•. « » ' r » V * c c ^ * « ' r ' t c 
 
THE STORY OF THE 
 
 RENAISSANCE 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY HUDSON 
 
 Staff Lecturer in Literature to the University Extension Board 
 
 of the University of London; Author of "An Introduction to 
 
 the Study of Literature," " Rousseau and Naturalism in Life 
 
 and Thought." etc. 
 
 fVith Eight Full-page Plates 
 
 GASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD 
 
 London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne 
 1912 
 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This is an attempt to put a large subject into a rela- 
 tively small book, and the task of compression hjas been 
 the more difficult because I have done my utmost to 
 avoid the dry style of the mere epitome and to preserve 
 the living interest of my story. The special student of 
 particular aspects of the Renaissance will miss many 
 names and facts which he rightly regards as important. 
 But I will ask him to remember that this is not an 
 exhaustive essay, or series of essays, on particular 
 aspects, but only a broad survey of the general field. 
 My controlling aim throughout has been to indicate the 
 origin, nature, inter-relations, and effects of some of the 
 most potent of the forces which co-operated in bringing 
 about the great movement of transition from the 
 mediaeval to the modern world. 
 
 In writing of the Renaissance one is bound at times 
 to touch upon controversial matters. In regard to these, 
 I have, of course, taken my own line, and have dealt 
 with things as I see them. But personal opinions have 
 nowhere been obtruded. 
 
 iii 
 
 255989 
 
iv Preface 
 
 Considering the limitations of my space, I have 
 
 deemed it wise to confine attention almost entirely to 
 
 the story of the Renaissance in Italy, France, Germany, 
 
 and England. 
 
 William Henry Hudson. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter I. The Renaissance in General 
 
 1. What do we mean by the Renaissance ? . ,1 
 
 2. The Renaissance as the Discovery of the World 
 
 AND Man ........ 4 
 
 3. The Beginnings of the Renaissance ... 9 
 
 Chapter II. The Age of Discovery and Invention 
 
 1. The Influence of Maritime Exploration . . 15 
 
 2. The Influence of the New Astronomy . . . 24 
 
 3. The Influence of the Printing Press ... 29 
 
 Chapter III. The Revival of Learning 
 
 1. The Two-fold Significance of the Revival of 
 
 Learning ..... 
 
 2. The Revival of Learning in Italy 
 
 3. The Revival of Learning in Germany 
 
 4. The Revival of Learning in France 
 
 5. The Revival of Learning in England 
 
 6. General Results of the Revival of Learning 
 
 36 
 39 
 53 
 58 
 61 
 73 
 
 Chapter IV. The Renaissance in Religion — ^The 
 Reformation 
 
 1. Preliminaries of the Reformation .... 80 
 
 2. Early Movements of Reform in Italy ... 87 
 
 3. Early Movements of Reform outside Italy . . 93 
 
 4. The Reformation in Germany ..... 97 
 
 5. The Reformation in Switzerland, FRANCEi and 
 
 England ........ 114 
 
 6. General Results of the Reformation . . . 121 
 
vi Contents 
 
 Chapter V. The Renaissance in Science and 
 Philosophy 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. Science during the Middle Ages .... 127 
 
 2. Philosophy during the Middle Ages . . . 131 
 
 3. The Revival of Thought ..... 135 
 
 Chapter VI. The Renaissance in Education 
 
 1. The Chief Forces at Work ..... 146 
 
 2. The Educational Ideals of the Humanists and the 
 
 Religious Reformers ...... 149 
 
 3. The Influence of Science on Education . . 156 
 
 4. The Educational Theories of Rabelais and Mon- 
 
 taigne ......... 160 
 
 Chapter VII. The Renaissance in Art 
 
 1. Preliminaries of the Revival of Art . . . 168 
 
 2. The Beginnings of the Revival of Art . . .175 
 
 3. The Early Renaissance in Italian Art . . . 180 
 
 4. The Golden Age of Italian Art .... 194 
 
 5. Renaissance Art in GerxMany and the Low Countries 211 
 
 Chapter VIII. The Renaissance in Literature 
 
 1. General Characteristics of Renaissance Literature 219 
 
 2. The Secularisation of Literature .... 221 
 
 3. The Development of Individualism in Literature 227 
 
 4. The Classical Revival and Literature . . . 233 
 
 5. The Religious Renaissance and Literature . . 248 
 
 Index . . . . "^ . . . . . .261 
 
 !%^ 
 
LIST OF PLATES 
 
 St. Peter's, Rome, on the Occasion of a 
 
 Papal Festival .... Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 A Printing Press of 1507 ..... 30 
 
 Erasmus, from the Portrait by Holbein . . 60 
 
 Martin Luther, from the Portrait by Holbein . 104 
 
 Francis Bacon, from the Painting by Paul Van 
 
 Somer in the National Portrait Gallery . 136 
 
 David, from the Statue by Michelangelo . . 198 
 
 The School of Athens, from the Fresco by 
 Raphael in the Chamber of Signatures at 
 THE Vatican ....... 206 
 
 William Shakespeare, from the Original Droeshout 
 
 Portrait ........ 258 
 
m 
 
THE STORY OF THE 
 RENAISSANCE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 The Renaissance in General 
 
 I. — WHAT DO WE MEAN BY THE RENAISSANCE? 
 
 It is not unusual to figure civilisation as an incoming 
 tide, advancing almost imperceptibly in wave after wave 
 of recurrent effort. The image is not a very good one; 
 but if it be permitted, then we are justified in speaking 
 of occasional tidal waves which, with a tremendous 
 sudden inrush of energy, carry the water far up the 
 shore. Such a tidal wave occurred in what we know as 
 the period of the Renaissance. 
 
 It is the purpose of this little book to give some 
 account of what was accomplished in this wonderful 
 age of newly awakened activity, fresh beginnings, and 
 fundamental change in life and thought. It will there- 
 fore be desirable at the outset to put the question — 
 What do we mean by the Renaissance? 
 
 Various answers suggest themselves according to the 
 point of view we choose for the moment to adopt. The 
 institutional historian fixes his attention on the birth 
 of a new political consciousness with the decline of the 
 mediaeval idea of the Papacy and the Empire and the 
 spread of the sentiment of nationality throughout 
 
2 'f he Story of the Renaissance 
 
 Europe. The historian of society is mainly concerned 
 with the birth of new social conditions accompanying 
 the breaking up of the regime of feudalism and chivalry, 
 the growth of commerce, and the beginnings of modern 
 industrialism. The scientist emphasises the rediscovery 
 of nature, the opening up of the world by maritime 
 exploration, the founding of astronomy, anatomy, 
 physiology, medicine, and the establishment of the true 
 scientific method. For the historian of thought the 
 principal interest of the Renaissance lies in the abandon- 
 ment of the old theological scholasticism and the rise 
 of the spirit of free rational inquiry. To the student 
 of religious evolution, the Renaissance suggests the 
 Reformation ; to the lover of art and literature, the 
 recovery of the masterpieces of pagan antiquity and 
 the rebirth of the classic world. 
 
 In dealing with the Renaissance, therefore, the 
 specialist in any given department of historical research 
 will naturally lay stress upon those particular features 
 of it which have supreme interest for him. To get a 
 complete conception of the subject, the views of all 
 the specialists have to be combined. \The Renaissance 
 is not to be defined in terms of such and such changes 
 in social organisation, economic conditions, philosophic 
 activity, religious doctrine, aesthetic and literary tastes. 
 It was, as Walter Pater put it, "a complex and many 
 sided movement." Many causes co-operated in produc- 
 ing it. Its results were so numerous and so far-reaching 
 that to explain them fully would be to sketch the history 
 of the modern world. 
 
 Yet despite this complexity and many-sidedness, we 
 must be careful to think of the Renaissance, not as a 
 number of disconnected movements in different direc- 
 tions, but rather as one general comprehensive move- 
 ment manifesting itself under diverse aspects. The 
 
What the Renaissance Meant 3 
 
 use of a single term in which all these aspects are 
 gathered up is therefore not only convenient but also 
 legitimate. The Renaissance meant many things. 
 But, beneath them all, it meant a fundamental change 
 in men's attit ude towards t£eniseives and the wiirld^ 
 THrougiT the mere shifting of their point of view, 
 phases of life were revealed to them of which hitherto 
 they had never dreamed^ and, what is equally im- 
 portant, long familiar phases were brought before them 
 under a totally fresh light. A new spirit was every- 
 where at work. Its transforming power was shown alike 
 in politics and society, in science, philosophy, and 
 religion, in literature and art. In Prof. Jebb's words, 
 "the Renaissance, in the largest sense of the term, is 
 the "whole process of transition in Europe from the 
 mediaeval to the modern order." 
 
 To assign a single date for the Opening of its history 
 is therefore impossible. The middle ages came to an 
 end at different times, not only in different countries, 
 but also in different fields of activity. But the vital 
 connection among the various component movements 
 of the Renaissance is shown by the fact that they all 
 fall within the same period. Roughly speaking, we 
 may say that it began definitely in Italy towards the 
 close of the fourteenth century with what is called the 
 Revival of Learning ; that it spread thence to other 
 countries, notably Germany, France, and England, the 
 spirit of classicism meanwhile blending with ^ other 
 influences different in origin but equally powerful ; and 
 that the transformation of life which resulted went on 
 rapidly for more than two hundred years. It is there- 
 fore with the period between the close of the fourteenth 
 and, let us say, the early decades of the seventeenth 
 century that we shall here chiefly have to deal. It must 
 not, indeed, be assumed that at the point last named the 
 
4 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 history of the Renaissance actually comes to an end. 
 It may fairly be contended that the Renaissance of 
 the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries was 
 carried on by the movement of enlightenment in the 
 eighteenth; that the French Revolution was only 
 another stage of it; that we are involved in it even 
 to-day. It is certainly beyond question that the in- 
 fluences which the Renaissance generated, however 
 much they may have changed their forms, have been 
 and still are active forces in the shaping of modern 
 civilisation. For practical purposes, however, we have 
 to mark history off into artificial divisions; otherwise, 
 an historical study would have neither beginning nor 
 end. Though we shall often be obliged to look before 
 and after, our own subject will therefore be considered 
 mainly within the limits assigned. 
 
 j^I. — THE RENAISSANCE AS THE DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD 
 -— AND MAN 
 
 The word Renaissance was originally employed 
 with reference, first to Brunelleschi^s restoration of 
 classic architecture as a substitute for Gothic, and then 
 to the revival of Greek and Latin literatures. To 
 begin with, therefore, it was applied only to the rebirth 
 of classical antiquity. We now use it in a larger 
 sense as meaning an entire renewal of life in all its 
 branches. In the period of the Renaissance, we say 
 — thus justifying such extension of the name — all men*s 
 powers were reborn. 
 
 I have spoken of this great renewal as the work of 
 a fresh spirit manifesting itself in different ways in 
 different fields of interest and activity. What was the 
 nature of this spirit? It is not difficult to answer. It 
 was, in a word, the spirit of emancipation. In the 
 
The Revolt against Despotism 5 
 
 last analysis, the Renaissance was the revolt of the 
 whole man — mind and body alike — against the des- 
 potism of creeds, traditions, and arbitrary authority. 
 It was the assertion of the right of the individual to 
 himself and his own life. It marks "the modern 
 rebirth of the individual soul." 
 
 To appreciate the full significance of this, we must 
 remember that the whole mediaeval system had been 
 fatal to the free development of individuality. In his 
 relations with the State, the guild, the Church, the 
 mediaeval man was merely a unit in an organisation 
 and existed only for its sake"; The basis of feudalism 
 was subordination. The great mediaeval Church was 
 the supreme incarnation of the despotic spirit; arro- 
 gantly laying claim to divine right, it sought to 
 coerce the world into doing only what it ordered and 
 believing only as it taught. Thus not independence 
 but submission was proclaimed as the first of the' 
 virtues. The ethical accent was thrown, not upon self-' 
 realisation, but upon self-repression. Man was cramped 
 in on every side. He did not belong to himself. He^ 
 lived on sufferance. The condition of all his activity 
 was that he should be an instrument ; pf all his thinking, i 
 that he should be an echo. One curious result which/ 
 followed in the domain of literature and art is worth\ 
 attention — the almost complete want of individuality in 
 the works produced, the absence of the distinctively/ 
 personal note. Everywhere we meet with what Brune- \ 
 ti^re calls the spirit of anonymity. There is nothing 
 in poem or painting to reveal the character of the poet 
 or artist behind it. One toman is just like another 
 roman; one mystery-play just like another mystery- 
 play; one trouv^re or minnesinger just like another 
 trouv^re or minnesinger; one Madonna or Crucifixion 
 just like another Madonna or Crucifixion. Individual 
 
6 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 genius had been swamped by tradition and conven- 
 tion. 
 
 Thus, though there was immense intellectual activity 
 during the middle ages (for the supposition that they 
 were ages of mental stagnation is wholly incorrect), 
 such intellectual activity produced little of permanent 
 value. Conditions rendered progress almost impossible. 
 For hundreds of years, as Taine says, men went through 
 the motions of marching ; but they were only marking 
 time. Carlyle, in characteristically vivid phrase, de- 
 scribes the mediaeval philosophers as "spinning der- 
 vishes," gyrating with amazing swiftness, but ending 
 where they began. 
 
 While thus destructive of freedom of thought, 
 dogmatic despotism further proved hostile to individual- 
 ity and progress by divorcing man from nature. A 
 great wall was built between his mind and the outer 
 world. A story is told of a mediaeval student who, 
 "having detected spots in the sun, communicated his 
 discovery to a worthy priest. ' My son,' replied the 
 priest, * I have read Aristotle many times, and I assure 
 you that there is nothing of the kind mentioned by him. 
 Go rest in peace, and be certain that the spots which 
 you have seen are in your eyes and not in the sun.' " * 
 This is a parable as well as an anecdote. In every 
 direction authority, creed, tradition shut men off from 
 the facts of. life. There can be no intellectual pro- 
 gress while thought is thus separated from the outer 
 reality. The mind was forced to feed upon itself 
 and upon inherited formulas, and the result was 
 sterility. 
 
 The central feature of the Renaissance, then, was 
 rebellion against this intellectual tyranny and all that 
 it implied. Men felt the need for freedom in thought 
 
 * Lewes, " History of Philosophy," ii. 95, 96. 
 
The Awakening of Personality ^ 
 
 and speculation. They grew impatient of the leading- 
 strings in which they had long been compelled to walk. 
 Life opened itself out to them anew in all its vast and 
 varied possibilities, and they were eager to enter into 
 their great heritage. In particular, they were getting 
 tired of living "in the furnished lodgings of tradition "; 
 of behaving like timid children afraid to say or do 
 anything but what they were told. They became con- 
 scious of a fresh desire to go behind what others had 
 said about things, and to see things for themselves. 
 Bacon presently proclaimed that the first condition of 
 progress is to set aside authority and go straight to 
 nature. In this, as we shall learn later, his teaching 
 represents the full fruition of the spirit of the Renais- 
 sance in the intellectual field. 
 
 Hence the Renaissance was not merely a renewal of 
 mental activity. It was also a vital change in all the 
 conditions of such .activity. This was accompanied by 
 an equally profound moral and religious change. The 
 lay spirit arose in vigorous protest against sacerdotalism, 
 priestly domination, and especially the asceticism and 
 other-worldliness which had long been thrust to the 
 front in the ethics of the Church. Reaction set in 
 against the old repressive view of human life. The 
 awakening of personality was, as Burckhardt puts it, 
 the great sign of the new time ; and this awakening of 
 personality meant not only, as we have said, the asser- 
 tion of the individual's right to himself, but also the 
 assertion of his right to the world. Philosophy, litera- 
 ture, art, even religion, were thus brought out of 
 the seclusion of the cloister and put into living 
 relationship with secular things. Beauty was no 
 longer a snare, nor pleasure a sin, nor the world a 
 fleeting show, nor ignorance acceptable to God as 
 a sign of submission and faith, nor were abstinence 
 
8 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 and mortification the only safe rules of conduct.* The 
 mediaeval view of life was repudiated root and branch, 
 and a view which was the antithesis of it in almost 
 every detail was established in its place. Men went out 
 into the world with a passionate determination to clutch 
 at everything it contained, to avail themselves of all 
 its opportunities, drink deep of all its knowledge, 
 enjoy all its pleasures, make the most of themselves. 
 Hence the era of the Renaissance was particularly the 
 era of great personalities; and hence, too, these great 
 personalities were marked, not only by their amazing 
 vitality and vigour, but also by their extraordinary 
 amplitude and versatility. It is bewildering in these 
 days of narrow specialism to read of the achievements 
 of some of the typical men of that age of giants. 
 Miche^ngelo was sculptor, painter, architect, engineer, 
 poet. The many-sidedness of Leonardo da Vinci almost 
 passes belief. These were, if typical, still exceptional 
 men, it is true ; but the diversity of interest and faculty 
 shown by many of their less-known contemporaries is 
 surprising only in a somewhat smaller degree. An 
 eager desire to overleap all limitations and to master life 
 at every point was a characteristic of this period of 
 emancipation. 
 
 We can thus understand the full meaning of 
 Michelet's often-quoted description of the Renaissance 
 as the discovery of the world and man. In using it 
 we mean that the Renaissance was a return to nature 
 and humanity; the restoration of the bond between 
 them; on the one hand, an enormous growth in the 
 knowledge of the external universe; on the other, the 
 re-awakening of aspirations and emotions which had 
 long lain dormant. We mean, too, that as part cause 
 and part effect of all these changes in mental and moral 
 
 * Symonds, "The Age of the Despots, " chap. i. 
 
How the Renaissance Began 9 
 
 climate, there was a great revival of the spirit of self- 
 dependence, inquiry, criticism, and common sense. As 
 Luther wrote concerning the rise of new educational 
 ideas: "Another world has dawned, in which things 
 go differently." 
 
 III. — ^THE BEGINNINGS OF THE RENAISSANCE 
 
 We'afe' not to suppose that the Renaissance came 
 suddenly and as a surprise. As Michelet said, the 
 middle ages were more than once on the point of ending 
 before they did actually end. In other words, there 
 were various premonitions of the Renaissance before 
 the great movement definitely began. 
 
 Perhaps the first faint suggestions of the dawn after 
 the complete darkness which had settled over Europe 
 in the sixth century are to be perceived about the begin- 
 ning of the eleventh. An Italian writer* has pro- 
 pounded the theory that the stir of new life which now 
 became apparent was the direct result of an intellectual 
 rebound from the terrorism by which men's minds had 
 long been paralysed. The general belief had been 
 that the year 1000 would bring with it the end of the 
 world, and that Jesus would return to judge the quick 
 and the dead. This belief was intensified by the famines 
 and pestilences which were specially numerous at the 
 time, and which were read as portents of the approach- 
 ing catastrophe. A wave of religious frenzy swept over 
 Europe. Throngs of pilgrims flocked from all parts 
 to the great shrines of Christendom, some to reach 
 their destinations, some to perish on the way, some to 
 be crushed to death in the immense crowds which 
 gathered at the entrances of the sacred spots. Here and 
 there, as a congregation knelt in silence before the 
 
 * Bartoli, " I Precursori di Renasciamento, " p. 19. 
 
10 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 elevated Host, an army of Flagellants would march 
 along the streets, lashing their naked bodies with 
 knotted cords dripping with their blood, and with 
 hoarse voices repeating their monotonous cry : *' Dies 
 irae ! dies irae ! the end of the world is at hand ! '* 
 Thus over distracted Europe dawned the eleventh cen- 
 tury. Men woke up to find that the clouds had not 
 been rent asunder to make way for the heavenly Judge ; 
 that the graves had not burst to yield up their sheeted 
 dead; that the solid earth was still beneath their feet, 
 and that they themselves were standing firmly on it. 
 Then, in the spirit of relief so admirably satirised by 
 Swift,* they entered as it were upon a fresh lease of 
 earthly existence. The energies which had been 
 absorbed in eschatological visions were now available 
 for mundane things. 
 
 It is possible that Bartoli's description both of the 
 terrorism of the tenth century and of the subsequent 
 recoil from it is exaggerated. It is at least certain that 
 the opening of the eleventh century witnessed a renewal 
 of secular interests and activities. These were still 
 further stimulated, a little later, by the first crusades. 
 Originating in the union of religious fanaticism with 
 the mediaeval love of fighting and adventure, these 
 religious wars in the long run produced, directly and 
 indirectly, results which their promoters never for a 
 moment anticipated. By bringing the western nations 
 into contact with the various beliefs and practices of 
 the east, they tended to break down intellectual barriers 
 and to broaden men's minds. Bred in the school of 
 theological ignorance and intolerance, the Christian 
 warrior went to the Holy Land convinced that the 
 "paynim" was a brutal savage. He found himself to 
 
 * *' True and Faithful Narrative of what passed during the General 
 Consternation . . . Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday last." 
 
The Crusades and Commercialism ii 
 
 his amazement in touch with a civilisation in many 
 respects superior to his own, and with enemies who 
 were his equals in courage, chivalrous sentiments, and 
 culture. The contrast between the heathen Saladin and 
 the cardinals of his own Church was calculated to give 
 the thoughtful invader an unpleasant shock; cases are 
 on record of the conversion of Christians to the Moslem 
 faith; it is significant in a more general way that the 
 Knights Templar suffered much from reports of their 
 heresy resulting from their known sympathies with 
 Saracenic ideas. Boccaccio's famous story of the three 
 rings, setting forth the divine origin of Mohamme- 
 danism as well as of Judaism and Christianity, is a 
 striking illustration of the tolerant spirit which an in- 
 tolerant enterprise had helped to foster.* Moreover, 
 the crusades served to open up the east to western trade ; 
 they encouraged navigation, extended the area of peace- 
 ful relationships with alien peoples, created new needs 
 and introduced new commodities. In this way they 
 gave an enormous impetus to commerce and the com- 
 mercial spirit. Nor is this quite all. While thus, by 
 helping to spread the commercial spirit, they were 
 indirectly influential in undermining feudalism, by the 
 great destruction they entailed on the old nobility, who 
 perished in large numbers in these holy wars, they 
 directly contributed to the same important result. 
 
 From the eleventh century onward, then, the his- 
 torian is able to trace the feeble workings of forces 
 which were in antagonism to all that we epitomise under 
 the term mediae valism. With the thirteenth century 
 we reach what may fairly be called the spring-time of 
 the Renaissance. This was a season of great mental 
 
 * " Decamerone," i. 3. Lessing adapts this story to his own pur- 
 poses in " Nathan der Weise," in which the picture of the Templar's 
 spiritual pride breaking down by contact with Jew and Saracen in 
 Palestine is historically correct. 
 
12 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 stir and eagerness; it was the age of Roger Bacon, 
 Albertus Magnus, and Raymond Lully; of Thomas 
 Aquinas and Duns Scotus; of St. Francis of Assisi, 
 Cimabue, and Dante; architecture flourished in it; the 
 founding of universities at Oxford, Cambridge, Siena, 
 Naples, Padua, Salamanca, and Lisbon was a token of 
 its widespread enthusiasm for intellectual things. But 
 the world has often to wait a long time for the fulfilment 
 of the promise of spring. The thirteenth century has 
 been aptly described as a " precocious age." It was, 
 in fact, too precocious. The social, political, com- 
 mercial, and intellectual conditions did not yet exist 
 to justify and make fruitful its efforts towards a larger 
 life. Those efforts therefore proved abortive, and a 
 reaction towards mediae valism followed. Even the 
 universities, at first the centres of mental activity, soon 
 became the very strongholds of scholasticism, and 
 developed so powerful a tradition on the conservative 
 side that they were later to become notorious for their 
 obstinate adherence to the old modes and methods of 
 thought, and their dogged resistance to the new spirit 
 under all its forms. 
 
 ) It must be clearly understood, however, that as the 
 promise of the thirteenth century was greatest in Italy, 
 so its fulfilment there was by no means so long delayed 
 as in other parts of Europe. In Italy the later four- 
 teenth century took up the work which the preceding 
 century had begun; north of the Alps the intellectual 
 impulse was not felt till the century following. We 
 have thus to recognise Italy's priority in the great 
 revival ; and it is worth while to glance at certain 
 outstanding causes of it because they serve to indicate 
 the conditions which were requisite for the success of 
 the Renaissance as a whole. 
 
 The social and political life of Italy was singularly 
 
. The Doom of Feudalism 13 
 
 favourable to the growth of personality and the mental 
 vigour and independence which were aspects of it. 
 The communes or free towns of the twelfth, thirteenth, 
 and fourteenth centuries were homes of civil and intel- 
 lectual liberty. In them the individual citizen had the 
 largest opportunity for self-realisation and self-assertion. 
 Whatever might be the nominal form of government, 
 these communes were markedly democratic in spirit. 
 ''La carrier e ouverte aux talents,'' was a phrase which in 
 varying measure held good of them all. This democratic 
 spirit was largely the result, and was everywhere the 
 accompaniment, of the immense development of industry 
 and trade. Their widely extended commercial enter- 
 prises brought these societies into peaceful intercourse 
 with all sorts of different peoples, and this tended 
 inevitably to breadth, flexibility, and freedom of 
 thought. One result was the spread of a robust 
 positive temper and habit of mind strongly hostile to 
 dogmatism, sacerdotalism, and the priestly attitude 
 towards life. Here also, as elsewhere, commerce was 
 the uncompromising foe of feudalism and all its 
 influences. The upper classes of the Italian city- 
 commonwealths thus differed greatly from the upper 
 classes in countries beyond the Alps. They were 
 business men, in constant and intimate touch with the . 
 working population of the city; they were town men, 
 whose lives were passed amid civic interests rather 
 than in coarse sports and rural interests. At the time 
 when, shut up in their gloomy fortresses, the feudal 
 aristocracy of northern Europe knew nothing of 
 domestic refinement and little even of comfort, the 
 Italian gentry were already enjoying a home life" 
 which had much to commend it in the way of decency 
 and grace. These circumstances had a direct influence 
 on manners. Wealth brought leisure; it bred a taste ' 
 
14 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 for luxury; it provided ample opportunity and means 
 for the gratification of that taste. Rich men began 
 to devote a portion of their time to intellectual and 
 artistic pursuits, and their zest for such things was 
 further stimulated both by public admiration and by 
 the rivalry of others situated like themselves. Finally, 
 the extremely bracing atmosphere of these little com- 
 munities, their internecine controversies in which 
 passions ran high, their fierce contentions with other 
 cities, all helped to make life full, varied, intense; to 
 kindle curiosity, energy, and ambition; to bring out 
 of every man whatever he had in him ; to encourage 
 and emphasise both the growth of personality and its 
 unrestrained expression. It is extremely significant 
 that the new movement began earliest and was strongest 
 in communities in which the industrial spirit was most 
 pronounced. It was not feudal Naples nor sacerdotal 
 Rome which was the birthplace of the Italian Renais- 
 sance. It was democratic Florence. 
 
 Viewed chronologically, the Renaissance begins in 
 Italy with the revival of the Latin and Greek classics. 
 With this, then, our own story might fittingly open. 
 It will, however, be more convenient to glance first 
 at a few of the inventions and discoveries which did 
 much to create the spirit and atmosphere of the new 
 age. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 The Age of Discovery and Invention 
 
 I. — THE INFLUENCE OF MARITIME EXPLORATION 
 
 I DO not purpose in this chapter to retell at length 
 the wonderful story of what was achieved during the 
 period of the Renaissance by scientific genius and the 
 spirit of enterprise. I am concerned only to show, 
 with the help of a few specially interesting examples, 
 how discoveries and inventions contributed to the 
 general movement of the Renaissance, and by co- 
 operating with the other forces of the time furthered 
 the great transition from the mediaeval to the modern 
 order. 
 
 We may conveniently begin by considering the 
 intellectual results produced by the opening up of the 
 world by maritime exploration. 
 
 A taste for travel had been aroused by the crusades, 
 the direct influences of which had been greatly re- 
 inforced by the marvellous tales which returning 
 warriors and pilgrims brought back with them from 
 the Holy Land. The commercial consequences of these 
 religious expeditions, upon which I have already 
 touched, soon turned the mere love of adventure into 
 practical channels, especially in Italy, where from the 
 first their financial aspects had been in the ascendant. 
 It was therefore natural that regular voyages of dis- 
 covery should have begun as early as the thirteenth 
 century, and equally natural that the most prominent 
 
 15 
 
i6 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 part in them should have been taken by Italians. The 
 great era of geographical discovery did not, however, 
 open till towards the close of the fifteenth century, when 
 the rapid extension of the Mohammedan power, which, 
 as we shall presently see, had not a little to do with 
 the revival of learning, became a chief cause also of 
 fresh nautical enterprise. By blocking up the great 
 highways of communication between Europe and the 
 Orient, the Turks threatened with commercial disaster 
 the Italian cities which had grown rich through their 
 eastern trade. The question of the possibility of find- 
 ing new routes thus became urgent, and the result was 
 that here and there practical men began seriously to 
 consider the chances of reaching India by striking out 
 to the west. Convinced that this could be done, the 
 Genoese sailor Christopher Columbus, under commis- 
 sion from the King and Queen of Spain, in 1492 sailed 
 across the Atlantic and, firmly persuaded that he had 
 attained his object, actually discovered the continent 
 of America. 
 
 Taken in conjunction with other commercial and 
 maritime activities, this discovery led to a controversy 
 regarding their respective rights between the Spaniards, 
 who had thus first established a footing in the western 
 world, and the Portuguese, by whom the Atlantic coast 
 of Africa had already been explored as far as the Cape 
 of Good Hope. Alexander VI. settled this dispute by 
 a bull drawing an imaginary line — Columbus's line of 
 no magnetic variation — down the middle of the Atlantic, 
 and assigning all newly found territory east of such 
 line to Portugal and west of it to Spain. It was, there- 
 fore, in the immediate interests of Portugal to secure 
 as large a field as possible by eastward exploration. 
 This led to the great voyage of Vasco da Gama, who, on 
 November 20th, 1497, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, 
 
Adventures by Sea 17 
 
 and in May of the following year reached Calicut on the 
 west coast of India. Under the terms of the papal bull 
 a distinct advantage was thus gained for Portugal by 
 this extension eastward of the area of discovery. 
 
 If Spain were to hold her own against her rival it 
 was now necessary that she should show as good a 
 title to the commercial exploitation of Asia by bringing 
 Asia into the field of westward operations. By this 
 time the error in which Columbus died had been ex- 
 ploded, and it was well known that what he had sup- 
 posed to be the coast of India was in fact the line of 
 a great continent — America, as it was already called — 
 lying between Europe and Asia. Ferdinand Magellan 
 believed that a passage could be found through or 
 round this continent which would lead by the westward 
 route to the Moluccas. Though Portuguese by birth, 
 he resented the ill-treatment which he had received at 
 the hands of his king, and accordingly laid his plans 
 before Charles V. of Spain, by whom they were 
 favourably entertained. Magellan's expedition in five 
 ships left Seville in August, 1519; made direct for 
 Patagonia; threaded the strait which still bears his 
 name; and so entered upon the vast ocean that, on 
 account of the calm weather which he enjoyed while 
 sailing across it, he called the Pacific. He reached 
 the Philippines in April, 152 1, and there he was killed, 
 either by savages, or, more probably, by mutineers 
 among his own men. But the work of the expedition, 
 not yet complete, was carried out by his intrepid 
 lieutenant, Sebastian del Cano, who, crossing the 
 Indian Ocean, and doubling the Cape of Good Hope, 
 reached Spain in September, 1522, having accom- 
 plished one of the great feats of history — the first 
 circumnavigation of the globe. 
 
 These three great voyages of discovery were fol- 
 
i8 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 lowed by many others, almost every one of which added 
 something of importance to men's fast-growing know- 
 ledge of the world in which they lived and of which 
 hitherto they had been so ignorant. But the exciting 
 narrative of maritime adventure must not here be 
 pursued any farther. We have now only to ask in 
 what ways the new knowledge thus acquired helped to 
 change the currents of history and to shake the fabric 
 of mediaeval thought. 
 
 Even in the political sphere its effects were soon 
 apparent. The new geography destroyed at a blow the 
 
 \old international and commercial relationships, and 
 the balance of power was shifted. Thus far the Medi- 
 terranean had been the centre of the world, and riches 
 and influence had been the natural heritage of the 
 
 Ail^tions which bordered upon or had easy access to it. 
 With the revelation of the vast fresh sources of wealth 
 which had now been brought within the reach of the 
 ocean-faring peoples, commercial supremacy passed 
 from Italy to the nations which had the control of 
 Atlantic navigation — to Spain, France, and England. It 
 is especially important to jiote that it was largely 
 through the immense devellBpient of her trade which 
 was thus effected that Englffd was brought into the 
 great stream of Renaissance influences. Such develop- 
 ment meant the widening of relations with the outer 
 world, with all the increase of energy and ambition 
 which this entailed; the accumulation of wealth, and of 
 the power, the leisure, and the tastes which follow in 
 its train ; the decay of the feudal system and the rise of 
 the middle classes. The new conditions which resulted 
 from the interplay of all these factors were obviously 
 favourable to intellectual progress. 
 
 From our point of view, however, the direct and 
 indirect influence of geographical discovery on thought 
 
Truth and Theology in Conflict 19 
 
 and speculation is more interesting than its influence 
 on politics. 
 
 In the first place, the truth about the world revealed 
 by the great explorers came into conflict with the 
 dogmatic authority of the Church. Mediaeval opinions 
 concerning the shape of the earth had varied; some 
 speculators thought it flat, some concave, while a few 
 — among them Albertus Magnus, Isidore of Seville, 
 Vincent of Beauvais, and Dante — accepted the idea of 
 its sphericity. Even these last, however, rejected as 
 unscriptural the idea which had been advanced by 
 certain pagan writers, such as Cicero and Pliny, that 
 it was inhabited on the other side. In this they 
 followed the lead of the Fathers, who, with few excep- 
 tions, held that the doctrine of the antipodes was a 
 damnable heresy, and of Pope Zacharias, who formally^ 
 pronounced it "perverse" and "iniquitous." The 
 arguments from Scripture which were adduced against 
 it give a good idea of the mental habits of the ages 
 when theology reigned supreme. "Their line is gone 
 out through all the earth, and their words to the end 
 of the world." Very well^ays Augustine; as the early 
 preachers certainly did ^m. go to the antipodes, it is 
 evident that the antipodesTlo not exist. Moreover, how 
 could the inhabitants of the other side of the globe 
 behold Christ on His second coming, as it is foretold 
 that all the nations of the world shall do? Even in 
 the age of Columbus himself the theory in question was 
 overthrown by the Spanish theologian Tostatus in a 
 characteristic syllogism : "The apostles were com- 
 manded to go into the whole world and preach 
 the gospel to every creature; they did not go to 
 any such people as the antipodes; therefore there 
 are no such people as the antipodes." So much 
 for theological antagonism in the abstract. It had 
 
20 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 also a practical side. Heretical views on the subject 
 were in part responsible for Peter of Abano's con- 
 demnation by the Inquisition in 13 16, and when, in 
 1327* Cecco d'Ascoli was burned alive in Florence, his 
 belief in the antipodes was one count in the charge 
 against him. The great explorers not only settled once 
 and for all the controversy about the shape of the 
 earth, but proved that there were races of men living 
 where the theologians declared that none could exist — 
 races, moreover, unaccounted for by their scriptural 
 theory of the partition of the globe among the three 
 sons of Noah. The damnable heresy of the Fathers 
 and Zacharias's "perverse" and "iniquitous" opinion 
 were thus shown to be true, and the absurdity of the 
 claim of the Church to be the final arbiter in matters 
 of science was set in its right light. An immense im- 
 pulse was thus given to the anti-dogmatic spirit. 
 Ecclesiastical prestige was badly shaken. Scientific 
 speculation was greatly encouraged. 
 
 While, however, the direct effect of geographical 
 discovery upon thought was thus extremely important, 
 its indirect effect was even more so. The minds of 
 men were quickened to a sense of the vastness of the 
 world which they had deemed so little, and to the 
 realisation of what was after all one of the most 
 significant of facts — the fact, namely, that they were 
 living in an age of progress and not in an age of 
 stagnation. A feeling of wider interests and a distinct 
 heightening of the general consciousness inevitably 
 followed. All life became larger, richer, more engag- 
 ing, and the imagination was stirred by dreams of its 
 as yet unrealised possibilities. The coins of Spain 
 were stamped with the Pillars of Hercules, and beneath 
 were the words "Plus Ultra" ("More is beyond"). 
 Image and phrase were alike symbolical of the ardent, 
 
The Glamour of the West 21 
 
 adventurous, unsatisfied temper of the time. "More is 
 beyond I " Returning travellers had strange tales to 
 tell of 
 
 "Moving accidents by flood and field, 
 And of the Cannibals that each other eat, 
 The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
 Do grow beneath their shoulders"; 
 
 and writers like Sir Walter Raleigh might well make 
 their pages blaze with promises of wealth vast enough 
 to fire the lust of Sir Epicure Mammon. Yet much of 
 the world was still unexplored, and what might not 
 presently be found to lie just beyond the limits of the 
 known ? The fountain of youth, perhaps ? El Dorado ? 
 Prospero's Island? The lost Atlantis? 
 
 In such an age of expanding horizons it is not sur- 
 prising that here and there men's thoughts should 
 become prophetic, and that strange facts should beget 
 even stranger fancies. One work, the special im- 
 portance of which is denoted by its very title — Sir 
 Thomas More's " Utopia *' — is avowedly inspired by the 
 revelation of the new world in the west. Its point of 
 departure is Amerigo Vespucci's Latin narrative of his 
 four voyages — a book which, says More, was then "in 
 every man's hand." The hero of More's romance, 
 Raphael Hythlodaye, had, we are told ''joined himself " 
 to Amerigo "for the desire that he had to see and knowe 
 the farre Countreyes of the worlde," and had been one 
 of the twenty men whom the explorer, according to his 
 own statement, had on his fourth voyage left behind 
 with arms and six months' provisions in a fort on the 
 coast of Brazil. His story then runs that after their 
 chief's departure Raphael and several of his com- 
 panions had proceeded on further adventures, and had 
 ultimately reached the hitherto unknown land of 
 Utopia (or Nowhere). Then follows More's famous 
 
22 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 detailed description of his ideal social state — an aristo- 
 cratic republic, where no private property exists, nor 
 any of the absurdities of European political and 
 ecclesiastical systems, where religious toleration of the 
 widest kind prevails, and the business of life is con- 
 ducted orf a basis of pure reason. The practical bear- 
 ings of the book, whether as a satire or as a programme, 
 need not now detain us. Its interest for us here lies in 
 the fact that, though of course largely fashioned on 
 Plato's "Republic," it was also specifically indebted to 
 that current of new ideas and speculations about 
 humanity which had been set in motion by geographical 
 discovery. For the same reason importance attaches to 
 another Utopian romance of just a hundred years later 
 — Bacon's "New Atlantis." The fiction here is of a 
 boat-load of mariners who, lost in the South Pacific 
 Ocean, reach by happy chance the unknown island of 
 Ben Salem, where they find a race whose civilisation 
 has far outdistanced the petty achievements of Europe. 
 Bacon's imagination is chiefly occupied with a splendid 
 dream of the future progress of science and the results 
 to be attained by its application to life, and of this I 
 shall have something to say in a later chapter. But 
 the direction which his utopianism takes does not 
 greatly matter. The point is the close connection of 
 such utopianism with that general spirit of curiosity 
 and adventure which the great discoveries had done 
 much to stimulate. 
 
 The influence of these discoveries on thought is 
 illustrated in a somewhat different way by the specula- 
 tions of Montaigne. That great Frenchman, who may 
 be described as the very incarnation of the inquisitive 
 temper of his age, and to whom nothing human came 
 amiss, was profoundly interested in the wider bearings 
 of the facts which exploration had now made the 
 
The Under-side of Utopianism 23 
 
 common property of the world. Keenly alive to the 
 infinite diversity of human nature, he was quick to 
 seize upon the significance of the contrast between the 
 things we take for granted and accept without protest 
 simply because they are conventions of our own social 
 state, and those other very different things which, 
 ludicrous and even shocking as they may seem to us to 
 be by reason of their unfamiliarity, appear equally 
 proper and rational to the men who are bred in them. 
 He had learned much of the new worlds from books; 
 he had talked from time to time with seamen and mer- 
 chants who had crossed the Atlantic, and often with a 
 man in his own employ who had spent some ten years 
 in the Brazils; and everything that he had read and 
 heard about man in his savage condition tended to 
 make him increasingly critical in his attitude towards 
 civilisation. All sorts of questions took shape in his 
 fertile mind. Is civilisation perhaps, after all, only an 
 abnormal growth, an unfortunate departure from the 
 original and benign intention of Nature? How much 
 has man gained by his wealth, and commerce, and cul- 
 ture? How much has he lost by the sacrifice of his 
 primitive simplicity? Such speculations represent the 
 under-side of Renaissance utopianism and its visions 
 of human perfection. So, too, arose that contrast be- 
 tween the state of nature and civilisation — between 
 primitive man and the distorted product of an artificial 
 society — which was later to become in the hands of 
 Rousseau so potent an agency in the development of 
 revolutionary thought. 
 
 Nor was it so very long before the fancies of More 
 and Bacon and the speculations of Montaigne began to 
 assume a practical form. Reaction against the cramp- 
 ing tyranny of tradition and convention, a growing 
 sense of the irrationality of the existing state of things, 
 
24 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 and an ever-rising demand for greater freedom sent 
 many an independent and adventurous spirit across the 
 Atlantic to that new world in which, the old burdens 
 being left behind, life could become at once simpler 
 and ampler. The great westward migration, fraught 
 as it was destined to be with consequences of enormous 
 importance to the whole world, was the result of many 
 causes. We have here only to connect it with the 
 mighty inrush of new ideas, the freshly awakened 
 aspirations and enthusiasms, the craving after un- 
 realisable ideals, which were among the characteristic 
 marks of the great age of geographical discovery. 
 
 II. — THE INFLUENCE OF THE NEW ASTRONOMY 
 
 Maritime exploration revealed a new earth. Astron- 
 omy followed with a reconstruction of the universe. 
 
 The history of the successive discoveries and 
 generalisations by which the old astronomical theories 
 were exploded and the foundations of the modern 
 system firmly laid would carry us beyond the proper 
 limits of our present inquiry. But the beginnings of 
 the great transformation fall within our period, and 
 these have interest for us here because of their connec- 
 tion with the general movement of thought. 
 
 The old astronomy, though commonly called the 
 Ptolemaic after the Alexandrine, second-century scien- 
 tist Claudius Ptolemaeus, by whom it was expounded 
 in detail, was in fact accepted by most of the eminent 
 physicists of ancient times. It was indeed little more 
 than an attempt — and, all things considered, a singu- 
 larly successful attempt — to reduce current observations 
 and common-sense conclusions to a coherent system. It 
 conceived the earth as the fixed centre of the universe, 
 round which revolved, from east to west, in concentric 
 
The New Astronomy 25 
 
 circles, and in a period of, roughly speaking, twenty- 
 four hours, a series of seven enveloping heavens, each 
 containing a luminous spherical body : namely, the 
 moon. Mercury, Venus, the sun. Mars, Jupiter, and 
 Saturn. An eighth heaven, beyond all these, carried 
 the "fixed" stars; while to explain away various diffi- 
 culties which closer observation had brought to light, 
 and to complete the arrangement in accordance with 
 the metaphysical habit of the time, later speculation 
 assumed a ninth sphere, called the *' crystalline " (a 
 chief function of which was to account for the pre- 
 cession of the equinoxes), and a tenth — the **Primum 
 Mobile " — from which divine energy perpetually flowed 
 out into all the other parts of the universe. In this 
 final form of the ten spheres the system before us 
 may be described as the Alphonsine rather than the 
 Ptolemaic, for it was authoritatively taught by the 
 famous royal astronomer Alphonso X. of Castile (1252- 
 84). But such details do not now concern us. The 
 point to be emphasised is that the old astronomy was 
 geocentric and therefore anthropocentric. It made the 
 earth — man's dwelling place — the pivot of the universe, 
 and relegated sun and moon, planets and fixed stars, 
 to a position of subordination to it. 
 
 Such was the system which practically controlled 
 all thought till well on in the sixteenth century. Here 
 and there attempts had been made to revive the specula- 
 tions of some of the Greek philosophers regarding the 
 rotation of the earth round the sun; one notable ad- 
 vocate of these being the well-known German theo- 
 logian. Cardinal Nicolaus of Cusa (1401-64). But the 
 accepted theory was first definitely challenged by 
 Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543), who is justly regarded 
 as the father of modern astronomy. 
 
 Copernicus did not indeed emancipate himself from 
 
26 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 the tyranny of the old dogmas so completely as is 
 popularly supposed. A vast amount of ancient error 
 was mixed up with his theories; his arguments were 
 often purely metaphysical; his conclusions were fre- 
 quently unsound. But his great achievement — the 
 achievement which we have in mind when we speak of 
 the Copernican astronomy — was nothing less than 
 revolutionary. He shifted the centre of the solar 
 system. With him astronomy became heliocentric. 
 The earth was deprived of its pre-eminence in creation. 
 It ceased to be the pivot of the universe, and took its 
 humble place among its companion planets in its 
 yearly journey round the sun. 
 
 The history of the treatise in which these new con- 
 ceptions were set forth — "De Revolutionibus Orbium 
 Coelestium " (" On the Revolutions of the Heavenly 
 Orbs") — is itself illuminating. Finished at least as 
 early as 1530, it was not given to the world till a dozen 
 years later. Copernicus evidently dreaded the storm 
 which its publication would probably precipitate, and 
 from year^ to year held it back. When, finally, in 
 1542, he was prevailed upon to send it to the press, 
 it was accompanied by a dedication (almost certainly 
 the work of a friend), to Pope Paul III., which was 
 abjectly apologetic in its tone. He lived just to see 
 the first copy of the book, which was brought to him 
 as he lay on his death-bed, but not long enough 
 to witness the fulfilment of his fears concerning its 
 fate. The Roman Church, it is true, treated it for the 
 moment with quite remarkable forbearance; it was not 
 till 1616 that it was put on the Index, where it re- 
 mained till 1757. But the Protestant theologians were 
 soon in arms against it. Luther denounced its author 
 as a fool whose arrogance was shown in his flat contra- 
 diction of the teachings of Holy Scripture, while 
 
Galileo and Papacy 27 
 
 Melanchthon would willingly have invoked civil 
 authority to stamp out its iniquitous doctrines. 
 
 The conflict with the Roman power which Coper- 
 nicus had thus evaded was, however, only deferred, 
 and the brunt of it had to be borne nearly a century 
 later by his great successor Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). 
 Some of his own wonderful discoveries had already 
 been viewed with suspicion by the custodians of re- 
 ligious orthodoxy; but it was his bold and aggressive 
 advocacy of Copernicanism, the truth of which he had 
 amply proved by original investigation, which finally 
 brought him under the ban of the Church. Galileo 
 was not content with maintaining the heliocentric 
 theory against the arguments of the theologians. He 
 had the temerity to attack their pretensions, and even 
 to contend openly against the authority of the Scrip- 
 tures in scientific matters. Upon this, and at the 
 instigation of the Dominicans, he was summoned to 
 Rome, where he was formally accused of promulgating 
 the dangerous doctrine that the sun is stationary and 
 the earth a planet revolving about it. Threatened with 
 irnprisonment in the event of his refusal to yield, he 
 promised that henceforth he would neither teach nor 
 4efend such heresies. It was at this point that the 
 Inquisition proceeded to take action in regard to the 
 Copernican system in general, denouncing it as "that 
 false Pythagorean doctrine utterly contrary to the Holy 
 Scriptures," and interdicting both Copernicus's own 
 book and Kepler's epitome of its theories. For sixteen 
 years all went well; Galileo lived tongue-tied and in 
 peace, and even enjoyed the personal favour of the 
 Pope and of various great dignitaries of the Church. 
 Then, in 1632, unmindful of his promise, he wrote a 
 dialogue in which once more he appeared as the 
 vigorous supporter of the Copernican system. A few 
 
28 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 months later he was called upon to surrender himself 
 to the Holy Office on charge of heresy. He was now 
 in his seventieth year, and his health was failing. 
 None the less he was compelled to go through all the 
 stages of a protracted and rigorous trial. In the end 
 he was informed that in order to obtain remission of 
 the penalties due to his offences he would be required 
 to kneel and abjure by solemn oath the impious doc- 
 trines of which he had been guilty. In this supreme 
 moment, and faced by torture and a death by fire, the 
 old man's courage failed, and he signed his recanta- 
 tion. The well-known story — which is probably only a 
 legend — adds that, as he laid down the pen, having 
 thus declared the immobility of the earth, he was heard 
 to murmur : **E pur si muove" ("And still it moves "). 
 His books were prohibited, their printers punished, 
 he himself was further condemned to indefinite im- 
 prisonment in the dungeons of the Inquisition. This 
 sentence was, however, commuted, and the aged scien- 
 tist was allowed to retire to Arcetri, near Florence. 
 There he passed the remaining years of his life; there 
 he was visited by Milton ; there, already totally deaf 
 and blind, he died in his seventy-eighth year, still 
 formally a prisoner of the Inquisition, which, not 
 satisfied with what it had done to the man while living, 
 denied his body the privilege of burial in consecrated 
 ground. 
 
 It is easy to understand why the new astronomy 
 greatly increased the disturbance of mind which geo- 
 graphical discovery had already produced. Men had 
 been surprised by the revelation of their ignorance in 
 respect of the world in which they lived. The entire 
 reversal of all their inherited notions concerning the 
 central importance of this world in the general scheme 
 of things was followed by an even sharper intellectual 
 
Anti-Dogmatism Spreading 29 
 
 shock. Man found himself suddenly displaced, his old 
 domestic relationship with the universe was destroyed, 
 and the sense of insignificance which now took posses- 
 sion of him started strange questions regarding his 
 purpose and destiny. Moreover, the steady advance 
 of science, in this as in every other department, in- 
 evitably tended to bring discredit upon the Church, and 
 to help the emancipation of the intellect from the 
 trammels of ecclesiastical authority. Obstinately cling- 
 ing to the stereotyped errors of yesterday in face of the 
 growing knowledge of to-day, the official representatives 
 of religious orthodoxy had committed the fatal blunder 
 of identifying their creeds with theories of the universe 
 which science now proved conclusively to be untenable. 
 The theories collapsed, and with them all confidence 
 in the infallibility of those who had supported them, 
 other arguments failing, by recourse to the dungeon, 
 the rack, and the stake. The general spread of the 
 anti-dogmatic spirit was thus accelerated; leadership in 
 thought passed from the cleric to the layman ; and the 
 individual inquirer, standing before the mysteries of the 
 universe, claimed for himself the right to set aside 
 tradition and the systems of the schools, and to follow 
 truth wherever it might lead. Galileo strikes the new 
 note when in writing to Kepler, in 1579, about Nature, 
 he asserts : " When we have her decrees, authority 
 goes for nothing; reason is absolute." 
 
 ylll. — THE INFLUENCE OF THE PRINTING PRESS 
 
 Inventions no less than discoveries played their part 
 in the dissolution of the mediaeval order and the rise 
 of the new modes of life and thought. We might go 
 through the long catalogue of the practical appliances 
 which, during the period of the Renaissance, were either 
 
30 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 first introduced or at least first turned to general service, 
 and show how each one of them in some direct or in- 
 direct way aided the workings of the spirit of change. 
 Thus, for example, the common use of the mariner's 
 compass, which seems to date from the beginning of 
 the fourteenth century, rendered possible the epoch- 
 making voyages of the great explorers; while without 
 the telescope, which was not made efifective till the early 
 years of the seventeenth century, astronomical discovery 
 could hardly have advanced beyond its infancy. In 
 considering the results produced by maritime adventure 
 and astronomical inquiry, we have, therefore, to remem- 
 ber their ultimate dependence upon the inventions 
 named. Another practical agency of immense import- 
 ance was gunpowder, which, though known long 
 before, was first employed in European warfare, it is 
 usually held, by Edward III. in the Scotch war of 1327, 
 and afterwards on the field of Crecy in 1346. By revolu- 
 tionising the whole art of war, gunpowder led to so 
 many and such varied consequences that even the most 
 careful analysis of them would almost certainly leave 
 something to be added. Here we may just note among 
 the most obvious that, by rendering unsafe the mighty 
 strongholds in which they had formerly been able to 
 resist all enemies, it undermined the power of the feudal 
 nobility; and that, by changing the method of fighting 
 and discounting the prowess and courage of the indi- 
 vidual knight, it hastened the breaking up of the habits 
 and ideals of chivalry. 
 
 We will here, however, confine our attention to the 
 greatest of the inventions of this time — the printing 
 press.* 
 
 * It should be noted that the really effective work of the printing press 
 in turn depended in part upon another invention of about the same time 
 — cheap paper. The coincidence in time between the two is one of the 
 most remarkable in history. 
 
A PRINTING PRESS OF 1507 
 
 Enlarged from the printer's mark of Jodocus Badius Asce)isius, used on the title-pages of 
 various boohs printed by him, 1507-1535 
 
The Invention of Printing 31 
 
 Concerning the origin of the art of printing — by 
 which we really mean the art of printing by movable 
 types — there has been endless controversy. We are, 
 however, safe in saying that it took its rise in Germany 
 about the middle of the fifteenth century. The earliest 
 documents actually reproduced by movable types, of 
 the date of which we can be certain, are, oddly enough, 
 two indulgences, which were issued at Mainz in the 
 autumn of 1454. The printer of one of these must have 
 been Johann Gutenberg, and of the other, Johann Fust. 
 Between these two men, then, the honour of priority 
 must clearly lie, while on the whole it seems probable 
 that Gutenberg has the greater claim, since there is 
 reason to suppose that for some years before the date 
 named — as early, perhaps, as 1440 — he had been experi- 
 menting with the new art, first in Strassburg, and later 
 in Mainz. Whenever introduced, however, this art soon 
 began to spread from Mainz to other centres, and its 
 progress was so rapid that before the century was out 
 there were sixteen master printers at work in Strass- 
 burg, twenty-two in Cologne, seventeen in Niirnberg, 
 and twenty in Augsburg. Before this other European 
 countries had been invaded. Printing was carried into 
 Venice by a Frenchman named Jensen, or Jenson, and 
 into Rome by two Germans, Schwynheym and Pan- 
 nartz, while Florence from the first depended upon 
 native talent in the persons of the goldsmith Bernardo 
 Cennini and his two sons. An edition of Lactantius 
 issued in 1465 by the two Germans just named from 
 their press at Subiaco, before their settlement in Rome, 
 seems to have been the first book printed on Italian soil. 
 In 1470 printing began in France, when the first press 
 was set up at the Sorbonne. Three years later, at the 
 sign of the Golden Sun, in Paris, the first Bible printed 
 in France was produced. It has been pointed out, how- 
 
32 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 ever, that owing to the slow progress of the new learning 
 in France down to the close of the fifteenth century the 
 books issued were not, as in Italy, editions of the 
 classics, but for the most part romances in the vernacu- 
 lar, volumes of devotion, and manuals in the old style 
 of scholastic philosophy.* In England printing began 
 with William Caxton, who learned the art while engaged 
 in business as a mercer in Bruges. Before he left that 
 city he had already passed through the press there a 
 "Recuyell of the Historyes of Troy" — the first book 
 printed in English. Then about the end of 1476 he set 
 up his wooden presses within the precincts of the Abbey 
 at Westminster. It has been alleged, indeed, that 
 Caxton had his predecessors on English soil — that 
 movable types had been employed at Oxford as early 
 as 1468. There is no substantial evidence of this; but, 
 even if it were proved, the claim of Caxton to rank as 
 our first English printer is hardly shaken, for regular 
 press work did not begin at Oxford till 1478 or 1479. 
 Cambridge did not follow till 152 1, but then it gained 
 this distinction, that it was at the Cambridge press, 
 apparently, that Greek types were first used in England. 
 Of the importance of the invention of printing it 
 would be difficult to speak extravagantly. For once 
 Victor Hugo's heavily loaded emphasis seems to be 
 entirely justified when he describes it as the greatest 
 event in history. f More than any other single agency 
 — and the significance of this statement must be sought 
 in the fact that it was through its co-operation that other 
 agencies became effective — it was responsible for the 
 
 * Tilley, " Literature of the French Renaissance," p. 158. 
 
 t See the characteristic chapter — " Ceci tuera cela " — in " Notre Dame 
 de Paris " (v. iii.), " ceci " being the printed book, the symbol of the 
 awakening new spirit; "cela," architecture, regarded as the typical 
 expression of human genius and aspiration down to the beginning of 
 the fifteenth century. 
 
Aristocratic Resentment 33 
 
 great European transition from the mediaeval to the 
 modern order. It is said that when Gutenberg took the 
 model of his press to a wood-cutter in Strassburg, the 
 latter, knowing nothing of its purpose, exclaimed : **But 
 it is a wine-press that you are asking me to make for 
 you,*' and that Gutenberg replied: "Yes; but a wine- 
 press from which shall soon pour out the most wonderful 
 liquor which ever yet flowed forth to quench the thirst 
 of man." The anecdote is probably apocryphal; in any 
 event, it is certain that even if Gutenberg had been 
 endowed with the prophetic instinct ascribed to him, 
 still he could never for a moment have foreseen the 
 immense revolutionary potency of the new invention. 
 The history of five centuries has amply proved that the 
 printing press is the most democratic organ the world 
 has ever known, and, in Symonds's phrase, "the most 
 formidable instrument of the modern reason." Those 
 who to-day would wish to set back the hand upon the 
 clock, should begin with a determined attempt to 
 compass its destruction, or at least to curb its activity. 
 Consider in how many ways the press tended from 
 the beginning to popularise knowledge and speculation, 
 discredit the mediaeval caste-system in scholarship, 
 destroy the practical monopoly in learning long enjoyed 
 by the clergy, and undermine the intellectual prestige 
 of the privileged classes. So long as the only books 
 were manuscripts they were necessarily rare and costly, 
 and therefore in large measure the luxuries of the 
 favoured few. No wonder, then, that the wealthy and 
 noble collector bitterly resented the vulgar machine 
 which enabled a big miscellaneous reading public to 
 share with him in treasures which hitherto he had kept 
 to himself. In the meantime, public libraries were found 
 only in the universities and a few other institutions, 
 and to these all students in quest of knowledge had to 
 
34 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 repair. But such libraries were, of course, quite in- 
 sufficient for working purposes; and, as no student 
 possessed any books of his own, all instruction had to 
 be given through the spoken words of the teacher, who 
 laboriously dictated both text and commentary. The 
 printing press began the decentralisation of scholarship 
 by impairing the power of the universities; it changed 
 the method of instruction by putting the book in place 
 of the lecture, or at least adding it to the lecture. 
 Intellectual barriers were thus broken down ; acquisition 
 was facilitated; and, in particular, the emancipation of 
 the individual student from the shackles of tutelage was 
 insured; for however great the authority of a printed 
 book may be, it can never be so great as that of the 
 dogmatic living teacher whose word, under the con- 
 ditions of the mediaeval class-room, was taken as final, 
 and from whose conclusions there could be no appeal. 
 
 Chiefly, however, the supreme importance of the 
 printing press is to be recognised in the enormous part 
 which it played in the dissemination of facts and ideas. 
 The shop of each master printer was, as it were, the 
 modest fountain-head of mighty streams which, flowing 
 out perpetually, carried with them far and wide the 
 wisdom of the past and the boldest speculations of the 
 present. Intellectual exclusiveness was destroyed once 
 and for all ; the humblest man who could read became a 
 citizen of the new republic of letters; and a tremendous 
 impulse was thus given to the spread of the lay spirit. 
 Do we need a concrete illustration of the power of the 
 press in the age of the great revival ? One lies ready 
 to hand in the history of the Reformation. When the 
 Sorbonne complained to Erasmus that his edition of 
 the New Testament had fostered heresies, that great 
 scholar replied: "You should have spoken sooner. It 
 is now scattered over Europe in thousands of copies." 
 
A Factor in the Reformation 35 
 
 Gutenberg, as Victor Hugo put it, was the precursor 
 of Luther. It was the printing press which turned a 
 Wittenberg quarrel into a European revolution. It 
 gave wings to Luther's own thoughts; it secured that 
 general diffusion of the Bible without which the Pro- 
 testant movement of the sixteenth century would have 
 proved abortive. 
 
 This very short chapter on a very large subject will 
 have served its purpose if it has helped to indicate the 
 importance of the discoveries and inventions of the 
 Renaissance period to the student of the intellectual and 
 religious history of the age. We are now prepared to 
 consider that rebirth of the world of classical antiquity 
 which is commonly called the Revival of Learning. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 r The Revival of Learning 
 
 I. — THE TWO-FOLD SIGNIFICANCE OF THE REVIVAL OF 
 LEARNING 
 
 I How much knowledge of classical literature survived 
 in Western Europe during the Dark Ages is a question 
 which cannot well be answered in general terms, for 
 the amount of it varied greatly in different times and 
 places .1 The rather popular theory that it disappeared 
 altogether — that, as Pope puts it, 
 
 "A second deluge Learning thus o'errim, 
 
 And the Monks finished what the Goths begun " — 
 
 is flatly disproved by the facts.. ' Vergil, Ovid, Horace, 
 Cicero, Juvenal, Statins, were never wholly neglected^ 
 and in the great monastic libraries of the Continent — 
 at Fulda and Corvey in Germany, St. Gall in Switzer- 
 land, Monte Cassino in Italy, Fleury and Cluny in 
 France — these and other Latin writers had a place. But 
 at best even Latin scholarship was extremely meagre 
 and was confined to the very few; while, except for a 
 rare student here and there — like Roger Bacon — Greek 
 was practically a forgotten tongue in the west. Plato 
 was little more than a name; Latin translations, made 
 first from the Arabic, though later from the original 
 text, alone gave currency to the thought of Aristotle; 
 Homer was known only through a bald epitome in 
 Latin verse. Thus, though to talk of the total disap- 
 
 36 
 
A Subverted Mythology 37 
 
 pearance of classical literature in mediasval Europe is 
 to generalise too sweepingly, we are still safe in saying 
 that such literature had ceased entirely to be a v ital __ 
 factor in moulding thought or shaping ideals. For,^!etj 
 us always remember, the spirit of classical antiquity had j 
 been lost even more completely than its literature. It \ 
 was impossible for the mediaeval student to apprehend \ 
 the essential meaning of a Latin or Greek writer; his 
 habit of mind, his prepossessions, the mystical and 
 allegorising tendency which swayed all his thinking put 
 an insuperable obstacle in the wa^; This is a point 
 upon which too much stress can hardly be laid. The 
 powerful mediaeval spirit — a spirit wholly antagonistic 
 to that of classic times — drew all things into union with 
 itself. In the imagination of the middle ages, Troy 
 figured as a mediaeval town, with towers and bells; 
 Achilles, Hector, Aeneas, as knights in mediaeval 
 armour. In similar manner the very thoughts and 
 sentiments of classical antiquity were medisevalised out 
 of all semblance to historic reality. 'ClassicalJiteratur.eJ' 
 like every other subject of study, was jenslayfid— to 
 theology and its attendant s cholasticism , and as a 
 necessary consequence was deprived of all its distinc- 
 tive virtue. Aristotle was so completely buried beneath 
 masses of fantastic commentary that in the end the | 
 gloss displaced the text* The mediaeval mania f 
 symbolism turned subtle intellects to the congenial 
 task of seeking hidden spiritual meanings beneath the 
 plainest statements. Mythology became a system of 
 types. Vergil was transformed into a prophet of Christ 
 to the Gentiles; Christian centos were made out of his 
 writings; the fourth eclogue was read as Messianic; 
 the " Aeneid '* was currently expounded as an elaborate 
 parable of human life, a sort of pilgrim's progress in 
 pursuit of perfection. 
 
38 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 A barrier of ignorance and misunderstanding had 
 thus been reared by theology between the mind of the 
 mediaeval man and that of the classic ages. The 
 demolition of this barrier involved the clearing up of 
 the misunderstanding no less than the destruction ot 
 the ignorance. 'J^he revival of learning must therefore 
 be regarded as having had a two-fold significance. The 
 study of classical literature began in earnest; Greek 
 was recovered; enthusiastic scholars turned impatiently 
 from the lumber of the cloisters and the schocjs to the 
 poets, dramatists, philosophers of Rome and Athens. 
 At the same time classical thought was liberated from 
 ecclesiastical trammels; ancient masterpieces were no 
 longer read in the interests of established dogma; they 
 were studied for their own sakes and interpreted accord- 
 ing to their own principles; with the result that the 
 long-slumbering spirit of pagan antiquity was re- 
 awakened and made a living power in the living world. 
 The race of mediaeval theologians and scholastic 
 philosophers was thus succeeded by a race of Human- 
 ists, as they came to be called — of ardent lovers of the 
 literae humaniores, who saw in this more humane litera- 
 ture — the very phrase was a declaration and a challenge 
 — both the highest achievements of genius and the finest 
 instruments of education. *'I go to awake the dead," 
 said Ciriaco di Ancona, when asked the purpose of his 
 continual wanderings in search of statues, manuscripts 
 and inscriptions. The saying may be taken as the 
 watchword of humanism. 
 
 It is in respect of its special place in the history of 
 humanism that we speak of Italy as the leader of the 
 western nations in the movement of the Renaissance. 
 Some general reasons which go far to explain why she 
 was nearly a century in advance of the rest of Europe 
 in the classical revival have already been given. To 
 
The Italian Revival 39 
 
 these, two others of a more special character must now 
 be added. Through history, tradition, and language, 
 Italy was still connected with ancient Rome; and dim 
 memories of Roman civilisation had, as Mr. Bryce has 
 said, been kept alive by two agencies, the Church and 
 the law. Its geographical proximity to Constantinople 
 also counted. When in the last decades of the tottering 
 Eastern Empire scholars fled from its capital, it was 
 to Italy that they naturally turned first in quest of safety 
 and a new home. In Macaulay's eloquent language, 
 "during the gloomy and disastrous centuries which 
 followed the downfall of the Roman Empire, Italy had 
 preserved, in a far greater degree than any other part 
 of Western Europe, the traces of ancient civilisation. 
 The night which descended upon her was the night of 
 an arctic summer. The dawn began to reappear before 
 the last reflection of the preceding sunset had faded 
 from the horizon.'* 
 
 rll.— THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN ITALY 
 
 The new age definitely begins with Petrarch (1304- 
 74), "the first of the humanists." Remembered to-day 
 chiefly for his Italian poetry, he was best known in his 
 own time for his classical enthusiasm and his Latin 
 writings. It was, indeed, upon such efforts as his 
 unfinished Latin epic, "Africa," and his biographies of 
 famous men of antiquity (" De Viris Illustribus ") that 
 he himself staked his reputation; it was for these, 
 rather than for his vernacular canzonieri, that on Easter 
 Sunday, 1341, in the Capitol of Rome, he was crowned 
 laureate poet amid the acclamations of thousands of 
 spectators. He spent much of his time in various Italian | 
 courts, where he enjoyed the patronage and friendship 
 of Pope Clement VI., the Emperor Charles IV., King 
 
40 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 Robert of Naples, the Viscontis of Milan, and other 
 minor potentates. Finally, weary of the life of the 
 great world, he retired to his country house at Vaucluse, 
 near Avignon, henceforth devoting himself with tireless 
 ardour to his classical pursuits. From time to time he 
 travelled in Italy, France, Germany, Flanders, and 
 everywhere he went the recovery of ancient manuscripts 
 was always his principal aim. In this way he antici- 
 
 Ipated the famous bibliophiles of the next generation. 
 Often disappointed, he was still buoyed up by hopes of 
 some great discovery; and when success attended his 
 labours — when, for example, he found in Li^ge two 
 lost orations of Cicero, and in Florence a collection of 
 the same writer's letters — he was transported with 
 delight. The search for the hidden treasures of the 
 past became ind eed a passion with him, and often 
 destroyed all other considerations. When Leontius 
 Pilatus, bringing manuscripts from Constantinople, 
 was shipwrecked and drowned off the Italian coast, 
 V Petrarch's regret was swallowed up in his anxiety to 
 \know whether perchance some copy of Sophocles or 
 lEuripides might have been saved. Nor was it only by 
 his example that he influenced others in the cause of 
 humanism. By hig^ epistles and dissertations he spread 
 the love of classical learning. He^was a true prophet 
 -©f-thF (Coming Renaissancepand did far more than any 
 other man of his generation to prepare the way for the 
 great revival of the century following his death. 
 
 The first-fruits of his influence are manifest in the 
 labours of his personal disciples. One secretary of his, 
 Giovanni Malpaghino, known as John of Ravenna, 
 wandered for many years from town to town as an 
 apostle of the new learning, firing others who became 
 propagandists in their turn. Another follower, the 
 Augustinian monk, Luigi Marsigli, made his convent 
 
The Real Petrarch 41 
 
 of San Spirito in Florence a centre of light for the 
 noble young men of that city. But Petrarch's power \ 
 was most directly and clearly shown in the work of his 
 famous conterhporary, Boccaccio (1313-75). Boccaccio 
 literally worshipped Petrarch, and though only a few 
 years his junior, looked up to him always as his master. 
 In literary history, he, like Petrarch, owes his position 
 to his vernacular writings, especially the "Decamerone." 
 But here we have to do with him only as a humanist, 
 and as a humanist he holds a high place. Careless 
 pleasure-seeker though he was, he none the less showed 
 himself capable of indefatigable industry in his studies; 
 it is recorded, for instance, that, copyists being expen- 
 sive and often untrustworthy, he wrote out the whole of 
 Terence's works with his own hand. In one most im- 
 portant respect he outdistanced his master as Merlin 
 outdistanced Bleys. Petrarch knew scarcely anything 
 of Greek ; an attempt which he made to master it, with 
 the poor help of a southern Italian named Barlaam, 
 failed, and he remained, in his own words, a child "still 
 at his alphabet." Keenly alive to the deprivations which 
 this ignorance entailed, he urged his friend and disciple / 
 to devote himself to Greek studies. As no grammar^! 
 or dictionaries then existed, the student had to depend 
 upon oral instruction, and teachers were rare. It 
 happened, however, that the Leontius Pilatus just 
 mentioned came to Italy. A Calabrian by birth, and 
 long a resident of Constantinople, he had a practical / 
 acquaintance with the Greek tongue. This was enough I 
 to recommend him to Boccaccio, who induced him to 
 visit Florence, gave him hospitality, and not only read 
 Greek with him, but arranged for him to deliver public 
 lectures on Homer. He seems to have been a most' 
 unpleasant person, repulsive in appearance, dirty in 
 dress, disgusting in habits, morose in temper, and. 
 
42 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 worst of all, ignorant and pretentious. But he had 
 something to give which could be got nowhere else, 
 and the debonair author of the " Decamerone " made the 
 most of his opportunity. Boccaccio's knowledge of 
 Greek was never more than superficial ; but even this 
 meant much at a time when, according to Petrarch's 
 statement, there were not eight men in Italy who knew 
 the language at all. In particular, he laboured hard at 
 Homer, and, at the dictation of Leontius, wrote out a 
 translation of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey." So 
 imperfect was this that even Petrarch read it at first 
 with a dash of disappointment ; but it opened to him the 
 gateways of the Homeric world, and tradition says that 
 he died pen in hand, while annotating it. However poor 
 Boccaccio's acquirements, then, his importance in the 
 annals of scholarship is incontestable. If Petrarch was 
 "the first of the humanists," Boccaccio, as Symonds 
 says, deserves to be called "the J&rst_£recian_gjLthe 
 modern^ world." ^ 
 
 His effort did not, however, lead to any immediate 
 results. The real Greek revival began after his death, 
 at the very close of the century. In 1391, a Greek of 
 good family from Constantinople, Manuel Chrysoloras 
 by name, passed through Florence on an embassy from 
 the Emperor Palaeologus, who was seeking Italian aid 
 against the encroaching Turks. Influential citizens 
 invited him to settle there as a teacher, and offered him 
 I the chair of Greek in the university at a stipend of 100 
 florins a year for ten years. He accepted, began his 
 work in Florence in 1396, and lectured there with great 
 success, though for three years only, counting many 
 of the most famous of the next generation of scholars 
 i among his pupils. Afterwards he taught in Venice, 
 j Milan, Pavia, and Rome, further aiding the growth of 
 iGreek studies by the preparation of an elementary Greek 
 
The Guardian of Civilisation 43 
 
 grammar — the first book of its kind. His residence inl 
 Italy was justly regarded at the time as the opening! 
 of a new era in the classic revival — the era of the! 
 Hellenic -Renaissance. After his death in 14 15 the I 
 study of Greek went on in Italy, and especially in 1 
 Florence, with ever-growing rapidity. It received an I 
 additional impulse through the great Councils of Basel 
 and Ferrara, which, though they failed in their avowed 
 purpose of uniting "the long-divided churches" of 
 Christendom, brought western scholars into close rela- 
 tions with those of the east. The enthusiasm of the 
 Italians naturally attracted many teachers from Con- 
 stantinople, where whatever was left of Greek culture 
 survived, and the unsettled state of that capital, hard 
 pressed by the Turks, was a further incentive to their, 
 migration. Decade by decade, increasing numbers of 
 Byzantine refugees thus found their way into Italy, 
 among the most notable being Johannes Bessarion 
 (1403-72), who was made a cardinal after his support 
 of the cause of the Latin church in the Council of 
 Florence; and Theodorus Gaza (1398-1478), who taughtA 
 Greek at Ferrara, translated a number of Greek writers, \ 
 including Aristotle, and also composed a Greek I 
 grammar fuller than that of Chrysoloras. Then came 
 the fall of Constantinople on May 29th, 1453— not the 
 beginning of the Hellenic revival in Italy, as is ofteni 
 loosely said, but rather the last term of a series of 
 events which had brought about the gradual trans-j 
 planting of Greek culture to we.stern soil. Italy novi 
 became, in Carducci's phrase, "sole heir and guardian\ 
 of ancient civilisation." In the ^Hellenistic movement 
 "which now went on apace, two men were specially 
 prominent: Joannes Argyropoulos (1416-86?), whc^ 
 was tutor to Piero and Lorenzo de* Medici, and also! 
 reckoned Politian and Reuchlin among his pupils ; and! 
 
44 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 Demetrius Chalcondylas of Athens (1428-15 ii), who 
 taught at Perugia, Florence, and Milan, and whose 
 lectures were attended by the English scholars Linacre, 
 Grocyn, and Latimer. 
 
 Many conditions thus combined to favour the rapid 
 spread of the influences initiated by Petrarch and 
 Boccaccio, and with the fifteenth century we enter upon 
 a period of immense humanistic activity in many 
 directions. One special feature of such activity was 
 the recovery of ancient manuscripts. The enthusiasm 
 with which Columbus and Magellan set sail for un- 
 known worlds beyond the seas was equalled by that 
 with which Italian scholars went out in quest of the 
 world of the past; and in the one case as in the other, 
 there was always the stimulus of excitement and the 
 ^anticipation of great discoveries. Almost the whole 
 body of the now extant Latin classics was brought to 
 light before 1450; the rescue of Greek literature in- 
 volved greater labours and took the adventurer farther 
 afield. Bibliophilism became one of the passions of 
 the age, and there were men in whom it assumed the 
 proportions of bibliomania. While still a monk, Pope 
 Nicholas V. got deep into debt in buying manuscripts; 
 as Pope, according to his first biographer, he paid no 
 Pattention to price when the purchase of a coveted 
 treasure was in question ; he is said to have collected 
 '^five thousand (some authorities make it nine thousand) 
 ^manuscripts, and to have given enormous sums for 
 any of them — 500 ducats for a Latin version of 
 olybius, 1,000 florins for a Strabo, and so on. 
 uarino Veronese (1370-1460), who went to Constan- 
 nople to learn Greek, brought back many valuable 
 manuscripts from the east; grief for their loss by 
 shipwreck on the homeward voyage was so poignant 
 that his hair turned white on the spot. Poggio Braccio- 
 
The Great Patrons of Learning 45 
 
 * 
 lini (1360 1 459) was even more famous as a book- * 
 
 hunter. During his fifty years' secretaryship to the 
 Roman Curia, he lost no opportunity of adding to his 
 stores. Sent in his official capacity to the Council of 
 Constance, he gave much of his time to the exploration 
 of the monasteries of Switzerland and southern Ger- 
 many, disinterring among other things six orations of 
 Cicero and the first complete Quintilian. In later more 
 extended travels, even as far as England, he never 
 lost sight of what was the real controlling aim of his 
 life — the recovery of the buried literature of classical 
 antiquity, though so far as England was concerned he 
 met with little reward : our libraries, he reported, were 
 "full of foolishness." Another noteworthy bibliophile 
 was Niccolo de* Niccoli. A man of extravagant and 
 luxurious tastes, w^hose house was filled with ancient 
 marbles, coins, and gems, Niccolo devoted the larger 
 part of his fortune to the acquisition of manuscripts, 
 and ruined himself in the enterprise. It is a striking 
 illustration of the spirit of the times that thereupon I 
 Cosimo de' Medici came to his rescue and gave him I 
 unlimited credit at the Medicean bank. 
 
 This incident reminds us that we are now in the 
 age of the great patrons of learning. Prominent among 
 these were severa,! Popes^ like Nicholas V^r- and princely 
 rulers, like Alfonso the Magnanimous of Naples. But 
 the most celebrated of all were the members of the 
 Medicean family, especially Cosimo (1389-1464), his 
 grandson Lorenzo, called the Magnificent (1448-92), and! 
 Giovanni, Lorenzo's second son (1475-1521), who,/ 
 during his seven years' tenure of St. Peter's chair, as 
 Leo X., made Rome the artistic and intellectual capital 
 of the world. The real founder of the fortunes of this 
 extraordinary house was Cosimo's father Giovanni, 
 who amassed enormous wealth by banking and com- 
 
46 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 merce. This, on his death, passed to his son, who 
 not only increased it, but also made it the rnieans 
 of such political influence that for many years he was 
 the virtual ruler of Florence. Of the intrigues and 
 Machiavellian cunning by which, while avoiding all 
 outward show of princely state, and respecting the forms 
 of Florentine democracy, he and his grandson after 
 him practically controlled the city commonwealth, we 
 have not here to speak ; nor is it to our purpose to 
 follow the dramatic vicissitudes of the family history. 
 However severe our moral judgment upon them, the 
 Medicis remain among the greatest figures in the 
 chronicles of Italian humanism. Placing their vast 
 .wealth at the service of the new learning and its 
 jexponents, they provided for the wants of scholars, 
 jcollected books, founded libraries, erected public build- 
 lings.^ Cosimo's commercial enterprises brought him 
 into wide relationships alike with east and west; he 
 enjoined all his correspondents, wherever they travelled 
 on business, to look out for manuscripts on any sub- 
 ject and in any language, and to procure them without 
 regard to price; and thus, as Gibbon says, "a cargo of 
 Indian spices and Greek books" often reached him in 
 the same vessel. Lorenzo followed in his grandfather's 
 footsteps. He sent the Byzantine scholar, Janus 
 Lascaris, on two journeys into the east, in the course 
 of which he accumulated many valuable books, some 
 two hundred of which came from one library — that of 
 the monastery of Mount Athos. These, however, the 
 spoils of the second journey, did not reach Florence 
 till after Lorenzo's death. The formation of libraries 
 Iwas an important offshoot from this bibliophilic en- 
 thusiasm. Cosimo's collections were the germ of the 
 lamous Medicean Library, which, later carried on 
 /and developed by Lorenzo, is still preserved in the 
 
The Medicis 47 
 
 Bibliotheca Mediceo-Laurentiana. Niccolo de* Niccoli's 
 accumulations at his death also passed into the charge 
 of Cosimo, who deposited them in the Dominican 
 monastery of San Marco, Florence, where they laid 
 the foundations of the still existing Bibliotheca Mar- 
 ciana. The acquisitions of Nicholas V. were be- 
 queathed by him to the Curia, and constituted the real 
 beginning of the great library of the Vatican. Car- 
 dinal Bessarion presented his valuable collection of six 
 hundred Greek and Latin manuscripts to St. Mark's, 
 Venice. 
 
 One special achievement of the Medicis is charac- 
 teristic and important enough to merit separate reference I 
 — the establishment at Florence of an academy ex-/ 
 pressly devoted to the study of the Platonic philosophy./ 
 The idea took shape in Cosimo's mind as the result ofj 
 the mystical teachings of an;6ld Greek scholar, Georgios 
 Gemisthos, surnamed Pletho, who had come to Italy 
 in the first place to attend the Council of Florence. 
 It was under Lorenzo, however, that the greatest suc- 
 cess of the institution was attained. Its most dis- 
 tinguished head was the famous Platonist, Marsilio 
 Ficino (i433-99)> who devoted his life to the interpreta- 
 tion of the master's writings, and published a treatise 
 on his philosophy to prove that it was of the very 
 essence of Christianity. Some idea of the ardour with 
 which these studies were pursued may be gained from 
 the fact that Lorenzo reorganised the solemn annual 
 commemorative feasts, whjch, twelve hundred years or 
 so before, had been celebrated by Plato's immediate 
 disciples. These gatherings were attended by the most 
 learned men in Italy, and after the banquet there was 
 an open discussion of passages selected from the 
 "Dialogues." The influence of this academy, and 
 generally of the Platonism which it fostered, spread 
 
48 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 rapidly through Italy and thence into Germany. 
 
 Similar societies sprang up in other great Italian 
 
 centres of humanism, and did much to second the 
 
 jwork of professors and wandering teachers in the 
 
 /diffusion of the new learning. 
 
 i Another infinitely more important agency in the 
 classical revival has now to be mentioned. In the 
 earlier days of bibliophilic enthusiasm, book collectors 
 had, of course, to depend very largely on the labours 
 of copyists, increasing numbers of whom were thus kept 
 busy. Some of these were monks, some schoolmasters 
 and poor scholars who were glad to add an occasional 
 trifle to their slender earnings; but the majority were 
 professional scribes, whose copying provided their entire 
 I means of livelihood. With the work of a large body of 
 men, well systematised and rapidly done, the needs of 
 a small book market were for a time adequately met. 
 JBut the introduction of the printing press wrought an 
 pntire change in the Italian world of letters. The multi- 
 blication of books was immensely accelerated; this in 
 lurn created a new reading public; as a result, the area, 
 of humanism was greatly extended. "T'he significance 
 oTTh'e printing press in the general history of the 
 Renaissance has already been considered. I will, there- 
 fore, pause here only to note the interesting fact that on 
 its first appearance the new invention encountered much 
 opposition among conservative patrons and lovers of 
 learning, to whom popularising scholarship, meant 
 vulgarisinj^_ik._aild_w.ha_cpnde^ the press as a 
 
 monstrous device pf^the^barbaric GefmansT Even after 
 the hated machine had begun to make common people 
 partakers in the treasures of literature, and had thus 
 enabled them to encroach upon the monopolies of the 
 very rich, Federigo of Urbino still kept thirty or forty 
 copyists at work transcribing manuscripts, while of the 
 
The Early Printers of Italy 49 
 
 ducal library, Vespasiano da Bisticci records that "all 
 the books are . . . written with the pen, not one 
 printed, that it might not be disgraced thereby.*' Such 
 reactionaries, however, were, of course, in a minority; 
 the press soon broke down all opposition and carried 
 everything before it. 
 
 The story of the early printers of Italy makes an 
 interesting chapter in the annals of humanism. Though . ^ 
 I cannot take the space to retell it here, something must^ 
 be said about the most famous of all the great Italian ^| 
 printing houses — thp A 1 H i np f stabl i sh m en t a t Yf jjr^ \ 
 
 Its founder was Teobaldo Manucci, who, after the 
 fashion of the time, Latinised his name into Aldus! 
 Manutius, whence he is now generally known as Aldo] 
 Manuzio. Born in 1450, h^ devoted himself in eatly 
 life to Latin and Greek studiej^ and was for a time 
 "tutor In the family of the Prince of Carpi. One of his 
 pupils, Alberto Pio, provided him with the means of 
 executing the great plan which he presently formed : 
 that^ printin^jhe whole of Greek literature^ A few 
 Greek books had already appeared from Italian presses, 
 but nothing comparable with Aldo's gigantic project 
 had yet been dreamed of. He settled in Venice in 1490, 
 and was soon busy with the organisation of his 
 establishment, which was something more than a print- 
 ing office, for his Greek types were cast and his ink 
 manufactured in the house, while adjoining it was a 
 bookbinding department. Here in 1493 he began his 
 output with the " Hero and Leander " of Musaeus, and 
 from that time onward he prosecuted his labours with 
 marvellous energy and unflagging zeal. He had all^ 
 sorts of difficulties to contend with. He suffered much 
 from the piratical practices of jealous rivals; strikes 
 occurred from time to time among his men ; the work 
 of his press was twice stopped, once for nearly two 
 
 E 
 
50 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 years, by war. But amid all these discouragements he 
 persevered, and before he died in 15 15 — within the 
 space, that is, of some twenty-two years — he had issued 
 editiones principes of twenty-eight -Greek -and Latin 
 classics. A number of Italian books, notably Dante's 
 •*l>ivina tommedia," also stand to the credit of the 
 same period. After his death the work of the Aldine 
 press was carried on by other members of the family, 
 the establishment continuing to exist for upwards of a 
 hundred years. 
 
 The Wpography of these Aldine classics has never 
 ceased to excite the admiration of all amateurs of print- 
 ing. No previous printer had used such beautiful types. 
 In particular, Aldo was the inventor of the types called 
 corsivi, or cursive, which afterwards came to be known 
 as Aldine, and which we term italics. These are said 
 to have been cut by his engraver" on the model^of 
 Petrarch *s handwriting, and they were first used in the 
 Vergil of 1501. This work has a further claim to dis- 
 tinction as the first octavo volume ever issued. We 
 can imagine its effect upon readers at a time when 
 clumsy quartos and folios alone were known. 
 
 Aldo was not merely an industrious publisher. He 
 was a genuine humanist, whose work was inspired by 
 an ardent love of learning and a desire to further its 
 interests. As he himself declared in one of his prefaces, 
 he gloried in rescuing the classics from the clutches of 
 the "book-buriers " (as he called the selfish collectors 
 who wanted to keep their manuscript treasures to them- 
 selves), and in making them accessible to readers of 
 moderate means. The astonishing cheapness of his 
 publications must therefore be recognised as a feature 
 of his enterprise. The octavo series inaugurated by the 
 Vergil sold for about 2s. a volume in our money; his 
 prices in general ranged, speaking roughly and in terms 
 
The Age of Humanism 51 
 
 of modern equivalents, from a shilling to half a crown. 
 All things considered, we can scarcely be surprised that 
 Aldo died comparatively poor. 
 
 It must not be supposed that he carried on his 
 labours single-handed. He secured the help of numer- 
 ous scholars, who collaborated with him editorially in 
 the criticism and settlement of texts ; and the foundation 
 of his Academy of Hellenists — the Neacademia, or New 
 Academy, as it was called — made his house one of the 
 chief centres of Greek culture in Italy. The rules of 
 this society were written in Greek, and Greek was the 
 language of its meetings, in the course of which manu- 
 scripts were collated and texts and readings discussed. 
 Many famous representatives of the new learning visited 
 Aldo, the most noteworthy being Erasmus, who was a 
 guest in his household in 1508, while a new edition of 
 his "Adages" was passing through the press, and 
 who, like many other distinguished foreigners, was 
 made an honorary member of the Academy. 
 
 The introduction of printing ushered in the great 
 age of Italian hurnanism, which found its most brilliant 
 representative in Angelo Ambrogini, known as Poli- 
 ziano, or .Politian (Latin, Politianus). Born in 1454, 
 Politian studied with the most famous Florentine 
 teachers of the day, and at sixteen wrote Greek and 
 Latin epigrams which even in that age of precocity 
 aroused the astonishment of his contemporaries. A 
 little later his translation of five books of the ** Iliad" 
 not only gained for him the proud title of ''Homericus 
 Juvenis " (the "Homeric Youth "), but also attracted the 
 notice of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who at once became 
 his patron. He was presently appointed tutor to 
 Lorenzo's children, and at thirty was professor of Greek 
 in Florence, his lectures drawing students from every 
 part of Europe where the stimulus of the new learning 
 
 h ? 
 
52 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 had been felt. Though he died at forty, he had long 
 held the highest rank as a scholar. The first of the 
 utalians to rival the Greeks in their own language, he 
 ilso used Latin as a living speech and produced poetry 
 n the vernacular as well. His epitaph describes him 
 as the angel with three tongues. 
 
 Meanwhile, though humanism had found its first 
 
 home in Florence, it soon spread thence to other parts 
 
 of Italy; and when, towards the end of the fifteenth 
 
 century, the city on the Arno ceased to be the centre 
 
 of culture, its principal successor was Rome. Already 
 
 under Nicholas V. classical studies had been greatly 
 
 encouraged by the Curia, and it was with perfect truth 
 
 that on his death-bed that Pope took credit for the 
 
 liberality he had shown in the purchase of books, the 
 
 transcription of manuscripts, and the support of learned 
 
 / men. His protection was in particular extended to one 
 
 I of the greatest of the philologists of the Renaissance 
 
 I — Lorenzo Valla (1405-57), who did much to lay the 
 
 I' foundations of exact scholarship at a time when enthu- 
 siasm often outstripped discretion and ardour was a 
 trifle impatient of accuracy. Nicholas died in 1455. 
 The rapid growth of the spirit of epicureanism and 
 worldliness in the papal court during the half-century 
 which followed was distinctly favourable to pagan 
 learning, but it was not until Giovanni de* Medici 
 / \ ascended the papal throne as Leo X. that the capital of 
 j Christendom was definitely transformed into the capital 
 of classical scholarship. Though in personal conduct 
 markedly above the average morality of his surround- 
 ings, Leo was strikingly deficient in spiritual earnest- 
 ness, and with his political aims, his interest in art, 
 his love of splendour and display, he resembled rather 
 a great secular prince than the head and representative 
 of a church whose kingdom was not of this world. His 
 
The Revival in Germany 53 
 
 chief ambition seems to have been to restore the bril- 
 liancy of his father's regime in Florence. Himself a 
 real enthusiast in learning, he established a Greek 
 college and a Greek press in Rome, gathered about him 
 famous scholars from all parts of cultivated Europe, 
 and in his practical patronage of men of letters and 
 artists alike behaved with the utmost munificence. The 
 glories of Rome were now celebrated throughout the 
 world. Unfortunately, its corruption and profligacy 
 were scarcely less notorious. During the seven years of 
 Leo's pontificate, learning and art flourished in mar- 
 vellous luxuriance; but it was the luxuriance which 
 already suggested decay. The golden age of the Italian] 
 Renaissance ended with his death in 152 1. Six years! 
 later — in May, 1527 — 40,000 Spanish and German/ 
 ruffians of the imperial army of Charles V. were ler 
 loose in the city, and indulged in a three days' debauch 
 of butchery, outrage, and pillage, while Pope Clement 
 remained shut up in the Castle of St. Angelo. The 
 sack of Rome was followed, in 1530, by the fall of 
 Florence. These two events may be said to close the 
 history of the Italian revival of learning. 
 
 III. — THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN GERMANY 
 
 It was fortunate for Europe and the cause of culture 
 that fire from the Italian altar had already been carried 
 across the Alps. In Germany, France, and England 
 there were indeed many obstacles to the introduction of 
 the new learning; yet when once the spirit of humanism 
 had entered, conditions on the whole favoured its steady 
 growth. Italy had not only led the way — she had done 
 the heavy work of clearance as well. She had recovered 
 the long-buried treasures of classical literature ; she had 
 laid the foundations of textual criticism; she had pro- 
 
54 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 duced grammars, treatises, and other aids to study. The 
 Italian leaders had thus broken ground for those who 
 came after them; scholars in northern countries, to the 
 enormous saving of time and effort, were able at once 
 to enter into their labours and adapt them to their own 
 needs. It must also be remembered that the great 
 instrument of the printing press stood from the outset 
 ready to hand. We shall find that it was not till the 
 second half of the fifteenth century that the revival of 
 learning began to make real headway in Germany, 
 France, and England. But while it thus came so much 
 later in these countries than in Italy, its progress was, 
 for the reasons given, much more rapid. 
 
 In Germany a certain amount of preparation had 
 been silently accomplished by the Brethren of the 
 Common Life, a society devoted especially to the 
 interests of education, whose mother-school at Deventer, 
 in the territory of Utrecht, was the cradle of early 
 northern humanism. But even towards the middle of 
 the fifteenth century there was little to suggest a coming 
 intellectual revival,; (the German nobles of that time, 
 Aeneas Sylvius declared, cared more for horses than for 
 poets, while, for the rest, what slight interest there was 
 in the things of the mind was confined to theology and 
 scholastic philosophy. ; But, not long after this, wander- 
 ing students began to tramp across the Alps in quest of 
 light and guidance. Begging their way from town to 
 town, living from hand to mouth, encountering all the 
 temptations of vagabondage, these young seekers after 
 knowledge were often ruined physically and morally by 
 the conditions of their quest. Yet the strong men 
 succeeded where the weak failed; and the strong men, 
 no less than the weak, turned to Italy, for it was in 
 Italy alone that they could find what they sought. 
 
 Chief among the Teutonic pioneers of the new 
 
The Labours of Reuchlin 55 
 
 learning was Roelof_ Huysmann (j 443-85), whom we 
 know better under his Latin name, Agricola. A student 
 first of theology and then of law, Agricola abandoned 
 both for classical studies, and during a seven years* 
 sojourn in Italy gave himself up entirely to Latin and 
 Greek. He was then appointed professor at Heidel- 
 berg, where his lectures did much to create an interest 
 in classic literature among younger men. His premature 
 death, which occurred immediately upon his return from 
 a second visit to Italy, was a serious loss to German 
 enlightenment. The part which he played in breaking 
 down theological antagonism to secular learning entitles 
 him to kindly recollection. "He was the first," Erasmus 
 declared, "to bring to us out of Italy a breath of higher 
 culture." 
 
 A far larger place in the history of German 
 humanism, however, is filled by Johann Reuchlin 
 (1455- 1 532), who, after getting the rudiments of Greek 
 at Paris and Basel, went to Rome, where he attended 
 Argyropoulos's lectures on Thucydides. His mastery 
 of the language was soon such as to astonish even his 
 teacher. " Lo ! " exclaimed Argyropoulos with a sigh, 
 "through this exile of ours Greece has flown over the 
 Alps ! " In later life his erudition compelled the praise 
 of Erasmus, who wrote of him to Leo X. as a man 
 "almost equally skilled in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, 
 and ... in every sort of learning." He edited Greek 
 texts, published a Greek grammar, and by every means 
 in his power laboured to promote the cause of 
 Hellenism. But his principal interest was in Hebrew,, 
 and, as it happened, it was through his work in this 
 field that he exercised the greatest influence on the 
 fortunes of German humanism. In 15 10 a renegade 
 Jew named Pfeffercorn, either on his own initiative or 
 as the tool of the Dominicans of Cologne, appealed to 
 
 ^? 
 
56 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 the Emperor Maximilian to order the immediate burn- 
 ing or confiscation of all Jewish books except the Bible, 
 and especially the Rabbinical writings. Reuchlin was 
 one of the prominent scholars consulted on the subject. 
 He alone stood firm in maintaining that, except where 
 specifically opposed to Christian truth, such books 
 should be preserved ; and he further advocated the estab- 
 lishment of chairs of Hebrew in German universities. 
 These opinions embroiled him with the Dominicans, 
 with Hoogstraten, the papal inquisitor at Cologne, and 
 generally with obscurantists throughout the country. 
 The battle raged fiercely ; Reuchlin was cited for heresy 
 before the ecclesiastical court at Mainz ; on his acquittal, 
 the case was carried by the inquisitor to Rome, where 
 the judgment was reversed, though no practical results 
 followed. The chief point in the story for us, however, 
 is that while antagonism to Reuchlin drew together all 
 the foes of enlightenment and tolerance, all the leaders 
 of German thought hastened to his support. A great 
 impulse was thus given to the cause of the humanists, 
 and, what is particularly important, their attention was 
 turned decisively towards Biblical criticism. The 
 pungent " Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum " (" Epistles 
 of Obscure Men ") — ^^the work of some half-dozen writers 
 of whom the most conspicuous were Crotus Rubeanus 
 and Ulrich von Hutten — clearly show the direction 
 which German interest was taking. Written against 
 the opponents of Reuchlin, supposedly by some of these 
 opponents themselves (and the joke was underscored by 
 the fact that there were actually members of the "stupid 
 party " who took the thing seriously), these epistles 
 contain, along with much merciless satire upon their 
 bigotry and bad Latin, a vigorous attack upon the 
 doctrines and lives of the monks; and they are for this 
 reason reckoned among the forces behind the Reforma- 
 
Humanism Differentiated 57 
 
 tion. Here we touch already upon the most striking 
 point of difference between humanism in Italy and 
 humanism in Germany. .In Italy revived classicism led 
 ultimately to narrow devotion to form and style, while it 
 was accompanied by the spread of a flippant spirit and 
 by a widespread indifference, sometimes an avowed 
 hostility, to Christianity. In Germany, too, there was 
 plenty of indifference and hostility among the human- 
 ists. The rationalistic views of his Italian friends are 
 clearly reflected in Conrad Mudt*s conception of the 
 Bible as a collection of fables designed to inculcate 
 moral truth, while Peter Luders outrivalled in cynicism 
 the most cynical members of the papal court when, 
 accused of disbelief in the Trinity, he relied that he 
 would willingly admit four persons in the Godhead if it 
 were necessary for the sake of peace and quiet. But 
 the characteristic tone of German humanism was neither 
 flippant nor sceptical; on the contrary, it was serious 
 and religious. The great feature of the German revival 
 was the intimate connection between humanism and 
 theology, between classical learning and the spirit of 
 reform. This is shown again in the typical case of 
 .Philip Schwarzerd (1497-1560), whom we know by the 
 Grecised form of his name, Melanchthon. A fine 
 scholar, the author of a Greek grammar, the editor of 
 several volumes of the classics, and in early life a teacher 
 of Greek at Wittenberg, where his lectures were some- 
 times attended by 2,000 students of many nations, 
 Melanchthon afterwards carried his learning into 
 religion, and became famous as a fellow-worker with 
 Luther in the theological field. The practical and con-| 
 structive character of German humanism is further 
 proved by the fact that even when its energies did not 
 go into theology, they were largely absorbed by educa- 
 tional and social interests. Men like Jakob Wimpheling 
 
58 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 (1450-1525), "the schoolmaster of Germany," who 
 attacked with equal vehemence the immorality of the 
 Curia and those paganising scholars who were seducing 
 young Germany from Christian orthodoxy, and Alex- 
 ander Hegius (1433-98), long head of the establishment 
 of the Brethren of the Common Life at Deventer, mark 
 the opening of a new educational era in Germany. The 
 impetuous Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523), though fired 
 with zeal for learning and poetry — he was himself 
 crowned laureate poet of Germany in 15 17 — afterwards 
 threw himself into the Lutheran cause, his main interest 
 being, however, not in its doctrines, but in its social 
 and economic bearings. 
 
 These things considered, it is not surprising that the 
 
 ^ revival of learning in Germany was generally unpro- 
 
 i ductive in the artistic and literary fields. Nor is it 
 
 { astonishing that its history was so brief. It ran through 
 
 all its phases in little more than half a century, and 
 
 may be said to have closed when Luther turned the 
 
 thoughts of Young Germany into the great conflict 
 
 with Rome. 
 
 IV. — THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN FRANCE 
 
 Though signs had not been wanting earlier than 
 this of an intellectual awakening in France, 1494 may 
 be taken as the date of the real beginning of the 
 Renaissance in that country. In that year Charles 
 VIII. invaded Naples. This led to what Michelet calls 
 the French "discovery of Italy." The entanglements 
 of diplomacy and the blunders of political ambition had 
 this result, that intellectual intercourse between the two 
 nations was now opened up. Thus Italian humanism 
 began to quicken and fertilise French genius. The 
 internal peace and material prosperity which France 
 
The Revival in France 59 
 
 enjoyed under Charles's successors, Louis XII. (1498- 
 1515) and Francis I. (1515-47), greatly favoured the 
 development of learning and the arts. 
 
 Already about the middle of the fifteenth century 
 the first suggestions of the Greek revival may be 
 detected. In 1458 Gregorio Tifernas, who had studied 
 under Chrysoloras, arrived in Paris, and, with the 
 permission of the rector, taught for a time in the 
 University. A little later came Hermonymus of Sparta, 
 who was, indeed, far more skilled as a copyist than as 
 a teacher, but who yet, incompetent as he was, did 
 something to keep Hellenic enthusiasm alive. An in- 
 teresting point about his prelections is that Reuchlin 
 was one of those who attended them. Nothing of 
 importance, however, was accomplished till the appear- 
 ance, in 1495, of the Byzantine Janus Lascaris, who, 
 on the death of his patron, Lorenzo de* Medici, settled 
 in Paris, and taught here till 1503. During the pre- 
 ceding half-century the new learning had made slow 
 headway against the prejudices and apathy of the 
 University authorities, who, in their arrangement of 
 the curriculum, were careful to assign only the drowsy 
 after-dinner hours to the Greek classics, keeping the 
 morning for such really serious subjects as logic and 
 theology. Lascaris helped to break down this long- 
 standing antagonism. Five years after his departure 
 his work was taken up by the young Italian, Girolamo 
 Aleandro (Hieronymus Aleander), later prominent as 
 the bitter opponent of Luther at Wurms and as the 
 persecutor of the reformers in the Netherlands. Bear- 
 ing an introduction from Erasmus, he came to Paris 
 at the age of twenty-eight, and for eight years lectured 
 there, and in other French cities, on Latin, Greek, and 
 Hebrew. Meanwhile, native French humanists were 
 coming to the front : the celebrated Guillaume Bud^ 
 
6o The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 (Budaeus), perhaps the most profound Greek scholar of 
 his day in Europe, at whose instigation Francis I., 
 in the interests of the new learning, founded the Royal 
 Corporation, which afterwards became the College de 
 France; Etienne Dolet (1509-40), who returned from a 
 six years' sojourn in Italy an enthusiast in classical 
 literature, lectured at Toulouse, set up a printing press 
 at Lyons, and was finally burned to death at Paris on 
 a charge of heresy; Joseph Scaliger the Younger, 
 whose enormous erudition still fills us with amazement. 
 Yet perhaps the highest place in the history of the 
 French classical revival is occupied by one who was 
 not a Frenchman — I mean that wonderful wandering 
 genius of humanism who belonged to no one country, 
 but in the spirit of cosmopolitanism carried the light 
 of learning and criticism from land to land. Desiderius 
 Erasmus (the former name is the Latin, the latter the 
 Greek, rendering of his patronymic Gerhardt) was born 
 in Rotterdam about 1467. He received his early educa- 
 tion at Deventer, where Agricola prophesied his future 
 greatness. Hampered almost from the outset by poor 
 health, he yet devoted himself with unremitting in- 
 dustry to classical studies. The range and the accuracy 
 of his learning, together with his breadth of mind and 
 the 3anity of his criticism, gave him an almost unique 
 place among the European scholars of his day; we 
 scarcely exaggerate his position when we speak of him 
 as the typical humanist of the entire northern revival. 
 At the same time his restless disposition marked him 
 out as the great apostle of culture. We find him at 
 Oxford in 1498; in Paris from 1500 to 1505; from 1506 
 to 1509 in Italy — now in Bologna, now in Venice with 
 Aldo, now in Padua, Siena, Rome; from 15 10 to 15 13 
 in Cambridge as professor of divinity; in 15 14 at Basel, 
 where (though with many minor interruptions) he 
 
^«' f "2 o-j^l/K/^,*.*^^ 
 
The Revival in England 6i 
 
 passed the remaining years of his life in incessant 
 literary activity, and where he died in 1536. He was 
 thus brought into personal contact with the followers 
 of humanism in many of its chief centres, and wherever 
 he went he left the impress of his presence. Yet, great 
 as was the direct influence which he thus gave to 
 European learning, the influence which he exerted by 
 the pen, c*^ the foremost man of letters of his age, was 
 even more important. A voluminous writer on many 
 lines, he filled everything he touched with the spirit of 
 the new era. Of his connection with the Reformation, 
 I shall speak in the next chapter. For the moment we 
 have only to think of him as the most powerful single 
 influence in the Renaissance north of the Alps. He 
 has been mentioned before ; he will be mentioned again ; 
 and, as he hardly belonged to France more than to 
 Germany or to England, some apology may be neces- 
 sary for the introduction of our principal reference to 
 him here. Yet his early residence in Paris and his 
 frequent visits there made his connection with the 
 French revival very close, and as a matter of con- 
 venience, therefore, he may fittingly be considered in 
 relation with it. 
 
 V. — THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN ENGLAND 
 
 In England the faint beginnings of the revival of 
 learning may be traced back as far as Chaucer, in 
 whose later writings we already perceive the influence 
 of humanism. Personal contact with Italy during two 
 public missions there, on the first of which he may 
 possibly have met both Petrarch and Boccaccio, had 
 manifestly much to do with this. His direct indebted- 
 ness to both these writers is very obvious, but his kin- 
 ship with them in spirit is a matter of far greater import. 
 
62 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 For he, too, is the exponent of a view of life which is 
 at once anti-sacerdotal and anti-ascetic; with him, too, 
 literature disengages itself from mediaeval theology and 
 metaphysics, and associates itself with the varied 
 interests of the secular world. 
 
 As Wyclif is called the morning star of the English 
 Reformation, so Chaucer may fairly be called the 
 morning star of the English Renaissance. But he 
 came before the times were ripe, and the humanistic 
 movement advanced but little in the century following 
 his death. Conditions were for the time unfavourable 
 to its progress. The fifteenth century was an age of 
 political and social upheaval, of "noises and hoarse 
 disputes." The country was rent by the protracted 
 struggles between the houses of York and Lancaster. 
 In these struggles many of the great noble families were 
 practically wiped out, feudalism dying by its own hand. 
 This was to be of advantage later in helping to break 
 up the mediaeval foundations of society, but for the 
 moment it destroyed that patronage upon which the 
 bookman largely depended. Within the Church the 
 Lollard controversy raged fiercely, and the spirit of 
 persecution awoke in the land. This was itself fatal to 
 intellectual expansion. Meanwhile, such little mental 
 activity as there was had, of course, to be sought mainly 
 in the Universities, but these had sunk into a state of 
 almost incredible apathy. Absorbed in their dreary 
 logic-chopping and their endless scholastic disputations, 
 teachers and students alike were practically indifferent 
 to the claims of liberal culture. 
 
 Yet there were bright spots amid the prevailing 
 gloom. The spirit of humanism was not entirely sub- 
 merged by the tides of turbulence and ignorance. One 
 name in particular, stands out in the annals of the first 
 / ^ half of the fifteenth century : that of Humphrey^ Duke 
 
Duke Humphrey's Influence 63 
 
 of Gloucester, brother of Henry V., and popularly 
 called (for no very obvious reason) "the good Duke 
 Humphrey." A man of unbridled passions, and, in 
 public life, guilty of folly and cruelty, he was none 
 the less intellectually far in advance of his time. A 
 patron of learning in the Italian sense, he not only 
 gathered English scholars about him, but also induced 
 some of the younger Italians to visit him and to make 
 translations for him from the classics. He also corre- 
 sponded with some of the more famous of the Italian 
 scholars, among whom he enjoyed a high reputation, 
 as is attested by the fact that Aretino and Decembrio 
 dedicated to him their versions, the one of Aristotle's 
 "Poetics," the other of Plato's "Republic." He was 
 himself an ardent lover of books, a collection of which, 
 numbering, it is said, 135, he presented to the University 
 of Oxford. In other ways he did his best to revive there 
 an interest in classical learning, and it is probably 
 owing in large measure to the new taste he thus helped 
 to introduce that about the middle of tlife century we 
 find young Oxford men already making pilgrimages 
 to Italy for the express purpose of studying in the 
 Universities or in Guarino Veronese's School — the most 
 famous school of that age. The most important of these 
 early pilgrims to the Mecca of English humanism was 
 William Tilley, better known (from the name of the 
 Kentish village in which he was born) as Selling (died 
 1495). An Oxonian by training and a member of the 
 Benedictine Order, he went to Italy with his friend, 
 William Hadley, in 1464. Together they studied in 
 Padua and Bologna, heard the lectures of the great 
 Politian, and also met Chalcondylas. Selling returned 
 to England full of zeal for the new learning. On his 
 appointment as prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, 
 he made that monastery a home of Hellenic studies; 
 
64 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 while as master of the affiliated school he had a further 
 opportunity of spreading classic tastes. The record 
 of what Oxford and her sons were thus doing shows 
 that even during the fifteenth century the new spirit 
 was at work, while about the middle of the century 
 Cambridge also exhibited signs of intellectual life. It 
 was, however, not until that century approached its 
 close that England began to share definitely in the 
 great movement of the European Renaissance. Many 
 factors now co-operated to bring about the conditions 
 necessary to enable the sixteenth century to fulfil the 
 promises- of the fourteenth. Internal peace and order 
 were restored ; the power of feudalism was broken ; 
 commerce and industry were developing rapidly ; wealth 
 spread; and this brought increase of leisure and that 
 economising of energy which enabled men to devote 
 more and more of their time to intellectual pursuits. 
 
 In the next phase of English humanism Oxford 
 again takes the lead, and it is with three Oxford friends 
 — Linacre, Grocyn, and Latimer — that classical scholar- 
 ship in England really begins. 
 
 Thomas Linacre (cir, 1460-1524) was a pupil of 
 Selling at Canterbury, whence he went to Oxford, 
 where it is supposed that he may have continued his 
 Greek studies under a wandering Italian scholar named 
 Cornelio Vitelli, who seems to have been lecturing 
 there on Greek subjects as early as 1475. In i486 he 
 accompanied Selling on an embassy from Henry VII. 
 to the Pope, and while in Italy he attended the lectures 
 of Politian and also enjoyed the privilege of sharing 
 the private lessons given by that great scholar to the 
 sons of Lorenzo de* Medici. He also visited various 
 centres of learning, and in Venice became a member 
 of Aldo's Academy. He took his degree in medicine 
 at Padua, and on his return to England began to 
 
Grocyn and Latimer 65 
 
 practise as a physician. For a time he lectured on 
 Greek at Oxford, and throughout his life he showed 
 the wide interests and the versatility which marked so 
 many men of the Renaissance. But his chief concern 
 was with science, in the service of which he mainly 
 employed his classical attainments; as, notably, in his 
 translation of Galen, which he dedicated to Leo X. 
 in memory, as he said, of the common studies of their 
 youth. He was long Court physician, and founded the 
 London College of Physicians, but late in life he 
 entered the Church. 
 
 William Grocyn (cir. 1446-15 19), who is also said 
 to have been a pupil of Vitelli at Oxford, resigned his 
 readership in Divinity in 1488 and went to Florence, 
 where he studied under Politian and Chalcondylas. He 
 remained in Italy two years, and, like Linacre, became 
 a friend of Aldo. Then, having taught Greek at Oxford 
 for a season, he became Master of All Hallows College, 
 near Maidstone. He and Linacre in their Oxford 
 lectures reckoned among their pupils Erasmus, More, 
 and Colet. Never inclined to overstate his obligations 
 to others, Erasmus none the less acknowledged the im- 
 mense profit he had derived from Grocyn's teaching. 
 The same great scholar's statement that in England 
 during his first visit (1498-1500) he found such *' pro- 
 found" and "exact" learning that he now felt "no 
 great longing for Italy except for what is to be seen 
 there," is proof of the progress which England had 
 made in classical studies. 
 
 Though little otherwise is known of him, William 
 Latimer (whose baptismal name is also given as Thomas) 
 deserves mention because he was a close friend of Lin- 
 acre and Grocyn, and helped them to found Greek 
 scholarship in England. Like them he studied in Italy; 
 with them he taught at Oxford. His reputation for 
 
66 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 scholarship stood high, but he produced very little, for 
 which reason Erasmus compared him with a miser 
 hoarding his gold. 
 
 Among the most famous of the pupils of Linacre and 
 Grocyn, John Cplet (1467 ?-i5i5) possesses a broader 
 interest than either of them in the general history of his 
 time. He is specially important as the first great con- 
 necting link in England between the Renaissance and 
 the Reformation — between the spirit of humanism and 
 the religious revival. After seven years at Oxford he 
 started for the Continent to pursue his studies for the 
 Church, his head already filled with Plato, Plotinus, 
 and St. Paul. He reached Italy in 1493 ; but though he 
 mingled freely with the brilliant circle of Lorenzo the 
 Magnificent, his strongly puritan nature recoiled 
 shocked from ^he corruption which he found everywhere 
 prevalent. It was more to his purpose then that he 
 also became acquainted with the ideas of Savonarola. 
 He returned home little interested in the subjects with 
 which the Italian humanists were most occupied — 
 classical antiquity, the beauties of pagan literature, the 
 questions of form and style — but passionately convinced 
 that the new learning might be put to service in the 
 regeneration of religion. In 1497 he began to give 
 free lectures at Oxford on St. Paul's epistles, abandon- 
 ing the allegorical interpretations of mediaeval theology, 
 and substituting a broad historical mode of treatment. 
 Grocyn had already led the way in this, but Colet turned 
 the new method to even better account, continuing the 
 same line of work later when, as Dean of St. Paul's, 
 he preached on Matthew's Gospel, the Creed, and the 
 Lord's Prayer. It was at Oxford that Erasmus met 
 him ; a warm friendship at once sprang up between the 
 two men, and Colet greatly influenced Erasmus on the 
 subject of scriptural interpretation. He further gave an 
 
The New Schools 67 
 
 immense stimulus to classical scholarship when, with 
 the money inherited from his father, he founded St. 
 Paul's Grammar School — the first school in England 
 expressly devoted to the new learning. The statutes 
 of the institution prescribed that the master should be 
 "learned in good and clean Latin, and also in Greek, 
 if such may be gotten." It is specially noteworthy that 
 when, in 1518, foreseeing that his end was fast ap- 
 proaching, Colet wished to make arrangements for the 
 future of his establishment, he should have entrusted 
 the Mercers' Company with its management; for this 
 is the first example of the secular management of any 
 educational institution in England, and a sign of the 
 invasion of education by the lay spirit. The first head 
 master, William Lily, the grammarian, is also a figure 
 of some interest. The Latin grammar prepared by 
 him, with the help of Colet and Erasmus, was published 
 in 15 18, and was long the standard work in all English 
 schools. It was in its pages that young William 
 Shakespeare conned the Latin accidence at Stratford 
 Grammar School, and the well-known scene of catechis- 
 ing in the "Merry Wives*' (IV. i.) is based upon it. 
 
 The time was now ripe for the educational re- 
 vival which Colet thus began. Other schools of a 
 humanistic character soon followed, such as Christ's 
 Hospital, the Merchant Taylors' School, and the 
 Charterhouse. Outside London there was similar 
 activity. In all 63 new schools were founded in the 
 reign of Henry VIII., 50 in that of Edward VI., 19 
 in that of Mary, 138 in that of EHzabeth, while older 
 schools were everywhere remodelled upon the new lines. 
 These establishments secured the progress of classical 
 studies for the coming generation, and did much to 
 extend humanism beyond the limits of the purely 
 academic caste. 
 
68 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 Here the work of Sir Thomas More (1478- 1535) 
 also counted, though in a somewhat different way. 
 A pupil at Oxford of Linacre and Grocyn, with both 
 of whom he remained on terms of intimate friend- 
 ship, and a great admirer of the Florentine Platonist, 
 Pico della Mirandola, whose life he wrote, he, as a 
 public man and a courtier, carried humanism into circles 
 which had not hitherto been stirred by it. Of his great 
 book, the "Utopia," in which so much of the eager 
 and speculative spirit of the age is expressed, I have 
 already spoken. One piece of practical work accom- 
 plished by him for the cause of culture must not here 
 be forgotten. The new learning encountered vigorous 
 opposition at Oxford from obscurantist teachers, who 
 scented irreligion in it and had the prescience to foresee 
 that it would, in the long run, prove destructive of the 
 old scholasticism to which they were wedded. The 
 contest turned in particular on the question of Greek, 
 which was regarded by conservatives as peculiarly fatal 
 to piety. "Beware of the Greeks lest you be made a 
 heretic," was a phrase of the time; and even at Court 
 there were not wanting preachers bold enough to 
 denounce Greek in their sermons. The conflict between 
 the two parties at Oxford — the "Greeks" and the 
 "Trojans," as they came to be called — had begun with 
 Grocyn 's lectures at Exeter College; it reached its 
 height in the early years of Henry VHI.'s reign, when 
 parties of Trojans, under leaders whom they nicknamed 
 Priam and Hector, followed the Greeks about the streets 
 and openly insulted them. More exerted his influence 
 on the Greek side, wrote personally on the subject to 
 the University authorities, and finally enlisted the 
 support of the King. It was largely through his efforts 
 that a peremptory royal decree, in 15 19, scattered the 
 Trojans and secured the triumph of the Greeks. Three 
 
Greek at the Universities 69 
 
 years before this the first endowed lectureship in Greek 
 had been instituted by Richard Fox, Bishop of Win- 
 chester, as part of the new foundation of Corpus Christi. 
 Thus far we have been mainly concerned with 
 Oxford, or the widely ramifying influence of Oxford. 
 But while Oxford was the first real centre of English 
 Hellenism, her younger sister University presently 
 followed her lead. The new learning reached^-Cam- 
 ^bridg^e early in the sixteenth century, when Erasmus 
 made the rather dangerous experiment of startTng^ a 
 class in Greek. He had few pupils, and the seniors 
 regarded his innovation with suspicion ; but his labours 
 were continued more successfully by Richard Croke, 
 who had been in Italy on matters connected with 
 Henry Vni.*s divorce, and had gained considerable 
 reputation by his lectures at Cologne, Louvain, and 
 Leipzig. Appointed orator to the University, he was 
 daring enough in his inaugural addresses to emphasise 
 the value of the new learning in the interpretation of 
 Scripture. The influence of John Fisher (1469-1535), 
 Bishop of Rochester, was a chief factor in the final 
 establishment of Greek at Cambridge. Fisher belonged 
 in large measure to the past, and was in general opposed 
 to the spirit of change; yet he was a strong advocate 
 of Greek as part of the curriculum. When, at forty-six, 
 he had himself taken up that language, he had been 
 told by Latimer that he would make but little headway 
 unless he could get a teacher from Italy. His effort to 
 remove the implied reproach was so successful that 
 before long we find Erasmus writing warmly of the 
 way in which the new learning was fast displacing 
 those scholastic studies which until quite recently had 
 seemed permanently entrenched in the Cambridge class- 
 rooms. But a chair of Greek was not founded at Cam- 
 bridge till 1540, with John Cheke as the first incumbent. 
 
70 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 After that, progress was so rapid that Cambridge soon 
 caught up with Oxford. Among the best known of 
 classical teachers there was a man whose name will 
 come up again more than once — Roger Ascham, who in 
 early life was reader in Greek at St. John's. 
 
 The spirit of the new learning, thus increasingly 
 powerful in the Universities and the schools, meanwhile 
 began to pervade the Court and the nobility. In the 
 footsteps of the scholars who had gone to Italy as 
 the fountain-head of culture, there soon followed a very 
 different race of pilgrims — the wealthy pleasure-seekers 
 who thought of it only as the land of adventure and 
 amusement. Before the middle of the sixteenth century 
 Italy in its decline had ceased to attract the serious 
 student; but the potency of her appeal to the dilettante 
 traveller was year by year growing stronger. Numbers 
 of Englishmen of the idle sort might now be found in 
 every important Italian city. Even Erasmus had per- 
 ceived the evil consequences which were likely to ensue 
 in unripe minds from contact with the shameless w icked- 
 ness of a decadent civilisation; and Ascham 's vigorous 
 denunciations of Italy's "Circean charms" were taken 
 up and echoed by satirists, preachers, and pamphleteers, 
 especially by those tinctured with the sentiments of the 
 growing puritan school. "I was once in Italy myself," 
 wrote Ascham, "but I thank God my abode there was 
 but nine days; and yet I saw in that little time, in one 
 city, more liberty to sin than ever I heard tell of in 
 our noble city of London in nine years." "Our country- 
 men," wrote Jerome Turber in 1575, "usually bring with 
 them three things out of Italy : a naughty conscience, 
 ,an empty purse, and a weak stomach." It is certain 
 that the "apish English nation "* was a very apt pupil in 
 the great school of southern affectations and profligacy, 
 * Shakespeare's " Ricliard 11." II. i. 20. 
 
Italian Influence in England 71 
 
 and that there was the sting of truth in the current 
 saying that the Italianate Englishman was the devil 
 incarnate. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding the deplorable immediate 
 results of the fashionable EngliiSh mania for every- 
 thing Italian, even Italian vice, the dark picture 
 painted by contemporary moralists had fortunately a 
 bright side. For another channel was thus opened up 
 through which the spirit of humanism found its way 
 into English society. Under its influence the old 
 chivalrous type of manhood began to disappear, and 
 a broader and richer conception of the *' gentleman " 
 arose to take its place — a conception which embraced 
 interests and accomplishments altogether out of har- 
 mony with the prevailing sentiments of feudal times. 
 In Castiglione's "Cortigiano," or "Courtier," which 
 was translated into English in 1586, and instantly 
 became popular as the accepted handbook of manners, 
 it is expressly argued, as against the mediaeval super- 
 stition that a taste for knowledge was vulgar and fitting 
 only for a "clerk," that learning is "a true and powerful 
 ornament" in one who would be a perfect gentleman. 
 The product of this blending of the humanistic spirit 
 with the old ideas of chivalry had already been shown 
 in the typical gentleman of his age, Sir Philip Sidney. 
 The Court of Henry VIII. was thoroughly indoctrinated 
 with these novel notions. The King himself loved 
 theology and scholastic disquisition, and to this extent, 
 as well as in his devotion to tournaments and the chase, 
 he belonged to the outgoing order. But he had at the 
 same time strong leanings towards humanism; he was 
 fond of foreigners, especially Italians, and those whom 
 he gathered about him gave added impulse to the Italian 
 spirit and the classical influences which it brought with 
 it, A real love of learning began to manifest itself 
 
72 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 among the upper ranks of English society. We see this 
 in such representative men as Wyatt and Surrey. Even 
 more clearly we see it in such feminine products of 
 Renaissance educational ideals as Lady Jane Grey, and 
 the Princess Elizabeth. The former read Latin, French, 
 Italian, Greek, and Hebrew. Ascham tells us how one 
 day in 1550, when she was only fifteen, he found her 
 poring over Plato in the original, while the rest of her 
 family were out hunting. The same writer is also our 
 chief authority regarding the extraordinary accomplish- 
 ments of Princess Elizabeth. "I was her preceptor in 
 Latin and Greek for two years. She was but sixteen 
 when she could speak French and Italian with as much 
 fluence and propriety as English. She speaks Latin 
 readily, justly, and even critically. She has often con- 
 versed with me in Greek, and with tolerable facility." 
 This love of learning Elizabeth carried with her into 
 womanhood ; and, when she became queen, it did much 
 to give its characteristic tone to her Court. 
 
 Then, little by little, from the Universities and the 
 aristocracy the new learning and the spirit of culture 
 spread among the English people. The great schools, 
 of course, helped much to stimulate intellectual in- 
 terests; but the work of popularisation was furthered 
 even more effectively by a race of translators who now 
 arose and opened the treasures of Greek, Latin, and 
 Italian literatures to those for whom the originals were 
 sealed books. The period of the Renaissance was an 
 age of translation. Vergil, Ovid, Cicero, Demosthenes, 
 and Plutarch, for example, were all " Englished " before 
 1579; the first part of Chapman's Homer came in 1598; 
 numerous versions of the separate plays of Seneca 
 were issued between 1559 and 1566, and a complete 
 edition in 1581 ; in 1591 and 1600 respectively, "Orlando 
 Furioso'* and "Jerusalem Delivered" appeared in 
 
Humanism 73 
 
 English dress; while throughout the later sixteenth 
 century dozens of Italian story books were translated 
 or adapted for the home market — the story books which 
 provided raw material for so many of the Elizabethan 
 dramatists, including Shakespeare. The importance of 
 all these translations in carrying the new spirit abroad 
 beyond the field of the scholar and the Court cannot 
 well be overstated. It is shown, for instance, by the 
 case of Shakespeare. It is safe to say that some three- 
 fourths of Shakespeare's knowledge of classical myth- 
 ology were derived from Arthur Golding's version of 
 the "Metamorphoses," seven editions of which were 
 published between 1565 and 1597, while his indebtedness 
 to North's Plutarch is familiar to every reader. We 
 are thus brought down to the point at which the history 
 of the revival of letters in England merges in the 
 general history of English Renaissance literature. 
 
 VI. — GENERAL RESULTS OF THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING 
 
 With this brief historical sketch before us, we must 
 now try to sum up the general results of the revival of 
 learning. 
 
 Its most important influence is to be sought in what 
 it effected as a chief agent in the transformation of 
 the whole intellectual and moral spirit of the age. 
 Emphasis must here be thrown upon a point made in 
 the opening section of this chapter — that the rediscovery 
 of pagan literature meant that the slumbering mind of 
 antiquity was awakened and made a living power in 
 the modern world. The single word humanism is in 
 itself enough to indicate the significance of this. In 
 classical literature a generation of men who were still 
 haunted by the cramping traditions of mediaevalism 
 read the watchword of emancipation. They found in 
 
74 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 it an emphatic assertion of the long-neglected claims 
 of nature and the dignity and value of the earthly life. 
 The world into which it introduced them was a larger 
 and more varied world than they had hitherto known. 
 It suggested possibilities of experience of which they 
 had never dreamed. They breathed in it an atmosphere 
 charged with new and intoxicating emotions. The type 
 of character which it presented to them was very 
 different from the pinched and starved humanity which 
 ecclesiastical otherworldliness and the superstition of 
 asceticism had long held up as the highest standard of 
 spiritual attainment. To men who had come into con- 
 tact with the great literary masterpieces of Greece and 
 Rome, things about them and their own lives could 
 never be the same again. Out of the long-forgotten 
 pagan past a generous and inspiring influence swept 
 in among the dry conventions and the blighting 
 formulas of their theology. Their thoughts were 
 liberalised, their feelings quickened and expanded. 
 Human nature seemed to renew its dignity. The world 
 was filled with beauty and fresh meaning. 
 
 Humanism was thus a powerful instrument in the 
 development of both the individualism and the secular- 
 ism which I have already designated as among the 
 most prominent features of the Renaissance. It was 
 hostile to the entire mediaeval conception of life, and 
 of man's place, powers, and destiny. It shifted the 
 ethical accent from submission and self-repression to 
 liberty and self-realisation. It stimulated the lay spirit 
 into revolt against the spirit of theology. Moreover, 
 the critical temper which was a product of classical 
 studies was a deadly foe to the monstrous pretensions of 
 the Church and to that dictatorship which for centuries 
 had paralysed the European mind. The revival of 
 learning, therefore, was not the least among the various 
 
 I 
 
Italian Depravity 75 
 
 forces which co-operated in the movement for the 
 freedom of thought. 
 
 It is sufficient for the moment to mark these larger 
 bearings of the rebirth of pagan antiquity in respect of 
 its effect upon the growth of personality and of the 
 critical spirit. To both these matters we shall have to 
 return when we reach the literary aspects of the period 
 of the Renaissance. More generally, the significance 
 of the classical revival as the principal motive power in 
 the genesis of modern European literatures will then 
 also come before us for discussion. 
 
 Keeping still to the broader lines of our subject, 
 we have yet to consider the influence of neo-classicism 
 on another side. 
 
 The marked difference in spirit between the 
 Renaissance in Italy and the Renaissance north of the 
 Alps has already been suggested. In Italy the great 
 movement of the fifteenth century was scholarly and 
 aesthetic, and it spent itself in erudition and artistic 
 effort. In Germany the great movement of the sixteenth 
 century was practical and religious, and it spent itself 
 in efforts for moral and social reform. In France to 
 some extent, in England very notably, neo-classicism 
 was tempered and controlled by the forces of the 
 religious revival, and the two movements ran together. 
 But the contrast is most pronounced between Italy and 
 Germany. 
 
 Of the fearful depravity of the later Italian Renais- 
 sance I have already spoken, and I shall have to refer 
 to it again. It is not, I think, extravagant to say that 
 for any parallel we have to go back to the annals of 
 the decadent Roman Empire. Private profligacy and 
 political debasement united to disgrace the age. The 
 Papal Court was rotten at the core; secular rulers 
 openly flouted the plainest considerations of morality. 
 
76 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 Nor is it chiefly of the colossal and almost bizarre 
 wickedness of such monsters as Malatesta, Sixtus IV., 
 Alexander VI., and Cesare Borgia that we have to 
 think. The worst feature of the time was the general 
 tone of laxity and flippancy throughout society, that 
 widespread demoralisation which was so subtle in its 
 influence that even decent people grew tolerant of evil, 
 and few apparently thought or cared much for the cor- 
 ruption at their doors. Some of the most eminent 
 humanists were notorious ill-livers, like the brilliant 
 Politian, who was, for ^ while at least, addicted to the 
 lowest forms of vice. <JLovers of learn ing_and art_ji> 
 duilged in brutal crimesj^enjoyment of beauly^ went 
 along^witElhe coarsest sensuaTTiy^'vuIgarTTitrtgu^s^j^ 
 broils occurred"amrd surrounding oFThe^ mdsf exquisite. 
 Tefinemeat, ~Tra[sjs^th 
 
 sance which Br€«¥mn^Jias_iliustrated so pbweffuTIy~irr 
 "The Bishop orders his_, Tomb at^BrTfaxed^^arid'' 
 ^ich justifies the most vehement of Ruskin's denuncia- 
 tions. 
 
 Now a most important question arises here — What is 
 the explanation of this moral decadence ? And I put it 
 at this point because it is necessary to mark the real 
 relations between humanism and the current depravity. 
 It is too often assumed that such relations were relations 
 of cause and effect ; that the enthusiasm for everything 
 Greek and Roman which followed the classic revival 
 bred a spirit of neo-paganism, which was alone respon- 
 sible in its turn for the demoralisation of Italian life. 
 This, however, is a very narrow and imperfect view. 
 Examination shows that there was at no time any 
 necessary connection between the most ardent devotion 
 to classical pursuits and immorality, or even scepticism. 
 Petrarch was not a neo-pagan, but an orthodox church- 
 man and a man of intensely devout nature; Guarino 
 
Italian Neo-paganism 77 
 
 da Verona and Vetterino da Feltre combined Chris- 
 tianity with their classicism ; and if men like Ficino 
 and Pico della Mirandola were lax in doctrine, they 
 found in Plato, Socrates, and Plutarch — as well they 
 might — moral inspiration and support. The real causes 
 behind Italian corruption were the sociaPdisorganisa- 
 tion which followed perpetual internecine wars, the 
 unscrupulous spirit of policy bred of this and of the 
 fierce struggle for existence, the chaos which inevitably 
 ensued on the too rapid collapse of the old order of 
 ideas, and the iniquitous scandals which defamed the 
 Church and many of its greatest official representatives. 
 But though classical enthusiasm cannot be charged 
 with the heavy responsibility of the paganism which 
 ran riot in contemporary Italy, neither on the other hand 
 can it be entirely relieved of it. In the peculiar Italian 
 temperament the all-absorbing love of culture and 
 beauty certainly did help to create moral insensibility, 
 while the classical reaction against the asceticism and 
 dogmatism of theology accelerated the tendency towards 
 libertine excess in conduct and thought. Justly anxious 
 to assert the rights of human nature, with all its powers 
 and passions, against the repressive creeds of the past, 
 the lover of pagan literature was apt at times to proclaim 
 his gospel of emancipation a trifle too stridently; and 
 it will not be denied that there was much in that pagan 
 literature to give a glamour to indulgence. The impulse 
 behind any movement, it may be argued, must in some 
 measure be held accountable for all its consequences; 
 the classic impulse, therefore, not only for the indi- 
 vidualism and the secularism of Renaissance Italy, but 
 also for the unabashed egotism to which the individual- 
 ism led, and that lust for merely material satisfactions 
 which grew out of the secularism. This view may, 
 indeed, be contested. But in any event, if humanism 
 
78 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 did little in a positive way to cause or increase the 
 moral rot of Italian society, it is certain that it did 
 nothing to stop that rot when once it had set in. Italian 
 humanism was not necessarily immoral, but it was 
 commonly indifferent, and meanwhile no other force 
 came into operation to prevent the moral disintegration 
 which at least it was powerless to check. 
 
 The contrast between Italy and the northern 
 countries is now apparent. Beyond the Alps the 
 Renaissance was saved from the worst excesses of the 
 southern revival, and, though the explanation of this 
 is in part, of course, to be sought in general conditions, 
 stress must still be laid on the fact that in Germany, 
 France, and England the humanistic movement was 
 accompanied by the awakening of the moral nature. 
 We must not, indeed, press the contrast in question 
 too far. The social causes behind the demoralisation 
 of Italy were to some extent at work elsewhere, and 
 results followed similar in kind, though happily differ- 
 ing in degree. Even among the Reformers in Germany 
 and the Huguenots in France there was plenty of 
 personal license, while the neo-paganism of the England 
 of the sixteenth century, with its fierce passions, its 
 feverish temper, and its lust of life, is familiar to all of 
 us in the mirror of the drama if not in the writings of 
 the moralists. Yet if the difference to be recognised be 
 one only of degree, in this matter difference of degree 
 is of the utmost importance, i' Wherever the energies 
 of the Reformation were allowed free play, they 
 brought with them a strong impulse to social and moral 
 regeneration; the vigorous protests of Calvinism and 
 Puritanism against the prevailing profligacy may in 
 particular be cited in illustration. Here the peculiar 
 situation of England calls for special remark.) In 
 Germany humanism was absorbed by the Reformation. 
 
Humanism in England^ 79 
 
 In France the Reformation was too soon stamped out. 
 fin England the Reformation was consummated just 
 ^hen humanism began to penetrate society, and there-; 
 after, though with some temporary interruption and' 
 no little friction, the two movements went on side by ^ 
 side. In England, therefore, a far closer connection \ 
 existed between the two great forces of the Renaissance \ 
 — the intellectual and the spiritual — than was possible ] 
 elsewhere. It is this combination of influences which 
 goes far to explain both the greatness and the contra- j 
 dictions of Elizabethan life and of the literature to 
 which it gave birth. ^ ^-^^"^ 
 
 ^^-'V-H 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 The Renaissance in Religion — The Reformation 
 
 I. — PRELIMINARIES OF THE REFORMATION 
 
 Though conflict early broke out between them, it is a 
 mistake to regard the Reformation as a reaction against 
 the Renaissance. Born of the same revulsion against 
 the dogmatism and sterility of the past, and inspired 
 by the same craving for emancipation and individuality, 
 it is rather to be interpreted as the spiritual and moral 
 side of the great comprehensive movement the intel- 
 lectual aspect of which is principally connected with the* 
 revival of classical antiquity. The close association of| 
 the Reformation and humanism will become apparent asl 
 we proceed. But before we enter into details we must 
 briefly consider our subject in some of its broader 
 relationships. 
 
 The great revolt of the first half of the sixteenth 
 century had long been foreshadowed in growing 
 hostility to the Roman Church on political and national 
 no less than on moral grounds. Hildebrand's concep- 
 tion of Christendom as a single state under the rule of 
 the Roman Pontiff as suzerain or sovereign-in-chief was 
 too imposing to be abandoned by his successors, and 
 the lofty pretensions which he had formulated were 
 again and again set forth by them in the plainest 
 possible terms. The supremacy claimed by the papacy 
 was, therefore, temporal as well as spiritual. The Pope 
 held the keys of earth and heaven. He assumed the 
 
 80 
 
Political Claims of the Church 8i 
 
 right to depose kings, assign their territories, exonerate 
 their subjects from allegiance to them. Alexander VI. 
 acted as lord of the universe, with full power to grant 
 and to withhold, when in his bull, "Inter Caelia 
 Divinae," he presented the New World to Ferdinand 
 and Isabella. 
 
 It is astonishing that these^ pretensions should thus 
 have been maintained and repeated even after the 
 Babylonish Captivity (1345-76) and the great Western 
 Schism (1378-1417). But the papacy did not emerge 
 from that trying period with prestige unimpaired. The 
 amazing spectacle of two rival infallible head^ of a 
 united Christendom anathematising and excommunicat- 
 ing each other was calculated to shake the loyalty even 
 of those who believed most firmly in the Pope as 
 God's vicar on earth ; and it was not easy to revive 
 that loyalty even after the "peace of the Church" had 
 been restored. Already the development of the theory 
 of the Holy Roman Empire, to balance that of the Holy 
 Catholic Church, had forced a controversy concerning 
 papal claims on the temporal side; and the bitter 
 struggle between the imperial party and the papal party 
 was, under one of its aspects, a clear manifestation of 
 the activity of the rising secular spirit. That the papal 
 party deeply resented the doctrines of the party of the 
 empire shows how tenaciously they held to the Pope's 
 supposed temporal prerogatives. Dante's argument in 
 "De Monarchia" that the imperial authority is not 
 delegated by the Church, but descends directly from 
 God, the source of all authority,' and that the empire 
 was, therefore, supreme within the secular sphere, was 
 so distasteful to supporters of the Hildebrandine theory 
 that in 1326 the book was burned as heretical by the 
 legate of Pope John XXII., and in the sixteenth century 
 was placed on the Index. To a large extent, of course, 
 
82 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 the struggle of Emperor and Pope was merely a 
 practical trial of strength. But the doctrine of the 
 Pope's temporal supremacy was also challenged. In 
 his treatise on the Donation of Constantine (1440), 
 undertaken at the request of Alfonso of Naples, the 
 great humanist, Lorenzo Valla, proved that the alleged 
 donation was a forgery, and thus destroyed one of the 
 foundation-stones of the papal claims. 
 
 Meanwhile, as one result of the Great Schism, the 
 idea of a General Council, which had long lain dormant, 
 was revived, and with the conflict between the Pope 
 and the councils, the story of the former's effort to 
 maintain his position passes into another phase, the 
 point now at issue being whether the Pope was superior 
 to the Church in Council or the Church in Council to 
 the Pope. During the contest, which was roughly a 
 contest between the autocratic and the democratic views 
 of ecclesiastical government, France and Germany took 
 occasion to advance distinct claims for the independence 
 of their national churches. Both at Constance and at 
 Basel attempts were made to check papal absolutism, 
 and in the Pragmatic Sanction of 1438 conciliar 
 supremacy was formally asserted. But the great 
 councils, instead of voicing the unanimous opinion of 
 the Church, expressed little more than the clash- 
 ing interests of the nations represented in them; 
 their influence, therefore, was very slight, and their 
 practical failure left the Popes in possession of the 
 field. 
 
 It is more important, however, to notice that with 
 the growth of the territorial ambitions of the papacy 
 on the one side, and with the steady consolidation of 
 the secular powers on the other, there was a continual 
 increase in tension between the Holy See and national 
 rulers. The development all over Europe of the spirit 
 
Ecclesiastical Abuses 83 
 
 of national self-consciousness was itself a menace to the 
 Roman doctrine of suzerainty. Controversy broke out 
 repeatedly on many points. One constant source of 
 irritation was the ecclesiastical contention that the 
 clergy, as owing allegiance only to the Church, were 
 entirely independent of the rule of the princes in whose 
 territories they lived. Concerned with the administra- 
 tion of justice within their own domains, such rulers 
 naturally rebelled against the immunities thus enjoyed 
 by a large class of the community, who could not be 
 reached by the arm of the secular law. This was a 
 sufficiently serious matter, for, as the Diet of Niirnberg 
 in 1522 emphatically asserted, it was directly responsible 
 for all sorts of crime and was fatal to good government. 
 The notorious greed and venality of the Church was 
 another source of perpetual trouble. From the time of 
 John XXII. (1316-24) onward there had been a rapid 
 growth in the machinery of the papacy for the extortion 
 of money in the form of tithes, annates, procurations, 
 subsidies, dispensations for all sorts of breaches of the 
 canonical and moral laws, fees for innumerable things 
 done or left undone. The Papal Court became the 
 highest court of appeal in Christendom, and had a 
 thousand devices for sucking the blood out of the un- 
 fortunate litigants who carried their cases before it; 
 its chancery expanded into a bloated organisation of 
 highly paid officials, whose salaries necessitated ever- 
 increasing demands upon the purses of the faithful. 
 Extraordinary levies were made for special purposes. 
 Simony went on unchecked. Rich livings in different 
 countries were held by men who absorbed their revenues 
 without ever going near them — were held even by 
 children. The everlasting drain upon their resources 
 which resulted from these abuses became a problem of 
 vital importance to secular rulers ; money which should 
 
84 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 have been kept at home to enrich the national exchequer 
 was perpetually flowing forth to fill the coffers of the 
 Papal Court. The great local ecclesiastics showed them- 
 selves as extravagant and rapacious as the members of 
 the Sacred College themselves; they lived like wealthy 
 feudal nobles, keeping up a similar state and retinue. 
 Even the lower clergy, too, often incurred the same 
 reproach of worldliness; while the mendicant orders, 
 though bound by stringent vows of poverty, had grown 
 rich and had become a byword for the way in which 
 their affluence was abused. Intricate financial con- 
 siderations have thus to be included among the causes 
 which led to national revolts against Rome. It is 
 necessary to emphasise this fact for its importance 
 in connection with the Reformation on its political 
 side. 
 
 At the root of the great reaction, however, lay the 
 protest of the conscience against the moral rottenness 
 of the unreformed Church. This rottenness began at 
 headquarters, and spread thence through the entire 
 ecclesiastical system. In carrying out its policy of 
 aggrandisement, the papacy showed itself brutally 
 callous to all considerations of right or humanity. It 
 was through the "corrupt example " of the Papal Court, 
 as even Machiavelli declared, that Italy had lost its 
 religion, and had lapsed into heathenism. In a piece 
 of biting satire Boccaccio told of a visitor to Rome who 
 left the Holy City more than ever convinced of the 
 divine truth of Christianity : only divine truth could 
 possibly survive the scandalous lives of its official 
 exponents ! * On his first journey to Rome, Luther, 
 when he came in sight of the walls, threw up his hands 
 in an ecstasy, exclaiming: "Greetings, thou Holy 
 Rome ! " He soon found Holy Rome a sink of iniquity, 
 
 * " Decamerone," I. ii. 
 
State of the Papal Court 85 
 
 and what he saw in it left an indelible impression 
 on his mind. The knowledge which Hutten obtained 
 at first hand of the Court of Julius II. — the "scourge 
 of mankind " and a wolf rather than a shepherd — opened 
 his eyes once and for all to the real condition of the 
 papacy; on his second visit, in 15 16, he gave his 
 opinions in a series of epigrams sent to his friend, 
 Crotus Rubianus, at home : "You may live by plunder, 
 commit murders and sacrilege; break the laws as you 
 will ; your talk and actions may be shameful ; you may 
 revel in lust and deny God; but, if you bring money 
 with you, you are a respectable man ! " The almost 
 incredible corruption of the papacy during the period 
 immediately preceding the Reformation is familiarly 
 illustrated by the lives and characters of some of those 
 who occupied the Fisherman's chair : by Sextus IV., 
 who connived in political conspiracy and assassination ; 
 by the licentious and spendthrift Innocent VIII., who 
 got so deeply into debt that he had to pledge the papal 
 tiara; by the monstrous Alexander VI., infamous scion 
 of an infamous stock, for whom poison and the dagger 
 were but commonplaces in a career of avarice and lust ; 
 by the domineering and unscrupulous Julius II., who, 
 to carry out his schemes, did not hesitate to plunge 
 Italy into civil war; by the worldly-minded Leo X., 
 who, Medici enough to cherish political ambitions, and 
 to cloak them beneath the mask of facile benevo- 
 lence, yet sought at the same time to enjoy life by 
 indulging at once his aesthetic tastes and his fondness 
 for low, and even blasphemous, jesting. Meanwhile, 
 little was left even of the pretence of piety. The great 
 ecclesiastics of the Papal Court treated matters of faith 
 with an indifference which they made no attempt to 
 conceal. "This fable of Christ," a great dignitary of 
 the Vatican is reported to have said, " has been a source 
 
86 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 of great profit to us." The spiritual claims of the 
 papacy were a current joke even among their supporters. 
 Secular attainments rather than religious zeal were the 
 passport to preferment. Cardinal Bembo, who advised 
 a friend not to read St. Paul's Epistles lest their 
 barbarous style should spoil his own, was appointed 
 secretary to Leo X. on the strength of his Ciceronian 
 Latinity. Clerics of high standing openly refused to 
 use the Vulgate because of its unclassical diction. The 
 cynical contempt of the Vatican even for the traditions 
 of decency was even more conclusively shown in its 
 attitude towards those whose writings reflected the 
 foulest spirit of the times. Filelfo's satires, described 
 by Symonds as "the most nauseous compositions that 
 coarse spite and filthy fancy ever spawned," were read 
 by Nicholas V., who rewarded their author with a 
 gift of 500 ducats. The ribaldry and scurrility of 
 Poggio received no official reproof. Aretino's unspeak- 
 able depravity escaped censure. Beccadilli's excursions 
 into indecency were no obstacle to his advancement. 
 That this corruption at the very centre of the Church 
 was one cause of the frightful religious and moral 
 decadence of Renaissance Italy has already been pointed 
 out. In particular we must emphasise that disastrous 
 influence which it exerted in widening the chasm 
 between religion and life. Superstition flourished, as 
 it often does, on the soil of unbelief. Malatesta had 
 the sacraments administered to him when he died ; 
 Machiavelli was attended by a priest during his last 
 hours; Caterina Sforza endowed convents and built 
 churches in reparation to God for every act of crime; 
 Benvenuto Cellini was at once a devout Catholic and 
 a ruffian, a liar, a thief, and a murderer. But living 
 faith — the faith that enters into and fashions character 
 — had almost gone. The great desire of the papacy 
 
The Eve of the Reformation 87 
 
 on the eve of the Reformation was simply to be left 
 alone. Its temper was that of easy-going tolerance to- 
 wards all who were wise enough in their sinning not to 
 interfere with its position or interests. This was the 
 temper of the selfish Leo; and it greatly favoured the 
 spread of the licensed hypocrisy which was generally 
 fashionable. Hence those who looked to Rome for in- 
 spiration and guidance were doomed to disappointment. 
 Elsewhere, the Church was fast turning distrust into 
 active hostility by its defiance of its own nominal teach- 
 ings. Its flaunting worldliness was an offence in the 
 eyes of thoughtful and earnest men. The evil living 
 of the clergy, high and low, became a text for evan- 
 gelical preachers and a theme for satire in all European 
 literatures. In the case of the mendicant orders them- 
 selves the scandal was all the more flagrant because, 
 keeping up as they did the semblance of special sanctity, 
 they added hypocrisy to their other sins. 
 
 The history of the Church, then, for a hundred and 
 fifty years before the Reformation, is the history of a 
 steady movement from bad to worse. Satirised, ridi- 
 culed, denounced, execrated, the Roman Curia held 
 obstinately to its evil way, caring little for secular 
 remonstrance or conciliar reproof. Then agitation 
 apparently died down. On Leo X.'s accession there 
 seemed less demand for reform than there had been at 
 any time during the previous century. The Church 
 was, in fact, fast lapsing into a dream of fancied 
 security, when it was rudely awakened by the bursting 
 of the great German storm. 
 
 II. — EARLY MOVEMENTS OF REFORM IN ITALY 
 
 Efforts to correct ecclesiastical abuses began almost 
 as early as the abuses themselves, and the record of 
 
88 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 them down to the opening of the sixteenth century 
 provides matter for an almost continuous history. 
 
 This is as true of Italy as of other countries. Among 
 political parties, the Ghibellines stood throughout for 
 opposition to the Hildebrandine conception of the 
 Church and the growth of its territorial ambitions ; and 
 here it is that the great name of Dante finds a place 
 in the bead-roll of the reformers. Within the Church 
 the spirit of regeneration sometimes took strange forms. 
 This was the case in the tw^elfth century with the 
 apocalyptic teachings of Joachim, abbot of the Cistercian 
 monastery of Floris in Calabria. A disciple who 
 collected the master's scattered treatises into a single 
 volume, which he called "The Everlasting Gospel," 
 declared that this was nothing less than the gospel 
 named in Revelation xiv. 6, and that it would shortly 
 supersede the New Testament. The basis of the theory 
 set out in it is that of three periods of human history 
 corresponding to the three persons of the Trinity; the 
 rule of the Father belonged to Old Testament dispensa- 
 tion ; that of the Son to the order initiated by the New 
 Testament; now the *'last days" were at hand, when 
 the world was to enter upon the reign of the Holy 
 Ghost. The tendency of this theory was at once 
 strongly anti-sacerdotal and strongly antinomian ; it 
 was one of the influences behind the Albigensian move- 
 ment; it was also largely responsible for many of the 
 curious sects and associations which sprang up all over 
 Europe during the thirteenth century, and of which 
 the Brethren of the Free Spirit, the Fratecelli, the Beg- 
 hards, and the Flagellants may be named as examples. 
 Far more serious work was meanwhile undertaken by 
 a succession of impassioned preachers in different parts* 
 of Italy : by Arnold of Brescia, in the twelfth century ; 
 by Giovanni of Vicenza, in the thirteenth ; by Giacoponi 
 
Savonarola 89 
 
 di Todi, at Pavia, in the fourteenth ; by San Bernardino, 
 at Florence, early in the fifteenth. 
 
 Last and greatest of these inspired exponents of 
 pure religion amid the corruptions of their age was 
 Girolamo Savonarola (1452-98). The grandson of a 
 famous Paduan physician, he himself was originally 
 destined for the medical profession; but, filled with 
 loathing of the evil which he saw everywhere about him, 
 he left his home in secret and entered the Dominican 
 order. In 1483 he preached the Lenten sermons in the 
 Church of San Lorenzo in Florence, and failed con- 
 spicuously to find his public, his harsh voice and plain 
 style of oratory being greatly against him. It was not 
 till 1490, when he began to preach in the garden of San 
 Marco, that the Florentines awoke to the fact that they 
 had a prophet in their midst; and if any doubt concern- 
 ing his extraordinary powers remained, it was dissipated 
 by his Cathedral sermons during the following year. 
 There was nothing in the doctrinal sense new in his 
 message. His theology was that of Aquinas, his idea 
 of the Church absolutely mediaeval. But he was a man 
 of lofty spirituality and rigorous asceticism ; he had 
 passion, eloquence, and that magnetic kind of person- 
 ality which is potent to sway and influence men ; and his 
 bold denunciations of those in the highest places, his 
 apocalyptic warnings, his mystical raptures, and his 
 direct personal appeals were alike calculated to stir the 
 restless giddy public of his day. The Florentines, who 
 a few years before had turned deaf ears, now poured 
 from shop and market-place, from counting-house and 
 studio, to listen to him ; the city shook with excitement ; 
 and when Lorenzo the Magnificent sent messages to 
 him imploring him to use more discretion in his utter- 
 ances, the intrepid reformer replied that Lorenzo himself 
 would do well to remember the judgment to come. Some 
 
90 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 of the most famous humanists in that brilliant capital of 
 humanism fell under his spell. Touched by his influence, 
 Pico della Mirandola changed the whole course of his 
 life ; Ficino of the Academy, who kept two lamps always 
 burning, the one before the image of the Virgin, the 
 other before the bust of Plato, was for a time his disciple ; 
 Politian was deeply moved by him; the dying Lorenzo 
 himself sought his ministrations; while painters like 
 Lorenzo di Credi and Fra Bartolommeo, swayed by his 
 teachings, abandoned their pagan studies and turned to 
 religious themes. Even more marked was the impres- 
 sion made by him upon the masses of the people. For 
 the moment, the flames of the great revival swept on un- 
 checked, consuming everything in their way. The call 
 to repentance echoed far and wide through the luxurious 
 society of Medicean Florence. At carnival time a huge 
 "bonfire of vanities" was built in the piazza, and cards 
 and dice, licentious pictures and amorous verses, rich 
 costumes and splendid jewels, were heaped up together 
 in one vast hecatomb of sacrifice. Rome could no 
 longer ignore invectives against the Church when sup- 
 ported by such practical demonstrations as these. 
 Alexander VL, who had himself been directly attacked, 
 determined accordingly to silence the dangerous dema- 
 gogue. Characteristically enough, he first tried bribery 
 in the shape of a cardinal's hat. Savonarola replied 
 that the only red hat he would ever accept was the red 
 hat of martyrdom. This was in 1495. In that year a 
 change seems to have come over the spirit of his enter- 
 prise. The popular ferment which his preaching had 
 produced began to react upon him; he was himself 
 carried away by it and lost his balance ; he saw apoca- 
 lyptic visions; grew wild in action and more and more 
 frenzied in speech. Unfortunately, too, he was drawn 
 into the whirlpool of public affairs, and this further 
 
Savonarola 91 
 
 hastened his ruin. Yet genuine moral fervour and spiri- 
 tual enthusiasm still gave substance and meaning to his 
 words. The Roman Curia became more and more 
 alarmed ; political excitement and discontent in Florence 
 gave the Pope his opportunity : Savonarola was arrested 
 and put on trial on charges of heresy and sedition. 
 The result w^as, of course, a foregone conclusion. 
 Imprisonment and protracted torture were the 
 closing stages of the tragedy. Then Savonarola's 
 wonderful career ended in a cruel death by strangling 
 and fire. 
 
 Unfortunately, his influence, great as it was while it 
 lasted, did not last long. The society which he sought 
 to save was too far gone in evil to be permanently 
 affected by him. His spiritual fervour produced only 
 a momentary agitation ; the demands he made, the stan- 
 dards he set were altogether beyond the reach even of 
 those who had listened most devoutly to his message. 
 The wave of emotionalism passed, reaction set in, and 
 then things were much as they had been before. Only 
 in a most indirect way can Savonarola be associated 
 with the later German movement; he helped Luther, as 
 Villari suggests, by giving to the world "a final proof 
 that it was hopeless to hope in the purification of 
 Rome." 
 
 Savonarola's failure is indeed significant. The work 
 of practical reform was wholly alien from the temper of 
 Renaissance Italy. Dissatisfaction with ecclesiastical 
 corruption expressed itself, not in efforts towards amend- 
 ment, but rather in a flippant cynicism which rriade light 
 both of the dogmatic formalism on which the Church 
 insisted and of the moral depravity which went along 
 with it. Such flippant cynicism was treated by the 
 Church with characteristic tolerance; ecclesiastical 
 thunders were reserved for those who troubled its peace. 
 
92 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 It was only when its teachings were distinctly chal- 
 lenged, therefore, that it awoke from its easy-going 
 indifference and addressed itself to the congenial task 
 of stamping out the seeds of heresy. The fates of Pom- 
 panazzi, Giordano Bruno, and Vanini suffice to show 
 upon what ground ecclesiastical authority might always 
 be moved to action. It was quick enough to strike when 
 either its temporal interest or its intellectual supremacy 
 was imperilled. 
 
 It was natural at a time when traditional creeds were 
 rudely shaken that earnest thinkers, like Pompanazzi, 
 should anticipate the decay and disappearance of Chris- 
 tianity; equally natural, as attention was so largely 
 turned to the classical past, that some here and there 
 should believe with Gemisthos Pletho in the ultimate 
 displacement of Christianity by some kind of revived 
 pagan philosophy. The most serious religious move- 
 ment in the Italy of this period, however, is to be found 
 in the efforts of the Platonists — of such men as Ficino 
 and Pico della Mirandola — to reconcile Christian reve- 
 lation with the religion of ancient Greece. Put forth 
 without the slightest sense of the real meaning of 
 religious evolution, these efforts strike us to-day as sin- 
 gularly jejune and childish. They are nevertheless inter- 
 esting as a phase of speculative thought through which 
 it was inevitable that certain minds should pass under 
 the combined influences of humanism and theology. 
 But it was upon certain minds only that such combined 
 influences could work with the force required to produce 
 these results. A more common way of circumventing 
 the difficulties which arose from the clash of new thought 
 with ancient dogma was found in the convenient 
 doctrine of the two-fold nature of truth : that theological 
 truth was one thing, and philosophical truth another 
 This was particularly acceptable to scientific thinkers 
 
 
Albigenses and Waldenses 93 
 
 who were thus able to follow their speculations whither- 
 soever they might lead without getting themselves 
 entangled in dangerous theological controversies. 
 
 III. — EARLY MOVEMENTS OF REFORM OUTSIDE ITALY 
 
 Outside Italy the spirit of discontent, whether with 
 the papacy, or with the ecclesiastical system in general, 
 or with the official creed of Christendom, found expres- 
 sion in repeated abortive movements of protest or re- 
 volt. The heretical Albigenses, who abounded in the 
 Valley of the Rhone from about the beginning of the 
 twelfth century onward, may be included among the early 
 reformers on account of their opposition to the dogmas 
 and discipline of the Roman Church. They w^ere prac- 
 tically wiped out by Innocent III. and Simon de Mont- 
 fort in the twenty years' war (1209-29), in which the 
 whole country of Languedoc was given over to fire 
 and the sword. Almost contemporaneously with these 
 another sect arose in the south of France from the teach- 
 ings of Peter Waldo, of Lyons, who, having read the 
 New Testament for himself and discovered how much 
 at variance with its explicit directions was the existing 
 state of the Church, initiated a movement for the restora- 
 tion of apostolic Christianity. The inspiring purpose 
 of the Waldenses was more purely practical than that 
 of the Albigenses, with whom, however, they were 
 commonly confused, and whose fate they partly shared. 
 But notwithstanding continual and drastic persecution 
 they spread to other portions of France, to Switzerland, 
 and even to Italy, until at length, in 1488, Innocent VIII. 
 succeeded in organising a crusade against them, which 
 was carried to a successful issue in the pitiless spirit 
 and with all the accompanying atrocities which history 
 too often associates with outbursts of ecclesiastical zeal. 
 
94 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 A remnant survived this holy war of extermination and 
 kept the sect alive. It merged with the Calvinists after 
 the Reformation. 
 
 In dealing with these manifestations of the insurgent 
 spirit the Church had found it relatively easy, by the 
 employment of physical force, to keep the upper hand. 
 It encountered greater difficulties farther north. Of 
 Wyclif and the Lollards I shall speak later. Here it is 
 necessary only to point out that the teachings of that 
 English herald of the Reformation were rapidly carried 
 to the newly-founded University of Prague by Oxford 
 students and members of the suite of Richard II.'s 
 Bohemian queen ; that there they were caught up and 
 appropriated by John Huss; and that the great Bohe- 
 mian movement of the early fifteenth century was thus 
 in large part a direct product of English inspiration. 
 The downfall of Huss was compassed by a policy of 
 peculiar infamy : the imperial safe-conduct under which 
 he had appeared before the Council of Constance was 
 immediately set at naught on the ground that it was 
 unlawful to keep faith with a heretic; and he, like his 
 disciple, Jerome of Prague, just before him, was sent to 
 the stake. Once more — this time by shameful perfidy — 
 the Church had triumphed. But its victory was dearly 
 bought. Political causes combined with popular indig- 
 nation aroused by Huss* death to bring about the Bohe- 
 mian war, which, with its innumerable complications, 
 was for many years the occasion of grave anxiety at 
 Rome. In the end peace was secured, in part by force, 
 in part by compromise. But the war itself had disturbed 
 the mind of Europe, while the signal successes of the 
 Bohemian peasants against the trained troops of the 
 Emperor had furnished a striking proof of the rising 
 power of the common man. Nor did the murder of 
 Huss by any means involve the cessation of his spiritual 
 
Germany and the Reformation 95 
 
 influence. Before many years were over preachers of 
 his gospel were busy in a work of propagandism which 
 extended from Scotland in the north to Spain in the 
 south. Everywhere the seeds of the new religious 
 thought were thus being scattered far and wide, some, 
 indeed, to fall on rocky ground, but some on fruitful 
 soil. Had the Hussites commanded the resources of the 
 printing press it is very possible that Luther's work 
 might have been very largely accomplished a hundred 
 years before his time. As it was, the great Bohemian 
 revolt, like the earlier movements in France and Eng- 
 land, was a premonition of the final challenge against 
 existing ecclesiasticism which was presently to shake 
 Europe from end to end. Here and there, at least, 
 men were--k££nly-aIive_to th^atal differe nce betwee n_the 
 C hristianity they saw about them and that of whirh 
 theyj;eadjn_lli£ir_New^^^^ here and there, such 
 
 clear perception of what was wrong in the modes and 
 teachings of the Church prompted efforts for a return to 
 purer and simpler forms of life and faith. From 
 generation to generation, in the face of persistent perse- 
 cution, the spirit of reform thus remained alive. It 
 was reserved for the Germany of the early sixteenth 
 century to make that spirit effective. 
 
 As it is easy to explain the priority of Italy in the 
 revival of learning, so it is easy to explain the priority 
 of Germany in the real work of the Reformation. 
 
 Germany's great opportunity was the result of the 
 combination of many conditions. It was first of all to 
 Germany that Italy transmitted the quickening impulse 
 of the intellectual awakening of the Renaissance. The 
 new humanistic influence, turned directly into channels 
 of practical activity, did much to precipitate revolution 
 in the sphere of religious thought. Germany was at 
 the same time in a state of social upheaval and seething 
 
96 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 discontent. Everywhere there were symptoms that the 
 old order of things was fast breaking up. The feudal 
 nobles were against the towns and the merchants; the 
 great capitalists were against the guilds; the poor were 
 against the rich ; industrial troubles were rife, and were 
 suddenly intensified by a mysterious rise in prices, the 
 causes of which have never yet been satisfactorily ex- 
 plained. Such general unrest was obviously favourable 
 to a revolutionary movement in any field and along any 
 lines. In a special sense it was favourable to any move- 
 ment against the Church, for in Germany the ecclesi- 
 astical abuses of the age flourished in their grossest 
 forms. The enormous wealth of the clergy ; the princely 
 state of the great feudal prelates; the extortions prac- 
 tised under the forms of innumerable levies for all sorts 
 of purposes — these things had long since aroused a 
 spirit of impatience among the masses of the people; 
 and how much popular hatred of the Church was essenti- 
 ally social in its character is shown by the fact that 
 priests and Jewish money-lenders were embraced to- 
 gether in a single comprehensive condemnation. 
 Already some of the vital ideas of social reform had 
 found emphatic expression. Sebastian Brant, for 
 example, the friend of Wimpheling, had voiced the 
 general discontent with many things in church and 
 state in his famous satiric poem, the " Narrenschiff " ; 
 while the great Strassburg preacher, Geiler, had boldly 
 used the book as the text of a course of sermons which 
 still further popularised its teachings. The common 
 consciousness which was ready to respond to the 
 message of any new prophet was thus very different in 
 quality and depth of feeling from that to which Savona- 
 rola had made his appeal. Moreover, the traditional 
 antagonism between Germany and Rome, representing 
 the ancient rivalry of empire and papacy, has also to be 
 
Reuchlin 97 
 
 borne in mind, for we must never forget how much 
 national sentiment had to do with Germany's final repu- 
 diation of papal supremacy. 
 
 Many causes had thus been at work preparing the 
 way for the Teutonic revolt. The hour was at hand. 
 In Luther, the man came with the hour. Had he not 
 appeared, we may be certain that another man would 
 have arisen by whom his work would have been done 
 instead ; by whom, indeed, it is quite possible to argue, 
 it might conceivably have been more wisely done. But 
 it was Luther who was swept by a current, the direction 
 of which no one at the moment perceived, into the posi- 
 tion of leadership ; and however otherwise we may judge 
 him, we cannot deny that for leadership he was pecu- 
 larly fitted. It was he who unconsciously precipitated 
 the world-crisis which is now always associated with his 
 name. It was he who so stamped his tremendous 
 personality upon the whole movement that, ignoring 
 the stricter historical perspective, we think of him as 
 the actual creator of the Reformation. 
 
 IV. — THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY 
 
 If the drama of the German reformation begins with 
 Luther, there is still a prologue to that drama, the 
 chief figures in which are Reuchlin and Erasmus, of 
 whom Hutten said that together they lifted the Ger- 
 man nation out of barbarism. They have a special 
 interest for us here, because they show the close con- 
 nection between humanism and the renaissance in 
 religion. 
 
 I have already said something about the Reuchlin 
 controversy and the attack upon obscurantism to which 
 it gave rise. It was in this controversy that the new 
 learning first came to blows with the old theology. 
 
gS The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 Reuchlin dealt with the text of the Old Testament 
 primarily as a philologist. In that one fact lies his 
 particular claim to recognition among the motive-forces 
 in the intellectual history of his time. Despite his own 
 subsequent tendency towards mysticism, he set aside the 
 allegorical exegesis of scholastic theologians, and sought 
 instead, by the application of linguistic knowledge, to 
 discover the literal meaning of what he read. In taking 
 this course he was the first to reveal clearly the immense 
 utility of the apparatus and methods of the new learning 
 in the interpretation of the Scriptures. He also made 
 the new learning a rival to theology. Boldly correcting 
 St. Augustine and calling attention to the "innumerable 
 defects " of the Vulgate, he tacitly maintained that ques- 
 tions of scholarship had to be settled by the scholar, and 
 that where such were at issue it was for the specialist 
 to dictate to the theologian, and not for the theologian to 
 dictate to the specialist. It is thus easy to understand 
 why the Reuchlin controversy broadened out into a 
 general quarrel between the supporters of the old theo- 
 logy and the advocates of humanism, and why Reuchlin 
 himself takes his place among the pioneers of the 
 intellectual revival in the religious field. 
 
 While, however, Reuchlin 's influence deserves some 
 emphasis, it counted little after all in comparison with 
 that exerted by his younger contemporary, Erasmus. 
 (/iv«w^|Of ten it has been said that he was by far the greatest 
 dsingle figure in the history of the Reformation north of 
 jjthe Alps, Luther alone excepted. True as this is, it 
 jdoes not quite adequately define Erasmus's position. 
 ]To get him into his proper perspective we have to 
 remember that the original impulse behind the move- 
 ment of which Luther later obtained control was largely 
 provided by his teaching. In the familiar phrase, it 
 was he who laid the egg which Luther hatched,, though 
 
 1 
 
Erasmus St.-^'^^'''**'*"'^ 99 
 
 he himself greatly regretted th^ Luther should have 
 hatched a fighting cock out of ix. 
 
 All the root ideas of the /eform movement were in 
 fact explicitly set forth in tus writings. He denounced 
 the worldliness which had entered into the Church to 
 the destruction of its Christian purity. He attacked the 
 greed and dirt, the ignorance and vulgarity of the 
 friars. He condemned the lives of ecclesiastics of all 
 grades, from the poorest mendicants at one end of the 
 scale to the cardinals and the Pope at the other. He 
 emphasised the grievous burden of monastic vows. He 
 protested against the superstitions which disgraced the 
 current creed of Christendom, and the formalism which 
 had taken all the spiritual life out of its public worship 
 and made it an empty thing. He satirised the sterile 
 subtleties and ridiculed the pretensions of scholastic 
 theologians. He laid bare the wickedness of the traffic 
 in indulgences. All this he did in his " Praise of Folly," 
 published in 1509 — that is, some two years before 
 Luther's first journey to Rome. Elsewhere he taught 
 the religion of the heart in opposition to the religion 
 of ceremonial observances. Especially in his " Enchiri- 
 dion Militis Christiani," or "Handbook of the Christian 
 Soldier," he sent the individual man straight to the 
 Bible, at the same time insisting that the text of scrip- 
 ture must not be wrested from its plain meaning or 
 buried beneath allegorical glosses, but must be inter- 
 preted in the light of reason and common sense. In 
 virtue of its strongly individualistic quality particularly, 
 this book is in direct line with the teachings of the later 
 reformers. 
 
 Erasmus's most signal service to the cause of the 
 Reformation was, however, rendered in his labours on 
 the New Testament. It was through these that he most 
 fully realised his own central purpose — the destruction 
 
loo The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 of the evils which result from ignorance and obscur- 
 antism. His great edition of the New Testament, 
 published at Basel in 15 16, contained in parallel columns 
 the original text and a new Latin rendering of his own. 
 The object of the Greek text was to put the original 
 foundation documents of Christianity into the hands of 
 scholarly men, to the end that they might be enabled 
 to penetrate beneath the accumulated masses of com- 
 mentary and speculation, and to discover for themselves 
 what it was that the New Testament writers had actually 
 said. In this initial attempt to get back to the sources 
 — an attempt which he followed up in his editions of 
 Jerome and other early Fathers who had written under 
 the immediate influence of early Christian thought — 
 Erasmus was simply carrying the methods of humanism 
 over into the religious field. Its significance lies in the 
 fact that the Church was openly opposed to such union 
 of learning and theology. It had been pronounced a 
 heresy to refer to the original Hebrew or Greek text for 
 a reading, or to maintain that knowledge of such text 
 was requisite to a correct interpretation of scripture. 
 Even more important, however, was the translation which 
 Erasmus published along with the text. It must be re- 
 membered that the one and only translation authorised 
 by the Church was the Latin version of Jerome, 
 commonly known as the Vulgate. This had practically 
 supplanted the original text in western Christendom; 
 upon it the Church rested entirely; to it alone it per-| 
 mitted reference to be made; doctrines and proofs were 
 alike based upon it. By the mere issue of a new version 
 differing materially and at many points from the Vul- 
 gate, Erasmus directly challenged the authority of the] 
 Church ; while, in order that the full significance of his] 
 work might be made apparent, he added notes in which] 
 he called attention to the manifold errors of the Vulgate 
 
Erasmus loi 
 
 and to the differences between its readings and his own. 
 Though the work was dedicated to Leo X., who accepted 
 it without in the least reahsing all that it implied, 
 f' Erasmus did not hesitate to state that the famous text, 
 / "Upon this rock will I build my church," does not bear 
 j the narrow interpretation which adherents of the Petrine 
 tradition had fastened upon it. In this monumental 
 undertaking, then, Erasmus sought to lay the founda- 
 tions of a new Biblical scholarship. Nor was this all. 
 According to his own assertion, he further hoped that 
 it would ultimately lead not only to a truer knowledge 
 but also to a more popular distribution of the scriptures. 
 It was his desire that the New Testament should be 
 rendered into every vulgar tongue, that the masses of the 
 people as well as the priests should be able to study it, 
 each man for himself. "I wish," he wrote in his pre- 
 face, "that even the weakest woman should read the 
 Gospels — should read the Epistles of Paul ; and I wish 
 that they were translated into all languages, so that they 
 might be read and understood, not only by Scots and 
 \ Irishmen, but also by Turks and Saracens. I long that 
 \ the husbandman should sing portions of them to himself 
 \ as he follows the plough, that the weaver should hum 
 them to the tune of his shuttle, that the traveller should 
 j beguile with their stories the tedium of his journey." 
 In this again Erasmus was raising an issue which was 
 to take a prominent place later in the battle of reform. 
 If the Church had looked askance at independent 
 Latin translations of the Bible, still more of course 
 did every experiment in vernacular translation arouse 
 its antagonism. Pope Innocent III. had reprobated 
 "vulgar" versions on the very grounds mentioned by 
 Erasmus in advocating them — that through them 
 laymen, and even women, were enabled to read the 
 scriptures. Inquisitors distinctly referred to such 
 
102 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 , versions as a chief cause of the spread of heresy among 
 the people. 
 
 Erasmus holds an anomalous place in the history of 
 the Reformation. A chief influence in the beginnings 
 of the movement, he parted company with it as soon 
 as it took practical shape, and refused to follow his own 
 teachings to what would seem to have been their logical 
 issues. While a herald of the movement therefore, he 
 left its control to others, ultimately, indeed, after long 
 balancing and hesitation, throwing the weight of his 
 influence upon the opposing side. His defection was a 
 tragic disappointment to many of the stronger spirits of 
 his age. It filled the simple-hearted Albrecht Diirer 
 with the deepest sorrow: "Ah, God! is Luther dead? 
 Who will henceforth so clearly set forth the gospel to 
 us ? Oh ! Erasmus of Rotterdam, where art thou ? *'* 
 In the case of Hutten sorrow flamed into anger. 
 In his "Cum Erasmo Expostulatio " that fiery spirit 
 pours out his indignation against the man whom he 
 chooses to regard as a renegade from the Lutheran 
 party, accusing him roundly of cowardice, time-serving, 
 and dishonesty. "O disgraceful spectacle," he exclaims. 
 "Erasmus has submitted to the Pope. The Pope has 
 charged him not to let the dignity of the Papal Chair be 
 attacked. It is like Hercules in the service of Omphale. 
 Into the service of what a contemptible reprobate he 
 has entered ! What a transformation ! You who but 
 lately exhumed buried piety, brought the gospel to 
 light again out of holes and corners, and restored 
 religion, are now lending a helping hand to its destruc- 
 tion, banishment, extinction." Nor does he scruple to 
 tax Erasmus with the basest of motives : " If you prefer 
 to side with these parasites we must part. May you live 
 secure among the great, who make presents to you, and 
 
 * " Tagebuch der Reise in die Niederlande." 
 
Erasmus 103 
 
 who, if you will but write against Luther, will confer 
 bishoprics and fat livings upon you," with much more 
 to similar effect. It was easy for Erasmus in his reply 
 to these sweeping attacks* to show that his antagonist 
 had monstrously misunderstood his position and mis- 
 interpreted his motives. It was not so easy for him 
 then, nor has it been so easy for his apologists since, to 
 justify his course. The best case that can be made out 
 for him must finallj rest upon the essential qualities of 
 his personality, f His was not the temper of the" 
 reformer. He was a man averse from strife, and one 
 who sincerely believed that all the noise and confusion 
 of Luther's revolt was fatal to truth and genuine pro- 
 gress. It was in the nature of such a man to stand 
 aside and temporise. He hated fanaticism in every 
 form ; and the Lutheran party was filled with fanaticism. 
 He believed in reasonableness and culture, and the 
 I Lutheran party had chosen rather to appeal to emotion 
 I and passion. He did his best to preach moderation to 
 ' both sides ; but unfortunately, in that time of agitation, 
 his appeal was without effect. His attitude towards the 
 general questions at issue is perhaps sufficiently shown 
 in some remarks about relic-worship in his "Modus 
 Orandi Deum " (1523). He there refers to the shoes 
 and the linen rags of St. Thomas k Becket which he 
 had seen on a visit to Canterbury. Most of his com- 
 panions fell on their knees before them. "All this," 
 he writes, "seemed to John Colet, who was with me, 
 • an unworthy display. I thought it was a thing that we 
 must put up with until an opportunity should come to 
 reform it without disturbance." These words are very j 
 significant as a revelation of Erasmus's temper^/ 
 Unfortunately, however, as he never appears to have 
 
 * " Spongia Erasmi adversus Aspergines Hutteni " ("A Sponge to 
 wipe away Hutten's Aspersions "). 
 
104 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 learned, it is scarcely possible to avoid disturbance 
 when we get to close quarters with mighty evils. If the 
 work of reform is to be carried on at all, it will be by 
 men who are as little afraid of disturbance as they are for 
 their own safety. Goethe, to whom the attitude of the 
 great apostle of culture was naturally extremely sym- 
 pathetic, regretted that the shaping of the destinies of 
 the Reformation should ultimately have rested with 
 Luther instead of Erasmus. We may or may not be 
 inclined to share the regret. We should at least 
 recognise its futility. In such a time of crisis, leader- 
 ship will inevitably devolve upon the strong and resolute 
 man. 
 
 The beginnings of the Lutheran movement furnish 
 a striking illustration of Aristotle's dictum that revolu- 
 tions arise from great causes but small events. The 
 train of gunpowder had long been laid; but when the 
 Augustinian monk dropped his spark upon it, he him- 
 self did not in the least anticipate the tremendous 
 explosion which followed. 
 
 Martin Luther sprang from a sturdy peasant stock. 
 His father Johann, a rough, upright, impulsive man, 
 migrated from the family home in Thuringia, and 
 settled as a slate miner in Eisleben, in Saxony. There 
 the future reformer was born on St. Martin's Eve 
 (Nov. lo), 1483. His parents were miserably poor, 
 yet they resolved that their boy should be properly 
 educated and afterwards trained for the law. On the 
 completion of his school course he was accordingly sent 
 to the University of Erfurt. There he took his master's 
 degree in 1505. Before this, however, a radical change 
 had begun in him. The origin of this change has been 
 sought in various causes — in the death of a friend, in 
 his own great peril during a terrific thunderstorm, in 
 a chance examination of a Vulgate Bible in the Uni- 
 
Jn^i^:*^ A^^ 
 
Luther's Early Life 105 
 
 versity library. These alleged causes may belong to 
 history or to legend. What is certain is that with 
 startling suddenness Luther was awakened to an intense 
 realisation of spiritual things. In .opposition to his 
 father's wishes he resolved to embrace the monastic 
 life, and entered the convent of Augustinian monks at 
 Erfurt. Years later he dedicated his tractate on "The 
 Monastic Life " to his father in the simple words, " You 
 were right, dear father, after all." But, for the time 
 being, he submitted himself to the severest discipline 
 of vigil, fast, and penance. It was for him a season 
 of fierce struggle and awful agony. He felt crushed 
 beneath the burden of his sins; a profound melancholy 
 fell upon him; neither his austerities, nor his industry, 
 nor his earnest theological studies served to bring him 
 the peace of mind for which he craved. No pen, he 
 afterwards declared, could adequately describe the 
 anguish of that terrible time. He was fast drifting into 
 the absolute despair of a soul that knows itself eternally 
 lost, when he attracted the attention of Johann Staupitz, 
 the vicar-general of the Augustinian Congregation. 
 Very gently and wisely did that pious man deal with 
 the young monk's difficulties; he revoked the order of 
 his superior that he should not read the Bible; he indi- 
 cated to him the way which he believed would lead 
 him out of darkness into light. Long afterwards Luther 
 told Staupitz that it was he who had first pointed him 
 towards the great truth by the apprehension of which 
 he had found salvation. But the actual revelation of 
 it came through his personal study of St. Paul and 
 Augustine. It came in the form of the central evan- 
 gelical doctrine of justification by faith — the forgiveness 
 of sins freely granted by Divine mercy to all those 
 who put their trust in Christ's redeeming grace. It 
 was thus through his own spiritual experiences that 
 
io6 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 Luther laid the foundations upon which he was presently 
 to build. 
 
 Ordained priest in 1507, he left Erfurt the following 
 year to become an inmate of the Augustinian monastery 
 at Wittenberg and a teacher in the newly-established 
 University there. Alike by his lectures and by his 
 sermons, the words of which, as Melanchthon said, 
 were "born not on the lips but in the heart," he soon 
 began to make an impression upon his students and 
 fellow-monks. The Rector, who heard him occasion- 
 ally, thought that his strange fancies might well give 
 the doctors cause for trouble later on. 
 
 In the autumn of 151 1 came his memorable journey 
 to Rome, undertaken on business connected with his 
 order. He went there in the spirit of the devout pilgrim. 
 He saw with amazement and horror the glaring iniqui- 
 ties of the Sacred City. Yet still, in his own subsequent 
 language, *'an insane Papist," he strove rather to stifle 
 his indignation than to find a vent for it. Once only, 
 it seems, did it quite overmaster him. This was when, 
 according to the practice of the pilgrims, he was climb- 
 ing on his knees the so-called Scala Santa, which legend 
 declares to have been the stairway of Pilate's judgment 
 seat. Suddenly the words flashed upon his mind, "The 
 just shall live by faith." The impious absurdity of 
 what he was doing was too much for him. He rose to 
 his feet and walked down. 
 
 So he returned to his work in Wittenberg, zealous 
 for reform, yet unshaken in his loyalty to Pope and 
 Church; took his degree as a Doctor of Theology in 
 1512; continued his studies in the New Testament, 
 Augustine, and the mediaeval mystics; and by his 
 sermons and discourses greatly extended his influence 
 and fame. Justification by faith was already the text 
 and the key-note of all his teaching. Yet still the 
 
Indulgences 107 
 
 thought of schism had not yet entered his mind. Now 
 came the incident which was in the sequel to drive an 
 obedient son of the Church into open rebellion against 
 its authority. That incident was the appearance in 
 Wittenberg of a Dominican monk, Johann Tetzel, as a 
 hawker of Papal indulgences. 
 
 Originally, an indulgence meant the remission of the 
 penitential discipline which, even when a sin was for- 
 given, was deemed necessary for its expiation. Later, 
 indulgences took the form of commutation ; almsgiving 
 to the poor, money payments for religious or charitable 
 purposes, pilgrimages, and other pious works were sub- 
 stituted for regular canonical penances. During the 
 period of the crusades, for instance, special indulgences 
 were granted to those who fought for the cause of the 
 Church. By this time, the conception of the indulgence 
 had greatly expanded; it was now regarded as satisfying 
 not only the demands of canonical justice, but also the 
 justice of God to the remission or relaxation of the 
 pains of purgatory. This expansion went on stage by 
 stage with the development of the theory of the 
 thesaurus meritorum, or Treasury of Merits, composed 
 of the infinite merits of the Saviour and the good works 
 of supererogation done by the saints and all holy men 
 and women, living and dead. As all the faithful are 
 members of one body, and the good works of each 
 member are, as it were, the common property of all, 
 this treasury was held to form a kind of fund which 
 could be drawn upon in case of need, and the drafts 
 applied, on the vicarious principle, to making up the 
 incompleteness in good works of the sincerely repentant 
 but imperfect brethren. For a long time indulgences 
 were issued sparingly and care was exercised concerning 
 them. Their enormous multiplication followed, along 
 with many other abuses, the great western schism. 
 
io8 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 Then they were discovered to be a source of enormous 
 revenue by popes who were in chronic need of money; 
 and far worse abuses grew up when, as articles of sale, 
 they were distributed for payment by monks who were 
 financially interested in them. Hence arose that traffic 
 in indulgences which, before Luther's attack, had 
 already kindled the righteous anger of many who had 
 the good of the Church at heart. "The court of Rome 
 clearly has lost all sense of shame, for what could be 
 more shameless than these continual indulgences," 
 wrote Erasmus to Colet. "Virtue and heavenly bless- 
 ings are bought and sold in Rome," Hutten declared 
 in one of his caustic epigrams; "you may even buy 
 the privilege of sinning in the future." The subtle theo- 
 logian might indeed protest that no such privilege 
 was covered by the doctrine of indulgences. Like other 
 reformers, Luther was indifferent to logic chopping in 
 such a matter, and looked at it from the point of view 
 of those great masses of the people who knew and cared 
 nothing for fine scholastic distinctions. In 15 16 he was 
 already beginning to preach against indulgences. Next 
 year Tetzel's arrival stirred his feelings to fever heat. 
 We cannot wonder at this. If the traffic in indulgences 
 was as a general principle vicious, the special business 
 in which Tetzel was engaged, and his method of con- 
 ducting it, were vicious in a supreme degree.' 
 
 Leo X. wanted money for sundry purposes, among 
 them the continuation of work on the great church in 
 Rome which his predecessor had begun. He proclaimed a 
 plenary indulgence — a complete remission of all penance 
 — the chief condition for obtaining which was a money 
 contribution to his building fund. This indulgence was 
 farmed by the Archbishop of Mainz, and the sale of the 
 tickets, or Papal Letters, was entrusted by him to Tetzel 
 as his agent. Tetzel thereupon began his itinerary 
 
Luther and Indulgences 109 
 
 from town to town. At each town he entered a great 
 procession met him with banners and candles, and the 
 church bells were set ringing as the papal bull pro- 
 claiming the indulgence was borne triumphantly through 
 the streets on a cloth of purple and gold. Everywhere 
 in his sermons he made the most amazing assertions 
 concerning the efficacy of the wares which he offered to 
 the eager crowds which gathered about him : let them 
 pay the price, and not only would their own sins be 
 remitted, but the souls of their dead friends would also 
 be instantly released from purgatory. In due course 
 he entered Wittenberg. Luther soon learned of his 
 doings. "God willing," he exclaimed, "I will beat a 
 hole in his drum." On the day before the great festival 
 of All Saints, when hundreds of country folk flocked 
 into the town to inspect the relics displayed in the Castle 
 Church, he nailed to the door of that church 95 theses, 
 or propositions, concerning indulgences. These theses 
 were in Latin. A German version was, however, made 
 at the same time; and both original and translation 
 were at once sent to the University printing press for 
 multiplication. 
 
 In these theses Luther maintained that indulgences 
 have to do only with the satisfaction required by the 
 Church in the sacrament of penance and with penalties 
 canonically imposed; that they can remit neither guilt 
 nor divine punishment for sin, since these are both in 
 God's hand; that they have no efficacy for souls in 
 purgatory ; that as the repentant Christian receives God's 
 forgiveness direct, he does not need an indulgence; 
 that the Treasury of Merits cannot be the merits of 
 Christ or the saints, since these are efficacious without 
 the Pope's intervention ; and that the true Treasury of 
 Merits is the Holy Gospel of the Grace of God. A 
 certain efficacy in indulgences is conceded; but Luther 
 
 ^ 
 
no The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 is most concerned to emphasise their narrow limitations. 
 Their power, he declares, has been greatly exaggerated ; 
 ideas of their mysterious value have been deliberately 
 popularised by unscrupulous persons interested in 
 them. 
 
 The publication of these theses furnished a sensa- 
 tional illustration of the potency of the printing press. 
 Luther woke up to find himself a power far beyond 
 Wittenberg — far beyond Germany. 
 
 At first the Pope paid little attention to what he 
 regarded as a trivial dispute. Urged to action by 
 advisers who saw farther, he ordered Luther to Rome 
 to answer for his conduct. The Elector Frederick inter- 
 fered, and instead of Luther's going to Rome, Cardinal 
 Cajetan was sent as Papal Legate to Augsburg to 
 examine him and adjudge the case. Ill qualified for 
 his task, Cajetan lost his temper and demanded a formal 
 recantation, which Luther refused. In a public debate 
 with a former friend. Dr. Eck, he found himself com- 
 pelled by that astute antagonist to go farther than he 
 had intended in his opposition to Rome. He was thus 
 helped to the clarification of his ideas, and was 
 astonished to discover, as he put it, that he was "a 
 Hussite without knowing it, and that St. Paul and 
 Augustine had been Hussites." He then addressed 
 himself to the publication of treatises which had an 
 enormous circulation and exercised a profound influ- 
 ence on German thought. 
 
 By this time the Pope was seriously alarmed, and 
 issued a bull, "Exurge Domine," which reached Witten- 
 berg along with a command to the Elector to deliver 
 Luther up as a heretic. Amid tremendous excitement 
 Luther publicly burned the bull outside the city walls 
 beyond the Elster Gate. This was on Dec. lo, 1520. 
 Papal bulls had been burned before, but only by strong 
 
Progress of Luther's Revolt iii 
 
 kings with armies at their backs. By this daring act 
 a simple monk openly defied the Pope to do his worst. 
 In April of the following year Luther was ordered to' 
 appear in Worms before the first Diet of the newly- 
 elected Emperor Charles V. His enemies threatened 
 loudly; his friends were filled with anxiety; he knew 
 well that he was taking his life in his hands. But with 
 a quiet heroism that thrilled all Germany he obeyed the 
 summons. "Huss was burned, but not the truth with 
 him," was his answer to one who warned him of his 
 danger. SiaJidlngL^onjLbfiforeJEmpfiior^^ 
 bishopjsjnjhe Diet, Luther i s onej ^f the p:ranHpst^giii:es 
 inhistgryi He was called upon to retract. He replied 
 that he could retract nothing unless he was convinced 
 by scripture and reason that he was wrong. A futile 
 attempt was made by the papal party to send him to the 
 stake ; the case of Huss actually being cited as precedent. 
 Then an edict against him was obtained by treachery; 
 but the friendly Elector insured his safety by kidnap- 
 ping him and keeping him in concealment. His German 
 translation of the New Testament was the principal 
 occupation of his twelve months' enforced seclusion. 
 All Germany was now in a state of religious and social 
 ferment; the rising of the free nobles, the Peasants* 
 War, and the spread of the spirit of fanaticism among 
 the masses, together brought grave perils into Church 
 and state. Luther has been unjustly blamed for dis- 
 turbances which in fact arose naturally from the general 
 ferment of the time. His own efforts to arrest the pro- 
 gress of lawlessness, however we may judge his atti- 
 tude and policy, must be taken into account in any 
 critical estimate of his work in reform. But despite his 
 labours for sanity and order, such disturbances, the 
 Peasants' War particularly, were a serious blow to the 
 Lutheran movement; they broke up its unity, and 
 
112 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 checked the progress of the sentiment of nationality 
 which it had helped to kindle. In the year which saw 
 the end of the great popular rising, and the outburst of 
 an open quarrel between him and Erasmus, Luther took 
 the momentous step of marrying Katharina von Bora, 
 one of the nuns who under the influence of his teaching 
 had repudiated their ascetic vows. His married life was 
 singularly happy; but it was not allowed to interrupt 
 his labours as author and organiser. Henceforth, how- 
 ever, his intellectual history was one not of growth and 
 expansion, but of petrifaction and the dogmatic harden- 
 ing of his thought. He was thus led into bitter quarrels 
 with former associates, among them Zwingli, and to 
 absolute refusal to extend the hand of fellowship to the 
 Swiss reformers. The Augsburg Confession of 1530' 
 formulated and codified the Lutheran creed. This: 
 marks the definite establishment of Protestantism in Ger- 
 many. Few events of importance occurred in the 
 remaining sixteen years of Luther's life. He died at 
 Eisleben in 1546. 
 
 It is important to appreciate the gradual course of 
 Luther's divergence from Rome. When he made his 
 original protest against the indecency of Tetzel's proceed- 
 ings, he did so as a loyal son of the Church, never 
 for a moment doubting that he would have the hearty 
 support of his bishop and the approval of the Pope. 
 He began by believing fully in the right of the Church 
 to impose judgment. Urged to appeal, he wrote to the 
 legate that in accordance with precedent he would 
 appeal from the Pope ill informed to the Pope better 
 informed. His next step was the appeal from Pope to 
 council. It was only after he had passed through these 
 transitional stages of thought that he declared explicitly 
 to Cardinal Cajetan that the voice of the Pope was the 
 voice of God only when what the Pope said was in 
 
The Lutheran Revolution 113 
 
 conformity with the teachings of Holy Scripture. It 
 was the great debate with Eck which drove him to the 
 open assertion of the fallibility of the Church and the 
 right of private judgment. 
 
 On the historical side, and considered as part 
 of the general movement of the time in life and 
 thought, the Lutheran revolution is significant for 
 three reasons. 
 
 In the first place, there is the pure individualism of 
 Luther's doctrine. The eternal welfare of each indi- 
 vidual soul depends upon that soul's direct and personal 
 relations with God. There is no need of machinery. 
 No human agency must come between the soul and 
 God. 
 
 Hence, secondly, the essential anti-sacerdotalism of 
 his teaching. With him the lay spirit enters religion. 
 In order that the individual soul may be brought face 
 to face with God, the whole vast superstructure of 
 ecclesiasticism, with all its pretensions, is swept away. 
 As a result, the special sanctity of the priesthood and 
 of the so-called " religious " life is denied. The spiritual 
 priesthood of all believers is proclaimed. All human 
 relationships are made sacred. Men and women whose 
 lives are passed in the ordinary routine of earthly duties, 
 in the family, the workshop, the world, have just as 
 holy a "vocation" as that of the celibate and the 
 recluse. By the marriage of the priests the hieratic 
 caste is destroyed. Thus at every point Luther helped 
 to break down the mediaeval distinction between the 
 sacred and the secular, between the Church and the 
 world. 
 
 Finally, the Lutheran movement was fundamentally 
 German and national. Luther appealed to the German 
 people. He did so in his translation of the Bible, which, 
 though only one of many translations, had this pecu- 
 
114 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 liarity, that it was the first to use German at once racy, 
 clear, and good — the sort of German which, as he him- 
 self desired, could be understood and enjoyed by "the 
 mother in her home, the children in the street, the 
 common man in the market place." Incidentally, he 
 threw the weight of his influence into the cause of 
 national liberty, as well as individual liberty, against the 
 despotism of Rome. The German patriot had already 
 begun to realise that Germany would never be a nation 
 while the continual interference of the Pope in all its 
 domestic affairs was permitted. Luther's revolt was in 
 harmony with this growing nationalistic sentiment. 
 Political bondage bulked large in the eyes of men 
 like Hutten, with whom the Reformation at once 
 became a political movement. Nor is this all. Luther 
 asserted nationalism not against Papacy only, but against 
 the Empire as well. Charles V.'s attempt to restore the 
 Empire was the last dream of the middle ages in 
 politics. In this attempt he was foiled by Luther. 
 When he was crowned by the Pope in Rome in 1530 
 not one German prince was present. It is true that in 
 Germany itself the Reformation did not tend to unity 
 but to distintegration. This, however, was the result 
 rather of existing conditions than of the Reformation. 
 In the larger view, Charles's failure to realise his 
 imperial ambition marks the close of a chapter 
 in political history. Luther destroyed at once the 
 mediaeval conception of the Papacy and the mediaeval 
 conception of the Empire. 
 
 V. — THE REFORMATION IN SWITZERLAND, FRANCE, AND 
 ENGLAND 
 
 The special historical importance of the German 
 Reformation justifies our relatively detailed treatment of 
 
Zwingli and Calvin 115 
 
 it. The movements of reform in other parts of Europe 
 must be more briefly dealt with. 
 
 Almost contemporary with the German Reformation, 
 and independent of it, revolt against Latin Christianity 
 was successfully accomplished in Switzerland under 
 Huldreich (Ulrich) Zwingli. One year Luther's junior, 
 Zwingli was a disciple of the new learning which had 
 by this time reached Switzerland. He read Plato, and 
 he brought the critical spirit of humanism to bear upon 
 the interpretation of the New Testament. Like Luther, 
 he was stirred to open attack upon ecclesiastical abuses 
 by the scandal of the traffic in indulgences. Then he 
 entered upon a strenuous career as a preacher of a Gospel 
 Christianity substantially in harmony with that of the 
 Wittenberg apostle. His own canton of Zurich seceded 
 from Rome in 1525. Thence the movement which he 
 had initiated spread rapidly over Switzerland and even 
 into Southern Germany. His great controversy with 
 Luther on various points of doctrine, notably the sacra- 
 ment of communion, introduced dissensions into the 
 Reformed Church which were in the issue to prove fatal 
 to all hope of unity. A little later, the Forest Cantons, 
 clinging obstinately to the Roman Church, formed an 
 alliance against those other cantons which had embraced 
 Protestantism. Civil war ensued, in one of the battles 
 of which Zwingli was slain. In Switzerland, therefore, 
 as in Germany, internal feuds followed upon a move- 
 ment which was fundamentally national in character. 
 But for this result the loose character of the Swiss 
 federation was largely responsible. 
 
 Soon after Zwingli 's death, Switzerland became the 
 centre of another reform movement under the leadership 
 of the French refugee, Jean Calvin. Study of t he_Gre£k 
 5Jew_Testament had converted Calvin to Protestantism. 
 Persecution compelled him to fly from France and to 
 
ii6 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 seek an asylum in Switzerland. At Basel in 1536 he 
 produced his famous "Institutes of the Christian 
 Religion," in which he systematised the principles of 
 that extreme type of Augustinian theology which has 
 ever since been known by his name. A man of mar- 
 vellous intellectual powers, but at the same time narrow 
 and intolerant, he maintained a veritable "rule of the 
 saints " during his twenty years* residence in Geneva, 
 and by the rigour of his censorship constituted himself 
 a kind of general dictator in matters of both belief and 
 practice. The burning of the heretical Servetus, the 
 most hideous blot on the history of the Reformation, 
 must to a large extent at least be laid to his charge. 
 But his influence was not confined to Geneva or to 
 Switzerland. The French Huguenot movement owed 
 much to his teaching; John Knox was his disciple; the 
 Scotch Covenanters and the English Puritans alike have 
 to be included among his followers. 
 
 In France the reform movement which, though at the 
 outset of native growth, was greatly stimulated by the 
 example of Geneva, failed for various reasons to assume 
 anything like a national character. It was thus almost 
 entirely a movement of religious sectaries and political 
 parties, a nd never led to anjL .£;enern1rupt.ur€ with Rome. 
 /The "persecution of the Protestants carrie3^ T^fToy 
 \ Francis I. and his son Henry II. tended to foster 
 \instead of to discourage the new faith, which meanwhile 
 /continued to grow in wealth, prestige and power. Then 
 I it became a factor in the complicated political contro- 
 Njersies of that age of rivalries and intrigues. As a con- 
 sequence the whole country was rent during more than 
 thirty terrible years by a series of fierce religious wars, 
 in which all patriotic feeling was destroyed, and by 
 which the very existence of the nation was imperilled. 
 More than a million Frenchmen are said to have perished 
 
The Reformation in England 117 
 
 in these conflicts. A resolute attempt was made in 1572 
 by the fiendish ^Catherine de' Medici to exterminate the 
 Huguenots in the mass acre of St. Bart holpmew. To 
 celebrate this appalling crime the joybells were rung in 
 Rome, a special "Te Deum " was performed at St. 
 Peter's, and the Pope had a medal struck and proclaimed 
 a year of jubilee. But the massacre was as useless as it 
 was diabolical. Stunned for the moment, the Huguenot 
 c ause soon revlv^^_l t_was not till Henry l'V7's _gdict 
 of Nantes in /1598J that peace was at length secured7 
 "By-that-edtct-^en^al fteeduin uf uunscience in religion 
 was recognised, and the French reformers thus gainedi 
 a substantial victory. The settlement was, however/ 
 only temporary. By the revocation of the edict in/ 
 1685 Richelieu practically annihilated Protestantism in\ 
 France. y 
 
 Strikingly different was the course of things in Eng- 
 land, where conditions existed and forces were at work 
 which secured for the reform movement a success even 
 more complete than that which had crowned the 
 Lutheran revolt in Germany. 
 
 The history of the English Reformation begins in the 
 fourteenth century, when unmistakable signs became 
 apparent of widespread dissatisfaction with the Roman 
 Church alike on political, intellectual, and moral 
 grounds. Even so gentle a poet as Gower was stirred to 
 indignation by the ecclesiastical abuses which he saw 
 everywhere about him. fChaucer's was not the temper 
 of the reformer, yet the vivid pictures given in the 
 " C^tefbury_Tales " of the typical churchmen of the 
 time — the pleasure-loving, worldly monk, the easy-going 
 friar, the lying, unscrupulous pardoner — possess a 
 satirical bearing which it is impossible to ignore^ In 
 " Piers Plowman " mild reproof and humorous satire are 
 exchanged for righteous wrath, and fierce invectives are 
 
II 8 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 hurled at a corrupt Church and its unworthy priest- 
 hood. Contemporary literature thus exhibits great 
 popular unrest. That unrest assumed practical shape 
 in the work of John Wyclif. 
 
 It was about 1360 that this first of our reformers 
 entered upon his long struggle with the mendicant 
 friars. Later he became prominent as a strong opponent 
 of papal interference in national affairs, and as an ardent 
 supporter of secular rights against the extreme claims 
 of the Church. The great western schism and the 
 scandals which followed exerted a profound influence 
 upon his thought. His attacks upon the Church now 
 became more radical; they no longer stopped at mani- 
 fest abuses, or dealt exclusively with the unholy greed 
 of the Papacy, its shameless misuse of power, and the 
 profligate lives of the clergy. Taking his stand upon 
 the Bible — the Law of the Lord, as he called it — he 
 began boldly to demand how far the existing state of 
 things corresponded with its teachings. He expounded 
 the scriptures in class room and from pulpit; he sent 
 itinerant preachers — his "poor priests*' — through the 
 land to spread his doctrines far and wide. While 
 hitherto he had written his tractates in Latin, he now 
 used English, that his thoughts might become the pos- 
 sessions of the common people; and with the help of 
 his disciples he produced an English version of the 
 Bible — ^the first version in any vernacular tongue. In 
 particular, he proclaimed the essentially inward and 
 personal character of true religion in opposition to the 
 formalism of the times, and emphasised a conception of 
 the Church as an organisation of all believers, and of 
 divine mercy as free to all without the intervention of 
 any human agency, which distinctly anticipated some 
 of the leading tenets of the German Reformation. 
 
 Wyclif's followers, the Lollards (as they came to 
 
Lollards and Oxford Reformers 119 
 
 be called from about the middle of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury), soon went beyond their master, their petition to 
 Parliament in 1395 setting forth their opposition, 
 among other things, to the temporal possessions of the 
 Church, clerical celibacy, transubstantiation, prayers 
 for the dead, pilgrimages, image-worship, and compul- 
 sory confession. They further maintained that the 
 allegiance of the Christian was demanded only to God's 
 law as laid down in the scriptures, that anyone who 
 studied the scriptures in the proper spirit could under- 
 stand them, and that therefore no priestly interpretation 
 is necessary. The persecution of the sect began under 
 Henry IV., when the first Lollard martyr, William 
 Sawtre, was sent to the stake, and continued with little 
 intermission clown to the reign of Henry VH. After 
 this Lollardism became part of the general Protestant 
 movement, and helped from the first to indoctrinate it 
 with Puritan ideas. 
 
 Lollardism represents the popular and democratic 
 side of the early reform spirit in England. Its 
 scholarly side is to be found in the efforts of the men 
 who are commonly grouped together as the^„Oxford 
 Reformers. Reference has already been made to the 
 achievements of these men in the cause of English 
 learning, and the point now to be brought forward is 
 that in their case the impulse towards the. regeneration 
 o£ _relig i on w as born directly of their humanism. 
 Grocyn deserves special recognition as the first man to" 
 apply the new learning to theology and to interpret 
 the text of scripture in the light of Greek scholarship. 
 But he was soon followed by Colet> wJ iQ in his. turn, as 
 we na ve^eehT g reatly influenced Erasmus and More. 
 ^Throughout the Oxford movement we can peitceive the 
 workings of the Renaissance spirit as a general solvent 
 of mediaeval ideas ; but though the reformers spoke freely 
 
120 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 about the moral abuses which pervaded the Church and 
 about the superstitions which choked the plain teachings 
 of the Gospels, they neither desired nor anticipated any 
 breach of communion with Rome. In fact, when news 
 of the German crisis reached England, More instantly 
 took alarm, and from that moment his place was with 
 the upholders of the old order against the forces of 
 revolution let loose by Luther. 
 
 To explain how the reform movement in England 
 ultimately led to schism, we must refer to the co-opera- 
 tion of political conditions. The English rupture with 
 Rome was a necessary result of that spirit of nationalism 
 which we have elsewhere found antagonistic to the 
 domination of the Papacy. It was indeed impossible 
 that, situated as England was, its government could 
 long continue to tolerate the perpetual interference of 
 the Pope in its domestic affairs, and, even more, his con- 
 tinual drafts upon the national treasury. English in- 
 terests, English property, English liberties were all 
 jeopardised by the claims of an Italian prince — and by 
 this time the Pope was little more than an Italian prince 
 — to a right of jurisdiction over English affairs. The re- 
 volt of England against Rome, therefore, was in a large 
 measure revolt against foreign rule. This is the aspect of 
 it which^Shakespeare expresses' in the forcible words in 
 which John repudiates the right of any '* Italian prince " 
 to "tithe and toll" in his dominions, and asserts his in- 
 tention of governing the country as "supreme head" 
 and "without the assistance of a mortal hand." * The 
 immediate cause of the breach between the English 
 Church and the Roman See was Henry VIII. 's quarrel 
 with Clement VII. over his divorce from Catharine of 
 Aragon. But this was the immediate cause only. It 
 merely brought into operation many forces already 
 * " King John," III. i. 
 
Results of the Reformation 121 
 
 existing and precipitated a crisis which in any event 
 could not long have been postponed. 
 
 To follow the history of the Reformation in Eng- 
 land from this point on to its consummation under 
 Elizabeth, in whose reign the tide of nationalism was 
 at its height, is here unnecessary. It must, however, 
 be remarked that though the actual work of ecclesiastical 
 and doctrinal reorganisation was carried out by men of 
 conservative temper, who desired so far as possible to 
 preserve the continuity of English religious tradition, 
 radical dissentients soon made their influence felt. The 
 way was thus prepared almost from the beginning for 
 the spread of Puritanism and the rise of Nonconformity. 
 These phenomena are strictly logical developments of 
 the principles involved in the original reform movement. 
 
 Again, we have to notice the significance of the 
 Reformation as a manifestation of the characteristic lay 
 spirit of the Renaissance and of its equally characteristic 
 individualism. By virtue of its essentially positive and 
 practical temper Protestantism turned religious emotion 
 into secula r channels, and so became a great power in 
 political and "socTaF affairs. By virtue of its extremely 
 developed individualism it contained within itself the 
 seeds of its own disintegration. It was soon made one 
 of the heaviest reproaches against Protestantism that 
 it was prolific of heresies and schisms. The charge was 
 well grounded. The continual multiplication of sects is 
 the inevitable consequence of the right of private judg- 
 ment and of the individualism which the Reformation 
 brought into religion. 
 
 VI. — GENERAL RESULTS OF THE REFORMATION 
 
 It remains for us to consider the general historical 
 significance of the European Reformation as a whole. 
 
122 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 In the first place, regarding it broadly as a renais- 
 sance in religion, we must recognise its direct influence 
 upon the Roman Church itself. A primary result of 
 the Protestant revolt was a reformed Catholicism. Now 
 by positive action, now by simple apathy, the Vatican 
 had hitherto nullified every effort, whether of individuals 
 or of councils, for the amendment of even the most 
 glaring abuses. Nemesis came in the great Teutonic 
 outburst. The Church was aroused into a realisation 
 of her true position and her peril ; and the result was 
 quickly shown in various ways. The frivolous scep- 
 ticism which had prevailed at the court of Leo X. passed 
 away. A radical change of spirit was shown under 
 Adrian VI., Clement VII., and Paul III. Henceforth 
 the abominations which had disgraced the papal chair 
 were impossible. Reformation thus led to Counter- 
 reformation. Protestant activity was answered by an 
 immense development in Catholic activity. Rome 
 addressed itself to the task of recovering power and 
 prestige. The establishment in 1540 of the great pro- 
 pagandist Society of Jesus, for the defence of the hier- 
 archy and the spread of Roman dogma against all 
 schismatics and heretics, and for the conquest of new 
 dominions for the Church, was a chief sign of this fresh 
 energy and zeal. Five years later, the Council of 
 Trent, the most important factor in the Counter-refor- 
 mation, began its deliberations. Conflicting aims were 
 manifest in it throughout. Many of the Catholic 
 princes desired a policy of wise concession with a view 
 to the ultimate restoration of the peace of Europe. The 
 Roman court, on the other hand, was far more concerned 
 to have the new heresies condemned, and the preroga- 
 tives of the Papacy reasserted and consolidated. A 
 degree of reform in matters of morals and ecclesiastical 
 government was indeed adopted in the 23rd session. 
 
The Counter-reformation 123 . 
 
 But the main exertions of the Council were directed to \ 
 dogmatic theology, and, as its temper was that of » 
 dogged conservatism, the breach between Roman 
 Catholic doctrine and that of the reformed Churches 
 was made permanent. The Counter-reform -^tion was, ^^ 
 therefore, a moral reformation only. m intellec- J 
 tual matters the Church conceded nothing. I It elected 
 rather to remain a mediaeval insdtutioj3_LQ__a--jnodern-- 
 world. ~~-^A "" 
 
 Roman Catholic activity was not, however, fruitless; 
 the Protestant movement was checked, a result to which, 
 it must be remembered, the internal dissensions of the 
 Protestant Churches themselves in no small measure 
 contributed. The unity of Christendom, which had 
 been one outstanding feature of the middle ages, was 
 thus destroyed. Europe was partitioned between the 
 two religious powers, the dividing lines being sub- 
 stantially those which continue to exist to-day. 
 
 This suggests a second point of importance. In the 
 rearrangement of the map of Europe the grouping of 
 the nations had its significance. Revolt against Rome 
 was final in Germany for the most part, in Switzerland, 
 Denmark, Sweden, England, Scotland, and the Nether- 
 lands. Italy, Spain, and France, on the other hand, 
 maintained their allegiance to the Pope. A complete 
 explanation of this segregation could be reached only 
 through a careful analysis of political conditions. But 
 one fact stands out conspicuously : the_JRj^orm^ion 
 succeededL-^amnng peoples in whom the Teutonic strain 
 predoniinated, or who were under Teutonic influence. 
 Among the Romanic peoples it failed. It is evident 
 that in the history of the Reformation racial qualities 
 must be taken into account. 
 
 Joined with what has already been said about the 
 effects of the Lutheran revolt in Germany, much of 
 
124 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 which is, of course, equally true of the Protestant 
 movement in general, this will sufficiently indicate the 
 bearings of the Reformation on the religious and 
 political sides. We must now glance at its more purely 
 intellectual aspects. It is necessary to begin by marking 
 negations. 
 
 In the first place,4it is a mistake to assume that the 
 Reformation effected the destruction of dogmatism in 
 religious matters, and the enthronement of reason in its 
 stead. Protestantism m*ere}y meant an exchange of 
 tyrants. An infallible Bible was substituted for an in- 
 fallible Church. !' The entire edifice of the reformed 
 theology was built on the foundations of the narrowest 
 literalism. If, in Lessing's phrase, Luther freed the 
 world from "the yoke of tradition," he sought to fasten 
 upon it "the more intolerable yoke of the letter," and^ 
 that yoke has impeded Protestant thought till quite 
 recent times. The methods of the reformers were those 
 of the scholastic philosophers; their modes of thought 
 wholly mediaeval. | It suited Luther at the beginning 
 of his revolt to appeal to reason against Rome, but he 
 ended by abusing reason only less vehemently than he 
 abused Rome, and by denying its right to a hearing on 
 questions of faith. Even Zwingli, the broadest-minded 
 of the reformers, raised the text of scripture to the level 
 of papal authority; while it was the principal work of 
 Calvin's life to reduce the doctrines of Protestantism 
 to a hard, dogmatic system which should equal the 
 Roman system in rigidity, completeness, and finality. 
 
 Nor, secondly, did the Reformation directly en- 
 courage the growth of the spirit of toleration. The 
 reformers might talk as loudly as they liked about the 
 right of private judgment, but private judgment for 
 them meant their own private judgment only. As in- 
 tolerant as the most rancorous zealots of the older 
 
The Protestant Spirit 125 
 
 Church, they *' upheld the right of private judgment 
 while they burned those whose judgment differed from 
 their own." The freedom they vigorously claimed for 
 themselves they just as vigorously denied to others^ j 
 They thus practically assumed an intellectual dictator- 
 ship as uncompromising as that of Rome, for their 
 infallible Bible necessarily meant nothing more or less 
 than their own infallible interpretation of the Bible. 
 Calvin connived in the murder of Servetus because 
 Servetus differed from him in theology — that is, be- 
 cause Servetus maintained his right of private judgment 
 against Calvin's infallibility. 
 
 Finally, Protestantism did little for the cause of 
 general enlightenment. It was, indeed, in many ways 
 unfavourable to it. It is a striking fact that the com- 
 pletion of the Reformation was followed all over Europe 
 by a marked increase in the belief in sorcery and the 
 persecution of witches. The reformers were just as 
 obscurantist in their attitude to intellectual questions as 
 the adherents of the older creed, and, as we have already 
 seen, just as bigoted in their hostility to all scientific 
 discoveries and speculations which seemed to them to 
 contradict the Bible. Their infallible Book was, there- 
 fore, destined to prove as great an obstacle to intellectual 
 progress as the infallible Church had formerly been. 
 In Germany, in particular, Luther's revolt was in part' 
 responsible for a general set-back in culture, and for 
 the long failure of that country to keep pace with other 
 leading European nations. 
 
 Judged by immediate results, therefore, the work of 
 the Reformation seems disappointing. But it is not by 
 immediate results only that we have to judge. Looking 
 more widely over the field of modern history, we can 
 now see that the Protestant revolt meant the birth of a 
 new spirit in the world — a spirit the activities of which 
 
126 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 T the Protestants themselves were afterwards unable 
 wholly to check. The principles upon which it rested 
 involved consequences which its official exponents have 
 continued to repudiate; but those consequences have 
 \ none the less played a vital part in the world's in- 
 ! tellectual development. It soon endeavoured to take 
 j back the freedom which it had for the moment bestowed. 
 { But in this it failed. The power which it invoked 
 ; against Rome has been logically turned against its own 
 • claims to absolutism and finality. While denying 
 \ reason, it spread the spirit of rationalism through 
 ; educated Europe. While rejecting toleration, it led 
 inevitably to the doctrine of liberty of thought. While 
 clinging to the dogmatic authority of the text of scrip- 
 ture, it started the critical methods by which even that 
 authority was presently to be undermined. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 The Renaissance in Science and Philosophy 
 
 I. — SCIENCE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 It was pointed out in our first chapter that the in- 
 tellectual sterility of the middle ages was largely, due 
 to the dead weight of ecclesiastical authority and the 
 divorce of man from nature, as a consequence of which 
 the mind was forced both to work only within the 
 narrow limits of prescribed dogma, and to seek the 
 materials for its speculations in metaphysical principles 
 rather than in objective reality. The Renaissance in 
 science and philosophy began with the assertion of the 
 right of free inquiry and the reunion of theory with the 
 world of concrete fact. 
 
 The long domination of theology had meant the 
 almost complete arrest of science. All learning was 
 forced into the service of the Church, and the study 
 of nature was permitted only on condition that nothing 
 should be discovered which would conflict with or 
 disturb that absolute truth which had been embodied 
 once and for all in its creed. The great names in the 
 history of science during the earlier middle ages are, 
 therefore, those of enemies of the Church, and especially 
 of Arabians, like Avicenna (987-1037) and Averroes 
 (1126-98), both of whom Dante found, along with the 
 virtuous pagans of antiquity, in the limbo of Hell. 
 Moreover, the general spirit bred by theology was as 
 hostile to science as was its dogmatism. With the 
 
 127 
 
128 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 \ enormous development of superstition and the universal 
 I belief in marvels and miracles, a supernatural explana- 
 tion of any phenomenon was always more acceptable 
 than a natural one. Thus physicians fell into disrepute 
 among rigidly orthodox theologians, and were often 
 regarded as atheists by the common people, because 
 they tried to effect cures by physical means instead of 
 by vows, prayers, and the relics of saints. When 
 Giovanni Manardi (Rabelais' master in medicine) 
 asserted that in attacking a disease the doctor should 
 attend more to the beating of the pulse than to the 
 aspects and conjunctions of the stars, he was held to 
 have said something dangerously radical. The spirit 
 of mysticism which thus got mixed up with scientific 
 inquiries was fatal to substantial progress. This was 
 clearly recognised by Bacon.* 
 
 Nor was this the worst. From the age of the great 
 Fathers onward, the idea had steadily gained ground 
 that scientific knowledge is dangerous and that the 
 pursuit of it imperils the soul. Thus those who de- 
 voted themselves to scientific interests and succeeded 
 in them — such men, for example, as Geber, Sylvester 
 II., Grostete, Albertus Magnus, and Raymond LuUy — 
 soon gained a sinister reputation as magicians and 
 adepts in the Black Arts. We may note in particular 
 the significance of the immensely popular "compact 
 -legends," in which the theological prejudices of the time 
 were expressed in a picturesque form. \ Scientific know- 
 ledge itself was evil, and the desire to penetrate further 
 into the secrets which God has purposely hidden from 
 the eyes of men could be born only of the spirit of 
 revolt. How, then, could the knowledge be obtained 
 u and the desire gratified? By diabolical help. The rebel 
 \ sold himself to Satan, and realised his impious ambi- 
 V — ^ * See, e.g., " Novum Organum." Book I. Ixv. 
 
11 • I 
 
 Roger Bacon 
 
 tions at the price of his immortal soul. Hence the 
 famous legend-cycles which grew up about the names 
 of Faust and Roger Bacon.) Such strange ideas about 
 Satanic agencies and influences persisted obstinately 
 in the teeth of growing enlightenment. Even in the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries papal bulls were issued 
 against alchemists who dabbled in forbidden things 
 and magicians who produced bad weather; while, long 
 after the Revival of Learning and the Reformation, 
 Catholics and Protestants vied with one another in the 
 persecution of sorcerers and witches who were supposed 
 to derive their peculiar and far-reaching powers of evil 
 from direct commerce with the devil himself. It must 
 not be forgotten that Raleigh and Francis Bacon were 
 firm believers in witchcraft and demoniacal possession. 
 Our Elizabethan and early Stuart dramas are full of n 
 references to the subject, which show how strong was / 
 its hold upon popular imagination.* """^^ 
 
 The case of Roger Bacon may detain us for a 
 moment, because it will help us to realise the common 
 mediaeval attitude towards those who devoted themselves 
 to scientific pursuits. Bacon was, of course, a man of 
 his time, and accepted without demur many of its most 
 childish superstitions; yet few men have ever been 
 more distinctly in advance of average contemporary 
 thought than was this monkish philosopher of the 
 thirteenth century. His actual achievements seem to 
 have been astonishing. But still more astonishing, 
 perhaps, was his clear perception, in that age of 
 scholasticism, of that true method of gaining a know- 
 ledge of nature which we definitely associate with his 
 
 * " Macbeth " will at once occur to every reader, but this is only 
 one example out of many. It may be noted that the writer of the 
 infamous Joan of Arc scenes in " I.Henry VI.*' (whoever he may have 
 been — we may hope he was not Shakespeare), gave further currency 
 to the tradition transmitted by Holinshed that the Maid owed her 
 successes to " devilish witchcraft and sorcery." 
 
 J 
 
130 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 more famous namesake and successor. As news of his 
 activities got abroad, they were seized upon by the 
 vulgar mind, distorted, magnified, turned into feats of 
 magic ; and marvellous tales thus took shape of gazing- 
 crystals and brazen heads endowed with the gift of 
 prophecy. A convenient handle was thus furnished to 
 his fellow monks, who were both jealous and not a little 
 afraid of him. Then theological antagonism came 
 into play. Though he himself was strictly orthodox, 
 and though nothing could be urged against his piety, 
 there were, to use the language of his opponents, 
 "certain suspicious novelties" in his teachings which 
 excited the animosity of the defenders of the faith, 
 among whom we have specially to reckon the "seraphic 
 doctor " Bonaventura, to whom Dante gives high place 
 in the Heaven of the Sun among the great teachers of 
 the Church. A chief charge against him was that he 
 offered natural explanations of natural phenomena, as, 
 for instance, in the case of the rainbow, and argued 
 against Satanic agency in storms and earthquakes. 
 Vigorous efforts were accordingly made to silence him. 
 About 1257 he was thrown into prison in Paris, and 
 deprived not only of human intercourse, but even of 
 the means of writing and study. Released in 1267, he 
 later encountered the opposition of the Franciscans, 
 through whose instrumentality the reading of his 
 books was forbidden, while he was himself again im- 
 prisoned. This second confinement also lasted about 
 ten years, after which he retired to Oxford, where 
 two years later — in 1294 — he died. No commentary 
 upon this sad story is called for. Roger Bacon 
 was one of the great pioneers of modern science and 
 one of its noble army of martyrs. His reward while 
 living was harassing jpersecution and twenty years 
 of imprisonment; when dead, a place in vulgar super- 
 
Mediaeval Philosophy 131 
 
 stition as a creature of Satan and a practitioner in the 
 Black Arts. 
 
 II. — PHILOSOPHY DURING THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 The tyranny of dogma and the resulting divorce of 
 man from nature were also the chief causes of the steril- 
 ity of that mediaeval theological philosophy which we 
 know as Scholasticism. The great scholastic thinkers 
 — Erigena, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, 
 William of Ockham — were men of extraordinary mentaF 
 power and acumen ; the systems which they constructed 1 
 with laborious care were marvels of sustained logical ■ 
 power. But their main effort was directed to the merely j 
 formal treatment of data furnished not by science, but i 
 by the organised doctrines of the Church; their work ] 
 was not nourished upon reality; their speculations were J 
 neither guided nor checked by reference to objective ji 
 fact. As a result, scholasticism remained practically 
 stationary through the many centuries of its existence; 
 and when it finally disappeared under the combined 
 influences of the religious and scientific movements of 
 the Renaissance, it left behind it little that could be 
 turned to use as a factor in the progress of thought. 
 
 The great problem of scholasticism was the complete^ 
 reduction of theological dogma to systematic logical 
 form. Its aim, therefore, was not the independent i 
 quest of truth, for no such independent quest was per- 
 mitted, but the restatement in rational terms of truth 
 already given. The unchallenged premiss of all schol- 
 astic thinking was the absolute finality of the teachings 
 of the Church; and thus the primary business of the 
 philosopher was to find the means by which he could 
 prove that the truth of revelation is also the truth of 
 reason. Philosophy was thus enlisted in the service of 
 
132 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 the Church, and was held strictly to her position of 
 subordination. The question of the relation of revela- 
 tion and reason gave rise, indeed, to fundamentally 
 opposed views. It was attacked from one side by 
 Aquinas, with his theory of two distinct spheres of 
 knowledge; from another side by Duns Scotus, with 
 his assumption of the absolute unity of all knowledge 
 in revelation. In just what way reason could best be 
 made to support and justify faith was, therefore, a 
 matter of fierce discussion, and the rival schools of the 
 Thomists, or followers of Aquinas, and the Scotists, or 
 followers of Scotus, continued to wrangle for upwards 
 of three hundred years. But, whatever their differences, 
 the common object of all the mediaeval philosophers 
 was the harmonising of human wisdom with the oracles 
 of the Church. The conditions and methods of 
 scholastic inquiry are thus, from our present point of 
 view, much more important than the subjects dealt with. 
 We must remember that the scholastic thinker was not 
 even allowed to inquire into the value of these subjects, 
 while he was certainly not free to follow up his ideas 
 without consideration of direction or result. Both 
 direction and result were prescribed beforehand. He 
 had at all costs to reach a particular goal. Only the 
 route was left open ; and all roads had to lead to Rome. 
 Philosophy existed only to make good by the processes 
 of logic the dogmas which the Church imposed upon all 
 men, and from which there could be no appeal. 
 
 Modern critics have found it an easy task to make 
 fun out of the quibbling and subtleties of the schol- 
 astics and their fantastic speculations concerning all 
 sorts of trivial matters which came up by the way. Im- 
 mense intellectual power was wasted upon the most 
 idle and ridiculous questions. "Could God make two 
 hills without an intervening valley?" ** Can God ever 
 
Scholasticism 133 
 
 know more than He knows that He knows?" "Could 
 God make a stick a yard long which had not two ends 
 to it?" "Can two angels occupy the same space at 
 the same time ? " " What happens when a mouse eats 
 the consecrated host ? " It is, indeed, amazing that 
 such conundrums — and the foregoing are only examples 
 — were, generation after generation, treated as serious 
 subjects by some of the most brilliant and astute minds 
 which have ever devoted themselves to philosophic 
 themes; and we do not wonder that in his "Praise of 
 Folly " Erasmus turned the battery of his ridicule upon 
 them. On the other hand, it may fairly be contended 
 that in their natural impatience with the obscurantism 
 of the schoolmen, both the humanists and the religious 
 reformers of the Renaissance lost sight altogether of the 
 real metaphysical significance of some of the problems 
 — like the great problem of Nominalism and Realism — 
 which formed the backbone of scholastic discussion. 
 But we are here concerned neither with the absurdities 
 of mediaeval speculation, nor with its possible interest 
 to the special student of the history of thought. The 
 one point which we have to keep in mind is that upon 
 which I have already laid stress : the subordination of 
 philosophy to theological dogma, the limits within 
 which it was therefore confined, and the stagnation 
 which was the inevitable result. 
 
 One curious feature of scholasticism has^ however, 
 to be mentioned : the part played in it by Aristotle. 
 While theology provided the subject matter upon which 
 the philosopher had to work and the conclusions which 
 he was compelled to reach, it was the Aristotelian 
 dialectic which gave him his forms and machinery. The 
 Aristotle in question was not, indeed, the great original 
 Stagirite. He was rather a traditional Aristotle — the 
 creation of the schools. Until the beginning of the 
 
134 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 thirteenth century, he was known only through his 
 treatise on logic, and this had been subjected to such 
 continual gloss and exposition, had been so much 
 lectured on, epitomised, and annotated, that in the end, 
 as I have already said, the text itself had been practically 
 buried beneath an enormous mass of superimposed 
 commentary. This gives the point of Giordano Bruno's 
 saying that Aristotle owed more to the University than 
 the University owed to Aristotle. When later other 
 works of "the Grecian doctor," as he was called, found 
 their way into western Europe through the medium of 
 Arabian interpreters, and a better understanding of his 
 real teachings began to spread, the Church took alarm, 
 and from time to time attempted to check the growth 
 of his influence by forbidding the study of various 
 portions of his works. But the domination of 
 Aristotelianism in the perverted shape described re- 
 mained unbroken down to the end of the Middle Ages, 
 and here and there — as in the University of Paris — till 
 very much later. This meant dogmatism again under 
 another form, as is clearly shown in the anecdote already 
 quoted about the young scholar and the spots on the 
 sun. Studied in a theological spirit, forced into the 
 support of the established creed, Aristotle thus be- 
 came a pillar of orthodoxy and a bulwark of the faith. 
 His authority was almost as great as that of any 
 Christian teacher. He was invoked to close a discussion 
 as readily as Augustine or Aquinas. Dante called him 
 "the philosopher"; referred to him siniply as "he," no 
 other designation being necessary; a famous line in 
 the "Inferno" (iv. 131) described him as "the master of 
 those who know " ; an anagram was made out of his 
 name — Aristoteles = Iste sol erat — "He was the sun"; 
 the Sorbonne proclaimed that to contradict his teaching 
 was to contradict the Church. Thus Petrarch showed 
 
Decline of Scholasticism 135 
 
 considerable daring when he declared that, after all, 
 Aristotle was only a man ; while, when the French 
 humanist, Peter Ramus, who at twenty-one supported 
 the paradoxical thesis that "all that Aristotle had said 
 was false " made a resolute attack upon the authority of 
 the great dictator in the chief centre of scholasticism 
 — the University of Paris — he aroused such fierce 
 antagonism that his treatise was suppressed by royal 
 edict, and his public lectures for a time suspended. 
 How intimate was the association of Aristotle with the 
 schoolmen is curiously shown by the fact that in a wood- 
 cut of 1527 by Holbein the younger, the great Greek 
 teacher is shown descending into the outer darkness 
 in the company of a number of representative mediaeval 
 philosophers. J 
 
 "III. — THE REVIVAL OF THOUGHt -^ 
 
 The decay of scholasticism was brought about by 
 the changing spirit of the new age. It collapsed simply 
 because it was hopelessly out of harmony with the 
 fresh intellectual conditions which resulted from the 
 movements of the Renaissance as a whole. Humanism 
 was naturally against it, and both directly, by its oppo- 
 sition to Roman theology, and indirectly, by its rupture 
 with authority, the Protestant Reformation tended to 
 bring it into disrepute. Incidentally, it may be re- 
 marked, the Platonism which was so important an out- 
 growth from the revival of classical learning was 
 regarded as a counterblast to the Aristotelianism of the 
 medieval thinkers, and therefore helped to break down 
 the intellectual tyranny of the schools. But the great 
 enemy of scholasticism was, of course, the development 
 of natural science. This was fatal to the claims and 
 mental habits of the old philosophers, because it 
 
136 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 liberated thought from dogma, brought the mind of 
 man back to nature and reality, and substituted the 
 scientific method of inquiry for the purely syllogistic 
 processes which had hitherto been in vogue. 
 c^ One name stands out supreme in this great chapter 
 in""the ^listory of the Renaissance. It is the name of 
 Francis Bacon. Due regard being had to the work 
 which other men had done before him or were doing at 
 the same time, Bacon may still be considered as epoch- 
 ^^ maker and pioneer. He more than any other thinker 
 represents the transition from mediasval to modern 
 thought. He chiefly was instrumental in turning 
 philosophic effort from the barren wastes of theological 
 and metaphysical speculation into the fruitful field of 
 physical fact. To him in the main belongs the signal 
 honour of overthrowing the old a priorism and estab- 
 lishing the inductive method in its stead. In the 
 I doctrines which he promulgated concerning man's rela- 
 j tions with nature and the proper means of finding 
 j truth, we may mark the culmination of the entire 
 movement of the Renaissance on its purely intellectual 
 side. 
 
 Bacon sets forth his conception of the character and 
 object of all true science in his unfinished Utopian 
 romance, already mentioned, the *'New Atlantis." 
 "This fable,'* wrote his chaplain and editor, Rawley, 
 in his advertisement to the English version, "my lord 
 devised to the end that he might exhibit therein a model 
 or description of a college, instituted for the interpreting 
 of nature and the producing of great and mawellous 
 works for the benefit of men, under the name of Salo- 
 man's House, or the College of the Six Days' Works." 
 This, "the noblest institute, we think, that ever 
 was upon the earth," was " dedicated to the study of the 
 works and creatures of God." It is, in fact. Bacon's 
 
frii*tcii> Bacon's View of Science 137 
 
 dream of a great academy, divided and subdivided 
 according to the special needs of all the different sub- 
 jects dealt with, but devoted through all its branches to 
 experimental science and the practical arts. "For," as 
 the Father of the House is made to inform his visitors, 
 "the end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes 
 and secret motions of things, and the enlarging of the 
 bounds of human empire to the effecting of all things 
 possible." In this double-sided programme Bacon 
 clearly indicates his idea of what science should be and 
 should accomplish. It should, as he elsewhere puts it, 
 be at once luciferous and fructiferous — light-bringing 
 and fruit-bearing. In other words, it should add to our 
 positive knowledge of things and prove at the same 
 time a practical instrument for the improvement of the 
 lot of man.^JThese ideas recur again and again in 
 Bacon's writings. The discovery of truth by the direct '^ 
 investigation of nature and the application of truth in j 
 life are thus the two central principles which lie at the j 
 heart of all Bacon's philosophy. 
 
 This explains his dissatisfaction, which he already 
 began to feel when a mere boy at Cambridge, with the 
 methods and teachings which were still current in the 
 schools. They were neither luciferous nor fructiferous, 
 but very much the reverse; they were, as he puts it, 
 "strong for disputations and contentions, but barren 
 of the production of works for the benefit of the life of 
 man." Bacon realised at the outset the sterility of 
 mediseval thinking, and he traced this back to the false 
 ends which the schoolmen had sought to compass and 
 to the false procedure to which they were addicted. 
 Upon these topics he discourses at length, along with 
 many other kindred subjects upon which we need not 
 here pause to touch, in his "Advancement of Learning." 
 While learning has been discredited, he argues, by 
 
138 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 the prejudices of theologians and politicians, it has 
 been even more seriously hampered and traduced by 
 "those errors and vanities which have intervened 
 amongst the studies themselves of the learned," and 
 especially by those ''three distempers of learning" — 
 fantastical learning, contentious learning, and delicate 
 learning — which end respectively in "vain imaginations, 
 vain altercations, and vain affectations." A few points 
 selected from a mass of detail will suffice to show how 
 Bacon falls foul of the schoolmen in regard to various 
 fundamental principles of theory and practice. He 
 attacks them because they had sought the subject-matter 
 of their knowledge in the depths of their inner con- 
 sciousness instead of the world of outer reality; or, as 
 he phrases it, "in the inquisition of nature, they ever 
 left the oracle of God's works, and adored the deceiv- 
 ing and deformed images which the unequal mirror of 
 their own minds, or a few received authors or principles, 
 did represent unto them." The result was the produc- 
 tion of enormous systems of verbiage, which, however 
 astonishing as feats of intellectual ingenuity, were 
 things of verbiage only. "This kind of degenerate 
 learning," he declares, "did chiefly reign amongst the 
 schoolmen, who, having sharp and strong wits, and 
 abundance of leisure and small variety of reading, but 
 their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors, 
 chiefly Aristotle, their dictator, as their persons were 
 shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges, and 
 knowing little history, either of nature or time, did out 
 of no great quantity of matter and infinite agitation of 
 wits spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning 
 which are extant in their books. For the wit and mind 
 of man, if it work upon matter which is the contempla- 
 tion of the creatures of God, worketh according to the 
 stuff, and is limited thereby ; but if it work upon itself, 
 
Bacon and the Schoolmen 139 
 
 as the spider worketh her web, then it is endless, and 
 brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for 
 the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or 
 profit." The reverence for authority and the supine 
 dependence upon the past which were a salient charac- 
 teristic of the mediaeval habit of mind, is another point 
 upon which Bacon dwells as the main reason of the 
 unprogressiveness of scholastic speculation ; finality 
 once admitted, he rightly insists that all further dis- 
 covery of truth is impossible. "And as for the over- 
 much credit that hath been given unto authors in 
 sciences, in making them dictators, that their words 
 should stand, and not consuls, to give advice : the 
 damage is infinite that sciences have received thereby, 
 as the principal cause that hath kept them low at a stay 
 without growth or advancement. . . . For as water will 
 not ascend higher than the first springhead from whence 
 it descendeth, so knowledge derived from Aristotle, and 
 exempted from liberty of examination, will not rise again 
 higher than the knowledge of Aristotle. And, there- 
 fore, though the position be good, Oportet discentem 
 credere, yet it must be coupled with this, Oportet 
 edoctuTfU judicare; for disciples do owe unto masters 
 only a temporary belief and suspension of their own 
 judgment till they be fully instructed, and not an abso- 
 lute resignation or perpetual captivity ; and therefore to 
 conclude this point, I will say no more, but so let great 
 authors have their due, as Time, which is the author of 
 authors, be not deprived of his due — which is, further 
 and further to discover truth." Another charge — and 
 for him the most serious of all — ^which Bacon brings 
 against the older followers of learning was that of 
 failure to perceive its true purpose and function. "But 
 the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or 
 misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowledge. 
 
140 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 For men have entered into a desire of learning and 
 knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity or 
 inquisitive appetite ; sometimes to entertain their minds 
 with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and 
 reputation ; and sometimes to enable them to victory of 
 • wit and contradiction ; and most times for lucre and 
 profession ; and seldom sincerely to give a true account 
 of their gift of reason to the benefit and use of men ; as 
 if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to 
 rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a 
 wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with 
 a fair prospect ; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to 
 raise itself upon ; or a fort or commanding ground, for 
 strife and contention ; or a shop, for profit or sale ; and 
 not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator and 
 the relief of man's estate. But this is that which will 
 indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if contemplation 
 and action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined 
 and united together than they have been. . . . Howbeit 
 I do not mean, when I speak of use and action, that end 
 before-mentioned of the applying of knowledge to lucre 
 and profession. . . . But as both heaven and earth do 
 conspire and contribute to .the use and benefit of man, 
 so the end ought to be from both philosophies [i.e, the 
 theoretical and the practical] to separate and reject vain 
 speculations and whatsoever is empty and void, and to 
 preserve and augment whatsoever is solid and fruitful; 
 that knowledge may not be as a courtesan, for pleasure 
 and vanity only, or as a bond-woman, to acquire and 
 gain to her master's use; but as a spouse, for genera- 
 tion, fruit, and comfort." 
 
 The grounds of Bacon's great rupture with the 
 schools are now sufficiently apparent. The spirit of 
 dogmatism, the neglect of nature, false modes of pro- 
 cedure, and the separation of knowledge from human 
 
) ^y^ Bacon's Method 141 
 
 life Irad combined to deaden the mind and to bring 
 learning to a standstill. The history of philosophy 
 therefore exhibited only a succession of autocratic 
 teachers and docile hearers passing on cut-and-dry tra- 
 dition from generation to generation ; while it ought to 
 show a long line of inventors and discoverers, each 
 adding something new and important to the inventions 
 and discoveries of those who had gone before. Fired 
 by the splendid ambition of making knowledge at once 
 more progressive and more practical, Bacon set out to 
 indicate his new instrument in science. That instrument, 
 which is explained in detail in the "Novum Organum," 
 is defined by the word induction. 
 
 The method which had prevailed among the scho- 
 lastic philosophers was the deductive method, or a 
 priorism, in its most vicious form. In conducting their 
 inquiries they habitually began at the wrong end, first 
 assuming general principles, and then explaining or 
 misexplaining particulars by them; while "if ever they 
 summoned experience, it was not to consult her as an 
 adviser, but to drag her at their chariot wheels as a 
 captive." Truth was thus pursued from within out- 
 ward. "All who before ourselves have applied them- 
 selves to the discovery of the arts," writes Bacon, "after 
 having only for a little while turned their eyes upon 
 things and instances and experience, then straightway, 
 as if invention were nothing more than a certain pro- 
 cess of excogitation, have fallen, as it were, to invoke 
 their own spirits to utter oracles to them." They had 
 started with inherited formulas gathered from the teach- 
 ings of former dogmatists, or preconceived notions 
 evolved from their inner sense of what ought to be, and 
 had proceeded first to deduce all knowledge from them 
 and then to work it up into elaborate systems of philo- 
 sophy. The result was the multiplication of what Bacon 
 
142 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 happily called "sciences as one would." Meta- 
 physical conceptions were thus made the starting-point 
 of even physical inquiries, and the phenomena of 
 nature had to be manipulated to quadrate with given 
 theories. Men did not first look at facts and then seek 
 , the explanation of them; they began with ready-made 
 ^explanations which they imposed upon the facts. "As 
 late as the Copernican system it was urged, as an argu- 
 ment in favour of the true theory of the solar system, 
 that it placed the fire, the noblest element, in the centre 
 of the universe. This was a remnant of the notion that 
 the order of the universe must be perfect, and that per- 
 fection consisted in conformity to rules, either real or 
 conventional. Again, reverting to numbers, certain 
 numbers were perfect, therefore these numbers must 
 obtain in the phenomena of nature. Six was a perfect 
 number — that is, equal to the sum of all its factors — an 
 additional reason why there must be exactly six planets. 
 The Pythagoreans, on the other hand, attributed per- 
 fection to the number ten, but agreed in thinking that 
 the perfect numbers must somehow be realised in the 
 heavens; and knowing only of nine heavenly bodies to 
 make up the enumeration, they asserted * that there was 
 an antichthon, or counter-earth, on the other side of the 
 sun, invisible to us.' Even Huygens was persuaded 
 that when the number of the heavenly bodies had 
 reached twelve it could not admit of any further increase. 
 Creative power could not go beyond that sacred 
 number."* It comes to something when you have to 
 invent a world to support a theory ! An arbitrary sym- 
 metry was sought at all costs; as when, for instance, it 
 was laid down that one measure of the earth is trans- 
 mutable into ten of water, and one of water into ten of 
 air. 
 
 * Mill, " Logic." Book v., chap, v., 6. 
 
Bacon's Method 143 
 
 The consequences of such obsessions were sometimes 
 very remarkable. Thus Aristotle had maintained that, 
 as all perfect motion is circular motion, therefore the 
 motions of the heavenly bodies must be circular. Kepler 
 accepted this abstract idea, which proved, as he after- 
 wards confessed, a *' fatal thief" of his time, since it 
 long stood between him and his great discovery that the 
 planetary motions are not circular but elliptical. ''True 
 philosophy," said Bacon, "is that which is the faithful 
 echo of the voice of the world, which is written in some 
 sort under the direction of things, which adds nothing 
 of itself, which is only the rebound, the reflection, of 
 reality." How was such true philosophy possible while 
 the deductive method remained unchallenged? 
 
 Bacon, on the contrary, proclaimed that the begin- 
 ning of all knowledge is the patient, direct, first-hand, 
 impartial cross-examination of nature. "Man, being 
 the servant and interpreter of nature, can do and under- 
 stand so much and so much only as he has observed in 
 fact or in thought of the course of nature ; beyond this, 
 he neither knows anything nor can do anything." At 
 the touch of this aphorism the pretentious subjective 
 systems of the schools go down like so many houses of 
 cards. 
 
 Our first business, then, according to this new teach- 
 ing, is to set aside authority, abandon all a priori reason- 
 ings, and go straight for ourselves to the great world of 
 fact; our business throughout is to seek to discover 
 there — not what other people have told us that we must 
 find, nor what our preconceived ideas suggest that we 
 ought to find — but simply what actually is. Bacon*s 
 method is not mere empiricism — the resting satisfied 
 with isolated facts; for this he classes among the false 
 methods of philosophy. Nor does he inculcate hasty 
 generalisation, or the rushing from a few scattered 
 
144 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 observations to vast theories about man and nature. 
 Induction, as taught by Bacon, means the accumulation 
 of multitudes of facts followed by long and laborious 
 examination of such facts in search of the large general 
 underlying truths which these will ultimately be found 
 to disclose. Knowledge and truth, therefore, are not to 
 be derived from authority or from ourselves. They 
 must be built up gradually by thought out of the 
 materials furnished by experience and observation. 
 
 Manifestly, then, the Baconian methodology was 
 fatal to the dogmatism of the schools and to the worship 
 of authority upon which it has rested. This defines 
 his significance in the movements of the Renaissance, 
 and, more broadly, his place in the history of thought. 
 It is true that when looked at closely he reveals many 
 limitations. There is little or no content to his philo- 
 sophy. His own contributions to positive knowledge 
 were few and slight. He really lagged behind the 
 science of his day instead of leading it; for he knew 
 nothing, for example, about Harvey's discovery of the 
 circulation of the blood, and rejected the Copernican 
 astronomy. His encyclopaedic ambitions — and he him- 
 self declared that he had "taken all knowledge" as "his 
 province" — savour far more of outgoing scholasticism 
 than of incoming science. It is further to be remem- 
 bered that he was by no means the first to realise the 
 meaning of induction or to proclaim its importance. 
 Yet, all qualifications made, he holds his position secure. 
 If he was, as he said, "but a trumpeter, not a com- 
 batant," he at least "rang the bell which called the other 
 wits together." By "sowing in the meantime the seeds 
 of a purer truth," he certainly did perform, as he 
 claimed, his part "towards the commencement of the 
 great undertaking " which others were to carry forwai-d 
 — "the legitimate interpretation of nature." He was the 
 
Bacon's Place in History i45 
 
 first powerful and influential advocate and exponent of 
 the particular method which is now justly called by 
 his name; and though we now see that he made a 
 mistake in attempting entirely to eliminate from scien- 
 tific inquiry imagination and all the processes of deduc- 
 tion, his effort was wholly on the right side. He 
 helped, as we have said, to break down the tyranny of 
 dogma and to put men once more in fruitful relations 
 with nature and reality; and for this reason he stands 
 out, a figure of immense importance, in the history of 
 the great transition from the mediaeval to the modern 
 world. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 The Renaissance in Education 
 
 I.— THE CHIEF FORCES AT WORK 
 
 The period of the Renaissance was prolific in educa- 
 tional theories and experiments. These were a natural 
 result of its intense self-consciousness, its ever-widening 
 conception of life's possibilities, and its almost super- 
 stitious faith in knowledge, and they demand the con- 
 sideration of the student who is otherwise little interested 
 in pedagogy because they are so clearly expressive 
 of the spirit of the age. In such efforts towards 
 the shaping of the characters and destinies of the 
 rising generation we have a striking concrete illus- 
 tration of the practical application of the new ideas 
 to life. 
 
 Higher education during the middle ages was, of 
 course, in the hands of the clergy, in whose schools the 
 curriculum was based upon the Seven Liberal Arts, 
 identified, after the mystical habit of the time, with the 
 seven pillars of the Temple of Wisdom. These were 
 divided into two groups : the trivium, which represented 
 the literary side of what was then understood as culture ; 
 and the quadrivium, which embraced the sciences. The 
 following mnemonic distich tabulates these seven arts 
 and indicates their scope : — 
 
 Gramm. loquitur, Dia. vera docet, Rke. verba colorat, 
 Mus. canet, Ar. numeral, Geo. ponderat, As. colit astra. 
 
 146 
 
Mediaeval Education 147 
 
 The scheme thus comprised grammar, dialectic or logic, 
 rhetoric, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. 
 Grammar, of course, meant Latin; dialectic was scho- 
 lastic logic in its most barren form, a thing of arid 
 terminologies well calculated to sharpen the wits and 
 foster the current mania for verbal subtleties and dis- 
 putations; rhetoric was based mainly on Quintilian and 
 Cicero as interpreted by Bede and Alcuin ; music was 
 cultivated in the interest of the services of the church ; • 
 arithmetic was much taken up with fanciful speculations 
 on the secret properties and occult significance of 
 numbers; geometry also included such geography as 
 was then known ; astronomy was little more than astro- 
 logy. Such were the seven provinces into which the 
 mediaeval pedagogues had mapped out the entire field 
 of learning. It was the business of the would-be scholar 
 to explore them thoroughly. This task accomplished, 
 he was master of all the knowledge of his time. 
 
 Parallel with this scheme of education, which was 
 devised primarily for the "clerk," was the curriculum 
 of the castle school, the aim of which was to fashion 
 "a very perfect gentle knight." This, too, had its 
 Seven Liberal Arts, but they differed fundamentally 
 from those just enumerated, for they were riding, shoot- 
 ing with the bow and arrow, hawking, swimming, 
 boxing, chess-playing, and the writing of poetry. It 
 is important to note here the sharp distinction which 
 was thus made between the intellectual and the active — 
 between learning and life; for it was one result of that 
 general dualism in mediaeval thought which found its 
 most obvious illustration in the almost complete separa- 
 tion of the spheres of the sacred and the secular. The 
 clerk or scholar was isolated; his concern was scholar- 
 ship ; and for him the trivium and the quadrivium had 
 accordingly been provided. The knight or "gentle- 
 
148 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 man,'* on the other hand, had no need of such mental 
 cultivation, and, it was assumed, no interest in it. 
 For him, the foundations of education were laid in 
 physical accomplishments, though to these were added 
 such social arts and graces as befitted his rank and, in 
 an age of romantic sex-worship, would assure his suc- 
 cess with women. 
 
 The transformation of the conception of the "gentle- 
 man" which took place at Henry VIII. 's court under 
 the influence of spreading humanistic ideas has already 
 been noted. I recall it here because it serves to intro- 
 duce the general subject of the new tendencies in educa- 
 tion which began with the Renaissance. Behind all 
 these we can, of course, detect the workings of a desire 
 to escape from the narrowness and sterility of the medi- 
 aeval ideas and methods, and to make education corre- 
 spond more completely with the widening views of life. 
 It is, however, a mistake to suppose that the educational 
 reformers of the new age were all governed by the 
 same principles or set out to achieve the same objects. 
 They differed much in aim and spirit, and in their 
 differences we can easily detect the domination now 
 of one and now of another of the great influences 
 which combined in the movement of the Renaissance 
 as a whole. 
 
 Three main streams may thus be followed in the 
 pedagogical speculations and experiments of the time. 
 The first took its rise in the revival of learning. This 
 humanistic education was based almost exclusively on 
 the Greek and Latin classics ; it was linguistic in charac- 
 ter, and went little farther than a study of form and 
 style; its underlying conception was also aristocratic, 
 learning being treated as the privilege of the favoured 
 few. Meanwhile, in the second place, education 
 developed under the powerful influence of the religious 
 
Humanistic Education 149 
 
 revival upon somewhat different lines. In their work 
 for education the great religious reformers and their 
 followers were at once more practical and more demo- 
 cratic than the pure humanists. Education was con- 
 ceived more clearly as a preparation for living and as a 
 social need. Here and there among these religious 
 educationists there were extremists who deprecated 
 classic culture altogether. But for the most part the 
 religious reformers were humanists, though with qualifi- 
 cations; they regarded classical culture as good, and 
 made linguistic knowledge the basis of their pro- 
 grammes; but such culture and knowledge were held 
 to be strictly subordinate to the great purposes of educa- 
 tion — religious and moral training and social utility. 
 Finally, apart from both the humanistic and the 
 religious idea of education, there was that conception 
 of it which arose, far more slowly, out of the new 
 scientific thought of the day. This third conception is 
 called by pedagogical writers the "realistic." 
 
 II. — THE EDUCATIONAL IDEALS OF THE HUMANISTS AND THE 
 RELIGIOUS REFORMERS 
 
 In the educational developments in Italy during the 
 period of the Renaissance the humanistic ideal naturally 
 prevailed. It is, indeed, true that the desire for ver- 
 satility and the craving for self-expansion which were 
 among the characteristics of the time led theorists and 
 practical schoolmasters alike to crowd as many subjects 
 as possible into their schemes of study, and that the 
 great exponents of the new spirit were as eager about 
 Christian training as they were about classical culture. 
 Yet it was upon such classical culture that they carhe 
 more and more to depend. "Without literature," wrote 
 Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (afterwards Pope Pius II.) 
 
150 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 to his nephew, "I do not know what you can be but a 
 two-legged donkey. No one, neither nobleman, nor 
 king, nor general is of any worth if he be ignorant of 
 literature." This was the master-thought with the later 
 Italian pedagogues. Literature — and this, of course, 
 meant Greek and Latin — was conceived as the one great 
 instrument for the building of character no less than 
 for the training of taste. 
 
 Italian humanistic education may, of course, be 
 studied in many treatises, such, for example, as those 
 of Aeneas Sylvius and Maffeo Vegeo. But if we would 
 realise what it was at its best, we may more profitably 
 turn to the practical work of the greatest of the Italian 
 schoolmasters of the time— -Vittorino da Feltre (1378- 
 1446), whose school at Mantua has been described by an 
 expert as "the typical school of the Humanities."* 
 Vittorino's object was to make education a process of 
 pleasure to the learners; to develop the entire nature, 
 physical as well as intellectual and moral; to bring out 
 all the qualities of character in such wise that the 
 scholar, whatever might be his after course in life, 
 might be fully equipped to play his part privately as a 
 good man, and publicly as a good citizen. Latin 
 studies formed the foundation of his system ; some Greek 
 was afterwards introduced; music and the rudiments of 
 what we should call the natural sciences had also a 
 place in his scheme. Prominence was likewise given to 
 games and physical exercise, in which the master him- 
 self, a little man of wiry frame and untiring energy, 
 took his part along with the boys. That Vittorino's 
 purpose was to realise the Hellenic ideal of a fully 
 rounded, harmoniously developed character is evident. 
 But no suggestions of neo-paganism are apparent in 
 his work. Himself an orthodox and devout Christian, 
 * Woodward, " Vittorino da Feltre," p. 24. 
 
Guarino and Sturm 151 
 
 he strove rather to blend Christianity with his human- 
 istic teaching. Yet at the same time he was wholly 
 free from ecclesiastical bias and all the influence of 
 asceticism; and the spirit of his labours was that not; 
 of the cloister but of the world. — ^- 
 
 The name of another Italian schoolmaster, Guarino' 
 da Verona (1370- 1460) is closely associated with that of 
 Vittorino, and he deserves passing mention here 
 because, while contemporary with the Mantuan teacher, 
 he really represents a later stage in the evolution of ; 
 humanistic ideals in pedagogy. From an account of 
 his work transmitted by his son, it is clear that it 
 marks the encroachment of those pedantic elements 
 which were later to gain complete ascendancy. Far 
 more than Vittorino he thought of scholarship as 
 something to be cultivated for its own sake, and 
 with little or no idea of its relationship with life ; 
 and with him, far more than with Vittorino, scholar- 
 ship resolved itself into knowledge of the Greek and 
 Latin writers. 
 
 The great representative of humanistic education in ' 
 Germany was Johann Sturm (1507-89), under whose ; 
 direction the Gymnasium at Strassburg was for many 
 years the leading institution of the kind in northern 
 Europe. The framework of his system was classical 
 in the narrowest sense of the term ; Latin supplanted the 
 mother-tongue entirely; the seven years which the boy 
 spent in the Gymnasium were devoted almost exclu- 
 sively to its mastery; and when later he went to the 
 Academy and the University, his attention was mainly 
 confined to logic, rhetoric, and oratory. The influence 
 of Sturm throughout northern Europe was very power- 
 ful and very pernicious, for it was he more than any 
 other man who, as the German scholar Helwig put it, 
 brought education "into bondage to Latin." Yet it is 
 
152 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 significant that he himself regarded his absurd curricu- 
 lum as the best practical means of making boys into 
 God-fearing and useful men, and that all his dry-as- 
 dust methods were controlled by a pronounced moral 
 and religious spirit. Pietas literata was his favourite 
 phrase; and this sums up pretty clearly the twofold 
 purpose which he sought to achieve. 
 
 Elsewhere among the German educationists the 
 influence of the prevailing spirit of religious and social 
 reform was even more manifest. Luther's conception 
 of education was boldly democratic. In his famous 
 appeal to the burgomasters and councillors of the 
 German cities, he maintained that education should be 
 popular, that it should be free, and that it should be 
 compulsory. In the great school system which he 
 outlined, ample provision was made for all ranks and 
 classes — rich and poor, high and low, girls as well as 
 boys. Every child throughout the land was to be 
 taught at least to read, write, and cipher; even when, 
 owing to the poverty of the parents, children were 
 bound to work for wages, still, arrangements were to 
 be made to enable them to receive a minimum of two 
 hours' daily instruction in letters, morals, and religion ; 
 this system was designed to embrace even the small- 
 est villages; and such methods of teaching were to 
 be adopted as would attract instead of repel the 
 pupil. Neither Luther himself, nor his chief lieutenant, 
 Melanchthon, whose direct influence on German educa- 
 tion was very much greater than his own, had any 
 quarrel with humanism. But with both mere scholastic 
 culture was a secondary consideration ; with both the 
 ideas always uppermost were the religious and social 
 sides of education and its bearings upon life. It was 
 so again with Wimpheling, whose foundation principle 
 was, indeed, that the education of the young was the 
 
Education in England 153 
 
 only secure basis of effective reform in home, in church, 
 in state. "Of what use are all the books in the world," 
 Wimpheling characteristically asks, "the most learned 
 writings, the most profound research, if they minister 
 only to the vainglory of their authors and do not, or 
 cannot, advance the good of mankind ? " Such a 
 question is sufficient to mark the rupture in educational 
 ideals between the German reformers and the pure 
 humanists who followed Guarino in Italy. Yet even 
 in Germany the Latin tradition remained powerful. 
 The school of Wolfgang Ratke, or Ratichius (157 1- 
 1635), at Koethen, was the first German institution in 
 which children were systematically taught their own 
 language. 
 
 In England the new education followed on the whole 
 the German lines, classical culture forming the ground- 
 work of study, while the spirit of the Reformation made 
 itself felt in the emphasis which was at the same time 
 thrown upon the religious aspects of the child's training. 
 This is shown, for example, in the very first work in 
 English in which the problems of moral philosophy 
 were attacked — *' The Boke named the Governour," 
 published in 153 1 by More's friend. Sir Thomas Elyot. 
 Written at a time when, as the author notes, it was still 
 a reproach to a gentleman to care for anything except 
 field sports and the chase, its principal aim was "to 
 instruct men in such vertues as shall be expedient for 
 them which shall have authoritie in a weale publike.'* 
 The treatise is far more comprehensive than this pro- 
 gramme would lead one to expect, for it deals, among 
 other matters, with exercises and dancing (an art which 
 was much in vogue at the court of Henry VIII.). But 
 the practical moral purpose is kept in view throughout. 
 In regard to the curriculum itself, Elyot's great theme 
 is the early mastery of Latin as a familiar and colloquial 
 
154 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 language. Latin should be, in fact, the child's mother 
 tongue; and even his nurses and servants, therefore, 
 should be able to speak to him in a diction of Ciceronian 
 elegance and purity. Classical studies again constitute 
 the backbone of the system elaborated by Ascham in 
 his " Scholemaster " (published in 1570, two years after 
 the writer's death). Essentially a religious moralist, 
 Ascham indeed makes virtue and efficiency the great end 
 of all education, but drill in the classical languages and 
 a knowledge of their literatures is the only means to 
 that end. Such, broadly speaking, was the conception 
 which prevailed in English Renaissance education in 
 general. In theory, moral development was held to be 
 its main object; in practice, everything was sacrificed 
 to proficiency in Latin and, where Greek was added, in 
 Greek. In particular, absolutely no provision was made 
 for the study of English. At the Grammar School at 
 Stratford-on-Avon — a representative school of its kind — 
 Shakespeare never received a single lesson in the use 
 of his mother tongue. Such neglect of one of the most 
 vital aspects of education as a training for life furnishes 
 a glaring illustration of the superstitious veneration for 
 classical antiquity bred by the humanistic enthusiasm 
 of the age. It is, however, only fair to the memory 
 of the greatest of the English schoolmasters of the time, 
 Richard Mulcaster, to add that in this and sundry other 
 respects he was much in advance of the average peda- 
 gogy of his contemporaries. On the ground that 
 we should "care for that most which we ever use the 
 most, because we use it most," he boldly claimed recog- 
 nition for English studies, and even went so far as to 
 declare that as he loved London better than Rome, and 
 England better than Italy, so he loved English better 
 than Latin. 
 
 On the whole, as will now be seen, the influence of 
 
The Classical Superstition 155 
 
 humanism on education was distinctly unsatisfactory. 
 The ideal of culture which it set up was in its own 
 way quite as narrow and lifeless as that which it dis- 
 placed. In fact, it was, in one sense, even narrower 
 and more lifeless; for, as a modern historian of educa- 
 tion has pointed out, the effect of the Renaissance was 
 j to neglect the quadrivium, the subjects of which were, 
 1 roughly speaking, scientific, and to concentrate attention 
 1 upon the trivium, the subjects of which were purely 
 ■ formal.* The genius of the new age had promised to 
 lead men out of the cloister into the world. In the end 
 it led them only out of the cloister into the classroom. 
 Pedantry resumed its sway under a changed form, and 
 the present went back into bondage to the past. Even 
 ^ the word "humanities" soon lost its large and generous 
 original meaning, and shrank into a synonym for Greek 
 and Latin learning. These two dead languages and 
 their literatures became the sole instruments of culture, 
 and the classical scholar was accepted as the 'only 
 possible type of the educated man. It is necessary to 
 lay stress upon these absurd Renaissance ideas because 
 their evil influence was destined to be far-reaching and 
 long-enduring, and to continue indeed right down into 
 our own modern world. It was not, in fact, till about 
 the middle of the nineteenth century that a resolute 
 attempt was made to emancipate our English public 
 schools and universities from the despotism of the tradi- 
 tions initiated by the revival of learning, and to bring 
 them in some measure at least into line with the living 
 interests of actual life. Even to-day the exaggerated 
 importance which in academic circles is still attached to 
 classical acquirements shows that the old superstition 
 has not by any means been outgrown. 
 
 * Quick, '* Educational Reformers," p. 65. 
 
156 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 III. — THE INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE ON EDUCATION 
 
 The bookishness and pedantry of humanistic educa- 
 tion did not, however, go unchallenged. A healthy- 
 protest was made against them during the seventeenth 
 century by the first practical representatives of the 
 "realistic" school. Their efforts are important to us 
 here because they are directly connected with another 
 side of the movement of the Renaissance — the scientific 
 side. The chief influence behind them was the Baconian 
 philosophy. 
 
 A German schoolmaster who has already been 
 named — Wolfgang Ratke — may perhaps be placed in 
 the van of the innovators along these new lines. Very 
 probably during a visit to England — at any rate, some- 
 where and at some time — he became acquainted with 
 Bacon's writings, and it was from these that he derived 
 some of his central principles, among them his great 
 maxim : Per inductionem et experimentum omnia — all 
 things by means of induction and experiment. In 
 accordance with this conception he set aside authority, 
 abandoned the practice of making the pupil learn by 
 rote, proceeded in every subject from the concrete to 
 the abstract, and in the teaching of languages started 
 with the much-neglected mother tongue, through 
 the medium of which all other linguistic knowledge 
 was to be attained. In practice, Ratke was a failure; 
 but a certain historical interest still pertains to his 
 theories. 
 
 Far more important, however, both in itself and in 
 its historical significance, is the work of the Moravian 
 educationalist, John Amos Kominski, or Comenius 
 (1592-167 1), who may justly be regarded as the first 
 of the great practical realists. In him we have an 
 avowed disciple of Bacon. Thus in the preface to his 
 
Gomenius i57 
 
 " Physics," he writes of the " Instauratio Magna" as 
 "a wonderful work, which I consider the most instruc- 
 tive philosophical work of the century now beginning," 
 though he confessed himself "troubled because the noble 
 Verulam, while giving the true key to Nature, did not 
 unlock her secrets, but only showed, by a few examples, 
 how they should be unlocked, and left the rest to future 
 observations to be extended through centuries." Again, 
 when in 1641, at the invitation of the Long Parliament, 
 he visited England to discuss plans for a practical 
 demonstration of his principles — plans which the un- 
 settled state of the country compelled him to abandon 
 — ^the Baconian ideas were still uppermost in his 
 mind: "There was even named for the purpose," he 
 writes, "the Savoy in London, Winchester College 
 also, out of London, was named; and again, nearer 
 the city, Chelsea College ... so that nothing 
 seemed more certain than that the design of the 
 great Verulam of a universal college of all nations 
 devoted to the advancement of the sciences would be 
 carried out." 
 
 The direct indebtedness of Comenius to his great 
 English master is specially conspicuous in two ways ; 
 first, in his adoption of the inductive method in teach- 
 ing; and, secondly, in his belief in the possibility of 
 co-ordinating all knowledge into a complete corpus — 
 Pansophia, as he called it. The work of education, he 
 argues, must accommodate itself to the modus operandi 
 of nature — a declaration which is interesting, notwith- 
 standing the fantastic extremes into which the writer 
 himself was beguiled by it ; and we must in consequence 
 proceed everywhere and at all times from the simple to 
 the complex, from the concrete to the abstract, from 
 details to rules and principles, from particulars to 
 generals. In methodology, therefore, he merely sought 
 
158 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 to apply the Baconian aphorisms to the problems of 
 education. Bacon's influence on his general conception 
 of man and knowledge is equally obvious. His master's 
 grandiose dream of the complete conquest of nature is 
 reproduced in the encyclopaedic programme set out in 
 the "Schola Pansophica," or "School of Universal 
 Knowledge." "There is nothing in Heaven or Earth 
 or in the Waters, nothing in the Abyss under the Earth, 
 nothing in the Human Body, nothing in the Soul, 
 nothing in Holy Writ, nothing in the Arts, nothing in 
 Economy, nothing in Polity, nothing in the Church of 
 which the little candidates for wisdom shall be wholly 
 ignorant." Following Bacon, he also repudiates the 
 despotism of the past, and declares it to be both the right 
 and the duty of the modern man to examine and inter- 
 pret facts for himself. "Are not we as well as the old 
 philosophers placed in Nature's garden ? Why then 
 should we not cast about our eyes, nostrils and ears as 
 well as they ? Why should we learn the works of Nature 
 from any other master than those of our senses ? Why 
 do we not, I say, turn over the living book of the world 
 instead of dead papers? In it we may contemplate 
 more things, and with greater delight and profit, than 
 anyone can tell us. If we have anywhere need of an 
 interpreter, the Maker of Nature is the best interpreter 
 Himself." * In such a passage the Baconian inspiration 
 is obvious. 
 
 At the root of Comenius's pedagogical philosophy 
 lies the principle that it is the business of education to 
 improve the faculties with which man is endowed by 
 nature in order that he may grow up with a full know- 
 ledge of himself and of the world. His theory was 
 broadly democratic. "Not only," he writes in his 
 
 * Preface to '* Natural Philosophic Reformed " (English trans- 
 lation, 1651). 
 
Comenius 159 
 
 '* Didactica," "are the children of the rich and noble 
 to be drawn to school, but all alike, gentle and simple, 
 rich and poor, boys and girls, in great towns and small, 
 down to the country villages. For this reason. Every- 
 one who is born a human being is born to this intent : 
 that he should be a human being, that is, a reasonable 
 creature, ruling over the other creatures, and bearing 
 the likeness of his Maker." At the same time, as a 
 theologian, he looked at education entirely from the 
 religious point of view. This present life is only a 
 preparation for eternity; education should aid in the 
 preparation. The activities which education fits men to 
 carry on themselves gain all their value from their 
 religious significance. On the whole, he was markedly 
 anti-humanistic in spirit. Latin was essential as the 
 universal means of inter-communication among peoples 
 of different tongues and of the dissemination of re- 
 ligious and moral truth, and the utility of classical 
 studies was therefore asserted by him. None the less, 
 he distrusted classical literature, which he considered to 
 be unfit for the training of Christians. This feeling 
 carried him so far that he even wrote a set of Latin 
 manuals himself to take the place of the writings which 
 were commonly studied in the schools. For the beauty 
 of form and style he had no sense whatever. His 
 standard was wholly practical. "All authors," he 
 ruled, "are to be banished from the schools except 
 those that give knowledge of useful things." If this 
 declaration may now seem to savour too much of 
 Gradgrindism, it is none the less interesting, be- 
 cause, conjointly with his other theories, it marks 
 Comenius's opposition to the dominant humanistic ideal 
 in education. 
 
i6o The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 IV. — THE EDUCATIONAL THEORIES OF RABELAIS AND 
 MONTAIGNE 
 
 I reserve for separate treatment the pedagogical ideas 
 of two great French thinkers, whose views were so in- 
 dependent that they defy formal classification — Rabelais 
 and Montaigne. Both these men wrote as non-profes- 
 sionals, and, as a result, they often failed to see things 
 from the actual teacher's point of view. By reason of 
 their originality, their sagacity, and the breadth of their 
 outlook, they are none the less entitled to rank among 
 the most important educational reformers of the six- 
 teenth century. 
 
 Rabelais' ideas about education are set forth episodic- 
 ally in that amazing farrago of wild buffoonery and 
 profound philosophy which contains the histories of 
 Gargantua and Pantagruel. Their keynote — which is, 
 in fact, the keynote of all Rabelais' thought — is 
 antagonism to everything belonging to the cloister and 
 what the cloister had stood for and symbolised : to 
 asceticism and the repression of life's hea]J:hy, natural 
 instincts ; to dogmatic theology and servile obedience ; to 
 scholasticism with all its barrenness and futility. The 
 purpose of education as conceived by him is to fashion, 
 not the scholar, but the man ; to bring out all the 
 faculties in harmonious and well-balanced development ; 
 to prepare for life in the widest possible acceptation of 
 the term. The absurdities of the old methods are 
 satirised in the account of Gargantua's early training; 
 he is entrusted, to begin with, to "a great Doctor of 
 Theology, called Master Tubal Holof ernes," who 
 spends five years and three months in teaching him to 
 say his A B C by heart backwards ; after which many 
 more long years are consumed in the acquisition of 
 much useless information according to the laborious 
 
Rabelais on Education i6i 
 
 routine still in vogue. The result is that the pupil "did 
 profit nothing, but, which is worse, grew thereby 
 foolish, simple, doted, and blockish." Upon this, for 
 the sake of contrast, we are introduced to a typical 
 product of the new and rational methods advocated by 
 Rabelais — a young page, Eudemon, who is a model of 
 physical health and comeliness, virtue, good breeding, 
 grace, and sound scholarship. Panocrates, the tutor of 
 Eudemon, now takes Gargantua in hand, and forthwith 
 everything is changed. The curriculum adopted is then 
 given in detail, and from this we learn the principles 
 which Rabelais was anxious to enforce. From four 
 o'clock, the time of rising, to the hour of repose, not 
 a moment of the day is wasted, the ordinary experiences 
 of life, and even recreation, being turned to educational 
 account. Instruction through books, to which some 
 six hours a day are devoted, of course occupies the 
 most prominent jplace in Rabelais' scheme. But the 
 stress is now thrown upon substance rather than upon 
 form; while, though Gargantua learns a great deal by 
 heart, his lessons are not allowed to remain things of 
 rote only, but are practically applied and brought to the 
 test of common fact. Thus, as the boy and his tutor 
 sit together over their meals, they often speak "of the 
 virtue, property, efficacy, and nature of all that was 
 served on the table," recalling whatever had been 
 written upon these subjects by the wise men of antiquity. 
 Conversation, in which the student's mind is drawn out 
 and exercised, and observation of the things about him, 
 are thus made to supplement book learning and repeti- 
 tion. Natural phenomena are likewise studied directly 
 whenever opportunity arises; in every country walk, 
 for example, Gargantua is encouraged to examine trees 
 and plants, to compare his own observations of them 
 with those recorded in books, and to carry home 
 
i62 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 specimens for future use, while the face of the sky by 
 day and night is the subject of regular scrutiny. In 
 this insistence upon the training of the senses, and 
 upon the great principle of learning about things, not 
 at second hand through books, but at first hand through 
 direct contact with the things themselves, Rabelais 
 appears to have been years in advance of the peda- 
 gogical theorists of his time. The arts of life, and 
 particularly music, are similarly encouraged, while with 
 the objedt of producing, not a mere monster of erudition, 
 but a healthy mind in a healthy body, the utmost atten- 
 tion is paid to all kinds of physical exercise which are 
 calculated to develop strength, agility and self-control. 
 On this side, too, Rabelais' sound sense is apparent; 
 for while much of Gargantua's time is taken up with 
 horsemanship and feats of arms, and whatever else 
 specially belongs to the equipment of the "gentleman," 
 he is also initiated into the mysteries of workshop and 
 factory, and taught corn threshing, wood carving, and 
 painting. This recognition of the place of the handi- 
 crafts in education is certainly remarkable. Religion, 
 too, is amply provided for. The day begins with the 
 reading of Scripture and prayer; thanks to God for 
 His " Divine bounty and munificence " follow every 
 meal; and at night the tutor and the boy together 
 offer praise to God "for the time that is past," and 
 "recommend themselves to His Divine clemency for all 
 the future." But it is noteworthy that religious instruc- 
 tion is limited to the exposition of the Bible, and that no 
 time is wasted on barren theological dispultations 
 according to the methods of the older schools. 
 
 No account of Rabelais' educational ideas would 
 be complete without some reference to his wonderful 
 Utopian dream of the Abbey of Thelema. "If," said 
 Friar John on one occasion to the great king Gargantua, 
 
The Abbey of Thelema 163 
 
 "you think that I have done you, or may hereafter do 
 you any acceptable service, then give me leave to form 
 an abbey after mine own mind and fancy." Permis- 
 sion granted, the Friar told the King that the ground- 
 work of his enterprise was to be simple ; he proposed that 
 his new institution should be in every respect the oppo- 
 site of every such institution the world had ever seen. 
 Life in the abbey was to have nothing ascetic, morbid 
 or unnatural about it; it was to be lived in the open- 
 air — a life at once free, clean, and debonair. Over the 
 great gate a long inscription set forth the class of people 
 — such as bigots, hypocrites, pharisees, gold graspers, 
 the cruel, the contentious, the dissolute — whose society 
 was not desired, while a warm invitation to fellowship 
 was extended to men and women alike, whose hearts 
 were pure and modest and whose religion was rooted fast 
 in simple faith and charity. The abbey grounds were 
 miracles of ordered loveliness; there were tilting yards 
 and tennis courts, gardens and theatres, and riverside 
 walks for exercise and recreation ; for study there were 
 libraries stored with all the treasures of learning, and 
 museums rich with the spoils of the world. The monks 
 and nuns of other religious orders had wilfully neglected 
 personal cleanliness and comeliness. Among the 
 Thelemites, on the contrary, the strictest attention was 
 paid, not to hygiene only, but also to every detail of 
 raiment, manner and bearing, which would minister to 
 bodily beauty and social charm. No clock or sundial 
 was to be found throughout the whole institution, for 
 "the greatest waste of time is to sit and count the 
 hours " ; no artificial vows of chastity, poverty and obedi- 
 ence were imposed, for each inmate was allowed to 
 follow that course of study and of life which suited 
 best his disposition, talents and aims. In other 
 monastic orders, personality had been crushed beneath 
 
164 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 the burden of multitudinous statutes and regulations. 
 In the rule of Thelema there was only one clause : 
 Fay ce que voudras — "Do what you will"; and this 
 was enough, since the man or woman whose nature is 
 attuned to the moral law may be trusted always to do 
 spontaneously that which is right. In this atmosphere 
 of wholesome freedom the youths and maidens of the 
 new order dwelt together in mutual reverence and sym- 
 pathy, not filling their minds with the morbid fancies 
 and unclean images which were too often bred in the 
 unnatural seclusion of the cloister, but rather learning 
 through their daily relationships the supreme lessons 
 of sanity, reciprocal respect and self-restraint. Then, 
 when, says Rabelais, carrying still further his hostility 
 to the celibacy of the so-called religious life, "the time 
 came that any man of the said abbey . . . had a mind 
 to go out of it, he carried along with him one of the 
 ladies — namely, her whom he had before that chosen, 
 and they were married together. And if they had 
 formerly in Thelema lived in good devotion and amity, 
 they did continue therein and increase it to a greater 
 height in their state of matrimony, and did entertain 
 that mutual love till the very last day of their life, in no 
 less fervency than at the very day of their wedding." 
 
 The Abbey of Thelema is only an incident in the 
 chronicle of Gargantua's prodigious adventures; it 
 occupies a few pages only ; then it is dismissed, and we 
 never hear of it again. Yet, of all the many visions 
 of an age which loved to indulge in such Utopian 
 fantasies, this seems to me by far at once the wisest and 
 most engaging. 
 
 Rabelais was a dreamer, whose powerful imagination 
 perpetually ran away with him. His great successor, 
 Montaigne the Sceptic, on the other hand, brought an 
 almost unrivalled sagacity to bear upon every subject 
 
Montaigne on Education 165 
 
 he touched, and never for a moment forgot the narrow 
 limitations of the real and the possible. While Rabelais, 
 therefore, had written about education with little thought 
 of the immediate application of his theories, Montaigne 
 kept a definite practical end steadily in view. 
 
 At the same time he is in many ways more radical 
 than Rabelais, particularly in his entire repudiation of 
 the Renaissance superstition, to which the older writer 
 had clung, that knowledge is the main thing in life 
 and is of value for its own sake.* Montaigne is 
 generously utilitarian. Education is entirely for life, 
 and unless increasing knowledge brings with it also 
 increase of wisdom, it is only so much useless baggage. 
 "Except our mind be the better and our judgment the 
 sounder" for what we learn, "I had rather my scholar 
 had employed his time in playing tennis." That a man 
 should learn to know himself and to live well and to 
 die well — that is his conception of the end of all 
 education worthy of the name. As Michelet has pointed 
 out, he was the first writer on the subjedt to turn the 
 teacher's attention from the thing to be learned to the 
 learner — from the matter of scholarship to the per- 
 sonality of the pupil. Mere knowledge — what he calls 
 pedantisme, the sort of knowledge which is accumulated 
 out of books — he despises and ridicules. He praises 
 Sparta at the expense of Athens, for in Athens the 
 boys were taught only to speak well, while the Spartans 
 cared nothing for literature, but everything for life and 
 conduct. He regrets the immense amount of time which 
 is wasted in learning words and the trick of putting 
 
 * Montaigne's ideas about education may be gathered from the 
 essay " Of the Institution and Education of Children " (I. xxv.), 
 and incidentally from those ** Of Pedantry" (I. xxiv.), "Of 
 Books" (IL X.), "Of Anger" (II. xxxi.), and *' Of the Affections 
 of Fathers to their Children" (II. viii.); though much else to the 
 point will be found scattered, in accordance with the writer's dis- 
 cursive habit, through other essays. 
 
i66 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 them .into sentences; "let us leave such things to those 
 whose profession it is to do nothing else." Real 
 education should give wisdom in enterprise, integrity 
 in action, modesty in gesture, justice in conduct, 
 judgment and grace in speech, courage in sickness, 
 moderation in sport, temperance in pleasure, order and 
 government in the house ;_and one who is thus dis- 
 ciplined for right living, and none other, is the truly 
 educated man. "We are ever ready to ask — hath such 
 a one any skill in the Greek or Latin tongue? Can 
 he write well in prose, in verse? But whether he be 
 grown better or wiser — which should be the chiefest 
 drift — that is never spoken of." To write pure Latin 
 is good, but the principal consideration is not that a 
 boy shall write pure Latin, but that he shall develop 
 into a wise and useful man. 
 
 Such being Montaigne's conception of the business 
 of education, it is easy to understand his pronounced 
 antagonism to the bookishness which, as we have seen, 
 was a common feature in the pedagogical theory and 
 practice of his time. "We toil only to stuff the 
 memory, and leave the conscience and the intelligence 
 void." Far more than any other contemporary writer 
 on education he realises the importance of cultivating 
 the child's independence of judgment and individuality. 
 He is impatient of book learning — "to know by rote 
 is not to know." Dogmatic authority is an evil; all 
 dependence upon other people's ideas must be depre- 
 cated. "I would have him [the teacher] make his 
 scholar sift all things, and harbour nothing in his head 
 by mere authority and upon trust." Again : " We talk 
 and prate — Cicero saith thus : these are the very words 
 of Plato or Aristotle. But what say we? A parrot 
 would say as much." And once more: "Suppose 
 we may become learned with other men's learning. 
 
Montaigne on Education 167 
 
 I am still sure that we can never be wise but by 
 our own wisdom." The pupil, therefore, must 
 assimilate the knowledge which he obtains through 
 his books. *^'It is not enough to join learning and 
 knowledge to the mind. They should be incorporated 
 into it." 
 
 That Montaigne, with his eyes fixed upon complete 
 living, should attach much importance to physical 
 culture is, of course, only what we might expect : " It 
 is not a body, it is not a mind, that we erect, but it 
 is a man, and we must not make two parts of him." 
 In this matter, however, he was only at one with 
 Renaissance educational theories in general. The point 
 rather to emphasise about his own doctrines, therefore, 
 is his protest against both the principles and the methods 
 of those ordinary schoolmasters who first mistake know- 
 ledge for development, and then seek even to inculcate 
 knowledge in a way which fails altogether to strengthen 
 and enrich the pupil's mind. Rabelais had made 
 training rather than instruction the end and test of 
 education, and had thus sought to break down the 
 pedagogical tradition of the pure humanists. Montaigne 
 saw even more clearly the full significance of that 
 fruitful thought, and alike by his stress upon it, and 
 by his repeated assertion of the claim of individuality 
 against authority and of the present against the past, 
 he placed himself in the forefront of the progressive 
 movements of his age. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 The Renaissance in Art 
 
 I "PRELIMINARIES OF THE REVIVAL OF ART 
 
 We have now to follow the movement of the Renais- 
 sance in the field of art. The subject is a vast and 
 intricate one, and while, on the one hand, there is 
 danger lest condensed treatment of it may result in a 
 mere catalogue of names, on the other hand it is 
 certain that if we permitted ourselves to be tempted 
 into details either of a personal or of a technical 
 character, this chapter would soon swell into a volume. 
 Ours, therefore, must be the middle course of the general 
 historical student who, ignoring all questions of method 
 and the inter-relations of masters and schools, and re- 
 garding the art of the Renaissance as one aspect only 
 of the Renaissance as a whole, seeks to understand 
 how it was shaped and coloured by the diverse influences 
 of the time. 
 
 Our point of view thus defined, the lines of our 
 inquiry may be laid down in advance, since the trans- 
 formation we have noted in other spheres of activity 
 will again become manifest here. We shall find art 
 emancipating itself from sacerdotalism and the control 
 of the Church, ceasing gradually to be a mere vehicle 
 for theological dogma, and allying itself with the in- 
 terests of the secular life. We shall find that this 
 "secularisation is accompanied by a return to nature and 
 reality. At the same time we shall find that art reveals 
 in many ways the profound influence of the classic 
 
 1 68 
 
Early Christian Art 169 
 
 revival, and becomes one of the numerous channels 
 through which the spirit of humanism is expressed. If 
 these points can be made clear, the purpose of the 
 present chapter will be accomplished. -^ 
 
 It is necessary, first, to indicate broadly the course 
 of art from the opening of the Christian era down to 
 the time when it began to respond to the spirit of the 
 new age. 
 
 A marked feature of the art of primitive Christian 
 days, as this is preserved in the sepulchral decorations 
 of the Roman catacombs, is the continuation of the 
 classic tradition. This is shown not only in the floral 
 and mythological motives which were still freely em- 
 ployed, but even more conspicuously in the delineation 
 of sacred subjects and persons, in which — as in the 
 famous case of Christ as. the Good Shepherd (a figure 
 obviously derived from Pan) — the Christian painter or 
 sculptor evidently adopted without scruple the formulas 
 which he found ready to his hand.* Christian art at 
 this stage of its evolution exhibited originality only in 
 the development of a number of characteristic emblems 
 — such as the Vine, the Fish and the Lamb — which 
 gradually came to be accounted as part of a regular 
 pictorial language for the conveyance of religious ideas. 
 Then, when little by little increasing place was given 
 to incidents from the Old and New Testaments, these 
 were treated, not for their interest as incidents, but 
 wholly for their didactic value or symbolical significance 
 — a fact which explains why a few subjects only were 
 picked out to the exclusion of many others having 
 
 * In the catacombs the Good Shepherd appears in Roman costume, 
 holding the pipes of his pagan prototype. It is interesting at this 
 point to recall Milton's identification of Christ with Pan in his 
 *' Ode on the Nativity." Another noteworthy appropriation was that 
 of Orpheus, who occasionally takes the place of Pan as a type of 
 Christ. 
 
170 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 greater artistic possibilities, and why the subjects so 
 chosen were repeated again and again with compara- 
 tively slight variation in the manner of their presenta- 
 tion. A tendency towards the entire subordination of 
 form to content is thus already apparent. Even more 
 important, however, in view of later changes, is the 
 spirit of this early Christian art, which is singularly 
 tender and humane. All the harsher and sterner aspects 
 of the new faith were, it would seem, studiously avoided. 
 The favourite figure of Christ was that of the Good 
 Shepherd, just referred to, and in this form He is often 
 represented as bearing a lamb, or sometimes a kid, on 
 His shoulders; but He is nowhere depicted dividing 
 the sheep from the goats till the fourth century. No 
 delineations were introduced either in painting or in 
 sculpture of the Day of Judgment or the fate of the 
 lost, and no instance has been brought to light in 
 which the artist assumed the role of the prophet and 
 proclaimed the vengeance to come. Nor is this quite 
 all. These early artists also reveal a striking un- 
 willingness to deal with the humiliation and sufferings 
 of the Redeemer, whom they choose rather to think 
 of in His hour of heavenly triumph. From all the 
 horrors of the story of His last days on earth they 
 avert their eyes. At the outset, even the cross itself 
 is entirely absent from their work, and when it first 
 appears it is as a cross only, its floral decorations 
 attesting that it was meant as a symbol, not of suffer- 
 ing, but of victory. So far as is known, no scene from 
 the Passion or Crucifixion appears before the fifth 
 century, and these topics did not begin to be popular 
 till something like a hundred years later. The contrast 
 in purpose and temper thus suggested between early 
 Christian art and the ecclesiastical and dogmatic art 
 of the middle ages is very noteworthy. 
 
Early Mediaeval Art 171^. 
 
 The radical changes which came over Christianity 
 from the time of its triumph under Constantine onward 
 were, of course, productive of various changes in its 
 art. Along with many of the ideas and rites of con- 
 quered paganism, the established religion continued to 
 appropriate such artistic forms and motives as still 
 survived among those whose ancient faith it had indeed 
 superseded, but into whose inheritance of degenerate 
 culture it had also stepped. Whatever check upon 
 aesthetic effort had formerly been imposed by dread of 
 idolatry was now removed; but as creative power and 
 technical skill were alike lacking, art fell more and 
 more into the thraldom of convention. Then organised 
 theology laid the most fatal of all obstacles in the way 
 of its progress by making it the mere vehicle of dogma. 
 Not the design itself, but the idea to be made concrete 
 by it, became the paramount, indeed the sole, con- 
 sideration. This necessarily meant stagnation. As by 
 little and little the symbol itself was fused with the 
 thing symbolised, and the sanctity and authority which 
 belonged to the one were transferred to the other, an 
 intense and blighting conservatism became the ruling 
 principle in art. Existing representations of Christ, 
 the Virgin, the apostles, the saints, and current repre- 
 sentations of incidents from Bible story thus came to 
 be regarded, not as efforts of previous artists to embody 
 an ideal or depict a scene, but as things sacred in 
 themselves; originality was discouraged; innovation 
 was avoided as perilously near to heresy. Thus art 
 everywhere exhibited the same tendency towards fixity 
 and finality as was at the same time manifest through- 
 out the real;n of thought. The spreading spirit of 
 asceticism ' meanwhile co-operated with sacerdotalism 
 to widen the breach between art and life. The first 
 Christian art, despite its narrow limitations of theme 
 
172 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 and style, had often been rich in realistic detail. All 
 realism now gave way to formalism. To the monkish 
 mosaic-worker or illuminator the whole external world 
 rested under the divine curse, and if he turned away 
 from every shape of natural beauty as a snare set by 
 the evil one to entrap his soul, most of all did he 
 recoil in horror from the human body, which for him 
 was a mass of corruption, and an object so loathsome 
 that even to think of it was sin. All direct study of 
 nature, and in particular all study of the nude, were 
 thus rendered impossible. Bound in the trammels thrust 
 i upon it by the Church, cut off from all healthy contact 
 j with reality, art inevitably became hard, conventional, 
 : and grotesque. Its bondage to dogma and tradition, 
 and its consequent divorce from nature and truth, were 
 now indeed complete. 
 
 The results are shown in the efforts of the Byzantine 
 school, which, whether in wall-painting, in mosaic 
 decoration, or in the illumination of manuscripts, have 
 all the well-marked characteristics of purely hieratic art. 
 Choked by their didactic aim, overloaded with symbolic 
 detail, these cramped and unlovely productions of minds 
 enslaved by ecclesiastical tradition are utterly lifeless in 
 conception and composition ; their groupings exhibit no 
 attempt at realistic representation ; while their human 
 figures are ill-drawn, in attitudes which are hard 
 and conventional, with draperies disposed into stiff 
 mechanical folds, and faces which are almost void of 
 expression. Themes and treatment, down even to 
 relatively trivial accessories of design, being now 
 reduced to formula, the artist's task was merely to 
 imitate and reproduce ; no independent play of thought, 
 no appeal to nature was permitted, and, as a conse- 
 I quence, Byzantine art -changed so little in matter or 
 manner during several hundred years that, according to 
 
Byzantine Art 173 
 
 experts, it is almost impossible to decide on internal 
 evidence alone the date of any given picture. The 
 fundamental difference of spirit between this sombre art 
 and that of early Christian times is, however, as has 
 already been noted, the principal point for emphasis. 
 Among the first Christian artists those miracles of Christ 
 had enjoyed the greatest favour which revealed divine 
 mercy as well as divine power — ^the raising of Lazarus, 
 for example, the feeding of the multitude, the healing 
 of the woman with the issue of blood, of the blind man, 
 and of the paralytic; and even when scenes of a quite 
 different character were introduced at all — when Christ 
 was depicted before Pilate, or taunted by soldiers, or 
 crowned with thorns — the desire, of which I have already 
 spoken, to avoid all harrowing suggestions is very 
 apparent. In Byzantine art we enter upon a new range 
 of interests and motives. There is a tendency to neglect 
 the love and gentleness of Christ, and to accentuate 
 His greatness as king and judge. Apocalyptic subjects 
 abound, a favourite theme for apsidal mosaics being a 
 colossal figure of the Lord, as "Rex tremendae majes- 
 tatis," surrounded by the symbols of St. John's vision 
 on Patmos. Then, with the firm establishment of the 
 school, attention is more and more concentrated upon 
 the Passion, the Crucifixion, and the Last Judgment. 
 The tragic horrors of the work of redemption considered 
 on the human side also come to the front. With this 
 the formulation of a definite type in the representation 
 of the Saviour becomes a matter of some importance. 
 In very early painting and sculpture the powerful 
 influences of the classic tradition were shown in the 
 general practice of depicting Christ as a beautiful, god- 
 like, unbearded youth, with crisp, curled hair, and a 
 cheerful cast of countenance. Then towards the end of 
 the fourth century another type began to appear beside 
 
174 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 this — that of a man of some thirty years of age, with 
 a long, mature face, and a grave, often sad, expression. 
 For a time art hesitated between these two ideals. This 
 hesitation reflected the current controversy beween those 
 who maintained that as Christ was the Perfect Man, so 
 He must have been perfect in bodily form no less than in 
 spirit, and those who replied that as the Man of Sorrows 
 He had neither "form nor comeliness," nor any trace of 
 personal beauty "that we should desire Him." Gradu- 
 ally, under the influences of settling theology and a 
 darkening religious temper, the ascetic type — that of 
 the suffering Saviour — gained ground. It was this 
 ascetic type which ultimately passed, with some modifi- 
 cation, from the Byzantine school into the religious art 
 of western Europe, by which it was generally, though 
 not universally, adopted. Under the same influences a 
 corresponding change also took place in the treatment 
 of the Crucifixion. At first this had been represented 
 under the forms of a mystical convention; no attempt 
 was made to visualise and reproduce the scene; the 
 Saviour was depicted clothed in a tunic and still alive 
 on the cross; His eyes were wide open; and neither in 
 His attitude nor in the expression of His perfectly placid 
 face was the slightest trace of agony allowed to appear. 
 Even after the sixth General Council at Constantinople, 
 in 692, had enjoined the historical rendering of all 
 scriptural subjects in preference to the purely symbolical, 
 the omission of realistic detail from this particular scene 
 continued to be accepted as part of the traditional 
 formula. It was not till the eleventh century that the 
 fast-spreading spirit of religious gloom, and the growth 
 of a morbid love of everything painful and repellent, 
 which were among the salient features of that age, gave 
 a fresh character to what had now become the central 
 motive in art. It was then that for the first time the 
 
Duccio and Niccola Pisano 175 
 
 Lord was represented as dead on the cross, and that 
 the vivid delineation of His physical sufferings became 
 a main purpose of the artist. This new mode originated 
 in the east, but became firmly established in the west 
 during the following century, such changes as appeared 
 in it being referable to differences rather of technique 
 than of underlying conception. 
 
 II. — THE BEGINNINGS OF THE REVIVAL OF ART 
 
 Byzantine traditions dominated Italian art till the | 
 end of the thirteenth century. The record of the great \ 
 revival in art may be said to open with the first clear \ 
 signs of reaction against them. In dealing with such * 
 early efforts towards emancipation we are, it is true, 
 carrying our inquiry back beyond the general chrono- 
 logical limits which we have assigned for our study. 
 But in the history of art this first Renaissance, as it 
 is sometimes called, represents the primary workings of 
 all those impulses which were presently to generate the 
 movements of the Renaissance proper. Without some 
 knowledge of it these later movements would, indeed, be 
 unintelligible. Taking the closing thirteenth century as 
 our point of departure, we shall moreover find that from 
 this time on our narrative is one of continuous evolution. 
 
 There is, as usual, considerable uncertainty about 
 beginnings. It is commonly held that the first painter 
 to touch the dry abstractions of the reigning mode 
 with something of life and truth was Duccio di Buonin- 
 segna (1260- 1340), the founder of the Sienese school, 
 in whose frescoes, strictly though they follow the forms 
 of the Italo-Byzantine tradition, a slight infusion of a 
 new spirit has been detected. More importance, how- 
 ever, attaches to the somewhat earlier sculpture of 
 Niccola Pisano (1206-78), whose masterpiece — the beau- 
 
176 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 tiful hexagonal pulpit in the Baptistery at Pisa — was 
 finished in or before the year of Duccio's birth. In 
 general design this is noteworthy as the first example of 
 the influence of northern Gothic in Italian architecture. 
 But its chief interest for us at the moment is to be sought 
 in the bas-reliefs depicting the Birth of Christ, the Adora- 
 tion of the Magi, the Circumcision, the Crucifixion, and 
 the Last Judgment, for these, down even to the attitudes 
 and gestures of the figures, are wrought in obvious 
 imitation of the rich carvings of the ancient Roman 
 sarcophagi, which evidently the sculptor must have 
 studied very diligently. It is significant that thus early 
 we may trace the power of a revived study of the antique 
 in breaking the force of mediaeval tradition. But, 
 possibly because Niccol^'s work was inspired by classic 
 models rather than by nature, and was thus derivative 
 and not original, it seems to have transmitted little life- 
 giving energy to those who immediately followed. 
 About the same time came Cimabue (i 240-1302) whose 
 name holds a high place in the annals of art because he 
 was long regarded as the first painter in what Vasari 
 calls the "modern manner." Though trained in the 
 rigid rules of the dominant school, he nevertheless, it 
 was alleged, began the imitation of nature; Vasari 
 records that he even painted a St. Thomas directly 
 from the living model — "a new thing in these times "; 
 while Symonds declares, with some show of reason, that 
 "the outstretched arms of the infant Christ" in the 
 famous Rucellai Madonna — ^the picture which is said to 
 have been carried in triumph through the streets of 
 Florence to its place in Santa Maria Novella — "have 
 been copied from nature, not merely borrowed from 
 tradition."* Unfortunately, however, recent criticism 
 has dealt very destructively with Cimabue's name and 
 
 ♦ "The Fine Arts," pp. 138, 139. 
 
Giotto 177 
 
 fame. Vasari's biography is now declared to be a 
 mere bundle of fables. We know nothing for certain 
 about the man's artistic achievement. "It cannot," we 
 are told, "be proved that a single picture attributed to 
 Cimabue was painted by him " * ; even the Rucellai 
 Madonna is now held to be the work of another hand 
 — probably Duccio's. All we can safely say about him, 
 therefore, is that there is doubtless some foundation 
 for the old tradition which placed him in the forefront 
 of those who sought to revivify Italian painting by 
 putting life into accepted formulas. 
 
 We get, fortunately, on firmer ground when we 
 come to his great successor, Giotto di Bondone (1276- 
 1337). I^ his case again, it is true, a good deal of 
 legend has to be brushed aside, especially such legend 
 as has grown up about his supposed relations with 
 Cimabue. A pretty and very popular story runs to 
 the effect that Giotto was the son of a peasant of Vespig- 
 nano, near Florence; that as a boy he tended his 
 father's flocks in the pasture land about that village; 
 that there he was discovered by Cimabue, who saw 
 him drawing one of his lambs on a flat rock with a 
 sharp stone, and, delighted, took him into his house 
 as his pupil. An older variant relates that Giotto was 
 apprenticed to a wool stapler in Florence, whose 
 business he forsook in order to linger day after day 
 about Cimabue 's workshop. These, however, must be 
 dismissed as fables. But happily the destruction of such 
 legendary accretions does not in the least impair the 
 substantial value of Giotto's work. It is quite unlikely 
 that he was ever a pupil of Cimabue, to whom, it 
 would appear, he owed little or nothing in the way of 
 impulse or guidance. How far, on the other hand, he 
 
 * Editorial note in Langton Douglas's edition of Crowe and 
 Cavalcaselli's "History of Painting in Italy," i. 181. 
 
 M 
 
178 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 may, as is now supposed, have been indebted to Niccolk 
 Pisano and his sons, and to painters who were already 
 busy in Rome, is a question which need not detain us 
 ,,^^<dl£re. The one thing we have to remember is that 'with 
 Giotto the return to nature definitely begins in Italian 
 art. Thus, if the tale told about his childish efforts 
 with rock and stone be (as it doubtless is) mere fiction, 
 at least, as Symonds well says, it may be taken as a 
 parable; "he was not found beneath a church roof 
 tracing a mosaic, but on the open mountains, trying to 
 draw the portrait of the living thing committed to his 
 care." * Even a casual study of his production suffices 
 to show how much the free and energetic life of 
 Florence must have counted in his education as an 
 artist, and how deeply the distinctive quality of his 
 workmanship reflects, not the abstractions of theological 
 speculations or the petrified formulas of the cloister, 
 but the bustle of the streets, with their crowds, pro- 
 cessions, fetes, and combats. It was in this open-air 
 school, and not in the dry and pedantic labours of his 
 predecessors, that he gained that keen sense of the 
 dramaitic possibilities of painting which, more than any- 
 thing else, gives him his peculiar position and import- 
 ance in the evolution of art. We do not value his 
 work for correctness of drawing (he probably knew 
 nothing of anatomy), nor for constructive skill, nor 
 for ideal beauty. We value it for iits truth and vivacity. 
 For his contemporaries and immediate successors his 
 principal merit rightly seemed to be this : that beyond 
 all other painters he had given to his individuals and 
 his groups the manner and semblance of life. "His 
 figures," writes one of the Florentine chroniclers, 
 "present so fully the lineaments of nature that they 
 seem to live and breathe; their attitudes and gestures 
 * •' The Fine Arts," p. 139. 
 
Giotto's Work at Assisi 179 
 
 are so characteristic that one could believe that they 
 were weeping, rejoicing, and performing other acts for 
 the pleasure of those who regard and praise the genius 
 and the hand of the artist."* Especially significant, 
 therefore, are his sense of humour, his love of realistic 
 detail, the boldness with which he combines homely 
 incidents with his religious themes. In one of his altar- 
 pieces, for instance, he depicts the divine babe sucking 
 his thumb; in his frescoes on the history of St. Francis 
 there are children waiting to throw stones at the saint, 
 and a friar clambering into a tree to get a good view 
 of the procession ; while his fondness for introducing, 
 wherever possible, dogs, donkeys, and oxen (often done 
 with an admirable sense of character) is one of the most 
 delightful features of his work. That work can be 
 profitably studied at many places, but it will be enough 
 for us here to refer to the twenty-eight frescoes just 
 men^tioned, which (of course with the help of pupils 
 and apprentices) he executed in the upper church of 
 St. Francis at Assisi. Here in particular we may note 
 the soundly realistic quality of his mind. A man of 
 shrewd common sense, he had no trace in his compo- 
 sition of mysticism or ecstatic piety, and his personal 
 sympathy with the ascetic ideal preached by the founder 
 of the Minor Brotherhood was so slight that he even 
 wrote a canzone against voluntary poverty and the 
 hypocrisy of many who professed the spiritual life. In 
 painting the legend of St. Francis, therefore — and in 
 doing this he had the advantage of fresh material not 
 yet conventionalised and of a relatively free hand — he 
 set himself simply to realise and reproduce the dramatic 
 elements in his story, and to make his painting the 
 vehicle of narrative and characterisation. Lt is his 
 general success — which at the time and in the circum- 
 * Villani, " Liber de civitatis Florentinae famosis civibus," 1404-5. 
 
i8o The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 stances was often remarkable — in achieving this object 
 that g-ives Giotto his leading claim upon our attention. 
 It is to be regretted that his followers, the Giotteschi, 
 abandoned the path of nature for that of imitation, and 
 by their fidelity to his leadership proved false to the 
 spirit of his teaching. Yet in a treatise on painting 
 which is interesting as -the first modern book of its 
 kind we find one of them, Cennino Cennini (1360-1420), 
 expressly advising the student to draw something every 
 day from nature. 
 
 III. — THE EARLY RENAISSANCE IN ITALIAN ART 
 
 Giotto's connection with St. Francis will serve to 
 remind us that the teachings and spirit of the saint of 
 Assisi were the principal influences behind the revival 
 of Christian art at the end of the thirteenth century, 
 and the main source of the fresh life which now came 
 into it, to the destruction of its rigid formalism. It was 
 he who set a current of vitalising religious enthusiasm 
 flowing amid .the jejune abstractions of theology, and 
 this resulted in the reanimation of Christian painting 
 no less than of Christian thought. At the same time 
 the essentially popular and democratic character of his 
 gospel, the ''catholic wholeness" of his sympathies, 
 his sense of the brotherhood of all living creatures in 
 the great family of God, and his tender love of sun and 
 moon, wind and cloud, beast and bird and flower, 
 stirred the artist to a new feeling of the sanctity of 
 earth's long-neglected little common things. It is 
 interesting thus to associate the work of a master whose 
 own ideals were fundamentally ascetic with artistic 
 movements which involved an increasing recognition 
 of the value and beauty of the present life. Giotto's 
 painting, like his personal character, gives us a fine 
 
Fra Angelico i8i 
 
 example of religious earnestness blending with vigorous 
 naturalism. But if we wish to realise the full meaning 
 of the spiritual rapture and mystical tenderness breathed 
 by St. Francis into religion, we must turn to the work 
 of the Dominican monk, Giovanni da Fiesole, whom 
 we know as Fra Angelico — ** II Beato Fra Angelico " 
 (1387- 1 445). On the threshold of the Renaissance he 
 is the great interpreter in art of the purest ideas of 
 mediaeval Christianity. With him painting was indeed 
 an inspiration, and his skill with ithe brush merely the 
 means whereby he might express the beatitude of God's 
 elect who pass through temptation and persecution to 
 that utter peace of heaven which the world can neither 
 give nor take away. "This truly angelic father," writes 
 Vasari, "spent his whole life in the service of God and 
 his fellow creatures. He was a man of simple habits, 
 and most saintly in all his ways. He kept himself from 
 all worldliness, and was so good a friend to the poor 
 that I think his soul must already be in heaven. He 
 worked continually at his art, but would never paint 
 anything excepting sacred subjects. He might have 
 been a wealthy man, but he did not care for money, and 
 used to say that true riches consist in being content 
 with little. He might have enjoyed great dignities, 
 both in his convent and in »the world, but he cared 
 nothing for these things, saying that he who would 
 practise painting has need of quiet, and that he who 
 would do the work of Christ must live continually with 
 Him. He never corrected or retouched his works, but 
 left them as he first painted them, saying that such was 
 the will of God. He never took his pencil up without 
 a prayer, and could not paint a Crucifixion without the 
 tears running down his cheeks. And the saints whom 
 he painted are more like saints in face and expression 
 than those of any other master.*' This passage suggests 
 
i82 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 both the singular charm and the well-marked limitations 
 of Fra Angelico's art. His range is very small; his 
 vision hardly extends beyond the walls of his monas- 
 tery; he has no dramatic instinct or power of charac- 
 terisation. But in his groups of angels and saints he 
 shows himself beyond all other masters the painter of 
 a simple childlike faith for simple childlike minds. 
 
 Meanwhile, the conditions of the time had tended 
 to keep alive the spirit of asceticism and other-world- 
 liness which had reigned supreme in the best religious 
 thought of the middle ages. The growing corruptions 
 of ecclesiastical Christianity and the general profligacy 
 of society filled many a strong, stern soul with an 
 oppressive sense of the wickedness of men and the 
 fearful certainty of the judgment to come. Safety could 
 be found only in the cloister, and the wrath of God 
 could be -turned aside only by prayer, self-mortification, 
 and fasting. The heavy terrorism of the tenth century 
 thus reappeared in the thirteenth and fo.urteenth. The 
 great solemn hymn, *' Dies irae, dies ilia, Solvet saeclum 
 in favilla" — the work, probably, of a disciple of St. 
 Francis, Thomas of Celano — dates from about 1250. 
 Some seventy years later Dante's "Divina Commedia *' 
 gave a final imaginative representation of the unutter- 
 able felicity of paradise, offset by the struggles of the 
 sinners in purgatory and the unending torments of the 
 damned. An epitome of the philosophy and the most 
 powerful expression of the highest religious mood of 
 the time, this mighty poem in turn became a fertile 
 source of inspiration and material for painters intent 
 on embodying the same ascetic teaching. The frescoes 
 on The Judgment, Paradise, and the Abyss, in the 
 Strozzi Chapel of Santa Maria Novella at Florence, 
 by Andrea di Clone, called Orcagna (1308-76), are 
 notable illustrations of direct Dantean influence. But 
 
The Frescoes at Pisa 183 
 
 the most considerable and complete examples of this 
 particular spirit are provided by certain wall-paintings 
 in the Campo Santo at Pisa^ The history of this 
 famous cemetery is itself interesting. In 1188 Arch- 
 bishop Lanfranchi had a large quantity of earth taken 
 from Mount Calvary and shipped to Pisa, and of this 
 sacred soil the city burial ground, which was also laid 
 out symbolically according to the traditional propor- 
 tions of Noah's Ark, was composed. The surrounding 
 arcades or cloisters were built by Giovanni, son of 
 Niccol^ Pisano, in 1278. Then the inner walls of these 
 cloisters were in due time covered with frescoes on 
 various subjects taken from scripture and the hagio- 
 graphy : among them the Passion, the Resurrection, 
 Christ's appearance to His disciples, and the Ascension, 
 the Anchorites of the Theban Desert, the affliction of 
 Job, a number of episodes from Old Testament history, 
 from the creation to Solomon, and some miscellaneous 
 legends of saints. But by far the most important of 
 these decorations, and the ones which I now have 
 specially in mind, are the three on the Triumph of 
 Death, the Last Judgment, and (in continuation of this) 
 Hell, which, formerly attributed to Orcagna and still 
 often referred to under his name, are now known to 
 be the work of other artists, perhaps the brothers 
 Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti of Siena, or some 
 unidentified painters of their school. Nowhere, not 
 even in the pages of the "Inferno" itself, do we come 
 into such intimate touch with the gloomy and ferocious 
 spirit of the current religion, nowhere do we feel so 
 keenly the horror of the nightmare phantoms by which 
 men's minds were haunted, as in these astonishing 
 designs. The darkness of the divine curse hangs over 
 them all. In the first of the series we see Death, the 
 inexorable conqueror, everywhere at work among men. 
 
184 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 A party of knights and ladies riding out a-hawking ate 
 suddenly stopped by three open coffins containing, one 
 a shrouded body, the second a corpse in a state of 
 decomposition, the third a skeleton. By this grim sight 
 they are reminded in the midst of their pleasure that 
 Death is waiting for them too. To the right of the 
 scene, richly clad cavaliers and their mistresses sit in an 
 orchard making music and love, while cupids fly among 
 the trees overhead ; but Death, portrayed as a ferocious 
 and hideous hag, descends upon them with scythe held 
 ready to strike. Above, angels and devils contend for 
 the souls of the departed, some of which are borne 
 upwards towards heaven, while others are carried to a 
 fiery mountain into the belching volcano of which they 
 are hurled headlong. On the extreme left of the picture 
 the representation of a hermitage, the inmates of which 
 are engaged in the peaceful occupations of the cenobite 
 life, points the moral by showing how men may best 
 prepare against the grim foe who comes upon them 
 like a thief in the night. The second design contains 
 a sequel to this in a vision of the Last Judgment. In 
 the centre, enthroned and crowned, sit Christ and the 
 Virgin, the former stern of aspect and menacing in 
 gesture, the latter looking down in pity on the lost. 
 Angels and apostles are ranged in balanced groups on 
 either hand; below, divided by celestial messengers, 
 are two great companies : on the right of the Heavenly 
 Judge the host of the saved, on the left that of the 
 damned. The ultimate fate of these last is portrayed 
 in the third fresco. The centre of the composition is 
 occupied by a monstrous figure of Satan, with bestial 
 face, bearded, horned, as gross and shocking as Dante's 
 Lucifer, though not reminiscent of this in detail ; while 
 the remainder of the picture is crowded with the- writh- 
 ing forms of men and women undergoing all the varied ;| 
 
Masaccio 185 
 
 tortures which the imagination of an artist who had 
 supped full of the horrors of mediaeval theology could 
 devise. Such in outline is the tripartite sermon 
 preached in fresco on the walls of the Pisan cemetery; 
 and the lesson of it is taken up and reinforced by one 
 more painting — thought to be the work of the brothers 
 Lorenzetti — depicting the temptations and penances, the 
 vigils and visions of the anchorites of the Thebaid. 
 Here the artist-preachers have proclaimed with an 
 emphasis which is unmistakable the central truth of 
 ascetic philosophy — that the souPs salvation could be 
 certainly secured only by flight from a sinful world. 
 
 It will be observed that with Fra Angelico we have 
 already entered the fifteenth century, and that the fore- 
 going account of the Pisan frescoes is therefore in the 
 nature of a chronological retrogression. It must not, 
 however, be assumed that the Beatified Friar is thus 
 taken out of his proper perspective. In spirit he did 
 not in any sense belong to the quattrocentisti, or men 
 of the fourteen hundreds. While he was carrying 
 forward the traditions of a departing generation, they, 
 on the other hand, were following the very different lead 
 of his contemporary, Tomasso Guidi, always known 
 by his nickname of " Masaccio " (1401-28). Brief as was 
 his life, for he died, as will be seen, at twenty-seven, 
 " Hulking Tom *' * holds a high place in history as 
 the recognised founder of the modern style of realistic 
 painting— the style in which the influences of symbolic 
 art are finally discarded. "From the first," says Vasari, 
 "he realised that painting is nothing else but the simple 
 imitation of natural objects in drawing and colour, and 
 by unwearied study he overcame the difficulties and 
 
 * This is Browning's rendering (see " Fra Lippo Lippi ") of 
 Guidi's nickname, which he owed to his slouching appearance and 
 slovenly habits. 
 
i86 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 imperfections of art. He was the first to give his 
 figures beautiful attitudes, natural movement, vivacity 
 of expression, and a relief similar to reality." This is 
 not a bad description of Masaccio's work, and suffices 
 to indicate its general significance. His frescoes in the 
 Brancacci Chapel of the Church of the Carmine at 
 Florence — including the remarkable "Expulsion from 
 Paradise " — have always been regarded as marking an 
 epoch in art, and were a source of continual and healthy 
 inspiration to the Florentines of his own and the 
 succeeding generation. His influence is to be traced 
 among these new men in every direction. We see it 
 in the realistic detail with which Andrea del Castagna 
 (1390-1457) fills his picture of "The Lord's Supper," and 
 Paola Uccello (1397-1475) his wonderfully dramatic 
 rendering of the Flood, and Dominico Ghirlandajo 
 (1449-94) his representation of the death of Santa 
 Fina, at San Gemignano. We see it in the work of 
 Fra Lippo Lippi (1406-69), who formed his style on 
 the Brancacci frescoes with such success that those who 
 saw his first paintings declared that the spirit of 
 Masaccio had descended upon him. We see it in an 
 even more suggestive way in the change which came 
 over the spirit and manner of Benozzo Gozzoli (1420- 
 78). The pupil and favourite companion of Fra 
 Angelico, Gozzoli began to paint as the avowed disciple 
 of his beloved master, and his early productions may be 
 said to represent almost the last efforts of purely 
 religious art in Italy. But falling presently under the 
 spell of Masaccio, he became a pronounced realist, even 
 to the extent of completely subordinating the religious 
 content of his subject-matter to its picturesque acces- 
 sories. His "Adoration of the Magi " is turned into a 
 rich panorama of the sumptuous life of Medicean 
 Florence. In his frescoes on the career of St. Augustine 
 
The Growth of Landscape 187 
 
 at San Gemignano there is much delightful realism, 
 as notably in the famous schoolroom scene with the 
 unhappy youngster "horsed" for punishment. In the 
 "Drunkenness of Noah," one of the Old Testament 
 episodes on the north wall of the Campo Santo at Pisa, 
 we have, frankly treated, a bit of Tuscan vintage life, 
 with youths and maidens picking grapes in a thoroughly 
 Italian landscape, a stout peasant trampling the fruit 
 in a winepress, and in the central foreground a couple 
 of children frightened at a barking dog. Incidentally, 
 the reference here made to landscape should be noted, 
 for it is a matter of vital interest that, first systematic- 
 ally used by Fra Filippo Lippi, nature now began to be 
 regularly substituted for the architectural background 
 decorations which even Masaccio had still employed. 
 The growth of a feeling for truth in the treatment of 
 landscape may be traced in the case of Alesso Baldo- 
 vinetti, of whom Vasari writes : " Alesso was a very 
 diligent artist, who tried to copy minutely every detail 
 in Mother Nature. He loved painting landscapes 
 exactly as they are, and you see in his pictures rivers, 
 bridges, rocks, plants, fruit trees, roads, fields, towns, 
 castles, and an infinite number of similar objects. In 
 his ' Nativity ' you can count the separate straws and 
 knots on the thatched roof of the hut, and you see the 
 stones in the ruined house behind worn away by rain, 
 and the thick root of ivy growing up in the wall is 
 painted with so much accuracy that the green leaves 
 are differently shaded on either side; and among the 
 shepherds he introduced a snake crawling in the most 
 natural manner along the wall." By this time land- 
 scape had indeed become a prominent feature of paint- 
 ing, as we may see on turning, for instance, to the 
 productions of Verrocchio (1435-88) and Filippo Lippi 's 
 pupil, Sandro Botticelli (1447-15 10); though, of course, 
 
i88 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 even now nature was subordinate and accessory, and 
 there was no landscape painting in our sense of the term. 
 The last-named artist is further interesting as illus- 
 trating another formative influence which was now 
 beginning to appear in Italian art, and which was 
 destined to grow rapidly in power — ^the influence of 
 classical antiquity. The humanism of the age of 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, Politian, and Leo Battista is very 
 apparent in his work, which owes not a little of its 
 peculiar charm to the almost unique way in which it 
 blends Christian tradition with the freshness of the 
 early pagan revival. He delighted in subjects taken 
 from Greek and Latin mythology no less than in 
 traditional religious themes, and it has been rightly 
 remarked as a suggestive characteristic of his craftsman- 
 ship that his pagan goddesses, his saints, and his 
 Madonnas are all of the same general type. His "Birth 
 of Venus," ''Spring," and "Mars and Venus," which were 
 all painted for the Medici villa at Costello, are steeped 
 in the sentiment of renascent classicism — a classicism 
 which was as yet spontaneous and childlike; while his 
 frescoes in Pope Sixtus IV. 's chapel are scarcely less 
 interesting in another way — ^because, that is, they are 
 full of materials drawn from classical architecture and 
 sculpture. It is evident that, like another pupil (and, 
 indeed, the reputed son) of Fra Lippo, Filippino Lippi 
 (1457-1507), who filled many sketch-books with drawings 
 of designs and details taken from them, Botticelli was 
 an ardent student of the monuments of ancient Rome, 
 the power and beauty of which men were just then 
 beginning to appreciate. It is the more curious, there- 
 fore, that late in life Botticelli underwent an intellectual 
 reaction, devoted himself to the illustration of Dante, 
 and, finally, becoming a disciple of Savonarola, aban- 
 doned art entirely. The power of the classic revival, 
 
Mantegna and Signorelli 189 
 
 together with nearly all the new forces which were 
 affecting art at the time, is even more conspicuously 
 shown in Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506), perhaps the 
 greatest figure in Italian art, outside Venice, during the 
 second half of the fifteenth century. He was a personal 
 friend of some of the leading humanists ; as a youth he 
 studied with avidity the collection of antiquities made 
 by his master Squarcione; later on, he spent his wealth 
 freely in making such a collection of his own; and 
 though his paintings deal generally with the conven- 
 tional religious themes — his "Triumph of Julius Caesar '* 
 at Hampton Court is the most important exception — 
 they are everywhere imbued with the severe spirit of ( 
 ancient art. With Mantegna we may join Luca Signorelli 
 (1441-1523), in whom the passion for nature combined 
 with the passion for antiquity. Though he has been 
 called "the Dante of fifteenth century painting '* — a title 
 which is not inappropriate in view of .the intensity of 
 his work — he treated themes from the "Purgatorio" 
 and from Ovid's '* Metamorphoses" in precisely the 
 same way, and in his religious frescoes in the Cathedral 
 at Orvieto no less than in his "Education of Pan,'* he 
 made the nude figure for the first time a prominent 
 element in the composition. Symonds has said of him 
 that he thus "powerfully promoted the rehabilitation 
 of the body achieved for art by the Renaissance." * 
 
 A marked general feature in the evolution of Italian 
 painting at this time is suggested here, which is so 
 important that we may fittingly pause to emphasise it. 
 Still very largely under the direct control of the Church, 
 painting remained for the most part nominally re- 
 ligious ; that is, the traditional themes from Bible story 
 and the lives of the saints continued to provide the 
 principal matter for the artist's skill. Yet it needs 
 
 * "The Fine Arts," p. 213. 
 
igo The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 only the most superficial acquaintance with its history 
 to perceive that meanwhile art was being gradually 
 transformed from within. The old subjects were re- 
 produced, but they were handled now in a spirit in- 
 creasingly different from that which had characterised 
 such men as Giotto and Fra Angelico. We have only 
 to turn from either of these thoroughly devout and 
 single-hearted workmen who, however imperfect their 
 technique, at least put their souls and their faith into 
 what they painted, to such an artist, say, as Ghir- 
 landajo, to realise that genuine religious feeling has 
 vanished or is fast vanishing, and that the thought of 
 the artist is now concerned primarily, not with the 
 doctrinal bearings of his subject, but with its pictorial 
 effects. These tendencies, of course, reflected the 
 changing spirit of an age of growing humanism, 
 inquiry, and general indifference to spiritual things ; for 
 a time they were apparent in certain painters only; but 
 we shall witness their further developments in the art 
 of the following century. Here, however, it should 
 be remembered that this change in the direction of the 
 secularisation of art even in the treatment of sacred 
 topics had another side. It has been pointed out that 
 Fra Lippo Lippi, bound down as he was to such sacred 
 topics, was apt to take unwarrantable liberties with 
 them, making his angels out of street urchins and 
 painting the portraits of his peasant loves for his 
 virgins and saints; and he has been severely blamed 
 for doing this. But it must be recognised that this was 
 his way — and the only way that was open to him — 
 of escape from the narrowly conventional restrictions of 
 religious painting into that wider naturalism of which 
 his generation was in quest. A parallel may be in- 
 stituted here between these early naturalists in art and 
 the last of the three Greek tragic poets. By the rules 
 
Secularisation of Painting 191 
 
 of the Attic stage, Euripides was forced against the true 
 bias of his genius and sympathies to treat those colossal 
 themes of the heroic past out of which his predecessors 
 had made their tragedies. But the spirit of reverence 
 and piety had by this time gone, and in his hands the 
 ancient legends become realistic melodramas, and the 
 gigantic figures of old, Athenian men and women of his 
 own century. While preserving the traditional frame- 
 work of Attic tragedy, Euripides thus gave it an entirely 
 new tone and meaning, bringing that which had been 
 remote and superhuman down to the plane of actual 
 life. In much the same way the Italian painters of 
 the early Renaissance, dealing with subjects which were 
 remote and superhuman, brought their art down to the 
 plane of actual life, maintaining its forms as prescribed 
 by Church and convention, but radically modifying its 
 character. This is the general significance of the plea 
 for a freer realistic art, which Browning has put into 
 the mouth of his Fra Lippo Lippi : 
 
 The beauty and the wonder and the power, 
 
 The shapes of things, their colours, Ughts and shades, 
 
 Changes, surprises — and God made it all ! 
 
 For what? Do you feel thankful, ay or no, 
 
 For this fair town's face, yonder river's line, 
 
 The mountain round it and the sky above, 
 
 Much more the figures of man, woman, child, 
 
 These are the frame to ? What's it all about ? 
 
 To be passed over, despised ? or dwelt upon, 
 
 Wondered at ? Oh, this last, of course ! you say. 
 
 But why not do as well as say — paint these 
 
 Just as they are, careless what comes of it? 
 
 God's works — paint any one, and count it crime 
 
 To let a truth slip. 
 
 Men woke up to find that there were more things in 
 heaven and earth worth painting than had been dreamed 
 of in the philosophy of the schools. But the time was 
 not yet ripe for a frankly realistic art. Painting was 
 
192 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 still in bondage to the Church. They had therefore to 
 incorporate their newly awakened interest in the things 
 and people about them with the materials of religious 
 doctrine and sacred story upon which they were com- 
 pelled to work. 
 
 While we have not here to concern ourselves with 
 the development of technique as such, it is necessary, 
 none the less, to note that this was an important factor 
 in widening the scope of art during the fifteenth century, 
 and particularly in the growth of naturalism. Science 
 now came to the help of genius. In considering the 
 limitations of a painter like Giotto we must never forget 
 how much he was hampered by imperfect knowledge 
 and the meagreness of his resources. The painters of 
 the next age, however they might compare with him 
 in natural power, had at least a greater capacity of ex- 
 pression ; they were able to do so much more than he 
 had done, in part because they knew more and had more 
 adequate resources at their command. The direct study 
 of the living model, and, as in the case of men like 
 Antonio Pollaiuolo (1433-98) and Signorelli, of the dead 
 body, was a matter of incalculable moment in the educa- 
 tion of the artist for the treatment of his human figures ; 
 until mastery of the elements of anatomy had become a 
 regular stage in his preparation for his work, progress 
 in this direction was manifestly impossible. The appli- 
 cation of exact science to painting was another potent 
 influence in artistic development; as, for example, in 
 the matter of perspective. In this, the great Florentine 
 bronze worker, Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378- 1455) had 
 pointed the way. But the painter who first resolutely set 
 himself to master its problems was that Paolo di Dono 
 who has already been mentioned under his familiar 
 name of Uccello — a name which he is supposed to have 
 owed to his special fondness for painting birds. The 
 
Rise of Oil Painting 193 
 
 ardour with which he pursued his studies in this new 
 branch of technical scholarship bordered on fanaticism ; 
 he sacrificed his financial welfare and his domestic peace 
 to them ; it is said that he would sit up over them the 
 whole night long, and that his wife could wring from 
 him no other answer to her appeals than the ever- 
 repeated : " O, che dolce cosa e questa prospettiva ! " — 
 " O, what a sweet thing is this perspective ! " But 
 however unwise he may have been from the point of 
 view of his personal interests, he greatly advanced his 
 art; and from his time onward, theory going hand in 
 hand with practice, the question of scientific perspective 
 received increasingly careful attention. 
 
 Without entering further into details, we can now 
 see how the enlargement of the scope of art, and its 
 transformation from a vehicle of religious ideas and 
 sentiments into a means of reproducing and interpreting 
 the most varied aspects of nature and human life, were 
 aided by its rapid evolution along technical lines. One 
 other influence which helped to change it in a very vital 
 way has still to be mentioned. This was the establish- 
 ment of the modern method of oil painting. Tradition 
 has attributed the invention of this to the two Flemish 
 painters, the brothers Van Eyck (Hubert, i37o?-i426; 
 Jan, i390?-i44o). Their title to such distinction and the 
 real nature of their innovation are now matters of 
 dispute. It is at any rate certain that a new process 
 of preparing, using, or drying colours was introduced 
 about the middle of the fifteenth century, and gave rise 
 to what we specifically know as oil painting; and what 
 we have here to realise is the way in which this affected 
 the general destinies of art. The spread of oil painting 
 greatly strengthened the spirit of individualism in art, 
 for it developed and popularised the easel picture as a 
 rival to the mural painting. So long as mural painting 
 
194 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 provided, not indeed the only, but the principal occupa- 
 tion of the artist, his efforts were mainly confined to 
 the decoration of ecclesiastical and public buildings. 
 He was, in fact, the servant of the Church or the City, 
 and what he did was conditioned and defined by the 
 character of his service. The introduction of oil paint- 
 ing brought with it a marked change in his status. It 
 meant that he no longer had to wait for his commission 
 and to undertake only what was assigned to him; a 
 portable canvas enabled him to do his own work on his 
 own impulse and in his own studio. It meant, too, 
 that he had a larger and more varied public to work 
 for, and this reacted upon the quality of his production 
 and greatly favoured the general tendency towards 
 breadth, eclecticism, realism, and the growth of the lay 
 spirit. As a factor of importance in the transformation 
 of Renaissance art, the rise of oil painting, and with 
 it of the private purchaser, therefore deserves emphasis. 
 A comparison between the effects of this and those 
 produced by the printing press is too obvious to need 
 elaboration. 
 
 IV. — THE GOLDEN AGE OF ITALIAN ART 
 
 We now come to the closing years of the fifteenth 
 century, and cross the boundary line into the sixteenth. 
 This brings us to the golden age of Italian painting — 
 the age of Michelangelo Buonarrotti( 1475- 1564), Raffaelo 
 Sanzio, or Raphael (1483-1520), and Antonio Allegri, 
 called Correggio from the name of his birthplace (1494?- 
 1534); of the great Venetians, Giovanni Bellini (1428- 
 15 16), Giorgio Barbarelli, known as Giorgione (1476- 
 1511), Tiziano Vicello, or Titian (i490?-i576), Jacopo 
 Robusti, whose familiar name of Tintoretto, or the 
 little dyer, was derived from his father's occupation 
 
Renaissance Architecture 195 
 
 (1518-94), Paolo Caliari, or Veronese (1528-88), and 
 of many another master only less famous than these. 
 On the threshold of this wonderful epoch stands the 
 mighty figure of that epitome of the Renaissance in all 
 its many-sidedness, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-15 19), who 
 belongs to it in spirit though chronologically his activity 
 as a painter falls mainly within the preceding genera- 
 tion. The life of Michelangelo, on the other hand, 
 carries us far forward into that age of silver which 
 followed rapidly upon the age of gold. 
 
 Throughout the whole range of Italian art during 
 this period of its culmination, the influences of 
 humanism and of the universal mania for the antique 
 are everywhere apparent. It is in architecture, of 
 course, that they are shown in the most formal way. 
 Already that style which we call " Renaissance " had 
 been firmly established in Italy, whence it had also 
 begun to spread to the countries north of the Alps ; and 
 as the origin of such style is to be sought in the revival 
 of classic forms, it is significant that it should have 
 taken its rise, not as the literary movement had done, 
 in Florence, but in Rome. It is true that the great 
 leader of the new taste, Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1466), 
 was a Florentine, and that his most important work 
 was done in his native city ; but it was during his early 
 residence in Rome that classical enthusiasm was first 
 awakened within him. It is a singular fact that down 
 to this time it had never occurred to Roman architects 
 to imitate their ancient buildings; careless of the irre- 
 parable damage done, they quarried in them freely for 
 materials for their own uses, but did not dream of going 
 to them for inspiration or instruction. The growing 
 spirit of humanism now led to the rediscovery of the 
 art no less than of the literature of classical antiquity. 
 The search for manuscripts was accompanied by an 
 
196 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 equally zealous search for ancient statues and fragments 
 of decorative sculpture, ornaments, medals and gems, 
 I and with such recovered treasures nobles and cardinals 
 now filled their palaces. The systematic study of 
 classical architecture was one phase of this general re- 
 birth of the imperial past. The value of the Roman 
 monuments was now fully realised. Raphael himself 
 was for a time inspector of them; and, addressing the 
 Pope in a famous memorandum of 15 18 or 15 19, he 
 bitterly complains of the destruction which was still 
 going on among them, imploring his Holiness to take 
 under his own protection whatever remained to testify 
 to the greatness and power of the divine spirit of anti- 
 quity. As a matter of personal interest, it may be 
 added that the illustrious painter's premature death was 
 caused by a fever contracted while he was superintend- 
 ing some excavations among the city's ruins. 
 
 Such, then, was the impulse behind Renaissance 
 architecture, which, entering though it now did upon 
 a period of almost unbroken supremacy all over Europe, 
 * yet found its most magnificent example in St. Peter's at 
 ' Rome. This mighty witness to human ambition and 
 power — a fitting embodiment of the spirit of the worldly 
 Julius and of the genius of its chief architect, Michel- 
 angelo — was "designed to be the eternal monument of 
 the glory and universality of Catholicism," while it has 
 in fact become "the most impressive memorial of its 
 decay."* Wandering down its vast aisles, amid splen- 
 dours of art which only too eloquently proclaim the 
 pagan temper of its builders, the thoughtful student 
 can hardly fail to be reminded afresh of the real mean- 
 ing of the great contemporary Teutonic revolt against 
 the debased religion for which it stood — a revolt, he 
 will further remember, precipitated by the means em- 
 
 * Lecky, " History of Rationalism," chap. iii. 
 
Renaissance Sculpture 197 
 
 ployed in the collection of money for its completion. 
 He will see in it, moreover, in another way, a colossal 
 symbol of the new era which had now dawned upon 
 the world. Gothic architecture had been essentially 
 Christian architecture — the expression of the feelings 
 and aspirations of the centuries during which faith had 
 been genuine and devotion intense. In the substitution 
 of Renaissance architecture, which, though pagan in 
 source and inspiration, was none the less applied to 
 the purposes even of Christian worship, we have a strik- 
 ing illustration of the immense and fundamental changes 
 which were at work throughout the entire range of man's 
 moral and intellectual life. The historian whom I 
 have just quoted notes the significance of the 
 fact that "Cologne Cathedral, the last of the great 
 mediaeval works, remained unfinished, while the 
 whole energies of Europe were concentrated upon the 
 church of St. Peter at Rome." In this fact we 
 have an index, not only of the world-wide variation 
 in taste, but also of a general collapse of the ancient 
 fabric of thought. 
 
 Sculpture tells us much the same tale. We have 
 seen that the new movement was anticipated by Niccol^ 
 Pisano's imitations of bas-reliefs on Roman sarcophagi. 
 Then Lorenzo Ghiberti, who wrought the wonderful 
 scriptural designs on the two great bronze doors of the 
 Baptistery at Florence, broke through the narrowing 
 conventions of existing plastic art by a direct appeal to 
 nature. "From my earliest days," he declared, "I have 
 always tried to discover how nature reveals herself in 
 art, and how I may best draw near her ; how forms really 
 present themselves to the eye, and on what principles 
 the arts of painting and sculpture should be practised.'* 
 Another master of naturalism appeared at the same time 
 in the greatest of the early Tuscan sculptors, Donati di 
 
igS The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 Betto Bardi, or Donatello (1386-1466), in whom, how- 
 ever, we also mark the glowing strength of classic in- 
 spiration. A student in Rome, along with his friend 
 Brunelleschi, of ancient architecture and sculpture, he 
 there caught the finest spirit of the antique, while he yet 
 remained absolutely true to his own individual quality 
 of genius and to the living types of manhood and 
 womanhood which he set himself to portray. While his 
 free use of the nude, even in figures of angels and in 
 his David, is thus an important characteristic of his 
 work, the absence of anything suggesting lifeless imita- 
 tion of ancient models is even more important. In him, 
 in fact, we perceive the full advantages of the classical 
 revival in its early stages, and before, as Symonds puts 
 it, "pseudo-classicism and pedantry had . . . distorted 
 the judgment" and "misdirected the aim of artists," and 
 while as yet "contact with the antique world served only 
 to stimulate original endeavour."* But the later growth 
 of an undiscriminating enthusiasm for everything 
 antique led sculptors to ignore altogether the essential 
 difference between classic and Christian sentiment, and 
 thus to deprive their work of all the devotional signifi- 
 cance which should attach to religious themes. The 
 lovely glazed polychrome bas-reliefs of Luca della 
 Robbia (1399-1482) and his school are full of the 
 tenderest spiritual emotion, and there were other men 
 of the time who carried forward the traditions of a 
 thoroughly earnest Christian art. But the currents of 
 thought and feeling were now running strongly in a 
 different direction, and sculpture, while more and more 
 concerning itself (as in the case of Benvenuto Cellini) 
 with pagan mythology, exhibited its change of temper 
 even more suggestively in the entirely detached and in- 
 different manner in which it handled Christian motives. 
 
 * "The Fine Arts," p. 99. 
 
Renaissance Sculpture 199 
 
 Before the fifteenth century was out the secularisation 
 of sculpture was practically complete. "For an artist '. 
 at this time," says Symonds, *'a Greek myth and a j 
 Christian legend were all one " ;* whichever he selected, 
 his main interest was in its artistic possibilities, and his 
 chief business to make it the occasion for the display of 
 his knowledge of anatomy and his technical skill. An 
 illustration is at hand in the work of Jacopo Tatti, or 
 Sansovino (1486-1570), whom we may, with Symonds, V 
 regard as marking "the final intrusion of paganism into \ 
 modern art." Sculpture, which had long been used, in T 
 subordination to architecture, for the devotional adorn- 
 ment of churches, had now liberated itself from its 
 servitude, and as an independent art was addressing 
 itself frankly to the further stimulation of that sense of 
 the beauty and value of earthly things which had grown 
 up with the classic revival. If to the artist of that time 
 even a fragment of antique sculpture, and still more 
 the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocoon, the Venus of the 
 Vaticanf had come as a "revelation of antique civilisa- 
 tion, of the palaestra and the stadium, of the sanctifica- 
 tion of the body, of the apotheosis of man, of the 
 religion of life, and nature, and joy,"J the labours of 
 the modern sculptor who took such ancient productions 
 as his models, were similarly charged with a message of 
 freedom and strength and physical beauty. Despite 
 his own Dantean seriousness, the intensity of his reli- 
 gious convictions,* and that vehement quality of genius 
 which made the repose and temperance of Hellenism 
 impossible to him, it was to this pagan school of art { 
 that as a sculptor even Michelangelo belonged. His ' 
 taste was shaped among the antiquities with which 
 
 * " The Fine Arts," p. 123. 
 
 t The Apollo was jiecovered during the pontiflcate of 
 Alexander VI.; the Laocoon and the Venus during that of Julius II. 
 X Vernon Lee, " Euphorion," i. 193. 
 
200 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 Lorenzo de' Medici had enriched the gardens of San 
 Marco, and he himself asserted that the Apollo Belvedere 
 had been his true master. Hence, as we may see in his 
 colossal David, who is simply a splendid type of Greek 
 athlete, in his formidable Moses, who has been not 
 inaptly described as "half prize-fighter, half Jupiter 
 Tonans," in his brooding Jeremiah, who is manifestly 
 a Greek philosopher in meditation, his conspicuous 
 failure to give to his scriptural subjects the appropriate 
 tone and expression. 
 
 It will, of course, be evident that the power of 
 classicism could not show itself in the same formal and 
 specific way in painting as in architecture and sculpture, 
 for while in these fields the artist was directly guided 
 by antique models, the painter felt their influence for 
 the most part only indirectly. Yet the strength of that 
 influence, and even its immediacy, are attested in many 
 particulars. We note it most obviously in the immense 
 popularity of subjects taken from mythology, which 
 naturally provided a multitude of motives as congenial 
 to the painter's brush as they were to the poet's pen. 
 We note it in the spell which classical art and literature 
 clearly exercised over the memory and imagination of 
 the artist, even when he was working upon a totally 
 different range of themes. Thus, to fake a single ex- 
 ample, when Raphael, in his famous Vatican picture, 
 "The Fire in the Borgo," commemorates the miracle by 
 which Leo IV. had extinguished a conflagration near 
 St. Peter's by the sign of the cross, we can see at a 
 glance that the scene he is really depicting is the destruc- 
 tion of Troy, as described in the second "^neid," and 
 that the group in the left-hand corner is in fact -^neas, 
 with Anchises on his shoulders, and the boy Ascanius 
 at his side, in flight from the blazing city. As a more 
 general illustration of the same assimilative and accom- 
 
Decline of Religious Art 201 
 
 modating tendency, I may mention the increasing popu- 
 larity of the chubby Httle children who in religious, 
 paintings figure as cherubs, but in whom we cannot 1 
 fail to recognise under very slight modification the 
 Cupids of ancient art. When such tendency is every- 
 where in the ascendant, it is manifest that we are reach- 
 ing the end of specifically religious art. 
 
 This does not mean that the spirit of devotion is as 
 yet extinct in Italian painting. In the earliest and 
 freshest work of Perugino (Pietro Vannucci, 1466-1524), 
 for example, we have perhaps the perfection of purely 
 pietistic art; though it is surely a significant fact that 
 when in later life his sordid love of gain grew upon him, 
 and (it is alleged) he even became an unbeliever, he 
 continued to drive a thriving trade by the industrious 
 reproduction of Virgins, saints, and Holy Families, all 
 alike steeped in the spirit of vapid emotionalism. In 
 the work of Francesco Raibolino, or Francia (1450 
 15 17), again, we have genuine religious feeling. Two 
 painters of whom mention has already been made 
 in a previous chapter in connection with Savonarola's 
 preaching also deserve a place in this survey for 
 their success in preserving the quality of a truly 
 Christian art. One of these is Lorenzo di Credi 
 (1459-1537), who, notwithstanding his strong interest 
 in the technical side of his craft, remained practi- 
 cally untouched by the paganising movement of his 
 time, though he occasionally yielded to the blandish- 
 ments of Peruginesque sentimentality. The other is 
 Fra Bartolommeo, also known as Baccio della Porta 
 (1476-1517), who, having as we have seen burned his 
 nude studies in the bonfire of vanities, became a 
 Dominican, and, later returning to painting, devoted 
 himself henceforth entirely to religious work. Yet, on 
 the whole, every influence of this new age made towards 
 
202 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 what I have called the secularisation of pictorial art. 
 In its increasing range of subjects painting rejected the 
 control of theology, and asserted its right to go out 
 into the world and back over history and legend for 
 matter for pictorial treatment; and in the spirit of its 
 workmanship, whether the themes selected were sacred 
 or profane, it announced that henceforth its primary 
 concern was with life and character, and with the 
 technical problems of expression and grouping, 
 anatomy, drawing, perspective, light, shade, colour. 
 
 This is the central feature of the transformation of art 
 in the season of the full Renaissance; and whatever 
 religious fervour may still be detected in the work of 
 some of the greatest artists — of such men, for instance, 
 as Michelangelo and Raphael — this|must not be allowed 
 to obscure for us the reality and significance of the 
 change. The painter was still willing enough to yield 
 his service to a Church which on its side was equally 
 willing to accept and applaud the skill and dexterity of 
 his renderings of sacred things, without inquiring too 
 curiously into their Christian value. But his art was 
 no longer the submissive handmaid of theology. It 
 was, like sculpture, independent; like sculpture, it re- 
 joiced in strength and beauty, freedom and greatness; 
 like sculpture, it helped in the emancipation of thought 
 from the cramping asceticism of mediaeval ethics. The 
 development of painting thus falls into its place in our 
 story as one phase of the Renaissance discovery of the 
 world and man. 
 
 The evolution of painting as interpretation might be 
 illustrated by the successive changes which marked the 
 treatment of any of the standard motives of Christian 
 art. The Madonna will serve as an example. We need 
 not go farther back than the times of Fra Angelico and 
 Giotto to find this subject handled under the strictest 
 
The Madonna in Art 203 
 
 conditions and with all the accessories of purely religious 
 art. The aim of the artist is not to portray but to ex- 
 press — not to represent a woman and a mother, or even ' 
 abstract womanhood and motherhood, but to embody \ 
 certain ideas and feelings, and thereby to awaken the I 
 reverence and piety of the spectator. The figure of the '■ 
 Virgin is therefore conceived in an entirely conventional - 
 way, and is so designed as to bring out all the dignity : 
 which should belong to the Mother of God and the \ 
 Queen of Heaven ; every trace of realism is rigorously ; 
 excluded as destructive of such dignity; while, on the ^ 
 other hand, symbolism is freely used to enforce doctrinal 
 truth and to heighten the devotional effect. Hence the 
 remoteness of these early Madonnas who, "with no 
 limbs beneath their robes,"* and no hint of common 
 human emotion on their smooth, bland faces, belong 
 wholly to the range of hieratic things and have no point 
 of connection with nature and ordinary life. But by 
 little and little the human elements encroach; domestic 
 detail begins to mingle with and to displace the sym- 
 bolism ; and the Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, 
 while as yet by no means deidealised, becomes in the j 
 hands of painters like Fra Lippo Lippi, Bellini, and ;' 
 Botticelli more and more of a woman. In Raphael we' 
 note a conflict of tendencies; occasionally, as in the 
 "Sistine Madonna," he makes glorious use of all the 
 divine suggestions of his theme; but more often, as in 
 the "Belle Jardiniere " and the "Madonna della Sedia," 
 he simply paints the most beautiful woman he can find 
 as the representative of motherhood, without indicating, 
 either by symbolism or by general tone and expression, 
 the transcendental significance of his type. Upon the 
 realistic movement which such works exemplify there 
 was henceforth but little check. In the further evolution 
 * Vernon Lee, " Euphorion," i. 195. 
 
204 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 of art the divine suggestions, and even the ideal quali- 
 ties disappear, and all that is left in the Madonnas of 
 Andrea del Sarto, of Correggio, and pre-eminently in 
 those of the Venetian school, is the beauty of the human 
 mother with the human child. , We have not here to 
 discuss the religious bearing of this transformation. We 
 have only to lay stress upon it as a fact and an index. 
 
 The same general lines of evolution are as clearly 
 marked if we consider more broadly the course of Italian 
 painting through its golden age to its decline, as this 
 is exemplified in the work of any of its representative 
 masters. 
 
 A stern, silent, solitary man, Michelangelo, it might 
 seem, was too self-centred and independent, and too 
 much removed from the common currents of his time, 
 to be regarded as the exponent of anything but his own 
 individual taste. Yet when we remember how strongly 
 he was influenced in different ways by the antique 
 marbles of the Medici collections, by the productions of 
 the vigorous and realistic sculptor, Jacopo della Querela 
 (1374-1438), by the paintings of Signorelli and Leonardo 
 da Vinci, "Ipb^ thetPlatonic philosophy of the great 
 humanists whom he met when Lorenzo the Magnificent 
 took him into his house^by the poetry of Dante, whose 
 lofty and austere temper naturally touched his own, 
 and by the sermons of Savonarola, which left a per- 
 manent impress on the tone of his thought, we can see 
 that he was not a man without ancestry ; in the univer- 
 sality of his powers, and in the very violence of his 
 genius and its expression, he stands out as the supreme 
 challenge of the new age of personality and freedom 
 against the starved and stunted ideals of the immediate 
 past; while the extraordinary complexity of his character 
 is not without significance to one who considers how 
 many forces had been let loose in that new age which 
 
Michelangelo 205 
 
 no one man, however great, could hope to bring into 
 harmonious co-operation. Combining, like Milton, a 
 stainless purity of life with the most passionate feeling 
 for sensuous beauty, he maintained his integrity and 
 his Hebraic zeal for righteousness amid all the fast- 
 spreading corruption of the papal capital. When he 
 speaks of the meaning of religious art to the artist, it 
 is in words which might have dropped from the lips 
 of Fra Angelico himself : " In order to represent the 
 adored image of our Lord, it is not enough that a master 
 should be great and able. I maintain that he must also 
 be a man of good morals and conduct, if possible a 
 saint, in order that the Holy Ghost may give him in- 
 spiration." Yet despite the humble and devout spirit 
 which these words express, no man did more than he 
 who uttered them to destroy the religious meaning of 
 traditional Christian art. Here is the paradox of Michel- 
 angelo*s character and career; he was a man of pro- 
 foundly religious feeling, and yet his influence in paint- 
 ing no less than in architecture and sculpture made for 
 secularisation. Impatient of limitations and control; 
 arrogant, impulsive, and audacious; a lover of the 
 human body, which for him was the one great revelation 
 of the divine ;* a worshipper of physical strength, which 
 he deemed the highest manifestation of its beauty; he 
 rejoiced to overleap the bounds of conventional re- 
 straints ; to charge himself with almost impossible tasks 
 that he might show his skill in triumphing over all their 
 difficulties; and even in handling his favourite subject, 
 the nude, to play tricks with anatomy to the extent of 
 exaggerating muscular development and pushing bold- 
 
 * See, for example, one of his sonnets to Vittoria Colonna (as 
 translated by Symonds in " The Fine Arts," p. 299) : — 
 
 " Nor hath God deigned to show Himself elsewhere 
 More clearly than in human forms sublime ; 
 Which, since they image Him, compel my love." 
 
2o6 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 ness of attitude to almost monstrous extremes. It is 
 therefore not surprising that, vast as was the range of 
 his powers, he was yet prevented by the essential quali- 
 ties of his temperament and his genius from making 
 even the most promising subjects the media of Christian 
 teaching. The colossal fresco of the Last Judgment in 
 the Sistine Chapel stands in respect of its motive in 
 direct line of development from the Last Judgment in 
 the Campo Santo at Pisa. But while this latter was 
 imbued with the religious sentiments of its time, it is 
 difficult to detect in Michelangelo's work the play of 
 any distinctively Christian feeling. What trace of such 
 feeling, we may well ask, can we anywhere find in the 
 gestures and faces of these ''exasperated giants, some 
 victorious, some vanquished, all naked and muscular 
 as athletes? " in this "avenging Christ with His hercu- 
 lean frame ? " in this "terrified Virgin who cowers beside 
 her Son ? "* In such a daringly original rendering of 
 a traditional subject the last link connecting art with 
 Christian tradition has been broken. As a titanic 
 achievement this " Dies Irae " is probably the greatest 
 thing of its kind in existence. But it is simply a great 
 picture. To regard it as a Christian interpretation of 
 a Christian theme would be absurd. 
 
 Michelangelo neither sprang from nor did he found 
 a school. His independence and originality kept him 
 isolated. Raphael, on the other hand, so absorbed and 
 so gave out influence as to become the epitome and the 
 synthesis of all that is most characteristic in the art of 
 his time. The darling of the papacy, he is pre-emi- 
 nently the painter of the power and prestige of Rome in 
 that great hour of its strength and pride which just 
 preceded the bursting of the German storm.' There is 
 therefore something curiously piquant in the fact that 
 * Reinach, "Apollo," p. 211. / 
 
Raphael 207 
 
 he and Luther were born in the same year. The famous 
 cartoon of "Christ's Appearance to His Disciples by the 
 Lake of Galilee and the Charge to Peter," which so 
 aroused the wrath of Ruskin, is obviously designed to 
 support the claims of the Church. "Note," says Ruskin 
 in his caustic commentary, "the bold fallacy — the put- 
 ting all the Apostles there, a mere lie to serve the papal 
 heresy of the Petric supremacy, by putting them all in 
 ;the background while Peter receives the charge, and 
 making them all witnesses to it." Even more notably 
 the vast religious, historical, and allegorical decorations 
 of the stanze and loggie of the Vatican, undertaken at 
 the command of Julius IL and Leo X., have as one 
 of their chief objects the glorification of the Roman 
 power. This is clearly shown, directly or symbolically, 
 in the "Coronation of Charlemagne " and the "Donation 
 of Constantine" (both manifestoes in favour of the Hilde- 
 brandine conception of the Pope's temporal supremacy), 
 the "Checking of Attila by Leo L," the "Driving of 
 Heliodorus from the Temple," the "Deliverance of 
 Peter," the "Fire in the Borgo," and the "Triumph of 
 the Church." At the same time the full influence of 
 the classical revival and the humanistic enthusiasms 
 of the leaders of the papal court are equally apparent 
 in the "School of Athens" and the "Parnassus." 
 Of the general spirit of Raphael's work on scriptural 
 subjects, it may perhaps be said that at his best it 
 exhibits a more perfect blending than can be found 
 anywhere else in Renaissance art of real devotional 
 feeling with a sense of beauty and consummate 
 skill. But the union was for one happy moment 
 only. Even in Raphael's own later productions the 
 signs of approaching decay are unmistakable; while, 
 save only in Venice, deterioration went on rapidly 
 throughout Italian art after the master's death. It was 
 
2o8 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 not that the painters of the decline lacked science or 
 perception, quickness of mind or dexterity of hand. 
 They were, on the contrary, extremely clever craftsmen, 
 who had learned all the technical lessons of the schools, 
 worked with astonishing dexterity in the production of 
 their effects, and understood how to imitate the external 
 qualities of style of their great forerunners. But the 
 world to which they belonged knew nothing of moral 
 idealism or lofty emotion, and thus at best there was 
 nothing in their surroundings to inspire them with 
 worthy aims, while the general corruption of the society 
 about them inevitably tended to the debasement of their 
 art. Much of their work was done for wealthy patrons 
 for whom art had become a luxury and the means of 
 vulgar display, and whose peculiar tastes it was, of 
 course, their business to gratify. Vast and showy 
 pictures on historical, mythological, and allegorical 
 themes were in special demand — pictures grandiose in 
 conception and bombastic in execution, but wholly 
 wanting in nobility of purpose and depth of thought; 
 and a common feature of these was the constant abuse 
 of the nude, which, serenely pure in the best classic 
 sculpture, and a subject of scientific interest in the hands 
 of Michelangelo, was now degraded to sensual ends. 
 Along with moral vigour and sincerity even technical 
 vitality disappeared from art, which, like the architec- 
 ture of the same period, became more and more cold, 
 formal, and academic. Sensationalism and the love of 
 startling effects meanwhile invaded the domain of 
 religious art, the vicious changes in the tone and manner 
 of which may in large measure be traced to the influ- 
 ences of the Counter-reformation. It is true that the 
 movement for the purification of life which grew out of 
 this helped greatly to check some of the most glaring 
 evils of the time ; as, for example, in the shameless use 
 
Venetian Painting 209 
 
 of the nude. Cardinal Contarini, whom we remember 
 as one of the Catholic reformers, complained that in 
 the very temple of God, in pictures of saints, and even 
 in altar-pieces, there were scenes clearly designed to 
 excite lascivious desires; and so flagrant did the abuse 
 become that the Council of Trent was compelled to take 
 cognisance of it. But in other ways the influence of 
 the Catholic reaction was the reverse of healthy. In 
 its eff"ort to recover lost ground and to re-establish its 
 sway over men's minds, the Church gladly employed 
 all the means at its disposal, among them art. But the 
 work which it now inspired had nothing in common with 
 the severe, dogmatic productions of the great mediaeval 
 painter-preachers. The aim of the artist was to stimu- 
 late the imagination and arouse the feelings of an age 
 which had grown sceptical and jaded; and to do this 
 he had recourse now to excessive sensibility, now to 
 vulgar and even repulsive realism, now to a strange 
 blending of sensuality and mysticism. His art, in a 
 word, became theatrical. Already we see something of 
 this spirit in Raphael's contemporary, Correggio, who 
 handles his Christian and his pagan motives with the 
 same luscious grace and seductive sentimentalism. But 
 its full effect is to be found only later, as in the cheap 
 emotionalism of such men as Guido Reni (1575-1642) 
 and Carlo Dolci (15 16-1686). 
 
 In speaking of the decline of Italian painting after 
 Raphael's death, I made an exception in favour of 
 Venice. There, where it developed late, art continued 
 to flourish in all the fullness of its power down to the 
 very close of the sixteenth century — the magnificent 
 product of the commercial prosperity, the intellectual 
 freedom, and the civic strength of the City of the Doges, 
 and the marvellous embodiment of its material and 
 social beauty, its love of pleasure and pageant, its lust 
 
210 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 of life. Upon the splendour and charm of Venetian 
 painting, its vitality, its variety, its wealth of radiant 
 colour, I must not be tempted to dwell. The one thing 
 we have to note about it is the spirit by which it was 
 animated. Venetian painting knew nothing of mys- 
 ticism, of ecstatic piety, of the trials and aspirations of 
 the soul. The austerity and other- worldliness which for 
 a time had been prominent elsewhere in art it had always 
 openly repudiated. It was, in fact, thoroughly worldly 
 and profoundly materialistic. The devotional pictures 
 of Giovanni Bellini had indeed true religious feeling; 
 but "from the close of the fifteenth century the 
 Madonnas and the saints of the Venetian painters were 
 no longer ascetic and morose persons, but beautiful 
 young women and handsome young men, with bloom- 
 ing complexions and sunny hair, who loved to deck 
 themselves with gorgeous stuffs and held life to be well 
 worth living."* In the great decorative pictures of 
 Carpaccio (1466-1522), full of characterisation, realism, 
 and humour; in the work of Tintoretto, with its amazing 
 dramatic vigour, its violent action, its romantic feeling, 
 and its vivid contrasts of light and shade; in Veronese's 
 love of processions and pageantry, which makes him 
 turn even the Marriage at Cana into an immense 
 crowded festival, we have the dominant notes of Vene- 
 tian art. We have them again in its greatest master 
 and completest representative, the mighty Titian, who, 
 equally at home in episodes from pagan mythology and 
 in subjects belonging to the traditional range of Chris- 
 tian art (in which latter he exhibits the powerful influ- 
 ence of the Catholic reaction), stamps everything he 
 touches with a double impress — the impress of his own 
 genius and the impress of the spirit of his time and 
 place. More than any other Italian school of painting, 
 * Reinach, *' Apollo," p. 172. 
 
Northern Painting 211 
 
 this Venetian school represents that increasing interest 
 alike in man and in nature which came with the Renais- 
 sance ; more than any other, it stands for the life of the 
 present world and the absolute secularisation of art. 
 
 V RENAISSANCE ART IN GERMANY AND THE LOW 
 
 COUNTRIES 
 
 Thus far I have written exclusively of Italian art as 
 the one great and representative art of our period. 
 Turning now to art outside Italy, I need touch upon 
 such points only as are of special interest in connecting 
 this particular subject with the general history of the 
 Renaissance. - 
 
 In Germany and the Low Countries painting was 
 long under the sway of the Byzantine school, the 
 tyranny of which was first challenged about the middle 
 of the thirteenth century. Then art, passing from the 
 hands of the monks into those of the laity, began to 
 respond to the stir of secular life, to free itself from 
 the restraints of the cloister, and even to seek fresh 
 material in romantic legend. Religious subjects none 
 the less continued to provide the chief part of the 
 painter's stock-in-trade, though in his treatment of 
 these he differed considerably from his Italian contem- 
 poraries; a love of nature and of homely and familiar 
 detail, a wholesome feeling for common things, and a 
 tendency to a coarse kind of truthfulness being among 
 the salient features of his work. The characteristic 
 qualities of German, Flemish, and Dutch art are thus 
 clearly indicated. Exceptions there were, of course; 
 but, speaking in general terms, we may say that these 
 northern masters had from the first a well-marked lean- 
 ing towards actual life and the world of everyday fact ; 
 that, pious and sentimental as they often were, they 
 
212 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 were rarely inspired by mystical passion; and that the 
 romantic bias of northern genius was shown in their 
 free use not only of the commonplace, but even of the 
 grotesque in the handling of sacred themes. No one 
 would seek to deny the genuine religious fervour of 
 the Van Eycks; of Martin Schongauer (1450-88); of 
 Hans Memling (1430-94), whose pictures are indeed 
 conspicuous for their devout feeling; of Memling's 
 master, Rogier van der Weyden (1400-64), whose sombre 
 and gloomy spirit finds expression in the agony of 
 tortured saints and the sufferings of Christ; of Quentin 
 Matsys (1466- 1530), whose frequent vulgarity of detail 
 does not obscure^ the sincerity of his emotion. Yet, 
 comparing the work even of these men with that of the 
 greatest Italian religious painters, we can hardly fail 
 to perceive both their larger intellectual independence 
 and their relative want of idealising power. The 
 ** tendency to give poetry to realities rather than to 
 realise a conventional ideal is prominent throughout the 
 whole course of Flemish art," writes Reinach; and what 
 he says about Flemish art may be fairly extended to 
 northern art in general. *' Painters were obliged to 
 paint sacred pictures. Virgins, angels, and martyrs, 
 because their clients asked for these; but how clearly 
 they show that all of them, even Memling, would gladly 
 have painted anything else ! The things that interest 
 them, that they study and render most lovingly, are 
 figures of donors, rich stuffs, distant glimpses of land- 
 scape. They are never so great as when they escape 
 J from the bondage of the given theme."* The common 
 I practice, here just alluded to, of introducing the por- 
 1 traits of donors, patrons, and wealthy burghers in 
 I pictures of the Holy Family and similar scenes, is a 
 curious illustration of the downright realistic character 
 . * " Apollo," p. 227. 
 
Protestantism and Art 213 
 
 of this northern art. In many ways, as will be seen, 
 such art exhibits the workings of the practical and posi- , 
 tive spirit which found its principal expression in 
 Protestantism. 
 
 We are thus brought to a question of primary 
 interest in this part of our study — ^that of the general 
 influence of the Reformation on art. To all forms of 
 ecclesiastical art Protestantism was necessarily hostile. 
 It is true that in this matter there were differences of 
 opinion among the leaders. Luther himself defended 
 the use of art for devotional purposes, both because it 
 aided the memory and because it helped to a vivid 
 imaginative realisation of incidents of sacred story. "If 
 it is not sinful, but good and holy, that I should have 
 Christ's image in my heart," he said, "why should it be / 
 sinful for me to have it in my eyes ? " On the other ' 
 hand, Zwingli and his followers denounced all religious 
 art in unmeasured terms as an invention of Anti-Christ 
 — "the Lord," they declared, "had commanded to 
 preach the gospel, not to paint it"; and the Helvetian 
 Confession of Faith contained an express denunciation 
 of all images as idols. On the whole, the judgment of 
 the reformers went with the Swiss party rather than 
 with Luther, and it was their uncompromising spirit 
 which became the controlling influence in defining the 
 unfortunate attitude of Protestantism towards art. We 
 need not make too much of the disgraceful outbursts of 
 fanaticism which occasionally occurred ; as when, ac- 
 cording to the report given by Erasmus to Pirkheimer, 
 a frenzied mob laid violent hands on the treasures of 
 the Basel churches, obliterated with whitewash all the 
 paintings which could not be removed, smashed all the 
 sacred images, and committed to the flames everything 
 that would burn. Such iconoclastic madness, specific- 
 ally condemned by Luther, was the inevitable product 
 
214 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 of the angry passions of an age in which, as we saw in 
 an earher chapter, there was no hope for counsels of 
 moderation on one or the other side. It is not with such 
 passing gusts of unreasoning fury that we have here 
 to reckon, but with the bearings of reformed Christianity 
 upon the evolution of art at large. By its formal 
 repudiation of the use of beauty in the service of reli- 
 gion, Protestantism practically destroyed ecclesiastical 
 art. Of the disastrous consequences which this ill- 
 advised procedure entailed upon its own destinies we 
 have not here to speak. We have only to note that in 
 this way aesthetic genius, now completely liberated from 
 sacerdotal control, gained absolute freedom in the 
 treatment of sacred subjects, while at the same time it 
 was greatly encouraged, indeed almost driven, to seek 
 fresh secular channels for its expression. 
 
 The history of the immediate influence of Protes- 
 tantism upon painting is not very interesting. Among 
 the most important artists, the German, Lucas Cranach 
 (1472-1553), shows it most conspicuously. Cranach was 
 an intimate friend of Luther and Melanchthon, and in 
 many of his church pictures he gives his compositions 
 a distinctly dogmatic and polemical turn. Thus, for 
 example, in his great altar-piece in the Stadtkirche at 
 Weimar, he depicts Christ on the cross with the blood 
 flowing from His side, while John the Baptist directs 
 the attention of Luther, Melanchthon, and the painter 
 himself to the suffering Saviour as representing the 
 work of redemption. Here, clearly, we have an attempt 
 to make art the embodiment of the central Protestant 
 doctrine of the Atonement. In the productions of two 
 much greater men, the spirit of the reformed religion, 
 though not so pronounced, is still unmistakable. 
 Albrecht Diirer (1471-1528), the most famous of German 
 masters, painted and etched at Niirnberg at a time when 
 
Diirer and Holbein 215 
 
 that city was the centre of German humanism, and the 
 impulses of the intellectual revival must be counted 
 among the formative factors in the development of his 
 art. It was during his later years, however, that, 
 though he never severed his connection with the Roman 
 communion, his sympathy with the Reformation be- 
 came pronounced. Thus, while his vast allegorical 
 picture of the "Adoration of the Trinity " is executed on 
 conventional lines and is thoroughly mediaeval in its 
 balanced representation of the Church and the Empire, 
 his late masterpieces of the "Four Apostles " (St. Peter, 
 St. John, St. Mark, and St. Paul) is evidently inspired 
 by interest in the return of Christianity to its apostolic 
 sources, the appended texts from Luther's translation 
 of the Epistles serving to underscore the artist's mean- 
 ing. His sacred woodcuts also show Protestant ten- 
 dencies in their free treatment of their subjects, and 
 especially of their figures. In his younger contem- 
 porary, Hans Holbein (1497-1543), the power of Pro- 
 testantism is even more marked. Detailed examination 
 of his religious pictures, which are not numerous, 
 would show this in the sound common sense, the intel- 
 lectual solidity, and the homely realism by which they 
 are characterised, while occasionally, as in some of the 
 illustrations to Luther's Bible, and in drawings of the 
 Passion in which Christ's judges, accusers, and execu- 
 tioners are represented under the guise of pope, monks, 
 and priests, the dogmatic purpose of the artist becomes 
 aggressive. We have not at the moment anything to 
 do with the varied output of both Diirer and Holbein 
 on other than sacred subjects. Two points suggested 
 by their work in general may still, however, be empha- 
 sised. In the first place, there is its essentially Teutonic 
 character. Protestant in temper as they were, they were 
 as Germans nearer in certain ways to the Middle Ages 
 
2i6 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 than their Italian contemporaries; for along with their 
 downright and practical temper and their lack of mystical 
 passion, there is a large infusion in the productions of 
 both of them of the weird, the grotesque, the superstiti- 
 ous, and the sentimental. We see this in "The Knight, 
 Death, and the Lady," and the "Melancholia" of the 
 one, and in the " Dance of Death" of the other. Secondly, 
 we should recognise the significance of the immense 
 development of etching and engraving not in the hands 
 of these two masters only, but in northern art at large. 
 In this we have, socially considered, a further extension 
 of the influence of the oil painting. In Italy, as we 
 have seen, painting as it ceased to be mainly ecclesiasti- 
 cal tended to become a mere luxury of the very rich. 
 It is a sign of the different spirit bred by Protestantism 
 among the northern peoples that by means of etching 
 and engraving even the greatest artists — even men like 
 Diirer and Rembrandt — appealed to the masses as well 
 as to the wealthy and cultivated few; and in this case, 
 again, the taste of the public affected the work of the 
 artist. Art shared with religion in the democratic in- 
 fluences of which Protestantism was at once part cause 
 and part effect. 
 
 The difference between Counter-reformation and 
 Reformation in their respective bearings on art may 
 be further illustrated from the contrast presented by the 
 two supreme painters of the seventeenth century — the 
 Flemish Rubens {1577-1649) and the Dutch Rembrandt 
 (1616-69). Both these great masters were enormously 
 industrious, prolific, and versatile; both covered almost 
 the entire range of artistic motives possible at their time, 
 producing portraits and landscapes, allegorical com- 
 positions, and pictures on subjects from history, 
 religion, mythology, and social life. But Rubens be- 
 longed to the Spanish Netherlands, where the spirit of 
 
Rubens and Rembrandt 217 
 
 the Counter-reformation was very strong, and of that 
 spirit he is in his religious productions the most brilliant 
 interpreter. Ruskin speaks of him as a man "without 
 any perceptible traces of a soul." The want of soul, the 
 absence of real spirituality, is a conspicuous character- 
 istic of his work. He is marvellously effective; but in a 
 florid and sensational way. His religious paintings are, 
 in fact, often vulgar, not on account of any triviality in 
 their conception or of the introduction of commonplace 
 details, but because they are over-emphatic and theatri- 
 cal; as in the famous "Crucifixion" and the equally 
 famous "Descent from the Cross," the one in the 
 Museum, the other in the cathedral, at Antwerp. Thus 
 Rubens exhibits, more fully than any other painter, the 
 spirit which the Counter-reformation had brought into 
 art. The tone of Rembrandt's sacred pictures, on the 
 other hand, is thoroughly and unmistakably Protestant. 
 Their downright, vigorous naturalism and freedom from 
 convention betray their inspiration. In his "Descent 
 from the Cross," for instance, there are many grotesque 
 touches, and the Walloon costumes of the figures pro- 
 duce a strange effect ; but here, as elsewhere, the artist's 
 touch of familiarity and his homely truth bring his 
 subjects very near indeed to our imagination and 
 sympathies. 
 
 In Germany art was early swamped by Italian influ- 
 ences, and about the middle of the sixteenth century 
 ceased to nourish itself from the soil of national life, 
 gave itself up to imitation of foreign models, and thus, 
 becoming devitalised and academic, passed rapidly into 
 decline. Something of the same fate later overtook the 
 more ambitious forms of art in the Netherlands, 
 though the power of a few great masters saved even 
 these for a time from complete destruction. The really 
 living developments of northern art after this time must, 
 
2i8 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 however, be sought not in paintings on a grand scale 
 and on religious and historical themes, but rather in 
 little pictures for private houses and public halls, con- 
 taining portraits, landscapes, domestic interiors, and 
 transcripts from ordinary life. It was in this realistic 
 work, and particularly in what is known as genre- 
 painting, that much of the best genius of the north in 
 the later Renaissance period found its expression, and 
 it is noteworthy that while such realistic work was a 
 thoroughly characteristic product of the spirit of the 
 Low Countries in general, it developed less rapidly and 
 less successfully in Catholic Flanders (and this notwith- 
 standing the prominence of David Teniers) than in 
 Protestant Holland. Dutch art was born along with 
 Dutch freedom in that great hour when the people 
 of Holland finally broke the yoke and discarded the 
 religion of their Spanish oppressors; and whatever else 
 may be said about it, either in praise or in blame, this 
 at least must be said — that it has all the vitality and 
 the meaning which only a genuine national art can 
 ever possess. It is not an ideal art ; not an art of high 
 emotion or intense passion; it has no spirituality; it is 
 little concerned with the great things of religion, or 
 history, or experience. It is just the art of nature in 
 its common aspects, of homely people and their doings, 
 of life as it is lived day by day through quiet uneventful 
 years. In this art the realism which had long been 
 struggling elsewhere for separate existence at length 
 becomes entirely independent. Seeking its themes and 
 inspiration in the range of simple fact, this Dutch art 
 then has its importance as representing in its peculiar 
 and fruitful fashion one phase of that general return of 
 the mind and interests of men to the world and reality 
 which we have found a chief factor in the movements 
 of the Renaissance as a whole. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 The Renaissance in Literature 
 
 I. — GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF RENAISSANCE 
 LITERATURE 
 
 I HAVE now to outline the development of literature 
 during the period of the Renaissance, and, as in the pre- 
 ceding sketch of art, so again here, we are to concern 
 ourselves not with technical details, or with individual 
 men as such, or with the lasting value of what they did, 
 but with general movements and their meanings. What 
 we have, then, to undertake is not a history, but an 
 epitome, and the aim of this epitome must be to exhibit 
 the connection between literature and other activities of 
 the time. That Renaissance literature, like Renaissance 
 art, is charged with all the passion and energy of the 
 great age out of which it sprang is a fact too familiar to 
 every reader, even to the English reader who never 
 travels beyond his own language, to need repeated 
 emphasis. It is with the special ways in which literature 
 was affected by the influences which we have been 
 considering that we now have to do. 
 
 A natural plan would be to follow the main lines of 
 literary evolution as we previously followed the course 
 of classical scholarship, from Italy, the cradle of 
 humanism, across the Alps to France, and thence to 
 England. But while this plan would doubtless have its 
 advantages, we shall, I think, economise space and best 
 subserve our purpose by dealing with our subject under 
 
 219 
 
220 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 the headings rather of movements than of countries. 
 It is not primarily with Italian literature, or with French 
 literature, or with English literature that our business 
 now lies. It is with the qualities and tendencies of Re- 
 naissance literature in general. In taking the proposed 
 course we shall find that all the literatures of the new age 
 have many points of resemblance one with another. 
 Products of the powerful secularising spirit of the time, 
 they are all alike characterised by reaction from sacerdo- 
 talism and the cloistral temper, by their wide interest in 
 the present world, by their ardent pursuit of fresh ex- 
 perience and their absorbing delight in life and beauty. 
 [Whatever else this Renaissance literature is, it is cer- 
 tainly a literature of the lay mind, of free inquiry, of 
 awakened sensibifities, of intellectual emancipation and 
 expansion. Impulses long checked, desires long banned, 
 find full expression in it, and it is everywhere quickened 
 by the fertilising ideas by which men's imaginations 
 were filled. It is, moreover, an embodiment not only 
 of man's newly stirred interest in the outer world, but 
 also of his newly stirred interest in himself. The in- 
 dividualism of the age is one of its persistent notes. 
 Once more, almost universally in its forms, often in its 
 content and spirit, it reveals the influences of the new 
 learning and the revival of classical antiquity — influ- 
 ences which were indeed so profound and far-reaching, 
 for both good and evil, that from the purely artistic 
 point of view they may be justly, as they are popularly, 
 regarded as the chief factors in literary development. 
 Inspired by the same interests and shaped by the same 
 forces, the literatures of the Renaissance thus present, 
 as we should expect, many features in common. Yet 
 because, broadly viewed, such literatures are funda- 
 mentally European, they do not therefore cease to be 
 Italian, French, and English. Essential similarities 
 
Secularisation of Literature 221 
 
 thus, as we should also expect, coexist with many dif- 
 ferences, and as these differences were due to differ- 
 ences in national character, situation, social and moral 
 conditions, and the varying power and relationships of 
 the impulses involved, they will prove to be by no means 
 the least important point in the comparative inquiry 
 which we have now to undertake. 
 
 II. — THE SECULARISATION OF LITERATURE 
 
 It has been pointed out that the development of a 
 large body of miscellaneous and entirely secular literature 
 was one of the principal manifestations of the working of 
 the Renaissance spirit. That there was no secular litera- 
 ture during the Middle Ages is not, of course, implied. 
 A good deal existed, as especially in the aristocratic 
 chansons de gestes and romans, and in the more popular 
 songs, ballads, and fabliaux. But, on the whole, and 
 even outside the field of directly religious effort, litera- 
 ture was still hampered by theology and encumbered 
 by scholastic metaphysics. Deflected by these, it lost 
 itself too often in the dreary wastes of didacticism, 
 allegory, abstractions, and personifications. Its 
 gradual emergence from these under the influence of 
 the tendencies which culminated in the Renaissance, 
 represents the return to life and nature, and the corre- 
 sponding growth of an interest in art as art. Its com- 
 plete secularisation meant its final liberation from 
 ecclesiastical and scholastic control, its escape from the 
 atmosphere and the prepossessions of cloister and class- 
 room, the assertion of its right to independent existence, 
 its claim to absolute freedom in its treatment of its two 
 great subjects — the world and man. Thus, for example, 
 story-literature in clerical hands had been an appendage 
 to the literature of edification; moral tags (as even in 
 
222 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 the ** Gesta Romanorum") had been freely used to justify 
 amusement; epical narrative had been continually bur- 
 dened with allegory. When Boccaccio and Chaucer 
 wrote tales which frankly depended upon their interest 
 as tales — as records of incidents, transcripts from the 
 human comedy, or excursions into the wonderland of 
 romance — they stood out as pioneers of that coming J 
 literature which by its varied dealings with fact and 
 fancy was to appeal directly to the imagination and 
 sympathies of its readers. It will be seen that to a 
 certain extent the history of literature paralleled that 
 of art; but for various reasons literature gained a full- 
 ness of freedom which for the time being art was unable 
 to attain. 
 
 Conspicuous among the many illustrations of this 
 secularisation of literature is the establishment of the 
 modern form of drama. Whatever traditions of the 
 ancient theatre may have survived the disintegration of 
 the Roman Empire, it seems certain that these can have 
 had little or nothing to do with the beginnings of the 
 drama in mediaeval Europe. That drama was a direct 
 offshoot from religious ceremonial. It arose in the first 
 instance out of the rich symbolic liturgy of the mediaeval 
 Church by the gradual dramatisation of important 
 incidents, especially those connected with Easter 
 and Christmas, commemorated in the services of the 
 calendar. In its original form of liturgical mystery, it 
 was, in fact, an organic part of such services, and thus 
 we are speaking without the slightest extravagance 
 when we say that the first stage of mediasval Europe 
 was the altar, and the first actors the priests engaged in 
 celebrating the mass. The expansion of this liturgical 
 mystery was necessarily followed in due course by its 
 separation from the ritual and its removal from the 
 church ; and, ultimately, a great religious drama evolved 
 
Evolution of the Drama 223 
 
 out of it, the subjects of which were taken from the 
 Old and the New Testaments and the lives of the saints, 
 and the central purpose of which was to educate the 
 illiterate people in the truths of their religion. As a 
 means of securing a concrete and vivid representation of 
 sacred things, the growth of this religious drama, there- 
 fore, falls into line with the development of religious 
 painting, stained-glass windows, and (as, for instance, 
 in the occasional use of tableaux) other external aids to 
 faith. The substitution of the vernacular language for 
 the ecclesiastical Latin originally employed, and the dis- 
 placement — which, however, for a time went on very 
 slowly — of clerical by lay actors, are signs of the 
 encroachment of secular influences upon a domain 
 which, to begin with, was entirely ecclesiastical. 
 Already popular in many parts of the Continent, these 
 mysteries and miracle plays were imported into England 
 after the Norman Conquest ; the earliest play performed 
 in this country of which any record has been preserved, 
 being a "Ludus de S. Katherina," which was repre- 
 sented at Dunstable at the end of the eleventh or the be- 
 ginning of the twelfth century. A hundred years later 
 such representations were common all over the country. 
 But the great age of the English religious drama dawned 
 with the fourteenth century, when Corpus Christi 
 plays, as they were called from the season of their 
 performance at the great festival of that name, became 
 popular in many of our larger towns. One curious 
 feature in their development at this time merits atten- 
 tion. From the outset the tendency of the religious 
 drama had been towards expansion by the continual 
 incorporation of more and more fresh matter with the 
 few original themes. In England this tendency 
 resulted in the production of immense sequences or 
 cycles of plays — Collective Mysteries, as they are some- 
 
224 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 ^ times termed — ^which, beginning with the Creation and 
 I ending with Doomsday, provided a fairly systematic 
 ■ treatment, in terms of the current theology, of the central 
 problems of sin and salvation.* As these plays had 
 now passed into the hands of the trade-guilds of the 
 different towns, the actual clerical monopoly of the 
 drama was completely destroyed. Many other in- 
 . fluences were meanwhile at work helping to widen the 
 I breach between the Church and the drama. All this is 
 significant. But still more significant is the tendency 
 qi the religious play to outrun its first dogmatic, and 
 still stated, purpose, by amplification on the purely 
 dramatic side. The humorous wrangling of Cain and 
 his boy, and of Noah and his wife, and, most of all, the 
 I two Shepherd Plays in the Wakefield cycle — which are 
 simply rough, north-country, rustic farces, very slightly 
 connected with their matrix — show how, even while still 
 working within the narrow frame of prescribed subject- 
 matter, these old playwrights and actors began to feel 
 the human possibilities of what they had in hand, and 
 were instinctively seeking a way towards a genuine kind 
 of drama. Their experiments thus remind us of the 
 efforts of some of the Italian painters towards realistic 
 r^xpansion under the cover of sacred themes. 
 
 This religious drama had a long history. It main- 
 tained its vogue in France till nearly the middle of the 
 sixteenth century; it developed in Italy into the more 
 artistic form of the fifteenth century rappresentazioni 
 sacre, and in Spain into the autos sacramentales, of 
 which some hundreds of examples were provided by the 
 prolific pens of Lope de la Vega and Calderon ; in both 
 
 * Four of these cycles have come down to us complete : the 
 Chester cycle of 25 plays, the Coventry of 42, the Wakefield of 31, 
 and the York of 48. The great Passion Play at Ober-Ammergau is 
 our modern survival and representative of this mediaeval religious 
 drama. 
 
Morality Plays 225 
 
 Germany and England it persisted well on into the 
 period of the Reformation, the theory that Protestantism 
 was directly antagonistic to it being a mistake. Mean- 
 while another stage in dramatic evolution had been 
 marked by the rise of the morality play, which was 
 simply the translation of didactic allegory into dramatic . 
 form. This fact is itself enough to show that in origin 
 the morality was as mediaeval as the mystery. Yet 
 various points of difference between the two classes are 
 suggestive. In the first place, while both were vehicles 
 of the teachings of the Church on questions connected 
 with man's salvation, the mystery, as M. Jusserand has 
 admirably said, represented the more popular religious 
 thought of the middle ages, while the morality ex- 
 pounded its scholastic philosophy. Secondly, the 
 morality indicates, in a most interesting way, the 
 movement of the drama towards human experience 
 and the growth of the element of individuality. The 
 mystery had dramatised sacred history, and had 
 presented the teachings of the Church indirectly through 
 this. In the morality doctrine was turned directly into 
 dramatic form, and the bearings of the truths involved 
 were enforced by the action and dialogue of characters, 
 who were indeed personifications of virtues and vices, 
 but in whom the spectator might well perceive enlarged 
 types of the humanity of which he was himself a part. 
 That at its best — as in "Everyman," for example — the 
 morality tended to bring the drama down towards the 
 plane of actual life cannot, I think, be denied. Thus, 
 though it is true that in its later developments it often 
 became hopelessly pedantic, it is also true that in other 
 cases, as the human element gained ground at the 
 expense of the abstractions, and the personified qualities 
 became more and more sharply individualised, it passed 
 insensibly into comedy, being indeed one of the affluents 
 
226 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 by which early comedy was fed. Its use for other than 
 its original purposes is also an interesting feature of its 
 history. In the troubled times of the Reformation it 
 was employed by both Catholics and Protestants as a 
 controversial instrument. It was also turned to the ser- 
 vice of the new learning, such a play, for instance, as the 
 "Interlude of the Four Elements" — the earliest of the 
 kind that has come down to us — being not a dramatised 
 sermon or homily, but a lecture on physical science and 
 its value, in the shape of a drama in which Natura 
 Naturata, Stlidious Desire, and Humanity are the chief 
 speakers. A significant detail of the play is the refer- 
 ence in it to the discovery of America. 
 
 The early history of the modern European drama 
 thus shows that the rise of the regular secular drama in 
 the sixteenth century was not so sudden an occurrence 
 as is sometimes supposed. The oft-repeated theory that 
 the origin of modern comedy and tragedy has to be 
 sought entirely in "the study and imitation of classical 
 plays in schools and Universities "* is quite disproved 
 by the fact that under its pre-secular forms a steady 
 movement towards the secularisation of the drama is 
 apparent long before the influences of the classical 
 revival began to count. Yet it would not be easy to 
 exaggerate the stimulating and shaping power of such 
 influences in the subsequent course of the European 
 stage. In general, as we have seen, the classical revival 
 gave an enormous impetus to the spread of the secular 
 spirit; and of that spirit the new drama was one expres- 
 sion. In particular, it provided the rudimentary drama 
 with much-needed guidance in respect of technique and 
 form. To this latter point we will return presently. In 
 the meanwhile we have only to record the final stage of 
 the secular evolution of the drama in the definite estab- 
 
 * Henry Morley, "English Plays,'* p. 2. 
 
Individualism in Literature 227 
 
 lishment of regular comedy and tragedy. In Italy 
 comedy may be said to begin with Cardinal Bibbiena's 
 "La Calandria" (written probably about 1490, though 
 not performed till much later), Machiavelli's "Mandra- 
 gola" (15 12), and the five comedies of Ariosto; tragedy 
 (freeing itself from the rappresentazioni sacre) with 
 Tassoni's "Sofonisba" (15 15). In France the founda- 
 tions of the new tragedy and the new comedy alike were 
 laid by fitienne Jodelle, with "Cleopatre " (1552), in the 
 one case, and " Eugene " (same date) in the other. Real 
 English comedy begins with Nicholas Udall's "Roister 
 Doister" (circa 1550), and John Still's "Gammer 
 Gurton's Needle" (circa 1566); real English tragedy 
 with the "Gorboduc " of Sackville and Norton (1561-62). 
 Thus, in a type of art which had grown up in the service 
 of theology and had long been justified by its doctrinal 
 utility, men now sought humour and passion, the 
 interest of action and character, beauty of form and 
 style. 
 
 III. — THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUALISM IN LITERATURE 
 
 In these pages it has often become apparent that the 
 spread of the secular spirit during the period of the 
 Renaissance was closely associated with the develop- 
 ment of the sense of individuality, and ample proof has 
 thus been provided of Burckhardt's statement, quoted 
 at the outset, that the awakening of personality was the 
 great sign of the new time. Additional proof is now 
 furnished by Renaissance literature. Mediaeval anony- 
 mity, upon which we remarked in our introductory 
 chapter, disappears; the individual factor comes into 
 full play; the strong impress of idiosyncrasy and 
 specific experience is everywhere conspicuous in the 
 work produced. 
 
\ 
 
 228 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 The expansion of personality must be considered in 
 the broadest possible way. It meant much more than 
 the phrase might seem at first to connote. As man's 
 great aim was now at all costs to be himself, it meant 
 self-realisation, and this in turn implied the widening of 
 the area of experience, more varied contact with men and 
 things, increasing flexibility and breadth of outlook. It 
 meant, therefore, on the one hand, a deepening of 
 interest in selfhood and its shifting phases of thought 
 and feeling, and a growth of what we are accustomed to 
 call self-consciousness or subjectivity. It meant equally 
 on the other hand a corresponding deepening of interest 
 in the characters and doings of other people, for which 
 reason the establishment of the "cult of the ego" was 
 accompanied by ever-extending curiosity concerning 
 whatever belongs to the life of man. These are some 
 aspects of the evolution of individuality in an age which 
 had discovered at once both the inner and the outer 
 world; and it is worth while to note that the striking 
 freshness of Renaissance literature is, in large measure, 
 the result rather of this new-found freedom of personal 
 expression than of the actual originality of the ideas 
 expressed. 
 
 To illustrate the individualism of that literature in 
 detail would be almost tantamount to writing its history. 
 This obviously cannot be attempted here. But a few 
 outstanding features may be indicated. 
 
 To the English reader, whose ideas on the subject 
 are naturally coloured by his familiarity with the 
 Shakespearean drama, it may cause some surprise to 
 learn that one of the most conspicuous characteristics of 
 the European literature of the Renaissance in general is 
 - its prevailing egotism. It is, on the whole, the produc- 
 tion of men who are immensely concerned with them- 
 selves. A careful student of one division of its history, 
 
 /I 
 
Autobiographical Literature 229 
 
 Mr. Arthur Tilley, has specially noted this intimately 
 personal quality in the literature of the French 
 Renaissance. That literature, he points out, is essen- 
 tially the literature of self-portraiture; its writers "talk 
 about themselves not because they think they are 
 interesting to others, but because they are supremely 
 interested in themselves '\- he calls attention to the fact 
 that "there is hardly a work of the sixteenth century, 
 however impersonal in form, which is not full of in- 
 formation as to the life and character of the writer"; 
 and he lays stress upon the autobiographical material, 
 not only in the lyrical poetry of men like Marot, Du 
 Bellay, and Ronsard, but also in such nominally objec- 
 tive books as Rabelais* "Pantagruel" and the "Hep- 
 tameron '* of the Queen of Navarre.* The astonishing 
 vogue of the personal memoir in the French literature 
 of the time, and of autobiographies (of which those of 
 Cellini and Cardan may be cited as examples) in Italian 
 literature, is also noteworthy. Most of these memoirs 
 and autobiographies were mainly occupied with external 
 facts. But a strong current of pure subjectivity had 
 also been set flowing through European literature, the 
 themes of which were thus occasionally furnished not 
 by outer facts, but by inner experiences. Dante*s 
 autopsychographical "Vita Nuova " stands in the fore- 
 front of this literature of confessional utterance, but it 
 is commonly recognised that the first influential ex- 
 ponent of the mood of introspection was Petrarch, in 
 whose sonnets and canzonieri the element of personal 
 passion is so prominent that he has even been described 
 as the prototype of Rousseau and the real father of the 
 modern literature of self-analysis and self-delineation. f 
 Petrarch's influence upon European poetry was enor- 
 
 * " Literature of the French Renaissance," ii. 315. 
 t Garnett, " History of Italian Literature," p. 63. 
 
230 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 mous, and if among our English sonneteers some, like 
 Spenser in his "Amoretti," made lyrical verse the 
 medium of genuine self-expression, while with others, 
 among them perhaps Shakespeare, the sonnet-sequence 
 was only a dramatic device, still, in the one case as in 
 the other, and whether the feelings were real or feigned, 
 the dominant interest was provided by the complexities 
 and conflicts of the emotional life. The emergence of 
 the essay — the prose analogue of the lyric — in the hands 
 of Montaigne and Bacon must also be remarked. The 
 rambling gossip of the one, and the "dispersed medita- 
 tions*' of the other, belong to the literature of direct 
 self-expression . 
 
 Meanwhile literature responded as readily to the 
 impulses bred of that widening contact with general 
 human life which, as I have shown, was only another 
 aspect of Renaissance individualism. Here, again, 
 Dante is the pioneer, for while the plan and ideas of his 
 *' Comedy " are entirely mediaeval, the "power and rich- 
 ness shown in his descriptions of human nature in every 
 shape and attitude "* anticipate a later time. Growing 
 interest in man as man, and especially (a significant 
 detail) in strong, outstanding personalities, gave im- 
 mense stimulus to the literature of biography, the popu- 
 larity of which may be compared with that of the 
 portrait in painting. This was particularly the case in 
 Italy, where not only innumerable lives of individuals 
 (like Boccaccio's "Life of Dante," which led the way), 
 but also voluminous collections (like Vasari's "Lives of 
 the Painters," from which we have more than once 
 quoted) bore testimony to the power of the current taste. 
 But we must also remember that this interest in man 
 as man found embodiment in imaginative no less than 
 in historic forms. For reasons into which we must not 
 
 * Burckhardt, "The Renaissance in Italy," Part IV., chap. iv. 
 
Montaigne 231 
 
 now pause to enter, it made comparatively little head- 
 way in prose fiction, which, from the point of view of 
 personality, as well as of art, was greatly retarded in 
 its growth. But it was the inspiring motive of the new 
 drama. That drama moved along the lines indicated 
 by the morality-play, from types and abstractions to 
 individualities, and it was to the keen sense of indivi- 
 duality, of the varieties of experience, of the boundless 
 possibilities of human nature for good and evil, that it 
 made its appeal. 
 
 Twice already in previous chapters, and a third time 
 just now, I have had occasion to refer to one of the 
 greatest writers in Renaissance literature — the French 
 essayist Montaigne, whom I have described as ** the very 
 incarnation of fhe inquisitive temper of his age." Re- 
 presentative in this sense, he is also representative on 
 account of the absolutely personal quality of his writing; 
 and if I return to this point once again for a moment, 
 it is not so much because he was admittedly the typical 
 egotist of tTie Renaissance, as it is because it is most 
 important that we should appreciate the real nature and 
 bearings of his egotism. More than any of his contem- 
 poraries, he combined in himself the two phases of in- 
 dividualism at which we have glanced — intense interest 
 in himself and intense interest in everything connected 
 with man. Individualism is the key-note of his " Essays." 
 To the last degree self-engrossed, he is for himself the 
 pivot of a universe of infinite variety and inexhaustible 
 fascination. "It is myself I portray"; "I look within 
 myself, and have no business but with myself"; "my 
 book is consubstantial with its author "; "my book and 
 I march together and keep one pace"; "all the world 
 may know me by my book " — in such terms he openly 
 proclaims his constant pre-occupation with himself, his 
 own life, character, experiences, aims, opinions. Indivi- 
 
232 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 dualism is also the key-note of his moral teaching. "The 
 greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that 
 he is his own.'* True to this underlying principle, he 
 throws the utmost emphasis upon the value of whatever 
 a man can build into the fabric of his life to its amplifica- 
 tion and enrichment. There is nothing ascetic about 
 him ; he is not afraid of experience, nor will he shirk it. 
 Yet none the less — and this is the obverse of the same 
 thought — he draws the sharpest distinction between man 
 and his circumstances — the things which stand outside 
 him; between the mere trappings and accidents of life 
 and life in its true essence; between our stage costume 
 and our skin. "There is nothing so goodly and so lawful 
 as to play the man well and duly. Of all the infirmities 
 we have, the most savage is to despise our being. The 
 true husbandry is to know how to enjoy it. And as I 
 now perceive my life to be short in time, I will strive to 
 extend it in weight." The wisdom of pure egotism 
 could hardly go farther. Montaigne's very inconsist- 
 encies — ^and they were innumerable : his habit of taking 
 one view of a subject to-day and another view to- 
 morrow; his undogmatic temper; the suppleness of his 
 judgment; his far-reaching scepticism; his uncompro- 
 mising honesty of dealing with himself as well as with 
 the people about him — all these things were only so 
 many manifestations of a marvellously alert and flexible 
 mind allowing itself at all times absolute freedom of 
 play. Yet such preoccupation with himself and the 
 conduct of his own life was, as I have hinted, only one 
 aspect of Montaigne's individualism. The other aspect 
 of it is to be found in his wide and varied contact with 
 the world, in the avidity with which he tested life on 
 all sides, in his insatiable curiosity, in his tolerance and 
 comprehensive sympathy. In the words of one of his 
 favourite mottoes — a phrase from Terence — he was 
 
Classicism and Literature 233 
 
 human, and nothing human did he deem foreign to him. 
 Hence his fondness for dwelling upon "diversity" as 
 **the most constant quality in human nature "; his love 
 of travel; his devotion to history, which in a marvel- 
 lously modern spirit he studied as indeed the "natural 
 history" of man. It is not paradoxical to say that his 
 interest in himself was at bottom an interest in himself 
 as a specimen of mankind. His fundamental revolt 
 against authority and the dead hand of the past was 
 yet another expression of the individualism which was 
 the basis and the governing principle of all the living 
 and all the thinking of this "first modern man." 
 
 IV. — THE CLASSIC REVIVAL AND LITERATURE 
 
 While considering the liberalising tendencies of 
 humanism, we learned how much the spread of the 
 secular spirit and the development of individualism were 
 stimulated in the new generation by the contact of its 
 mind with the mind of classical antiquity. As a factor 
 in the intellectual and moral evolution of literature, the 
 rebirth of classical antiquity was therefore of marked im- 
 portance. As a factor in its artistic evolution, however, 
 its importance is even greater. So obviously, indeed, 
 was the literature of the Renaissance fashioned upon 
 the models furnished by Greece and Rome, so much did 
 it depend upon these for inspiration, guidance, and pre- 
 cedent, that historians of narrow outlook have made the 
 mistake of assuming that the revival of literature was 
 entirely the result of the revival of learning. Even the 
 brief survey which we have taken in this book of the 
 general movements which combined in the transforma- 
 tion of life during the period of the Renaissance will 
 have sufficed to expose the radical unsoundness of this 
 view. Yet, as we shall see, the direct influence of 
 
234 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 classicism upon the forms and methods of literature 
 was so profound as to some extent to account for, though 
 not, of course, to excuse it. 
 
 That influence is shown at once and most broadly in 
 the fact that literature now came to be regarded as an 
 art, and that men began to concern themselves about 
 the principles and rules of composition. Elsewhere, as 
 we have noted, the classical revival fostered the mood 
 of inquiry and criticism, and the extension of this mood 
 to art was naturally followed by the growth of a con- 
 siderable body of literature dealing immediately with 
 literature and with questions of technique. This did not 
 indeed occur in the earlier years of the revival, when 
 men were too enthusiastic over their recovered treasures 
 and too impatient of matters of detail in their enjoyment 
 of them to pause to analyse, weigh, and consider. But a 
 race of more sober scholars succeeded that of the early 
 passionate humanists, and then criticism began in 
 earnest. The "Ars Poetica" of Vida — Pope's "im- 
 mortal Vida, on whose honour'd brow the poet's bays 
 and critic's laurel grow " — published in 1527, was the 
 ftrst noteworthy treatise of the kind. This shows the 
 powerful influence of Horace, whose own ** Ars Poetica " 
 was at the moment the great textbook of criticism. A 
 little later Aristotle's ** Poetics " came to the front and 
 was soon the standard authority in literary discussion. 
 It is certainly one of the most curious coincidences in 
 literary history that the dictatorship of Aristotle in 
 poetry should have been firmly established at the very 
 time when his long supremacy in philosophy was being 
 fatally undermined. Italy played the principal part in 
 the literature of criticism during the sixteenth century, 
 after which the leadership in opinion passed to France. 
 Here already the ground had been broken, especially by 
 the members of the famous Pleiade, a brotherhood of 
 
The Growth of Criticism 235 
 
 seven sanguine men with Ronsard at their head, who 
 about the middle of the sixteenth century banded them- 
 selves together for the reform of the French language 
 and of French poetry. They had had their forerunners, 
 but it was by them that the foundations of French 
 criticism were permanently laid. Their principal mani- 
 festo was Du Bellay's treatise, **La Deffense et Illustra- 
 tion de la Langue Fran^oyse," published in 1549. In 
 this the extreme classicism of the school is very clearly 
 revealed, for the writer breaks absolutely with the 
 earlier traditions of French poetry, "and proclaims 
 without reservation that the only good models are those 
 of Greece and Rome, and the country which has first 
 been quickened by the Renaissance spirit — Italy."* 
 The distinct classical bias which was thus given to 
 French literature is historically significant. From this 
 time onward critical literature developed rapidly in 
 France, and with it the influence of Aristotle; though 
 it should be noted that the literary principles of the great 
 Greek thinker were now as much perverted by his dis- 
 ciples as his philosophical theories had formerly been 
 by the schoolmen. It was about the middle of th« 
 sixteenth century also that criticism definitely emerged 
 in England; and in English treatises on the formal 
 aspects of literature — as in Webbe's "Discourse of Eng- 
 lish Poesie " (1586), and Puttenham's "Arte of English 
 Poetrie" (1589), and Sidney's "Apologie for Poetrie " 
 (circa 158 1), to mention three of the most important ex- 
 amples — the paramount influences are those of the classics 
 and Italy. But our native playwrights and poets were, 
 on the whole, impatient of the schoolmaster and his 
 counsels of restraint, and critical theory in England had 
 much less to do with the actual making of literature than 
 in either of the great literary countries of the Continent. 
 * Tilley, " The Literature of the French Renaissance," i. 313. 
 
236 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 Concurrently with the growth of interest in litera- 
 ture as an art went the rapid evolution of literary forms ; 
 and as it was to the masterpieces of Greece and Rome 
 that the men of the new age turned for their rules of 
 judgment and standards of taste, so it was in these also 
 that they sought precedent and pattern. The shaping 
 influences of classicism are thus everywhere apparent, 
 though in varying degrees, in the development of litera- 
 ture on the technical side. 
 
 This is evident if we consider the general history of 
 style. The absurd attempts of such men as Gabriel 
 Harvey, Webbe, and Stanyhurst to reconstruct English 
 prosody upon the strict model of Greek and Latin 
 quantitative metre — attempts which for a time almost 
 seduced Spenser — now excite amusement only; but put 
 into their proper perspective they prove at least that 
 classical studies had awakened English writers to the 
 need of reform in the manner and diction of their poetry. 
 That reform Wyatt and Surrey did much to carry out, 
 with the help of Italian and French teachers who had 
 themselves sat at the feet of the ancients. The begin- 
 nings of modern English poetry are thus closely con- 
 nected with humanism. All over Europe about the same 
 time we see vernacular prose struggling to lift itself to 
 the high level of the classical tongues. Men who had 
 spent their days and nights over the pages of the Latin 
 masters, and had felt the lucidity and elegance of what 
 they read, made laborious efforts to impart something 
 of the same distinctive qualities to the rude and shape- 
 less materials with which they had to work. Careful 
 study was now accordingly given to rhetorical tech- 
 nique ; writers came to seek style and to pursue it apart 
 from any question of its value in respect of the things 
 they wanted to say. An intemperate enthusiasm for 
 mere form, an inordinate devotion to figure and phrase, 
 
Evolution of Literary Forms 237 
 
 and many extraordinary experiments in the improve- 
 ment of native speech were the result. We see this in 
 the strained and overloaded language of the French 
 rhetoriqueurs, in the reform programme of the Pleiade, 
 and in Du Bellay's contention that the French tongue 
 could acquire real excellence and polish only by deliber- 
 ate imitation of Greek and Latin models. We see it in 
 the alto estilo of the Spanish Guevara, which came into 
 England through the translations of Berners and North. 
 We see it in the florid mannerisms of Sidney's 
 "Arcadia"; in the elaborate artifices of Lyly's 
 " Euphues " ; in the fashionable Italianism of the cour- 
 tiers, the pedantry of the schoolmaster, and the grand- 
 iloquence of the fantastical Spaniard in "Love's 
 Labour's Lost." 
 
 The development of the more important forms of 
 literature during the period of the Renaissance was, 
 like the evolution of the sense of style in general, largely 
 the consequence of classical inspiration and example. A 
 considerable portion of the history of Renaissance 
 literature is, in fact, concerned with the revival and 
 adaptation of ancient types. 
 
 Thus, for instance, while ample room had been found 
 in mediaeval literature for ridicule, scorn, invective, and 
 reproof, the satiric spirit had expressed itself in such 
 forms as were at hand and already popular for other pur- 
 poses ; the form of allegory, for instance, in Langland's 
 " Piers Plowman " ; the form of beast-story in " Reinecke 
 Fuchs." Such miscellaneous vehicles of satire, as I 
 need scarcely say, have continued to be used in all 
 literatures down to our own day. But at the time of the 
 Renaissance the satire evolved as a regular specific 
 type; and the sources of this formal satire, as written 
 by such men as Ariosto in Italy, Regnier in France, 
 Gascoigne, Hall, and Donne in England, are to be 
 
238 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 sought in the works of the Roman satirists, Horace, 
 Juvenal, and Persius. 
 
 The history of another humanistic revival which for 
 a time enjoyed enormous vogue — the pastoral — is in the 
 range of its developments and influence at once more 
 varied and more interesting. The pastoral poem origin- 
 ated in the actual folk-songs of the Dorian Greeks, and 
 was thus at the outset, like our own ballads, entirely 
 popular in character. Its formal beginnings date from 
 the " Idylls " of the Syracusan poet Theocritus, about 
 270 B.C. These "Idylls," or "little pictures," are not 
 sham pastorals ; there is true feeling for nature in them, 
 and plenty of fidelity to the facts they purport to de- 
 scribe. But, products of the sophisticated Alexandrian 
 age, they are by no means free from the prevailing taint 
 of artificiality ; and in the work of those who followed 
 and imitated Theocritus this taint spread, till artifice 
 finally destroyed reality. Thus the pastoral became a 
 pure literary convention, cultivated by scholars who 
 were far more concerned about the form than about the 
 substance of their writing; it no longer dealt with the 
 life of actual shepherds; everything was idealised in 
 it out of all semblance to its supposed original ; homely 
 detail vanished before idyllic sentimentalism and the 
 refinements of academic taste ; natural scenery and rural 
 manners were displaced by the landscape of Arcadia and 
 the simplicity of the Golden Age. Such was the con- 
 ventional form which pastoral poetry assumed in the 
 "Bucolica" of Vergil. Such was the conventional form 
 which it assumed under the influences of classical enthu- 
 siasm among the humanists of the Renaissance. In this 
 revival, though Theocritus was not neglected, Vergil 
 was the principal model ; and thus the modern pastoral 
 in its origin was but the imitation of an imitation, at 
 two removes from reality. At first even the Latin hexa- 
 
Pastoral Literature 239 
 
 meter was adopted, as by both Dante and Petrarch, and 
 this tradition was carried on by later Italian humanists, 
 who, as we shall presently see, were so devoted to the 
 ancient tongues as to despise vernacular verse. Among 
 these there is one who on account of the extraordinary 
 European vogue of his " Eclogues " deserves special 
 mention — Giovanni Battista Spagnuoli, better known 
 under his pen-name of Mantuanus. Shakespeare's re- 
 ference to him as the "good old Mantuan " in "Love's 
 Labour's Lost " (iv. 2) gives the English reader a 
 nodding acquaintance with him, and also serves to in- 
 dicate the extent of his reputation. In England, as on 
 the Continent, his poems were held in the highest esteem 
 among the learned; in this country, according to six- 
 teenth century evidence, they were even preferred to 
 Vergil's "Bucolica," * while their use as a regular Latin 
 textbook in English schools explains Shakespeare's 
 familiarity with them. Great as was the impulse which 
 they gave to the same form of literature in France and 
 England, however, pastoral poetry in these countries, 
 as with the later idyllists in Italy, practically abandoned 
 Latin in favour of vernacular verse. Pastoral poetry 
 thus begins a new chapter of its history as a recognised 
 form of modern literature. The " Eclogues " of Clement 
 Marot (1496- 1 544) mark the opening of this chapter 
 in France. In England, while the "Eclogues" of 
 Alexander Barclay (1475-1552) and of Barnabe Googe 
 (1540-94) call for passing reference on the ground of 
 their priority, the real foundations of the regular 
 pastoral were laid in Spenser's "Shepheardes Calender " 
 (1579). In this poem, as in our Renaissance literature 
 at large, we see how the influence of classicism affected 
 English literature in two ways — directly and indirectly ; 
 
 * See Farnaby's preface to George Turberville's translation of 
 them, 1567. 
 
240 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 directly, as the humanistic spirit was revived by the 
 first-hand study of Greek and Latin writers; indirectly, 
 as it was transmitted by the literatures of Italy and 
 France. It is therefore a point of importance that 
 Spenser's acknowledged masters in the bucolic art are 
 not Theocritus and Vergil only, but also Mantuanus, 
 Petrarch, Boccaccio, Sannazaro, and Marot. The 
 attempt which Spenser makes to break away in one 
 respect from the strict conventions of the pastoral should 
 also be noted. That convention demanded absolute 
 refinement of diction and the repudiation of everything 
 suggestive of the rough realities of rustic speech. 
 Spenser in places employs a strange and rather uncouth 
 kind of language — in part archaic, in part dialectic — 
 which is obviously meant to bring Arcadia nearer to our 
 English fields, and to touch artifice with something of 
 the freshness of truth. Most readers to-day feel, in- 
 deed, that such combination of stereotyped machinery 
 with this amount of rustic realism is a mistake; that, 
 in fact, it serves only to make the absurdities of the 
 machinery itself, by contrast, the more glaringly 
 apparent. But our present judgment in the matter 
 goes, for the moment, for nothing. That Spenser 
 should even to this extent have asserted his independ- 
 ence of academic rule, and, while accepting in general 
 the formalism of pastoral poetry, should thereby have 
 sought to effect at least a slight return to nature — that 
 is one point for emphasis. Another is the opposition 
 of the classic theorist to the innovation. That opposi- 
 tion was not based upon the broad aesthetic considera- 
 tions to which I have just referred. It was inspired 
 wholly by slavish reverence for antiquity, to which, as 
 the educational movements of the Renaissance have 
 already shown us, classicism too often led. Sir Philip 
 Sidney, to whom the "Calender*' was dedicated, found 
 
Pastoral Literature 241 
 
 fault with this experiment in style because "neyther 
 Theocritus in Greeke, Virgill in Latin, nor Sanazar in 
 Italian did affect it." Meanwhile the pastoral spirit was 
 for a time so strong that it not only expressed itself 
 directly in the specific bucolic poem, but overflowed into 
 other forms of literature as well. It overflowed into the 
 drama, as in Politian's "Orfeo" (1492), Tasso's 
 "Aminta" (1573), and Guarini's ''Pastor Fido" (1590); 
 in Peele's "Arraignment of Paris" (circa 1581); in 
 Fletcher's "Faithful Shepherdess" (1608), and Jonson's 
 "Sad Shepherd " (1637). It thus became one of the 
 elements which combined in the production of that 
 special form of dramatic entertainment which Italian 
 influences made popular in England — ^the Mask. Pas- 
 toralism was also a chief impulse behind the prose 
 fiction of the Renaissance. It inspired Sannazaro's 
 "Arcadia" (1534), the earliest work of its school, and, 
 judged by its generative power, one of the most im- 
 portant. It gave birth to an enormous romantic litera- 
 ture in Spain. It blended with other elements in the 
 production of Sidney's "Arcadia," Lodge's "Rosa- 
 lynde," and Greene's "Pandosto," and, much later, of 
 the Heroic Romance in France. In strict conformity 
 with classic tradition, pastoral machinery was also used 
 for the purpose of elegy, as in Spenser's "Astrophel" 
 and Milton's "Lycidas." This brief sketch does not 
 exhaust the interest of pastoralism in Renaissance litera- 
 ture. But it will suffice to indicate something of its 
 range and bearings. 
 
 Turning next to the whole body of narrative litera- 
 ture in prose and verse, we find that here the direct 
 effect of classicism on method and structure was rela- 
 tively inconsiderable. In prose, the short tale of the 
 Italian story-tellers and their French and English 
 followers, the fully developed romance, like the 
 
242 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 "Arcadia" just mentioned, and the entire breed of 
 Lyly's "Euphues," and such picaresque novels as 
 Nash's "Unfortunate Traveller," were independent 
 excursions into a field in which it would have been 
 useless to look back to Greece or Rome for practical 
 help. In poetic narrative, where plenty of such help 
 might be had for the asking. Renaissance literature still 
 developed freely, and along the general lines of 
 mediaeval verse romance rather than those of the Greek 
 and Latin epic. Numerous as are their classical bor- 
 rowings in detail, there is little trace of formal Homeric 
 or Vergilian influences in such rambling and discursive 
 chivalrous romances as Boiardo's "Orlando Inna- 
 morato," for example, or Ariosto's more famous sequel 
 to this, "Orlando Furioso." These things, like the 
 great English poem, which was largely inspired by and 
 fashioned upon them, Spenser's "Faery Queene," have 
 a very complex ancestry; but, so far as fundamentals 
 of structure are concerned, classic example did little to 
 make them what they are. Much critical talk upon 
 the subject, however, naturally turned attention to the 
 exact form of the classic epic, and here and there efforts 
 were made to reproduce this with some degree of pre- 
 cision. In general, as we might expect, the result was 
 a failure, as in the Latin epics on Christian subjects 
 which appeared in Italy, and which were scarcely more 
 than academic exercises, and in Ronsard's unfinished 
 "La Franciade." But occasionally a true poet arose 
 who contrived to put the life of his own genius into 
 long-dead forms. This was done particularly by 
 Camoens in his "Os Lusiadas" (1572), and by Tasso 
 in his "Gerusalemme Liberata" (i575) — the two Euro- 
 pean poems which together represent the highest 
 achievement in the true epic revival till we come to 
 "Paradise Lost." Both are constructed upon the 
 
The Renaissance Drama 243 
 
 regular epic formula, with the required "supernatural 
 machinery," battles, councils, and episodes. But in 
 both the plot is diversified by a plentiful admixture of 
 materials which, strictly speaking, scarcely harmonise 
 with the design. This is especially the case with the 
 "Gerusalemme," and one of the most suggestive points 
 about it is that, just as Vergil was at his best when he 
 was not imitating Homer, so Tasso was at his best when 
 he was not imitating Vergil. The **epic" part of his 
 poem is correct and dull. It is in virtue of its inter- 
 woven stories of a quite romantic and sentimental cast 
 that it keeps its place among literature's abiding things. 
 Finally, we have to touch upon what is really the 
 most important division of our present inquiry — the part 
 played by classicism in the evolution of the Renais- 
 sance drama. I have already pointed out the error of 
 supposing that this drama was entirely a product of 
 the revival of learning. But it was very largely in the 
 school of the ancient playwrights, after all, that the men 
 of the sixteenth century learned their structural prin- 
 ciples, and the influences of humanism were therefore 
 of immense importance in the transition from rude 
 experiments to the forms of art. The comedies of 
 Plautus and Terence, and the tragedies of Seneca — 
 subjects of ardent study to begin with by those whose 
 interest in literature was entirely academic — thus pre- 
 sently became things of practical power in the develop- 
 ment of the public stage, first in Italy, and then, in part 
 immediately and in part through Italian imitations, in 
 France and England. But while the classical movement 
 must generally be accounted one of the principal factors 
 in the history of the Renaissance drama, it did not by 
 any means operate everywhere with equal force. It was 
 far less effective, for instance, in comedy than in 
 tragedy; for in comedy the popular spirit was strong. 
 
244 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 while tragedy in its re-birth was almost wholly scholarly 
 and imitative. Thus, to refer only to our English drama, 
 while our first regular comedy, "Roister Doister," was 
 written by an Eton schoolmaster for performance by 
 his boys in place of the Latin plays then common in 
 all the centres of learning, and while the lines of the 
 plot avowedly follow those of Plautus and Terence, the 
 substance and style are of native origin, and much of 
 the characterisation combines features of the old morali- 
 ties with those of the Latin comic stage. Tragedy, on 
 the other hand, began with a resolute effort to discard 
 the popular traditions of the earlier drama entirely, and 
 to reproduce with servile accuracy the classical system 
 as represented in its severest form by the plays of the 
 Latin Seneca. But here, more clearly than in any other 
 aspect of Renaissance literature, we note the varying 
 strength of the classic revival. Italy and France 
 accepted Senecan tragedy, with all its apparatus and 
 rules, its chorus, its stately declamation, its total want 
 of action, its absolute rejection of colloquialism, realism 
 and humorous relief, its unities of time, place and 
 action. This was the form adopted in Tassoni^s 
 "Sofonisba," the first "regular" tragedy of modern 
 literature, and in Jodelle's "C16opatre," the influence of 
 which was soon reinforced by the more successful work 
 of Gamier and Hardy. Our own "Gorboduc" was 
 similarly an attempt to put Senecan tragedy into Eng- 
 lish dress, and for some years after its production 
 English scholars did their utmost to naturalise this type 
 of play. But, despite their prestige and power, the 
 popular traditions of the English stage and the peculiar 
 qualities of English taste were too much for them, and 
 they failed. From this time onward, the drama in 
 England and the drama in France (that of Italy soon 
 becomes immaterial) pursued entirely different courses. 
 
English Blank Verse 245 
 
 Though French tragedy modified the strict Senecan 
 convention in many particulars, it remained essentially 
 "classic " in tone and character. In England the 
 ** romantic" drama, as it was established by the "uni- 
 versity wits " and as it culminated in Shakespeare, 
 repudiated academic authority and developed freely in 
 accordance with its own spirit and needs. 
 
 One most important contribution which classicism 
 made to the form of English poetry is none the less 
 suggested at this point, though even here Italy was the 
 intermediary — I mean blank verse. Italian poets in 
 their attempts to adapt classical metres to the conditions 
 of their own tongue had struck out, among other ex- 
 periments, the unrhymed hendecasyllabic measure 
 which they called versi sciolti, or "untied lines." This 
 measure the Earl of Surrey transplanted to English 
 poetry in his version (circa 1535) of two books of the 
 "Aeneid," the mere dropping of the light terminal 
 syllable which the constitution of the language made 
 inevitable in Italian turning the hendecasyllabic into our 
 own decasyllabic line. Very little use was made of 
 this importation in non-dramatic poetry till Milton took 
 it up and showed its full possibilities in "Paradise Lost." 
 But with " Gorboduc " it passed at once into the drama, 
 its introduction there being merely a part of the general 
 classicism of the play. Fortunately it was not allowed 
 to disappear with the rest of the machinery of Senecan 
 tragedy, nor was it relegated to the dust-heap with other 
 attempts to naturalise foreign forms in English verse. 
 Marlowe in his "Tamburlaine the Great" in turn gave 
 it to the romantic stage, where its success was immedi- 
 ately assured. We now think of it, indeed, as a char- 
 acteristic feature of our romantic drama. But we must 
 not forget that it was, in fact, a product of classicism 
 as interpreted by Italy. 
 
246 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 In closing this part of our inquiry, I may fittingly 
 lay stress upon two important points. 
 
 In the first place, it has become evident that, though 
 humanism did much directly and indirectly to change 
 the spirit and the currents of literature, its main in- 
 fluences are to be sought in the development of tech- 
 nique. Alike by precept and example classicism taught 
 the value of form and beauty, and was thus pre- 
 eminently effective in the evolution of literature as an 
 art. It is at this point particularly, therefore, that we 
 connect the beginnings of modern literature with the 
 revival of learning. 
 
 At the same time proof has also been afiForded of the 
 statement made at the opening of this chapter that in 
 European Renaissance literature, considered in the 
 mass, differences coexist with general similarities. The 
 history of the classical movement and its effects is very 
 interesting in this context. In England the "Latinisa- 
 tion of culture " (to use Burckhardt's phrase) was never 
 nearly so thorough and complete as in Italy and France. 
 The conjunction of these two names must not indeed 
 mislead us. Classicism meant one thing for Italian 
 literature, and another and quite different thing for 
 French literature. In Italy it was on the whole dis- 
 tinctly unfavourable to vernacular progress. The lead- 
 ing humanists despised their native tongue, sneered at 
 the "Divine Comedy" as a poem "for bakers and 
 cobblers," and from the time of the "Decamerone " till 
 that of the Italian lyrics of Lorenzo de* Medici and 
 Politian gave themselves up to the task of reviving 
 Cicero and Vergil. Then, even when a vernacular 
 movement began, when literature became popular in- 
 stead of merely scholarly, and when the Florentine 
 Academy solemnly decided that a man of wit and learn- 
 ing might write in Italian without losing caste, classical 
 
Classicism and English Literature 247 
 
 influences were still so overpoweringly strong that 
 Italian genius turned all too soon to the cultivation of 
 form and style, and an early decline was the inevitable 
 consequence. In the great literature of the French 
 Renaissance, from Marot and Rabelais at one end to 
 Montaigne and Regnier at the other, the influence 
 of humanism was very different. Instead of checking 
 vernacular effort, the classic revival nourished the 
 national genius, and stirred individual energy ; instead of 
 breeding the spirit of slavish pedantry, it gave quicken- 
 ing impulse to originality. Yet while the distinction 
 between Italy and France must be carefully marked, the 
 contrast between both of them and England is far more 
 apparent. For obvious reasons, even France was much 
 nearer than England to the sources of Latin culture. 
 Our English temperament, our social conditions, the 
 force of the national spirit, and the ingrained romantic 
 bias of our race combined to resist the imposition of 
 alien tastes. Thus, though humanism penetrated and 
 pervaded English Renaissance literature through and 
 through, classicism, despite persistent efforts, failed to 
 obtain controlling power over it. In Italy it hampered 
 the free growth of national genius. In France the 
 period of the later Renaissance witnessed the formation 
 of that classical ideal which was to dominate all French 
 literature till the thirties of the nineteenth century. 
 Classicism, one only of the many streams by which 
 English literature was fed, did not become a main 
 stream till the so-called "Augustan " era. 
 
 That the classicism of the Renaissance was, as I 
 have already said, fraught for literature with evil as 
 well as with good is now obvious. When humanism 
 co-operated with individual genius, and ancient master- 
 pieces were regarded only as an inspiration and a guide, 
 then the results were wholly excellent; it is indeed to 
 
248 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 this cooperation that we owe much that is greatest in 
 Renaissance literature. When healthy admiration de- 
 generated into superstitious veneration, and lifeless 
 copying took the place of personal effort, then human- 
 istic studies only led the emancipated intellect once more 
 back into bondage to the past. Unfortunately the 
 mania for everything antique which at first led scholars 
 all over Europe to Latinise their own names and give 
 Latin names to their children, and later wrought such 
 havoc with education, also brought about the spread of 
 the narrowest pedantry in literature. The enthusiasm 
 for the classics which was a principal cause of the 
 splendid literary outburst of the Renaissance was thus 
 also in large measure responsible for the stagnation 
 which followed with the growth of pseudo-classicism. 
 
 V. — THE RELIGIOUS RENAISSANCE AND LITERATURE 
 
 It remains for us to consider in what ways and 
 to what extent European Renaissance literature was 
 affected by the religious revival and the intellectual 
 and moral stir by which this was accompanied. 
 
 Manifestly, as classicism in the main directly influ- 
 enced literature as an art, so the religious revival, on the 
 other hand, left its impress chiefly on its spirit, tone, 
 and aims. Yet in one respect it counted also as a 
 factor in the development of literary form. It helped 
 the establishment of a good practical prose style. 
 
 This was the natural result of the democratic 
 tendency of Protestantism, its propagandist energies, 
 and — the product of these in combination — its earnest 
 desire to reach beyond the circle of scholarship to the 
 common man. In Germany, though the Reformation 
 was otherwise almost fatal to literature, Luther's trans- 
 lation of the Bible and his miscellaneous religious and 
 
The Reformation and Literature 249 
 
 social writings fixed the standard of the language for 
 general use. In France the popular spirit of Protes- 
 tantism was of great service in breaking down the affec- 
 tations of literary and aristocratic cliques and sub- 
 stituting a current style having the virtues at least of 
 plainness, directness, and simplicity. The work of the 
 Protestant Marot, the bent of whose genius was strongly 
 against classicism, and who in particular rejected the 
 pedantry of the rhetoriqueur school, represents the 
 effects of this popular spirit in verse. In prose it is 
 recognised that Calvin's "Institutes" (in the translation 
 made almost immediately by the author himself from 
 the Latin in which they were first written) were of great 
 importance to French style at a time when it was throw- 
 ing off its mediaeval heritage and evolving into its 
 modern form. But most of all in England are we able 
 to observe what religious activity did for the vernacular. 
 Even Wyclif, it will be remembered, had not only pro- 
 duced an English translation of the Bible, but had also 
 written tractates in plain English that he might appeal 
 broadly to the "vulgar." In the fifteenth century the 
 independent theologian, Reginald Pecock, while falling 
 foul of both Lollards and Churchmen, did yeoman ser- 
 vice by enlarging the powers of English for higher 
 exposition and argument. Tyndale's New Testament, 
 directly prompted by and in part based upon Luther's 
 German and Erasmus's Latin versions, also deserves 
 mention among the works which helped to fashion 
 English at a critical juncture in its history, and its 
 interest is the greater because it was afterwards followed 
 so closely by the scholars responsible for the Authorised 
 Translation of the scriptures. More than any other 
 volume ever published, this "greatest monument by far 
 of Jacobean prose" has been a constant force in the 
 shaping of English style, and the special significance of 
 
250 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 it from our present point of view lies in the fact that, 
 like the Book of Common Prayer, which also exerted a 
 wide though indirect influence, it was destined not for 
 any one class of the community, but for all sorts and 
 conditions of men, and was therefore couched in a 
 language ''understanded of the people." The stress 
 has therefore again to be thrown upon the democratic 
 spirit of Protestantism, and upon the way in which 
 this aided in the establishment of a standard prose 
 which should be in the best sense of both the words at 
 once scholarly and popular. 
 
 It is only, however, when we turn from these more 
 superficial things to the consideration of the moral 
 meaning of literature as an interpretation of life, that 
 we are in a position to realise the enormous influence of 
 the religious revival. 
 
 Negative evidence of its power is afforded by the 
 literature of Italy. I have already spoken of the paradox 
 of the Italian Renaissance, in which devotion to learn- 
 ing and a passionate love of beauty co-existed with 
 private profligacy and political corruption, and I have 
 pointed out that the worst feature of the case was not 
 the colossal wickedness of a few monsters of iniquity 
 here and there, but the laxity and flippancy which 
 characterised society in general. What Renaissance 
 Italy needed was a spiritual awakening to temper its 
 lust for life, check the conversion of liberty into licence, 
 and give direction to its artistic energies. But the 
 mission of Savonarola failed, and thenceforth sensuality 
 and indifference spread unhindered. The result is seen 
 in the literature of the age. The one prevailing defect 
 of that literature is its want of lofty aim and moral fibre. 
 It has rarely, very rarely, that note of "high serious- 
 ness" which Matthew Arnold rightly believed to be one| 
 of the essential elements of all enduring greatness in 
 
Italian Renaissance Literature 251 
 
 literature. Its preoccupation with form, upon which we 
 have recently touched, was indeed in part the conse- 
 quence of its want of "sound subject-matter" and the 
 inspiration of a large and generous purpose. Even the 
 finest scholarship ran to waste in the cultivation of 
 Ciceronian purity in prose and Vergilian perfection in 
 verse, because in a world which comes with an ever- 
 lasting challenge and stimulus to those who have eyes 
 to see and souls to understand, neither the writer nor 
 his public cared for anything beyond such dilettante 
 trifling. Of the fearful abominations by which a good 
 deal of this Italian Renaissance literature was defiled I 
 need not further speak; my passing reference in an 
 earlier chapter to the effusions of such men as Filelfo, 
 Poggio, Aretino, and Beccadilli will suffice. It is more 
 to the point to dwell for a moment upon the quality 
 of work which we can still read and enjoy. Even in 
 this — even in the poetry of Ariosto, the greatest figure 
 in the Italian literature of the central Renaissance — 
 the moral deficiencies are very apparent. To appreciate 
 these we have only to glance at the most characteristic 
 product of the Italian genius at this time — the chivalrous 
 romance in verse. The foundations of Pulci's "Mor- 
 gante Maggiore," and of Boiardo's "Orlando Inna- 
 morato," and of Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso" are 
 furnished by the old romances of chivalry, and especially 
 by one of the two great legend-cycles of the middle 
 ages — that which had grown up about Charlemagne 
 and his paladins. But of the idealism of chivalry 
 very little remains. Brilliant, vivacious, full of wit 
 and fancy, overflowing with the zest of adventure, these 
 poems have really nothing in them to remind us of the 
 stock from which they sprang, save the names of some 
 of their characters and the groundwork of their plots. 
 To bring out their essential features by contrast we need 
 
252 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 not have recourse to that golden book of knight-errantry, 
 Malory's "Morte Darthur." We shall find contrast 
 enough in "Don Quixote," which, burlesque though it 
 is, contains infinitely more of the genuine temper of 
 chivalry than these masterpieces of a totally diflferent 
 order of genius, with their polished irony, their well- 
 bred banter, their pervasive gaiety, and their absolute 
 lack of earnestness and enthusiasm. Ariosto, the most 
 consummate artist in this particular kind of narrative, 
 and one of the most admirable story-tellers in verse 
 the world has ever seen, wrote confessedly to amuse a 
 careless, pleasure-loving, cynical, and degenerate age; 
 he succeeded in his object ; and his work inevitably took 
 the tone and colour of his audience. The irony and 
 banter are indeed so prominent in his poem, he is so 
 entirely irreverent in spirit and tendency, that some 
 modern Italian critics have attributed to him the inten- 
 tion of parodying the old romances of chivalry. It is 
 safer to assume that his purpose was simply to adapt 
 excellent legendary material to the mental and moral 
 tastes of his time. But, though no actual parody can 
 be detected in it, such work as his made the transition 
 easy from romantic epic to genuine epic burlesque. 
 Tassoni's "La Secchia Rapita," or "Rape of the 
 Bucket," which turns the machinery and sentiments of 
 the true epic into ridicule by employing them in con- 
 nection with an absurdly trivial theme, is, like our own 
 "Rape of the Lock," a significant commentary upon 
 the character of the age which produced it; though we 
 must not forget that, again like Pope's mock-heroic, 
 it satirises as well as reflects. A generation earlier the 
 great epic of the devout Tasso had shown the religious 
 stimulus of the Counter-reformation. Of that move- 
 ment the "Gerusalemme Liberata," indeed, is the one 
 lasting poetic monument. Its central theme— the task 
 
Reformation and French Literature 253 
 
 of the first crusade under Godfrey of Bouillon ; its pre- 
 sentation of the character of the leader, in whom the 
 qualities of the pious ^neas are curiously blended with 
 those of the new missionary heroes of the Catholic faith ; 
 the strenuous religious spirit and the fervent zeal by 
 which it IS pervaded : all these things combine to make 
 it a thoroughly typical production. But it is not only 
 typical, it is also unique. It marks both the beginning 
 and the end of the influence of the Catholic reaction on 
 literature. 
 
 Turning now from Italy to France, we perceive at 
 once how deeply literature gained by contact with the 
 spirit of the Reformation. The French literature of the 
 Renaissance will not, indeed, bear comparison with the 
 Italian on the side of form and style; but it reveals, on 
 the other hand, a moral vigour and a vital power which 
 amply compensate for any artistic shortcomings, and 
 these great qualities, while traceable in part, of course, 
 to various political and social causes, are, as Mr. Tilley 
 has put it, due "in a large measure to the fact that 
 in France the Renaissance came hand in hand with 
 the Reformation."* At the outset Protestantism was 
 regarded with much favour by many of the great French 
 scholars, like Bud6, and intellectual leaders, like 
 Rabelais, who were quick to realise its intimate con- 
 nection with the general movement for enlightenment 
 and freedom of thought. It was not, indeed, till, 
 with Calvin, dogmatism and bigotry regained their 
 supremacy, and the old despotism of infallibility was 
 re-established in a new form, that humanism definitely 
 parted company with the reformed theology. The 
 change in the relations of the two revivals — the intel- 
 lectual and the religious — goes far to account for the 
 
 * *' The Literature of the French Renaissance : Introductory 
 Essay," p. 33. 
 
254 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 marked difference in tone between the French literature 
 of the earlier and that of the later Renaissance. But 
 meanwhile, though it touched only the few, the spirit 
 of the Reformation had stirred the best thought of 
 France to its depths, and literature was filled, in con- 
 sequence, with the strength and passion of life. We 
 feel this, for example, in the magnificent earnestness, 
 the genuine humanitarian enthusiasm, the prophetic 
 ardour and faith which are everywhere present beneath 
 the wild foolery and the reckless indecencies of Rabelais. 
 Mr. Tilley has drawn out an interesting comparison 
 between this great representative figure of the French 
 Renaissance and the great representative figure of the 
 same age in Italy, Ariosto. "How formless! How 
 crude ! How gross ! How full of cumbersome details 
 and wearisome repetitions is Rabelais ! How limpid, 
 how harmonious is Ariosto ! What perfection of style, 
 what delicacy of touch ! He never wearies us ; he never 
 offends our taste. And yet one rises from the reading 
 of Rabelais with a feeling of buoyant cheerfulness, 
 while Ariosto, in spite of his wit and gaiety, is inex- 
 pressibly depressing. The reason is that the one bids 
 us hope, the other bids us despair; the one believes in 
 truth and goodness and in the future of the human race ; 
 the other believes in nothing but the pleasures of the 
 senses, which come and go like many-coloured bubbles, 
 and leave behind them a boundless ennui. Rabelais 
 and Ariosto," the writer concludes — and this for us is 
 the capital point of the comparison — "are true types of 
 the Renaissance as it appeared in their respective 
 countries.*'* Energising qualities of faith and moral 
 purpose which are wanting in the Italian give essential 
 greatness to the Frenchman ; and the difference between 
 the two is in part the difference between literature 
 * " Introductory Essay," pp. 38, 39. 
 
Reformation and English Literature 255 
 
 untouched and literature touched by the influences of 
 the religious revival. 
 
 Yet, as no reader of these pages will need to be 
 reminded, it is in the English literature of the Renais- 
 sance period that the power of the religious revival is 
 most fully felt. If it is impossible to understand this 
 literature without constant reference to the whole com- 
 plex of results which followed the spread of humanism, 
 it is equally impossible to understand it without constant 
 reference to the whole complex of results which followed 
 the Reformation. In saying this I am not, of course, 
 thinking of any influence directly exerted by changes 
 of theological doctrine or ecclesiastical government. I 
 am thinking of the total and indirect efi'ect wrought by 
 the Reformation in the political and moral conditions 
 and temper of English society. To the Englishman of 
 that age the Reformation meant much more than a 
 reconstruction of creed and church. It meant the 
 liberation of his country from the yoke of a foreign 
 potentate in the person of the Pope of Rome. It meant, 
 after a sharp collision with the chief champion of the 
 papal claims and the Catholic reaction, Spain, consoli- 
 dation of national unity and a tremendous deepening 
 of the national self-consciousness. It meant, in conse- 
 quence, the enormous growth of the sense of England*s 
 greatness and destiny, of patriotism, and of the spirit 
 of enterprise and adventure. The minds of men had 
 been stimulated by the conflict of parties and by all the 
 excitement which had been bred by the religious 
 upheaval, while the comparative peace which came with 
 the settlement under Elizabeth gave them the oppor- 
 tunity — and this, it will be remembered, at a period 
 when France was torn by fierce religious wars — of 
 turning their attention freely to the newly awakened 
 intellectual interests of their time. The common 
 
256 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 conscience had also been stirred by the open Bible of 
 Protestantism and the sermons of evangelical preachers ; 
 the atmosphere had been charged thereby with fresh 
 emotional elements, and a current of strenuous idealism 
 had been set flowing far and wide among the English 
 people. That England, as Mr. Symonds has said, 
 "received the influences of both Renaissance and 
 Reformation simultaneously,'* is thus a fact of the most 
 vital importance to the student of our history. It was 
 largely owing to this combination of forces that not 
 only intellectually, but also morally and spiritually, the 
 Elizabethan age was so intensely alive. It is to the 
 same combination of forces, therefore, that we may in 
 the main ascribe that intensity of life which was the 
 outstanding feature of its literature. 
 
 We must be careful not to exaggerate the actual 
 moral power of the Reformation over this literature. 
 While the spirit of humanism and the spirit of the 
 religious revival have alike to be reckoned among its 
 formative influences, these two spirits often came into 
 conflict, and their conflict gave rise to those glaring 
 contradictions with which it continually surprises us 
 as we read. No one who knows it in detail will deny 
 that there is much in it to justify the apprehensions of 
 those who watched with alarm the spread of Italian 
 corruption on native soil. At times, as in "Hero and 
 Leander" and "Venus and Adonis" (both of which, 
 it should be noted, enjoyed special vogue on account 
 of their open licentiousness), neo-paganism runs riot in 
 it. At times its passion becomes brutal and its egotism 
 defiant. At times its delight in life and in the things 
 of the senses degenerates into a riot of imaginative 
 extravagance. We have only to turn to the great Eliza- 
 bethan drama to perceive — and we can, in fact, do this 
 without travelling beyond the pages of Shakespeare — 
 
Spenser 257 
 
 how often the taste of the age even at its best revelled 
 in motives and fancies which offend us, in crude violence 
 and in gross jesting, from which we now recoil shocked. 
 Elsewhere, as in the typical case of Marlowe, we have 
 the emancipated genius of the age pursuing an erratic 
 course, unguided and unchecked by any controlling 
 sense of moral law. 
 
 All qualifications made, however, the fact remains 
 that, taken in the mass, English Renaissance literature 
 is a wonderfully healthy minded literature — a literature 
 which, indeed, is often extravagant, fantastic, and even 
 coarse, but which is at the same time fundamentally 
 manly, vigorous, and sound. Very little of the radical 
 depravity or the peculiarly debilitating atmosphere of 
 Italian paganism is anywhere to be detected in it. On 
 the contrary, its general spirit is bracing; it shows a 
 steady realisation of moral values; it rings true to the 
 great issues of life. These characteristics are explained 
 by the application of Taine's triple formula of race, 
 environment, and moment. English Renaissance 
 literature is the expression of the genius, energies, and 
 ideals of a robust race in a mood of intellectual, moral, 
 and spiritual exaltation. 
 
 At this point stress should be laid upon the profound 
 historical interest of the work of Spenser. He is pre- 
 eminently the representative poet of the English 
 Renaissance, his relations with which are strikingly 
 similar to those of Tennyson, three centuries later, with 
 the civilisation of the Victorian era. All the great 
 influences of the age met and blended in him, and that 
 wonderful creation, "The Faery Queene," was the pro- 
 duct of their harmonious co-operation. It is steeped in 
 humanism. It draws much of its inspiration from the 
 classics and Italy. The love of sensuous beauty in 
 nature, in art, in woman, is one of its salient charac- 
 
 R 
 
258 The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 teristics. The teachings of Greek masters— of Aristotle 
 and most of all of Plato, whom the poet had studied 
 mainly through Ficino's commentary — are conspicuous 
 elements in its texture throughout. It joins with the 
 scholar's knowledge of and devotion to pagan literature 
 the Protestant's familiarity with and reverence for the 
 Bible. It supports the cause of the English Church 
 and expounds its theology. The ardour of the Reforma- 
 tion sweeps through its pages, and its religious spirit 
 is uncompromising and often rancorous. It overflows 
 with patriotism, with love of England and hatred of 
 England's enemies — Rome and Rome's allies — and with 
 romantic loyalty to England's queen. Its moral tone is 
 lofty and strenuous, and the chivalrous machinery of 
 Ariosto, whom Spenser set himself to "overgo," instead 
 of being used for amusement only, is loaded with 
 didactic purpose, and made the allegorical vehicle of 
 an ethical philosophy which itself incorporates the 
 humanistic with the Protestant ideal. In consonance, 
 moreover, with the positive temper which the Reforma- 
 tion did so much to foster, that philosophy is directed to 
 large practical ends. The poet does not seek to "justify 
 the ways of God to men." In the true spirit of an age 
 which found its greatest theological thinker in Hooker 
 and its greatest master of method in Bacon, he makes 
 it his object "to fashion a gentleman or noble person 
 in vertuous and gentle discipline." It is not the least 
 noteworthy thing about his palace of dainty devices that, 
 built though it seems to be in dreamland, it has windows 
 which open upon the broad highways of the world.* 
 Spenser holds his place unchallenged, therefore, as 
 
 * The practical temper of the Elizabethan age, its J' profound 
 interest in reality as opposed to abstractions," and its " rich feeling 
 for concrete fact," have been well brought out by Professor Dowden. 
 See his " New Studies in Literature," pp. 445-6. Their connection 
 with the general movement of the Renaissance will now be clear. 
 
Shakespeare 259 
 
 the poetical interpreter of the complex forces which 
 shaped the life of Elizabethan England. Yet it was 
 not, after all, in narrative poetry, nor in any other 
 purely literary form of art, that the genius of Renais- 
 sance England found its fullest expression. It was — 
 and the fact itself is significant — in the romantic drama. 
 Here Shakespeare, too, becomes representative. We 
 have only to brush away all the accumulations of 
 critical nonsense about his "universality" and his 
 independence of time and place, to see him as essen- 
 tially a man of his age. His scholarship was meagre, 
 and as his was evidently one of those completely artistic 
 natures to which speculative questions and spiritual 
 interests make little appeal, religion was of small 
 account in moulding his genius. But his curiously 
 assimilative mind absorbed all the influences which were 
 at work about him, and humanism and the moral vigour 
 of the Reformation alike gave form and pressure to his 
 plays. Narrow in patriotism, yet catholic in sympathy 
 and singularly flexible in judgment, intensely alive to 
 the pathos and beauty and no less to the sin and ugliness 
 which make up the mingled yarn of human life, at 
 once idealistic and sensual, romantic in temper, yet 
 full of the sturdiest common sense, he does indeed 
 epitomise many of the qualities which gave its distinc- 
 tive character to the vehement, virile, many-sided Eliza- 
 bethan age. About him, as about his generation, much 
 of the old order still clung; he was often cramped by 
 its traditions, hampered by its prejudices, and entangled 
 in its superstitions. His limitations, which are fre- 
 quently as surprising as his general breadth of outlook, 
 are therefore historically even more instructive than 
 this. But, like his generation, he belongs emphatically 
 to the season of re-birth and the great period of tran- 
 sition. Nor, as I need hardly add, is his importance 
 
26o The Story of the Renaissance 
 
 merely national. He holds the paramount place in the 
 literature of the Renaissance in general. His position 
 in the history of creative achievement is, in fact, 
 analogous to that of his foremost contemporary in the 
 history of thought. In Bacon, as we have seen, the 
 intellectual movements of the European revival cul- 
 / minated. In Shakespeare we have the crowning 
 I incarnation of its imaginative genius. The one stands 
 ■ for the scientific interpretation of nature; the other for 
 the dramatic interpretation of life ; the one for the 
 literature of knowledge; the other for the literature of 
 power. Each in his own way supreme, they together 
 represent, and with a fullness found nowhere else amid 
 all the varied activities of contemporary Europe, the 
 twofold significance of the Renaissance as the discovery 
 at once of the world and of man. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Academy of Hellenists (Venice), 
 51, 64; Aldine, 5 1 , 64 ; Platonic 
 (Florence), 47, 246 
 
 Adrian VI., 122 
 
 Agricola (Huysmann), 55, 60 
 
 Albertus Magnus, 12, 19, 128 
 
 Albigenses, 88, 93 
 
 Aldine Academy, 51, 64 ; printing 
 press, 49-51 
 
 Aide Manuzio, 49-51, 64, 65 
 
 Aleander, 59 
 
 Alexander VI., 16, ^6, 81, 85, 90 
 
 Alfonso of Naples, 45 
 
 Alphonso X., his system of astro- 
 nomy, 25 
 
 America, discovery of, 16, 17, 226 
 
 Amerigo Vespucci, 21 
 
 Angelico, Fra, 181, 182, 185, 186, 
 190, 202, 205 
 
 Anonymity of mediaeval art, 5, 227 
 
 Antipodes, conflict of opinion con- 
 cerning, 19, 20 
 
 Aquinas, 12, 89, 131, 132, 134 
 
 Architecture, Renaissance in» 195-7 
 
 Aretino, 63, 86, 251 
 
 Argyropoulos, 43> 55 
 
 Ariosto, 72, 227, 237, 242, 251, 
 252, 254 
 
 Aristotle, as philosopher, 6, 36, 37, 
 
 43, 133, 134, 135, 143; as 
 
 literary critic, 234, 235 
 Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 250 
 Arnold of Brescia, 88 
 Art, Renaissance in, 168-218 
 
 Ascham, Roger, 70, 72, 153 
 Astronomy, Ptolemaic, 24, 25 ; 
 
 Copemican, 25-9 
 Augsburg Confession, 112 
 Augustine, 19, 106 
 Autobiographical literature, 229-33 
 Averroes, 127 
 Avicenna, 127 
 
 Bacon, Francis, 6, 128, 129, 
 136-45, 230, 260; "New Atlan- 
 tis," 22, 23, 136, 137 ; " Advance- 
 ment of Learning," 137-40; 
 *' New Organon," 141 ; influence 
 on education, 156-9 
 
 Bacon, Roger, 12, 36, 129-31 
 
 Baldovinetti, 187 
 
 Barclay, Alexander, 239 
 
 Bartholomew, St., massacre of, 117 
 
 Bartoli, quoted, 9 
 
 Bartolommeo, Fra, 90, 201 
 
 Basel, Council of, 43, 82 
 
 Beccadelli, 86, 251 
 
 Bellini, 194, 203, 210 
 
 Bembo, Cardinal, 86 
 
 Bernardino, San, 89 
 
 Bemers, Lord, 237 
 
 Bessarion, Cardinal, 43, 47 
 
 Bibbiena, Cardinal, 227 
 
 Bible, Luther's, 1 1 3, 249 ; Wyclif 's, 
 1 1 8, 249 ; Authorised translation 
 of, 249 
 
 Bibliotheca Marciana, 47 ; Mediceo- 
 Laurentiana, 46, 47 
 
262 
 
 Index 
 
 Biography, 230 
 
 Bisticci, V. da, 49 
 
 Blank verse, 245 
 
 Boccaccio, 11, 41, 42, 44, 61, 84, 
 
 222, 230, 240 
 Boiardo, 242, 251 
 Bonaventura, 130 
 Bora, Katharina von, 112 
 Borgia, Cesare, 74 
 Botticelli, 187, 188, 203 
 Bracciolini, 44, 45 
 Brant, Sebastian, 96 
 Brethren of the Common Life, 54, 
 
 58 
 Browning, Robert, quoted, 76, 
 
 185, 191 
 Brunelleschi, 4, 195 
 Brunetidre, quoted, 5 
 Bruno, Giordano, 92, 134 
 Bryce, J., quoted, 39 
 Bude, 59, 60, 253 
 Burchardt, quoted, 7, 227, 230, 
 
 246 
 Byzantine art, 172-5, 211 
 
 Cajetan, Cardinai<, ho, 112 
 
 Calvin, 78, 115, 124, 125, 249, 253 
 
 Cambridge, University of, 12, 64, 
 69* 70 ; printing at, 32 
 
 Camoens, 242 
 
 Cano, S. del, 17 
 
 Cardan, 229 
 
 Carducci, quoted, 43 
 
 Carlyle, quoted, 6 
 
 Carpaccio, 210 
 
 Castagna, Andrea del, 186 
 
 Castiglione, his " Courtier," 71 
 
 Catholic reaction. See Counter- 
 reformation 
 
 Catholic reform, 122, 123 
 
 Caxton, 32 
 
 Cecco d'Ascoli, 20 
 
 Cellini, Benvenuto, 86, 198, 229 
 
 Cennini, 180 
 
 Cervantes, his " Don Quixote," 
 
 252 
 Chalcondylas, 44, 65 
 Chapman, his " Homer," 73 
 Charles V., 114 
 Charles VIII., 53 
 Charterhouse School founded, 67 
 Chaucer, 61, 62, 117, 222 
 Cheke, John, 69 
 Christ in early Christian art, 
 
 170-5 
 
 Christian art, primitive, 169, 170-5 ; 
 early mediaeval, 170-2 
 
 Christ's Hospital founded, 67 
 
 Chrysoloras, 42, 43, 59, 63 
 
 Church, the, and geographical dis- 
 covery, 19, 20 ; and the new 
 astronomy, 26-9^ condition of, 
 before the ReformatioUj^So^T, 
 
 Cicero, 19, 40, 45, 72 
 
 Cimabue, 12, 176, 177 
 
 Ciriaco di Ancona, 38 
 
 Classicism, influence on art, 188, 
 189; on education, 149-55: on 
 literature, 226, 233-4S ; on paint- 
 ing, 200, 201, 207 
 
 Clement VII., 120, 122 
 
 College de France founded, 60 
 
 Colet, 65, 66, 67, 103, 108, 119 
 
 Columbus, 16 
 
 Comenius, 156-9 
 
 Commerce, influence of, 13, 14 
 
 Constance, Council of, 45, 82, 94 
 
 Constantine, donation of, 82 
 
 Constantinople, Council of, 1 74 ; 
 fall of, 43 
 
 Contarini, Cardinal, 209 
 
 Copernicus, 25-7, 144 
 
 Correggio, 194, 204, 209 
 
 Councils, 82. See also Basel, 
 Constance, Constantinople, Fer- j 
 rara, Florence, Trent 
 
Index 
 
 263 
 
 Counter-reformation, 122, 123 ; in- 
 fluence on art, 208-10, 216, 217; 
 on literature, 252, 253 
 
 Covenanters, 116 
 
 Cranach, 214 
 
 Credi, Lorenzo di, 90, 201 
 
 Criticism, growth of, 234, 235 
 
 Croke, Richard, 69 
 
 Crucifixion in early Christian art, 
 
 174, 175 
 Crusades, 10, 11, 15, 107 
 
 Dante, 12, 19, 50, 51, 81, 88, 127, 
 130, 134, 182, 183, 184, 188, 189, 
 204, 229, 230, 239, 246 
 
 Decembrio, 63 
 
 Dolce, 209 
 
 Dolet, 60 
 
 Donatello, 193 
 
 Donation of Constantine, 82 
 
 Donne, John, 237 
 
 Douglas, Ivangton, quoted, 177 
 
 Dowden, 'B., quoted, 258 
 
 Drama, evolution of, 222-7, 231 ; 
 Renaissance of, 243, 245 
 
 Du Bellay, 229, 235, 237 
 
 Duccio di Buoninsegna, 175, 177 
 
 Duns Scotus, 12, 131, 132 
 
 Diirer, 102, 214-6 
 
 Dutch art, 219 
 
 Barth, mediaeval ideas concerning 
 
 shape of, 19 
 Eck, Dr., no 
 Education, revival of, in England, 
 
 67, 1 5 3-5 ; during the middle 
 
 ages, 146-8 ; at the time of the 
 
 Renaissance, 146-67 
 Egotism of Renaissance literature, 
 
 228-33 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 72 
 Elyot, Sir T., 153 
 
 England, classicism in, 246-8 ; 
 criticism in, 235 ; drama in, 227, 
 244, 245 ; educational revival 
 "i> 67, 153-5 J literature in, 
 255-60; neo-paganism in, 256; 
 printing in, 32 ; Reformation in, 
 75. 79> 94. 1 1 7-2 1 ; revival of 
 learning in, 61-73 
 
 Engraving, 216 
 
 Epic, the, 242, 243 
 
 " Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum/* 
 56 
 
 Erasmus, 51, 55, 59, 60, 61, 65, 66, 
 69, 70, 97-104, 108, 112, 119, 133, 
 213 ; his New Testament, 34, 249 
 
 Erigena, 131 
 
 Essay, the, 230 
 
 " Everlasting Gospel," the, 88 
 
 Eyck, Van, H. and J., 193, 212 
 
 Faust, 129 
 
 Eederigo of Urbino, 48 
 
 Ferrara, Council of, 43 
 
 Ficino, 47, 77, 93 
 
 Filelfo, 86, 251 
 
 Fisher, Bishop, 69 
 
 Flagellants, 10, 88 
 
 Fletcher, John, 241 
 
 Florence, Council of, 43, 47 ; cradle 
 of the Renaissance, 14 ; fall of, 
 53 ; printing in, 31 
 
 Fox, Bishop, 69 
 
 France, classicism in, 247-8 ; criti- 
 cism in, 234-5 ; drama in, 227, 
 243-5 » literatiure in, 253-5 l 
 printing in, 31-2 ; Reformation 
 in, 75. 79, 93-4, 116-7; revival 
 of learning in, 58-61 
 
 Francia, 201 
 
 Francis of Assisi, 12, 179-80, 183 
 
 Francis I., 59-60, 116 
 
 Frederick, Elector, no 
 
 Fust, 31 
 
264 
 
 Index 
 
 Gawi^eo, 27-9 
 
 Gama, Vasco da, 16-7 
 
 Garnett, R., quoted, 229 
 
 Garnier, 244 
 
 Gascoigne, 237 
 
 Gaza, T., 43 
 
 Geber, 128 
 
 Geiler, 96 
 
 Gemisthos Pletho, 47, 92 
 
 Gentlemen, transformation of idea 
 of, 71, 81, 148 
 
 Genre-painting, 218 
 
 Geographical discovery. See Mari- 
 time exploration 
 
 Germany, art in, 21 1-7 ; education 
 in, 1 5 1-3; printing in, 31; 
 Reformation in, 75, 78, 95-114; 
 revival of learning in, 53-8 
 
 Ghibellines, the, 88 
 
 Ghiberti, 192, 197 
 
 Ghirlandajo, 186, 190 
 
 Giacoponi di Todi, 88-9 
 
 Gibbon, quoted, 46 
 
 Giorgione, 194 
 
 Giotteschi, the, 180 
 
 Giotto, 177-80, 190, 192, 202 
 
 Giovanni of Vicenza, 83 
 
 Giovanni Pisano, 183 
 
 Goethe, 104 
 
 Golding, his " Metamorphoses," 73 
 
 Googe, B., 229 
 
 Gower, 1 1 7 
 
 Gozzoli, Benozzo, 186 
 
 Greek, during the middle ages, 36 ; 
 revival of, 41-4 ; at Oxford, 64, 
 68 ; at Cambridge, 69-70 
 
 Greene, 241 
 
 Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), 80, 88, 
 207 
 
 Grey, I,ady Jane, 72 
 
 Grocyn, 65-6, 68, 119 
 
 GrostSte, 12S 
 
 Guarini, 141 
 
 Guarino Veronese, 44, 63, 77, 151^ 
 
 153 
 Guevara, 237 
 Gutenberg, 31, 33, 35 
 
 HADlyEY, WlI,I,IAM, 63 
 Hall, 237 
 
 Hardy, 244 
 
 Harvey, Gabriel, 144, 236 
 
 Hegius, Alexander, 58 
 
 Henry IL (France), 116 
 
 Henry IV. (England), 119 
 
 Henry IV. (France), 117 
 
 Henry VII., 64, 119 
 
 Henry VIII., 69, 71, 120, 148, 153 
 
 Hermonymus, 59 
 
 Hildebrand. See Gregory VII. 
 
 Holbein, 135, 215-6 
 
 Hoogstraten, 55 
 
 Horace, 72, 234 
 
 Hugo, Victor, quoted, 32, 35 
 
 Huguenots, 78, 116 
 
 Humanities, 38, 73-4 ; and educa- 
 tion, 148-55. See also Classicism 
 and Revival of learning 
 
 Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 
 62-3 
 
 Huss, 94-5, III 
 
 Hutten, U. von, 56, 58, 85, 97, 102, 
 108, 114 
 
 Huygens, 142 
 
 Index Librorum Prohibitorum, 
 
 26, 81 
 Individuality, repression of, during 
 
 the middle ages, 5 ; expansion 
 
 of, 74, 225 
 Individualism of the Reformation, 
 
 121 ; in literature, 227-33 
 Inductive method, the, 141 -5 
 Indulgences, 107-10, 115 
 Innocent III., 93, loi 
 Innocent VIII., 85, 93 
 
Index 
 
 265 
 
 Inquisition, 27-28 
 
 Isidore of Seville, 19 
 
 Italy, art in, 175-21 1 ; classicism 
 in, 57, 246-8; criticism in, 234; 
 drama in, 227, 244 ; early 
 religious reform in, 87-93 > €<i^- 
 cation in, 149-51, 153; immor- 
 ality in, 52-3, 75-7, 84-7, 208, 
 250 ; influence of, on England, 
 70, 145, 241 ; literature of, 227, 
 229-30,239-41,244,250-3; print- 
 ing in, 31, 48-52 ; priority of, 
 in the Renaissance, 12-15; revival 
 of learning in, 38-53 
 
 J EBB, quoted, 3 
 Jerome of Prague, 94 
 Jesuits. See Society of J 
 Joachim of Floris, 88 
 Jodelle, 227, 244 
 John XXII., 81, 83 
 Jonson, Ben, 21, 141 
 Julius II., 85,, 196, 207 
 Jusserand, quoted, 225 
 
 Kepi^ER, 27, 29, 143 
 I Knox, 116 
 
 Landscape painting, 187-8 
 
 Ivangland, 117, 237 
 
 Lascaris, Janus, 46, 59 
 
 Latimer, William, 65-6, 69 
 
 Lay spirit, 74. See also Secularisa- 
 tion 
 
 Learning, revival of. See Revival 
 
 Lecky, quoted, 196-7 
 
 Lee, Vernon, quoted, 199 
 
 Leo X., 45, 52-3, 65, 85-7, loi, no, 
 122, 198, 207 
 
 Leonardo da Vinci, 8, 175, 204 
 
 Leontius Pilatus, 40-2 
 
 Lessing, 11 {note), 124 
 
 Lewes, G. H., quoted, 6 
 
 Libraries, 46-7 
 
 Lily, William, 67 
 
 Linacre, 64-5, 68 
 
 Lippi, Filippino, 188 
 
 Lippi, Filippo, 186-8, 190-1, 203 
 
 Literature of Renaissance, general 
 characteristics of, 219-21 ; indi- 
 vidualism in, 227-33 ; influence 
 of classicism on, 226, 233-48 ; 
 influence of the Reformation on, 
 248-60 ; secularisation of, 220-7 
 
 Lodge, 241 
 
 Lollards, 62, 94, 11 8-9 
 
 Lorenzetti, the brothers, 183, 185 
 
 Louis XII., 59 
 
 Luders, Peter, 57 
 
 Lully, Raymond, 12, 128 
 
 Luther, 9, 26, 35, 57-9, 84, 91, 97, 
 103-4, 1 14-5, 120, 124-5, 214; 
 his Bible, 113, 249; on art, 213; 
 on education, 152 
 
 Lyly, John, 237, 242 
 
 MACAUI.AY, quoted, 39 
 
 Macchiavelli, 84, 86, 227 
 
 Madonna in art, 202-4 
 
 Magellan, 17 
 
 Malatesta, 76, 86 
 
 Malpaghino, 40 
 
 Manardi, Giovanni, 128 
 
 Mantegna, 189 
 
 Mantuanus, 239-40 
 
 Maritime exploration, 15-8; its 
 
 influence, 18-24 
 Marlowe, 245, 256-7 
 Marot, 229, 239, 247, 249 
 Marsigli, 40 
 Masaccio, 185-7 
 Mask, the, 241 
 Matsys, 212 
 Medici, Catherine de', 117 ; Cosimo 
 
 de', 45-7; Lorenzo de', 43, 45-7, 
 
266 
 
 Index 
 
 51, 59, 64, 66, 89-90, 188, 200, 
 
 204, 246 ; Piero de', 43. See 
 
 also Leo X. 
 Medicean library, 46 
 Melanchthon, 27, 57, 106, 152, 214 
 Memling, 212 
 Merchant Taylors' School, founded, 
 
 67 
 Michelangelo, 8^ 194-6, 199-200, 
 
 202, 204, 206, 208 
 Michelet, quoted, 8-9, 58, 165 
 Middle ages, classical scholarship 
 
 in, 36-7 
 Mill, J. S., quoted, 142 
 Milton, 2S {note), 169, 205, 241, 245 
 Mirandola, Pico della, 68, 77, 90, 
 
 92 
 Miracle plays, 223-5 
 Montaigne, 2^, 230-3, 247 ; on 
 
 education, 164-7 
 Montfort, Simon de, 93 
 Morality plays, 225-6 
 More, Sir Thomas, 65, 119-20, 153 ; 
 
 his "Utopia," 21, 23 
 Mudt, Conrad, 57 
 Mulcaster, 154 
 
 Na-NTES, Bdict of, 117 
 
 Nash, T., 242 
 
 Nationalism, growth of, 82-3; in 
 
 English literature, 120-1 
 Navarre, Queen of, 229 
 Neacademia, the, 51 
 Neo-paganism, 76-8, 256 
 Netherlands, art in, 217-8 
 New Testament, Erasmus's, 99, 
 
 10 1 ; Luther's, in 
 Niccola Pisano, 175-6, 178, 183, 
 
 197 
 Niccoli, N. de', 45, 47 
 Nicholas V., 44-5, 47, 52, 86 
 Nicolaus of Cusa, 25 
 Nonconformity, 121 
 
 North, 237 ; his " Plutarch," 73 
 Nude in art, 105, 198, 208-9 
 
 OCKHAM, WlXI^IAM OF, 131 
 
 Oil painting, rise and influence of, 
 
 193-4 
 Orcagna, 182-3 
 Ovid, 72-3 
 
 Oxford reformers, 119-20 
 Oxford University, 12, 63-6, 68-9 ; 
 
 printing at, 32- 
 
 Painting before the Renaissance, 
 168-75 '' Renaissance of, in Italy, 
 175-94, 200-11 ; in Northern 
 Europe, 21 1-8 
 
 Papacy before the Reformation, 
 80-7 
 
 Paris, University of, 134-5 ; Greek 
 studies at, 59 ; printing at, 3 1 
 
 Pastoralism in literature, 238-41 
 
 Paul III., 26, 122 
 
 Peasants' war, in 
 
 Pecock, Reginald, 249 
 
 Peele, 241 
 
 Personality, awakening of, 7-8. 
 See also Individuality and Indi- 
 vidualism 
 
 Perugino, 201 
 
 Peter of Abano, 20 
 
 Petrarch, 39-42, 44, 50, 61, 76^ 
 229, 239-40 
 
 Pfeffercom, 55 
 
 Philosophy during the middle ages, 
 
 131-5 
 Piccolomini, Aeneas Sylvius. See 
 
 Pius II. 
 Pisa, Campo Santo at, 183, 206 
 Pius II., 54, 149-50 
 Plato and Platonism, 47-8, 66 , 135 
 Platonic Academy, the, 47 
 Plautus, 243-4 
 Pliny, 19 
 
Index 
 
 267 
 
 "Pl^iade," the, 234-5, 237 
 
 Plotinus, 66 
 
 Plutarch, 72-3 
 
 Poggio, 86, 251 
 
 Politian, 43, 51, 63-5, ,241, 246 
 
 Pollaiuolo, 192 
 
 Pompanazzi, 92 
 
 Pope, Alexander, 36, 234, 252 
 
 Pope, the, temporal supremacy of, 
 
 80-81 
 Portrait painting, 230 
 Printing, 31-5, 48, 54, 95, 109-10, 
 
 194 
 Protestant spirit, 125-6 
 Protestantism, influence of, on art, 
 
 213-8 ; on literature, 248-60 
 Pulci, 251 
 Puritans and Puritanism, 78, 11 6-7, 
 
 121 
 Puttenham, 235 
 
 QUERCIA, J. DEl^ivA, 204 
 Quick, R. H., quoted, 155 
 
 RABEiyAiS, 128, 229, 247, 253-4; 
 
 on education, 160-4 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 21, 129 
 Ramus, Peter, 135 
 Raphael, 194-5, 200, 202-3, 206, 
 
 297 
 Ratke, 153, 156 
 Reformation, 80-126 ; preliminaries 
 
 of, 80-97; in Germany, 97-114; 
 
 in Switzerland, 1 14-6 ; in France, 
 
 1 1 6-7; general results of, 11 3-4, 
 
 121-6; in England, 117-21 ; 
 
 influence on art, 213-8; on 
 
 literature, 248-60 
 Regnier, 237, 247 
 Reinach, quoted, 206, 212 
 " Reinecke Fuchs,^' 237 
 Religiouis art, decline of, 201-4. 
 
 See also Christian art 
 
 Rembrandt, 216-7 
 
 Renaissance, its variety and unity, 
 1-3; duration of, 3-4; origin 
 of name, 4 ; beginnings of, 9-14 ; 
 general characteristics of, 4-9 
 
 Reni, 209 
 
 Reuchlin, 43, 55, 59, 97-8 
 
 Revival of learning in Italy, 38-53 ; 
 in Germany, 53-8 ; in France, 
 58-61 ; in England 61-73 '> two- 
 fold significance of, 36-8 ; general 
 results of, 73-9 
 
 Rhetoriqueurs, the, 237, 249 
 
 Richelieu, 117 
 
 Robbia, Luca della, 198 
 
 Romance, the, 241-2 
 
 Rome, printing at, 31 ; revival of 
 learning at, 52-3 ; sack of, 53 
 
 Ronsard, 229, 235, 242 
 
 Rousseau, 23 
 
 Rubeanus, Crotus, 56, 85 
 
 Rubens, 216-7 
 
 Ruskin, quoted, 76, 207 
 
 St. Paui^'s Schooi,, founded, 67 
 
 St. Peter's, Rome, 108, 196-7 
 
 Sackville and Norton, their " Gor- 
 boduc," 227, 244-5 
 
 Sannazaro, 240-1 
 
 Sansovino, 199 
 
 Sarto, Andrea del, 204 
 
 Satire, 237-8 
 
 Savonarola, 66, 89-91, 96, 188, 204, 
 250 
 
 Sawtre, 119 
 
 Scaliger, 60 
 
 Scholasticism, 131-5, 138-41 
 
 Schongauer, 212 
 
 Science during the middle ages, 
 127-31 ; at the time of the 
 Renaissance, 135-45 ; and edu- 
 cation 1 56-9 ; and painting, 
 192-3 
 
268 
 
 Index 
 
 Sculpture, Renaissance, 197-200 
 Secularisation ojt life, 74-7 ; of 
 painting, 189-92 ; of literature, 
 220-7 
 Selling, William, 63-4 
 Seneca, 72, 243-5 
 Servetus, 116, 125 
 Sforza, Catarina, 86 
 Shakespeare, 21, ^1, 70, IZ^ 120, 
 129 («o/e), 153, 230, 237, 245, 
 256, 259, 260 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 71, 235, 237, 240-2 
 Signorelli, 189, 192, 204 
 Sixtus IV., 76, 85, 188 
 Society of Jesus, 132 
 Sorbonne, 134 
 Sorcery, 125, 129 
 Spenser, 230, 236, 239-42, 257 
 Stanyhurst, 236 
 Staupitz, Johann, .105 
 Still, John, 277 
 Sturm, Johann, 15 1-2 
 Style, evolution of, 236-7 ; influence 
 
 of Protestantism on, 248-50 
 Surrey, Earl of, T2, 236, 245 
 Switzerland, Reformation in, 11 4-6 
 Sylvester II., t28 
 Symonds, J. A., quoted, 33, 42, 86, 
 176, 178, 189, 198, 199, 205 {note), 
 256 
 
 TainE, quoted, 6, 257 
 Teniers, 218 
 Terence, 243-4 
 Terrorism, mediaeval, 9, 10 
 Tetzel, 107-9, 112 
 Theocritus, 238, 240-1 
 Thomas of Celano, 182 
 Tasso, 72, 241-3, 252 
 Tassoni, 227, 244 
 Tifemas, Gregorio, 59 
 TiUey, A., quoted, 32, 229, 235, 
 253-4 
 
 Tilley, William, 63-4 
 
 Tintoretto, 194, 210 
 
 Titian, 194, 2 id 
 
 Tostatus, 19 
 
 Trent, Council of, 122-3, 209 
 
 Turber, J., 70 
 
 Tyndale, his New Testament, 249 
 
 UccEivi^o, 1 86, 192 
 Udall, 227, 244 
 
 Universities and scholasticism, 13. 
 Se& also Cambridge^Oxford, Paris 
 
 Vai^IvA, Lorenzo, 52 
 
 Vanini, 92 
 
 Vasari, 176-7, 181, 185-7, 230 
 
 Vatican library, 47 
 
 Vegeo, Maffeo', 150 
 
 Venetian school of painting, 204, 
 
 209-11 
 Venice, printing in, 31 
 Vergil, 36-7, 72, 238-41, 243 
 Veronese, P., 195, 210 
 Verrochio, 187 
 Vida, 234 
 Villani, quoted, 179 
 Villari, quoted, 91 
 Vincent of Beauvais, 19 
 Vitelli, Cornelio, 64 
 Vittorino da Feltre, 77, 150-1 
 
 WAI.DENSES, 93 
 Webbe, 236-7 
 Weyden, R. van der, 212 
 Wimpheling, 57i 9^, 152-3 
 Witchcraft, 125, 129 
 Woodward, quoted, 151 
 Worms, Diet of, 11 1 
 Wyatt, 72, 236 
 
 Wyclif, 62, 94, 118 ; his Bible, 118, 
 249 
 
 Zacharias, Pope, 19, 20 
 Zwingli, 112, 115, 124; on art, 215 
 
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