and vague and misleading. Thought reveals itself struggling everywhere
for expression, displayed at times in the sunshine of song and rhyme
and merry laughter, at times in the storms of philosophic dispute and
religious persecution.

In short, this was an age of strife between old ways and new. It saw
the granting of Magna Charta, but it saw also the establishment of the
Inquisition, and the creation of the two great monastic orders, whose
opposing methods, the Dominicans ruling by fear and the Franciscans by
love, are typical of the contrasting spirits of the time. It was the
age which in the next century under Dante's influence was to burst
into blossom as the Renaissance.


FREDERICK BARBAROSSA

Not often has one man proven influential enough to dominate and alter
the direction of his epoch; but very frequently we see one taking
advantage of its tendencies and so managing these, so directing them,
that he seems almost to create his surroundings, and becomes to all
men the expression and example of his times. Such a leader was the
emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1190), and we may follow his
fortunes in tracing the early part of this era.

The First Crusade had depleted Europe of half a million fighting men.
Then came a pause of fifty years, after which it was learned that
Jerusalem was again in danger of falling into the hands of the
Mahometans. So, in 1147, another vast crusading army set out to the
rescue. Barbarossa himself went with this Second Crusade, as a young
German noble. He was one of the few who escaped death in the Asian