It was the time of the
Crusades, of the founding and development of schools and
universities, of the invention or recovery of great arts, of the
growth of music, poetry and romance. It was the age of great kings
and knights and leaders of all kinds, but above all it was the
epoch of a new philosophy, refounded on the newly revealed corner
stones of Plato and Aristotle, but with a new content, a new
impulse and a new method inspired by Christianity.
All these things, philosophy, art, personality, character, were the
product of the time, which, in its definiteness and consistency,
stands apart from all other epochs in history. The social system
was that of feudalism, a scheme of reciprocal duties, privileges
and obligations as between man and man that has never been excelled
by any other system that society has developed as its own method of
operation. As Dr. De Wulf has said in his illuminating book
"Philosophy and Civilization in the Middle Ages" (a volume that
should be read by any one who wishes rightly to understand the
spirit and quality of Mediaevalism), "the feudal sentiment _par
excellence_ ... is the sentiment of the value and dignity of the
individual man.
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