Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/21

Rh time when the life of Christendom was so confined within the hard shell of its dogmatic system that there was no room left for individual liberty of opinion. A ferment of thought is continually betrayed beneath those forms; there are even frequent indications of a state of opinion antagonistic to the church itself. The necessity of a central power ruling the consciences of men of course passed unquestioned, but when this immense authority appeared not a protection but a menace to religion, it was seldom that it was submitted to in complete silence.

When the church seemed to be departing from its spiritual dignity and defiling its ceremonial by the superstitions and the prodigies of heathenism, or when its pontiffs seemed to have adopted all the vices of secular princes and to have exchanged totally the church for the world, there were rarely wanting advocates of a purer Christian order, advocates whose denunciations might rival in vehemence those of a modern protestant. Even the doctrinal fabric of the church was not always safe from attack; for although no one impugned the truth of Christianity, the attempt was still repeatedly made to clear away the dust of centuries and reveal the simpler system of primitive belief. Such efforts, until we approach the border-line of modern history, were invariably disappointed. They rarely exerted even a momentary influence over a wide circle. In truth, however generously conceived, however heroically sustained, the aims of the premature reformers were often too audaciously, too wantonly, directed against the beliefs of the mass of their fellow-Christians to deserve success. We may admire their nobility or their constancy, but an impartial judgement can hardly regret that they failed. They troubled the world, it might be for a few years, and left their single memorial in their writings. Yet, though they may occupy but a small place in the history of civilisation, the light they cast upon the unusual tendencies of thought, the eccentricities, of the middle ages, makes them a not unfruitful subject of study.