Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- FRONTISPIECE
- Contents
- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- SECTION I LAND AND FOLK
- SECTION II BIRTH AND NURTURE
- SECTION III AUTHORS, SCRIBES AND READERS
- SECTION IV CHURCH AND CHURCHMEN
- SECTION V KINGS, KNIGHTS AND WAR
- SECTION VI MANOR AND COTTAGE
- SECTION VII TOWN LIFE
- SECTION VIII RICH AND POOR
- SECTION IX HOUSE, DRESS AND MEALS
- SECTION X SPORTS AND PASTIMES
- SECTION XI WAYFARING AND FOREIGN TRAVEL
- SECTION XII WOMEN'S LIFE
- SECTION XIII ARCHITECTURE AND THE ARTS
- SECTION XIV MEDICINE AND JUSTICE
- SECTION XV SUPERSTITIONS AND MARVELS
- INDEX
- SOCIAL LIFE IN BRITAIN FROM THE CONQUEST TO THE REFORMATION
- Plate section
SECTION IV - CHURCH AND CHURCHMEN
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- FRONTISPIECE
- Contents
- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- SECTION I LAND AND FOLK
- SECTION II BIRTH AND NURTURE
- SECTION III AUTHORS, SCRIBES AND READERS
- SECTION IV CHURCH AND CHURCHMEN
- SECTION V KINGS, KNIGHTS AND WAR
- SECTION VI MANOR AND COTTAGE
- SECTION VII TOWN LIFE
- SECTION VIII RICH AND POOR
- SECTION IX HOUSE, DRESS AND MEALS
- SECTION X SPORTS AND PASTIMES
- SECTION XI WAYFARING AND FOREIGN TRAVEL
- SECTION XII WOMEN'S LIFE
- SECTION XIII ARCHITECTURE AND THE ARTS
- SECTION XIV MEDICINE AND JUSTICE
- SECTION XV SUPERSTITIONS AND MARVELS
- INDEX
- SOCIAL LIFE IN BRITAIN FROM THE CONQUEST TO THE REFORMATION
- Plate section
Summary
In this section there is no attempt to exploit fully such sources as Matthew Paris or Jocelin of Brakelond. The latter is, in fact, altogether avoided; his chronicle is so brief, so accessible in The King's Classics, and casts so many different sidelights on Church life under the Angevins, that it should be read in its entirety.
A DYING WORLD
The whole Middle Ages may be looked upon as a long process of suffering and convalescence from the barbarian invasions, which influenced European thought down to and beyond the Reformation. Men's minds were constantly haunted by the Apocalypse and the more dismal chapters of the Prophets; much of the unprogressiveness of the Middle Ages in certain directions may be traced to this numbing belief in the imminence of the Last Judgment. The following four extracts will suffice, out of very many which might be chosen; one of the passages in which Roger Bacon records his despair of the present world may be found in A Medieval Garner, p. 342.
(a) St Gregory the Great, Hom. in Ezech. c. II. Hom. vi. § 21 (Migne, P.L. vol. 76. 1009).
I ask, what is there now in this world to please us? Everywhere we see sights of mourning and hear the groans of men. Cities are ruined, towns are desolate, fields lie waste; the land hath become a wilderness.
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- Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation , pp. 187 - 273Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1918