The Catholic University Bulletin (Volume 8) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1902 Excerpt: ... department of thought and speech and action. Citeaux, Chartreux, Clugny testify to its lead in religious reform, the University of Paris to its intellectual supremacy, the Mohammedan fear of the "Frank" to its leadership in the Crusades, the rivalry of the Langue d'Oil with the Latin as a universal tongue to the widespread influence of its thought and manners; and so on in other departments France stands unique as that country which more than any other represents the Middle Ages. But French chivalry itself varied from age to age. Here again therefore the necessity of another choice, but also not a difficult one. Following the opinion of no less a critic than M. Jules Quicherat we say "Le plus grand siecle du Moyen Age, c'est le douzieme," at least so far as France is concerned. It was the age of the crusades, of the university, the solidification of national unity, the rise of French prose and of the French epic; in a word the age of Bernard, Philip Augustus, Abelard. Now three classes of literature distinguish the twelfth century in France--the beginnings of French prose under the form first of romances and translations, then of sermons and chronicles, the immediate predecessors of Geoffrey de Villehardouin, himself the inspirer of Joinville and Froissart; then the rapid development of the French "Epopee "in the chansons de geste, begun however in the preceding century; lastly the almost sudden rise of those prose and poetic "Romans" of the Round Table which so completely displaced the chansons de geste in popular favor. Now which of these contains the most faithful portrait of chivalry at its best? Certainly not the historians, to begin with. Froissart depicts it in its degeneracy; both Joinville and Villehardouin, faithful and brilliant as they are, do n...