11th century

“ Properly considered, the eighth century is the most important and memorable which Europe has ever seen. During its course the geographical limits, the ecclesiastical polity, and the feudal system within and under which our western group of nations was destined to live for five or six centuries, were provisionally settled and determined. ”

“ So far have we followed the memorable fifth century, the century, I repeat, in whose first years, if at any time, modern history begins, the century at whose end the existing nations of Europe are still not in being, but at whose beginning they have taken, so to speak, the first feeble steps towards coming into being. ”

“ Whatever the division in men's minds as to the relation between the close of the century and a race's history, and the precise moment at which the old century ends and the new begins, one thing in 1800 was radiantly clear to all men—the glory and the wonder, the endless peace and felicity not less endless, which the opening century and the new age dimly portended or securely promised to humanity. ”

“ Teutonic heroism and resolution in action, transformed by the centuries behind and the ideals of the elder races, confront now, creative, the East, its mighty calm, its resignation, its scorn of action and the familiar aims of men, its inward vision, its deep disdain of realized ends. What vistas arise before the mind which seeks to penetrate the future of this union! The eighteenth century at its close coincided with an accomplished hope clearly defined. The last sun of the dying century goes down upon a world brooding over an unsolved enigma, pursuing an ideal it but darkly discerns. ”

“ It is surely worth while, therefore, to make an attempt to individualize the centuries, not by affixing to them any arbitrary marks of one’s own, but by taking notice of the distinguishing quality they possess, and grouping round that, as a centre, the incidents which either produce this characteristic or are produced by it. What should we call the present century, for instance? We should at once name it the Century of Invention. ”

“ The period at which this History commences,—the beginning of the sixteenth century,—when compared with the ages which had preceded it, since the fall of the Roman empire, was one of unprecedented brilliancy and activity. It was a period very fruitful in great men and great events, and, though stormy and turbulent, was favorable to experiments and reforms. The nations of Europe seem to have been suddenly aroused from a state of torpor and rest, and to have put forth new energies in every department of life. ”

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

“ If we could affix to each century as characteristic a presentment as those portraits do of the steel-clad hero of Towton, or the be-wigged, be-buckled courtier of George the Second, our object would be gained. We should see a whole history in a glance at a century’s face. If it were peculiarly marked by nature or accident, so much the more easy would it be to recognise the likeness. If the century was a warlike, quarrelsome century, and had scars across its brow ”

“ In some cases, as in France, the change in institutions was immediate and sweeping; in others, as in Germany and Italy, the transformation was more gradual; but in all, the old state of things was doomed.
The thirty years or so just preceding the Revolution are those that most concern us in this study, though we shall often have occasion to look back to the early eighteenth century — and sometimes to the seventeenth.
To realize the conditions under which men lived in the eighteenth century is not easy. ”

“ My darlings, this morning we will glance at some of the relics of what was once called the 'Christian Era,' subsequently designated by historians as 'The Age of Blood and Malevolence,' but which is, nevertheless, always of importance in the world's library from its having been the first link in the long unbroken chain of eras of civilization. If time will permit we will take from the twenty-first century to the fifteenth. ”

“ If this suggestion is followed, the Hundred Years’ War and the history of the papacy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries may serve to introduce the Renaissance if a discussion of the latter is preceded or followed by a general summary of the political situation in Europe at the opening of the sixteenth century, with special reference to those powers, both new and old, which are to dominate in the new period. ”

“ The historian may busy himself deciphering hieroglyphics on an Egyptian obelisk, describing a mediæval monastery, enumerating the Mongol emperors of Hindustan or the battles of Napoleon. He may explain how the Roman Empire was conquered by the German barbarians, or why the United States and Spain came to blows in 1898, or what Calvin thought of Luther, or what a French peasant had to eat in the eighteenth century. We can know something of each of these matters if we choose to examine the evidence which still exists; they all help to make up history. ”

“ The history of French civilization of the fifteenth century, on the contrary, does not permit us to forget the Middle Ages. France had been the mother-land of all that was strongest and most beautiful in the products of the medieval spirit. All medieval forms—feudalism, the ideas of chivalry and courtesy, scholasticism, Gothic architecture—were rooted here much more firmly than ever they had been in Italy. ”

“ Just as the history of the church and the world as a whole is distributed into ancient and modern, so the special history of the Germano-Roman world can and must be distributed into ancient and modern, the dividing boundary of which is the Reformation of the 16th century. ”

“ The noted historians of Europe, in describing the conditions, manners, politics, learning and culture, in all their aspects, of early, medieval and modern times, unanimously record that during the ten centuries constituting the Middle Ages, from the beginning of the sixth century of the Christian era till the close of the fifteenth, Europe was in every respect and to an extreme degree, barbaric and dark. ”

“ Great Development of Great Britain
These are not the only significant signs of progress which present themselves to us at the dawn of the twentieth century. In truth, in a hundred directions the world has been equipping itself for the new century, which seems to have before it a destiny unequalled in the history of the world. It is of special importance to observe how prominent the Anglo-Saxon peoples have been in the great advance which we have chronicled. ”

“ The middle of the sixteenth century in France is thus marked by a curious blend of those two distinct movements in human history which we call the Renaissance and the Reformation, and the blend is nowhere more picturesque than in the life of Robert Estienne. ”

“ The sixteenth century was drawing to its close,—a century marked by the ravages of religious revolution, and destined to be for ever honoured or deplored according as men may think of it as the age of reformation or of decay. ”

“ The Eastern Question thus developed, in the latter years of the 19th century, from that of the problems raised by the impending break-up of a moribund empire, into the even more complex question of how to deal with an empire which showed vigorous evidence of life, but of a type of life which, though on all sides in close touch with modern European civilization, was incapable of being brought into harmony with it. ”

“ FRANCIS I. WE are in the sixteenth century. Europe is young in artistic life. The minds of men are moved by the discussions, councils, protests, and contentions of the Reformation. The printing press is spreading knowledge into every corner of the globe.
At this period, three highly educated and unscrupulous young men divide the power of Europe. They are Henry VIII. of England, Charles V. of Austria, and Francis I. of France. Each is magnificent in taste; each is desirous of power and conquest. Each acts as a spur to the others both in peace and in war. ”

“ The sack of Rome in 410 shook the minds of men as if it were the end of all things. The fifth century was a time of ruin, but also it was a time of new beginnings. Three great events are to be noted in this fifth century: 1. The Western Empire came to an end; 2. The Franks passed over the Rhine into Gaul, and became Christian; 3. The Saxons passed over the 14sea to Britain, and remained heathen until the close of the sixth century. ”

“ The Revolution which had so lately preceded the opening of the century, and the far more pregnant and eventful Revolution which convulsed Europe at its close, had both of them many bearings, though of course in very different ways, upon the development of religious and ecclesiastical thought in this country. ”

“ Conscious choice and force of habit made Europeans cling to the basic pattern of twelfth-century civilization for generations, even though new activities and ideas forced modification of some of its details. There are important differences between the early and late Middle Ages, but these differences represent different stages in the development of a single civilization. From the fifth to the eighth century the wreckage of an older civilization was slowly cleared away. ”

“ But the eighteenth century, notwithstanding its nearness in time, and the immense mass of information that we have about it, appears strangely remote, separated from us as it is by the great gulf of the French Revolution. The century of which men still vigorous have known many living representatives impresses us as markedly different in temper and point of view from our own. ”

“ No century had ever witnessed so great a change in manners and position as this. In others we have seen a gradual widening-out of thought and tendencies, all, however, subdued by the universal shadow in which every thing was carried on. But in this the progress was by a sudden leap from darkness into light. In ancient times Europe was held together by certain communities of interest and feeling, of which the chief undoubtedly was the centralization of the spiritual power in Rome. ”

“ If we consider the condition of England at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the prevalence of abuses and corruption left by the ignorance or vice of preceding years, and reflect at the same time upon the progressive nature of the people, the practical habit of their minds, and the moral earnestness which they never wholly lost, it is not surprising to find that the century is one of reforms. ”

“ Walsh's book, The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries, will startle many readers, but we respectfully commend to the open-minded his presentation of that great epoch. A century that witnessed such extraordinary achievements in architecture, in arts and crafts, in education, and in literature and law, as did the Thirteenth, is not to be lightly dismissed or unfavorably compared with periods nearer our own. ”

“ It has been said that the seventeenth century saw Versailles; the eighteenth century saw the Earth; and the nineteenth century saw Humanity. Then the very pertinent question is asked, “Which century will see Life?” ”

“ It was Eastern philosophy, unquestionably false, that influenced the most powerful institution that existed in Europe for above a thousand years,—an institution which all the learning and eloquence of the Reformers of the sixteenth century could not subvert, except in Protestant countries. ”

“ This is indeed a great century, which has Pepin of Heristhal at its commencement and Charlemagne at its end. In this period we shall see the course of the dissolution of manners and government arrested throughout the greater part of Europe, and a new form given to its ruling powers. We must remember that up to this time the progress of what we now call civilization was very slow; or we may perhaps almost say that the extent of civilized territory was smaller than it had been at the final breaking up of the Roman Empire four hundred years before. ”

“ Further, from the fifth century after Christ until the fifteenth, that period defined as the Middle Ages, such terrible struggles and fierce upheavals, such ruthless encounters and horrifying acts, were the rule among the peoples of Europe, that the Europeans rightly describe those ten centuries as the Dark Ages. ”

“ In the widespread shifting of levels which has taken place in the last hundred years, affecting directly and indirectly the moral progress of all classes of society, certain important elements have entered which cannot be overlooked in the present discussion, and which in future ages must stand as preëminently characteristic of the nineteenth century and the Anglo-Saxon ascendency. ”

“ The first half of the seventeenth century as a whole, compared with the Elizabethan age, was a period of relaxing vigor. The Renaissance enthusiasm had spent itself, and in place of the danger and glory which had long united the nation there followed increasing dissension in religion and politics and uncertainty as to the future of England and, indeed, as to the whole purpose of life. ”

“ Germany, given over to theological speculation, crushed beneath the weight of the Napoleonic wars, and torn by internal dissensions, gave but little hope that upon her altars the dying fire of the great Reformation would ever again flame forth as in the older and more heroic days. ”