James Walsh - The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries

"Why take the style of these heroic times? For nature brings not back the mastodon—Nor we those times; and why should any man Remodel models?"

What Tennyson thus said of his own first essay in the Idyls of the King, in the introduction to the Morte D'Arthur, occurs as probably the aptest expression of most men's immediate thought with regard to such a subject as The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries. Though Tennyson was confessedly only remodeling the thoughts of the Thirteenth Century, we would not be willing to concede—

"That nothing new was said, or else.

Something so said, 'twas nothing,"

for the loss of the Idyls would make a large lacuna in the literature of the Nineteenth Century, "if it is allowed to compare little things with great," a similar intent to that of the Laureate has seemed sufficient justification for the paradox the author has tried to set forth in this volume. It may prove "nothing worth, mere chaff and draff much better burnt," but many friends have insisted they found it interesting. Authors usually blame friends for their inflictions upon the public, and I fear that I can find no better excuse, though the book has been patiently labored at, with the idea that it should represent some of the serious work that is being done by the Catholic Summer School on Lake Champlain, {viii} now completing nearly a decade and a half of its existence. This volume is, it is hoped, but the first of a series that will bring to a wider audience some of the thoughts that have been gathered for Summer School friends by many workers, and will put in more permanent form contributions that made summer leisure respond to the Greek term for school.

The object of the book is to interpret, in terms that will be readily intelligible to this generation, the life and concerns of the people of a century who, to the author's mind, have done more for human progress than those of any like period in human history. There are few whose eyes are now holden as they used to be, as to the surpassing place in the history of culture of the last three centuries of the Middle Ages. Personally the author is convinced, however, that only a beginning of proper appreciation has come as yet, and he feels that the solution of many problems that are vexing the modern world, especially in the social order, are to be found in these much misunderstood ages, and above all in that culmination of medieval progress—the period from 1200 to 1300.

The subject was originally taken up as a series of lectures in the extension course of the Catholic Summer School, as given each year in Lent and Advent at the Catholic Club, New York City. Portions of the material were subsequently used in lectures in many cities in this country from Portland, Me., to Portland, Ore., St. Paul, Minn., to New Orleans, La. The subject was treated in extenso for the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1906, after which publication was suggested.

The author does not flatter himself that the book adequately represents the great period which it claims to present. The subject has been the central idea of studies in leisure moments for a dozen years, and during many wanderings in Europe but there will doubtless prove to be errors in detail, for which the author would crave the indulgence of more serious students {ix} of history. The original form in which the material was cast has influenced the style to some extent, and has made the book more wordy than it would otherwise have been, and has been the cause of certain repetitions that appear more striking in print than they seemed in manuscript. There were what seemed good reasons for not delaying publication, however, and leisure for further work at it, instead of growing, was becoming more scant. It is intrusted to the tender mercies of critics, then, and the benevolent reader, if he still may be appealed to, for the sake of the ideas it contains, in spite of their inadequate expression.

This third edition is published under the patronage of Georgetown University as a slight token of appreciation for the degree of Doctor of Letters, conferred on the author for this work at the last Commencement. This issue has been enlarged by the addition of many illustrations selected to bring out the fact that all the various parts of Europe shared in the achievements of the time and by an appendix containing in compendium Twenty-Six Chapters that Might Have Been. Each of these brief sketches could easily have been extended to the average length of the original chapters. It was impossible to use all the material that was gathered. These hints of further sources are now appended so as to afford suggestions for study to those who may care to follow up the idea of the Thirteenth as The Greatest of Centuries, that is, of that period in human existence when man's thoughts on all the important human interests were profoundly valuable for future generations and their accomplishments models for all the after time.

Many of the now rather numerous readers and hearers of this book, for it has been read in the refectories of over 200 religious communities, have said that the title seemed almost deterring at first because of the high claim that is set up for a medieval century. To mitigate the possible initial deterrent effect of the paradox of the Thirteenth as the Greatest of Centuries, it has seemed worth while in this edition then to premise a series of quotations from some of the most distinguished historical writers in English of our own time which amply justify the claim here set up. Frederic Harrison, Macaulay, Freeman, and Fiske are sufficiently different in themselves to make their agreement in supreme admiration for the Thirteenth Century very striking. In spite of their lack of sympathy with many things in the period, all of them emphatically declare that it is the source of most that is great and good since, and that while we have added details, we have failed to surpass its artistic and intellectual achievement in all the 700 years that have elapsed.

August 15, 1912.

After the success of the Knights of Columbus edition of the Popes and Science of which 40,000 were issued it gives me great pleasure to accede to the request of the Supreme Officers of the Order to permit them to issue a correspondingly large edition of the present volume. The good work which the Knights of Columbus have thus done in diffusing a knowledge of the true relations of the Church to science,—generous patronage and encouragement, instead of supposed opposition,—will, I think, be greatly furthered by the wide distribution of the information contained in this volume with regard to the supremely helpful attitude of the Church towards art and architecture, literature, education and above all the important social problems, which is so well illustrated during the great period of the Thirteenth Century. I sincerely hope that brother Knights of Columbus will find in the book some of that renewal of devotion to Mother Church that came as the result of my own studies of this glorious period of her history, when her action was untrammelled by political considerations and when she was free to express herself in every great movement for the benefit of humanity.