The Story of Mankind [81]
faithful son of the Church,
had been an evil. But he stood alone. He had fought the
battle of a time that was dead and gone. The Pope in Rome
never moved a finger to save him. On the contrary, he approved
of his ``faithful Florentines'' when they dragged Savonarola
to the gallows, hanged him and burned his body amidst
the cheerful howling and yelling of the mob.
It was a sad ending, but quite inevitable. Savonarola
would have been a great man in the eleventh century. In the
fifteenth century he was merely the leader of a lost cause.
For better or worse, the Middle Ages had come to an end when
the Pope had turned humanist and when the Vatican became
the most important museum of Roman and Greek antiquities.
THE AGE OF EXPRESSION
THE PEOPLE BEGAN TO FEEL THE NEED OF
GIVING EXPRESSION TO THEIR NEWLY
DISCOVERED JOY OF LIVING. THEY EXPRESSED
THEIR HAPPINESS IN POETRY
AND IN SCULPTURE AND IN ARCHITECTURE
AND IN PAINTING AND IN THE
BOOKS THEY PRINTED
IN the year 1471 there died a pious old man who had spent
seventy-two of his ninety-one years behind the sheltering walls
of the cloister of Mount St. Agnes near the good town of
Zwolle, the old Dutch Hanseatic city on the river Ysel. He
was known as Brother Thomas and because he had been born
in the village of Kempen, he was called Thomas a Kempis.
At the age of twelve he had been sent to Deventer, where
Gerhard Groot, a brilliant graduate of the universities of
Paris, Cologne and Prague, and famous as a wandering
preacher, had founded the Society of the Brothers of the
Common Life. The good brothers were humble laymen who
tried to live the simple life of the early Apostles of Christ
while working at their regular jobs as carpenters and house-
painters and stone masons. They maintained an excellent
school, that deserving boys of poor parents might be taught
the wisdom of the Fathers of the church. At this school,
little Thomas had learned how to conjugate Latin verbs and
how to copy manuscripts. Then he had taken his vows, had
put his little bundle of books upon his back, had wandered to
Zwolle and with a sigh of relief he had closed the door upon a
turbulent world which did not attract him.
Thomas lived in an age of turmoil, pestilence and sudden
death. In central Europe, in Bohemia, the devoted disciples of
Johannus Huss, the friend and follower of John Wycliffe, the
English reformer, were avenging with a terrible warfare the death
of their beloved leader who had been burned at the stake by order of
that same Council of Constance, which had promised him a safe-conduct
if he would come to Switzerland and explain his doctrines to the Pope,
the Emperor, twenty-three cardinals, thirty-three archbishops and bishops,
one hundred and fifty abbots and more than a hundred princes and
dukes who had gathered together to reform their church.
In the west, France had been fighting for a hundred years that
she might drive the English from her territories and just then was
saved from utter defeat by the fortunate appearance of Joan of Arc.
And no sooner had this struggle come to an end than France and Burgundy
were at each other's throats, engaged upon a struggle of life and death
for the supremacy of western Europe.
In the south, a Pope at Rome was calling the curses of
Heaven down upon a second Pope who resided at Avignon,
in southern France, and who retaliated in kind. In the
far east the Turks were destroying the last remnants of the
Roman Empire and the Russians had started upon a final
crusade to crush the power of their Tartar masters.
But of all this, Brother Thomas in his quiet cell never
heard. He had his manuscripts and his own thoughts and
he was contented. He poured his love of God into a little
volume. He called it the Imitation of Christ. It has since
been translated into more languages than any other book
save the Bible. It has been
had been an evil. But he stood alone. He had fought the
battle of a time that was dead and gone. The Pope in Rome
never moved a finger to save him. On the contrary, he approved
of his ``faithful Florentines'' when they dragged Savonarola
to the gallows, hanged him and burned his body amidst
the cheerful howling and yelling of the mob.
It was a sad ending, but quite inevitable. Savonarola
would have been a great man in the eleventh century. In the
fifteenth century he was merely the leader of a lost cause.
For better or worse, the Middle Ages had come to an end when
the Pope had turned humanist and when the Vatican became
the most important museum of Roman and Greek antiquities.
THE AGE OF EXPRESSION
THE PEOPLE BEGAN TO FEEL THE NEED OF
GIVING EXPRESSION TO THEIR NEWLY
DISCOVERED JOY OF LIVING. THEY EXPRESSED
THEIR HAPPINESS IN POETRY
AND IN SCULPTURE AND IN ARCHITECTURE
AND IN PAINTING AND IN THE
BOOKS THEY PRINTED
IN the year 1471 there died a pious old man who had spent
seventy-two of his ninety-one years behind the sheltering walls
of the cloister of Mount St. Agnes near the good town of
Zwolle, the old Dutch Hanseatic city on the river Ysel. He
was known as Brother Thomas and because he had been born
in the village of Kempen, he was called Thomas a Kempis.
At the age of twelve he had been sent to Deventer, where
Gerhard Groot, a brilliant graduate of the universities of
Paris, Cologne and Prague, and famous as a wandering
preacher, had founded the Society of the Brothers of the
Common Life. The good brothers were humble laymen who
tried to live the simple life of the early Apostles of Christ
while working at their regular jobs as carpenters and house-
painters and stone masons. They maintained an excellent
school, that deserving boys of poor parents might be taught
the wisdom of the Fathers of the church. At this school,
little Thomas had learned how to conjugate Latin verbs and
how to copy manuscripts. Then he had taken his vows, had
put his little bundle of books upon his back, had wandered to
Zwolle and with a sigh of relief he had closed the door upon a
turbulent world which did not attract him.
Thomas lived in an age of turmoil, pestilence and sudden
death. In central Europe, in Bohemia, the devoted disciples of
Johannus Huss, the friend and follower of John Wycliffe, the
English reformer, were avenging with a terrible warfare the death
of their beloved leader who had been burned at the stake by order of
that same Council of Constance, which had promised him a safe-conduct
if he would come to Switzerland and explain his doctrines to the Pope,
the Emperor, twenty-three cardinals, thirty-three archbishops and bishops,
one hundred and fifty abbots and more than a hundred princes and
dukes who had gathered together to reform their church.
In the west, France had been fighting for a hundred years that
she might drive the English from her territories and just then was
saved from utter defeat by the fortunate appearance of Joan of Arc.
And no sooner had this struggle come to an end than France and Burgundy
were at each other's throats, engaged upon a struggle of life and death
for the supremacy of western Europe.
In the south, a Pope at Rome was calling the curses of
Heaven down upon a second Pope who resided at Avignon,
in southern France, and who retaliated in kind. In the
far east the Turks were destroying the last remnants of the
Roman Empire and the Russians had started upon a final
crusade to crush the power of their Tartar masters.
But of all this, Brother Thomas in his quiet cell never
heard. He had his manuscripts and his own thoughts and
he was contented. He poured his love of God into a little
volume. He called it the Imitation of Christ. It has since
been translated into more languages than any other book
save the Bible. It has been