and instincts. Measure it, however, by the memories and the achievements
that it has bequeathed to the modern world, and it will be found not
unworthy to rank with those of earlier and later Golden Ages. It
flourished in the midst of rude surroundings, fierce passions, and
material ambitions. The volcanic fires of primitive human nature
smouldered near the surface of medieval life; the events chronicled in
medieval history are too often those of sordid and relentless strife, of
religious persecutions, of crimes and conquests mendaciously excused by
the affectation of a moral aim. The truth is that every civilisation has
a seamy side, which it is easy to expose and to denounce. We should not,
however, judge an age by its crimes and scandals. We do not think of the
Athenians solely or chiefly as the people who turned against Pericles,
who tried to enslave Sicily, who executed Socrates. We appraise them
rather by their most heroic exploits and their most enduring work. We
must apply the same test to the medieval nations; we must judge of them
by their philosophy and law, by their poetry and architecture, by the
examples that they afford of statesmanship and saintship. In these
fields we shall not find that we are dealing with the spasmodic and
irreflective heroisms which illuminate a barbarous age. The highest
medieval achievements are the fruit of deep reflection, of persevering
and concentrated effort, of a self forgetting self in the service of
humanity and God. In other words, they spring from the soil, and have
ripened in the atmosphere, of a civilised society.




I

THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE