art of making paper from linen rags, an art known among the Arabs as early, at least, as 1100. This article took the place of the costly parchment, and rendered it possible to place books within the reach of all classes.

The first book printed from movable types was a Latin copy of the Bible, issued from the press of Faust and Gutenberg at Mentz, between the years 1450 and 1455. The art spread rapidly, and before the close of the fifteenth century presses were busy in every country of Europe, multiplying books with a rapidity undreamed of by the patient copyists of the cloister. "In the last thirty years of the fifteenth century, 10,000 editions of books and pamphlets are said to have been published throughout Europe, the most important half of them, of course, in Italy; and all the Latin authors were accessible to every student before it closed." — GREEN. The first book printed in Greek was published at Milan in 1476.

It is needless to dwell upon the tremendous impulse which the new art gave, not only to the humanistic movement, but to the general intellectual progress of the European nations. Without it, the Revival of Learning must have languished, and the Reformation could hardly have become a fact in history. Its instrument, the press, is fitly chosen as the symbol of the new era of intelligence and freedom which it ushered in.

GROWTH OF THE NATIONS, ETC.

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CHAPTER VIII.

GROWTH OF THE NATIONS. - FORMATION OF NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS AND LITERATURES.

Introductory. The most important movement that marked the latter part of the Middle Ages was the grouping, in several of the countries of Europe, of the petty feudal states and halfindependent cities and towns into great nations with strong centralized governments. This movement was accompanied by, or rather consisted in, the decline of Feudalism as a governmental system, the loss by the cities of their freedom, and the growth of the power of the kings.

Many things contributed to this consolidation of peoples and governments, different circumstances favoring the movement in the several countries. In some countries, however, events were opposed to the centralizing tendency, and in these the Modern Age was reached without nationality having been found. But in England, in France, and in Spain circumstances all seemed to tend towards unity, and by the close of the fifteenth century there were established in these countries strong despotic monarchies. Yet even among those peoples where national governments did not appear, some progress was made towards unity through the formation of national languages and literatures, and the development of common feelings, sentiments, and aspirations, so that these races or peoples were manifestly only awaiting the opportunities of a happier period for the maturing of their national life.

This rise of Monarchy and decline of Feudalism, this substitution of strong centralized governments in place of the feeble, irregular, and conflicting authorities of the feudal nobles, was a very great gain to the cause of law and good order. It paved the way for modern progress and civilization.

In these changes the political liberties of all classes, of the cities as well as of the nobility, were, it is true, subverted. But though Liberty was lost, Nationality was found. And the people may be trusted to win back freedom, as we shall see. Those sturdy burghers the merchants, artisans, lawyers of the cities—who, in the eleventh century, showed themselves stronger than lords. will. in time, with the help of the yeomanry, prove themselves stronger than kings. Europe shall be not only orderly, but free. Out of despotic monarchy will rise constitutional, representative govern ment.

I. ENGLAND.

General Statement. In a preceding chapter we told of the origin of the English people, and traced their growth under Saxon, Danish, and Norman rulers. We shall, in the present section, tell very briefly the story of their progress under the Plantagenet kings, thus carrying on our narrative to the accession of the Tudors in 1485, from which event dates the beginning of the modern history of England.

The line of Plantagenet kings began in 1154 with Henry II., son of Queen Matilda and Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou, and ended with Richard III. in 1485. The dynasty thus lasted three hundred and thirty-one years, and embraced fourteen sovereigns.1

The era of the Plantagenets was a most eventful one in English history. It was under these kings that the English constitution

1 The name Plantagenet came from the peculiar badge, a sprig of broom. plant (plante de genêt), adopted by one of the early members of the House Following is a table of the sovereigns of the family:

took on its present form, and those charters and laws were framed which are rightly esteemed the bulwark of English freedom. Moreover, the wars of the period were, for the most part, attended by far-reaching consequences, and so helped to render the age memorable.

The chief political events of the period which we shall notice were the wresting of Magna Charta from King John, the formation of the House of Commons, the Conquest of Wales, the Wars with Scotland, the Hundred Years' War with France, and the Wars of the Roses.

Magna Charta (1215). - Magna Charta, the "Great Charter," held sacred as the basis of English liberties, was an instrument which the English barons and clergy forced King John to sign, in which the ancient rights and privileges of the people were clearly defined and guaranteed.

The circumstances which led up to this memorable transaction, narrated in the briefest way possible, were as follows: The laws and usages of the Anglo-Saxons carefully protected the rights and liberties of the people against the oppression of their rulers. The Norman sovereigns, to speak in general terms, disregarded the customs and institutions of the people they had subjected, and ruled in a very arbitrary and despotic manner. The first of the Plantagenet kings, themselves also of foreign race, followed in the footsteps of their Norman predecessors. King John (1199-1216), the third of the line, was as tyrannical as he was unscrupulous and wicked. Having quarreled with the Pope respecting the filling of vacant offices in the English churches, he had been excommunicated, and his kingdom placed under an interdict. We have in another place told how John made his peace with the Church by doing homage to the Pope and making England a fief of the See of Rome.

This pusillanimous act awakened the greatest indignation among all classes throughout England; and this feeling, added to the bitter resentment that had been already aroused by the insults and outrages which the king had heaped upon his nobles, now led to

an open revolt of the barons, who were counseled and encouraged to this step by the patriot Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton. Indeed, the king was supported by no class. The movement was an uprising of the nation, determined upon the recovery of their time-honored liberties. The tyrant was forced to bow to the storm. He met his barons at Runnymede, a flat meadow on the Thames a little way from Windsor, and there affixed his seal to the instrument that had been prepared to receive it.

Among the important articles of the paper were the following, which we give as showing at once the nature of the famous document, and the kind of grievances of which the people had occasion to complain : —

"No freeman shall be seized or imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed, or in any way brought to ruin: we will not go against any man nor send against him, save by legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

"To no man will we sell, or deny, or delay, right or justice.

"No scutage or aid [save several feudal aids specified] shall be imposed in the realm save by the Common Council of the realm. " 1

Besides these articles, which form the foundation of the English Constitution, there were others abolishing numerous abuses and confirming various time-honored rights and privileges of the towns and of different classes of freemen.

To secure the observance of the Charter on the part of the king, in whose sincerity the barons had but little confidence, John was forced to put the Tower and city of London in the hands of the nobles as a pledge, and also to allow twenty-five barons to be appointed as "guardians of the liberties of the realm," with the

1 This last article respecting taxation was suffered to fall into abeyance in the reign of John's successor, Henry III., and it was not until about one hundred years after the granting of Magna Charta that the great principle that the people should be taxed only through their representatives in Parliament became fully established.