Catania (d. 1162) translated the Phaedo and Meno, but his translations had no immediate effect.
Partial as was the knowledge of Greek philosophy in the twelfth century, learned men were aware
that much of it remained to be discovered by the West, and a certain eagerness arose to acquire a
fuller knowledge of antiquity. The yoke of orthodoxy was not so severe as is sometimes supposed;
a man could always write his book, and then, if necessary, withdraw its heretical portions after full
public discussion. Most of the philosophers of the time were French, and France was important to
the Church as a makeweight against the Empire. Whatever theological heresies might occur
among them, learned clerics were almost all politically orthodox; this made the peculiar
wickedness of Arnold of Brescia, who was an exception to the rule. The whole of early
scholasticism may be viewed, politically, as an offshoot of the Church's struggle for power.
CHAPTER XII The Thirteenth CenturyIN the thirteenth century the Middle Ages reached a culmination. The synthesis which had been
gradually built up since the fall of Rome became as complete as it was capable of being. The
fourteenth century brought a dissolution of institutions and philosophies; the fifteenth brought the
beginning of those that we still regard as modern. The great men of the thirteenth century were
very great: Innocent III, Saint Francis, Frederick II, and Thomas Aquinas are, in their different
ways, supreme representatives of their respective types. There were also great achievements not so
definitely associated with great names: the Gothic cathedrals of France, the romantic literature of
Charlemagne, Arthur, and the Niebelungen, the beginnings of constitutional government in Magna
Carta and the House of Commons. The matter that concerns us most directly is the scholastic
philosophy, especially as set forth by Aquinas; but I shall leave this for the next chapter, and
attempt, first, to give an