The history of medieval Europe

Front matter

CORNELL

yNiyEnsiTY

LIBRARY

Preface

This book aims to trace the development of Europe and its civilization, from the decline of the Roman Empire to the opening of the sixteenth century, for the benefit of the college student and the general reader. It is almost needless to say that such a work makes little claim to originality in method and still less in subject-matter, which it has shamelessly borrowed from numerous sources. Indeed, in a book of this sort it is more fitting to apologize for anything new that one says than for following in old and beaten tracks. The author, of course, hopes that without making too radical departures he has introduced some improvement in selection and presentation of material, and that he has made few mistakes of fact and interpretation.

The Table of Contents indicates the general plan of the volume, which is to treat medieval Europe as a whole and to hang the story upon a single thread, rather than to recount as distinct narratives the respective histories of France, England, Germany, Italy, and other countries of modern Europe. French or English history may be studied as such in courses and books so labeled. Moreover, the modern interest in the national state has usually been carried too far in the study of the Middle Ages. Local division, not national unity and central government, is surely the striking feature through most of the medieval centuries.

Nor should one be misled by the influence of the German historical seminar or by Bryce's brilliant essay into making the Holy Roman Empire the central thread of medieval history. Far more important in actual life than the ideal of one Roman Empire were the feudal state and the self-centered town, the diversity and vigor of local law and custom. But it would be difficult to overestimate the importance of the pope and the clergy as unifying forces in medieval civilization. Consequently several chapters are devoted to the vi PREFACE

Christian Church, and some mention of it has to be made in almost every chapter.

Inasmuch as emigrants from all parts and from all races of Europe have long since been coming to the United States and becoming American citizens, it has seemed worth while to include the states and racial groups of central and eastern Europe, as well as the richer medieval history of those western European lands whose institutions and culture have thus far had the greatest influence upon our own.

In conformity with present tendencies in historical writing, economic and social conditions are given due attention, and many minor details of military and political history are omitted. In these days of tottering thrones I have even ventured to lay the axe at the root of absolutism and to dispense with genealogical tables. Contemporary events sadly remind us that the age of wars is not past ; but they have also demonstrated that an intensive study of Caesar's Commentaries and the tactics of Hastings and Crecy is of little use even to the modern military specialist ; while they have further reminded us that in the art of the past there are precious models and inspirations, whose loss is almost irreparable. Since man is a reasoning and emotional being, it is unfair to the past actors and uninteresting to the present readers of history merely to chronicle events without some indication of the ideas and ideals behind them as well as of the personalities that produced them. But discussion of economic and intellectual influences should not be carried so far as to reduce the narrative of events in political history to a mere skeleton. If wars and politics are to be discussed at all, they should be treated with sufficient fullness to insure clearness and interest.

The background of physical geography is frequently referred to and described. In the maps the aim has been to omit confusing detail and to keep them in close accord with the text. As a rule all places mentioned in the text and no others are given in the accompanying maps. Considerable space has been devoted to the Roman Empire, its civilization, and its decline, and to the early history of the Chris-

PREFACE

Vll tian Church. These matters are essential preliminaries to the study of the Middle Ages. I have also dealt frequently with the history of European law and with the chief medieval forms of government.

As an undergraduate the author received high grades in a course in English history without the thought occurring to him that the sta,tements of the textbook or of the instructor concerning the Anglo-Saxon period rested on any less ample and solid foundation than did their accounts of the nineteenth century. History seemed a seamless robe instead of a worn garment full of holes and patches. True it is that a textbook or general history is chiefly intended to tell what we do know, and that its space does not permit detailed discussion of the sources. Yet one of the most important things for the student or reader of history to realize is the old lesson of Socrates that there are many things which we do not know and many more which we only half know. Therefore in the introductory chapter I have discussed history's task and obstacles, and throughout the volume have every now and then informed the reader briefly as to the quantity and quality of the source material.

But a stern effort has been made to avoid fine print and footnotes, which in this kind of a book are objectionable alike from the typographical, the literary, and the pedagogical standpoint. I hope that all quotations are so marked, but I have not felt it necessary to mention the name of the author in each case at the bottom of the page. In place of cross-references the teacher and student are referred to the unusually full index, which is intended to serve somewhat the same purpose that a vocabulary does in the teaching of a language. In the text I have rather made it a point to repeat the names of important men and places as often and in as many historical contexts as possible, in order that they may gradually grow familiar to the reader and in order that he may not forget them when he has once learned them. By reference to the index one can tell how many times the name or topic in question has already been mentioned or discussed. The index should also prove useful for topical reviews.

viii PREFACE

Ten years of experience in teaching medieval history to Freshman sections have convinced me that most students who enter our colleges are neither wide nor trained readers, and are at a loss, if thrown upon their own resources into a whole volume or even a whole chapter of the average historical work available for outside reading in addition to the textbook. It is advisable to give them brief specific readings to do, and specific questions to answer and problems to work out from such readings. No doubt each teacher will prefer for the most part to make his own selections and to ask his own questions on such reading. He may, however, find suggestive the listing of a few such specific readings and historical exercises, many of which have already been tried out in actual teaching. It is hoped that these exercises, listed at the end of the chapters, may prove still more welcome to the reader who has not the advantage of personal tuition, but who has access to a fair-sized library. Where a particular chapter or certain pages of a book are recommended, this does not imply that the rest of that volume is to be eschewed ; it is simply advice where to begin. Moreover, these suggested readings are distinctly for the undergraduate and general reader, not for the advanced student, and consequently many important historical works are not mentioned . A brief list of books and periodicals where fuller bibliographical information may be found is appended at the close of this preface.

Of historical works and articles to which the present volume is indebted the list is too long to essay here. The attempt has been made — without yielding to new theories and hypotheses which have not yet been sufficiently tested — to embody the results of recent historical scholarship. Much use has been made of such works as Luchaire's six volumes on Innocent III, Beazley's Dawn of Modern Geography, Workman's The Evolution of the Monastic Ideal, and the two volumes of the Cambridge Medieval History which have thus far appeared. Some passages in this book are the result of my own study of the sources and will not be found covered in any other secondary work.

PREFACE

IX

A textbook is a fitting place in which to remember one's own teachers. Of previous historical manuals I have been most influenced by the brief but admirable History of Western Europe of my former teacher, James Harvey Robinson, — a work which I have used for many years as a textbook. Before entering Professor Robinson's well-known course in the intellectual history of Europe, my interest in the history of literature and philosophy had been already aroused by C. T. Winchester and A. C. Armstrong. The parts of this volume dealing with the history of law owe much to the lectures of Munroe Smith. Some of the historical exercises were, in their inception at least, due to Henry E. Bourne, with whom I have worked in teaching the Freshman history course at the College for Women of Western Reserve University. Other colleagues, Professors H. N. Fowler, S. B. Platner, and J. L. Borgerhoff, have been so good as to read and criticize certain chapters falling within their respective special fields, and Miss Eleanor Ferris has very kindly read galley proof for the entire text. Professor J. T. Shotwell, under whose editorship the book is so fortunate as to appear and whom I also am happy to count as a former teacher, has read the text in manuscript, made a number of helpful suggestions, and in other ways aided me by his cooperation and encouragement. These scholars, however, should not be held responsible for any of the faults of the book, especially since in a few cases I have been so foolish as not to follow their advice. But I shall be fortunate, indeed, if others accord me as sympathetic a reading as theirs.

Lynn Thorndike.

August 14, igiy

LIST OF GUIDES IN HISTORICAL READING

HANDBOOKS

Langlois, Ch. v., Manuel de bibliographie historique, two parts, Paris,

1 90 1 and 1904.

Robinson, J. H., Readings in European History, vol. i, Boston, 1904 Thompson, J. W., Reference Studies in Medieval History, Chicago, 19 14

ENCYCLOPEDIAS

as yet only partially 'completed Catholic EncyclopcBdia, New York, 1912 Encyclopcedia Britannica, Eleventh edition Palgrave, Dictionary of Political Economy, London, 1910 Jewish Encyclopcedia, New York, 1901

W'ace and Piercy, Dictionary of Christian Biography, Boston, 191 1 Hughes, Encyclopcedia of Islam, London, 1913

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review English Historical Review

LeMoyenAge Historische Zeitschrift

STANDARD HISTORICAL WORKS CONTAINING BIBLIOGRAPHIES

Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, edition by J. B. Bury,

I 897- I 900 Cambridge Medieval History, vols, i and 11 Lavisse, E., Histoire de France, 1900-1911 Histoire Litteraire de la France Jahrbiicher der deutschen Geschichte

Hunt and Poole, Political History of England, 1905-1910 LosERTH, J., Geschichte des Spdteren Mittelalters von iiqj bis 1492, Munich

and Berlin, 1903 De Wulf, M., History of Medieval Philosophy, 1909

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

461-431 B.C. Age of Pericles 451-449 B.C. Twelve Tables of Roman Law 336-323 B.C. Reign of Alexander the Great

31 B.C.-14 A.D. Reign of Augustus Caesar and foundation of the Roman Empire A.D. 70 Destruction of Jerusalem

98 Germanm of Tacitus 98-117 Reign of Trajan; Roman Empire at its greatest extent 161-180 Reign of Marcus Aurelius; signs of decline 227 Persian Kingdom replaces the Parthian 251 Decius defeated and slain by the Goths 284-305 Reign of Diocletian

325 Council of Niosea called by Constantine the Great 378 Battle of Adrianople 395 Death of Theodosius the Great 410 Sack of Rome by Alaric 413-426 The City of God of Augustine

419 Kingdoms of West Goths and Burgundians in southwestern and southeastern Gaul

438 The Theodosian Code

439 Carthage captured by the Vandals 440-461 Pope Leo the Great

c. 450 Britain invaded by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes 451 Battle of the Catalaunian Fields or Chilons 455 Valentinian III assassinated Rome sacked by the Vandals 466-484 Reign of Euric, King of the West Goths; conquest of Spain begun 476 Transition from the Roman to the Byzantine Empire 481-51 1 Reign of Clovis, King of the Franks 493-526 Reign of Theodoric, the East Goth, in Italy 518-565 Reigns of Justin and Justinian 529 The Rule of St. Benedict

533 The Digest or Pandects of Justinian

534 Byzantine conquest of North Africa from the Vandals Prankish conquest of the Burgundian Kingdom

555 Byzantine conquest of Italy from the East Goths 565 Mission of St. Columba to lona, Scotland 568 Lombards invade Italy

Avars invade central Europe 582 Fall of Sirmium 590-604 Pope Gregory the Great xiv CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

597 Mission of St. Augustine to Kent

6io Accession of Heraclius in the Byzantine Empire

615 Death of St. Columban in northern Italy

622 Hegira of Mohammed Etymologies of Isidore 629-639 Prankish territories reunited under Dagobert 632-651 Mohammedan conquest of Syria, Egypt, Persia

661 Ommiad dynasty founded

664 Synod of Whitby

687 Battle of Testry

698 Carthage permanently captured by the Mohammedans 71 1-7 1 3 Mohammedan conquest of Spain

718 Mission of Boniface to Germany

726 Iconoclastic decree of Leo III, Byzantine Emperor

731 Ecclesiastical History of Bade

732 Battle of Tours

750 Abbassid dynasty founded

751 Ravenna captured by the Lombards Carolingian dynasty founded by Pepin

755 Ommiad Emirate of Cordova 768-814 Reign of Charlemagne

774 End of the Lombard Kingdom 787 Danish invasions begin in England 800 Imperial coronation of Charlemagne 827 Saracen invasion of Sicily begins

842 The Strassburg Oaths

843 The Treaty of Verdun

c. 859 Rurik becomes Grand Prince of Russia

864 Conversion of Boris I of Bulgaria

869 Eighth (Ecumenical Council at Constantinople

870 The Treaty of Mersen

871-901 Reign of Alfred the Great in England 885 Paris besieged by the Northmen 887 Deposition of the Emperor Charles c. 896 Invasions of the Magyars begin 904 Saloniki seized by the Saracens

909 Fatimite dynasty founded in North Africa

910 Abbey of Cluny founded 91 1-9 12 Origin of Normandy

929 Caliphate of Cordova founded by Abd-er-Rahman III

934 Kingdom of Aries begins

955 Battle of the Lechfeld

962 Otto the Great crowned Holy Roman Emperor

969 Egypt conquered by the Fatimites

975 Death of Edgar the Peaceful, King of England 980-1037 Avicenna

987 Hugh Capet founds the Capetian dynasty 997-1038 Reign of St. Stephen of Hungary 999-1003 Pope Sylvester II (Gerbert)

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE xv

c. 1000 Discovery of Vinland

Oldest manuscript of Beowulf

1002 Death of Almansor

1013 Danish kings in England 1015-1087 Constantinus Africanus

1032 End of the Kingdom of Aries

1036 End of the Caliphate of Cordova 1036-1067 Baldwin V, Count of Flanders 1039-1056 Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor

1040 Death of Foulques Nerra, Count of Anjou

1057 End of Macedonian dynasty in the Byzantine Empire

1059 Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, as the Pope's vassal 1063-1118 Cathedral at Pisa built

1066 Norman conquest of England

1 07 1 Battle of Manzikert 1073-1085 Pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand)

1078 Jerusalem captured by the Turks 1079-1142 Abelard 1081-1118 Reign of Alexius Comnenus, Byzantine Emperor

1085 Toledo captured by Alfonso VI of Castile and Leon

1086 Battle of Zalaca

1086-1127 William X, Duke of Aquitaine, first known troubadour 1095 Pope Urban II proclaims the First Crusade

Foundation of Portugal 1099 Jerusalem stormed by the crusaders 1108-1137 Reign of Louis VI, the Fat, King of France Roman law taught by Irnerius at Bologna Questions about Nature of Adelard of Bath 1 1 22 Concordat of Worms 1126-1198 Averroes

1 1 37 Union of Aragon and Barcelona

1 143 Liibeck founded

1 1 44 Fall of Edessa

c. 1 1 50 Decretum of Gratian; Sentences of Peter Lombard

1 154 Henry II, King of England, founds the Plantagenet or Angevin dynasty with vast continental fiefs End of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Geography of Edrisi 1 163 Foundation-stone of the Cathedral of Notre- Dame in Paris laid by Pope Alexander III

1 1 70 Murder of Thomas Becket

1 171 Saladin overthrows the Fatimite dynasty in Egypt 1 176 Battle of Legnano

1 180-1223 Reign of Philip II, Augustus, King of France

1 183 Peace of Constance

1 187 Jerusalem captured by Saladin 1198-1216 Pope Innocent III

1204 Latin Empire of Constantinople established xvi CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

1208 Albigensian Crusade

1210 Study of Aristotle's works on natural philosophy forbidden at

the University of Paris 12 12 Battle of Navas de Tolosa

Children's Crusade 12 1 5 Fourth Lateran Council

Magna Carta

1220 Amiens Cathedral begun

1 22 1 Death of St. Dominic 1226 Death of St. Francis

1226-1270 JReign of St. Louis in France

1228 Teutonic Knights called in to conquer East Prussia c. 1235 The Romance of the Rose begun by William of Lorris 1241 Mongol invasion of Europe

Choir of Rheims Cathedral completed 1250 Death of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor 1252-1284 Reign of Alfonso the Wise of Castile 1256-1273 Interregnum in the Holy Roman Empire 1258 Bagdad sacked by the Mongols Provisions of Oxford

1260 Cathedral of Chartres consecrated

1261 Byzantine Empire restored 1265 Simon de Montfort's Parliament

c. 1266 Opus Maius of Roger Bacon 1268 Hohenstaufen line extinct

Charles of Anjou conquers Naples 1271-1295 Marco Polo in the Far East

1273 Rudolf of Hapsburg elected Holy Roman Emperor

1274 Death of Thomas Aquinas 1282 Sicilian Vespers

1284 Pisa defeated by Genoa

First ducat coined at Venice 1285-1314 Reign of Philip IV, the Fair, King of France 1 29 1 League of the Three Forest Cantons 1293 Noble families of Florence disqualified for office

1295 The Model Parliament of Edward I

1296 Clericis laicos

1297 Membership in the Grand Council of Venice becomes heredi-

tary

1302 First meeting of the Estates General Battle of Courtrai

Exile of Dante

1303 Humiliation of Pope Boniface VIII at Anagni Conciliator of Peter of Abano

1308 Papacy at Avignon

1314 Battle of Bannockburn

131 5 Battle of Morgarten 1 32 1 Death of Dante

1324 Defensor Pads of Marsiglio of Padua

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE xvii

1328 End of the direct Capetians

Battle of Cassel 1337 Opening of the Hundred Years War

Death of Giotto

1340 Battle of Siuys

1 341 Petrarch crowned poet laureate at Rome by King Robert of

Naples

1345 Jacob Artevelde murdered

1346 Battle of Cr6cy 1348 The Black Death

I350~i355 War between Genoa and Venice 1351 The Laurentian Portolano 1353 The Ottoman Turks enter Europe

1356 The Golden Bull Battle of Poit\ers

1357 Revolutionary movement in Paris

1358 The Jacquerie 1360 Treaty of Bretigny

1363 Origin of the House of Burgundy

1367 War of theHanseatic League against Denmark and Norway 1368-1370 Mongols are expelled from China

1369 Charles V, the Wise, King of France, renews the Hundred Years War with success

1372 Battle of La Rochelle

1376 The Good Parliament

1378 The Great Schism begins

Uprising of the Ciompi in Florence 1378-1381 War between Genoa and Venice

1381 The Peasants' Revolt in England

1382 Disenfranchisement of the Ciompi Battle of Roosebek

1384 Death of John Wyclif

1386 Union of Poland and Lithuania und^r the Jagellons

1 389 Battle of Kosovo

1396 Battle of Nicopolis

1397 Union of Kalmar

1399 Richard \l deposed; Lancastrian dynasty in England 1401-1429 Masaccio

1402 Battle of Angora

1405 Venice acquires Verona and Padua

1407 Louis of Orleans murdered by John, Duke of Burgundy

1409 Council of Pisa 1414-1417 Council of Constance

1415 Battle of Agincourt Ceuta captured by Portugal

1416 The St. George of Donatello

1419 Hussite Wars begin

1420 Treaty of Troyes

1429 Relief of Orleans by Joan of Arc xviii CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

1431-1449 Council of Basel

1435 Death of Duke of Bedford

Duke of Burgundy abandons the English alliance Cosimo de' Medici comes into power in Florence 1435^1442 Alfonso V of Aragon and Sicily wins the Kingdom of Naples in a struggle with Ren6 of Anjou

1437 House of Hapsburg becomes practically hereditary in the Holy

Roman Empire

1438 Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges 1438-1439 Council of Ferrara-Florence

1444 Battle of Varna c 1450 Invention of printing

1451 Francesco Sforza becomes despot of Milan

1452 Last coronation of a Holy Roman Emperor at Rome

1453 Fall of Constantinople

Close of the Hundred Years War 1455 Wars of the Roses begin 1460 Death of Prince Henry the Navigator 1465 League of the Public Welfare against Louis XI 1469 Marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile

1477 Death of Charles the Bold; marriage of Mary of Burgundy and

Maximilian

1478 Novgorod captured by Ivan III of Russia

About the same time Russia is freed from the Golden Horde 1485 Battle of Bosworth Field; Henry VII founds the Tudor dynasty i486 Diaz rounds the Cape of Good Hope 1492 Discovery of America

Conquest of Granada

Death of Lorenzo de' Medici 1494 Charles VIII invades Italy 1498 Vasco da Gama reaches India

Execution of Savonarola 1505 Michelangelo called to Rome 1508 League of Cambray against Venice

Raphael comes to Rome 1 513 r/fe Prj?ice of Machiavelli 1 51 5 Battle of Marignano 1 517 Luther posts his Ninety Five Theses 1519 Charles V elected Holy Roman Emperor

Death of Leonardo da Vinci

Contents

I. The Study of History . i

II. The Roman Empire . . . ... 19

III. The Barbarian World outside the Empire 40

Chapter I

History has to do with the past of humanity. Every phase of man's life and every human interest of the present has its background and previous development Definition which may be historically considered. We study °^ history the history of English literature, for example, or we may take courses in universities in the history of architecture, or in church history, or in the history of diplomacy, or in the history of education. These are specialized branches, devoted each to some one department of human affairs. History in the broad and general sense includes all these particular "histories" and many others. It aims to understand and to picture the entire life of the various races and groups of mankind at all times throughout the course of long ages.

We sometimes speak of the history of plants or other non-human beings: — of natural history. But a subject like geology, although it "deals with changes in the Natural earth's crust, and surveys a period of appalling history' length stretching back for hundreds of thousands ^"d geology of years before the advent of human life upon this planet, is not history in the usual sense, since it is not directly concerned with mankind. In so far, nevertheless, as the earth's surface, being man's home, affects his destiny by its changes, geology and its branch geography are sciences useful to the historian. Geology often renders a special service to historical chronology by enabling one to tell the approximate age of human remains and monuments found embedded in different strata of the soil.

It is evident that history has set itself a tremendous task in trying to understand and picture the entire past life of Vastness ^^^ "^^" ^* ^^^ times in all places. Probably the and difficulty attempt will never be completely successful.

IS ory ^j^^ great difficulty is that history is dependent for its knowledge of the men of the past upon those men themselves. Since they are dead and gone, we have to depend upon the writings, buildings, personal effects, works of art, and other monuments, memorials, and memories which they have left behind them. For many periods and regions such evidence is slight indeed. Another trouble is that former men were in many cases not interested in the same things that we are, and so do not tell us what we should like to know. They loved to dwell upon wars; we wish to hear of commerce and industry in times of peace. They chronicled the deeds of kings; we want to know the life of the people. They took it for granted that their audience would understand the state of civilization, since they lived in the midst of it. Instead of describing the personal appearance of the Roman general and statesman, Titus Flamininus, in his biography of that worthy, Plutarch 'referred his readers to a bronze statue of him at Rome opposite the Circus Maximus. But to-day the statue has 'disappeared, and the same is true of most of the manners ^and customs of the distant past, which were once too 'familiar for historians to think it worth while to mention <them to their readers.

The story of the past as it has reached us is, indeed, in many respects like the ruin of some ancient amphithea- History is ter or medieval monastery. Some sections are like a ruin better preserved than others, some parts are gone entirely, others have been faultily restored by later writers who failed to catch the spirit of the original. In -some places nothing is left but a shapeless core of vague statements or a few bare dates and facts. Elsewhere we get a vivid glimpse of the life of the past in its original coloring. Sometimes the story has improved with age, as ruins are sometimes beautified by becoming weather-beaten or overgrown with moss. So the haze of romance, or the glamour of hero-worship, or the mere spell of antiquity, add to the past a charm that is history's own.

But to-day we are better equipped for the study of history than ever before, and are in a position to understand the men of any given past period better in some Recent respects than they understood themselves. We progress in can compare them with men of other lands and times of whom they knew nothing, and can discover the origin of some of their customs or explain the true meaning of some of their institutions. The great advances made in the natural and exact sciences in modern times have enabled man to comprehend both nature and himself much more correctly than before.

For instance, it is but recently that it has been recognized how long man has inhabited this globe and how far back a considerable degree of civilization can ^gg ^f be traced. Until the eighteenth or nineteenth man on century the Biblical account of human history was generally accepted in Christian lands, and it was figured out accordingly that God created Adam, the first man, just about 4004 B.C. To-day skulls have been discovered which scientists assert belonged to human beings who lived from two to four hundred thousand years ago; and it is certain that flourishing civilizations already existed in the Nile and Euphrates Valleys at the time when Adam was once supposed to have first opened his- eyes upon a newly created world.

A distinction used to be made between prehistoric and historic men and periods. Historians were unable to make use of any except oral or written evidence. ..prehistoric" Where no such evidence was procurable, they ^^"j.fj,''^!;^ spoke of the period as prehistoric and beyond the bounds of history. To-day learned investigators eagerly search out the material objects which men have left behind and draw many inferences from them concerning the life and character of their former owners. Over one hundred sites have been found in northern Italy of villages where before the dawn of Roman history men lived on platforms built on piles in water, but with their streets and canals laid out in the same regular fashion as the later Roman military camps. The history of ancient Greece used to start about 750 B.C., and all before that was reckoned prehistoric, and no one knew whether to believe in the Trojan War of Homer or not. But not many years ago excavations were made in various spots in the ancient Greek world with the result that the city of Troy of which Homer sang was actually unearthed, while in the island of Crete ruins of palaces were disclosed telling plainly of luxury, art, and commerce four thousand years ago. Modern investigators also pick out the survivals and relics of earlier periods in the languages and customs of later times. For example, the resemblance between the word for "bride" and the verb meaning "to steal away" in Indo-Germanic languages is taken as evidence of marriage by capture in early times, and another indication pointing in the same direction is the formality of prearranged abduction and mock pursuit in early German law. In Roman religion the disabilities of the priest or flamen of Jupiter, who might not ride horseback, nor have knots in his clothing, nor touch beans and she-goats, nor trim his hair and nails with an iron instrument, point back to a primitive period of magic and taboo and to the Bronze Age before iron came into use.

The two sciences which especially investigate the so-called prehistoric period are archaeology and anthropology. Archeology Archaeologists devote themselves primarily to the and discovery and interpretation of works of art and

anthropology , .,,., .,

Other material objects, but in the course of their investigations they often come upon inscriptions and other written records previously unknown. For instance, gold coins of the Visigothic Kingdom in Spain in the early Middle Ages give us the names of several kings not mentioned elsewhere. Similarly, the anthropologists, who study man himself and are interested in observing, measuring, and classifying the various types of humanity, do not confine their attention to prehistoric skeletons, but in the numerous savage peoples still to-day existent in many parts of the world, find a splendid opportunity to observe not only varying physical types, but all sorts of primitive customs, religious rites, and mental attitudes. Among such tribes they can compare varying gradations of civilization and savagery, which in other parts of the globe disappeared very likely many thousands of years since, and they may detect there the germs of some of our present-day institutions, or note in our society silly survivals from those savage days. Thus anthropology and archaeology are both departments of history in the broad sense.