[Sidenote: Good directly brought about by them.]
Still, whatever may have been the want of single-mindedness on the part of many of the professed soldiers of the Cross, whatever the amount of failure with regard to the immediate objects of the Crusades, it is clear that much good was brought about through them by God's Providence, not only in the check given to the encroachments of the unbelievers, but also more indirectly in the quenching of rising heresies, in the greater purity of life which in many cases accompanied the taking of the Cross, the weakening of the feudal system, the impulse given to learning and civilization. Earnestness and self-devotion such as were shown by Godfrey de Bouillon, St. Louis of France, and no doubt by many more amongst the Crusaders, were rewarded and blessed, though not in what might have seemed at first sight the only way of success.
Section 5. _State of Religions Relief and Practice during the Middle Ages._
[Sidenote: Popular idea of the Middle Ages,]
There is a wide-spread notion that the Middle Ages were also "Dark Ages," full of ignorance and superstition, with hardly a ray of knowledge or true religion to enlighten the gloom, and also that the Church was the great encourager of this state of things; indeed, that it was mainly due to the influence of the monks and of the Clergy generally.
This belief is however quite unhistorical. No doubt there was abundance of ignorance as well as of superstition, its natural consequence, but there are ample means of accounting for both in the political condition of Europe at that time, nor is it needful to blame the Church for what was in fact due to the sins and errors of the world.
[Sidenote: Real causes of ignorance and vice in the Middle Ages.]
The confusion incident to the breaking up of the old Roman empire, and the occupation of its different provinces by less highly-civilized nations, had been followed by other disorders after the death of Charlemagne and the partition of his dominions; and the constant state of warfare and aggression in which most of the princes of that time lived, was not calculated to leave their subjects much leisure for intellectual culture. Besides this, we must take into account the crushing influence of the feudal system, which gave the nobles almost absolute power over their serfs or dependants, thus encouraging lawlessness on the one hand, and causing degradation on the other. The scarcity and costliness of books before the invention of printing was another { 116} formidable obstacle to any universal spread of education, all which causes tended to bring learning into contempt amongst the restless barons and their followers, restricting it chiefly to the Clergy and the monks. Thus not only theology, but secular knowledge besides, found a home in the Church, which was at once the guardian and the channel of literature.