Part 18

These observations are applicable, with scarcely any variation, to all the nations which settled in Europe during the fifth and sixth centuries. Speaking of this subject, Dr. Robertson says――‘Though the barbarous nations which framed it [the Feudal System], settled in their new territories at different times, came from different countries, spoke various languages, and were under the command of separate leaders, the feudal policy and laws were established, with little variation, in every kingdom of Europe. This amazing uniformity hath induced some authors to believe that all these nations, notwithstanding so many apparent circumstances of distinction, were originally the same people. But it may be ascribed, with greater probability, to the similar state of society and of manners to which they were accustomed in their native countries, and to the similar situation in which they found themselves on taking possession of their new domains.’ We shall now offer a few remarks respecting them individually.

No people at this period exhibited a more energetic character than the Franks, a Teutonic race originally settled on the Lower Rhine and Weser, and who had acquired their name (freemen) while successfully resisting the Roman power in an earlier age. About the year 486, they were under the rule of Clovis, who achieved the conquest of Gaul by the defeat of the Roman governor, and afterwards added Burgundy and Aquitaine to his dominions――the former by marriage, and the latter by the forcible expulsion of the Visigoths. This may be considered as the foundation of the French monarchy. Clovis adopted the Christian faith, and caused his people to follow his example. It is remarkable that while in war he exercised unlimited power over his subjects, they shared with him the legislative authority, meeting annually in the Champs de Mars to suggest and deliberate upon public measures, in the settlement of which the meanest soldier had equally a voice with his sovereign.

At the death of Clovis in 511, his four sons divided the kingdom, which was afterwards reunited, divided again, and again united, amidst scenes of tumult and bloodshed. The line of kings proceeding from Clovis (called Merovignian from his grandsire Meroveus) dwindled in time into utter insignificance, while the chief power was wielded by an important officer, called the Mayor of the Palace. Among the most remarkable of these was Pepin Heristal, Duke of Austrasia, who ruled France for thirty years with great wisdom and good policy. His son, Charles Martel, who succeeded to his power, distinguish himself by that great victory over the Saracens (A. D. 732), which checked their career in Europe.

An appeal by Pepin le Bref, the son of Charles Martel, to the pope of Rome, whose authority had by this time become great, ruled that he who had the power should also have the title of king, and this put an end to the reign of the descendants of Clovis (752). Pepin remunerated the pope for this service by turning his arms against the Lombards in Italy, some of whose dominions he conferred upon the Holy See; and these, it is said, were the first of the temporal possessions of the church. Pepin died (768), leaving two sons, Carloman and Charles, who succeeded him in the empire. Carloman died at an early period of life, but Charles (subsequently Charlemagne) survived to achieve for himself a fame far greater than that of any other individual during the middle ages, with perhaps the single exception of Mohammed. We shall proceed to speak of him and of his times, after making one or two observations on some other European countries.

Spain was among the earliest countries lost to the Roman Empire. From about the year 406, this country, in whole or in part, had been successively invaded and subdued by Suevi, Alans, Vandals, and Visigoths. The last-named people were in possession of the greater part of the country before the year 585, and erected a monarchy which existed till 712, when they were subdued by the Saracens or Moors. The Saracens made their descent on Spain from Africa, where Nuza, a viceroy of the caliph of Bagdad, had already made extensive conquests. They easily overran Spain and vanquished Don Rodrigo, or Roderic, the last of the Gothic kings. Abdallah, son of Muza, married the widow of Roderic, and the two nations entered into union. Before the conclusion of the eighth century, Abdalrahman, one of the Moorish generals, had laid aside all temporal subjection to the caliph of Bagdad, and formed Spain into an independent kingdom. His residence was at Cordova, and this city became renowned as one of the most enlightened in Europe under several succeeding reigns. Those parts of Spain which were under the Moorish kings embraced also their religion. The northern provinces never owned their dominion.

Towards the conclusion of the sixth century, Italy was in the possession of the Longobeards, or Lombards, who continued master of the greater part of it for two centuries. Of their rule, history has recorded little besides murders and confusion.

It was during this period that the Saxon Heptarchy was formed in Britain.

CHARLEMAGNE――THE NEW WESTERN EMPIRE.

By far the greatest character who appeared in Europe at this period was Charles, the son of Pepin le Bref, and known in history by the name of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great. ‘In the course of a reign of forty-five years,’ says Mr. Tytler, ‘Charlemagne extended the limits of his empire beyond the Danube, subdued Dacia, Dalmatia, and Istria, conquered and subjected all the barbarous tribes to the banks of the Vistula, made himself master of a great portion of Italy, and successfully encountered the arms of the Saracens, the Huns, the Bulgarians, and the Saxons. His war with the Saxons was of thirty years’ duration; and their final conquest was not achieved without an inhuman waste of blood. At the request of the pope, and to discharge the obligations of his father Pepin to the holy see, Charlemagne, though allied by marriage to Desiderius, king of the Lombards, dispossessed that prince of all his dominions, and put a final period to the Lombard dominion in Italy (774).

When Charlemagne made his first entry into Rome, he was crowned king of France and of the Lombards by Pope Adrian I; and afterwards, on a second visit, he was consecrated Emperor of the West by the hands of Pope Leo III (800). He probably attached some importance to these rites, but it is to be remarked that, as yet, the pontiff was not in the enjoyment of that high influence by which he afterwards could confer or withdraw sovereignty at his pleasure.

‘It is probable,’ continues the authority above quoted, ‘that had Charlemagne chosen Rome for his residence and seat of government, and at his death transmitted to his successor an undivided dominion, that great but fallen empire might have once more been restored to lustre and respect; but Charlemagne had no fixed capital, and he divided, even in his lifetime, his dominion among his children (806).’ Charlemagne died in the year 814, aged seventy-two. His last days were employed in consolidating, rather than extending, his empire, by the making of laws which have rendered his name famous, and his memory even blessed. ‘Though engaged in so many wars,’ says Dr. Russell, ‘Charlemagne was far from neglecting the arts of peace, the happiness of his subjects, or the cultivation of his own mind. Government, manners, religion, and letters, were his constant pursuits. He frequently convened the national assemblies for regulating the affairs both of church and state. In these assemblies he proposed such laws as he considered to be of public benefit, and allowed the same liberty to others; but of this liberty, indeed, it would have been difficult to deprive the French nobles, who had been accustomed, from the foundation of the monarchy, to share the legislation with their sovereign. His attention extended even to the most distant corners of his empire, and to all ranks of men. He manifested a particular regard for the common people, and studied their ease and advantage. The same love of mankind led him to repair and form public roads; to build bridges where necessary; to make rivers navigable for the purposes of commerce; and to project that grand canal which would have opened a communication between the German Ocean and the Black Sea, by uniting the Danube and the Rhine.’ Amidst all his greatness, his personal habits were simple; his dress was of the plainest sort, and such even as to shame his own courtiers; his hours of study set apart, and seldom omitted even in the busiest times of his life; his daughters were taught spinning and housewifery, and his sons trained by himself in all the accomplishments of the age. Charlemagne was fond of the company of learned men, and greatly encouraged their residence in his dominions. In this respect he resembled his cotemporary Haroun Raschid, so famous in Arabian history, and Alfred the Great, who appeared in England shortly after this period. Superior to all national prejudice, he elevated an Englishman named Alcuin to the head of his royal academy. He was zealous for the extension of Christianity; and one of the few blots upon his name arises from his having, in the spirit of his age, caused 4000 Saxon prisoners to be beheaded in one day, because they would not submit to be baptized. Charlemagne established schools in the cathedrals and principal abbeys, for the teaching of writing, arithmetic, grammar, logic, and music.

Of the sons of Charlemagne, Louis, the youngest, surnamed the _Debonnaire_, or gentle, was the only one who survived. He succeeded to all his father’s dominions, except Italy, which fell into the hands of Bernard, a grandson of Charlemagne. Louis, deficient in vigor of character, was unable to hold together the great empire left to him by his father. Having, among the first acts of his reign, given large portions of it to his children, the remainder of his life was spent in disgraceful quarrels with them; and after his death (840), the empire was formally divided――Lothaire, his eldest son, obtaining Lorraine and Provence; while Charles the Bald, a younger son, continued sovereign of the western parts of France; and Louis became king of Germany. Thus abruptly terminates the history of the second western empire.

FRANCE FROM THE TIME OF CHARLES THE BALD TO THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.

During the reign of Charles the Bald, France first suffered from the attacks of the Normans, a race of bold and needy adventurers from the north of Europe. Their plundering invasions were continued for upwards of seventy years; till at length (912) the French king was compelled to purchase their amity by yielding to Rollo their leader the country afterwards from them called Normandy, of which Rouen was the capital. The first successor of Charles the Bald with whose name history has associated anything worth remembering, was Charles, surnamed the Fat (885). He was the son of that Louis to whom Germany had been before assigned, and was thus enabled to bring that country and France for a short time once more under a single ruler. In the turbulence of the times Charles was soon deposed; and during the century which followed, France, so lately the centre of an empire little less than that of Rome in the days of its Cæsars, was split up into a multitude of independencies, by nobles who would own only a very slender subjection to the kings. Out of these nobles at last sprang Hugh Capet (987), who was enabled, on the death of Louis V, to place himself on the throne. He was already possessed of great property, and proved to be also a prince of much ability and penetration. He established the royal residence at Paris, which his predecessors had deserted, and became the founder of a family which, in one of its branches, occupied the throne of France till the overthrow of monarchy in 1848. He deserves to be mentioned with honor, as being among the first of European kings who trusted to prudence, counsel, and moderation, rather than force of arms, in effecting his purposes. On his death (996), in the fifty-seventh year of his age and the tenth of his reign, he was succeeded by his son Robert, who had all his father’s equitable disposition without his vigor of character. He was subjected to a degree of tyranny on the part of the church of which perhaps the history of the world does not afford such another example. Robert had been guilty of marrying a cousin in the fourth degree without a _dispensation_ from the Holy See――that is, without paying a fine for what was only an imaginary offense. Gregory V, who then occupied the pontifical chair, threatened to excommunicate Robert if he should not dismiss his wife, and, on Robert’s refusal, actually did so, and laid all his dominions under an interdict. This punishment proved tremendous in its effects; for though the king himself showed sense and courage enough to despise the wrath of the pontiff, yet his subjects deserted him in terror. The priests, in consequence of the interdict, refused sacrament to the sick all over the country, and the dead were everywhere left unburied, when mass was no longer said. In these circumstances the unfortunate king submitted. A second marriage, contracted with the consent of the church, proved very unhappy. The new queen, Constantia, or Constance, made many efforts to embroil her husband and his family, and in the midst of these Robert died (1031). His son Henry succeeded, and it was during his reign that those pilgrimages to the Holy Land, which were so soon to end in the Crusades, took their rise. Of these we shall speak by themselves. In the meantime we take leave of France by mentioning that Henry’s successor was Philip (1060), whose reign is remarkable as having witnessed the beginning of those contests with England which continued at intervals till the early part of the nineteenth century.

At this period (1066) the Normans invaded and conquered England, where their leader, William, Duke of Normandy, became the founder of an important dynasty.

THE GERMAN EMPIRE BEFORE THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.

Germany had no political existence until the time of Charlemagne, when it was formed by him into part of the western empire. Towards the conclusion of the ninth century it became an empire of itself. In the year 887, Arnold, a natural son of Charloman, and nephew of Charles the Fat, was declared emperor by an assembly of bishops and nobles. These assemblies in Germany always retained a voice in the election of their emperors; and though they often made their choice from the line of succession, they never acknowledged any hereditary rights whatever. After the death of Arnold’s son, called Louis III, their choice fell upon Conrad, Duke of Franconia (912). Conrad’s successor was Henry I, surnamed the _Fowler_. He was a prince of great abilities, and introduced order and good government into the empire. ‘He united the grandees and curbed their usurpations; built, embellished, and fortified cities; and enforced with great rigor the execution of the laws in the repression of all enormities. He had been consecrated by his own bishops, and maintained no correspondence with the see of Rome. His son, Otho the Great, who succeeded him (938), united Italy to the Empire, and kept the popedom in complete subjection. He made Denmark tributary to the imperial crown, annexed the crown of Bohemia to his own dominions, and seemed to aim at a paramount authority over all the sovereigns of Europe.’

In these times the papacy was much disordered. ‘Formosus, twice excommunicated by Pope John VIII, had himself arrived at the triple crown. On his death, his rival, Pope Stephen VII, caused his body to be dug out of the grave, and after trial for his crimes, condemned it to be flung into the Tiber. The friends of Formosus fished up the corpse, and had interest to procure the deposition of Stephen, who was strangled in prison. A succeeding pope, Sergius III, again dug up the ill-fated carcase, and once more threw it into the river. Two infamous women, Marosia and Theodora, managed the popedom for many years, and filled the chair of St Peter with their own gallants or their adulterous offspring.’――_Tytler._ It was amidst this confusion and these disturbances that Otho was induced to turn his arms on Italy. He shortly became master of it all, and had himself declared emperor by the Holy See, with all the pomp that had attended the same ceremony to Charlemagne (962). Pope John XII, whom Otho had been the means of raising to the pontifical chair, rebelled soon after. Otho returned to Rome in fury, had John deposed, hanged one-half of the senate before he left the city, and wrung a solemn acknowledgement from an assembly of reluctant bishops, that the emperor had a right not only to nominate to vacant bishoprics, but also to elect the pope himself. Otho died (972), and was followed in succession by Otho II, Otho III, St. Henry, Conrad II, and Henry III, the history of whose reigns exhibits nothing instructive, or upon which the mind can rest with pleasure. Henry IV (1056) was a distinguished victim of papal tyranny. The celebrated Hildebrand, known as Gregory VII, was in this age the means of raising the power of the church to a height which it had never reached before. During Henry’s contest with this daring and ambitious pontiff, he made him twice his prisoner, and twice did the thunders of the Vatican excommunicate and depose him in consequence. As a specimen of the power and insolence of this pope, we may mention that Henry, dispirited by the effect which his excommunication had upon his friends and followers, having resolved to go to Rome and ask absolution from Gregory in person, did so; and presenting himself as a humble penitent at the palace of St Peter, was there stripped of his robes, and obliged to remain in that condition, in an outer court, in the month of January (1077), barefooted, among snow, and fasting, for three successive days, before he was allowed to implore forgiveness for his offences! On the fourth day he was permitted to kiss the toe of his holiness, and then received absolution! Henry died in 1106.

FROM THE NINTH TO THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.

ITALY. The state of Italy during this period has been already partially noticed in the preceding section. From the time of Lothaire, to whom it was nominally assigned as a separate kingdom (843), to that of Otho the Great (964), the country was ravaged by contending tyrants. Between the invasions of the Normans on the one hand, and the claims of the German emperors on the other, it became much distracted, and was ultimately split up into several independent states. Some of these, particularly Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and Florence, became afterwards independent and powerful republics. It was during this period that the foundation of the temporal power of the popes was laid.

SPAIN. During the period of which we have been treating, Spain seemed less a part of Europe than any other country in it. The greater part of it still continued under the dominion of the Moors, and apparently with advantage. ‘This period,’ says Mr. Tytler, ‘from the middle of the eight to the middle of the tenth century, is a most brilliant era of Arabian magnificence. Whilst Haroun al Raschid made Bagdad illustrious by the splendor of the arts and sciences, the Moors of Cordova vied with their brethren of Asia in the same honorable pursuits, and were undoubtly at this period the most enlightened of the states in Europe. Under a series of able princes, they gained the highest reputation, both in arts and arms, of all the nations of the West.’ And yet these Eastern conquerors seem to have had their troubles as well as others. A race of powerful nobles among them, as in the other countries of Europe, distracted the country, and made effective government impossible. The Christian part of the population, still possessed of several provinces in the north, might have taken advantage of such a state of things for repossessing themselves of their lost country; but civil dissension was still greater among themselves; and Christian princes readily formed alliances with the Moors, if they saw a prospect of weakening an immediate enemy by that means, forgetting that the common foe still remained to harass them. But the detail of these numerous and petty contentions need not detain us longer; nor does the history of Spain assume any importance till towards the conclusion of the fifteenth century, when the united arms of Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Moors for ever from the country.

GENERAL STATE OF EUROPE IN THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.

Before the end of the tenth century, Europe had reached a point of darkness and degradation beyond which it seemed impossible to go. Though long nominally converted to the Christian religion, the nations of Europe may be said to have scarcely exhibited, up to this period, a single distinctive mark of what men understand by Christian civilization. ‘The barbarous nations,’ says Dr. Robertson, ‘when converted to Christianity, changed the object, not the spirit of their religious worship. They endeavored to conciliate the favor of the true God by means not unlike to those which they had employed in order to appease their false deities. Instead of aspiring to sanctity and virtue, which alone can render men acceptable to the great Author of order and of excellence, they imagined that they satisfied every obligation of duty by a scrupulous observance of external ceremonies. Religion, according to their conception of it, comprehended nothing else; and the rites by which they persuaded themselves that they should gain the favor of Heaven, were of such a nature as might have been expected from the rude ideas of the ages which devised and introduced them. They were either so unmeaning as to be altogether unworthy of the Being to whose honor they were consecrated, or so absurd as to be a disgrace to reason and humanity. Charlemagne in France, and Alfred the Great in England, endeavored to dispel this darkness, and gave their subjects a slight glimpse of light and knowledge. But the ignorance of the age was too powerful for their efforts and institutions. The darkness returned, and settled over Europe more thick and heavy than before.’ The clergy were the only body of men among whom any knowledge or learning now remained; and this superiority they employed to continue, if not to deepen, the degradation into which society had fallen. The superstitious belief that moral crimes could be expiated by presents to the Deity, if not originated by them, at least found them its strenuous defenders, for the reason that a gift to God meant, in plainer language, a _solatium_ to the church. The priests would have made men believe that avarice was the first attribute of the Deity, and that the saints made a traffic of their influence with Heaven. Hence Clovis is said to have jocularly remarked, that ‘though St. Martin served his friends very well, he also made them pay well for his trouble.’

Persons in the highest ranks and most exalted stations could neither read nor write. Of the clergy themselves, many of them did not understand the Breviary which it was their duty to recite; and some of them, it is asserted, could scarcely read it. Those among the laity who had to express their assent in writing, did so by a sign of the cross attached to the document (sometimes also by a seal); and to this day, in consequence, we speak of _signing_ a document when we subscribe our names.