Little more than a generation had passed from the fatal year when the most glorious Gothic edifice on Italian soil was already rising from the plain of Lombardy—a symbol [p219] of new life, new hopes, new greatness, which would surpass the greatness of the buried past. And this, be it observed, was no creation of Prince or Potentate; it was essentially the idea, the work, the achievement of the people of Milan themselves.[397]
What gives, perhaps, the predominant interest to the century and a half which succeeded the overwhelming catastrophe of the Black Death is the fact of the wonderful social and religious recovery from a state almost of dissolution. It is not the place here even to enter upon so interesting and important a subject. It must suffice to have indicated the point of view from which the history of the immediately succeeding generations must be regarded. In spite of wars and civil commotions it was an age of distinct progress, although the very complexity and variety of current and undercurrent is apt at times to daze the too impatient inquirer, who wishes to reduce everything to the simple result of the definitely good, or the definitely bad.
FOOTNOTES:
[366] Cf. T. Amyot, Population of English Cities, temp. Ed. III. (Archæologia, Vol. xx, pp. 524–531).
[367] England before and after the Black Death (Fortnightly Review, Vol. viii, p. 191).
[368] W. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, p. 304.
[369] Fortnightly Review, viii, p. 192. This is, of course, true, but without qualification might give the reader a false impression as to the condition of the English peasant in the middle ages. Most of what Mr. Thorold Rogers says is applicable to all classes of society. Dr. Cunningham (Growth of English Industry and Commerce, p. 275) takes a truer view: "Life is more than meat, and though badly housed the ordinary villager was better fed and amused."
[370] B. Mus. Cott. MS., Faust, B. v, fol. 99b.
[371] R. O., Originalia Roll, 26 Ed. III., m. 27.
[372] Ibid., 27 Ed. III., m. 19.