The Story of Europe

by Marshall, H. E.

  To France especially his power seemed a menace. For France was enclosed by his possessions save where the sea laid her open to attack by her ancient enemy England. It was hardly wonderful then that France should endeavour to lessen his power and dispute his possession of Italy. But besides this real menace there was personal enmity between Francis I and Charles. For Francis I had hoped to be chosen emperor; that he was not was a bitter disappointment to him, and throughout the rest of his life he kept a jealous wrath against Charles. He was constantly at war with him, and Italy was the battle-field upon which these wars were fought.

  But the defeat of the French at Pavia and the captivity of their king brought no peace to Italy. As emperor, Charles claimed a vague suzerainty over the whole of Italy, but it was rather by right of conquest and as king of Spain that he enforced his claim. In resisting it the country was filled with confusion, every petty prince struggling for his own advantage. Thirty thousand marauding imperial troops, half German, half Spanish, seized and sacked Rome. Turkish pirates harried the coasts, carrying off both men and women to be sold into slavery, while their French allies devasted the land.

  But in the end Spain triumphed. Italy was carved into states and parcelled out as Spain desired, her princes obeyed Spain's will. Then for more than two hundred and fifty years Italy could hardly be said to have a history of her own. She was tossed about from one ruler to another, and her fair plains were the battle-fields for quarrels not her own.

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  The Renaissance

  WE use the word Renaissance to indicate the term of years between the Middle Ages and modern times. No exact dates are possible. Roughly, it began in Italy towards the end of the fourteenth century, with the revival of learning there, and gradually spread to the rest of Europe.

  The word Renaissance is also used to mean, not merely the term of years between mediæval and modern times, but the new manner in which men began at this period to look at life, in the way of moral conduct and of learning. It was in one aspect a revolt of man against the accepted order of things, an awakening in man of the desire to think his own thoughts and to live his own life. It was a many-sided and complicated movement, touching and transforming all life. It was an advance; but in order to make this advance men retired backward to the learning of the ancients.

  During the years when nations had been forming, when the business of life was war, learning had been neglected. Greek was a forgotten language in Western Europe. Plato was unknown, Homer and Aristotle known only in Latin translations. The books of these and other great writers might indeed be found in libraries. But they lay there unopened, for no one could read them, and there were neither dictionaries nor grammars from which the language might be learned. Only in Constantinople, the eastern outpost of Christian Europe, did the old learning survive.

  Italy and the Humanists

  As the Turks encroached upon the Grecian Empire many Greeks sought new homes in Italy. There they were warmly welcomed by the young writers of the day, such as Petrarch and Boccaccio. Petrarch, indeed, could never learn Greek at all, Boccaccio never learned it thoroughly, yet they were the forerunners of the Renaissance. They set Italy on the right road, and awoke a desire in the heart of the Italians for the beauties of the old Greek learning and culture.

  This return to Greek and Greek art was a revolt against priestly authority and a return to nature. The whole treasure, therefore, of Greek and Latin literature which was now discovered, came to be called the Humanities—litteræ humaniores. The men who advanced the movement came to be called the Humanists, and Petrarch, it has been said, was the first of the Humanists.

  Italy had shown itself ready to imbibe Greek learning and Greek art. So it was naturally to Italy that most of the learned fled for refuge, when in 1453 Constantinople was taken by the Turks. These refugees brought with them their books and pictures as well as their love of art and learning. They found, as it were, the soil ready for them, and there the new-old learning took fresh root and blossomed.

  Soon the fame of this learning spread abroad. It was not unhelped by war. For invading armies came. Italy was crushed between the upper and nether millstones of warring princes. Yet because of her art and learning she was not wholly crushed. Through them she conquered the conquerors, and scholars came from every part of Europe to sit at the feet of her learned doctors. Returning home they carried to the universities of France, Germany, and England perfect literary models, and opened treasures of long-forgotten knowledge to them.

  From Italy, too, there spread a new love of art. Francis I carried back to France with him pictures by great artists such as Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci. He induced Leonardo and other great artists to come to France, there to build for him splendid castles and churches. Taught by his example great architects soon arose in Spain and the Netherlands. To all the nations of Europe indeed there came a new conception of building. As art and learning began to fill a part of life which had hitherto been given only to war, the gloomy feudal castles began to disappear and noble pleasure houses took their place.

  In this connection the discovery of gunpowder changed the world enormously. There has been much discussion as to who first discovered it in Europe. But whether it was a German monk, Berthold Schwartz, or Roger Bacon, in any case it began to be used in the middle of the fourteenth century. Its use changed the art of war, and struck a fatal blow at feudalism and chivalry. Henceforth the knight on horseback was of little use in the field. His prowess with lance and sword availed him little, when death could be dealt from a distance, leaving him never a chance of a hand-to-hand fight with his equals. The cloth-yard arrows of the English archer had wounded him sorely, the leaden bullet of the low-born arquebusier was his death-blow.

  As the knowledge of the power of gunpowder increased, the stone-battlemented castles of the nobles were rendered useless as places of refuge. For walls strong enough to resist the heaviest of battering-rams crumbled before cannon-balls. And the consciousness that these formidable piles were useless helped the spread of gracious architecture.

  Gunpowder was a great reformer and leveller, but printing was a greater, and it did more than anything else to encourage the spread of learning. The art had been known to the Chinese long before it was invented in Europe, and, as with gunpowder, there is doubt as to the first European discoverer. It may have been Janszoon Coster of Haarlem who first discovered it, or it may have been Johan Gutenberg of Mainz. But whoever discovered it, it came into use about the middle of the fifteenth century.

  The art very quickly spread through Italy, France, and the Netherlands, and thence was brought by Caxton to England. By the end of the century printing-presses were busy in every country in Europe.

  Nothing changed the world so much as this invention. Without it the new learning might have remained the privilege of the few. Without it man's dawning sense of individuality might never have come to the full light of day. As it was, printing made a gift of learning to the many. At the very outset, too, its influence was increased by the discovery of new, cheap ways of making paper. So with a quickness never surpassed, books, from being the luxury of the few, became the everyday necessity of all.

  The New World

  In the fifteenth century, in these and many other ways, the old world changed rapidly. Then, as if that were not enough, men discovered a new world. Christopher Columbus showed the way across the Atlantic. Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope. Magellan's expedition sailed round the world. In the wake of Columbus many other great sailors followed, until it was at length established beyond a doubt that his first voyage had led him not to India, as he believed, but to the shores of a mighty, and till then undreamed of, continent.

  All these voyages made plain several matters. They made plain the fact that the world was round, that it was inhabited on the other side, that it was much larger than had been supposed. Now the first two facts revealed were "heresy." The Church had taught that the world was flat or concave
. To believe in the Antipodes and to believe that the Antipodes were inhabited was pronounced sinful. For had not the Apostles been commanded to go forth to preach the Gospel to the whole world? They never went to the Antipodes. Therefore, there was no such place.

  But the daring sailors who sailed forth now almost daily, had proved beyond all possible contradiction that the world was round, and that the Antipodes were inhabited. This was a shock not only to men's preconceived ideas of the world's geography but to their faith. The Church was proved wrong in one dogma, might it not, they asked themselves, be wrong in others? Thus the discovery of the New World encouraged men to think for themselves, and decide for themselves in matters of religion.

  The discovery of the New World opened a crack for doubt. It also, as it were, changed the axis of the old world. Henceforth the Mediterranean was no longer the centre of trade and commerce. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries almost the entire trade and commerce of Europe had been in the hands of the Italians. They were very often all called Lombards (hence Lombard Street in London). They were not only the merchants but the bankers, manufacturers, and carriers for Europe. Upon this trade cities such as Venice grew great and splendid.

  With the discovery of America this was changed. Trade drifted away from Italy and the Mediterranean ports to those countries opening upon the Atlantic. Many Italian ports were utterly ruined, many others fell from splendour to insignificance, merely because their geographical position as regards the New World, and the new ways to the old world, was disadvantageous.

  The New World became the heritage of the people who united a good geographical position with grit, daring, and love of adventure. Spain, Portugal, England, France, and the Netherlands all shared the good geographical position, and all started fair in the race. But in the end Britain out-distanced all rivals. Germany, because of geographical position and want of political unity, took no part in it whatever, and has never since been able to make up for lost opportunities in the beginning. Italy, tied to the wheels of German ambition, shared her misfortune.

  CHAPTER XXXIX

  The New Astronomy

  Nicolas Copernicus

  WITH the discovery of the New World the axis of the old world was changed. With the spread of individual thought men's ideas of the entire universe changed also. The old astronomy had taught that the earth was the centre of the universe, and that the sun and all the planets revolved round it in a proper and humble manner.

  Now Nicolas Copernicus, a Polish astronomer, published a book in which he explained that the sun, and not the earth, was the centre of the universe, and that the earth revolved round the sun like any other planet. This was another shock to man's faith. Such an idea was considered by the Church as heretical and contrary to Scripture. Had not Joshua commanded the sun to stand still? And had not the sun obeyed him?

  To the ignorant theologians of the day it seemed that Copernicus was attacking the very foundations of religion. To them he was not an eager seeker after truth but a wicked man who must be silenced and punished for his wickedness. Copernicus escaped any persecution, as he died almost as soon as his book was published. His theory, however, did not die with him. Others carried on his work, just as others had carried on that of Columbus. They were the men, it had been said, who did more than any others to alter the mental attitude of humanity. Yet it was nearly a hundred years after the death of Copernicus that Galileo Galilei, an Italian astronomer, began openly to spread his teaching.

  Galileo

  Then once again the blind defenders of orthodoxy were in arms, and Galileo was threatened with the Inquisition, and forbidden to teach a theory which was "expressly contrary to Holy Scripture." He promised obedience, and was left in peace. But sixteen years later he forgot his promise, and wrote a book in which he supported the teaching of Copernicus.

  At once the thunders of the Church were launched against him. He was by this time an old man of seventy. But that did not save him from torture and imprisonment, and under the threat of death by fire his courage gave way, and he retracted. He acknowledged his errors, and declared that the earth was stationary. But, it is said, that as he rose from his knees after making his confession, he was heard to murmur, "Yet still it moves."

  This recantation saved Galileo from death. He was, however, condemned to imprisonment during the pleasure of the Inquisition. But after a short time he was practically released, and allowed to live in his own house not far from Florence. Here, eight years later, he died, still nominally the prisoner of the Church.

  But in spite of suppression and persecution the world moved on. The inquiring spirit of man once awakened could not be put to sleep again. An intense desire to know all that there was to know increased daily.

  Giordano Bruno

  One of the great leaders in this fight for liberty of thought and speech was Giordano Bruno, a Neapolitan monk. Persecuted and hunted from place to place, he was at last seized by the Inquisition, and after eight years' imprisonment was burned as a heretic.

  "The earth," he said, "only holds her high rank among the stars by usurpation. It is time to dethrone her. Let this not dispirit man as if he thought himself forsaken by God. For if God is everywhere, if there is in truth an unnumbered host of stars and suns, what matters the vain distinction between the heaven and the earth? Dwellers in a star, are we not included in the celestial plains set at the very gates of Heaven?

  Sayings such as these cost Bruno his life. Not unworthily has he been named "a hero of thought." He dared to break the bonds of "authority," to think for himself, and follow truth even to death.

  As can be seen the new birth was accomplished only through much pain. The new day dawned on Europe slowly and stormily. But in spite of the hindering hand of superstition, in spite of dark dungeons and the rack, in spite of the stake and its cruel fires, the movement increased until at length the old order vanished, and the new took its place all over Western Europe. In every country, on all subjects, men fought for and won the right of private judgment, the right of individual freedom.

  CHAPTER XL

  The Beginning of the Reformation

  EVERYTHING in the Renaissance did not make for good. It led towards freedom, but it also led towards godlessness and licence. But born of the same desire for truth, led by the same spirit of liberty, helped by the printing-press, even as the new learning was helped, another movement grew and spread. This was the Reformation.

  The Reformation was not a revolt against the Renaissance but its natural accompaniment. They acted and re-acted upon each other. In everything men had begun to think for themselves. By new discoveries on the earth and in the heavens old beliefs had been shaken. It was not wonderful then that men should claim the right of freedom in religious thought as in all others.

  Early Reformers

  As the Renaissance had its forerunners, so also had the Reformation. At the beginning of the thirteenth century the Albigenses in the south of France had been crushed out of existence because they dared to worship God in their own way. In the middle of the fourteenth century in England John Wycliffe had preached against the doctrines of the Church, and had made the first translation of the Bible into English. He was persecuted but not silenced, and after his death his followers, the Lollards, continued to teach and preach until they were suppressed by force.

  Wycliffe's teaching, however, was not killed, and it spread over Europe even as far as Bohemia. Here in the beginning of the fifteenth century John Huss began to preach his doctrines. He was burned at the stake, a crusade was declared against his followers, and for fifteen years they were hunted and persecuted.

  But in the end these and other movements like them had all been crushed. None of them had the aid of the printing-press, therefore they remained more or less local, and left little impression on the world as a whole.

  In spite of these occasional risings against its authority, the pretension of the Church increased as time went on, until the pope claimed absolute authority over every country
and every king, in secular as well as in spiritual matters. Kings, said the pope, in effect, could reign only by his will and favour. And if any displeased him he claimed the right of deposing him, and of giving his lands to another.

  But as in each country the sense of nationality and the royal power grew greater, both kings and people began to chafe at this foreign interference. As the papacy became less spiritual and more and more secular, as the pope himself became less and less a pastor and more and more a ruling prince and warrior, this dissatisfaction increased. Kings grudged more and more the constant stream of gold which, flowing from their countries in the shape of tithes and other ecclesiastical fees, went, not to spread the Gospel of Christ, but to swell the exchequer of the pope as a temporal prince and possible political enemy.

  On the political side, then, the world was ready to break with the pope. On the religious side it was also ready. For there came the new learning and the printing-press. Bibles were soon sown broadcast in the tongues of every nation in Europe. Men were no longer content to be told that such and such a doctrine was taught by the Church; they wanted to know why and upon what grounds the Church taught its doctrines. The Reformation was thus both a political and a religious movement. For in the Middle Ages Church and state had become so bound together that it could not be otherwise.

  More than any other land Germany had felt the power of the pope. Because of the fatal connection between the Holy Roman Empire and the Holy See it had been kept from nationality, and had remained a collection of states great and small, held together by the slightest of bonds. Now, more than any other land, it was ready for revolt. The gunpowder was ready, the train was laid; it needed but a spark to fire it. The spark which caused the explosion was the sale of Indulgences.