The Age of the Reformation | Page 7

the sea was on the ancient world; a heart of oak and triple
bronze was needed to venture on the ocean, and its annihilation was
one of the blessings of the new earth promised by the Apocalypse. All
through the centuries Europe remained sea-locked, until the bold
Portuguese mariners venturing ever further and further south along the
coast of Africa, finally doubled the Cape of Good Hope--a feat first
performed by Bartholomew Diaz in 1486, though it was not until 1498
that Vasco da Gama reached India by this method.
Still unconquered lay the stormy and terrible Atlantic,
"Where, beyond the extreme sea-wall, and between the remote
sea-gates, Waste water washes, and tall ships founder, and deep death
waits."
But the ark of Europe found her dove--as the name Columbus
signifies--to fly over the wild, western {11} waves, and bring her news
of strange countries. The effect of these discoveries, enormously and
increasingly important from the material standpoint, was first felt in the
widening of the imagination. Camoens wrote the epic of Da Gama,
More placed his Utopia in America, and Montaigne speculated on the
curious customs of the redskins. Ariosto wrote of the wonders of the
new world in his poem, and Luther occasionally alluded to them in his
sermons.
[Sidenote: Universities]
If printing opened the broad road to popular education, other and more
formal means to the same end were not neglected. One of the great
innovations of the Middle Ages was the university. These permanent
corporations, dedicated to the advancement of learning and the
instruction of youth, first arose, early in the twelfth century, at Salerno,

at Bologna and at Paris. As off-shoots of these, or in imitation of them,
many similar institutions sprang up in every land of western Europe.
The last half of the fifteenth century was especially rich in such
foundations. In Germany, from 1450 to 1517, no less than nine new
academies were started: Greifswald 1456, Freiburg in the Breisgau
1460, Basle 1460, Ingolstadt 1472, Trèves 1473, Mayence 1477,
Tübingen 1477, Wittenberg 1502, and Frankfort on the Oder 1506.
Though generally founded by papal charter, and maintaining a strong
ecclesiastical flavor, these institutions were under the direction of the
civil government.
In France three new universities opened their doors during the same
period: Valence 1459, Nantes 1460, Bourges 1464. These were all
placed under the general supervision of the local bishops. The great
university of Paris was gradually changing its character. From the most
cosmopolitan and international of bodies it was fast becoming strongly
nationalist, and was the chief center of an Erastian Gallicanism. Its {12}
tremendous weight cast against the Reformation was doubtless a chief
reason for the failure of that movement in France.
Spain instituted seven new universities at this time: Barcelona 1450,
Saragossa 1474, Palma 1483, Sigüenza 1489, Alcalá 1499, Valencia
1500, and Seville 1504. Italy and England remained content with the
academies they already had, but many of the smaller countries now
started native universities. Thus Pressburg was founded in Hungary in
1465, Upsala in Sweden in 1477, Copenhagen in 1478, Glasgow in
1450, and Aberdeen in 1494. The number of students in each
foundation fluctuated, but the total was steadily on the increase.
Naturally, the expansion of the higher education brought with it an
increase in the number and excellence of the schools. Particularly
notable is the work of the Brethren of the Common Life, who devoted
themselves almost exclusively to teaching boys. Some of their schools,
as Deventer, attained a reputation like that of Eton or Rugby today.
The spread of education was not only notable in itself, but had a more
direct result in furnishing a shelter to new movements until they were
strong enough to do without such support. It is significant that the

Reformations of Wyclif, Huss, and Luther, all started in universities.
[Sidenote: Growth of intelligence]
As the tide rolls in, the waves impress one more than the flood beneath
them. Behind, and far transcending, the particular causes of this and
that development lies the operation of great biological laws, selecting a
type for survival, transforming the mind and body of men slowly but
surely. Whether due to the natural selection of circumstance, or to the
inward urge of vital force, there seems to be no doubt that the average
intellect, not of leading thinkers or of select groups, {13} but of the
European races as a whole, has been steadily growing greater at every
period during which it can be measured. Moreover, the monastic vow
of chastity tended to sterilize and thus to eliminate the
religiously-minded sort. Operating over a long period, and on both
sexes, this cause of the growing secularization of the world, though it
must not be exaggerated, cannot be overlooked.
SECTION 2. THE CHURCH
Over against "the world," "the church."