Ages, Middle
Ages, Middle
Centuries between ancient and modern times, according to some from the downfall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance, from the 5th to the 15th century, others preferring to call the first six centuries of this period Dark Ages, and limiting the Middle Ages proper to four. The Dark Ages then would be the time of the barbarian, Islam, and northern invasions, causing eventually the downfall of the Roman Empire and the destruction of the ancient civilizations, the time of the growing ascendancy of Christianity occasionally favored by those in power, though more often hindered and even persecuted because of the ambition of worldly rulers to subordinate religion to the state and of their alliance with heretical Christians, such as the Arians in the West, the Iconoclasts in the East; the time also of the conversion, by Apostolic men like Patrick, Martin, Augustine, Boniface, of the barbarous invaders and other more peaceful nations, bringing them gradually under the influence of Christian civilization. If we consider the centuries it took to do this as closing just prior to the year one thousand, and then study the achievement of the four following centuries, we find that it consisted in establishing law, developing cities, promoting culture, as W. E. Brown proves in “The Achievement of the Middle Ages”; or, as shown in “The Legacy of the Middle Ages,” in preparing for the modern age a legacy of Christian life, art in all its forms, particularly architecture, literature, philosophy, education, law growing out of sacred customs, civil and Roman law also, the dignification of womanhood, economit activity and political thought, organization of government, peace, union of Christendom. To these precious heirlooms Godefroid Kurth would add the independence of the papacy, the celibacy of the clergy, the gradual extirpation of slavery, liberty generally and the rights of the individual citizen, the foundation of charitable institutions, of monasticism; in a word, all the most saving elements of civilization. Indeed, he styles his work on the MiddIe Ages: “The Origin of Modern Civilization.”
Among the founders of these Ages, as Rand ranks them in his work on this subject, are men like,
Ambrose
Augustine of Hippo
Boethius
Cassiodorus
Gregory I , Saint
Jerome , Saint
Lactantius
Prudentius
There were great popes,
Adrian I
Agapetus I , Saint
Gregory I , Saint
Gregory II , Saint
Gregory V
Hormisdas , Saint
John VIII
John X
John XIII
Leo III , Saint
Leo IV , Saint
Sylvester II
Symmachus
Among the kings were
Alfred the Great
Charlemagne
Charles Martel
Edmund the Martyr , Saint
Edward the Confessor , Saint
Edward the Martyr , Saint
Heraclius
Justinian I
the Ottos
William the Conqueror
Among the churchmen were,
Alcuin , Saint
Aldhelm , Saint
Anschar , Saint
Becket
Bede
Columba , Saint
Gregory of Tours , Saint
Hugh of Cluny
Isidore of Seville , Saint
John Scotus
Peter Damian
Roger Bacon
Institutions owing to this period are feudalism in transition, guilds, markets, military orders, chivalry, Crusades, pilgrimages, bridge-and road-building brotherhoods, troubadours, wandering scholars, universities, inquisition, and the perfection of the liturgy. Fortunately the study of these ages is more and more occupying scholarly historians in England and America , and they are discovering that just because they were the ages of faith, their history had been perverted to throw discredit on the Catholic Church . Men like Charles Homer Haskins in his “Renaissance of the Twelfth Century” and “Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science” are doing eminent service in this respect and the medieval society has organized a body of scholars who are bent on uncovering the truth about ages from which moderns have so much to learn.