Greatest of CenturiesJacques Maritain Center
Author: The Thirteenth
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Greatest of CenturiesJacques Maritain Center The Thirteenth

Greatest of Centuries
by

James J. Walsh, M.D., PH.D., LL.D.

Acting Dean and Professor of the History of Medicine and of Nervous Diseases, Fordham University School of Medicine; Professor of Physiological

Psychology at St. Francis Xavier’s
and Cathedral Colleges,

New York.

with illustrations

Catholic Summer School Press

New York, 1907

To Right Rev. Monsignor M. J. Lavelle,

Rector of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York, Sometime President of the Catholic Summer School, to whose fatherly patronage this book is largely due, and without whose constant encouragement it would not have been completed, it is respectfully and affectionately dedicated by the author.

PROEM.

(EPIMETHEUS.)

WAKE again, Teutonic Father-ages,

Speak again, beloved primeval creeds; Flash ancestral spirit from your pages, Wake the greedy age to noble deeds.

Ye who built the churches where we worship, Ye who framed the laws by which we move, Fathers, long belied, and long forsaken, Oh, forgive the children of your love!

(PROMETHEUS.)

There will we find laws which shall interpret, Through the simpler past, existing life; Delving up from mines and fairy caverns Charmed blades to cut the age’s strife.

— Rev. Charles Kingsley. — The Saints’ Tragedy.

PREFACE.

“Why take the style of these heroic times?

For nature brings not back the mastodon —

Nor we those times; and why should any man Remodel models?”

What Tennyson thus said of his own first essay in the Idyls of the King, in the introduction to the Morte D’Arthur, occurs as probably the aptest expression of most men’s immediate thought with regard to such a subject as The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries. Though Tennyson was confessedly only remodeling the thoughts of the Thirteenth Century, we would not be willing to concede —

“That nothing new was said, or else,

Something so said, ‘twas nothing,”

for the loss of the Idyls would make a large lacuna in the literature of the Nineteenth Century. “If it is allowed to compare little things with great,” a similar intent to that of the Laureate has seemed sufficient justification for the paradox the author has tried to set forth in this volume. It may prove “nothing worth, mere chaff and draff much better burnt,” but many friends have insisted they found it interesting. Authors usually blame friends for their inflictions upon the public, and I fear that I can find no better excuse, though the book has been patiently labored at, with the idea that it should represent some of the serious work that is being done by the Catholic Summer School on Lake Champlain, now completing nearly a decade and a half of its existence. This volume is, it is hoped, but the first of a series that will bring to a wider audience some of the thoughts that have been gathered for Summer School friends by many workers, and will put in more permanent form contributions that made summer leisure respond to the Greek term for school.

The object of the book is to interpret, in terms that will be readily intelligible to this generation, the life and concerns of the people of a century who, to the author’s mind, have done more for human progress than those of any like period in human history. There are few whose eyes are now holden as they used to be, as to the surpassing place in the history of culture of the last three centuries of the Middle Ages. Personally the author is convinced, however, that only a beginning of proper appreciation has come as yet, and he feels that the solution of many problems that are vexing the modern world, especially in the social order, are to be found in these much misunderstood ages, and above all in that culmination of medieval progress — the period from 1200 to 1300.

The subject was originally taken up as a series of lectures in the extension course of the Catholic Summer School, as given each year in Lent and Advent at the Catholic Club, New York City. Portions of the material were subsequently used in lectures in many cities in this country from Portland, Me., to Portland, Ore., St. Paul, Minn., to New Orleans, La. The subject was treated in extenso for the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1906, after which publication was suggested.

The author does not flatter himself that the book adequately represents the great period which it claims to present. The subject has been the central idea of studies in leisure moments for a dozen years, and during many wanderings in Europe, but there will doubtless prove to be errors in detail, for which the author would crave the indulgence of more serious students of history. The original form in which the material was cast has influenced the style to some extent, and has made the book more wordy than it would otherwise have been, and has been the cause of certain repetitions that appear more striking in print than they seemed in manuscript. There were what seemed good reasons for not delaying publication, however, and leisure for further work at it, instead of growing, was becoming more scant. It is intrusted to the tender mercies of critics, then, and the benevolent reader, if he still may be appealed to, for the sake of the ideas it contains, in spite of their inadequate expression.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION, THE THIRTEENTH, GREATEST OF CENTURIES.

Deeds and men of a marvellous period. Evolution and man. No intellectual development in historical period. The wonderful medieval pre-renaissance. Our Gothic ancestors. Education for the classes and masses. Universities, cathedrals, arts, and crafts. Origins in art. Supreme literature in every language. Origins in law and liberty. Beginnings of modern democracy.

CHAPTER II

UNIVERSITIES AND PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.

Origins of universities. Triumph of invention. Character unchanged ever since.

University evolution, Salerno, Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Italian, French and Spanish Universities. Origin of preparatory schools. Cathedral colleges. Decree of the Council of Lateran, every cathedral to have a school and metropolitan churches to have colleges. Attendance at these preparatory schools.

CHAPTER III

WHAT AND HOW THEY STUDIED AT THE UNIVERSITIES.

Education of the Middle Ages usually ridiculed. Ignorance of critics.

Scholastics laughed at by those only who know them, but at second hand. “Logic, ethics and metaphysics owe to scholasticism a precision, unknown to the ancients themselves” (Condorcet.) Teaching methods. Scholarly interests quite as in our own day. Magnetism in literature. A magnetic engine. Aquinas and the indestructibility of matter and the conservation of energy. Roger Bacon’s four grounds of human ignorance. Prophecy of explosives for motor purposes.

Correction of the calendar. Contributions to optics. Experiment as the basis of scientific knowledge. Whewell’s appreciation. Albertus Magnus and the natural sciences. Humboldt’s praise for his physical geography. Contributions to botany.

Declaration with regard to foolish popular notions. The great group of scientific men at the University of Paris. Robert of Sorbonne’s directions how to study. Education of the heart as well as the head.

CHAPTER IV

THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS AND DISCIPLINE.

Largest universities of all time. More students to the population than at any time since. Discussion as to the numbers in attendance. Comparative average ages of students. How such numbers were supported. Working their way through college.

Some reasons for false impressions, as to university attendance. M. Compayré‘s paragraph on education in the Middle Ages. Supposed ignorance. The monks at the universities. How many students clerical. College abuses and discipline. The “nations,” the undergraduate committee on disciplinc. Teaching practical democracy.

CHAPTER V

POST-GRADUATE WORK AT THE UNIVERSITIES.

Medieval universities and additions to knowledge. Original work done, their best apology. Extensive writings of professors. Enthusiasm of students who copied their books. Post-graduate work in theology and in philosophy. Period of the scholastics. Graduates in law and collections and digests. Post-graduate work in medicine most important. Teaching by case histories. The significance of dropsy, suture of divided nerves, healing by first intention. William of Salicet and his pupil Lanfranc. The danger of the separation of surgery from medicine. Red light and smallpox. Mondaville and Arnold of Villanova. The republication of old texts. The supposed bull forbidding anatomy. The supposed bull forbidding chemistry. The encouragement of science in the medieval universities.

CHAPTER VI

THE BOOK OF THE ARTS AND POPULAR EDUCATION.

The Gothic Cathedrals, the stone books of medieval arts. St. Hugh of Lincoln.

Wealth of meaning in the Cathedrals. Their power to please. Gothic architecture everywhere, but no slavish imitation. English, French, German, and Italian Gothic. Spanish: Gothic. Gothic ideas in modern architecture. Beauty of details.

Sculpture. Gothic stauary not stiff nor ugly. Most affinity with Greek sculpture (Reinach). The Angel Choir at Lincoln. The marvellous stained glass of the period, — Lincoln, York, Chartres, Bourges. Storied windows and their teachings. Beauty and utility in the arts. Magnificent needlework, the Cope of Ascoli. The Cathedral as an educator. The Great Stone Book, which he who ran must read. Symbolism of the Cathedrals. The great abbeys, the monasteries, municipal and domestic architecture of the century. Furniture and decorations.

Ruskin on Giotto’s tower.

CHAPTER VII

ARTS AND CRAFTS — GREAT TECHNICAL SCHOOLS.

Solution of problems of social unrest. Blessed is the man who has found his work. Merrie England. The workman’s pleasure in his work. Influence of the Church in the arts and crafts movement. Rivalry in building the Cathedrals.

Organization of technical instruction. Correction of optical illusions. The village blacksmith and carpenter. Comparative perfection of the work done then and now. The trade guilds and the training of workmen. The System of instruction, apprentice, journeyman, master. The masterpiece. Social co-operation and fraternity. Mystery plays and social education.

CHAPTER VIII

GREAT ORIGINS IN PAINTING.

Rise of painting. Franciscans and Dominicans, patrons of art. St. Francis’

return to nature, the incentive of art. Cimabue’s Madonna. Gaddi. Guido, Ugolino and Duccio of Siena. Berlinghieri of Lucca, Giunta of Pisa. Giotto the master.

His work at Assisi, Verona, Naples, Rome. Marvellous universal appreciation of art. Contrast with other times. False notions with regard to Gothic art. Sadness not a characteristic. The beauty of the human form divine.

CHAPTER IX

LIBRARIES AND BOOKMEN.

Monastic regulations for collecting and lending books. Library rules.

Circulating libraries. The Abbey of St. Victor, the Sorbonne, St. Germain des Prés, and Notre Dame. Fines for misuse of books. Library catalogues. Library of La Ste. Chapelle. First medical library at the Hotel Dieu. How books were collected. Exchange of books. Special revenue for the libraries in the monasteries. Book collecting and bequests by ecclesiastics. Cost of books.

Franciscan and Dominican libraries. Richard De Bury’s Philobiblon. How books were valued. Richard a typical bookman. His place in history. Illuminated books.

The most interesting and original of all time (Humphreys). St. Louis’ beautiful books.

CHAPTER X

THE CID, THE HOLY GRAIL, THE NIBELUNGEN.

Literature equal to accomplishment in other lines. Architecture and literature, and the expression of national feelings. National epics of three western-most nations informed within the same half century. The Cid, its unity of authorship and action. Iviartial interest and spirited style. Tender (lomestic scenes.

Psychological analysis. Walter Mapes, and the Arthur Legends. Authorship and place in literature. Launcelot one of the greatest heroes ever invented. Unity of authorship of Nibelungen. Place in literature. Modern interest. Influence of these epics on national poetry.

CHAPTER XI

MEISTERSINGERS, MINNESINGERS, TROUVERES, TROUBADOURS.

A great century of song. The high character of women, as represented in these songs. Nature-poetry, and love. Walter Von der Vogelweide, Hartman Von Aue, Wolfram Von Eschenbach, Conrad Von Kirchberg. The Troubadours and their love songs. Selections from Arnaud de Marveil, Arnand Daniel, Bertrand de Born, William of St. Gregory, and Peyrols.

CHAPTER XII

GREAT LATIN HYMNS.

Greatest poetic bequest of the period. Place of rhyme in Latin. Latin hymns the first native poetry in the language. Influence of their charm of rhyme and rhythm on the developing languages of Europe. Supremacy of the Dies Irae, its many admirers. Other surpassing Latin Hymns. Celtic origin of rhyme. The Stabat Mater, some translations. Critical faculty in hymn selection. Jerusalem the Golden, its place in Christian song. Aquinas’ hymn, the Pange Lingua, its popularity. Musical expression of feeling and plain chant. The best examples from this period. Invention of part music, its adaptation and development in popular music.

CHAPTER XIII

THE THREE MOST READ BOOKS.

A generation and the books it reads. Reynard the Fox, the Golden Legend, and the Romance of the Rose. “Reynard the most profoundly humorous book ever written.”

Powers of the author as observer. Besides Gulliver’s Travels, Don Quixote and Pilgrim’s Progress. Its relations to Uncle Remus and many other animal stories.

The place of the Golden Legend in literature. Longfellow’s use of it. The Romance of the Rose for three centuries the most read book in Europe. The answer to the charge of dullness. The Rose as a commentary on the morning paper. The abuse of wealth as the poet saw it in the Thirteenth Century. Praise of “poverty light heart and gay.”

CHAPTER XIV

SOME THIRTEENTH CENTURY PROSE.

Prose of the century as great as the poetry. Medieval Latin unappreciated but eminently expressive. The prose style, simple, direct and nicely accurate.

Saintsbury’s opinion as to the influence on modern literature of the scholastic philosophers’ style. The chroniclers and the modern war correspondent.

Villehardouin, Jocelyn of Brakelond, Joinville, Matthew of Paris. Vincent of Beauvais and the first encyclopedia. Pagel’s opinion of Vincent’s style.

Durandus’ famous work on symbolism. Examples of his style. The Scriptures as the basis of style.

CHAPTER XV

ORIGIN OF DRAMA.

St. Francis and the first nativity play. Earlier mystery plays. Chester cycle.

Humorous passages introduced. Complete bible story represented. Actors’ wages and costumes. Innocent diversion and educational influence. Popular interest.

Everyman in our own day. Comparison with the passion play at Oberammergau. The drama as an important factor in popular education. Active as well as passive participation in great poetry. Anticipation of a movement only just beginning again.

CHAPTER XVI

FRANCIS, THE SAINT — THE FATHER OF THE RENAISSANCE.

The Renaissance, so-called. Before the Renaissance. Gothic architecture and art.

Francis the father of the real Renaissance. Matthew Arnold and “the poor little man of God.” St. Francis as a literary man. The canticle of the Sun. St.

Francis’ career. The simple life. Ruskin on Francis’ poverty. St. Francis in the last ten years. The disciples who gathered around him. A century of Franciscans.

The third order of St. Francis. Kings and queens, nobles and scholars hail St.

Francis as father. What the religious orders accomplished. St. Clare and the second order.

CHAPTER XVII

AQUINAS, THE SCHOLAR.

The nobility and education. Studies at Cologne and Paris. The distinguished faculty of Paris in his time. Summa Contra Gentiles. Pope Leo XIII. and Aquinas’

teaching. Foundations of Christian apologetics. Characteristic passages from Aquinas. Necessity for revelation of God’s existence. Explanation of Resurrection. Liberty in Aquinas’ writings. Greatness of Aquinas and his contemporaries and the subsequent decadence of scholasticism. Contemporary appreciation of St. Thomas. His capacity for work. His sacred poetry.

CHAPTER XVIII

LOUIS, THE MONARCH.

The greatest of rulers. His relations as a son, as a husband, as a father. His passion for justice. Interest in education, in books, in the encyclopedia.

Tribute of Voltaire. Guizot’s praise. The righting of wrongs. Letters to his son. Affection for his children. Regard for monks. Would have his children enter monasteries. Treatment of the poor. Attitude towards lepers. One of nature’s noblemen. Louis and the crusades. Bishop Stubbs, on the real meaning of the crusades. Louis’ interest in the crusades not a stigma, but an added reason for praise.

CHAPTER XIX

DANTE, THE POET.

Dante not a solitary phenomenon. A Troubadour. His minor poems and prose works.

His wonderful Sonnets. The growth of appreciation for him. Italian art, great as it kept nearer to Dante. Tributes from Italy’s greatest literary men. Michael Angelo’s sonnets to him. A world poet. English admiration old and new. Tributes of the two great English Cardinals. Dean Church’s Essay. Ruskin on the Grotesque on Dante. German critical appreciation. Humboldt’s tribute. America’s burden of praise. Dante and the modern thinker. His wonderful powers of observation.

Comparison with Milton. His place as one of the supreme poets of all times. A type of the century.

CHAPTER XX

THE WOMEN OF THE CENTURY.

Women of the century worthy of the great period. St. Clare of Assisi’s place in history. Happiness. The supper at the Portiuncula. Peace, in the cloister and woman’s influence. Equality of sexes in the religious orders. St. Elizabeth of Hungary, the first settlement worker. “Dear St. Elizabeth’s” influence on women since her time. Blanche of Castile as Queen and mother. Her influence as a ruler. Difficulties with her daughter-in-law. Mabel Rich, the London tradesman’s wife, and her sons. Isabella Countess of Arundel and courageous womanly dignity.

Women’s work in the century. Service of the sick. Co-education in Italy. Reason for absence in France and England. Women professors at Italian universities.

Feminine education four times in history. Reasons for decline. Women in the literature of the century. The high place accorded them by the poets of every country. Dante’s tribute to their charm without a hint of the physical.

CHAPTER XXI

CITY HOSPITALS — ORGANIZED CHARITY.

Charity occupied a co-ordinate place to education. Pope Innocent III. organized both. His foundations of the City hospitals of the world, the Santo Spirito at Rome the model. Rise of hospitals in every country, Virchow’s tribute to Innocent III. Care for lepers in special hospitals and eradication of this disease. The `meaning of this for the modern time and tuberculosis. Special institutions for erysipelas which prevented the spread of this disease. The organization of charity. The monasteries and the people. The freeing of prisoners held in slavery. Two famous orders for this purpose.

CHAPTER XXII

GREAT ORIGINS IN LAW.

Legal origins most surprising feature of the century. Significance of Magna Charta. Excerpts that show its character. The church, widows and orphans, common pleas, international law, no tax without consent, rights of freemen. Development of meaning as time and progress demanded it. Bracton’s digest of the common law.

Edward I. the English Justinian. Simon de Montfort. Real estate laws.

CHAPTER XXIII

JUSTICE AND LEGAL DEVELOPMENT.

Legal origins in other countries besides England. Montalembert and France. St.

Louis and the enforcement of law. Fehmic courts of Germany and our vigilance committees. Andrew II., and the “Golden Bull, that legalized anarchy” in Hungary. Laws of Poland. The Popes and legal codification; Innocent III., Gregory TX. Commentaries on law at the universities. Pope Boniface VIII, the canonist. Origin of “no taxation without representation.”

CHAPTER XXIV

DEMOCRACY, CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM AND NATIONALITY.

Origins in popular self-government. Representation in the governing body. German free cities. Swiss declaration of independence. Christian socialism and “the three eights.” Saturday-half-holiday, and the vigils of holy-days. Christian fraternity and the guilds. Organization of charity. The guild merchant and fraternal solidarity. The guild of the Holy Cross, Stratford, and its place in town government and education. Progress of democracy. How the crusades strengthened the democratic spirit. Their place in the history of human liberty and of nationality.

CHAPTER XXV

GREAT EXPLORERS AND THE FOUNDATION OF GEOGRAPHY.

Geography’s wonderful development. Modern problems, Thibet: explored, Lhasa entered. This perhaps the greatest triumph of the century. Marco Polo’s travels.

Former mistrust now unstinted admiration. Striking observations of Polo. John of Carpini’s travels in the Near East. Colonel Yule on the Boot of the Tartars.

Friar William of Rubruquis’ travels in Tartar Anticipations of modern opinions as to language. Some details of description. Friar Odoric and his Irish companion. The Premonstratensian Hayton. Franciscan missionary zeal supplied for our geographical societies. Idle monks!

CHAPTER XXVI

GREAT BEGINNINGS OF MODERN COMMERCE.

This is the most interesting phase for our generation. Hanseatic League and obscurity of its origin. League of Lombard cities and effect of crusades.

Importance of Hansa. Enforcement of its decrees. Confederation of cities from England to central Russia. Surprising greatness of the cities. Beginnings of international law. Commerce and peace. Origins of coast regulation. Fraternal initiations and their equivalents in the after-time. Origins in hazing. Commerce and liberty. Fostering of democracy. International comity.

Appendix — So-called History.

INDEX

Table of Contents

- CHAPTER I
- CHAPTER II
- CHAPTER III
- CHAPTER IV
- CHAPTER V
- CHAPTER VI
- CHAPTER VII
- CHAPTER VIII
- CHAPTER IX
- CHAPTER X
- CHAPTER XI
- CHAPTER XII
- CHAPTER XIII
- CHAPTER XIV
- CHAPTER XV
- CHAPTER XVI
- CHAPTER XVII
- CHAPTER XVIII
- CHAPTER XIX
- CHAPTER XX
- CHAPTER XXI
- CHAPTER XXII
- CHAPTER XXIII
- CHAPTER XXIV
- CHAPTER XXV
- CHAPTER XXVI