Middle Ages

The Emperor Henry and the host of the French encamped before the city; and the foraging parties overran the land and captured oxen, and cows, and beeves in great plenty and other beasts. And those from Adrianople, who had brought their chariots with them, and were poor and illfurnished with food, loaded their chariots with corn and other grain; and they found also provisions in plenty and loaded with them, in great quantities, the other chariots that they had captured.

Then did they bethink themselves of a very good device; for they enclosed the whole camp with good lists, and good palisades, and good barriers, and were thus far stronger and much more secure. The Greeks meanwhile came on to the attack so frequently that they gave them no rest, and those of the host drove them back with great force; and every time that the Greeks issued forth they lost heavily.

Now we will leave off speaking of the host before Constantinople, and speak of those who sailed from other ports than Venice, and of the ships of Flanders that had sojoumed during the winter at Marseilles, and had all gone over in the summer to the land of Syria; and these were far more in number than the host before Constantinople. Listen now, and you shall hear what a great mischance it was that they had not joined themselves to the host, for in that case would Christendom have been for ever exalted.

On the fourth day the emperor knew clearly that he had been ill-advised to quarrel with the marquis, and then the Doge of Venice and Count Louis came to speak to him and said: "Sire, we would pray you to refer this matter to us, as the marquis has done." And the emperor said he would do so right willingly. Then were envoys chosen to fetch the marquis, and bring him thither. Of them envoys one was Gervais of Chatel, and the second Renier of Trit, and Geoffry, Marshal of Champagne the third, and the Doge of Venice sent two of his people.

When Geoffry the Marshal of Champagne, who was keeping guard at one of the gates of the cityo , saw this he issued from the camp as soon as he could, with all the men that were with him, and gave command to Manasses of lisle, who was on guard at another gate, that he should follow after him. And he rode forth with all his force at full speed, and in full array, to meet the fugitives, and the fugitives all rallied round him.

Be it known to you that eleven hundred and ninety-seven years after the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the time of Innocent Pope of Rome, and Philip King of France, and Richard King of England, there was in France a holy man named Fulk of Neuilly - which Neuilly is between Lagni-sur-Marne and Paris - and he was a priest and held the cure of the village. And this said Fulk began to speak of God throughout the Isle-de-France, and the other countries round about; and you must know that by him the Lord wrought many miracles.

by H.W.C. Davis

All divisions of history into periods are artificial in proportion as they are precise. In history there is, strictly speaking, no end and no beginning.

Medieval history begins with the dissolution of the Western Empire, with the abandonment of the Latin world to German conquerors. Of the provinces affected by the catastrophe the youngest was Britain; and even Britain had then been Roman soil for more than three hundred years. For Italy, Spain, and Gaul, the change of masters meant the atrophy of institutions which, at first reluctantly accepted, had come by lapse of time to be accepted as part of the natural order.

The barbarian states which arose on the ruins of the Western Empire were founded, under widely different circumstances of time and place, by tribes and federations of tribes drawn from every part of Germany. We expect to find, and we do find, infinite varieties of detail in their laws, their social distinctions, their methods of government. But from a broader point of view they may be grouped in two classes, not according to affinities of race, but according to their relations with the social order which they had invaded.