The History of Education Part 18

Up to about the close of the eleventh century western Europe had been living in an age of simple faith. The Christian world everywhere lay under "a veil of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession." The mysteries of Christianity and the many inconsistencies of its teachings and beliefs were accepted with childlike docility, and the Church had felt little call to organize, to systematize, or to explain. Here and there, to be sure, some questioning monk or cleric had raised questions over matters [9] of faith which his reason could not explain, and had, perhaps, for a time disturbed the peace of orthodoxy, but a statement somewhat similar to that made by Anselm of Canterbury (footnote, p. 173), as to the precedence of faith over reason, had usually been sufficient to silence all inquiry.

Once, in the latter part of the eleventh century, when a great discussion as to the nature of knowledge had taken place among the leaders of the Church, a church council had been called to pa.s.s upon and give final settlement to the questions raised. [10]

RISE OF THE SPIRIT OF INQUIRY. As the cathedral schools grew in importance as teaching inst.i.tutions, and came to have many teachers and students, a few of them became noted as places where good instruction was imparted and great teachers were to be found. Canterbury in England, Paris and Chartres in France, and several of the cities in northern Italy early were noted for the quality of their instruction. The great teachers and the keenest students of the time were to be found in the cathedral schools in these places, and the monastic schools now lost their earlier importance as teaching inst.i.tutions. By the twelfth century they had been completely superseded as important teaching centers by the rapidly developing cathedral schools. To these more important cathedral schools students now came from long distances to study under some noted teacher. Says McCabe: [11]

The scholastic fever which was soon to influence the youth of Europe, had already set in. You could not travel far over the rough roads of France without meeting some footsore scholar, making for the nearest large monastery or cathedral town. Robbers, frequently in the service of the lord of the land, infested every province. It was safest to don the coa.r.s.e frieze tunic of the pilgrim, without pockets, sling your little wax tablets and stylus at your girdle, strap a wallet of bread and herbs and salt on your back, and laugh at the nervous folk who peeped out from their coaches over a hedge of pikes and daggers. Few monasteries refused a meal or a rough bed to the wandering scholar.

Rarely was any fee exacted for the lesson given.

The cathedral school in connection with the church of Notre Dame [12]

became especially famous for its teachers of the Liberal Arts (particularly Dialectic) and of Theology, and to this school, just as the eleventh century was drawing to a close, came a youth, then barely twenty years of age, who is generally regarded as having been the keenest scholar of the twelfth century. His brilliant intellect soon enabled him to refute the instruction of his teachers and to vanquish them in debate. His name was Abelard. Before long he himself became a teacher of Grammar and Logic at Paris, and later of Theology, and, so widely had he read, so clearly did he appeal to the reason of his hearers, and so incisive was his teaching, that he attracted large numbers of students to his lectures. To a.s.sist in his teaching of Theology he prepared a little textbook, _Sic et Non_ (Yea and Nay), in which he raised for debate many questions as to church teachings (R. 91 b), such as "That faith is based on reason, or not." In the introduction to this textbook he held that "constant and frequent questioning is the first key to wisdom" (R. 91 a). His method was to give the authorities on both sides, but to render no decision. His boldness in raising such questions for debate was new, and his failure to give the students a decision was quite unusual, while his claim that reason was antecedent to faith was startling. Even after being driven from Paris, in part because of this boldness and in part because of a most unfortunate incident which deservedly ruined his career in the Church, students in numbers followed him to his retreat and listened to his teachings. His method of instruction was for the time so unusual and his spirit of inquiry so searching that he stimulated many a young mind to a new type of thinking. One of his pupils was Peter the Lombard (p. 171), who completely redirected the teaching of theology with his _Book of Sentences_ (c. 1145)--This was based largely on Abelard's method, except that a positive and orthodox decision was presented for each question raised.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 53. THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME, AT PARIS The present cathedral was begun in 1163, consecrated in 1182, and completed in the thirteenth century. It is built on an island in the Seine, and on the site of a church built in the fourth century. The little community which grew up about the cathedral church formed the nucleus about which the city of Paris eventually grew. This cathedral front, with its statues and beautiful carving, formed a type much followed during the great period of cathedral-building (thirteenth century) in Europe. The school in connection with this cathedral early became famous.]

What took place at Paris also took place, though generally on a smaller scale, at many other cathedral and monastery schools of western Europe.

The spirit of inquiry had at last been awakened, the Church was being respectfully challenged by its children to prove its faith, and the learning of the Saracens in Spain, which now began to filter across the Pyrenees, added to the strength of their challenge. Returning pilgrims and crusaders (First Crusade, 1099) also began to ask for an explanation of the doubts which had come to them from the contact with Greek and Arab in the East. A desire for a philosophy which would explain the mysteries and contradictions of the Christian faith found expression among the scholars of the time. In the larger cathedral schools, at least, it became common to discuss the doctrines of the Church with much freedom.

THE RISE OF SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY. The Church, in a very intelligent and commendable manner, prepared to meet and use this new spirit in the organization, systematization, and restatement of its faith and doctrine, and the great era of Scholasticism [13] now arose. During the latter part of the twelfth and in the thirteenth century Scholasticism was at its height; after that, its work being done, it rapidly declined as an educational force, and the new universities inherited the spirit which had given rise to its labors.

With the new emphasis now placed on reasoning, Dialectic or Logic superseded Grammar as the great subject of study, and logical a.n.a.lysis was now applied to the problems of religion. The Church adopted and guided the movement, and the schools of the time turned their energy into directions approved by it. Aristotle also was in time adopted by the Church, after the translation of his princ.i.p.al works had been effected (Rs. 87, 90), and his philosophy was made a bulwark for Christian doctrine throughout the remainder of the Middle Ages. For the next four centuries Aristotle thoroughly dominated all philosophic thinking. [14] The great development and use of logical a.n.a.lysis now produced many keen and subtle minds, who worked intensively a narrow and limited field of thought. The result was a thorough reorganization and restatement of the theology of the Church.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 3. SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS]

This was the work of Scholasticism. The movement was not characterized by the evolution of new doctrines, but by a systematization and organization into good teaching form of what had grown up during the preceding thousand years. To a large degree it was also an "accommodation" of the old theology to the new Aristotelian philosophy which had recently been brought back to western Europe, and the statement of the Christian doctrines in good philosophic form.

THE ORGANIZING WORK OF THE SCHOOLMEN. Peter the Lombard (1100-1160), whose _Book of Sentences_, mentioned above, had so completely changed the character of the instruction in Theology, began this work of theological reorganization. Albert the Great (_Albertus Magnus_, 1193-1280) was the first of the great Schoolmen, and has been termed "the organizing intellect of the Middle Ages." He was a German Dominican monk [15], born in Swabia, and educated in the schools of Paris, Padua, and Bologna. Later he became a celebrated teacher at Paris and Cologne. He was the first to state the philosophy of Aristotle in systematic form, and was noted as an exponent of the work of Peter the Lombard. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274), the greatest and most influential scholastic philosopher of the Middle Ages, studied first at Monte Ca.s.sino and Naples, and then at Paris and Cologne, under Albertus Magnus. He later became a noted teacher of Philosophy and Theology at Rome, Bologna, Viterbo, Perugia, and Naples.

Under him Scholasticism came to its highest development in his harmonizing the new Aristotelianism with the doctrines of the Church. His cla.s.s teaching was based on Aristotle, [16] the Vulgate Bible, and Peter the Lombard's _Book of Sentences_. During the last three years of his life he wrote his _Summa Theologiae_, a book which has ever since been accepted as an authoritative statement of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.

The character of the organization made by Peter the Lombard and Thomas Aquinas may be seen from an examination of their method of presentation, which was dogmatic in form and similar in the textbooks of each. The field of Christian Theology was divided out into parts, heads, subheads, etc., in a way that would cover the subject, and a group of problems, each dealing with some doctrinal point, was then presented under each. The problem was first stated in the text. Next the authorities and arguments for each solution other than that considered as orthodox were presented and confuted, in order. The orthodox solution was next presented, the arguments and authorities for such solution quoted, and the objections to the correct solution presented and refuted (R. 152).

RESULTS OF THEIR WORK. The work of the Schoolmen was to organize and present in systematic and dogmatic form the teachings of the Church (R.

92). This they did exceedingly well, and the result was a thorough organization of Theology as a teaching subject. They did little to extend knowledge, and nothing at all to apply it to the problems of nature and man. Their work was abstract and philosophical instead, dealing wholly with theological questions. The purpose was to lay down principles, and to offer a training in a.n.a.lysis, comparison, cla.s.sification, and deduction which would prepare learned and subtle defenders of the faith of the Church. So successful were the Schoolmen in their efforts that instruction in Theology was raised by their work to a new position of importance, and a new interest in theological scholars.h.i.+p and general learning was awakened which helped not a little to deflect many strong spirits from a life of warfare to a life of study. They made the problems of learning seem much more worth while, and their work helped to create a more tolerant att.i.tude toward the supporters of either side of debatable questions by revealing so clearly that there are two sides to every question. This new learning, new interest in learning, and new spirit of tolerance the rising universities inherited.

III. LAW AND MEDICINE AS NEW STUDIES

THE OLD ROMAN CITIES. The old Roman Empire, it will be remembered, came to be largely a collection of provincial cities. These were the centers of Roman civilization and culture. After the downfall of the governing power of Rome, the great highways were no longer repaired, brigandage became common, trade and intercourse largely ceased, and the provincial cities which were not destroyed in the barbarian invasions declined in population and number, pa.s.sing under the control of their bishops who long ruled them as feudal lords. During the long period of disorder many of the old Roman cities entirely disappeared (R. 49). Only in Italy, and particularly in northern Italy, did these old cities retain anything of their earlier munic.i.p.al life, or anything worth mentioning of their former industry and commerce. But even here they lost most of their earlier importance as centers of culture and trade, becoming merely ecclesiastical towns. After the death of Charlemagne, the break-up of his empire, and the inst.i.tution of feudal conditions, the cities and towns declined still more in importance, and few of any size remained.

In Italy feudalism never attained the strength it did in northern Europe.

Throughout all the early Middle Ages the cities there retained something of their old privileges, though ruled by prince-bishops residing in them.

They also retained something of the old Roman civilization, and Roman legal usages and some knowledge of Roman law never quite died out. In other respects they much resembled mediaeval cities elsewhere.

REESTABLISHMENT OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. After the disintegration of Charlemagne's empire, the portion of it now known as Germany broke up into fragments, largely independent of one another, and full of fight and pride. The result there was continual and pitiless warfare. This, coupled with the raids of the Northmen along the northern coast and the Magyars on the east, led to the election of a king in 919 (Henry the Fowler) who could establish some semblance of unity and order. By 961 the German duchies and small princ.i.p.alities had been so consolidated that a succeeding king (Otto I) felt himself able to attempt to reestablish the Holy Roman Empire by subjugating Italy and annexing it as an appendage under German rule.

He descended into Italy (961), subjugated the cities, overthrew the Papacy, created a pope to his liking, and reestablished the old Empire, in name at least. For a century the German rule was nominal, but with the outbreak of the conflict in the eleventh century between king and pope over the question of which one should invest the bishops with their authority (known as the _invest.i.ture conflict_, 1075-1122), Pope Gregory VII humbled the German king (Henry IV) at Canossa (1077) and won a partial success. Then followed repeated invasions of Italy, and a century and a half of conflicts between pope and king before the dream of universal empire under a German feudal king ended in disaster, and Italy was freed from Teutonic rule.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 54, THE CITY-STATES OF NORTHERN ITALY All of the cities in the valley of the Po, except Turin, Pavia, and Mantua, were members of the Lombard League of 1167.]

THE ITALIAN CITIES REVIVE THE STUDY OF ROMAN LAW. As was stated above, Roman legal usages and some knowledge of Roman law had never quite died out in these Italian cities. But, while regarded with reverence, the law was not much understood, little study was given to it, and important parts of it were neglected and forgotten. The struggle with the ruling bishops in the second half of the eleventh century, and the discussions which arose during the invest.i.ture conflict, caused new attention to be given to legal questions, and both the study of Roman (civil) and Church (canon) law were revived. The Italian cities stood with the Papacy in the struggles with the German kings, and, in 1167, those in the Valley of the Po formed what was known as the _Lombard League_ for defense. Under the pressure of German oppression they now began a careful study of the known Roman law in an effort to discover some charter, edict, or grant of power upon which they could base their claim for independent legal rights. The result was that the study of Roman law was given an emphasis unknown in Italy since the days of the old Empire. What had been preserved during the period of disorder at last came to be understood, additional books of the law were discovered, and men suddenly awoke to a realization that what had been before considered as of little value actually contained much that was worth studying, as well as many principles of importance that were applicable to the conditions and problems of the time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 55. FRAGMENT FROM THE RECOVERED "DIGEST" OF JUSTINIAN Capitals and small letters are here used, but note the difficulty of reading without s.p.a.cing or punctuation.]

The great student and teacher of law of the period was Irnerius of Bologna (c. 1070-1137), who began to lecture on the _Code_ and the _Inst.i.tutes_ of Justinian about 1110 to 1115, and soon attracted large numbers of students to hear his interpretations. About this same time the _Digest_, much the largest and most important part of the old law, was discovered and made known. [17]

This gave clearness to the whole, as before its discovery the study of Roman law was like the study of Aristotle when only parts of the _Organon_ were known. Irnerius and his co-laborers at Bologna now collected and arranged the entire body of Roman civil law (_Corpus Juris Civilis_) (R.

93), introduced the _Digest_ to western Europe, and thus made a new contribution of first importance to the list of possible higher studies.

Law now ceased to be a part of Rhetoric (p. 157) and became a new subject of study, with a body of material large enough to occupy a student for several years. This was an event of great intellectual significance. A new study was now evolved which offered great possibilities for intellectual activity and the exercise of the critical faculty, while at the same time showing veneration for authority. Law was thus placed alongside Theology as a professional subject, and the evolution of the professional lawyer from the priest was now for the first time made possible.

CANON LAW ALSO ORGANIZED AS A SUBJECT OF STUDY. Inspired by the revival of the study of civil law, a monk of Bologna, Gratian by name, set himself to make a compilation of all the Church canons which had been enacted since the Council of Nicaea (325) formulated the first twenty (p. 96), and of the rules for church government as laid down by the church authorities.

This he issued in textbook form, about 1142, under the t.i.tle of _Decretum Gratiani_. So successful were his efforts that his compilation was "one of those great textbooks that take the world by storm." It did for canon (church) law what the rediscovery of the Justinian _Code_ had done for civil law; that is, it organized canon law as a new and important teaching subject.

The _Decretum_ of Gratian was published in three parts, and was organized after the same plan as Abelard's _Sic et Non_, except that Gratian drew conclusions from the ma.s.s of evidence he presented on each topic. It contained 147 "Distinctions" (questions; cases of church policy), upon each of which were cited the church canons and the views and decisions of important church authorities. [18] This volume was added to by popes later on, [19] so that by the fifteenth century a large body of canon law had grown up, which was known as the _Corpus Juris Canonici_. Canon Law was thus separated from Theology and added to Civil Law as another new subject of study for both theological and legal students, and the two subjects of Canon and Civil Law came to const.i.tute the work of the law faculties in the universities which soon arose in western Europe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 56. THE FATHER OF MEDICINE HIPPOCRATES OF COS (460- 367? B.C.)]

THE BEGINNINGS OF MEDICAL STUDY. The Greeks had made some progress in the beginnings of the study of disease (p. 47). Aristotle had given some anatomical knowledge in his writings on animals, and had theorized a little about the functions of the human body. The real founder of medical science, though, was Hippocrates, of the island of Cos (c. 460-367 B.C.), a contemporary of Plato. He was the first writer on the subject who attempted to base the practice of the healing art on careful observation and scientific principles. He subst.i.tuted scientific reason for the wrath of offended deities as the causes of disease, and tried to offer proper remedies in place of sacrifices and prayers to the G.o.ds for cures. His descriptions of diseases were wonderfully accurate, and his treatments ruled medical practice for ages. [20] He knew, however, little as to anatomy. Another Greek writer, Galen [21](131-201 A.D.), wrote extensively on medicine and left an anatomical account of the human body which was unsurpa.s.sed for more than a thousand years. His work was known and used by the Saracens. Avicenna (980-1037), an eastern Mohammedan, wrote a _Canon of Medicine_ in which he summarized the work of all earlier writers, and gave a more minute description of symptoms than any preceding writer had done. These works, together with a few minor writings by teachers in Spain and Salerno, formed the basis of all medical knowledge until Vesalius published his _System of Human Anatomy_, in 1543.

The Roman knowledge of medicine was based almost entirely on that of the Greeks, and after the rise of the Christians, with their new att.i.tude toward earthly life and contempt for the human body, the science fell into disrepute and decay. Saint Augustine (354-430), in his great work on _The City of G.o.d_, speaks with some bitterness of "medical men who are called anatomists," and who "with a cruel zeal for science have dissected the bodies of the dead, and sometimes of sick persons, who have died under their knives, and have inhumanly pried into the secrets of the human body to learn the nature of disease and its exact seat, and how it might be cured." [22] During the early Middle Ages the Greek medical knowledge practically disappeared, and in its place came the Christian theories of satanic influence, diabolic action, and divine punishment for sin.

Correspondingly the cures were prayers at shrines and repositories of sacred relics and images, which were found all over Europe, and to which the injured or fever-stricken peasants hied themselves to make offerings and to pray, and then hope for a miracle.

Toward the middle of the eleventh century Salerno, a small city delightfully situated on the Italian coast (see Map, p. 194), thirty-four miles south of Naples, began to attain some reputation as a health resort.

In part this was due to the climate and in part to its mineral springs.

Southern Italy had, more than any other part of western Europe, retained touch with old Greek thought. The works of Hippocrates and Galen had been preserved there, the monks at Monte Ca.s.sino had made some translations, and sometime toward the middle of the eleventh century the study of the Greek medical books was revived here. The Mohammedan medical work by Avicenna (p. 185), also early became known here in translation. About 1065 Constantine of Carthage, a converted Jew and a learned monk, who had traveled extensively in the East [23] and who had been forced to flee from his native city because of a suspicion of "black art," began to lecture at Salerno on the Greek and Mohammedan medical works and the practice of the medical art. In 1099 Robert, Duke of Normandy, returning from the First Crusade, stopped here to be cured of a wound, and he and his knights later spread the fame of Salerno all over Europe. The result was the revival of the study of Medicine in the West, and Salerno developed into the first of the medical schools of Europe. Montpellier, in southern France, also became another early center for the study of Medicine, drawing much of its medical knowledge from Spain. Another new subject of professional study was now made possible, and Faculties of Medicine were in time organized in most of the universities as they arose. The instruction, though, was chiefly book instruction, Galen being the great textbook until the seventeenth century.

IV. OTHER NEW INFLUENCES AND MOVEMENTS

THE CRUSADES. Perhaps the most romantic happenings during the Middle Ages were that series of adventurous expeditions to the then Far East, undertaken by the kings and knights of western Europe in an attempt to reclaim the Holy Land from the infidel Turks, who in the eleventh century had pushed in and were persecuting Christian pilgrims journeying to Jerusalem. For centuries single pilgrims, small bands of pilgrims, and sometimes large numbers led by priest or n.o.ble, had journeyed to distant shrines, to Rome, and to the birthplace of the Saviour, [24] impelled by pure religious devotion, a desire to do penance for sin, or seeking a cure from some disease by prayer and penance. It was the spirit of the age.

Says Adams: [25]

A pilgrimage was ... in itself a religious act securing merit and reward for the one who performed it, balancing a certain number for his sins, and making his escape from the world of torment hereafter more certain. The more distant and more difficult the pilgrimage, the more meritorious, especially if it led to such supremely holy places as those which had been sanctified by the presence of Christ himself.

For the man of the world, for the man who could not, or would not, go into monasticism, the pilgrimage was the one conspicuous act by which he could satisfy the ascetic need, and gain its rewards. A crusade was a stupendous pilgrimage, under especially favorable and meritorious conditions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 57. A PILGRIM OF THE MIDDLE AGES (From an old ma.n.u.script in the British Museum)]

The Mohammedan Arabs who took possession of the Holy Land in the seventh century had treated the pilgrims considerately, but the Turks were of a different stamp. In 1071 they had defeated the Eastern Emperor, captured all Asia Minor, and had taken possession of the fortress of Nicaea (Map, p. 183), near Constantinople. The Eastern Emperor now appealed to Rome for help. In 1077 the Turks captured Jerusalem, and returning pilgrims soon began to report having experienced great hards.h.i.+ps. In 1095 Pope Urban, in a stirring address to the Council of Clermont (France), issued a call to the lords, knights, and foot soldiers of western Christendom to cease destroying their fellow Christians in private warfare, and to turn their strength of arms against the infidel and rescue the Holy Land. The journey was to take the place of penance for sin, many special privileges were extended to those who went, and those who died on the journey or in battle with the infidels were promised entrance into heaven. [26] n.o.bles and peasants, filled with a desire for adventure and a sense of personal sin, no surer way of satisfying either was to be found than the long pilgrimage to the Saviour's tomb. In France and England the call met with instant response. Unfortunately for the future of civilization, the call met with but small response from the n.o.bles of German lands.

The First Crusade set out in 1096. A second went in 1144, and a third in 1187. These were the great Crusades, though five others were undertaken during the thirteenth century. Jerusalem was taken and lost. The Christians quarreled with one another and with the Greeks, though with the Saracens they established somewhat friendly relations, and a mutual respect arose. The armies which went were composed of all kinds of people --lords, knights, merchants, adventurers, peasants, outlaws--and a spirit of adventure and a desire for personal gain, as well as a spirit of religious devotion, actuated many who went. In 1204 the Venetians diverted the fourth crusade to the capture of Constantinople, and established there an outpost of their great commercial empire. The history of the crusades we do not need to trace. The important matter for our purpose was the results of the movement on the intellectual development of western Europe.

RESULTS OF THE CRUSADES ON WESTERN EUROPE. In a sense the Crusades were an outward manifestation of the great change in thinking and ideals which had begun sometime before in western Europe. They were at once both a sign and a cause of further change. The old isolation was at last about to end, and intercommunication and some common ideas and common feelings were being brought about. Both those who went and those who remained at home were deeply stirred by the movement. Christendom as a great international community, in which all alike were interested in a common ideal and in a common fight against the infidel, was a new idea now dawning upon the ma.s.s of the people, whereas before it had been but little understood.

The travel to distant lands, the sight of cities of wealth and power, and the contact with peoples decidedly superior to themselves in civilization, not only excited the imagination and led to a broadening of the minds of those who returned, but served as well to raise the general level of intelligence in western Europe. Some new knowledge also was brought back, but that was not at the time of great importance. The princ.i.p.al gain came in the elimination forever of thousands of quarreling, fighting n.o.blemen, [27] thus giving the kingly power a chance to consolidate holdings and begin the evolution of modern States; in the marked change of att.i.tude toward the old problems; in the awakening of a new interest in the present world; in the creation of new interests and new desires among the common people; in the awakening of a spirit of religious unity and of national consciousness; and especially in the awakening of a new intellectual life, which soon found expression in the organization of universities for study and in more extensive travel and geographical exploration than the world had known since the days of ancient Rome. The greatest of all the results, however, came through the revival of trade, commerce, manufacturing, and industry in the rising cities of western Europe, with the consequent evolution of a new and important cla.s.s of merchants, bankers, and craftsmen, who formed a new city cla.s.s and in time developed a new system of training for themselves and their children.

THE REVIVAL OF CITY LIFE. The old cities of central and northern Italy, as was stated above, continued through the early Middle Ages as places of some little local importance. In the eleventh century they overthrew in large part the rule of their Prince-Bishops, and became little City- Republics, much after the old Greek model. Outside of Italy almost the only cities not destroyed during the period of the barbarian invasions were the episcopal cities, that is cities which were the residences of bishops.

Outside of Italy the present cities of western Europe either rose on the ruins of former Roman provincial cities, or originated about some monastery or castle, on or adjacent to land at one time owned by monks or feudal lord. An ever-increasing company of peasants, themselves little more than serfs in the beginning, huddled together in such places for the protection afforded, and a walled feudal town eventually resulted (R. 94 a). This later, in one way or another, secured its freedom from monastic control or feudal lord, and evolved into the free city we know to-day.

Originally each little city was a self-sustaining community. The farming and grazing lands lay outside, while the people were crowded compactly together within the protecting town walls. The need for walls that could be manned for defense, gates that could shut out the marauder, the narrow, dirty streets, and the lack of any sanitary ideas, all alike tended to keep the towns small. [28] The insecurity of life, the constant warfare, the repeated failures or destruction of crops without and want within, and the high death-rate from disease, all kept down the population. A town of a thousand people in the early Middle Ages was a place of some importance, while probably no city outside of Italy, excepting Paris and London, had ten thousand inhabitants before the year 1200. In all England there were but 2,150,000 people, according to the Domesday Survey (1086), while to- day the city of London alone contains nearly three times that number.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 58. A TYPICAL MEDIAEVAL TOWN (PRUSSIAN) All the elements of a typical mediaeval town are seen here--the walls for defense, the watch-towers, the churches, the tall cathedral, the castle, and the high houses huddled together.]