Their seed shall remain for ever, and their glory shall not be blotted
out.

Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore.

ECCLESIASTICUS xliv.




CHAPTER I

_The Precursors_

I. ROME IN DECLINE


Every schoolboy knows that the Middle Ages arose on the ruins of the
Roman Empire. The decline of Rome preceded and in some ways prepared the
rise of the kingdoms and cultures which composed the medieval system.
Yet in spite of the self-evident truth of this historical preposition we
know little about life and thought in the watershed years when Europe
was ceasing to be Roman but was not yet medieval. We do not know how it
felt to watch the decline of Rome; we do not even know whether the men
who watched it knew what they saw, though we can be quite certain that
none of them foretold, indeed could have foreseen, the shape which the
world was to take in later centuries.

Yet the tragic story, its main themes and protagonists were for all to
see. No observer should have failed to notice that the Roman Empire of