y of the Middle Ages
such as was made by but few even of its greatest men. [Sidenote: Pope
Silvester II.] At his death in 1003 the age of reform had started on
its way; and his was the light which had directed its beginnings. Thus
in the West the end of the period shows the Empire and the papacy of
one mind, eager for a spiritual reform in the Church, for Christian and
missionary ideals in the State, not careful to delimit the provinces of
Church and State, but eager rather for unity of action as well as
sentiment in the cause of Christian extension and endeavour.

[Sidenote: The end of the Dark Age.]

Though the contest was not yet over, it might be said with confidence
that the Church of Christ had won over the barbarians. Missionaries
and martyrs had changed the face of Europe, and the fierce tribes which
were pouring over the Continent in the fifth century, barbarous and
heathen, were now for the most part tamed and converted to the love of
Christ. Out of a land which had been wild and barbarous, and where one
of the greatest of saints and missionaries had met his death, had come
a revival in Christian form of the old imperial idea, and the great men
who had been nourished by it had given new health to the central Church
of Europe. For the moment, the Empire and the Papacy, Germany and the
new temporal State in the hands of the Roman bishop, were united to
lead the Christian nations and to convert the heathen on their borders.
In the East remained the magnificent fabric of the immemorial Empire,
active still in missionary labour and setting an example of the union
of Church and State in {203} agreement to which the West could never
attain. The eleventh century was to bring to East and West alike, with
new responsibilities, new difficulties in action and new problems in
thought. Everywhere it was for unity men strove, the unity which if in
its main aspect it was political, was on its spiritual and ideal side
embodied in the visible Church of Christ.

[1] Dr. O. L. Wells, _The Age of Charlemayne_, p. 434.

[2] See H. A. L. Fisher, _The Medieval Empire_, ii. p. 65; Hauck,
_Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands_, iii. 57-9.

{205}

APPENDIX I

LIST OF EMPERORS AND POPES, 461-1003

POPES. EMPERORS
WEST EAST

457 Leo I.
461 Hilarus 461 Severus