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Conclusion to Volume I |
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After Fifteen Centuries |
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| I. | By the middle of the fifteenth century, the papacy seemed to have recovered its glory and its prestige. The last antipope in history had abdicated in 1449 A.D. A huge crowd had come to Rome for the jubilee of the Holy Year in 1450 A.D. Once again, a pope was able to affirm that ' the Roman pontiffs are the masters of mankind and of all that appertains to humanity'. Was Christendom going to relive the glorious hours of the thirteenth century? |
| II. | But was it still possible to speak of Christendom? Europe had become a Europe of princes. The Hundred Years War, which ended in 1453 A.D. had revealed national antagonisms which were only to grow worse in the future. Disillusioned, Pope Pius II (1458-1464 A.D.) declared: 'Christendom no longer has a head whom it respects nor one to whom it owes obedience; the titles of emperor and supreme pontiff are only empty names, and those who bare them are only vain images in the eyes of Christendom.' The popes of the late fifteenth century behaved more like Italian princes than like world-wide pontiffs. |
| III. | However, the people of Europe had good reasons for wanting to unite in the name of a common ideal. The Roman empire had disappeared with Constantinople, now renamed Istanbul, and the Turks were advancing with rapid strides towards the heart of Europe. If there was a crusade, it was now or never. Pius II decided to go at the head of the expedition himself. But only a few adventurers turned up at the meeting place, Ancona, and the pope died, embittered, in 1464 A.D. |
| IV. | An epoch had come to an end. Another age was dawning. With the rediscovery of ancient sources, literature and works of art, a new culture was beginning to develop. The church was no longer the spearhead of intellectual life, as it had been in the past centuries. The invention of printing was going to revolutionize communication. Who would have control? |
| V. | In spite of its squabbles and divisions, Latin Christendom had always succeeded in regaining its unity through the Middle Ages. In the early years of the sixteenth century, the division caused by the Reformation was to be final. |
| VI. | To the west of the continent of Europe, Islam was to be banished from Spain in 1492 A.D. The Portugese had already gained a foothold in Africa, at Ceuta, in 1415 A.D. It was the beginning of the discovery of new worlds. Restricted and blocked as it was in the East, did the church suspect that its future lay not with the restoration of Christendom in Europe, but with preaching the Gospel to the whole world.? |
| VII. | The second volume of How to Read History will take us from these radical changes at the end of the fifteenth century to the last decades of the twenty-first century in which we are now living. |
