On Suppressing Doubt

 I wrote this for my AP Euro Summer Assignment :)

It is rare to find a historical work that is as engaging as A World Lit Only By Fire. Historian William Manchester wrote the text in a narrative style, a literary choice that some critics believe lessened his credibility as a historical author. The critics have it all wrong, however—it is his style which makes the book work. While the main text focuses on Magellan, the controversies of the Roman Catholic Church, and the eventual fall of the church, it is the minute details that paint the image of the age. These facts make the book more accessible to modern readers; it shows that humans were still motivated by the same forces that motivate humans today. By making this period of time fascinating, Manchester is able to present his thesis to an intrigued reader—that the ten centuries of the Middle Ages were corrupt, ignorant, and ruled by an all too powerful church. The latter half of the book focuses on Ferdinand Magellan’s trip around the globe, and how his quest to explore juxtaposes itself with the era’s negative view of knowledge. Overall, the book explores how the church’s attempt to suppress doubt achieved nothing except facilitating it.

            Based on Manchester’s descriptions of daily life in the Middle Ages one could conclude that he agrees with Thomas Hobbes that, at that time at least, life was “nasty, brutish, and short.” (92) He spends a great deal of the work setting up the circumstances of the time period-from the fall of the Roman Empire to the rise of the Roman Catholic Church (and eventual decline) and by describing the lives of every class of people he shows how people viewed the world, and this helps to explain why the world was really only lit by fire, to be frank. Bathing was irregular. Promiscuity was a way of life. Illiteracy was high. People believed in mythological legends—fairies and curses and superstitions. (67-68)This, according to Manchester, is why this period of darkness could continue for so long and why it only took a few voices (of humanists and especially of Martin Luther’s) to bring the entire institution of Europe crumbling down. Manchester wrote the work almost as a war between the power of the church and the various threats to the Vatican by knowledge. The printing press, Martin Luther, and Leonardo da Vinci all made dents in the control of the church. (140)Eventually Magellan circumnavigated the world and this revelation in the value of knowledge for knowledge’s sake would shake Europe until it crumbled.

            As stated previously, William Manchester uses some unorthodox methods in his attempt to present his message. Some historians might say he uses too many details, many of them crude and gratuitous, and they overbear the real facts and points in the work. If anything, these details uphold the overall historical record. It is easy enough to write “The Papacy was corrupt,” but much more intriguing to read about Lucrezia Borgia and her affair with her father, the pope. (85) These gritty details add color to the story that textbooks lack. Other historians may have been interested in teaching history, Manchester teaches history through life experience.

            Manchester ends the text with some insight on doubt. Doubt, above all else, was the greatest enemy of the church. Knowledge and life experience facilitated it, which is why the Roman Catholic Church was so against the spread of the printing press, and why Martin Luther’s idea to print The Bible in German changed absolutely everything about religion in the Middle Ages. “Suppressing doubt is hard.” (296) Manchester included this in the final paragraph. The entire text is essentially the idea that because the church had so many people fooled into believing in indulgences and the afterlife and their sins they had an immense power over everyone in Europe. This can only last so long however, before the glass ceiling shatters and sends doubt spreading across Europe—in the form of Lutheranism, vernacular literature, or new of corruption in the papacy. Knowledge was the only way to light the world once the candles burned to the stub, and nothing would stop it.

            This book is paralleled perhaps only by William and Ariel Durant’s eleven volume series on the history of civilization. (To which Manchester frequently refers.) No other work is so comprehensive and engaging, and no other work makes such an impact with its message. The idea of living in a world in which the acquisition of knowledge must be done in secret (as with Leonardo da Vinci) sounds horrific in modern times. How could that have ever happened? As Manchester tells the story, it progressed as the wrong people took power. He brings up the modern world in his final paragraph—discussing the current Christian population. Do they still  believe in heaven and eternity? Not really, and certainly not in the same way the people of Europe did in the Middle Ages. “The specter of skepticism haunts shrines and altars.” (296) Knowledge has done its work in the modern era. As long as it is valued, it will remain very much alive, and feed doubt throughout its existence. Do not feel too comfortable, however. Manchester began A World Lit Only By Fire by discussing the Roman Empire. Knowledge was valued and doubt common. It was a golden age for Europe, much like the Renaissance that would follow it. However the fact that there were ten centuries of oppression in between should not be forgotten. Hopefully Manchester is correct when he states that “the serenity of medieval faith is lost forever.” (296) If that is serenity, knowledge is much more useful, and a much stronger force.