Part 218

"Three hundred and twenty-four years had passed since the last Cæsar of the West resigned his power into the hands of the senate, and left to his Eastern brother the sole headship of the Roman world. To the latter Italy had from that time been nominally subject; but it was only during one brief interval, between the death of Totila the last Ostrogothic king and the descent of Alboin the first Lombard, that his power had been really effective. In the further provinces, Gaul, Spain, Britain, it was only a memory. But the idea of a Roman Empire as a necessary part of the world's order had not vanished: it had been admitted by those who seemed to be destroying it; it had been cherished by the Church; was still recalled by laws and customs; was dear to the subject populations, who fondly looked back to the days when slavery was at least mitigated by peace and order. ... Both the extinction of the Western Empire in [A.D. 476] ... and its revival in A. D. 800 have been very generally misunderstood in modern times. ... When Odoacer compelled the abdication of Romulus Augustulus, he did not abolish the Western Empire as a separate power, but caused it to be reunited with or sink into the Eastern, so that from that time there was, as there had been before Diocletian, a single undivided Roman Empire. In A. D. 800 the very memory of the separate Western Empire, as it had stood from the death of Theodosius till Odoacer, had, so far as appears, been long since lost, and neither Leo nor Charles nor anyone among their advisers dreamt of reviving it. They, too, like their predecessors, held the Roman Empire to be one and indivisible, and proposed by the coronation of the Frankish king, not to proclaim a severance of the East and West, but to reverse the act of Constantine, and make Old Rome again the civil as well as the ecclesiastical capital of the Empire that bore her name. ... Although therefore we must in practice speak during the next seven centuries (down till A. D. 1453, when Constantinople fell before the Mohammedan) of an Eastern and a Western Empire, the phrase is in strictness incorrect, and was one which either court ought to have repudiated. The Byzantines always did repudiate it; the Latins usually; although, yielding to facts, they sometimes condescended to employ it themselves. But their theory was always the same. Charles was held to be the legitimate successor, not of Romulus Augustulus, but of Basil, Heraclius, Justinian, Arcadius, and all the Eastern line. ... North Italy and Rome ceased for ever to own the supremacy of Byzantium; and while the Eastern princes paid a shameful tribute to the Mussulman, the Frankish Emperor--as the recognised head of Christendom--received from the patriarch of Jerusalem the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and the banner of Calvary; the gift of the Sepulchre itself, says Eginhard, from Aaron king of the Persians [the Caliph Haroun el Rashid]. ... Four centuries later, when Papacy and Empire had been forced into the mortal struggle by which the fate of both was decided, three distinct theories regarding the coronation of Charles will be found advocated by three different parties, all of them plausible, all of them to some extent misleading. The Swabian Emperors held the crown to have been won by their great predecessor as the prize of conquest, and drew the conclusion that the citizens and bishop of Rome had no rights as against themselves. The patriotic party among the Romans, appealing to the early history of the Empire, declared that by nothing but the voice of their senate and people could an Emperor be lawfully created, he being only their chief magistrate, the temporary depositary of their authority. The Popes pointed to the indisputable fact that Leo imposed the crown, and argued that as God's earthly vicar it was then his, and must always continue to be their right to give to whomsoever they would an office which was created to be the handmaid of their own. Of these three it was the last view that eventually prevailed."

_J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 4-5._

ALSO IN: _J. I. Mombert, History of Charles the Great, chapter 14._

See, also, FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.

GERMANY: A. D. 805. Conquest of the Avars. Creation of the Austrian March.

See AVARS, and AUSTRIA: A. D. 805-1246.

GERMANY: A. D. 814-843. Division of the Empire of Charlemagne.

"There was a manifest conflict, during his later years, in the court, in the councils, in the mind of Charlemagne [who died in 814], between the King of the Franks and the Emperor of the West; between the dissociating, independent Teutonic principle, and the Roman principle of one code, one dominion, one sovereign. The Church, though Teutonic in descent, was Roman in the sentiment of unity. ... That unity had been threatened by the proclaimed division of the realm between the sons of Charlemagne. The old Teutonic usage of equal distribution seemed doomed to prevail over the august unity of the Roman Empire. What may appear more extraordinary, the kingdom of Italy was the inferior appanage: it carried not with it the Empire, which was still to retain a certain supremacy; that was reserved for the Teutonic sovereign. It might seem as if this were but the continuation of the Lombard kingdom, which Charlemagne still held by the right of conquest. It was bestowed on Pepin; after his death entrusted to Bernhard, Pepin's illegitimate but only son. Wiser counsels prevailed. The two elder sons of Charlemagne died without issue; Louis the third son was summoned from his kingdom of Aquitaine, and solemnly crowned [813] at Aix-la-Chapelle, as successor to the whole Empire."

_H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 5, chapter 2 (volume 2)._

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"Instead of being preoccupied with the care of keeping the empire united, Louis divided it in the year 817 by giving kingdoms to his three sons. The eldest, Lothaire, had Italy; Louis, Bavaria; Pepin, Aquitaine. A nephew of the emperor, Bernard, imagined himself wronged by this partition, and took up arms to hold Italy. Vanquished without striking a blow, he delivered himself up to his uncle, who caused his eyes to be put out. He expired under that torture. Louis reproached himself later for that cruel death, and to expiate it, subjected himself to a public penance. In 823, there was born to him a fourth son. To make him a sharer of his inheritance, the emperor, annulling in 829 the partition of 817, gave him Germany, thus depriving his elder sons of part of the inheritance previously assigned them. This provoked the resentment of those princes; they rose in rebellion against their father, and the rest of the reign of Louis was only a succession of impious contests with his turbulent sons. In 833, he deposed Pepin, and gave his kingdom of Aquitaine to his youngest born, Charles. Twice deposed himself, and twice restored, Louis only emerged from the cloister, for which he was so well fitted, to repeat the same faults. When Louis the Good-natured died in 840, it was not his cause only which he had lost through his weakness, but that of the empire. Those intestine quarrels presaged its dismemberment, which ere long happened. The sons of Louis, to serve their own ambition, had revived the national antipathies of the different races. Lothaire placed himself at the head of the Italians; Louis rallied the Germans round him, and Charles the Bald the Franks of Gaul, who were henceforward called Frenchmen. Those three peoples aspired to break up the union whose bond Charlemagne had imposed upon them, as the three brothers aspired to form each for himself a kingdom. The question was decided at the great battle of Fontanet, near Auxerre, in 841. Lothaire, who fought therein for the preservation of the empire and of his authority, was conquered. By the treaty of Verdun [843--see VERDUN, TREATY OF] it was decided that Louis should have Germany to the east of the Rhine; Charles, France to the west of the Scheld, the Meuse, the Saone, and the Rhone; finally, Lothaire, Italy, with the long range of country comprised between the Alps and the Cevennes, the Jura, the Saone, the Rhine, and the Meuse, which from his name was called Lotharingia. This designation is still to be traced in one of the recently French provinces, Lorraine."

_S. Menzies, History of Europe from the Decadence of the Western Empire to the Reformation, chapter. 13._

GERMANY: A. D. 843. Accession of Louis II.

GERMANY: A. D. 843-962. Treaty of Verdun. Definite separation from France. The kingdom of the East Franks.

The partition of the empire of Charlemagne among his three grandsons, by the Treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843, gave to Charles the Bald a kingdom which nearly coincided with France, as afterwards existing under that name, "before its Burgundian and German annexations.

See VERDUN, TREATY OF; also, FRANKS: A. D. 814-962.

It also founded a kingdom which roughly answered to the later Germany before its great extension to the East at the expense of the Slavonic nations. And as the Western kingdom was formed by the addition of Aquitaine to the Western Francia, so the Eastern kingdom was formed by the addition of the Eastern Francia to Bavaria. Lewis of Bavaria [surnamed 'the German'] became king of a kingdom which we are tempted to call the kingdom of Germany. Still it would as yet be premature to speak of France at all, or even to speak of Germany, except in the geographical sense. The two kingdoms are severally the kingdoms of the Eastern and of the Western Franks. ... The Kings had no special titles, and their dominions had no special names recognized in formal use. Every king who ruled over any part of the ancient Francia was a king of the Franks. ... The Eastern part of the Frankish dominions, the lot of Lewis the German and his successors, is thus called the Eastern Kingdom, the Teutonic Kingdom. Its king is the King of the East-Franks, sometimes simply the King of the Eastern men, sometimes the King of Germany. ... The title of King of Germany is often found in the ninth century as a description, but it was not a formal title. The Eastern king, like other kings, for the most part simply calls himself' Rex,' till the time came when his rank as King of Germany, or of the East-Franks, became simply a step towards the higher title of Emperor of the Romans. ... This Eastern or German kingdom, as it came out of the division of 887 [after the deposition of Charles III., called Charles the Fat,. who came to the throne in 881, and who had, momentarily reunited all the Frankish crowns, except that of Burgundy], had, from north to south,. nearly the same extent as the Germany of later times. It stretched from the Alps to the Eider. Its southern boundaries were somewhat fluctuating. Verona and Aquileia are sometimes counted as a German march, and the boundary between, Germany and Burgundy, crossing the modern Switzerland, often changed. To the north-east the kingdom hardly stretched beyond the Elbe, except in the small Saxon land between the Elbe and the Eider [called 'Saxony beyond the Elbe'--modern Holstein]. The great extension of the German power over the Slavonic lands beyond the Elbe had hardly yet begun. To the southeast lay the two border-lands or marks; the Eastern Mark, which grew into the later duchy of, Oesterreich or the modern Austria, and to the south of it the mark of Kärnthen or Carinthia. But the main part of the kingdom consisted of the great duchies of Saxony, Eastern Francia, Alemannia, and Bavaria. Of these the two names of Saxony and Bavaria must be carefully marked as having widely different meanings from those which they bear on the modern map. Ancient Saxony lies, speaking roughly, between the Eider, the Elbe, and the Rhine, though it never actually touches the last-named river. To the south of Saxony lies the Eastern Francia, the centre and kernel of the German kingdom. The Main and the Neckar both join the Rhine within its borders. To the south of Francia lie Alemannia and Bavaria. This last, it must be remembered, borders on Italy, with Bötzen for its frontier town. Alemannia is the land in which both the Rhine and the Danube take their source; it stretches on both sides of the Bodensee or Lake of Constanz, with the Rætian Alps as its southern boundary. For several ages to come, there is no distinction, national or even provincial, between the lands north and south of the Bodensee."

_E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, chapter 6, section 1._

ALSO IN: _Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and England, volumes 1-2._

On the indefiniteness of the name of the Germanic kingdom in this period,

See FRANCE: 9TH CENTURY.

GERMANY: A. D. 881. Accession of Charles III. (called The Fat), afterwards King of all the Franks and Emperor.

GERMANY: A. D. 888. Accession of Arnulf, afterwards Emperor.

GERMANY: A. D. 899. Accession of Louis III. (called The Child).

GERMANY: A. D. 911. Election of Conrad I.

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GERMANY: A. D. 911-936. Conrad the Franconian and Henry the Fowler. Beginning of the Saxon line. Hungarian invasion. The building of towns.

In 911, on the death of Louis, surnamed the Child, the German or East-Frank branch of the dynasty of Charlemagne had become extinct. "There remained indeed Charles the Simple, acknowledged as king in some parts of France, but rejected in others, and possessing no personal claims to respect. The Germans therefore wisely determined to chose a sovereign from among themselves. They were at this time divided into five nations, each under its own duke, and distinguished by difference of laws, as well as of origin; the Franks, whose territory, comprising Franconia and the modern Palatinate, was considered as the cradle of the empire, and who seem to have arrogated some superiority over the rest, the Suabians, the Bavarians, the Saxons ... and the Lorrainers, who occupied the left bank of the Rhine as far as its termination. The choice of these nations in their general assembly fell upon Conrad, duke of Franconia, according to some writers, or at least a man of high rank, and descended through females from Charlemagne. Conrad dying without male issue, the crown of Germany was bestowed [A. D. 919] upon Henry the Fowler, duke of Saxony, ancestor of the three Othos, who followed him in direct succession. To Henry, and to the first Otho [A. D. 936-973], Germany was more indebted than to any sovereign since Charlemagne."

_H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 5._

"In 924, the Hungarians, who were as much dreaded as the angel of destruction, re-appeared. They came from the grassy plains of Hungary, mounted on small and ugly, but strong horses, and swept along the Danube like a hailstorm. Wherever they came they set fire to farms, hamlets, and towns, and killed all living creatures or carried them off. And often they bound their prisoners to the tails of their horses, and dragged them along till they died from the dreadful torture. Their very figures inspired disgust and terror, for their faces were brown, and disfigured by scars to absolute hideousness; their heads were shaven, and brutal ferocity and rapacity shone out of their deep-set eyes. And though the Germans fought bravely, these enemies always overmatched them, because they appeared now here, now there, on their fleet horses, and fell upon isolated districts before they were expected or could be stopped. ... When on a sudden the terrible cry, 'The Hungarians are coming, the Hungarians are coming,' resounded through the land, all fled who could, as if the wild legions of hell were marching through Saxony and Thuringia. King Henry, however, would not fly, but encountered them in combat, like a true knight. Yet he lost the battle, either because he was ill, or because his soldiers were too few, and unaccustomed to the enemy's mode of fighting, which enabled them to conquer while they were fleeing. Henry was obliged to shut himself up in the royal palace of Werla, near Goslar, which he bravely defended. The Hungarians stormed it again and again, but they could not scale the walls; while Henry's men by a daring sally took a Hungarian chieftain prisoner, which so terrified the besiegers that they concluded a truce for nine years on condition that their chief should be released, and that Henry should engage to pay a yearly tribute. Henry submitted to the dishonourable sacrifice that he might husband his strength for better times. ... How important it was to have fortified places which could not be stormed by cavalry, and therefore afforded a safe refuge to the neighbouring peasantry, Henry recognised in 929, when the Hungarians marched through Bavaria and Suabia to Lorraine, plundered the time-honoured monastery of St. Gall, and burnt the suburbs of Constance, but could not take the fortified town itself. Henry, accordingly, published an order throughout the land, that at suitable places large fortresses should be built, in which every ninth man from the neighbouring district must take garrison duty. Certainly living in towns was contrary to the customs of the North Germans, and here and there there was much resistance; but they soon recognised the wisdom of the royal order, and worked night and day with such diligence that there soon arose throughout the land towns with stately towers and strong walls, behind whose battlements the armed burghers defiantly awaited the Hungarians. Hamburg was then fortified, Itzehoe built, the walls of Magdeburg, Halle, and Erfurt extended, for these towns had stood since the time of Charlemagne. Quedlinburg, Merseburg, Meissen, Wittenberg, Goslar, Soest, Nordhausen, Duderstadt, Gronau, Pölde, were rebuilt, and many others of which the old chroniclers say nothing. Those who dwelt in the cities were called burghers, and in order that they might not be idle they began to practise many kinds of industry, and to barter their goods with the peasants. The emperor encouraged the building of towns, and granted emancipation to every slave who repaired to a town, allowed the towns to hold fairs and markets, granted to them the right of coining money and levying taxes, and gave them many landed estates and forests. Under such encouragement town life rapidly developed, and the emperor, in his disputes with the lawless nobility, always received loyal support from his disciplined burghers. After a few centuries the towns, which had now generally become republics, under the name of 'free imperial towns,' became the seats of the perfection of European trade, science, and culture. ... These incalculable benefits are due to Henry's order to build towns."

_A. W. Grübe, Heroes of History and Legend, chapter 8._

At the expiration of the nine years truce, the Hungarians resumed their attacks, and were defeated by Henry in two bloody battles.

GERMANY: A. D. 936-973. Restoration of the Roman Empire by Otho I. called the Great.