| Emperor Andronicus II | 1282–1328 |
| Emperor John V | 1341–91 |
| Sultan Orkhan | 1325–59 |
| Sultan Mohammed II | 1451–81 |
| Stephen Dushan | 1331–55 |
| Marco Polo | 1254–1324 |
| Henry ‘the Navigator’ | 1394–1460 |
| Cape of Good Hope rounded | 1486 |
XXIII
THE RENAISSANCE
All history is the record of change, either in the direction of social progress or decay; but so gradual is this movement that, like the transition from night to dawn or noon to evening, it is beyond our vision to state the moment when tendencies began or ceased. It is only possible to note the definite changes in their achievement, and then to disentangle the threads by turning back along the twisted chain into which they have been woven.
Sometimes in history there have been so many changes within a short time that the effect has been cumulative and an epoch has been created, as at the break-up of the Roman Empire, when civilization was merged in the ‘Dark Ages’. Again, it is true of Europe at the end of the fifteenth century and during the greater part of the sixteenth, a period usually called ‘the Renaissance’, or time of ‘New Birth’, because then it became apparent that the old mediaeval outlook and ways of life had vanished, while others much more familiar and easy to understand had taken their place: the Modern World had been called into being.
The most obvious change to be found at the Renaissance was the collapse of the mediaeval ideal of a world-empire ruled in the name of God by Pope and Emperor. The Western Empire still remained pretentious in its claims; but its wiser rulers, such as Rudolph I and Charles IV, had already realized that success lay rather in German kingship than in imperial influence. The Popes had been restored to Rome, but the threat of councils that could depose and reform hung like a cloud over their insistence on the absolute obedience of Christendom; and, recognizing the inevitable, the Vatican had sunk the ambitions of an Innocent III in those of a temporal Italian Prince. Searching along the chain of causes, it becomes clear enough that the trend of history during the later Middle Ages had been this development of the smaller unity of the nation out of the bigger unity of the world-state. By the end of the fifteenth century England, France, and Spain were already nations; while even Germany and Italy, feeling the call in a lesser degree, had substituted for a wider sense of nationality devotion to a province or city state.
The second of the great changes that characterize the Renaissance was the development of the idea of man as an individual. All through the Middle Ages, except perhaps in the case of rulers, men and women counted in the life of the world around them, not so much as separate influences as a part of the system into which they were born or absorbed. In early days the tribe accepted its members’ acts, whether good or bad, as something that was the concern of all to be atoned for, supported, or avenged, as a public duty. Still more strongly was this attitude expressed in family affairs, as in the numerous ‘vendettas’, or feuds like those of the Welfs and Waiblingen, or of ‘the Blacks’ and ‘Whites’ in Florence.
Turning from racial ties to social, we find mediaeval associations of all kinds holding a man bound, not by his own personal choice or discretion, but by the decision of the group to which he happened to be attached. The feudal system was never complete enough in practice to make a good example of this bondage, but in theory from the tenant-in-chief to the landowner lowest in the social scale there was a settled rule of life, dictating the duties and responsibilities of lord and vassal. Still more was this binding rule true of that greatest of all mediaeval corporations—monasticism, that demanded from its sons and daughters absolute obedience in the annihilation of self. St. Bernard, whose personality was so strong that he could not remain hidden amongst the mass of his fellows, was yet, we remember, angry with Abelard for this above all other failings—that he had set up his individual judgement as a test of life. In Abelard, as in Arnold of Brescia, lay the first stirrings of the independent modern spirit that at the Renaissance was to shake the foundations of the mediaeval world.
Besides monasticism there were other associations—the universities and the class corporations, merchant guilds such as the North German Hansa, and smaller city guilds, such as the ‘Greater’ and ‘Lesser Arts’ in Florence, comprising groups of lawyers, fishmongers, &c. All these last maintained a standard of uniformity, regulating not only hours of work, rate of pay, nature of employment, scale of contributions, like a modern trade union, but went much farther, interfering in the life of each individual member to insist on what he should wear in public and how he might spend the money he had earned. It was a spirit of benevolent slavery that held sway so long as the strivings of the individual mind were overborne by a sense of helplessness in the face of ignorance or by the weight of tradition.