A brief history of the world, with especial reference to social and economic conditions

Front matter

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WORLD

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited

Preface

This volume aims to provide a course of study for schools which give but a year to European history or which desire a general survey as a basis for more detailed work. The increasing interest in social and economic history has led the authors to emphasize these features. In this book, accordingly, military history is reduced to a minimum ; the treatment of government and administration keeps in view their effect on the welfare of the people ; and the condition and customs of the various social classes are given great prominence. In these respects the book opens to secondary schools a field of historical study quite new to them.

The volume has purposely been made brief in order that pupils may have the more time for collateral reading. The "Topics for Reading," calling attention to representative books, should serve merely as examples. It will be an easy matter for the instructor to make up other topics from the available works. The "Review" is mainly to direct the pupil's attention to the more important facts given in the text. Ability to discriminate between the relevant and the irrelevant, to speak or write without digression on the subject in hand, should be one of the chief aims of education. The "Additional Studies" call for some degree of original thought in combining facts, drawing inferences, and expressingMpmiohs/, With discriminative power should be associated, as a most "valuable object of education, the ability to construct, to gather facts from various sources and combine them in a unity of thought. For the cultivation of these powers history affords an especially productive field.

Great labor and pains have been devoted to the collection of material for illustrations appropriate to the text. The authors gladly acknowledge their obligations to the volumes vi Preface

that have aided in this work, and especially to Traill's "Social England" and Parmen tier's "Album historique" for their citation of illustrated books and of collections.

Professor C. J. H. Hayes of Columbia University has read the part of the volume beginning with the nineteenth chapter, and various improvements are due to him. The authors thank him sincerely for his aid, while they wish to make it clear that he is in no way responsible for any statement of fact or opinion contained in the book. They wish, too, to acknowledge the courteous help of Miss Adele M. Erb and Miss Isadore G. Mudge of Columbia University Library in facilitating the use of books for the preparation of this volume.

THE AUTHORS.

Mount Vernon, New York, June ii, 1917.

Book I Ancient History

I. Beginnings -

II. The Orient

III. Early Greece

IV. Religion and Intelligence in Greece V. Athens in the Age of Pericles

VI. The Later Progress of Greek Civilization

VII. The Growth of the Roman Empire

VIII. The Growth of Roman Civilization

IX. The Principate and the Monarchy

X. The Decline of the Roman Empire

XL The Germans

XII. Christianity . . .

135 146

Book II The Middle Ages

XIII. The Frankish Kingdom and the Empire of Charlemagne 165

XIV. Feudalism 175

XV. The Papacy and the New States 182

XVI. Life in Country and Town 202

vii

Vlll

Contents

Book III The Modern 'world

CHAPTER PAGE

XVII. The Renaissance 234

XVIII. Economic Changes in the Period of the Hundred

Years' War 253

XIX. Discoveries and Explorations ; the Supremacy of

Spain 269

XX. The Protestant Revolt on the Continent . . . 286

XXI. Social Life in France 309

XXII. England under Henry VIII and Elizabeth . .327

XXIII. England in the Seventeenth Century . . . 339

XXIV. The Struggle for World Empire . . . .356 XXV. The Age of Despots 377

XXVI. The French Revolution and Napoleon . . . 392

XXVII. The Industrial Revolution 409-

XXVIII. Growth of Nationality 423

XXIX. Recent Imperialism 452

XXX. Social Reform and General Progress . . .481

Useful Books Index

MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

FULL-PAGE AND DOUBLE-PAGE MAPS

before

Greece in the Age of Pericles

The Roman Empire at its Greatest Extent

Europe in the Middle Ages

Western Europe about 1400

Religions of Central Europe about 1555- •

Europe after the Peace of Westphalia, 1648

Central and Western Europe about 1900 .

Expansion of the United States

Colonial Possessions of the European Powers, 1914

307 427 441 453

MAPS IN THE TEXT

The World according to Hecataeus . . . . . . -52

The Three-field System . 207

Italy in the Renaissance 235

Spanish Empire under Charles V . . . ... .282

Napoleonic Empire, 1810 4°4

Southeastern Europe about 1914 433

Cave Dwellers 4

Primitive Fire-Kindling 4

Primitive Hut 5

Egyptian Market-Scenes J 3

Egyptian Brickmakers 15

ix

Temple of Ammon at Thebes

Mummy of Rameses II

Egyptian Writing

Babylonian Writing .

The Temple of Jehovah

A Phoenician Ship of War and Trade

Ancestors of Some of the Letters of our Alphabet

Minoan Women

A Minoan Dagger

Bezel of a Gold Ring

Warriors .

Mycenaean Wall

An Athletic Girl of Sparta

Heavy- armed Warrior

Apollo with a Cithara

Prophetess of Apollo .

Wrestlers .

Athenian Peasants Going to Market

A Doric Woman

A School .

The Acropolis

Sophocles .

Pericles

An Athenian Trireme

A Metope of the Parthenon

Pediment .

Athena Parthenos

The Parthenon .

Country Dwelling of a Wealthy Greek

Socrates .

The Hermes of Praxiteles

The Satyr of Praxiteles

Alexander .

A Greek Pipe Organ .

A Greek Steam Boiler

Apollo Belvedere

Roman Soldiers Marching

XI

A Catapult ,

A Fisherman ....

Cicero . .

Julius Caesar ....

A Youth Reading

Temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva

The Basilica Julia

Octavianus ....

The Genius of Augustus .

A Street in Pompeii .

The Claudian Aqueduct .

The Peristyle ....

A Roman Bath ....

A Grain Mill ....

A Gold Coin of the Empire

A Country House, Villa, of the Late Empire

A German Village

German Women

German Soldier

The Good Shepherd .

Old Basilica of St. Peter .

St. Jerome Chastising the Lion

A Benedictine Abbot

A Frankish Chief

A Saracen Army on the March

A Frankish Villa

Priest .....

Norman (Northman) Ship

A Donjon

Charlemagne as a Feudal Lord

A Knight

The Pope as a Feudal Lord

Emperor .....

A Byzantine House .

The Mosque of Omar

A Mohammedan School at Cairo

Crusaders Marching .

Xll

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Mediaeval Coiners

Mediaeval Cooks

A Castle .

A Noble .

Strolling Musicians

A Manor House

A Dominican Friar

Cloisters .

Christ Church College, Oxford

City Hall at Ypres, Belgium

Cologne Cathedral

Milan Cathedral

A Mediaeval Armorer

A Country Fair

Old English Bridge .

A Genoese Merchant

Kublai Khan

Venice in the Fifteenth Century

Doge (Duke) of Venice

Venetian Coin .

A Florentine Woman

A Florentine Magistrate .

The Cathedral of Florence

The Old Palace, Florence .

A Sculptor's Studio .

The Sistine Madonna

Raphael ....

Christ .

David . . .

Tower of Pisa .

Gutenberg's Printing Press

A Squire and a Crossbowman

Cannons in Action

Joan of Arc

The Estates General .

Pillage of a Captured City

Illustrations xiii

PAGE

Manor House and Field Labor . . . . . . . 261

A Flemish Warping Machine 262

Calicut 271

Portuguese Governor of India 272

Court of the Lions . . 274

Magellan's Ship 277

Spaniards Battling with Aztecs 278

San Jose Mission . '280

Negro Miners " 281

Nuremberg 288

German Peasants on the Estate of a Count .... 289

German Peasants in Holiday Attire 291

University of Erfurt 292

A Papal Bull 293

A Printing Office 294

A Dilapidated Home . 310

A Swineherd and his Flock 313

A Schoolroom 315

A Poor Man and Boy 316

A Bourgeois Marriage Contract 317

Parisian Types , 318

A Street in Paris 319

A Potter at Work . . . 320

A French Tavern 321

Governess and Pupil . . . . . . . -323

A Patient and Two Physicians . . . - . . . .324

Silk Winding . . . . 330

A Peasant's House 331

Rich Man and Poor Man 332

Elizabethan Coin 333

The Battle with the Armada 335

Raleigh's House at Youghal . . ... . . 336

A Nonconformist Minister 340

A Rural Scene 345

A Coffee-House . . . 347

Newswoman . 348 xiv Illustrations

PAGE

A Lady of the Court ........ 350

A Woman of the Middle Class 350

A Stage . 35!

John Milton 352

The Returning Christian . . . . . . .353

A Schoolroom . ^$4.

Hyder Ali Khan ,6o

Poultry Seller ^ T

Chimney Sweeps 362

A Colonial Mansion 363

The Founding of a Colony ^65

A Nosegay Macaroni ........ 368

The Bird of Paradise 360

A Minute Man 374

Versailles 3 yo

Russian Peasants . 387

Queen Marie Antoinette . . . . . . . .399

The Taking of the Bastille ...:... 4.00

A Guillotine , 02

By the Fireside ■ , 409

Arkwright's Spinning Jenny . 4IO

Cartwright's Power Loom 4II

A Digester , _ 4I2

Newcomen's Engine 4I ,

A Watt Engine 4I4

An Old Method of Transportation 4 i6

Telford's Bridge . . . 4I y

The Rocket 4I ^

Bridgewater Canal 4I 8

The Clermont ■ . . . _ 4I n

The Aquitania ■ _ 4I n

A Peon Ploughing ■ . . . . 43 6

A Continental 43 n

The Constitution . . .442

The Cotton Gin 440

Cowboy and Steer 447

Japanese Artists 470

XV

An Old Examination Hall Panama Canal .....

A Mine Worker ....

Concourse in the Pennsylvania Station A Motor Lifeboat ....

The First Airplane . . . r .

A Steam Plough ....

The Mixing Room in Ward's Bakery An Observation Car ....

PAGE

472 476 481 492

493 494 495 496 497

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WORLD

Chapter I

BEGINNINGS I. Introduction

i. The Use of History. — We read and study history in order to know how the world came to be what it is to-day. What took place yesterday and the days before that, is history for the people now living. We cannot live without a knowledge of the past. Our ability to supply ourselves with the necessities of life is dependent upon our experience, and our experience is history. If by some great misfortune we were to be deprived of all knowledge of the past, we should be like a ship at sea without a rudder or a compass. For what we do to-day and are going to do to-morrow is based on what our ancestors have done before us. If, for example, our knowledge of the steam-engine and its uses were taken away from us, we should feel almost helpless. Yet such knowledge is a part of history.

2. The Complexity of Modern Life. — The complexity of the modern world astonishes us when once we begin to enumerate the various elements of our civilization: for example,

B I

2 Beginnings

the paving of roads, the repair and cleaning of them, the protection of the community by the police and courts, the army of government officials occupied in caring for the health and general welfare of the people. Life in the country, as contrasted with that of the city, has merely the appearance of being more simple. Even there we must take into account various forms of landholding, the breeding of stock, the raising of grain, and the growing of fruit. The whole agricultural industry is now carried on by machinery, some of which is intricate in design. How any of these things came to be what they are is a query which finds an answer nowhere but in the study of history.

Still more wonderful are the means of transportation and communication between peoples located in all quarters of the globe. The growth of large cities, the methods of building, the processes of manufacture, the spread of news by frequent editions of newspapers from rotary printing presses, the existence of handsome churches, the presence of schools, the differences in social standing and in wealth, as well as in political rights, — and even those things which we take for granted because they seem so necessary, such as family, property, society, and state, — are all subjects for which the citizen of to-day, in order to be intelligent, must seek an explanation in the history of the past.

3. The Past Explains the Present. — Some of us actually know by having lived through many years that present conditions did not always exist. There are persons living who remember the time when, before the laying of the Atlantic cable, communication across the ocean was possible in no other way than by ship. As we begin thus to go back gradually for the explanation of first one thing and then another, we find ourselves drawn farther and farther into the past. Many features of modern life, especially the improvements due to scientific invention and the political and commercial relations of countries to one another, can be made sufficiently clear by a study of the past two or three centuries. For such topics as the simpler sciences, the more common useful arts, the fine arts, religion, society, government, — in brief, for the great essentials of civil-

The Study of Civilization 3

ized life, — we must pass immeasurably farther back. Our search for beginnings leads us finally to the remote age when men were savage. How through the labor of thousands of years they have created the life of to-day will be told in this book.

II. The Beginnings oe Civilized Liee

4. Why Nations Differ in Civilization. — The word civilization, used above, has reference to the progress of mankind beyond the condition of savages. Those nations are most civilized which have the best homes, society, laws, and government, the most advanced science and art, the purest religion, the soundest morals, and the brightest minds. Improvements along these lines are made by nations as well as by persons in no other way than through well-directed effort. In looking over the present world we find the people of different countries varying greatly in their manner of living. This variety is owing to the fact that some nations improve faster than others, and that the progressive nations do not all develop in the same direction. Naturally we think of America, England, Belgium, France, and some other European countries as the most advanced in the modern world, and for examples of savages we look to central Australia or central Africa.

5. How We Learn of the Remote Past. — If we wish to know what progress mankind has achieved from the beginning, and how the various peoples of history have aided this development, we must first try to discover the earliest condition of the human race. One help in our search is the study of the barbarous and savage peoples of the present and near past. Their manner of life, as scholars believe, closely resembles that of early mankind. Another is the excavation of places which have been occupied by villages or cities through thousands of years. So little attention was paid to street-cleaning in most ancient settlements that in the course of a few generations, or at most few centuries, a village or city literally buried itself in refuse.; and whenever a fire happened to destroy all or nearly all the houses, the survivors built their new dwellings on the

Beginnings

Cave Dwellers

Old stone age. Reconstructed from scientific data. From Smithsonian report. The man, wearing a beast's hide about the waist, has evidently come in from a hunt. The women are at work. The one in full view wears a skirt made of an animal's hide.

debris. In this way the people of each successive age left some of the works of their hands buried beneath the dwellings of

those who followed them.

In recent years many scholars have busied themselves with excavating the sites of ancient cities in Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, and other countries. The deeper explorers dig, the more crude they find the products of human labor.

The lowest settlements were occupied by people whose life was scarcely more advanced than that of the Indians along the Atlantic coast in the colonial period. From an examination of the homes, tombs, and other works of these earliest-known ancients, and a comparison with the non-progressive races of the present, we may come to a fairly definite knowledge of the infancy of mankind.

6. Earliest Condition of Mankind. — Doubtless there was a time when men lived no better than animals. They had no family life, no society or government, no homes, clothing, or tools. Not knowing how to make a fire, they lived on wild fruit, nuts, and raw meat. The trees and caves were their only shelter. In the history of the world there has been no greater discovery than how to kindle and to use a fire. In time men learned to make rude stone weapons and tools, to build huts, to raise. a few vegetables and a little grain, and to domesticate animals. Grad-

PEiMiTrvE Fire-kindling

By friction ; methods still in use among barbarous tribes.

First Steps in Civilization 5

ually, too, they developed the family and home life, and they gathered in villages, which they surrounded with walls as a protection from wild beasts and human enemies.

7. Beginnings of Government and Society. — In the earliest times of which we have knowledge human beings- tended to cling together in groups ; and like cattle or sheep they instinctively followed that one among them who displayed the qualities of leadership (§11). They made him their chief or king, and in that way government was established. Meantime the relations between one person and another came to be regulated by customs which gradually grew up. Such customs are the habits of a community formed unconsciously like the habits of a person. The chief or king saw that they were obeyed, and sometimes introduced new rules, which were called laws. Countless centuries must have passed in this development from the creation of man to the village life, whose crude stone tools, handmade Pr)V|I Tiv ( . m . t pottery, and rough walls have been un- „ T .,, .

, . , . . ,. With one room and

earthed by explorers in various parts of the . door, here represented world. This period before any of the metals b y an urn for the ashes

1 , . . ,, , . , of the dead. Early iron

had come into use is called the stone age. age of Etruria and La _

8. Two Pioneers of Civilization. — When tium. Olcott Collection, we inquire why the inhabitants of certain Columbia University. parts of the earth still remain in a crude condition of life, whereas others have made varying degrees of progress, we shall find a great part of the answer in the surroundings of each people. The more favorable is the environment, the greater the opportunity for progress. No other place in the world has been so well situated in this respect as the valleys of the three great rivers, the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates, in the region which lies about the eastern end of the Mediterranean. On the reference map of the Orient we see the Nile flowing northward into the Mediterranean, and the Tigris and Euphrates flowing in a south-easterly direction, in a single valley, and joining in one stream before

6 Beginnings

emptying into the Persian Gulf. These valleys are alike in important respects. The climate is mild. The soil is always well-watered, for every year the rivers overflow the plain on both sides. When the flood returns to its channel, it leaves the land fertilized with a rich coat of fresh, moist earth, so that it is wonderfully productive.

These conditions are favorable to improvement. The people in these countries never had to struggle hard for mere existence, as do those of cold or barren regions. In their warm climate little effort was required to obtain clothing and to build suitable houses. The ease with which they could raise grain and vegetables tempted them to farming. The rivers formed a ready means of trade between one town and another, while in the case of Egypt the surrounding deserts and mountains helped protect the inhabitants from enemies. As the population increased through the natural growth of families and the immigration of strangers, who came from all quarters to enjoy the good country, it became necessary to produce more food and clothing and to build more houses and of larger size. At the same time the people in social intercourse and trade developed a taste for better and more beautiful things — in other words, they continually acquired a higher standard of living. The valley of the Nile is Egypt ; that of the lower Euphrates and Tigris is Babylonia.

9. A Third Pioneer. — To these valleys we must add a third region whose population deserves equal credit as a pioneer of civilization. On the European side of the Mediterranean, northwest of Egypt, is the ^Egean sea, which separates the peninsula of Greece from Asia Minor. The sea is sprinkled with islands and both coasts are well provided with harbors. This region of coasts and islands is far less fertile than Egypt ; but the little plains at the mouths of rivers, formed of mud brought down by the water, are remarkably productive. The climate is as pleasant as any in the world, and far more stimulating than that of Egypt. From earliest times, too, the harbors and islands tempted the people to trade by sea. The inhabitants of the ^Egeari region during a long period of their

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Three Pioneers of Civilization 7

early history (about 3000-1200 B.C.) we call Mi-no'ans, after Mi'nos, a mythical king of that age. The Minoans must be counted along with the Egyptians and the Babylonians as one of the three earliest peoples to emerge from barbarism.

Several times in the paragraphs above we have used the word " barbarism." In general the term means a want of civilization; as distinguished from " savagery," however, it signifies a condition somewhat more advanced than that of savages. When a people have acquired a knowledge of metals and have adopted a system of writing, they can no longer be called barbarians.

10. Which Was the Earliest of the Three Pioneers? — Although scholars still differ as to whether Egypt or Babylonia preceded in civilization, the weight of evidence inclines in favor of the Nile valley. In the fourth millennium (4000- 3000) B.C. the Egyptians had made noteworthy progress in various directions. They now had families, society, government, and a moral religion (§ 22). They irrigated their fields by means of canals. They built towns and cities. They had invented writing. From that time written material, containing the names of kings and some knowledge of the people, has come down to us. Their astronomers discovered that the year consists of three hundred and sixty-five days, which they divided into twelve months. As early at least as 3500 b. c. they were employing copper in the useful arts.

Scholars who thus consider Egypt to have been the earliest in the field of civilization place Babylonia and the ^Egean region a few centuries in the rear. The Minoans adopted the use of copper about 3000 B.C., and not long afterward they invented a system of writing. Life in each of the three regions was of native growth. There is no certain evidence of commerce between the two great valleys. Even from the stone age there was some interchange of wares between the ^Egean area and Egypt; but the native elements of Minoan life far outweigh all foreign influence.

Beginnings

Clodd, Story of Primitive Man, and especially Childhood of the World, though intended for children, will be found exceedingly interesting and instructive also to older people. These two books may easily be read entire. See further Keith, Ancient Types of Man, which classifies prehistoric men according to existing remains of their skeletons.

I. Antiquity of Man. — Clodd, Story of Primitive Man, ch. ii ; Keene, Ethnology, ch. iv; Haddon, History of Anthropology, ch. iv; Tylor, Anthropology, ch. i.

II. The Races. — Clodd, Childhood of the World, ch. iv ; Keene, Ethnology, chs. viii, ix; The World's Peoples, especially ch. i; Tylor, ch. iii.

III. The Stone Ages. — Clodd, Story of Primitive Man, chs. iii, iv; Childhood of the World, chs. vi, viii ; Duckworth, Prehistoric Man (chiefly on the primitive stone age and its antecedents) ; Keene, Ethnology, v, vi; Haddon, History of Anthropology, ch.- viii.

IV. The Mental Growth of Man. — Clodd, Childhood of the World, pt. II (Man the Thinker) ; Keene, Ethnology, ch. iii ; Fiske, The Destiny of Man, chs. viii-xvi ; Boaz, The Mind of Primitive Man, entire work, especially ch. iv.

i. What is the value of history to us? What should we do if we lost all knowledge of the past? What is history? 2. Enumerate the features of life in city and country which make our civilization complex. Where shall we go for an explanation of these things? 3. Setting out from the present, what course do we take to reach the beginnings of history ? 4. What differences do we discover in present life among the peoples of the earth? To what are these differences due? 5. In what ways do we learn of the remote past? Why do we not study them from written records? 6. Describe the earliest condition of mankind. 7. What are customs and laws ? What is the origin of government? Define the stone age. 8. What parts of the earth were the first to become civilized, and why? What conditions aid the growth of civilization? 9. Where is the ^Egean sea? What advantages did the people of the ^gean area derive from their surroundings ? Define civilization.

1. Which is the more useful, a narrative of wars or a history of the progress of mankind? 2. Why have not all peoples progressed equally and in the same direction (§ 4) ? 3- In what ways does our knowledge of ancient history continually increase? 4. How do the discoveries and inventions mentioned in § 6 compare in value with the progress of the past hundred years? Give reasons for your opinion. 5. Who becomes the leader or chief of a primitive community? In any association of people of your neighborhood, in or out of school, what sort of person generally takes the lead? Compare these two kinds of leadership in origin and character. 6. Describe from the map the location of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Minoans respectively. 7. Why were these three peoples in advance of all others? 8. Write an essay on one of the Reading Topics given above, making use of at least two books. Do not copy sentences or even phrases from the books, but ascertain the facts and present them in your own language. Attend carefully to spelling, punctuation, and the simple rules of rhetoric.