COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON OUTLINES OF EUROPEAN HISTORY, PART I COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 429.9 HARVARD The Athenæum Press GINN AND COMPANY PRO- PREFACE In order to enable teachers to adjust their historical instruction with greater freedom than would otherwise be possible, it seems wise to issue as a separate volume that portion of Medieval and Modern Times which deals with the period extending from the dissolution of the Roman Empire to the opening of the eighteenth century. This division does not correspond to that usually called the Middle Ages but is extended to comprise the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There are, however, a number of cogent reasons for viewing these two centuries as more medieval than modern. To cite a single striking example, it was not until after the year 1700 that the intelligent people of Europe finally gave up their belief in witchcraft, which seems to us now a delusion appropriate only to savages. Those social conditions and modes of thought produced by scientific discoveries and inventions, by democracy and world commerce which are characteristic of our day only begin to emerge on a large scale in the eighteenth century. It was at the opening of the eighteenth century that the Prussian army entered upon those preparations which are proving so disastrous for the world to-day. So it will be quite proper to include the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the "Middle Period" and regard them as belonging rather to an introduction to our own times than as forming a definite part of the period in which we live. J. H. R. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY NEW YORK IV. THE MONKS AND THEIR 16. Establishment of a Line of Emperors in the West 17. How Charlemagne carried on his Government VI. THE AGE OF DISORDER; FEUDALISM 18. The Disruption of Charlemagne's Empire 22. Neighborhood Warfare in the Middle Ages |