In the absence of tea and coffee, ale and beer formed the drink of the common people. The upper classes regaled themselves on costly wines. Drunkenness was as common and as little reprobated as gluttony. The monotony of life in medieval Europe, when the nobles had little to do but hunt and fight, may partly account for the prevailing inebriety. But doubtless in large measure it was a Teutonic characteristic. The Northmen were hard drinkers, and of the ancient Germans a Roman writer states that "to pass an entire day and night in drinking disgraces no one." [38] This habit of intoxication survived in medieval Germany, and the Anglo-Saxons and Danes introduced it into England.
CENTRAL PERIOD OF THE MIDDLE AGES
Our survey of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries has now shown us that these two hundred years deserve to be called the central period of the Middle Ages. When the Arabs had brought the culture of the Orient to Spain and Sicily, when the Northmen after their wonderful expansion had settled down in Normandy, England, and other countries, and when the peoples of western Europe, whether as peaceful pilgrims or as warlike crusaders, had visited Constantinople and the Holy Land, men's minds received a wonderful stimulus. The intellectual life of Europe was "speeded up," and the way was prepared for the even more rapid advance of knowledge in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as the Middle Ages passed into modern times.
STUDIES
1. Look up on the map between pages 358-359 the following places where Gothic cathedrals are found: Canterbury, York, Salisbury, Reims, Amiens, Chartres, Cologne, Strassburg, Burgos, Toledo, and Milan.
2. Look up on the map facing page 654 the location of the following medieval universities: Oxford, Montpellier, Paris, Orléans, Cologne, Leipzig, Prague, Naples, and Salamanca.
3. Explain the following terms: scholasticism; canon law; alchemy; troubadours; Provençal language; transept; choir; flying buttress; werewolf; and mumming.
4. Who were St. Thomas Aquinas, Abelard, Gratian, Irnerius, and Roger Bacon?
5. Show how Latin served as an international language in the Middle Ages. Name two artificial languages which have been invented as a substitute for Latin.
6. What is meant by saying that "French is a mere patois of Latin"?