Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/48

 16 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE abreast of all three. It may somewhat assist him to have some of the main topics, periods, and regions associated with the greatest men of the age, and this has been done where the men seemed great enough to justify it. But many of the greatest accomplishments of the Middle Ages were either anonymous or the work of countless laborers. The Middle Ages deserve our attention, partly because they contributed much to our modern civilization and be- Value of cause our study of them helps to explain many medieval existing conditions. Then grew up our modern languages, then began modern literatures and universities, then developed the Roman Catholic Church and the states of France and England, then were discovered the mariner's compass, gunpowder, and printing. But the Middle Ages also merit our study because they had institu- tions and ideas which are gone and which are strange to us. but the study of which serves to widen our experience, broaden our outlook, and deepen our sympathies and under- standing. It is a good thing for one who has been brought up on the Western prairie to study not merely the west- ward movement of the American people or the life of Abraham Lincoln, but also to read of the crusades and the monasteries, of Byzantine and Gothic art, and other matters foreign to his own experience and stretching beyond his personal horizon. Those medieval men, moreover, were our ancestors, and the history of Americans before 1492, or when- ever it was that each of our families first migrated hither, is the history of Europe.