Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 87.djvu/276

272 industrial groups of manor and guild, the crusades, the pilgrimages, the friars, the cathedrals, and the great ideals of the church and of chivalry, were recognized as important in human history, though different from the thoughts and doings of men before or since. The expression "medieval civilization" was now introduced alongside of "ancient civilization" and "modern civilization," while the phrase "dark ages" was restricted to the early middle ages while the barbarian invasions were going on. Indeed, a recent writer on the history of education wittily states that successive investigations keep pushing the "dark ages" so much further and further back that they will probably ultimately cover no time whatever.

There was, then, civilization, if not natural science, in the middle ages. But it would be leaving a wrong impression to imply that medieval civilization was something quite distinct from ancient or modern civilization. The fact is, and after all it is just what one would naturally expect, that medieval civilization was in large measure a combination of ancient and modern elements. Much it inherited; much it originated; and much it passed on. Moreover, the middle ages really belong partly to ancient and partly to modern times. This principle is now being largely accepted even in high-school teaching and text-books. The year course in ancient history is carried down to Charlemagne, while medieval and modern history are united as a single year's work. In the museums of Europe, too, no great gap is observed between the middle ages and the renaissance, but objects are usually classified together under one caption as of both those periods.

It is very difficult to separate history into distinct periods, yet there is considerable reason for regarding Charlemagne, towering as he did seven feet tall and fighting a campaign every season for over forty years, as the last great landmark of ancient times. With all his vigor he caused little or no permanent progress. He failed to drive the Mohammedans from Spain; under his successors the Northmen and other invaders broke up his empire. But when the Northmen, after their wonderful expansion in all directions from Greenland to the Mediterranean and from Russia to North America, had settled down in Normandy, England, Sicily and elsewhere; when they had with amazing rapidity adapted and improved upon such civilization as they found still existing in their new homes; when the Arabs had brought from the East to Spain the material civilization of the Orient and the intellectual treasures of the Greek genius; and when the men of the north, either as peaceful traders and pilgrims or warlike crusaders, had visited Spain, Constantinople and the Holy Land; the wheels of progress started moving with a new alacrity and things began to hum. Once again, as had happened before in the Mediterranean Basin, the races of the north descended upon and fused with those of the south, and the east passed on to the west the torch of civilization.