CURRENT LITERATURE
ik SHORT HISTORY OF MEDIAEVAL CHRISTENDOM.
IT used to be taken for granted that the Middle Ages made a chapter of human history that was rather shameful and Certainly retrogressive. Later we heard, to our surprise, very valiant upholders of the Middle Ages, who swore that we ourselves were retrogressives and degenerates when com- pared with men of such vigour, godliness, and internationalism. Experts fight like dogs about the question. Mr. Ransom takes a middle view :-
"Over all lay the shadow of the Holy Roman Empire, that vast conception of Christ's realm on earth in its dual aspect of Body and Soul : failure as it proved, we have found nothing to put in its place. It was a great conception : it proclaimed a Christian Unity as the political goal of Europe, that restless and embittered Europe whose national animosities have made her history and brought her again and again to the verge of ruin. After centuries of enlightenment she seems still unable to recapture that ideal."
His moderation seems to prevent his catching fire from his subject ; but none the less this history of Europe from 312 A.D. to 1314 A.D. is interesting, and it is a great achievement that, while he writes with compression and crowds the book with facts, dates and genealogies, he still has room to give vivid sketches of the great men of his period and illustrations of the ideals and beliefs that worked themselves out in historic events.
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