James Pounder Whitney

“ Normans and Danes were to bear witness, before our period ends, to the spirit and the strength in which it wrought. As is always the case when two powers are attempting the same task in different ways and by different means, there was inevitable rivalry and strife between Empire and Church as they grew together within one common society. But such generalisations give, after all, an imperfect picture. Beneath them the details of ecclesiastical life, in Papacy, diocese, parish and monastery, are also part of the common history, and have received the notice which they can therefore claim. ”

“ The rapid spread of the False Decretals, in themselves an expression of existing tendencies rather than an impulse producing them, shew us the system in process of growth. Their rapid circulation would have been impossible had they not fitted in with the needs and aspirations of the age. They embodied the idea of the Church’s independence, and indeed of its moral sovereignty, two conceptions which, when the ecclesiastical and civil powers worked in alliance, helped to mould the Christian West into a coherent society, firmly settled in its older seats and also conquering newer lands. ”

“ Dimly to begin with, but with growing plainness, the realms of France, Germany, Italy, Lorraine, and Burgundy are seen taking their later territorial and constitutional shapes. England lay somewhat apart, insular, and therefore separated from the Empire, but by this very insularity everywhere exposed to Northmen and Danes. Here, too, as on the continent, statesman-like kings and far-sighted ecclesiastics worked together. The growth of territorial unity is easiest of all to trace, for it can be made plain in maps. ”

“ Politics, Religion, and Thought in all its many-sided fields, summed up for the future Western world all the remnants of the past which were most essential and fruitful for generations to come. They were the three great forces that made for unity and, with unity, for civilisation. ”

“ But the growth of unity of thought and interests, of constitutions and social forms, is harder to see and to express; it is easier to estimate the work of Ecgbert, Edward the Elder, and Aethelstan than the more many-sided achievements of Alfred and Dunstan, or the more pervasive influence of the great Northern school which gave us Bede and Alcuin. But the peculiarity of England’s position is most significant for constitutional growths, and it is, therefore, in connexion with English affairs that the origins of Feudalism are best investigated and discussed. ”

“ For the present we are in the period of formation, watching processes mostly beneath the surface and sometimes tending towards, if not actually in, opposition among themselves. Thus, the Imperial protection of the Church, working superficially for its strength, tended, as a secondary result, to weaken and secularise it, and therefore in the end, to produce a reaction. And, when it came, that reaction was caused as much by the inner history of the leading nations as by the central power of Rome and the Papacy itself. ”

“ The true significance, therefore, of the age can only be seen when we look ahead, and bear in mind the outlines of what in coming volumes must be traced in detail. This is specially true of the Feudalism which was everywhere gradually growing up, and, therefore, to understand its growth it is well to look ahead and picture for ourselves the system which forms the background for later history, although even here it is in process of growth and its economic and military causes are at work. ”

“ The new series of Emperors are concerned with the Papacy more as it affected Germany and Italy than under its aspect of a world-wide power built on a compact theory. The future history of the Empire in its relations to the Papacy turns, then, mainly upon the fortunes of the Church first in Germany and then in Italy: conflict arises, when it does arise, out of actual working conditions and not out of large conceptions and controversies. This is certainly true of our present period and of the Imperial system under Otto. ”

“ To all our contributors, foreign and English, the Editors have been much indebted, and must here express to them most grateful thanks.
In a history which ranges over many lands but is written mainly for English readers there are, naturally and always, difficulties about names, whether of persons or places. In our special period these difficulties are unusually great. Personal names vary from land to land, and the same name appears in different forms: chroniclers and modern writers are a law to themselves, even if any law is to be found. ”

“ The future, on the other hand, seemed full of dread, so men preferred precedent to revolution. In a world abounding in contrasts and fearful of surprise, strong men trained in a hard school were able to shape their own path and to lead others with them. So dynasties, like precedents, had peculiar value. And moreover from simple fear and pressing need, men were driven closer together into towns and little villages capable of some defence. In England some towns appear first, and others grow larger, under the influence of the Danes; in France it is the time of the villes neuves ”

“ Italy was thickly sown with castelli, around which houses clustered; in Germany, Nuremberg and Weissenburg, Rothenburg on the Taube with other towns are mentioned for the first time now; it was a period of civic growth in its beginnings. Socially too men were drawn into associations with common interests and fellowship of various kinds, beginning another great chapter of economic history. Thus in these centuries men were beginning to realise, first in tendency and afterwards in process, the power and attraction of the corporate life. ”

“ Contrasts always quicken the flow of commerce and the tide of thought: travel brought with it greater awakening then than now. Hence thought moved most quickly along the lines of trade, which were, for the most part, those of Roman rather than of later medieval days. We known something of the depopulation due to wars, and of the misery due to unchecked local tyranny, which drove men to welcome any fixity of rule and to respect any precedent even if severe and rough. ”

“ Benedict himself was dependent upon the Emperor for help against Byzantines, Saracens and factions in Rome itself. He could not be called a Pope of spiritual influence, but he was an astute politician, and under him the Papacy not only exercised without question its official power but also moved a little in the direction of church reform. As a ruler with activity and energy in days of darkness and degradation, he regained for the Papacy something of the old international position. ”

“ To the man of practice in those days, as to the student of St Augustine’s City of God, Christian society was one great whole, within which there were many needs, many ends to reach, and many varied things to do. ”

“ When therefore, we speak, as we shall have to speak, of forces which make for the subjection of peasantry to seignorial justice and which substitute the manor with its villeins for the free village, we shall—so at least it seems to us—be speaking not of abnormal forces, not of retrogression, not of disease, but in the main of normal and healthy growth. Far from us indeed is the cheerful optimism which refuses to see that the process of civilisation is often a cruel process ”

“ The basis of his power was Saxony, less feudalised than the other duchies and peopled mainly by freemen well able to fight for their ruler. Otto understood, moreover, how necessary for strength and order was close fellowship in work between State and Church. Throughout his land the Bishops, alike by duty and tradition, were apostles of civilisation, and, on the outskirts of the kingdom above all, the spread of Christianity meant the growth of German influence, much as it had done under Charlemagne himself. ”

“ In this process, unity, expressed by kingship, and disunion, expressed by the great tribal duchies which shared in later elections, were combined. And through many reigns, certainly throughout our period, the existence of these tribal duchies is the pivot upon which German history turns. To the king his subjects looked for defence against outside enemies: the Empire had accepted this task, and Charlemagne had well achieved it. But his weaker successors had neglected it, and as they made default, local rulers, and in Germany, the tribal dukes, above all, took the vacant place. ”

“ In these centuries, even more than in others, it is chiefly of kings, of battles and great events, or of purely technical things like legal grants or taxes, of which alone we can speak, because it is of them we are mostly told. We know but little of the general life of the multitude on its social and economic side. ”

“ An individual often finds his greatest temptations linked closely to his special capabilities and powers, and in the same way, out of this attempt to give the world order and peace, made by able rulers who were also men of devoted piety, sprang the abuses which called forth the general movement of the eleventh century for church reform. ”

“ Ideal possessions which have been won for mankind by the thought of Roman lawyers are lost for a long while and must be recovered painfully.” And “it must be admitted that somehow or another a retrogression takes place, that the best legal ideas of the ninth and tenth centuries are not so good, so modern, as those of the third and fourth.” ”

“ Laymen, from kings to officials, were, on the other hand, slowly forging, under pressure of actual need, a system that was strong, coherent, and destined to grow because it was framed in practice more than in thought. ”

“ Uniformity has been sought, but it is too much to hope that it has been reached. Certain rules have been followed so far as possible. Modern forms have been generally used where they exist, and earlier forms have been indicated. Names which are etymologically the same take different forms in Germany, France, Burgundy, Italy and Slavonic lands. It has been thought proper in such cases to keep the local form, except for names which have a common English form. ”

“ Many other historians, apart from the contributors, to whom we owe so much, have been of great service in various ways. And it is needless to say that to the staff of the University Press, working under peculiar difficulties caused by the war, we owe much for constant and unfailing help. ”

“ The volume was nearly ready when the War began, and, after delaying to begin with, necessitated large changes in its plan and execution. Since the War ended other causes have, to the great regret of the Publishers and Editors, delayed it further, and for this long delay an apology is due to our readers. The fact that some chapters have, for these reasons, been long in type, has hampered both writers and editors and made it peculiarly difficult to make the volume uniform in scale and execution. ”

“ Of this particular age we can say that it is specially and peculiarly one of beginnings, one in which older institutions and older forms of thought are gradually passing into later stages, which sometimes seem to be altogether new. ”

“ The same causes made it easier for moral and religious laws to hold a stricter sway, even if they were often disregarded by passion or caprice. Under the working of all these forces a more settled life was slowly growing up, although with many drawbacks and frequent retrogressions. ”