Medieval culture was imperfect, was restricted to a narrow
circle of superior minds, offered no satisfaction to some of the higher
faculties and instincts. Measure it, however, by the memories and the
achievements that it has bequeathed to the modern world, and it will be found
not unworthy to rank with those of earlier and later Golden Ages. It flourished
in the midst of rude surroundings, fierce passions, and material ambitions. The
volcanic fires of primitive human nature smouldered near the surface of
medieval life; the events chronicled in medieval history are too often those of
sordid and relentless strife, of religious persecutions, of crimes and conquests
mendaciously excused by the affectation of a moral aim.
The truth is that every
civilisation has a seamy side, which it is easy to expose and to denounce. We
should not, however, judge an age by its crimes and scandals. We do not think
of the Athenians solely or chiefly as the people who turned against Pericles, who
tried to enslave Sicily, who executed Socrates. We appraise them rather by
their most heroic exploits and their most enduring work. We must apply the same
test to the medieval nations; we must judge of them by their philosophy and
law, by their poetry and architecture, by the examples that they afford of
statesmanship and saintship. In these fields we shall not find that we are
dealing with the spasmodic and irreflective heroisms which illuminate a
barbarous age. The highest medieval achievements are the fruit of deep
reflection, of persevering and concentrated effort, of a self forgetting self
in the service of humanity and God. In other words, they spring from the soil,
and have ripened in the atmosphere, of a civilised society.
