CHAPTER XI
MENTAL ASPECTS OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY: ITALY
| I. | From Charlemagne to Hildebrand. |
| II. | The Human Situation. |
| III. | The Italian Continuity of Antique Culture. |
| IV. | Italy's Intellectual Piety: Peter Damiani and St. Anselm. |
I
The Empire of Charlemagne could not last. Two obvious causes, among others, were enough to prevent it. No single government (save when temporarily energized by some extraordinary ruler) could control such enormous and widely separated regions, which included much of the present Germany and Austria, the greater part of Italy, France, and the Low Countries. Large portions of this Empire were almost trackless, and nowhere were there good roads and means of transportation. Then, as the second cause, within these diverse and ununited lands dwelt or moved many peoples differing from each other in blood and language, in conditions of life and degrees of civilization or barbarism. No power existed that could either hold them in subjection or make them into proper constituents of an Empire.[1]
There were other, more particular, causes of dissolution: the Frankish custom of partitioning the realm brought war
- ↑ In both these respects a contrary condition had made possible the endurance of the Roman Empire. Its territories in the main were civilized, and were traversed by the best of roads, while many of them lay about that ancient common highway of peoples, the Mediterranean. Then the whole Empire was leavened, and one part made capable of understanding another, by the Graeco-Roman culture.
