  THE CIVILIZATION OF THE MIDDLE AGES What the English owed to their European Neighbors. If the English succeeded better than other Europeans in learning how to govern themselves, one reason was that the Channel protected them from attack, and they could quarrel with their king without running much risk that their enemies in other countries would take advantage of the quarrel to seize their lands or attempt to conquer them. The French were not so well placed. France also was not united like England, and whole districts called counties or duchies were almost independent of the king, being ruled by their counts and dukes. In France it would not have been wise for the people to quarrel with the king, for he was their natural protector against cruel lords. Germany and Italy were even more divided, with not only counties and duchies, but also cities nearly as independent as the ancient cities of Greece. The Europeans on the Continent did many things which the English were doing, and some of these were so well done that the English were ready to accept these Europeans as their teachers. The memory of what the Greeks and the Romans had done remained longer in southern France and Italy because so many buildings were still standing which reminded Frenchmen and Italians of the people who built them.
Classes of People. The people of Europe, as well as of England, were divided into two classes, nobles and peasants. The clergy seemed to form another class because there were so many of them. Besides the parish priests and the bishops there were thousands of monks, who were persons who chose to dwell together in monasteries under the rule of an abbot or a prior, rather than live among ordinary people where men were so often tempted to do wrong or were so likely to be wronged by others. The monks worked on the farms of the monasteries, or studied in the libraries, or prayed and fasted. For a long time the men who knew how to read were nearly always monks or priests. Outside of the monasteries or the bishops' houses there were few books. The Nobles. The nobles were either knights, barons, counts, or dukes. In England there were also earls. Many mediaeval nobles ruled like kings, but over a smaller territory. They gained their power because they were rich in land and could support many men who were ready to follow them in battle, or because in the constant wars they proved themselves able to keep anything they took, whether it was a hilltop or a town. Timid and peaceable people were often glad to put themselves under the protection of such a fighter, who saved them from being robbed by other fighting nobles.
In this way the nobles served a good purpose until the kings, who were at first only very successful nobles, were able to bring nobles as well as peasants under their own rule and to compel every one to obey the same laws. After this the nobles became what we call an aristocracy, proud of their family history, generally living in better houses and owning more land than their neighbors, but with little power over others.
Castles. For safety, kings and nobles in the Middle Ages were obliged to build strong stone forts or fortified houses called castles. They were often placed on a hilltop or on an island or in a spot where approach to the walls could be made difficult by a broad canal, or moat, filled with water. At different places along the walls were towers, and within the outer ring of walls a great tower, or keep, which was hard to capture even after the rest of the castle had been entered by the enemy. These castles were gloomy places to live in until, centuries later, their inner walls were pierced with windows. Many are still standing, others are interesting heaps of ruins. Knighthood. The lords of the castles were occupied mostly in hunting or fighting. They fought to keep other lords from interfering with them or to win for themselves more lands and power. They hunted that they might have meat for their tables. In later times, when it was not so necessary to kill animals for food, they hunted as a sport. Fighting also ceased to be the chief occupation, although the nobles were expected to accompany the king in his wars. From boyhood the sons of nobles, unless they entered the Church as priests or monks, were taught the art of fighting. A boy was sent to the castle of another lord, where he served as a page, waiting on the lord at table or running errands. He was trained to ride a horse boldly and to be skilful with the sword and the lance. When his education was finished he was usually made a knight, an event which took place with many interesting ceremonies. The young man bathed, as a sign that he was pure. The weapons and arms for his use were blessed by a priest and laid on the altar of the church, and near them he knelt and prayed all night. In the final ceremony a sword was girded upon him and he received a slight blow on the neck from the sword of some knight, or perhaps of the king. His armor covered him from head to foot in metal, and sometimes his horse was also covered with metal plates. When he was fully armed, he was expected to show his skill to the lords and ladies who were present. The Duties of a Knight. The duties of the knight were to defend the weak, to protect women from wrong, to be faithful to his lord and king, and to be courteous even to an enemy. A knight true to these duties was called "chivalrous," a word which means very much what we mean by the word "gentlemanly." There were many wicked knights, but we must not forget that the good knights taught courtesy, faithfulness in keeping promises, respect for women, courage, self-sacrifice, and honor.
The Peasants. Most of the people were peasants or townsmen. There were few towns, because many had been burned by the barbarian tribes which broke into the Roman Empire, or had been destroyed in the later wars. The peasants were crowded in villages close to the walls of some castle or monastery. They paid dearly for the protection which the lord of the castle or the abbot of the monastery gave them, for they were obliged to work on his lands three days or more each week, and to bring him eggs, chickens, and a little money several times a year. They also gave him a part of their harvest. The Townsmen. At first the towns belonged to lords, or abbots, or bishops, but many towns drove out their lords and ruled themselves or received officers from the king. When they ruled themselves, their towns were called communes. The citizens agreed that whenever the town bell was rung they would gather together. Any one who was absent was fined. For them "eternal vigilance was the price of liberty." Some of the belfries of these mediaeval towns are still standing, and remind the citizens of to-day of the struggles of the early days.
The men of each occupation or trade were organized into societies or guilds, with masters, journeymen, and apprentices. There were guilds of goldsmiths, ironmongers, and fishmongers, that is, workers in gold and iron and sellers of fish. The merchants also had their guilds. In many towns no one was allowed to work at a trade or sell merchandise who was not a member of a guild. Old Cities which still exist. Many of the towns which grew up in the Middle Ages are now the great cities of England and Europe. Their citizens can look back a thousand years and more over the history of their city, can point to churches, to town halls, and sometimes to private houses, that have stood all this time. They can often show the remains of mediaeval walls or broad streets where once these walls stood, and the moats that surrounded them. The traveler in York or London, in Paris, in Nuremburg, in Florence, or in Rome eagerly searches for the relics about which so many interesting stories of the past are told. Venice and Genoa. One of the most fascinating of these old cities is Venice, built upon low-lying islands two miles from the shore of Italy and protected by a sand bar from the waters of the Adriatic. Venice was founded by men and women who fled from a Roman city on the mainland which was ruined by the barbarians in the fifth century after Christ. In many places piles had to be driven into the loose sands to furnish a foundation for houses. The Venetians did not try to keep out the water but used it as streets, and instead of driving in wagons they went about in boats. They grew rich in trade on the sea, as the Greeks had done in those same waters hundreds of years before. Farther down the coast of Italy were the cities Brindisi and Taranto, the Brundusium and Tarentum of the Romans. Across the peninsula to the west was another trading city called Genoa, which was the birthplace of Columbus. Modern Languages. While the people of mediaeval times were building city walls and towers to protect themselves they were also doing other things. Almost without knowing it they formed the languages which we now speak and write--English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish. The English and German languages are closely related because the forefathers of the English emigrated to England from Germany, taking their language with them. This older language was gradually changed, but it still remained like German. Dutch is another language like both English and German. There are many words in these languages borrowed from other peoples. Englishmen, because of their long union with western France, borrowed many words from the French. The French did not invent these words, for the French language grew out of the Latin language which the French learned from the Romans. How Modern Languages were formed. In English we have two sets of words and phrases: one is used in writing books or speeches, the other in conversation. When the Gauls learned Latin, the language of Rome, most of them learned the words used in conversation and did not learn the words of Roman books. Before long spoken words differed so much from the older written words that only scholars understood that the two had belonged to the same language. This new language was French. In the same way Italian and Spanish grew out of the ordinary Latin spoken in Italy and Spain. When men began to write books in the new languages, the changes went on more slowly because the use of words in books kept the spelling the same. Men wrote less in Latin, but it was still used in the religious services of the Church and in the schools and universities.
Schools in the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages most boys and girls did not go to school. Education was principally for those who expected to become priests or monks. The schools were in the monasteries or in the houses or palaces of the bishops. The students were taught a little Latin grammar, to write or speak Latin, and to debate. They also learned arithmetic; enough astronomy to reckon the days on which the festivals of the Church should come; and music, so much as was then known of it. Printing had not been invented, so there were no text-books for them to study, and written books or manuscripts were too costly. Students listened to the teacher as he read from his manuscripts and copied the words or tried to remember them. The Beginning of Universities. If students remained in the schools after these things had been learned, they studied the laws of the Romans, or the practise of medicine, or the religious questions which are called theology. Some teachers talked in such an interesting way about such questions that hundreds of students came to listen. Like other kinds of workers, who were organized in societies or guilds, the teachers and students formed a guild called a university. The teachers were the master-workmen, and the students were the apprentices. Where the Students lived. In the beginning the universities had no buildings of their own, and the teachers taught in hired halls, the students boarding wherever they could find lodgings. Partly to help students who were too poor to pay for good lodgings, and partly to bring the students under the direct rule of teachers, colleges were built. These were not separate institutions like the American colleges, but simply houses for residence, although later some teaching was done in them. Some Famous Universities. The oldest university was in Bologna in Italy, and teachers began to explain the laws of the Romans to its students eight hundred years ago. The University of Paris was called the greatest university in the Middle Ages. Its students numbered sometimes between six and seven thousand. About the same time the English universities of Oxford and Cambridge were formed, and there, many years later, a large number of the men who settled in America were educated. The Wisdom of the Arabs. Students in these universities obtained several of the writings of the Greeks through the Arabs, the followers of Mohammed, who had conquered most of Spain. Long before Europeans thought of founding universities the Arabs had flourishing schools and universities in Spain. The capital of the Mohammedan Empire was first at Bagdad on the Euphrates, where once ruled Haroun-al-Raschid, the hero of the tales of the Arabian Nights.
What Europeans borrowed from the Arabs. The Arabs had learned much of geography and mathematics from the Greeks, and they also found out much for themselves. The numerals which we use are Arabic; and algebra, one of our principal studies in mathematics, was thought out by the Arabs. Their learned men were deeply interested in the books of Aristotle, an ancient Greek, who had been a teacher of Alexander the Great. They translated his books into Arabic, and Christian students in Spain translated the Arabic into Latin. The great scholars at the University of Paris believed that Aristotle reasoned better than other thinkers, and took as their model the methods of reasoning found in this Latin translation of an Arabic translation of what Aristotle had written in Greek. [Illustration 128: THE ALCAZAR AT SEVILLE Built by the Moors in the twelfth century. Note the elaborate decoration of the Moorish architecture.] Builders in the Middle Ages. The Greeks and the Romans had been great builders, but the men of the Middle Ages succeeded in building churches, town halls, and palaces or castles which equaled in grandeur and beauty the best that the ancient builders had made. The large churches or cathedrals seem wonderful because their builders were able to place masses of stone high in the air and to cover immense spaces with beautiful vaulted roofs. Builders nowadays imitate, but not often, if ever, equal them. Fortunately the original buildings are still standing in many English and European cities: in Canterbury, Durham, and Winchester; in Paris, Chartres, and Rheims; in Cologne, Erfurt, and Strasbourg; in Barcelona and Toledo; in Milan, Venice, and Rome.
Church Building. The Italians began by building churches like Roman basilicas. Roman arches and domes, supported by heavy walls, were also used north of the Alps, and the method of building was named Romanesque, or in England, Norman. The architects or builders of western France discovered a way of roofing over just as large spaces without using such heavy walls, so that the interior could be lighted by larger windows. Instead of having rounded arches they used pointed arches. The walls between the windows were strengthened by masses of stone called buttresses. The peak of the roof of these cathedrals was sometimes more than one hundred and fifty feet above the floor. The glass of the windows showed in beautiful colors scenes from the Bible or from lives of sainted men and women. The outer walls, especially the western front, the doorways and the towers, were richly carved and adorned with statues, and often with the figures of strange birds and beasts which lived only in the imagination of the builders. This method of building was named Gothic, and it was used not only for churches but for town halls and private houses. Architects use similar methods of building nowadays.
The Renaissance. Men who could build and adorn great churches and town halls and who were eager to study in the new universities should be called civilized. The barbarous days were gone, but men still had much to learn from the ancient Greeks and Romans. Many of the ancient buildings were in ruins, the statues half buried or broken, the paintings destroyed, and the books lost. Men began to search for what was left of these things and to study them carefully to learn what the Graeco-Roman world had been like. After a while students could think of nothing else, and tried to imitate, if they could not surpass, what the Romans and the Greeks had done. The age in which men were first interested in these things is called the Renaissance or "rebirth," because men were so unlike what they had been that they seemed born again. With the beginning of the Renaissance the Middle Ages came to an end.
Petrarch. One of the earliest of these "new" men was Petrarch, an Italian poet who lived in the fourteenth century, a hundred years before Columbus. He wished above all things to read, copy, and possess the writings of the Romans, and especially of Cicero, an orator and writer who lived in the days of Julius Caesar. Petrarch and his friends searched for the manuscripts of Roman authors which had been preserved, hidden away in monastery libraries. The same love of Roman books seized others, and princes spent large sums of money in collecting and copying ancient writings. At this time a beginning of the great libraries of Europe was made, Petrarch tried to learn Greek, but could find no one in Italy able to teach him. Greek Books brought again to Italy. Shortly after Petrarch died some Greeks came from Constantinople seeking the aid of the pope and the kings of the West in an attempt to drive back the Turks, who had already crossed into Europe and settled in the lands which they now occupy. Unless help should be sent to Constantinople, the city would certainly fall into their hands. With these Greeks was one of those men who still loved to read the writings of the ancient authors. He was persuaded to remain a few years in Florence and other Italian cities and teach Greek to the eager Italian scholars. He was also persuaded to write a grammar of the Greek language, in order that after he had returned to Constantinople others might be able to continue his teaching. Collectors of books now searched for Greek writings as eagerly as they had searched for Latin writings. Merchants sent their agents to Constantinople to buy books. One traveler and scholar brought back to Italy over two hundred. Soon Italy was the land to which students from Germany, France, and England went to learn Greek and to obtain copies of Greek books. It was fortunate that so many books had been brought from Constantinople, for at last, in 1453, the Turks captured that city and no place in the East was left where the books of the Greeks were studied as they had been at Constantinople.
The Invention of Printing. After collectors of Greek and Roman writings had made several good libraries, partly by purchase, partly by copying manuscripts belonging to others, a great invention was made which enabled these writings to be spread far and wide and placed in the hands of every student. This invention was the method of printing with movable types. It is not quite certain who made the invention, although John Gutenberg, of Mainz, in Germany, has generally been called the inventor. Probably several men thought of the method at about the same time, that is, about 1450. Different Kinds of Type. In forming their type the German printers imitated the lettering made by copyists with a quill. Their type is called Gothic, and it is still widely used in German books. The Italian printers made their letters more round and simple in shape, imitating the handwriting of the best Italian copyists. This is the Roman type, in which many European peoples, as also the English and the Americans, print their books. The Italians also prepared a kind of lettering which, because they were the inventors, is named italic. The Aldine Press. One of the most famous printers of this early time was a Venetian named Aldus Manutius or Manucci. He gathered about him a number of Greeks and planned to print all the Greek manuscripts that had been discovered. This he did in beautiful type, imitated from the handwriting of one of his Greek friends. He sold the books for a price per volume about equal to our fifty cents, so that few scholars were too poor to buy. Some Early Printed Books. Another great printer was the Englishman William Caxton, who learned the art in the Netherlands. Among the books he printed was Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The first book printed by Gutenberg was the Bible in Latin. Early in the sixteenth century, through the labors of a Dutch scholar, Erasmus, and of his printer, the German Froben, the New Testament in Greek was printed. Architecture and Sculpture. The artists and the architects of this time began to imitate the buildings they found or that they unearthed. They used round arches and domes more than the pointed arches and vaulted roofs of the Gothic builders. Sculptors pictured in stone the stories of the Greek and Roman gods and heroes. Statues long buried in ancient ruins were dug up, and great artists like the Italian Michel Angelo studied them and rivaled them in the beautiful statues they cut. On every hand men's minds were awakened by what they saw of the work of the founders of the civilized world.
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