time become one of the great institutions of Europe.

The church fostered schools and learning, while the barons were
fighting. Although William Langland, a fourteenth-century cleric,
pointed out the abuses which had crept into the church, he gave this
testimony in its favor:--

"For if heaven be on this earth or any ease for the soul, it is in
cloister or school. For in cloister no man cometh to chide or fight,
and in school there is lowliness and love and liking to learn."

The rise of the common people was slow. During all this period the
tillers of the soil were legally serfs, forbidden to change their
location. The Black Death (1349) and the Peasants' Revolt (1381),
although seemingly barren of results, helped them in their struggle
toward emancipation. Some bought their freedom with part of their
wages. Others escaped to the towns where new commercial activities
needed more labor. Finally, the common toiler acquired more commanding
influence by overthrowing even the French knights with his long bow.
This period laid the foundation for the almost complete disappearance
of serfdom in the fifteenth century. France waited for the terrible
Revolution of 1789 to free her serfs. England anticipated other great
modern nations in producing a literature of universal appeal because
her common people began to throw off their shackles earlier.

This period opens with a victorious French army in England, followed
by the rule of the conquerors, who made French the language of high
life. It closes with the ascendancy of English government and speech
at home and with the mid-fourteenth century victories of English
armies on French soil, resulting in the rapture of Calais, which