The Dominicans or Black Friars

The thirteenth century saw the romantic rise, the marvellous growth, and then the inevitable decay of the Friars, the two orders whose careers form one of the most fascinating and impressive stories in modern history. The Franciscans, or Grey Friars, founded in 1212, the Dominicans, or Black Friars, founded in 1216, by the middle of the century had infused new life throughout the Catholic world. By the end of the century their power was spent, and they had begun to be absorbed in the general life of the Church. It was one of the great rallies of the Papal Church, perhaps of all the rallies the most important, certainly the most brilliant, most pathetic, most fascinating, the most rich in poetry, in art, in devotion. For the mediaeval Church of Rome, like the Empire of the Caesars at Rome, like the Eastern Empire of Constantinople, like the Empire of the Khalifs, which succeeded that, seems to subsist for centuries after its epoch of zenith by a long series of rallies, revivals, and new births out of almost hopeless disorganisation and decay sofia city tour.

But the thirteenth century is not less memorable for its political than for its spiritual history. And in this field the history is that of new organisations, not the dissolution of the old. The thirteenth century gave Europe the nations as we now know them. France, England, Spain, large parts of North and South Germany, became nations, where they were previously counties, duchies, and fiefs. Compare the’ map of Europe at the end of the twelfth century, when Philip Augustus was struggling with Richard 1., when the King of England was a more powerful ruler in France than the so-called King of France in Paris, when Spain was held by various groups of petty kinglets facing the solid power of the Moors, compare this with the map of Europe at the end of the thirteenth century, with Spain constituted a kingdom under Ferdinand in. and Alfonso x., France under Philip the Fair, and England under Edward I.

At the very opening of the thirteenth century John did England the inestimable service of losing her French possessions. At the close of the century the greatest of the Plantagenets finally annexed Wales to England and began the incorporation of Scotland and Ireland. Of the creators of England as a sovereign power in the world, from Alfred to Chatham, between the names of the Conqueror and Cromwell, assuredly that of Edward I. is the most important. As to France, the petty counties which Philip Augustus inherited in 1180 had become, in the days of Philip the Pair (1286-1314), the most powerful nation in Europe. As a great European force, the French nation dates from the age of Philip Augustus, Blanche of Castile, her son Louis ix. (the Saint), and the two Philips (ill. and iv.), the son and grandson of St. Louis. The monarchy of France was indeed created in the thirteenth century. All that went before was preparation: all that came afterwards was development. Almost as much may be said for England and for Spain.

Hundred years of European history

It was an age of great rulers. Indeed, we may doubt if any hundred years of European history has been so crowded with great statesmen and kings. In England, Stephen Langton and the authors of our Great Charter in 1215; William, Earl Mareschal, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and above all Edward 1:, great as soldier, as ruler, as legislator — as great when he yielded as when he compelled. In France, Philip Augustus, a king curiously like our Edward 1. in his virtues as in his faults, though earlier by three generations; Blanche, his son’s wife, Regent of France; St. Louis, her son; and St. Louis’ grandson, the terrible, fierce, subtle, and adroit Philip the Fair.

Then on the throne of the Empire, from 1220 to 1250, Frederick II., ‘the world’s wonder,’ one of the most brilliant characters of the Middle Ages, whose life is a long romance, whose many-sided endowments seemed to promise everything but real greatness and abiding results. Next, after a generation, his successor, less brilliant but far more truly great, Rudolph of Hapsburg, emperor from 1273 to 1291, the founder of the Austrian dynasty, the ancestor of its sovereigns, the parallel, I had almost said the equal, of our own Edward 1. In Spain, Ferdinand 111. and his son, Alfonso x., whose reigns united gave Spain peace and prosperity for fifty-four years (1230-1284).