icular forces have taken a secondary place, are
shadowy and almost effaced; the stage of the world is occupied by two
great figures, government and people.

Here, if I am not mistaken, is the essential distinction between
primitive Europe and modern Europe. Here is the change that was
accomplished in the period extending from the thirteenth to the
sixteenth century. Viewed by itself, that period seems a characterless
one of confusion without cause, of movement without direction, of
agitation without result. Yet, in relation to the period that followed,
this period had a tendency and a progress of its own; it slowly
accomplished a vast work. It was the second period of European
civilisation--the period of attempt and experiment, succeeding that of
origins and formation, and preparing the way for that of development
properly so called.

The first great event of this period was the Crusades--a universal
movement of all classes and all countries in moral unity--the truly
heroic event of Europe. Besides the religious impulse that led to the
Crusades, there was another impulse. They gave to me an opportunity of
widening their horizons, of indulging the taste for movement and
adventure. The opportunity, thus freely taken, changed the face of
society. Men's minds were opened, their ideas were extended, by contact
with other races; European society was dragged out of the groove along
which it had been travelling. Religious ideas remained unchanged, but
religious beliefs were no longer the only sphere in which the human
intellect exercised itself. The moral state of Europe was profoundly
modified.

The social state underwent a similar change. Many of the smaller feudal
lords sold their fiefs, or impoverished themselves by crusading, or lost
much of their power during their absence. Property and power came into
fewer hands; society was more centralised, no longer dispersed as it
formerly was. The citizens, on their part, were no longer content with
local industry and trade; they entered upon commerce on a grander scale
with countries oversea. Petty influence yielded place to larger
influences; the small existences grouped themselves round the great. By
the end of the Crusades, the march of society towards centralisation was
in steady progress.

_VI.--The Age of Centralisation_

Already, in the twelfth century, a new idea of kingship had begun, very
faintly, to make its appearance. In most European countries the king,
un