ng through the twelfth, had all but faded
away for the mediaeval noble and burgher, and even for the clergy.
Religion, it is true, was confessed and its dogmas believed in; the
Cistercian revival had restored some of its lost influence, but it did
not any longer restrain the passions, modify the wickedness, control the
ambitions or subdue the world, in the heart of men, as it had done in
the eleventh century. There was in Italy, at least, an unbridled licence
of life, a fierce individuality, which the existence of a number of
small republics encouraged; and, in consequence, a wild confusion of
thought and act in every sphere of human life. Moreover, all through the
twelfth century there had been a reaction among the artistic and
literary men against the theory of life laid down by the monks, and
against the merely saintly aims and practice of the religious, of which
that famous passage in _Aucassin and Nicolete_ is an embodiment. Then,
too, the love poetry (a poetry which tended to throw monkish purity
aside) started in the midst of the twelfth century; then the troubadours
began to sing; and then the love-songs of Germany arose. And Italian
poetry, a poetry which tended to repel the religion of the spirit for
the religion of enjoyment, had begun in Sicily and Siena in 1172-78, and
was nurtured in the Sicilian Court of Frederick II., while Sordello was
a youth. All over Europe, poetry drifted into a secular poetry of love
and war and romance. The religious basis of life had lost its strength.
As to North Italy, where our concern lies, humanity there was weltering
like a sea, tossing up and down, with no direction in its waves. It was
not till Francis of Assisi came that a new foundation for religious
life, a new direction for it, began to be established. As to Law,
Government, Literature, and Art, all their elements were in equal
confusion. Every noble, every warrior who reached ascendency, or was
born to it, made his own laws and governed as he liked. Every little
city had its own fashions and its own aims; and was continually
fighting, driven by jealousy, envy, hatred, or emulation, with its
neighbours. War was the incessant business of life, and was carried on
not only against neighbouring cities, but by each city in its own
streets, from its own towers, where noble fought against noble, citizen
with citizen, and servant with servant. Literature was only trying to
begin, to find its form, to find its own Italian tongue