MR. BELLOC ON THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

New Zealand Tablet, 24 July 1919, Page 9

MR. BELLOC ON THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

At a monthly meeting of St. Thomas’ Historical Society at Dr. Johnson’s house in Gough Square, London, kindly lent by Mr. Cecil Harmsworth, M.P., Rev. Aloysius Roche was in the chair, and the president, Mr. Hilaire Belloc, gave a lecture on the conditions of life in England in “the thirteenth, greatest of centuries,” as contrasted with the tendencies of the present day (says the Universe of recent date). He said that in dealing with the Middle Ages one was handicapped by the fact that so much that should be in the mind was not there owing to prejudice and misrepresentation. In history, as in Nature, people see not what is really there, but what they are trained to see; and just as grass is not always green, so the Middle Ages are by no means the dark and backward times they are usually represented to be. It is a shock to many to be told that a . passion for liberty is the characteristic feature of the thirteenth century, and that the decline of that passion is a leading feature of the present day. It is, however, a fact that liberty reached its maximum in Europe in the thirteenth century. Aristotle defined liberty as obedience to a selfmade law. It is essential to obey some law, otherwise we get anarchy and the death of the mind, but it must be imposed upon us by an authority which we accept willingly. It cannot be a law made by “ourselves alone” which would clash with the liberty of others it is limited by the rights of others and also by the dichotomy between the immediate and the ultimate. Happiness is the true end of life, but it must be ultimate and not immediate happiness. It is an instinct of the human intelligence to inquire “By what authority?” whenever any restriction is imposed upon us, but when you recognise the authority you have all the liberty there is ; if you try to go beyond this you lose it instead of gaining it. So we may say that liberty includes (1) power of self-expression, (2) restriction by legitimate authority only. And in both these the Middle Ages were particularly strong. A man of to-day who found himself in a thirteenth-century village would in the first place notice many remarkable contrasts in the material order with the life to which he was accustomed. But he would soon adapt himself to these, just as one does in travelling abroad. The meals would be at different times, such things as tea and mustard would be absent, but there would be plenty of beer and claret. Locomotion would be slow-, and news would only arrive at intervals by word of mouth or by very rare letters. The only hard roads would be the main highways; in the village itself there would be only green lanes, which would often be in very bad condition. In the moral order the contrast would be much more striking and much more important. He would observe that every man had definite duties and a definite position. Everywhere he would find a hierarchy and order. Anyone whose position and work was not obvious would be looked upon as suspicious. Then he would find a similarity of habits running through all classes. Everybody dined at (he same hour—-you could not distinguish a gentleman by his accent, habits, or gestures. Differences in dress would be due to office or occupation rather than wealth. The motive force of humanity would be self-expression. For instance, the houses were not all alike; each of them was built to suit the man who was to live in ijt: he sent his child to school or not as- he chose, and even a poor man could choose what sort of education his child should have. Hence there would be a great simplicity in all departments of life. There was no compulsion anywhere except what arose from moral authority. If you said or did anything unpopular, anything heretical, for instance, you would probably suffer, for you would not be protected by any police force. On the other hand, if a man who lived in the thirteenth century were suddenly to find himself in one of our great cities he would at first find himself a little overwhelmed with, the material differences trains, telephones,. newspapers, etc. But he would soon adapt himself to these, In the moral order he would be much

more overwhelmed. He would discover no hierarchy, but rather an authority which was fluid and responsible to nothing, an undefined power with hidden springs commonly spoken of as “they.” The modern industrial world is marked by this—men find themselves constrained to obey laws in the making of which they have no part. Rules are imposed, not expressed, and they are enforced by a large standing army of police which is absolutely modern and which would have appalled the thirteenth century. The causes of this contrast are moral, and not material, as is usually stated. It is not the size and complexity of modern society that make servile conditions necessary. Belfast is not Cork, and the difference between them does not depend on material but on moral causes men of Cork are not the men of Belfast. The modern world is industrial, Protestant, materialist. Hygiene is coming to be looked upon as the supreme good. And “they” are going to try to impose laws upon us dealing with food, drink, the management of children, and every conceivable circumstance of life because they are supposed to be good for our health. In the thirteenth century the Faith was considered to be the supreme good, but it was not imposed upon anyone by law ; for instance, you were not compelled to go to Mass. You could be very unpopular if you spoke or acted against it, but there was no compulsion. , No authority could interfere between parent and child, as is constantly the case in these days. There were three principles which governed the idea of liberty in the Middle Ages; (J.) Things common to the conscience of mankind were considered to have a superiority over the figment of organisation. Magna Charta expressed this in the clause that every freeman has a right to be tried by his neighbors or by the ordeal customary in his locality-which meant that liberty was to be restrained only by the common conscience. (2) The authority of the family was placed before that of the State, and the Catholic Church has definitely decided in favor of this. (3) An error of authority might be reversed, which is far from being the case in these days. The principle involved in this is that which lies at the. root of penance and humility, a Catholic principle which is now commonly spoken of as reaction and condemned accordingly.