Medieval Unity and the Economic Conditions for an International Civilization

Abstract

In a world torn with nationalistic conflicts, men's minds are naturally turning to projects of international government and to hopes for a wider acceptance of international loyalties, language, and civilization. One of the last epochs in which a measure of such international unity can be said to have actually existed was the European Middle Ages. The following study of the conditions underlying medieval unity, therefore, may offer some information on a topic of present interest.Accounts of the rise of modern nationalism frequently begin with a picture of the spiritual, linguistic, and cultural unity of medieval Christendom. Mr. Carlton Hayes speaks of “the traditional internationalism of civilized Europe” before the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; other authors similarly use the Middle Ages as a point of departure. New forces are then pointed out, which in their rise toward the end of the Middle Ages broke up that unity into the present multitude of nations and sovereign states. This useful method of exposition, however, suggests further questions. How did that “traditional internationalism” of medieval Europe come to exist? What were the conditions favouring its spread, and how durable was it likely to be under the law of its own growth? Can the medieval vision of cultural unity again be recreated on similar foundations?