THE KING'S MIRROR 



INTRODUCTION 



THE place of the thirteenth century in the history 

 of human achievement is a subject upon which 

 scholars have not yet come to a general agreement. 

 There can be no doubt that it was, on the whole, an age 

 of progress in many fields; but there is much in its his- 

 tory that points to stagnation, if not to actual decline. 

 From a superficial study of its annals one might be led 

 to class it with the lesser centuries ; most writers are in- 

 clined to rank it lower than the fourteenth century, and 

 perhaps not even so high as the twelfth. It was in this 

 period that the crusad^P rnnvpmpnt. finally flicfcerfifj ft 1 it 

 and the Christian world was compelled to leave the 

 cradle of the holy faith in the hands of the infidel. In the 

 thirteenth century, too, the medieval empire sank into 

 hopeless inefficiency and all but expired. Hue. papacy, 

 which more than any other power was responsible for 

 the ruin of the imperial ambitions, also went into de- 

 cline. Whether the loss in authority and prestige on the 

 part of the holy sec^ was compensated by a renewed 

 spiritual energy in the church at large may well be 

 doubted: what evidence we have would indicate that 

 the religion of the masses was gross and materialisticA 

 that ethical standards were low, and that the improve- ) 

 ment in clerical morals, which the church had hoped \ 

 would follow the enforcement of celibacy, had failed to \ 

 appear. J 



