no reason why the Mussulman rule over the greater part
of that peninsula should not endure forever.

Thus, from end to end, Europe was a scene of direst confusion, and
though, as we now look back upon it, the time seems by no means devoid
of promise, there was no such cheering outlook then. Nowhere were the
outlines of kingdoms or the ownership of crowns definitely settled.
Private war was both incessant and universal; the Truce of God had not
yet been proclaimed.[309] As for the common people, their hardships
were well-nigh incredible. Amid all this anarchy and misery, at the
close of the thousandth year from the birth of Christ, the belief was
quite common throughout Europe that the Day of Judgment was at hand for
a world grown old in wickedness and ripe for its doom.

[Footnote 309: The "Truce of God" (_Treuga Dei_) was introduced
by the clergy in Guienne about 1032; it was adopted in Spain
before 1050, and in England by 1080. See Datt, _De pace imperii
publica_, lib. i. cap. ii. A cessation of all violent quarrels
was enjoined, under ecclesiastical penalties, during church
festivals, and from every Wednesday evening until the following
Monday morning. This left only about eighty days in the year
available for shooting and stabbing one's neighbours. The truce
seems to have accomplished much good, though it was very
imperfectly observed.]

[Sidenote: The condition of things was not such as to favour colonial
enterprise.]

It hardly need be argued that a period like this, in which all the vital
energy in Europe was consumed in the adjustment of affairs at home, was
not fitted for colonial enterprises. Before a people can send forth
colonies it must have solved the problem of political life so far as to
ensure stability of trade. It is the mercantile spirit that has
supported modern colonization, aided by the spirit of intellectual
curiosity and the thirst for romantic adventure. In the eleventh century
there was no intellectual curiosity outside the monastery walls, nor had
such a feeling become enlisted in the service of commerce. Of trade
there was indeed, even in western Europe, a considerable amount, but the
commercial marine was in its infancy, and on land the trader suffered
sorely at the hands of the robber baron. In those days the fashionable
method of compounding with your creditors was, not to offer them fifty
cents