HISTORY FROM A BIOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW 497 



allow of people being carried over it by mere enthu- 

 siasm. . . . It was essentially a crisis that had to be 

 met by strenuous effort and unflagging work in every 

 department of human activity. . . . Many a noble 

 aspiration which, could it have been realized, and many 

 a wise conception which, could it have attained its true 

 development, would have been most fruitful of good to 

 humanity, was stricken beyond recovery. . . . Time, 

 however, and the power of effort and work remained to 

 those that survived. . . . What gives, perhaps, the 

 predominant interest to the century and a half which 

 succeeded the overwhelming catastrophe of the Black 

 Death is the fact of the wonderful social and religious 

 recovery from a state almost of dissolution." 



In the course of this recovery, through periods of re- Social and 

 bellion and acute distress, the foundations of better ^guitsof 

 social ideals and conditions were laid, and even the the Plague 

 language underwent a change. It had been customary 

 for the educated classes to use Norman-French, which 

 emphasized their distinctness as a social group. A 

 movement existed for the substitution of English in the 

 schools, and Gasquet believes that it succeeded because 

 so many "ancient pedagogues," of conservative tenden- 

 cies, were removed by the Plague. Thus was laid the 

 foundation of modern English as a basis for literature, 

 and thus were the plays of Shakespeare made possible. 



Notwithstanding all these great events and funda- 

 mental changes due to the Black Death, the ordinary 

 writers of history have chosen almost to ignore them 

 and to write of the spectacular deeds of the battlefield, 

 of Edward III and his war with France, of Crecy and 

 Calais, and military renown. This, according to them, 

 was the glory of England ; but such glory passed away, 

 and the glory which remained was that of the stout 



