Professor ElLEEN POWER (Professor of Economic
History in the University of London): The Middle Ages-I, Political Life and Thought '
The civilized world is groping for a satisfactory conception of unity. It is the glory and the paradox of the Middle Ages that they achieved the conception, but failed to maintain it in practice. The Holy Roman Empire, which united mediaeval society under the complementary rule of the Pope and the Emperor, did immense service to the modern world in preserving the memory of the Roman Empire and the unity of the Christian Church, while assimilating into the European scheme the northern barbarians who had overrun the Mediterranean world. Europe retained the titular unity until the time of Napoleon, when its framework finally collapsed, being, in Voltaire's phrase, no longer ' Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.' Today urgent efforts arc being made to resurrect the mediæval ideal in a political form suited to modern needs.