THE MEDIEVAL REVIVAL OF LEARNING 393 entury that men had all that they could do to absorb the contents of the new books and no longer gave Scholastic uch attention to literary style either in what Latin hey read or what they wrote. Logic drove out rhetoric, md the litera ry study of the Latin classic s begun at Chartres in the previous century came to an end, displaced by the enthusiasm for Roman law, medicine, Greek philosophy, bid Arabian science. But although scholastic commentaries md other works are dry reading and needlessly long, their phought is often acute and their contents better arranged
- han in the case of many ancient books. If their style is not
jittractive, these scholars were nevertheless able to express [themselves accurately, inventing many new technical words to supply the scientific, philosophical, and theological de- fects of the ancient Latin language. After Edrisi geographical knowledge continued to make ^reat strides during the remaining Middle Ages. The rise jn the first half of the thirteenth century of a Penetration '>reat Mongol empire stretching from China to of Asia Russia made it possible for Western ambassadors and mis- sionaries, travelers and traders, to penetrate in person to j:he Far East and to learn of regions of which the Greeks and jR.omans have left no accounts. From the thirteenth century
- ve have interesting narratives, by the friars John de Piano
Carpini and William of Rubruk, envoys of the pope and of che King of France respectively, of their journeys into the leart of Asia to the court of the Great Khan at Karakorum, md the fuller and even more fascinating book of the Vene- tian merchant, Marco Polo, who spent the better part of us life in China and other Asiatic lands. There he traveled videly in the service of the Khan, who had by that time noved his capital from Mongolia to Peking and had adopted nuch of Chinese civilization. Marco was the first writer fo reveal that civilization to the Western world, and to tell )f many other regions such as Madagascar, Abyssinia, Tibet, Burma, Siam, Cochin-China, Ceylon, Java, Sumatra, md other islands of the East Indian archipelago. Some r egions that he traversed were not visited again by Euro-
