And in all the years of the story with which this volume deals, we see that there has been one force constantly working, through all the time and over all the scene except where the Moslem has prevailed--the force of the Church. It is a divided force, for Eastern Christendom looks to the Patriarch of the Greek Church as its head; but the more important and powerful West looks to the Pope at Rome. [Sidenote: The new dawn] We have brought the story through some of the darkest times that mankind has known. Art and culture have nearly been destroyed under the barbarian invasions and the years of fighting. Now the Renaissance, the new birth of learning and of art, is at hand. Already we have seen hints of it and hopes of it, like flowers coming out in early spring, only to be nipped by late frost. There was that wonderful music of the troubadours of the Langue d'oc in the thirteenth century, with the ruder and less accomplished art of the trouvères in Northern France, of the minnesingers in Germany, and of the English minstrels. But it is in Italy only that we can say that the Renaissance has arrived--in that land where the great painters have been at work, where Dante has sung his divine comedy, where Petrarch has written his sonnets, and where the despots of the cities have employed artists and architects to adorn the little States over which they tyrannised. Moreover, through nearly all Europe, and even in the gloom of the Dark Ages itself, there has been the most wonderful building of churches and cathedrals, of abbeys and ecclesiastical edifices, here and there of kings' palaces and of buildings for public use. Our England, too, has had her poets, of whom the chief is Chaucer rhyming his {234} "Canterbury Tales," his "Romaunt of the Rose," and other beautiful pieces. [Illustration: A SHIP OF THE TIME OF COLUMBUS. (From _The History of Everyday Things_ (Quennell), by permission of Messrs. B. T. Batsford, Ltd.)] But except in Italy, these early promises of art and of literature have not been followed up. They are only now, that we leave the story, on the very edge of larger fulfilment. The Dark Ages are dispelled. The dawn comes glimmering out of Italy, northwards. And the scene of the story is being expanded vastly. Columbus has touched America. Da Gama has circled the Cape of Good Hope. The world as known to Western men is about to spread itself to far more than double its former size. We have come to a new world-stage with new plays and new players. {235} INDEX Adrian, English Pope, 152 Adrianople, battles at, 28, 220 Africa, Count of, 34 _et seq._ Agincourt, battle at, 199 Albigenses, the, 161, 172 _et seq._ Alfred the Great, 118 _et seq._ Alphonso VII., 179 Amerigo, 227 Angevins, the, 150 Angli, 38 Anglo-Saxons, the, 39 _et passim_ Angora, 218 Aragon, 179 Architecture, in Dark Ages, 230 Armour, changes in, 187 Attila at Chalons, 36 Augusti, the two, 24 Augustine, St., 61