Part 34 (2/2)

PART II.

MEDIaeVAL AND MODERN HISTORY.

INTRODUCTION.

DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT.--As we have already noted, the fourteen centuries since the fall of the Roman empire in the West (A.D. 476) are usually divided into two periods,--the _Middle Ages_, or the period lying between the fall of Rome and the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, and the _Modern Age_, which extends from the latter event to the present time. The Middle Ages, again, naturally subdivide into two periods,--the _Dark Ages_, and the _Age of Revival_; while the Modern Age also falls into two divisions,--the _Era of the Protestant Reformation_, and the _Era of the Political Revolution_.

CHIEF CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FOUR PERIODS.--The so-called _Dark Ages_ embrace the years intervening between the fall of Rome and the opening of the eleventh century. The period was one of _origins_,--of the beginnings of peoples and languages and inst.i.tutions. During this time arose the Papacy and Feudalism, the two great inst.i.tutions of the Mediaeval Ages.

The _Age of Revival_ begins with the opening of the eleventh century, and ends with the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492. During all this time civilization was making slow but sure advances. The last century of the period, especially, was marked by a great revival of cla.s.sical learning (known as the _Renaissance_, or New Birth), by improvements, inventions, and discoveries, which greatly stirred men's minds, and awakened them as from a sleep. The Crusades, or Holy Wars, were the most remarkable undertakings of the age.

The _Era of the Reformation_ embraces the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth. The period is characterized by the great religious movement known as the Reformation, and the tremendous struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism. Almost all the wars of the period were religious wars. The last great combat was the Thirty Years' War in Germany, which was closed by the celebrated Peace of Westphalia, in 1648.

After this date the disputes and wars between parties and nations were political rather than religious in character.

The _Era of the Political Revolution_ extends from the Peace of Westphalia to the present time. This age is especially marked by the great conflict between despotic and liberal principles of government, resulting in the triumph of democratic ideas. The central event of the period is the French Revolution.

Having now made a general survey of the ground we are to traverse, we must return to our starting-point,--the fall of Rome.

RELATION OF THE FALL OF ROME TO WORLD-HISTORY.--The calamity which in the fifth century befell the Roman empire in the West is sometimes represented as having destroyed the treasures of the Old World. It was not so. All that was really valuable in the acc.u.mulations of antiquity escaped harm, and became sooner or later the possession of the succeeding ages. The catastrophe simply prepared the way for the s.h.i.+fting of the scene of civilization from the south to the north of Europe, simply transferred at once political power, and gradually social and intellectual preeminence, from one branch of the Aryan family to another,--from the Graeco-Italic to the Teutonic.

The event was not an unrelieved calamity, because, fortunately, the floods that seemed to be sweeping so much away were not the mountain torrent, which covers fruitful fields with worthless drift, but the overflowing Nile with its rich deposits. Over all the regions covered by the barbarian inundation a new stratum of population was deposited, a new soil formed that was capable of nouris.h.i.+ng a better civilization than any the world had yet seen.

THE THREE ELEMENTS OF CIVILIZATION.--We must now notice what survived the catastrophe of the fifth century, what it was that Rome transmitted to the new rulers of the world, the Teutonic race. This renders necessary an a.n.a.lysis of the elements of civilization.

Modern civilization is the result of the blending of three historic elements,--the _Cla.s.sical_, the _Hebrew_, and the _Teutonic_.

By the cla.s.sical element in civilization is meant that whole body of arts, sciences, literatures, laws, manners, ideas, and social arrangements,-- everything, in a word, save Christianity, that Greece and Rome gave to mediaeval and modern Europe. Taken together, these things const.i.tuted a valuable gift to the new northern race that was henceforth to represent civilization.

By the Hebrew element in history is meant Christianity. This has been the most potent factor in modern civilization. It has so colored the whole life, and so moulded all the inst.i.tutions of the European people that their history is very largely a story of the fortunes and influences of this religion, which, first going forth from Judea, was given to the younger world by the missionaries of Rome.

By the Teutonic element in history is meant of course the Germanic race.

The Teutons were poor in those things in which the Romans were rich. They had neither arts, nor sciences, nor philosophies, nor literatures. But they had something better than all these; they had personal worth. Three prominent traits of theirs we must especially notice; namely, their capacity for civilization, their love of personal freedom, and their reverence for womanhood.

The Teutons fortunately belonged to a progressive family of peoples. As Kingsley puts it, they came of a royal race. They were Aryans. It was their boundless capacity for growth, for culture, for civilization, which saved the countries of the West from the sterility and barbarism reserved for those of the East that were destined to be taken possession of by the Turanian Turks.

The Teutons loved personal freedom. They never called any man master, but followed their chosen leader as companions and equals. They could not even bear to have the houses of their villages set close together. And again we see the same independent spirit expressed in their a.s.semblies of freemen, in which meetings, all matters of public interest were debated and decided. In this trait of the Teutonic disposition lay the germ of representative government and of Protestant, or Teutonic Christianity.

A feeling of respect for woman characterized all the northern, or Teutonic peoples. Tacitus says of the Germans that they deemed something sacred to reside in woman's nature. This sentiment guarded the purity and sanct.i.ty of the home. In their high estimation of the sacredness of the family relation, the barbarians stood in marked contrast with the later Romans.

Our own sacred word _home_, as well as all that it represents, comes from our Teutonic ancestors.

CELTS, SLAVONIANS, AND OTHER PEOPLES.--Having noticed the Romans and Teutons, the two most prominent peoples that present themselves to us at the time of the downfall of Rome, if we now name the Celts, the Slavonians, the Persians, the Arabians, and the Turanian tribes of Asia, we shall have under view the chief actors in the drama of mediaeval and modern history.

At the commencement of the mediaeval era the Celts were in front of the Teutons, clinging to the western edge of the European continent, and engaged in a bitter contest with these latter peoples, which, in the antagonism of England and Ireland, was destined to extend itself to our own day.

The Slavonians were in the rear of the Teutonic tribes, pressing them on even as the Celts in front were struggling to resist their advance. These peoples, progressing but little beyond the pastoral state before the Modern Age, will play only an obscure part in the events of the mediaeval era, but in the course of the modern period will a.s.sume a most commanding position among the European nations.

<script>