Evening star., 1928-04-01
The Story of Civilization

| time. The reader may imagine wha,
stories. then, were current In impolitt
society. The Jolly re. ,nteur took then
as he found them. gave them literary
form, and-Quite without knowing it
founded the modern novel. He wrote tho
Human Comedy, as Dante had written
the Divine. UD.
| tn he Sanctis
| We picture him as an italian Balzac
/ fat and tovial loving his Jest and care
less OF propriety. It was an age OF
liberated instinct. and Boccaccio rioted
in the new freedom: he loved to hear
Of people who had lived full lives and
had given way to impulse recklessly
He was not conscious OF immortality:
he thought he was honestly pcturine
the truth. The men and women OF his
day were as he painted them; even
now. among simple and natural tribes
like the French Canadians. strong
stories make the welkin ring when good
folk get together, and this "indecency''
is far healthier for body and soul than
Puritan pretense.
There is not a single lascivious
image or immoral description In the
NAtOiC LVGhulNEuAl, SdNS CNCh NSJ
that might not be paralleled in the
lives and writings of the clergy of the
time" Indeed, it is In describing and
assailing the sins of the clergy that
Boccaccio pens his most shocking pages.
He is never tired OF pointing TO the
rampant corruption and Simony of the
priesthood, the worship of images. the
abuses Of the confessional. the sale of
relics and pardonS, the superstitions.
charms and bogus miracles. the ma
terialistic conception of heaven. purga-
tory and hell, that characterized, not SO
much the doctrine and hierarchy of the
church itself. but the lower ranks OF
the clergy and the people Even while
inditing his grcSsest tales Boccaccio
thought Of himself as a reformer of i'm
morality and bigotry. All his life long
he fought ecclesiastical evils; and then.
like most sensual and sensible persons
he relapsed In his old age into the
simplest teith. and became a religious
devotee as shortly as possible before
his death.
81 Owen. Seeptics of tho Italian Renais-
Sance, u. i4l.
His English analogue. of course, /.
Godfrey Chaucer t1340-i4001, who
came a quarter century after him. and
chose to found not the italian novel
but British poetry. His name came
from the French word for shoemaker.
and was probably pronounced sho-sayr:
so posterity plays tricks with our very
names, and remakes us TO Its whim be-
fore consenting to hold us in its MEM
ory. When he grew up. educated So
ciety in England spoke both the Anglo
Saxon and the French which the Nor
mans had brought: the two had not
merged yet into the most complex and
flexible Of modern languages: in
Chaucer they are partly juxtaposed and
partly merged; he did his part to fusc
them, and so became one of the found
ers of our English speech.
He was a man of the world, near, at
least. to high station, but sufficiently
touched with suffering to deepen him
into poetry. We hear of him first as
serving lad in an aristocratic home
then. at 10. he is OF to war I'm France
and picks up there some of his very
Gallo English. To make a great writer
Of him the French take him prisoner
and TO lift him up To glory the very
King OF England contributes handsome
ly TO pay for his ransom. We hear little
more Of him Until he Is 80, when we
find him abroad on the Kings service.
for reasons unknown: we conclude that
he has risen from footboy to royal COM
missioner. His repeated trips TO Eu-
rope In the service of the King bring
him as far as Italy, where he meets the
crowned king Of italian verse. Petrarch
Home again, he appears in the chron-
icle Of the time as holding now ono
governmental bureaucratic post, now