But still, taking history as we have it, the Middle Ages torment and bewilder us with the variety and seeming unimportance of their events. They are called the Dark Ages, though, upon a closer look, they deserve the name no more than the Night herself with all her revelation of the stars which the Day absorbs in the one central splendour of the sun.
Let the name of Dark Ages stand, however, though it must not be forgotten that human history at least dreamed and walked in this apparent sleep. There is no lack of chronicle and no lack of action. Nor, in spite of the common idea, was there lack of progress. The barbarians had come down in avalanches of stolid clay upon the gardens of civilisation. During the seeming idleness the seeds were at work and ideals were busily thrusting upward till of a sudden they burst forth in that springtime known as the Renaissance.
The history of each major country is given, in this work, its own chronicle, but for the better comprehension of the forces that were making possible the Renaissance and driving mankind to cry aloud for a betterment of conditions, it will be useful to set apart for brief consideration certain special phases and forces of Middle Age life. It will make it the easier to comprehend that life was by no means without the ferment of progress during that period which we so arbitrarily cleave out of history and put aside as the Middle Age.
Throughout the various histories of modern nations will be found a discussion of the multiform phases of feudalism. It is desirable, however, to give it some isolated discussion, though necessarily brief. A guide might be found in the words of Bryce, whose definition of feudalism also makes a good beginning; and in the words of the philosopher Hegel:[a]
BRYCE AND HEGEL ON FEUDALISM
“This is not the place for tracing the origin of feudality on Roman soil, nor for showing how, by a sort of contagion, it spread into Germany, how it struck firm root in the period of comparative quiet under Pepin and Charles, how from the hands of the latter it took the impress which determined its ultimate form, how the weakness of his successors allowed it to triumph everywhere. Still less would it be possible here to examine its social and moral influence. Politically it might be defined as the system which made the owner of a piece of land, whether large or small, the sovereign of those who dwelt thereon; an annexation of personal to territorial authority more familiar to eastern despotism than to the free races of primitive Europe. On this principle were founded, and by it are explained, feudal law and justice, feudal finance, feudal legislation, each tenant holding towards his lord the position which his own tenants held towards himself. And it is just because the relation was so uniform, the principle so comprehensive, the ruling class so firmly bound to its support, that feudalism has been able to lay upon society that grasp which the struggles of more than twenty generations have scarcely shaken off.”[b]
The three steps by which feudalism was reached are thus broadly summed up by Hegel:
“While the first period of the German world ends brilliantly with a mighty empire, the second is commenced by the reaction resulting from the antithesis occasioned by that infinite falsehood which rules the destinies of the Middle Ages and constitutes their life and spirit. This reaction is, first, that of the particular nationalities against the universal sovereignty of the Frankish Empire, manifesting itself in the splitting up of that great empire. The second reaction is that of individuals against legal authority and the executive power—against subordination, and the military and judicial arrangements of the constitution. This produced the isolation and therefore defencelessness of individuals. The universality of the power of the state disappeared through this reaction; individuals sought protection with the powerful, and the latter became oppressors. Thus was gradually introduced a condition of universal independence, and this protecting relation was then systematised into the feudal system.”[c]