World-wide religious orders united
alien lands together by ties more spiritual than obedience to the papal
lawyers. The academic ideal was another and a fresh link that connected
the nations together. To the ancient reasons for union--symbolised by
the living Latin speech of all clerks, of all scholars, of all engaged
in serious affairs-were added the newer bonds of connexion involved in
the common knightly and social ideals, in the general spread of a
common art and a common vernacular language and literature.
As Latin expressed the one series of ties, so did French represent the
other. The France of St. Louis meant two things. It meant, of course,
the French state and the French nationality, but it meant a great deal
more than that. The influence of the French tongue and French ideals
was wider than the political influence of the French monarchy. French
was the common language of knighthood, of policy, of the literature
that entertained lords and ladies, of the lighter and less technical
sides of the cosmopolitan culture which had its more serious
embodiments in Latin.
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