VIRTUOUS LIVING - Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

including some Italians who had studied at Constantinople, the capital of theByzantine Empire. With this sense of emancipation came the feeling of being able toachieve whatever project they attempted. Out of this feeling grew an impression thatthe thousand years which lay between the Graeco-Roman period and the ushering inof the Renaissance had been an “unfortunate period of darkness, lasting for a thousandyears, and characterized by superstition, despotism and deplorable hygiene” (Helm1961:2). This historical trend developed into the 18 th century age of reason (1700) andto the 19 th century age of common sense (1800) (cf Helm 1961:2; Bernard 1970:230-297).The view of most historians, such as Voltaire (1778), Gibbon (1788), Burckhardt(1860), J. C. Morison and Kegan Paul, writing in 1887, was that “modern times hadrediscovered and improved on the virtues of the ancient world (Graeco-Roman)among which they included rationalism, good roads and liberty” (in Helm 1961:2).However, historians writing in the second half of the 20 th century, such as D. Waley(1987), believe that this view was not entirely correct. There were indeed notedintellectual activities such as those of the renowned Catholic theologian ThomasAquinas (1225-1274) (cf Helm 1961:354), and the architectural work of the hugeGothic cathedrals (1232-1300) (cf Bernard 1970:202), together with medievalnostalgia for unity and faith (cf Helm 1961:3). In fact, Hay and Law have remarked:[I]t must be remembered that there would have been little chance of the newlearning crossing the Alps if ... fresh attitudes of the Italians had not beenenveloped in older traditions, conveyed by older institutional links in churchand state which evolved only slowly (Hay and Law 1989:286).Italians of the Renaissance period had a way of asserting their own spirit above that ofothers or of any other historical period. For example, whereas the medieval scholarshad regarded their world to be on a higher plane than that of antiquity, Lee observesthat the medieval scholar was:…suffused with the glow of Christianity and solidly based on politicalinstitutions and social structures which were permanent because they haddivine authorization. Antiquity, by contrast, had been insecure andunenlightened, certainly until the Christian faith had established itself in theRoman Empire (Lee 1978:2).30