THE AGE

OF

THE GREAT WESTERN SCHISM

By

CLINTON LOCKE

RENAN, in the preface to one of his books, says, “When I read over what I have written, the matter appears to me very poor, and I perceive that I have put in a multitude of things of which I am not certain”. Every writer of history must feel the force of those words. Personal likes and dislikes, race, language, religion, environment, so color testimony that the absolute certainty of even the smallest item seems doubtful. In this account of the great schism, a period particularly marked by fierce passions and violent religious hatreds, the writer has often felt entirely at sea amid the conflicting witnesses. Of course in working over material as often used as the events of the fourteenth century there could not be much originality; everything has been said and resaid a hundred times; but an attempt has been made to give a coherent, concise, and yet interesting recital of a period full of stirring events and rich in glorious promise.

It was determined not to have any notes. These volumes are, as the prospectus states, “popular monographs, giving a bird’s-eye view of the most important events in the life of the church”, and in that light notes are more confusing than helpful. The writer is very much indebted to many historians. He would mention especially Creighton, Milman, Robertson, Jahr, Hecker, Forsteman, Gieseler, Renan, Von der Hardt, Dietrich von Niem, Hefele, Kurz, Gregorovius, Gibbon, Sargent, Wratislaw, Eneas, Sylvius, and Hallam. Sometimes credit is given in the text, sometimes not, but especial thanks are due for the aid afforded by Creighton’s “History of the Papacy” and Milman’s “Latin Christianity” in the preparation of this volume. The writer regrets that the publication of parts of the immense collection of documents in the Vatican archives relating to the Avignon popes, which is now being favored by the present enlightened pontiff, was not available.

The preparation of this volume has been a delightful task, and it was with regret that the closing chapter was written. The wonderful vitality of the Christian religion and its supernatural origin can be by no other argument more forcibly impressed upon the mind than by the fact that it survived the degradations and wickednesses within its own exponent, the Christian church of the fourteenth century.

CLINTON LOCKE.

CHICAGO, August, 1896.