Robert Seton-Watson

There is a peculiar difficulty in bridging over long periods of history, and in clearing our minds of the habits and prejudices of today, before we criticize characters and events which belong to distant periods and other lands. This difficulty, in spite of the strange charm which encourages us to surmount it, makes itself all the more felt in a Transition Period, such as the close of the fifteenth, and the dawn of the sixteenth century...