Civilization During the Middle Ages by George Adams

Author:George Adams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pronoun

THE CRUSADES

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IN FOLLOWING THE HISTORY OF the empire and the papacy in the last chapter we have passed out of the early middle ages into a new and different time. Between the date at which that chapter opened and the date at which it closed a great change had taken place. New causes had begun to work. New forces had been set in operation or old ones greatly intensified, and the face of history had been transformed. In other words, we have passed in that interval the turning-point of the middle ages.

We have seen, in the history of the first part of the middle ages, the introduction of the German element which is so important in the modern races, and we have traced the rise and some part of the history of the three great medieval creations—the Church, the Empire, and Feudalism. We have seen the German Empire of Charlemagne reinforce the Roman idea of world unity, and in the breaking up of his empire the modern nations of Europe have taken shape. They have by no means as yet obtained their final form, even in their geographical outline, far less in government, but they have found the places which they are to occupy, they have begun the process of growth which is to result in their present government, and they are easily distinguishable and have begun to a certain extent to distinguish themselves from one another in race and language. But it is still the first half of the middle ages. Some faint signs may show themselves here and there of the beginning of better things and of a renewal of progress, somewhat greater activity in commerce, more frequent eagerness to know, and a better understanding of the sources of knowledge, some improvements in writing and in art. But in all the main features of civilization the conditions which followed the German settlements remain with little change and only slight advance. But the crusades are not over when we find ourselves in an age of great changes and relatively of rapid progress.

We must now return and take up the age of transition which leads from the earlier stage to the later, and ascertain, if we can, the impulse which imparted fresh life to the old forces and awakened the new. This age of transition is the age of the crusades, the pivot upon which the middle ages turned from the darkness and disorder of the earlier time to the greater light and order of modern times. The age of the crusades, then, is a great revolutionary age. Like the age of the fall of Rome, or of the revival of learning and the Reformation, or of the French Revolution, it is an age in which humanity passes, through excitement and stimulus and struggle, on into a new stage of its development, in which it puts off the old and becomes new.

The occasion of the crusades was Mohammedanism. At the beginning of the seventh century Arabia had been revolutionized by the teaching of Mohammed.

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