The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries

Оглавление

James Joseph Walsh. The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries

PROEM (EPIMETHEUS.)

PREFACE

PREFACE (GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY EDITION)

PREFACE (FOURTH EDITION)

PREFACE (FIFTH EDITION)

FREDERIC HARRISON, MACAULAY, FREEMAN, AND FISKE

ON THE PLACE OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY IN HISTORY

I. INTRODUCTION

II. UNIVERSITIES AND PREPARATORY SCHOOLS

III. WHAT AND HOW THEY STUDIED AT THE UNIVERSITIES

IV. THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS AND DISCIPLINE

V. POST-GRADUATE WORK AT THE UNIVERSITIES

VI. THE BOOK OF THE ARTS AND POPULAR EDUCATION

VII. ARTS AND CRAFTS—GREAT TECHNICAL SCHOOLS

VIII. GREAT ORIGINS IN PAINTING.13

IX. LIBRARIES AND BOOKMEN

X. THE CID, THE HOLY GRAIL, THE NIBELUNGEN

XI. MEISTERSINGERS, MINNESINGERS, TROUVÈRES, TROUBADOURS

XII. GREAT LATIN HYMNS AND CHURCH MUSIC

XIII. THREE MOST READ BOOKS OF THE CENTURY

XIV. SOME THIRTEENTH CENTURY PROSE

XV. ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA

XVI. FRANCIS THE SAINT—THE FATHER OF THE RENAISSANCE

XVII. AQUINAS THE SCHOLAR

XVIII. ST. LOUIS THE MONARCH

XIX. DANTE THE POET

XX. THE WOMEN OF THE CENTURY

XXI. CITY HOSPITALS—ORGANIZED CHARITY

XXII. GREAT ORIGINS IN LAW

XXIII. JUSTICE AND LEGAL DEVELOPMENT

XXIV. DEMOCRACY, CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM AND NATIONALITY

XXV. GREAT EXPLORERS AND THE FOUNDATION OF GEOGRAPHY

XXVI. GREAT BEGINNINGS OF MODERN COMMERCE

APPENDIX I. SO-CALLED HISTORY. RULERS

APPENDIX II. TWENTY-SIX CHAPTERS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

I. AMERICA IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

II. A REPRESENTATIVE UPPER HOUSE

III. THE PARISH, AND TRAINING IN CITIZENSHIP

IV. THE CHANCE TO RISE

V. INSURANCE

VI. OLD AGE PENSIONS

VII. THE WAYS AND MEANS OF CHARITY—ORGANIZED CHARITY

VIII. SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSITIES

IX. MEDICAL TEACHING AND PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS

X. MAGNETISM

XI. BIOLOGICAL THEORIES, EVOLUTION, RECAPITULATION

XII. THE POPE OF THE CENTURY

XIII. INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION

XIV. BIBLE REVISION

XV. FICTION OF THE CENTURY

XVI. GREAT ORATORS

XVII. GREAT BEGINNINGS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE

XVIII. GREAT ORIGINS IN MUSIC

XIX. A CHAPTER ON MANNERS

XX. TEXTILE WORK OF THE CENTURY

XXI. GLASS-MAKING

XXII. INVENTIONS

XXIII. INDUSTRY AND TRADE

XXIV. FAIRS AND MARKETS

XXV. INTENSIVE FARMING

XXVI. CARTOGRAPHY AND THE TEACHING OF GEOGRAPHY

APPENDIX III. CRITICISMS, COMMENTS, DOCUMENTS

HUMAN PROGRESS

THE CENTURY OF ORIGINS

EDUCATION

TECHNICAL EDUCATION OF THE MASSES

HOW IT ALL STOPPED

COMFORT AND POVERTY

COMFORT AND HAPPINESS

COMFORT AND HEALTH

HYGIENE

WAGES AND THE CONDITION OP WORKING PEOPLE

INTEREST AND LOANS

THE EIGHTEENTH. LOWEST OF CENTURIES

Отрывок из книги

"Why take the style of these heroic times? For nature brings not back the mastodon—Nor we those times; and why should any man Remodel models?"

What Tennyson thus said of his own first essay in the Idyls of the King, in the introduction to the Morte D'Arthur, occurs as probably the aptest expression of most men's immediate thought with regard to such a subject as The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries. Though Tennyson was confessedly only remodeling the thoughts of the Thirteenth Century, we would not be willing to concede—

.....

In Germany, just at the same time, the Nibelungen-Lied was receiving the form in which it was to live as the great National epic. The Meistersingers also were accomplishing their supreme work of Christianizing and modernizing the old German and Christian legends which were to prove such a precious heritage of interest for posterity. In the South of Germany the Minnesingers sang their tuneful strains and showed how possible it was to take the cruder language of the North, and pour forth as melodious hymns of praise to nature and to their beloved ones as in the more fluent Southern tongues. Most of this was done in the old Suabian high German dialect, and the basis of the modern German language was thus laid. The low German was to prove the vehicle for the original form of the animal epic or stories with regard to Reynard, the Fox, which were to prove so popular throughout all of Europe for all time thereafter.

In North France the Trouvères were accomplishing a similar work to that of the Minnesingers in South Germany, but doing it with an original genius, a refinement of style characteristic of their nation, and a finish of form that was to impress itself upon French literature for all subsequent time. Here also Jean de Meun and Guillaume de Lorris wrote the Romance of the Rose, which was to remain the most popular book in Europe down to the age of printing and for some time thereafter. At the South of France the work of the Troubadours, similar to that of the Trouvères and yet with, a spirit and character all its own, was creating a type of love songs that the world recurs to with pleasure whenever the lyrical aspect of poetry becomes fashionable. The influence of the Troubadours was to be felt in Italy, and before the end of the Thirteenth Century there were many writers of short poems that deserve a place in what is best in literature. Men like Sordello, Guido Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia, and Dante da Maiano, deserve mention in any historical review of literature, quite apart from the influence which they had on their great successor, the Prince of Italian poets and one of the immortal trio of the world's supreme creative singers—Dante Alighieri. With what must have seemed the limit of conceit he placed himself among the six greatest poets, but posterity breathes his name only with those of Homer and Shakespeare.

.....