PRESENT PROBLEMS OF MEDIEVAL HISTORY 135 



fessed historian is not the only student of the problems of medieval 

 history. A large amount of work is being done upon them and more 

 will be done in the future by two groups of scholars who are not, in 

 their opinion at least, of his guild, by the economic historian and by 

 the sociologist. And the fact that these scholars do not always look 

 at our problems from quite our point of view or formulate them in 

 quite our terms has its own advantages. Much of their work is cer- 

 tain to be of a sort which the scientific historian cannot approve, 

 but in the end, it is my firm belief that we have to expect from their 

 labors more light on the difficulties still remaining in the first half 

 of medieval history than from any efforts of -our own, very great 

 help in solving the problems of the second half, and throughout 

 the whole period much assistance in reaching a better understanding 

 of what is already well established. The economic historian should 

 indeed consider himself and many of them do primarily an his- 

 torian. He should be as thoroughly trained in the methods of his- 

 torical research as the historian and as scrupulously bound by them. 

 In his study of the facts it should be his first and highest ambition 

 to ascertain "wie es eigentlich gewesen." In all this he should be 

 the historian, but he should be more than this. With a training in 

 economic science equal to that which he has received in historical 

 method, he should be able to detect in many crises of history more 

 quickly and clearly than we can the presence of decisive economic 

 factors, and be able to explain their action in such a way that we shall 

 come to understand more perfectly the result produced. That there 

 are many places in the history of the Middle Ages where work of this 

 sort is greatly needed will be instantly admitted. Beginnings have 

 been made through the whole period, but except here and there 

 nothing but beginnings. The origin of feudalism and its fall; the 

 transformation of the slave into the serf and of the serf into the free 

 laborer; the effects of the scarcity of money and of its revived use; 

 the decline and recovery of commerce; the rise of the third estate 

 and the renewal by the state of regular taxation; these are general 

 topics whose mere mention suggests the useful service which the eco- 

 nomic historian has rendered or may still render. Minor topics, like 

 the question of the commercial factors in England's parliamentary 

 advance in the fourteenth century, are innumerable. It is hardly 

 necessary to say that the professed historian welcomes most heartily 

 such work upon the problems he is trying to solve, that he stands 

 ready to afford it every encouragement, and to incorporate its 

 results with his own or to modify his own by them whenever neces- 

 sary. He sometimes finds the tone in which they are expressed 

 a trifle trying, but that is not a serious matter. It is characteristic 

 of a young science to exalt itself, to magnify the importance of its 

 results and the necessity of its processes. More serious is the tend- 



