Flowers from Mediæval History
9781465636614
208 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Modern invention has actually reflected upon ancient history: the railroad, the steam derrick and the photograph have changed our conceptions of the past. Written history is now accepted as its author’s opinion, while tangible records stand forth as facts. This attitude brings the Middle Ages particularly near to us, for though its people wrote comparatively little, they were wonderful builders: their art was more literally expressive than the classic; then, too, of course, it is better preserved. While the Greeks and Romans were our schoolmasters, the Europeans of the Middle Ages are our ancestors. Their experience foreshadows our own; for however far removed from us in thought and action they may have been, they were akin to us in feeling. Though the rude pioneers of Christianity were often intensely cruel, as you follow their history, you may meet with some gentle deed springing from the good seed, even when sown in stony places, with some action in its sweetness and humility entirely beyond the pagan world. In their childish story one may trace the early workings of the Christian ideal. It did not control behavior, nor did it always direct it wisely; morality, being judicial and scientific, implies a certain maturity of mind. Religion is simple; it is unlogical, sentimental and impulsive. Whatever this indefinable instinct may be, it has manifested itself as a spiritualizing force in morality and an initiative force in art. Religion has in it a craving for a loveliness beyond all literal perception of the senses; a philosophic mind projects this ideal in contemplation; an artistic mind, in symbol; for, as Michael Angelo explains, “Rash is the thought and vain that maketh beauty from the senses grow.” The Greeks did develop an art from the motif of physical beauty, however, but their statues, executed before art became mature enough to produce that beauty, have no message, while one often catches something high and holy from a very early Christian image. It may radiate from a pretty smile on the face of a crude Madonna, or a graceful upturned head, in a figure entirely destitute of anatomy, which looks as though the simple craftsman had called upon a higher power than knowledge. Spiritual beauty being the ideal in Christian art, the image, however rude, which suggests it, makes its appeal in the charmed language of that loving religion. Mediæval archives have been ransacked by Protestants for the errors of Catholicism; by political economists, who even penetrate to the Dark Ages in search of the chilly lessons of the dismal science, for wisdom; and between them what a conception we have! But it is not the whole story, for Chaucer assures us the Moyen Age was a fairly livable period, peopled by beings like ourselves; moreover, it was an artistic age which has left us not only a wonderful architecture but two supreme poets. Perhaps the fairest chroniclers of such a period are its own artists, great and small, for history has grown too democratic to confine herself to kings, however worthy. She does not find the crude carver voiceless who, in default of skill, surrounds his Madonna with gold and loads her with rude jewels; indeed, she often finds her sweetest flowers growing between the lines of an unskilful brush or chisel.
