§ 137. T>HE AGE PASSING JUDGMENT UPON ITSELF. 889
§ 137. The Age passing Judgment upon Itself.
The preceding pages have shown the remarkable charac ter of the events and movements, the men and ideas which fill the centuries from Hildebrand's entrance into Rome with Leo IX., 1049, to the abdication of the simple-minded Ccelestin, 1294. The present generation regards the events of the last half-century as most extraordinary. The same judgment was passed by Matthew Paris upon the half -century of which he was a spectator, 1200-1250. Useful inventions and discoveries, such as we associate with the second half of the nineteenth century, there were few or none in the thirteenth century, and yet those times were full of occurrences and measures which excited the deepest interest and the specula tion of men. The retrospect of the fifty years, which the clear headed English monk sums up in his Chronicles, furnishes one of the most instructive pieces of mediaeval literature.
Here is what Matthew Paris says : There occurred in this time extraordinary and strange events, the like of which had never been seen before nor were found in any of the writings of the Fathers. The Tartars ravaged countries in habited by Christians. Damietta was twice taken and retaken, Jerusalem twice desolated by the Infidel. St. Louis was captured with his brothers in the East. Wales passed under the domination of England. Frederick, the Wonder, of the World, had lived his career. The Crusades had given to a great host a glorious death. As for natural wonders, an eclipse of the sun had occurred twice in three years, earth quakes had shaken England several times, and there had been a destructive rise of the sea such as had never been seen before. One night immense numbers of stars fell from the heavens, a reason for which could not be found in the Book of Meteors, except that Christ's threat was impending when he said, " There shall be signs in the heavens."
Among things distinctively religious, the chronicler notes that an English cardinal was suffocated in his palace, as was supposed, for having his eye on the tiara. The figure
890 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
of Christ appeared in the sky in Germany and was plainly seen by every one. Elizabeth of Hungary and St. Hildegard nourished. The ordeal of lire and water was abolished. Seville, Cordova, and other parts of Spain were rescued from the Moors. The orders of the Minorites and the Preachers arose, startling the world by their devotion and disgusting it by their sudden decline. Some of the blood of Christ and a stone, bearing his footprints, arrived in England.
Such are some of the occurrences which seemed wonderful to the racy English historian. If he had read over the leaves of his Chronicles as we do, how many other events he might have singled out, — from the appearance of the elephant, a gift of the king of France to the king of England, which, as he says, was the first ever seen in England and the appearance of the sea-monster thrown up in Norwich,1 to his instructive accounts of the doings of popes and emperors, and the chafings of the English people under papal injustice.
Life was by no means a humdrum, monotonous existence to the people who lived in the age of the Crusades and Inno cent III. On the contrary it was full of surprises and attrac tive movements, from every turn of the papacy and empire, to the expeditions of the Crusaders and the travels of Marco Polo and Rubruquis.
A historical period is measured by the judgment passed upon it by its contemporaries and by the judgment of suc ceeding generations. What did the period from 1050 to 1294 offer that seemed notable to those who were living then and what contribution did it make to the progress and well-being of mankind ? The first of these questions can be answered by the generation which then lived; the second, best by the generations which have come since.
It is the persuasion of a school of mediaeval enthusiasts that this period was a golden age of faith and morals and tenable systems of belief, an age when the laws of God were obeyed as they have not been since, an age when proper atten tion was given to the things of religion, an age of high ideals
1 Luard's ed., V. 448 sq.