Emperor Andronicus II 1282-1328 Emperor John V 1341-91 Sultan Orkhan 1325-59 Sultan Mohammed II 1451-81 Stephen Dushan 1331-55 Marco Polo 1254-1324 Henry ‘the Navigator’ 1394-1460 Cape of Good Hope rounded 1486 XXIII THE RENAISSANCE All history is the record of change, either in the direction of social progress or decay; but so gradual is this movement that, like the transition from night to dawn or noon to evening, it is beyond our vision to state the moment when tendencies began or ceased. It is only possible to note the definite changes in their achievement, and then to disentangle the threads by turning back along the twisted chain into which they have been woven. Sometimes in history there have been so many changes within a short time that the effect has been cumulative and an epoch has been created, as at the break-up of the Roman Empire, when civilization was merged in the ‘Dark Ages’. Again, it is true of Europe at the end of the fifteenth century and during the greater part of the sixteenth, a period usually called ‘the Renaissance’, or time of ‘New Birth’, because then it became apparent that the old mediaeval outlook and ways of life had vanished, while others much more familiar and easy to understand had taken their place: the Modern World had been called into being. The most obvious change to be found at the Renaissance was the collapse of the mediaeval ideal of a world-empire ruled in the name of God by Pope and Emperor. The Western Empire still remained pretentious in its claims; but its wiser rulers, such as Rudolph I and Charles IV, had already realized that success lay rather in German kingship than in imperial influence. The Popes had been restored to Rome, but the threat of councils that could depose and reform hung like a cloud over their insistence on the absolute obedience of Christendom; and, recognizing the inevitable, the Vatican had sunk the ambitions of an Innocent III in those of a temporal Italian Prince. Searching along the chain of causes, it becomes clear enough that the trend of history during the later Middle Ages had been this development of the smaller unity of the nation out of the bigger unity of the world-state. By the end of the fifteenth century England, France, and Spain were already nations; while even Germany and Italy, feeling the call in a lesser degree, had substituted for a wider sense of nationality devotion to a province or city state.