CHAPTER V THE ROUGH SIDE OF THE MIDDLE AGES THE sketch just concluded of the composition of society during the Middle Ages by no means accords with the idea of that epoch which still holds its place in the mind of the general public. In spite of the researches and labours of enlightened historians in recent times, such as Hallam in the early part of the century, and, of late years, of men like Green, Freeman, and Stubbs, the representation of the Middle Ages put forward by bourgeois historians, whose aim was the praising of the escape of modern society from a period of mere rapine and confusion, into peace, order, and prosperity, is generally accepted. ་ Doubtless there was a rough side to the Middle Ages as to every other epoch, but there was also genuine life and progress in them. This, as we have seen, expressed itself on one side in the hierarchical order of feudal society, which was so far from being lawless that, on the contrary, law received somewhat undue observance therein. And on the other side that there were certain compensations to the shortcomings of the epoch, which we shall have to consider before long. At present, however, let us look at the rough side of the medieval cloth, with the preliminary remark, that those who have drawn so violent a contrast between medieval disadvantages and the gains of modern life, have been by nature and circumstances incapable of seeing the compensations above-said. The shortcomings of the life of the Middle Ages resolve themselves in the main, firstly, to the rudeness of life and absence of material comforts: secondly, to the element of oppression and violence in which men lived; and thirdly, to the ignorance and superstition which veiled so much of our truth from their minds. As to the rudeness of life it must be remembered that men do not suffer from the lack of comforts which they have never had before their eyes, and of which they cannot even conceive. Indeed, in our own day, though we can conceive that flying would be a pleasanter method of progression than an express train, nevertheless we are not made unhappy by the fact of our not being able to fly. The sensitiveness of men adapts itself easily to their surrounding conditions, and such inconveniences as may exist in these are not felt by those who consider them unavoidable. It is true that this argument can only be put forward when the shortcomings are not of a nature to degrade those who have to bear them; but it must be admitted that there is no degradation in mere external roughness of life. For the rest, though it would be a shock for the modern man to be transplanted, without preparation, into medieval conditions, the mediæval man in his turn would probably be as ill at ease amid the "comforts" of modern London. Another consideration is far more serious than this, and far more calculated to shake our complacency in modern civilisation, to wit that whatever advantages we have gained over the Middle Ages are not shared by the greater part of our population. The whole of our unskilled labouring classes are in a far worse position as to food, housing, and clothing than any but the extreme fringe of the corresponding class in the Middle Ages. Let us look next at the ignorance and superstition of the Middle Ages. In the main this ignorance meant a naïveté in their conceptions of the universe, which was partly a survival of the animism of the earlier world. The ignorance was not a matter of brutal choice; on the contrary, there was a keen and disinterested search after truth and knowledge and the very fact of the region of discovery being so unknown added the charm of wonder and scientific imagination to the research. Nor should it be forgotten that what to us has become superstition was to them science, and that in all probability our science will be the superstition of future times. It is being acknow ledged every day that modern accepted scientific explanations of the "nature of things are becoming more and more inadequate to the satisfaction of true knowledge. The Ptolemaic theory of astronomy was good enough for the data of its day; and though it has been superseded by the Copernican system, that in its turn is limited as an explanation by the present condition of our knowledge of the universe. Though the world will never go back to Ptolemy's explanation, it will go forward to something more complete than any yet put forth. There remains the charge of violence and misery to be dealt with. As to the misery, the result partly of that violence and partly of the deficient grasp of the resources of nature, its manifestations were so much more dramatic than the misery of our time produces, that at this distance they have the effect of overshadowing the everyday life of the period, which in fact was not constantly burdened by them. What misery exists in our own days is not spasmodic and accidental, but chronic and essential to the system under which we live. The |