ABSTRACT
B y the beginning of the sixteenth century the intellectual world was fully conscious that it had entered upon a new age. This is shown by the unanimity with which the previous period was now being recognised as the Middle Age. Who first used that expression is not known, but the conception is already that of Flavio Biondo (1388-1463), the humanist secretary of four successive popes, and the name Medium Aevum is found six years after his death. Like most theologians, the scholars of this generation delighted to characterise the particular genius of their own day as a mere recovery of a glorious past, and they called by the name of the Middle Age those centuries that had intervened between the decay of the old classical culture and their own revival of it at the end of the fifteenth century. But history never slavishly repeats itself, and they were the inaugurators of a period that was even newer than they realised. During the modern period we trace the history of an outbursting of the human spirit that shattered the old authoritative unity of life and seemed to hold the promise of a great inheritance for individual effort. In the consequent struggles much is gained, but there is also a measure of disillusionment, and at the end of the story we see our own generation striving in a new period of transition to regain some, at least, of that which was heedlessly lost when the Middle Age was left behind.
