The starry night begins

For the past month or two, we've been reading a few chapters a week from E.H. Gombrich's A Little History of the World. It's a marvelous book, written to be read aloud, with each chapter taking about ten minutes of reading time. It is not a "religious" history, but a history that is respectful of religion and its essential role in building civilization. One of our favorite chapters so far is chapter 19, "The Starry Night Begins," which we just finished. The opening paragraphs set the tone:

You will probably agree that the people's migrations were a sort of thunderstorm. But you may be surprised to hear that the Middle Ages were like a starry night. Let me explain. Have you ever heard people talk about the Dark Ages? This is the name given to the period when very few people could read or write and hardly anyone knew what was going on in the world. And because of this, they loved telling each other all sorts of weird and wonderful tales and were generally very superstitious. 'Dark,' too, because the houses in those days were small and dark, and because the streets and highways that the Romans had built had all fallen into decay and were overgrown and their camps and cities had become grass-covered ruins. The good Roman laws were forgotten and the beautiful Greek statues had been smashed to pieces. All this is true. And isn't really surprising, given all the dreadful upheavals and war-torn years of the migrations.

But there was more to it than that. It wasn't all dark. It was more like a starry night. For above all the dread and uncertainty in which ignorant people lived like children in the dark -- frightened of witches and wizards, of the Devil and evil spirits -- above it all was the bright starlit sky of the new faith, showing them the way. And just as you don't get lost so easily in the woods if you can see stars like the Great Bear or the Pole Star, people no longer lost their way completely, no matter how much they stumbled in the dark. For they were sure of one thing: God had given souls to all men, and they were all equal in his eyes, beggars and kings alike. This meant there must be no more slaves -- that human beings must no longer be treated as if they were things. That the one, invisible, God the Creator of the world, who through his mercy saves mankind, asks us to be good. ...

The rest of the chapter is largely a description of the efforts of St. Benedict and his monks to bring civilization and the Faith to Europe. The book appeals to a variety of ages; my 11-, 10-, and 7-year-olds enjoy it, especially the 7-year-old. On an encouraging note, my 11-year-old reports that Gombrich's favorable account of Benedict and the "Dark Ages" is consistent with what she learned in her sixth-grade social studies class at our parish school.