Excerpt from Essentials in Medieval and Modern History: From Charlemagne to the Present Day The advantage of a study of general European history is too obvi ous for discussion. The Committee of Seven, in its programme, strongly recommends that a year be given to mediaeval and modern European history; and a large number of schools have for years provided such a course. Nowadays, when the United States of Amer ica has distinctly taken a place as one of the factors which are to shape the future of mankind, it is more than ever important that Americans should understand the development and meaning of Euro pean history. Following the suggestion of the Committee of Seven, Professor Harding has begun his work with a survey of the world as it was in the year 800, thus closely relating the book to the last chapter of Wolfson's Essentials in Ancient History. In the first few chapters, Professor Harding attacks and surmounts What are for young people the three most difficult problems in mediaeval history, - the feudal state, the church, and the rivalry between the empire and the church. He addresses himself to the underlying ideas in the minds of medi aeval man, especially to the need of combination and union which gave rise to the feudal system, and to the need of a religious center and of an organized and powerful church to protect it. As in the other volumes of this series, the essentials have been sought, leaving out details, however interesting and graphic in them selves, which do not contribute to a knowledge of the great move ments of the world's history, or do not significantly illustrate them. The effort is constantly to describe the events and characterize the persons that really made history. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.