CHAPTER III

THE CARLOVINGIANS--THE GREAT SIEGE OF PARIS BY THE NORMANS--THE GERMS OF FEUDALISM

At the head of the establishment of every Merovingian chief was his mayor, or major domus, who administered his domains and acted as deputy when his master was non-resident or away at the wars. A similar official of the king's household, the mayor of the palace, likewise presided over the royal council and tribunal in the absence or during the minority of the king.

In 622, when Dagobert became king of Austrasia, one Pepin of Landen, known as Pepin le Vieux, was made mayor of the palace and, associated with St. Arnoulf, bishop of Metz, was appointed ward of the young king. A marriage between Pepin's daughter and the son of St. Arnoulf resulted in the birth of Pepin of Heristal, who in the anarchy that followed on Dagobert's death succeeded in crushing Ebroin,[27] the king-maker, mayor of the palace of Neustria. Pepin then seized the royal treasury, installed Thierry III. as king of the Franks and himself as mayor of the palace. Pepin's successor, for the office of mayor had now become hereditary, was Charles Martel, his son by Alfaide, a fair and noble concubine. He it was, who by his valour and address saved Western Europe from the Mussulman at Tours, and made glorious his name in Christendom. At his death, when crossing the Alps to defend the Pope against the Arian Lombards, the leadership of the Franks passed to his sons Carloman and Pepin the Short, of whom the latter, on his brother's retirement to the cloister at the famous Italian Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino, held undivided sway.

Charles Martel, although buried with the Frankish kings at St. Denis, was content with the title of Duke of the Franks, and hesitated to proclaim himself king. He, like the other mayors of the palace, ruled through feeble and pensioned puppets when they did not contemptuously leave the throne vacant. In 751 Pepin sent two prelates to sound Pope Zacchary, who, being hard pressed by the Lombards, lent a willing ear to their suit, agreed that he who was king in fact should be made so in name, and authorised Pepin to assume the title of king. Chilperic III., like a discarded toy, was relegated to a monastery at St. Omer, and Pepin the Short anointed at Soissons by St. Boniface, bishop of Mayence, from that sacred "ampul full of chrism" which an angel of Paradise had brought to St. Rémi wherewith to anoint Clovis at Rheims. In the year 754 Stephen III., the first pope who had honoured Paris by his presence, came to ask the reward of his predecessor's favour and was lodged at St. Denis. There he anointed Pepin anew, with his sons Charles and Carloman, and compelled the Frankish chieftains, under pain of excommunication, to swear allegiance to them and their descendants.

The city of Lutetia had much changed since the messengers of Pope Fabianus entered five centuries before. On that southern hill where formerly stood the Roman camp and cemetery were now the great basilica and abbey of St. Genevieve. The amphitheatre and probably much of the palace of the Cæsars were in ruins, all stripped of their marbles to adorn the new Christian churches. Extensive abbatial buildings and a church resplendent with marble and gold, on the west, were dedicated to St. Vincent, and were henceforth to be known as St. Germain of the Meadows (_des Prés_), for the saint's body had been translated from the chapel of St. Symphorien in the vestibule to the high altar of the abbey church a few weeks before the pope's arrival at St. Denis. The Cité[28] was still held within the decayed Roman walls, and a wooden bridge, the Petit Pont, crossed the south arm of the Seine. On the site of the old pagan temple to Jupiter by the market-place stood a new and magnificent basilica to Our Lady. The devotion of the _Nautæ_ had been transferred from Apollo to St. Nicholas, patron of shipmen, and Mercury had given place to St. Michael, and to each of those saints oratories were erected. Other churches and oratories adorned the island, dedicated to St. Stephen, St. Gervais, and St. Denis of the Prison (_de la chartre_), built where the saint was imprisoned by the north wall and where, abandoned by his followers, he was visited by his divine Lord, who Himself administered the sacred Host. A nunnery dedicated to St. Eloy, where three hundred pious nuns diffused the odour of Jesus Christ through the whole city, occupied a large site opposite the west front of Notre Dame. Near by stood a hospital, founded and endowed a century before by St. Landry, bishop of Paris, for the sick poor, which soon became known as the Hostel of God (_Hôtel Dieu_). The old Roman palace and basilica had been transformed into the official residence and tribunal of justice of the Frankish kings. On the south bank stood the church and monastery of St. Julien le Pauvre. A new Frankish city was growing on the north bank, bounded on the west by the abbey of St. Vincent le Rond, later known as St. Germain l'Auxerrois, and on the east by the abbey of St. Lawrence. Houses clustered around the four great monasteries, and suburbs were in course of formation. The Cité was still largely inhabited by opulent merchants of Gallo-Roman descent, who were seen riding along the streets in richly-decorated chariots drawn by oxen.

King Pepin, after proving himself a valiant champion of orthodoxy by defeating the Arian Lombards, and bestowing Ravenna on the pope in perpetual sovereignty, died at Paris in 768. The kingdom of France was then shared by his sons, Charles and Carloman, and on the latter's death in 771 Charles, surnamed the Great, began his tremendous career during which the interest of the French Monarchy shifts from Paris to Aix-la-Chapelle. Charlemagne during his long reign of nearly half a century was too preoccupied with his noble but ineffectual purpose of cementing by blood and iron the warring races of Europe into a united _populus Christianus_, and establishing, under the dual lordship of emperor and pope, a city of God on earth, to give much attention to Paris. He did, however, spend a few Christmases there, and was present at the dedication of the new church of St. Denis, completed in 775 under Abbot Fulrad. It was a typical Frankish prince whom the Parisians saw enthroned at St. Denis. He had the abundant fair hair, shaven chin and long moustache we see in the traditional pictures of Clovis. Above middle height, with bright piercing eyes and short neck, he impressed all by the majesty of his bearing in spite of a rather shrill and feeble voice and a certain asymmetrical rotundity below the belt. Abbot Fulrad was a sturdy prince and for long disputed the possession of some lands at Plessis with the bishop of Paris. The decision of the case is characteristic of the times. Two champions were deputed to act for the litigants, and met before the Count of Paris[29] in the king's chapel of St. Nicholas in the Palace of the Cité, and a solemn judgment by the Cross was held. While the royal chaplain recited psalms and prayers, the two champions stood forth and held their arms outstretched in the form of a cross. In this trial of endurance the bishop's deputy was the first to succumb. His fainting arms drooped and the abbot won his cause.

Paris grew but slowly under the Frankish kings. They lived ill at ease within city walls. Children of the fields and the forest, whose delight was in the chase or in war, they were glad to escape from Paris to their villas at Chelles or Compiègne.

But the civil power of the Church grew apace. In the early sixth century one-third of the land of France was held and administered by the monasteries. The abbots of St. Germain des Prés held possession of nearly 90,000 acres of land, mostly arable, in various provinces of France. Their annual revenue amounted to about £24,000 of our money: they ruled over more than 10,000 serfs. From a list of the lands held in the ninth century by the abbey of St. Pierre des Fossés,[30] founded by Clovis II. about eight miles from Paris, and published in the _Trésor des pièces rares ou inédites_, we are able to form some idea of the vast extent of monastic possessions in the city. The names of the various properties whose boundaries touch those of the abbey lands are given. Private owners are mentioned only four times, whereas to ecclesiastical and monastic domains there are no less than ninety references.

These monastic settlements were veritable garden cities, where most of our modern fruits, flowers and vegetables were cultivated; where flocks and herds were bred and all kinds of poultry, including pheasants and peacocks, reared. Guilds of craftsmen worked and flourished; markets were held generally on saints' days, and pilgrimages were fostered. Charlemagne was an honest coiner and a protector of foreign traders; he was tolerant of the Jews, the only capitalists of the time, and under him Paris became the "market of the peoples," and Venetian and Syrian merchants sought her shores.

In Gallo-Roman days few were the churches outside the cities, but in the great emperor's time every villa[31] is said to have had its chapel or oratory served by a priest. Charlemagne was a zealous patron of such learning as the epoch afforded, and sought out scholars in every land. English, Irish, Scotch, Italian, Goth and Bavarian--all were welcomed. The English scholar Alcuin, master of the Cloister School at York, became his chief adviser and tutor. He would have every child in his empire to know at least his paternoster. Every abbot on election was required to endow the monastery with some books. The choice of authors was not a wide one: the Old and New Testaments; the writings of the Fathers, especially St. Augustine, the emperor's favourite author; Josephus; the works of Bede; some Latin authors, chiefly Virgil; some scraps of Plato translated into Latin--a somewhat exiguous and austere library, but one which reared a noble and valiant line of scholars and statesmen to rule the minds and bridle the savage lusts of the coming generations of men. Under Irish and Anglo-Saxon influences the cramped, minute script of the Merovingian scribes grew in beauty and lucidity: gold and silver and colour illuminated the pages of their books. The golden age of the Roman peace seemed dawning again in a new _Imperium Christianorum_.

Towards the end of his reign the old emperor was dining with his court in a seaport town in the south of France, when news came that some strange, black, piratical craft had dared to attack the harbour. They were soon scattered, but the emperor was seen to rise from the table and go to a window, where he stood gazing fixedly at the retreating pirates. Tears trickled down his cheeks and none dared to approach him. At length he turned and said: "Know ye, my faithful servants, wherefore I weep thus bitterly? I fear not these wretched pirates, but I am afflicted that they should dare to approach these shores, and sorely do grieve when I foresee what evil they will work on my sons and on my people." His courtiers deemed they were Breton or Saracen pirates, but the emperor knew better. They were the terrible Northmen, soon to prove a bloodier scourge to Gaul than Hun or Goth or Saracen; and to meet them Charlemagne left an empire distracted by civil war and a nerveless, feeble prince, Louis the Pious, Louis the Forgiving, fitter for the hermit's cell than for the throne and sword of an emperor.

In 841 the black boats of the sea-rovers for the first time entered the Seine, and burnt Rouen and Fontenelle. In 845 a fleet of one hundred and twenty vessels swept up its higher waters and on Easter Eve captured, plundered and burnt Paris, sacked its monasteries and churches and butchered their monks and priests. The futile Emperor Charles the Bald bought them off at St. Denis with seven thousand livres of silver, and they went back to their Scandinavian homes gorged with plunder--only to return year by year, increased in numbers and ferocity. Words cannot picture the terror of the citizens and monks when the dread squadrons, with the monstrous dragons carved on their prows, their great sails and three-fold serried ranks of men-of-prey, were sighted. Everyone left his home and sought refuge in flight. The monks hurried off with the bodies of the saints, the relics and treasures of the sanctuary, to hide them in far-away cities. In 852 Charles the Bald's soldiers refused to fight, and for two hundred and eighty-seven days the pirates ravaged the valley of the Seine at their will. Never within memory or tradition were such things known. Rouen, Bayeux, Beauvais, Paris, Meaux, Melun, Chartres, Evreux, were devastated. The islands of the Seine were whitened by the bones of the victims. Similar horrors were wrought along the other rivers of France. Whole districts reverted to paganism. In 858 a body of the freebooters settled on the island of Oissel, below Rouen, and issued forth _en excursion_ to spoil and slay and burn at their pleasure. They made of the once rich city of Paris a cinder heap; the cathedrals of St. Germain des Prés and of St. Denis alone escaped at the cost of immense bribes. Charles ordered two fortresses to be built for the defence of the approaches to the bridges, and continued his feeble policy of paying blackmail.

In 866 Robert the Strong, Count of Paris, had won the title of the Maccabeus of France, by daring to stand against the fury of the Northmen and to defeat them; but having in the heat of battle with the terrible Hastings taken off his cuirass, he was killed. In 876 began a second period of raids of even greater ferocity under the Norwegian Rollo the Gangr[32] (the walker), a colossus so huge that no horse could be found to bear him. In 884 the whole Christian people seemed doomed to perish. Flourishing cities and monasteries became heaps of smoking ruins; along the roads lay the bodies of priests and laymen, noble and peasant, freeman and serf, women and children and babes at the breast to be devoured of wolves and vultures. The very sanctuaries[33] were become the dens of wild beasts, the haunt of serpents and creeping things. Packs of wolves, three hundred strong, harried Aquitaine.

In 885 a great league of pirates--Danes, Normans, Saxons, Britons and renegade French--on their way to ravage the rich cities of Burgundy drew up before Paris; and their leader, Siegfroy, demanded passage to the higher waters. For Paris had now been put in a state of defence, the Roman walls repaired, the bridges fortified and protected by towers on the north and south banks. Bishop Gozlin, in whom great learning was wedded to incomparable fortitude, defied the pirates, warning them that the citizens were determined to resist and to hold Paris for a bulwark to the other cities of France.

Paris, forsaken by her kings and emperors for more than a century, scarred and bled by three sieges, was now to become a beacon of hope to the wretched land of France. Of the fourth and most terrible of the Norman sieges of Paris, we have fuller record. A certain monk of St. Germain des Prés, Abbo by name, had endured the siege and was one day sitting in his cell reading his Virgil. Desiring to exercise his Latin, and give an example to other cities, he determined to sing of a great siege with happier issue than that of Troy.[34] Abbo saw the black hulls and horrid prows of the pirates' boats as they turned the arm of the Seine below Paris, seven hundred strong vessels, and many more of lighter build. For two leagues and a half the very waters of the Seine were covered with them, and men asked into what mysterious caves the river had retreated. On November 26th, the attack began at the unfinished tower on the north bank. Three leaders stand eminent among the defenders of the city. Bishop Gozlin, the great warrior priest; his nephew, Abbot Ebles of St. Denis; and Count Eudes (Hugh) of Paris, son of Robert the Strong. The air is darkened with javelins and arrows. The abbot with one shaft spits seven of the besiegers, and mockingly bids their fellows take them to the kitchen to be cooked. Bishop Gozlin is wounded by a javelin early in the attack. On the morrow, reinforced by fresh troops, the assault is renewed, stones are hurled, arrows whistle: the air is filled with groans and cries. The defenders pour down boiling oil and melted wax and pitch. The hair of some of the Normans takes fire: they burn and the Parisians shout--"Jump into the Seine to cool yourselves." One well-aimed millstone, says Abbo, sends the souls of six to hell. The baffled Northmen retire, entrench a camp at St. Germain l'Auxerrois, and prepare rams and other siege artillery.

Abbo now pauses to bewail the state of France: no lord to rule her, everywhere devastation wrought by fire and sword, God's people paralysed at the advancing phalanx of death, Paris alone tranquil, erect and steadfast in the midst of all their thunderbolts, _polis ut regina micans omnes super urbes_, like a queenly city resplendent above all towns. The second attack begins with redoubled fury. After battering the walls of the north tower, monstrous machines on sixteen wheels are advanced and the besiegers strive to fill the fosse. Trees, shrubs, slaughtered cattle, wounded horses, the very captives slain before the eyes of the besieged, are cast in to fill the void. Bishop Gozlin brings down a Norman chieftain by a well-aimed arrow: his body, too, is flung into the fosse. The enemy cover the plain with their swords and the river with their bucklers. Fireships are loosed against the bridge. In the city women fly to the sanctuaries: they roll their hair in the dust, beat their breasts and rend their faces. They call on St. Germain: "Blessed St. Germain, succour thy servants." The fighters on the walls take up the cry. Bishop Gozlin invokes the Virgin, Mother of the Redeemer, Star of the Sea, bright above all other stars, to save them from the cruel Danes.

On February 6th, 886, a sudden flood sweeps away the Petit Pont, and its tower, with twelve defenders, is isolated. With shouts of triumph the Northmen cross the river and surround it. The twelve refuse to yield, and fire is brought. The warriors (a touching detail) fearing lest their falcons be stifled, cut them loose. There is but one vessel wherewith to quench the flames and that soon drops from their hands. The little band rush forth, place themselves against the ruins of the bridge, and prepare to sell their lives dearly--terrible against terrible foes. The walls of the city are lined with their kinsmen and friends impotent to help. The enemies of God, doomed one day to dine at Pluto's cauldron, press upon them. They fight till Phoebus sinks to the depths of the sea, so great is the courage of despair. They are promised their lives if they will yield, are disarmed, then treacherously slain, and their souls fly to heaven. But one, Hervé, of noble bearing and of great beauty, deemed a prince, is spared for ransom. With thunderous voice he refuses to bargain his life for gold, falls unarmed on his foes and is cut to pieces. "These things," writes Monk Abbo, "I saw with mine eyes." He gives the names of the heroic twelve who went to receive the palm of martyrdom. They were exemplars to France and helped to save her by their desperate courage and noble self-sacrifice. Their names are inscribed on a tablet on the wing of the Hôtel Dieu in the Place au Petit Pont: Ermenfroi, Hervé, Herland, Ouacre, Hervi, Arnaud, Seuil, Jobert, Hardre, Guy, Aimard, Gossouin.

A temporary relief is afforded by the arrival of Henry of Saxony, sent with supplies by the emperor. Count Eudes sallies forth to meet him, and in his ardent courage outstrips his men, is surrounded and almost slain. The little city is revictualled. Henry returns whence he came, and again the Parisians are left to themselves. On the sixth of April Bishop Gozlin, their shield, their two-edged axe, whose shaft and bow were terrible, passes to the Lord. On May 12th, Eudes steals away to implore further help from the emperor, and as soon as he sees the imperialists on the march returns and cuts his way into Paris, to share the terrors of the siege. Henry the Saxon again appears, but is ambushed and slain and his army melts away. Yet again Paris is abandoned by her emperor and seeks help of heaven. For the waters are low, the besiegers are able to get footing on the island, they set fire to the gates and attack the walls. The body of St. Genevieve is borne about the city, and at night the ghostly figure of St. Germain is seen by the sentinels to pass along the ramparts, sprinkling them with holy water and promising salvation. Charles the Fat, the Lord's anointed, at length appears with a multitude of a hundred tongues and encamps on Montmartre. While the Parisians are preparing to second him in crushing their foes, they learn that the cowardly emperor has bought them off with a bribe and permission to winter in Burgundy, and for the first time they ravage that opulent province. Next year, as Gozlin's successor, Bishop Antheric, was sitting at table with Abbot Ebles, a fearful messenger brought news that the _acephali_[35] were again in sight. Forgetting the repast, the two churchmen seized their weapons, called the city to arms, hastened to the ramparts, and the abbot slew their pilot with a well-aimed shaft. The Normans are terrified, and at length a treaty is made with their leaders, who promised not to ravage the Marne and some even entered Paris. But the ill-disciplined hordes were hard to hold in and bands of brigands, as soon as the ramparts were passed, began to plunder and slew a score of Christian men. The Parisians in their indignation sought out and--_Evax!_ Hurrah!--found five hundred Normans in the city and slew them. But the bishop protected those that took refuge in his palace, instead of killing them as he ought to have done--_potius concidere debens_. For a time Paris had respite. Cowardly Charles the Fat was deposed, and in 887 Count Eudes was acclaimed king of France after his return from Aquitaine, whose duke he had brought to subjection. He counselled a gathering of all the peoples near Paris to make common cause against the Normans. Abbo saw the proud Franks march in with heads erect, the skilful and polished Aquitaines, the Burgundians too prone to flight. But nothing came of it.

At the extreme north-east of Paris the Rue du Crimée leads to a group of once barren hills, part of which is now made into the Park of the Buttes Chaumont. Here, by the Mount of the Falcon (Montfaucon[36]) in 892 King Eudes fell upon an army of Northmen, who had come against Paris, and utterly routed them. Antheric, the noble pastor, with his virgin-like face, led three hundred footmen into the fight and slew six hundred of the _acephali_. But Abbo's muse now fails him. Eudes, noble Eudes, is no more worthy of his office, and Christ's sheep are perishing. Where is the ancient prowess of France? Three vices are working her destruction: pride, the sinful charms of Venus (_foeda venustas veneris_) and love of sumptuous garments. Her people are arrayed in purple vesture, and wear cloaks of gold; their loins are cinctured with girdles rich with precious stones. Monk Abbo wearies not of singing, but the deeds of noble Eudes are wanting. All the poet craves is another victory to rejoice Heaven; another defeat of the black host of the enemy.

But the noble Eudes was now a king with rebellious vassals. Paris was never captured again, but the _acephali_ were devouring the land. The grim spectres of Famine and Plague made a charnel-house of whole regions of France, while Eudes was fighting the Count of Flanders, a rival king, and the ineffectual emperor, Charles the Simple. He it was who after Eudes' death, by the treaty of St. Claire-sur-Epte in 902, surrendered to the barbarians the fair province, subsequently to be known as Normandy. The new prayer in the Litany, "From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord deliver us," was heard. The dread name of Rollo now vanishes from history to live again in song, and under the title of Robert, assumed from his god-father, he reappears to win a dukedom and a king's daughter. The Normans are broken in to Christianity, law and order; their land becomes one of the most civilized regions of France; the fiercest of church levellers are known as the greatest of church builders in Christendom. They gave their name to a style of Christian architecture in Europe and a line of kings to England,[37] Naples and Sicily.

The new empire of Charlemagne had endured less than three generations; from its wreck were formed the seven kingdoms of France, Navarre, the two Burgundies, Lorraine, Italy and Germany. The people of France never forgot the lesson of the dark century of the invasions. A subtle change had been operating. The empire had decomposed into kingdoms; the kingdoms were segregating into lordships. Men in their need were attracted to the few strong and dominant lords whose courage and resource afforded them a rallying point and shelter against disintegrating forces: the poor and defenceless huddled for protection to the seigneurs of strongholds which had withstood the floods of barbarians that were devastating the land. The seeds of feudalism were sown in the long winter of the Norman terror.