The chief thing to be noted concerning Romance literature is
that it was a Christian literature, finding its background and
inspiration in the ideas to which the Christian Church gave currency.
While Rome spread her conquests over Europe, at the very heart of her
empire Christianity took root, and by slow process transformed that
empire. During the Middle Ages the Bishops of Rome sat in the seat of
the Roman Emperors. This startling change possessed Gibbon's
imagination, and is the theme of his great work. But the whole of
Gibbon's history was anticipated and condensed by Hobbes in a single
sentence--"If a man considers the original of this great ecclesiastical
dominion, he will easily perceive that the Papacy is no other than the
ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave
thereof. For so did the Papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of
that heathen power."
Here, then, is the answer to a question which at once suggests itself.
How do we get this famous opposition between the older Latin literature
and the literature of those countries which had inherited or accepted the
Latin tradition? Why did not the Romans hand over their literature and
teach it, as they handed over and taught their law? They did teach it in
their schools; grammar and rhetoric, two of the chief subjects of a
liberal education, were purely literary studies, based on the work of the
literary masters of Rome.


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