MEDIAE M vj CONTRIBUTIONS jHj MODERN CIVILISATION A SERIES OF LECTURES DELIVERED AT KINGS COLLEGE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON EDITED BY F. J. C. HEARNSHAW M. A. LL. D. PROFESSOR OF MEDIAEVAL HISTORY XN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON WITH A PREFACE BY ERNEST BARKER M. A. PRINCIPAL OF KINOS COLLE3E k J miM NEW YORK HENRY HOLT COMPANY 1922 PREFACE GIERKE, in an arresting sentence which, once read, is caught and embedded in the memory, speaks of the great Leibniz as one who in so many directions went deeper than his contemporaries, and who, perhaps for that reason, so often turned his eyes backward toward mediaeval ways of thought. If this be a true saying, and if to go backward to the Middle Ages is to go deeper into the waie vertte des choses, it is a wise mans duty to turn medievalist. And at any rate some of those who have hazarded the adventure have brought back lessons of some price and of much influence, Gierke himself has found in mediaeval theory and practice a lesson concerning groups their spontaneous origin and growth their underived and inherent scope of action which, filtered through the genius and the style of Maitknd, has influenced on the one hand ecclesiastics such as Dr Figgis, helping them to a vindication of the rights of ecclesiastical societies, and on the other hand publicists such as Mr Sidney Webb and Mr Cole, who have found comfort and countenance in Gierkes teaching for their advocacy of the rights and powers of trade unions. Above all, prior to Gierke, of a more native strain, with a wood-note of his own, there is William Morris. He went back to the Middle Ages for the true notion of art, which for him was of the nature of folk craftsman ship- made for the people and by thepeople, as a happiness to the maker and the user. And he found in the Middle PREFACE 1 Ages hbrbnlythfe true notion of art, but also the true notirfrf jjfithe social life of man the notion of fellowship, which fe expanded in The Dream of John Ball the fellowship which is heaven, and the lack thereof hell, c and the deeds that ye do upon the earth, it is for fellow ships sake that ye do them … and each one of you part of it. The mediaeval contributions to modern civilisation, which are the theme of this book, are twofold. There is the contribution of the idealised Middle Ages, magnified, mirrored, and roseate in the reflective thought of modern man concerning the Middle Ages. This is their con tribution as it appeared to Morris, or as it appears to Mr Belloc, or Mr Chesterton, or the votaries of guild socialism, It is a contribution made not by the actual Middle Ages, but by a projection of the Middle Ages on an ideal screen by an idealising mind. It is a contribution, but It is an indirect contribution it moves the mind and stirs the spirit of men, but the motion and the stirring are those not of the Middle Ages themselves, but rather of a certain antiquarian idealism an inverted Utopianism, as it were, leading men to find the Utopia, or Nowhere, of the future in what one may call a Never Was of the past But besides this indirect and ideal contribution none the less real because it is indirect and ideal there is the direct and actual contribution of the Middle Ages as they actually were It is this contribution which is the peculiar theme of this book. That contribution is very real, and very profound The Middle Ages are the pit from which we were digged, and the rock from which wewere hewn. They are the beginnings and the origin of the things that exist to-day and if one should look at things as they grow from the 6 PREFACE beginning, said Aristotle, it would be the best method of study The Parliament of England, as Professor Pollard has lately taught us, can only be understood in the light of its whole evolution. The law of England is embedded in the Middle Ages…