Part 16

"As to the intercourse of the sexes, wars of conquest where the females are at the mercy of the victors, especially if female virtue is not in much respect, would severely try the more rigid morals of the conqueror. The strength of the Teutonic character, when it had once burst the bounds of habitual or traditional restraint, might seem to disdain easy and effeminate vice, and to seek a kind of wild zest in the indulgence of lust, by mingling it with all other violent passions, rapacity, and inhumanity. Marriage was a bond contracted and broken on the lightest occasion. Some of the Merovingian kings took as many wives, either together or in succession, as suited either their passions or their politics. Christianity hardly interferes even to interdict incest." Clotaire and Charibert each married two sisters. The latter was sternly rebuked by Saint Germanus, but (so the historian informs us) as the king already had many wives, he bore the rebuke with extreme patience. There were laws against these irregularities; but, strict as they were in their terms, they were completely nullified by failure of execution. These laws, also, are models of the inequality which existed between the sexes. When punishment for adultery is prescribed, it is always understood that it refers solely to the wife. The man was burdened by no legal responsibility in this matter. Free women were not permitted to marry slaves; to do so reduced them to a position of servitude. This did not apply to men, excepting such as were too poor to compound the felony with the abducted slave's owner. The kings were free in this matter.

Under the Carlovingian dynasty, manners were somewhat less ferocious than those exhibited by the Merovingian kings; but it was rather the result of the former being more confident of its security than any evidence of real improvement in morals. Earnest champion of the Church as was Charlemagne, and much as he honored religion, the records of his own private life and those of his family are examples of wholesale libidinosity such as is rarely equalled in history.

Five women were united in marriage to the great emperor. The first was Desirée, the daughter of the Lombard king, whom Pope Stephen so bitterly opposed. This union, however, was short lived; during one year only did Desirée hold the wandering affections of the sturdy monarch. He then took Hildegarde, a Swabian princess; but in the same indifferent manner he dissolved this connection, being instigated thereto by the allegations of a servant named Taland, who was enraged at the contempt with which the queen received his criminal advances. Charlemagne did not trouble himself to look into the matter; like Cæsar, he held that his wife should be above suspicion. There is a pleasing story in regard to Hildegarde who, after her divorce, went to Rome and devoted herself to a religious life. By her charitable deeds and acts of piety she gained a great and well deserved name for sanctity. It is said that one day she met Taland, who was reduced to the life of a blind mendicant. By the power of her holiness, she restored his sight, and he, filled with remorse, confessed his crime and brought about a reconciliation between Hildegarde and the king. No less naive is the legend related of one of Charlemagne's daughters. His children included several girls, all beautiful; but for political reasons their father denied them the privilege of marriage. He considered that if they were united to the great nobles of the land, it would mean a division and consequent weakening of the empire. But love laughed at politics. "His secretary, young Eginhart, became deeply enamored of his daughter Emma, and the youthful lovers, fearing his anger should he discover their affection, met only at night. It happened that one night, while Eginhart was in the princess's apartment, a fall of snow took place. To return across the palace court must lead to the inevitable discovery by the traces of his footsteps. The moment called for resolution; woman's wit came to the assistance of the perplexed lover, and the faithful and prudent Emma, taking her lover on her back, bore him across the court. The emperor, who chanced to be gazing from his window, beheld this strange sight by the clear moonlight, and the next morning sent for the young couple, who stood before him in the expectation of being sentenced to death, when the generous father bestowed upon Eginhart his daughter's hand, and the Odinwald in fief. The tomb of Emma and Eginhart is still to be seen at Erbach." Another daughter, Bertha, called after her grandmother--the mother of Charlemagne, carried on a similar intrigue with Engelbert; and, though not fortunate enough to receive her father's sanction to marriage, with a gift of land, she became the mother of Nithart, who was a famous historian of his time. Charlemagne's own character enabled him to understand, and his justice prompted him to condone those instincts which his policy would not allow to be satisfied in a lawful and conventional manner.

Charlemagne died in 813. From that time until the end of the tenth century there were no women who can, by the greatest elasticity of which the term is susceptible, be called Christian, and who, at the same time were of any note in history. The gloom of the dark ages had not begun to lift. There was nothing to stimulate the woman of ordinary birth to the exercise of any powers save the most inferior. The broadening influence of literature was unknown. Charlemagne encouraged study among his courtiers; but he could not revive the smouldering embers. During the succeeding centuries, Greek lore came to be forgotten in the Western world. The manners, even among the noblest dames, were inconceivably rude. Every woman, not excepting the daughters of the emperor, worked with her hands in the common affairs of the household. What the morals of the time were, we have already seen. Convents sprang up everywhere, sheltering a great number of women, of both high and low degree.

They were refuges from the barbarities which accompanied warfare, and, to a lesser degree, safeguards against the temptation of the world, the flesh and the devil. The former fanatical enthusiasm for celibacy had greatly subsided; bishops and priests not infrequently were married, and even the nunneries gave occasion for lively stories which became traditional. It was an age when two sisters, Marozia and Theodora, both prostitutes, could decide the succession to the papal tiara. The former secured it for her bastard son, and also for her grandson, the infamous John XII., during whose pontificate, as Gibbon puts it, "the Lateran palace was turned in a school for prostitution, and his rapes of virgins and widows deterred the female pilgrims from visiting the tomb of St. Peter, lest, in the devout act, they should be violated by his successor." It was an age fitted in all ways to produce such a story as that of Pope Joan, which, though it was probably not founded on fact, is a worthy illustration of the moral condition of the rulers of the Church in that time.

We have seen that, save for the story of Hildegarde, the women of Charlemagne's family did not present examples of Christian piety or devotion, but it may be in place here to mention that Saint Rosalie, the patron saint of Palermo, was of a family said to have descended from that of Charlemagne. Saint Rosalie, becoming filled with a spirit of devotion, retired to a grotto on Mount Pelegrino, where in solitude she passed her time in prayer and penitence. Miraculous power was ascribed by the Sicilians to this saint, and of her is told the legend that, surreptitiously conveying bread concealed in her apron to feed the hungry, without her father's consent, she was discovered by him and requested to open her apron, when it was found that the bread had been changed into magnificent roses.

PART SECOND

WOMEN OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE

IX

THE EMPRESS EUDOXIA

From the story of Christian Womanhood in Old Rome on the Tiber we pass naturally to the story of Christian Womanhood in that New Rome on the Bosporus, where Constantine the Great had established an imperial city which was destined to be the centre of the religious and political life of the civilized peoples of the East for over a thousand years, and to keep alive during the Dark Ages the torch of civilization.

The victories of the Cæsars in the extensive domain Hellenized by Alexander the Great had been surpassed only by the victories of the Christ, and in Constantinople the authority of Church and State blended in one inseparable union and determined the destinies of millions of men and women in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

As Greek culture was ever an important factor in the eastern half of the Roman Empire, the story of the Christian women of the East is but a continuation of the story of Greek women. Hence, it is our task to consider how Hellenized womanhood was affected by that new principle which had entered into the world.

Christianity, with its emphasis on the affections, naturally appealed to women, who, says Aristotle, "are creatures of passion, as opposed to men, who are capable of living by reason." And from the days of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the women of antiquity accepted in large numbers the new teaching. They found that their lives were uplifted by it, their activities enlarged, their influence among men strengthened.

The status of woman among Oriental peoples was consequently considerably changed. The recognition, so slowly won, that women had immortal souls equalized them with the other sex, and with the permeation of Christianity into the life of paganism began the real emancipation of the female sex. Functions beyond those of housewifery and maternity were conceded to woman. Chrysostom, in a letter to a Roman lady, after speaking of the division of duties assigned by nature to men and women, says that the Christian life had extended woman's sphere beyond the duties of the home, and had given her an important part to perform in the work and struggles of the Church for the elevation of mankind. Her chief function, in his opinion, was that of consoler and ministering angel. Thus woman was acknowledged to have a mission--a view that has prevailed through all the Christian ages. In the pursuit of this idea, many of the loveliest and most highly endowed women of ancient times devoted themselves to the relief of sickness and suffering and extended the influence of the Church by this exhibition of the spirit of humanity.

Christianity was gradually transforming the spirit of the ancient world. But these earlier centuries of the Christian era were a season of twilight during which light and darkness mingled. Paganism and Christianity were waging a silent but determined warfare, and the latter, by absorbing the best that was in the former, left it but a hollow shell, the connotation of worldliness and unbelief. The ethical philosophy of the Greeks and the moral teachings of the Stoics and the Epicureans had found their logical end in the philosophical doctrines of Christianity and had prepared the way for the acceptance of the latter. Christianity continued the idea of conformity to the divine government of the world taught by the Stoics, and the insistence on friendship and brotherly love emphasized by the Epicureans, and had given life to these doctrines by the presentation of a divine example. This evolution of the highest ethical ideas of the ancients in the nobler spirit of Christianity had its logical outcome in the prevailing institutions of the Christian world. Stoicism developed into the asceticism that appealed so strongly to many consecrated men and women, and Christian Epicureanism showed itself in the many brotherhoods and sisterhoods which labored for the betterment of humanity in the care of the sick and the unfortunate.

One of the effects of the Stoical idea combined with the new conception of the mission of woman was the prevalence of celibacy. Many women chose to devote their time to good works rather than to the cares of family life. Furthermore, "the horror of unchastity--the desecration of the body, the temple of the soul--which had taken possession of the age with a sort of morbid excess led to vows of perpetual virginity."

This emphasis on the unmarried life was unfortunate for the race, as it conduced to degeneracy and depopulation; but it produced many examples of consecrated and devoted women, who have merited the homage bestowed on them by later ages.

As regards the relation of the sexes, the greatest contrast lay in the Christian conception of a purified spiritual love, as compared with the carnal and sensual love of the pagan peoples. This is illustrated by the popularity of the celebrated legend of Cyprian and Justina, which was later versified by the Empress Eudoxia.

Justina was a young and beautiful maiden of Corinth, who was passionately loved by a handsome pagan youth, Aglaides. Every effort to win the maiden's affections, which were given to Christ, proving of no avail, Aglaides determined to enlist in his cause the powers of darkness. To this end he engaged the services of a powerful magician, Cyprian by name, who was versed in all the magic lore of the Chaldeans and the Egyptians. The wizard's art devised every form of temptation, but the demons who were called up to accomplish the maiden's ruin fled at the sign of the Cross which she made; and Justina emerged from the ordeal pure and spotless, untainted by all the arts of the Evil One. Cyprian, overcome by the beauty and innocence and unbounded faith of the maiden, was himself inspired with the purest and most intense love for Justina, and, renouncing all his arts, was converted to Christianity. The devoted pair suffered martyrdom in the persecutions of Diocletian.

Such Christian ideals, opposing all that was basest in paganism, naturally developed a new and an exceedingly high type of womanhood. Of the women of the provinces we know almost nothing, for the records of the Eastern Empire centre about the capital city. We may be sure, however, that throughout the Orient Christian womanhood exhibited its characteristic traits of piety and unselfishness. In Constantinople, though an intensely religious city, paganism for centuries continued to exert a marked influence, and the type of woman there varied in accordance with the proportions of the two ingredients--Christianity and paganism--in the mental and spiritual aggregate of the individual woman. Some, to avoid the vanities and temptations of the world, lived lives of retirement in secluded monasteries; others, often of prominent social position, partook not of the gay life of the city, but gave themselves up to good works, ministering to the sick, providing for the poor, uplifting the fallen; while others, chiefly in the court circles, knew how to combine with their devotion to all the vanities and frivolities of high life a strict attention to the external duties of Christianity. The religious sisters of the day were an important factor in the society of Constantinople, and the exercise of their spiritual duties often brought them before the public in a manner inconsistent with the prevailing ideas of female retirement. A popular priest or bishop became the target of admiration on the part of enthusiastic women, who would gather about him and espouse his cause in a way that was often more embarrassing than helpful. As Jerome in Old Rome, so Chrysostom in New Rome was the centre of such a spiritual circle.

These various types of Christian womanhood present themselves in the reign of Arcadius, the first independent emperor of the Eastern Empire so called, and we are indebted to the sermons of the patriarch Chrysostom for many glimpses into their lives. Far more than in Old Rome the influence of women made itself felt in the government at Constantinople, and under almost every dynasty and throughout the centuries of its existence we find remarkable ladies of the imperial house playing a prominent part in politics as well as in religion.

The keynote of this new departure was struck by Eudoxia, empress of Arcadius, and the influence of her personality and her example upon her successors was marked. Hence, her career and that of the women of her time constitute the initial stage in the prominence of Christian women of the East.

Owing to the intellectual weakness of Arcadius, who inherited the eastern half of the Empire upon the death of Theodosius the Great in 395, the administration really fell into the hands of his minister, Rufinus, a vicious and avaricious man. Having the entire control of the army and an unbounded influence over the emperor, Rufinus cherished the hope that he might himself become a wearer of the purple as the colleague of Arcadius. To facilitate this end he fostered the scheme of uniting Arcadius in marriage to his only daughter; once the emperor's father-in-law, it would be but a step further to become a sharer of the purple.

While Rufinus, in secret with his confidants, nurtured this idea, the wily head of the opposite party of the court, getting an inkling of it, set everything in motion to turn the eyes of the inexperienced youth toward another maiden. The eunuch Eutropius, the grand chamberlain of the palace, a bold old man with Oriental craftiness, determined that to himself, and not to Rufinus, should the emperor be bound. Hence, while the old warrior was on a journey to Corinth avenging a private injury, Eutropius fixed the attention of the emperor upon Eudoxia, a maiden of singular beauty, the daughter of Bauto, a distinguished Frankish general, and reared since her father's death by the family of the sons of Promotus, an ancient Roman patrician. Eudoxia was at that time at the dawn of perfect womanhood. Her education had been received under the auspices of her rich and noble patrons, and in native gifts, as well as in beauty, she seemed destined by the Fates to be the consort of an emperor. Eutropius, by showing him her portrait and by glowing descriptions of her charms, inflamed the heart of the young ruler with his first passion, and he entered eagerly into the plans of Eutropius to make Eudoxia his wife.

Rufinus meanwhile returned, and prepared the ceremonies of the royal nuptials, as he fancied, of his daughter. "A splendid train of eunuchs and officers issued, in hymeneal pomp, from the gates of the palace, bearing aloft the diadem, the robes and the inestimable ornaments of the future empress. The solemn procession passed through the streets of the city, which were adorned with garlands and filled with spectators; but when it reached the house of the sons of Promotus, the principal eunuch (Eutropius) respectfully entered the mansion, invested the fair Eudoxia with the imperial robes and conducted her in triumph to the palace and bed of Arcadius." The particulars of the ceremony show that the hymeneal rites of the ancient Greeks, in which the bride was, as it were, forcibly conducted to the house of her husband, were still practised, though without idolatry, by the early Christians.

The secrecy and success of the conspiracy brought great chagrin to the overconfident Rufinus. He felt keenly the insult to himself and his daughter, and he feared the growing power of Eutropius and the new empress. Yet he merely tightened his grip upon the government and continued to be a formidable factor in the intrigues of the palace.

The Empress Eudoxia rapidly adapted herself to her new life and displayed a superiority of sense and spirit which enabled her to maintain over her fond and youthful husband the ascendancy that her beauty had at first created. She soon made it evident that she would be under the control of no intriguing courtier, but that she herself would be a dominant factor in the life of the court. Rufinus continued his plots against the throne of Arcadius, but was constantly thwarted by the empress, assisted by Eutropius, and their counterplays finally brought about the minister's assassination.

After the murder of Rufinus, the empress endeavored to hold the balance of power between the three political parties of the day--the German party, headed by Gainas the Goth, which largely embraced the military forces of the Empire; the party of Eutropius, who had under his control the civil officers of the state; and the senatorial party, under the leadership of the prefect Aurelian, who abhorred alike the growing influence of the Goths and the bed-chamber administration of Eutropius. Eudoxia naturally inclined to the third of these parties: she strenuously opposed the Germans, who, under the leadership of Gainas, demanded freedom for Arian worship, and she sought to overcome the influence of her quondam benefactor Eutropius, that she herself might have absolute dominion over her imperial husband. Hence, these three, the empress, Eutropius, and Gainas, as Hodgkin remarks, "kept up a vivid game of court intrigue and disputed with varying success for the chief place in that empty chamber which represented the mind of the emperor."

Eudoxia first combined with Gainas to get rid of their powerful rival Eutropius, though she owed her own position to the machinations of the wily chamberlain. Gainas instigated a revolt among the Ostrogoths under their commander Tribigild, and when sent out against them he took no active measures to suppress their incursions; the Goths, at the instigation of Gainas, finally sent word to the emperor demanding the death of Eutropius as the condition of their retiring. Eudoxia, from the palace, joined in the demand and presenting her infant children, Flacilla and Pulcheria, to their father, with a flood of forced tears, implored his justice for some real or imaginary insult which she attributed to the audacious eunuch. The tears of the empress succeeded where the demand of Tribigild had only caused hesitation, and Arcadius signed the death warrant of his favorite. The people rejoiced at the downfall of the minister, whose venality and injustice had aroused the public hatred. Eutropius fled for refuge to the Church of Saint Sophia, where he was protected by the patriarch Chrysostom. So good an opportunity, however, for impressing the lesson of the fatuity of human greatness was not to be lost, and while the cowering chamberlain lay in humiliation before the altar, Chrysostom preached to a crowded congregation from the text: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," illustrating every argument of his sermon by pointing to the fallen Eutropius--yesterday prime minister of the emperor--to-day a hounded criminal. Chrysostom finally gave him up on condition that he be not put to death, and Eutropius was banished to Cyprus; but the empress and his enemies would not be satisfied with anything less than his death, and he was later recalled and executed at Chalcedon in A. D. 399.