The Mediaeval Mind (Volume 1 of 2) A History of the Development of Thought and Emotion in the Middle Ages

The antique civilization of the Roman Empire was followed by that depression of decadence and barbarization which separates antiquity from the Middle Ages. Out of the confusion...

The intellectual and spiritual life of the partly Hellenized and, at last, Christianized, Roman Empire furnished the contents of the intellectual and spiritual development of th...

The Latin West afforded the _milieu_ in which the thoughts and sentiments of the antique and partly Christian world were held in Latin forms and preserved from obliteration duri...

So it was that the intellectual conditions of the Roman Empire affected the attitude of the Church Fathers toward knowledge, and determined their ways of apprehending fact. Ther...

For the Latin West the creative patristic epoch closes with the death of Augustine. There follows a period marked by the cessation of intellectual originality. Men are engaged u...

The Latinizing of northern Italy, Spain, and Gaul was part of the expansion of Roman dominion. Throughout these lands, alien peoples submitted to the Roman order and acquired ne...

The northern races who were to form part of the currents of mediaeval life are grouped under the names of Celts and Teutons.[144] The chief sections of the former, dwelling in n...

There were intellectual as well as emotional differences between the Celts and Teutons. A certain hard rationality and grasp of fact mark the mentality of the latter. On land or...

The northern peoples, Celts and Teutons for the most part as they are called, came into contact with Roman civilization as the great Republic brought Gaul and Britain under its...

With the conversion of Teuton peoples and their introduction to the Latin culture accompanying the new religion, the factors of mediaeval development came at last into conjuncti...

The Empire of Charlemagne could not last. Two obvious causes, among others, were enough to prevent it. No single government (save when temporarily energized by some extraordinar...

It appeared in the last chapter that Anselm’s choice of topic was not uninfluenced by his northern domicile at Bec in Normandy, from which, one may add, it was no far cry to the...

In the Germans of the eleventh century one notes a strong sense of German selfhood, supplemented by a consciousness that Latin culture is a foreign matter, introduced as a thing...

The characteristic passions of a period represent the emotionalized thoughts of multitudes of men and women. Mediaeval emotional development followed prevailing ideas, opinions,...

The present Book and the following will set forth the higher manifestations of the religious energies of the Middle Ages, and then the counter ideals which knights and ladies de...

To contemplate goodness in God, and strain toward it in yearning love, is the method of the Christian _vita contemplativa_. In this way the recluse cultivates humility, patience...

Through the prodigious power of his personality, St. Bernard gave new life to monasticism, promoted the reform of the secular clergy and the suppression of heresy, ended a papal...

Twenty-nine years after the death of St. Bernard, Francis was born in the Umbrian hill town of Assisi. The year was 1182. On the fourth of October 1226, in the forty-fifth year...

We pass to matters of a different complexion from anything presented in the last few chapters. Thus far, besides Bernard and Francis, matchless examples of monastic ideals, ther...

The preceding sketches of monastic qualities and personalities illustrate the ideals of monasticism. That monastic practices should fall away, corruptions enter, and when expell...

At the close of this long survey of the saintly ideals and actualities of the Middle Ages, it will be illuminating to look abroad over mediaeval life through the half mystic but...

The world is evil! the clergy corrupt, the laity depraved! none denounces them! Awake! arise! be mindful! Such ceaseless cry rises more shrilly in times of reform and progress....

The instance of Godfrey of Bouillon showed how easy was the passage from knighthood in history to knighthood in legend and romance: legend springing from fact, out of which it m...

The instances of romantic chivalry and courtly love reviewed in the last chapter exemplify ideals of conduct in some respects opposed to Christian ethics. But there is still a f...

Mediaeval thought: Abstractions, genius for, ii. 280 Characteristics of, i. 13 Commentaries characteristic of, ii. 390, 553 _n. 4_ Conflict inherent in, i. 22; ii. =293-4= Defer...

Philosophy, scholastic: Completeness of, in Aquinas, ii. 395 Divisions of, ii. 312 _seqq._ Importance of, as intellectual interest, ii. 287-8 Physical sciences included in, _see...

[9] The lack of originality in the first half of the tenth century is illustrated by the Epitome of Gregory’s _Moralia_, made by such an energetic person as Odo of Cluny. It occ...

[193] The best account of the Sagas, in English, is the Prolegomena to Vigfusson’s edition of the Sturlunga Saga (Clarendon Press, 1878). Dasent’s Introduction to his translatio...