A MEDIÆVAL CITY




CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION


In English history the fifteenth century is the last of the centuries
that form the Middle Ages, which were preceded by the age of racial
settlement and followed by that of the great Renaissance. Although the
active beginnings of this new era are to be observed in the fifteenth
century, yet this century belongs essentially to the Middle Ages.

Perhaps the most attractive feature of the Middle Ages is that they
were so intensely human. A naïve spirit appears in their formal
literature, as in Chaucer's account of the Canterbury pilgrims, in
their decorated religious manuscripts, in their thought, and very
characteristically, in their architecture, which combines a simple
naturalness with a bold and daring ingenuity. From columns, the
constructional motive of which is so simple and natural, and walls
pierced with windows, they erected systems of lofty arches and high
stone-vaulted roofs, the stability of which depended on very skilled
balancing of thrust and counter-thrust.