From the text:"Too often, it is overlooked or its meaning blurred. It comes between the brightness of the 1300Æs--ChaucerÆs time--and the time of Elizabeth I. Looking into it, we may be so dazzled by the two bright centuries which bound it that it is a dim space of time with no exact shape or clear colors in it. Yet the whole century was active, practical, strong, unique, humane, searching and changing, mystical."