A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Outline of Universal History

G >> George Park Fisher >> Outline of Universal History




TRAVELERS AND TRADE.--The _East_, especially _India_, was
conceived of as a region of boundless riches; but commerce with the
East was hindered by a thousand difficulties and dangers. Curiosity led
travelers to penetrate into the countries of Asia. Among them the
_Polo_ family of Venice, of whom _Marco_ was the most famous,
were specially distinguished. Marco Polo lived in _China_, with
his father and his uncle, twenty-six years. After his return, and
during his captivity at _Genoa_, he wrote the celebrated accounts
of his travels. He died about 1324. _Sir John Mandeville_ also
wrote of his travels, but most of his descriptions were taken from the
work of _Friar Odoric_, of Pordenone, who had visited the Far
East. Merchants did not venture so far as did bold explorers of a
scientific turn. Commerce in the Middle Ages was mainly in two
districts,--the borders of the North Sea and of the Baltic, and the
countries upon the Mediterranean. Trade in the cities on the African
coast, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, was flourishing; and the
Arabs of Spain were industrious and rich. _Arles, Marseilles, Nice,
Genoa, Florence, Amalfi, Venice_, vied with one another in traffic
with the East. Intermediate between Venice and Genoa, and the north of
Europe, were flourishing marts, among which _Strasburg_ and other
cities on the Rhine--_Augsburg, Ulm, Ratisbon, Vienna_, and
_Nuremberg_--were among the most prominent. Through these cities
flowed the currents of trade from the North to the South, and from the
South to the North.

THE HANSEATIC LEAGUE.--To protect themselves against the feudal lords
and against pirates, the cities of Northern Germany formed (about
1241) the _Hanseatic League_, which, at the height of its power,
included eighty-five cities, besides many other cities more or less
closely affiliated with it. This league was dominant, as regards trade
and commerce, in the north of Europe, and united under it the cities
on the Baltic and the Rhine, as well as the large cities of
Flanders. Its merchants had control of the fisheries, the mines, the
agriculture, and manufactures of Germany. _Lübeck, Cologne,
Brunswick_, and _Dantzic_ were its principal
places. _Lübeck_ was its chief center. In all the principal towns
on the highways of commerce, the flag of the _Hansa_ floated over
its counting-houses. Wherever the influence of the league reached, its
regulations were in force. It almost succeeded in monopolizing the
trade of Europe north of Italy.

FLANDERS: ENGLAND: FRANCE.--The numerous cities of Flanders--of which
_Ghent, Ypres_, and _Bruges_ were best known--became hives
of industry and of thrift. _Ghent_, at the end of the thirteenth
century, surpassed _Paris_ in riches and power. In the latter
part of the fourteenth century, the number of its fighting men was
estimated at eighty thousand. The development of _Holland_ was
more slow. _Amsterdam_ was constituted a town in the middle of
the thirteenth century. _England_ began to exchange products with
_Spain_. It sent its sheep, and brought back the horses of the
Arabians. The cities of France--_Rouen, Orleans, Rheims, Lyons,
Marseilles_, etc.--were alive with manufactures and trade. In the
twelfth century the yearly fairs at _Troyes, St. Denis_, and
_Beaucaire_ were famous all over Europe.

NEW INDUSTRIES.--It has been already stated that the crusaders brought
back to Europe the knowledge as well as the products of various
branches of industry. Such were the cloths of Damascus, the glass of
Tyre, the use of windmills, of linen, and of silk, the plum-trees of
Damascus, the sugar-cane, the mulberry-tree. Cotton stuffs came into
use at this time. Paper made from cotton was used by the Saracens in
Spain in the eighth century. Paper was made from linen at a somewhat
later date. In France and Germany it was first manufactured early in
the fourteenth century.

THE JEWS.--The Jews in the Middle Ages were often treated with extreme
harshness. An outburst of the crusading spirit was frequently attended
with cruel assaults upon them. As Christians would not take interest,
money-lending was a business mainly left to the Hebrews. By them, bills
of exchange were first employed.

OBSTACLES TO TRADE.--The great obstacle to commerce was the insecurity
of travel. Whenever a shipwreck took place, whatever was cast upon the
shore was seized by the neighboring lord. A noble at _Leon_, in
Brittany, pointing out a rock on which many vessels had been wrecked,
said, "I have a rock there more precious than the diamonds on the crown
of a king." It was long before property on the sea was respected, even
in the same degree as property on the land. Not even at the present day
has this point been reached. The infinite diversity of coins was
another embarrassment to trade. In every fief, one had to exchange his
money, always at a loss. _Louis IX._ ordained that the money of
eighty lords, who had the right to coin, should be current only in
their own territories, while the coinage of the king should be received
everywhere.

GUILDS.--A very important feature of mediæval society was the
_guilds_. Societies more or less resembling these existed among
the _Romans_, and were called _collegia_,--some being for
good fellowship or for religious rites, and others being
trade-corporations. There were, also, similar fraternities among the
_Greeks_ in the second and third centuries B.C. In the Middle
Ages, there were two general classes of guilds: _First_, there
were the _peace-guilds_, for mutual protection against thieves,
etc., and for mutual aid in sickness, old age, or impoverishment from
other causes. They were numerous in England, and spread over the
Continent. _Secondly_, there were the _trade-guilds_, which
embraced the _guilds-merchant_, and the _craft-guilds_. The
latter were associations of workmen, for maintaining the customs of
their craft, each with a _master_, or _alderman_, and other
officers. They had their provisions for mutual help for themselves and
for their widows and orphans, and they had their religious
observances. Each had its patron saint, its festivals, its
treasury. They kept in their hands the monopoly of the branch of
industry which belonged to them. They had their rules in respect to
apprenticeship, etc. Almost all professions and occupations were fenced
in by guilds.

MONASTICISM.--Society in the Middle Ages presented striking and
picturesque contrasts. This was nowhere more apparent than in the
sphere of religion. Along with the passion for war and the consequent
reign of violence, there was a parallel self-consecration to a life of
peace and devotion. With the strongest relish for pageantry and for a
brilliant ceremonial in social life and in worship, there was
associated a yearning for an ascetic course under the monastic vows. As
existing orders grew rich, and gave up the rigid discipline of earlier
days, new orders were formed by men of deeper religious earnestness. In
the eleventh century, there arose, among other orders, the
_Carthusian_ and _Cistercian;_ in the twelfth century, the
_Premonstrants_ and the _Carmelites_, and the order of
_Trinitarians_ for the liberation of Christian captives taken by
the Moslems. The older orders, especially that of the
_Benedictines_ in its different branches, became very wealthy and
powerful. The _Cistercian_ Order, under its second founder,
_St. Bernard_ (who died in 1153), spread with wonderful rapidity.

THE MENDICANT ORDERS.--In the thirteenth century, when the papal
authority was at its height, the mendicant orders arose. The order of
_St. Francis_ was fully established in 1223, and the order of
_St. Dominic_ in 1216. They combined with monastic vows the
utmost activity in preaching and in other clerical work. These orders
attracted young men of talents and of a devout spirit in large
numbers. The mendicant friars were frequently in conflict with the
secular clergy,--the ordinary priesthood,--and with the other
orders. But they gained a vast influence, and were devotedly loyal to
the popes. It must not be supposed that the monastic orders generally
were made up of the weak or the disappointed who sought in cloisters a
quiet asylum. Disgust with the world, from whatever cause, led many to
become members of them; but they were largely composed of vigorous
minds, which, of their own free choice, took on them the monastic
vows.

THE RISE OF THE UNIVERSITIES.--The Crusades were accompanied by a
signal revival of intellectual activity. One of the most important
events of the thirteenth century was the rise of the universities. The
schools connected with the abbeys and the cathedrals in France began to
improve in the eleventh century, partly from an impulse caught by
individuals from the Arabic schools in Spain. After the scholastic
theology was introduced, teachers in this branch began to give
instruction near those schools in Paris. Numerous pupils gathered
around noted lecturers. An organization followed which was called a
_university_,--a sort of _guild_,--made up of four
faculties,--theology, canon law, medicine, and the arts. The arts
included the three studies (_trivium_) of grammar, rhetoric, and
philosophy, with four additional branches (the
_quadrivium_),--arithmetic, geometry, music,
astronomy. _Paris_ became the mother of many other
universities. Next to Paris, _Oxford_ was famous as a seat of
education. Of all the universities, _Bologna_ in Italy was most
renowned as a school for the study of the civil law.

SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY.--The scholastic theology dates from the middle of
the eleventh century. It was the work of numerous teachers, many of
them of unsurpassed acuteness, who, at a time when learning and
scholarship were at a low ebb, made it their aim to systemize,
elucidate, and prove on philosophical grounds, the doctrines of the
Church. _Aristotle_ was the author whose philosophical writings
were most authoritative with the schoolmen. In theology,
_Augustine_ was the most revered master.

The main question in philosophy which the schoolmen debated was that of
_Nominalism_ and _Realism_. The question was, whether a
general term, as _man_, stands for a real being designated by it
(as _man_, in the example given, for _humanity_), or is
simply the _name_ of divers distinct individuals.

THE LEADING SCHOOLMEN.--In the eleventh century _Anselm_ of
Canterbury was a noble example of the scholastic spirit. In the
thirteenth century _Abelard_ was a bold and brilliant teacher, but
with less depth and discretion. He, like other eminent schoolmen,
attracted multitudes of pupils. The thirteenth century was the golden
age of scholasticism. Then flourished _Albert_ the Great,
_Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventura_, and others very influential in
their day. There were two schools of opinion,--that of the
_Thomists_, the adherents of _Aquinas_, the great theologian
of the _Dominican_ order; and that of the _Scotists_, the
adherents of _Duns Scotus_, a great light of the
_Franciscans_. They differed on various theological points not
involved in the common faith.

The discussions of the schoolmen were often carried into distinctions
bewildering from their subtlety. There were individuals who were more
disposed to the _inductive_ method of investigation, and who gave
attention to _natural_ as well as metaphysical science. Perhaps
the most eminent of these is _Roger Bacon_. He was an Englishman,
was born in 1219, and died about 1294. He was imprisoned for a time on
account of the jealousy with which studies in natural science and new
discoveries in that branch were regarded by reason of their imagined
conflict with religion. _Astrology_ was cultivated by the Moors
in Spain in connection with astronomy. It spread among the Christian
nations. _Alchemy_, the search for the transmutation of metals,
had its curious votaries. But such pursuits were popularly identified
with diabolic agency.

THE VERNACULAR LITERATURES: THE TROUBADOURS.--Intellectual activity
was for a long time exclusively confined to theology. The earliest
literature of a secular cast in France belongs to the tenth and
eleventh centuries, and to the dialect of _Provence_. The study
of this language, and the poetry composed in it, became the recreation
of knights and noble ladies. Thousands of poets, who were called
_Troubadours_ (from _trobar_, to find or invent), appeared
almost simultaneously, and became well known in _Spain_ and in
_Italy_ as well as in _France_. At the same time the period
of chivalry began. The theme of their tender and passionate poems was
love. They indulged in a license which was not offensive, owing to the
laxity of manners and morals in Southern France at that day, but would
be intolerable in a different state of society. Kings, as well as
barons and knights, adopted the Provençal language, and figured as
troubadours. In connection with jousts and tournaments, there would be
a contest for poetical honors. The "Court of Love," made up of gentle
ladies, with the lady of the castle at their head, gave the
verdict. Besides the songs of love, another class of Provençal poems
treated of war or politics, or were of a satirical cast. From the
_Moors_ of Spain, _rhyme_, which belonged to Arabian poetry,
was introduced, and spread thence over Europe. After the thirteenth
century the troubadours were heard of no more, and the Provençal
tongue became a mere dialect.

THE NORMAN WRITERS.--The first writers and poets in the French
language proper appeared in Normandy. They called themselves
_Trouvères_. They were the troubadours of the North. They
composed romances of chivalry, and _Fabliaux_, or amusing
tales. They sang in a more warlike and virile strain than the poets of
the South. Their first romances were written late in the twelfth
century. About that time _Villehardouin_ wrote in French a
history of the conquest of Constantinople. From the poem entitled
"Alexander," the name of Alexandrine verse came to be applied to the
measure in which it was written. A favorite theme of the romances of
chivalry was the mythical exploits of _Arthur_, the last Celtic
king of Britain, and of the knights of the _Round Table_. Another
class of romances of chivalry related to the court of
_Charlemagne_. The _Fabliaux_ in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries were largely composed of tales of ludicrous adventures.

GERMAN, ENGLISH, AND SPANISH WRITERS.--In _Germany_, in the age
of the Hohenstaufens, the poets called _Minnesingers_
abounded. They were conspicuous at the splendid tournaments and
festivals. In the thirteenth century numerous lays of love, satirical
fables, and metrical romances were composed or translated. Of the
_Round Table_ legends, that of the _San Graal_ (the holy
vessel) was the most popular. It treated of the search for the
precious blood of Christ, which was said to have been brought in a cup
or charger into Northern Europe by _Joseph of Arimathea_. During
this period the old ballads were thrown into an epic form; among them,
the _Nibelungenlied_, the Iliad of Germany. The religious faith
and loyalty of the _Spanish_ character, the fruit of their long
contest with the Moors, are reflected in _the poem of the Cid_,
which was composed about the year 1200. It is one of the oldest epics
in the Romance languages. In _England_ during this period, we
have the chronicles kept in the monasteries. Among their authors are
_William of Malmesbury, Geoffrey of Monmouth_, and _Matthew
Paris_, a Benedictine monk of St. Albans.

DANTE.--Dante, the chief poet of Italy, and the father of its
vernacular literature, was born in _Florence_ in 1265. _The
Divine Comedy_ is universally regarded as one of the greatest
products of poetical genius.

The family of _Alighieri_, to which _Dante_ belonged, was
noble, but not of the highest rank. He was placed under the best
masters, and became not only an accomplished student of Virgil and
other Latin poets, but also an adept in theology and in various
other branches of knowledge. His training was the best that the time
afforded. His family belonged to the anti-imperial party of
_Guelfs_. The spirit of faction raged at
_Florence_. _Dante_ was attached to the party of "Whites"
(_Bianchi_), and, having held the high office of _prior_
in Florence, was banished, with many others, when the "Blacks"
(_Neri_) got the upper hand (1302). Until his death, nineteen
years later, he wandered from place to place in Italy as an
exile. Circumstances, especially the distracted condition of the
country, led him to ally himself with the _Ghibellines_, and to
favor the imperial cause. All that he saw and suffered until he
breathed his last, away from his native city, at _Ravenna_,
combined to stir within him the thoughts and passions which find
expression in his verse.

No poet before _Dante_ ever equaled him in depth of thought and
feeling. His principal work is divided into _three_ parts. It
is an allegorical vision of hell, purgatory, and heaven. Through the
first two of these regions, the poet is conducted by
_Virgil_. In the third, _Beatrice_ is his guide. When he
was a boy of nine years of age, he had met, at a May-day festival,
_Beatrice_, who was of the same age; and thenceforward he
cherished towards her a pure and romantic affection. Before his
twenty-fifth year she died; but, after her death, his thoughts dwelt
upon her with a refined but not less passionate regard. She is his
imaginary guide through the abodes of the blest. His _Young
Life_ (_Vita Nuova_) gives the history of his love. The
"_Divine Comedy_"--so called because the author would modestly
place it below the rank of tragedy,--besides the lofty genius which
it exhibits, besides the matchless force and beauty of its diction,
sums up, so to speak, what is best and most characteristic in the
whole intellectual and religious life of the Middle Ages. _Thomas
Aquinas_ was _Dante's_ authority in theology· The scholastic
system taught by the Church is brought to view in his pictures of
the supernatural world, and in the comments connected with them.

PAINTING.--After the Lombard conquest of Italy, art branched off into
two schools. The one was the Byzantine, and the other the Late Roman.
In the Byzantine paintings, the human figures are stiff, and
conventional forms prevail. The Byzantine school conceived of
_Jesus_ as without beauty of person,--literally "without form or
comeliness." The Romans had a directly opposite conception. Byzantine
taste had a strong influence in Italy, especially at
_Venice_. This is seen in the mosaics of St. Mark's
Cathedral. The first painter to break loose from Byzantine influence,
and to introduce a more free style which flourished under the
patronage of the Church, was _Cimabue_ (1240-1302), who is
generally considered the founder of modern Italian painting. The first
steps were now taken towards a direct observation and imitation of
nature. The artist is no longer a slavish copyist of
others. "_Cimabue_" says _M. Taine_, "already belongs to the
new order of things; for he invents and expresses." But _Cimabue_
was far outdone by _Giotto_ (1276-1337), who cast off wholly the
Byzantine fetters, studied nature earnestly, and abjured that which is
false and artificial. Notwithstanding his technical defects, his
force, and "his feeling for grace of action and harmony of color,"
were such as to make him, even more than _Cimabue_, "the founder
of the true ideal style of Christian art, and the restorer of
portraiture." "His, above all, was a varied, fertile, facile, and
richly creative nature." The contemporary of _Dante_, his
portrait of the poet has been discovered in recent times on a wall in
the Podesta at Florence. "He stands at the head of the school of
allegorical painting, as the latter of that of poetry." The most
famous pupil of _Giotto_ was _Taddeo Gaddi_ (about
1300-1367).

SCULPTURE.--In the thirteenth century, the era of the revival of art
in Italy, a new school of sculpture arose under the auspices
especially of two artists, _Niccolo of Pisa_ and his son
_Giovanni_. They brought to their art the same spirit which
belonged to _Giotto_ in painting and to _Dante_ in
poetry. The same courage that moved the great poet to write in his own
vernacular tongue, instead of in Latin, emboldened the artists to look
away from the received standards, and to follow nature. In the same
period a new and improved style of sculpture appears in other
countries, especially in the Gothic cathedrals of Germany and France.

ARCHITECTURE.--The earliest Christian churches were copies of the Roman
basilica,--a civil building oblong in shape, sometimes with and
sometimes without rows of columns dividing the nave from the aisles: at
one end, there was usually a semicircular _apse_. Most of the
churches of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were built after this
style. Then changes were introduced, which in some measure paved the
way for the _Gothic_, the peculiar type of mediæval
architecture. The essential characteristic of this style is the pointed
arch. This may have been introduced by the returning crusaders from
buildings which they had observed in the East. Its use and development
in the churches and other edifices of Europe in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries were without previous example. The Gothic style
was carried to its perfection in France, and spread over England and
Germany. The cathedrals erected in this form are still the noblest and
most attractive buildings to be seen in the old European towns.

The cathedral in _Rheimes_ was commenced in 1211: the choir was
dedicated in 1241, and the edifice was completed in 1430. The cathedral
of _Amiens_ was begun in 1220; that of _Chartres_ was begun
about 1020, and was dedicated in 1260; that of _Salisbury_ was
begun in 1220; that of _Cologne_, in 1248; the cathedral of
_Strasburg_ was only half finished in 1318, when the architect,
_Erwin of Steinbach_, died; that of Notre Dame in _Paris_ was
begun in 1163; that of _Toledo_, in 1258. These noble buildings
were built gradually: centuries passed before the completion of
them. Several of them to this day remain unfinished.



FRANCE.--THE HOUSE OF VALOIS.


PHILIP VI, 1328-1350, _m_.
Jeanne, daughter of Robert II, Duke of Burgundy.
|
+--JOHN, 1350-1364, _m_.
Bona, daughter of John, King of Bohemia.
|
+--CHARLES V, 1364-1380, _m_.
Jeanne, daughter of Peter I, Duke of Bourbon.
|
+--CHARLES VI, 1380-1422, _m_.
| Isabella, daughter of Stephen, Duke of Bavaria.
| |
| +--CHARLES VII, 1422-1461,
| _m_. Mary, daughter
| of Louis II of Anjou.
| |
| +--LOUIS XI, 1461-1483,
| _m_. (2), Charlotte,
| daughter of Louis,
| Duke of Savoy.
| |
| +--3, CHARLES VIII, 1483-1498,
| _m_. Anne of Bretagne.
|
+--Louis, Duke of Orleans (_d_. 1407) _m_.
Valentina, daughter of Gian Galeazzi, Duke of Milan.
|
+--Charles, Duke of Orleans (_d_. 1467),
| _m_. Mary of Cleves.
| |
| +--2, Anne of Bretagne,
| _m_. LOUIS XII, 1498-1515.
| |
| +--Claude, _m_. FRANCIS I, 1515-1547.
|
+--John, Count of Angoulême (_d_. 1467).
|
+--Charles, count (_d_. 1496),
_m_. Louisa, daughter
of Philip II, Duke of Savoy.
|
+--FRANCIS I, 1515-1547.
| |
| +--HENRY II. 1547-1559, _m._.
| Catherine de' Medici, _d._. 1589.
| |
| +--FRANCIS II, 1559-1560, _m_.
| | Mary, Queen of Scots.
| |
| +--CHARLES IX, 1560-1574,
| | _m_. Elizabeth, daughter of
| | Emperor Maximilian II.
| |
| +--HENRY III. 1574-1589, _m_.
| | Louis, daughter of Nicholas,
| | Duke of Mercoeur.
| |
| +--Margaret,
| _m_.
| +--HENRY IV, succeeded 1589.
| |
| +--Jeanne, _m_. Anthony of Bourbon.
| |
+--MARGARET, _m._ (2), HENRY II OF NAVARRE.



ENGLAND.--DESCENDANTS OF EDWARD I


EDWARD I, 1272-1307, _m._.
1, Eleanor, daughter of Ferdinand III of Castile;
|
|
+--4, EDWARD II, 1307-1327, _m._.
Isabel, daughter of Philip IV of France.
|
+--EDWARD III, 1327-1377, _m._
Philippa, daughter of William III of Hainault.
|
+--Edward, the Black Prince,
| _m._ Joan of Kent.
| |
| +--RICHARD II, 1377-1399, _m._
| Anne, daughter of Emperor Charles IV.
|
+--Lionel, Duke of Clarence.
| |
| +--Philippa, _m._ Edmund Mortimer.
| |
| +--Roger Mortimer.
| |
| +--Edmund Mortimer.
| |
| +--Anne Mortimer, _m._
| Richard, Earl of Cambridge.
| |
| +--Richard, Duke of York.
| |
| +--EDWARD IV, 1461-1483.
| | |
| | +--EDWARD V (_d._ 1483).
| |
| +--RICHARD III, 1483-1485.
|
+--John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.
| |
| +--HENRY IV, 1399-1413.
| |
| +--HENRY V, 1413-1422.
| |
| +--HENRY VI, 1422-1461.
|
+--Edmund, Duke of York.
|
+--Richard, Earl of Cambridge _m._
Anne Mortimer (wh. see).

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