Excerpt from Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Vol. 3: Edited With a Memoir Of Chaucer's accuracy in the delineation of the condition and habits of the early Christians, the catacombs still remain unimpeachable witnesses. These subterranean sepulchres, or seyntes buriels, ' as they are called in the tale, were the refuge of the early Church of Rome, with its chief Bishop Urban. Here, among the refuse of the people, the flex Romuli, was concocted that mighty conspiracy against the established religion, which the philosophers and statesmen of Rome hardly knew whether to scorn or to fear. From its ghastly dwelling among the bones of the dead it occasionally emerged to gather its proselytes from the slave-gang, the senate, and the palace of Caesar; until at length the patriots, the upholders of the political religion, under whose auspices Rome had gathered her laurels both in literature and arms, found themselves in a small but respectable minority; while the despised conspiracy had literally, as well as metaphorically, cut the ground from under their feet. From the moment when Christianity became a moving power in the state, the Roman nationality crumbled to pieces, superseded by the more comprehensive bond of Christian brotherhood. Of this tale, the language and versification, the only elements that properly belong to Chaucer, are marked with his usual force and pathos. 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.