BY WILL DURANT
The Story of Philosophy
Transition
The Pleasure of Philosophy
Adventures in Genius
BY WILL AND ARIEL DURANT
THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION
1. Our Oriental Heritage
2. The Life of Greece
3. Caesar and Christ
4. The Age of Faith
5. The Renaissance
6. The Reformation
7. The Age of Reason Begins
8. The Age of Louis XIV
9. The Age of Voltaire
10. Rousseau and Revolution
11. The Age of Napoleon
The Lessons of History
Interpretation of Life
A Dual Autobiography
COPYRIGHT 1950 BY WILL DURANT
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION
IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN ANY FORM
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MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO ETHEL, GORDON, AND JIM
To the Reader
THIS book aims to give as full and fair an account of medieval civilization from A.D. 325 to 1300, as space and prejudice will permit. Its method is integral history—the presentation of all phases of a culture or an age in one total picture and narrative. The obligation to cover the economic, political, legal, military, moral, social, religious, educational, scientific, medical, philosophic, literary, and artistic aspects of four distinct civilizations—Byzantine, Islamic, Judaic, and West European—has made unification and brevity difficult. The meeting and conflict of the four cultures in the Crusades provides a measure of unity; and the tired reader, appalled by the length of the book, may find some consolation in learning that the original manuscript was half again longer than the present text.* Nothing has been retained except what seemed necessary to the proper understanding of the period, or to the life and color of the tale. Nevertheless certain recondite passages, indicated by reduced type, may be omitted by the general reader without mortal injury.
These two volumes constitute Part IV of a history of civilization. Part I, Our Oriental Heritage (1935), reviewed the history of Egypt and the Near East to their conquest by Alexander about 330 B.C., and of India, China, and Japan to the present century. Part II, The Life of Greece (1939), recorded the career and culture of Hellas and the Near East to the Roman Conquest of Greece in 146 B.C. Part III, Caesar and Christ (1944), surveyed the history of Rome and Christianity from their beginnings, and of the Near East from 146 B.C., to the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. This book continues the study of the white man’s life to the death of Dante in 1321. Part V, The Renaissance and the Reformation, covering the period from 1321 to 1648, should appear in 1955; and Part VI, The Age of Reason, carrying the story to our own time, should be ready by 1960. This will bring the author so close to senility that he must forgo the privilege of applying the integral method to the two Americas.
Each of these volumes is designed as an independent unit, but readers familiar with Caesar and Christ will find it easier to pick up the threads of the present narrative. Chronology compels us to begin with those facets of the quadripartite medieval civilization which are most remote from our normal interest—the Byzantine and the Islamic. The Christian reader will be surprised by the space given to the Moslem culture, and the Moslem scholar will mourn the brevity with which the brilliant civilization of medieval Islam has here been summarized. A persistent effort has been made to be impartial, to see each faith and culture from its own point of view. But prejudice has survived, if only in the selection of material and the allotment of space. The mind, like the body, is imprisoned in its skin.
The manuscript has been written three times, and each rewriting has discovered errors. Many must still remain; the improvement of the part is sacrificed to the completion of the whole. The correction of errors will be welcomed.
Grateful acknowledgment is due to Dr. Use Lichtenstadter, of the Asia Institute of New York, for reading the pages on Islamic civilization; to Dr. Bernard Mandelbaum, of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, for reviewing the pages on medieval Jewry; to Professor Lynn Thorndike, of Columbia University, for the use of his translation of a passage from Alexander Neckham; to the Cambridge University Press for permission to quote translations from Edward G. Browne’s A Literary History of Persia; to the Public Library of Los Angeles, and specifically to its Hollywood Branch, and to the Library of Congress, for the loan of books; to Miss Rose Mary DeWitte for typing 50,000 notes; to Dr. James L. Whitehead, Dr. C. Edward Hopkin, and Mrs. Will Durant for their learned aid in classifying the material; to Misses Mary and Flora Kaufman for varied assistance; and to Mrs. Edith Digate for her high competence in typing the manuscript.
This book, like all its predecessors, should have been dedicated to my wife, who for thirty-seven years has given me a patient toleration, protection, guidance, and inspiration that not all these volumes could repay. It is at her prompting that these two volumes are dedicated to our daughter, son-in-law, and grandson.
WILL DURANT
November 22, 1949
Table of Contents
BOOK I: THE BYZANTINE ZENITH: A.D. 325–565
Chronological Table
Chapter I. JULIAN THE APOSTATE: 332–63
I. The Legacy of Constantine
II. Christians and Pagans
III. The New Caesar
IV. The Pagan Emperor
V. Journey’s End
Chapter II. THE TRIUMPH OF THE BARBARIANS: 325–476
I. The Threatened Frontier
II. The Savior Emperors
III. Italian Background
IV. The Barbarian Flood
V. The Fall of Rome
Chapter III. THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY: 364–451
I. The Organization of the Church
II. The Heretics
III. The Christian West
1. Rome
2. St. Jerome
3. Christian Soldiers
IV. The Christian East
1. The Monks of the East
2. The Eastern Bishops
V. St. Augustine
1. The Sinner
2. The Theologian
3. The Philosopher
4. The Patriarch
VI. The Church and the World
Chapter IV. EUROPE TAKES FORM: 325–529
I. Britain Becomes England
II. Ireland
III. Prelude to France
1. The Last Days of Classic Gaul
2. The Franks
3. The Merovingians
IV. Visigothic Spain