thirty-seven dramas, both tragedies and comedies. They were not collected and published until several years after his death. Shakespeare's plays were read and praised by his contemporaries, but it has remained for modern men to see in him one who ranks with Homer, Vergil, Dante, and Goethe among the great poets of the world.



PERSONALITY IN RENAISSANCE LITERATURE

Renaissance poets and prose writers revealed themselves in their books. In the same way the sculptors and painters of the Renaissance worked out their own ideas and emotions in their masterpieces. This personal note affords a sharp contrast to the anonymity of the Middle Ages. We do not know the authors of the Song of Roland, the Nibelungenlied, and Reynard the Fox, any more than we know the builders of the Gothic cathedrals. Medieval literature subordinated the individual; that of the Renaissance expressed the sense of individuality and man's interest in himself. It was truly "humanistic."

215. THE RENAISSANCE IN EDUCATION

HUMANISM AND EDUCATION

The universities of the Middle Ages emphasized scholastic philosophy, though in some institutions law and medicine also received much attention. Greek, of course, was not taught, the vernacular languages of Europe were not studied, and neither science nor history enjoyed the esteem of the learned. The Renaissance brought about a partial change in this curriculum. The classical languages and literatures, after some opposition, gained an entrance into university courses and displaced scholastic philosophy as the chief subject of instruction. From the universities the study of the "humanities" descended to the lower schools, where they still hold a leading place.

VITTORINO DA FELTRE, 1378-1446 A.D.

An Italian humanist, Vittorino da Feltre, was the pioneer of Renaissance education. In his private school at Mantua, the "House of Delight," as it was called, Vittorino aimed to develop at the same time the body, mind, and character of his pupils, so as to fit them to "serve God in Church and State." Accordingly, he gave much attention to religious instruction and also set a high value on athletics. The sixty or seventy young men under his care were taught to hunt and fish, to run and jump, to wrestle and fence, to walk gracefully, and above all things to be temperate. For intellectual training he depended on the Latin classics as the best means of introducing students to the literature, art, and philosophy of ancient times. Vittorino's name is not widely known to-day; he left no writings, preferring, as he said, to live in the lives of his pupils; but there is scarcely a modern teacher who does not consciously or unconsciously follow his methods. More than anyone else, he is responsible for the educational system which has prevailed in Europe almost to the present day.

A "CLASSICAL EDUCATION"

It cannot be said that the influence of humanism on education was wholly good. Henceforth the Greek and Latin languages and literatures became the chief instruments of culture. Educators neglected the great world of nature and of human life which lay outside the writings of the ancients. This "bookishness" formed a real defect of Renaissance systems of training.

COMENIUS, 1592-1671 A.D.

A Moravian bishop named Comenius, who gave his long life almost wholly to teaching, stands for a reaction against humanistic education. He proposed that the vernacular tongues, as well as the classics, should be made subjects of study. For this purpose he prepared a reading book, which was translated into a dozen European languages, and even into Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. Comenius also believed that the curriculum should include the study of geography, world history, and government, and the practice of the manual arts. He was one of the first to advocate the teaching of science. Perhaps his most notable idea was that of a national system of education, reaching from primary grades to the university. "Not only," he writes, "are the children of the rich and noble to be drawn to school, but all alike, rich and poor, boys and girls, in great towns and small, down to the country villages." The influence of this Slavic teacher is more and more felt in modern systems of education.

216. THE SCIENTIFIC RENAISSANCE

HUMANISM AND SCIENCE

The Middle Ages were not by any means ignorant of science, [18] but its study naturally received a great impetus when the Renaissance brought before educated men all that the Greeks and Romans had done in mathematics, physics, astronomy, medicine, and other subjects. The invention of printing also fostered the scientific revival by making it easy to spread knowledge abroad in every land. The pioneers of Renaissance science were Italians, but students in France, England, Germany, and other countries soon took up the work of enlightenment.

COPERNICUS 1473-1543 A.D.

The names of some Renaissance scientists stand as landmarks in the history of thought. The first place must be given to Copernicus, the founder of modern astronomy. He was a Pole, but lived many years in Italy. Patient study and calculation led him to the conclusion that the earth turns upon its own axis, and, together with the planets, revolves around the sun. The book in which he announced this conclusion did not appear until the very end of his life. A copy of it reached him on his deathbed.

THE COPERNICAN THEORY

Medieval astronomers had generally accepted the Ptolemaic system. [19] Some students before Copernicus had indeed suggested that the earth and planets might rotate about a central sun, but he first gave reasons for such a belief. The new theory met much opposition, not only in the universities, which clung to the time-honored Ptolemaic system, but also among theologians, who thought that it contradicted many statements in the Bible. Moreover, people could not easily reconcile themselves to the idea that the earth, instead of being the center of the universe, is only one member of the solar system, that it is, in fact, only a mere speck of cosmic dust.

GALILEO, 1564-1642 A.D.

An Italian scientist, Galileo, made one of the first telescopes—it was about as powerful as an opera glass—and turned it on the heavenly bodies with wonderful results. He found the sun moving unmistakably on its axis, Venus showing phases according to her position in relation to the sun, Jupiter accompanied by revolving moons, or satellites, and the Milky Way composed of a multitude of separate stars. Galileo rightly believed that these discoveries confirmed the theory of Copernicus.

KEPLER, 1571-1630 A.D.

Another man of genius, the German Kepler, worked out the mathematical laws which govern the movements of the planets. He made it clear that the planets revolve around sun in elliptical instead of circular orbits. Kepler's investigations afterwards led to the discovery of the principle of gravitation.

VESALIUS, 1514-1564 A.D., AND HARVEY, 1578-1657 A.D.

Two other scientists did epochal work in a field far removed from astronomy. Vesalius, a Fleming, who studied in Italian medical schools, gave to the world the first careful description of the human body based on actual dissection. He was thus the founder of human anatomy. Harvey, an Englishman, after observing living animals, announced the discovery of the circulation of the blood. He thereby founded human physiology.

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Vesalius, Harvey, and their fellow workers built up the scientific method. In the Middle Ages students had mostly been satisfied to accept what Aristotle and other philosophers had said, without trying to prove their statements. [20] Kepler, for instance, was the first to disprove the Aristotelian idea that, as all perfect motion is circular, therefore the heavenly bodies must move in circular orbits. Similarly, the world had to wait many centuries before Harvey showed Aristotle's error in supposing that the blood arose in the liver, went thence to the heart, and by the veins was conducted over the body. The new scientific method rested on observation and experiment. Students learned at length to take nothing for granted, to set aside all authority, and to go straight to nature for their facts. As Lord Bacon, [21] one of Shakespeare's contemporaries and a severe critic of the old scholasticism, declared, "All depends on keeping the eye steadily fixed upon the facts of nature, and so receiving their images simply as they are, for God forbid that we should give out a dream of our own imagination for a pattern of the world." Modern science, to which we owe so much, is a product of the Renaissance.

217. THE ECONOMIC RENAISSANCE

AN ECONOMIC CHANGE

Thus far the Renaissance has been studied as an intellectual and artistic movement, which did much to liberate the human mind and brought the Middle Ages to an end in literature, in art, and in science. It is necessary, however, to consider the Renaissance era from another point of view. During this time an economic change of vast significance was taking place in rural life all over western Europe. We refer to the decline and ultimate extinction of medieval serfdom.

DECLINE OF SERFDOM

Serfdom imposed a burden only less heavy than the slavery which it had displaced. The serf, as has been shown, [22] might not leave the manor in which he was born, he might not sell his holdings of land, and, finally, he had to give up a large part of his time to work without pay for the lord of the manor. This system of forced labor was at once unprofitable to the lord and irksome to his serfs. After the revival of trade and industry in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had brought more money into circulation, [23] the lord discovered how much better it was to hire men to work for him, as he needed them, instead of depending on serfs who shirked their tasks as far as possible. The latter, in turn, were glad to pay the lord a fixed sum for the use of land, since now they could devote themselves entirely to its cultivation. Both parties gained by an arrangement which converted the manorial lord into a landlord and the serf into a free tenant-farmer paying rent.

THE "BLACK DEATH"

The emancipation of the peasantry was hastened, strangely enough, as the result of perhaps the most terrible calamity that has ever afflicted mankind. About the middle of the fourteenth century a pestilence of Asiatic origin, now known to have been the bubonic plague, reached the West. [24] The "Black Death" so called because among its symptoms were dark patches all over the body, moved steadily across Europe. The way for its ravages had been prepared by the unhealthful conditions of ventilation and drainage in towns and cities. After attacking Greece, Sicily, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, the plague entered England in 1349 A.D. and within less than two years swept away probably half the population of that country. The mortality elsewhere was enormous, one estimate setting it as high as twenty-five millions for all Europe.