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To create anew the walls and towers and gardens of the mediæval world is a comparatively easy task, now that we have so many aids to visualizing that departed age, but it is not so easy to make live again the thoughts and sentiments and beliefs of a vanished generation. All our study of history is valueless unless it brings a clearer revelation of the pulsing, ardent life of humanity. We search old records and old literature that we may find the true image of a world whose hopes and fears and loves prove to us the slow evolution of a progressive civilization in which all human beings share. Out of the failures and the doubts of one age comes the quicker power of another, and true progress looks both backward and forward. To cherish old traditions is both a duty and an inspiration.

The reader who turns his face toward the world of mediæval England and France, seeking to know the spirit which animated our ancestors of six centuries ago, must recognize in plowman, hermit, knight, friar, or minstrel the fundamental fact that their life was actual and real, not a mere tissue of mediæval costume and mechanical movements. In order to understand that epoch it is essential for one to study in detail the works which picture the life of the day. The world of chivalry, with its brilliant pageantry and its vows of courtesy, loyalty, and liberality, is revealed in the pages of Froissart and in the many metrical romances, where various aspects of knightly life are described. "King Horn," "Guy of Warwick," "Libeaus Desconus," "Sir Eglamour," "The Squire of Low Degree," and others tell the story of knighthood.

Another world is represented in "Piers Plowman," where the oppression of the poor by the arrogant rich and the corruption of church and state are described in racy vernacular by one whose soul was on fire with devotion to truth and justice. Social problems are enunciated, and the misery wrought by human ignorance and selfishness is depicted in satire keen, shrewd, and piercing.

Chaucer, the supreme poet of the fourteenth century in England, portrays a world of normal folk who represent all classes and conditions except the very high and the very low. While, in certain ways, Chaucer's work is easier to read and understand than that of any of his contemporaries, students often read it very superficially and fail to recognize the deeply rooted traits which show that Chaucer was the child of his epoch. We find in the English poet traces of the influence of Continental life and literature; we see him reading the classics of Rome, of Florence, and of Paris; but he was also always intimately familiar with the minor literature popular among his own countrymen.

Since an understanding of Chaucer is a vivid introduction to the later Middle Ages, it is essential for students of that period to have some acquaintance with the common literary types of Chaucer's day. The translations gathered together in this book are representative of these types,—debate, vision, allegory, saints' legends, pious tales, satire, and lay. Few examples of secular literature are given, for the most satisfactory way to approach the secular poetry of the time is to read parts, at least, of the "Romance of the Rose," which has been translated, very freely, by F. S. Ellis.[1] This long poem is a compendium of the ideals, manners, and tastes of the fashionable world of France and of England. The machinery of dream, personification, and allegory; the descriptions of nature and of dress; the attitude towards the god of love and his fabled court; the satire; and the pedantry are all highly significant facts in the history of literature. Knowing this romance, one knows the heart of thirteenth century Paris. The Troubadours,[2] too, should be studied for the sake of understanding one side of lyric poetry. All this secular poetry, however, does not account for Chaucer, who was indebted also to a stream of influence coming from religious legends and allegories. The deeper side of his nature responded to the appeal of pious tales and records of saintly lives; superstitions about nature and about God attracted his interest, and stirred him to that effective contemplation which resulted in clear, sane judgments. Religious poetry was, first and last, familiar matter to the great court poet, and we should recognize its characteristics and its sovereign appeal.

We must remember that the world of the Middle Ages was essentially and positively Catholic. From birth to death the layman was under the guardianship of Holy Church, and bound by the most solemn vows to perfect obedience. Yet, although there seems to be a certain conventionality in his performance of these duties, there was a very lively concern regarding that other world toward which he was moving. Close to the spiritual ecstasy of such lives as that of Saint Francis, or of Saint Catherine, or of the uncanonized Richard Rolle, there was a dim, frightened foreboding that perhaps Evil might prove the triumphant force. Love of God was no stronger than fear of the devil. Tales of the black magic of Satan as well as of the white magic of the church were eagerly listened to by a people quick to show their interest in any manifestation of the supernatural. Crude and childish as their faiths and superstitions may seem to a more liberal age, there is something impressive in their deep conviction of hidden truths. When we lose all sense of mystery and of wonder and are wholly free from any illusions, life becomes singularly vapid, for the very key to spiritual existence is a sense of infinite meanings forever challenging, baffling, and dominating our daily life.

"But God forbede but men shulde leve

Wel more thing then men han seen with ÿe!"

In the legends and allegories and satires represented in these pages the reader will find strange and fervent faiths as well as homely pictures of the world as it is. A vigorous use of the concrete is everywhere evident; abstractions seem not to exist without some physical traits to make them real to the ordinary man. Intensely picturesque and objective are the descriptions of hell and of heaven, of the lands visited by Brandon, of Saint Paul's otter, of the miracles of Saint Thomas, of the virtues of the coral, and of the traits of Rose and of Violet. To any readers there is unending charm in the natural, simple style of setting forth these details which force vivid conceptions upon the imagination.

Growing up in a world of brilliant court life and becoming familiar with a literary art which placed emphasis upon the concrete, Chaucer was inevitably destined to be a supreme master of specific, suggestive realism. He loved every aspect of existence, and he wrought his descriptions with an art precise and joyous. The French poets and the English preachers taught him the secret of appealing to the popular love of visible and audible images. Yet his greatest power is that dramatic portrayal of human experience, a presentation whose quick humour and overflowing sympathy have made him beloved by generations. Impatient of affectation in art, in manner, or in spiritual matters, he taught sincerity. His humour, poise, and fearless, keen mentality will always have their healing and wonder-working qualities.