The Story of Mankind [57]
Soon he became
a ridiculous figure, with his devotion to ideals that had no
longer any practical value. It was said that the noble Don
Quixote de la Mancha had been the last of the true knights.
After his death, his trusted sword and his armour were sold
to pay his debts.
But somehow or other that sword seems to have fallen into
the hands of a number of men. Washington carried it during
the hopeless days of Valley Forge. It was the only defence
of Gordon, when he had refused to desert the people who had
been entrusted to his care, and stayed to meet his death in the
besieged fortress of Khartoum.
And I am not quite sure but that it proved of invaluable
strength in winning the Great War.
POPE vs. EMPEROR
THE STRANGE DOUBLE LOYALTY OF THE
PEOPLE OF THE MIDDLE AGES AND HOW
IT LED TO ENDLESS QUARRELS BETWEEN
THE POPES AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPERORS
IT is very difficult to understand the people of by-gone
ages. Your own grandfather, whom you see every day, is a
mysterious being who lives in a different world of ideas and
clothes and manners. I am now telling you the story of some
of your grandfathers who are twenty-five generations removed,
and I do not expect you to catch the meaning of what I write
without re-reading this chapter a number of times.
The average man of the Middle Ages lived a very simple
and uneventful life. Even if he was a free citizen, able to
come and go at will, he rarely left his own neighbourhood.
There were no printed books and only a few manuscripts.
Here and there, a small band of industrious monks taught
reading and writing and some arithmetic. But science and history
and geography lay buried beneath the ruins of Greece and
Rome.
Whatever people knew about the past they had learned by
listening to stories and legends. Such information, which goes
from father to son, is often slightly incorrect in details, but
it will preserve the main facts of history with astonishing
accuracy. After more than two thousand years, the mothers of
India still frighten their naughty children by telling them that
``Iskander will get them,'' and Iskander is none other than
Alexander the Great, who visited India in the year 330 before
the birth of Christ, but whose story has lived through all these
ages.
The people of the early Middle Ages never saw a textbook
of Roman history. They were ignorant of many things
which every school-boy to-day knows before he has entered
the third grade. But the Roman Empire, which is merely a
name to you, was to them something very much alive. They
felt it. They willingly recognised the Pope as their spiritual
leader because he lived in Rome and represented the idea of
the Roman super-power. And they were profoundly grateful
when Charlemagne, and afterwards Otto the Great, revived
the idea of a world-empire and created the Holy Roman
Empire, that the world might again be as it always had been.
But the fact that there were two different heirs to the
Roman tradition placed the faithful burghers of the Middle
Ages in a difficult position. The theory behind the mediaeval
political system was both sound and simple. While the worldly
master (the emperor) looked after the physical well-being of
his subjects, the spiritual master (the Pope) guarded their
souls.
In practice, however, the system worked very badly. The
Emperor invariably tried to interfere with the affairs of the
church and the Pope retaliated and told the Emperor how
he should rule his domains. Then they told each other to mind
their own business in very unceremonious language and the
inevitable end was war.
Under those circumstances, what were the people to do,
A good Christian obeyed both the Pope and his King. But
the Pope and the Emperor were enemies. Which side should
a dutiful subject and an equally dutiful Christian take?
It was never easy to give the correct
a ridiculous figure, with his devotion to ideals that had no
longer any practical value. It was said that the noble Don
Quixote de la Mancha had been the last of the true knights.
After his death, his trusted sword and his armour were sold
to pay his debts.
But somehow or other that sword seems to have fallen into
the hands of a number of men. Washington carried it during
the hopeless days of Valley Forge. It was the only defence
of Gordon, when he had refused to desert the people who had
been entrusted to his care, and stayed to meet his death in the
besieged fortress of Khartoum.
And I am not quite sure but that it proved of invaluable
strength in winning the Great War.
POPE vs. EMPEROR
THE STRANGE DOUBLE LOYALTY OF THE
PEOPLE OF THE MIDDLE AGES AND HOW
IT LED TO ENDLESS QUARRELS BETWEEN
THE POPES AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPERORS
IT is very difficult to understand the people of by-gone
ages. Your own grandfather, whom you see every day, is a
mysterious being who lives in a different world of ideas and
clothes and manners. I am now telling you the story of some
of your grandfathers who are twenty-five generations removed,
and I do not expect you to catch the meaning of what I write
without re-reading this chapter a number of times.
The average man of the Middle Ages lived a very simple
and uneventful life. Even if he was a free citizen, able to
come and go at will, he rarely left his own neighbourhood.
There were no printed books and only a few manuscripts.
Here and there, a small band of industrious monks taught
reading and writing and some arithmetic. But science and history
and geography lay buried beneath the ruins of Greece and
Rome.
Whatever people knew about the past they had learned by
listening to stories and legends. Such information, which goes
from father to son, is often slightly incorrect in details, but
it will preserve the main facts of history with astonishing
accuracy. After more than two thousand years, the mothers of
India still frighten their naughty children by telling them that
``Iskander will get them,'' and Iskander is none other than
Alexander the Great, who visited India in the year 330 before
the birth of Christ, but whose story has lived through all these
ages.
The people of the early Middle Ages never saw a textbook
of Roman history. They were ignorant of many things
which every school-boy to-day knows before he has entered
the third grade. But the Roman Empire, which is merely a
name to you, was to them something very much alive. They
felt it. They willingly recognised the Pope as their spiritual
leader because he lived in Rome and represented the idea of
the Roman super-power. And they were profoundly grateful
when Charlemagne, and afterwards Otto the Great, revived
the idea of a world-empire and created the Holy Roman
Empire, that the world might again be as it always had been.
But the fact that there were two different heirs to the
Roman tradition placed the faithful burghers of the Middle
Ages in a difficult position. The theory behind the mediaeval
political system was both sound and simple. While the worldly
master (the emperor) looked after the physical well-being of
his subjects, the spiritual master (the Pope) guarded their
souls.
In practice, however, the system worked very badly. The
Emperor invariably tried to interfere with the affairs of the
church and the Pope retaliated and told the Emperor how
he should rule his domains. Then they told each other to mind
their own business in very unceremonious language and the
inevitable end was war.
Under those circumstances, what were the people to do,
A good Christian obeyed both the Pope and his King. But
the Pope and the Emperor were enemies. Which side should
a dutiful subject and an equally dutiful Christian take?
It was never easy to give the correct