English

Medieval Contributions to Modern Civilisation

LibriVox recording of Medieval Contributions to Modern Civilisation by Various. Read in English by LibriVox Volunteers. The mediaeval contributions to modern civilisation, which are the theme of this book, are twofold. There is the contribution of the idealised Middle Ages, magnified, mirrored, and roseate in the reflective thought of modern man concerning the Middle Ages. This is their contribution as it appeared to Morris, or as it appears to Mr. Belloc, or Mr. Chesterton, or the votaries of guild socialism. It is a contribution made not by the actual Middle Ages, but by a projection of the Middle Ages on an ideal screen by an idealising mind. It is a contribution, but it is an indirect contribution; it moves the mind and stirs the spirit of men, but the motion and the stirring are those not of the Middle Ages themselves, but rather of a certain antiquarian idealism — an inverted Utopianism, as it were, leading men to find the Utopia, or Nowhere, of the future in what one may call a Never Was of the past. But besides this indirect and ideal contribution — none the less real because it is indirect and ideal — there is the direct and actual contribution of the Middle Ages as they a

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