Book .V>^^ - / 9- LOer is Latin for a boar. This fact will perhaps be thought to account for the prophecy. It TWO EMPERORS. 75 accounts, at all events, for its fulfilment ; for, the wretched Aper being led before the throne, Diocletian descended the steps and j)lunged a dagger into his chest, exclaim- ing, " I have killed the w41d boar of the prediction." This is a painful example of how unlucky it is to have a name that can be punned upon. Determined to secure the support of what he thought the strongest body in the State, he gratified the priests by the severest of all the many persecutions to which the Christians had been exposed. By way of further showing his adhesion to the old faith, he solemnly assumed the name of Jove, and bestowed on his partner on the throne the inferior title of Hercules. In spite of these truculent and absurd proceedings, Diocletian w^as not altogether destitute of the softer feelings. The friend he associated with him on the throne — dividing the empire between them as too large a burden for one to sustain— was called Maximian. They had both originally been slaves, and had neither of them received a liberal education. Yet they pro- tected the arts, they encouraged literature, and were the patrons of modest merit wherever it could be found. They each adopted a Csesar, or lieutenant of the empire, and hoped that, by a legal division of duties among four, the ambition of their generals would be prevented. But the limits of the empire were too extended even for the vigilance of them all. In Britain, Carausius raised the standard of revolt, giving it the noble name of national independence ; and, with the instinctive wisdom which has been the safeguard of our island ever since, he rested his whole chance of success upon his fleet. Inva- sion was rendered impossible by the care with which he guarded the shore, and it is not inconceivable that even at that early time the maritime career of Britain might have been begun and maintained, if treason, as usual, had not cut short the eiforts of Carausius, who was soon 70 THIRD CENTURY. after murdered by his friend Allectus. The subdivision of the empire was a successful experiment as regarded its external safety, but within, it was the cause of bitter complaining. There were four sumptuous courts to be maintained, and four imperial armies to be paid. Taxes rose, and allegiance waxed cold. The Csesars were young, and looked probably with an evil eye on the two old men who stood between them and the name of em- peror. However it may be, after many victories and much domestic trouble, Diocletian resolved to lay aside the burden of empire and retire into private life. His colleague Maximian felt, or affected to feel, the same distaste for power, and on the same day they quitted the purple; one at Mcomedia, the other at Milan. Diocletian retired to Salona, a town in his native Dalmatia, and occupied himself with rural pursuits. He was asked after a while to reassume his authority, but he said to the persons who made him the request, ^'I wish you would come to Salona and see the cabbages I have planted with my own hands, and after that you would never wish me to remount the throne.'^ The characteristic of this century is its utter confusion and want of order. There was no longer the unity even of despotism at Eome to make a common centre round which every thing revolved. There were tyrants and competitors for power in every quarter of the empire — no settled authority, no government or security, left. In the midst of this relaxation of every rule of life, grew surely, but unobserved, the Christian Church, which drew strength from the very helplessness of the civil state, and was forced, in self-defence, to establish a regular organization in order to extend to its members the inestimable benefits of regularity and law. Under many of the emperors Christianity was proscribed; its disciples were put to excruciating deaths, and their pro- THE EARLY CHURCH. 77 perty confiscated; but at that very time its iimer de- velopment increased and strengthened. The community appointed its teachers, its deacons, its office-bearers of every kind ; it supported them in their endeavours — it yielded to their directions; and in time a certain amount of authority was considered to be inherent in the office of pastor, which extended beyond the mere expounding of the gospel or administration of the sacraments. The chief pastor became the guide, perhaps the judge, of the whole flock. While it is absurd, therefore, in those dis- astrous times of weakness and persecution to talk in pompous terms of the succession of the Bishops of Rome, and make out vain catalogues of lordly prelates who sat on the throne of St. Peter, it is incontestable that, from the earliest period, the Christian converts held their meetings — ^by stealth indeed, and under fear of detection — and obeyed certain canons of their own con- stitution. These secret associations rapidly spread their ramifications into every great city of the empire. "When by the friendship, or the fellowship, of the emperor, as in the case of the Arabian Philip, a pause was given to their fears and sufferings, certain buildings were set apart for their religious exercises ; and we read, during this century, of basilicas, or churches, in Rome and other towns. The subtlety of the Greek intellect had already led to endless heresies and the wildest departures from the simplicity of the gospel. The Western mind was more calm, and better adapted to be the lawgiver of a new order of society composed of elements so rough and discordant as the barbarians, whose approach was now inevitably foreseen. With its well-defined hierarchy — ■ its graduated ranks, and the fitness of the offices for the purposes of their creation ; with its array of martyrs ready to suffer, and clear-headed leaders fitted to com- mand, the Western Church could look calmly forward 78 THIED CENTURY. to the time when its organization would naake it the most powerful, or perhaps the only, body in the State ; and so early as the middle of this century the seeds of worldly ambition developed themselves in a schism, not on a point of doctrine, but on the possession of authority. A double nomination had made the anomalous appoint- ment of two chief pastors at the same time. !N"either would yield, and each had his supporters. All were under the ban of the civil power. They had recourse to spiritual weapons; and we read, for the first time in ecclesiastical history, of mutual excommunications. 'No- vatian — under his breath, however, for fear of being thrown to the wild beasts for raising a disturbance — thundered his anathemas against Cornelius as an in- truder, while Cornelius retorted by proclaiming IS'ova- tian an impostor, as he had not the concurrence of the people in his election. This gives us a convincing proof of the popular form of appointing bishops or presbyters in those early days, and prepares us for the energy with which the electors supported the authority of their favourite priests. Eut, while this new internal element was spreading life among the decayed institutions of the-^emj)ire, we have, in this century, the first appearance, in great force, of the future conquerors and renovators of the body politic from without. It is pleasant to think that the centuries cast themselves more and more loose from their connection with Eome after this date, and that the barbarians can vindicate a separate place in history for themselves. In the first century, the bad emperor? broke the strength of Eome by their cruelty and extrava- gance. In the second century, the good emperors car- ried on the work of weakening the empire by the soft- ening and enervating effects of their gentle and pro- tective policy. The third century unites the evil qualities BARBAKIAN TRIBES. '» of the other two, for the people were equally rendered incapable of defending themselves by the unheard-of atrocities of some of the tyrants who oppressed them, and the mistaken measures of the more benevolent rulers, in committing the guardianship of the citizens to the swords of a foreign soldiery, leaving them but the wretched alternative of being ravaged and massacred by an irruption of savage tribes or pillaged and insulted by those in the emperor's pay. The empire had long been surrounded by its foes. It will suffice to read the long list of captives who were led in triumph behind the car of Aurelian when he re- turned from foreign war, to see the fearful array of harsh-sounding names which have afterwards been softened into those of great and civilized nations. It is in following the course of some of these that we shall see how the present distribution of forces in Europe took place, and escape from the polluted atmosphere of Imperial Eome. In that memorable triumph appeared Goths, Alans, Eoxolans, Franks, Sarmatians, Yandals, Allemans, Arabs, Indians, Bactrians, Iberians, Saracens, Armenians, Persians, Palmyreans, Egyptians, and ten Gothic women dressed in men's apparel and fully armed. These were, perhaps, the representatives of a large body of female warriors, and are a sign of the recent settle- ment of the tribe to which they belonged. They had not yet given up the habits of their march, where all were equally engaged in carrying the property and arms of the nation, and where the females encouraged the young men of the expedition by witnessing and some- times sharing their exploits in battle. The triumph of Probus, when only seven years had passed, presents us with a list of the same peoples, often conquered but never subdued. Their defeats, indeed, had the double effect of showing to them their own 80 THIRD CENTURY. ability to recruit tlieir forceS; and of strengthening the degraded people of Eome in the belief of their invinci- bility. After the loss of a battle^ the Gothic or Burgun- dian chief fell back upon the confederated tribes in his rear ; a portion of his 'army either visited Borne in the character of captives, or enlisted in the ranks of the conquerors. In either ease, the wealth of the great city and the undefended state of the empire were per- manently fixed in their minds; the populace, on the other hand, had the luxury of a noble show and double rations of bread — the more ambitious of the emperors acting on the professed maxim that the citizen had no duty but to enjoy the goods provided for him by the go- verning power, and that if he was fed by public doles, and amused with public games, the purpose of his life was attained. The idlest man was the safest subject. A triumph was, therefore, more an instrument of degrada- tion than an encouragement to patriotic exertion. The name of Eoman citizen was now extended to all the inhabitants of the empire. The freeman of York was a Eoman citizen. Had he any patriotic pride in keeping the soil of Italy undivided? The nation had become too diffuse for the exercise of this local and combining virtue. The love of country, which in the small states of Greece secured the individual's affection to his native city, and yet was powerful enough to extend over the whole of the Hellenic territories, was lost altogether when it was required to expand itself over a region as wide as Europe. It is in this sense that empires fall to pieces by their own weight. The Eoman power broke up from within. Its religion was a source of division, not of union — its mixture of nations, and tongues, and usages, lost their cohesion. And nothing was left at the end of this century to preserve it from total dissolution, but the personal qualities of some great rulers and the memory of its former fame. FOURTH CENTURY. 5Emperors^ A.D, 304, Galerius and Constantius. 305. Maximin, 306. CONSTANTINE. 337. Constantine II., CoNSTANS and CONSTANTIUS. 361, Julian the Apostate. 363. JOYIAN, A.D. WesU A.D. East. 364. Valentinian. 364. Valens, 367. Gratian. 375, Valentinian II, 379. Theodosius. 395. HONORIUS 395. Arcadius. DoNATus, EuTROPius, St. Athanasius, Ausonius, Claudian, Arnobius, (303,) Lactantius, (306,) Eusebius, (315,) Arius, (316,) Gregory Nazianzen, (320-389,) Basil the Great, Bishop of Cesarea, (330-379,) Ambrose, (340-397,) Augustine (353-429,) Theodoret, (386-457,) Martin, Bishop of Tours. THE FOUETH CENTUEY. THE REMOVAL TO CONSTANTINOPLE — ESTABLISHMENT OP CHRISTIANITY — APOSTASY OF JULIAN — SETTLEMENT OP THE GOTHS. As the memory of the old liberties of Eome died out, a nearer approach was made to the ostentatious despot- isms of the East. Aurelian, in 270, was the first em- peror who encircled his head with a diadem ; and Dio- cletian, in 284, formed his court on the model of the most gorgeous royalties of Asia. On admission into his presence, the Eoman Senator, formerly the equal of the ruler, prostrated himself at his feet. Titles of the most unmanly adulation were lavished on the fortunate slave or herdsman who had risen to supreme power. He was clothed in robes of purple and violet, and loaded with an incalculable wealth of jewels and gold. It was from deep policy that Diocletian introduced this system. Ceremony imposes on the vulgar, and makes intimacy impossible. Etiquette is the refuge of failing power, and compensates by external show for inherent weak- ness, as stiffness and formality are the refuge of dulness and mediocrity in private life. There was now, there- fore, seated on the throne, which was shaken by every commotion, a personage assuming more majestic rank, and affecting far loftier state and dignity, than Augustus had ventured on while the strength of the old Eepublic gave irresistible force to the new empire, or than the Antonines had dreamt of when the prosperity of Eome •vas apparently at its height. But there was still Somo 84 FOURTH CENTURY. feeling, if not of self-respect, at least of resistance to pretension, in the populace and Senators of the capital. Diocletian visited Borne but once. He was attacked in lampoons, and ridiculed in satirical songs. His colleague established his residence in the military post of Milan. "We are not, therefore, to feel surprised that an Oriental- ized authority sought its natural seat in the land of ancient despotisms, and that many of the emperors had cast longing eyes on the beautiful towns of Asia Minor, and even on the far-ojff cities of Mesopotamia, as more congenial localities for their barbaric splendours. By a sort of compromise between his European origin and Asiatic tastes, the emperor Constantine, after many struggles with his competitors, having attained the sole authority, transferred the seat of empire from Bome to a city he had built on the extreme limits of Europe, and only divided from Asia by a narrow sea. All succeeding ages have agreed in extolling the situation of this city, called, after its founder, Constantinople, as the finest that could have been chosen. All ages, from the day of its erection till the hour in which we live, have agreed that it is fitted, in the hands of a great and enterprising power, to be the metropolis and arbiter of the world; and Constantinople is, therefore^ condenined to the melancholy fate of being the useless and unappreciated capital of a horde of irreclaimable barbarians. To this magnificent city Constantine removed the throne in 329, and for nearly a thousand years after that, while Bome was sacked in innumerable invasions, and all the capitals of Europe were successively occupied by con- tending armies, Constantinople, safe in her two narrow outlets, and rich in her command of the two continents, continued unconquered, and even unassailed. Bome was stripped, that Constantinople might be filled. All the wealth of Italy was carried across the CONSTANTINOPLE. 85 MgesLJi. The Eoman Senator was invited to remove with his establishment. He found, on arriving at his new home, that by a complimentary attention of the emperor, a fac-simile of his Roman palace had been prepared for him on the Propontis. The seven hills of the new capital responded to the seven hills of the old. There were villas for retirement along the smiling shores of the Dardanelles or of the Bosphorus, as fine in climate, and perhaps equal in romantic beauty, to Baise or Brundusium. There was a capital, as noble a piece of architecture as the one they had left, but without the sanctity of its thousand years of existence, or the glory of its unnumbered triumphs. One omission was the subject of remark and lamentation. The temples were nowhere to be seen. The images of the gods were left at Eome in the solitude of their deserted shrines, for Constantine had determined that Constantinople should, from its very foundation, be the residence of a Christian people. Churches were built, and a priesthood ap- pointed. Yet, with the policy which characterized the Church at that time, he made as little change as possible in the external forms. There is still extant a transfer of certain properties from the old establishment to the new. There are contributions of wax for the candles, of frankincense and myrrh for the censers, and vestures for the officiating priests as before. Only the object of worship is changed, and the images of the heathen gods and heroes are replaced with statues of the apostles and martyrs. It is difficult to gather a true idea of this first of the Christian emperors from the historians of after-times. The accounts of him by contemporary writers are equally conflicting. The favourers of the old superstition de- scribe him as a monster of perfidy and cruelty. The Church, j-aised to supremacy by his favour, sees nothing 86 FOURTH CENTURY. ill him but the greatest of men — the seer of visions, the visible favourite of the Almighty, and the predestined overthrower of the powers of evil. The easy credulity* of an emancipated people believed whatever the flattery of the courtiers invented. His mother Helena made a journey to Jerusalem, and was rewarded for the pious pilgrimage by the discovery of the True Cross. Chapels and altars were raised upon all the places famous in Christian story; relics were collected from all quarters, and we are early led to fear that the simplicity of the gospel is endangered by its approach to the throne, and that Constantine's object was rather to raise and strengthen a hierarchy of ecclesiastical supporters than to give full scope to the doctrine of truth. But not the less wonderful, not the less by the divine appointment, was this unhoped-for triumph of Christianity, that its advancement formed part of the ambitious scheme of a worldly and unprincipled conqueror. Eather it may be taken as one among the thousand proofs with which history presents us, that the greatest blessings to man- kind are produced irrespective of the character or quali- ties of the apparent author. A warrior is raised in the desert when required to be let loose upon a worn-out society as the scourge of Grod ; a blood-stained soldier is placed on the throne of the world when the time has come for the earthly predominance of the gospel. But neither is Attila to be blamed nor Constantine to be praised. It was the spirit of his system of government to form every society on a strictly monarchical model. There was everywhere introduced a clearly-defined subordina- tion of ranks and dignities. Diocletian, we saw, sur- rounded the throne with a state and ceremony which kept the imperial person sacred from the common gaze. Constantine perfected his work by establishing a titled NEW NOBILITY. ' 87 nobility, who were to stand between the throne and the people, giving dignity to the one, and impressing fresh awe upon the other. In all previous ages it had been the office that gave importance to the man. To be a member of the Senate was a mark of distinction ; a long descent from a great historic name was looked on with respect ; and the heroic deeds of the thousand years of Roman struggle had founded an aristocracy which owed its high position either to personal actions or hereditary claims. But now that the emperors had so long con- centrated in themselves all the great offices of the State — now that the bad rulers of the first century had de- graded the Senate by filling it with their creatures, the good rulers of the second century had made it merely the recorder of their decrees, and the anarchy of the third century had changed or obliterated its functions altogether— there was no way left to the ambitious Eoman to distinguish himself except by the favour of the emperor. The throne became, as it has since con- tinued in all strictly monarchical countries, the fountain of honour. It was not the people who could name a man to the consulship or appoint him to the command of an army. It w^as not even in the power of the emperor to find offices of dignity for all whom he wished to advance. So a method was discovered by which vanity or friendship could be gratified, and employment be reserved for the deserving at the same time. Instead of endangering an expedition against the Parthians by intrusting it to a rich and powerful courtier who desired to have the rank of general, the emperor simply named him Nobilissimus, or Patricius, or Illustris, and the gratified favourite, the ^^ most noble," the " patrician," or the " illustrious," took place with the highest officers of the State. A certain title gave him equal rank with the Senator, the judge, or the consul. The diversity of »» FOURTH CENTURY. these honorary distinctions became very great. There were the clarissimi — the perfectissimi — and the egregii — bearing the same relative dignity in the court-guide of the fourth century, as the dukes, marquises, earls, and viscounts of the peerage-books of the present day. But so much did all distinction flow from proximity to the throne, that all these high-sounding names owed their value to the fact of their being bestowed on the associates of the sovereign. The word Count, which is still the title borne by foreign nobles, comes from the Latin word which means " companion.^^ There was a Comes, or Companion, of the Sacred Couch, or lord chamberlain — the Companion of the Imperial Service, or lord high steward — a Companion of the Imperial Stables, or lord high constable ; through all these digni- taries, step above step, the glorious ascent extended, till it ended in the Companion of Private Affairs, or con- fidential secretary. At the head of all, sacred and un- approachable, stood the embodied Power of the Eoman world, who, as he had given titles to all the magnates of his court, heaped also a great many on himself His principal appellation, however, was not as in our degene- rate days "Majesty," whether "Most Catholic," "Most Christian," or " Most Orthodox," but consisted in the rather ambitious attribute — eternity. " Your Eternity" was the phrase addressed to some miserable individual whose reign was ended in a month. It was proposed by this division of the Eoman aristocracy to furnish the empire with a body for show and a body for use ; the latter consisting of the real generals of the armies and administrators of the provinces. And with this view the two were kept distinct; but military discipline suffered by this partition. The generals became discon- tented when they saw wealth and dignities heaped upon the titular nobles of the court ; and to prevent the danger TAXES. 89 arising from ill will among the legions on the frontier, the emperor withdrew the best of his soldiers from the posts where they kept the barbarians in check, and entirely destroyed their military spirit by separating them into small bodies and stationing them in towns. This exposed the empire to the foreign foes who still menaced it from the other side of the boundary, and gave fresh settlements in the heart of the country to the thousands of barbarian youth who had taken service with the eagles. In every legion there was a consider- able j)roportion of this foreign element : in every district of the empire, therefore, there were now settled the ad- vanced guards of the unavoidable invasion. Men with barbaric names, which the Eomans could not pronounce, walked about Eoman towns dressed in Eoma,n uniforms and clothed with Eoman titles. There were consulars and patricians in Eavenna and ISTaples, w^hose fathers had danced the war-dance of defiance when beginning their march from the Vistula and the Carpathian range. All these troops must be supported — all these digni- taries maintained in luxury. How was this done? The ordinary revenue of the empire in the time of Con- stantine has been computed at forty millions of oui money a year, l^ot a very large amount when you con- sider the number of the population ; but this is the sum which reached the treasury. The gross amount must have been far larger, and an ingenious machinery was in- vented by which the tax was rigorously collected ; and this m^vChinery, by a ludicrous perversion of terms, was made to include one of the most numerous classes of the artificial nobility created by the imperial will. In all the towns of the empire some little remains were still to be found of the ancient municipal government, of which practically they had long been deprived. There were nominal magistrates still; and among these the 90 FOURTH CENTURY. Curlals held a distinguished rank. They were the men who, in the days of freedom, had filled the civic dignities of their native city — the aldermen, we should perhaps call them, or, more nearly, the justices of the peace. They were now ranked with the peerage, but with cer- tain duties attached to their elevation which few can have regarded in the light of privilege or favour. To qualify them for rank, they were bound to be in possession of a certain amount of land. They were, therefore, a terri- torial aristocracy, and never was any territorial aris- tocracy more constantly under the consideration of the government. It was the duty of the curials to distri- bute the tax-papers in their district ; but, in addition to this, it was unfortunately their duty to see that the sum assessed on the town and neighbourhood was paid up to the last penny. When there was any deficiency, was the emperor to suffer? "Were the nobilissimi, the pa- tricii, the egregii, to lose their salaries ? Oh, no ! As long- as the now ennobled curial retained an acre of his estate, or could raise a mortgage on his house, the f\\\\ amount was extracted. The tax went up to Eome, and the curial, if there had been a poor's house in those days, would have gone into it — for he was stripped of all. His farm was seized, his cattle were escheated ; aznd when the defalcation was very great, himself, his wife and children were led into the market and sold as slaves. iJ^othing so rapidly destroyed what might have been the germ of a middle class as this kgalized spoliation of the smaller landholders. Below this rank there was absolutely nothing left of the citizenship of ancient times. Artifi- cers and workmen formed themselves into companies ; but the trades were exercised principally by slaves for the benefit of their owners. These slaves formed now by far the greatest part of the Eoman population, and though their lot had gradually become softened as their CONDITION OF SLAVES. 91 numbers increased, and the domestic bondsman had little to complain of except the greatest of all sorrows, the loss of freedom, the position of the rural labourers was still very bad. There were some of them slaves in every sense of the word — mere chattels, which were not so valuable as horse or dog. But the fate of others was so far mitigated that they could not be sold separate from their family — that they could not be sold except along with the land ; and at last glimpses appear of a sort of rent paid for certain portions of the lord's estate in full of all other requirements. But this process had again to be gone through when many centuries had elapsed, and a new state of society had been fully esta- blished, and it will be sufficient to remind you that in the fourth century, to which we are now come, the Eoman world consisted of a monarchy where all the greatness and magnificence of the empire were concentrated on the emperor and his court ; that the monarchical system was rapidly pervading the Church; and that below these two distinct but connected powers there was no people, properly so called — ^the country was oppressed and ruined, and the ancient dignity of Eome trans- planted to new and foreign quarters, at the sacrifice of all its oldest and most elevating associations. The half- depopulated city of Eomulus and the Kings — of the Consuls and Augustus, looked with ill-disguised hatred and contempt on the modern rival which denied her the name of Capital, and while fresh from the builder's hand, robbed her of the name of the Eternal City. We shall see great events spring from this jealousy of the two towns. In the mean time, we shall finish our view of Constantino by recording the greatness of his military skill, and merely protest against the enrolment in the list of saints of a man who filled his family circle with blood — who murdered his wife, his son, and his nephew, 92 FOURTH CENTURY. encouraged the contending factions of the now disputa- tious Church — gave a fallacious support to the orthodox Athanasius, and died after a superstitious baptism at the hands of the heretical Arius. An unbiassed judgment must pronounce him a great politician, who played with both parties as his tools, a Christian from expediency and not from conviction. It is a pity that the subserviency of the Greek communion has placed him in the number of its holy witnesses, for we are told by a historian that when the emperor, after the dreadful crimes he had perpetrated, applied at the heathen shrines for expiatory rites, the priests of the false gods had truly answered, "there are no purifica- tions for such deeds as these/' But nothing could be refused to the benefactor of the Church. The great ecclesiastical council of this age, (325), consisting of three hundred and eighteen bishops, and presided over by Constantine in j)erson, gave the ]^icene Creed as the result of their labours — a creed which is still the symbol of Christendom, but which consists more of a condemna- tion of the heresies which were then in the ascendant, than in the plain enunciation of the Christian faith. A layman, we are told, an auditor of the learned debates in this great assembly, a man of clear and simple common sense, met some of the disputants, and addressed them in these words: — "Arguers! Christ and his apostles de- livered to us, not the art of disj)utation, nor empty eloquence, but a plain and simple rule which is main- tained by faith and good works." The disputants, we are further told, were so struck with this undeniable truth that they acknowledged thfeir error at once. But not yet firm and impregnable were the bulwarks of Christianity. While dreaming anchorites in the deserts of Thebais were repeating the results of fasting and in- sanity as the manifestation of divine favour, the world JULIAN THE APOSTATE. 93 was startled from its security by the appalling discovery that the emperor himself, the young and vigorous Julian, was a follower of the old philoso- phers, and a worshipper of the ancient gods. And a dangerous antagonist ho was, even independent of his temporal power. His personal character was irre- proachable, his learning and talent beyond dispute, and his eloquence and dialectic skill sharpened and improved by an education in Athens itself. Less than forty years had elapsed since Constantine pronounced the sentence of banishment on the heathen deities. It was not pos- sible that the Christian truth was in every instance received where the old falsehood was driven away. We may therefore conclude, without the aid of historic evidence, that there must have been innumerable dis- tricts — villages in far-oif valleys, hidden places up among the hills — where the name of Christ had not yet pene- trated, and all that was known was, that ihe shrine of the local gods was overthrown, and the priests of the old ceremonial proscribed. When we remember that the heathen worship entered into almost all the changes of the social and family life — that its sanction was necessary at the wedding — that its auguries were indispensable at births — that it crowned the statue of the household god with flowers — ^that it kept alive the fire upon the altar of the emperor — and that it was the guardian of the tombs of the departed, as it had been the principal consola- tion during the funeral rites, — we shall perceive that, irrespective of absolute faith in his system of belief, the cessation of the priest's office must have been a serious calamity. The heathen establishment had been enriched by the piety or ostentation of many generations. There must have been still alive many who had been turned out of their comfortable temples, many who viewed the assumption of Christianity into the State as a political 94 FOURTH CENTURY. engine to strengthen the tyranny under which the nations groaned. "We may see that self-interest and patriotism may easily have been combined in the effort made by the old faith to regain the supremacy it had lost. The Emperor Julian endeavoured to lift up the fallen gods. He persecuted the Christians, not with fire and sword, but with contempt. He scorned and tolerated. He preached moderation, self-dmial, and purity of life, and practised all these virtues to an extent unknown upon a throne, and even then unusual in a bishop's palace. How these Christian graces, giving a charm and dignity to the apostate emperor, must have received a still higher authority from the painful contrast they presented to the agitated condition and corrupted morals of the Christian Church ! Everywhere there was war and treachery, and ambition and unbelief Half the great sees were held by Arians, who raved against the orthodox; and the other half were held by Athanasius and his followers, who accused their adversaries of being " more cruel than the Scythians, and more irreconcilable than tigers.^' At Eome itself there was an orthodox bishop and an Arian rival. It is not surprising that Julian, disgusted with the scenes presented to him by the mutual rage of the Christian sects, thought the surest method of restoring unity to the empire would be to silence all the contending parties and reintroduce the peaceful pageantries of the old Pantheon. If some of the fanciful annotators of the new faith had allego- rized the facts of Christianity till they ceased to be facts at all, Julian performed the same office for the heathen gods. Jupiter and the rest were embodiments of the hidden powers of nature. Yulcan was the per- sonification of human skill, and Yenus the beautiful re- presentative of connubial affection. Eut men's minds PAGANISM RESTORED. 95 were now too sharj)ened with the contact they had had with the real to be satisfied with such fallacies as these. Eloquent teachers arose, who separated the eternal truths of revelation from the accessories with which they were temporarily combined. Eidicule was retorted on thQ emperor, who had sneered at the Christian ser- vices. Who, indeed, who had caught the slightest view of the spirituality of Christ's kingdom, could abstain from laughing at the laborious heathenism of the master of the world ? He cut the wood for sacrifice, he slew the goat or bull, and, falling down on his knees, puffed with distended cheeks the sacred fire. He marched to the temple of Yenus between two rows of dissolute and drunken worshippers, striving in vain by face and atti- tude to repress the shouts of riotous exultation and the jeers of the spectators. Then, wherever he went he was surrounded by pythonesses, and augurs, and fortune- tellers, magicians who could work miracles, and necro- mancers who could raise the dead. "When he restored a statue to its ancient niche, he was rewarded by a shake of its head ; when he hung up a picture of Thetis or Amphitrite, she winked in sign of satisfaction. Where miracles are not believed, the performance of them is fatal. Eut his expenditure of money in honouring the gods was more real, and had clearer results. He nearly exhausted the empire by the number of beasts he slew He sent enormous offerings to the shrines of Dodona, and Delos, and Delphi. He rebuilt the temples, which time or Christian hatred had destroyed; and, by way of giving life to his new polity, he condescended to imitate the sect he despised, in its form of worship, in its advocacy of charity, peace, and good will, and in its institutions of celibacy and retirement, which, indeed, had been a portion, of heathen virtue before it was ad- mitted into the Christian Church. But his affected con- 96 FOURTH CENTURY. tempt soon degenerated into persecution. He would have no soldiers who did not serve his gods. Many re- signed their swords. He called the Christians "G-ali- leans/' and robbed them of their property and despite- fully used them, to try the sincerity of their faith. " Does not your law command you," he said, " to sub- mit to injury, and to renounce your worldly goods? Well, I take possession of your riches that your march to heaven may be unencumbered." All moderation was now thrown off on both sides. Eesistance was made by the Christians, and extermination threatened by the emperor. In the midst of these contentions he was called eastward to resist the aggression of Sapor, the Persian king. An arrow stretched Julian on his couch. He called round him his chief philosophers and priests. With them, in imitation of Socrates, he entered into deep discussions about the soul, l^othing more heroic than his end, or more eloquent than his parting discourse. But death did not soften the ani- mosity of his foes. The Christians boasted that the arrow was sent by an angel, that visions had foretold the persecutor's fall, and that so would perish all the enemies of God. The adherents of the emperor in return blamed the Galileans as his assassins, and boldly pointed to Athanasius, the leader of the Christians, as the culprit. Athanasius would certainly not have scrupled to rid the world of such an Agag and Holofernes, but it is more probable that the death occurred without either a miracle or a murder. The successors of Julian were enemies of the apostate. They speedily restored their fellow-believers to the supremacy they had lost. A ferocious hymn of exultation by Gregory of ITazianzen was chanted far and wide. Cries of joy and execration resounded in market-places, and churches, and theatres. The market-places had been closed against the Chris- GOTHS. 97 tians, their churches had been interdicted, and the theatres shut up, by the overstrained asceticism of the deceased. It was perceived that Christianity had taken deeper root than the apostate had believed, and hence- forth no effort could be made to revivify the old super- stition. After a nominal election of Jovian, the choice of the soldiers fell on two of their favourite leaders, Yalentinian and Talens, brothers, and sufferers in the late persecutions for their faith. JN'amed emperors of the Eoman world, they came to an amicable division of the empire into East and "West. Yalens remained in Constantinople to guard the frontiers of the Danube and the Euphrates ; while Yalentinian, who saw great clouds darkening over Italy and Gaul, fixed his imperial resi- dence in the strong city of Milan. The separation took place in 364, and henceforth the stream of history flows in two distinct and gradually diverging channels. This century has already been marked by the removal of the seat of power to Constantinople ; by the attempt at the restoration of Paganism by Julian ; and we have now to dwell for a little on the third and greatest in- cident of all, the invasion of the Goths, and final settle- ment of hostile warriors on the Roman soil. iN'ames that have retained their sound and established themselves as household words in Europe now meet us at every turn. Yalentinian is engaged in resisting the Saxons. The Britons, the Scots, the Germans, are pushing their claims to independence ; and in the farther East, the persecutions and tyranny of the contemptible Yalens are suddenly suspended by the news that a people hitherto unheard of had made their appearance within an easy march of the boundary, and that universal terror had taken possession of the soldiers of the empire. Who were those soldiers ? We have geen for many years that the policy of the emperors had been to introduce the bar- 5 98 FOURTH CENTURY. barians into the military service of the State, and to expose the wasted and helpless inhabitants to the ra- pacity of their tax-gatherers. This system had been carried to such a pitch, that it is probable there were none but mercenaries of the most varying interests in the Eoman ranks. Yet such is the effect of discipline, and the pride of military combination, that all other feelings gave way before it. The Gothic chief, now in- vested with command in the Eoman armies, turned his arms against his countrymen. The Albanian, the Saxon, the Briton, elevated to the rank of duke or count, looked back on Marius and Csesar as their lineal predecessors in opposing and conquering the enemies of Eome. The names of the generals and magistrates, accordingly, which we encounter after this date, have a strangely barbaric sound. There are Eicimer, and Marcomir, and Arbogast — and finally, the name which overtopped and outlived them all, the name of Alaric the Goth. Now, the Goths, we have seen, had been settled for many generations on the northern side of the Danube. Much intercourse must have taken place between the in- habitants of the two banks. There must have been trade, and love, and quarrellings, and rejoicings. At shorter and shorter intervals the bravest of the tribes must have passed over into the Eoman territory and joined the Legions. Occasionally a timid or despotic emperor would suddenly order his armies across, and carry fire and sword into the unsuspecting country. But on the whole, the terms on which they lived were not hostile, for the ties which united the two peoples were numerous and strong. Even the languages in the course of time must have come to be mutually intelligi- ble, and we read of Gothic leaders who were excellent judges of Homer and seldom travelled without a few chosen books. This being the case, what was the con- HUNS. 99 sternation of the almost civilized Goths in the fertile levels of the present Wallachia and Moldavia to hear that an innumerable horde of dreadful savages, calling themselves Huns and Magyars, had appeared on the western shore of the Black Sea, and spread over the land, destroying, murdering, burning whatever lay in their way ! Cooped up for an unknown period, it ap- peared, on the northeastern side of the Palus Mceotis,now better known to us as the Sea of Azof— living on fish out of the Don, and on the cattle of the long steppes which extend across the Yolga, these sons of the Scy- thian desert had never been heard of either by the Goths or Komans. A hideous people to behold, as the perverted imagination of poet or painter could produce. They were low in stature, but broad-shouldered and strong. Their wide cheek-bones and small eyes gave them a savage and cruel expression, which was increased by their want of nose, for the only visible appearance of that indispensable organ consisted of two holes sunk into the square expanse of their faces. Fear is not a flattering painter, but from these rude descriptions it is easy to recognise the Calmuck countenance; and when we add their small horses, long spears, and prodigious lightness and activity, we shall see a very close re- semblance between them and their successors in the same district, the Eussian Cossacks of the Don. On, on, came the torrent of these pitiless, fearless, ugly, dirty, irresistible foes. The Goths, terrified at their aspect, and bewildered with the accounts they heard of their numbers and mode of warfare, petitioned the emperor to give them an asylum on the Eoman side. Their prayer was granted on condition of depositing their children and arms in Eoman hands. They had no time to squabble about terms. Every thing was agreed to. Boats manned by Eoman soldiers were busy day and 100 FOURTH CENTURY. night in transporting the Gothic exiles to the Eoman side. Arms and jewels, and wives and children, the furniture of their tents, and idols of their gods, all got safely across the guarding river. The Huns, the Alans, and the other unsightly hordes who had gathered in the pursuit, came down to the bank, and shouted useless defiance and threats of vengeance. The broad Danube rolled between; and there rested that night on the Eoman soil a whole nation, different in interest, in manners and religion, from the population they had joined, numbering upwards of a million souls, bound together by every thing that constitutes the unity of a people. The avarice and injustice of the Eoman author- ities negatived the clause of the agreement that stipu- lated for the surrender of the Gothic arms. To redeem their swords and spears, they parted with the silver and gold they had amassed in their predatory incursions on the Eoman territory. They knew that once in posses- sion of their weapons they could soon reclaim all they gave — and in no long time the attempt was made. Fri- tigern, the leader of their name, led them against the armies of Eome. Insulted at their audacity, the Em- peror Yalens, at the head of three hundred thousand men, met them in the plain of Adrianopb. The exist- ^ ence of the Gothic people was at stake. They fought with desperation and hatred. The em- peror was defeated, leaving two-thirds of his army on the field of battle. Seeking safety in a cottage at the side of the road, he was burned by the inexorable pur- suers, who, gathering up their broken lines, marched steadily through the intervening levels and gazed with enraptured eyes on the glittering towers and pinnacles of Constantinople itself. But the walls were high and Btrongly armed. The barbarians were inveigled into a negotiation, and mastered by the unequal powers of lying. HUNS. 101 at all times characteristic of the Greeks. Fritigern con- sented to withdraw his troops : some were embodied in the levies of the empire, and others dispersed in different provinces. Those settled in Thrace were faithful to their employers, and resisted their ancient enemies the Huns ; but the great body of the discontented conquerors were ready for fresh assaults on the Eoman land. Theodo- sius, called to the throne in 379, succeeded in staving off the evil day; but when the final partition of the empire took place between his two sons — Honorius and Arcadius — there was nothing to oppose the terrible onset of the Goths. At their head was Alaric, the descendant of their original chiefs, and him- self the bravest of his warriors. He broke into Greece, forcing his way through Thermopylae, and devastated the native seats of poetry and the arts with fire and sword. The ruler at Constantinople heard of his ad- vance with terror, and opposed to him the Yandal Stili- cho, the greatest of his generals. Eut the wily Alaric declined to fight, and out-manoeuvred his enemies, es- caping to the sure fastnesses of Epirus, and sat down sullen and discontented, meditating further expeditions into richer plains, and already seeing before him the prostrate cities of Italy. The terror of Arcadius tried in vain to soften his rage, or satisfy his ambition with vain titles, among others, that of Count of the lUyrian Border. The spirit of aggression was fairly roused. All the Gothic settlers in the Eoman territory were ready to join their countrymen in one great and combined attack; — and with this position of the personages of the drama, the curtain falls on the fourth century, while prepara- tions for the great catastrophe are going on. FIFTH CENTURY lEmperor^* A.D. West,' HoNORius — [cont.) 424. Valentinian III. 455. Petronius Maximus. 455. Ayitus. 457. Majorianus. 461. Severus. 467. Anthemius. 472. Olibius. 473. GrLYCERIUS, 474. Julius Nepos. 475. AuGUSTULus Romulus. A.D. East, Arcadius — [conQ 408. Theodosius II. 450. Marcian. 457. Leo the Great. 474. Zeno. 491. Anastasius, King of tf)e dFranlts* 481. Cloyis. mn of Italg, 489. Theodoric. Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine, Pelagius, (405,) Sidonius Apollinaris, Patricius, Macrobius, Vicentius op Lerins, (died 450,) Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, (412-444.) THE FIFTH CENTUEY. END OP THE ROMAN EMPIRE — FORMATION OF MODERN STATES — GROWTH OF ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY. "We find the same actors on the stage when the cur- tain rises again, but circumstances have greatly changed. After his escape from Stilicho, Alaric had been " lifted on the shield," the wild and picturesque way in which the w^arlike Goths nominated their kings, and henceforth was considered the monarch of a separate and inde- pendent people, no longer the mere leader of a band of predatory barbarians. In this new character he entered into treaties Avith the emperors of Constantinople or Eome, and broke them, as if he had already been the sovereign of a civilized state. In 403 he broke up from his secure retreat on the Adriatic, and burst into Italy, spreading fire and famine wherever he went. Honorius, the Emperor of the West, fled from Milan, and was besieged in Asti by the Goths. Here would have ended the imperial dynasty, some years before its time, if it had not been for the w^atchful Stilicho. This Yandal chief flew to the rescue of Hono- rius, repulsed Alaric with great slaughter, and delivered his master from his dangerous position. The grateful emperor entered Eome in triumph, and for the last time the Circus streamed with the blood of beasts and men. He retired after this display to the inaccessible marshes of Eavenna, at the mouths of the Po, and, secure in that fortress, sent an order to have his preserver and 105 106 FIFTH CENTUEY. ,^o benefactor murdered; Stilicho, the only liope of A.D. 408. ^ ^ J L Eome, was assassinated, and Alaric once more saw all Italy within his grasp. It was not only the Goths who followed Alaric's command. All the bar- barians, of whatever name or race, who had been trans- planted either as slaves or soldiers — ^Alans, Franks, and Germans — rallied round the advancing king, for the im- politic Honorius had issued an order for the extermina- tion of all the tribes. There were Britons, and Saxons, and Suabians. It was an insurrection of all the manly elements of society against the indescribable deprava- tion of the inhabitants of the Peninsula. The wildest barbarian blushed in the midst of his ignorance and rudeness to hear of the manners of the highest and most distinguished families in Eome. ]S:obody could hold out a hand to avert the judgment that was about to fall on the devoted city. Ambassadors indeed ap- peared, and bought a short delay at the price of many thousand pounds' weight of gold and silver, and of large quantities of silk ; but these were only additional incite- ments to the cupidity of the invader. Tribe after tribe rose up with fresh fury; warriors of every hue and shape, and with every manner of equipment. The handsome Goth in his iron cuirass ; the Alan with his saddle covered with human skin ; the German making a hideous sound by shrieking on the sharp edge of his shield ; and the countryman of Alaric himself sounding the "horn of battle," which terrified the Eomans with its ominous note — all started forward on the march. At the head of each detachment rode a band, singing songs of exultation and defiance; and the Eomans, stupefied with fear, saw these innumerable swarms defile towards the Milvian bridge and close up every access to the town. There was no corn from Sicily or Africa ; a pest raged in every house, and hunger reduced the inhabit- FALL OF ROME. 107 ants to despair. The gates were thrown open, and all the pent-up animosity of the desert was poured out upon the mistress and corrupter of the world. For six days the city was given up to remorseless slaughter and uni- versal pillage. The wealth was incalculable. The cap- tives were sold as slaves. The palaces were overthrown, and the river choked with carcasses and the treasures of art which the barbarians could not appreciate. " The new Babylon," cries Bossuet, the great Bishop of Meaux, " rival of the old, swelled out like her with her successes, and, triumphing in her pleasures and riches, encountered as great a fall." And no man lamented her fate. Alaric, who had thus achieved a victory denied to Hannibal and Pyrrhus, resolved to push his con- ' quests to the end of Italy. But on his march towards the Straits of Sicily, illness overtook him. His life had been unlike that of other men, and his burial was to excite the wonder of the Bruttians, among whom he died. A large river was turned from its course, and in its channel a deep grave was dug and ornamented with monumental stone. To this the body of the barbaric king was carried, clothed in full armour, and accompanied with some of the richest spoils of Eome ; and then the stream was turned on again ; the prisoners who had executed the works were slaughtered to conceal the secret of the tomb, and nobody has ever found out where the Gothic king reposes. But while the Busentino flowed peaceably on, and guarded the body of the conqueror from the revenge of the Eomans, new perils were gathering round the throne of the "Western emperor. As if the duration of the empire had been inseparably connected with the capital, the reve- rence of mankind was never bestowed on Milan or Ea- venna, in which the court was now established, as it had been upon Eome. Britain had already thrown off 108 FIFTH CENTURY. the distant yoke, and submitted to the Saxon invaders. Spain had also peaceably accepted the rule of the three kindred tribes of Sueves and Alans and Yandals. Gaul itself had given its adhesion to the Burgundians (who fixed their seat in the district which still bears their name) and offered a feeble resistance to any fresh in- vader. Ataulf, the brother of Alaric, came to the res- cue of the empire, and of course completed the destruc- tion. He married the sister of Honorius, and retained her as a hostage of the emperor's good faith. He pro- mised to restore the revolted provinces to their former master, and succeeded in overthrowing some competitors who had started up to dispute with Eavenna the wrecks of former power. He then forced his way into Spain, and the hopes of the degenerate Eomans were high. But murder, as usual, stopped the career of Ataulf, and all was changed. The emperor ratified the possessions ,,^ which he could not dispute, and in the first A.D. 415. o 1 . ^ ^ twenty years of this century three separate kingdoms were established in Europe. This was soon followed by a Yandal conquest of the shores of Africa, which raised Carthage once more to commercial import- ance, united Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia to the new- founded state, and by the creation of a fleet gained the command of the Mediterranean Sea, and threatened Constantinople itself. With so many provinces not only torn from the empire, but erected into hostile kingdoms, nothing was wanting but some new irruption into the still dependent territories to put a final end to the Eoman name. And a new incursion came. In the very involved relations existing between the emperors of the East and West, it is difficult to follow the course of events with any clear- ness. While the deluded populace of Constantinople were rejoicing in the fall of their Italian rival, they ATTILA. 109 heard with amazement, in 441, that a tsavage potentate, who had pitched his tents in the plains of Pannonia and Thrace, and kept round him, for defence or conquest, seven hundred thousand of those hideous-featured Huns who had spread devastation and terror all over the populations of Asia, from the borders of China to the Don, had determined on stretching his conquests over the whole world, and merely hesitated with which of the doomed empires to begin his career. His name was Attila, or, according to its native pronunciation, Etzel ; and it soon resounded, louder and more terrifying than that of Alaric the Goth. The Emperor of the East sent an embassy to this dreadful neighbour, a minute account of which remains, and from which we learn the barbaric pomp and ceremony of the leader of the Huns, and the perfidy and debasement of the Greeks. An attempt was made to poison the redoubtable chief, and he com- plained of the guilty ambassador to the very person who had given him his instructions for the deed. Un- satisfied with the result, the Hunnish monarch advanced his camp. Constantinople, anxious to ward off the blow from itself, descanted to the savage king on the exposed condition and ill-defended wealth of the Italian towns. Treachery of another kind came to his aid. An offended sister of the emperor sent to Attila her ring as a mark of espousal, and he now claimed a portion of the empire as the dowry of his bride. When this was refused, he reiterated his old claim of satisfaction for the attempt upon his life, and ravaged the fields of Belgium and Gaul, in the double character of avenger of an insult and claimant of an inheritance. It does not much matter under what plea a barbarous chieftain, with six hundred thousand warriors, makes a demand. It must be answered sword in hand, or on the knees. The newly-established Prankish and Burgundian kings 110 FIFTH CENTURY. gathered their forces in defence of their Christian faith and their recently-acquired dominions. Attila retired from Orleans, of which he had commenced the siege, and chose for the hattle-field, which was to decide the destiny of the world, a vast plain not far from Chalons, on the Marne, where his cavalry would have room to act, and waited the assault of all the forces that France and Italy could collect. The Yisigoths prepared for the decisive engagement under their king, Theodoric; the Franks of the Saal under Meroveg; the Eipuarian Franks, the Saxons, and the Burgundians were ' under leaders of their own. It was a fight in which were brought face to face the two conquering races of the world, and upon its result it depended whether Europe was to be ruled by a dynasty of Cal- mucks or left to her free progress under her Gothic and Teutonic kings. Three hundred thousand corpses marked the severity of the struggle, but victory rested with the West. Attila retreated from Gaul, and wreaked his vengeance on -the Italian cities. He destroyed Aqui- leia, whose terrified inhabitants hid themselves in the marshes and lagoons which afterwards bore the palaces of Yenice ; Yicenza, Padua, and Yerona were spoiled and burned. Pavia and Milan submitted -without re- sistance. On approaching Eome, the venerable bishop, Saint Leo, met the devastating Hun, and by the gravity of his appearance, the ransom he offered, and perhaps the mystic dignity which still rested upon the city whose cause he pleaded, prevailed on him to retire. Shortly after, the chief of this brief and terrible visitation died in his tent on the banks of the Danube, and left no lasting memorial of his irruption except the depopula- tion his cruelty had caused, and the ruin he had spread over some of the fairest regions of the earth. But Eome, spared by the influence of the bishop from THE VANDALS. HI the ravage of the Huns^ could not escape the destroying enmity of Grenseric and the Yandals. Dashing across from Africa, these furious conquerors destroyed for de- struction's sake, and affixed the name of YandaHsm on whatever is harsh and unrefined. For fourteen days the spoilers were at work in Eome, and it is only wonderful that after so many plunderings any thing worth plunder- ing remained. When the sated Yandals crossed to Car- thage again, the Gothic and Suevic kings gave the purple to whatever puppet they chose. Afraid still to in- vest themselves with the insignia of the Imperial power, they bestowed them or took them away, and at last rendered the throne and the crown so contemptible, that when Odoacer was proclaimed King of Italy, the phantom assembly which still called itself the Eoman Senate sent back to Constantinople the tiara and purple robe, in sign that the Western Empire had passed away. Zeno, the Eastern ruler, retained the ornaments of the departed sovereignty, and sent to the Herulean Odoacer the title of " Patrician," sole emblem left of the greatness and antiquity of the Eoman name. It may be interest- ing to remember that the last who wore the Imperial crown was a youth who would probably have escaped the recognition of posterity altogether, if he had not, by a sort of cruel mockery of his misfortunes, borne the names of Eomulus Augustulus — the former recalling the great founder of the city, and the latter the first of the Imperial line. Thus, then, in 476, Eome came to her deserved and terrible end; and before we trace the influence of this great event upon the succeeding centuries, it will be worth while to devote a few words to the cause of its overthrow. These were evidently three — ^the ineradi- cable barbarity and selfishness of the Eoman character, the depravation of manners in the capital, and the want 112 FIFTH CENTURY. of some combining influence to bind all the parts of the various empire into a whole. From the earliest inci- dents in the history of Rome, we gather that she was utterly regardless of human life or suffering. Her treat- ment of her vanquished enemies, and her laws upon parental authority, upon slaves and debtors, show the pitiless disposition of her people. Look at her citizens at any period of her career — ^her populace or her con- suls — in the field of battle or in the forum, you will always find them the true descendants of those blood- stained refugees, who established their den of robbers on the seven hills, and pretended they were led by a man who had been suckled by a wolf "While conquest was their object, this sanguinary disposition enabled them to perform great exploits ; but when victory had secured to them the blessings of peace and safety, the same thirst for excitement continued. They cried out for blood in the amphitheatre, and had no pleasure in any display which was not accompanied with pain. The rival chief who had perilled their supremacy in the field was led in ferocious triumph at the wheel of his con- queror, and beheaded or flogged to death at the gate of J;he Capitol. The wounded gladiator looked round the benches of the arena in hopes of seeing the-thumbs of the spectators turned down — ^the signal for his life being spared ; but matrons and maids, the high and the low, looked with unmoved faces upon his agonies, and gave the signal for his death without remorse. They were the same people, even in their amusements, who gave order for the destruction of ISTumantium and Carthage. But cruelty was not enough. They sank into the wildest vices of sensuality, and lost the dignity of man- hood, and the last feelings of self-respect. ]^ever was a nation so easily habituated to slavery. They licked the hand that struck them hardest. They hung garlands HARSHNESS OF THE ROMANS. 113 for a long time on the tomb of Nero. They insisted on being revenged on the murderers of Commodus, and frequently slew more citizens in broils in the street and quarrels in the theatre, than had fought at Cannae oi Zama. It might have been hoped that the cruelty which characterized the days of their military aggres- sion would be softened down when they had become the acknowledged rulers of" the world. Luxury itself, it might be thought, would be inconsistent with the sight of blood. But in this utterly detestable race the two extremes of human society seemed to have the same result. The brutal, half-clothed savage of an early age conveyed his tastes as well as his conquests to the enervated voluptuary of the empire. The virtues, such as they were, of that former period^ — contempt of dan- ger, unfaltering resolution, and a certain simplicity of life — ^had departed, and all the bad features were exagge- rated. Eeligion also had disappeared. Even a false religion, if sincerely entertained, is a bond of union among all who profess its faith. But between Eome and its colonies, and between man and man, there was soon no community of belief. The sweltering wretches in the Forum sneered at the existence of Bacchus in the midst of his mysteries, and imitated the actions of their gods, while they laughed at the hypocrisy of priests and augurs, who treated them as divine. A cruel, depraved, godless people — these were the Eomans who had enslaved the world with their arms and cor- rupted it with their civilization. "When their capital fell, men felt relieved from a burden and shame. The lessons of Christianity had been thrown away on a population too gross and too truculent to receive them. Some of gentler mould than others had received the Saviour; but to the mass of Eomans the language of peace and justice, of forgiveness and brotherhood, was 114 FIFTH CENTURY. unknown. It was to be the worthier recipients of a pure and elevating faith, that the Croth was called from his wilderness and the German from his forest. But the faith had to be purified itself before it was fitted for the reception of the new conquerors of the world. The dissensions of the Christian Churches had added only a fresh element of weakness to the empire of Kome. There were heretics everywhere, supporting their opinions with bigotry and violence— Arians, Sabel- lians, Montanists, and fifty names besides. Torn by these parties, dishonoured by pretended conversions, the result of flattery and ambition, the Christian Church was further weakened by the effect of wealth and luxury upon its chiefs. "While contending with rival sects upon some point of discipline or doctrine, they made themselves so notorious for the desire of riches, and the infamous arts they practised to get themselves appointed heirs of the rich members of their congrega- tions, that a law was passed making a conveyance in favour of a priest invalid. And it is not from Pagan enemies or heretical rivals we learn this — it is from the letters still extant of the most honoured Fathers of the Church. One of them tells us that the Prefect Pre- textatus, alluding to the luxury of the Pontiffs, and to the magnificence of their apparel, said to Pope Damasus, "Make me Bishop of Eome, and I will turn Christian." "Far, then," says a Eoman Catholic historian of our own day, "from strengthening the Eoman world with its virtues, the Christian society seemed to have adopted the vices it was its office to overcome." But the fall of Eoman power was the resurrection of Christianity. It had a Eesurrection, because it had had a Death, and a new world was now prepared for its reception. Its everlasting truths, indeed, had been full of life and vigour all through the sad period of Eoman deprava- MONKS. 115 tiou, but the ground was unfitted for their growth ; and the great characteristic of this century is not the con- quest of Eome by Alaric the Goth, or the dreadful assault on Europe by Attila the Hun, or the final aboli- tion of the old capital of the world by Odoacer the Herulean, but rather the ecclesiastical chaos which spread over the earth. The age of martyrs had passed — the philosophers had begun their pestiferous tamper- ings with the facts of revelation — and over all rioted and stormed an ambitious and worldly priesthood, who hated their opponents with more bitterness than the heathens had displayed against the Christians, and rar. wild in every species of lawlessness" and vice. Tht deserts and caves which used to give retreat to medita- tive worshippers or timid believers, now teemed with thousands of furious and fanatical monks, who rushed occasionally into the great cities of the empire, and filled their streets with blood and rapine. Guided by no less fanatical bishops, they spread murder and terror over whole provinces. Alexandria stood in more fear of these professed recluses than of an army of hostile soldiers. "There is a race," says Eunapius, "called monks — men indeed in form, but hogs in life, who prac- tise and allow abominable things. "Whoever wears a black robe, and is not ashamed of filthy garments, and presents a dirty face to the public view, obtains a tyran- nical authority." False miracles, absurd prophecies, and ludicrous visions were the instruments with which these and other impostors established their power. Mad enthusiasts imprisoned themselves in dungeons, or ex- posed themselves on the tops of pillars, naked, except by the growth of their tangled hair, and the coating of filth upon their persons, — and gained credit among the ignorant for self-denial and abnegation of the world. All the high offices of the Church were so iucra- 116 FIFTH CENTURY. tive and honourable as to be the object of iiniversal desire. To be established archbishop of a diocese cost more lives than the conquest of a province. "When the Chris- tian community needed support from without, they had recourse to some rich or powerful individual, some general of an army, or governor of a district, and begged him to assume the pastoral staff in exchange for his military sword. Sometimes the assembled crowd cried out the name of a favourite who was not even known to be a Christian, and the mitre was conveyed by accla- mation to a person who had to undergo the ceremonies of baptism and ordination before he could place it on his head. Sometimes the exigencies of the congrega- tion required a scholar or an orator for its head. It applied to a philosopher to undertake its direction. He objected that his philosophy had been declared incon- sistent with the Christian faith, and his mode of life con- trary to Christian precept. They forgave him his philo- sophy, his horses and hounds, his wife and children, and constituted him their chief Age was of no conse- quence. A youth of eighteen has been saluted bishop by a cry which seemed to the multitude the direct inspi- ration of Heaven, and seated in the chair of iiis dignity almost without his knowledge. Once established on his episcopal seat, he had no superier. The Eoman Bishop had not yet asserted his supremacy over the Church. Each prelate was sovereign Pontiff of his own see, and his doctrines for a long time regulated the doctrines of his flock. Under former bishops, Milan had been Arian, under Ambrose it was orthodox, and with a change of master might have been Arian again. The emperors had occasionally interfered with their authoritative decisions, but generally the dispute was left in divided dioceses to be settled by argument, when the rivals' tempers PERSECUTION. 117 allowed such a mode of warfare, but more frequently by armed bands of the retainers of the respective creeds, and sometimes by an appeal to miracles. But with this century a new spirit of bitterness was let loose upon the Church. Councils were held, at which the doctrines of the minority were declared dangerous to the State, and the civil power was invoked to carry the sentence into effect. In Africa, where the great name of Augustin of Hippo admitted no opposition, the Donatists, though represented by no less than two hundred and seventy- nine prelates, were condemned as heretics, and given over to the persecuting sword. But in other quarters the dissidents looked for support to the civil power, when it happened to be of their opinion in Church affairs. Eome chose Clovis, the politic and energetic Frank, for its guardian and protector, and the Arians threw them- selves in the same way on the support of the Yisigoths and Burgundians. A difference of faith became a pre- text for war. Clovis, who envied his neighbours their territories south of the Loire, led an expedition against them, crying, "It is shameful to see those Arians in possession of such goodly lands !" and everywhere a vast activity was perceptible in the Church, because its interests were now connected with those of kings and peoples. In earlier times, discussions were carried on on a great variety of doctrines which, though widely spread, were not yet authoritatively declared to be articles of faith. St. Jerome himself, and others, had had to defend their opinions against the attacks of various adversaries, who, without ceasing to be consi- dered true members of the Church, wrote powerfully against the worship of martyrs and their relics; against the miracles professedly wrought at their tombs ; against fasting, austerities, and celibacy. Ko appeal was made on those occasions either to the Bishop of Eome as 118 FIFTH CENTURY. head of the Church, or to the emperor as head of the State. !N'ow, however, the spirit of moderation was banished, and the decrees of councils were considered superior to private or even diocesan judgment. Life and freedom of discussion were at an end under an enforced and rigid uniformity. But the struggle lasted through the century. It was the period of great con- vulsions in the State, and disputations, wranglings, and struggle in the Church. How these, in a State tortured by perpetual change, and a Church filled with energy and fire, acted upon each other, may easily be supposed. The doubtful and unsteady civil government had sub- ordinated itself to the turbulent ardour of the perplexed but highly-animated Church. After the conquest of Home, where was the barbaric conqueror to look for any guide to internal unity, or any relic of the vanished empire by which to connect himself with the past ? There was only the Church, which was now not only the professed teacher of obedience, peace, and holiness, but the only undestroyed institution of the State. The old population of Eome had been wasted by the sword, and famine, and deportation. The emperors of the West had left the scene; the Eoman Senate was no more. There was but one authority which had any influence on the wretched crowd who had returned to their ancient capital, or sought refuge in its ruined palaces or grass-grown streets from the pursuit of their foes ; and that was the Bishop of the Christian congregation — whose palace had been given to him by Constantine — who claimed already the inheritance of St. Peter — and who carried to the new government either the support of a willing people, or the enmity of a seditious mob. A new hero came upon the scene in the per- son of Theodoric, the Ostrogoth. Odoacer tried in vain to resist the two hundred thousand warriors of THEODOEIC. 119 this tribe who poured upon Italy in 490, and, after a Jong resistance in Eavenna, yielded the kingdom of Italy to his rival. Theodoric, though an Arian, culti- vated the good opinion of the orthodox, and gained the favour of the Eoman Bishop. He had almost a super- stitious veneration for the dignities of ancient Eome. He treated with respect an assembly which called itself the Senate, but did not allow his love of antiquity to blind him to the degeneracy of the present race. He interdicted arms to all men of Eoman blood, and tried in vain to prevent his followers from using the appel- lation "Eoman" as their bitterest form of contempt. Lands were distributed to his followers, and they occu- pied and improved a full third of Italy. Equal laws were provided for both populations, but he forbade the toga and the schools to his countrymen, and left the studies and refinements of life, and ofiiees of civil dignity, to the native race. The hand that holds the pen, he said, becomes unfitted for the sword. But, barbarian as he was called, he restored the prosperity which the fairest region of the earth had lost under the emperors. Bridges, aqueducts, theatres, baths, were repaired; palaces and churches built. Agriculture was encouraged, attempts were made to drain the Pontine Marshes; iron- mines were worked in Dalmatia, and gold-mines in Brut- tium. Large fleets protected the coasts of the Mediter- ranean from pirates and invaders. Population increased, taxes were diminished ; and a ruler who could neither read nor wi'ite attracted to his court all the learned men of his time. Already the energy of a new and enter- prising people was felt to the extremities of his domi- nions. A new race, also, was established in Gaul. Klod- wig, leader of the Franks, received baptism at the hands of St. Remi in 496, and began the great line of Prench rulers, who, passing his name through the softened 120 FIFTH CENTURY. sound of Clovis, presented, in the different families who succeeded him, eighteen kings of the name of Louis, as if commemorative of the founder of the monarchy. In England the petty kingdoms of the Heptarchy were in the course of formation, and though, when viewed closely, we seemed a divided and even hostile collection of individual tribes, the historian combines the separate elements, and tells us that, before the fifth century expired, another branch of the barbarians had settled into form and order, and that the Anglo-Saxon race had taken possession of its place. With these newly-founded States rising with fresh vigour from among the decayed and festering remains of an older society, we look hopefully forward to what the future years will show us. SIXTH CENTURY. iltinp of ti)e Jrvmt^. IBmperors of tje 3East A.D. A.D. Cloyis. — [coni.) Anastasius. — [cont.) 511. Childebert, Thierry, Clo- 518. Justin. TAIRE, ClODOMIR. /-o-r t t 527. Justinian I. 559. Clotaire (sole kinff). ^^^ -^ ^ ^' 565. Justin II. 562. Charibert, Gontran, Si- \ ^ 578. Tiberius II. GEBERT and CniLDERIC. 584. Clotaire II., (of Soissons.) ^^^' Maurice. 596. Thierry II., Theodobert, (of Paris and Austrasia.) boethius, procopius, gildas, gregory of tours, columba, (520-597,) Priscian, Columbanus, Benedict, Eyagrius, (Scholas* TICUS,) FULGENTIUS, GREGORY THE GrEAT. THE SIXTH CENTUEY. BELISARIUS AND NARSES IN ITALY — SETTLEMENT OP THE LOMBARDS — LAWS OP JUSTINIAN — BIRTH OP MOHAMMED. Theodoric, though not laying claim to universal empire in right of his possession of Eome and Italy, exercised a sort of supremacy over his contemporaries by his wisdom and power. He also strengthened his position by family alliances. His wife was sister of Klodwig or Clovis, King of the Franks. He married his own sister to Hunric, King of the Yandals, his niece to the Thuringian king. One of his daughters he gave to Sigismund, King of the Burgundians, and the other to Alaric the Second, King of the Yisigoths. Belying on the double influence which his relationship and repu- tation secured to him, he rebuked or praised the poten- tates of Europe as if they had been his children, and gave them advice in the various exigencies of their affairs, to which they implicitly submitted. He would fain have kept alive what was left of the old Eoman civilization, and heaped honours on the Senator Cassio- dorus, one of the last writers of Eome. ^^ "We send you this man as ambassador," he said to the King of the Eurgundians, " that your people may no longer pretend to be our equals when they perceive what manner of men we have among us." But his rule, though gene- rous, was strict. He imprisoned the Bishop of Eome for disobedience of orders in a commission he had given him, and repressed discontent and the quarrels of the factions with an unsparing hand. But the death of this 323 12^1 SIXTH CENTURY. great and wise sovereign showed on what unstable foundations a barbaric power is built. Frightful tra- gedies were enacted in his family. His daughter was murdered by her nephew, whom she had associated with her in the guardianship of her son. But ven- geance overtook the wrong-doer, and a strange revolution occurred in the history of the world. The emper'or reigning at Constantinople was the celebrated Justinian. He saw into what a confused condition the affairs of the new conquerors of Italy had fallen. Rallying round him all the recollections of the past — giving command of his armies to one of the great men who start up un- expectedly in the most hopeless periods of history, whose name, Belisarius, still continues to be familiar to our ears — and rousing the hostile nationalities to come to his aid, he poured into the peninsula an army with Eoman discipline and the union which community of interests affords. In a remarkably short space of time, Belisarius achieved the conquest of Italy. The opposing soldiers threw down their arms at sight of the well-remembered eagles. The nations threw off the supremacy of the Ostrogoths. Belisarius had already overthrown the kingdom of the Yandals and restored Africa to the empire of the East. He took I^aples, and put the inhabitants to the sword. He ad- vanced upon Eome, which the Goths deserted at his approach. The walls of the great city were restored, and a victory over the fugitives at Perugia seemed to secure the whole land to its ancient masters. But "Witig, the Ostrogoth, gathered courage from despair. He besought assistance from the Franks, who had now taken possession of Burgundy ; and volunteers from all quarters flocked to his standard, for he had promised them the spoils of Milan. Milan was immensely rich, and had espoused the orthodox faith. The assailant« TOTILA. 125 were Arians, and intent on plunder. Such destruction had scarcely been seen since the memorable slaughter of the Huns at Chalons on the Marne. The Ostrogoths and Burgundian Franks broke into the town, and the streets were piled up with the corpses of all the inhabitants. There were three hundred thousand put to death, and multitudes had died of famine and disease. The ferocity was useless, and Belisarius was already on the march j Witig was conquered, in open fight, while he was busy besieging Eome ; Eavenna itself, his capital, was taken, and the Ostrogothic king was led in triumph along the streets of Constantinople. But the conqueror of the Ostrogoths fell into disfavour ^ ,^ at court. He was summoned home, and a 2;reat A.D. 540. ^ ^ man, whom his presence in Italy had kept in check, availed himself of his absence, Totila seemed indeed worthy to succeed to the empire of his country- man Theodoric. He again peopled the utterly ex- hausted Eome; he restored its buildings, and lived among the new-<3omers himself, encouraging their efforts to give it once more the appearance of the capital of the world. But these efforts were in vain. There was no possibility of reviving the old fiction of the identity of the freshly-imported inhabitants and the countrymen of Scipio and Caesar. Only one link was possible between the old state of things and the new. It was strange that it was left for the Christian Bishop to bridge over the chasm that separated the Eome of the Consulship and the Empire from the capital of the Goths. Yet so it was. "While the short duration of the reigns of the barbaric kings prevented the most sanguine from look- ing forward to the stability of any power for the future, the immunity already granted to the clerical order, and the sanctuary afforded, in the midst of the wildest ex- cesses of siege and storm, by their shrines and churches, 126 SIXTH CENTURY. had affixed a character of inviolability and permanence to the influence of the ecclesiastical chief. At Constan- tinople, the presence of the sovereign, who affected a grandeur to which the pretensions to divinity of the Eoman emperors had been modesty and simplicity, kept the dignity of the Bishop in a very secondary place. Eut at Eome there was no one left to dispute his rank. His office claimed a duration of iipwards of four hundred years; and though at first his predecessors had been fugitives and martyrs, and even now his power had no foundation except in the willing obedience of the mem- bers of his flock, the necessity of his position had forced him to extend his claims beyond the mere requirements of his spiritual rule. During the ephemeral occupations of the city by Yandals and Huns and Ostrogoths, and all the tribes who successively took possession of the great capital, he had been recognised as the representa- tive of the most influential portion of the inhabitants. As it naturally followed that the higher the rank of a ruler or intercessor was, the more likely his success would be, the Christians of the orthodox persuasion had the wisdom to raise their Bishop as high as they could. He had stood between the devoted city and the Huns ; he had promised obedience or threatened resistance to the Goths, according to the conduct pursued with regard to his flock by the conquerors. He had also lent to Belisarius all the weight of his authority in restoring the power of the emperors, and from this time the Bishop of Eome became a great civil as well as eccle- siastical officer. All parties in turn united in trying to win him over to their cause — the Arian kings, by kind- ness and forbearance to his adherents; and the orthodox, by increasing the rights and privileges of his see. And already the policy of the Eoman Pontiffs began to take the path it has never deserted since. They looked out END OF THE OSTKOGOTHS. 127 in all quarters for assistance in their schemes of ambition and conquest. Emissaries were despatched into many nations to convert them, not from heathenism to Chris- tianity, but from independence to an acknowledgment of their subjection to Eome. It was seen already that a great spiritual empire might be founded upon the ruins of the old Eoman world, and spread itself over the perplexed and unstable politics of the barbaric tribes. 'No means, accordingly, were left untried to extend the conquests of the spiritual Caesar. When Clovis the Frank was converted by the entreaties of his wife from Arianism to the creed of the Eoman Church, the ortho dox bishops of France considered it a victory over their enemies, though these enemies were their country- men and neighbours. And from henceforth we find the different confessions of faith to have more influence in the setting up or overthrowing of kingdoms than the strength of armies or the skill of generals. ISTarses, who was appointed the successor of Belisarius, was a believer in the decrees of the Council of JS'ice. His or- thodoxy won him the support of all the orthodox Huns and Heruleans and Lombards, who formed an army of infuriated missionaries rather than of soldiers, and gained to his cause the majority of the Ostrogoths whom it was his task to fight. Totila in vain tried to bear up against this invasion. The heretical Ostrogoths, expelled from the towns by their orthodox fellow-citizens, and ill supported by the inhabitants of the lands they traversed, were defeated in several battles ; and at last, when the resisting forces were reduced to the paltry number of seven thousand men, their spirits broken by defeat, and a continuance in Italy made useless by the hostile feelings of the population, they applied to l^arses for some means of saving their lives. He furnished them with vessels, which carried them from the lands which, 128 SIXTH CENTURY. sixty years before, had been assigned them by the great Theodoric, and they found an obscure termination to so strange and checkered a career, by being lost and mingled in the crowded populations of Constantinople. This was in 653. The Ostrogoths disappear from history. The Visigoths have still a settlement at the southwest of France and in the rich regions of Spain, but they are isolated by their position, and are divided into different branches. The Franks are a great and seemingly well-cemented race between the Ehine and the sea. The Burgundians have a form of government and code of laws which keep them distinct and powerful. There are nations rising into independence in Germany. In England, Chris- tianity has formed a bond which practically gives firm- ness and unity to the kingdoms of the Heptarchy ; and it might be expected that, having seen so many tribes of strange and varying aspect emerge from the unknown regions of the East, we should have little to do but watch the gradual enlightenment of those various races, and see them assuming, by slow degrees, their present respective places ; but the undiscovered extremities of the earth were again to pour forth a swarm of invaders, who plunged Italy back into its old state of barbarism and oppression, and established a new people in the midst of its already confused and intermixed populations. Somewhere up between the AUer and the Oder there had been settled, from some unknown period, a people of wild and uncultivated habits, who had occasionally appeared in small detachments in the various gatherings of barbarians who had forced their way into the South. Following the irresistible impulse which seems to impel all the settlers in the IN'orth, they traversed the regions already occupied by the Heruleans and the Gepides, and paused, as all previous invasions had done, on the outer boundary of the Danube. These were the Longobards IRRUPTION OF THE LOMBARDS. 129 or Lombards, so called from the spears, hardij with which they were armed ; and not long they required to wait till a favourable opportunity occurred for them to cross the stream. In the hurried levies of i^arses some of them had offered their services, and had been present at the victory over Totila the Goth. They returned, in all probability, to their companions, and soon the hearts of the whole tribe were set upon the conquest of the beautiful region their countrymen had seen. If they hesitated to undertake so long an expedition, two inci- dents occurred which made it indispensable. Plying in wild fury and dismay from the face of a pursuing enemy, the Avars, themselves a ferocious Asiatic horde which had terrified the Eastern Empire, came and joined them- selves to the Lombards. With united forces, all their tents, and wives and children, their horses and cattle, this dreadful alliance began their progress to Italy. The other incident was, that in revenge for the injustice of his master, and dreading his further maKce, ISTarses him- self invited their assistance. Alboin, the Lombard king, was chief of the expedition. He had been refused the hand of Eosamund, the daughter of Cunimond, chief of the Gepides. He poured the combined armies of Lombards and Avars upon the unfortunate tribe, slew the king with his own hand, and, according to the inhuman fashion of his race, formed his drinking-cup of his enemy's skull. He married Eosamund, and pur- sued his victorious career. He crossed the Julian Alps, made himself master of Milan and the dependent terri- tories, and was lifted on the shield as King of Italy. At a festival in honour of his successes, he forced his favourite wine-goblet into the hands of his wife. She recognised the fearful vessel, and shuddered while she put her lips to the brim. Eut hatred took possession of her heart. She promised her hand and throne to Kil- 130 SIXTH CENTURY. mich, one of her attendants, if he would take vengeance on the tyrant who had offered her so intolerable a wrong. The attendant was won by the bride, and slew Alboin. Eut justice pursued the murderers. They were discovered, and fled to Eavenna, where the Exarch held his court. Saved thus from human retribution, Eosamund brought her fate upon herself Captivated with the prospect of marrying the Exarch, she presented a poisoned cup to Kilmich, now become her husband, as he came from the bath. The effect was immediate, and the agonies he felt told him too surely the author of his death. He just lived long enough to stab the wretched woman with his dagger, and this frightful domes- tic tragedy was brought to a close. Alboin had divided his dominion into many little states and dukedoms. A kind of anarchy succeeded the strong government of the remorseless and clear- sighted king, and enemies began to arise in different directions. The Franks from the south of France began to cross the Alps. The Greek settlements began to menace the Lombards from the South. Internal dis- union was quelled by the public danger, and Antharis, the son of Cleph, was nominated king. To strengthen himself against the orthodox Franks, he professed him- self a Christian and joined the Arian communion. With the aid of his co-religionists he repelled the invaders, and had time, in the intervals of their assaults, to ex- tend his conquests to the south of the peninsula. There he overthrew the settlements which owned the Empire of the East ; and coming to the extreme end of Italy, the savage ruler pushed his war-horse into the water as deep as it would go, and, standing up in his stirrups, threw forward his javelin with all his strength, saying, " That is the boundary of the Lombard power .^^ Un- happily for the unity of that distracted land, the war- LOMBARD POLITY. 131 rior's boast was unfounded, and it has continued ever since a prey to discord and division. Another kingdom, however, was added to the roll of European states ; and ^ this was the last settlement permanently made on the old Roman territory. The Lombards were a less civilized horde than any of their predecessors. The Ostrogoths had rapidly as- similated themselves to the people who surrounded them, but the Lombards looked with haughty disdain on the population they had subdued. By portioning the country among the chiefs of the expedition, they commenced the first experiment on a great scale of what afterwards expanded into the feudal system. There were among them, as among the other northern settlers, an elective king and an hereditary nobility, owing suit and service to their chief, and exacting the same from their dependants ; and already we see the working of this similarity of constitution in the diffusion throughout the whole of Europe of the monarchical and aristocratic principle, which is still the characteristic of most of our modern states. From this century some authors date the origin of what are called the " Middle Ages," forming the great and obscure gulf between ancient and modern times. Others, indeed, wish to fix the commencement of the Middle Ages at a much earlier date— even so far back as the reign of Constan- tine. They found this inclination on the fact that to him we are indebted for the settlement of barbarians within the empire, and the institution of a titled nobility dependent on the crown. But many things were needed besides these to constitute the state of manners and politjT- which we recognise as those of the Middle Ages, and above them all the establishment of the monarchical principle in ecclesiastical government, and the recogni- 132 SIXTH CENTURY. tion of a sovereign priest. This was now close at hand, and its approach was heralded by many appearances. HoW; indeed, could the Church deprive itself of the organization which it saw so powerful and so successful in civil affairs ? A machinery was all ready to produce an exact copy of the forms of temporal administration. There were bishops to be analogous to the great feuda- taries of the crown ; priests and rectors to represent the smaller freeholders dependent on the greater barons; but where was the monarch by whom the whole system was to be combined and all the links of the great chain held together by a point of central union ? The want of this had been so felt, that we might naturally have expected a claim to universal superiority to have long ere this been made by a Pope of Eome, the ancient seat of the temporal power. But with his residence per- petually a prey to fresh inroads, a heretical king merely granting him toleration and protection, the pretension would have been too absurd during the troubles of Italy, and it was not advanced for several years. The neces- sity of the case, however, was such, that a voice was heard from another quarter calling for universal obe- dience, and this was uttered by the Patriarch of Con- stantinople. Eome, we must remember, had by this time lost a great portion of her ancient fame. It was re- served for this wonderful city to rise again into all her former grandeur, by the restoration of learning and the knowledge of what she had been. At this period all that was known of her by the ignorant barbarians was, that she was a fresh-repaired and half-peopled town, which had been sacked and ruined five times within a century, that her inhabitants were collected from all parts of the world, and that she was liable to a repeti- tion of her former misfortunes. They knew nothing of the great men who had raised her to such pre-eminence. ■/ GKEGORY THE GREAT. 133 She had sunk even from being the capital of Italy, and could therefore make no intelligible claim to be con- sidered the capital of the world. Constantinople, on the other hand, which, by our system of education, we are taught to look upon as a very modern creation compared with the Eome of the old heroic ages of the kings and consuls, was at that period a magnificent me- tropolis, which had been the seat of government for three hundred years. The majesty of the Roman name had transferred itself to that new locality, and nothing was more natural than that the Patriarch of the city of Constantine, which had been imperial from its origin, and had never been defiled by the presence of a Pagan temple, should claim for himself and his see a pre- eminence both in power and holiness. Accordingly, a demand was made in 588 for the recognition throughout the Christian world of the universal headship of the bishopric of Constantinople. But at that time there was a bishop of Eome, whom his successors have grate- fully dignified with the epithet of Great, who stood up in defence, not of his own see only, but of all the bishop- rics in Europe. Gregory published, in answer to the audacious claim of the Eastern patriarch, a vigorous protest, in which these remarkable words occur : — " This I declare with confidence, that whoso designates himself Universal Priest, or, in the pride of his heart, consents to be so named — ^he is the forerunner of Antichrist." It was therefore to Eome, on the broad ground of the Christian equality of all the chief pastors of the Church, that we owe this solemn declaration against the preten- sions of the ambitious John of Constantinople. But Constantinople itself was about to fade from the minds of men. Dissatisfied with the opposition to its supremacy, the Eastern Church became separated in interest and discipline and doctrine from its Western 134 SIXTH CENTURY. branch. The intercourse between the two was hostile, and in a short time nearly ceased. The empire also was so deeply engaged in defending its boundaries against the .Persians and other enemies in Asia, that it took small heed of the proceedings of its late depend- encies, the newly-founded kingdoms in Europe. It is probable that the refined and ostentatious court of Justinian, divided as it was into fanatical parties about some of the deepest and some of the most unimportant mysteries of the faith, and contending with equal bitter- ness about the charioteers of the amphitheatre accord- ing as their colours were green or blue, looked with pro- found contempt on the struggles after better govern- ment and greater enlightenment of the rabble of Franks, and Lombards, and Burgundians, who had settled them- selves in the distant lands of the West. The interior regulations of Justinian formed a strange contrast with the grandeur and success of his foreign policy. By his lieutenants Belisarius and Il^arses, he had reconquered the lost inheritance of his predecessors, and held in full sovereignty for a while the fertile shores of Africa, rescued from the debasing hold of the Yandals; he had cleared Italy of Ostrogoths, Spain even had "^yielded an unwilling obedience, and his name was reverenced in the great confederacy of the Germanic peoples who held the lands from the Atlantic eastward to Himgary, and from Marseilles to the mouth of the Elbe. But his home was the scene of every weakness and wickedness that can disgrace the name of man. Kept in slavish submission to his wife, he did not see, what all the rest of the world saw, that she was the basest of her sex, and a disgrace to the place he gave her. Beginning as a dancer at the theatre, she passed through ever^^ grade of infamy and vice, till the name of Theodora became a synonym for every thing vile and shameless. Yet this Justinian's law-reform. 135 man, successful in war and politic in action, though con- temptible in private life, had the genius of a legislator, and left a memorial of his abilities which extended its influence through all the nations which succeeded to any portion of the Roman dominion, and has shaped and modified the jurisprudence of all succeeding times. He was not so much a maker of new laws, as a restorer and simplifiier of the old ; and as the efforts of Justinian in this direction were one of the great features by which the sixth century is distinguished, it will be useful to devote a page or two to explain in what his work con- sisted. The Eoman laws had become so numerous and so contradictory that the administration of justice was impossible, even where the judges were upright and intelligent. The mere word of an emperor had been considered a decree, and legally binding for all future time, ^o lapse of years seems to have brought a law once promulgated into desuetude. The people, there- fore, groaned under the uncertainty of the statutes, which was further increased by the innumerable glosses or interpretations put upon them by the lawyers. All the decisions which had ever been given by the fifty-four emperors, from Adrian to Justinian, were in full force. All the commentaries made upon them by advocates and judges, and all the sentences delivered in accord- ance with them, were contained in thousands of volumes; and the result was, when Justinian came to the throne in 526, that there was no point of law on which any man could be sure. He employed the greatest juriscon- sults of that time, Trebonian and others, to bring some order into the chaos ; and such was the diligence of the commissioners, that in fourteen months they produced the Justinian Code in twelve books, containing a condensation of all previous constitutions. In ^^^ SIXTH CENTURY. the course of seven years, two hundred laws and fifty- judgments were added by the emperor himself, and a new edition of the Code was published in 534. Under the name of Institutes appeared a new manual for the legal students in the great schools of Constant!- nople, Berytus, and Eome, where the principles of Eoman law are succinctly laid down. The third of his great works was one for the completion of which he gave Trebonian and his assessors ten years. It is called the Digest or Pandects of Justinian, because in it were digested, or put in order in a general collection, the best decisions of the courts, and the opinions and treatises of the ablest lawyers. All previous codes were ran- sacked, and two thousand volumes of legal argument condensed; and in three years the indefatigable law- reformers published their work, wherein three million leading judgments were reduced to a hundred and fifty thousand. Future confusion was guarded against by a commandment of the emperor abolishing all previous laws and making it penal to add note or comment to the collection now completed. The sentences delivered by the emperor, after the appearance of the Pandects, were published under the name of the JS'ovellse; and with this great clearing-out of the Augean stable of ancient law, the salutary labours of Trebonian came to a close. In those laws are to be seen both the virtues and the vices of their origin. They sprang from the wise liberality of a despot, and handle the rights of sub- jects, in their relation to each other, with the equani- mity and justice of a power immeasurably raised above them all. But the unlimited supremacy of the ruler is maintained as the sole foundation for the laws them- selves. So we see in these collections, and in the spirit which they have spread over all the codes which have taken them for their model, a combination of humanity MOHAMMED. 137 and probity in the civil law, with a tendency to exalt to a ridiculous excess the authority of the governing power. This has been a century of wonderful revolutions. "We have seen the kingdom of the Ostrogoths take the lead in Europe under the wise government of Theodoric the Great. We have seen it overthrown by an army of very small size, consisting of the very forces they had so recently triumphed over in every battle ; and finally, after the victories over them of Belisarius and I^arses, we have seen the last small remnant of their name re- moved from Italy altogether and eradicated from his- tory for all future time. But, strange as this reassertioi' of the Greek supremacy was, the rapidity of its over- throw was stranger still. A new people came upon the stage, and established the Lombard power. The empire contracted itself within its former narrow bounds, and kept up the phantom of its superiority merely by the residence of an Exarch, or provincial governor, at Eavenna. The fiction of its power was further main- tained by the Emperor's oflScial recognition of certain rulers, and his ratification of the election of the Eoman bishops. But in all essentials the influence had departed from Constantinople, and the Western monarchies were separated from the East. In the Northwest, the confederacy of the Franks, which had consolidated into one immense and powerful kingdom under Clovis, became separated, weakened, and converted into open enemies under his degenerate successors. But as the century drew to a close, a circumstance occurred, far away from the scene of all these proceed- ings, which had a greater influence on human affairs than the recon quest of Italy or the establishment of France. This was the marriage of a young man in a 138 SIXTH CENTUKY. town of Arabia with the widow of his former master. In 564 this young man was born in Mecca, where his family had long held the high oflSlce of custodiers and guardians of the famous Caaba, which was popularly believed to be the stone that covered the grave of Abraham. Eut when he was still a child his father died, and he was left to the care of his uncle. The simplicity of the Arab character is shown in the way in which the young noble was brought up. Abu Taleb initiated him in the science of war and the mysteries of commerce. He managed his horse and sword like an accomplished cavalier, and followed the caravan as a merchant through the desert. Gifted with a high poeti- cal temperament, and soaring above the grovelling superstitions of the people surrounding him, he used to retire to meditate on the great questions of man's relation to his Maker, which the inquiring mind can never avoid. Meditation led to excitement. He saw visions and dreamed dreams. He saw great things before him, if he could become the leader and lawgiver of his race. Eut he was- poor and unknown. His mis- tress Cadijah saw the aspirations of her noble servant, and offered him her hand. He was now at^ leisure to mature the schemes of national regeneration and re- ligious improvement which had occupied him so long, and devoted himself more than ever to study and con- templation. This was Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam, who retired in 594 to perfect his scheme, and whose empire, before many years elapsed, extended from India to Spain, and menaced Christianity and Europe at the same time from the Pyrenees and the Danube. SEVENTH CENTURY. itinp ot tf)e dFranifeis, ISmpecoris of tfje iBast A.D. A.D. Thierry II. and Theodo- Maurice — [cont.') BERT II. — {cont) 602. Phocas. 614. Clotaire III. (sole king.) 611. Heraclius. 628. Dagobert and Chari- 641. Constantine, (and BERT. others.) 638. SiGEBERT and Clovis II. 642. Constans. 654. Childeric II. 668. Constantius V. 679. Thierry IV. 685. Justinian II. 692. Cloyis III. (Pepin, 695. Leontius. Mayor.) 697. Tiberius. 695. Childebert III. (do.) ^utf)ors» Nennius, (620,) Bede, (674-735,) Aldhelm, Adamnanus. THE SEVENTH CENTUEY. POWER OF ROME SUPPOETED BY THE MONKS — CONQUESTS OF THE MOHAMMEDANS. This, then, is the century during which Mohammed- anism and Christianity were marshalling their forces — ^unknown, indeed, to each other, but preparing, accord- ing to their respective powers, for the period when they were to be brought face to face. We shall go eastward, and follow the triumphant march of the warriors of the Crescent from Arabia to the shores of Africa ; but first we shall cast a desponding eye on the condition and prospects of the kingdoms of the West. Conquest, spoliation, and insecurity had done their work. Wave after wave had passed over the surface of the old Eoman State, and obliterated almost all the landmarks of the ancient time. The towns, to be sure, still remained, but stripped of their old magnificence, and thinly peopled by the dispossessed inhabitants of the soil, who congre- gated together for mutual support. Trade was carried on, but subject to the exactions, and sometimes the open robberies, of the avaricious chieftains who had reared their fortresses on the neighbouring heights. Large tracts of country lay waste and desolate, or were left to the happy fertility of nature in the growth of spontaneous woods. Marshes were formed over whole districts, and the cattle picked up an uncertain exist- ence by browsing over great expanses of poor and un- enclosed land. These flocks and herds were guarded by hordes of armed serfs, who camped beside them on the 141 142 SEVENTH CENTURY. fields, and led a life not unlike that of their remote ancestors on the steppes of Tartary. A man's wealth was counted by his retainers, and there was no supreme authority to keep the dignitaries, even of the same tribe, from warring on each other and wasting their rival's country with fire and sword. Agriculture, there- fore, was in the lowest state, and famines, plagues, and other concomitants of want were common in all parts of Europe. One beautiful exception must be made to this universal neglect of agriculture, in favour of the Benedictine monks, established in various parts of Italy and Gaul in the course of the preceding century. Ee- ligious reverence was a surer safeguard to those lowly men than castles or armour could have been. !No marauder dared to trespass on lands which were under the protection of priest and bishop. And these "Western recluses, far from imitating the slothful uselessness of the Eastern monks, turned their whole attention to the cultivation of the soil. In this they bestowed a double benefit on their fellow-men, for, in addition to the posi- tive improvement of the land, they rescued labour from the opprobrium into which it had fallen, and raised it to the dignity of a religious duty. Slavery, we'have seen, was universally practised in all the conquered territories, and as only the slaves were compelled to the drudgeries of the field, the work itself borrowed a large portion of the degradation of the unhappy beings condemned to it ; and robbery, pillage, murder, and every crime, were considered far less derogatory to the dignity of free Frank or Burgundian than the slightest touch of the mattock or spade. How surprised, then, were the haughty countrymen and descendants of Clovis or Alboin to see the revered hands from which they be- lieved the highest blessings of Heaven to flow, employed in the daily labour of digging, planting, sowing, reaping, AGRICULTURE. 143 thrashing, grinding, and baking ! At first they looked incredulously on. Even the monks were disposed to consider it no part of their conventual duties. But the founder of their institution wrote to them, " to beware of idleness, as the greatest enemy of the soul," and not to be uneasy if at any time the cares of the harvest hindered them from their formal readings and regulated prayers. "JSTo person is ever more usefully employed than when working with his hands or following the plough, providing food for the use of man." And the effects of these exhortations were rapidly seen. Wher- ever a monastery was placed, there were soon fertile fields all round it, and innumerable stacks of corn. Gene- rally chosen with a view to agricultural pursuits, we find sites of abbeys at the present day which are the perfect ideal of a working farm ; for long after the out- burst of agricultural energy had expired among the monks of St. Benedict, the choice of situation and know- ledge of different soils descended to the other ecclesias- tical establishments, and skill in agriculture continued at all times a characteristic of the religious orders. What could be more enchanting than the position of their monastic homes ? Placed on the bank of some beautiful river, surrounded on all sides by the low flat lands en- riched by the neighbouring Avaters, and protected by swelling hills where cattle are easily fed, we are too much in the habit of attributing the selection of so admirable a situation to the selfishness of the portly abbot. When the traveller has admired the graces of Meh'ose or of Tintern — the description applies equally to almost all the foundations of an early date — and has paid due attention to the chasteness of the architecture, and beauty of " the long-resounding aisle and fretted vault," he sometimes contemplates with a sneer the matchless charm of the scenery, and exceeding richness 144 SEVENTH CENTURY. of the haugh or stratli in which the building stands ■'^Ah/^ he says, "they were knowing old gentlemen, those monks and priors. They had fish in the river, fat beeves upon the meadow, red-deer on the hill, ripe corn on the water-side, a full grange at Christmas, and snowy sheep at midsummer." And so they had, and deserved them all. The head of that great establishment was not wallowing in the fat of the land to the exclusion of envious baron or starving churl. He was, in fact, set- ting them an example which it would have been wise in them to follow. He merely chose the situation most fitted for his purpose, and bestowed his care on the lands which most readily yielded him his reward. It was not necessary for the monks in those days to seek out some neglected corner, and to restore it to cultiva- tion, as an exercise of their ingenuity and strength. They were free to choose from one end of Europe to the other, for the whole of it lay useless and comparatively barren. Eut when these able-bodied recluses, if such they may be called, had shown the results of patient industry and skill, the peasants, who had seen their labours, or occasionally been employed to assist them, were able to convey to their lay proprietors or masters the lessons they had received. And at last something venerable was thought to reside in the act of farming itself. It was so uniformly found an accompaniment of the priestly character, that it acquired a portion of its sanctity, and the rude Lombard or half-civilized Frank looked with a kind of awe upon waving corn and rich clover, as if they were the result of a higher intelli- gence and purer life than he possessed. Even the highest ofiicers in the Church were expected to attend to these agricultural conquests. In this century we find, that when kings summoned bishops to a council, or an archbishop called his brethren to a conference, care ADVANTAGES OF THE CHURCH. 145 was taken to fix the time of meeting at a season which did not interfere with the labours of the farm. Privi- leges naturally followed these beneficial labours. The kings, in their wondering gratitude, surrounded the monasteries with fresh def^ences against the envy or enmity of the neighbouring chiefs. Their lands became places of sanctuary, as the altar of the Church had been. Freedmen — that is, persons manumitted from slavery, but not yet endowed with property — were everywhere put under the protection of the clergy. Immunities were heaped upon them, and methods found out of making them a separate and superior race. At the Council of Paris, in 613, it was decreed that the priest who offended against the common law should be tried by a mixed court of priests and laymen. But soon this law, apparently so just, was not considered enough, and the trial of ecclesiastics was given over to the eccle- siastical tribunals, without the admixture of the civil element. Other advantages followed from time to time. The Church was found in all the kingdoms to be so use- ful as the introducer of agriculture, and the preserver of what learning had survived the Eoman overthrow, that the ambitious hierarchy profited by the royal and popular favour. They were the most influential, or per- haps it would be more just to say they were the only, order in the State. There was a nobility, but it was jarring and disunited; there were citizens, but they were powerless and depressed; there was a king, but he was but the first of the peers, and stood in dignified isola- tion where he was not subordinate to a combination of the others. The clergy, therefore, had no enemy or rival to dread, for they had all the constituents of power which the other portions of the population wanted. Their property was more secure; their lands were better cultivated; they were exempt from many of 7 146 SEVENTH CENTURY. the dangers and burdens to which the lay barons were exposed; they were not liable to the risks and losses of private war; they had more intelligence than their neighbours, and could summon assistance, either in advice, or support, or money, from the farthest ex- tremity of Europe. iSTothing, indeed, added more, at the commencement of this century, to the authority of those great ecclesiastical chieftains, than the circum- stance that their interests were supported, not only by their neighbouring brethren, but by mitred abbot and lordly bishop in distant lands. If a prior or his monks found themselves ill used on the banks of the Seine, their cause was taken up by all other monks and priors wherever they were placed. And the rapidity of their intercommunication was extraordinary. Each monas- tery seems to have had a number of active young brethren who traversed the wildest regions with letters or messages, and brought back replies, almost with the speed and regularity of an established post. A convent on Lebanon was informed in a very short time of what had happened in Provence — the letter from the "Western abbot was read and deliberated on, and an answer in- trusted to the messenger, who again travell^^d over the immense tract lying between, receiving hospitality at the different religious establishments that occurred upon his way, and everywhere treated with the kindness of a brother. Monasteries in this way became the centres of news as well as of learning, and for many hundred years the only people who knew any thing of the state of feeling in foreign nations, or had a glimpse of tho mutual interests of distant kingdoms, were the cowled and gowned individuals who were supposed to have given up the world and to be totally immersed in pen- ances and prayers. What could Hereweg of the strong hand do against a bi&hop or abbot, who could tell at any CORRUPTION. 117 hour what were the political designs of conquerors or kings in countries which the astonished warrior did not know even by name; who retained by traditionary transmission the politeness of manner and elegance of accomplishment which had characterized the best period of the Roman power, when Christianized noblemen, on being promoted to an episcopal see, had retained the delicacies of their former life, and wrote love-songs as graceful as those of Catullus, and epigrams neither so witty nor so coarse as those of Martial ? Intelligence asserted its superiority over brute force, and in this cen- tury the supremacy of the Church received its accom- plishment in spite of the depravation of its principles. It gained in power and sank in morals. A hundred years of its beneficial action had made it so popular and so powerful that it fell into temptations, from which poverty or unpopularity would have kept it free. The sixth century was the period of its silent services, its lower ofiicers endearing themselves by useful labour, and its dignitaries distinguishing themselves by learning and zeal. In the seventh century the fruit of all those virtues was to be gathered by very different hands. Ambitious contests began between the different orders composing the gradually rising hierarchy, from the monk in his cell to the Eishop of Rome or Constantinople on their pontifical thrones. It is very sad, after the view we have taken of the early benefits bestowed on many nations by the labours and example of the priests and monks, to see in the period we have reached the total cessation of life and energy in the Church ; — of life and energy, we ought to say, in the fulfilment of its duties ; for there was no want of those qualities in the gratifica- tion of its ambition. Forgetful of what Gregory had pronounced the chief sign of Antichrist, when he op- posed the pretension of his rival metropolitan to call 148 SEVENTH CENTURY. liimself Universal Bishop, the Bishops of Eome were deterred by no considerations of humility or religion from establishing their temporal power. Up to this time they had humbly received the ratification of their election from the Emperors of the East, whose subjects they still remained. But the seat of their empire was far off, their power was a tradition of the past, and great thoughts came into the hearts of the spiritual chiefs, of inroads on the territory of the temporal rulers. In this design they looked round for supporters and allies, and with a still more watchful eye on the quarters from which opposition was to be feared. The bishops as a body had fallen not only into contempt but hatred. One century had sufSced to extinguish the elegant scholarship I have mentioned, at one time characteristic Df the Christian prelates. Ignorance had become the badge of all the governors of the Church — ^ignorance and debauchery, and a tyrannical oppression of their inferiors. The wise old man in Eome saw what advan- tage he might derive from this, and took the monks under his peculiar protection, relieved them from the supervision of the local bishop, and made them imme- diately dependent on himself. By this one "stroke he gained the unflinching support of the most influential body in Europe. Wherever they went they held foi th the Pope as the first of earthly powers, and began already, in the enthusiasm of their gratitude, to speak of him as something more than mortal. To this the illiterate preachers and prelates had nothing to reply. They were sunk either in the grossest darkness, or in- volved in the wildest schemes of ambition, bishoprics being even held by laymen, and by both priest and lay- men used as instruments of advancement and wealth. From these the Pontiff on the Tiber, whose weaknesses and vices were unknown, and who was held up for GRANTS OF LAND. 149 invidious contrast with, the bishops of their acquaintance by the libellous and grateful monks, had nothing to fear. He looked to another quarter in the political sky, and perceived with satisfaction that the kingly office also had fallen into contempt. Having lost the first impulse which carried it triumphantly over the dismembered Eoman world, and made it a tower of strength in tho hands of warriors like Theodoric the Goth and Clovis the Frank, it had forfeited its influence altogether in the pitiful keeping of the bloodthirsty or do-nothing kings who had submitted to the tutelage of the Mayors of the Palace. One of the great supports of the royal influence was the fiction of the law by which all lands were supposed to hold of the Crown. As in ancient days, in the Ger- man or Scythian deserts, the ambitious chieftain had presented his favourite with spear or war-horse in token of approval, so in the early days of the conquest of Gaul, the leader had presented his followers with tracts of land. The war-horse, under the old arrangement, died, and the spear became rotten; but the land was subject neither to death nor decay. What, then, was to become of the warrior's holding when he died? On this question, apparently so personal to the barbaric chiefs of the time of Dagobert of Gaul, depended the whole course of European history. The kings claimed the power of re-entering on the lands in case of the demise of the proprietor, or even in case of his rebellion or dis- obedience. The Lend, as he was called — or feudatory, as he would have been named at a later time — disputed this, and contended for the perpetuity and inalienability of the gift. It is easy to perceive who were the whinners in this momentous struggle. From the success of the lends arose the feudal system, with limited monarchies and national nobilities. The success of the kings would have resulted in despotic thrones and enslaved popula- 150 SEVENTH CENTURY. tions. Foremost in the struggle for the royal supremacy had been the famous and unprincipled Brunehild, a woman more resembling the unnatural creation of a romance than a real character. She had succeeded at one time in subordinating the lends, by exterminating the recusants with remorseless cruelty ; and her triumph might have been final and irrevocable if she had not had the bad luck or impolitic hardihood to offend the Church. The Abbot Columba, a holy man from the far- distant island of lona in the Hebrides of Scotland, had ventured to upbraid her with her crimes. She banished him from the Abbey of Luxeuil with circumstances of peculiar harshness, and there was no hope for her more. The lends she might have overcome singly, for they were disunited and scattered ; but now there was not a monastery in Europe which did not side with her foes. Clotaire, her grandson, marched against her at the in- stigation of priests and lends combined. She was con- quered and taken. She was tortured for three days with all the ingenuity of hatred, and on the fourth was tied to the tails of four wild horses and torn to pieces, though the mother, sister, daughter, of kings, and now more than eighty years of age. And this brings us to the institution and use of the strange officers we have already named Mayors of the Palace. To aid them in their efforts against the royal assump- tions, the lends long ago had elected one of themselves to be domestic adviser of the king, and also to command the armies in war. This soon became the recognised right of the Mayor of the Palace ; and as in that state of society the wars were nearly perpetual, and bearers of arms the only wielders of power, the person invested with the command was in reality the supreme authority in the State. When the king happened to be feeble either in body or mind, the mayor supplied his place, POPULAR GOVERNMENTS. 151 without even the appearance of inferiority ; and when Dagohert, the last active member of the Merovingian family, died in 638, his successors were merely the nominal holders of the Crown. A new race rose into importance, and it will not be very long before we meet the hereditary Mayors of the Palace as hereditary Kings of the Franks. Here, then, was the whole of Europe heaving with some inevitable change. It will be interesting to look at the position of its different parts before they settled into their new relations. The constitutions of the various kingdoms were very nearly alike at this time. There were popular assemblies in every nation. In France they were called the " Fields of May" or of " March," in England the ^^ Wittenage- mot," in Spain the " Council of Toledo." These meet- ings consisted of the freemen and landholders and bishops. But it was soon found inconvenient for the freemen and smaller proprietors to attend, in consequence of the length of the journey and the miserable condition of the roads ; and the nobles and bishops were the sole persons who represented the State. The nobles held a parallel rank to each other in all countries, though called by different names. In France, a person in possession of any office connected with the court, or of lands pre- sented by the Crown, was called a lend or entrustion, a count or companion, or vassal. In England he was called a royal thane. The lower order of freemen were called herimans, or inferior thanes 5 in Latin liberi, or more simply, boni homines, good men. Below these were the Eomans, or old inhabitants of the country; below these, the serfs or bondmen attached to the soil ) and far down, below them all, out of all hope or consideration, the slaves, who were the mere chattels of their lords. This, then, was the constitution of European society when the Arabian conquests began — at the head of the 152 SEVENTH CENTURY. nation the King, at the head of the people the Chnrch j the nobles followed according to their birth or power; the freemen, whether citizens engaged in the first infant struggles of trade, or occupying a farm, came next; and the wretched catalogue was ended bj the despoiled serf, from whom every thing, even his property in him- self, had been taken away. There were laws for the protection or restraint of each of these orders, and we may gather an idea of the ranks they held in public estimation by the following table of the price of blood : — Sols. For the murder of a freeman, companion, or lend of the king, killed in his palace by an armed band 1800 A duke — among the Bavarians, a bishop 960 A relation of a duke 640 The king's leud, a count, a priest, a judge 600 A deacon 500 A freeman, of the Salians or Ripuarians 200 A freeman, of the other tribes 160 The slave — a good workman in gold 100 The man of middle station, a colon, or good vrorkman in silver... 100 Thefreedman 80 The slave, if a barbarian — that is, of the conquering tribe 55 The slave, a workman in iron 50 The serf of the Church or the king , 45 The swineherd , 30 The slave, among the Bavarians 20 Distinctions of dress pointed out still more clearly the difference of rank and station. The principal variety, however, was the method of wearing the hair. The chieftain among the Franks considered the length and profusion of his locks as the mark of his superiority. His broad flowing tresses were divided up the middle of his head, and floated over his shoulders. They were curled and oiled — not with common butter, like some other nations, says an author quoted by Chateaubriand ; not twisted in little plaits, like those of the Goths, but DIFFERE^X'ES OF RANK. l^'i carefully combed out to their full luxuriance. The common soldier, on the other hand, wore his hair long in front, but trimmed close behind. They Bworc by their hair as the most sacred of their oaths, and offered a tress to the Church on rcturrjin^ from a successful war. From this peculiar consideration given to the hair arose the custom, still prevalent, of shaving the heads of ecclesiastics. They were the serfs of God, and sacrificed their locks in token that they were no longer free. When a chief was dishonoured, when a king was degraded, when a rival was to be rendered incapable of opposition, he was not, as in barbarous countries, put to death : he was merely made bald. Xo amount of popu- larity, no degree of right, could rouse the pcojjle in sup- port of a person whose head was bare. When his hair grew again, he might again become formidable; but the scissors were always at hand. A tyrannical king clipped his enemies' hair, instead of taking off their heads. They were condemned to the barber instead of the exe- cutioner, and sometimes thought the punishment more severe. The sons of Ciothilde sent an emissary to her, bearing in his hand a sword and a pair of scissors. "O queen,'' he said, ^^your sons, our masters, wish to know whether you will have your grandchildren slain or clipped." The queen paused for a moment, and then said, "If my grandchildren arc doomed not to mount the throne, I would rather have them dead than hair- less.'' Distinguished thus from the lower orders, the nobility soon found that their interests differed from those of the Church. The Church placed itself at the head of the de- mocracy in opxjosition to the overweening pretensions of the chiefs. It opened its ranks to the conquered races, and invested even the converted serf with digni- ties which placed him above the level of Thane or 154 SEVENTH CENTURY. Count. The head of the Western Church, now by general consent recognised in the Bishop of Eome, was not slow to see the advantage of his position as leader of a combination in favour of the million. The doctrine of the equality of all men in the sight of Heaven was easily commuted into a demand of universal submission to the Holy See ; and so wide was the range given to this claim to obedience that it embraced the proudest of the nobles and haughtiest of kings. It was a satis- faction to the slave in his dungeon to hear that the great man in his castle had been forced to do homage to the Church. There was one earthly power to which the oppressed could look up with the certainty of sup- port. It was this intimate persuasion in the minds of the people which gave such undying vigour to the counsels and pretensions of the ecclesiastical power. It was a power sprung from the people, and exercised for the benefit of the people. The Poj^es themselves were generally selected from the lowest rank. But what did it matter to the man who led the masses of the trampled nations, and stood as a shield- between them and their tyrants, whether he claimed relationship with emperors or slaves ? What did it matter, on the othe'r hand, to those hoping and trusting multitudes, whether the object of their confidence was personally a miracle of goodness and virtue, or a monster of sin and cruelty? It was his office to trample on the necks of kings and nobles, and bid the captive go free. While he continued true to the people, the people were true to him. Monarchs who governed mighty nations, and dukes who ruled in pro- vinces the size of kingdoms, looked on with surprise at the growth of a power supj)orted apparently by no worldly arms, but which penetrated to them through their courts and armies. There was no great mind to guide the opposition to its claims. The bishops were XnE IRISH CHURCH. 155 sunk in ignorance and sloth, and had lost the respect of their countrymen. The populations everywhere were divided. The succession to the throne was uncertain. The Franks, the leading nation, were never for any length of time under one head. iNeustria, or the Western State, comprising all the land between the Meu-se, the Loire, and the Mediterranean, Austrasia, or the Eastern State, comprising the land between the Khine, the Meuse, and the Moselle, and Eurgundy, ex- tending from the Loire to the Alps, were at one time united under a common head, and at another held by hostile kings. The Yisigoths were obscurely quarrelling about points of divinity within their barrier of the Py- renees. England was the battle-field of half a dozen little chieftains who called themselves kings ; Germany was only civilized on its western border. Italy was cut up into many States, Lombards looking with suspicion on the Exarchate, which was still nominally attached to the Eastern Empire, and Greeks established in the South, sighing for the restoration of their power. Over all this chaos of contending powers appeared the mitre and crozier of the Pope; always at the head of the dis- affected people, supported by the monks, who felt the tyranny of the bishops as keenly as the commonalty felt the injustice of their lords; always threatening vengeance on overweening baron or refractory monarch — enhancing his influence with the glory of new miracles wrought in his support, and witnessed unblushingly by preaching friars, who were the missionaries of papal power; concentrating all authority in his hands, and gradually laying the foundation for a trampling and domination over mind and body such as the world had never seen. From this almost universal prostration before the claims of Eome, it is curious to see that the native Irish were totally free. With contemptuous in- 156 SEVENTH CENTURY. dependence, they for a long time rejected the arrogant assumptions of the successor of St. Peter, and were firm in their maintenance of the equality of all the Sees. It was from the newly-converted Anglo-Saxons that the chief recruits in the campaign against the liberties of the national churches were collected. Almost all the names of missionaries on behalf of the Eoman pontiff in this century have the home-sound in our ears of "Wighert," " Willibald," " 'Wernefried," or ^^ Adalbert." But there are no G-aelic patronymics from the Churches of Ireland or Wales. They were sisters, they haughtily said, not daughters of the Eoman See, as the Anglo-Saxon Church had been ; and dwelt with pride on the antiquity of their conversion before the pretensions of the Eoman Bishops had been heard of; and thus was added one more to the elements of dissension which wasted the strength of Europe at the very time when unanimity was most required. But towards the end of this period the rumours of a new power in the East drew men's attention to the defenceless state in which their internal disagreements had left them. The monasteries were filled with exag- gerated reports of the progress of this vast ^invasion, which not only threatened the national existences of Europe, but the Christian faith. It was a hostile creed and a destroying enemy. What had the Huns been, compared with this new swarm — not of savage warriors turned aside with a bribe or won by a prayer, but en- thusiasts in what they considered a holy cause, flushed with victory, armed and disciplined in a style superior to any thing the West could show ? We should try to enter into the feelings of that distant time, when day by day myriads of strange and hitherto unconquerable enemies were reported to be on their march. In the year 621 of the Christian era, Mohammed MOHAMMED. 157 made his triumphant entry into Medina, a great city of Arabia, having been expelled from Mecca by the enmity of the Jews and the tribe of Koreish. This entry is called the Hegira or Flight, and forms the commence- ment of the Moslem chronology. All their records are dated from this event. The persons who accompanied him were few in number — his father-in-law, some of his wives, and some of his warriors ; but the procession was increased by the numerous believers in his prophetship who resided in the town. At this place began the public worship inculcated by the leader. The worshippers were summoned by a voice sounding from the highest pinnacle of the mosque or church, and pronouncing the words which to this hour are heard from every minaret in the East : — " God is great ! God is great ! There is no God but God. Mohammed is the apostle of God. Come to prayers, come to prayers 1" and when the invitation is given at early dawn, the declaration is added, " Prayer is better than sleej) ! prayer is better than sleep." These exhortations were not without their intended effect. Prayer was uttered by many lips, and sleep w^as banished from many eyes; but the prayers were never thought so effectual as when accompanied by sword and lance. Courage and devotedness were now the great supports of the faith. Ali, the husband of Fatima the favourite daughter of the chief, fought and prayed with the same irresistible force. He conquered the unbelieving Jews and Koreishites, cleaving armed men from the crown to the chin with one blow, and wielding a city gate which eight men could not lift, as a shield. Abou Beker, whose daughter was one of the wives of Mohammed, was little inferior to Ali; and Mohammed himself saw visions which comforted and inspired his followers in the midst of battle, and shouted, " On, on ! Fight and fear not ! The gates of Paradise are under the shade 158 ^ SEVENTH CENTURY. of swords. He will assuredly find instant admission who falls fighting for the faith I" It was impossible to play the hypocrite in a religion where such strength of arm and sharpness of blade were required. Prayers might indeed be mechanical, or said for show, but the fighting was a real thing, and, as such, prevailed over all the shams which were opposed to it. Looking forth already beyond the narrow precincts of his power, Mo- hammed saw in the distance, across the desert, the proud empires of Persia and Constantinople. To both he wrote letters demanding their allegiance as God's Prophet, and threatening vengeance if they disobeyed. Chosroes, the Persian, tore the letter to pieces. " Even so,'' said Mohammed, "shall his kingdom be torn.*' Heraclius the Greek was more respectful. He placed the missive on his pillow, and very naturally fell asleep, and thought of it no more. But his descendants were not long of having their pillows quite so provocative of repose. The city of Medina grew too small to hold the Prophet's followers, and they went forth conquering and to conquer. There were Abou Beker the wise, and Omar the faithful, and Khaled the brave, and Ali the sword of God. Mecca fell before them, an^ city after city sent in its adhesion to the claims of a Prophet who had such dreadful interpreters as these. The religion he preached was comparatively true. He destroyed the idols of the land, inculcated soberness, chastity, charity, and, by some faint transmission of the precepts of the Bible, inculcated brotherly love and forgiveness of wrong. But the sword was the true gospel. Its light was spread in Syria and all the adjoining territories. People in apparently sheltered positions could never be sure for an hour that the missionaries of the new faith would not be climbing over their walls with shouts of conquest, and giving them the option of conversion or HIS SUCCESSORS. 159 death. Power spread in gradually-widening circles, but at the centre sad things were going on. Mohammed was getting old. He lost his only son. He laid him in the grave with tears and sighs, and made his farewell pilgrimage to Mecca. Had he no relentings at the visible approach of the end ? Was he to go to the grave untouched by all the calamities he had brought upon mankind ? the blood he had shed, the multitudes he had beguiled ? He had no touch of remorse for any of these things ; rather he continued firmer in his course than ever — seemed more persuaded of the genuineness of his mission, and uttered prophecies of the universal exten- sion of his faith. " "When the angels ask thee who thou art,^' he said, as the body of his son Avas lowered into the tomb, '^ say, God is my Lord, the Prophet of God ivas my father, and my /aith was Islam V Islam con- tinued his own faith till the last. He tottered to the mosque where Abou Beker was engaged in leading the prayers of the congregation, and addressed the people for the last time. " Every thing happens," he said, ^^ ac- cording to the will of God, and has its appointed time, which is not to be hastened or avoided. My last com- mand to you is that you remain united ; that you love, honour, and uphold each other; that you exhort each other to faith and constancy in belief, and to the per- formance of pious deeds: by these alone men prosper; all else leads to destruction." A few days after this there was grief and lamentation all over the faithful lands. He died on his sixty-third birthday, in the eleventh year of the Hegira, which answers to our year 632. Great contentions arose among the chief disciples for the succession to the leadership of the faithful. Abou Beker was father-in-law of the Prophet, and his daughter supported his cause. Omar was also father-in-lav^ of the 160 SEVENTH CENTUKY. Prophet; and his daughter supported his caase. Othmaii had married two of the daughters of the Prophet^ but both were dead, and they had left no living child. Ali^ the hero of the conquest, was cousin-german of the Prophet, and husband of his only surviving daughter. Already the practices of a court were perceptible in the Emir's tent. The courtiers caballed and quarrelled; but Ayesha, the daughter of Abou Beker, had been Moham- med's favourite wife, and her influence was the most effectual. How this influence was exercised amid the Oriental habits of the time, and the seclusion to which the women were subjected, it is diflScult to decide; but, after a struggle between her and Hafya, the daughter of Omar, the widowed Othman was found to have no chance ; and only Ali remained, still young and ardent, and fittest, to all ordinary judgments, to be the leader of the armies of Allah. While consulting with some friends in the tent of Fatima, his rivals came to an agreement. In a distant part of the town a meeting had been called, and the claims of the different pre- tenders debated. Suddenly Omar walked across to where Abou Beker stood, bent lowly before him, and kissed his hand in token of submission, saying, " Thou art the oldest companion and most secret friend of the Prophet, and art therefore worthy to rule us in his place.'^ The example was contagious, and Abou Beker was installed as commander and chief of the believers. A resolution was come to at the same time, that any attempt at seizing the supremacy against the popular will should be punished with death. Ali was constrained to yield, but lived in haughty submission till Fatima died. lie then rose up in his place, and taking his two sons with him, Hassan and Hossein, retired into the inner district of Arabia, carrying thus from the camp of the usurping caliph the only blood of the Prophet- PROGRESS OF ISLAM. 161 chief which flowed in humfin veins. Yet the spirit of the Prophet animated the whole mass. Energy equal to All's was exhibited in Khaled. Omar was earnest in the collection of all the separated portions of the Koran. Othman was burning to spread the new empire over the whole earth ; and in this combination of courage, ambi- tion, and fanaticism all Arabia found its interest to join, and ere a year had elapsed from the death of the Pro- phet, the whole of that peninsula, and all the swart warriors who travelled its sandy steppes, had accepted the great watchword of his religion — "There is no God but Ixod, and Mohammed is the Prophet of God." Ere another year had elapsed the desert had sent forth its swarms. The plains of Asia were overflowed. The battle-cry of Zeyd, the general of the army, was heard in the great commercial cities of the East, and in the lands where the gospel of peace had first been uttered, Emasa and Damascus, and on the banks of Jordan. It was natural that the first efl'ort of the false should be directed against the true. Eut not indiscriminate was the wrath of Abou Beker against the professors of Chris- tianity. The claims of that dispensation were ever treated with respect, but the depraved priesthood were held up to contempt. "Destroy not fruit-tree nor fertile field on your path," these were the instructions of the Caliph to the leaders of the host. " Be just, and spare the feelings of the vanquished. Eespect all religious persons who live m hermitages or convents, and spare their edifices. But should you meet with a class of un- believers of a different kind, who go about with shaven crowns, and belong to the synagogue of Satan, be sure you cleave their skulls, unless they embrace the true faith or render tribute." Gentle and merciful, therefore, to the peaceful in- habitants, respectful to the gloomy anchorite and in- 162 SEVENTH CENTURY. dustrious monk, but breathing death and disgrace against the proud bishop and ambitious presbyter, the mighty horde moved on. Syria fell; the Persian mon- archy was menaced, and its western provinces seized ; a Christian kingdom called Hira, situated on the con- fines of Babylonia, was made tributary to Medina ; and Khaled stood triumphant on the banks of the Euphrates, and sent a message to the Great King, commanding him either to receive the faith, or atone for his incredulity with half his wealth. The despot's ears were unaccus- tomed to such words, and the fiery deluge went on. At the end of the third year, Abou Beker died, and Omar was the successor appointed by his will. This was already a departure from the law of popular election, but Islam was busy with its conquests far from its central home, and accepted the nomination. Khaled's course continued westward and eastward, forcing his resistless wedge between the exhausted but still majestic empires of the Greeks and Persians. Blow after blow resounded as the great march went on. Constantinople, and Madayn upon the Tigris, the capitals of Christianity and Mithrism, were equally alarmed and equally power- less. Omar, the Caliph — the word means the Successor of the Apostle — determined to join the army which was encamped against the walls of Jerusalem, and added fresh vigour to the assailants by the knowledge that they fought under his eye. Heraclius, the degenerate inheritor of the throne of Constantine, and Yezdegird, the successor of Darius and Xerxes, if they had moved towards the seat of war, would have been surrounded by all the pomp of theii exalted stations. Battalions of guards would have en- compassed their persons, and countless officers of their courts attended their progress. Omar, who saw already the world at his feet, journeyed PROGRESS OF ISLAM. 163 by slow stages on a wretched camel, carrying his pro- visions hanging from his saddle-bow, and slept at night under the shelter of some tree, or on the margin of some well. He had but one suit, and that of worsted material, and yet his word was law to all those breath- less listeners, and wherever he placed his foot from that moment became holy ground. Jerusalem and Aleppo yielded; Antioch, the chief seat of Grecian government, fell into his hands ; Tyre and Tripoli sub- mitted to his power; and the Saracenic hosts only paused when they reached the border of the sea, which they knew washed the fairest shores of Africa and Europe. It did not much matter who was in nominal command. Khaled died; Amru took his place; and yet the tide went on. The great city of Alexandria, which disputed with Constantinople the title of Capital of the World, with its almost fabulous wealth, its four thou- sand palaces, and five thousand baths, and four hundred theatres, was twice taken, and brought on the submis- sion and conversion of the whole of Egypt. Amru in his hours of leisure was devoted to the cultivation of taste and genius. In John the Grammarian, a Chris- tian student, he found a congenial spirit. Poetry, phi- losophy, and rhetoric were treated of in the conversa- tions of the Arabic conqueror and the monkish scholar. At last, in reliance on his literary taste, the priest con- fided to the Moslem that in a certain building in the town there was a library so vast that it had no equal on earth either for number or value of the manuscripts it contained. This was too important a treasure to be dealt with without the express sanction of the Caliph. So the Christian legend is, that Omar replied to the announcement of his general, "Either what those books contain is in the Koran, or it is not. If it is, these volumes are useless ; if it is not, they are wicked. Burn 164 SEVENTH CENTURY. them." The skins and parchments heated the baths of Alexandria for many months^ irrecoverable monuments of the past, and an everlasting disgrace to the Saracen name. Yet the story has been doubted; at least, the extent of the destruction. Eather, it has been supposed, the ignorant fanaticism of the illiterate monks, in covering with the legends of saints the obliterated lines of the classic authors, has been more destructive to the literary treasures of those ancient times than the furious seal of Amru or the bigotry of Omar. If this great overflow from the desert of Arabia had consisted of nothing but armed warriors or destructive fanatics, its course would have been as transient as it was terrible. The Gothic invaders who had desolated Europe fortunately possessed the flexibility and adapt- iveness of mind which fitted them for the reception of the purer faith and more refined manners of the van- quished races. They mixed with the people who sub- mitted to their power, and in a short time adopted their habits and religion. "Whatever faith they professed in their original seats, seems to have worn out in the long course of their immigration. The powers they had worshipped in their native wilds were local, and depend- ent on clime and soil. An easy opening, therefore, was left for Christianity into hearts where no hostile deity guarded the portal of approach. Eut with the Saracens the case was reversed. Incapable of assimila- tion with any rival belief— jealously exclusive of the commonest intercourse with the nations they subdued — unbending, contemptuous to others, and carried on by burning enthusiasm in their own cause, and confi- dence in the Erophet they served, there was no possi- bility of softening or elevating them from without. The pomps of religious worship, which so awed the wonder- HABITS OF THE CALIPHS. 165 ing tribes of Franks and Lombards, were lost on a people who considered all pomp offensive both to God and man. They saw the sublimity of simple plainness both in word and life. Their caliph lived on rice, and saddled his camel with his own hands. He ordered a palace to be burned, which Seyd, who had conquered for him the capital of Persia, had built for his occupation. Unsocial, bigoted, austere, drinking no wine, accumu- lating no personal wealth, how was the mind of this warrior of the wilderness to be trained to the habits of civilized society, or turned aside from the rude instincts of destructiveness and domination ? But the Arab in- tellect was subtle and active. Mohammedanism, indeed, armed the multitude in an exciting cause, and sent them forth like a destroying fire; but there was wisdom, policy, refinement, among the chiefs. While they de- vasted the worn-out territories of the Persian, and laid waste his ostentatious cities, which had been purposely built in useless places to show the power of the king, they founded great towns on sites so adapted for the purposes of trade and protection that they continue to the present time the emporiums and fortresses of their lands. Balsorah, at the top of the Persian Grulf, at the junction of the Tigris and the Euphrates, was as wisely selected for the commercial wants of that period as Constantinople itself Bagdad was encouraged, Cufa built and peopled in exchange for the gorgeous but un- wholesome Madayn, from which Yezdegird was driven. Many other towns rose under the protection of the Crescent; and by the same impulse which made the Saracens anxious to raise new centres of wealth and enterprise in the East, they were excited to the most amazing efforts to make themselves masters of the greatest city in the world, the seat of arts, of literature, 166 SEVENTH CENTURY. and religion; and they pushed forward from river to river, from plain to plain, till, in the year 672, they raised their victorious standard in front of the walls of Constantinople. Here, however, a new enemy came to the encounter, and for the first time scattered dismay among the Moslem ranks. From the towers and tur- rets came down a shower of fire, burning, scorching, destroying, wherever it touched. Projected to great distances, and wrapping in a moment ship after ship in unextinguishahle flames, these discharges appeared to the warriors of the Crescent a supernatural inter- ference against them. This was the famous Creek fire, of which the components are not now known, but it was destructive beyond gunpowder itself. Water could not quench it, nor length of time weaken its power. For five successive years the assault was renewed by fresh battalions of the Saracens, but always with the same result. So, giving up at last their attempts against a place guarded by lightning and by the unmoved courage of the Creek population, they poured their thousands along the northern shores of Africa. Cyrene, the once glorious capital of the Pentapolis, in which Carthage saw her rival and Athens her superior, yielded to their power. Everywhere high-peaked mosques, rising where a short time before the shore had been unoccupied or in cities where the Basilicas of Christian worship had been thrown down, marked the course of conquest. Car- thage received its new lords. Hippo, the bishopric of the best of ancient saints, the holy Augustine, saw its church supplanted by the temples of the Arabian im- postor. A check was sustained at Tchuda, where their course was interrupted by a combined assault of Chris- tian Creeks and the indigenous Berbers. Internal troubles also arrested their career, for there were dis- POWER OP ISLAM. 16; putes for the succession, and court intrigues and open murders, and all the usual accompaniments of a contest for an elective throne. One after another, the Caliphs had been murdered, or had died of broken hearts. The old race — ^the "Companions," as they were called, be- cause they had been the contemporaries and friends of Mohammed — ^had died out. AH, after three disappoint- ments, had at last been chosen. His sons Hassan and Hossein had been put to death ; and it was only in the time of the eighth successor, when Abdelmalek had overcome all competition, that the unity of the Moslem Empire was restored, and the word given for conquest as before. This was in the 77th year of the Hegira, (698 of our era,) and an army was let loose upon the great city of Carthage, at the same time that move- ments were again ordered across the limits of the Grecian Empire, in Asia, and advances made towards Constantinople. Carthage fell — Tripoli was occupied — and now, with their territories stretching in unbroken line from Syria along the two thousand miles of the southern shore of the great Mediterranean Sea, the con- querors rested from their labours for a Avhile, and pre- pared themselves for a dash across the narrow channel, from which the hills of Atlas and the summits of Gibral- tar are seen at the same time. What has Europe, with its divided peoples, its worn-out kings, its indolent Church, and exhausted fields, to oppose to this compact phalanx of united blood, burning with fanatical faith, submissive to one rule, and supported by all the wealth of Asia and Africa; whose fleets sweep the sea, and whose myriads are every day increased by the acces- sion of fresh nations of Berbers, Mauritanians, and the nameless children of the desert ? This is the hopeless century. Manhood, patriotism, 16S SEVENTH CENTURY. Christianity itself, are all at the lowest ebb. But let us turn to the next, and see how good is worked out of evil, and acknowledge, as in so many instances the his - torian is obliged to do, that man can form no estimate of the future from the plainest present appearances, but that all things are in the hands of a higher intelligence than ours. EIGHTH CENTURY. Minq^ of tje dTranltg. iBmperors of tfie iHast. Childebert III. — [coni.) 711. Dagobert III. ^ Charles 716. Childeric. VMartel 720. Thierry. J Mayor. 742. Childeric III. Carlovingian Line. 751. Pepin the Short. 768. Charlemagne. Tiberius. — [cont.) 711. Philippicus Bardanes. 713. Anastasius II. 714. Theodosius III. 716. Leo the Isaurian. 741. Constantine Copronymus. 775. Leo IV. 781. Constantine Porphyroge- NITUS. 802. Nicephorus. ^utf)or0. Alcuin, (735-804,) Bede, (674-735,) Egbert, Clemens, Dun- gal, AccA, John Damascanus. THE EIGHTH CENTUEY. TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPES THE EMPIRE OP CHARLE- MAGNE. This is indeed a great century, which has Pepin of Heristhal at its commencement and Charlemagne at its end. In this period we shall see the course of the dis- solution of manners and government arrested through- out the greater part of Europe, and a new form given to its ruling powers. We must remember that up to this time the progress of what we now call civilization was very slow; or we may perhaps almost say that the extent of civilized territory was smaller than it had been at the final breaking up of the Eoman Empire four hundred years before. England had lost the elevating influences which the residence of Eoman generals and the presence of disciplined forces had spread from the seats of their government. Every occupied position had been a centre of life and learning ; and we see still, from the discoveries which the antiquaries of the present day are continually making, that the dwellings of the Praetors and military commanders were constructed in a style of luxury and refinement which argues a high state of culture and art. All round the circumference of the Eomanized portion of Britain these head-quartei's of order and improvement were fixed ; outside of it lay the obscure and tumultuous populations of "Wales and Scotland; and if we trace the situations of the towns with terminations derived from castra, (a camp,) we shall see, by stretching a line from Winchester in the south 171 172 EIGHTH CENTURY. to Ilchester, thence up to Gloucester, "Worcester, Wrox- eter, and Chester, how carefully the "Western Gael were prevented from ravaging the peaceful and orderly in- habitants ; and, as the same precautions were taken to the Il'forth against the Picts and Scots, we shall easily be able to estimate the effect of those numerous schools of life and manners on the country-districts in which they were placed. All these establishments had been removed. Barbarism had reasserted her ancient reign; and at the century we have now reached, the institution which alone could compete in its elevating effect with the old imperial subordination, the Christian Church, had not yet established its authority except for the benefit of ambitious bishops; and the same anarchy reigned in the ecclesiastical body as in the civil orders. The eight or nine kingdoms spread over the land were sufficiently powerful in their separate nationalities to prevent any unity of feeling among the subjects of the different crowns. A prelate of the court of Deiria had no point of union with a prelate protected by the kings of "Wessex. And it was this very incapacity of combi- nation at home, from the multiplicity of kings, which led to the astonishing spectacle in this century of the efforts of the Anglo-Saxon clergy in behalf of the Eishop of Eome in distant countries. In this great struggle to extend the power of the Popes, the regular orders par- ticularly distinguished themselves. The fact of sub- mitting to convent-rules, of giving up the stormy plea- sures of independence for the safe placidity of unreason^ ing obedience, is a proof of the desire in many human minds of having something to which they can look up, something to obey, in obeying which their self-respect may be preserved, even in the act of offering up their self-will — a desire which, in civil actions and the atmo- sphere of a court, leads to slavery and every vice, but in ENGLISH MONKS. 17S a monastery conducts to the noblest sacrifices, and fills the pages of history with saints and martyrs. The Anglo-Saxon, looking out of his convent, saw nothing round him which could give him hope or comfort. Laws were unsettled, the various little principalities were either hostile or unconnected, there was no great com- bining authority from which orders could be issued with the certainty of being obeyed; and even the clergy, thinly scattered, and dependent on the capricious favour or exposed to the ignorant animosity of their respective sovereigns, were torn into factions, and practically with- out a chief. But theoretically there was the noblest chiefship that ever was dreamed of by ambition. The lowly heritage of Peter had expanded into the universal government of the Church. In France this claim had not yet been urged ; in the East it had been contemptu- ously rejected ; in Italy the Lombard kings were hos- tile; in Spain the Yisigoths were heretic, and at war among themselves ; in Germany the gospel had not yet been heard ; in Ireland the Church was a rival bitterly defensive of its independence ; but in England, among the earnest, thoughtful Anglo-Saxons, the majestic idea of a great family of all the Christian Churches, wherever placed, presided over by the Yicar of Christ and receiv- ing laws from his hallowed lips, had impressed itself beyond the possibility of being eifaced. Eome was to them the residence of God's vicegerent upon earth; obedience to him was worship, and resistance to his slightest wish presumption and impiety. So at the beginning of this century holy men left their monasteries in Essex, and Warwickshire, and Devon, and knelt at the footstool of the Pope, and swore fealty and submis- sion to the Holy See. It has often been observed that the Papacy difi'ers from other powers in the continued vitality of its mem 174 EIGHTH CENTURY. bers long after the life has left it at the heart. Eome was weak at the centre^ but strong at the extremity of its domain. The Emperor of Constantinople looked on the Pope as his representative in Church-affairs, ratified his election, and exacted tribute on his appointment. The Exarch of Eavenna, representing as he did the civil majesty of the successor of the Caesars, looked down on him as his subordinate. There was also a duke in Eome whose ofiice it was to superintend the proceedings of the bishop, and another officer resident in the Grecian court to whom the bishop was responsible for the manage- ment of his delegated powers. But outside of all this depression and subordination, among tribes of half-bar- baric blood, among dreamy enthusiasts contemplating what seemed to them the simple and natural scheme of an earthly judge infallible in wisdom and divinely in- spired; among bewildered and trampled ecclesiastics, looking forth into the night, and seeing, far above all the storms and darkness that surrounded them in their own distracted land, a star by which they might steer their course, undimmed and unalterable — the Pope of Eome was the highest and holiest of created ]gien. "No thought is worth any thing that continues in barren speculation. Honour, then, to the brave monks of England who went forth the missionaries of the Papal kings ! Better the struggles and dangers of a plunge among the untamed savages of Friesland, and the blood- stained forests of the farthest Germany, in fulfilment of the office to which they felt themselves called, than the lazy, slumbering way of life which had already begun to be considered the fulfilment of conventual vows. Sol- diers of the Cross were they, though fighting for the advancement of an ambitious commander more than the success of the larger cause; and we may well exult in the virtues which their undoubting faith in the supremacy DESCENDANTS OF CLOVIS. 175 of the pontiff called forth, since it contrasts so nobly with the apathy and indifference to all high and self- denying co-operation which characterized the rest of the world. "We shall see the monk Winifried penetrate, as the Pope's minister, into the darkness beyond the Ehine, and emerge, with crozier and mitre, as Boniface the Archbishop of Mayence, and converter to the Christian faith of great and populous nations which were long the most earnest supporters of the rights and pre-eminence of Eome. This is one strong characteristic of this cen- tury, the increased vigour of the Papacy by the efforts of the Anglo-Saxons on its behalf; and now we are going to another still stronger characteristic, the further in- crease of its influence by the part it played in the change of dynasty in France. A strange fortune, which in the old Greek mytholo- gies would have been looked on as a fate, overshadowing the blood-stained house of Clovis, had befallen his de- scendants through all their generations for more than a hundred years. Feeble in mind, and even degenerated in body, the kings of that royal line had been a sight of grief and humiliation to their nominal subjects. Married at fifteen, they had all sunk into premature old age, or died before they were thirty. Too listless for work, and too ignorant for council, they had accepted the re- stricted sphere within which their duties were confined, and showed themselves, on solemn occasions, at the festivals of the Church, and other great anniversaries, bearicg, like their ancestors, the long flowing locks which were the natural sign of their crowned supremacy, seated in a wagon drawn by oxen, and driven by a wagoner with a goad — a primitive relic of vanished times, and as much out of place in Paris in the eighth century as the state carriage of the Queen or the Lord- Mayor's coach of the present day among ourselves. 176 EIGHTH CENTURY. Strange thoughts must have passed through the minds of the spectators as they saw the successors of the rough leader of the Franks degraded to this condition ; but the change had been gradual; the public sentiment had become reconciled to the apparent uselessness of the highest offices of the State ; for under another title, and with much inferior rank, there was a man who held the reins of government with a hand of iron, and whose power was perhaps strengthened by the fiction which called him the servant and minister of the faineant or do-nothing king. A succession "of men arose in the family of the mayors of the palace, as remarkable for policy and talent as the representatives of the royal line were for the want of these qualities. The origin of their office was conveniently forgotten, or converted by the flattery of their dependants into an equality with the monarchs. Chosen, they said, by the same elective body which nominated the king, they were as much en- titled to the command of the army and the administra- tion of the law as their nominal masters to the posses- sion of the palace and royal name. And when for a long period this claim was allowed, who was there to stand up in opposition, either legal or forcible, to a man who appointed all the judges and commanded all the troops? The office at last became hereditary. The successive mayors left their dignity to their sons by will ; and time might have been slow in bringing power and title into harmony with each by giving the name of king to the man who already exercised all the kingly power and fulfilled all the kingly duties, if Charles Mar- tel, the mayor, had not, in 732, established such claims to the gratitude of Europe by his defeat of the Saracens, who were about to overrun the whole of Christendom, that it was impossible to refuse either to himself or his successor the highest dignity which Europe had to CHARLES MARTEL. 177 bestow. When other rulers and princes were willing to acknowledge his superiority, not only in power, but in rank and dignity, it was necessary that their submission should be offered, not to a mere Major-domo, or chief domestic of a court, but to a free sovereign and anointed king. The two most amazing fictions, therefore, which ever flourished on the contemptuous forbearance of man- kind, were both about to expire beneath the breath of reality at this time — the kingship of the descendants of Clovis, and the pretensions of the successors of Constan- tine. The Saracens appeared upon the scene, and those gibbering and unsubstantial ghosts, as if they scented the morning air, immediately disappeared. The Empe- rors of the East, by a self-deluding process, which pre- served their dignity and flattered their pride, professed still to consider themselves the lords of the Eoman Empire, and took particular pains to acknowledge the kings and potentates, who established themselves in the various portions of it, as their representatives and lieu- tenants. They lost no time in sending the title of Patri- cian and the ensigns of royal rank to the successful founders of a new dynasty, and had gained their object if they received the new ruler's thanks in return. At "Rome, as we have said, they protected the bishop, and gave him the investiture of his office. They retained also the territories called the Exarchate of Eavenna, but with no power of vindicating their authority if it was disputed, or of exacting revenue, except what the gratitude of the bishop or the Exarch might induce them to present to their patron on their nomination or instalment. A long-haired, sad-countenanced, decrepit young man in a wagon drawn by oxen, and a vain voluptuary, wrapped in Oriental splendour, without in- fluence or wealth, were the representatives at this time of the irresistible power of the Prankish warriors, and 178 EIGHTH CENTURY. the glories of Julius and Augustus. But the present haa its representatives as well as the past. Charles Martel had still the Frankish sword at his command; the Eoman Pontiif had thousands ready to believe and sup- port his claims to be the spiritual ruler of the world. Something was required to unite them in one vast eifort at unity and independence, and this opportunity was afforded them by the common danger to which the Saracenic invasion exposed equally the civil and eccle- siastical power. Africa, we have seen, was fringed along the whole of the Mediterranean border with the followers of the Prophet. In one generation the blood of the Arabian and Mauritanian deserts became so blended, that no distinction whatever existed between the men of Mecca and Medina and the native tribes. Where Carthaginian and Roman civilization had never penetrated, the faith of Mohammed was accepted as an indigenous growth. Fanaticism and ambition sailed across the Channel ; and early in this century the hot breath of Mohammedanism had dried up the promise of Spain; countless warriors crossed to Gibraltar; their losses were supplied by the inexhaustible populations from the interior, (the ancestors of the Abd-el Kaders and Ben Muzas of modern times,) and, elate with hopes of universal conquest, the crowded tents of the Moslem army were seen on the northern slopes of the Pyrenees, and presently all the plains of Languedoc, and the cen- tral fields of France as far up as the Loire, were in- undated by horse and man. Incredible accounts are given of the number and activity of the desert steeds bestrode by these turbaned apostles. A march of a hundred miles — a village set on fire, and all the males extirpated — strange-looking visages, and wild arrays of galloping battalions seen by terrified watchers from the walls of Paris itself; then, in the twinkling of an BATTLE OF TOURS. 17& eye, nothing visible but the distant dust raised uj) in their almost unperceived retreat, — these were the pecu- liarities of this new and unheard-of warfare. And while these dashes were made from the centre of the invasion, alarming the inhabitants at the extremities of the kingdom, the host steadily moved on, secured the ground behind it before any fresh advance, and united in this way the steadiness of European settle- ment with the wild fury of the original mode of attack. Already the provinces abutting on the Pyrenees had owned their power. Grascony up to the Graronne, and the ]S"arbonnais nearly to the Ehine, had s.ubmitted to the conquerors ; but when the dispossessed proprietors of ISTovempopulania and Septimania, as those districts were then called, and the powerful Duke of Aquitaine, also fled before the advancing armies; when all the churches were filled with prayer, and all the towns were in momentary expectation of seeing the irresist- ible horsemen before their walls, patriotism and re- ligion combined to call upon all the Franks and all the Christians to expel the infidel invader. So Charles, the son of Pepin, whose exploits against the Prisons and other barbaric peoples in the IN'orth had already ac- quired for him the complimentary name of Martel, or the Hammer, put himself at the head of the military forces of the land, and encountered the Saracenic my- riads on the great plain round Tours. The East and West were brought front to front — Christianity and Mohammedanism stood face to face for the first time ; and it is startling to consider for a moment what the result of an Asiatic victory might have been. If ever there was a case in which the intervention of Divine Providence may be claimed without presumption on the conquering side, it must be here, where the truths of revelation and the progress of society were dependent 180 EIGHTH CENTURY. on the issue. The two faiths, according to all human calculation, had rested their supremacy on their respect- ive champions. If Charles and his Franks and Ger- mans were defeated, there was nothing to resist the march of the perpetually-increasing numbers of the Sara- cens till they had planted their standards on the pinnacles of Eome. The first glow of Christian belief had been exchanged, we have seen, for ambitious disputes, or died oif in many of the practices of superstition. The very man in whom the Christian hope was placed was sus- pected of leaning to the Wodenism of his J^orthern ances- tors, and was scarcely bought over to the defence of the Church's faith by a permission to pillage the Church's wealth. Mohammedaxiism, on the other hand, was fresh and young. Its promises were clear and tempting— its course triumphant, and its doctrines satisfactory equally to the pride and the indolence of the human heart. But in the former, though unperceived by the warriors at Tours and the prelates at Eome, lay the germ of count- less blessings — elevating the mind by the discovery of its strength at the same moment in which it is abased by the feeling of its weakness, and gifted above all with the power of expansion and universality; themselves proofs of its divine original, to which no false religion can lay the slightest claim. Cultivate the Christian mind to the highest — fill it with all knowledge — ^place round it the miracles of science and art — station it in the snows of Iceland or the heats of India — Chris- tianity, like the all-girding horizon of the sky, widens its circle so as to include the loftiest, and contain within its embrace the utmost diversities of human life and speculation. But with the Mohammedan, as with other impostures, the range is limited. When intellect expands, it bursts the cerement in which it has been involved; and with Buddhism, and Mithrism, and Hindooism, it DEFEAT OF THE SARACENS. 181 will be as it was with Druidism, and the more elegant heathendom of Greece and Eome : there will be no safety for them but in the ignorance and barbarism of their disciples. On the result of that great day at Tours in the year 732, therefore, depended the intellectual im- provement and civil freedom of the human race. Few particulars are preserved of this momentous battle; but the result showed that the light cavalry, in which the Saracens excelled, were no match for the firm line of the Franks. When confusion once began among the swarthy cavaliers of Abderachman, there was no resto- ration possible. In wild confusion the melee was con- tinued; and all that can be said is, that the slaughter of upwards of three hundred thousand of these impulsive pilgrims of the desert so weakened the Saracenic power in Europe, that in no long time their hosts were with- drawn from the soil of Graul, and guarded with diffi- culty the conquest they had made behind the barrier of the Pyrenees. Gould the gratitude of Church or State be too generous to the man who preserved both from the sword of the destroyer ? If Charles pillaged a monas- tery or seized the revenues of a bishopric, nobody found any fault. It was almost just that he should have the wealth of the cathedral from which he had driven away the mufti and muezzin. But monasteries and bishops were still powerful, and did not look on the proceedings of Charles the Hammer with the equanimity of the unconcerned spectators. They perhaps thought the battle of Tours had only given them a choice of spoilers, instead of protection from spoliation. In a short time, however, the policy of the sagacious leader led him to see the necessity of gaining over the only united body in the State. He became a benefactor of the Church, and a staunch ally of the Eoman bishop. Both had an object to obtain. What the phantom king was to 182 EIGHTH CENTURY. Charles, the phantom emperor was to the Pope. If there was unison between the two dependants, it would be easy to get rid of the two superiors. Presents and compliments were interchanged, and moral support trafficked for material aid. "Wherever the one sent missionaries with the Cross, the other sent warriors to their support. The Pontiff bestowed on the Mayor the keys of the sepulchre of St. Peter, and the title of Consul and Patrician, and begged him to come to his assistance against Luitprand, the Lombard king. But this was far too great an exploit to be expected by a simple Bishop, and performed by a simple Mayor of the Palace. So the next great thing we meet with in this century is the investiture of the Mayor with the title of king, and of the Bishop with the sovereignty of Eome and Eavenna. This happened in 752. Pepin the Short, as he was un- flatteringly called by his subjects, succeeded Charles in the government of the Franks. The king was Childe- ric the Third, who lived in complete seclusion and cherished his long hair as the only evidence of monarchy left to the sons of Clovis. Wars in various regions esta- blished the rej)utation of Pepin as the worthy successor of Charles ; and by a refinement of policy-, the crown, the consummation of all his hopes, was reached in a manner which deprived it of the appearance of injustice, for it was given to him by the hands of saints and popes, and ratified by the council of the nation. He had already asked Pope Zachariah, " who had the best right to the name of king ? — ^he who had merely the title, or he who had the power ?'' And in answer to this, which was rather a puzzling question, our countryman "Wini- fried, in his new character of Boniface and archbishop, placed upon his head the golden round, and Might and Eight were restored to their original combination. But St. Boniface was not enough. In two years the Pope THE PCPE A SOVEREIGN. 185 himself clambered over the Alps and anointed the new monarch with holy oil ; and by the same act stripped the long hair from the head of the Merovingian puppet, and condemned him and his descendants to the privacy of a cloister. Now then that Pepin is king, let Luitprand, or any other potentate, beware how he does injury to the Pope of Eome. Twice the Frank armies are moved into Italy in defence of the Holy See ; and at last the Exarch- ate is torn from the hands of its Lombard oppressor, and handed over in sovereignty to the Spiritual Power. Eome itself is declared at the same time the property of the Bishop, and free forever from the suzerainty of the Emperors of the East. "No wonder the gratitude of the Popes has made them call the kings of France the eldest sons of the Church. Their donations raised the bishop- ric to the rank of a royal state; yet it has been re- marked that the generosity of the French monarchs has always been limited to the gift of other people^s lands. They were extremely liberal in bestowing large tracts of country belonging to the Lombard kings or the Eyzantine Caesars ; but they kept a very watchful eye on the possessions of pope and bishop within their own domain. They reserved to themselves the usufruct of vacant benefices, and the presentations to church and abbey. At almost all periods, indeed, of their history, they have seemed to retain a very clear remembrance of the position which they held towards the Papacy from the beginning, and, while encouraging its arro- gance against other principalities and powers, have held a very contemptuous language towards it themselves. This, then, is the great characteristic of the present century, the restoration of the monarchical principle in the State, and its establishment in the Church. During all these wretched centuries, from the fall of the Eoman 184 EIGHTH CENTURY. Empire, the progress has been towards diffusion and separation. Kings rose up here and there, but their kingships were local, and, moreover, so recent, that they were little more than the first officer or representa- tive of the warriors whose leaders they had been. A longing for some higher and remoter influence than this had taken possession of the chiefs of all the early inva- sions, and we have seen them (even while engaged in wresting whole districts from the sway of the old Eoman Empire) accepting with gratitude the ensigns of Eoman authority. "We have seen Gothic kings glorying in the name of Senator, and Hunnish savages pacified and con- tented by the title of Praetor or Consul. The world had been accustomed to the oneness of Consular no less than Imperial Eome for more than a thousand years; for, however the parties might be divided at home, the great name of the Eternal City was the sole sound heard in foreign lands. The magic letters, the initials of the Senate and People, had been the ornament of their banners from the earliest times, and a division of power was an idea to which the minds of mankind found it difficult to become accustomed. It was better, there- fore, to have only a fragment of this immemorial unity than the freshness of a new authority, however exten- sive or unquestionable. Yague traditions must have come down — magnified by distance and softened by regret — of the great days before the purple was torn in two by the transference of the seat of power to Con- stantinople. There were nearly five hundred years lying between the periods ; and all the poetic spirits of the new populations had cast longing, lingering looks behind at the image of earthly supremacy presented to them by the existence of an acknowledged master of the world. A pedantic sophist, speaking Greek — ^the language of slaves and scholars — wearing the loftiest DEFENCE OF IMAGES. 185 titles, and yet hemmed in within the narrow limits of a single district, assumed to be the representative of the universal "Lord of human kind/' and called himself Emperor of the East and West. The common sense of Goth and Saxon, of Frank and Lombard, rebelled against this claim, when they saw it urged by a person unable to support it by fleets and armies. When, in addition to this want of power, they perceived in this century a want of orthodox belief, or even what they considered an impious profanity, in the successor of Augustus and Constantine, they were still more disin- clined to grant even a titular supremacy to the Byzan- tine ruler. Leo, at that time wearing the purple, and zealous for the purity of the faith, issued an order for the destruction of the marble representations of saints and martyrs which had been used in worship; and within the limits of his personal authority his mandate was obeyed. But when it reached the West, a furious opposition was made to his command. The Pope stood forward as champion of the religious veneration of "storied urn and animated bust.'' The emperor was branded with, the name of Iconoclast, or the Image- breaker, and the eloquence of all the monks in Europe was let loose upon the sacrilegious Caesar. Interest, it is to be feared, added fresh energy to their conscientious denunciations, for the monks had attracted to them- selves a complete monopoly of the manufacture of these aids to devotion — and obedience to Leo's order would have impoverished the monasteries all over the land. A Western emperor, it was at once perceived, would not have been so blind to the uses of those holy sculp- tures, and soon an intense desire was manifested through- out the Western nations for an emperor of their own. Already they were in possession of a spiritual chief, who claimed the inheritance of the Prince of the Apos- 186 EIGHTH CENTURY. ties, and looked down on the Patriarchs of Constanti- nople as bishops subordinate to his throne. Why should not they also have a temporal ruler who should renew the old glories of the vanished Empire, and exercise supremacy over all the governors of the earth ? Why, indeed, should not the first of those authorities exert his more than human powers in the production of the other ? He had converted a Mayor of the Palace into a King of the Franks. Could he not go a step further, and convert a King of the Franks into an Emperor of the West ? With this hope, not yet perhaps expressed, but alive in the minds of Pepin and the prelates of France, no attempt was made to check the Eoman pon- tiffs in the extravagance of their pretensions. Lords of wide domains, rich already in the possession of large tracts of country and wealthy establishments in other lands, they were raised above all competition in rank and influence with any other ecclesiastic ; and relying on spiritual privileges, and their exemption from active enmity, they were more powerful than many of the greatest princes of the time. Everywhere the mystic dignity of their office was dwelt upon by their sup- porters. For a long time, as we have seen, their om- nipotence was acknowledged by the two classes who saw in the use of that spiritual dominion a counterpoise to the worldly sceptres by which they were crushed. But now the worldly sceptres came to the support of the spiritual dominion. Its limit was enlarged, and made to include the regulation of all human affairs. It was its ^„„ office to subdue kino-s and bind nobles in links of A.D. 768. ° iron ; and when the son of Pepin, Charles, justly called the Great, though travestied by French vanity into the name of Charlemagne, sat on the throne of the Franks, and carried his arms and influence into the remotest States, it was felt that the hour and the man TENDENCY TO IMPERIALISM. 187 were come; and the Western Empire was formally re- newed. The curious thing is, that this longing for a restora- tion of the Eoman Empire, and dwelling on its useful- ness and grandeur, were dominant, and productive of great events, in populations which had no drop of Eoman blood in their veins. The last emperor resident in Rome had never heard the names of the hordes of^ savages whose descendants had now seized the plains of France and Italy. Yet it seemed as if, Avith the ter- ritory of the Eoman Empire, they had inherited its traditions and hopes. They might be Saxons, or Franks, or Burgundians, or Lombards, by national descent, but by residence they were Eomans as compared with the Greeks in the East, — and by religion they were Eomans as compared with the Sclaves and Saracens, who pressed on them on the IS'orth and South. It would not be diffi- cult in this country to find the grandchildren of French refugees boasting with patriotic pride of the English triumphs at Cressy and Agincourt — or the sons of Scottish parents rejoicing in their ancestors' victory under Cromwell at Dunbar; and here, in the eighth century, the descendants of Alaric and Clovis were patriotically loyal to the memory of the old Empire, and were reminded by the victories of Charlemagne of the trophies of Scipio and Marius. These victories, indeed, were not, as is so often found to be the case, the mere eiforts of genius and ambition, with no higher object than to augment the conqueror's power or repu- tation. They were systematically pursued with a view to an end. In one advancing tide, all things tended to the Imj)erial throne. Whatever nation felt the force of Charlemagne's sword felt also a portion of its humilia- tion lightened when its submission was perceived to be only an advancement towards the restoration of the old 188 EIGHTH CENTUEY. dominion. It might have been degrading to acknow ledge the superiority of the son of Pepin — but who could offer resistance to the successor of Augustus? So, after thirty years of uninterrupted war, with cam- paigns succeeding each in the most distant regions, and all crowned with conquest ; after subduing the Saxons beyond the "Weser, the Lombards as far as Treviso, the Arabs under the walls of Saragossa, the Bavarians in the neighbourhood of Augsburg, the Sclaves on the Elbe and Oder, the Huns and Avars on the Eaab and Danube, and the Greeks themselves on the coast of Dal- matia; when he looked around and saw no rebellion against his authority, but throughout the greater part of his domains a willing submission to the centralizing power which rallied all Christian states for the defence of Christianity, and all civilized nations for the defence of civilization, — ^nothing more was required than the mere expression in definite words of the great thing that had already taken place, and Charlemagne, at the extreme end of this century, bent before the successor of St. Peter at Eome, and stood up crowned Emperor of the "West, and champion and chief of Christendom. The period of Charlemagne is a great date in history; for it is the legal and formal termination of an antiquated state of society. It was also the introduction to another, totally distinct from itself and from its predecessor. It was not barbarism ; it was not feudalism; but it was the bridge which united the two. Ey barbarism is meant the uneasy state of govern- ments and peoples, where the tribe still predominated over the nation; where the Frank or Lombard con- tinued an encamped warrior, without reference to the soil; and where his patriotism consisted in fidelity to the traditions of his descent, and not to the greatness or independence of the land he occupied. In the reign of CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE. 189 Charlemagne, the land of the Erank became practically, and even territorially, France ; the district occupied by the Lombards became Lombardy. The feeling of pro- perty in the soil was added to the ties of race and kindred; and at the very time that all the nations of the Invasion yielded to the supremacy of one man as emperor, the different populations asserted their sepa- rate independence of each other, as distinct and self- sufficing kingdoms — kingdoms, that is to say, without the kings, but iu all respects prepared for those indi- vidualized expressions of their national life. For though Charlemagne, seated in his great hall at Aix-la-Chapelle, gave laws to the whole of his vast domains, in each country he had assumed to himself nothing more than the monarchic power. To the whole empire he was emperor, but to each separate people, such as Franks and Lombards, he was simply king. Under him there were dukes, counts, viscounts, and other dignitaries, but each limited, in function and influence, to the territory to which he belonged. A French duke had no pre- eminence in Lombardy, and a Bavarian graf had no rank in Italy. Other machinery was at times employed by the central power, in the shape of temporary mes- sengers, or even of emissaries with a longer tenure of office; but these persons were sent for some special pur- pose, and were more like commissioners appointed by the Crown, than possessors of authority inherent in them- selves. The term of their ambassadorship expired, their salary, or the lands they had provisionally held in lieu of salary, reverted to the monarch, and they returned to court with no further pretension to power or influence than an ambassador in our days when he returns from the country to which he is accredited. Eut when the great local nobility found their authority indissolubly con- nected with their possessions, and that ducal or princely 190 EIGHTH CENTURY. privileges were hereditary accompaniments of their lands, the foundations of modern feudalism were already laid, and the path to national kingship made easy and unavoidable. When Charlemagne's empire broke into pieces at his death, we still find, in the next century, that each piece was a kingdom. Modern Europe took its rise from these fragmentary though complete por- tions ; and whereas the breaking-up of the first empire left the world a prey to barbaric hordes, and desolation and misery spread over the fairest lands, the disruption of the latter empire of Charlemagne left Europe united as one whole against Saracen and savage, but separated in itself into many well-defined states, regulated in their intercourse by international law, and listening with the docility of children to the promises or threaten- ings of the Father of the Universal Church. For with the empire of Charlemagne the empire of the Papacy had grown. The temporal power was a collection of forces dependent on the life of one man; the spiritual power is a principle which is independent of individual aid. So over the fragments, as we have said, of the broken empire, rose higher than ever the unshaken majesty of Kome. Civil authority had shrunk up within local bounds; but the Papacy had expanded beyond the limits of time and space, and shook the dreadful keys and clenched the two-edged sword which typified its dominion over both earth and heaven. NINTH CENTURY. iSmperoris* A.D. West, A.D. East. 800. Charlemagne, (crowned NiCEPHORUS — {cont. ) by the Pope.) 811. Michael. 814. Louis the Debonnaire. 813. Leo the Armenian. 840. Charles the Bald. 821. Michael the Stammerer. 877. Louis the Stammerer. 829. Theophilus. 879. Louis III. and Carlo- 842. Michael III. man. 886. Leo the Philosopher. 884. Charles the Fat. 887. Arnold. 899. Louis IV. 887. Eudes, (Count of Paris.) 898. Charles the Simple. 827. Egbert. 860. Ethelbert. 837. Ethelwolf. 866. Ethelred. 857. Ethelbald. 872. Alfred the Gtreat. John Scotus, (Erigena,) Hincmar, Heric, (preceded Des Cartes in philosophical investigation,) Macarius. THE NINTH CENTUEY. DISMEMBERMENT OF CHARLEMAGNE's EMPIRE — DANISH IN- VASION OF ENGLAND — WEAKNESS OF FRANCE — ^REIGN OF ALFRED. The first year of this century found Charlemagne with the crown of the old Empire upon his head, and the most distant parts of the world filled with his repu- tation. As in the case of the first Napoleon, we find his antechambers crowded with the fallen rulers of the conquered territories, and even with sovereigns of neigh- bouring countries. Among others, two of our Anglo- Saxon princes found their way to the great man^s court at Aix-la-Chapelle. Eardulf of Northumberland pleaded his cause so well with Charlemagne and the Pope, that by their good offices he was restored to his states. Eut a greater man than Eardulf was also a visitor and careful student of the vanquisher and lawgiver of the "Western world. Originally a Prince of Kent, he had been ex- pelled by the superior power or arts of Beortrick, King of the "West Saxons, and had betaken himself for pro- tection, if not for restoration, to the most powerful ruler of the time. Whether Egbert joined in his expeditions or shared his councils, we do not know, but the history of the Anglo-Saxon monarchies at this date (800 to 830) shows us the exact counterpart, on our own island, of the actions of Charlemagne on the wider stage of conti- nental Europe. Egbert, on the death of Beortrick, ob- tained possession of Wessex, and one by one the sepa- rate states of the British Heptarchy were subdued; 9 193 194 NINTH CENTURY. some reduced to entire subjection, others only to sub- ordinate rank and the payment of tribute, till, when all things were prepared for the change, Egbert proclaimed the unity of Southern Britain by assuming the title of Bretwalda, in the same way as his prototype had re- stored the unity of the empire by taking the dignity of Emperor. It is pleasant to pause over the period of Charlemagne's reign, for it is an isthmus connecting two dark and unsatisfactory states of society, — a past of disunion, barbarity, and violence, and a future of igno- rance, selfishness, and crime. The present was not, indeed, exempt from some or all of these characteristics. There must have been quarrellings and brutal animosities on the outskirts of his domain, where half-converted Franks carried fire and sword, in the name of religion, among the still heathen Saxons; there must have been insolence and cruelty among the bishops and priests, whose education, in the majority of instances, was limited to learning the services of the Church by heart. Many laymen, indeed, had seized on the temporalities of the sees ; and, in return, many bishops had arrogated to themselves the warlike privileges and authority of the counts and viscounts. But within the radius of Charlemagne's own influence, in his family apartments, or in the great Hall of Audience at Aix-la-Chapelle, the astonishing sight was presented of a man refreshing him- self, after the fatigues of policy and war, by converting his house into a college for the advancement of learning and science. From all quarters came the scholars, and grammarians, and philosophers of the time. Chief of these was our countryman, the Anglo-Saxon monk Alcuin, and from what remains of his writings we can only regret that, in the infancy of that new civilization, his genius, which was undoubtedly great, was devoted to trifles of no real importance. Others came to fill up Charlemagne's court. 19^ that noble company ; and it is surely a great relief from the bloody records with which we have so long been familiar, to see Charlemagne at home, surrounded by sons and daughters, listening to readings and translations from Roman authors; entering himself into disquisi- tions on philosophy and antiquities, and acting as presi- dent of a select society of earnest searchers after infor- mation. To put his companions more at their ease, he hid the terrors of his crown under an assumed name, and only accepted so much of his royal state as his friends assigned to him by giving him the name of King David. The best versifier was known as Yirgil. Alcuin himself was Horace; and Angelbert, who cultivated Greek, assumed the proud name of Homer. These literary discussions, however, would have had no better effect than refining the court, and making the days pass pleasantly; but Charlemagne's object was higher and more liberal than this. Whatever monastery he founded or endowed was forced to maintain a school as part of its establishment. Alcuin was presented with the great Abbey of St. Martin of Tours, which possessed on its domain twenty thousand serfs, and therefore made him one of the richest land-owners in France. There, at full leisure from worldly cares, he composed a vast number of books, of very poor philosophy and very incorrect astronomy, and perhaps looked down from his lofty eminence of wealth and fame on the humble labours of young Eginhart, the secretary of Charlemagne, who has left us a Life of his master, infinitely more interesting and useful than all the dissertations of the sage. From this great Life we learn many delightful characteristics of the great man, his good-heartedness, his love of jus- tice, and blind affection for his children. But it is with his public works, as acting on this century, that we have now to do. Throughout the whole extent of his empire 196 NINTH CENTURY. he founded Academies, both for learning and for useful occupations. He encouraged the study and practice of agriculture and trade. The fine arts found him a munifi- cent patron; and though the objects on which the artist's skill was exercised were not more exalted than the carving of wooden tables, the moulding of metal cups, and the casting of bells, the circumstances of the time are to be taken into consideration, and these efforts may- be found as advanced, for the ninth century, as the works of the sculptors and metallurgists of our own day. It is painful to observe that the practice of what is now called adulteration was not unknown at that early period. There was a monk of the name of Tancho, in the monastery of St. GJ-all, who produced the first bell. Its sound was so sweet and solemn, that it was at once adopted as an indispensable portion of the ornament of church and chapel, and soon after that, of the religious services themselves. Charlemagne, hearing it, and per- haps believing that an increased value in the metal would produce a richer tone, sent him a sufficient quantity of silver to form a second bell. The monk, tempted by the facility of turning the treasure to his own use, brought forward another specimen bf his skill, but of a mixed and very inferior material. "What the just and severe emperor might have done, on the dis- covery of the fraud, is not known ; but the story ended tragically without the intervention of the legal sword. At the first swing of the clapper it broke the skull of the dishonest founder, who had apparently gone too near to witness the action of the tongue ; and the bell was thenceforth looked on with veneration, as the discoverer and punisher of the unjust manufacturer. The monks, indeed, seem to have been the most re- fractory of subjects, perhaps because they were already exempted from the ordinary punishments. In order to PSALMODY. 197 produce uniformity in the services and chants of the Church, the emperor sent to Home for twelve monkish musicians, and distributed them in the twelve principal bishoprics of his dominions. The twelve musicians would not consent to be musical according to order, and made the confusion greater than ever, for each of them taught different tunes and a different method. The dis- appointed emperor could only complain to the Pope, and the Pope put the recusant psalmodists in prison. But it appears the fate of Charlemagne, as of all persons in advance of their age, to be worthy of congratulation only for his attempts. The success of many of his undertakings was not adequate to the pains bestowed upon them. He held many assemblages, both lay and ecclesiastical, during his lengthened reign; he published many excellent laws, which soon fell into disuse; he tried many reforms of churches and monasteries, which shared the same fortune ; he held the Popes of Eomo and the dignitaries of his empire in perfect submission, but j)rofessed so much respect for the office of Pontiff and Bishop, that, when his own overwhelming supe- riority was withdrawn, the Church rebelled against the State, and claimed dominion over it. His sense of jus- tice, as well as the custom of the time, led him to divide his states among his sons, which not only insured enmity between them, but enfeebled the whole of Christendom. Clouds, indeed, began to gather over him some time before his reign was ended. One day he was at a city of Narbonese Gaul, looking out upon the Mediterranean Sea. He saw some vessels appear before the port "These," said the courtiers, "must be ships from the coast of Africa, Jewish merchantmen, or British traders." But Charlemagne, who had leaned a long time against the wall of the room in a passion of tears, said, " No ! these are not the ships of commerce ; I know by their 1^^ NINTH CENTURY. iightness of movement. Thej are the galleys of the Norsemen; and, though I know such miserable pirates can do me no harm, I cannot help weeping when I think of the miseries they will inflict on my descendants and the lands they shall rule." A true speech, and just occa- sion for grief, for the descents of these Scandinavian rovers are the great characteristic of this century, by which a new power was introduced into Europe, and great changes took place in the career of France and England. It would perhaps he more correct to say that, by this new mixture of race and language, France and England were called into existence. England, up to this date, had been a collection of contending states; France, a tributary portion of a great Grermanic empire. Slowly stretching northward, the Eoman language, modified, of course, by local pronunciation, had pushed its way among the original Franks. Latin had been for many years the language of Divine Service, and of history, and of law. All westward of the Ehine had yielded to these influences, and the old Teutonic tongue which Clovis had brought with him from Grermany had long disappeared, from the Alps up to the Channel. When the death of Charlemagne, in 814, had relaxed ' the hold which held all his subordinate states together, the diversity of the language of Frenchman and G-erman pointed out, almost as clearly as geographi- cal boundaries could have done, the limits of the re- spective nations. From henceforward, identity of speech was to be considered a more enduring bond of union than the mere inhabiting of the same soil. But other circumstances occurred to favour the idea of a separa- tion into well-defined communities; and among these the principal was a very long experience of the disad- vantages of an encumbered and too extensive empire. LOUIS THE DEBONNAIRE. 199 Even while the sword was held by the strong hand of Charlemagne, each portion of his dominions saw with dissatisfaction that it depended for its peace and pros- perity on the peace and prosperity of all the rest, and yet in this peace and prosperity it had neither voice nor influence. The inhabitants of the banks of the Loire were, therefore, naturally discontented when they found their j)rovisions enhanced in price, and their sons called to arms, on account of disturbances on the Elbe, or hos- tilities in the south of Italy. These evils of their posi- tion were further increased when, towards the end of Charlemagne's reign, the outer circuit of enemies became more combined and powerful. In proportion as he had extended his dominion, he had come into contact with tribes and states with Avhom it was impossible to be on friendly terms. To the East, he touched upon the irre- claimable Sclaves and Avars — in the South, he came on the settlements of the Italian Greeks — in Spain, he rested upon the Saracens of Cordova. It was hard for the secure centre of the empire to be destroyed and ruined by the struggles of the frontier populations, with which it had no more sympathy in blood and language than with the people with whom they fought. Already, also, we have seen how local their government had become. They had their own dukes and counts, their /^ own bishops and priests to refer to. The empire was, j^-^"''^ fact, a name, and the land they inhabited the cjnly reality with which they were concerned. We shall not be surprised, therefore, when we find that universal re- bellion took place when Louis the Debonnaire, the just and saint-like successor of Charlemagne, endeavoured to carry on his father's system. Even his reforms served only to show his own unselfishness, and to irritate the grasping and avaricious offenders whom it was his object to amend. Bishops were stripped of their lay lordships 200 NINTH CENTURY. — ^prevented from wearing sword and arms^ and even deprived of tlie military ornament of glittering spurs to their heels. The monks and nuns, who had almost tini- versally fallen into evil courses, were forcibly reformed by the laws of a second St. Benedict, whose regulations were harsh towards the regular orders, but useless to the community at large — a sad contrast to the agricul- tural and manly exhortations of the first conventual legislator of that name. Nothing turned out well with this simplest and most generous of the Carlovingian kings. His virtues, inextricably interlaced as they were with the weaknesses of his character, were more injurious to himself and his kingdom than less amiable qualities would have been. Priest and noble were equally ignorant of the real characteristics of a Christian life. When he refunded the exactions of his father, and re- stored the conquests which he considered illegally ac- quired, the universal feeling of astonishment was only lost in the stronger sentiment of disdain. An excellent monk in a cell, or judge in a court of law, Louis the Debonnaire was the most unfit man of his time to keep discordant nationalities in awe. His children were as unnatural as those of Lear, whom he resemhled in some other respects : for he found what little reverence waits upon a discrowned king ; and personal indignities of the most degrading kind were heaped upon him by those whose duty it was to maintain and honour him. Super- stition was set to work on his enfeebled mind, and twice he did public penance for crimes of which he was not guilty ; and on the last occasion, stripped of his military baldric — the lowest indignity to which a Frankish mon- arch could be subjected — clothed in a hair shirt by the hands of an ungrateful bishop, he was led by his tri- umphant son, Lothaire, through the streets of Aix-la-Chapelle. But natural feeling was not DEATH OF LOUIS. 201 extinguished in the hearts of the staring populace. They saw in the meek emperor's lowly behaviour, and patient endurance of pain and insult, an image of that other and holier King who carried his cross up the steeps of Jerusalem. They saw him denuded of the symbols of earthly power and of military rank, op- pressed and wronged — and recognised in that down- trodden man a representation of themselves. This senti- ment spread with the magic force of sympathy and re- morse. All the world, we are told, left the unnatural son solitary and friendless in the very hour of his suc- cess ; and Louis, too pure-minded himself to perceive that it was the virtue of his character which made him hated, persisted in pushing on his amendments as if he had the power to carry them into effect. He ordered all lands and other goods which the nobles had seized from the Church to be restored — a tenderness of conscience utterly inexplicable to the marauding baroii, who had succeeded by open force, and in a fair field, in despoiling the marauding bishop of land and tower. It was arming his rival, he thought, with a two-edged sword, this silence as to the inroads of the churchman on the pro- perty of the nobles, and prevention of their just reprisals on the property of the prelate, by placing it under the safeguard of religion. The rugged warrior kept firm hold of the bishopric or abbey he had secured, and the belted bishop reimbursed himself by appropriating the wealth of his weaker neighbours. But Louis was as unfortunate in his testamentary arrangement as in all the other regulations of his life. Lothaire was to retain the eastern portion of the empire ; Charles, his favourite, had France as far as the Ehine ; while Louis was limited to the distant region of Bavaria. And having made this disposition of his power, the meek and useless Louis descended into the 202 * NINTH CENTURY. tomb — a striking example, tlie Frencli historians tell US; of the great historic truth renewed at such distant dates, that the villanies and cruelties of a race of kings bring misery on the most virtuous of their descendants. All the crimes of the three preceding reigns — ^the violence and disregard of life exhibited by Charlemagne himself — found their victim and expiation in his meek and gentle-minded son. The harshness of Henry YIII. of England, they add, and the despotic claims of James, were visited on the personally just and amiable Charles; and they point to the parallel case of their own Louis XYI., and see in the sad fortune of that mild and guile- less sovereign the final doom of the murderous Charles IX., and the voluptuous and hypocritical Louis XI Y. But these kings are still far off in the darkness of the coming centuries. It is a strange sight, in the middle of the ninth century, to see the successor of the great Emperor stealing through the confused and chaotic events of that wretched period, stripped as it were of sword and crown, but everywhere displaying the beauty of pure and simple goodness. He refused to condemn his enemies to death. He was only inexorable towards his own offences, and sometimes humbled himself for imaginary sins. A protector of the Church, a zealous supporter of Borne, it would give additional dignity to the act of canonization if the name of Louis the Debon- naire were added to the list of Saints. But we have left the empire which it had taken so long to consolidate, now legally divided into three. There is a Charles in possession of the western division ; a Louis in the farther Germany ; and Lothaire, the un- filial triumpher at Aix-la-Chapelle, invested with the remainder of the Eoman world. But Lothaire was not to be satisfied with remainders. Once in power, he was determined to recover the empire in its undivided state. FRANCE LOSES THE RHINE. 203 He was King of Italy; master of Eome and of the Pope; he was eldest grandson of Charlemagne, and 1 D 842 ^^^^^ *^® opposition of his brothers. A battle was fought at Fontenay in 842, in which these pretensions were overthrown ; and the final severance took place in the following year between the French and German populations. The treaty between the brothers still remains. It is written in duplicate — one in a tongue still intelligible to German ears, and the other in a Eomanized speech, which is nearer the French of the present day than the English of Alfred, or even of Edward the Confessor, is to ours. France, which had hitherto attained that title in right of its predominant race, held it henceforth on the double ground of language and territory. But there is a curious circumstance connected with the partition of the empire, which it may be interesting to remember. France, in gaining its name and language, lost its natural boundary of the Ehine. Up to this time, the limit of ancient Gaul had continued to define the territory of the Western Franks. In rude times, indeed, there can be no other divisions than those supplied by nature ; but now that a tongue was considered a bond of nationality, the French were contented to surrender to Lothaire the Emperor a long strip of territory, running the whole way up from Italy to the ISTorth Sea, including both banks of the Ehine, and acting as a wall of partition between them and the German-speaking people on the other side, — a great price to pay, even for the easiest and most widely-spread language in Europe. Yet the most ambitious of Frenchmen would pause before he undid the bargain and reacquired the " exult- ing and abounding river'^ at the sacrifice of his inimitable tongue. Yery confused and uncertain are all the events for a 204 NINTH CENTURY. long time after this date. We see perpetual attempts made to restore the reality as well as the name of the Empire. These battles and competitions of the line of Charlemagne are the subject of chronicles and treaties, and might impose upon us by the grandeur of their ap- pearance, if we did not see, from the incidental facts which come to the surface, how unavailing all efforts must be to arrest the dissociation of state from state. The principle of dissolution was at work everywhere. Kingship itself had fallen into contempt, for the great proprietors had been encouraged to exert a kind of per- sonal power in the reign of Charlemagne, which con- tributed to the strength of his well-consolidated crown ; but when the same individual influence was exercised under the nominal supremacy of Louis the Debonnaire or Charles the Bald, it proved a humiliating and danger- ous contrast to the weakness of the throne. A combi- nation of provincial dignitaries could at any time out- weigh the authority of the king, and sometimes, even singly, the owners of extensive estates threw off the very name of subject. They claimed their lands as not only hereditary possessions, but endowed with all the rights and privileges which their personal offices had bestowed. If their commission from the emperor had given them authority to judge causes, to raise taxes, or to collect troops, they maintained from henceforth that those high powers were inherent in their lands. The dukes, therefore, invested their estates with ducal rights, independent of the Crown, and left to the holder of the kingly name no real authority except in his own domains. Erittany, and Aquitaine, and Septimania, withdrew their allegiance from the poor King of France. He could not compel the ambitious owners of those duchies to recognise his power, and condescended even to treat them as rival and acknowledged kings. Then FOEGED DONATIONS. 205 there were other magnates who were not to be left mere subjects when dukes had risen to such rank. So the Marquises of Toulouse and Gothia, a district of Langue- doc, and Auvergne, were treated more as equals than as appointed deputies recallable at pleasure. But worse enemies of kingly dignity than duke or marquis were the ambitious bishops^ who looked with uneasy eyes on the rapid rise of their rivals the lay nobility. Already the hereditary title of those territorial potentates was an accomplished fact; the son of the count inherited his father's county. Eut the general celibacy of the clergy fortunately prevented the hereditary transmission of bishopric and abbey. To make up for the want of this advantage,- they boldly determined to assert far higher claims as inherent in their rank than marquis or count could aim at. Starting from the universally-conceded ground of their right to reprimand and punish any Christian who committed sin, they logically carried their pretension to the right of deposing kings if they offended the Church. More than fifty years had passed since Charlemagne had received the imperial crown from the hands of the Pope of Eome. Dates are liable to fall into confusion in ignorant times and places, and it was easy to spread a belief that the popes had always ex- ercised the power of bestowing the diadem upon kings. To support these astounding claims with some certain guarantee, and give them the advantage of prescriptive right by a long and legitimate possession, certain docu- ments were spread abroad at this time, purporting to be a collection by Isidore, a saint of the sixth century, of the decretals or judicial sentences of the popes from a very early period, asserting the unquestioned spiritual supremacy of the Eoman See at a date when it was in reality but one of many feeble seats of Christian author- ity ; and to equalize its earthly grandeur with its re- 206 NINTH CENTURY. ligious pretension, the new edition of Isidore contained a donation by Constantino himself, in the - beginning of the fourth century, of the city of Eome and enormous territories in Italy, to be held in sovereignty by the successors of St. Peter. These are now universally acknowledged to be forgeries and impostures of the grossest kind, but at the time they appeared they served the purpose for which they were intended, and gave a sanction to the Papal assumptions far superior to the rights of any existing crown. Charles the Bald was a true son of Louis the Debon- -„ naire in his devotion to the Church. When the A.D. boy. bishops of his own kingdom, with Wenilon of Sens as their leader, offended with some remissness he had temporarily shown in advancing their worldly in- terests, determined to depose him from the throne, and called Louis the German to take his place, Charles fled and threw himself on the protection of the Pope. And when by submission and promises he had been permitted to re-enter France, he complained of the conduct of the prelates in language which ratified all their claims. ^' Elected by Wenilon and the other bishops, as well as by the lieges of our kingdom, who expressed their con- sent by their acclamations, Wenilon consecrated mo king according to ecclesiastic tradition, in his own dio- cese, in the Church of the Holy Cross at Orleans. Ho anointed me with the holy oil ; he gave me the diadem and royal sceptre, and seated me on the throne. After that consecration I could not be removed from the throne, or supplanted by any one, at least without being heard and judged by the bishops, by whose ministry I was consecrated king. It is they who are as the thrones of the Divinity. God reposes upon them, and by them ho gives forth his judgments. At all times I have been ready to submit to their fatherly corrections, to their BELIEF AND INQUIRY. 207 just castigations, and am ready to do so still." AYhat more could the Churcli require? Its wealth was the least of its advantages, though the abbacies and bishop- rics were richer than dukedoms all over the land. Their temporal power was supported by the terrors of their spiritual authority ; and kings, princes, and people ap- peared so prone to the grossest excesses of credulity and superstition, that it needed little to throw Europe itself at the feet of the priesthood, and place sword and sceptre permanently in subordination to the crozier. Blindly secure of their position, rioting in the riches of the sub- ject land, the bishops probably disregarded, as below their notice, the two antagonistic principles which were at work at this time in the midst of their own body — the principle of absolute submission to authority in articles of faith, and the principle of free inquiry into all religious doctrine. The first gave birth to the great mystery of transubstantiation, which now first made its appearance as an indispensable belief, and was hailed by the laity and inferior clergy as a crowning proof of the miraculous powers inherent in the Church. The second was equally busy, but was not productive of such per- manent effects. At the court of Charles the Bald there was a societ^^ of learned and ingenious men, presided pver by the celebrated John Scot Erigena, (or native of Ireland,) who had studied the early Fathers and the Platonic philosophy, and were inclined to admit human reason to some participation in the reception of Chris- tian truths. There were therefore discussions on the real presence, and free-will, and predestination, which had the usual unsatisfactory termination of all questions transcending man's understanding, and only embittered their respective adherents without advancing the settle- ment on either side. While these exercitations of talent and dialectic quickness were carried on, filling the different 208 NINTH CENTURY. dioceses with wonder and perplexity, the great body of the people in various countries of Europe were recalled to the practical business of life by disputes of a far more serious character than the wordy wars of Scotus and his foes. Michelet, the most picturesque of the recent his- torians of France, has given us an amazing view of the state of affairs at this time. It is the darkest period of the human mind ; it is also the most unsettled period of human society. Outside of the narrowing limits of peopled Christendom, enemies are pressing upon every side. Saxons on the East are laying their hands in reverence on the manes of horses, and swearing in the name of Odin; Saracens, in the South and West, art gathering once more for the triumph of. the Prophet , and suddenly France, Germany, Italy, and England, are awakened to the presence and possible supremacy of a more dreaded invader than either, for the Yikinger, or Norsemen, were abroad upon the sea, and all Christen- dom was exposed to their ravages. Wherever a river poured its waters into the ocean, on the coast of Nar- bonne, or Yorkshire, or Calabria, or Friesland, boats, small -in size, but countless in number, penetrated into the inland towns, and disembarked wild? and fearless warriors, who seemed inspired by the mad fanaticism of some inhuman faith, which made charity and merc;)^ a sin. Starting from the islands and rugged mainland of the present Denmark and ISTorway, they swept across the stormy I^orth Sea, shouting their hideous songs of glory and defiance, and springing to land when they reached their destination with the agilitj^ and blood- thirstiness of famished wolves. Their business was to carry slaughter and destruction wherever they went. They looked with contempt on the lazy occupations- of the inhabitants of town or farm, and, above all, were filled with hatred and disdain of the monks and priests. THE NORSEMEN. 209 Their leaders were warriors and poets. Gliding up noiseless streams, they intoned their battle-cry and shouted the great deeds of their ancestors when they reached the walls of some secluded monastery, and rejoiced in wrapping all its terrified inmates in flames. Bards, soldiers, pirates, buccaneers, and heathens, desti- tute of fear, or pity, or remorse, amorous of danger, and skilful in management of ship and weapon, these were the most ferocious visitants which Southern Europe had ever seen. 'No storm was suflicient to be a protec- tion against their approach. On the crest of the highest waves those frail barks were seen by the aifrighted dwellers on the shore, careering with all sail set, and steering right into their port. All the jDCople on the coast, from the Ehine to Bayonne, and from Toulouse to the Grecian Isles, fled for protection to the great pro- prietors of the lands. But the great proprietors of the lands were the peaceful priors of stately abbeys, and bishops of wealthy sees. Their pretensions had been submitted to by kings and nobles ; they were the real rulers of France ; and even in England their authority was very great. Excommunications had been their arms against recusant baron and refractory count; but the Danish Northmen did not care for beH, book, and candle. The courtly circle of scholars and divines could give no aid to the dishoused villagers and trembling cities, however ingenious the logic might be which re- conciled Plato to St. Paul -, and Charles the Bald, sur- prised, no doubt, at the inefiicacy of prayers and proces- sions, was forced to replace the influence in the hands, not which carried the crozier and cross, but which curbed the horse and couched the spear. The invasion of the Danes was, in fact, the resuscitation of the courage and manliness of the nationalities they attacked. Dread- ful as the suffering was at the time, it was not given to 210 NINTH CENTURY. any man then alive to see the future benefits contained in the present woe. We, with a calmer view, look back upon the whole series of those events, and in the inter mixture of the new race perceive the elements of great- ness and power. Priest-ridden, down-trodden popula- tions received a fresh impulse from those untamed children of the North ; and in the forcible relegation of ecclesiastics to the more peaceable offices of their calling, we see the first beginning of the gradation of ranks, and separation of employments, which gave honourable oc- cupation to the respective leaders in Church and State ; which limited the clergyman to the unostentatious dis- charge of his professional duties, and left the baron to command his warriors and give armed protection to all the dwellers in the land. For feudalism, as understood in the Middle Ages, was the inevitable result of the re- lative positions of priest and noble at the time of the Norsemen's forays. It was found that the possession of great domains had its duties as well as its rights, and the duty of defence was the most imperative of all. Men held their grounds, therefore, on the obligation of keeping their vassals uninjured by the pirates; the bishops were found unable to perform this T^ork, and the territory paised away from their keeping. Yast estates, no doubt, still remained in their possession, but they were placed in the guardianship of the, neighbouring chateaux; and though at intervals, in the succeeding centuries, we shall see the prelate dressing himself in a coat of mail, and rendering in person the military ser- vice entailed upon his lands, the public feeling rapidly revolted against the incongruity of the deed. The steel- clad bishop was looked on with slender respect, and Avas soon found to do more damage to his order, by the con- trast between his conduct and his profession, than ho could possibly gain for it by his prowess or skill in war. DEVELOPMENT OF FEUDALISM. 211 Feudalism, indeed, or the reciprocal obligation of pro- tection and submission, reached its full development by the formal deposition of a descendant of Charlemagne, on the express ground of his inability to defend his People from the enemies by which they were surrounded. A congress of six archbishops, and seventeen bishops, was held in the town of Mantela, near Vienne; and after consultation with the nobility, they came to the following resolution : — " That whereas the great qualities of the old mayors of the palace were their only rights to the throne, and Charlemagne, whom all willingly obeyed, did not transmit his talents, along with his crown, to his posterity, it was right to leave that house/^ They therefore sent an offer of the throne of Burgundy to Boso, Count of the Ardennes, with the conditions " that he should be a true patron and defender of high and low, accessible and friendly to all, humble before Grod, liberal to the Church, and true to his word." By this abnegation of temporal weapons, and depend- ence on the armed warrior for their defence, the pre- lates put themselves at the head of the unarmed peoples at the same moment that they exercised their spiritual authority over all classes alike. It was useless for them to draw the sword themselves, when they regulated every motion of the hand by which the sword was held. While this is the state of affairs on the Continent — while the great Empire of Charlemagne is falling to pieces, and the kingly office is practically reduced to a mere equality with the other dignities of the land — while this disunion in nations and weakness in sovereigns is exposing the fairest lands in Europe to the aggressions of enemies on every side — let us cast our eyes for a moment on England, and see in what condition our ancestors are placed at the middle of this century. A 212 NINTH CENTURY. most dreadful and alarming condition as ever OldEnglanc* was in. For many years before tliis, a pirate's boat or two from the ]^orth would run upon the sand, and send tlie crews to burn and rob a village on the coast of Ber- wick or ]^ortliumberland. Pirates we superciliously call them, but that is from a misconception of their point of honour, and of the very different estimate they themselves formed of their pursuits and character. They were gentleman, perhaps, "of small estate" in some out- lying district of Denmark or [N'orway, but endowed with stout arms and a great wish to distinguish them- selves — if the distinction could be accompanied with an increase of their worldly goods. They considered the sea their own domain, and whatever was found on it as theirs by right of possession. They were, therefore, lords of the manor, looking after their rights, their waifs and strays, their flotsams and jetsams. They were also persons of a strong religious turn, and united the spirit of the missionary to the courage of the warrior and the avidity of the conqueror. Odin was still their god, the doors of the Walhalla were still open to them after death, and the skulls of their enemies were foam- ing with intoxicating mead. The English were rene- gades from the true faith, a set of drivelling wretches who believed in a heaven where there was no beer, and worshipped a god who bade them pray for their enemies and bless the very people who used them ill. The re- maining similarity in the language of the two peoples must have added a bitterness, to the contemptuous feel- ings of the unreclaimed rovers of the deep ; and pro- bably, on their return, these enterprising warriors were as proud of the number of priests they had slain, as of the more valuable trophies they carried home. Den- mark itself, up to this time, had been distracted with internal wars. It was only the more active spirits who DANISH INVASION OF ENGLAND. 213 had rushed across from the Sound, and solaced them- selves, in the intervals of their own campaigns, with an onslaught upon an English town. But now the scene was to change. The inroads of separate crews were to be exchanged for national invasions. Harold of the Fair Hair was seated on an undisputed throne, and repressed the outrages of these adventurous warriors by a strong and determined will. He stretched his sceptre over all the Scandinavian world, and neither the ITorth Sea nor the Baltic were safe places for piracy and spoil. One of his countrymen had founded the royal line of Eussia, and from his capital of Kieff or Novgorod was civilizing, with whip and battle-axe, the original hordes which now form the Empire of the Czars. Al- ready, from their lurking-places on the shores of the Black Sea, the ISTorwegian predecessors of the men of Odessa and Sebastopol were threatening a dash upon Constantinople; while sea-kings and jarls, compelled to be quiet and peaceable at home, but backed by all the wild populations of the JN'orth, anxious for glory, and greedy of gold and corn, resolved to reduce England to their obedience, and collected an enormous fleet in the quiet recesses of the Baltic, withdrawn from the obser- vation of Harold. It seems fated that France is always, in some sort or other, to set the fashion to her neighbours. "We have seen, at the beginning of this century, how England followed the example of the Frankish peoples in consolidating itself into one dominion. Charlemagne was recognised chief potentate of many states, and Egbert was sovereign of all the Saxon lands, from Corn- wall to the gates of Edinburgh. But the model w^as copied no less closely in the splitting-up of the central authority than in its consolidation. While Louis the Debonnaire and Charles the Bald were weakening the throne of Charlemagne, the states of Egbert became 214 NINTH CENTURY. parcelled out in the same way between the descendants of the English king. Ethelwolf was the counterpart of Louis, and carried the sceptre in too gentle a hand. He still further diminished his authority by yielding to the dissensions of his court. Like the Frankish ruler, also, he left portions of his territory to his four sons; of whom it will be sufficient for us to remember that the youngest was the great Alfred — ^the foremost name in all medieval history; and by an injudicious marriage with the daughter of Charles the Bald, and his unjust divorce of the mother of all his sons, he offended the feelings of the nation, and raised the animosity of his children. Ethelbald his son completed the popular dis- content by marrying his father's widow, the French princess, who had been the cause of so much disagree- ment; and while the people were thus alienated, and the guiding hand of a true ruler of men was withdrawn, „„„ the terrible invasion of Lanes and Jutlanders A.D. 839. went on. They sailed up the Thames and pil- laged London. "Winchester was given to the flames. The whole isle of Thanet was seized and permanently occupied. The magic standard, a raven, embroidered by the daughters of the famous Eegner Lodbrog, (who had been stung to death by serpents in a dungeon into which he was thrown by Ella, King of ISTorthumberland,) was carried from point to point, and was thought to be the symbol of victory and revenge. The offending ^Northumbrian now felt the wrath of the sons of Lod- brog. They landed with a great army, and after a battle, in which the chiefs of the English were slain, took the Northumbrian kingdom. [Nottingham was soon after captured and destroj^ed. It was no longer a mere incursion. The nobles and great families of Den- mark came over to their new conquest, and stationed themselves in strong fortresses, commanding large cir- ALFRED AND THE DANES. 215 sles of country, and lived under their Danisli regula- tions. The land, to be sure, was not populous at that time, and probably the Danish settlements were accom- plished without the removal of any original occupiers. But the castles they built, and the towns which rapidly grew around them, acted as outposts against the remain- ing British kingdoms; and at last, when fleet after fleet disembarked their thousands of warlike colonists ' — when Leicester, Lincoln, Stamford, York, and Chester, were all in Banish hands, and stretched a line of intrenchments round the lands they considered their own — the divided Anglo-Saxons were glad to purchase a cessation of hostilities by guaranteeing to them forever the places and territories they had secured. And there was now a Danish kingdom enclosed by the fragments of the English empire; there were Danish laws and customs, a Danish mode of pronunciation, and for a good while a still broader gulf of demarcation established between the peoples by their diversity in religious ' faith. But when Alfred attained the supreme power — and although respecting the treaties between the Danes* and English, yet evidently able to defend his J30untrymen from the aggressions of their foreign neigh- bour — the pacified pirate, tired of the sea, and softened by the richer soil and milder climate of his new home, began to perceive the very unsatisfactory nature of hib ancient belief, and rapidly gave his adhesion to the lessons of the gos])el. Guthrum, the Danish chieftain, became a zealous Christian according to his lights, and was baptized with all his subjects. Alfred acted as god- father to the neophyte, and restrained the wildest of his followers within due bounds. Perhaps, even, he was assisted by his Christianized allies in the great and final struggle against Hastings and a new swarm of Scandi- navian rovers, whose defeat is the concluding act of this 216 NINTH CENTURY. tumultuous century. Alfred drew up near London, and met tlie advancing hosts on the banks of the river Lea, about twenty miles from town. The patient angler in that suburban river seldom thinks what great events occurred upon its shore. Great ships — all things are comparative — were floating upon its waters, filled with armed Lanes. Alfred cut certain openings in the banks and lowered the stream, so that the hostile navy stranded. Out sprang the Lanes, astonished at the interruption to their course, and retreated across the country, nor stopped till they had placed themselves in inaccessible positions on the Severn. But the century came to a close. Opening with the great days of Charlemagne, it is right that it should close with the far more glorious reign of Alfred the patriot and sage; — a century illumi- nated at its two extremes, but in its middle period dark with disunion and ignorance, and not unlikely, unless controlled to higher uses, to give birth to a state of more hopeless barbarism than that from which the nations of Europe had so recently emerged. TENTH CENTURY. iSmperors of (Srermang* ISmperors of t!je 3East. Louis IY. — (cowiJ.) 911. Conrad. 920. Henry the Fowler. 936. Otho the Great. 973. Otho II. 983. Otho III. Mim^ of J^tance* Charles the Simple. — [coni.) 923. Eodolph. 936. Louis IV., (d'Outremer.) 954. LOTHAIRE. 986. Louis V., (le Faineant.) 987. Hugh Capet, (new dy- nasty.) 996. Robert the Wise. Leo. — [cont.) 911. CONSTANTINE IX. 915. CONSTANTINE and EOMANUS. 959. EoMANus II. 963. NicEPHORUs Phocas. 969. John Zimisces. 975. Basilius and Constan- TINE X. icings of iSnglantr. Alfred. — {cont.) 901. Edward the Elder. 925. Athelstane. 941. Edmund I. 948. Eldred. 955. Edwt. 959. Edgar. 976. Edward II. 978. Ethelred II. ^uti)or0» SuiDAS, (Lexicographer), Gerbert, Odo, I)uNSTA^- 10 THE TENTH CENTUEY. DARKNESS AND DESPAIR. The tenth century is always to be remembered as the darkest and most debased of all the periods of modern history. It was the midnight of the human mind, far out of reach of the faint evening twilight left by Eoman culture, and further still from the morning brightness of the new and higher civilization. If we try to catch any hope of the future, we must turn from the oppressed and enervated populations of France and Italy to the wild wanderers from the Korth. By following the latter detachment of ITorsemen who made their settle- ments on the Seine, we shall see that what seemed the wedge by which the compactness of an organized king- dom was to be split up turned out to be the strengthen- ing beam by which the whole machinery of legal go- vernment had been kept together. Eomanized Gauls, effeminated Franks, Goths, and Burgundians, were found unfitted for the duties either of subjects or rulers. They^ were too ambitious to obey, and too ignorant to com- mand. Eeligion itself had lost its efficacy, for the popu- lations had been so fed with false legends, that they had no relish for the truths of the gospel, which, indeed, as an instrument of instruction, had fallen into complete disuse. Ship-loads of false relics, and army-rolls of imaginary saints, were poured out for the general vene- ration. The higher dignitaries of the Church were looked on with very different feelings, according to the point of view taken of them. When regarded merely 219 220 TENTH CENTUEY. as possessors of lands and houses, they were loved or hated according to the use they made of their power; but at the very time when cruelties and vices made them personally the objects of detestation or contempt, the sacredness of their official characters remained. Peti- tions were sent to the kings against the prelates being allowed to lead their retainers into battle, not entirely from a scruple as to the unlawfulness of such a proceed- ing, but from the more serious consideration that their death or capture would be taken as a sign of the venge- ance of Heaven, and damp the ardour of the party they supported. Churches and cathedrals were filled with processionary spectacles, and their altars covered with the offerings of the faithful; and yet so brutal were the manners of the times, and so small the respect enter- tained for the individual priest, that laymen of the highest rank thought nothing of knocking down the dignitaries of the Church with a blow on the head, even while solemnly engaged in the offices of devotion. The Eoman pontiffs, we have seen, did not scruple to avail themselves of the forgeries of their enthusiastic sup- porters to establish their authority on the basis of anti- quity, and at the middle of this century w^ should find, if we inquired into it, that the sacred city and chair of St. Peter were a prey to the most violent passions. Many devout Eoman Catholics have been, at various periods, so horrified with the condition of their chiefs, and of the perverted religion which had arisen from tradition and imposture, that they have claimed the mere continued existence of the Papacy as a jDroof of its Divine institution, and a fulfilment of the prophecy that " the gates of hell should not i^revail against it.^' Yet even in the midst of this corruption and ignorance, there were not wanting some redeeming qualities, which soften our feelings towards the ecclesiastic power. It CONVENTS. 221 was at all times, in its theory, a protest against the excesses of mere strength and violence. The doctrines it professed to teach were those of kindness and charity; and in the great idea of the throned fisherman at Borne, the poorest saw a kingdom which was not of this world, and yet to which all the kingdoms of this world must bow. Temporal ranks were obliterated when the de- scendants of kings and emperors were seen paying- homage to the sons of serfs and workmen. The immu- nity, also, from spoil and slaughter, which to a certain extent still adhered to episcopal and abbatial lands, re- flected a portion of their sanctity on the person of the bishop and abbot. Mysterious reverence still hung round the convents, within which such ceaseless prayers were said and so many relics exposed, and whither it was also known that all the learning and scholarship of the land had fled for refuge. The doles at monastery- doors, however objected to by political economists, as encouragements of mendicancy and idleness, were viewed in a very diiferent light by the starving crowds, who, besides being qualified by destitution and hunger for the reception of charitable food, had an incontestable right, under the founder's will, to be supported by the establish- ment on whose lands they lived. The abbot who neg- lected tofeed the poor was not only an unchristian con- temner of the precepts of the faith, but ran counter to the legal obligations of his place. He was administrator of certain properties left for the benefit of persons about whose claims there was no doubt ; and when the rapa- cious methods of maintaining their adherents, which were adopted by the count and baron, were compared with the baskets of broken victuals, and the jugs of foaming beer, which were distributed at the buttery of the abbey, the decision was greatly in favour of the spiritual chief His ambling mule, and swift hound, and 222 TENTH CENTURY. hooded hawks, were not grudged, nor his less defensible occupations seriously inquired into, as long as the beef and mutton were not stinted, and the liquor flowed in reasonable streams. As to his theological tenets, or knowledge of history, either sacred or profane, the highest ecclesiastic was on the same level of utter igno- rance and indiiference with the lowest of his serfs. There were no books of controversial divinity in all this century. There were no studies exacted from priest or prelate. All that was required was an inordinate zeal in the discovery of holy relics, and an acquaintance with the unnumbered ceremonies performed in the celebra- tion of the service. Morals were in as low a state as learning. Debauchery, drunkenness, and uncleanness were the universal characteristics both of monk and secular. So it is a satisfaction to turn from the wretched spectacle of the decaying and corrupt condition of an old society, to the hardier vices of a new and undegene- rated people. Better the unreasoning vigour of the Normans, and their wild trust in Thor and Odin — their spirit of personal independence and pride in the manly exercises — ^than the creeping submission of an unedu- cated population, trampled on by their brutal lay supe- riors, and cheated out of money and labour by the artifices of their priests. Eollo, the Korman chief, had pushed his unresisted galleys up the Seine, and strongly intrenched himself in Eouen, in the first year of this century. From this citadel, so admirably selected for his purposes, whether of defence or conquest, he spread his expeditions on every side. The boats were so light that no shallowness of water hindered their progress even to the great valleys where the river was still a brook. "When impe- diments were encountered on the way, in the form of waterfall, or, more rarely, of bridge or weir, the adven- NORSE SETTLEMENTS. 223 turers sprang to shore and carried their vessels along the land. When greater booty tempted them, they even crossed long tracts of country, hauling their boats along with them, and launching them in some peaceful vale far away from the sea. Every islet in the rivers was seized and fortified; so that, dotted about over all the beautiful lands between the Seine and the borders of Flanders, were stout E'orman colonies, with all the pillage they had obtained securely guarded in those un- assailable retreats, and ready to carry their maritime depredations wherever a canoe could swim. Their rapidity of locomotion was equal to that of the Saracenic hordes who had poured down from the Pyrenees in the days of Charles the Hammer. But the K'orsemen were of sterner stuff than the light chivalry of Abderach- man. Where they stopped they took root. They found it impossible to carry off all the treasure they had seized, and therefore determined to stay beside it. Eouen was at first about to be laid waste, but the policy of the . bishop preserved it from destruction, while the wisdom of the rovers converted it into a fortress of the greatest strength. Strong walls were reared all round. The beautiful river was guarded night and day by their innumerable fleet, and in a short time it was recognised equally by friend and foe as the capital and headquarters of a'new race. 'Nor were the IN'ormans left entirely to Scandinavia for recruits. The glowing reports of their success, which successively arrived at their ancient homes, of course inspired the ambitious listeners with an irresistible desire to launch forth and share their fortune ; but there were not wanting thousands of volun- teers near at hand. King and duke, bishop and baron, were all unable to give protection to the cultivator of the soil and shepherd of the flock. These humble suf- ferers saw their cabins fired, and all their victuals de- 224 TENTH CENTURY. stroyed. EoUo was too politic to make it a war of extermination against the unresisting inhabitants^ and easily opened his ranks for their reception. The result was that; in those disastrous excursions, .shouting the war-cry of I^orway, and brandishing the pirate's axe, were many of the original Franks and Gauls, allured by the double inducement of escaping further injury them- selves and taking vengeance on their former oppressors. Eeligious scruples did not stand in their way. They gave in their adhesion to the gods of the IsTorth, and proved themselves true converts to Thor and Odin, by eating the flesh of a horse that had been slain in sacri- fice. It is perhaps this heathen association with horse- flesh as an article of food, which has banished it from Christian consumption for so long a time. But an effort is now made in France to rescue the fattened and roasted steed from the obloquy of its first introduction ; and the success of the movement would be complete if there were no other difSculty to contend against than the stigma of its idolatrous origin. Yet the recruits were not all on one side, for we read of certain sea-kings who have grown tired of their wandering life, and taken ser- vice under the kings of France. Of these the most famous was Hastings, whom we saw defeated at the end of the last century, on the banks of the river Lea. He is old now, and so far forgetful of his Scandinavian ofigin that some French annalists claim him as a countryman of their own, and maintain that he was the son of a husbandman near Troyes. He is now a great landed lord, Count of Chartres, and in high favour with the French king. When Eollo had established his forces on the banks of the Eure, one of the tributaries of the Seine, the ancient pirate went at the head of an embassy to see what the new-comer required. Standing on the farther bank of the little river, he raised his voice, and ROLLO. 225 in good ]^orwegian demanded who they were^ and who was their lord. "We have no lord!'' they said: "we are all equal." " And why do you come into this land, and what are you going to do V " We are going to chase away the inhabitants, and make the country our home. But who are you, who speak our language so well?" The count replied, "Did you never hear of Hastings the famous pirate, who had so many ships upon the sea, and did such evil to this realm V " Of course," replied the ITorsemen: "Hastings began well, but has ended poorly." "Have you no wish, then," said Hastings, " to submit yourselves to King Charles, who offers you land and honours on condition of fealty and service?" "Off! off! — we will submit ourselves to no man; and all we can take we shall keep, without dependence on any one. Go and tell the king so, if you like." Hastings returned from his unsuccessful embassy, and the attempt at compromise was soon after followed by a victory of Eollo, which decided the fate of the king- dom. The conquerors mounted the Seine, and laid siege to Paris ; but failing in this, they retraced their course to Eouen, and made themselves masters of Eayeux, and of other places. Eollo was now raised to supreme com- mand by the voices of his followers, and took rank as an independent chief Eut he was too sagacious a leader to rely entirely on the favour or success of his countrymen. He protected the native population, and reconciled them to the absence of their ancient masters, by the increased security in life and property which his firmness pro- duced. He is said to have hung a bracelet of gold in an exposed situation, with no defence but the terror of his justice, and no one tried to remove it. He saw, also, that however much his power might be dreaded, and his family feared, by the great nobility of France with whom he was brought into contact, his position as a heathen and 226 TENTH CENTURY. isolated settler placed him in an inferior situation. The Archbishop of Eouen, who had been his ally in the peaceable occupation of the city, was beside him, with many arguments in favour of the Christian faith. The time during which the populations had been intermixed had smoothed many difficulties on either side. The worship of Thor and Odin was felt to be out of place in the midst of great cathedrals and wealthy monasteries, and it created no surprise when, in a few years, the ambitious Eollo descended from his proud independence, did suit and service to his feeble adversary Charles the Simple, and retained all his con- quests in, full property as Duke of ]^ormandy and Peer of France. Already the divinity that hedged a king placed the crown, even when destitute of real authority, at an im- measurable height above the loftiest of the nobles ; and it will be well to preserve this in our memory ; for to the belief in this mystical dignity of the sovereign, the monarchical principle was indebted for its triumph in all the states of Europe. 'No matter how powerless the anointed ruler might be — ^no matter how greatly a com- bination of vassals, or a single vassal, might excel him in men and money — the ineffable supremacy of the sacred head was never denied. This strange and en- nobling sentiment had not yet penetrated the mind of Eollo and his followers, at the great ceremonial of his reception as a feudatory of the Crown. He declined to bend the knee before his suzerain, but gave him his oath of obedience and faith, standing at his full height. When a stickler for court etiquette insisted on the final ceremony of kissing the foot of the feudal superior, the duke made a sign to one of his piratical attendants to go through the form instead of him. Forth stalked the Norseman towards the overjoyed Charles, and without FEUDALISM. 227 BtoopiDg his body laid hold of the royal boot, and, lifting it with all his strength up to his mouth, upset tho un- fortunate and short-legged monarch on his back, to the great consternation of his courtiers, and the hilarious enjoyment of his new subjects. But there was hence- forth a new element in French society. The wanderers were unanimously converted to Christianity, and the shores of the whole kingdom perpetually guarded from piratical invaders by the contented and warlike country- men of Hastings and EoUo. [N'ormandy and Brittany were the appanage of the new duke, and perhaps they were more useful to the French monarch, as the well- governed territories of a powerful vassal, than if he had held them in full sovereignty in their former disorgan- ized and helpless state. Language soon began to exert its combining influence on the peoples thus brought into contact, and in a few years the rough IN'orse gave place to the Eomanized idiom of the rest of the kingdom, and the descendants of Rollo in the next generation required an interpreter if any of their relatives came to visit them from Denmark. But the true characteristic event of this century was the first establishment of real feudalism. The hereditary nature of lands and tenements had long been recog- nised; the original granter had long surrendered his right to reclaim the property on the death of the first possessor. Gradually also, and by sufferance, the offices to which, in the stronger periods of royalty, the favoured subjects had been promoted for life or a definite time were considered to belong to the descendant of the holder. But it was only now, in the weak administra- tion of a series of nominal kings, that the rights and privileges of a titular nobility were legally recognised, and large portions of the monarchy forever conveyed away from the control of the Crown. There is a sort 228 TENTH CENTURY. of natural feudalism -which must always exist where there are degrees of power and influence^ and which is as potent at this moment as in the time we are describ- ing. A man who expects a favour owes and performs suit and service to the man who has the power of be- stowing it. A man with land to let, with money to lend, with patronage to exert, is in a sort of way the ^^ superior'' of him who wants to take the farm, or bor- row the money, or get the advancement. The obliga- tions of these positions are mutual ; and only very ad- vanced philosophers in the theory of disunion and in- gratitude would object to the reciprocal feelings of kind- ness and attachment they naturally produce. In a less settled state of society, such as that now existing, or which lately existed, at the Cape of Good Hope and in ITew Zealand, the feudal principle is fresh and vigorous, though not recognised under that name, for the peaceful or weak are glad to pay deference and respect to the wield er of the protective sword. In the tenth century there were customs, but no laws, for laws presuppose some external power able to enforce them, and the decay of the kingly authority had left the only practical government in the hands of the great and powerful. They gave protection in return for obedience. But when more closely inquired into, this assumption of authority by a nobility or upper class is found to have been purely defensive on the part of the lay proprietors, against the advancing tide of a sj^iritual Democracy, which threatened to submerge the whole of Europe. Already the bishops and abbots had got possession of nearly half the realm of France, and in other countries they were equally well provided. Those great officers were the leaders of innumerable priests and monks, and owed their dignities to the popular will. The Pope himself — a sovereign prince when once placed in the RESISTANCE TO THE CHURCH. 229 chair of St. Peter — was indebted for his exaltation to a plurality of votes of the clergy and people of Eome. Election was, in fact, the universal form of constituting the rule under which men were to live. But who were the electors ? The appointment was still nominally in the people, biit the people were almost entirely under the influence of the clerical orders. Mechanics and labourers were the serfs or dependants of the rich monasteries, and tillers of the episcopal lands. The citizens had not yet risen into wealth or intelligence, and, though subject in their persons to the baron whose castle commanded their walls, they were still under the guidance of their priests. ]^o middle class existed to hold the balance even between the nobility and the Church ; and the masses of the population were naturally disposed to throw power into the hands of persons who sprang, in most instances, from families no better than their own, and recommended themselves to popular favour by opposition (often just, but always domineering) to the proceedings of the lay aristocracy. The labour- ing serfs, who gave the vote, were not much inferior in education or refinement to the ordained serfs who can- vassed for their favour. Abbacies, priories, bishoprics, parochial incumbencies, and all cathedral dignities, were held by a body distinct from the feudal gentry, and elevated, mediately or immediately, by universal suf- frage. If some stop had not been put to the aggressions of the priesthood, all the lands in Christendom would have been absorbed by its insatiable greed — all the ofiices of the State would have been conveyed to sacer- dotal holders ; all kings would have been nominated by the clerical voice alone, and freedom and progress would never have had their birth. The monarchs — though it is almost mockery to call them so in England — were waging an unsuccessful war with the pretensions of St. 230 TENTH CENTURY. Dunstan, who was an embodiment of the jjitiless harsh- ness and blind ambition of a zealot for ecclesiastic supremacy. In France a succession of imbecile rulers, whose characters are clearly enough to be guessed from the descriptive epithets which the old chroniclers have attached to their names, had left the Crown a prey to all its enemies. What was to be expected from a series of governors whose mark in history is made by such nicknames as "The Bald," "The Stammerer/' " The Fat," and finally, without circumlocution, " The Fool'^ ? Everybody tried to get as much out of the royal plunder as he could. Bishops got lands and churches. Foreign pirates, we have seen, got whole counties at a time, and in self-defence the nobility were forced to join in the universal spoil. Counties as large as I^ormandy were retained as rightful inheritances, in- dependent of all but ncJminal adhesion to the throne. Smaller properties were kept fast hold of, on the same pretence. And by this one step the noble was placed in a position of advantage over his rival the encroaching bishop. His power was not the mere creation of a vote or the possession of a lifetime. His family had founda- tions on which to build through a long succession of generations. Marriage, conquest, gift, and purchase, all tended to the consolidation of his influence ; and the re- sult was, that, instead of one feeble and decaying poten- tate in the person of the king, to resist the aggressions of an absorbing and levelling Church, there were hun- dreds all. over the land, democratic enough in regard to their dislike of the supremacy of the sovereign, but burning with a deep-seated aristocratic hatred of the territorial aggrandizement of the dissolute and low-born clergy. Europe was either in this century to be ruled by mailed barons or surpliced priests. Sometimes they played into each other's hands. Sometimes the warrior HUGH CAPET. 231 overwhelmed an adversary by enlisting on Ms side the sympathies of the Church. Sometimes the Church, in its controversies with the Crown, cast itself on the pro- tection of the warrior, but more frequently it threw its weight into the scale of the vacillating monarch, who could reward it with such munificent donations. But those munificent donations were equivalent to aggressions on the nobles. There was no use in their trying to check the aggrandizement of the clerical power, if the Crown continued its gifts of territory and ofiices to the priests and churches. And at last, when the strong-handed barons of Erance were tired out with the fatuity of their eifete kings, they gave the last proof of the supremacy they had attained, by departing from the line of Charle- magne and placing one of themselves upon the throne. Hugh Capet, the chief of the feudal nobles, was chosen to wear the crown as delegate and representative of the rest. The old Mayors of the Palace had been revived in his family for some generations; and when Louis the son of Lothaire died, after a twelvemonth's permissive reign, in 987, the warriors and land-owmers turned in- stinctively to the strongest and most distinguished member of their body to be the guardian of the privi- leges they had already secured. This was an aristocra- tic movement against the lineal supremacy of the Crown, and in reply to the democratic policy of the Church. But the Pope was too clear-sighted to lose the chance of attaching another champion to the papal chair. He „„^ made haste to ratify the new nomination to the A.D. 987. "^ throne, and pronounced Hugh Capet ^^ King of France in right of his great deeds." Hugh Capet had been first of the feudal nobility; but from thenceforth he laboured to be "every inch a king.'' He tried to please both parties, and to humble them at the same time. He did not lavish crown-lands or lofty 232 TENTH CENTURY. employments on tlie clergy; he took a new and very economical way of attaching tliem to his cause. He procured his election, it is not related by what means, to the highest dignities in the Church, and, although not in holy orders, was invested with the abbacies of St. Denis and St. Martin's and St. Germain's. The clergy were delighted with the increase to the respectability of their order, which had thus a king among its office- bearers. The Pope, we have seen, was first to declare his legitimacy; the bishops gave him their support, as they felt sure that, as a threefold abbot, he must have interests identical with their own. He was fortunate, also, in gaining still more venerated supporters; for while he was building a splendid tomb at St. Yalery, the saint of that name appeared to him and said, with larger promise than the Witches to Banquo, " Thou and thy descendants shall be kings to the remotest genera- tions." With the nobles he proceeded in a different manner. His task, you will remember, was to regain the universal submission of the nation ; and success at first seemed almost hopeless, for his real power, like that of the weakest of his immediate predecessors, extended no further than his personal holdings. In his fiefs of France proper (the small district including Paris) and Burgundy he was all-powerful; but in the other princi- palities and dukedoms he was looked on merely as a neighbouring potentate with some shadowy claims of suzerainty, with no right of interference in their in- ternal administration. The other feudatories under the old monarchy, but who were in reality independent sove- reigns under the new, were the Dukes of JS'ormandy and Planders, and Aquitaine and Toulouse. These made the six lay peerages of the kingdom, and, with the six ecclesi- astical chief rulers, made the Twelve Peers of France. CORONATION OF CAPET. 233 Of the lay peerages it will be seen that Hugh was in possession of two — the best situated and most populous of all. The extent of his possessions and the influence of his name were excellent starting-points in his efforts to restore the power of the Crown ; but other things were required, and the first thing he aimed at was to place his newly-acquired dignity on the same vantage- ground of hereditary succession as his dukedoms had long been. "With great pomp and solemnity he himself was anointed with the holy oil by the hands of the Pope; and he took advantage of the self-satisfied secu- rity of the other nobles to have the ceremony of a coronation performed on his son during his lifetime, and by this arrangement the appearance of election was avoided at his death. Its due weight must be given to the universal superstition of the time, when we attribute such importance to the formal consecration of a king. Externals, in that age, were all in all. Something mystic and divine, as we have said before, was supposed to reside in the very fact of having the crown placed on the head with the sanction and prayers of the Church. Opposition to the wearer became not only treason, but impiety; and when the same policy was pursued by many generations of Hugh's successors, in always procuring the coronation of their heirs before their demise, and thus obliterating the remembrance of the elective process to which they owed their position, the royal power had the vast advantage of hereditary descent added to its unsubstantial but never-abandoned claim of paramount authority. The effects of this mo- mentous change in the dynasty of one of the great European nations were felt in all succeeding centuries. The family connection between the house of Erance and the Empire was dissolved ; and the struggle between the old condition of society and the rising intelligence 234 TENTH CENTURY. of the peoples — ^which is the great characteristic of the Middle Ages — took a more defined form than before: aristocracy assumed its perfected shape of king and nobility combined for mutual defence on one side, and on the other the towns and great masses of the nations striving for freedom and privilege under the leadership of the sympathizing and democratic Church; for the Church was essentially democratic, in spite of the arro- gance and grasping spirit of some of its principal leaders. From hereditary aristocracy and hereditary royalty it was equally excluded; and the celibacy of the clergy has had this good effect, if no other : Its members were recruited from the people, and derived all their influence from popular support. In Germany the same process was going on, though without the crowning consumma- tion of making the empire non-elective. Otho, however — worthier of the name of Great than many who have borne that ambitious title — succeeded in limiting that highest of European dignities to the possessors of the „„„ German crown, and commenced the connection A.D. 962. ^ between Upper Italy and the Emperors which still subsists (so uneasily for both parties), under the house of Austria. In England the misery of the population had reached its maximum. The immigration of the Norsemen had been succeeded by numberless invasions, accompanied with all the horrors of barbarism and religious hatred ; for the Danes who devastated the shores in this age were as remorselessly savage, and as bitterly heathen, as their predecessors a hundred years before. No place was safe for the unhappy Christianized Saxons. Their sufferings were of the same kind as those of the inha- bitants of Normandy when Eollo began his ravages. Their priest-ridden kings and impoverished nobles could give them no protection. Bribes were paid to the assail- GENERAL DEMORALIZATION. 235 ants, and only brought over increasing and hungrier hordes. The land was 5, prey to wretchedness of every kind, and it was slender consolation to the starving and trampled multitudes that all the world was suffering to almost the same extent. Saracens were devastating the coasts of Italy, and a wild tribe of Sclaves trying to burst through the Hungarian frontier. At Eome itself, the capital of intellect and religion, such iniquities were perpetrated on every side that Protestant authors them- selves consent to draw a veil over them for the sake of human nature ; and in these sketches we require to do nothing more than allude to the crimes and wickedness of the papal court as one of the features by which the century was marked. Women of high rank and in- famous character placed the companions of their vices in the highest offices of the Church, and seated their sons or paramours on the papal throne. Spiritual pre- tensions rose almost in proportion to personal immorality, and the curious spectacle was presented of a power losing all respect at home by conduct which the heathen em- perors of the first century scarcely equalled ; of popes alternately dethroning and imprisoning each other — sometimes of two popes at a time — always dependent for life or influence on the will of the emperor, or who- ever else might be dominant in Italy — and yet success- fully claiming the submission and reverence of distant nations as "Bishop of all the world" and lineal "succes- sors of the Prince of the Apostles." This claim had never been expressly made before, and is perhaps the most conclusive proof of the darkness and ignorance of this period. Men were too besotted to observe the incon- gruity between the life and profession of those blemishes of the Church, even when by travelling to the seat of government they had the opportunity of seeing the -Roman pontiff and his satellites and patrons. The rest 236 TENTH CENTURY. of the world had no means of learning the real state of aifairs. Education had almost died out among the clergy themselves. Nobody else could write or read. Travelling monks gave perverted versions^ we may be. lieve, of every thing likely to be injurious to the interests of the Church; and the result was, that everywhere beyond the city- walls the thunder of a Eoniface the Seventh; or a John the Twelfth, was considered as good thunder as if it had issued from the virtuous indignation of St. Paul. But just as this century drew to a close, various cir- cumstances concurred to produce a change in men's minds. It was a universally-diffused belief that the world would come to an end when a thousand years from the Saviour's birth were expired. The year 999 was therefore looked upon as the last which any one would see.v And if ever signs of approaching dissolu- tion were shown in heaven and earth, the people of this century might be pardoned for believing that they were made visible to them. Even the breaking up of morals and law, and the wide deluge of sin which overspread all lands, might be taken as a token that mankind were deemed unfit to occupy the earth any more. In addi- tion to these appalling symptoms, famines were renewed from year to year in still increasing intensity and brought plague and pestilence in their train. The land was left untilled, the house unrepaired, the right un vindicated; for who could take the useless trouble of ploughing or building, or quarrelling about a property, when so few months were to put an end to all terrestrial interests ? Yet even for the few remaining days the ' multitudes must be fed. Robbers frequented every road, entered even into walled towns; and there was no authority left to protect the weak, or bring the wrong-doer to punish- ment. Corn and cattle were at length exhausted ; and FAMINE AND DESPAIR. 237 in a great part of the Continent the most frightful ex- tremities were endured j and when endurance could go no further, the last desperate expedient was resorted to, and human flesh was commonly consumed. One man went so far as to expose it for sale in a populous market- town. The horror of this open confession of their needs was so great, that the man was burned, but more for the publicity of his conduct than for its inherent guilt. Despair gave a loose to all the passions. Nothing was sacred — nothing safe. Even when food might have been had, the vitiated taste made bravado of its depravation, and women and children were killed and roasted in the madness of the universal fear. Meantime the gentler natures were driven to the wildest excesses of fanaticism to find a retreat from the impending judgment. Kings and emperors begged at monastery-doors to be admitted brethren of the Order. Henry of Germany and Eobert of France were saints according to the notions of the time, and even now deserve the respect of mankind for the simplicity and benevolence of their characters. Henry the Emperor succeeded in being admitted as a monk, and swore obedience on the hands of the gentle abbot who had failed in turning him from his purpose. " Sire," he said at last, " since you are under my orders, and have sworn to obey me, I command you to go forth and fulfil the duties of the state to which God has called you. Go forth, a monk of the Abbey of St. Yanne, but Emperor of the "West." Eobert of France, the son of Hugh Capet, placed himself, robed and crowned, among the choristers of St. Denis, and led the musicians in singing hymns and psalms of his own composition. Lower men were satisfied with sacrificing the marks of their knightly and seignorial rank, and placed baldrics and swords on the altars and before the images of saints. Some manumitted their serfs, and bestowed large sums 238 TENTH CENTURY. upon charitable trusts, commencing their disposition with words implying the approaching end of all Crowds of the common people would sleep nowhere but in the porches, or at any rate within the shadow, of the churches and other holy buildings; and as the day of doom drew nearer and nearer, greater efforts were made to appease the wrath of Heaven. Peace was pro- claimed between all classes of men. From "Wednesday night till Monday evening of each week there was to be no violence or enmity or war in all the land. It was to be a Truce of God -, and at last, all their strivings after a better state, acknowledgments of a depraved condi- tion, and heartfelt longings for something better, purer, nobler, received their consummation, when, in the place of the unprincipled men who had disgraced Christianity by carrying vice and incredulity into the papal chair, there was appointed to the highest of ecclesiastical dig- nities a man worthy of his exaltation ; and the good and holy Gerbert, the tutor, guide, and friend of Eobert of France, was appointed Pope in 998, and took the name of Sylvester the Second. ELEVENTH CENTURY. A.D. Otho III. — [cont.) 1002. Henry of Bavaria. 1024. Conrad II. 1039. Henry III. 1056. Henry IV. icings of iSnglantr* Ethelred II. — {conl.) 1013. Sweyn. 1015. Canute the Gtreat. 1017. Edmund II. 1039. Harold and Hardi- CANUTE. 1042. Edward the Confessor. 1066. Harold, (son of God- win.) 1066. William the Conquer- or. 1087. William Eufus. iSmperors of tf)e ISast A.D. Basilius. — {cont.) 1028. Eomanus III. 1042. Empress Zoe and Theo- dora. 1056. Michael VI. 1057. Isaac Comnenus. 1059. ConstantineX.,(Ducas.) 1067. EuDoxiA and Constan- TINE XI. 1068. KomanusIV., (Diogenes.) 1071. Michael. Two Princes of the House of the Com- :{ 1078 1081 neni. 1081. Alexis I. Itings of dFxmtt. Eobert the Wise. — {cont.) 1031. Henry I. 1060. Philip I. 1096. The First Crusade. Eutf)ori3. Anselm, (1003-1079,) Abelard, (1079-1142,) Berengarius, Roscelin, Lanfranc, Theophylact, (1077.) THE ELEVENTH CENTTJEY. THE COMMENCEMENT OF IMPROVEMENT — GREGORY THE SEVENTH — FIRST CRUSADE. And now came the dreaded or hoped-for year. The awful Thousand had at last commenced, and men held their breath to watch what would be the result of its arrival. " And he laid hold of the dragon, that old ser- pent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled : and after that he must be loosed a little season." (Eevelation xx. 2, 3.) With this text all the pulpits in Christendom had been ringing for a whole generation. And not the pulpits only, but the re- fection-halls of convents, and the cottages of the starving peasantry. Into the castle also of the noble, we have seen, it had penetrated; and the most abject terror per- vaded the superstitious, while despair, as in shipwrecked vessels, displayed itself amid the masses of the popula- tion in rioting and insubordination. The spirit of evil for a little season was to be let loose upon a sinful world ; and when the observer looked round at the real condition of the people in all parts of Europe — at the ignorance and degradation of the multitude, the cruelty of the lords, and the unchristian ambition and unre- strained passions of the clergy — it must have puzzled him how to imagine a worse state of things even when the chain was loosened from "Ihat old serpent," and 11 241 242 ELEVENTH CENTURY. the world placed unresistingly in his folds. Yet, as if men's minds had now reached their lowest point, there was a perpetual rise from the beginning of this date. "When the first day of the thousand-and-first year shone upon the world, it seemed that in all nations the torpor of the past was to be thrown off. There were strivings everywhere after a new order of things. Coming events cast their shadows a long way before ; for in the very beginning of this century, when it was reported that Jerusalem had been taken by the Saracens, Sylvester uttered the memorable words, " Soldiers of Christ, arise and fight for Zion.'' By a combination of all Christian powers for one object, he no doubt hoped to put an end to the party quarrels by which Europe was torn in pieces. And this great thought must have been ger- minating in the popular heart ever since the speech was spoken 3 for we shall see at the end of the period we are describing how instantaneously the cry for a crusade was responded to in all lands. In the mean time, the first joy of their deliverance from the expected destruc- tion impelled all classes of society in a more honourable and useful path than they had ever hitherto trod. As if by universal consent, the first attention was paid to the maintenance of the churches, those holy buildings by whose virtues the wrath of Heaven had been turned away. In France, and Italy, and Germany, the fabrics had in many places been allowed to fall into ruin. They were now renovated and ornamented with the costliest materials, and with an architectural skill which, if it previously existed, had had no room for its display. Stately cathedrals took the place of the humble buildings in which the services had been conducted before. Every thing was projected on a gigantic scale, with the idea of permanence prominently brought forward, now that the threatened end of all things was seen to be post- BUILDINGS. 243 poned. The foundations were broad and deep, the walls of immense thickness, roofs steep and high to keep off the rain and snow, and square buttressed towers to sus- tain the church and furnish it at the same time with military defence. It was a holy occupation, and the clergy took a prominent part in the new movement. Bishops and monks were the principal members of a confraternity who devoted themselves to the science of architecture and founded all their works on the exact rules of symmetry and fitness. Artists from Italy, where Eoman models were everywhere seen, and enthu- siastic students from the south of France, where the great works of the Empire must have exercised an en- nobling influence on their taste and fancy, brought their tribute of memory or invention to the design. Tall pillars supported the elevated vault, instead of the flat roof of former days; and gradually an approach was made to what, in after-periods, was recognised as the pure Gothic. Here, then, was at last a real science, the offspring of the highest aspirations of the human mind. Churches rising in rich profusion in all parts of the country were the centres of architectural taste. The castle of the noble was no longer to be a mere mass of stones huddled on each other, to protect its inmates from outward attack. The skill of the learned builder was called in, and on picturesque heights, safe from hos- tile assault by the difficulty of approach, rose turret and bartizan, arched gateway and square-flanked towers, to add new features to the landscape, and help the march of civilization, by showing to that allegorizing age the result, both for strength and beauty, of regularity and proportion. For at this time allegory, which gave an inner meaning to outward things, was in full force. There was no portion of the parish church which had not its mystical significance ; and no doubt, at the end 244 ELEVENTH CENTURY. of tliis century, the architectural meaning of the exter- nal alteration of the structure was perceived, when the great square tower, which typified resistance to worldly aggression, was exchanged for the tall and graceful spire which pointed encouragingly to heaven. Occasions were eagerly sought for to give employment to the ruling passion. Building went on in all quarters. The begin- ning of this century found eleven hundred and eight monasteries in France alone. In the course of a few years she was put in possession of three hundred and twenty-six more. The magnificent Abbey of Fontenelle was restored in 1035 by William of !N'ormandy; and this same William, whom we shall afterwards see in the somewhat different character of Conqueror and devastator of England, was the founder and patron of more abbeys and monasteries than any other man. Many of them are still erect, to attest the solidity of his work; the ruins of the others raise our surprise that they are not yet entire — so vast in their extent and gigantic in their materials. But the same character of permanence extended to all the works of this great builder's* hands — the systems of government no less than the fabrics of churches. The remains of his feudalism in our country, no less than the fragments of his masonry at Bayeux, Fecamp, and St. Michaers, attest the cyclopean scale on which his superstructures were reared. ]S"or were these great architectural efforts which characterize this period made only on behalf of the clergy. It gives a very narrow notion, as Michelet has observed, of the uses and purposes of those enor- mous buildings, to view them merely as places for public worship and the other offices of religion. The church in a district was, in those days, what a hundred other * He was called Le Grand BS-tisseur. CHURCHES. 245 buildings are req[uired to make up in the present. It was the town-hall, the market-place, the concert-room, the theatre, the school, the news-room, and the vestry, all in one. We are to remember that poverty was almost universal. The cottages in which the serfs and even the freemen resided were wretched hovels. They had no windows, they were damp and airless, and were merely considered the human kennels into which the peasantry retired to sleep. In contrast to this miserable den there arose a building vast and beautiful, conse- crated by religion, ornamented with carving and colour, large enough to enable the whole population to wander in its aisles, with darker recesses under the shade of pillars, to give opportunity for familiar conversation or the enjoyment of the family meal. The church was the poor man's palace, where he felt that all the building belonged to him and was erected for his use. It was also his castle, where no enemy could reach him, and the love and pride which filled his heart in contemplat- ing the massive proportions and splendid elevation of the glorious fane overflowed towards the officers of the church. The priest became glorified in his eyes as the officiating servant in that greatest of earthly buildings, and the bishop far otitshone the dignity of kings when it was known that he had plenary authority over many such majestic fabrics. Ascending from the known to the unknown, the Pope of Eome, the Bishop of Bishops, shone upon the bewildered mind of the peasant with a light reflected from the object round which all his vene- ration had gathered from his earliest days — the scene of all the incidents of his life — the hallowed sanctuary into which he had been admitted as an infant, and whose vaults should echo to the funeral service when he should have died. But this century was distinguished for an upheaving 246 ELEVENTH CENTURY. of the human mind, whicli found its development in other things besides the bursting forth of architectural skill. It seemed that the chance of continued endur- ancC; vouchsafed to mankind by the rising of the sun on the first morning of the eleventh century, gave an im- pulse to long-pent-up thoughts in all the directions of inquiry. The dulness of unquestioning undiscrimi- nating belief was disturbed by the freshening breezes of dissidence and discussion. The Pope himself, the vene- rable Sylvester the Second, had acquired all the wisdom of the Arabians by attending the Mohammedan schools in the royal city of Cordova. There he had learned the mysteries of the secret sciences, and the more useful knowledge — which he imported into the Christian world — of the Arabic numerals. The Saracenic barbarism had long yielded to the blandishments of the climate and soil of Spain ; and emirs and sultans, in their splendid gardens on the Guadalquivir, had been dis- cussing the most abstruse or subtle points of philosophy while the professed teachers of Christendom were sunk in the depths of ignorance and credulity. Sylvester had made such progress in the unlawful learning accessible at the head-quarters of the unbelievers, that his simple contemporaries could only account' for it by supposing he had sold himself to the enemy of mankind in ex- change for such prodigious information. He was ac- cused of the unholy arts of magic and necromancy ; and all that orthodoxy could do to assert her superiority over such acquirements was to spread the report, which was very generally credited, that when the years of the compact were expired, the paltering fiend appeared in person and carried off his debtor from the midst of the affrighted congregation, after a severe logical discussion, in which the father of lies had the best of the argument. This was a conclusive proof of the danger of all logical SCHOLARSHIP. 247 acquirements. But as time passed on, and the darkness of the tenth century was more and more left behind, there arose a race of men who were not terrified by the fate of the philosophic Sylvester from cultivating their understandings to the highest pitch. Among those there were two who particularly left their marks on the genius of the time, and who had the strange for- tune also of succeeding each other as Archbishops of Canterbury. These were Lanfranc and Anselm. "When Lanfranc was still a monk at Caen, he had attracted ,„.„ to his prelections more than four thousand A.D. 1042. ^ scholars ; and Anselm, while in the same humble rank, raised the schools of Bee in ISTormandy to a great reputation. From these two men, both Italians by birth, the Scholastic Philosophy took its rise. The old unreasoning assent to the doctrines of Christianity had now new life breathed into it by the permitted applica- tion of intellect and reason to the support of truth. In the darkness and misery of the previous century, the deep and mysterious dogma of Transubstantiation had made its first authoritative appearance in the Church. Acquiesced in by the docile multitude, and accepted by the enthusiastic and imaginative as an inexpressible gift of fresh grace to mankind, and a fitting crown and con- summation of the daily-recurring miracles with which the Mother and Witness of the truth proved and main- tained her mission, it had been attacked by Berenger of Tours, who used all the resources of reason and ingenuity to demonstrate its unsoundness. But Lanfranc came to the rescue, and by the exercise of a more vigorous dia- lectic, and the support of the great majority of the clergy, confuted all that Berenger advanced, had him stripped of his archdeaconry of Angers and other pre- ferments, and left him in such destitution and disfavour that the discomfited opponent of the Real Presence was 248 ELEVENTH CENTUKY. ,-,„ forced to read his retractation at Eome, and A.D. 1059. ' only expiated tlie enormity of his fault by the rigorous seclusion of the remainder of his life. The hopeful feature in this discussion was, that though the influence of ecclesiastic power was not left dormant, in the shape of temporal ruin and spiritual threats, the exercise of those usual weapons of authority was ac- companied with attempts at argument and conviction. Lanfranc, indeed, in the very writings in which he used his talents to confute the heretic, made such use of his reasoning and inductive faculties that he nearly fell under the ban of heresy himself He had the boldness to imagine a man left to the exercise of his natural powers alone, and bringing observation, argument, and ratiocination to the discovery of the Christian dogmas ; but he was glad to purchase his complete rehabilitation, as champion of the Church, by a work in which he admits reason to the subordinate position of a supporter or commentator, but by no means a foundation or in- separable constituent of an article of the faith. Any thing was better than the blindness and ignorance of the previous age; and questions of the purest meta- physics were debated with a fire and animosity which could scarcely have been excited by the greatest worldly interests. The Il^ominalists and Eealists began their wordy and unprofitable war, which after occasional truces may at any moment break out, as it has often done before, though it would now be- confined to the professorial chairs in our universities, and not exercise a preponderating influence on the course of human affairs. The dispute (as the names of the disputants import) arose upon the question as to whether universal ideas were things or only the names of things, and on this the internecine contest went on. All the subtlety of the old Greek philosophies was introduced into the GREGORY THE SEVENTH. 249 scholasticisms and word-splittings of those useless arguers ; and vast reputations, which have not yet de- cayed, were built on this very unsubstantial foundation. It shows how immeasurably the eiforts of the intellect, even when misapplied, transcend the greatest triumphs of military skill, when we perceive that in this age, which was illustrated by the Conquest of England, first by the Danes, and then by "William, by the marvellous rise and triumphant progress of the sons of Tancred of Hauteville, and by the startling incidents of the First Crusade, — the central figure is a meagre, hard-featured monk, who rises from rank to rank, till he governs and tramples on the world under the name of Gregory the Seventh. It may seem to some people, who look at the present condition of the Eomish Church, that too pro- minent a place is assigned in these early centuries to the growth and aggrandizement of the ecclesiastical power; but as the object of these pages is to point out what seems the main distinguishing feature of each of the periods selected for separate notice, it would be un- pardonable to pass over the Papacy, varying in extent of power and pretension at every j)eriod when it comes into view, and always impressing a distinct and indivi- dualizing character on the affairs with which it is con- cerned. It is the most stable, and at the same time the most flexible, of powei-s. Kingdoms and dynasties flourish and decay, and make no permanent mark on the succeeding age. The authority of a ruler like Charlemagne or Otho rises in a full tide, and, having reached its limits, yields to the irresistible ebb. But Eoman influence knows no retrocession. Even when its pretensions are defeated and its assaults repulsed, it claims as de jure what it has lost defactOj and, though it were reduced to the possession of a single church, would continue to issue its orders to the habitable globe, 250 ELEVENTH CENTUEY. Like the last descendant of tlie G-reat Mogul, who professed to rule over Hindostan while his power was limited to the walls of his palace at Delhi, the bearer of the Tiara abates no jot of his state and dignity when every vestige of his influence has disappeared. While ridiculed as a puppet or pitied as a sufferer at home, he arrogates more than royal power in regions which have long thrown off his authority, and announces his will by the voice of blustering and brazen heralds to a deaf and rebellious generation, which looks on him with no more respect than the grotesquely-dressed conjurers before a tent-door at a fair. But the herald's voice would have been listened to with respect and obedience if it had been heard at the Pope's gate in 1073. There had never been such a pope before, and never has been such a pope since. Others have been arrogant and ambitious, but no one has ever equalled Hildebrand in arrogance and ambition. Strength of will, also, has been the ruling character of many of the pontiffs, but no one has ever equalled Hildebrand in the undying tenacity with which he pursued his object. He was like Eoland, the hero of Eoncesvalles, who even in defeat knew how to keep his enemies at a distance by blowing upon his horn. When Durandal foiled the vanquished Gregory, he spent his last breath in defiant blasts upon his Olifant. Eut there were many circumstances which not only rendered the rise of such a person possible, but made his progress easy and almost unavoidable. First of all, the crusading spirit which commenced with this century had introduced a great change in the principles and practice of the higher clergy. It is a mistake to suppose that the expedition to Jerusalem, under the preaching of Peter the Hermit, which took place in 1094, was the earliest manifestation of the aggressive spirit of the Christian, ae such, against the unbeliever. A holy war WARLIKE BISHOPS. 251 was proclaimed against the Saracens of Italy at an early date. An armed assault upon the Jews, as descendants of the murderers of Christ, had taken place in 1080. Even the l^orman descent on England was considered by the more devout of the Papist followers in the light of a crusade against the enemies of the Cross, as the Anglo-Saxons were not sufficiently submissive to the commands of Eome. Bishops, we saw, were held in a former century to derogate from the sanctity of their characters when they fought in person like the other occupants of fiefs. But the sacred character which ex- peditions like those against Sicily and Salerno gave to the struggle made a great difference in the popular esti- mate of a prelate's sphere of action. He was now held to be strictly in the exercise of his duty when he was slaying an infidel with the edge of the sword. He was not considered to be more in his place at the head of a procession in honour of a saint than at the head of an army of cavaliers destroying the enemies of the faith. Warlike skill and personal courage became indispensable in a bishop of the Church ; and in Germany these quali- ties were so highly prized, that the inhabitants of a dio- cese in the empire, presided over by a man of peace and holiness, succeeded in getting him deposed by the Pope on the express ground of his being "placable and far from valiant." The epitaph of a popular bishop was, that he was " good priest and brave chevalier." The manners and feelings of the camp soon became disse- minated among the reverend divines, who inculcated Christianity with a battle-axe in their hands. They quarrelled with neighbouring barons for portions of land. They seized the incomes of churches and abbeys. Bishop and baron strove with each other who could get most for himself out of the property of the Church. The iriyman forced his serfs to elect his infant son to an 252 ELEVENTH CENTURY. abbacy or bisbopric, and then pillaged the estate and stripped the lower clergy in the minor's name. Other abuses followed; and though the strictness of the rule against the open marriage of priests had long ceased, and in some places the superiority of wedded incumbents had been so recognised that the appointment of a pastor was objected to unless he was accompanied by a wife — still; the letter of the Church-law, enjoining celibacy on all orders of the clergy, had never been so generally neglected as at the present time. 'No attempt was made to conceal the almost universal infraction of the rule. Bishops themselves brought forward their wives on occasions of state and ceremony, who disputed the place of honour with the wives of counts and barons. When strictly inquired into, however, these alliances were not allowed to have the effect of regular matri- mony. They were looked upon merely as a sort of licensed and not dishonourable concubinage, and the children resulting from them were deprived of the rights of legitimacy. Yet the wealth and influence of their parents made their exclusion from the succession to land of little consequence. They were enriched suffi- ciently with the spoil of the diocese to be independent of the rights of heirship. This must have led, however, to many cases of hardship, when the feudal baron, tempted by the riches of the neighbouring see, had laid violent hands on the property, and by bribery or force procured his own nomination as bishop. The children of any marriage contracted after that time lost their inherit- ance of the barony by the episcopal incapacity of their father, and must have added to the general feeling of discontent caused by the junction of the two characters. For when the tyrannical lord became a prelate, it only added the weapons of ecclesiastic domination to the baronial armory of cruelty and extortion. He could NORMANS. 253 now withhold all the blessings of the Church, as bishop, unless the last farthing were yielded up to his demands as landlord. An appalling state of things, when the re- fractory vassal, who had escaped the sword, could be knocked into submission by the crozier, both wielded by the same man. The Church, therefore, in its highest offices, had become as mundane and ambitious as the nobility. And it must have been evident to a far dimmer sight than Hildebrand's, that, as the power and inde- pendence of the barons had been gained at the expense of the Crown, the wealth and possessions of the bishops would weaken their allegiance to the Pope. Sprung from the lowest ranks of the people, the grim-hearted monk never for a moment was false to his order. He looked on lords and kings as tyrants and oppressors, on bishops themselves as lording it over God's heritage and requiring to be held down beneath the foot of some levelling and irresistible power, which would show them the nothingness of rank and station ; and for this end he dreamed of a popedom, universal in its claims, domi- neering equally over all conditions of men — an incarna- tion of the fiercest democracy, trampling on the people, and of the bitterest repiiblicanism, aiming at more than monarchical power. He had the wrath of generations of serfdom rankling in his heart, and took a satisfaction, sweetened by revenge, in bringing low the haughty looks of the proud. And in these strainings after the elevation of the Papacy he was assisted by several powers on which he could securely rely. The Normans, who by a wonderful fortune had made themselves masters of England under the guidance of William, were grateful to the Pope for the assistance he had given them by prohibiting all opposition to their conquest on the part of the English Church. Another branch of JS'ormans were still more useful in their sup- 254 ELEVENTH CENTURY. port of the papal chair. A body of pilgrims to Jeru ealem, amounting to only forty men, had started from Scandinavia in 1006, and, having landed at Salerno, were turned aside from completing their journey by the equally meritorious occupation of resisting the Saracens who were besieging the town. They defeated them with great slaughter, and were amply rewarded for their prowess with goods and gear, l^ews of their gallantry and of their reward reached their friends and relations at home. In a few years they were followed by swarms of their countrymen, who disposed of their acquisitions in Upper Italy to the highest bidder, and were remunerated by grants of land in l!^aples for their exertion on behalf of Sergius the king. Eut in 1037 a fresh body of adventurers proceeded from the neighbourhood of Coutances in ISTormandy, under the command of three brothers of the family of Hauteville, to the assistance of the same monarch, and, with the usual prudence of the ]!!^orman race, when they had chased the enemy from the endangered territory, made no scruple of keeping it for themselves. Eobert, called Guiscard, or the Wise, was the third brother, and suc- ceeded to the newly-acquired sovereignty in 1057. In a short time he alarmed the Pope with the prospect of 80 unscrupulous and so powerful a neighbour. His Holiness, therefore, demanded the assistance of the German Emperor, and boldly took the field. The Nor- mans were no whit daunted with the opposition of the Father of Christendom, and dashed through all obstacles till they succeeded in taking him prisoner. Instead of treating him with harshness, and exacting exorbitant ransom, as would have been the action of a less saga^ cious politician, the ISTorman threw himself on his knees beftre the captive pontiff, bewailed his hard case in being forced to appear so contumacious to his spiritual COUNTESS MATILDA. 255 lord and master, and humbly besought him to pardon his transgression, and accept the suzerainty of all the lands he possessed and of all he should here- * after subdue. It was a delightful surprise to the Pope, who immediately ratified all the proceed- ings of his repentant son, and in a short time was re- warded by seeing Apulia and the great island of Sicily held in homage as fiefs of St. Peter's chair. From thenceforth the Italian [N'ormans were- the bulwarks of the papal throne. But, more powerful than the 'Nov- mans of England, and more devoted personally to the popes than the greedy adventurers of Apulia, the Countess Matilda was the greatest support of all the pretensions of the Holy See. Young and beautiful, the holder of the greatest territories in Italy, this lady was the most zealous of all the followers of the Pope. Though twice married, she on both occasions separated from her husband to throw herself with more undivided energy into the interests of the Church. With men and money, and all the influence that her position as a princess and her charms as a woman could give, the sovereign pontiff had no enemy to fear as long as he retained the friendship of his enthusiastic daughter. Hildebrand was the ruling spirit of the papal court, ,„^^ and was layinc: his plans for future action, A.B. 1060. J to 1 J while the world was still scarcely aware of his existence. He began, while only Archdeacon of Eome, by a forcible reformation of some of the irregularities which had crept into the practice of the clergy, as a preparatory step to making the clergy dominant over all the other orders in the State. He gave orders, in the name of Stephen the Tenth, for every married priest to be displaced and to be separated from his wife. For this end he stirred up the ignorant fanaticism of the peoplCj and encouraged them in outrages upon the 256 ELEVENTH CENTURY. offending clergy, which frequently ended in death. The virtues of the cloister had still a great hold on the popu- lar veneration, in spite of the notorious vices of tho monastic establishments, both male and female; and liildebrand's invectives on the wickedness of marriage, and his praises of the sanctity of a single life, were listened to with equal admiration. The secular clergy were forced to adopt the unsocial and demoralizing principles of their monkish rivals ; and when all family affections were made sinful, and the feelings of the pastor concentrated on the interests of his profession, the popes had secured, in the whole body of the Church, the unlimited obedience and blind support which had hitherto been the characteristic of the monastic orders. With the assistance of the warlike Normans, the wealth and influence of the Countess Matilda, the adhesion of the Church to his schemes of aggrandizement, he felt it time to assume in public the power he had exercised so long in the subordinate position of counsellor of the popes; and the monk seated himself on what he con- sidered the highest of earthly thrones, and immediately the contest between the temporal and spiritual powers began. The King of France (Philip the First) and the Emperor of Germany (Henry the Fourth) were both of disrej)utable life, and offered an easy mark for the assaults of the fiery pontiff. He threatened and reprimanded them for simony and disobedience, proclaimed his authority over kings and princes as a fact which no man could dispute without impiety, and had the inward pleasure of seeing the proudest of the nobles, and finally the most powerful of the sove- reigns, of Europe, forced to obey his mandates. The pent-up hatred of his race and profession was gratified by the abasement of birth and power. The struggle with the Empire was on the subject of STRUGGLE BETWEEN POPE AND EMPEROR. 257 investiture. The successors of Charlemagne had always retained a voice in the appointment of the bishops and Church dignitaries in their states ; they had even fre- quently nominated to the See of Kome, as to the other bishoprics in their dominions. The present wearer of the iron crown had displaced three contending popes, who were disturbing the peace of the city by their ferocious quarrels, and had appointed others in their room. There was no murmur of opposition to their appointment. They were pious and venerable men; and of each of them the inscrutable Hildebrand had managed to make himself the confidential adviser, and in reality the guide and master. Even in his own case he waited patiently till he had secured the emperor's legal ratification of his election, and then, armed with legitimacy, and burning with smothered indignation, he kicked doWn the ladder by which he had risen, and wrote an insulting letter to the emperor, commanding him to abstain from simony, and to renounce the right of investiture by the ring and cross. These, he main- tained, were the signs of spiritual dignity, and their oestowal was inherent in the Pope. The time for the message was admirably chosen ; for Henry was engaged in a hard struggle for life and crown with the Saxons and Thuringians, who were in open revolt. Henry promised obedience to the pontiff's wish, but when his enemies were defeated he withdrew his concession. The Pope thundered a sentence of excommunication against him, released his subjects from their oath of fealty, and pronounced him deprived of the throne. The emperor was not to be left behind in the race of -.r^^n objur2:ation. He summoned his nobles and pre- A.D. 1076. , ° .- ^^ , ^ lates to a council at Worms, and pronounced sentence of deprivation on the Pope. Then arose such a storm against the unfortunate Henry as only religious 258 ELEVENTH CENTURY. differences can create. His subjects had been oppressed, his nobility insulted, his clergy impoverished, and all classes of his people were glad of the opportunity of hiding their hatred of his oppressions under the cloak of regard for the interests of religion. He was forced to yield j and, crossing the Alps in the middle of winter, he presented himself at the castle of Canossa. Here the Pope displayed the humbleness and generosity of his Christian character, by leaving the wretched man three days and nights in the outer court, shivering with cold and barefoot, while His Holiness and the Countess Matilda were comfortably closeted within. And after this unheard-of degradation, all that could be wrung from the hatred of the inexorable monk was a promise that the suppliant should be tried with justice,. and that, if he succeeded in proving his innocence, he should be reinstated on his throne; but if he were found guilty, he should be punished with the utmost rigour of eccle- siastical law. Common sense and good feeling were revolted by this unexampled insolence. Friends gathered round Henry when the terms of his sentence were heard. The Eomans themselves, who had hitherto been blindly sub- missive, were indignant at the presumption of their bishop. ITone continued faithful except the imper- turbable Countess Matilda. He was still to her the representative of divine goodness and superhuman power. But her troops were beaten and her money was exhausted in the holy quarrel. Eobert Guiscard, indeed, came to the rescue, and rewarded himself for delivering the Pope by sacking the city of Eome. Half the houses were burned, and half the population killed or sold as slaves. It was from amidst the desolation his ambition had caused that the still-unsubdued Hilde- brand was guarded by the l!^ormans to the citadel of DEATH OF HILDEBRAND. 259 Salerno, and there he died, issumg his orders and curses to his latest hour, and boasting with his last breath that ^^he had loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and ,^„, that therefore he expired in exile." After this A.D. 1085. ■'■ man's throwing off the mask of moderation under which his predecessors had veiled their claims, the world was no longer left in doubt of the aims and objects of the spiritual power. There seems almost a taint of insanity in the extravagance of his demands. In the published collection of his maxims we see the full extent of the theological tyranny he had in view. "There is but one name in the world," we read; "and that is the Pope's. He only can use the ornaments of empire. All princes ought to kiss his feet. He alone can nominate or displace bishops and assemble or dis- solve councils. Nobody can judge him. His mere election constitutes him a saint. He has never erred, and never shall err in time to come. He can depose princes and release subjects from their oaths of fidelity." Yet, in spite of the wildness of this language, the igno- rance of the period was so great, and the relations of European nations so hostile, that the most daring of these assumptions found supporters either in the super- stitious veneration of the peoples or the enmity and interests of the princes. The propound er of those amazing propositions was apparently defeated, and died disgraced and hated; but his successors were careful not to withdraw the most untenable of his claims,, even while they did not bring them into exercise. They lay in an armory, carefully stored and guarded, to be brought out according to the exigencies either of the papal chair itself, or of the king or emperor who for the moment was in possession of the person of the Pope. None of the great potentates of Europe, therefore, was anxious to diminish a power which might be employed 260 ELEVENTH CENTURY. for his own advaiitage, and all of them by turns en- couraged the aggressions of the Papacy, with a short- sighted wisdom, to be an instrument of offence against their enemies. Little encouragement, indeed, was of- fered at this time to opposition to the spiritual despot. Though Hildebrand had died a refugee, it was remarked with pious awe that Henry the Fourth, his rival and opponent, was punished in a manner which showed the highest displeasure of Heaven. His children, at the instigation of the Pope, rebelled against him. He was conquered in battle and taken prisoner by his youngest son. He was stripped of all his possessions, and at last so destitute and forsaken that he begged for a sub- chanter's place in a village church for the sake of its wretched salary, and died in such extremity of want and desolation that hunger shortened his days. For five years his body was left without the decencies of interment in a cellar in the town of Spires. But an immense movement was now to take place in the European mind, which had the greatest influence on the authority of Eome. A crusade against the enemies of the faith was proclaimed in the year 1095, and from all parts of Europe a great cry of approval was uttered in all tongues, for it hit the right chord in the ferocious and superstitious heart of the world ; and it was felt that the great battle of the Cross and the Crescent was most fitly to be decided for- ever on the soil of the Holy Land. From the very beginning of this century the thought of armed intervention in the affairs of Palestine had been present in the general mind. Religious difference had long been ready to take the form of open war. As the Church strengthened and settled into more dog- matic unity, the desire to convert by force and retain within the fold by penalty and proscription had in- creased. As yet some reluctance was felt to put a pro- PETER THE HERMIT. 261 fessing Christian to death on merely a difference of doctrine, but with the open gainsayers of the faith no parley could be held. Thousands, in addition to their religious animosities, had personal injuries to avenge; for pilgrimage to Jerusalem was already in full favour, and the weary wayfarers had to complain of the hos- tility of the turbaned possessors of the Holy Sepulchre, and the indignities and peril to which they were ex- posed the moment they came within the infidel's do- main. "Why should the unbelievers be allowed any longer to retain the custody of such inherently Chris- tian territories as the Mount of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane ? Why should the unbaptized followers of Mohammed, those children of perdition, pollute with hostile feet the sacred ground which had been the wit- ness of so many miracles and still furnished so many relics which manifested superhuman power? Besides, what was the wealth of other cities — ^their gold and precious jewels — to the store of incalculable riches con- tained in the very stones and woodwork of the metro- polis and cradle of the faith? Eones of martyrs — garments of saints — ^nails of the cross — ^thorns of the crown — were all lying ready to be gathered up by the faithful priesthood who would lead the expedition. And who could be held responsible, in this world or the next, for any sins, however grievous, who had washed them out by purifying the floors of Zion with the blood of slaughtered Saracens and saying prayers and kneel- ing in contemplation within sight of the Sepulchre itself? So Peter the Hermit, an enthusiast who preached a holy war, was listened to as if he spake with the tongues of angels. The ravings of his lunacy had a prodigious effect on all classes and in all lands; and suddenly there was gathered together a confused rabble of pilgrims, armed in every variety of fashion — ^princes and beg- gars, robbers and adventurers — the scum o^ e;reat nities 262 ELEVENTH CENTURY. and the simple-hearted, peasantry from distant farms— upwards of three hundred thousand in number, all pouring down towards the seaports and anxious to cross over to the land where so many high hopes were placed. Yast numbers of this multitude found their way from France through Italy; and luckily for Urban the Second — the fifth in succession from Gregory — they took the opportunity of paying a visit to the city of Eome, scarcely less venerable in their eyes than Jeru- salem itself. They were the soldiers of the Cross, and in that character felt bound to pay a more immediate submission to the Chief of Christianity than to their native kings. They found the city divided between two rivals for the tiara, and, having decided in favour of Urban, chased away the anti-pope who was ap- pointed by the Imperial choice. Terrified at the acces- sion of such powerful supporters, the Germans were withdrawn fi'om Italy, and Urban felt that the claims of Hildebrand were not incapable of realization if he could get quit of unruly barons and obstinate monarchs by engaging them in a distant and ruinous expedition. It needed little to spread the flame of fanaticism over the whole of Christendom. The accounts given of this first Crusade transcend the wildest imaginings of ro- mance. An indiscriminate multitude of all nations and tongues seemed impelled by some irresistible impulse towards the East. Ostensibly engaged in a religious service, enriched with promises and absolutions from the Pope, giving up all their earthly possessions, and filled with the one idea of liberating the Holy Land, it might have been expected that the sobriety and order of their march would have been characteristic of such elevating aspirations. But the infamy of their behaviour, their debauchery, irregularity, and dishonesty, have never been equalled by the basest and most degraded of mankind. Like a flood they poured through the lands SECOND CKUSADE. 263 of Italy, Bohemia, and Germany, polluting the cities with their riotous lives, and poisoning the air with the festering corruption of their innumerable dead. They at last found shipping from the ports, and presented themselves, drunk with fanatical pride, and maddened with the sufferings they had undergone, before the astonished people of Constantinople. That enervated and over-civilized population looked with disgust on the unruly mass. Of the vast multitudes who had started under the guidance of Peter the Hermit, not more than 20,000 survived ; and of these none found their way to the object of their search. The Turks, who had by this time obtained the mastery of Asia, cut them in pieces when they had left the shelter of Constantinople, and Alexis Comnenus, the G-recian emperor, had little hope of aid against the Mohammedan invaders from the unruly levies of Europe. But in the following year a new detachment made their appearance in his states. This was the second ban, or crusade of the knights and barons. Better re- gulated in its military organization than the other, it presented the same astonishing scenes of debauchery and vice ; and dividing, for the sake of sustenance, into four armies, and taking four different routes, they at length, in greatly-diminished numbers, but with un- abated hope and energy, presented themselves before the walls of Constantinople. This was no mob like their famished and fainting predecessors. All the gallant lords of Europe were here, inspired by knightly courage and national rivalries to distinguish themselves in fight and council. Of these the best-known were Godfrey of Bouillon, Baldwyn of Flanders, Eobert of ISTormandy, (William the Conqueror's eldest son,) Hugh the Great, Count of Yermandois, and Eaymond of St. Gilles. Six hundred thousand men had left their homes, with innu- merable attendants — ^women, and jugglers, and servants, 264 ELEVENTH CENTURY. and workmen of all kinds. Tens of thousands perished by the way; others established themselves in the cities on their route to keep up the communication ; and at last the Genoese and Pisan vessels conveyed to the Golden Horn the strength of all Europe, the hardy sur- vivors of all the perils of that unexampled march — ^few indeed in number, but burning with zeal and bravery. Alexis lost no time in diverting their dangerous strength from his own realms. He let them loose upon Mcea, and when it yielded to their valour he had the clever- ness to outwit the Christian warriors, and claimed the city as his possession. On pursuing their course, they found themselves, after a victory over the Turks at Dorylaeum, in the great Plain of Phrygia. Hunger, thirst, the extremity of heat, and the difficulty of the march, brought confusion and dismay into their ranks. All the horses died. Knights and chevaliers were seen mounted on asses, and even upon oxen ; and the baggage was packed upon goats, and not unfrequently on swine and dogs. Thirst was fatal to five hundred in a single day. Quarrels between the nationalities added to these calamities. Lorrains and Italians, the men of Normandy and of Provence, were at open feud. And yet, in spite of these drawbacks, the great procession advanced. Baldwyn and Tancred succeeded in getting possession of the town of Edessa, on the Euphrates, and opened a ,„„„ communication with the Christians of Armenia. A.D. 1098. ^, . n . . 1 1 . The siege of Antioch was their next operation, and the luxuries of the soil and climate were more fatal to the Crusaders than want and pain had been. On the rich banks of the Orontes, and in the groves of Daphne, they lost the remains of discipline and self-command and gave themselves up to the wildest excesses. But with the winter their enjoyment came to an end. Their camp was flooded; they suffered the extremities of famine ; and when there were no more horses and im- ANTIOCH TAKEN. 265 pure animals to eat, they satiated their hunger on the bodies of their slaughtered enemies. Help, however, was at hand, or they must have perished to the last man. Bohemund corrupted the fidelity of a renegade ofiicer in Antioch, and, availing themselves of a dark and stormy night, they scaled the walls with ladders, and rushed into the devoted city, shouting the Crusaders' war-cry : — " It is the will of God I" and Antioch became a Christian princedom. But not without difficulty was this new possession retained. The Turks, under the orders of Kerboga, surrounded it with two hundred thousand men. There was neither entrance nor exit possible, and the worst of their previous sufferings began to be renewed. But Heaven came to the rescue. A monk of the name of Peter Bartholomew dreamt that under the great altar of the church would be found the spear which pierced the Saviour on the cross. The precious weapon rewarded their toil in digging, and armed with this the Christian charge was irresistible, and the Turks were cut in pieces or dispersed. Instead of making straight for Jerusalem, they lingered six months longer in Antioch, suffering from plague and the fatigues they had undergone. When at last the forward order was given, a remnant, consisting of fifty thousand men out of all the original force, began the march. As they got nearer the object of their search, and recog- nised the places commemorated in Holy Writ, their en- thusiasm knew no bounds. The last elevation was at length surmounted, and Jerusalem lay in full view. " O blessed Jesus," cries a monk who was present, " when thy Holy City was seen, what tears fell from our eyes !" Loud shouts were raised of "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! God wills it ! God wills it !" They stretched out their hands, fell upon their knees, and embraced the conse- crated ground. But Jerusalem was yot in the hands of 12 266 ELEVENTH CENTURY. the Saracens, and the sword must open their way into its sacred bounds. The governor had offered to admit the pilgrims within the walls, but in their peaceful dress and merely as visitors. This they refused, and deter- mined .to wrest it from its unbelieving lords. On the 15th of July, 1099, they found that their situation was no longer tenable, and that they must conquer or give up the siege. The brook Kedron was dried up, the sun poured upon them with unendurable heat, their pro- visions were exhausted, and in agonies of despair as well as of military ardour they gave the final assault. The struggle was long and doubtful. At length the Crusaders triumphed. Tancred and Godfrey were the first to leap into the devoted town. Their soldiers fol- lowed, and filled every street with slaughter. The Mos- que of Omar was vigorously defended, and an indiscri- minate massacre of Mussulmans and Jews filled the whole place with blood. In the mosque itself the stream of gore was up to the saddle-girths of a horse. The on- slaught was occasionally suspended for a while, to allow the pious conquerors to go barefoot and unarmed to kneel at the Holy Sepulchre ; and, this act of worship done, they returned to their ruthless occupation, and continued the work of extermination for a whole week. The depopulated and reeking town was added to the domains of Christendom, and the kingdom of Jerusalem was offered to Godfrey of Bouillon. With a modesty befitting the most Christian and noble-hearted of the Crusaders, Godfrey contented himself with the humbler name of Baron of the Holy Sepulchre ; and with three hundred knights — ^which were all that remained to him when that crowning victory had set the other survivors at liberty to revisit their native lands — ^he established a standing garrison in the captured city, and anxiously awaited reinforcements from the warlike spirits they had left at home. TWELFTH CENTURY. 3Smperocs3 of (Sermang* A.D. Henry IV. — {cont.) 1106. Henry V. House of jSuabia. 1138. Conrad III. 1152. Frederick Barbarossa. 1190. Henry VI. 1198. Philip and Otho IV., (of Brunswick.) A.D. Alexis I. — {cont.) 1118. John. 1143. Manuel. 1183. Andronicus" I. 1185. Isaac II., (the Angel.) 1195. Alexis III. Itings of dFrante^ Philip I. — {cent.) 1108. Louis VI. 1137. Louis VIL 1180. Philip Augustus. Minq of Scotland. 1165. William. itings of SBnglantr, 1100. Henry I. 1135. Stephen. 1154. Henry II. 1189. glCHARD I. 1199. John. 1147. Second Crusade, led by Louis VII. of France. 1189. Third Crusade, led by Frederick Barbarossa, Philip Augustus, and Eichard of England. Eutjorg* Bernard, (1091-1153,) Becket, (1119-1170,) Eustathius, Theodorus, Balsamon, Peter Lombard, William or Malmes- BURY, (1096-1143.) THE TWELFTH CENTUEY. ELEVATION OF LEARNING — POWER OE THE CHURCH — THOMAS X-BECKETT. The effect of the first Crusade had been so prodigious that Europe was forced to pause to recover from its ex- haustion. More than half a million had left their homes in 1095; ten thousand are supposed to have returned; three hundred were left with Godfrey in the Christian city of Jerusalem; and what had become of all the rest ? Their bones were whitening all the roads that led to the Holy Land; small parties of them must have settled in despair or weariness in towns and villages on their way; many were sold into slavery by the rapacity of the feudal lords whose lands they traversed; and when the madness of the time had originated a Crusade of Children, and ninety thousand boys of ten or twelve years of age had commenced their journey, singing hymns and anthems, and hoping to conquer the infidels with the spiritual arms of innocence and prayer, the whole band melted away before they reached the coast. Earons, and counts, and bishops, and dukes, all swooped down upon the devoted march, and before many weeks' journeying was achieved the Crusade was brought to a close. Most of the children had died of fatigue or star- vation, and the survivors had been seized as legitimate prey and sold as slaves. Meantime the brave and heroic Godfrey — ^the true hero of the expedition, for he elevated the ordinary virtues of knighthood and feudalism into the nobler 269 270 TWELFTH CENTURY. feelings of generosity and romance — gained the object of his earthly ambition. Having prayed at the sepul- chre, and cleansed the temple from the pollution of the unbelievers' presence, wearied with all his labours, and feeling that his task was done, he sank into deep ' despondency and died. Yolunteers in -small numbers had occasionally gone eastward to support the Cross. Ambition, thoughtlessness, guilt, and fanaticism sent their representatives to aid the conqueror of Judea; and his successors found themselves strong enough to bid defiance to the Turkish power. They carried all their Western ideas along with them. They had their feudal holdings and knightly quarrels. The most vene- rated names in Holy Writ were desecrated by unseemly disputes or the most frivolous associations. The com- bination, indeed, of their native habits and their new acquisitions might have moved them to laughter, if the men of the twelfth century had been awake to the ridi- culous. There was a Prince of Galilee, a Marquis of Joppa, a Baron of Sidon, a Marquis of Tyre. Our own generation has renewed the strange juxtaposition of the East and West by the language employed in .steamboats and railways. Trains will soon cross the Desert with warning whistles and loud jets of steam and all the phraseology of an English line. Eor many years the waters of the mysterious Eed Sea have been dashed into foam by paddles made in Liverpool or Glasgow. But these are visitors of a very different kind from Bo- hemund and Baldwyn. Baldwyn, indeed, seemed less in- clined than his companions to carry his European train- ing to its full extent. He Orientalized himself in a small way, perhaps in imitation of Alexander the Great ; and, dressed in the long flowing robes of the country, he made his attendants serve him with prostrations, and almost with worship. He married a daughter of the MOHAMMEDAN FAITH. 271 land, and in other respects endeavoured to ingraiiate himself with the Saracens by treating them with kind- ness and consideration. The bravery of those warriors of the Desert endeared them to the rough-handed barons of the West. It was impossible to believe that men with that one pre-eminent virtue could be so utterly hateful as they had been represented; and when the in- tercourse between the races became more unrestrained, even the religious asperities of the Crusaders became mitigated, they found so many points of resemblance between their faiths. There was not an honour which the Christian paid to the Yirgin which was not yielded by the Mohammedan to Fatima, All the doctrines of the Christian creed found their counterparts in the pro- fessions of the followers of the Law. Allah was an incar- nation of the Deity; and even the mystery of the Trinity was not indistinctly seen in the legend of the three rays which darted from the idea of Mohammed in the mind of the Creator. While this community of sentiment softened the animosity of the crusading leaders towards their enemies, a still greater community of suffering and danger softened their feelings towards their followers and retainers. In that scarcity of knights and barons, the value of a serfs arm or a mechanic's skill was gratefully acknowledged. There had been many mutual kindnesses between the two classes all through those tedious and blood-stained journeys and desperate fights. A peasant had brought water to a wounded lord when he lay fainting on the burning soil ; a workman had had the revelation of the true crown : they were no longer the property and slaves of the noble, who considered them beings of a different blood, but fellow-soldiers, fellow-sufferers, fel- low-Christians. They were not spoken of in the insult- ing language of the West, and called " our thralls,^' "our 272 TWELFTH CENTURY. slaves," " our bondsmen ;" at the worst tliey were called " our poor," and lifted by that word into the quality of brothers and men. The precepts of the gospel in favour of the humble and suffering were felt for the first time to have an application to the men who had toiled on their lands and laboured in their workshops, but who were now their support in the shock of battle, and com- panions when the victory was won. Only they were poor; they had no lands; they had no arms upon their shields. So Baldwyn gave them large tracts of country; and they became vassals and feudatories for fertile fields near Jericho and rich farms on the Jordan. They were gentlemen by the strength of their own right hands, as the fathers of their lords and suzerains had been. But the amalgamation of race and condition was not carried on in the East more surely or more extensively than in the West. The expenses of preparing for the pilgrimage had impoverished the richest of the lords of the soil. They had been forced to borrow money and to mortgage their estates to the burghers of the great commercial towns, which, quietly and unobserved, had spread themselves in many parts of France and Italy. Genoa had already attained such a height of prosperity that she could furnish vessels for the conveyance of half the army of the Crusade. In return for her cargoes of knights and fighting-men, she brought back the wealth of the East, — silks, and precious stones, and spices, and vessels of gold and silver. The necessities of the time made the money-holder powerful, and the men who swung the hammer, and shaped the sword, and em- broidered the banner, and wove the tapestry, indis- pensable. And what hold, except kindness, and privi- lege, and grants of land, had the baron on the skilful smith or the ingenious weaver who could carry his skill and energy wherever he chose ? Besides, the multitudes GAIN OF THE TOWNS. 278 who had been carried away from the pursuits of indus- try to fall at the siege of Antioch or perish by thirst in the Desert had given a greatly-increased value to their fellow-labourers left at home. While the castle became deserted, and all the pomp of feudalism retreated from its crumbling walls, the village which had grown in safety under its protection flourished as much as ever — flourished, indeed, so much that it rapidly became a town, and boasted of rich citizens who could help to pay off their suzerain's encumbrances and present him with an offering on his return. The impoverished and grate- ful noble could do no less, in gratitude for gift- and con- tribution, than secure them in the enjoyment of greater franchises and privileges than they had possessed before. The Church also gained by the diminished number and power of the lords, who had seized upon tithe and offer- ing and had looked with disdain and hostility on the aggressions of the lower clergy. True to its origin, the Church still continued the leader of the people, in op- position to the pretensions of the feudal chiefs. It was still a democratic organization for the protection of the weak against the powerful ; and though we have seen that the bishops and other dignitaries frequently as- sumed the state and practised the cruelties of the grasp- ing and illiterate baron, public opinion, especially in the North of Europe, was not revolted against these in- stances of priestly domination, for whatever was gained by the crozier was lost to the sword. It was even a consolation to the injured serf to see the truculent land- lord who had oppressed him oppressed in his turn by a still more truculent bishop, especially when that bishop had sprung from the dregs of the people, and — crown and consummation of all — when the Pope, God's vice- gerent upon earth, who dethroned emperors and made kings hold his stirrup as he mounted his mule, was de- 274 TWELFTH CENTURY. scended from no more distinguislied a family than liim« self. It was the effort of the Church, therefore, in all this century, to lower the noble and to elevate the poor. To gain popularity, all arts were resorted to. The clergy were the showmen and play-actors of the time. The only amusement the labourer could aim at was found for him, in rich processions and gorgeous cere- mony, by the priest. How could any fault of the abbot or prelate turn away the affection of the peasant from the Church, which was in a peculiar manner his own establishment? ^ever had the drunkenness, the de- bauchery and personal indulgences of the upper eccle- siastics reached such a pitch before. The gluttony of friars and monks became proverbial. The community of certain monasteries complained of the austerity of their abbots in reducing their ordinary dinners from sixteen dishes to thirteen. The great St. Bernard de- scribes many of the rulers of the Church as keeping sixty horses in their stables, and having so many wines upon their board that it was impossible to taste one-half of them. Yet nothing shook the attachment of the uneducated commons. Their priest got up dances and concerts and miracles for their edification, and had a right to enjoy all the luxuries of life. Once freed, therefore, from the watch- ful enmity of lord and king, the Church was well awar< that its power would be irresistible. The people were de- voted to it as their earthly defender against their earthly oppressors, the caterer of all their amusements, and a* their guide in the path to heaven. Gratitude and credu- lity, therefore, were equally engaged in its behalf And new influences came to its support. Eomance and won- der gathered round the champions of the Faith fighting in the distant regions of the East. Every thing became magnified when seen through the medium of ignorance and fanaticism. The tales, therefore, strange enough in NEWS FROM PALESTINE. 275 themselves, which were related by pilgrims returning from the Holy Land, and amplified a hundredfold by the natural exaggeration of the vulgar, raised higher than ever the glory of the Church. The fastings and self-inflicted scourgings of holy men, it was believed, effected more than the courage of Godfrey or Bohe- mund ; and even of Godfrey it was said that his ascetic life and painful penances caused more losses to the enemy than his matchless strength and military skill. It would be delightful if we could place ourselves in the position of the breathless crowds at that time listen- ing for the news from Palestine. 'No telegraphic de- spatch from the Crimea or Hindostan was ever waited for with such impatience or received with such emotion. The baron summoned the palmer into his hall, and heard the strange history of the march to Jerusalem, and the crowning of a Christian king, and the creation of a feudal court, with a pang, perhaps, of regret that he had not joined the pilgrimage, which might have made him Duke of Bethlehem or monarch of Tiberias. But the peasants in their workshops, or the whole village assembled in the long aisles of their church, lent far more attentive ears to the wayfaring monk who had es- caped from the prison of the Saracen, and told them of the marvels accomplished by the bones of martyrs and apostles which had been revealed to holy pilgrims in their dream on the Mount of Olives. Footprints on the heights of Calvary, and portions of the manger in Bethlehem, were described in awe-struck voice; and when it was announced that in the belt of the narrator, enwrapped in a silken scarf, — itself a fabric of incalcu- lable worth, — was a hair of an apostle's head, (which their lord had purchased for a large sum,) to be de- posited upon their altar, they must have thought the sacrifices and losses of the Crusade amply repaid. And 276 TWELFTH CENTURY.. no amount of these sacred articles seemed in the least to diminish their importance. The demand was always greatly in advance of the supply, however vast it might be. And as the mines of California and Aus- tralia have hitherto deceived the prophets of evil, by having no perceptible effect on the price of the precious metals, the incalculable importation of saints' teeth, and holy personages' clothes, and fragments of the true Cross, and prickles of the real Crown of Thorns, had no depressing effect on the market-value of similar com- modities with which all Christian Europe was inundated. Faith seemed to expand in proportion as relics became plentiful, as credit expands on the security of a supply of gold. And as many of those articles were actually of as clearly-recognised a pecuniary value as houses or lands, and represented in any market or banking-house a definite and very considerable sum, it is not too much to say that the capital of the "West was greatly in- creased by these acquisitions from the East. The cup of onyx, carved in one stone, which was believed to nave been that in which the wine of the Last Supper was held when our Saviour instituted the Communion, was pledged by its owner for an enormous ^um, and— what is perhaps more strange — was redeemed when the term of the loan expired by the repayment of principal and interest. The intercourse, therefore, between power and money showed that each was indispensable to the other. The baron relaxed his severity, and the citizen opened his purse-strings; the Church inculcated the equality of all men in presence of the altar; and when the kings perceived what merchandise might be made of pri- vileges and exemptions accorded to their subjects, and how at one great blow the townsman's squeezable riches would be increased and the baron's local influence diminished, there was a struggle between all the crowned heads as to RISE OF CITIES. 277 which should be most favourable to the commons. It was in this century, owing to the Crusades, which made the commonalty indispensable and the nobility weak, which strengthened the Crown and the Church and made it their joint interest to restrain the exactions of the feudal proprietors, that the liberties of Europe took their rise in the establishment of the third estate. In the county of Flanders, the great towns had already made them- selves so Avealthy and independent that it scarcely needed a legal ratification of their franchise to make them free cities. But in Italy a step further had been made, and the great word Eepublic, which had been silent for so many years, had again been heard, and had taken possession of the general mind. In spite of the opposition and the military successes of Eoger, the Nor- man king of Sicily, the spirit which animated those great trading communities was never subdued. In Yenice itself — the greatest and most illustrious of those republics, the first founded and last overthrown — the original municipal form of government had never been abolished. At all times its liberties had been preserved and its laws administered by ofiicers of its own choice, and from it proceeded at this time a feeling of social equality and an example of commercial prosperity which had a strong effect on the nascent freedom of the lower and industrious classes over all the world. Genoa was not inferior either in liberty or enterprise to any of its rivals. Its fleets traversed the Mediterranean, and, being equally ready to fight or to trade, brought wealth and glory home from the coasts of Greece and Asia. It is to be observed that the first reappearance of self- government was presented in the towns upon the coast, whose situation enabled them to compensate for small- ness of territory by the command of the sea. The shores of Italy and the south of France, and the in- 278 TWELFTH CENTURY. dented sea-line of Flanders, followed in this respect the example set in former ages by Greece, and Tyre, and Pentapolis, and Carthage. There can be no doubt that the sight of these powerful communities, governed by their consuls and legislated for by their parliamentary assemblies, must have put new thoughts into the heads of the serfs and labourers returning, in vessels furnished by citizens like themselves, from the conquest of Cyprus and Jerusalem, where the whole harvest of wealth and glory had been reaped by their lords. Encouraged by these examples, and by the protection of the King of France and Emperor of Germany, the towns in Central and Western Europe exerted themselves to emulate the republican cities of the South. The nearest approach they could hope to the independence they had seen in Pisa or Yenice was the possession of the right of elect- ing their own magistrates and making their own laws. These privileges, we have seen, were insured to them by the helplessness and impoverishment of the feudal aris- tocracy and the countenance of the Church. But the Church towards the middle of this century found that the countenance she had given to liberty in other places was used as an argument againfet herself in the central seat of her power. Eome, the city of con- suls and tribunes, was carried away by the great idea ; and under the guidance of Arnold of Brescia, a monk who believed himself a Brutus, the standard was again hoisted on the Capitol, displaying the magic letters S. P. Q. R., (Senatus Populus que Bomanus.) The Pope was expelled by the population, the freedom of the city proclaimed, the separation of the spiritual and temporal powers pronounced by the unanimous voice, the govern- ment of priests abolished, and measures taken to main- tain the authority the citizens had assumed. The banished Pope had died while these things were going WEALTH OF TRADESMEN. 279 on, and his successor was hunted down the steps of the Capitol; and the revolution was accomplished. " Through- out the peninsula," says a Grerman historian, ^^ except in the kingdom of J^aples, from Eome to the smallest city, the republican form prevailed." Every thing had con- curred to this result, — the force of arms, the rise of com- merce, and the glorious remembrance of the past. St. Bernard himself acquiesced in the position now occupied by the Pope, and he wrote to his scholar Eugenius the Third, to " leave the Eomans alone, and to exchange the city against the world," (" urbem pro orbe mutatam.") But the effervescence of the popular will was soon at an end. The fear of republicanism made common cause between the Pope and Emperor. Frederick Barbarossa revenged the indignities cast on the chair of St. Peter by burning the rebellious Arnold and re-establishing the ancient form of government by force. Yet the spirit of equality which was thus repressed by violence fer- mented in secret; nor was equality all that was aimed at amid some of the swarming seats of population and commerce. "We find indeed, from this time, that in a great number of instances the original relations between the town and baron were reversed : the noble put him- self under the protection of the municipality, and re- ceived its guarantee against the assaults or injuries of the prouder and less politic members of his class. It was a strange thing to see a feudal lord receive his orders from the municipal officers of a country town, and still stranger to perceive the low opinion which the courage- ous and high-fed burghers entertained of the pomp and circumstance of the mailed knights of whom they had been accustomed to stand in awe. Their ramparts were strong, their granaries well filled, their companions stoutly armed; and they used to lean over the wall, when a hostile champion summoned them to submit to 280 TWELFTH CENTURY. the exactions of a great proprietor, and watch the clumsy charger staggering under his heavy armour, with shouts of derision. Men who had thus thrown off their hereditary veneration for the lords of the soil, and contentedly saw the deposition of the Koman Pope by a Eoman Senate and People, were not likely to pay a blind submission to the spiritual dictation of their priests. In the towns, accordingly, a spirit of free in- quiry into the mysteries of the faith began ; and, while countr}^ districts still heard with awe the impossible wonders of the monkish legends, there were rash and daring scholars in several countries, who threw doubt upon the plainest statements of Eevelation. Of these the best-known is the still famous Abelard, whose exer- tions as a religious inquirer have been thrown into the shade by his more interesting character of the hero of a love-story. The letters of Eloisa, and the unfortunate issue of their affection, have kept their names from the oblivion which has fallen upon their metaphysical triumphs. And yet during their lives the glory of Abe- lard did not depend on the passionate eloquence of his pupil, but arose from the unequalled sharpness of his intellect and his skill in argumentation. Of noble family, the handsomest man of his time, wonderfully gifted with talent and accomplishment, he was the first instance of a man professing the science of theology w^ithout being a priest. Wherever he went, thousands of enthusiastic scholars surrounded his chair. His eloquence was so fascinating that the listener found himself irresistibly carried away by the stream ; and if an opponent was hardy enough to stand up against him, the acuteness of his logic was as infallible as the torrent of his oratory had been, and in every combat he carried away the prize. He doubted about original sin, and by implication about the atonement, and many other REASONING. 281 articles of the Christian belief. The power and consti- tution of the Church were endangered by the same weapons which assailed the groundworks of the faith; and yet in all Europe no sufficient champion for truth and orthodoxy could be found. Abelard was triumphant over all his gainsay ers, till at length Bernard of Clair- vaux, who even in his lifetime was looked on with the veneration due to a saint^ who refused an archbishopric, and the popedom itself, took up the gauntlet thrown down by the lover of Eloisa, and reduced him to silence by the superiority of his reasonings and the threats of a general council. It is sufficient to remark the appear- ance of Abelard in this century, as the commencement of a reaction against the dogmatic authority of the Church. It was henceforth possible to reason and to inquire ; and there can be no doubt that Protestantism even in this modified and isolated form had a beneficial efi'ect on the establishment it assailed. A new armory was required to meet the assaults of dialectic and scholar- ship. Dialecticians and scholars were therefore, hence- forth, as much valued in the Church as self-flagellating friars and miracle-performing saints. The faith was now guarded by a noble array of highly-polished intel- lects, and the very dogma of the total abnegation of the understanding at the bidding of the priest was supported by a show of reasoning which few other questions had called forth. "With the enlargement of the clerical sphere of knowledge, refinement in taste and sentiment took place. And at this time, as philosophic discussion took its rise with Abelard, the ennobling and idealiza- tion of woman took its birth contemporaneously with the sufferings of Eloisa. Up to this period the Church had avowedly looked with disdain on woman, as inherit- ing in a peculiar degree the curse of our first parents, because she had been the first to break the law. 282 TWELFTH CENTURY. Knightly gallantry, indeed, had thought proper to ele- vate the feminine ideal and clothe with imaginary vir- tues the heroines of its fictitious idolatry. It made her the aim and arbiter of all its achievements. The prin- cipal seat in hall and festival was reserved for the softer sex, which hitherto had been considered scarcely worthy of reverence or companionship. Perhaps this courtesy to the ladies on the part of knights and nobles began in an opposition to the v^ife-secluding habits of the Orien- tals against whom they fought, as at an earlier date the worship of images was certainly maintained by Eome as a protest against the unadorned worship of the Sara- cens. Perhaps it arose from the gradual expansion of wealth and the security of life and property, which left time and opportunity for the cultivation of the female character. Ladies were constituted chiefs of societies of nuns, and were obeyed with implicit submission. Large communities of young maidens were presided over by widows who were still in the bloom of youth ; and so holy and pure were these sisterhoods considered, that brotherhaods and monks were allowed to occupy the same house, and the sexes were only separated from each other, even at night, by an aged abbot sleeping on the floor between them. Though this experiment failed, the fact of its being tried proved the confidence in- spired by the spotlessness of the female character. Other things conspired to give a greater dignity to what had been called the inferior sex. The death of whole families in the Crusade had left the daughters heiresses of immense possessions. In every country but France the Crown itself was open to female succession, and it was henceforth impossible to affect a superiority over a person merely because she was corporeally weak and beautiful, who was lady of strong castles and could sum- mon a thousand retainers beneath the banners of her GEEAT FEATURES OF THE CENTURY. 283 house. The very elevation of the women with whom they were surrounded — the peeresses, and princesses, and even the ladies of lower rank, to whom the voice of the troubadours attributed all the virtues under heaven — necessitated in the mind of the clergy a cor- responding elevation in the character of the queen and representative of the female sex, whom they had already worshipped as personally without sin and endowed with superhuman power. At this time the immaculate con- ception of the Holy Yirgin was first broached as an article of belief, — a doctrine which, after being dormant at intervals and occasionally blossoming into declara- tion, has finally received its full ratification by the authority of the present Pope,— Pius the Ninth. In the twelfth century it was acknowledged and propagated as a fresh increase to the glory of the mother of God ; but it is now fixed forever as indispensable to the salvation of every Christian. Such, then, are the great features by which to mark this century, — the combination of rank with rank caused by the mutual danger of lord and serf in the Crusade, the rise of freedom by the commercial activity imparted by the same cause to the towns, the elevation of the idea of woman, without which no true civilization can take place. These are the leading and general charac- teristics : add to them what we have slightly alluded to, — the first specimens of the joyous lays and love-sonnets of the young knights returning from Palestine and pouring forth their admiration of birth and beauty in the soft language of Italy or Languedoc, — the inter- course between distant nations, which was indispensable in the combined expeditions against the common foe, so that the rough German cavalier gathered lessons in manner or accomplishment from the more polished princes of Anjou or Aquitaine, — and it will be seen that 284 TWELFTH CENTUEY. tliis was the century of awakening mind and softening influences. There were scholars like Abelard, intro- ducing the hitherto unknown treasures of the Greek and Hebrew tongues, and yet presenting the finest specimens of gay and accomplished gentlemen, un- matched in sweetness of voice and mastery of the harp; and there were at the other side of the picture saints like Eernard of Clairvaux, not relying any longer on visions and the traditionary marvels of the past, but displaying the power of an acute diplomatist and wide- minded politician in the midst of the most extraordinary self-denial and the exercises of a rigorous asceticism, which in former ages had been limited to the fanatical and insane. To this man's influence was owing the ^,,^ Second Crusade, which occurred in 1147. Dif- A.D. 1147. ferent from the first, which had been the result of popular enthusiasm and dependent for its success on undisciplined numbers and religious fury, this was a great European and Christian movement, concerted between the sovereigns and ratified by the peoples. Kings took the command, and whole nations bestowed their wealth and influence on the holy cause. Louis the Seventh of France led all the paladins of his land ; and Conrad, the German Emperor, collected all the forces of the West to give the finishing-blow to the power of the Mohammedans and restore the struggling kingdom of Jerusalem. Seventy thousand horsemen and two hundred and fifty thousand foot-soldiers were the smallest part of the array. Whole districts were de- populated by the multitudes of artificers, shopmen, women, children, buffoons, mimics, priests, and conjurers who accompanied the march. It looked like one of the great movements Which convulsed the Eoman Empire when Goths or Eurgundians poured into the land. Eut the results were nearly the same as in the days of God- THIRD CRUSADE. 285 frey and Bohemund. Yalour and discipline, national emulation and knightly skill, were of no avail against climate and disease. Again the West astonished the Turks with the impetuosity of its courage and the dis- play of its hosts, but lay weakened and exhausted when the convulsive effort was past. A million perished in the useless struggle. Forty years scarcely sufficed to restore the nobility to suflScient power to undertake ,,„, another suicidal attempt. But in 1191 the A.D. 1191. ■'• Third Crusade departed under the conduct of Eichard of England, and earned the same glory and un- Buccess. The century was weakened by those wretched but not fruitless expeditions, which, in round numbers, cost two millions of lives, and produced such memoiable effects on the general state of Europe ; yet it will be better remembered by us if we direct our attention to some of the incidents which have a more direct bearing on our own country. Of these the most remarkable is the commencement of the long-continued enmity be- tween France and England, of the wars which lasted so many years, which made our most eminent politicians at one time believe that the countries were natural enemies, incapable of permanent union or even of mutual respect ; and these took their rise, as most great wars have done, from the paltriest causes, and were continued on the most unfounded pretences. Henry the First was the son of William the Con- queror. On the death of his brother William Eufus he seized the English crown, though the eldest of the family, Eobert, was still alive. Eobert was fond of fighting withoiit the responsibility of command, and delighted to be religious without the troubles of a religious life. He therefore joined the First Crusade to gratify this double desire, and mortgaged his dukedom of Kor- mandy to Henry to supply him with horses and arms 286 TWELFTH CENTURY. and enable him to support his dignity as a Christian prince at Jerusalem. His dukedom he never could re- cover, for his extravagances prevented him from repay- ment of the loan. He tried to reconquer it by force, but was defeated at the battle of Tinchebray, and was guarded by the zealous affection of his brother all the rest of his life in the Tower of London. He left a son, who was used as an instrument of assault against Henry by the Suzerain of !N'ormandy, Louis the Sixth, King of France. Orders were issued to the usurping feudatory to resign his possessions into the hands of the rightful heir; but, however obedient the Duke of Normandy might profess to be to his liege lord the King of France, the King of England held a very different language, ,,,„ and took a different estimate of his position. A.D. 1153. ^ And in the time of the second Henry a change took place in their respective situations which seemed to justify the assumptions of the English king. That grandson of Henry the First had opposed his liege lord of France by arms and arts, and at last by one great master-stroke turned his own arms upon his rival and strengthened himself on his spoils. In the Second Crusade the scrupulous delicacy of Louis the Seventh of France had been revolted by the indiscreet or guilty conduct of Eleanor his wife. He repudiated her as un- worthy of his throne; and Henry, who had no delicacies of conscience when they interfered with his interest, offered the rejected Eleanor his hand; for she continued the undoubted mistress of Poitou and Guienne. 'No stain derived from her principles or conduct was re- fleeted in the eyes of the ambitious Henry on those noble provinces, and from henceforth his Continental possessions far exceeded those of his suzerain. The other feudatories, encouraged by this example, owned a very modified submission to their nominal head; and THE PLANTAGENETS. 287 the inheritors of the throne of the Capets were again reduced to the comparative weakness of their predeces- sors of the Carlovingian line. Yet there was one element of vitality of which the feudal barons had not deprived the king. A fief, when it lapsed for want of heirs, was reattached to the Crown; and in the turmoil and adventure of those unsettled times the extinction of a line of warriors and pilgrims was not an uncommon event. Even while a family was numerous and healthy the uncertain nature of their possession deprived it of half its value, for at the end of that gallant line of knights and cavaliers, slain as they might be in battle, carried off by the pestilences which were usual at that period, or wasted away in journeys to the Holy Land and sieges in the heats of Palestine, stood the feudal king, ready to enter into undisputed possession of the dukedoms Or counties which it had cost them so much time and danger to make independent and strong. In the case of [Normandy or Cuienne themselves, Louis might have looked without much uneasiness on the building of castles and draining of marshes, when he reflected that but a life or two lay between him and the enriched and strengthened fief; and when those lives were such desperadoes as Eichard and such cowards as John, the prospect did not seem hopeless of an imme- diate succession. But the French kings were still more fortunate in being opposed to such unamiable rivals as the coarse and worldly descendants of the Conqueror. The personal characters of those men, however their energy and courage might benefit them in actual war, made them feared and hated wherever they were known. They wefe sensual, cruel, and unprincipled to a degree unusual even in those ages of rude manners and unde- veloped conscience. Their personal appearance itself was an index of the ungovernable passions within. 288 TWELFTH CENTURY. Fat, broad-shtfiiMered, low-statured, red-haired^ loud- voiced, they were frightful to look upon even in their calmest moods; but when the Conqueror stormed, no feeling of ruth or reverence stood in his way. When he was refused the daughter of the Count of Boulogne, he forced his way into the chamber of the countess, seized her by the hair of her head, dragged her round the room, and stamped on her with his feet. Eobert his son was of the same uninviting exterior. William Eufus was little and very stout. Henry the Second was gluttonous and debauched. Eichard the Lion-Heart was cruel as the animal that gave him name ; and John was the most debased and contemptible of mankind. A race of gentle and truthful men, on the other hand, ennobled the crown of France. The kings, from Louis the Debonnaire to Louis the Seventh, or Young, were fayourites of the Church" and champions of the people. The harsh and violent nobility despised them, but they were venerated in the huts where poor men lie. The very scruple which induced Louis to divorce his wife, whose conduct had stained the purity of the Crusade, almost repaid the loss of her great estates by the in- creased love and respect of his subjects. An'd when the line of pure and honourable rulers was for a while in- terrupted by the appearance, upon a throne so * long established in equity, of an armed warrior in the person of Philip Augustus, it was felt that the sword was at last in the hands of an avenger, who was to execute the decrees of Heaven upon the enemies whom the moderation, justice, and mercy of his prede- cessors had failed to move. But before we come to the personal relati(wns of the French and English kings we must take a rapid view of one of the great incidents by which this century is marked, — an incident which for a long time attracted X-BPCKETT. 289 the notice of all Europe, and was productive of very im- portant consequences within our own country. Hitherto England had played the part of a satellite to the Court of Eome. Previous to the quarrels with France, indeed, one great tie between her and the Continental nations was the community of their submission to the Pope. Foreigners have at all times found wealth and kind treatment here. Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, any one who could make interest with the patrons of large livings, held rank and honours in the English Church. Little enough, it was felt, was all that could be done in A.D. 1154 l>ehalf of foreign ecclesiastics to repay them for -1159. i]^Q condescension they showed in elevating Nicholas Breakspear, an Anglo-Saxon of St. Alban's, to the papal chair. But Nicholas, in taking another name, lost his English heart. As Adrian the Fourth, he pre- ferred Rome to England, and maintained his authority with as high a hand as aiiy of his predecessors. Knights and nobles, and even the higher orders of the clergy, were at length discontented with the continual exactions of the Holy See; and in 1162 the same battle which had agitated the world between Henry the Fourth of Ger- many and Gregory the Seventh was fought out in a still bitterer spirit between Henry the Second of England and Thomas a-Beckett. All the story-books of English history have told us the romantic incidents of the birth of the ambitious priest. It is possible the obscurity of his origin was' concealed by his contemporaries under the interesting legend, which must have been a very early subject for the fancy of the poet and troubadour, of a love between a Red-Cross pilgrim and a Saracen emir's daughter. It shows a remarkable softening of the ancient hatred to the infidels, that the votaress of Mohammed should have been chosen as the mother of a saint. But whatever doubt there may arise about the 13 ^ 290 TWELFTH CENTURY. reality of the deserted maiden's journey in searcli of her admirer, and her discovery of his abode by the mere reiteration of his name, which is beautifully said to be the only word of English she remembered, there is no doubt of the early favour which the young Anglo-Sara- cen attained with the king, or of the desire the sagacious Henry entertained to avail himself of the great talents which made his favourite delightful as a companion and indispensable as a chancellor, in the higher position still of Archbishop of Canterbury and Comptroller of the English Church. For high pretensions were put forward by the clergy : they insisted upon the introduction of the canon laws ; they claimed exemption from trial by civil process ; they were to be placed beyond the reach of the ordinary tribunals, and were to be under their own separate rulers, and directly subject in life and property to the decrees of Eome. Henry knew but one man in his dominions able to contend in talent and acuteness with the advocates of the Church, and that was his chancellor and friend, the gay and generous and affectionate a-Beckett. So one day, without giving him much time for prep,aration, he persuaded him to be made a priest, and at the same moment named him Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of all England. ;N"ow, he thought, we have a champion who will do battle in our cause and stand up for the liberties of his native land. But a-Beckett had dressed himself in a hair shirt and flogged himself with an iron scourge. He had invited the holiest of the priests to favour him with their advice, and had thrown himself on his knees on the approach of the most ascetic of the monks and friars. All his fine establishments were broken up ; his horses were sent away ; his silver table-services sold ; and the new archbishop fasted on bread and water and lay on the hard floor. Henry was SAILURE OF THE KING. 291 astonished and uneasy; and lie had soon very good cause for his uneasiness, for his favouHte orator, his boon-companion, his gallant chancellor, from whom he had expected support and victory, turned against him with the most ruthless animosity, and pushed the pre- tensions of Eome to a pitch they had never reached before. Nobody, however he may blame the double- dealing or the ambition of a-Beckett, can deny him the praise of personal courage in making opposition to the king. The JSTorman blood was as hot in him as in any of his predecessors. "When he got into a passion, we are told by a contemporary chronicler, his blue eyes became filled with blood. In a fit of rage he bit a page's shoulder. A favourite servant having contradicted him, he rushed after the man on the stair, and, not being able to catch , him, gnawed the straw upon the boards. "We may therefore guess with what feelings the injured Plantagenet received the behaviour of his newly-created primate. He stormed and raged, terrified the other prelates to join him in his measures for curbing the power of the Church, chafed himself for several years against the unconquerable firmness of the arrogant arch- bishop, and finally failed in every object he had aimed at. The violence of the king was met with the afiected resignation of the sufi'erer; and at last, when the im- patience of Henry gave encouragement to his followers to put the refractory priest to death, the quarrel was lifted out of the ordinary category of a dispute between the crown and the crozier ; it became a combat between a wilful and irreligious tyrant and a martyred saint. It requires us to enter into the feelings of the twelfth cen- tury to be able to understand the issue of this great con- flict. In our own day the assumptions of a-Beckett, and his claims of exemption from the ordinary laws, have no sympathizers among the lovers of progress or 292 TWELFTH CENTURY. freedom. But in the time of the second Henry the only- chance of either, in England, was found under the shelter of the Church. That great establishment wag still the only protection against the lawless violence of the king and nobles. The E'orman possessors of the land were still an army encamped on hostile soil and levying contributions by the law of the strong hand. Disunion had not yet arisen between the sovereign and his lords, except as to the division of the spoil. The Crusades had not depopulated England to the same ex- tent as some of the other countries in Europe ; and the wars of the troubled days of Stephen and Matilda, though fatal to the prosperity of the land, and destruc- tive of many of the nobles on either side, had attracted an immense number of high-born and strong-handed adventurers, who amply supplied their place. The clergy had been forced to retain their original position as leaders of the popular mind, superintendents of the interests of their flocks, and teachers and comforters of the oppressed: a-Beckett, therefore, was not in their eyes an ambitious priest, sacrificing every thing for the elevation of his order. He was a champion fighting the battles of the poor against the rich, — a ran^omer of at least one powerful body in the State from the capricious cruelty of Henry and the grasping avarice of the ITor- man sj)oliation. The down-trodden Saxons received with the transports of gratified revenge any humilia- tion inflicted on the proud aristocracy which had thriven on the ruin of their ancestors. The date of the Con- quest was not yet so distant as to hinder the feeling of personal wrong from mingling in the conflict between the races. A man of sixty remembered the story told him by his father of his dispossession of holt and field, on which the old manor-house had stood since Alfred's days, and which now had been converted into a crene- SYMPATHY WITH X-BECKETT. 293 lated tower by the foreign conqueror. Nor are we to forget, in tKe midst of the idea of antiquity conveyed at the present time by the fact of a person's ancestor having " come in with "William/' that the bitterness of dispossession was increased in the eyes of the long-de- scended Saxon franklin by the lowness of his disposses- sor's birth. Half the roll-call of the l^orman army was made up of the humblest names, — ^barbers and smiths, and tailors and valets, and handicraftsmen of all descrip- tions. And yet, seated in his fortified keep, supported by the sixty thousand companions of his success, en- riched by the fertile harvests of his new domain, this upstart adventurer filled the wretched cottages of the land with a distressed and starving peasantry; and where were those friendless and helpless outcasts to look for succour and consolation ? They found them in the Church. Their countrymen generally filled the lower offices, speaking in good Saxon, and feeling as good Saxons should ; while the lordly abbot or luxurious bishop kept high state in his monastery or palace, and gave orders in J^orman French with feelings as foreign as his tongue. But a-Beckett was an Englishman; a-Beckett was Archbishop of Canterbury, and chief of all the churchmen in the land. To honour a-Beckett was to protest against the Conquest; and when the crowning glory came, and the crimes of Henry against themselves attained their full consummation in the mur- der of the prelate at the altar, — the patriot in his resist- ance to oppression, — the enthusiasm of the country knew no bounds. The penitential pilgrimage which the proud- est of the Plantagenets made to the tomb of his victim was but small compensation for so enormous a wicked- ness, and for ages the name of a-Beckett was a house- hold word at the hearths of the English peasantry, as their great representative and deliverer, — only complet- 294 TWELFTH CENTURY. ing the care he took of their temporal interests while on earth by the superintendence he bestowed on their spiritual benefit now that he was a saint in heaven. Curses fell upon the head and heart of the royal mur- derer, as if by a visible retribution. His children re- belled and died; the survivors were false and hostile. Eichard, who had the one sole virtue of animal courage, was incited by his mother to resist his father, and was joined in his unnatural rebellion by his brother John, who had no virtue' at all. His mind, before he died, had lost the energy which kept the sceptre steady ; and the century went down upon the glory of England, which lay like a wreck upon the water, and was stripped gradually, and one by one, of all the possessions which had made it great, and even the traditions of military power which had made it feared. John was on the throne, and the nation in discontent. THIRTEENTH CENTURY. iSmperars of ^ermang, iBmperorjss of oronstantincijJle. Otho, (of Brunswick.) — {cont. ) 1212. Frederick II. 1247. William, (of Holland.) 1257. KiCBtARD, (of Cornwall.) 1257. Alphonso, (of Castile.) 1273. EoDOLPH, (of Hapsburg.) 1291. Adolph, (of Nassau.) 1298. Albert I., (of Austria.) Itings of dFrance* Philip Augustus. — {conL) 1223. Louis VIII. 1226. Louis IX., (the Fat.) 1270. Philip III., (the Hardy.) 1285. Philip IV., (the Hand- some.) Mum ^f Scotlantr. William. — {cont ) 1214. Alexander II. 1249. Alexander III. 1286. Margaret. 1291. John Baliol, deposed 1296. A.D. 1203. Isaac. 1204. Alexis IV. 1204. BucAs, (Usurper,) de- throned by warriors of Fourth Crusade. Latin Empire. 1204. Baldwyn, (of Flanders.) 1206. Henry, (his brother.) 1216. Peter, (of Courtney.) 1219. Egbert, (his son.) 1228. John, (of Brienne.) 1231. Baldwyn. Gheek Empire of Nicxcu 1222. John Ducas. 1255. Theodorus II. 1261. John Lascaris — retakes Constantinople. 1261. Michael. 1282. Andronicus II. icings of iBnglanK John. — {cont) 1216. Henry III. 1276. Edward I. 1201. Fourth Crusade. 1217. Fifth Crusade. 1228. Sixth Crusade. 1248. Seventh Crusade. 1270. Eighth and Last Crusade, by St. Louis against Tunis. Eutjors, EoGER Bacon, Matthew Paris, Alexander Hales, (Irrefra- gable Doctor,) Thomas Aquinas, (the Angelic Doctor.) THE THIETEEI?fTH CENTUEY. FIRST CRUSADE AGAINST HERETICS— THE ALBIGENSES — MAGNA CHARTA — EDWARD I. The progress and enlightenment of Europe proceed from this period at a constantly-increasing rate. The rise of commercial cities, the weakening of the feudal aristocracy, the introduction of the learning of the Sara- cenic schools, and the growth of universities for the cultivation of science and language, contributed greatly to the result. Another cause used to be assigned for this satisfactory advance, in the discovery which had been made in the last century at Amalfi, of a copy of the long-forgotten Pandects of Justinian, and the rein- troduction of the Eoman laws, in displacement of the conflicting customs and barbarous enactments of the various states ; but the fact of the continued existence of the Eoman Institutes is not now denied, though it is probable that the discovery of the Amalfi manuscript may have given a fresh impulse to the improvement of the local codes. But an increase of mental activity had at first its usual regretable accompaniment in the con- temporaneous rise of dangerous and unfounded opinions. Philosophy, which began with an admiration of the skill and learning of Aristotle, ended by enthroning him as the uncontrolled master of human reason. Wherever he was studied, all previous standards of faith and argu- ment were overthrown. The cleverest intellects of the time could find themselves no higher task than to re concile the Christian Scriptures with the decrees of the 297 298 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. Stagyrite, for it was felt that in the case of an irrecon- cilable divergence between the teaching of Christ and of Aristotle the scholars of Christendom would have pronounced in favour of the Greek. A formulary, indeed, was found out for the joint reception of both ; many statements were declared to be " true in philoso- phy though false in religion," so that the most orthodox of Churchmen could receive the doctrines of the Church by an act of belief, while he gave his whole affection to Aristotle by an act of the understanding. "When teachers and preachers tamper with the human conscience, the common feelings of honour and fair play revolt at the degrading attempt. Men of simple minds, who did not profess to understand Aristotle and could not be blinded by the subtleties of logic, endeavoured to discover " the more excellent way" for themselves, but were bewildered by the novelty of their search for Truth. There were mystic dreamers who saw God everywhere and in every thing, and counted human nature itself a portion of the Deity, or maintained that it was possible for man to attain a share of the divine by the practice of virtue. This Pantheism gave rise to numerous displays of popu- lar ignorance and impressibility. Messiahs appeared in many parts of Europe, and were followed by great mul- titudes. Some enthusiasts taught that a new dispensa- tion was opening upon man ; that God was the Gover- nor of the world during the Old Testament period; that Christ had reigned till now, but that the reign of the Holy Spirit was about to commence, and all things would be renewed. Others, more hardy, declared their adhesion to the Persian principle of a duality of persons in heaven, and revived the old Manichean heresy that the spirit of Hatred was represented in the Jewish Scriptures and the spirit of Love in the Christian; that the Good god had created the soul, and the Evil god ALBIGENSES. 299 the body, — on which were justified the suiferings they voluntarily inflicted on the workmanship of Satan, and the starvings and flagellations required to bring it into subjection. This belief found few followers, and would have died out as rapidly as it had arisen ; but the malig- nity of the enemies of any change found it convenient to identify those wild enthusiasts with a very different class of persons who at this time rose into prominent notice. The rich counties of the South of France were always distinguished from the rest of the nation by the possession of greater elegance and freedom. The old Eoman civilization had never entirely deserted the shores of the Mediterranean or the valleys of Langue- doc and Provence. In Languedoc a sect of strange thinkers had given voice to some startling doctrines, which at once obtained the general consent. Toulouse was the chief encourager of these new beliefs, and in its hostility to Eome was supported by its reigning sovereign, Count Eaymond YI. This potentate, from the position of his States, — abutting upon Barcelona, where the Spaniards, who remembered their recent emancipation from the Mohammedan yoke, were famous for their tolerance of religious dissent, — and deriving the greater portion of his wealth from the trade and industry of the Jews and Arabs established in his seaport towns, saw no great evil in the principles professed by his people. 'Those principles, indeed, when stripped of the malicious additions of his enemies, were not different from the creed of Protestantism at the present time. They con- Bisted merely of a complete denial of the sovereignty of the Pope, the power of the priesthood, the efficacy of prayers for the dead, and the existence of purgatory. The other princes of the South looked on religion as a mere instrument for the advancement of their own in- terests, and would have imitated the greater soyereigns SOO THIRTEENTH CENTURY. of Europe, several of wliom for a very slender considera- tion would have gone openly over to the standard of Mohammed. The inhabitants, therefore, of those opu- lent regions, by the favour of Eaymond and the indif- ference of the rest, were left for a long time to their own devices, and gave intimation of a strong desire to break off their connection with the hierarchy of Eome. And no wonder they were tired of their dependence on ,J-/ so grasping and unprincipled a power as the Church had proved to them. More depraved and more exacting in this district than in any other part of Europe, the clergy had contrived to alienate the hearts of the common i people without gaining the friendship of the nobility. Equally hated by both, — despised for their sensuality, and no longer feared for their spiritual power, — the priests could offer no resistance to the progress of the new opinions. Those opinions were in fact as much due u to the vices of the clergy as to the convictions of the congregations. Any thing hostile to Home was wel- comed by the people. A musical and graceful language had grown up in Languedoc, which was universally recognised as the fittest vehicle for descriptions of beauty and declarations of love, and had been found equally adapted for the declamations of political hatred and denunciations of injustice. But now the whole guild of troubadours, ceasing to dedicate their muses to ladies' charms or the quarrels of princes, poured forth their indignation in innumerable songs on their clerical oppressors. The infamies of the whole order — the monks black and white, the deacons, the abbots, the bishops, the ordinary priests — were now married to immortal verse. Their spoiling of orphans, their swindling of widows and wards, their gluttony and drunkenness, were chronicled in every township, and were incapable of denial. Their dishonesty became proverbial. The DOMINIC. 301 simplest peasant, on hearing of a scandalous action, was in the habit of saying, "I would rather be a priest than be guilty of such a deed." But there were two men then alive exactly adapted to meet the exigencies of the time. One was a noble Castilian of the name of Dominic Guzman, who had become disgusted with the world, and had taken refuge from temptations and strife among the brethren of a reformed cathedral in Spain. Eut tempta- tions and strife forced their way into the cells of Asma, and the eloquent friar was torn away from his prayers and penances and brought prominently forward by the backslidings of the men of Languedoc. The saturnine and self-sacrificing Spaniard had no sympathy with the joyous proceedings of the princes and merchants of the South. He saw sin in their enjoyment even of the gifts of nature, — their gracious air and beautiful scenery. How much more when the gayety of their meetings was enlivened by interludes throwing ridicule on the pretensions of the bishops, by hootings at any ecclesiastic who presented himself in the street, and by sneers and loud laughter at the predictions and miracles with which the Church resisted their attack! The unbelieving populace did not spare the personal dignity of the mis- sionary himself. They pelted him with mud, and fixed long tails of straw at the back of his robe; they out- raged all the feelings of his heart, his Castilian pride, his Christian belief, his clerical obedience. There is no denying the energy with which he exerted himself to recall those wandering sheep to the true fold. His biographer tells us of the successes of his eloquence, and of the irresistible effect of the inexhaustible foun- tain of tears with which he inundated his face till they formed a river down to his robes. His writings, we are assured, being found unanswerable by the heretics, were submitted to the ordeal of fire. Twice they re- S02 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. sisted the hottest flames which could be raised by wood and brimstone, and still without converting the incredu- lous subjects of Count Eaymond. His miracles, which were numerous and undeniable, also had no effect. Even his prayers, which seem to have moved houses and walls, had no efficacy in moving the obdurate hearts of the unbelievers; and at last, tired out with their recalcitrancy, the dreadful word was spoken. He cursed the men of Languedoc, the inhabitants of its towns, the knights and gentlemen who received his oratory with insult, and in addition to his own anathemas called in the spiritual thunder of the Pope. This was the other man peculiarly fitted for the work he had to do. His cruelty would have done no dishonour to the blood-stained scutcheon of Nero, and his ambition transcended that of Gregory the Seventh. His name was ^ „„^ Innocent the Third. For one-half of the crimes A.D. 1207. alleged against those heretics, who, from their principal seat in the diocese of Albi, were known as Albi- genses, he would have turned the whole of France into a desert; and when, with greedy ear, he heard the denun- ciations of Dominic, he declared war on the devoted pea- sants, — war on the consenting princes; a holy war — more meritorious than a Crusade against the Turks and infidels — where no life was to be spared, and where houses and lands were to be the reward of the assailants. All the wild spirits of the age were wakened by the call. It was a pil- grimage where all expenses were paid, without the danger of the voyage to the East or the sword of the Saracen. Foremost among those who hurried to this mingled har- vest of money and blood, of religious absolution and mili- tary fame, was the notorious Simon de Montfort, a man fitted for the commission of any wickedness requiring a powerful arm and unrelenting heart. Forward from all quarters of Europe rushed the exterminating emissaries DE MONTFORT. 303 of the Pope and soldiers of Dominic. " You shall ravage every field ; you shall slay every human being : strike, and spare not. The measure of their iniquity is full, and the blessing of the Church is on your heads." These words, sung in sweet chorus by the Pope and the Monk, were the instructions on which De Montfort was pre- pared to act; and what could the sunny Languedoc, the land of song and dance, of olive-yard and vineyard, do to repel this hostile inroad ? Suddenly all the music of the troubadours was hushed in dreadful expectation. Eaymond was alarmed, and tried to temporize. Pro- mises were made and explanations given, but without any offer of submission to the yoke of Eome : so the infuriated warriors came on, burning, slaying, ravaging, in terms of their commission, till Dominic himself grew ashamed of such blood-stained missionaries ; and when their slaughters went on, when they had murdered half the population in cold blood, and ridden down the peasantry whom despair had sum- moned to the defence of their houses and properties, the saintly-minded Spaniard could no longer honour their hideous butcheries with his presence. He contented himself with retiring to a church and praying for the good cause with such zeal and animation that De Mont- fort and eleven hundred of his ruffians put to flight a hundred thousand of the armed soldiers of the South, who felt themselves overthrown and scattered by an in- visible power. Yet not even the prayers of Dominic could keep the outraged people in unresisting acquies- cence. Simon de Montfort was expelled from the ter- ritories he had usurped, and found a mysterious death under the walls of Toulouse in 1218. The old family was restored in the person of Eay- mond the Seventh, and preparations made for ' defence. But Louis the Eighth of France came S04 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. to the aid of the infuriated Pope. Two hundred thou- sand men followed in the holy campaign. All the atrocities of the former time were renewed and sur- passed. Town after town yielded, for all the defenders had died. Pestilence broke out in the invading force, and Louis himself was carried off by f 3ver. Champions, however, were ready in all quarters to carry on the glorious cause. Louis the Ninth was now King of France, and under the government of his mother, Elanche of Castile, the work commenced by her country- man was completed- The final victory of the crusaders and punishment of the rebellious were celebrated by the introduction of the Inquisition, of which the ferocious Dominic was the presiding spirit. The fire of persecu- tion under his holy stirrings burnt up what the sword of the destroyer had left, and from that time the voice of rejoicing was heard no more in Languedoc: her free- dom of thought and elegance of sentiment were equally crushed into silence by the heel of persecution. The "gay science" perished utterly; the very language in which the sonnets of knight and troubadour had been composed died away from the literatures of the earth; and Rome rejoiced in the destruction of poetry and the restoration of obedience. This is a very mark-worthy incident in the thirteenth century, as it is the first ex- periment, on a great scale, which the Church made to retain her supremacy by force of arms. The pagan and infidel, the denier of Christ and the enemies of his teaching, had hitherto been the objects of the wrath of Christendom. This is the first instance in which a dif- ference of opinion between Christians themselves had been the ground for wholesale extermination ; for those unfortunate Albigenses acknowledged the divinity of the Saviour and professed to be his disciples. It is the crowning proof of the totally-secularized nature of the es- PEACE OF LANGUEDOC. 305 tablished faith. Its weapons were no longer argument and proof, or even persuasion and promise. The horse up to his fetlocks in blood, the sword waved in the air, the tramp- ling of marshalled thousands, were henceforth the sup- ports of the religion of love and charity; and fires glowing in every market-place and dungeons gaping in every episcopal castle were henceforth the true exposi- tors of the truth as it is in Jesus. Fires, indeed, and dungeons, were required to compensate for the incom- pleteness, as it appeared to the truly orthodox, of the vengeance inflicted on the rebels. The Abbot of Citeaux, who gave his spiritual and corporeal aid to the assault on Beziers, was for a moment made uneasy by the difficulty his men experienced in distinguishing be- tween the heretics and believers at the storm of the town. At last he got out of the difficulty by saying, ^^ Slay them all! The Lord will know his own." The same benevolent dignitary, when he wrote an account of his achievement to the Pope, lamented that he had only been able to cut the throats of twenty thousand. And Gregory the Mnth would have been better pleased if it had been twice the number. "His vast revenge had stomach for them all," and already a quarter of a million of the population were the victims of his anger. Every thing had prospered to his hand. Raymond was despoiled of the greater portion of his estates, the voice of opposition was hushed, the castles of the nobles con- fiscated to the Church; and yet, when the treaty of Meaux, in 1229, by which the war was concluded, came to be considered, it was perceived that the pacification of Languedoc turned not so much to the profit of Rome as of the rapidly-coalescing monarchy of France. Long before this, in 1204, Philip Augustus had found little difficulty in tearing the continental possessions of the English crown, except Guienne, from the trembling 306 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. hands of Jolin. The possession of Normandy had already made France a maritime power ; and now, by the acqui- sition of the Narbonnais and Maguelonne from Eaymond the Seventh, she not only extended her limits to the Mediterranean, but, by the extinction of two such vas- sals as the Count of Toulouse and the Duke of Nor- mandy, incalculably strengthened the royal crown. Ex- tinguished, indeed, was the power of Toulouse ; for by the same treaty the unfortunate Eaymond bought his peace with Eome by bestowing the county of Yenaissin and half of Avignon on the Holy See. These sacrifices relieved him from the sentence of excommunication, and made him the best-loved son of the Church, and the poorest prince in Christendom. While monarchy was making such strides in France, a counterbalancing power was formed in England by the combination of the nobility and the rise of the House of Commons. The story of Magna Charta is so well known that it will be sufficient to recall some of its principal incidents, which could not with propriety be omitted in an account of the important events of the thirteenth century. JSTo event, indeed, of equal import- ance occurred in any other country of Europe. How- ever more startling a crusade or a victory might be at the time, the results of no single incident have ever been so enduring or so wide-spread as those of the meeting of the barons at Eunnymede and the summoning of the burgesses to Parliament. Th-e whole reign of John (1199-1216) is a tale of wickedness and degradation. Eichard of the Lion- Heart had been cruel and unprincipled ; but the sharp- ness of his sword threw a sort of respectability over the worst portions of his character. His practical talents, also, and the romantic incidents of his life, his confine- ment, and even of his death, lifted him out of the ordi' JOHN OF ENGLAND. 307 nary category of brutal and selfish kings and converted a very ferocious warrior into a popular hero. But John was hateful and contemptible in an equal degree. He deserted his father, he deceived his brother, he murdered his nephew, he oppressed his people. He had the pride that made enemies, and wanted the courage to fight them. A knight without truth, a king without justice, a Christian without faith, — all classes rebelled against him. Innocent the Third scented from afar the advan- tage he might obtain from a monarch whose nobility despised him and who was hated by his people. And when John got up a quarrel about the nomination o'f an archbishop to Canterbury, the Pope soon saw that though Langton was no a-Beckett, still less was John a Henry the Second. A sentence of excommunication was launched at the coward's head, and the crown of England offered to Philip Augustus of France. Philip Augustus had the modesty to refuse the splendid bribe, and contented himself with aiding to weaken a throne he did not feel inclined to fill. It is characteristic of John, that in the agonies of his fear, and of his desire to gain support against his people, he hesitated between invoking the assistance of the Miramolin of Morocco and the Pope of Eome. As good Mussulman with the one as Christian with the other, he finally decided on Innocent, and signed a solemn declaration of submission, making public resignation of the crowns of England and Ireland " to the Apostles Peter and Paul, to Inno- cent and his legitimate successors f and, aided by the blessings of these new masters, and by the enforced neutrality of France, he was enabled to defeat his in- dignant nobles, and force them for two years to wear the same chains of submission to Rome which weighed upon himself. But in 1215 the patience of noble and peasant, of bishop and priest, was utterly exhausted. 308 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. John fled on the first outburst of the collected storm, and thought himself fortunate in stopping its violence by signing the Great Charter, the written ratification of the liberties which had been con- ferred by some of his predecessors, but whose chief authority was in the traditions and customs of the land. This was not an overthrow of an old constitution and the substitution of a new and difi'erent code, but merely a formal recognition of the great and fundamental principles on which only government can be carried on, — security of person and property, and the just ad- mini'stration of equitable laws. All orders in the State were comprehended in this national agreement. The Church was delivered from the exactions of the king, and left to an undisturbed intercourse on spiritual matters with her spiritual head. She was to have per- fect freedom of election to vacant benefices, and the king's rapacity was guarded against by a clause re- ducing any fine he might impose on an ecclesiastic to an accordance with his professional income, and not with the extent of his lay possessions. The barons, of course, took equal care of their own interests as they had shown for those of the Church. They corrected many abuses from which they suffered, in respect to their feu- dal obligations. They regulated the fines and quit-rents on succession to their fiefs, the management of crown wards, and the marriage of heiresses and widows. They insisted also on the assemblage of a council of the great and lesser barons, to consult for the general weal, and put some check on the disposal of their lands by their tenants, in order to keep their vassals from impoverish- ment and their military organization unimpaired. But when church and aristocracy were thus protected from the tyranny of the king, were the interests of the great mass of the people neglected? This has sometimes MAGNA CHARTA. 309 been arged against the legislators of Eunnymede, but very unjustly; for as much attention was paid to the liberties and immunities of the municipal corporations and of ordinary subjects as to those of the prelates and lords. Every person had the right to dispose of his property by will. 'No arbitrary tolls could be exacted of merchants. All men might enter or leave the king- dom without restraint. The courts of law were no longer to be stationary at Westminster, to which com- plainants from ]^orthumberland or Cornwall never could make their way, but were to travel about, bringing jus- tice to every man's door. They were to be open to every one, and justice was to be neither " sold, refused, nor delayed." Circuits were to be held every year. No man was to be put on his trial from mere rumour, but on the evidence of lawful witnesses. No sentence could be passed on a freeman except by his peers in jury as- sembled. Ko fine could be imposed so exorbitant as to ruin the culprit. But the bishops and clergy, the nobility and their vassals, the corporations and freemen, were not the main bodies of the State ; and the framers of Magna Charta have been blamed for neglecting the great majority of the population, which consisted of serfs or villeins. This accusation is, however, not true, even with respect to the words of the Charter; for it is ex- pressly provided that the carts and working-implements of that class of the people shall not be seizable in satis- faction of a fine ; and in its intention the accusation is more untenable still ; for although the reformers of 1215 had no design of granting new privileges to any hitherto- unprivileged order and their work was limited to the legal re-establishment of privileges which John had at- tempted to overthrow, the large and liberal spirit of their declarations is shown by the notice they take of the hitherto-un considered classes. For the protection 310 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. accorded to their ploughs and carts, which are specifi- cally named in the Charter, ratified at once their right to hold property, — the first condition of personal free- dom and independence, — and, by an analogy of reason- ing, restrained their more immediate masters from tyranny and injustice. It could not be long before a man secured by the national voice in the possession of one species of property extended his rights over every thing else. If the law guaranteed him the j)lough he held, the cart he drove, the spade he plied, why not the house he occupied, the little field he cultivated ? And if the poorest freeman walked abroad in the pride of in- dependence, because the baron could no longer insult him, or the priest oppress him, or the king himself strip him of land and gear, how could he deny the same blessings to his neighbour, the rustic labourer, who was already master of cart and plough and was probably richer and better fed than himself? But a firmer barrier against the encroachments of kings and nobles than the written words of Magna Charta was still required, and people were not long in seeing how little to be trusted are legal forn\s when the contracting parties are disposed to evade their obliga- tions. John indeed attempted, in the very year that saw his signature to the Charter, to expunge his name from the obligatory deed by the plenary power of the Pope. Innocent had no scruple in giving permission to his English vassal to break the oath and swerve from his engagement. But the English spirit was not so broken as the king's, and the barons took the manage- ment of the country into their own hands. When the experience of a few years of Henry the Third had shown them that there was no improvement on the personal character of his predecessor, they took effectual measures for the protection of all classes of the people. SAINT LOUIS. 311 Henry began his inglorious reign in 1216, and ended it in 1272. In those fifty-six years great changes took place, but all in an upward direction, out of the dark- ness and unimpressionable stolidity of previous ages. The dawn of a more intellectual period seemed at hand, and already the ghosts of ignorance and oppression began to scent the morning air. In 1264 an example was set by England which it would have been well if all the other Western lands had followed, for by the insti- tution of a true House of Commons it laid the founda- tion for the only possible liberal and improvable govern- ment, — the only government which can derive its strength from the consent of the governed legitimately expressed, and vary in its action and spirit with the changes in the general mind. In cases of error or tem- porary delusion, there is always left the most admirable machinery for retracing its steps and rectifying what is wrong. In cases of universal approval and unanimous exertion, there is no power, however skilfully wielded by autocrats or despots, which can compare with the combined energy of a whole and undivided people. The contemporary of this Henry on the throne of A.D. 1226 France was the gentle and honest Louis the -1270. ;^inth. If those epithets do not sound so high as the usual phraseology applied to kings, we are to consider how rare are the examples either of honesty or gentleness among the rulers of that time, and how diffi- cult it was to possess or exercise those virtues. Eut this gentle and honest king, who was scarcely raised in rank when the Church had canonized him as a saint, achieved as great successes by the mere strength of his character as other monarchs had done by fire and sword. His love of justice enabled him to extend the royal power over his contending vassals, who chose him as umpire of their quarrels and continued to submit to him 312 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. as their chief. He heard the complaints of the lower orders of his people in person, sitting, like the kings of the East, under the shade of a tree, and delivering judgment solely on the merits of the case. His un- doubted zeal on behalf of his religion permitted him, without the accusation of heresy, to put boundaries to the aggressions of the Church. He resisted its more violent claims, and gave liberty to ecclesiastics as well as laymen, who were equally interested in the curtail- ment of the Papal power. He granted a great number of municipal charters, and published certain Establish- ments, as they were called, which were improvements on the old customs of the realm and were in a great measure founded on the Eoman law. The spirit of the time was popular progress; and both in France and England great advances were made; deliberative national assemblies took their rise, — in France, under the con- scientious monarch, with the full aid and influence of the royal authority, in England, under the feeble and selfish Henry, by the necessity of gaining the aid of the Commons against the Crown to the outraged and in- sulted nobility. In both nations these assemblies bore for a long time very distinguishable marl^s of their origin. The Parliaments of France, sprung from the royal will,^ were little else than the recorders of the decrees of the monarch ; while the Parliaments of England, re- membering their popular origin, have always had a feehng of independence, and a tendency to make rather hard bargains with our kings. Even before this time the Great Council had occasionally opposed the exactions of the CroAvn ; but when the falsehood and avarice of Henry III. had excited the popular odium, the barons of 1263, in noble emulation of their predecessors of 1215, had risen in defence of the nation's liberties, and the last hand was put to the building up of our present PAPAL TRIUMPHS. 313 constitution, by the summoning, " to consult on public affairs," of certain burgesses from the towns, in addition to the prelates, knights, and freeholders who had hitherto constituted the parliamentary body. But those barons and tenants-in-chief attended in their own right, and were altogether independent of the principle of election and representation. The summons issued by Simon de Montfort (son of the truculent hero of the Albigensian crusade, and brother-in-law of Henry) invested with new privileges the already-enfranchised boroughs. From this time the representatives of the Commons are always mentioned in the history of par- liaments ; and although this proceeding of De Montfort was only intended to strengthen his hands against his enemies, and, after his temporary object was gained, was not designed to have any further effect on the con- stitutional progress of our country, still, the principle had been adopted, the example was set, and the right to be represented in Parliament became one of the most valued^ privileges of the enfranchised commons. It is observable that this increase of civil freedom in the various countries of Europe was almost in exact proportion to the diminution of ecclesiastical power. It is equally observable that the weakening of the priestly influence rapidly followed the infamous excesses into which its intolerance and pride had hurried the princes and other supporters of its claims. I^ever, indeed, had it appeared in so palmy and flourishing a state as in the course of this century; and yet the downward journey was begun. The devastation it carried into Languedoc, and the depopulation of all those sunny regions near the Mediterranean Sea — the crusades against the Saracens in Asia, to which it sent the strength of Europe, and against the Moors in Africa, to which it impelled the most obedient, and also, when his religious passions 14 314 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. were roused, the most relentless, of the Church's sons, qo other than St. Louis — and the submission of the Patri- archates of Jerusalem and Alexandria to the Eomish See — these and other victories of the Church were suc- ceeded, before the century closed, by a manifest though silent insurrection against its spiritual domination. There were many reasons for this. The inferior though still dignified clergy in the different nations were alien- ated by the excessive exactions of their foreign head. In France the submissive St. Louis was forced to be- come the guardian of the privileges and income of the Galilean Church. In England the number of Italian in- cumbents exceeded that of the English-born ; and in a few years the Pope managed to draw from the Church and State an amount equal to fifteen millions of our present coin. In Scotland, poorer and more proud, the king united himself to his clergy and nobles, and would not permit the Eomish exactors to enter his dominions. The avarice and venality of Eome were repulsive equally to priest and layman. The strong support, also, which hitherto had arisen to the Holy See from the innumerable monks and friars, could no longer be furnjshed by the depressed and vitiated communities whom the coarsest of the common people despised for their sensuality and vice. In earlier times the worldly pretensions of the secular clergy were put to shame by the poverty and self-denial of the regular orders. Their ascetic re- tirement, and fastings, and scourgings, had recommended them to the peasantry round their monasteries, by the contrast their peaceful lives presented to the pomp and self-indulgence of bishops and priests. But now the character of the two classes was greatly changed. The parson of the parish, when he was not an Italian ab- sentee, was an English clergyman, whose interests and feelings were all in unison with those of his flock ; the WEAKENING OF THE PRIESTLY INFLUENCE. 315 monks were an army of mercenary marauders in the service of a foreign prince, advocating his most un- popular demands and living in the ostentatious dis- regard of all their vows. Even the lowest class of all, the thralls and villeins, were not so much as before in favour of their tonsured brothers, who had escaped the labours of the field by taking refuge in the abbey ; for Magna Charta had given the same protection against oppression to themselves, and the enfranchisement of the boroughs had put power into the hands of citizens and freemen, who would not be so apt to abuse it as the martial baron or mitred prelate had been. The same principles were at work in France ; and when the newly- established Franciscans and Dominicans were pointed to as restoring the purity and abnegation of the monks of old, the time for belief in those virtues being inherent, or even possible, in a cloister, was past, and little effect was produced in favour of Eome by the bloodthirsty brotherhood of the ferocious St. Dominic or the more amiable professions of the half-witted St. Francis of Assisi. The tide, indeed, had so completely turned after ,«H« the commencement of the rei^n of Edward the A.D. 1272. ° First, that the Churchmen, both in England and France, preferred being taxed by their own Sovereign to being subjected to the arbitrary exactions of the Pope. Edward gave them no exemption from the obligation to support the expenses of the State in common with all the other holders of property, and pressed, indeed, rather more heavily upon the prelates and rich clergy than on the rest of the contributors, as if to drive to a decision the question, to which of the potentates — the Pope or the sovereign — tribute was lawfully due. When this object was gained, a bull was let loose upon the sacrilegious monarch by Boniface the Eighth, which positively forbids any member of the priesthood to con- 316 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. tribute to the national exchequer on &ny occasion or emergency whatever. Eut the king made very light of the papal authority when it stood between him and the revenues of his crown, and the national clergy sub- mitted to be taxed like other men. In France the same discussion led to the same result. The Galilean and Enghsh Churches asserted their liberties in a way which must have been peculiarly gratifying to the kings, — namely, by subsidies to the Crown, and disobedience to the fulminations of the Pope. But no surer proof of the increased wisdom of man- kind can be given than the termination of the Crusades. Perhaps, indeed, it was found that religious excitement could be combined with warlike distinction by assaults on the unbelieving or disobedient at home. There seemed little use in traversing the sea and toiling through the deserts of Syria, when the same heavenly rewards were held out for a campaign against the in- habitants of Languedoc and the valleys of the Alps. Clearer views also of the political effect of those distant expeditions in strengthening the hands of the Pope, who, as spiritual head of Christendom, was ex officio commander of the crusading armies, must no doubt have occurred to the various potentates who found themselves compelled to aid the very authority from whose arrogance they suffered so much. The exhaus- tion of riches and decrease of population were equally strong reasons for repose. But none of all these consi- derations had the least effect on the simple and credu- lous mind of Louis the Mnth. Eesisting as he did the interference of the Pope in his character of King of Prance, no one could yield more devoted submission to the commands of the Holy Pather when uttered to him in his character of Christian knight. At an early age be vowed himself to the sacred cause, and in the year END OF THE CRUSADES. 317 1248 the seventh and last crusade to the Holy Land took its way from Aigues-Mortes and Marseilles, under the guidance of the youthful King and the Princes of France. Disastrous to a more pitiful degree than any of its predecessors, this expedition began its course in Egypt by the conquest of Damietta, and from thence- forth sank from misery to misery, till the army, surprised by the inundations of the Nile, and hemmed in by the triumphant Mussulmans, surrendered its arms, and the nobility of France, with its king at its head, found itself the prisoner of Almohadam. An insurrection in a short time deprived their conqueror of life and crown, and a treaty for the payment of a great ransom set the cap- tives free. Ashamed, perhaps, to return to his own country, sighing for the crown of martyrdom, zealous at all events for the privileges of a pilgrim, Louis betook himself to Palestine, and, as he was bound by the con- vention not to attack Jerusalem, he wasted four years in uselessly rebuilding the fortifications of Ptolemais, and Sidon, and Jaffa, and only embarked on his home- ward voyage when the death of his mother and the dis- content of his subjects necessitated his return. After an absence of six years, the enfeebled and exhausted king sat once more in the chair of judgment, and ' gained all hearts by his generosity and truth. Yet the old fire was not extinct. His oath was binding still, and in 1270, girt with many a baron bold, and ac- companied by his brother, Charles of Anjou, and the gay Prince Edward of England, he fixed the red cross upon his shoulder and led his army to the sea-sTiore. The ships were all ready, but the destination of the war was changed. A new power had established itself at Tunis, more hostile to Christianity than the Moslem of Egypt, and nearer at hand. In an evil hour the King was persuaded to attack the Tunisian Caliph. He 318 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. landed at Carthage, and besieged the capital of the new dominion. But Tunis witnessed the death of its besieger, for Louis, worn out with fatigue and broken with dis- appointment, was stricken by a contagious malady, and expired with the courage of a hero and the pious resig- nation of a Christian. With him the crusading spirit vanished from every heart. All the Christian armies were withdrawn. The Knights-Hospitallers, the Tem- plars, the Teutonic Order, passed over to Cyprus, and left the hallowed spots of sacred story to be profaned by the footsteps of the Infidel. Asia and Europe hence- forth pursued their separate courses ; and it was left to the present day to startle the nations of both quarters of the world with the spectacle of a war about the pos- session of the Holy Places. The century which has the slaughter of the Albi- genses, the Magna Charta, the rise of the Commons, the termination of the Crusades, to distinguish it, will not need other features to be pointed out in order to abide in our memories. Yet the reign of Edward the First, the greatest of our early kings, must be dwelt on a little longer, as it would not be fair to omit the personal merits of a man who united the virtues of a legislator to those of a warrior. Whether it was the prompting of ambi- tion, or a far-sighted policy, which led him to attempt the conquest of Scotland, we need not stop to inquire. It might have satisfied the longings both of policy and ambition if he had succeeded in creating a compact and irresistible Great Britain out of England harassed and Scotland insecure. And if, contented with his undi- vided kingdom, he had devoted himself uninterruptedly to the introduction and consolidation of excellent laws, and had extended the ameliorations he introduced in England to the northern portion of his dominions, he would have earned a wider fame than the sword has JOHN BALIOL. 319 given him, and would have been received with blessings as the Justinian of the whole island, instead of esta- blishing a rankling hatred in the bosoms of one of the cognate peoples which it took many centuries to allay, if, indeed, it is altogether obliterated at the present time; for there are not wanting enthusiastic Scotchmen who show considerable wrath when treating of his as- sumptions of superiority over their country and his in- terference with their national affairs. Edward's sister had been the wife of Alexander the Third of Scotland. Two sons of that marriage had died, and the only other child, a daughter, had married Eric the l^orwegian. In Margaret, the daughter of this king, the Scottish succession lay, and when her grandfather died in 1290, the Scottish states sent a squadron to bring the young queen home, and great preparations were made for the reception of the "Maid of Norway.^' But the Maid of ^orwsij was weak in health; the voyage was tempestuous and long; and weary and exhausted she landed on one of the Orkney Islands, and in a short time a rumour went round the land that the hope of Scotland was dead. Edward was among the first to learn the melancholy news. He de- termined to assert his rights, and began by trying to extend the feudal homage which several of the Scottish kings had rendered for lands held in England, over the Scottish crown itself When the various competitors for the vacant throne submitted their pretensions to his decision he made their acknowledgment of his supre- macy an indispensable condition. Out of the three chief candidates he fixed on John Baliol, who, in addition to the most legal title, had perhaps the equal recommenda- tion of being the feeblest personal character. Eobert Bruce and Hastings, the other candidates, submitted to their disappointment, and Baliol became the mere vice- •^20 THIRTEENTH CENTURY. roy of the English king. He obeyed a summons to "West- minster as a vassal of Edward, to answer for his conduct, ,„„^ and was treated with disdain. But the Scottish A.D. 1293. barons had more spirit than their king. They forced him to resist the pretensions of his overbearing patron, and for the first time, in 1295, began the long connection between Eranch and Scotland by a treaty concluded between the French monarch and the twelve Guardians of Scotland, to whom Baliol had delegated his authority before retiring forever to more peaceful scenes. From this time we find that, whenever war was declared by France on England, Scotland was let loose on it to distract its attention, in the same way as, when- ever war was declared upon France, the hostility of Flanders was roused against its neighbour. But the benefits bestowed by England on her Low Country ally were far greater than any advantage which France could offer to Scotland. Facilities of trade and favour- able tariffs bound the men of Ghent and Bruges to the interests of Edward. But the friendship of France was limited to a few bribes and the loan of a few soldiers. Scotland, therefore, became impoverished by her alliance, while Flanders grew fat on the liberaKty of her power- ful friend. England itself derived no small benefit both from the hostility of Scotland and the alliance of the Flemings. When the ISTorthern army was strong, and the King was hard pressed by the great Wallace, the sagacious Parliament exacted concessions and immuni- ties from its imperious lord before it came liberally to his aid ; and whenever we read in one page of a check to the arms of Edward, we read in the next of an en- largement of the popular rights. When the first glow of the apparent conquest of Scotland was past, and the nation was seen rising under the Knight of Elderslie after it had been deserted by its natural leaders, the KINGLY CONCESSIONS TO PARLIAMENT. 321 lords and baron s, — and, later, when in 1297 he gained a great victory over the English at Stirling, — the English Parliament lost no time in availing themselves of th*e defeat, and sent over to the king, who was at the moment in Flanders menacing the flanks of France, a parchment for his signature, containing the most ample ratification of their power of granting or withholding the supplies. It was on the 10th of October, 1297, that this important document was signed ; and, satisfied with this assurance of their privileges, the " nobles, knights of the shire, and burgesses of England in parliament as- sembled" voted the necessary funds to enable their sove- reign lord to punish his rebels in Scotland. Perhaps these contests between the sister countries deepened the patriotic feeling of each, and prepared them, at a later day, to throw their separate and even hostile triumphs into the united stock, so that, as Charles Knight says in his admirable "Popular History," "the Englishman who now reads of the deeds of Wallace and Bruce, or hears the stirring words of one of the noblest lyrics of any tongue, feels that the call to ^lay the proud usurper low' is one which stirs his blood as much as that of the born Scotsman; for the small distinctions of locality have vanished, and the great universal sympathies for the brave and the oppressed stay not to ask whether the battle for freedom was fought on the banks of the Thames or of the Forth. The mightiest schemes of despotism speedily perish. The union of nations is ac- complished only by a slow but secure establishment of mutual interests and equal rights." FOURTEENTH CENTURY. iBmperorg of <§ermang. 3Emperors of tje iHast Albert. — {coni.) 1308. HenryVII., (of Luxem- burg.) 1314. Louis IV., (of \ Bavaria.) / Kival 1314. Frederick III.,/ Empe- (of Austria,) \ rprs. died 1330. / 1347. Charles IV., (of Luxem- burg.) 1378. Wenceslas, (of Bohe- mia.) Minq^ of dFrance. Philip IV. — {cont) 1314. Louis X., (Hutin.) 1316. Philip V., (the Long.) 1322. Charles IV., (the Hand- some.) 1328. Philip VI. 1350. John II., (the Good.) 1364. Charles V., (the Wise.) 1380. Charles VI., (the Be- loved.) Andronicus II.— (con^.) 1332. Andronicus III. 1341. John Pal^ologus. 1347. John Cantacuzenus. 1355. John Pal^ologus, (re* stored.) 1391. Manuel Pal^ologus. MirtQ^ of iSttfllantr* Edward I. — '{cont) 1307. Edward II. 1327. Edward III. 1377. Eichard IL 1399. Henry IV. Mm^ of Scotlantr. 1306. Robert Bruce. 1329. David II. 1371. EOBERT II. 1390. EOBERT IIL 1311. Suppression of the Knights Templars. 1343. Cannon first used. 1370. John Huss born. 1383. Bible first translated into a vulgar tongue, (Wicklifi'^s.) ^utf)or3» Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Froissart, John Dui^S ScoTUS, Bradwardine, William Occam, Wickliff. THE FOUETEENTH CENTUEY. ABOLITION OF THE ORDER OE THE TEMPLARS — ^RISE OF MODERN LITERATURES — SCHISM OF THE CHURCH. In the year 1300 a jubilee was celebrated at Eome, when remission of sins and other spiritual indulgences were offered to all visitors by the liberal hand of Pope Boniface the Eighth. And for the thirty days of the solemn ceremonial, the crowds who poured in from all parts of Europe, and pursued their way from church to church and kissed with reverential lips the relics of the saints and martyrs, gave an appearance of strength and universality to the Eoman Church which had long de- parted from it. Yet the downward course had been so slow, and each defection or defeat had been so covered from observation in a cloud of magnificent boasts, that the real weakness of the Papacy was only known to the wise and politic. Even in the splendours and apparent triumph of the jubilee processions it was per- ceived by the eyes of hostile statesmen that the day of faith was past. Dante, the great poet of Italy, was there, piercing with his Ithuriel spear the false forms under which the spiritual tyranny concealed itself. Countless multitudes deployed before him without blinding him for a moment to the unreality of all he saw. Others were there, not deriving their conclusions, like Dante, from the intuitive insight into truth with which the highest imaginations are gifted, but from the calmer premises of reason and observation. Even while the paeans were loudest and 325 326 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. the triumph at its height, thoughts were entering into many hearts which had never been harboured before, but which in no long space bore their fruits, not only in opposition to the actual proceedings of Eome, but in undisguised contempt and ridicule of all its claims. Boniface himself, however, was ignorant of all these secret feelings. He was now past eighty years of age, and burning with a wilder personal ambition and more presumptuous ostentation than would have been pardon- able at twenty. He appeared in the processions of the jubilee, dressed in the robes of the Empire, with two swords, and the globe of sovereignty carried before him. A herald cried, at the same time, "Peter, behold thy successor ! Christ, behold thy vicar upon earth !" But the high looks of the proud were soon to be brought low. The King of France at that time was Philip the Handsome, the most unprincipled and obstinate of men, who stuck at no baseness or atrocity to gain his ends, — who debased the Crown, pillaged the Church, oppressed the people, tortured the Jews, and impoverished the no- bility, — a self-willed, strong-handed, evil-hearted despot, and glowing with an intense desire to humble and spoil the Holy Father himself. If he could get th^ Pope to be his tax-gatherer, and, instead of emptying the land of all its wealth for the benefit of the Roman exchequer, pour Eoman, German, English, European contributions into his private treasury, the object of his life would be gained. His coffers would be overflowing, and his prin- cipal opponent disgraced. A wonderful and apparently impossible scheme, but which nevertheless succeeded. The combatants at first seemed very equally matched. When Boniface made an extravagant demand, Philij) sent him a contemptuous reply. When Boniface turned for alliances to the Emperor or to England, Philip threw himself on the sympathy of his lords and the inhabit- • BONIFACE. 327 ants of the towns; for the parts formerly played by Pope and King were now reversed. The Papacy, instead of recurring to the people and strengthening itself by contact with the masses who had looked to the Church as their natural guard from the aggressions of their lords, now had recourse to the more dangerous expedient of exciting one sovereign against another, and weak- ened its power as much by concessions to its friends as by the hostility of its foes. The king, on the other hand, flung himself on the support of his subjects, including both the Church and Parliament, and thus raised a feel- ing of national independence which was more fatal to Eoman preponderance than the most active personal enmity could have been. Accordingly, we find Boniface offending the population of Prance by his intemperate attacks on the worst of kings, and that worst of kings attracting the admiration of his people by standing up for the dignity of the Crown against the presumption of the Pope. The fact of this national spirit is shown by the very curious circumstance that while Philip and his advisers, in their quarrels with Boniface, kept within the bounds of respectful language in the letters they actually sent to Kome, other answers were disseminated among the people as having been forwarded to the Pope, outraging all the feelings of courtesy and respect. It was like the conduct of the Chinese mandarins, who publish vainglorious and triumphant bulletins among their people, while they write in very different language to the enemy at their gates. Thus, in reply to a very insulting brief of Boniface, beginning, " Ausculta, fili," (Listen, son,) and containing a catalogue of all his com- plaints against the French king, Philip published a version of it, omitting all the verbiage in which the insolent meaning was involved, and accompanied it in the same way with a copy of the unadorned eloquence 328 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. which constituted his reply. In this he descended to very plain speaking. " Philip/' he says, " by the grace of Grod, King of the French, to Boniface, calling himself Pope, little or no salutation. Be it known to your Fatuity that we are subject in temporals to no man alive; that the collation of churches and vacant pre- bends is inherent in our Crown ; that their ^ fruits' be- long to us j that all presentations made or to be made by us are valid ; that we will maintain our presentees in possession of them with all our power; and that we hold for fools and idiots whosoever believes otherwise." This strange address received the support of the great majority of the nation, and was meant as a translation into the vulgar tongue of the real intentions of the irri- tated monarch, which were concealed in the letter really despatched in a mist of polite circumlocutions. Boni- face perceived the animus of his foe, but bore himself as loftily as ever. When a meeting of the barons, held in the Louvre, had appealed to a General Council and had passed a vote of condemnation against the Pope as guilty of many crimes, not exclusive of heresy itself, he answered, haughtily, that the summoning of a council was a prerogative of the Pope, and that already the King had incurred the danger of excommunication for the steps he had taken against the Holy Chair. To prevent the publication of the sentence, which might have been made a powerful weapon against France in the hands of Albert of Germany or Edward of England, it was necessary to give notice of an appeal to a General Council into the hands of the Pope in person. He had retired to Anagni, his native town, where he found himself more secure among his friends and rela- tions than in the capital of his See. Colonna, a discon- tented Eoman and sworn enemy of Boniface, and Supino, a military adventurer, whom Philip bought ARREST OF THE POPE. 329 over with a bribe of ten tbousand florins^ introduced Nogaret^ the French chancellor and chief adviser of the king, into Anagni, with cries from their armed attend- ants of "Death to the Pope!" "Long live the King of France I" The cardinals fled in dismay. The inhabit- ants, not being able to prevent their visitors from pil- laging the shops, joined them in that occupation, and every thing was in confusion. The Pope was in despair. His own nephew had abandoned his cause and made terms for himself. Accounts vary as to his behaviour in these extremities. Perhaps they are all true at dif- ferent periods of the scene. At first, overwhelmed with the treachery of his friends, he is said to have burst into tears. Then he gathered his ancient courage, and, when commanded to abdicate, offered his neck to the assailants ; and at last, to strike them with awe, or at least to die with dignity, he bore on his shoulders the mantle of St. Peter, placed the crown of Constantine on his head, and grasped the keys and cross in his hands. Colonna, they say, struck him on the cheek with his iron gauntlet till the blood came. Let us hope that this is an invention of the enemy ; for the Pope was eighty- six years old, and Colonna was a Eoman soldier. There is always a tendency to elevate the sufferer in the cause we favour, by the introduction of ennobling circum- stances. In this and other instances of the same kind there is the further temptation in orthodox historians to make the most they can of the martyrdom of one of their chiefs, and in a peculiar manner to glorify the wrongs of their hero by their resemblance to the suf- ferings of Christ. But the rest of the story is melan- choly enough without the aggravation of personal pain. The pontiff abstained from food for three whole days. He consumed his grief in secret, and was only relieved at last from fears of the dagger or poison by an insur- 330 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. rection of the people. They fell upon the French escort when they perceived how weak it was, and carried the Pope into the market-place. He said, " Good people, you have seen how our enemies have spoiled me of my goo^s. Behold me as poor as Job. I tell you truly, I have nothing to eat or drink. If there is any good woman who will charitably bestow on me a little bread and wine, or even a little water, I will give her God's bless- ing and mine. Whoever will bring me the smallest thing in this my necessity, I will give him remission of all his sins." All the people cried, " Long live the Holy Father I" They ran and brought him bread and wine, and any thing they had. Everybody would enter and speak to him, just as to any other of the poor. In a short time after this he proceeded to Eome, and felt once more in safety. But his heart was tortured by anger and a thirst for vengeance. He became insane ; and when he tried to escape from the restraints his state demanded, and found his way barred by the Orsini, his insanity became madness. He foamed at the mouth and ground his teeth when he was spoken to. He repelled the offers of his friends with curses and violence, and died without the sacraments or consolations of the Church. The people remembered the prophecy made of him by his predecessor Celestin : — "You mounted like a fox ; you will reign like a lion ; you will die like a dog." But the degradation of the papal chair was not yet complete, and Philip was far from satisfied. Merely to have harassed to death an old man of eighty-six was not sufficient for a monarch who wanted a servant in the Pope more than a victim. To try his power over Bene- dict the Eleventh, the successor of Boniface, he began a process in the Eoman court against the memory of his late antagonist. Benedict replied by an anathema in PHILIP'S BARGAIN. 331 general terms on the murderers of Boniface, j^nd all Philip's crimes and schemings seemed of no avail. But one day the sister of a religious order presented His Holiness with a basket of figs, and in a short time the pontifical throne was vacant. Now was the time for the triumph of the king. He had devoted much time and money to win over a num- ber of cardinals to his cause, and obtained a promise under their hands and seals that they would vote for whatever candidate he chose to name. He was not long in fixing On a certain Bernard de Goth, Archbishop of Bordeaux, the most greedy and unprincipled of the pre- lates of France, and appointed a meeting with him to settle the terms of a bargain. They met in a forest they heard mass together, and took mutual oaths of se- crecy, and then the business began. " See, archbishop," said the king: "I have it in my power to make you Pope if I choose ; and if you promise me six favours which I will ask of you, I will assure you that dignity, and give you evidence of the truth of what I say." So saying, he showed the letters and delegation of both the electoral colleges. The archbishop, filled with covetous- ness, and seeing at once how entirely the popedom de- pended on the king, threw himself trembling with joy at Philip's feet. " My lord," he said, " I now perceive you love me more than any man alive, and that you render me good for evil. It is for you to command, — for me to obey ; and I shall always be ready to do so." The king lifted him up, kissed him on the mouth, and said to him, "The six special favours I have to ask of you are these. First, that you will reconcile me entirely with the Church, and get me pardoned for my misdeed in arresting Pope Boniface. Second, that you will give the communion to me and all my supporters. Thir^d, that you will give me tithes of the clergy of my realm 332 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. for five years, to supply the expenses of the war in Flanders. Fourth, that you will destroy and annul the memory of Boniface the Eighth. Fifth, that you will give the dignity of Cardinal to Messer Jacopo, and Messer Piero de la Colonna, along with certain others of my friends. As for the sixth favour and promise, I reserve it for the proper time and place, for it is a great and secret thing." The archbishop promised all by oath on the Corpus Domini, and gave his brother and two nephews as hostages. The king, on the other hand, made oath to have him elected Pope. His Holiness Clement the Fifth was therefore the ^^^^ thrall and servant of Philip le Bel. 'No office A.D. 1305. -•^ was too lowly, or sacrifice too large, for the grateful pontiff. He carried his subserviency so far as to cross the Alps and receive the wages of his obedience, the papal tiara, at Lyons. He became in fact a citizen of France, and subject of the crown. He delivered over the clergy to the relentless hands of the king. He gave him tithes of all their livings ; and as the Count of Flanders owed money to Philip which he had no means of paying, the generosity of the Pqpe came to the rescue, and he gave the tithes of the Flemish clergy to the bankrupt count in order to enable him to pay his debt to the exacting monarch. But the gift of these taxes was not a transfer from the Pope to the king or count : His Holiness did not reduce his own demands in consideration of the subsidies given to those powers. He completed, indeed, the ruin the royal tax-gatherers began ; for he travelled in more than imperial state from end to end of France, and ate bishop and abbot, and prior and prebendary, out of house and home. Wher- ever he rested for a night or two, the land became im- poverished ; and all this wealth was poured into the lap of a certain Brunissende de Perigord, who cost the EXTINCTION OF KNIGHTHOOD. 333 Church, it was popularly said, more than the Holy Land. But the capacity of Christian contribution was soon exhausted; and yet the interminable avarice of Pope and King went on. The honourable pair hit upon an excellent expedient, and the Jews were offered as a fresh pasture for the unimpaired appetite of the Father of Christendom and the eldest son of the Church. Philip hated their religion, but seems to have had a great respect for the accuracy of their proceedings in trade. So, to gratify the first, he stripped them of all they had, and, to prove the second, confiscated the money he found entered in their books as lent on interest to Christians. He was found to be a far more difficult creditor to deal with than the original lenders had been, and many a baron and needy knight had to refund to Philip the sums, with interest at twenty per cent., which they might have held indefinitely from the sons of Abraham and repudiated in an access of religious fervour at last. But worse calamities were hanging over the heads of knights and barons than the avarice of Philip and the dishonesty of Clement. Knighthood itself, and feudal- ism, were about to die, — ^knighthood, which had offered at all events an ideal of nobleness and virtue, and feudal- ism, which had replaced the expiring civilization of Eome founded on the centralization of power in one man's hands, and the degradation of all the rest, with a new form of society which derived its vitality from in- dependent action and individual self-respect. It was by a still wider expansion of j)ower and influence that feu- dalism was to be superseded. Other elements besides the possession of land were to come into the constitu- tion of the new state of human affairs. The man hence- forth was not to be the mere representative of so many acres of ground. His individuality was to be still 334 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. further defined, and learning, wealth, knowledge, arts, and sciences were from this time forth to have as much weight in the commonwealth as the hoisted pennon and strong-armed followers, of the steel-clad warrior. "The old order changeth, giving place to new. Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." We have already seen the prosperity of the towns, and have even heard the contemptuous laughter with which the high-fed burghers of Ghent or Bruges received the caracoUings of their ponderous suzerain as, armed cap-d-pied, he rode up to their impregnable walls. 'Not less barricaded than the contemptuous city behind the steel fortifications with which he protected his persoD, the knight had nothing to fear so long as he bestrode his war-horse and managed to get breath enough through the openings of his cross-barred visor. He was as safe in his iron coating as a turtle in its shell; but he was nearly as unwieldy as he was safe. When galloping forward against a line of infantry, nothing could resist his weight. With heavy mace or sweeping sword he cleared his ground on either side, and the un- armoured adversary had no means of r^epelling his assault. A hundred knights, therefore, we may readily believe, very often have put their thousands or tens of thousands to flight. We read, indeed, of immense slaughters of the common people, accompanied with the loss of one single knight ; and this must be attributed to the perfection which the armourer's art had attained, by which no opening for arrow or spear-point was left in the whole suit. Eut military instruments had for some time been invented, which, by projecting large stoiies with enormous force, flattened the solid cuirass or crushed the glittering helm. Once get the stunned or wounded warrior on the ground, there was no further danger to be apprehended. He lay in his iron prison COURTRAI. 835 unable to get up, unable to breathe, and with the ad- ditional misfortune of being so admirably protected that his enemies had difficulty in putting him out of his pain. This, however, was counterbalanced by the ample time he possessed, during their futile efforts to reach a vital part, to bargain for his life; and this was another element in the safety of knightly war. A ransom could at all times preserve his throat, whereas the dis- abled foot-soldier was pierced with relentless point or trodden down by the infuriated horse. The knight's position, therefore, was more like that of a fighter behind walls, only that he carried his wall with him wherever he went, and even when a breach was made could stop up the gap with a sum of money, l^obody had ever believed it possible for footmen to stand up against a charge of cavalry. No manoeuvres were learned like the hollow squares of modern times, which,* at "Waterloo and elsewhere, have stood unmoved against the best swordsmen of the world. But once, at the beginning of this century, in 1302, a dreadful event happened, which gave a different view of the capabili- ties of determined infantry in making head against their assailants, and commenced the lesson of the re- sistibility of mounted warriors which was completed by Bannockburn in Scotland, and Crecy and Poictiers. The dreadful event was the entire overthrow of the knights and gentlemen of France by the citizens of a Flemish manufacturing town at the battle of Courtrai. Impetuous valour, and contempt for smiths and weavers, blinded the fiery nobles. They rushed forward with loose bridles, and, as they had disdained to reconnoitre the scene of the display, they fell headlong, one after another, horse and plume, sword and spur, into one enormous ditch which lay between them and their enemies. On they came, an avalanche of steel and 336 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. horseflesh, and floundered into the muddy hole. Hun- dreds, thousands, unable to check their steeds, or afraid to appear irresolute, or goggling in vain through the deep holes left for their eyes, fell, struggled, writhed, and choked, till the ditch was filled with trampled knights and tumbling horses, and the burghers on the opposite bank beat in the helmets of those who tried to climb up, with jagged clubs, and hacked their naked heads. And when the whole army was annihilated, and the spoils were gathered, it was found there were princes and lords in almost incredible numbers, and four thou- sand golden spurs to mark the extent of the knightly slaughter and give name to the engagement. It is called the Battle of the Spurs, — for a nobler cause than another engagement of the same name, which we shall meet with in a future century, and which derived its appellation from the fact that spurs were more in re- quisition than swords. Philip was at this moment in the middle of his quarrel with Boniface. He determined to compensate himself for the loss he had sustained in military fame at Cour- trai by fiercer exactions on his clergy and bitterer enmity to the Pope. "We have seen how he pursued the wretched Boniface to the grave, and persisted in trying to force the obsequious Clement to blacken his memory after he was dead. Clement was unwilling to expose the vices and crimes of his predecessor, and yet he had given a promise in that strange meeting in the forest to work his master's will ; he was also resident in France, and knew how unscrupulous his protector was. Philip availed himself of the discredit brought on knighthood by the loss of all those golden spurs, and compounded for leaving the deceased pontiff alone, by exacting the consent of Clement to his assault on the order of the Templars, the wealthiest institution in the THE TEMPLARS 337 world, wlio held thousands of the best manors in France, and whose spoils would make him the richest king in Christendom. Yet the Templars were no contemptible foes. In number they were but fourteen thousand, but their castles were over all the land ; they were every one of them of noble blood, and strong in the relation- ship of all the great houses in Europe. If they had united with their brethren, the Knights Hospitallers, no sovereign could have resisted their demands ; but, for- tunately for Philip, they were rivals to the death, and gave no assistance to each other when oppressed. Both, in fact, had outlived the causes of their institution, and had forfeited the respect of the masses of the people by their ostentatious abnegation of all the rules by which they professed to be bound. Poverty, chastity, and brotherly kindness were the sworn duties of the most rich, sensual, and unpitying society which ever lived. When Eichard of England was dying, he made an imaginary will, and said, "I leave my avarice to the Citeaux^ my luxury to the Grey Friars, and my pride to the Templars.^' And the Templars took possession of the bequest. When driven from the Holy Land, they settled in all the Christian kingdoms from Denmark to the south of Italy, and everywhere presented the same spectacle of selfishness and debauchery. In Paris they had got possession of a tract of ground equal to one- third of the whole city, and had covered it with towers and battlements, and within the unapproachable fortress lived a life of the most luxurious self-indulgence. Strange rumours got abroad of the unholy rites with which their initiations were accompanied. Their receptions into the order were so mysterious and sacred that an interloper (if it had been the King of France) would have been put to death for his intrusion. Frightful stories were told of their blasphemies and hideous ceremonials. Eeports 15 *^*5» FOURTEENTH CENTURY. came even from over the sea, that while in Jerusalem they had conformed to the Mohammedan faith and had exchanged visits and friendly offices with the chiefs of the unbelievers. Against so dark and haughty an asso- ciation it was easy to stir up the popular dislike. 'No- body could take their part, they lived so entirely to themselves and shunned sympathy and society with so cold a disdain. They were men of religious vows with- out the humility of that condition, so they were hated by the nobles, who looked on priests as their natural in- feriors ; they were nobles without the individual riches of the barons and counts, and they were hated by the priests, who were at all times the foes of the aristocracy. Hated, therefore, by priest and noble, their policy would have been to make friends of the lower orders, rising citizens, and the great masses of the people. But they saw no necessity for altering their lofty course. They bore right onward in their haughty disregard of all the rest of the world, and were condemned by the universal feeling before any definite accusation was raised*against them. Clement yielded a faint consent to the proceedings of Philip, and that honourable champion of the faith gave full loose to his covetousness and hatred. First of all he prayed meekly for admission as a brother of the order. He would wear the red cross upon his shoulder and obey their god]y laws. If he had obtained his object, he would have procured the grand-mastership for him- self and disposed of their wealth at his own discretion. The order might have survived, but their possessions would have been Philip's. They perhaps perceived his aim, and declined to admit him into their ranks. A re- jected candidate soon changes his opinion of the former object of his ambition. He now reversed his plan, and declared they were unworthy, not only to wallow in the ACCUSATIONS AGAINST THE TEMPLARS. 339 wealth and splendour of their commanderies, but to live in a Christian land. He said they were guilty of all the crimes and enormities by which human nature Avas ever disgraced. James de Molay, the grand-master, and all the knights of the order throughout France, were seized and thrown into prison. Letters were written to all other kings and princes, inciting them to similar con- duct, and denouncing the doomed fraternity in the harshest terms. The promise of the spoil was tempting to the European sovereigns, but all of them resisted the inducement, or at least took gentler methods of attaining the same end. But Philip was as much pleased with the pursuit as with the catching of the game. He sum- moned a council of the realm, and obtained at the same time a commission of inquiry from the Pope. "With these two courts to back him, it was impossible to fail. The knights were kept in noisome dungeons. They were scantily fed, and tormented with alternate pro- mises and threats. When physically weak and mentally depressed, they were tortured in their secret cells, and under the pressure of fear and desperation confessed to whatever was laid to their charge. Eelieved from their torments for a moment, they retracted their confessions; but the written words remained. And in one day, before the public had been prepared for such extremity of wrong, fifty-four of these Christian soldiers — now old, and fallen from their high estate — were pub- licly burned in the place of execution, and no further limit was placed to the rapacity of the king. Still the odious process crept on with the appearance of law, for already the forms of perverted justice were found safer and more certain than either sword or fagot; and at iast, in 1314, the ruined brotherhood were allowed to join themselves to other fraternities. The name of Templar was blotted out from the knightly roll-call of 340 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. all Europe ; and in every nation, in England and Scot- land particularly, the order was despoiled of all its pos- sessions. Clement, however, was furious at seeing the moderation of rulei^ like Edward II., who merely stripped the Templars of their houses and lands, and did not dabble, as his patron Philip had done, in their blood, and rebuked them in angry missives for their coldness in the cause of religion. 'Now, early in this century, a Pope had been per- sonally ill used, and his successor had become the pen- sioner and prisoner of one of the basest of kings; a glorious brotherhood of Christian knights had been shamelessly and bloodily destroyed. Was there no out- cry from outraged piety ? — no burst of indignation against the perpetrator of so foul a wrong ? Pity was at last excited by the sufferings and humiliations of the brothers of the Temple ; but pity is not a feeling on which knight- hood can depend for vitality or strength. Perhaps, indeed, the sympathy raised for the sad ending of that once-dreaded institution was more fatal to its revival, and more injurious to the credit of all surviving chivalry, than the greatest amount of odium would have been. Speculative discussions were held about the guilt or in- nocence of the Templars, but the worst of their crimes was the crime of being weak. If they had continued united and strong, nobody would have heard of the ex- cesses laid to their charge. Passing over the impossible accusations brought against them by ignorance and hatred, the offence they were charged with which raised the greatest indignation, and was least capable of disproof, was that in their reception into the order they spat upon the crucifix and trampled on the sign of our salvation. ISTothing can be plainer than that this, at the first formation of the order, had been a symbol, which in the course of years had lost its significance. CHANGES IN SOCIETY. 341 At first introduced as an emblem of Peter's denial and of worldly disbelief, to be exchanged; when once they were clothed with the Crusader's mantle, for unflinching service and undoubting Paith, — a passage from death unto life, — it had been retained long after its intention had been forgotten ; and nothing is so striking as the confession of some of the younger knights, of the re- luctance, the shame and trembling, with which, at the request of their superior, they had gone through the re- pulsive ceremony. This is one of the dangers of a sym- bolic service. The symbol supersedes the fact. The imitation of Peter becomes a falling away from Christ. But a century before this time, who can doubt that all Christendom would have rushed to the rescue of the Pope if he had been seized in his own city and mal- treated as Boniface had been, and that every gentleman in Europe would have drawn sword in behalf of the noble Templars ? But papacy, feudalism, and knighthood, as they had risen and flourished together, were enveloped in the same fall. The society of the Dark Ages had been per- fect in its symmetry and compactness. Kings were but feudal leaders and chiefs in their own domains. Knight- hood was but the countenance which feudalism turned to its enemies, while hospitality, protection, and alliance were its offerings to its friends. Over all, representative of the heavenly power which cared for the helpless mul- titudes, the serfs and villeins, those who had no other friend, — the Church extended its sheltering arms to the lowest of the low. Feudalism could take care of itself; knighthood made itself feared ; but the multitudes could only listen and be obedient. All, therefore, who had no sword, and no broad acres, were natural subjects of the Pope. But with the rise of the masses the relations between them and the Church became changed. It was 342 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. found that during the last two hundred years, since the awakening of mercantile enterprise by the Crusades and the commingling of the population in those wild and yet elevating expeditions, by the progress of the arts, by the j)rivileges wrung from king and noble by flourish- ing towns or purchased from them with sterling coin, by the deterioration in the morals of priest and baron, and the rise in personal importance of burghers, who could fight like those of Courtrai or raise armies like those of Pisa and Genoa, — that the state of society had gradually been changed; that the commons were well able to defend their own interest ; that the feudal pro- prietor had lost his relative rank; that the knight was no longer irresistible as a warrior ; and that the Pope had become one of the most worldly and least scrupulous of rulers. Par from being the friend of the unprotected, the Church was the subject of all the ballads of every nation, wherein its exactions and debaucheries were sung at village fairs and conned over in chimney- corners. Cannon were first used in this century at the siege of Algesiras in 1343; and with the first discharge knighthood fell forever from the saddle. The Bible was first translated into a national tongue,* and Popery fell forever from its unopposed dominion. How, indeed, even without this incident, could the Papacy have re- tained its power ? Prom 1305 till 1376 the wearers of the tiara were the mere puppets of the Kings of Prance. They lived in a nominal freedom at Avignon, but the college of electors was in the pay of the Prench sovereign, and the Pope was the creature of his hands. This was fatal to the notion of his independence. But a heavier blow was struck at the unity of the papal power when a double election, in 1378, established two * Wickliff's Englisli Bible, 1383. DECLINE OF THE PAPACY. 34a supreme chiefs, one exacting the obedience of the faith- ful from his palace on the banks of the Ehone, and the other advancing the same claim from the banks of the Tiber. From this time the choice of the chief pontiff became a political struggle between the principal kings. There were French and German, and even English, parties in the conclave, and bribes were as freely ad- ministered as at a contested election or on a dubious question in the time of Sir Eobert Wa'lpole. Family interest also, from this time, had more effect on the policy of the Popes than the ambition to extend their spiritual authority. They sacrificed some portion of their claims to insure the elevation of their relations. Alliances were made, not for the benefit of the Eoman chair, but for some kinsman's establishment in a prin- cipality. Dukedoms became appanages of the papal name, and every new Pope left the mark of his bene- ficence in the riches and influence of the favourite nephew whom he had invested with sovereign rank, Italy became filled with new dynasties created by these means, and the politics of the papal court became com- plicated by this diversity of motive and influence. Yet feudalism struggled on in spite of cannon and the rise of the middle orders ; and Popery struggled on in spite of the spread of information and the diffusion of wealth and freedom. For some time, indeed, the decline of both those institutions was hidden by a factitious bril- liancy reflected on them by other causes. The increase of refinement gave rise to feelings of romance, which were unknown in the days of darkness and suffering through which Europe had passed. A reverence for antiquity softened the harsher features by which they had been actually distinguished, and knighthood became subtilized into chivalry. As the hard and uninviting reality retreated into the past, the imagination clothed ^4 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. it in enchanting hues; and at the very time when the bowmen and yeomanry of England had shown at Crecy how unfounded were the " boast of heraldry, the pomp of power," Edward III. had instituted the Order of the _„^. Garter, — a transmutation as it were of the rude shocks of knighthood into carpet pacings in the gilded halls of a palace ; as in a former age the returned Crusaders had supplied the want of the pride and cir- cumstance of the real charge against the Saracen by in- troducing the bloodless imitation of it aiforded by the tournament. In the same way the personal disqualifica- tion of the Pope was supplied by an elevation of the ideal of his place and ofiice. Beligion became poetry and sentiment ; and though henceforth the reigning pon- tiff was treated with the harshness and sometimes the contempt his personal character deserved, his throne was still acknowledged as the loftiest of earthly thrones. The plaything of the present was nevertheless an idol and representative of the past ; and kings who drove him from his home, or locked him up in their prisons, pretended to tremble at his anger, and received his letters on their knees. It must have been evident to any far-seeing observer that some great change was in progress during the whole of this century, not so much from the results of Courtrai, or Crecy, or Poictiers, or the migration of the Pope to Avignon, or the increasing riches of the trading and manufacturing towns, as from the great uprising of the human mind which was shown by the almost simul- taneous appearance of such stars of literature as Dante, and Petrarch, and Boccaccio, and our English Chaucer. I suppose no single century since has been in possession of four such men. Great geniuses, indeed, and great discoveries, seem to come in crops, as if a certain period had been fixed for their bursting into flower; and wo LITERARY DEVELOPMENT. 345 find the same grand ideas engaging the intellects of men widely dispersed, so that a novelty in art or science is generally disputed between contending nations. But this synchronous development of power is symptomatic of some wide-spread tendency, which alters the ordinary course of aifairs ; and we see in the Canterbury Tales the dawning of the Eeformation; in Shakspeare and Bacon the inauguration of a new order of government and manners ; in Locke and JMilton a still further libera- tion from the chains of a worn-out philosophy ; in Watt, and Fulton, and Cartwright, we see the spread of civili- zation and power. In Walter Scott and Wordsworth, and the wonderful galaxy of literary stars who illumi- nated the beginning of this century, we see Waterloo and Peace, a widening of national sympathies, and the opening of a great future career to all the nations of the world. For nothing is so true an index of the state and prospects of a people as the healthfulness and honest taste of its literature. It was in this sense that Flet- cher of Saltoun said, (or quoted,) " Grive me the making of the ballads of a people, and I don't care who makes the laws.'' While we have such pure and wholesome literature as is furnished us by Hallam, and Macaulay, and Alison, by Tennyson, Dickens, Thackeray, and the rest, philosophy like Hamilton's, and science like Her- schel's and Faraday's, we have no cause to look forward with doubt or apprehension. "Naught shall make us rue If England to herself do rest but true." But those pioneers of the Fourteenth Century had dangers and difficulties to encounter from which their successors have been free. It is a very different thing for authors to write for the applause of an appreciating public, and for them to create an appreciating public for themselves. Their audience must at first have been 346 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. hostile. First, the critical and scholarly part of the world was offended with the bad taste of writing in the modern languages at all. Secondly, the pitch at which they struck the national note was too high for the ears of the vulgar. A correct and dignified use of the spoken tongue, the conveyance, in ordinary and familiar words, of lofty or poetical thoughts, filled both those classes with surprise. To the scholar it seemed good materials enveloped in a very unworthy covering. To " the general'^ it seemed an attempt to deprive them of their vernacular phrases and bring bad grammar and coarse expressions into disrepute. Petrarch was so conscious of this that he speaks apologetically of his sonnets in Italian, and founds his hope of future fame on his Latin verses. But more important than the poems of Dante and Chaucer, or the prose of Boccaccio, was the introduction of the new literature represented by Froissart. Hitherto chronicles had for the most part consisted of the record of such wandering rumours as reached a monastery or were gathered in the religious pilgrimages of holy men. . Mingled, even the best of them, with the credulity of inexperienced and simple minds, their effect was lost on the contemj^orary gene- ration by the isolation of the writers. ^NTobody beyond the convent-walls knew what the learned historians of the establishment had been doing. Their writings were not brought out into the light of universal day, and a knowledge of European society gathered point by point, by comparing, analyzing, and contrasting the various statements contained in those dispersed repositories. But at this time there came into notice the most inquir- ing, enterprising, picturesque, and entertaining chroni- cler that had ever appeared since Herodotus read the result of his personal travels and sagacious inquiries to the assembled multitudes of Greece. FROISSART. 347 John Froissart, called by the courtesy of the time Si? John, in honour of his being priest and chaplain, de^ voted a long life to the collection of the fullest and most trustworthy accounts of all the events and personages characteristic of his time. From 1326, when his labours commenced, to 1400, when his active pen stood still, nothing happened in any part of Europe that the Paul Pry of the period did not rush off to verify on the spot. If he heard of an assemblage of knights going on at the extremities of France or in the centre of Germany, of a tournament at Bordeaux, a court gala in Scotland, or a marriage festival at Milan, his travels began, — whether in the humble guise of a solitary horseman with his portmanteau behind his saddle and a single greyhound at his heels, as he jogged wearily across the Border, till he finally arrived in Edinburgh, or in his grander style of equipment, gallant steed, with hackney led beside him, and four dogs of high race gambolling round his horse, as he made his dignified journey from Ferrara to Eome. Wherever life was to be seen and painted, the indefatigable Froissart was to be found. "Whatever he had gathered up on former expeditions, whatever he learned on his present tour, down it went in his own exquisite language, with his own poetical impression of the pomps and pageantries he beheld ; and when at the end of his journey he reached the court of prince or potentate, no higher treat could be offered to the "noble lords and ladies bright'^ than to form a glittering circle round the enchanting chronicler and listen to what he had written. From palace to palace, from castle to castle, the unwearied "picker-up of unconsidered trifles" (which, however, were neither trifles nor unconsidered, when their true value became known, as giving life and reality to the annals of a whole period) pursued his happy way, certain of a friendly reception when he 348 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. arrived, and certain of not losing his time by negligence or blindness on the road. If he overtakes a stately cava- lier, attended by squires and men-at-arms, he enters into conversation, drawing out the experiences of the vene- rable warrior by relating to him all he knew of things and persons in which he took an interest. And when they put up at some hostelry on the road, and while the gallant knight was sound asleep on his straw-stuifed couch, and his followers were wallowing amid the rushes on the parlour floor, Froissart was busy with pen and note-book, scoring down all the old gentleman had told him, all the fights he had been present at, and the secret history (if any) of the councils of priests and kings. In this way knights in distant parts of the world became known to each other. The same voice which described to Douglas at Dalkeith the exploits of the Prince of Wales sounded the praises of Douglas in the ears of the Black Prince at Bordeaux. A community of sentiment was produced between the upper ranks of all nations by this common register of their acts and feelings ; and knighthood received its most ennobling consummation in these imperishable descriptions, at the very time when its political and military influence came to a close. Froissart's Chronicles are the epitaph of feudalism, written indeed while it was yet alive, but while its strength was only the convulsive energy of approaching death. The standard of knightly virtue became raised in proportion as knightly power decayed. In the same way as the increased civilization and elevating influences of the time clothed the Church in colours borrowed from the past, while its real influence was seriously im- paired, the expiring embers of knighthood occasionally flashed up into something higher ; and in this century we read of Du Guesclin of France, Walter Manny and Edward the Third of England, and many others, who CHIVALRY. 349 illustrated the order with qualifications it had never possessed in its palmiest state. Courtrai was fought and Amadis de Gaul written almost at the same time. Let us therefore mark, as a characteristic of the period we have reached, the decay of knighthood, or feudalism in its armour of proof, and the growth at the same time of a sense of honour and generosity, which contrasted strangely in its softened and sentimentalized refinement with the harshness and cruelty which still clung to the ordinary affairs of life. Thus the young conqueror of Poictiers led his captive John into London with the respectful attention of a grateful subject to a crowned king. He waited on him at table, and made him forget the humiliation of defeat and the griefs of imprisonment in the sympathy and reverence with which he was everywhere surrounded. This same prince was regardless of human life or sufi'er- ing where the theatrical show of magnanimity was not within his reach, bloodthirsty and tyrannical, and is de- clared by the chronicler himself to be of " a high, over- bearing spirit, and cruel in his hatred." It shows, how- ever, what an advance had already been made in the influence of public opinion, when we read how generally the treatment of the noble captive, John of France, was appreciated. In former ages, and even at present in nations of a lower state of feelings, the kind treatment of a fallen enemy, or the sparing of a helpless popula- tion, would be attributed to Aveakness or fear. Chivalry, which was an attempt to amalgamate the Christian virtues with the rougher requirements of the feudal code, taught the duty of being pitiful as well as brave. And though at this period that feeling only existed between knight and knight, and was not yet extended to their treatment of the common herd, the principle was asserted that war could be carried on without persona] 350 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. animosity, and that courage, endurance, and the other knightly qualities were to be admired as much in an enemy as a friend. There was, however, another reason for this besides the natural admiration which great deeds are sure to call forth in natures capable of performing them ; and that was, that Europe was divided into petty sove- reignties, too weak to maintain their independence with- out foreign aid, too proud to submit to another govern- ment, and trusting to the support their money or influ- ence could procure. In all countries, therefore, there existed bodies of mercenary soldiers — or Free Lances, as they were called — claiming the dignity and rank of knights and noblemen, who never knew whether the men they were fighting to-day might not be their com- rades and followers to-morrow. In Italy, always a country of divisions and enmities, there were armed com- batants secured on either side. Unconnected with the country they defended by any ties of kindred or allegi- ance, they found themselves opposed to a body, perhaps of their countrymen, certainly of their former com- panions ; and, except so much as was required to earn their pay and preserve their reputation, they 'did nothing that might be injurious to their temporary foes. Battles accordingly were fought where feats of horsemanship and dexterity at their weapons were shown; where rushes were made into the vacant space between the armies by contending warriors, and horse and man acquitted themselves with the acclamations, and almost with the safety, of a charge in the amphitheatre at Astley's. But no blood was spilt, no life was taken; and a long summer day has seen a confused melee going on be- tween the hired combatants of two cities or principali- ties, without a single casualty more serious than a cava- lier thrown from his horse and unable to rise from the GREAT EVENTS OF THE CENTURY. 351 weight and tightness of his armour. Fights of this kind could scarcely be considered in earnest, and we are not surprised to find that the burden and heat of an engagement was thrown upon the light-armed foot : we gather, indeed, towards the end of Froissart's Chronicles, that while the cavaliers persisted in endeavouring to distinguish their individual prowess, as at the battle of I^avareta in Spain, and got into confusion in their eagerness of assault, "the sharpness of the English arrows began to be felt," and the fate of the battle de- pended on the unflinching line and impregnable solidity of the archers and foot-soldiers. These latter took a deeper interest in the result than the more showy per- formers, and were not carried away by the vanities of personal display. Look at the year 1300, with the jubilee of Bonifac^ going on. X/ook at 1400, with the death of Chaucer and Froissart, and the enthroning of Henry the Fourth, and what an amount of incident, of change and improve- ment, has been crowded into the space ! The rise of national literatures, the softening of feudalism, the de- cline of Church power, — these — illustrated by Dante and Chaucer, by the alteration in the art of war, and above all, perhaps, by the translation of the Bible into the vulgar tongue — were not only the fruits gained for the present, but the promise of greater things to come. There will be occasional backslidings after this time, but the onward progress is steady and irresistible : the regressions are but the reflux waves in an advancing tide, caused by the very force and vitality of the great sea beyond. And after this view of some of the main features of the century, we shall take a very cursory glance at some of the principal events on which the por- traiture is founded. It is a bad sign of the early part of this period that our sreat landmarks are still battles and invasions. 352 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. After Courtrai in 1302, where the nobility rushed blind- fold into a natural ditch, we come upon Bannockburn in 1314, where Edward the Second, not compre- hending the aim of his more politic father, — whose object was to counterpoise the growing power of the French monarchy by consolidating his influence at home, — had marched rather to revenge his outraged dignity than to establish his denied authority, and was signally defeated by Eobert Bruce. Is it not possible that the stratagem by which the English chivalry Buffered so much by means of the pits dug for their re^ ception in the space in front of the Scottish lines wab borrowed from Courtrai, — art supplying in that dry plain near Stirling what nature had furnished to the marshy Brabant ? However this may be, the same fatal result ensued. Pennon and standard, waving plume and flashing sword, disappeared in those yawning gulfs, and at the present hour very rusty spurs and fragments of broken helmets are dug from beneath the soil to mark the greatness and the quality of the slaughter. Mean- time, in compact phalanx — ^protected by the knights and gentlemen on the flanks, but left to its own free action — the Scottish array bore on. Strong spear"^ and sharp sword did the rest, and the English army, shorn of its cavalry, disheartened by the loss of its leaders, and finally deserted by its pusillanimous king, retreated in confusion, and all hope of retaining the country by the right of conquest was forever laid aside. Poor Edward had, in appalling consciousness of his own imperfections, applied to the Pope for permission to rub himself with an ointment that would make him brave. Either the Pope refused his consent or the ointment failed of its purpose. l!^othing could rouse a brave thought in the heart of the fallen Plantagenet. Sir Giles de Argentine might have been more effectual than all the unguents in the world. He led the king by the bridle till he saw DEFEAT OF THE FLEMINGS. 353 him in a place of safety. He then stopped his horse and said, " It has never been my custom to fly, and here I must take my fortune." Saying this, he put spurs to his horse, and, crying out, "An Argentine !" charged the squadron of Edward Bruce, and was borne down by the force of the Scottish spears. The fugitive king galloped in terror to the castle of Dunbar, and shipped oif by sea to Berw^ick. The next battle is so strongly corroborative of the failing supremacy of heavy armour, and the rising im- portance of the well-trained citizens, that it is worth mention, although at first sight it seems to controvert both these statements ; for it was a fight in which cer- tain courageous burghers were mercilessly exterminated by gorgeously-caparisoned knights. The townsmen of Bruges and Ypres had grown so proud and pugnacious ,„„„ that in 1328 they advanced to Cassel to do A.D. 1328. "^ battle with the young King of France, Philip of Yalois, at the head of all his chivalry. There was a vast amount of mutual contempt in the two armies. The leader of the bold Flemings, who was known as Little Jack, entered the enemy's camp in disguise, and found young lords in splendid gowns proceeding from point to point, gossiping, visiting, and interchanging their invitations. Making his way back, he ordered a charge at once. The rush was nearly successful, and was only checked within a few yards of the royal tent. But the check was tremendous. The bloated burghers, filled with pride and gorged with wealth, had thought proper to ensconce their unwieldy persons in cuirasses as brilliant and embarrassing as the armour of the knights. The knights, however, were on horseback, and the embattled townsfolk were on foot. Great was the slaughter, useless the attempt to escape, and thir- teen thousand were overborne and smothered. Ten 354 FOURTEENTH CENTIJRY. thousand more were executed by some form of law, and the Bourgeoisie taught to rely for its safety on its agility and compactness, and not on " helm or hauberk's twisted mail." The crop of battles grows rich and plentiful, for Edward the Third and Philip of Yalois are rival kings and warriors, and may be taken as the representatives of the two states of society which were brought at this time face to face. For Edward, though as true a knight as Araadis himself in his own person, in policy was a favourer of the new ideas. When the war broke out, Philip behaved as if no change had taken place in the seat of power and the world had still continued divided between the lords and their armed retainers. He threw himself for support on the military service of his tenants and the aristocratic spirit of his nobles. Edward, wiser but less romantic, turned for assistance to the Commons of England, — bought over their good will and copious contributions by privileges granted to their trades, — in- vited skilled workmen over from Flanders, which, with the freest spirit in Europe, was under the least improved of the feudal governments, — and established woollen- works at York, fustian- works at ITorwich, serges at Col- chester, and kerseys in Devonshire. Mills were whirling round in all the counties, and ships coming in untaxed at every harbour. Fortunately, as is always the case in this country, it was seen that the success of one class of the people was beneficial to every other class. The baron got more rent for his land and better cloth for his apparel by the prosperity of his manufacturing neigh- bours. Money was voted readily in support of a king who entered into alliance with their best customers, the men of Ghent and Bruges ; and at the head of all the levies which the parliament's liberality enabled him to raise were the knights and gentlemen of England, totally freed now from any bias towards the French or prejudice VICTOKY OF HELVOET SLUYS. 355 against the Saxon ; for they spoke the English tongue, dressed in English broadcloth, sang English ballads, and astonished the men of Gascony and Guienne with the vehemence of their unmistakably English oaths. Yet some of them held lands in feudal subjection to the French king. Flanders itself confessed the same sove- reignty ; and men of delicate consciences might feel un- easy if they lifted the sword against their liege lord. To soothe their scruples, James Yan Arteveldt, the Brewer of Ghent, suggested to Edward the propriety of his as- suming the title of King of France. The rebellious free- holders would then be in their duty in supporting their liege's claims. So Edward, founding upon the birth of his mother, the daughter of the last King, Philip le Bel, — who was excluded by the Salic law, or at least by French custom, from the throne, — made claim to the crown of St. Louis, and transmitted the barren title to all his successors till the reign of George the Fourth. As if in right of his property on both sides of the Chan- nel, Edward converted it into his exclusive domain. He so entirely exterminated the navy of France, and ,„,„ impressed that chivalrous nation with the dan- A.D. 1340. ■'• ger of the seas by the victory of Helvoet Sluys, that for several centuries the command of the strait was left undisputed to England. Philip had endeavoured to obtain the mastery of it with a fleet of a hundred and fifty ships, mounted by forty thousand men. The Geno- ese had furnished an auxiliary squadron, and also a commander-in-chief, of the name of Barbavara. But the French admiral was a civilian of the name of Bahu- chet, who thought the safest plan was the best, and kept his whole force huddled up in the commodious harbour. Edward collected a fleet of scarcely inferior strength, and fell upon the enemy as they lay within the port. It was in fact a fight on the land, for they ranged so close that they almost touched each other, and the gallani 356 FOURTEENTH CENTURY. Bahuchet preserved himself from sea-sickness at the expense of all their lives. Eor the English archers made an incredible havoc on their crowded decks, and the pike-men boarded with irresistible power. Twenty thousand were slain in that fearful melee; and Edward, to show how sincere he was in his claim upon the throne of France, hanged the unfortunate Bahuchet as a traitor. The man deserved his fate as a coward : so we need not waste much sympathy on the manner of his death. This success with his ships was soon followed by the better- known victory of Crecy, 1346, and the capture of Calais. In ten years afterwards, the crowning triumph of Poictiers completed the destruction of the military power of France, by a slaughter nearly as great as that at Sluys and Crecy. In addition to the loss of lives in these three engagements, amounting to upwards of ninety thousand men, we are to consider the im- poverishment of the country by the exorbitant ransoms claimed for the release of prisoners. John, the French king, was valued at three million crowns of gold, — an immense sum, which it would have exhausted the king- dom to raise ; and, in addition to those destructive fights and crushing exactions, France was further weakened by the insurrection of the peasantry and the frightful massacres by which it was put down. If to these causes of weakness we add the depopulation produced by the unequalled pestilence, called the Plague of Florence, which spread all over the world, and in the space of a year carried off nearly a third of the inhabit- ants of Europe, we shall be justified in believing that France was reduced to the lowest condition she has ever reached, and that only the dotage of Edward, the death of the Black Prince, and the accession of a king like Kichard II., saved that noble country from being, for a while at least, tributary and subordinate to her island- conqueror. FIFTEENTH CENTURY. iSmperors; of (Germans. A.D. 1400. KUPERT. 1410. Jossus. 1410. SiGISMUND. House of Austria^ 1438. Albert II. 1440. Frederick IV. 1493. Maximilian I. 3Smperorsi of tf)c 3Ha0t. A.D. Manuel Pal^ologus.-— [cord.) 1425. John Paljeologus II. 1448. CONSTANTINE XIII., (Pa- LiEOLOGUS.) 1453. Capture of Constantino- ple by the Turks, and close of the Eastern Empire. mingis of ISnglantJ* 1399. Henry IV. 1413. Henry V. 1422. Henry VI. 1461. Edward IV. 1483. Edward V. 1483. ElCHARD III. 1485. HenrV VII. mings of Scotland* Robert 111.— [cont.) 1406. James I. 1437. James II. 1460. James III. 1488. James IV. 1452. Invention of Printing. 1455. Wars of the Roses begin. 1483. Luther born. 1492. Discoyery of America, ISminent ifHert* John Huss, (1370-1415,) Ximines Sultans of ^urkei>» 1451. Mohammed II. 1481. Bajazet II. Itings of dFrance- Charles VI. — [cont.) 1422. Charles VII. 1461. Louis XI. 1483. Charles VIII. 1498. Louis XII. mings of Spain* 1479. Union of the Kingdom under Ferdinand and Isabella. THE FIFTEENTH CENTUEl DECLINE OF FEUDALISM — ^AGINCOURT — JOAN OF AUC — THE PRINTING-PRESS — ^DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. The whole period from the twelfth to the fifteenth century has generally been considered so unvarying in its details, one century so like another, that it has been thought sufficient to class them all under the general name of the Middle Ages. Old Monteil, indeed, the author of " The French People of Yarious Conditions," declines to individualize any age during that lengthened epoch, for "feudalism," he says, "is as little capable of change as the castles with which it studded the land." Eut a closer inspection does by no means justify this declaration. From time to time we have seen what great changes have taken place. The external walls of the baronial residence may continue the same, but vast alterations have occurred within. The rooms have got a more modern air; the moat has begun to be dried up, and turned into a bowling-green ; the tilt-yard is occa- sionally converted into a garden ; and, in short, in all the civilized countries of Europe the life of society has accumulated at the heart. Power is diffused from the courts of kings ; and instead of the spirit of indepen- dence and opposition to the royal authority which characterized former centuries, we find the courtiers' arts more prevalent now than the pride of local grandeur. The great vassals of the Crown are no longer the rivals of their nominal superior, but submissively receive liis 359 860 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. awards, or endeavour to obtain the sanction of his name to exactions which they would formerly have practised in their own. Monarchy, in fact, becomes the spirit of the age, and nobility sinks willingly into the subordinate rank. This itself was a great blow to the feudal system, for the essence of that organized society was equality among its members, united to subordination of conven- tional rank, — a strange and beautiful style of feeling between the highest and the lowest of that manly brother- hood, which made the simple chevalier equal to the king as touching their common knighthood, — of which we have at the present time the modernized form in the feeling which makes the loftiest in the land recognise an equal and a friend in the person of an untitled gen- tleman. But this latter was to be the result of the equalizing effect of education and character. In the fif- teenth century, feudalism, represented by the great pro- prietors, was about to expire, as it had already perished in the decay of its armed and mailed representatives in the field of battle. By no lower hand than its own could the nobility be overthrown either in France or England. The accident of a feeble king in both coun- tries was the occasion of an internecine struggle, — not, as it would have been in the tenth century, for the pos- session of the crown, but for the custody of the wearer of it. The insanity of Charles YI. almost exterminated the lords of France ; the weakness of Henry YI. and the Wars of the Eoses produced the same result in England. It seemed as if in both countries an epidemic madness had burst out among the nobility, which drove them to their destruction. "Wildly contending with each other, neglecting and oppressing the common people, the lords and barons were unconscious of the silent advances of a power which was about to over- shadow them all. And, as if to drive away from them DECLINE OF NOBILITY. 361 the sympathy which their fathers had known how to excite among the lower classes hy their kindness and protection, they seemed determined to obliterate every vestige of respect which might cling to their ancient possessions and historic names, by the most unheard- of cruelty and falsehood in their treatment of each other. The leader of one of the parties which divided France was John, son of Philip the Hardy, prince of the blood royal and Duke of Burgundy. The leader of the other party was Louis of Orleans, brother of the demented king, and the gayest cavalier and most accomplished gentleman of his time. The Burgundian had many advantages in his contest for the reins of government. The wealth and population of the Low Countries made him as powerful as any of the princes of Europe, and he could at all times secure the alliance of England to the most nefarious of his schemes by the bribe of a treaty of trade and navigation. He accordingly brought his great possessions in Flanders to the aid of his French ambition, and secured the almost equally important assistance of the University of Paris, by giving in his adhesion to the Pope it had chosen and denying the authority of the Pope of his rival Orleans. Orleans had also offended the irritable population of Paris by making his vows, on some solemn occasion, by the bones of St. Denis which adorned the shrine of the town called after his name, — whereas it was well known to every Parisian that the real bones of the patron of France were those which were so religiously preserved in the treasury of Notre Dame. The clergy of the two altars took up the quarrel, and as much hostility was created by the rival relics of St. Denis and Paris as by the rival pontiffs of Avignon and Pome. Thus the Church, which in earlier times had been a bond of unity, was one of the 16 dbJ FIFTEENTH CENTURY. chief causes of dissension ; and the result in a few years was seen in the attempt made by France to shake off, as much as possible, the supremacy of both the divided Popes, as it managed to shake off entirely the yoke of the divided nobility. Quarrels and reconciliations among the princes, feasts and festivals among the peerage, and the most relentless treatment of the citizens, v^ere the distinguishing marks of the opening of this century. Isabella of Eavaria, the shameless wife of the hapless Charles, added a great feature of infamy to the state of manners at the time, by the openness of her profligacy, and her neglect of all the duties of wife and queen. Bioting with the thought- less Orleans, while her husband was left to the misery of his situation, unwashed, unshorn, and clothed in rags and filth, the abandoned woman roused every manly heart in all the land against the cause she aided. Bely- ing on this national disgust, the wily Burgundian waited his opportunity, and revenged his private wrongs by what he afterwards called the patriotic dagger of an ,,„^ assassin. On the nisrht of the 23d of December, A.D. 1407. ° ' 1407, the gay and handsome Louis was lured by a false message from the queen's quarters'^ to a distant part of the town, and was walking in his satin mantle, twirling his glove in his hand, and humming the burden of a song, when he was set on by ten or twelve of the adherents of his enemy, stabbed, and beaten long after he lay dead on the pavement, and was then left motion- less and uncared-for under the shade of the high house- walls of the Yieille Bue du Temple. Public conscience was not very acute at that time; and, although no man for a moment doubted the hand that had guided the blow, the Duke of Burgundy was allowed to attend the funeral of his murdered cousin, and to hold the pall in the procession, and to weep JEAN SANS-PEUR. 368 louder than any as the coffin was lowered into the vault But the common feelings of humanity were roused at last. People remembered the handsome, kindly, merry- hearted Orleans thus suddenly struck low, and the ominous looks of the Parisians warned the powerful Burgundy that it was time to take his hypocrisy and his tears out of the sight of honest men. He slipped out of the city, and betook himself to his Flemish states. But the helm was now without a steersman; and, while all were looking for a guide out of the con- fusion into which the appalling incident had brought the realm, the guilty duke himself, armed cap-d-pie, and surrounded by a body-guard which silenced all opposi- tion, made his solemn entry into the town, and fixed on the door of his hotel the emblematic ornament of two spears, one sharp at the point as if for immediate battle, and one blunted and guarded as if for a friendly joust. Eloquence is never long absent when power is in want of an oration. A great meeting was held, in which, by many brilliant arguments and incontrovertible examples from holy writ and other histories, John Petit proved, to the entire satisfaction of everybody who did not wish to be slaughtered on the spot, that the doing to death of the Duke of Orleans was a good deed, and that the doer was entitled to the thanks of a grateful country. The thanks were accordingly given, and the murderer was at the height of his ambition. As a warning to the worthy citizens of what they had to expect if they rebelled against his authority, he took the opportunity of hurrying northward to his states, where the men of Liege were in revolt, and, having broken their ill-formed squares, committed such slaughter upon them as only the madness of fear and hatred could have suggested. Dripping with the blood of twenty-four thousand arti- sans, he returned to Paris, where the citizens were 364 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. hushed into silence, and perhaps admiration, by the terrors of his appearance. They called him John tlie Fearless, — a noble title, most inadequately acquired; but, in spite of their flattery and their submission, he did not feel secure without the presence of his faithful subjects. He therefore summoned his Flemings and Burgundians to share his triumphs, and a loose was given to all their desires. They pillaged, burned, and destroyed as if in an enemy's country, encamping out- side the walls, and giving evident indications of an in- tention to force their way into the streets. But the sight of gore, though terrifying at first, sets the tamest of animals wild. The Parisians smelt the bloody odour and made ready for the fray. The formidable incorpo- ration of the Butchers rose knife in hand, and at the command of their governor prepared to preserve the peace of the city. Burgundians and Orleanists were equally to be feared, and by a curious coincidence both those parties were at the gate ; for the Count of Arma- gnac, father-in-law of the orphan Duke of Orleans, had assumed the leadership of the party, and had come up to Paris at the head of his infuriated Grascons and the men of Languedoc. North and South were again ranged in hostile ranks, and inside the walls there was a reign of terror and an amount of misery never equalled till that second reign of terror which is still the darkest spot in the memory of old men yet alive. I\o man could put faith in his neighbour. The murder of the Duke of Orleans had dissolved all confidence in the word of princes. One half of France was ready to draw against the other. Each half was anxious for support, from whatever quarter it came, and to gain the destruction of their rivals would sacrifice the interests of the nation. But the same spirit of disunion and extirpation of FIRST LAW AGAINST HERETICS. 365 ancient landmarks was at work in England. The acces- sion of Henry the Fourth was not effected without the opposition of the adherents of the former king and of the supporters, on general principles, of the legitimate line. There were treasons, and plots, and pitiless exe- cutions. The feudal chiefs were no longer the compact body which could give laws both to King and Parlia- ment, but ranged themselves in opposite camps and waited for the spoils of the vanquished side. The clergy unanimously came to the aid of the usurper on his faithful promise to exempt them from taxation; and, by thus throwing their own proportion of the public burdens on the body of the people, they sundered the alliance which had always hitherto subsisted between the Church and the lower class. Another bribe was held out to the clerical order for its support to the ,,„^ unlineal crown by the surrender to their ven- A.D. 1401. "^ geance of any heretics they could discover. In the second year of this reign, accordingly, we find a law enabling the priests to burn, ^^on some high and con- spicuous piece of ground," any who dissented from their faith. This is the first legal sanction in England to the logic of flame and fagot. How dreadfully this permis- sion was used, we shall see ere many years elapse. In the mean time, it is worth while to remark that in pro- portion as the Church lost in popularity and affection it gained in legal privilege. "While it was strong it did not need to be cruel; and if it had continued its care of the poor and helpless, it would have been able to leave Wickliff to his dissertations on its doctrinal errors un- disturbed. A Church which is found to be nationally beneficial, and which endears itself to its adherents by the practical graces of Christianity, will never be over- thrown, or even weakened, by any theoretical defects in its creeds or formularies. It was perhaps, therefore, a 366 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. fortunate circumstance that the Church of Eome had departed as much by this time from the path of honesty and usefulness as from the simplicity of gospel truth. The Bible might have been looked at in vain, even in iWickliff's translation, if its meanings had not been rendered plain by the lives and principles of the clergy. Henry the Fifth, feeling the same necessity of clerical support which had thrown his father into the hands of the Church, left nothing untried to attach it to his cause. All the opposition which had been offered to its claims had hitherto been confined to men of low rank, and generally to members of its own body. "Wickliff him- self had been but a country vicar, and had been un- noticed and despised in his small parsonage at Lutter- worth. But three-and-twenty years after he was dead, his name was celebrated far and wide as the enemy of constituted authority and a heretic of the most dan- gerous kind. His guilt consisted in nothing whatever but in having translated the Bible into English; but the fact of his having done so was patent to all. "No wit- nesses were required. The bones of the old man were dug up from their resting-place in the quiet ^churchyard in Leicestershire, carried ignominiously to Oxford, and burned amid the howls and acclamations of an infuriated mob of priests and doctors. This was in 1409. But, in his character of heretic and unbeliever, Wickliff had high associates in this same year; for the General Council sitting at Pisa declared the two Popes — of Avignon and Eome — ^who still continued to divide the Christian world, to be "heretics, perjurers, and schisma- tics." Europe, indeed, was ripe for change in almost all the relations both of Church and State. There would seem no close connection between Bohemia and England ; yet in a very short time the doctrines of Wickliff penetrated LORD COBHAM BURNT. 367 to Prague. There Huss and Jerome preached against the enormities and contradictions of the Eomish system, and bitterly paid for their presumption in the fires of Constance before many years had passed. But in England the effects of the new revelation of the hidden gospel had been stronger than even at Prague. Public opinion, however, divided itself into two very different channels ; and while the whole nation listened with open ear to the denunciations rising everywhere against the corruption, pride, and sensuality of the priesthood, it rushed at the same time into the wildest excesses of cruelty against the opponents of any of the doctrinal errors or superstitious beliefs in which it had been brought up. In the same year in which several persons were burnt in Smithfield as supporters of "Wickliff and the Bible, the Parliament sent up addresses to the Crown, advising the king to seize the temporalities of the Church, and to apply the riches wasted on luxurious monks and nuns to the payment of his soldiers. Henry the Fifth adroitly availed himself of the double direction in which the popular feeling ran. He gained over the priesthood by exterminating the opponents of their ceremonies and faith, and rewarded himself by occasion- ally confiscating the revenues of a dozen or two of the more notorious monasteries. In 1417 a heavier sacrifice was demanded of him than his mere presence at the burning of a plebeian heretic like John Badby, whose execution he had attended at Smithfield in 1410. He was required to give up into the hands of the Church the great and noble Oldcastle, Lord Cobham. The Church, as if to mark its triumph, did not examine the accused on any point connected with civil or political affairs. It questioned him solely on his religious beliefs; and as it found him unconvinced of the necessity of con- fession to a priest, of pilgrimages to the shrines of saints. 368 FIFTEENTH CENTUKY. of the worship of images, and of the doctrine of transub stantiation, it delivered him over to the secular arm, and the stout old soldier was taken to St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, and suspended, by an iron chain round his body, above a fire, to die by the slowest and most painful of deaths. But, in this yielding up of a nobleman to the vengeance of the priesthood, Henry had a double motive : he terri- fied the proudest of the barons, and attached to himself the other bodies in the State. The people were still profoundly ignorant, and looked on the innovators as the enemies both of God and man. And nothing but this can account for the astonishing spectacle presented by Europe at this date. The Church torn by contending factions — three Popes at one time — and council arrayed against council; every nation disgusted with its own priesthood, and enthusiasm bursting out in the general confusion into the wildest excesses of fanaticism and vice, — and yet a total incapacity in any country of de- vising means of amendment. Great efforts were made, by wise and holy men within the Church itself, to shake off the impediments to its development and increase. Eeclamations were made, more in sorrow than in anger, against the universal depravation of morals "^and beliefs. The Popes were not unmoved with these complaints, and gave credence to the forebodings of evil which rose from every heart. Yet the network of custom, the )j authority of tradition, and the unchangeableness of Eoman policy marred every effort at self-reformation. An opening was apparently made for the introduction of improvement, by the declaration of the supremacy of general councils, and the cessation of the great schism ,,„„ of the West on the nomination of Martin the A.D. 1429. Fifth to the undisputed chair. Eut the force of circumstances was irresistible. Cardinals who approved of the declaration while members of the council repu- BORGIA. 369 diated its acts when, by good fortune, they succeeded, to the tiara ; and one of them even ventured the astound- ing statement that in his character of ^Eneas Sylvius, and approver of the decree of Basle, he was guilty of damnable sin, but was possessed of immaculate virtue in the character of Paul the Second. It was obvious that this unnatural state of things could not last. An es- tablishment conscious of its defects, but unable to throw them off, and finally forced to the awful necessity of de- fending them by the foulest and most unpardonable means, might have read the inevitable result in every page of history. But worse remained behind. There sat upon the chair of St. Peter, in the year 1492, the most depraved and wicked of mankind. ISTo earthly ruler had equalled him in profligacy and the coarser vices of cruelty and oppression since the death of the Eoman Nero. This was a man of the name of Borgia, who fixed his infamous mark on the annals of the Papacy as Alexander the Sixth. "While this bloodthirsty ruffian was at the summit of sacerdotal power — this poisoner of his friends, this polluter of his family circle with unimaginable crimes — as the visible representative upon earth of the Church of Christ, what hope could there be of amendment in the lower orders of the clergy, or continuance of men's belief in the popish claims? Long before this, in 1442, the falsehood of the pretended donation of Constantine, on which the Popes founded their territorial rights, was triumphantly proved by the learned Yalla ; and at the end of the century the reve- rence of mankind for the successor of the Prince of the Apostles was exposed to a trial which the authenticity of all the documents in the world could not have suc- cessfully stood, in the personal conduct of the Pope and his familiars. While this was the general state of Europe in the 370 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. fifteenth century as regards the position of the clergy, high and low, the Church, in all countries, threw itself on the protection of the kings. By the middle, or towards the end, of this period, there was no other patronage to which they could have recourse. The nobility in France and England were practically eradi- cated. All confidence between baron and baron was at an end, and all belief in knightly faith and honour in the other classes of the people. As if the time for a new state of society was arrived, and instruments were re- quired to clear the way for the approaching form, the nobility and gentry of England first were effectual in overthrowing their noble brethren in France, and then, with infuriate bitterness, turned their swords upon each other. The most rememberable general characteristic of this century is the consolidation of royal power. The king becomes despotic because the great nobility is overthrown and the Church stripped of its authority. Tired of hoping for aid from their ancient protector, the lowest classes cast their eyes of helplessness to the throne instead of to the crozier. They see in the reign- ing sovereign an ideal of personified Power.^ All other ideals with which the masses of the people have deluded themselves have passed away. The Church is stripped of the charm which its lofty claims and former kindness gave it. It is detected for the thing it is, — a corpora- Jition for the grinding of the poor and the support of ' tyranny and wrong. The nobility is stripped also of the glitter which covered its harsh outlines with the glow of Christian qualifications. It is found to be selfish, faithless, untrustworthy, and divided against itself. To the king, then, as the last refuge of the unfortunate, as the embodied State, a combination, in his own person, of the manly virtues of the knight with the Christian tenderness of the priest, the public transfers all the SUDDEN ENLIGHTENMENT. 371 romantic confidence it had lavished on the other two. And^ as if to prove that this idea came to its complete- ness without reference to the actual holder of sovereign authority, we find that in France the first really despotic king was Louis the Eleventh, and in England the first king by divine right was Henry the Seventh. Two more unchivalrous personages never disgraced the three- legged stool of a scrivener. Yet they sat almost simul- taneously on two of earth's proudest thrones. 'No century had ever witnessed so great a change in manners and position as this. In others we havo seen a gradual widening-out of thought and tendencies, all, however, subdued by the universal shadow in which every thing was carried on. But in this the progress was by a sudden leap from darkness into light. In ancient times Europe was held together by certain communities of interest and feeling, of which the chief undoubtedly was the centralization of the spiritual power in Eome. At the Papal Court all the nations were represented, and Stockholm and Saragossa were brought into contact by their common dependence on the successor of St. Peter. The courtly festivals which invited a knight of Scotland to cross blunted spears in a glittering tournament with a knight of Sicily in the court of an emperor of G-ermany was another bond of union betAveen remotest regions; and in the fourteenth century the indefatigable Froissart, as we remarked, conveyed a knowledge of one nation to another in the entertaining chapters with which he delighted the listeners in the different palaces where he set up his rest. But all these lights, it will be observed, illumined only the hill-tops, and left the valleys still obscure. Ambitious Churchmen encountered their brethren of all kindreds and tongues in the court of the Yatican ; tilt- ings were only for the high-born and rich, and Froissart 372 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. himself poured forth his treasures only for the delight of lords and ladies. The ballads of the common people, on the other hand, had had a strongly disuniting effect. The songs which charmed the peasant were directed against the exacting priest and oppressive noble. In England they were generally pointed against the Nor- man baron, with whose harshness and pride were con- trasted the kindness and liberality of Eobin Hood and his peers. The French ballads were hostile to the English invader ; the Scottish poems were commemora- tive of the heroism of Wallace and the cruelties of the Southern hordes. Literatures were thus condemned to be hostile, because they were not lofty enough to over- , look the boundaries of the narrow circles in which they 4l' moved. Ey slow and toilsome process books were mul- tiplied, — carefully copied in legible hand, and then chained up, like inestimable jewels, in monastery or palace, as too valuable to be left at large. A king's library was talked of as a wonder when it contained six or seven hundred volumes. The writings of contro- versialists were passed from hand to hand, and the pub- lication of a volume was generally achieved by its being ., read aloud at the refectory-table of the college and then ^ discussed, in angry disputations, in the University Hall. Not one man in five hundred could read, if the book had been written in the plainest text; and at length the running hand was so indistinct as to be not much plainer than hieroglyphics. The discoveries, therefore, of one age had all to be discovered over again in the next. Eoger Bacon, the English monk, in the eleventh cen- tury, was acquainted with gunpowder, and had clear in- timations of many of the other inventions of more recent times. But what was the use of all his genius ? He could only write down his triumph in a book ; the book vas carefully arranged on the shelf of his monastery; DISCOVERY OF PRINTING. 373 clever men of his own society may have carried the report of his doings to the neighbouring establishments ; but time passed on, those clever men died out, the book on the monastery-shelf was gradually covered with dust, and Eoger Bacon became a conjurer in popular estima- tion, who foretold future events and took counsel from a supernatural brazen head. But in this century the art of printing was discovered and perfected. A thou- sand copies now darted off in all directions, cheap enough to be bought by the classes below the highest, portable enough to be carried about the person to the most distant lands, and in a type so large and clear that a very little instruction would enable the most illiterate to master its contents. Here was the lever that lifted the century at its first appearance into the light of modern civilization. And it came at the very nick of time. Men's minds were disturbed on many subjects; for old unreasoning obedience to authority had passed away. Who was to guide them in their future voyage ? Isolated works would no longer be of any use. Great scholars and acute dialecticians had been tried and found wanting. They only acted on the highly-educated class ; and now it was the people in mass — the worker, the shopkeeper, the farmer, the merchant — who were anxious to be informed ; and what could a monk in a cell, or even Chaucer with his harp in hand, do for the edification of such a countless host ? People would no longer be fed on the dry crust of Aristotelianism or be satisfied with the intellectual jugglery of the Schoolmen. Eome had lost its guiding hand, and its restraining sword was also found of no avail. Some rest was to be found for the minds which had felt the old foundation slip away from them ; and in this century, thus pining for light, thus thrusting forward eager hands to be warmed 374 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. at the first ray of a new-risen sun, there were terrible displays of the aberrations of zeal without knowledge. Almost within hearing of the first motion of the press, incalculable numbers of enthusiasts revived the exploded sect of the Flagellants of former centuries, and peram- bulated Europe, plying the whip upon their naked backs and declaring that the whole of religion consisted in the use of the scourge. Others, more crazy still, pronounced the use of clothes to be evidence of an unconverted nature, and returned to the nakedness of our first parents as proof of their restoration to a state of inno- cence. Mortality lost all its terrors in this earnest search for something more than the ordinary ministra- tions of the faith could bestow; and in France and England the hideous spectacles called the Dance of Death were frequent. In these, under the banner of a grinning skeleton, the population danced with frantic violence, shouting, shrieking, in the exultation of the time, — a scene where the joyous appearance of the oc- cupation contrasted shockingly with the awful place in which the orgies were held, for the catacombs of Paris, filled with the bones and carcasses of many generations, were the chosen site for these frightful exhibitions. Like the unnatural gayety that reigned in the same city when the guillotine had filled every family with terror or grief, they were but an abnormal development of the sentiment of despair. People danced the Dance of Death, because life had lost its charm. Life had lost its security in the two most powerful nations of the time. England was shaken with contending factions, and France exhausted and hopeless of restoration. The peasantry in both were trampled on without re- * morse. Jack Cade led up his famishing thou- sands to lay their sufferings before the throne. They asked for nothing but a slight relaxation of th6 burdens UNSETTLED STATE OF EUROPE. 376 that oppressed them, and were condemned without mercy to the sword and gallows. The French " Jacques Boiihomme'' was even in a worse condition. There was no controlling power on the throne to guard him from the tyrannies of a hundred petty superiors. The Church of his country was as much conquered by the Church of England as its soil by the English arms. A cardinal, bloated and bloody, dominated both London and Paris, and sent his commands from the Palace at Winchester, which were obeyed by both nations. And all this on the very eve of the introduction of the per- ^'^' ' fected printing-press, the birth of Luther, and * i4.q2' ^^® discovery of America ! From the beginning * of the century till government became assured by the accession of Henry YII. and Louis XL, the whole of Europe was unsettled and apparently on the verge of dissolution. In the absence of the controlling power of the Sovereign, each little baron asserted his own right and privileges, and aimed perhaps at the restora- tion of his feudal independence, when the spirit of feu- dalism had passed away. The nobility, even if it had been united, was not now numerous enough to present a ruling body to the State. It became despised as soon as it was seen to be powerless ; and at last, in sheer ex- haustion, the people, the churches, and the peerage of the two proudest nations in the world lay down help- less and unresisting at the footstool of the only authority likely to protect them from each other or themselves. When we think of the fifteenth century, let us remember it as the period when mankind grew tired of the esta- blishments of all former ages, when feudalism resigned its sword into the hands of monarchy, and when the last days of the expiring state of society were distin- guished by the withdrawal of the death-grasp by France and England from each other's throats, and the esta- 376 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. blishment of respectful if not friendly sentiments be- tween them. By the year 1451, there was not one of all the conquests of the Edwards and Henrys left to the English except Calais. If that miserable relic had also been restored, it would have prevented many a heart- burning between the nations, and advanced, perhaps by centuries, the happy time when each can look across the narrow channel which divides them without a wish save for the glory and prosperity of the other. It is like going back to the time of the Crusades to turn our eyes from the end of this century to the beginning, so great and essential is the change that has taken place. Yet it is necessary, having given the general view of the condition of affairs, to descend to certain particulars by which the progress of the history may be more vividly defined. And of these the princi- pal are the battle of Agincourt, the relief of Orleans, the invention of Guttenberg, and the achievement of Columbus. These are fixed on, not for their own in- trinsic merits, but for the great results they produced, Agincourt unfeudalized France ; Joan of Arc restored man's faith in human virtue and divine superintepdence; printing preserved forever the conquests of the human intellect; and the discovery of America opened a new world to the energies of mankind. We must return to the state of France when the Duke of Orleans was so treacherously slain by the ferocious Duke of Burgundy in 1407. For a time the crime was successful in establishing the murderer's power, and the Burgundiaus were strengthened by obtaining the custody of the imbecile king, Charles the Sixth, and the support of his infamous consort, Isabeau of Bavaria. But author- ity so obtained could not be kept without plunging into greater excesses. So the populace were let loose, and no man's life was safe. In self-defence — burning with CONDITION OF FRANCE. 377 hatred of the slayer of his son-in-law and betrayer of his country — the Count of Armagnac denounced the dominant party. Burgundy threw himself into ' the arms of England, and was only outbidden in his offers of submission by the Armagnacs in the fol- lowing year. Each party in turn promised to support the English king in all his claims, and before he set foot in France he already found himself in possession of the kingdom. Many strong places in the South were surrendered to him as pledges of the fidelity of his supporters. The whole land was the prey of faction and party hate. The Church had repudiated both Pope and Council; the towns were in insurrection in every street ; and Henry the Fifth was only twenty- six years of age, full of courage and ambition, supported by the love and gratitude of the national Church, and anxious to glorify the usurpation of his family by a re- storation of the triumphs of Cressy and Poictiers. He therefore sent an embassy to France, demanding his re- cognition by all the States as king, though he modestly waived the royal title till its present holder should be no more. He declared also that he would not be content without the hand of Catharine, the French king's daugh- ter, with ITormandy and other counties for her dowry; and when these reasonable conditions, as he had antici- pated, were rejected, and all his preparations were completed, he threw off the mask of negotiation, and sailed from Southampton with an army of six thousand men-at-arms and twenty-four thousand archers. A beautiful sight it must have been that day in Septem« ber, 1415, when the enormous convoy sailed or rowed down the placid Southampton water. Sails of various colours, and streamers waving from every mast, must have given it the appearance of an immense regatta; and while all France was on the watch for the point of 378 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. attack, and Calais was universally regarded as the natural landing-place for an English army, the great flotilla pursued its course past the Isle of Wight, and struck out for the opposite coast, filling up the mouth of the Seine with innumerable vessels, and casting anchor off the town of Harfleur. Prayers for its suc- cess ascended from every parish in England; for the clergy looked on the youthful king as their champion against all their enemies, — against the Pope, who claimed their tithes, against the itinerant monks, who denied and resisted their authority, and against the nobles, who envied them their wealth and territories. And no wonder; for at this time the ecclesiastical possessions included more than the half of England. Of fifty-three thousand knightly holdings on the national register, twenty-eight thousand belonged to mother Church ! Prayers also for its success were uttered in the work- shops and markets. People were tired of the long in- action of Eichard the Second's time, and longed for the stirring incidents they had heard their fathers speak of when the Black Prince was making the " Mounseers'^ fly. For by this time a stout feeling of mutual hatred had given vigour to the quarrel between the nations. Parliament had voted unexampled supplies, and " all the youth of England was afire." Meantime the siege of Harfleur dragged its slow length along. Succours were expected by the gallant garrison, but succour never came. Proclamations had indeed been issued, summoning the ban and arriere ban of France, and knights were assembling from all quar- ters to take part in the unavoidable engagement. But the counsels at head-quarters were divided. The masses of the people were not hearty in the cause, and the men of Harfleur, at the end of the fifth week of their resistance, sent to say they would surrender " if they CAPTURE OF HARFLEIJR. 379 were not relieved hy a great army in two days." " Take four/' said Henry, wishing nothing more than a decisive action under the very walls. But the time rapidly passed, and Harfleur was once more an English town. Henry might look round and triumph in the possession of streets and houses; but that was all, for his usual barbarity had banished the inhabitants. The richer citizens were put to ransom; all the rest were driven from the place, — not quite naked, nor quite penniless, for one petticoat was left to each woman, and one farthing in ready money. Generosity to the vulgar vanquished was not yet understood, either as a Chris- tian duty or a stroke of policy. But courage, not un- mixed with braggadocio, was still the character of the time. The English had lost many men from sickness during the siege. I^o blow had been boldly struck in open field, and a war without a battle, however success- ful in its results, would have been thought no better than a tournament. All the remaining chivalry of France was now collected under its chiefs and princes, and Henry determined to try what mettle they were of. He published a proclamation that he and his English would march across the country from Harfleur to Calais in spite of all opposition ; and, as the expedition would occupy eight days at least, he felt sure that some attempt would be made to revenge so cutting an insult. He might easily have sent his forces, in detachments, by sea, for there was not a French flag upon all the Channel; but trumpets were sounded one day, swords drawn, cheers no doubt heartily uttered, by an enthusiastic array of fifteen thousand men, and the dangerous march began. It was the month of October, the time of the vintage : there was plenty of wine ; and a French author makes the characteristic remark, " with plenty of wine the English soldier could go to the end of the world.'' 380 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. When the English soldier, on this occasion, had got through the eight days' provisions with which he started, instead of finding himself at Calais, he was only ad- vanced as far as Amiens, with the worst part of the journey before him. The fords of the Somme were said to be guarded ; spies came over in the disguise of deserters, and told the king that all the land was up in arms, that the princes were all united, and that two hundred thousand men were hemming them hopelessly round. In the midst of these bad news, however, a ray of light broke in. A villager pointed out a marsh, by crossing which they could reach a ford in the stream. They traversed the marsh without hesitation, waded with difficulty through morass and water, and, behold ! they were safe on the other side. The road was now clear, they thought, for Calais; and they pushed cheerily on. But, more dangerous than the marsh, more im- passable than the river, the vast army of France blocked up their way. Closing across a narrow valley which lay between the castle of Agincourt and the village of Tramecourt, sixty thousand knights, gentlemen, and men-at-arms stood like a wall of steel. Thqre were all the great names there of all the provinces, — Dukes of Lorraine, and Bar, and Bourbon, Princes of Orleans and Berri, and many more. Henry by this time had but twelve thousand men. He found he had miscalcu- lated his movements, and was unwilling to sacrifice his army to the point of honour. He offered to resign the title of King of France and to surrender his recent conquest at Harfleur. But the princes were resolved not to nego- tiate, but to revenge. Henry then said to the prisoners he was leading in his train, "Gentlemen, go till this affair is settled. If your captors survive, present your- selves at Calais." His forces were soon arranged. Archers had ceased to be the mere appendages to a line AGINCOURT. 381 of battle : they now constituted almost all the English army. All the night before they had been busy in pre- paration. They had furbished up their arms, and put new cords to their bows, and sharpened the stakes they carried to ward off the attack of cavalry. At early dawn they had confessed to the priest; and all the time no noise had been heard. Henry had ordered silence throughout the camp on pain of the severest penalties, — loss of his horse to a gentleman, and of his right ear to a common soldier. The 23d of Oc- tober was the great, the important day. Henry put a noble helmet on his head, surmounted by a golden crown, sprang on his little gray hackney, encouraged his men with a few manly words, reminding them of Old England and how constantly they had conquered the French, and led them to a field where the grass was still green, and which the rains had not converted into mud ; for the weather had long been unpropitious. And here the heroic little army expected the attack. But the enemy were in no condition to make an ad- vance. Seated all night on their enormous war-horses, the heavy-armed cavaliers had sunk the unfortunate animals up to their knees in the adhesive soil. Old Thomas of Erpingham, seeing the decisive moment, completed the marshalling of the English as soon as possible, and, throwing his baton in the air, cried, "iN'ow, Strike !" A great hurrah was the answer to this order; but still the French line continued unmoved. If it had been turned into stone it could not have been more inactive. Eanged thirty-two deep, and fixed to the spot they stood on, buried up in armour, and crowded in the narrow space, the knights could offer no resistance to the attack of their nimble and lightly- armed foes. A flight of ten thousand arrows poured upon the vast mass, and saddles became empty with- S82 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. out a blow. There came, indeed, two great charges of horse from the flank of the French array ; but the in« evitable shaft found entrance through their coats of mail, and very few survived. Of these the greater part rushed, blind and wounded, back among their own men, crashing upon the still spell-bound line and throwing it into inextricable confusion. Horse and man rolled over in the dirt, struggling and shrieking in an undistinguishable mass. Meanwhile the archers, throw- ing aside their stakes and seizing the hatchets hanging round their necks, advanced at a run, — ^poured blows without cessation on casque and shield, completing the destruction among the crowded multitudes which their own disorder had begun ; and, as the same cause which hindered their advance prevented their retreat, they sat the hopeless victims of a false position, and were slaughtered without an attempt made to resist or fly. The fate of the second line was nearly the same. Henry, forcing his wa5y with sword and axe through the living barrier of horse and cavalier, led his compact array to the glittering body beyond. There the melee became more animated, and prowess was shown |ipon either side. But the rear-guard, warned by previous expe- rience, took flight before the middle lines were pierced, and Henry saw himself victor with very trifling loss, and only encumbered with the number of the slain, and still more with the multitude of prisoners. Almost all the surviving noblemen had surrendered their swords. They knew too well the fate of wounded or disarmed gentlemen even among their countrymen, and trusted rather to the generosity of the conqueror than the mercy of their own people. Alas that we must again confess that Henry was ignorant of the name of gene- rosity ! Alarmed for a moment at the threatening as- pect of some of the fugitives who had resumed their SLAUGHTER OF THE FRENCH NOBILITY. 383 ranks, he gave the pitiless word that every prisoner was to be slain. I^ot a soldier would lift his hand against his captive, — from the double motive of tenderness and cupidity. To tell an "archer good" to murder a great baron, the captive of his bow and spear, was to tell him to resign a ransom which would make him rich for life. But Henry was not to be balked. He appointed two hundred men to be executioners of his command; and thousands of the young and gay were slaughtered in cold blood. Was it hideous policy which thus led Henry to weaken his enemy's cause by diminishing the number of its knightly defenders, or was it really the result of the fear of being overcome ? "Whichever it was, the effect was the same. Ten thousand of the gentlemen of France were the sufferers on that day, — a whole gene- ration of the rich and high-born swept away at one blow ! It would have taken a long time in the course of nature to supply their place; but nature was not allowed to have her way. Wars and dissensions inter- fered with her restorative efforts. Six-and-thirty years were yet to be spent in mutual destruction, or in strug- gles against the English name; and when France was again left free from foreign occupation, when French chivalry again wished to assume the chief rule in human affairs, it was found that chivalry was out of place ; a new state of things had arisen in Europe ; the greatest exploit which had been known in their national annals had been performed by a woman ; and knighthood had so lost its manliness that, when prosperity and popula- tion had again made France a powerful kingdom, the silk-clad courtiers of an unwarlike monarch thought it good taste to sneer at the relief of Orleans and the mission of Joan of Arc ! Six years after Agincourt, the English conqueror and the wretched phantom of kingship called Charles the 384 FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Sixth descended to their graves. Military honour and patriotism seemed utterly at an end among the French population, and our Henry the Sixth, the son of the man of Agincourt, succeeded in the great object of English ambition and was recognised from the Channel to the Loire as King of France. In the Southern provinces a spark of the old French gallantry was still unextinguished, but it showed itself in the gay unconcern with which the Dauphin, now Charles the Seventh, bore all the reverses of fortune, and cod soled himself for the loss of the noblest crown in Europe by the enjoyments of love and festivity. Perhaps he saw that the whirligig of time would bring about its re- venges, and that the curse of envious faction would vex the councils of the conquerors as it had ruined the fortunes of the subdued. The warriors of Henry still remained, but, without the controlling hand, they could direct their efforts to no common object. The uncles of the youthful king speedily quarrelled. The gallant Bedford was opposed by the treacherous Glo'ster, and both were dominated and supplanted by the haughty prelate, the Cardinal Bishop of Winchester. Offence was soon taken at the presumption of the English soldiery. Eeligious animosities supervened. The Churches of England and France had both made successful endeavours to establish a considerable amount of national indepen- dence, and the French bishops, who had withdrawn themselves from the absolutism of Eome, were little in- clined to become subordinate to -"Winchester and Canter- bury. A court gradually gathered round the Dauphin, which inspired him with more manly thoughts. His feasts and tournaments were suspended, and, with his hand on the hilt of his sword, he watched the proceed- ings of the English. These proceedings were uniformly successful when restricted to the operations of war. SIEGE OE ORLEANS. 385 They defeated the men of Gascony and the reinforce- ments sent over by the Scotch. They held a firm grasp of Paris and all the strong places of the !N"orth, and cast down the gauntlet to the rest of France by laying 1 ,c.c sie^e to the beautiful city of Orleans in the A.D. 1428. ° "^ winter of 1428. Once in possession of the Loire, they would be able at their leisure to extend their con- quests southward; and all the loyal throughout the country took up the challenge and resolved on the defence of the beleaguered town. The English must have begun by this time to despise their enemy ; for, in spite of the greatness of the stake, they undertook the siege with a force of less than three thousand men. To make up for the deficiency in numbers, they raised twelve large bastions all round the walls, exhausting the troops by the labour and finding it impossible to garrison them adequately when they were finished. It seems that Sebastopol was not the first occasion on which our soldiers were overworked. To surround a city of several thousand inhabitants, strongly garrisoned, and with an open country at its back for the supply of provisions, would have required a large and well-directed force. But the moral effects of Agincourt, and even of Cressy and Poictiers, were not yet obliterated. Public spirit was dead, and very few entertained a hope of saving the doomed place. Statesmen, politicians, and warriors, all calculated the chances of success and decided against the cause of France. But in the true heart of the common people far better feelings survived. They were neither statesmen, nor politicians, nor warriors; but / they were loyal and devoted Frenchmen, and put their ■^ trust in God. A peasant-girl, eighteen years of age, born and bred in a little village called Domremy, in Lorraine, was famous for her religious faith and simplicity of charac- 17