useful and ornamental knowledge; but the invitation was not even
generally accepted. There was much superstition in every order of the
laity. An opinion prevailed among them, that the world was to end, and
the day of judgment arrive, in the year 1000. An universal panic spread
itself over Europe. Strange to relate, the people sought to avoid the
catastrophe, by hiding themselves in caverns and tombs.

The existence of this ignorance cannot be denied: but, to the
ecclesiastics, who strove against it, who erected and fostered so many
schools to dispel it, and who exerted themselves in the manner we have
mentioned, to establish another and a better order of things, a great
share of praise and gratitude should never be denied.

The mines of Hartz were discovered in the time of Otho I. and diffused
so much wealth over Saxony, and afterwards over all Germany, as gave the
reign of that emperor the appellation of "the age of gold." Before this
time, Nicephorus Phocas had called Saxony, from the dress, or rather the
coverings of its inhabitants, "the land of skins." But all the wealth of
the country still continued to be concentrated among the great
landowners.







III. 1.

_Boundaries and State of Germany during the Franconian Dynasty._